Spirit

Spirit is the "watcher". Spirit is the awareness that I am not my body, and I am not my mind. Of course, the body and mind are attached to me, but until I began to understand this third part, the "watcher", my body and mind were caught up in terrible cycles of all kinds, and without me!
Were you to sit and watch your thoughts, but not get involved with any of them, you could then understand that there is someone who is watching. That someone is YOU. So how could you be your thoughts? We are not our thoughts, but many people are not aware of this, and are so caught up in their minds, that they do not even live in reality. Their minds can be anywhere at anytime, and a person who lives in his mind is rarely, if ever, in the present moment. A person who lives in his mind has little awareness of his surroundings, including other people. A person who lives in his mind, causes his body to feel all sorts of emotions, constantly feeling anger, or elation, and this, many people believe, is the cause of much illness. We can feel all of these strong emotions, our bodies can get tight, our breath quickens, and the only thing going on is the movie in our head.

Just try it! Imagine that your thoughts are like clouds drifting by. Instead of getting on one and taking a ride, just watch it go by. Another one will soon follow, and another, but you just watch and don't let them entice you to get involved. At first, there may be many thoughts, but if you don't stir them up, there will begin to be gaps between them, and with practice, they will stop! Stillness! What is left? YOU. SPIRIT. This is YOUR body, and YOUR mind, not the other way around.

It takes practice and determination, but can be done by anyone! Get to know your SPIRIT!(YOU)

Body/What kind of seeds do YOU plant?

I am not sure how to begin this talk. This is the subject that has had the most profound affect on me, and wanting to share it, I just don't know how to begin. Perhaps the best way is to just go back to the beginning of my experience, so that is what I will do!

A few years ago I went for a massage, and while sitting in the waiting area, I picked up a book on Christianity and thumbed through it. The author and I shared very different idea's about things in general, but this one particular chapter caught my eye. It was, in fact, a chapter devoted to the human eye. The author went into some detail about the human eye, how it reacts to changes in light and distance, how it operates so fast that we don't even notice it. We don't even notice it. The author gave much more detail about the human eye, but by that time, I had gone into sort of a trance. The human eye is more powerful, and a far greater machine than any human or team of humans could make. I immediately began to think "Man can't make an eye ball." It sounds kind of silly to me now, but the thought crept out into everything. Bodily organs, skin, the sense of smell, the ears, animals, pine straw... My close friends can back me up on the fact that one of my favorite sayings became "Man can't even make a piece of pine straw!"
It may be that a great creation of the Universe, the human body, is something that we don't even notice. That's because we have never been without it! We get so used to having eyes and ears, and of being able to walk and move around, that we don't even think about it, it's a given. Building a spaceship to fly to the moon isn't nearly as complex as the simple act of us opening our eyes and getting out of bed.

What we can do is plant seeds. I have begun to ask myself the questions "What kind of seed am I?" and "What kind of seeds do I want to plant today?"

Georgia Kyle Live From The Tybee Church

If you missed hearing me speak at Tybee Church, or if you were there and want to see it again, here are some links for you, and mark your calendars for March 6th, when I return :)

Tybee Church November 21st 2010

Tybee Church January 2nd 2011

The Mind

True prayer that will work, cannot happen inside of a cluttered and unsettled mind. Racing thoughts, anxiety, worries, and resentments, thoughts of great things that will be, thoughts of terrible things that will be, these are all ALWAYS either in the future or the past, and not right here and now. I encounter people every day who are not "present". I encounter people every day who are in a really big hurry, as if they are going to save a dying person, and I know that they are usually going to work, home, or shopping. I also know that when they get wherever they are going, they are going to be in a hurry to get to the next place. It is so easy to fall into the traps of "there, not here" "when, not now", When we get to where we are going, or when we get what we want, we don't even look at it! We focus our attention immediately on the next place or thing. Do you have things that you just had to have, but you never use? I do too.
If your mind isn't quiet, it probably won't quiet down in a minute or two. It is something that can take time, and also practice. I sit every night and take 25 breaths, and practice focusing. I don't take the biggest breaths I can take, but I breath my body. After the 25 breaths, I stop breathing my body and just watch my body breath on its own. During the day, when I notice that I am not "present", I just become present. ATTENTION. FOCUS. I have battled racing thought on and off for most of my life, sometimes It feels like I am taking a beating. My brain just goes and goes, but I find that if I don't get in there with it and push it on, the thoughts will usually go away. I think of it as watching clouds in the sky. I just sit and watch them move by. The less involvement I have with them, the more likely they are to just pass along.
A quiet mind. A sound mind. Relaxation therapy, meditation, yoga, tai chi, walking, soothing music, a good book, anything that will help you quiet your mind, is a good idea. Think of a lake with no ripples. Seek and find ways to calm your mind. When the mind is calm, reasonable, sound, quiet, that is when the Great Spirit can appear. The Divine Mind.
Trust me, I know it isn't easy to learn how not to worry. We have been developing ourselves for years, and this quieting the mind is not such an easy task for some of us. It can require much self examination, perhaps help from a friend or therapist as well. Whatever it takes is what we will do. If what you are doing isn't working, or you want to improve, then you gotta start doing something else.
The Divine Mind, Divine Ideas, Divine Power, Divine Life.

