OVERVIEW
Every single day you awaken. You rise and get out of bed and step into the day and do what you need to do. The body will wake itself up naturally, the mind will wake itself up to what is familiar. So what is your familiar, duality or oneness? This Sunday come and explore what awakening to oneness could be like, every day…yes EVERY DAY
TRANSCRIPTION
Light me up again. It’s a great prayer. Good morning everybody. So glad you are here in the building. So glad you are here in the virtual building. So glad you are here. The only place you can be right here. And right now this month we are kicking off a journey into awakening spiritual mystical consciousness. Now we’re focusing on that this month, but I would dare say that’s what we’re doing all the time. We’re just getting disciplined about it this month. So get ready cuz I’m gonna knock you upside your head today in the most loving way. But if you are ready to transform the end of this year and step into the new year in a way like you’ve never done soap before, get to the edge of your seat. Take a deep breath. Let go of everything and anything right now and get present to your heart, to your mind, and to the divine and what it may reveal for you today. Are you ready? You know why? It says it in the title. You are awakening. You are awakening. Period. There’s no question mark. There’s no influx of my voice going up. You are awakening. No, you are awakening.
Every single day you wake up, you awaken to the day. I was so grateful to awaken to sunshine today, even though it’s colder than get out. I was so excited to see sunshine. It just did something. So I’m grateful for that. You rise and get out of bed, you step into the day and you do what you need to do. The body will naturally wake itself up, right? Most of us set an alarm, but at some point in time the body goes up, the mind will wake itself up to what is familiar. So what is familiar for you? Duality or oneness?
Think about that for a minute. What’s familiar? Not what’s better, just what is familiar? What is the default for your attention, oneness or duality? Today we are going to explore awakening to oneness and what it could be like every day. Yes, every single day. Not just some days, not just on Sunday, not just on Friday night after the week is done. Not just on these special moments, but any and every moment. Starting my timer so I don’t go on forever or so. I’m gonna read, uh, the reading again. But I was reminded of the, the reading that uh, Reverend Amy pulled from the book, embracing, um, uh, embracing the mystic. When we realize the nature of spirit, we do not have to wonder what to do with it. I’m gonna read that again. When we realized the nature of spirit, we do not have to wonder what to do with it. How many of us are trying to figure out what to do with our spirituality? <laugh>, right? How do I, how do I make it make sense? How do I bring it into the world? Well take a deep breath and hear these words again. When we realize the nature of spirit, we don’t have to wonder what to do with it. We do not have to do anything with it at all.
It does its own work. Once we attain the presence of God, the presence establishes harmony. Anybody want harmony, some peace, a little more love. Once we attain the presence of God within our own consciousness, once we have awakened our mystical consciousness, the presence establishes harmony in all of our living and affairs. Once we attain an understanding of the nature of spiritual power, we are the light and there is no darkness to be dispelled. Think about that for a minute. If you are emanating light, no matter where you step into, you won’t see darkness. You won’t experience it because the light is too great. I was just looking for something the other day that fell out of my hand and it went under uh, the couch and I was like, oh man, I can’t see under there. And I turned on the little, little, little, little, little, little, little, little tiny flashlight on my phone and I could see everything. It didn’t take much light. Just a little bit. You don’t have to be some magnificent presence that’s going in and changing everyone and everything. Just be a light and step into the room and watch things shift.
So the reading that Christa shared is what anchored me in today’s message about you are awakening. We are awakening Since the beginning of history, whenever that was <laugh>, does anyone know? I don’t really know, but that was a long time ago. So it’s been happening for a couple of millennia. Yes, since the beginning of history, good and evil have been at war. For the battle between good and evil is stopped. Only as we understand the nature of spiritual power and retire into the quiet, peaceful center of our own being and then we are at peace until the spirit of God is upon us. In that silence, the Holy Spirit, he writes Holy Ghost. And I was like, well that’s some old language. Sometimes that’s a little freaky, the Holy Ghost. It’s like what? But the Holy Spirit descends and healing of all kinds can take place reformation, healing of the body, healing of war. This is the consciousness that I desire to live in. This is the consciousness that I hold and desire for the world to live in. To realize oneness with all that is to heal war, sickness and separation.
