“Life doesn’t get better; you get better at living your life.”
Betsy Otter Thompson
Upon careful observation, we would realize that there is nothing new in the message that is been presented here. In fact, it was the same message that Jesus attempted to share with his followers, with minimal success, over two thousand years ago. That said, even though I am not well read; on any level when it comes to the Bible, I do follow the teachings of Joel Goldsmith, author of such books as The Spiritual Interpretation of the Scriptures and many others, who is. Further, because of being committed to my journey, and listening intently to his teachings, I now see from Goldsmith’s messages the accuracy and simplicity of the teaching of Jesus. Consistent with that idea, he said that The Kingdom of Heaven is within. Now, given that we have the choice to create whatever we want by simply being aware of the direct correlation between what we think, what we feel, and what we manifest, we can see that it does not get more ‘within’ than that, and here is another one.
God said that it is Her good pleasure to give us the Kingdom of Heaven, and as always, we can rely on the wisdom of Betsy Otter Thompson for validation. Betsy reminds us “Since we control our thoughts, we can take them in any direction we please”, but here is what I perceive as being the problem. Jesus’ message does fall into the category of Absolute Truth; however, during the time in history that he walked the earth, he did not have the language to get his message across to the masses. He did not have the language to explain or even know about, Einstein’s discovery that at our essence, we are expressions of One Energy that through our thoughts is coalesced into matter. Alternatively, the insights of Neville Goddard who understood that not only are our feelings THE secret to happiness, because they are the same as Spirit, they constitute the greater part of who we are, but here is the beauty of it all. When we know better, we can do better but here is the catch, so to speak. We must come to know this experience as our own. That can only happen through practice, and this is why.
We are vibrational, feeling beings, living in a vibrational, feeling Universe, and if we may digress for a moment, it is that understanding that explains why so many of our prayers go unanswered. Source Energy or God if that is more comfortable for you, cannot hear our words, but IT can and does respond to our feelings, which brings us back to the original premise of this discussion. Believing that the world we see outside of us is the cause of our inner suffering and discontent, we also believe that by rearranging our outer circumstances, we will find inner peace. However, as with everything else, and as the word implies; inner peace is a feeling that resides within each of us and just waiting for our awareness of it. In other words, we embark upon the impossible task of fixing the outer world when the problem is within. Moreover, even if it were possible, there is a much easier, as well as the only way to go about it, and this is the bottom line.
At the end of the day the only thing that we truly want is to feel good, and everything we do, be it as complicated as building a skyscraper or as simple as washing our hands, we do it because we believe that it will make us feel good, or at least better. The problem, however, is that in our effort to feel good, we lose sight of the operative word, which is feeling. Further, not only is it essential that we be aware of our feelings, we must do so consciously. Happiness is an inner state of Energy that manifests as multiple forms of well-being in our outer world. This means that Spiritual awakening is an emotional journey. Additionally, as a practice, our inner world demands our attention, and any overlap with the outer world simply defeats the purpose. As a final note, for now, I would like to share my experiences of feeling good.
To begin, even though I have been aware of my feelings for some time now, the conscious awareness, which I have come to know over the past few weeks as my expanded self; at the exclusion of all else, is relatively new to me and I am still amazed at the simplicity of the process. When I am feeling good and living from the conscious awareness of that space, I find myself living in the Present moment, with an awareness of the in-and-out movement of the breath, and feel protected by the endless flow of well-being that I have come to know as my natural state of being. Moreover, everything just works; not only for me, but also for the highest good of all concerned. Further, what is so amazing about it all, (but in reality is not amazing, instead it is just the way life works) I recognize this process as the fastest, most simple path to happiness that could possibly be known to man. When God said that the Kingdom of Heaven was closer than breathing and nearer than our hands and feet, She was not kidding, and it keeps getting better. Since we all have thoughts that we can use at our discretion, as well as feelings that conform to the vibration of our thoughts, even if it is just for one day, why not try it? You have nothing to lose but a life of struggle, and if you do not like it, you can always go back to being unconscious, and let us not forget the greatest, most simple foundation of them all.
Love is the answer. We have all heard it said, and most of us believe this to be true, but I also believe that the word feeling would bring this idea closer to home. In that regard, consider this. It is the feeling of love that is the answer. Alternatively, we could use the feeling of appreciation, gratitude, eagerness, fun, or satisfaction. Any word that invokes a sense of kindness and compassion for our fellow man and us, works. Finally, it is important to know that I do not hold an exclusive on this message. The idea of thoughts becoming things is at the core of all authentic Spiritual teachings, and I strongly encourage you to grasp a deeper understanding of this discussion by taking advantage of their wisdom. In the next blog, in addition to those noted in my book and previous discussions, I will provide a list of my favorites and encourage you to browse YouTube for yours. That said, I leave you with a quote from Wayne Dyer.
“There is no path to happiness, happiness in the path.”
