Youtube: God Is Spirit

“God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.”

John 4:24

Last week we explored the idea of the Second Coming, which is grounded in the ancient Jewish and Christian hope for a messiah to appear and usher in the kingdom of God. This hope depends on the belief that we are separate from God. However, the understanding of God as omnipresent – everywhere present, equally at the same time – makes the condition of separation impossible.

To say that God is Spirit conforms to our understanding of omnipresence. We can at least conceptually grasp how the energy of spirit can be everywhere present, permeating all things, seen and unseen. It is interesting that the default philosophy in 19^th century Western thought, before materially based science emerged, was panpsychism, the understanding that mind rather than matter is a fundamental feature of the universe. Even more interesting is that current developments in the fields of neuroscience, psychology, and quantum physics have revived interest in panpsychism. The exploration of what modern philosophers are calling the hard problem of consciousness is causing some scientific heads to turn back in this direction.  

Because of the imagery it naturally evokes, naming the spiritual dimension the kingdom of God is, for many of us, problematic. Spirit, as Jesus explained, is like the wind that blows. You cannot see it, but you can feel it on your face and see its effect in the swaying branches of the tree. In our culture, we would better understand this spiritual domain or dimension as the creative life force that is the underlying reality of all things.

Our previous religious indoctrination may make it difficult for us to think of God as omnipresent energy. If we start from the basis of God as Spirit, however, the transition is not so challenging. To worship in spirit is to become intuitively receptive to the ever-present life, love, power, and intelligence that presses in upon us. I believe it was the mission of Jesus to persuade people to understand that they are designed to know God firsthand, and that to love God with all their heart, mind, and soul is the path that leads to the spiritual awakening we all crave.   

Youtube: The Second Coming Revisited

Rumble: The Second Coming Revisited

I do not believe in the second coming of Jesus, I believe in the first coming.

Please understand that I do not say this with the intention of persuading anyone to think differently on this subject. I am simply sharing what has become clear to me from my studies, and my own spiritual logic. Jesus taught and demonstrated a system of ideas based on principles of oneness with God. These principles include an understanding of God as omnipresent, omnipotent, and omniscient; one presence and one power, as we would say. He taught that God is centered in everyone, and the individual’s relationship to God is inseparable unity, a relationship of oneness that can never be broken.

The system he taught was known as the Way. “About that time there arose no little stir concerning the Way” (Acts 19:23). The name change to Christian was later applied because the disciples were teaching that Jesus was the Christ, the Messiah: “… in Antioch the disciples were for the first time called Christians” (Acts 11:26). It can be argued that this name change represents a transition from the teachings of Jesus to teachings about Jesus.

The principles of oneness do not allow for a future time when God’s kingdom will finally be established. As the following passages make clear, Jesus understands this spiritual dimension as a present reality:

“The kingdom of God is not coming with signs to be observed; nor will they say, ‘Lo, here it is!’ or ‘There!’ for behold, the kingdom of God is within you” (Luke 17:20-21).

^“Do you not say, ‘There are yet four months, then comes the harvest’? I tell you, lift up your eyes, and see how the fields are already white for harvest” (John 4:35).

Perhaps the most compelling reason for the mainstream’s shift to a futuristic kingdom is stated in the Gospel of John: “Unless one is born anew, he cannot see the kingdom of God” (John 3:3). The spiritual dimension cannot be observed with ordinary physical vision. As William James wrote: “Its quality must be directly experienced; it cannot be imparted or transferred to others.”  

The kingdom is accessible to any who are willing to stop looking for signs that can be objectively analyzed and become intuitively sensitive to the living Source of his or her own being. This way of knowing lies at the heart of the message Jesus brought. Should he decide to return, he would simply repeat what he has already said. Some will hear his voice, but most will probably “… see but not perceive, and hear but not understand” (Mark 4:12).

Youtube: The Truth About Sin

Rumble: The Truth About Sin

“You will know the truth, and the truth will make you free” (John 8:32). Jesus’ listeners said they were descendants of Abraham and had never been in bondage to anyone. He is speaking of an inner bondage. “Everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin” (John 8:34).