So the book is titled Awakening Mystical Consciousness. And the reason that I really am just enamored by those three words, the first word awakening implies that mystical consciousness is you only have to awaken to it. Get woke. Wake up. Oftentimes this word mystical becomes this dreamy, lofty, distant thing only reserved for Yoda and Winnie, the poo and the Dalai Lama. Those mystical, esoteric beings that have a amazing connection to everything. They have an amazing connection to everything because they make their life about awakening to the mystical presence of the divine. You have mystical consciousness. It’s not something you have to get. It’s not something that you have to, you know, get some Play-Doh and try to fashion it in to look at a certain way. You are mystical consciousness. The challenge is, is that most of us are asleep to this truth.
Snoring all day long asleep in the world of duality, right versus wrong. Good and evil. Them and us, the nice ones and the bad ones. You know some of them, right? We sleep and drift into a drowsy consciousness of not enoughness, never enoughness, beauty and ugly. I need moreness and the belief that we can never have enough. Oh, what it would be like to wake up in the day to sufficiency. There is enough for all. For all. Most of us, and I include myself in this, we don’t wake up. That is not the default thought that comes into our immediate presence. When we wake up in the morning, we have to do some work to get there.
We need to read something inspirational. We put a bunch of stickies around our mirror in the bathroom. So the first thing we look at is some sort of affirmative word. Anybody still doing that? Okay, I am too. We have to work to get to that consciousness, but it doesn’t mean that we’re doing anything wrong. It’s just the state of what is. We pray, we meditate, we forgive, we forgive, we forgive and forgive and forgive Again. We do whatever we can to remember God, light, wholeness, sufficiency, greatness, love, intelligence, wisdom and kindness are the default natural ways of life. It is the dow, it is the infinite way. This is mystical consciousness. We awaken again and again and again to the mystical consciousness. What is it really to say it succinctly? Mystical consciousness is the realization of oneness. That’s it. That is it. But we try to make it so complex.
Here’s, there’s been a lot of talk of visioning and I’m glad, glad about that because I, I want to, I want to call in a little bit of the teachings of Michael Beckwith here. So how great is your desire to know God in and as life? If things are okay and comfortable for you right now, your desire for that is probably not great because everything’s easy and comfortable. Think about that for a minute. When is it when you’ve really gone at it and go, oh my God, I gotta figure out what God is all about. Is it when things are easy? No, it’s when the proverbial crap has hit the fan. I don’t understand where God is right now, so I’ve gotta figure it out. One of the basic principles to the practice of visioning and the calling to do that practice is the idea that pain pushes us into connection with God until the vision of God pulls us forward. But most of us don’t choose to do anything until we burn our hand on the stove of life. When the pain kicks in, we think we are here to live a life of comfort. We think we, we are here to live a life of ease. Well, if God is all knowing and all good, then my life should just be easy. No sir.
Just take a look at nature. It is not easy to live in nature, but nature has everything that it needs to take care of itself. The warmth, the cold, the seed, the water, the rain, the nutrients, everything Are you. So here’s, here’s the question. Are you aware of how frequently you attempt to unconsciously control God and the divine presence in your life? Think about that for a minute. Are you aware of how often you try to control this thing that we say is all knowing? I would say it probably happens on the hour, if not the minute, if not the second.
And this has been tripping me up. So this is the little two by four coming across your forehead right now. If you have not been reading this book, take a deep breath in, close your eyes and hear these words. When we believe in duality, we are practicing atheism. When you believe that some party of government is evil, you are actually denying the power of God. When we believe in duality, separation not enoughness, we are not putting our attention on oneness. The life of the mystic is someone who is willing to know, experience and have an awareness and an aha of oneness, period, not based upon what other people are doing or not doing. It is an awakening within.
