The Garden Island and I would like to announce that “In Your Corner” has moved to Wednesday’s Wellness section. Keep your questions coming and thanks for your support. In the last article on meditation, I said, “Conflict comes from brain
The Garden Island and I would like to announce that “In Your Corner” has moved to Wednesday’s Wellness section. Keep your questions coming and thanks for your support.
In the last article on meditation, I said, “Conflict comes from brain thinking. Meditation’s goal is to turn that off. When we do that, God’s loving presence can come through.” Some people wanted help with that.
All our lives we’ve been taught how to analyze, synthesize and discern with our brain thinking. But who teaches us how to put it aside to allow the spiritual part of us to be experienced? How do we do that?
The truth is that we can’t “undo” it by ourselves because we are the ones who created the “story” of who we are and who the people in our lives are. We created this story of ourselves by believing things people said about us or others. For example, if mom tells me that funny Uncle Al is coming, I’ll tend to see Uncle Al as humorous. If I hear enough times that I’m shy, mean, stupid, smart, kind, etc. I’ll begin to act in those ways. I’ll think that’s what I am.
If I hear that I can’t trust anyone except people of my own race, or that only people in my country are good, I’ll begin to believe that. Parents and teachers: I do hope you understand how powerful your words are in creating individual self-concepts in our world.
All of this has to drop away while we meditate. Since our minds accepted it as real and true, we need help from a higher source to undo that thinking. It’s sometimes called the Holy Spirit, the voice for God, aumakua, higher power, super conscious, and more. We need to have trust in the ability of this force to be able to undo wrong thinking, and create right thinking. We pray for this to occur and then we also must accept that we are worthy enough to receive it.
We are! You know how much you are loved by earthlings, well multiply that by a zillion or so to imagine how much God loves you! Just our willingness to give up our story and listen to the story that always has been … the one that says that we are all equally loved by a loving creator who made us to love and be loved … is enough to get the ball rolling. We need to believe that we will be changed by this meditation experience.
Next, we actually let the story go of what we think we are. This is the hardest step, but when this is done, everything else falls into place. No matter what the story is of yourself that was created in this world, it isn’t really who you are.
You may think that you are a great person, or a terrible one, and people around you might see you that way, but it doesn’t fool God one bit. He sees you as a loving extension of himself. You are spirit, love and holy thought, not flesh and world thinking.
Every mistake can be forgiven, because God knows the truth about you. Jesus said that everything in this world will fall away … money we earn, possessions we own, buildings we’ve built. In time none of it will exist, but in spirit, we are eternal.
Here is where you are empowered to forgive yourself and everyone. We were told to make things right with others before we pray (Matt. 5:23-4). That’s for our benefit. We can’t experience the love of God if we are feeling anger and hurt in our hearts. If you think of God as a powerful transmitter of love, we have to turn the channel to the frequency of love to receive it, just like turning to the correct frequency of a radio station to hear it.
Christians are told that we will be forgiven as we forgive (Lord’s prayer). With all the atrocities and meanness demonstrated in the world, this can only have logical meaning if we understand that we are spirit, and unable to be truly hurt. Our bodies and feelings do get hurt, but they are part of the story, and won’t last. By forgiving others, we strengthen the concept about who we really are.
If we can’t forgive, we’ve given others power over us. We see ourselves as victims. How can a healing miracle occur here? It’s better to have in mind a miracle of healing for ourselves and others.
The next step is to remember that our creator extended his love into His children at creation. It’s within you to remember, and will probably come as a sense of all rightness and love for everything when you experience it. We remember that we are love, and are grateful that we can’t change that!
To keep this sense of loving presence going, we ask again for help. We ask for a higher power to continually direct us toward the truth about us. That is reflected in many prayers in many religions as something like, “Thy will be done.” We want to see with love and compassion, not the limitations of our own stories. This helps us function in the 3D world.
The last step is an understanding that we are responsible for creating the world as we see it. Healers can heal people because they remember that they are loving spirit, and not the corrupted bodies in the 3D world. Spiritual teachers want us to heal ourselves by remembering truth for ourselves and others. Disease becomes opportunity to heal our thinking about ourselves and others. War is seen as the ultimate ego trip of separation, which will be undone when enough people choose otherwise.
We can learn a lot about ourselves by looking and seeing the world we’ve created for ourselves through our stories about ourselves and others. Even when we decide for kindness and oneness thinking, we will make mistakes. Habits are hard to break. We will be forgiven. And just like any great teacher the Holy Spirit rewards honest attempts. Try it, you’ll like it.
If this is too complicated just “rest in God.” Imagine that God has your back until you remember it as so. “Peace, be still.” is another directive you can give to your mind. When your ego thoughts come, just release them. The more you do it, the easier it gets, and you’ll get to stillness. When the ego voice is silenced, the love of God can be felt.
We’ll feel unconditional love, peace, and safety because we’ve decided to live from the love that we are. We become a great source of love and peace for all of us and make it easier for others to live that way, too.
People will argue about everything, but love is a unifying force because it exists within us all. Even if you’re in an argument with someone, you can remember that there is a beautiful golden ball of love inside them that loves you, no matter what they are saying. I’ve tried it and it helps. It helps me keep my mouth shut until I can remember to ask for help in what to say and then speak from my ball of love.
I meant what I said about expect a miracle … and then email me when it occurs.
• Questions? Hale `Opio Kaua’i convened a support group of adults in our Kauai community to “step into the corner” for our teens, to answer questions and give support to youth and their families on a wide variety of issues. Please email your questions or concerns facing our youth and families today to Annaleah Atkinson at aatkinson@haleopio.org
