(This is Part 1 in a series.)
It's good to remember this little thing...
The inner is senior to the outer.
Our experience of reality, our happiness and security, is far more dependent upon our inner consciousness than it is upon our external situations.
And our experience of reality, in turn, is composed 100% of how we perceive it. Our perception of reality—that is, the paradigm or lens throuugh which we're looking at it—determines everything. And then, as a kind of side-bonus, external reality also transforms.
A beneficent, peaceful and joyous perception of reality can be greatly facilitated by using your PAL—that is,
Praising, Affirming and Listening—which I offer in lieu of whatever might be better. It is discussed in more detail in Heaven here and now on this website.
The first step is simply to praise God, in whatever form feels right to you. You can praise reality, praise existence, praise Allah, praise the Buddha-nature—whatever. It doesn't matter, it's all the same thing anyway. What does matter is that we begin praising.
Praising reality opens us up to it, stops us from arguing with it, helps us fall in tune with the inner song, the inner harmony of existence, which we then see everywhere—knowing finally that the internal and the external are the same thing because there's only one thing.
Praising what? And how in the world can I praise God or reality or whatever if I'm having a stressful time or if the world is having a stressful time?
If you're having a difficult or stressful time, then I suggest approaching this as a scientist would. That is, conduct an experiment, let's say for 30 days. For 30 days go around praising God in detail and see what happens. Like this:
Praise God for these green trees.
Praise God for my existence, for my being able to be here.
Praise God for this beautiful darkening sky.
Praise God for this car that is moving me.
Praise God for this world and all the people in it.
Praise God for the animals and for all life.
Praise God for this flower in front of me.
Praise God for my problems.
Praise God for my whole past history.
Praise God for You.
Praise God for Me.
Praise God for reality being just how it is.
Praise God for this beautiful dark sky.
Praise God for the lights in the darkness.
Praise You, praise You, praise You.
Like that. Of course, modify it to incorporate however God or Reality or Buddha-nature is showing up in front of you—whether that seems "good" or "bad."
The second step is to get together a life-affirming set of affirmations and work them for a few minutes each day. I used to think affirmations were a lot of rah-rah bullshit, but I was wrong. They are so important, so powerful.
They help to guide our thoughtstream in ways that are life-affirming. Our thoughtstream, our way of taking to ourself, in turn has a lot to do with how we feel.
The mind wants to coalesce around central things, it appears to have a great desire to do that. If we give it life-affirming things to condense around, it's perfectly happy to do that. Otherwise, the mind has a tendency to condense around negative thoughts. This hyper-focus upon the negative then distorts reality.
Good affirmations simply restore some balance, so that we can see more clearly into reality. As good affirmations condense inside you, you will indeed have the sensation that the affirmations represent reality better than what you were thinking before. Examples:
I love every moment of my beautiful life.
I appreciate every aspect of reality.
I feel peaceful, grateful and joyful.
I have fallen in love with life-as-it-is.
I surrender to the inner beauty of life.
Some examples of specific ones, which can be tailored to more specific purposes:
I enjoy abundance and prosperity in my life.
I help and assist others however I can.
I love and enjoy my harmonious family.
I consistently do things that increase my health.
I have a wonderful work that pays wonderfully.
And perhaps ending with something like this:
I appreciate the divine within all people.
I appreciate the divine within all life.
I appreciate the divine within my life.
I appreciate the divine within all existence.
Don't be concerned if an affirmation seems to contradict your experience of reality right now. It will until it doesn't. It'll contradict reality right up until the moment that the two seem to merge.
And of course, don't keep checking to see how it's doing, whether it's "working" or not. If you plant a seed in the ground, do you dig it up every day to see how it's doing? Would you pull on the grass to make it grow faster? No. The seed has "underground" work to do, and so do your life-vibrations.
Just make a list and spend several minutes each day reading the list over a few times. And just keep on, in great faith that reality—including "yours" and "mine"—
is always happening exactly as it's supposed to.
(This is the end of Part 1. Go to Part 2.)
—jim sloman, 4.2.04 for Nov 14
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