There is not one awakening that takes place. It is a daily constant practice of awakening. You are awakening, you are a mystic, but we get lured by comfort and ease and wanting more of that. I’ve really been playing around with two words in my personal life. Critical thinking, critical thinking. Now not criticizing, not condemning, but critical thinking and what it boils down to me is being courageous enough to admit that I don’t know everything and that everything I think I do know may not always be true. Yikes, most of us don’t want to be critical in that way. We want to know everything is right. If you’ve got that label of type A personality, then oh watch out. I’ve got that. Anyone have that condition? You wanna be perfect. You want to do it the right way the first time. You don’t wanna make any mistakes, you wanna look good.
Critical thinking is, I believe, essential for the survival. I’m using some really intense words. I think that critical thinking is, is critical for the survival of the human race going forward. We are in a very intense time of polarization in the planet and I’m not making it right or wrong, I’m just naming what it is. But on some level, if we’re gonna look at these words of Joe Goldsmith and this idea of living in a consciousness of mysticism, most of us are not living in a mystic mind right now because we’re pointing across the hallway and saying separate. I don’t like that. I don’t want to know that. That’s not my country, that’s not my neighborhood. But it is.
But it is. It doesn’t make it necessarily great or right, but the mystic sits in the face of whatever is there and knows that there’s only one power and presence period. One, not two, not three, not 20, but one. Active inclusion is the spiritual practice of the mystic. I sit on the diversity, equity and inclusion committee with John of the Centers for Spiritual Living and I’m always intrigued by the conversation of diversity, equity, and inclusion because everyone wants to fight for exclusion. Duality, even if it’s just I don’t understand what they’re talking about. Well try to understand what they’re talking about. Include it. You have to do some work. The mystic actively seeks to include period. So whenever we find ourselves in the energy of exclusion, crossing our arms, stepping back, pushing away, going them over there, don’t make yourself wrong, but just recognize this is a passive consciousness of trying to be comfortable and understanding in your realm of what you know.
To be a mystic requires courage because you step into the realm of not necessarily intellectually knowing, rationally, knowing it’s multidimensional, knowing that’s what visioning is all about. When we vision, we are asking, not our ego, not the small self, what do I need to do this year? We are asking spirits, the divine intelligence, what is the highest and greatest for me? I surrender. I let go of some of these small things even though they may be significant to me. I let go of some of the small things I want and I just ask Spirit last month with the the the Tova silver book, giving it over, offering it up. That is a mystical practice letting go of the control. How often do you try to control God every single day as opposed to open up to the possibility of what God can be for you every single day?
The definition of the mystic in the Oxford dictionary is a person who seeks by contemplation and self-surrender to obtain unity with or absorption into the deity or the absolute or who believes in the spiritual apprehension of truths that are beyond the intellect. The mystic seeks first and foremost that is the active verb. Is there a seeker in the room today? Okay, so a mystic, you are awakening, you are seeking something by that very urge within you. It is proof that you are on the journey of awakening to the God, the light within you and it goes on to say it seeks by contemplation and self-surrender.
A lot of people get bored when they don’t have something entertaining them. Anyone have one of these things? Yeah. When was the last time you really put this down? I realized, I was like okay, I put this down but then I activated an app to help me and it’s like okay, I’m not even gonna use an app. When was the last time you let yourself get bored? Bored Like it is at that very edge of boredom cuz it boredom is ultimately anger. There’s a little bit of frustration behind that because we want to do something, we want to fix the situation, we wanna be entertained. But it’s at that very, very line where all of a sudden you’re about to step into the mystic consciousness, but most of us don’t have the patience to move through that boredom and into the entertainment of the Holy Spirit. Mysticism and awakening a mystic consciousness requires great patience.
This is, again, not something that you do once or twice. This is a daily practice. I always use the analogy of brushing one’s teeth, but it just is so simple to me. We don’t expect to not ever brush our teeth again, right? It’s something that we do every single day at a minimum twice. Why? Because it brings us into a baseline and a relationship of wellness and health in our oral hygiene. We make time for it. It only takes a few minutes, but so many of us don’t take the time to stop and connect for just a few minutes with a living spirit within ourselves.
