Debra Basham

Living and Loving

Tag: Rupert Spira

  • Alone Together

    I found these words so beautiful….

    And if its true we are alone,
    we are alone together,
    the way blades of grass are alone,
    but exist in a field.

    ~Rupert Spira Guided Meditation:
    Wherever You Turn, There is the Face of God

    You might appreciate Karen Drucker’s singing The Face of God that we used as our closing at Saint John’s UCC on Sunday.

    I was jarred awake early this morning by a Charley horse in the calf of my left leg. Moaning softly, “Ouch, ouch, ouch!” instinctively I began to press my index finger hard onto the space between my upper lip and my nose. Finally, I was able to pant-breathe sufficiently to put my foot on the floor and begin to gingerly walk it off….

    How like life? We plan, plan, plan — then life happens. It often comes suddenly, even when it is expected. A week ago we had to use air conditioning. Now the furnace is on. The conditions of life change as quickly and as drastically as the weather. What is it (what of us?) remains constant?

    The following thought was taken from one of Rupert Spira’s in-person retreats at The Vedanta from 17th to 24th September, 2022, in answer to a young woman’s question about her father’s consciousness since he had died one month earlier.

      So when was the dreamed character’s body born? It was never born. It just appeared when the dreamer’s mind localized itself as this little activity of thinking and perceiving. When did the dreamed character die? It never died. The dreamer’s mind simply stopped localizing itself as the dreamed character.

      So in the ultimate analysis, the being that your father eternally is never came into existence, never went out of existence. He is eternally present. He, not the person of your father, but the being that your father was, is now. The being that everything is. The eternal being that doesn’t come in and out of existence. A localization of that being appeared temporarily and disappeared, but it was only a localization. Your father actually never came in or went out of existence.

    Our two grandsons and their partners along with two other couples are scheduled to fly to the Dominic Republic tomorrow. This has been a long-planned trip around Adam’s 30th birthday, with lots of excitement and anticipation. Well, uninvited, Tropical Storm Melissa has entered the equation.

    What do we do when what we want to do seems not to be available? The script of Everlasting Peace comes to my mind.

    Circumstances have changed and it is time now to look to new directions to learn how to fly once more….

    When you can work, it is OK to work. When you can read, it is OK to read. When you can think, it is OK to think. But when you can’t work, it is OK for you to relax. And when you can’t read, you can still share wisdom. Because even when you can’t always think clearly, you can always enjoy the love that surrounds you.

    ~ Debra Basham, Everlasting Peace

    I am not sure what the kids will decide to do about their trip. I am sure that they are not the only humans on the planet who are navigating thwarted plans. Whether it is weather or whether it is health challenges, or world politics, or fragile economics, I am sure if we are alone, we are alone together!

    Therefore encourage one another and build each other up.
    ~ 1 Thessalonians 5:11

  • Rupert Spira

    At 6:55 am EST time her friend sent an email message to a prayer group they are both on asking for support:

    Dear friends,

    My dad is in his last days… I am hoping you can pray for his smooth transition and that he will be fine…

    Thank you so much for your help and compassion.

    Much love.

    At that exact moment she was finishing watching a 7 minute video called “You Are Not Born and You Never Die” with Rupert Spira.


    It was already 7:55 pm in Singapore in the physical world of her friend, so she placed a video call.

    She began to read to her friend notes from the video she had been taking as her friend was sending the email asking for support:”So in the ultimate analysis, the being that your father externally is never came into existence, never went out of existence; he is eternally present. He — not the ‘person’ or your father, but the being that your father ‘was’ is now the being that everything is — the eternal being that doesn’t come in and out of existence. A localization of that being appeared temporarily and disappeared, but it was only a localization. Your father actually never came in or went out of existence.”

    Sharing with great awe,”It is amazing that at the exact time you were sending the email asking for support for your father’s completing his transition, I was watching the video. I knew I had to call you right now and share it with you. So grateful you can breathe this truth to your father now.”

  • Take Another Look

    Below is a Yellow Brick Road from October 28, 2020. The theme is floating back through my consciousness and might be helpful for others at this time again as well.


