Day 6: 40 Day Abundance Meditations -- Mixed Blessings

Day 6:  My inner supply instantly and constantly takes on form and experience according to my needs and desires, and as the Principle of Supply in action, it is impossible for me to have any needs or unfulfilled desires.*

I've been dreading this meditation because I never fully understand it.  Maybe you'll do me the favor of commenting on it and sharing your understanding with me.  Since we'll cycle through this full series of ten meditations four times, we'll have an opportunity to extract all the juice from it.

Let me stall for a minute by telling you a little bit about how this series has worked for me in my life.  I am doing the series now for the, oh, I'd say about the 10th time conservatively.  Every time I've done it, long about day 12 I experience profound demonstrations of abundance.  Sometimes the demonstrations take the form of good ol' money:  people or institutions that have owed me money for years and I've given up on suddenly pay me back.  Or debts are forgiven.  Or angels come forward to pay for things I thought I was going to have to shoulder myself.  Sometimes it's a step removed from money but very financially tangible:  I get job offers; I get paid travel opportunities.  Sometimes it's apparently abundant but not in a financial way:  I forgive someone and feel love flood my heart; long lost friend reappears; health returns.   

Other times, the abundance feels less good in the short run:  I'm able to give up a nasty habit I've long depended upon; I feel better (I feel grief, loneliness, loss and fear better before I feel joy, love and hope).

For me, while you may be on Day 6 of this program, I am actually on day 16 (I cheated and got the jump on you: deal with it).  Right now my "abundance" is coming in the form of my telling my boss yesterday that I'm taking a 30 day sick leave on the advice of a doctor starting Friday.  

Which brings me back to the meditation:  "My inner supply instantly and constantly takes on form and experience according to my needs and desires."  We've learned from the previous meditations that my supply is inner.  We've learned that is in exhaustible.   Now we hear that the way this supply gets shaped into real world stuff ("form and experience") is through my needs and desires.  The picture of the messy child at the top is instructive:  babies express their needs and desires loudly and clearly.  Sometimes they want to take their food and pour it all over their head--and their inner supply says, as it always does, "yes!"  The baby does not then balk at the food on the head.  He sits comfortably in it.  You and I may be more likely to pour food on our head and then scream "I need a shower!  why is there food on my head!"

This meditation reminds us to be careful what we want or need and to be grateful when it happens.  If Spirit always says yes, then we can say yes back through gratitude.  And we can change our mind and put our food in our stomachs next time.

*If you are just joining our show in progress, meditate on this for 15 minutes today.  You can start the meditations any day, don't worry about the day it says it is, but then do it for 40 days.  At any time you can look ahead or behind and see how it works by going to this link:  How to do the 40 day Meditation Program

Day 5: 40 Day Abundance Meditations -- Unlimited Supply

Money is not my supply.  No person, place or condition is my supply.  My knowledge of the all-providing activity of the Divine Mind within me is my supply.  My consciousness of this Truth is unlimited; therefore, my supply is unlimited.

Today's is one of my favorites:  “money is not my supply.  No person, place or condition is my supply.”  This means that my supply is not my job, my spouse, the federal government, the state government, my parents, or my Great Great Aunt Minerva whose will I’m supposed to be in.  None of these people are my supply. 

“My knowledge of the all-providing activity of the Divine Mind within me is my supply.”  So again, it’s my knowledge of this activity that is itself my supply.  The word knowledge suggests perhaps that it requires study and attention rather than simply awareness in order to create supply.

But how much time do I give to the study of Divine Mind?  Compare that to what time I give other pursuits.  I’m fond of saying that I don’t have time for something.  Yet, periodically, I’m challenged by my spiritual mentors to do an analysis of where I spend my time.  I sit down and do a time diary (kind of like a food diary only less delicious) for the day or the week.  When I do this, I often discover that I fritter away great numbers of hours reading and responding to emails (and increasingly Facebook and other social media).  I may spend time watching tv, standing in line at Starbucks or fantasizing about things that don’t serve me. 

The question then becomes, what would it be like if I devoted some percentage of that time instead to meditation?  What would it be like if I devoted it to writing or thinking about or increasing my knowledge and consciousness of the Divine Mind within me.

*If you are just joining our show in progress, meditate on this for 15 minutes today.  You can start the meditations any day, don't worry about the day it says it is, but then do it for 40 days.  At any time you can look ahead or behind and see how it works by going to this link:  How to do the 40 day Meditation Program

Day 4: 40 Day Abundance Meditations

Through my consciousness of my Godself, the Christ within, as my Source, I draw into my mind and feeling nature the very substance of Spirit.  This substance is my supply, thus my consciousness of the Presence of God within me is my supply.*

As I turn my attention to the Christ within, I'm glad that Hannukah ended last night.  What is the Christ within?  For me it continues to be that part of myself that is connected to all of Creation.  It is that part of me that knows unconditional love and loves unconditionally--the part that cried over my morning paper yesterday at the thoughts of the slaughter of those innocent children and the violence that permeates our society, our consciousness.  There is no violence in the Christ within.  There is only peace and love.  There is no violence or judgment or anger just a very open heart.

This morning I read a New York Times article printed in the Sacramento Bee (on Sunday we get both papers and often I find that allows my husband and me to read the same article simultaneously--it's nice when it happens like that).  The article was about evangelical Christians in North San Diego County protesting the teaching of yoga throughout their local public school system.

Leaving aside the headline "School Yoga Class Draws Fire From Conservatives" coupled with a picture of first-graders lying on the floor (an unfortunate juxtaposition of metaphor and photo given recent events), the article interested me.  I was particularly drawn to the words of Mary Eady, an Evangelical parent of a first-grader, to wit "They're not just teaching physical poses, they're teaching children how to think and how to make decisions.  They're teaching children how to meditate and how to look within for peace and for comfort.  They're using this as a tool for many things beyond just stretching."

