A Course in Divinity – A Shared Personal Experience | Book View
Some 107 people along with myself participated and I have been sharing my experience as to what has opened up for me during the process.
Font size:
A Course in Divinity – A Shared Personal Experience | Text View
Some of you will know that we made a free trail offer some weeks back for the Course in Divinity - some 107 people along with myself participated and I have been sharing my experience as to what has opened up for me during the process. Many of you have written and shared your experiences and I thank you for the honesty and vulnerability. Susie C is one such and I asked if I could share her experience with you relative to my own experience. You might the comments interesting…
Week One - Prosperity
So, how was it for you? Prosperity - well, that has brought up some interesting stuff and it certainly became my theme for the week. I came to see how many times a day I feel what I call, 'the clench' a tightening in the gut - initially, I saw it in relation to spending money, the mind pulling me into smallness - it happens in the shops, looking for cheaper gas for the car, in the office dialing a mobile phone number - it sort of lies just below the surface of my mind, an insidious distrust and pettiness and if I am truthful, is frequently present. After noticing the more obvious I started to see that it was also present in my personal interactions, my holding back, not being truthful, not being gracious or generous with others, particularly with my time, being too busy, not giving my attention, listening, or caring - I saw how much I am in a cocoon of protection mode. Just not allowing any sense of prosperousness and certainly not providing the universe with any motivation to be generous with me.
Having brought me to discovering what I was not, the Universe then used the weekend to show me the other side of the coin. On Sunday, we had an invitation to a BBQ to meet a Greek Orthodox Priest who is working with children and victims of the civil war in Africa, in Sierra Leone. We are associated through our own charity work in Indonesia and being 'Paradise Kids for Asia'. Father Themi represents 'Paradise Kids for Africa' and was visiting Australia to raise funding for his new school in Freetown. Firstly, in chatting with him he made the comment about the virtual reality of the world that we live in Australia - a bubble completely insulated from the pain and poverty experienced by 90% of the world. As if to demonstrate the point some 60 people - mostly families with children were treated to an absolutely stunning feast that would have fed all Fr. Themi's children for a month. When he showed us the new DVD of his activities every person present, particularly the children were humbled by what this one man is seeking to do. In spite of the huge problems facing him, this devout man in complete humility demonstrated an air of prosperity due to his total trust and belief in God. It was awesome to be in his presence and to witness.
When I look at lack and poverty and pain and suffering I ask why is this happening? And I then I came to see a really interesting truth. On a TV show, a seemingly unrelated puzzle was solved when the comment was made to, "look behind the picture". It stuck in my mind and gave me the clue.
What if the lack I am being shown in the world, in me and in the suffering of others has a purpose - behind the obvious is my gift - in what I see lies the invitation to feel - for me to open my heart, to feel my compassion and my empathy and of course, to be generous - to demonstrate my prosperity. It's not so much about helping others have an easier experience; it's about recognizing the gift they bring to me that opens me to love. I cannot move out of lack and into wholeness until I feel my love and that's where I have been stifling my prosperity - in my unwillingness to hold the expression of love throughout my everyday activities. I have allowed my mind through fear of lack to pull me off centre into smallness, into a poverty mentality rather than being filled with generosity, not just relating to money but in all aspects including, the really BIG ONE, my relationship with God.
For a first lesson, this has been a great start. Because I opened myself through affirmation and intention the universe showed me exactly what I needed to know. The mind may not change, but now I see, I have the freedom to choose to acknowledge the power of prosperity and love in my life in every moment.
Was it this good for you too? I do hope that you have uncovered similar depths during this week - Now onto the week two, hmmm! I wonder where that will lead me?
Blessings, Raj
Hi Raj
I've just now for the 2nd time read your personal 'Prosperity' document and felt impelled to share my own.
I had a wonderful loving relationship and respect 9my spiritual practice) for God which continues to deepen every day that continually brings me great peace and joy and courage and more...prosperity itself. I frequently journal in a mild meditative state and wonderful profound conversation, teachings, support often poor forth upon the page.
This is what was shared with me last week while studying Prosperity.
"All people have been awakening to the Divinity of who they truly are, yet at this time, as you know, there are many roads and all roads lead to Home. Currently there are a wide variety of ways to evolve through the ascendant levels of awareness/consciousness such as religions and Reiki (which I have practiced for some years now) being some.
As each individual ascends from 1 level to another, the old ways simply hold less and less value and off they go seeking new direction/answers. Eventually they find something to add to that which they already have, transcend the old ways and beliefs and ascend to new levels of consciousness. Moving on does not discredit the value of the old path held for you as it did open portals of consciousness for the seeker, yourself, where you became ready to further expand consciously.