    Need to Do

    You must cherish one another.
    You must work —
    we all must work —
    to make this world
    worthy of its children.

    ~ Pablo Casals

    Is this opening quotation, as it is written, true? Less and less I am concerned with being a doer, as more and more I am aware of the importance of how I am being. Listening to Rupert Spira speak about there being no doer, however, I also recognize the stages of learning we are experiencing around all of this. Spira says the belief and feeling “I am a person” is the same belief and feeling of “I am a doer.”

    In mindfulness, this thought “I am a person” could be seen as operating from ego.

    New Years Eve 2000 — twenty years ago — our meditation focus was a powerful writing titled “The Recovering Hero Proclamation.” Here is the last stanza:

    I allow things to unfold naturally, and I trust the flow.
    I joyfully accept and experience my humanity.
    I need nothing.
    All already is.
    Blessed be.

    ~Aaliyah LivingWell
    aka Gina Dawn Gavaris
    GeneratingLove@aol.com
    www.GeneratingSolutions.org

    It is important to realize that this does not mean all action ceases. As Spira says, “No…. Cars continue to be driven, meals continue to be cooked, inquiring into the nature of experience continues to be undertaken.” Everything continues, but it doesn’t imply that there’s a doer.

    I found this note in my journal: I forgive myself for believing it is my job to be the hero in any situation or save anyone else from having the experience they are creating.

    Wow.

    Those familiar with the SCS/NLP materials recognize fully we are moving off the Drama Triangle and experiencing life from the transrational perspective.

    If we are able to drive, cook, and inquire into the nature of things without identifying ourselves as a doer, notice how much more can be done through the expanded awareness.

    Recently a friend who hosts two of the Florida Zoom groups I participate in sent a message saying she has reached her stress limit and is going off the grid. We are still able to use her Zoom account, but she is not meeting with us.

    William Wordsworth’s opening line in, “The World Is Too Much With Us”: The world is too much with us; late and soon.

    Spira invites us to imagine a pink elephant under the chair. Both the statement, “There is something for the pink elephant under the chair to do,” and the statement, “There is nothing for the pink elephant under the chair to do,” are equally absurd.

    Is there something we need to do? Today’s Daily Word:

      Guidance
      I am divinely guided from within.

      There are times I find myself wondering which way to turn. Rather than feeling stressed or pressured into making quick decisions, I know these instances are perfect opportunities to calm myself and check my internal compass for divine direction.

      The source guidance I receive allows me to perceive possible paths and shows me the way if I veer off course. All I need to do is become quiet and feel aware of my connection with God by pausing, breathing deeply, releasing, and relaxing into my intuitive knowing.

      From this place, I instinctively know which way to turn and what to do. In faith, I follow the guidance of my inner wisdom and know everything I will need for the journey ahead is already mine.

      Though we stumble, we shall not fall headlong, for the Lord holds us by the hand.—Psalm 37:24

    Of course we do things. Until the mind jumps in after the activity and claims, “I did this, I did that” there is only a sense of the raw experience. A baby probably does not draw from the mother’s breast and think, “I just ate.” The nourishment and the nurturing and the satiating of hunger are the raw experience. No commentary is necessary.

    Note* Is it significant that the “About Debra” page I am working on for launch of DebraBasham.com opens with a quotation that might appear to be in conflict with my own words?


    She wanted to be able to look back over her own life
    when she was much older and say,
    “Yes I did that.
    And that.
    And that, too.”
    ~ The Gazebo, a novel by Emily Grayson, (p. 288)


    John sings a duet of “When Did I Get Old” with his music friend, John Smith. The lyrics are by Derrick Clinton Dove & music is by Derrick Dove and The Peacekeepers. Don’t you love those names?

    As the two John’s sing, “When did I get old, when did everything change? I don’t recognize this world, I don’t remember this pain. Did time speed up or did I slow down? When did I get old, it’s all behind me now. When did I get old, it’s almost over now,” I realize today is a good day for me to take another look at this blog post. Likely it is related to the timing of my older sister nearing her transition. Of course, it is not only old people who transition and even when it’s over it’s not really over.

