Thank you!

Devorah and I thank all those who joined us for our presentations at the South Florida Writers Assn, Saturday morning, and at Temple Beth Am Sunday morning. We all had a fine time!

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The Field

“Out there, beyond ideas of right and wrong, is a field. I’ll meet you there.”  Hafiz

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Save the Dates!

Save the dates. Three opportunities to meet and enjoy Dr Steve and Devorah.
 

Sat, October 5th, S FL Writers Assn, 10:30 AM, Pinecrest Library, 5835 SW 111 St., Pinecrest, 33156.

 

Sun, October 6th, 10 AM, Temple Beth Am, 5590 SW 88 St Pinecrest, 33156

 

Sun, October 13th, 3 PM, Dave and Mary Alper South Dade Jewish Community Center, 11155, SW 112 Ave,  33176

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Sacred Sex

Can sex – real or imagined, elegant or gross, physical, sensual, erotic, messy and unfettered sex, without limits – be sacred?

Is ‘sacred sex’ a contradiction in terms? For Yael, a major character in Devorah, Book One of The Covenant and The Scrolls series, a fictional account of the life of Devorah, Judge, prophet, and human being in ancient Israel, the answer is “No!”

HQPubs.com

 

Save the Dates!

Save the dates. Three opportunities to meet and enjoy Dr Steve and Devorah.

Sat, October 5th, S FL Writers Assn, 10:30 AM, Pinecrest Library, 5835 SW 111 St., Pinecrest, 33156.

Sun, October 6th, 10 AM, Temple Beth Am, 5590 SW 88 St Pinecrest, 33156

Sun, October 13th, 3 PM, Dave and Mary Alper South Dade Jewish Community Center, 11155, SW 112 Ave,  33176

HQPubs.com

 

The Presence and the Goodness

Does God’s presence fluctuate? Is It more present in Mecca, Jerusalem, NYC or Wheeling, West Virginia? Was there more of God and Its goodness at another time? In the 1950’s, 1492, in Buddha’s time or Moses’ time? Many Americans especially those in gerrymandered ‘safe’ Congressional districts would say ‘yes,’ yes God’s presence fluctuates and yes there was more of God and Its goodness at another time and we have to go back to those times and places. Back to rural life, racial and sexual purity, only three TV Networks and no internet, cell phones and video games.

I would ask these people to consider the moon. When we look up at the moon, it appears different at various times. Depending on the time of the month and weather, the moon may appear as a sphere, a crescent, a sliver or unseen. Yet the moon hasn’t changed shape or disappeared. It remains whole and perfectly placed no matter how we see it. So it is with God’s presence and goodness. They are there for us always, forever and wherever, even in Washington, DC.

But to experience the presence and goodness we must let go of our perspective and look from Its perspective. We must accept responsibility for dreaming the world of the ego’s nightmare, stop being victims, and choose God’s dream of love, wholeness, compassion and inclusion instead. We do not deny, explain away or accept the horrors around us, the injustice, inequality, poverty and disease but we go within first, seek the Kingdom which is most assuredly fully present right now, and from that place seek to make our unique contributions to a world that works for everyone and everything in it.

The Dream of the World

The dream of the world conceals the truth. What conceals the truth is not where you should look to find the truth. No one can waken from a dream the world is dreaming for him. He cannot choose to waken from a dream he did not make. Awaken and forget all thoughts of fear and death, and you will find you have the peace of God. You are the dreamer of the world of dreams. Accept the dream spirit has given instead of yours. It is not difficult to change a dream once the dreamer has been recognized. Dream of spirit’s holy instants instead of the ego’s nightmare. Forgive yourself your illusions and allow the truth of yourSelf to shine through.

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Double Questions

“However, an honest question is a learning tool that asks for something you do not know. It does not set conditions for response, but merely asks what the response could be. But no one in a conflict state is free to ask such a question. Only within the holy instant can an honest question be honestly asked. Therefore, attempt to solve no problems here, but bring the problem to the only place that holds the answer lovingly for you – the holy instant. Within the world the answers merely raise another question, while they leave the first unanswered. In the holy instant, you can bring the question to the answer, and receive the answer that was made for you.”

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Double Questions

“The holy instant is the interval in which the mind is still enough to hear an answer that is  not entailed within the question asked. All questions asked within the world – all – are  double questions, both asking and answering at the same time, ways of looking – ways of perceiving. A question asked in hate cannot be answered, because it is an answer in itself.

“The world asks but one question: “Which of these illusions is true? Which ones establish peace and offer joy? And which can bring escape from all the pain of which this world is made? No matter the question’s form, its purpose is the same – to keep you in your body and denying your reality as spirit. They ask: ‘What can the body get that you would want the most of all? It is your servant and also your friend. But tell it what you want, and it will serve you lovingly and well.’

 

Double Questions

Devorah smiled. “Beloveds, what I’m going to tell you today is so important, yet so opposite the way of the world, that at first you will want to deny it. Yet if you pause a moment and reflect, you will know it is something your own experience tells you is so.” An even greater hush fell over the multitude. “In quietness are all things answered, and is every problem quietly resolved. In conflict there can be no answer and no resolution, for its purpose is to make no resolution possible, and to ensure no answer will be plain. The so-called ‘adversarial system’ does not work.

“A problem set in conflict has no answer, for it is seen in different ways. And what would be an answer from one point of view is not an answer in another. Beloveds, you are in conflict. That means you can answer nothing at all, for conflict has no limited effects. Yet, has God given you a way in which your problems are resolved, a way of reaching another state of mind. It is the holy instant.

Hafiz

The Sad Game. Blame. Keeps the sad game going. It keeps stealing all your wealth—Giving it to an imbecile with No financial skills. Dear one, Wise Up.

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Aggregate and Individual

I’m frustrated as I wait to cross the four lanes of 117^th Ave to get to the park for my bike ride. Traffic! Four lanes of traffic! What a pain! I finally made it to the median. Watching the cars whiz by I noticed one with a woman driving and a child in a car seat. Another, driven by an older guy, was going too slow. Then came a few cars with drivers dressed in ‘business casual’ probably on the way to business/professional appointments. As I crossed the last two lanes and headed to the park, I realized what I’d experienced crossing 117^th Ave, wasn’t ‘traffic’, it was people, individual people like me, living their lives and driving to their next destination.