Again one must deepen their faith and leap. Leaping with faith is a wonderful message of inspiration to follow new paths in broader, deeper, higher conscious awareness.
Those who hold open portals of consciousness seemingly holding themselves from further awakening, hold great service for those of the lower realms of consciousness. It is a gift to humanity who still hold to old 'traditions' in order for those still bound to the sacredness or safety of 'tradition' to find their faith and leap into broader awareness.
Do not feel pity or judgment for those yet to pass through different portals on the path of ascension. The blessing is that you have left beyond old ways and your consciousness has expanded and now the blessing for them is that you are an example of what another may achieve with faith. There blessing to you is to show that you have moved."
Raj, I have struggled for some time to move on from the professional Reiki association of which I was a member, which I no longer felt aligned with or an affinity for. Only yesterday I was offered the opportunity to express those feelings clearly and concisely. I drew upon the prosperity of divine guidance that is infinite and ever present, during the conversation, and was finally able to do so. While I'm not sure of the outcome of my outpouring I do know that it is divinely guided and will be for the highest good of all, and I have made my decision to move forward on my own terms.
Prosperity for me has shown me how to value myself, my own needs, desires, integrity, ethics, vision, passion, and to be heard, and to trust I will be given that opportunity, and as you can see from the text above I was able to find understanding and compassion for those not yet willing to move forward with me..move forward yet hold compassion for those left behind, to see the bigger picture.
I've recently finished reading The Way of The Heart and currently moving through the process of 'Releasing others from the box...'. Are you smiling? I certainly am.
I am at a place of quantum leap as so many areas of my life change and grow as the veil of illusion fall away and I am grateful.
Thank you sincerely for all that Suz and yourself do through your Divine service. Thank you for this wonderful opportunity to share and grow.
Love and Light through Surrender - Susie C
Week Two - Conscious Spiritual Self-Realization for Success
I wonder how your week was for you? In this Lesson Two there are a couple of real things I am noticing in me - the first is that I wish that he would get over seeking to mollify people and use just the word God with love! How can I truly embrace My Father unless I call Him by name? Yet even in the witnessing of this 'wish' there must be a 'hook' for me, I wonder what that is all about?
The second that struck a cord was the bottom couple of lines on the first page, actually the answer to question five. I know this to be true for I witness it continuously. If we take the 'subconscious mind' to also be the home of the emotions then there is no doubt that what I am expressing emotionally is transmitting itself to all around me and that alone influences my experience.
I find it also perfect that simultaneous to working with this 'Course in Divinity" I am working with Living Values Education that promotes twelve core values as being intrinsic to all humanity - discovering how many and how much of each of them I am truly living is an awakening in itself.
I had a sneak preview of this coming week's lesson and it too relates to 'Success'. Now what is interesting to me in all this is the LAW OF ATTRACTION. I am putting this in capitals because it truly deserves to be there. I am recognising the full magnitude of this Law at this time, how is it for you I?
Amazing that 'coincidently' to both this lesson and the next one, I am getting a real awakening to my 'need' for success - ironically it is not money driven but no less powerful and damaging - probably a mother issue and very potent. I see how I am drawn to do the best, strife harder, work more, as Suz is happy to point out - and for why? To secure my safety - which is to gain approval and get love, completely fear driven! Small wonder then that such much 'effort' receives so little notice.
It was the sentence starting page two which brought up the next twinge - "inwardly aware and outwardly successful" I seem to have the 'outwardly' bit down pat and yet the first and most important part has eluded me. I am only half way there. True awareness, the complete, total recognition and willingness to deal with emotional issues rising from the depths of my being - past associations and memories and all the 'feelings" attached to them, I have carefully avoided - I feel that this is about to change!
Now that I becoming aware of the importance, I ask for help - I know that I cannot do this alone I know that prayer is the key and that English interpretation of the Jayem's Aramaic Lord's Prayer - just the first few lines repeats from me now through the day -
"Father Mother of the Cosmos, shimmering Light of All.
Focus your light within me as I breathe Your Holy breath.
Enter the sanctuary of my heart, uniting within me Your Power and Beauty.
Let Your Heart's desire unite Heaven and Earth in our Holy union…etc."
For me this is the most important part for it calls forth from me my Willingness and my Surrender. This prayer signifies my desire and invokes the LAW of ATTRACTION even more dramatically showing me in every moment now that everything around me - my body, relationships, the people in my life, the situations, are showing me who and what I am - and some of that, in truth quite a bit, is not that desirable or pretty.
So whatever is happening keep going - this is a grand adventure unfolding.
'Thank You' to all those of you who have written and shared from your hearts, it was interesting and enlightening to read your comments. Be open to whatever comes up for, if like me you are probably not where you want to be, all you want to be then like me there must come the knowing that given enough desire, incentive and momentum, everything can change. Maybe doing this Course is the fulcrum we all need?