The classical definition of sin is to miss the mark. The mark is truth, the understanding that we are one with God. We were born into a culture programed around the belief that we are separate from God. This starting point of logic is the sin, the untruth, that manifests as many forms of enslavement to material appearances.  

John quotes Jesus as saying, “The slave does not continue in the house for ever; the son continues for ever. If the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed.”

Notice in the second line, the word Son is now capitalized, giving the impression Jesus is referring to himself, a very different and unintended meaning. Jesus would have used the phrase, son of man, in the same way the Old Testament used it.

“ … what is man that thou art mindful of him,
    and the son of man that thou dost care for him?

Yet thou hast made him little less than God, …” (Psalms 8:4-5).

The phrase simply means, a human being. John or his translators have taken liberty with the term. We see this again in Mark when Jesus, prior to healing a paralytic says, “The Son of man has authority on earth to forgive sins” (Mark 2:10). This would read, “The ordinary man has authority on earth to forgive sins.”

Jesus is presenting two contrasting images, slave and son, to make his point. He is not using the son as a reference to himself. The permanent resident of the house is the soul. The slave is the senses-based self-image, operating from the belief in separation from God, and enslaved to material appearances.

Spiritual freedom starts with the understanding that our soul, made “… little less than God,” is now free of the material limitations we have mistakenly placed on it.

Youtube: A Valentine for the Enemy

Rumble: A Valentine for the Enemy

“Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you… For if you love those who love you, what reward have you?”

Matthew 5:44, 46

Central to the message of Jesus is the subject of the kingdom of God. Scriptural evidence strongly supports that he understood this kingdom as a subjective experience, that the kingdom of God is within the individual (Luke 17:21). Because this is true, he placed much emphasis on the need to keep people free of mental and emotional attachments. Resentment toward others can bind us in ways of which we are not aware.

How do we love a person we consider an enemy? First, we look at how we think of love. Do we see love as a basket of rose petals that we toss toward those we favor and withhold from those we do not? Because the basket is only so full, we take care to toss our petals only to the deserving.

Love, however, is not a thing we do. Love is a fundamental aspect of our being. As such, love is not limited to the basket of rose petals we carry. Love is a universal and perpetual action that draws to us that which is for our highest good and dissolves that which is not.

To love and pray for someone you are not fond of is to affirm for them this action of love. Hold them in your thought and declare: Love draws to you that which is for your highest good and dissolves that which is not. There is no greater blessing you can give. It frees you from the belief that love is something you must do. Love itself is doing its perfect work.

In this section of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus says that the Father “… makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust.” He is pointing to the unconditional nature of God. He concludes this section by saying, “You, therefore, must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” In other words, behave in this same unconditional manner.

We do not deplete ourselves when we give the blessing of love to another. Doing so, in fact, is one aspect of the truth that sets us free.

Youtube: Prayer

Rumble: Prayer

Excerpts From Feeling Is The Secret, Neville Goddard

Prayer, like sleep, is also an entrance into the subconscious. “When you pray, enter into your closet, and when you have shut your door, pray to your Father which is in secret and your Father which is in secret shall reward you openly” [Matthew 6:6].

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Prayer is not so much what you ask for, as how you prepare for its reception. “Whatsoever things ye desire, when ye pray believe that you have received them, and ye shall have them” [Mark 11:24].

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Prayer is the art of assuming the feeling of being and having that which you want. When the senses confirm the absence of your wish, all conscious effort to counteract this suggestion is futile and tends to intensify the suggestion.

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Prayer is the art of yielding to the wish and not the forcing of the wish. Whenever your feeling is in conflict with your wish, feeling will be the victor. The dominant feeling invariably expresses itself. Prayer must be without effort. In attempting to fix an attitude of mind which is denied by the senses, effort is fatal.

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When you emerge from the moment of prayer, it is as though you were shown the happy and successful end of a play although you were not shown how that end was achieved. However, having witnessed the end, regardless of any anticlimactic sequence, you remain calm and secure in the knowledge that the end has been perfectly defined.