    Ah, there is time to take another look, and another look, and another look….

  • I Am Made of You

      It is this disinterested but completely allowing contemplation of the body in the world that the body loses its ‘me-ness’ and the world loses its ‘not-me-ness.’ In this way bodily sensations no longer cry out ‘I am separate, I am exclusively you” and perceptions of the world no longer cry out, ‘I am separate, I am not you.’ Everything sings out, ‘I am made of you.’ ~ Rupert Spiria


    Is this a drawing of a duck or a rabbit?

    A catchy little trick from NLP (Neurolinguistic Programming) was to ask a client if he or she was sure enough to be unsure when that person could see conflicting points of view. This week it has come into clarity how vital it may be for each of us to move toward willingness to live in a state of asking that of ourselves: “Am I sure enough to be unsure?”

    The point is freedom from identification with any point of view; a full freedom from attachment to ALL points of view. This does not mean I won’t have a point of view. Of course we will. The shift comes as awareness reveals whatever the point of view, it is simply a point of view.

    Points of view can be very similar, somewhat similar, somewhat different, radically different, or even diabolically opposed. I think you will agree that way too often solidified points of view which are widely differing or diabolically opposed can become deadly. Literally….

    At the very least solidified points of view have an impact on rapport and can damage relationships, cause stress, and rob us of our natural state of harmony and happiness.

    Decades ago it was pretty easy for me to hold a firm intention to have freedom from a “negative” point of view, and to observe the changes within myself when I was free from that point of view. I could quite easily and notice when my Debbie Downer was in charge, and I could choose a better feeling thought. This was quite skillful at that time.

    The past several years I have been studying Sacred Darkness with a group of others who are also intentional about awareness with a capital “A.” What is sometimes called “pure” awareness is not a limited awareness of this or that, and it is not attached to a particular point of view. Even preferences of positive or negative are simply part of the continuum of The All That Is.

    For sure, I prefer feeling positively, but can you see that this preference is also aversion to feeling negatively? I remember so well letting something negative “go,” but continuing to hold the point of view that it was or is negative.

    Aaron’s Daily Reflection:

    Many of you were raised with this idea, “Hold it in the light and it will dissolve.” What do I do if it doesn’t dissolve? And of course, sometimes it doesn’t dissolve. If the conditions are present and have not yet been purified, then that condition will arise and will maintain itself until the conditions dissolve. If the conditions for body pain are still there, the pain will remain, no matter how much you try to love it. You do not love it to make it go away. You hold it in love — the body pain, the anger — because that spaciousness is what allows the conditions to dissolve. If you hold it in a kind of idea of love, saying, “I will love it. I will love it. Why is it still here? I’m loving it so hard! Why doesn’t it go?”, well, you’re just more and more contracting, more and more caught up in whatever has arisen, because you’re trying to smash it away.

    Rupert Spira is a teacher of non-dual awareness. He is the author of the opening quotation. His words are still a bit foreign to most humans when we try to use the finite mind to know or speak about the world. However, Spira’s work assures us, “It’s not possible to view the world directly from awareness’ perspective,” because, “There’s no room in the infinite for the finite.”

    Awareness needs the finite mind to know the world. The finite mind holds points of view.

    Every point of view is finite but love is infinite.

    Perhaps one way human beings are able to open to and enjoy the sweet fragrance of infinite love is by being sure enough to be unsure…. I am made of you.

  • God IS

    She had been working on an upcoming sermon titled “God Doesn’t Exist: God IS” inspired by Rupert Spira, a teacher of non-dual awareness, “Collapsing the Distance Between God and Ourself.”

    All she needed to complete the preparation was a Contemplative Music choice. As soon as she settled on “Here as in Heaven”sung by Elevation Worship, she turned her attention back to the memoir of her friend’s late husband. She found it incomprehensible that her friend had not previously shared it because they had been close friends for well over twenty years, but things happen in their own time.