Aggregate and individual, what a difference the label makes! So when one soldier is maimed or dies, her life – parents, friends, hopes, dreams and potential – are changed forever. When the ‘enemy,’ ‘evil doer,’ ‘terrorist/Taliban’ is maimed or dies, we’re made safer. Yet, even these ‘enemies’ have parents, friends, hopes, dreams and potential. There is always an alternative to war or ‘punishment’ if we think of individuals first instead of aggregates.

HQPubs.com

Thou Mayest

Prayer is not an act of overcoming God’s reluctance, but an active acceptance of His highest willingness. In East of Eden, John Steinbeck says God wants us to substitute Thou Mayest for the Thou Shalt Not of the Ten Commandments.

Being a Victim

I drifted into feeling like a victim earlier this morning. The bodily aches and pains, the problems with Comcast, the up-front cost of getting Devorah out. I was angry and wanted to lash out. Now, I’m feeling better. My cousin the physician says about people my age, “You’ll never feel worse than when you get out of bed.” Boy, that’s the truth! What happened? Why am I better now and not feeling like a victim? I accepted responsibility; remembered I had a choice, gave it all over. I realized I didn’t enjoy how I was feeling, didn’t want to be a victim and asked to see it differently. It’Ask and ye shall receive, knock and it shall be opened unto you, seek and ye shall find….

HQPubs.com

Wandering

Not all who wander are lost. Wandering is often a form of exploring, of discovering, of lowering barriers and boundaries and releasing limitations. From the linear, rational perspective of the ego, wandering and daydreaming seem like a waste of time, even lazy or wrong. But most of us realize that by relaxing the ego’s strict control, we can actually find a new source of creativity, innovation, power and beauty in ourSelves.

The Present

The past is gone; the future is not yet here; today is a gift. That’s why they call it the present. How are you using your present? Are you a human being or a human doing? Are you open to the wonder of what’s happening inside and outside of you here and now? Or are you as I often am, musing over what happened there and then; or what might happen in the times to come?

Even the happy memories we often cling to, set-up expectations that make the present seem somehow wanting and less-than, and make us seek to recreate what can not be recreated. Please, let these go! Become aware and mindful of what you’re doing under your radar. Experience the wonder of the moment! See life stretched before you in smiling repose, like a fully laden buffet table, and take what will to make your heart sing.

HQPubs.com

 

Happiness

Hafiz, the wonderful Sufi poet, said, “Ever since happiness heard your name, it has been running through the streets trying to find you.” And A. Lincoln: “Most folks are just about as happy as they make up their minds to be.” Could this be true?

The Other Side of Specialness

Context gives meaning. In the context of contributing to a world that works for everyone and everything, a world mirroring Spirit’s wholeness, inclusion, love and compassion, each of us has a special function – a special contribution to make that only we can make. In the context of the ego world of self promotion, blame, fear and guilt, the purpose of specialness is to separate, set us apart, exalt me at your expense. In Spirit’s context my specialness takes nothing from your specialness because each of us has a unique special contribution to make. In the ego’s context, my specialness comes at your expense. For me to be special, you have to be plain, ordinary, and nothing special.

Specialness in this view is, as most things in life, is neutral, with its meaning coming from who we’re identifying with and the purpose it serves. Identifying with Spirit, our specialness contributes to a world that works for everyone and everything. IDing with ego, our specialness contributes to a world that works for some and not others a world of separation, inequality, unfairness, injustice, fear, hate and blame. So specialness itself is neutral and not a problem. The problem is the context, identity and purpose we chose – either Spirit or ego. The goal is not to fix the ego’s nightmare world but to express our god-given specialness.

HQPubs.com

 

 

 

 

Thank you

Thank you to all the folks that came to see Dr Steve and Devorah Saturday at Temple Hatikvah in Homestead & an even bigger ty to those that bought books.

Tommorrow

TOMMOROW Saturday, August 24 at 6 PM, Dr Steve and Devorah will be presenting at Temple Hatikvah, Homestead Jewish Center’s, 183 NE 8th Street, Campbell Drive (312^{th St}) open house - free buffet HQPubs.com

 

Not So Special After All?

Our specialness is re-enforced by pop science, human hubris and social conditioning. Conventional wisdom says human beings are special, superior and the peak of evolution because we, of all the creatures on earth, can think and use tools. What if other creatures can think and use tools, what does that say about our specialness? Is it still so important? Do we need our arrogant specialness to survive and prosper or does our so-called ‘specialness’ get in our way and keep us from making a contribution to a world that works for everything and everyone in it?

The July 22 issue of The Christian Science Monitor Weekly reported that ten untrained cockatoos were not only able to think and use tools, but were also able to innovate and solve problems: “Ten untrained cockatoos were presented with a complex device that, if a series of steps were completed, would give a quarter of a cashew.  First, the birds had to remove a pin, then a screw, then a bolt; then turn a wheel 90 degrees and then a latch sideways.

“It took one of the birds, Pipin, less than two hours to finish the process unassisted in five different sessions. Other birds finished the puzzle with some help or watching a bird partner do the task. Each task required a different set of behaviors and an understanding of the necessity of completing each task in sequence.”

And we talk about ‘bird brains’! This is only the most recent ‘discovery’ of so-called special, human intelligence, outside humans. What might be accomplished if we could let go of our arrogant specialness and be compassionate, loving parts of the world, instead of above and beyond it?

Save the Date

Dr Steve and Devorah will be presenting this Saturday, 8/24, 6PM, Temple Hatikvah, Homestead Jewish Center, 183 NE 8th Street, Campbell Drive (312^{th St}) open house - free buffet dinner.
HQPubs.com

 

An Island Entire To Itself

Specialness is the function you gave yourself. Never doubt that it and the need you feel for it will disappear before your reality as spirit. With spirit you need nothing but It, like the lilies of the field who toil not. Specialness stands for you alone, as self-created, self-maintained, in need of nothing beyond yourself and un-joined to anything beyond the body and its needs. In specialness, you are a separate universe, an island entire unto yourself, always attacked and always furious, with anger always fully justified. Pursuing the purpose of specialness, you employ a vigilance and ferocity you never thought to yield, and effort you never thought could cease.

