Empty hands, open mind and heart

“This is difficult to believe,” Devorah said. “And it’s similar to the radical shift in belief and perspective I shared a few posts ago. But Heaven itself is reached with empty hands and open minds, which come with nothing to find everything. This means holding everything lightly even our most sacred laws, cherished beliefs and ideals.

“To do violence in God’s name and in the name of your most cherished beliefs and ideals is not only hypocritical and absurd, it is to do violence not only to those cherished ideals, but to ourselves and our reality as one with the power we call ‘God.’ God does not require us to defend him or worship him in certain arcane ways. God is not Zeus. God is an invisible power within us, reflected in our desire for love, compassion, peace, mercy, inclusion and joy.

“The fear of God is in truth the fear of ourselves and our constant misuse of the power we call ‘God.’ Heaven itself is real and within each of us right now, even within the sinners, perverts and evil-doers, and is reached by releasing the interferences to Its presence within us, judging not, and remembering Its benign and loving reality. Release the ego thought system you clutch so tightly and your empty hands become free to receive Heaven’s gifts.”

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Apply When Tempted to Deny!

“Apply, when tempted to deny!” Devorah said, grinning at her neat turn of phrase. “When tempted to see yourself as a victim of something or someone outside you, believing your change of mood is due to anything other than the power of your mind, turn within and claim the power of your mind and with it the oneness with the power we call ‘God’. When tempted to hold a grievance, feel victimized or blame (even yourself), not only do you deny your mind’s power to upset you, you also deny its power to make you whole and peaceful. The mind’s power is returned to you when you remember to think: ‘I loose the world from all I thought it was, and choose my own reality instead….’ Apply when tempted to deny!”

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Devorah (and Harmony-Quest Publications) are seeking a part time Marketing Director/Consultant.

The position includes your photo on the Staff page of the HQPubs.com website. Pay negotiable at an hourly rate. Ten hours a week minimum. Will need to read the book and have some marketing experience, be open-minded and creative. Apply here with preferred hourly rate and phone number.
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Seek Not to Change the World, But to Change You Mind About the World, Four of Four

“This is going to be a radical one today,” Devorah said. “But Love is not silent and unheard. Be quiet and still but for an instant and you will hear it and you will know the truth. Not one note of Heaven’s song has been missed. Believe this, not the ego. Choose truth, not illusion and you will experience truth, not illusion. Know that each moment and hour and day can be an opportunity to hear God’s song and know the truth of who you (and everyone and everything else) is by bringing the illusion to the truth. Do not seek to change the world, but to change your mind about the world.”
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Seek Not to Change the World, But to Change Your Mind About the World, Three of Four

Seek Not to Change the World, But to Change You Mind About the World, Three of Four

“This is going to be a radical one today,” Devorah said. “Were you quiet and still but for an instant, you would hear the soundless melody that pours from God to you eternally in loving praise of what you are. But you are not quiet nor still. You listen to the raucous shrieks of the ego.  How can the power we call ‘God’ reach you when it is your ego’s specialness to which you listen, and which asks and answers, drowning out the vast song of honor and love for what you are and making it seem silent and unheard?

 

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Seek Not to Change the World, But to Change You Mind About the World, Two of Four

“This is going to be a radical one today,” Devorah said. “The self you made and take to be real is not the child of the power we call ‘God’. Therefore, this self does not exist. And anything it seems to do and think means nothing. It is neither bad nor good. It is unreal, and nothing more than that. It does not battle with you, cannot hurt you, cannot turn eternal sinlessness into sin, nor love to hate. What power can the self you made have when it would seek to contradict the power we call ‘God’? 