Prayer

"Behold, the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand". God is omnipresent, all through us and all around us. Our breath that happens automatically, our site, our hearing, all of our senses are gifts of Creator SPIRIT. The SPIRIT lives through US, and in that sense, we are all parts of the Creator. I look at all living things as God, and truthfully, if we examine things we would call "dead", we would learn that nothing is "dead". Look at a 2x4 board under a microscope, and see for yourself. Look at a rock of any kind, and see for yourself. Everything is AlIVE and in its own way, a piece of the SPIRIT. The Great Creator.
How we learn to communicate with SPIRIT is of the utmost importance, because in our cultures, and in many cultures, people are many times taught ways of communicating that don't work. Does prayer work for you? Do you have a working relationship with SPIRIT? Do you wish to gain more of a relationship with the Creator?

YOU are a prayer! Your "being" is a prayer. Everything about you is a prayer. Your actions, your feelings, your thoughts, are all prayers. Right now in this moment, we all have LIFE. Skin and bones, eyes and ears, the senses of smell and taste and touch, hearts, lungs, entire organisms called "BODY". Also right here in this moment, we all have "MIND". As a piece of the Creator, we have access to the Divine Mind. We also have "SPIRIT", or energy that we actually emit from ourselves. You may have said or heard statements like: "He/she really gives off a positive vibe", or "When he/she talks to me, he/she is really THERE". We are all attracted to different things, different people, different places, and in upcoming blogs, we are going to talk more about MIND, BODY, and SPIRIT. We will more closely examine prayer, and what it means, and how to build a better, working relationship with the Universe.

Be Satisfied

Recently, one of my Spiritual guides suggested an exercise for me. "Find one thing in your life, and be satisfied with it." He suggested. He then said, "Let yourself FEEL satisfied."
Little did I know, that I was in for a rude awakening. At first it seemed simple enough, so I walked into the back yard, and noticed that the grass needed cutting, bushes needed trimming, and that the garden needed a lot of attention that I don't have time for. "So the back yard won't do", I said to myself. How about my car? "That dirty old thing with the wiring problems and the broken gas gauge?" This went on at every turn, and soon I realized that I had been had. My Spiritual guide was aware, that I wasn't satisfied with anything. Everything needed something fixed or repaired, in order to be better. When I say everything, I mean everything, and everybody, including myself.
Immediately the defenses went up. "I help people every day!" "I do this and that and even have a blog on Spirituality!" "I am supposed to be a teacher!" No matter what I said, the TRUTH was out, and couldn't be avoided. I was unsatisfied with everything and everybody, even myself. I had a negative mind. It felt like I was right back where it all started, but things are much better than when this Spiritual journey began. My health is better, my wife and I get along better, I have been more responsible, I feel better, ??? I was pretty perplexed.
It turns out that though there had been plenty of positive changes in my life, I was still of the same old negative mind, and wasn't enjoying life. I was grumpy, tired and depressed, and it was pretty obvious to my guide, but not to me.
"Look at it." said my guide. "Find one thing in your life, and be satisfied with it." "Feel satisfaction." he said. So, to the back yard I went, for the second time. I sat and looked at the yard. There are two Oak's, eight Pines, lovely wind chimes, two pic-nick tables, we had great Watermelon this year, and also Eggplant, our daughters play house, the family bench that has been passed down to me, and many more things that I really love. I decided that I was going to sit and look at everything that is RIGHT about the yard, and soon I was feeling satisfied, lucky, grateful, and at peace. Feeling satisfied is a great feeling! Much better than the weight of all that needs fixing. Having a pretty full schedule, I never let the grass get out of hand, even in the summer, when it has to be cut every week, so why would I worry about it? I will do it when the time comes, as always.
As the days have gone on, this exercise is all I do. Wherever I go, whoever I am with, I look for what is RIGHT, and I allow myself to feel satisfaction. To feel GOOD. As with everything else, the toughest place to practice is at home, but that is where it has needed practice most.
I urge you to take this exercise into your own life! Everything and everyone is perfect in God's world.
SPIRIT

Our Enlightenment

Please relax.  Our journey towards enlightenment has already begun, and there is nothing we can do about it.  Perhaps we have been on our paths since even before this life-time, and will be after, but let's not concern ourselves with those things. Let us be concerned and meditative on this life as we now exist. The breath is there. The life is there. If you are like many of us, the mind is not there. The mind is somewhere else. Anywhere else but here in the present moment, or even in this day. If we aren't careful, our minds can spend a great deal of time in the past, or in the future. Both are only fantasy lands, made up of our regrets, and fears, and wants. What is real is the present moment. Nothing else is real. The more enlightened we become, the more our minds slow down, and the more we live in the present moment.

It was only after I began to make attempts to slow my mind, that I began to realize how fast it moved.  "How am I going to get the things I want?" "How come things aren't good now, like they were then?" "Why didn't I say this instead of that?" My mind was filled with resentments, old friends and family, what it was going to be like when I "made it", or failed to "make it". It was a speedy, never ending slide show of all sorts of things, that never turned off. 

Enlightenment is to me, simply growing Spiritually. Gaining more and more awareness and truth. An awakening can be just as simple as a realization, it is most times not a "burning bush". We all have breath, and all who has breath is somewhere on the path towards enlightenment, even those who fight against it. 

I strive to become more Spiritually awake, and to help others when I can. Hopefully this on-line home will be a place of success stories. A place where we can help each other along the path. Please feel free to e-mail me or request prayers or topics, and I will gladly respond.

SPIRIT