To be a mystic. You don’t have to leave society to be a mystic. You don’t have to say, I’m going to walk around with no money in my bank account to be a mystic and it’s fundamental is a willingness to seek every single day a relationship with the divine and realize it in your life regardless of what is actually happening in your life. Do you feel that? Are you tracking me here? Okay. Everyone’s looking like Joe Goldsmith goes on to say, when we are in prayer meditation, we are not realizing the presence of God in us, but omni the presence, all presence everywhere equally. In this way we can lose sight of our personal small s self in the recognition of the divine capital s selfhood, which is the selfhood of every single individual and thus we can bring the divine selfhood around us.
Then everywhere there is a great evidence of divine wisdom, a divine power, a divine presence, but most of us don’t really know why, how, or where for divine presence is not found in some places and not in other. If we think there is some place holier than your home. If you think there’s some place holier than the body that you’re in right now, if you think there is some time that you could live that would be different and better for you, you are basically denying the power of God today. This is coming back to that idea of thinking of duality, is denying the possibility of the Holy Spirit because the Holy Spirit is not about duality. The Holy Spirit doesn’t know evil. The Holy Spirit only knows creation. It only knows partnership. It only knows oneness. It only knows interconnection.
But as soon as we start to go, yeah, but we sever the connection, the mystic consciousness is clouded over and we fall asleep once again to duality. It is only while we are treating problems that we perpetuate them. Joe Goldsmith goes on to say this. Now, this, this is, this is a hard one like this is gonna challenge some of the religious scientists in the room. They’re all about treatment, right? We say, well this is what’s wrong. It is only while we are treating problems that we perpetuate them. This is where most of us trip up and get actually spiritual mind treatment and prayer. Wrong or incorrect. That is why our work, we turn away from the problem to attain spiritual awareness. That is the inner realization of spiritual identity, spiritual law, and spiritual life. Then when we open our eyes, the problem may be gone or it’s on the way out. Is this not really the description of spiritual mind treatment and affirmative prayer? What are the first two steps I should test you? What are the first two steps of prayer? Unification? Then what? So actually you unify. Second, what do you do first you recognize, you realize that there’s only one power and presence. It is the whole perfect presence of creativity, freedom and harmony, sufficiency and enoughness. It’s not some lofty idea outside of us. Where is it? It is right here. We are one with it.
Whenever I’ve sat in classes, oftentimes the instructor will say, if you could just get to a place of conviction in those first two steps and just step into your life, you’re good. You don’t need to convince anything else. You don’t need to speak about a problem in your life because if you believe that there’s only one power and presence and you are one with it, what else do you need to know the oneness of life will provide? How often are you trying to control God by telling God this is the way it has to be.
This is the way I want it to be. I asked my dad to speak through me today and he just came in and said, uh, this old idea in, in a lot of the African American, um, teachings in the Christian world is that God may not show up when you want, but God will always be there on time. But we want God to show up at 10 52, not a minute earlier, not a minute later when I say, what if we surrendered and let go and go, oh, I’m one with God. Actually, God doesn’t have to show up at 10 52 because God is here right now. Come on God, let’s go. Let’s get it today. Let’s be about you. Again, going back to just, I’m just trying to illustrate that this idea of mysticism is not a unique thing that we’re talking about this month. It’s what we talk about all the time. The first, first, the first principle in religious science is what?
Oneness. Oneness. Last month. It wasn’t. The book was, it’s not my money, it’s God’s money. When we go into that space of saying my in your, that’s duality. We are denying the unifying power and principle of a spiritual life. There’s a great quote from the Dalai Lama that just has been sitting on my heart and it’s challenging for us as humans to, to hear these words, but hear them anyway. There are only two days in the year that nothing can be done. One is called yesterday and the other one is called tomorrow. Today, right now is the time, the right time to love, to trust, to believe, to pray, to meditate, to connect to mystic consciousness. So often we go, well, I’ll get to it when X happens tomorrow. Well, I could get to it better if I had, you know, if I had started doing this 10 years ago.
