Living Consciously August 5, 2009

Dear friend,

We live in a universe of visible form and we accept it as self evident. We may wonder how it all happened but we are more interested in manipulating the many forms it takes! The universe may seem like a supermarket of things to be mastered or bought and sold, but to the sages, the universe is a living awareness, an ongoing event more than a place, although it is that, too.

Ernest Holmes, the 29th century spiritual teacher, said that the physical universe is a necessity for Intelligence to be fully realized. In other words, ideas must be made visible to be complete. If ideas stay in the imaginary stage, they are like unfertilized eggs. Daydreaming about a loving relationship or a healthier body or wealthier times, may give us some momentary pleasure, but until we give those qualities substance and form and visibility, they are meaningless.

Our awareness of love, joy, peace, vitality, abundance and creative self expression are clues as to what is “in store” for us; what is held in abeyance in the inner realm of being. The fact that we desire anything is the self evidence of its existence in us, its need to be expressed. What we feel as a longing is a clue to what is moving in us, seeking outlet by means of us. For example, if a loving relationship is what we envision, we have activated love to some degree within ourselves, and it will coalesce and become desire which will evolve into intention which will become action, which will find its natural form as some kind of relationship. That is what love does when it is given the chance to be seen in our personal world. It must first be known as a living event in us.

The same is true of all the qualities of Being which make up the universe. We are not children trying to reach the candy on the shelf of the supermarket. Nothing is out of our reach. Nothing is too good to be true. We are meant to manifest our dreams. That is self evident.

Peace and Blessings,

Rev Carol Carnes

Living Consciously August 6, 2009

Dear friends,

There is a truth to the old saying that a horse will find its way back to the barn even if the rider thinks he is lost. Life has a way of righting itself no matter how far off the path of forward progression we seem to have wandered. There is something within the human mind which calls us to join the evolutionary march from poverty to abundance, from sickness to health, from conflict to love, from sadness to joy.

We are meant to lift ourselves out of limitation into the natural flow of support that our universal self knows how to generate. If we rely on our five senses only, if we think from conditions alone, if we insist that there is nothing real but what we can see, then we are truly lost. However, as Emerson said, the soul will inform us. The voice of hope is the calling back into the stream of love and beauty, health and radiance, joy and celebration, prosperity and peace that is the natural starting point for all new experiences.

The universal aspect of our own consciousness knows how to get back on track. It reveals the way home to the mind that is expectant of an answer. When we are not resisting what is happening at the moment, but recognize that our desire to overcome it is arising out of its very opposite and is knocking at the door of our mind, then we are following the inner wisdom that is our spiritual guidance. For example, when we are sick we desire our natural state of health because it is the norm. When we feel cut off from love we desire to connect with another because that is the way of life, to give and receive love. When we cannot afford the basics because our income has fallen, we desire the flow of abundance because that is natural. These are the evolutionary qualities that keep us growing and becoming and expanding our experience.

Listen to the Inner Self. It is always the voice of possibility.

Peace and Blessings,

Rev Carol Carnes