But enough! Now you are merely asked to pursue another goal, allow your specialness to serve a different purpose, with far less vigilance, less effort and with the grace of God the wind beneath your wings. Yet you find this difficult, a burden wearisome and tedious, too heavy to be borne. Never mind why this is so; it is so. But it need not be so. The choice is yours. Choose again. The test of everything on earth is: ‘What is it for?’ The answer makes it what it is for you. It has no meaning of itself, you give reality to it, according to the purpose that you choose. HQPubs.com

A Different Purpose for Specialness

“Rejoice!” Devorah proclaimed. “There are only two emotions: love and fear. All else are shades of these two and love replaces all fear when we pause in our mad quest for specialness. Have you not felt that happen? In the midst of a traffic jam, money woes, personal disappointment, haven’t you suddenly, spontaneously felt how good and right and perfect life is? In those holy instants your bloated nothingness fell away and the perfect lack of specialness that is your truth manifested itself. Rejoice that you need not be content with specialness, that shabby substitute for love. Rejoice!

“Yet are those spontaneous holy instants few and far between.” Devorah shook her head sadly. “Still, you can allow your specialness to serve a different purpose. By being aware and mindful of it, not attacking it nor feeling guilt because of it you can allow the still small voice to use your specialness, guide you and lead you to manifesting the love that is your Identity.”

Please. Enought!

Devorah shook her head sadly. “Please. Enough! What you have given to specialness has left you bankrupt and your treasure house barren and empty, with an open door inviting everything that would disturb your peace to enter and destroy. Please. Enough! Choose again!” She looked out over the gathering, eyes pleading. “How hard can it be to feel the calm, peace, compassion and grace of your reality and oneness with Spirit?” She paused, hands on hips, “As hard as you make it!”

Specialness

“Comparison must be an ego device for love makes none,” Devorah said, smiling out over the multitude. “Specialness always makes comparisons. Pursuit of specialness is always at the cost of peace and love. Who can diminish and cut down another who is really a part of himSelf, use her as a gauge of littleness and be released from limits? Specialness is the idea of sin made flesh. Its purpose is to deny us ourSelves and bind us to the littleness of the ego.

“What could you see instead? Without specialness, without elevating ourselves and our illusory needs at the expense of everyone and everything else, you would see the shining radiance of all that is. And all the world you made, and all your specialness, and all the sins you held in its defense against yourSelf will vanish, and your mind will accept the truth about yourSelf.

“Beloveds, you have come far along the way of truth; too far to falter now. Just one more step and every vestige of the fear of God will melt away in love. Accept Its plan for salvation instead of yours. The ego’s death is not your death. Release specialness, comparisons, judgment, fear, hate and blame. Release the illusion of who and what you are and accept yourSelf as God created you.”

Save the Date

Dr. Steve and Devorah will speak at the free barbecue/open house Temple Hatikvah/Homestead Jewish Center 183 NE 8th Street, Campbell Drive,  SW 312th St at 6PM, Saturday, August 24th. All are welcome!  hqpubs.com

Worship

We worship the God we believe in, rather than the God who is. The God who is, is already within us and will respond at the level of our deepest belief and feelings.
hqpubs.com

 

Uneasiness 2

One explanation for the experience of uneasiness, like a low, almost inaudible hum in the background of our lives is that 99.9% of the time we’re not ourSelves. Only in the instants you get our bloated nothingness out of the way of the divine circuits are you yourSelf.

Help!

Seeking virtual assistant.to help with social networking and marketing for Devorah and other books. Hourly pay + %. Opportunity to grow!

Uneasiness

Do you experience a strange uneasiness, like a low, almost inaudible hum, in the background of your life; a sense of being disconnected; not quite being yourself, a fear of being in the wrong place at the wrong time; a haunting fear of lack of meaning; as if you wandered in without a plan only to wander off again?

That’s because 99.9% of the time you are not yourSelf. Self awareness, vision and truth are not part of our experience of the world with the ego. We experience these only in the instants we get our bloated nothingness out of the way of the divine circuits - the holy instants is which we realize that the something else we thought we were was an illusion.

Our meaning, reality and oneness are available now. God has no secrets. It does not lead you through a world of misery, waiting to tell you at journey’s end why It did this to you. What kind of “God” would do that?

The Main Character

hqpubs.comIf we are indeed writing our own life stories, why seek to change the minor, secondary characters? Why not just change ourselves?

The Self-fulfilling Prophecy

The self fulfilling prophecy:  if you believe your life is not working the way it should, that belief in and of itself and the resultant search for perfection, can cause your suffering.

hqpubs.com

Believing

What we believe, deeply and often, creates daily experience and guides decision making. So, whether you think you can or you can’t, you’re right. It’s ALWAYS your choice. You’re writing your life story right now.

Courage

The desire to hide from the sadness and cruelty of the world is strong. We seek some peace from the emotional stress of exposure to people who are in pain and from our own pain. Yet our deepest calling is to bring and enlightened consciousness to the world we find right in front of us. We are called to be our authentic Selves and bring a consciousness of love and compassion to all of creation. This means we do not try to escape; we try to open ourselves to ourSelves more completely and from there, face the tumult.

 

Affirmative Prayer

Prayer is not an act of overcoming God’s reluctance, but an active acceptance of Its highest willingness.

Mistakes

“You know, Malachizer, we human beings have an aversion to mistakes. We equate ‘mistakes’ to ‘sins’ and to being wrong.” The High Priest nodded. “But what if there is no ‘sin’? What if what we call a ‘mistake’ is really an opportunity to develop a new awareness?  For example, what if our new awareness showed that a false fact was accepted as true, or that there was a simple misunderstanding or that some method or technique we rely on needed to be adjusted or relearned? If we get defensive about our mistakes, these necessary changes would never occur.

“With ourSelves, there are no mistakes. There are only opportunities to choose again, to learn, grow and change, to become less like ourselves and more like ourSelves. Being negative is easy. The real courage is finding the good in whatever is happening, so-called ‘mistake’ or no, and the pros in every con.”

Listen

Listen to this cool discussion about Devorah:
http:emotionalpro.com/archives/6835

Projection Makes Projection 2

“Projection makes perception. If we see disaster and catastrophe in the world, it is because we see disaster and catastrophe in ourselves. If we see holiness and hope, it’s because we see holiness and hope in ourSelves. There is no choice that lies between these two decisions. We will see the witnesses to the choice we made. The world you see but shows you how much joy you have allowed yourself to see in you and to accept as yours.”

Projection Makes Perception

Once again, the insights Devorah shares arise from the Course in Miracles.