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Don't Change the World, Change Your Mind About the World, One of Four

“This is going to be a radical one today,” Devorah said. “Not about changing the world, for the world is an illusion, but about changing our minds about the world; not about praying to the power we call ‘God’ to make things better here, but praying to know the world is an illusion and bring that illusion to the truth.” Devorah sighed. “Simply listen and consider what I say. In quiet receive the word of God today. Don’t try to figure it out for what we figure with is part of the illusion.
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Is God Inclusive or Exclusive? Part Two of Two

“The power we call ‘God’ is always and only benign, inclusive, compassionate, joyous, peaceful and loving,” Devorah said. “Our experiences to the contrary arise from a mistaken identification with the ego, the idea that we are solitary individuals, separated from God. We fear losing our individuality so we cling to our specialness and grievances. But what if when we have faith in this benign power, get our bloated nothingness out of Its way, let go and let God, we don’t disappear into God to be lost, but to be found…?”

 

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Is God Inclusive or Exclusive? Part One of Two

“The power we call God is always and only benign, inclusive, compassionate, joyous, peaceful and loving,” Devorah said. “It is who we are. It is us, and we are It. No one and no thing is excluded from Its blessings – neither Christian nor Jew, Republican nor Democrat, gay nor straight. All are equal in Its eyes. No one and no thing is better or more special.

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ALL things

“‘Wanting’,” Devorah said, “is a judgment about your life that says something is lacking and you’re dissatisfied. Thinking like that is back asswards. To have a life of joy, health and abundance, feel joy, health and abundance, not lack, want and limitation. Cultivating feelings of gratitude, shifts your energy to acceptance and appreciation. ALL of life is a gift, whether it appears to be or not. ALL things contribute to our well being and growth whether they appear to or not. Therefore, include ALL things in your gratitude.”

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Mindfulness: Part Three of Three

“Self awareness and mindfulness allow Self awareness. Realizing that you are not alone and the victim of forces beyond your control, but rather part of something much greater – an evolutionary progression of both integrative and disintegrative process, frees you from your story and its seemingly automatic, programmed conditioned responses. You are the thinker, not the thought. You are spirit, and spirit is free, un-programmed and unconditioned. You can re-write your story. Be mindful of who and what you are. Stop settling for crumbs when you can have your cake and eat it, too!”
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Mindfulness: Part Two of Three

“We seem to have an instantaneous reaction to an event, but perhaps you’ve noticed that there’s actually a brief window of time between the event and the emotion, during which we assign meaning and create an explanation. Being aware of this window allows us to choose. Will we react as we always have or will we pause then consciously choose what we want to feel? Will you re-enact your story, or will you choose to modify it? Do you want to assign meaning with yourself or yourSelf?”
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Mindfulness: Part One of Three

Devorah smiled. “Our emotions are not generated by what we experience, but rather by the meaning we assign to what we experience. Even so-called evil negative things like cancer or war can be perceived as opportunities for growth. Experience itself is neutral. What we tell ourselves about it, is not. Our story determines the meaning. Change your story, change the meaning and the experience changes.
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Building Spiritual Muscle

“And please remember, this is a process, a never ending process. Know that each time you’re tempted to believe in, honor and serve the ego’s idols of darkness and fleeting passions is an opportunity to choose yourSelf instead. Ask to see things differently, with yourSelf instead of yourself.

 “Doing this, asking to see things differently, is a discipline that builds spiritual muscle. And the more you do it, the stronger that muscle becomes. Rather than seeing the world as the ego sees it - a dark trial between life and death with brief periods of peace and joy with death being inevitable, see it as a classroom in which you can learn who you really are, awaken from the ego’s nightmare and feel and share your reality, true love, compassion and glory with everyone and everything you encounter.”

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Shabby Reality?

“Consider the arbitrary shabbiness of what we have accepted as reality – honor, fame, fortune, glory, guilt, war, fear, cancer, judgment, punishment – when instead we could accept the gifts of Spirit – the peace that passeth understanding, perpetual never ending blessings, eternal love and oneness with all that is,” Devorah said.

“We have chosen graven images, earthly idols that we ourselves have made, in place of ourSelves, what we could never make, but nonetheless are.  Please let go of the shabby substitutes given by the ego! Experience them as the arbitrary worthless idols they are. Let go of your grievances against yourself and others. You are as God created you! Fear not that you will lose yourself and disappear into nothingness. Go through this fear and terror and acknowledge your Identity, and you will indeed disappear, but into your Self, not to be lost, but to be found!”