No, right now, these, the, there’s only two days, but most of us spend so much energy and time in those two days where we can’t actually do anything. You with me? Some of you are there right now. You’re going, oh man, I was totally there yesterday. Come back to here right now. This is the moment where we can do something to activate the mystic consciousness that is always there but is often dormant within you. What does it take? Your willingness. Your willingness and the, the, the last thing I’ll, I’ll add before we move into some spiritual practice here, it’s one of the challenges I think that many, many people have with some of the new thought traditions. It’s because it’s a very personal practice, right? Your consciousness, you are here to impact your mind, your thinking and your beliefs. And I say, yes, that is true, but the mystic is about universal consciousness.
The mystic doesn’t even say my mind, the mystic steps into the mind. That mind is the mind of the Democrats. That mind is the same mind of the Republican. That mind is the mind. It doesn’t exist kind of over there and somewhat over here. It is ever present. So make your spiritual practice as we continue this conversation this month as we prepare to close out this 2022 and step into 23. As you make the decision, which I hope you do to join Linda in a visioning workshop, if not the, the visioning class. Make this not only about you, but make it universal If you, and the reason I say that is it oftentimes when we get into the space of, I’ve gotta figure this out for me again, we are denying the power of God. That is universal. You don’t have to figure it out. That’s what Joe Goldsmith said in the beginning, quote. If we get to that space of mystic consciousness and oneness, then there isn’t so much that you have to figure out. You don’t have to manipulate yourself. You don’t have to present yourself in any other way than you who you are. You don’t have to ask for people to like you. They will just be drawn to you. And if for some reason, if they’re drawn away, then it’s not meant to be in your circle. Trust. Trust what the divine has for you.
Let us not think we can pray for our freedom and leave the world out. This is from Joel Goldsmith. Let us not think we can pray for our freedom and leave the world out and have our prayers answered. We cannot pray for God’s son to shine in our garden alone. We must pray that the sun shines and let it shine on our friends and even our enemy’s gardens. We cannot pray to God for a solution to our problem and leave the rest of the world out. You tracking that anyone to have, have those prayers that you kind of like wanna leave the world out. You ask people to extricate the people in your life that are sucking your energy. That’s not a bad prayer, but what are you really praying for that person?
I want you to, as we move into pray here, I want you to embrace a couple of words. First off, take a slow breath in and as you exhale, move your attention from your rational mind down into your spiritual heart and just affirm to yourself these three words to begin with. I am awakening. I am awakening. You are awake, you are alert. But there is always more to awaken. Two, because God cannot be contained. There is so much more so affirm that you are awakening if you wholeheartedly believe this and embrace it than you are on the path of mystic consciousness.
I am awakening. And to make it a universal prayer, let us embrace these words. May we all know, experience and see only God, not may I, may we, even those people. Let’s affirm this in prayer. May we all know, experience and see only God. So we begin at the beginning of recognizing what God is. Light, hope, love, patience, kindness, compassion, creativity, freedom, sufficiency, enoughness. This is what God is and there’s nothing that I or you need to do to change ourselves to be any more or less than that. We are one with all that is because all that is is ever present in me and in you. We are the unique expression of the divine. So from this place of oneness, may we all know, experience and see Only God may we all know experience and see only God.
Only God
May we all know experience and see only God. Only
God. Hey,
May we all know experience and see only God.
Only God
May we all know experience and see only God. There is nothing else that we need to say, but to call upon that request and allow ourselves to awaken to that truth right now in the day where it can actually happen. May we all know experience and see Only God may we all know, see and experience only God. May we all know experience and see. See, only Know God. See God. Let these words, let this awakening do something mystical, multidimensional to you in this day and this week in ways that you can’t plan in your work, in your physical body, in your relationships inside and outside. Let everything in your life be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Of remembering that there’s only one thing happening and that is the experience of God. How grateful. How grateful, how grateful I am for the fulfillment of this word here and now in this moment in all the moments to come. So we release this message, we release this prayer, we release this into the allness. We don’t lose anything. It stays right here and swims around us. The truth of the holy presence is ever present. How grateful I am to know this right now and forever born. So we let go and we let God be God as our lives. And so it is.
Peace and blessings to you all. May you know, experience and see only God.