“Projection makes perception,” Devorah said to the multitude. “What we think and feel in here,” she touched her head and heart, “is what we see out there. In fact with spirit, there is no ‘out there’ or ‘in here’ either. The world we see is what we gave it, nothing more. But though it is no more that that, it is not less, and thus is important to us. It is the witness to your state of mind, the outside picture of an inward condition.

“As we think, so we perceive. Therefore, seek not to change the world, but choose to change your mind about the world. Perception is a result, not a cause. Everything looked up with vision, with yourSelf, is healed and holy. Nothing perceived without it means anything. And where there is no meaning, there is chaos.”

Response Ability

“We tend to think of responsibility as meaning we’re admitting we did something wrong or owning up to a mistake,” Devorah smiled. “That’s OK, but there’s more to it than that. That’s the Scrolls way of thinking about it. The way I like to think about it, the Covenant way, is ‘response ability’ – the ability to respond, a choice about how to respond.”

Barak nodded. “You’re saying we may not be fully responsible for what happens, but we are 100% responsible for how we respond to what happens.”

“Yes, that’s it, Barak!  When we blame, we give up power. If another person, place or thing is to blame only they have the power to heal the situation. It’s only by claiming our inner power, our reality as spirit and identify with ourSelves and by knowing and accepting full responsibility for our responses that we are empowered. That’s ‘response ability.’”

The Caterpiller and the Butterfly

“From the position of the caterpillar, it’s impossible to predict that a butterfly will emerge,” Devorah nodded. Good, she thought. “From identifying with myself, it is impossible to identify with mySelf. The wonderful, colorful, flying butterfly – mySelf - is there within the earth-bound caterpillar. MySelf knows it’s there and its still small voice, often in the form of intuition, passion and desire, is always singing to me. But myself, thinking of itself as an earth-bound caterpillar, rarely hears it. I want to stop thinking of mySelf as a caterpillar and more like the butterfly mySelf really is.”

Star Stuff

“We are made of the same particles as the stars,” Devorah stared at her reflection in the pool. “So let go of that grim face.” She smiled. “I have within me all that I need to fully realize my power. Yes!” She arose. “It is time I fully realized my greatness and the greatness and grandeur in everyone and everything and expressed It, allowed mySelf to shine through.”

Pain is Inevitable, Suffering is Optional

“I have found that pain is inevitable, but suffering is optional,” Devorah said to Barak. The general looked a question at her. “Suffering - anguish, distress and misery - does not have to follow automatically from pain. Things the ego labels ‘bad’, such as a broken arm, or cancer or a flood, will cause pain. But if we allow it, the pain will depart. We hold on to it by worrying, blaming and anguishing and that is a choice, an unnecessary choice.

 “Pain stretches us, pushes us past our comfort zones, is part of living and growing. We suffer because we fear discomfort, are content with where we are, don’t think we need to grow and fear the unknown. Go where the pain is leading you. Ask it what it wants you to do or change. Nothing ever goes away until it has taught us what we need to know.”

If It's Not Broke, Don't Fix It

For the next few posts, Devorah’s insights arise from the Science of Mind monthly magazine. Today’s is as if she were speaking directly to me…perhaps you’ll feel that way, too.

“Stop thinking anyone has to be taught anything. The Intelligence in and through everyone and everything imbues each of us with all we need to navigate life successfully. When we seek to ‘fix’ ourselves, another person, situation or thing, we violate a basic tenet of this Intelligence namely that nothing needs fixing, all is in process, all is awakening to its true potential.

“Every being is a work in progress, moving towards a greater expression of itSelf. This process is often messy, painful, hurtful and difficult, but everyone and everything is doing what its supposed to be doing in the best way it can. We can be inspired to do better quicker, but its best to do this without blame or judgment and not thinking we need to be fixed, because we’re not broken.”

One Week to Go!

One week to go to join Dr. Steve and Devorah at Books and Books in Coral Gables! Looking forward to seeing you there - 6:30 PM, Wed, July 10th.

 

Sin

Please remember, dear readers, that the concepts in Devorah’s mind and many of the words she uses come from The Course in Miracles.

“What if life is not as we think it is,” Devorah said to the soldiers. “What if life is not just a struggle to avoid death and destruction, pain and suffering? What if we’ve had it upside down, inside out and backwards all this time? What if life was meant to be an adventure, an upward spiral of expansion, inclusion, love and joy? What if instead of living as we do fearing, trembling, avoiding, we lived as if we were supported – which we are, and could not fail – which we can’t? What if peace is more than the absence of war? What if the benign spirit of the Covenant is real and the truth about us and the fearsome, punishing spirit of the Scrolls is a mistake? What if there was no sin…?” The soldiers were still, but a few among them smiled and nodded.

Devorah smiled and nodded in return. “The Wisdom Within that guides me and is also available to guide you, tells me that it is essential we not confuse error with sin. For error can be corrected, and the wrong made right. But sin, were it possible, would be irreversible. Remember my brothers, sin is possible only in the ego nightmare, but awake with spirit we know sin is impossible. To sin would be to violate reality and succeed. Sin is the proclamation that attack is real and guilt is justified.

“We children of the one God can be mistaken; we can deceive ourselves; we can turn the power of our minds against ourSelves. But we cannot sin. The Wisdom Within proclaims there is nothing we can do that would really change our waking reality in any way, nor make us really guilty.”

Time is Running Out!

Miracles still happen. Grace is within.  Hear Dr. Steve and Devorah talk about it, Books and Books in Coral Gables, 6:30, Wed, July 10th.

 

Time is Running Out!

Miracles still happen. Grace is within.  Hear Dr. Steve and Devorah talk about it, Books and Books in Coral Gables, 6:30, Wed, July 10th.

 

Fragging 4

“You would be very surprised how different reality is from what we see. We do not realize the magnitude of that one error,” Devorah said. “It was so vast and so completely incredible that from it a world of total unreality had to emerge. Its fragmented aspects are fearful enough. But nothing we have seen begins to show us the enormity of the original error, which seemed to cast us out of the Garden, shatter knowledge into meaningless bits of disunited perceptions, and force us to make further substitutions.

“That was the first projection of error outward. The world arose to hide it, and became the screen on which it was projected and drawn between us and the truth. Truth extends inward, where the idea of loss in meaningless and only increase is conceivable. Do you really think it strange that a world in which everything is backwards and upside down arose from this projection of error? It was inevitable. For truth brought to this could only remain within in quiet, and take no part in all the mad projection by which this world was made. Call it not sin but madness, for such it was and so it still remains. Invest it not with guilt, for guilt implies it was accomplished in reality. And above all, be not afraid of it.