Blessings, Raj
Hi Raj
I just love this sharing of our experiences - thanks for the opportunity!
My experiences re Success at present are wonderful! I've come to understand over the past 6 -8 months that I more and more focus on the positive, see the silver lining behind every cloud, understand there is always choice.
After you called me Saturday afternoon which was a real treat, and I shared with you my concerns in regards my professional membership with my healing profession, today I took the bull by the proverbial horns and applied for new membership with an international association.
God gave me directive some months ago as this professional membership body actually contacted me, however I had yet to find enough faith to leap. Your gift of this course provided me with the impetus and faith in the partnership of Oneness of myself and God to act today. I sat today, read everything, filled in the details, scanned and attached qualifying certificates, paid by credit card and within 1/2 hour had a positive response with full response and membership within the next 3 days. It was so easy.....and I am fully qualified, fully insured and all my needs are met and supported.
Of course they always are. It is me/my experience that has changed. There will always be new roads to walk down or up or over or beyond but my focus has shifted to here and now, and that brings me the future I dream of. The joy is in the now and not projected into the future, governed by happiness of the success at the end of a path. I feel the joy and I AM the Joy.
Thank you also for sharing AJ's upcoming event in Bracken Ridge. I shall attend with a friend who lives further north than Bracken Ridge which gives each of us the opportunity for additional successes together and opportunity to reconnect.
I've also noticed the whole Universe is guiding me - synchronicity between dreams and reality and so much more....
Love Light and Peace through Surrender - Susie C
Week Three - HowTo Put Action Behind Your Meditations for Success and Happiness
What a week - some significant breakthroughs, real life ones at that. I believe this whole lesson based on ideas, their source, my call to action and my degree of fear that regulates whether or not I respond and as a consequence, am successful is an essential understanding necessary in my life right now. For a long time now I have experienced the sense of disappointment in that much of the ideas and concepts that I undertake, have undertaken in my life has not eventuated as I would have desired. I wondered why?
A discussion last Sunday with a very aware teacher - we'll call him AJ here on Australia's Gold Coast brought me to realization of the emotions that lie behind so many of my actions or, non-actions in some cases and in particular, non-follow through and fragmenting off to another venture. I also came to understand that my presentation of what I do and represent is very important to me - why is that?
I realize from our lesson that I am often untrusting in the initial idea, its source, its success and therefore have to make everything really beautiful to 'persuade' someone to believe in it. It seldom makes any difference. On the 'odd' occasion that I fully embrace an idea, like for instance, our Karuna Bali adventure, maybe when I truly know in my heart that it did not come from me and I TRUST then no matter how I present it, it takes off with me barely able to hang on and keep up. It has no choice because it is driven by something, a dynamic much greater that me or anything I could do to help it on its way. Lesson three really brought that home for me.
The final key….on Wednesday I had a emotional journey which had me re-live my birth experience and in the physical demonstration I got to see how I respond - the inability to breathe and stay open to what God is bringing to me. I discover that my real issue is "Self-reliance" which I always considered a virtue and which I now discover is turning away from God in the egoic pattern of doing it all by myself. How clever …and how stupid is that?
Thanks for letting me share - so onto the next…… Blessings, Raj
Hi Raj
I love the lessons and the insights and the practices but the sharing is like a warm comforting embrace from God.
Through the course of Lesson 3 I came to understand the 'crumbs' of everything I had granted myself over the years. When, in the Oneness of our Creator, we can achieve the 'whole cake' because our lives become not about us but of our union with God, our faith that everything is possible, that success abounds when we truly have faith and believe....
Crumbs in personal friendships, where I always overgave and overdid, crumbs in abundance, when I gave so much away and felt guilty for having, crumbs in career, clients, abundance because 'I didn't really need the income, or 'I wasn't clever enough', or 'others needed it more than I', well you get the picture. A great sadness fell over me for a day or so, and I truly felt immense compassion for my self. I found the Godness within me, my own true essence and value and worth. I saw myself through the eyes of God. Now more than ever before, hand in hand with my Creator, not waiting for permission or approval, I open myself to His Divine intervention and co-creation.
It's makes me chuckle inside to witness this change and healing.
A funny thought I just had is that of late I have been overeating but now that I'm no longer just giving myself crumbs energetically, my appetite will be readily satisfied with regular meals, and of course this is part of Lesson 4. The energy of life rolls on with ease.
Abundant Gratitude and Blessings, Susie C
Thanks for letting us share this journey with you. Maybe we'll have to do this again some time and for those of you who are doing the Course with us - congratulations.
del.icio.us |
Digg
Email to a friend
Print version
Dare to Shine,
Susie
Post your comment