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The Ego's Revenge

“Humanity’s greatest spiritual teachers and metaphysicians have told us the world and our experience of it is an illusion,” Devorah said. “That there’s something greater, a greater Reality than our everyday thinking allows us to perceive and we can turn to It, and use It to guide and enlighten us instead of the ego.

“A first step to moving toward the greater benign Reality is to question what we take to be reality now, and to see our so-called reality as arbitrary, as merely a set of subjective, capricious psycho/social conventions. But beware, when we begin doing this, tho the rewards are great, when we violate its arbitrary rules, the ego is threatened, becomes vicious and attacks with a range of things from an itch to cancer, so that we hastily retreat to the safety of our habitual ways.”

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Illusions, last of three

“Would the benign loving power we call ‘God’ really want It’s children and It’s creation thought of in this way? No! Thus this idea (that how we treat one another and creation may not be ‘God’s’ will) shows the arbitrary illusory nature of our perceptions and beliefs about ‘reality’. So, starting with this understanding (about the arbitrary nature of our perceptions and beliefs about ‘reality’) enables us to perceive them as illusions, not facts, and move beyond them to the greater Reality that is the Source of all beliefs, perceptions and experience.”

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Illusions, part two of three

“It’s difficult to go directly from how we’re thinking now (our everyday ego based reality) to the idea that it’s an illusion, a mere shadow of the greater benign Reality behind it. A first step to moving toward the greater benign Reality is to question what we take to be reality now, and to see our so-called reality as arbitrary, as merely a set of subjective, capricious psycho/social conventions.

“For example, is it true that a certain set of rituals is more pleasing to God than another set; that the ‘chosen’ and ‘God-given’ set of rituals will bring us a better life and keep us from hell; and that those who do not follow the ‘chosen’ and ‘God-given’ rituals will not only be damned but are our sworn enemies determined to convert and destroy us? It this really God’s will, or a set of arbitrary cultural subjective, capricious psycho/social conventions? 

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Illusions, first of three parts

“Our greatest spiritual teachers and metaphysicians have told us that the world and our experience of it is an illusion,” Devorah said. “Tho our everyday ego based reality denies this, I have experienced it and you probably have, too. The usefulness of this idea (that the world and our experience of it is an illusion) lies in the fact that if this is true and it is, then there’s something greater, a greater Reality than our everyday thinking allows us to perceive and we can turn to It, and use It to guide and enlighten us instead of the ego.
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Both/and Thinking

“I’m a big believer in ‘both/and’ thinking instead of ‘either/or’ thinking,” Devorah said. “Of including, tolerating, and accepting instead of excluding, judging and blaming. The fear, hatred and competitiveness we experience (even within ourselves) are the fruits of ‘either/or’ thinking. Our experience of living would be different and better if we used more ‘both/and’ thinking.

“And yet, ‘either/or’ is essential in one crucial respect. We must decide whether we’re spirit or ego. We can’t be both. They are mutually exclusive states. We and everyone and everything else is either spirit or ego. It seems as if we can be both and our experience vacillates between both because we haven’t made the tough decision about what our fundamental nature is.

“Both/and thinking, inclusion, tolerance, peace and joy flow from a decision to identify with our Self, with spirit. Either/or thinking, exclusion, intolerance, hate, fear, and ‘my way or the highway thinking’ flow from identifying with the ego self.

“Unfortunately when you look around at the wars, pain, suffering, exclusion, hate, blame and environmental degradation, it’s clear we’ve chosen to identify with the ego. But that choice is a mistake and can be undone. Each time you’re tempted by ego to hate, blame, fear, worry, judge, punish and exclude, realize that it’s either/or, self or Self and choose Self. Each time. It’s a never ending process because the ego is the world’s default. But, the more you choose spirit, the more spirit becomes the default.

“What are you choosing right now? Think about it. The power is yours to use. You’re not a robot. How are you using your power? How’s that working for you? If it’s a mistake, let it go and choose differently. It’s not as difficult as you think and the results will be amazing!”

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