“When you seem to see some twisted form of the original error rising to frighten you, say only, ‘God is not fear, but love,’ and it will disappear. The truth will save us. It has not left us, to go out into the mad world and so depart from us. Inward is sanity; insanity is outside us. We but believe it is the other way around, that truth is outside, and error and guilt within. Our little, senseless substitutions, touched with insanity and swirling lightly off on a mad course like feathers dancing insanely in the wind, have no substance.  They fuse and merge and separate, in shifting and totally meaningless patterns that need not be judged at all. To judge them individually is pointless. Their tiny differences in form are no real differences at all. None of them matters. That they have that in common and nothing else.

“Let them all go, dancing in the wind, dipping and turning till they disappear from sight, far, far outside you. Instead, turn to the stately calm within, where in holy stillness dwells the living God we never left, and who never left us.”

Fragging 3

“When we fragment, we substitute illusion for truth,” Devorah said to the multitude. “We’re saying truth, reality as it is, is not enough; we want and need something more; that being who and what we are, spiritual beings having earthly experiences, is inadequate and doesn’t work. To fragment is to exclude, judge against and substitute one aspect of the whole for the whole Itself.

 “When we fragment, no one is seen as complete. The body is emphasized, not spirit, with special emphasis on certain parts which are used as the standard of comparison for judgment.

 “It’s all about fear. Fear is both a fragmented and fragmenting emotion. Fear seems to take many forms, each seeming to require a different form of action to manage it. Yet in truth, fear is the result of a single substitution: the ego for Spirit. And because of this single substitution, the world has become so splintered and subdivided and divided again, over and over, that it is now almost impossible to perceive it once was one and still is what it was.

 “Beloved, that one error, not a sin, but an error, which brought truth to illusion, infinity to time, and life to death, was all we ever made. Our whole world rests on it. Everything we see reflects it, and every special relationship we’ve ever made is part of it.

“You would be very surprised how different reality is from what we see. We do not realize the magnitude of that one error.”

See, Hear, Learn and Grow

See Dr. Steve and Devorah. Hear their ideas. Learn and Grow. Invite them to present to your professional or business organization on Skype or in person. HQPubs.com.

 

Forgiveness

“Beloveds, can you imagine how beautiful those you forgive will look to you?” Devorah said to the multitude. “In no fantasy have you ever seen anything so lovely. Nothing you see here, sleeping or waking, comes near to such loveliness. Nothing that you remember that made your heart sing with joy has ever brought you even a little part of the happiness this sight will bring you. You will behold the beauty Spirit Itself loves to look upon. YourSelf holds this and sees this for you until you are able to see it for yourself.

“To forgive is merely to remember only the loving experiences you gave in the past, and those that were given you. Let all the rest go. Don’t energize them with your thoughts and feelings. Don’t dwell on them. Turn away from them. Forgiveness is a selective remembering, based not on your selection, but spirit’s, on the still small voice’s guidance, by choosing the Kingdom first and of remembering from being centered in It.

 

“It is still and always up to you to choose to join with truth or illusion. But to choose one is to let the other go. Which you choose you will endow with beauty and reality; the spark of beauty or the veil of ugliness, the real world or the world of guilt and fear, freedom or slavery. But no matter how it seems, realize you can never choose but between God and the ego. Thought systems and the experiences that flow from them are either true or false and all their attributes flow simply from what they are.”

 

Sacred Sex

Sacred sex at Books and Books in Coral Gables, Wed evening, 6:30, July 12th with Dr Steve and Devorah. Come and join us!

Fragging 2

“No evidence will convince you of the truth of what you do not want.” [This is so true of the TPary Republicans and their reaction to Obama.] It is true, just as you fear, Malachizer, that to have faith in spirit and acknowledge Its reality and Wholeness and your own reality as part of It, is to deny all that you think you know. But what you think you know was never true, priest. What gain is there in clinging to it and denying the evidence for truth? The discomfort you feel when I speak to you of the power of love and at-one-ment and the weakness and limitations of fragmentation and your awareness of the distinctions between the Covenant and the Scrolls is being brought into your awareness constantly now. And this in a mind firmly convinced that at-one-ment is illusion and attack is power.

“Do you still prefer the results of your interpretation of experience, when you honestly consider what those results have been? Is our world so good? God wills us better, Malachizer. Could you not look with greater clarity, in awe of the great mystery, seeing your ideas and beliefs as starting points on the journey to greater awareness? Spirit has spoken clearly, Malachizer, and yet because you have preferred to place still greater faith in the disaster you have made you have little faith in what you’ve heard. Today, let us resolve together to accept the joyful tidings that disaster is not real and reality is not disaster.”

Fragging

“We have a tendency to fragment, then be concerned about the truth of just a little part of the whole,” Devorah said to Malachizer the High Priest.

He frowned. “How else are we to know anything? After all, we do not eat the whole lamb at once, we eat it one mouthful at a time.” The priest smiled, proud of himself.

Devorah nodded indulgently. “We are not talking about eating, Malachizer, we are talking about knowing God. Focusing on a part, the Ten Commandments for example, is but a way of avoiding, or looking away from the whole, to what we think we might be better able to comprehend. A better and far more helpful way to think of God is this: we do not understand the power It is, either in part or in whole.” Malachizer sputtered. “We do not understand because we constantly fragment It, continually cutting the great mystery that It is down to our size, the size of our egos. Yet are we one with It and It works through us, even tho we don’t comprehend how; therefore our understanding cannot be necessary. But faith….”

“Faith is important, but not enough!” Malachizer said.

“I agree,” Devorah responded. “We have no choice but to use all aspects of being human – spiritual, mental, emotional and physical. But how can faith in reality be ours while we are bent on making it unreal, denying Wholeness and fragmenting It? And are you really safer in maintaining the reality of illusions than you would be in joyously accepting the truth for what It is, and giving thanks for It? Honor the truth that has been given, and be glad you do not understand it.

Skype Presentation

Invite Devorah and Dr. Steve to do a Skype or phone presentation to your business or professional association, book club or study group. Topics range from Sprititual Technology for Everyday Living to Applying Timeless Wisdom to Contemporary Challenges.