Youtube: Sleep

Rumble: Sleep

Excerpts From Feeling Is The Secret, Neville Goddard

Because all things come from within yourself, and your conception of yourself determines that which comes, you should always feel the wish fulfilled before you drop off to sleep.

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“How would I feel were my wish realized?” is the feeling which should monopolize and immobilize your attention as you relax into sleep. You must be in the consciousness of being or having that which you want to be or to have before you drop off to sleep.

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Night after night, you should assume the feeling of being, having and witnessing that which you seek to be, possess and see manifested. Never go to sleep feeling discouraged or dissatisfied. Never sleep in the consciousness of failure.

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The acceptance of the end automatically wills the means of realization.

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Dream Interpretation Guidelines

The steps below are from a Jungian psychotherapist, Robert Johnson. The website and commentary belong to Jonah Calinawan. For more detail, check out Johah’s website.

Here’s the link: Jonah Calinawan

Step 1 Write the Dream in Detail

Step 2 Make Associations

Step 3 Connect Dream Images to What’s Happening Internally

Step 4 Interpret the Dream

Step 5 Do a Ritual to Make the Dream Concrete

Youtube: Law And Its Operation (part 3)

Rumble: Law And Its Operation (part 3)

Excerpts From Feeling Is The Secret, Neville Goddard

The subconscious has a distinct distaste for compulsion and responds to persuasion rather than to command; consequently, it resembles the beloved wife more than the servant.

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The conscious (objective) or male aspect truly is the head and dominates the subconscious (subjective) or female aspect. However, this leadership is not that of the tyrant, but of the lover.

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By assuming the feeling that would be yours were you already in possession of your objective, the subconscious is moved to build the exact likeness of your assumption.

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Your desires are not subconsciously accepted until you assume the feeling of their reality, for only through feeling is an idea subconsciously accepted and only through this subconscious acceptance is it ever expressed.

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It is easier to ascribe your feeling to events in the world than to admit that the conditions of the world reflect your feeling.

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Your world in its every detail is your consciousness objectified. Objective states bear witness of subconscious impressions. A change of impression results in a change of expression.

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To seek on the outside for that which you do not feel you are, is to seek in vain, for we never find that which we want; we find only that which we are.

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You express and have only that which you are conscious of being or possessing. “To him that hath it is given” [Matthew 13:12

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Mastery of self-control of your thoughts and feelings is your highest achievement. However, until perfect self-control is attained, so that, in spite of appearances, you feel all that you want to feel, use sleep and prayer to aid you in realizing your desired states. These are the two gateways into the subconscious.

Youtube: Law And Its Operation (part 2)

Rumble: Law And Its Operation (part 2)

Excerpts From Feeling Is The Secret, Neville Goddard

By control of feeling is not meant restraint or suppression of your feeling, but rather the disciplining of self to imagine and entertain only such feeling as contributes to your happiness.

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Every feeling makes a subconscious impression and, unless it is counteracted by a more powerful feeling of an opposite nature, must be expressed. The dominant of two feelings is the one expressed. I am healthy is a stronger feeling than I will be healthy. To feel I will be is to confess I am not; I am is stronger than I am not.

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Chance or accident is not responsible for the things that happen to you, nor is predestined fate the author of your fortune or misfortune.

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The subconscious is not concerned with the truth or falsity of your feeling. It always accepts as true that which you feel to be true.

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Your feelings create the pattern from which your world is fashioned, and a change of feeling is a change of pattern. The subconscious never fails to express that which has been impressed upon it.

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To impress the subconscious with the desirable state, you must assume the feeling that would be yours had you already realized your wish. In defining your objective, you must be concerned only with the objective itself. The manner of expression or the difficulties involved are not to be considered by you.

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Therefore, if you dwell on difficulties, barriers or delay, the subconscious, by its very non-selective nature, accepts the feeling of difficulties and obstacles as your request and proceeds to produce them in your outer world.

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The subconscious is the womb of creation. It receives the idea unto itself through the feelings of man. It never changes the idea received, but always gives it form. Hence the subconscious out-pictures the idea in the image and likeness of the feeling received. To feel a state as hopeless or impossible is to impress the subconscious with the idea of failure.