My first reaction was, isn't this consistent with the teachings of Christ?  Psalm 46:10 Be still and know that I am God.  Granted this is the old testament, but Christ, good Jew that he was, believed it and many people consider this one of the most instructive verses of the Bible.  Yet, I must remind myself as I look to that Christ within, it is not for me to judge how someone else wants to raise her child or protect her child or whether she believes that yoga and Christ are compatible.  I think they are, but I'm not the mother.

Reading the paper can bring a lack of peace and a lack of consciousness of that self.  My charge today is look within and know that my very consciousness of the presence of God within me is my supply.  That's a very exciting and liberating thought.  In a way, it is not God that is the Supply but my Consciousness of God that it is the Supply--I must cultivate it.

*If  you are just joining our show in progress, meditate on this for 15 minutes today.  You can start the meditations today or tomorrow.  At any time you can look ahead or behind and see the rest or print them by going to this link:  How to do the 40 day Meditation Program

Day 3: 40 Day Abundance Meditations

I am conscious of the Inner Presence as my lavish Abundance.  I am conscious of the constant activity of this Mind of infinite Prosperity.  Therefore, my consciousness is filled with the Light of Truth.*

This one really always rocks my world.  This says that the Inner Presence (my sense of a higher self, my sense of the divine, the part of me that knows better, the part of me that sings when I see a beautiful painting or sunset) IS my lavish abundance.  There is constant activity in the Mind of universe and it is prosperous.  I can see prosperity in the infinite sand on the beach, the infinite stars in the sky in the multiplicity of species of animals and plant life.  When I put my attention to this Inner Presence, or, more accurately, whether or not I do, my consciousness is filled with the Light of Truth.

This means to me that whether or not I focus on it, my consciousness is always filled with the light of truth.  Light of Truth means to me that which shines itself upon me and pushes the stories I tell myself away.  Truth knows the difference between the story I tell myself about how I am trapped, or a victim, or being disrespected or overlooked and the reality of my being 100% in the love of the Divine every moment of every day.  Truth knows that I am free, that I have solutions, that this too shall pass.  Truth knows that all is well despite any appearance to the contrary--that is known by Truth and it  is the Truth--at the same time.

At this point I must sheepishly confess that looking back on some of this writing above it reminds me of nothing so much as the descriptions they'd give in my Freshman psych textbook of how people with Aphasia act.  With Aphasia, as I recall, a part of your brain is destroyed that contains the capacity for abstract thought.    To demonstrate this, they'd give aphasics a proverb like "too many cooks spoil the broth" and ask them to describe what it meant.  For you and me, we'd say something about how having too many people involved in a project ruins the result.  The aphasic, however, babbles on about cooks and broth incessantly, "you know, there are cooks and then there's broth and the cooks start to be with other cooks and soon there are just, you know, too many of them..."  So you know, there's light and abundance and truth and prosperity and it's all, you know, really really good.

*If  you are just joining our show in progress, you can start the meditations today or tomorrow.  At any time you can look ahead or behind and see the rest or print them by going to this link:  How to do the 40 day Meditation Program

Day 2: 40 Day Abundance Meditations

I lift up my mind and heart to be aware, to understand, and to know that the Divine Presence, I AM is the Source and Substance of all my good.

See, this abundance stuff works.  By Day 2 I was able to put on make-up and (sort of) brush my hair to record this video of me reading the meditation.

What does this mean?  I lift up my mind and heart to be aware, to understand, and to know that the Divine Presence, I AM is the Source and Substance of all my good.  When Moses asked God for his name he said "אֶהְיֶה אֲשֶׁר אֶהְיֶה, ʾehyeh ʾašer ʾehyeh"  which means "I Am that I Am" (God speaks all languages of course but apparently preferred Hebrew a long time ago.  He goes through phases.  For a few centuries He favored Latin.  Like so many of us He experimented with Esperanto in the 70's and is now comfortably working predominantly in English.) I AM is one of the seven names for God in the medieval Jewish tradition.  

It is also the name of a great documentary that I forgot to review but would give a solid 4 Snouts Up (see poster above).

So a name for God is I AM, but it is also who I AM.  Both are true.  The Divine Presence of God is the Source and Substance of all my Truth.  And the Divine Presence I am is the Source and Substance of all my Truth.  Since, as I understand and believe.  God is all there is.  There is no place where God is not.   God is showing up as all things at all times.  Therefore God is showing up as me today.  God is, as a matter of fact, having a wonderful time being me.

That means that there is a part of me (well really all of me) that is connected to Divine Mind and to the Divine Presence I AM.  Today's meditation asks me to be aware that the Divine Presence I AM is the Source and Substance of all my good.  (Note:  normally I cannot stand random capitalization.  Our founding fathers liked it, but it is not good useage today.  However since Randolph Price the creator of these meditations uses it and since it helps me realize and understand capital S Spiritual capital T Truth, I am falling prey).

Today's meditation exhorts us to focus our awareness of both our mind and our heart (don't get me started on "heartspace," a term my spiritual movement uses that gags me) on the fact that our own I AM is the Source--not our job, our spouse, our parents or our Great Aunt Minerva who refuses to die at one hundred and two but has us in her will--of all our good.

By the way, let me emphasize again that you must do these meditations every day for your awareness to shift to abundance.  Social science research shows that it takes 30 consecutive days of doing anything to develop a habit.  We're trying to exercise and build the muscle of knowing that God is our Source here.  So if you get to day 2 and don't do day 3.  You can start day 1 on day 4.  What matters is not which meditation you're on but that you do it for 40 consecutive days.  

At any time you can look ahead and see the rest or print them by going to this link:  How to do the 40 day Meditation Program