Please Come

Please come. I want to share all I've learned with you. I'm pretty sure you'll find in enjoyable and worthwhile. Join me and Devorah at Books and Books in Coral Gables, 6:30, Wednesday, July 10.

 

A Reciprocal Thing

“Have you noticed,” the intuitive voice said to Devorah, the voice she thought of as God, “the fading out of one channel of communication, awareness, interest and opportunity is the signal of the opening of another?”
 

“Yes, I have,” Devorah responded. “We often say one door closes and another opens.”

“Yes, that’s because I’m always here, fully present, right where you are and no matter how things may appear to your ego self, I, yourSelf, intend only good.”

“I know that, abba, and I am learning to raise my consciousness enough to see beyond the outer circumstances to the truth of our shared reality. I see that shifting is a two sided coin, a two edged sword a reciprocal thing. As I empty out my closet, I automatically make room for new clothes.”

“Indeed! What you use in fantasy you deny to truth. What you reserve for yourself, you withhold from youSelf and from the wholeness reality is. The present is useless to you while you pursue the ego’s goals and know not yourSelf. Awake and awaken your brothers and sisters to our joyous shared reality. Have a good weekend!”

The Mind/Brain Question

Once again Devorah travels to the future and thanks to the current issue of the Smithsonian, connects with the brilliant cosmologist Lisa Randall. They talk about what Lisa Randall calls the “mind/brain” question and Devorah calls the Covenant and the Scrolls distinction.

“Is the mind and consciousness the product of the brain, all our thoughts nerochemically determined, or is the mind not a slave of the physical brain and somehow capable of free will? Or can we never answer that question?”

“I think our experience as human beings existing simultaneously in the spiritual, mental, emotional and physical aspects has answered that question,” Devorah said. “Mind and consciousness, the Covenant, subsumes the brain. All four aspects are real, but exist in the context of the One Mind, One Consciousness.”

“I agree,” Lisa Randall said. “One mistake we scientists make is to think and frame questions in either/or terms, either we’re conscious or we’re not. I think there’s a spectrum of consciousness, a continuum, and it’s interesting to study that, the difference between a plant and a dog, a dog and a baby, etc.

“Inspiration – the mind/spiritual aspect, is needed in geometry just as much as in poetry. My best work arose from an insight. An insight doesn’t necessarily mean a new truth. Sometimes it’s just a new way of looking at things. And to me, that’s why the mind/brain question is so interesting. Some say, human consciousness is not capable of comprehending the mystery of its own nature.

“I say, ‘maybe it is, maybe it isn’t’, but we can probably understand a lot more about it even if we don’t ultimately understand it. And second, we haven’t been trying to answer this question scientifically for a long time.  We understand a lot of things now that we didn’t understand before. And this one’s terrifically hard, because we don’t even know what we mean by consciousness.”

“I guess I think it’s amazing that we know as much as we do. And why should everything be so much like us that we can figure it out? We want to be open to what is beyond our limited ego selves – which is 99% of everything – and feel the sense of wonder and awe at experiencing the cosmos and the extra dimensions in our minds. String theory postulates that there are eleven dimensions. Impossible to imagine? Perhaps, but both thrilling, frightening and ultimately fulfilling to try….”

Save the Date!

Dr. Steve and Devorah will be appearing at Books and Books in Coral Gables on July 10th at 6:30. Have fun, ask questions, be provoked, and buy an autographed first edition.

 

Free Presentation for Your Business or Professional Association

Invite Dr. Steve and Devorah to do their short presentation for professional and business associations: Applying Timeless Wisdom to Contemporary Challenges: Steve@HQPubs.com.

 

Only One Mistake

“When the body ceases to attract you, and when you place no value on it as a means of getting anything, then there will no interference in communication. As you let yourSelf teach you how to use the body only for purposes of communication, and renounce its use for separation and attack which the ego sees in it, you will learn you have no need of a body at all.” Devorah sighed. “I’ve had glimpses of this, moments of it. You have too, haven’t you?” Yael nodded.

“We can have this more often. It’s in our power to do so. It’s what God wants for us, the Canaanites, even for the wretched, prejudiced, fear mongering T Party Republicans. And it’s possible to accomplish this all at once because there’s but one shift in perception necessary. That’s because we’ve made but one mistake. It seems like many, but it’s all the same; for though the ego takes many forms, it’s always the same idea. What is not love is always fear, and nothing else.

“It’s not necessary to follow fear through all the circuitous routes by which it burrows underground and hides in darkness, to emerge in forms quite different from what it is – cancer, dogma, prejudice. Yet it is necessary to examine each one as long as we retain the principle that governs them all. But, when we are willing to regard them, not as separate, but as different manifestations of the same idea, and one we no longer want, they go together.”

Ideas, Only Ideas

Yael nodded and Devorah continued: “Have you noticed that it’s impossible to use one relationship at the expense of another and not suffer guilt? And that it’s also impossible to condemn part of a relationship and find peace within it? As long as I accept the possibility and cherish it, that I can make another human being into what they are not, because of myself I would change them and have them be different, then I will experience guilt. But if I can accept the fact that perfect love is in me as it is in you, then separation vanishes because holiness was shared.”

“Yes,” Yael said. “I understand.”

“Good. We don’t find it difficult to believe that when another calls on God for love, our call is undiminished - is not in competition with hers and remains as strong. Nor do we think that when God answers her call our hope of answer is diminished. On the contrary, we’re more inclined to see her success as witness to the possibility of ours, because we recognize, however dimly, that God is an idea, and so our faith in It is strengthened by sharing. What I find difficult to accept, and perhaps you do too, is the fact that, like mySelf, I too am an idea. And like Her, I can give myself completely, wholly without loss and with only gain. Here lies peace, for there is no scarcity or conflict.”

Yael was nodding and smiling. “We experience the full communication (the opposite of excommunication) of ideas with ideas, when we release the past and judgment. Without these, the fullness of love’s meaning is understood. If you and I were not ideas, and nothing but ideas, we could not be in full communication with everything that is. Yet as long as we prefer to be something other than an idea, or would attempt to be nothing else and something else together, we will not remember the language of communication which I know perfectly.”