Youtube: Law And Its Operation part 1

Rumble: Law And Its Operation Part 1

Excerpts From Feeling Is The Secret, Neville Goddard

The world, and all within it, is man’s conditioned consciousness objectified. Consciousness is the cause as well as the substance of the entire world. So it is to consciousness that we must turn if we would discover the secret of creation.

Consciousness is the one and only reality, not figuratively but actually. This reality may for the sake of clarity be likened unto a stream which is divided into two parts, the conscious and the subconscious.

The conscious is personal and selective; the subconscious is impersonal and nonselective. The conscious is the realm of effect; the subconscious is the realm of cause. These two aspects are the male and female divisions of consciousness. The conscious is male; the subconscious is female.

The conscious generates ideas and impresses these ideas on the subconscious; the subconscious receives ideas and gives form and expression to them.

By this law – first conceiving an idea and then impressing the idea conceived on the subconscious – all things evolve out of consciousness; and without this sequence, there is not anything made that is made. The conscious impresses the subconscious, while the subconscious expresses all that is impressed upon it.

The mechanism of creation is hidden in the very depth of the subconscious, the female aspect or womb of creation. The subconscious transcends reason and is independent of induction. It contemplates a feeling as a fact existing within itself and on this assumption proceeds to give expression to it. The creative process begins with an idea and its cycle runs its course as a feeling and ends in a volition to act.

Ideas are impressed on the subconscious through the medium of feeling. No idea can be impressed on the subconscious until it is felt, but once felt – be it good, bad or indifferent – it must be expressed. Feeling is the one and only medium through which ideas are conveyed to the subconscious. Therefore, the man who does not control his feeling may easily impress the subconscious with undesirable states.

Audio Book: Feeling Is The Secret

PDF Download: Feeling Is The Secret Scroll nearly to bottom of page:

Youtube: Begin At The Beginning

When a new year rolls around, we traditionally turn our thought to new beginnings. We reflect on the past, sort through what worked and what didn’t, what we liked and didn’t like, and then we resolve to choose a little more carefully in the coming year. Most of us know the lifespan of our resolutions are usually pretty short.

I have pointed out that all holidays have a spiritual principle behind them. The problem is we keep the holiday but lose sight of the principle. The spiritual principle behind the New Year has nothing to do with flipping the page of a calendar. It involves an awareness of the now moment and our relationship to the law of consciousness.

The conscious mind is like a sower throwing seed of every kind. The subconscious aspect is like the soil that grows whatever seed we cast. If we are sowing seeds of fear and failure, our subconscious mind, like the obedient soil, goes to work producing the plants. Paul put it very simply: “Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, that he will also reap” (Galatians 6:7). The scriptures are full of many such examples.

This is not a warning that we’re all about to be busted for secret sins. Paul is simply articulating the law of consciousness. Rather than frighten us, this illustration should inspire us. Why does the quality of life vary from one person to the next? Because we all have our very own conscious and subconscious mind. We are each given absolute freedom to use them as we will. We do not invoke the law of consciousness, as it is in perpetual operation. We are each living the harvest of seeds we have sown in the past.

A resolution can serve as a helpful target. We ask ourselves, “How would I feel if this resolution came to pass?” We allow the appropriate good feelings to arise. These feelings are our seed. There are no weeds in this seed. We then commit to holding only these feelings, understanding that by so doing, we are sowing the kinds of seeds that will be brought to light as success, prosperity, good health, and whatever else we desire. “Whatsoever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours” (Mark 11:24) We are not breaking the law of consciousness, we are fulfilling it.

Over the next couple of weeks, I’d like to further explore this law of consciousness. These will be ideas we are all very familiar with, but we may have forgotten how powerful they are. I will refer to the book, Feeling Is the Secret, by Neville Goodard. Published in 1944, you may already have this slim volume on your shelf. If not, you can listen to the book online or download a free PDF file from the links below:

Youtube Talking Book: Feeling Is The Secret

PDF free download: Feeling Is The Secret (be sure to scroll down nearly to the bottom to get the link.)