Judgment

“I try to suspend judgment entirely. It doesn’t work, not only because it’s based on the past, which is over, if I’ll let it be, but also because it’s based on my limited perceptions, on self reliance instead of Self reliance,” Devorah said to Yael. “But I fear letting go entirely and resist doing it because I believe without myself, all would be chaos. But I’ve found this isn’t true and without the ego all would be love.

“Judgment seeks to separate out certain aspects of total reality and look to them to meet my imagined needs. So another reason judgment doesn’t work is separation, rejecting mySelf and the at-one-ment, is the source of guilt. To appeal to judgment and separation for direction and support is to believe I am alone and to be alone, to experience myself as alone is to reject mySelf and deny the Oneness I am a part of and to attack reality. Is it any wonder we feel a vague sense of unease and guilt when we judge?

“I’ve found that I can’t love parts of reality and understand what love means. Spirit loves all equally and knows no special love. After all, the rain falls on the just and the unjust alike. To believe that special love in a special relationship offers me salvation is to reject at-one-ment and feel guilty. And because of guilt, all special relationships have elements of fear in them. That’s why they shift and change so frequently; it’s because they are not based on changeless love alone.

Science and Spirit

Devorah was blessed with visions of the future. In one she foresaw the Holocaust and in another, the restored Jerusalem of today. In the following vision she is a PH.D. student in a neuroscience lecture. Science as we understand it was unknown in Devorah’s time and she marvels at its ability to explain much of what she knew of how God worked.

“Do you know the difference between being conscious and being consciously aware,” the lecturer asked? “The human brain has a unique capacity – reflection – conscious awareness, the ability to observe and understand its own inner workings - consciousness. A neurological transformation occurs when we reflect causing the brain to grow stronger connections between its different parts. We are able to see patterns and habits and discern the fundamental differences between everyday consciousness and consciousness itself.

“We are able to connect the oldest most primitive part of our brains – the amygdala – the fear center, source of the flight or fight response, with the newest parts – the insula and anterior cingulate, source of compassion, hope, joy and creativity. With the practice of self reflection” - what I think of as going within first, prayer and mindfulness, Devorah realized – “we can actually shrink the size of the amygdala, alter the thalamus and thus change our perception of reality. We can even expand frontal lobe consciousness and with it our ability to think with concepts and abstractions and enhance intuition, compassion, creativity, and decision making skills.”

Devorah smiled. So, she thought, this is the scientific explanation of the at-one-ment, of my connection to God and spirit and my birthright as a spiritual being having an earthly experience! This is the reason our daily prayers and rituals work!

“Set aside ten to twenty minutes a day for watching but not judging the thoughts and feelings that endlessly flow through your everyday consciousness and you will become calmer, sharper and more compassionate. Stay completely relaxed and centered while doing this and insights with the power to reshape your entire life will soon erupt. That’s the difference between being conscious and being consciously aware.”

 

Miracles

“It will take a miracle for us to defeat the Canaanites,” Barak said to Devorah. “They have iron weapons, we have only copper ones. They outnumber us 5 to 1. They have 400 chariots, we have none.”

“All true my general,” Devorah said. “But if we have just a little willingness and allow spirit to shift our thinking we will have all the power we need.” Barak shook his head doubtfully. “We can’t know how the Canaanite defeat and our victory will occur, Barak. We can only know that with God all things are possible.

“We on earth have no conception of limitlessness for the world we think we live in is a world of limits. The miracle brings the laws of another world to this one. The miracle itself is but a witness that we have the power of God in us. Of course, the Canaanites also have the power to witness. But if they do not believe as you and I and our people must believe, then It will not work for them. It is only as strong as our belief in It. If we believe a little, It will manifest a little. If we believe a lot, It will manifest a lot.

“Those who remember always that of themselves they can do nothing and know nothing, and who have become willing to do what is necessary and learn everything, will learn it. That is the way of miracles. Whenever we trust ourselves, ourSelves can not teach us and we will not learn. Thinking we have learned and already know destroys our motivation to learn. Whenever we think we know, even of Spirit’s love and miracles, we have abandoned the Teacher of peace. Remember, it is the ego that plans, fears and must know. Whenever we realize we know not and don’t care or worry that we know not, peace and knowing will return. Miracles come when we let go and let God.”

Forgive

“Ask not to be forgiven, for this has already been accomplished,” Devorah said to the multitude. “Ask, rather, to learn how to forgive, and to restore what always was to your unforgiving mind. At-one-ment with spirit, everyone and everything becomes real and visible to those who use it. This is your only function within the ego’s illusory nightmare. You will feel isolated, alienated and guilty till you learn this. For in the end, whatever form it takes – fear, hate, blame, disease – guilt arises from your failure to fulfill your function in spirit’s mind and in your own.

“Decide that spirit is right and you are wrong about yourself. Fail not in your function of loving in a loveless place made of darkness and deceit, for thus are darkness and deceit undone. Fail not yourSelf. For the little appreciation you offer It, It will give you all of Itself. Learn how to go within, seek the at-one-ment and decide with God. Give up these frantic and insane attempts at decision making that cheat you of the joy of living as yourSelf. Leave all decisions for the inner voice that speaks for spirit. Only your own volition seems to make deciding hard.

“Your task is not to make reality. It is here without your making, but not without you. You who have tried to throw yourSelf away and valued your at-one-ment with spirit so little, remember that communication with spirit is life. Nothing without it is at all.”

 

Make No Decisions Alone

“Every decision you undertake alone, without going within and asking the still small voice’s counsel, signifies you would define what salvation is, and what you would be saved from.”

“But we have the Ten Commandments and all God’s other laws. Surely all we need do is follow them?” Malachizer protested.

“Those are good guidance, Malachizer, but not enough. Each of us is a center of divine wisdom, living in times Moses could not have conceived of. Be quiet in your faith in the spirit that only loves, blesses and condemns not, that sees through the illusions and insanities of the ego’s nightmare world. Madness may be your choice, but it is not your reality. All of spirit’s love is always and ever available to us, free and clear, without rules, commandments, rituals or dispensations and in spite of our imagined sins.

“Go within first, seek and heed spirit’s guidance. It always knows and is always willing to love, support and guide. Why struggle so frantically to anticipate all you cannot know, when all knowledge lies behind every decision you allow the still small voice to make for you?  How gracious it is to decide all things through the one power that loves all things equally and alike. It includes everyone and everything, judges not and excludes no one and no thing.

“In everything be led by It, and do not reconsider. Trust It to answer quickly, surely and with love for everyone and everything that will be touched in any way by the decision you are facing. Would you take unto yourself the sole responsibility for deciding what can bring only good to everyone and everything? Could you even know this? Unlearn isolation through spirit’s loving guidance and learn of all the happy communication that you have thrown away but could not lose.”

The Exchange

“The journey that we undertake together, beloveds,” Devorah said to the multitude. “Is the exchange of dark for light, of ignorance for understanding, of hate, blame and fear for love, joy, compassion and creativity. Nothing that you understand aright, as a spiritual being having an earthly experience, is fearful. It is only in darkness and in ignorance that you perceive the frightening and shrink away from it into deeper darkness. Only the hidden can terrify, not for what it is, but for its hiddenness.

“The obscure is frightening because you do not understand it. If you did, it would be clear and you would no longer be in the dark. Nothing can have hidden value for what is hidden cannot be shared, so its value in unknown. The hidden is kept apart, but value always lies in joint appreciation. What is concealed cannot be loved, so it must be feared.

“The quiet light within in which you dwell and which is yourSelf, is perfect openness, in which nothing is hidden and therefore nothing is fearful. Attack will always, always, yield to love if it is brought to love, not hidden from it. There is no darkness that the light of love will not dispel. What is kept apart from love cannot share its healing power.

“Why when all the love, blessings, creativity, miracles, compassion, peace and joy there is await your attention, would you turn from it, deny it and indulge in fear mongering, hate, exclusion, constriction, blame and punishment instead? Stop! Just stop and turn from darkness to light.”

Moore, OK: Punishment or Opportunity?

Malachizer, the High Priest, was a man of traditional beliefs who saw God as a rule bound judge, meeting out justice – rewards and punishment - to the humans below Him. Devorah saw God differently as a benign and loving power. Malachizer would see the devastation at Moore, OK, as God’s will, as some kind of punishment for humankind’s original sin.

“Never ask what you have done to make yourself worthy of God’s gift of life, Malachizer, or what you must do to find favor in His eyes and avoid His wrath. God is but love and life and knows you are worthy of everything. You need not decide whether or not you are deserving, God knows you are.”

Malachizer frowned. “Would you deny the truth of God’s decision and place your pitiful appraisal of yourself and humanity in place of Its calm and unswerving love?” Devorah asked. “Nothing can shake spirit’s conviction of the perfect purity of everything that It created. Do not decide against It. Peace abides in every mind that quietly goes within and accepts the at-one-ment that is its birthright. Go within first, Malachizer. Only go within! You know not of salvation, for your limited ego-bound self can not comprehend it. Make no decisions about Justice, Compassion and Peace on your own with ego, but ask the still small voice within, and leave all decisions to its gentle counsel.”

In Memorium: Moore, OK

As I watched the pictures of the devastation at Moore, OK, and thought of what my brothers and sisters were enduring there my heart broke open and I almost cried. I felt anger too, because this need not have been so fierce, that what happened in Moore, OK, was something we did and are still doing to ourselves, something that we can stop doing, but won’t. How sad!

Yes tornados and hurricanes will come, but their intensity and frequency, the destructiveness and duration we’ve seen in recent years are very likely the result of global climate change. Yet like so many other things – poverty, child and spouse abuse, drone strikes and joblessness – we deny responsibility for what is happening. Perhaps you and I as individuals are not directly responsible, but collectively we are.

Churchill said people get the government they deserve. How sad and how true! Lately what is being done and left undone in our name as Americans makes me ashamed. We do indeed seem to have the best government money can buy. Not so much at the local level, but at the state and federal levels that’s shamefully obvious. Yet we allow it. What goes on is a reflection of our beliefs. It is done unto us as we believe.

The challenge is to help one another release the beliefs and kinds of thinking that have created our present situation. We don’t want to cling to the old rugged cross, we don’t want to do more of the same - blaming, fearing and hating one another. All that’s of the ego. We’ve got to let that kind of feeling, thinking and behaving go. We’ve got to, or it will only get worse! The handwriting’s on the wall, will we heed it?

The enemy’s not out there in the form of the Chinese or al-Qaida, it’s in here, inside us. We have met the enemy and they is us, Pogo said 40 years ago. We don’t need more tanks and aircraft carriers to defend us, we need education, creativity and innovation. Global climate change can be managed. Lives and property can be saved. The billions we spend on defense can, if we have the insight, inner faith, vision and courage, be re-programmed to solve our real challenges, to defend us from what we really need to be defended against – poverty, child and spouse abuse, drone strikes and joblessness, blaming, fearing and hating one another.

The destruction of Moore, OK, can be an opportunity, not for the martyrs who died and suffered there for their and our ‘sins’, but for the rest of us. Let’s do what we can to have fewer Moores, Sandy Hooks and Katrinas. There’s lot’s we can do. Let’s stop doing what we always do - thinking, feeling and behaving with the ego’s pride and hubris, thinking we can build a sand castle that will hold back the tide. Instead, let’s do what we really haven’t given a chance, go within seek the Kingdom first – its compassion, inclusion, love and creativity and go from there. After all, if we always do what we always did, we’ll always get what we always got – Moore 1999, Moore 2013 and Moore…?

Save the Date!

Save this date: July 10 at 6:30 PM. Dr Steve and Devorah will do a reading, book signing and a presentation on Spiritual Technology at Books and Books in Coral Gables.

The Power of Decision

“Beloveds,” Devorah said to the multitude gathered in the oasis. “Each day, each hour and minute, even each second, you are deciding between ego and spirit. In spite of how it seems within the ego illusion, these are the only two choices: ego and spirit, love or hate. They are all and the power of decision is all that you have. There is no overlap between truth and illusion. They are opposites that can not be reconciled for they cannot both be true. You, me and everyone else even the Canaanites, T Partyers, Republicans and Philistines are either guilty or guiltless, bound or free, unhappy or happy.

“Everyone you offer guiltlessness, healing, freedom and happiness to you, returns it. Everyone you attack keeps it and cherishes it by holding it against you. The cost of giving is receiving. Every thought and interaction is another opportunity to replace darkness with light and fear with love. Remember, beloveds, that darkness and fear are nothing but ego illusions and will pass when you look at them clearly with spirit beside you. By giving power to nothing, we throw away the joyous opportunity to learn that nothing has no power. Teach no one that they have hurt you, for if you do, you teach yourself that what is not of spirit has power over you.”