    The memoir ended with his Statement of Faith:

    And finally, I have discovered that there is a big difference between believing in God and God’s Word verses experiencing God and God’s Word. Yes, we must all take that “Leap of Faith” and believe, but we also must live that belief. My near-death experiences too me to the core of who I am as a person. It shook me beyond what I believed could be shaken. And now because of that experience, an experience that can never truly be shared with another, I know what I know. God is. And I am a part of that “is”. No matter what is, that “is” and me, is God. We walk together. Thank you, God.

    He had been the pastor of the church where her sermon would be shared….

    God doesn’t exist:

    God IS.

  • A Beautiful World Within

    The kind of beauty I want most is the hard-to-get kind that comes from within. ~ Ruby Dee

    Last evening I went to a drumming at the home of some long-time friends. One of the other drummers was also a blast from my past. But, the delight of my heart was a young man who had the beauty of curiosity and seeking. Lots of sharing ended an evening significantly warmer than the weather. This morning I sent along information about Adyashanti and Rupert Sprira and a few quotations they might appreciate. I am obviously still under the influence of the 8-day retreat and grateful.

    Hearing Rupert Spira telling a questioner that “the contemplation that we do in the yoga meditations would be the first step. The next step is out in the world. That is obviously more active than just contemplating the objective content of our experience. But In theory there’s no reason why it should feel any different from meditating in your chair. Really, everyday life should be considered an advanced to yoga meditation.”

    On the retreat John Orr spoke of the horizontal or linear path which puts more emphasis on the conditioned realm, and the vertical path which puts more emphasis on non-striving, and the intersection of these two paths. The vertical path does not negate the movement of mind and the nature of the conditioned realm where one thing leads to another. As Rupert Spira says in The Inward and Outward-Facing Paths of Non-duality, “It is either meditation with your eyes closed or meditation with your eyes open. Those are the only two options.”

    My eyes were certainly closed and open a LOT during the retreat. So was my heart.

    For example, when I could hear my host in the room next to the apartment where I was and I noticed the slight contraction in my lower abdomen I was also aware I was having cellular memory from the past lifetime when I was pregnant with the soul that is/was my business partner in this lifetime. Throughout the week I was experiencing this looping back and forth of then and now, here and there, same and not same. And remembering to simply inquire of myself, “Is anything other than?”

    On Monday after I got home from the retreat John and Stacey and I visited our previous home on Lincoln Avenue. The new owners are the daughter and son-in-law of our neighbors. They have done MAJOR renovations. They moved the basement stairs and turned Stacey’s former bedroom into a walk-in closet with in-room-laundry. They added an out door pavilion. Saying all of this I have not even hinted at the magnitude of the changes.

    It was spooky to see how many of the things we had actually contemplated doing at some point during the 40 years we lived there. They put a sliding glass door out of the kitchen; they turned the former formal living room into a dining room; they put in a huge kitchen island.

    As I walked through room after room I could feel the sameness and the difference. “I love the changes you made and I love that you also recognized and preserved the essence of the house.” Wow, that is the intersection of the linear (horizontal) and vertical paths…. It is like living in these bodies knowing they are temporary without denying birth is not the beginning and death is not the end.

    I mentioned having a strong sensation of my week as a Bardo preview. Bardo is the Tibetan term for the intermediate state or gap we experience when we leave this physical body. Most teachers see that cultural differences and personal idiosyncrasies generate a variety of experiences, with a common theme of some fort of life review. We have an opportunity to integrate our learning and balance any unfinished business or unwholesome karma. Medical evidence suggests this is a result of the brain firing as it is going off line.

    What truly excites me is the option to open our heart and mind to see it is a beautiful world as we walk this path while we still have these bodies. Awareness is the key.

    Some people go to the dentist in fear and dread every time. As I key these words in I am developing awareness that this is my path beyond fear of medical things. I know fully that the anxiety had its origin in my mother’s central nervous system while I was in her womb and she was filled with rage, sadness,feelings of betrayal, concern, embarrassment, and fear. Many of my readers know my birth story. My mother discovered she was pregnant and that she had syphilis at the same time. Both were a gift from my father…. Then having been diagnosed with and treated for polio at age five resulted in lots of trauma.

    While that was then and this is now, “now” and “then” do not actually exist independently, they exist interdependently. The beauty is your eyes and heart being open enough to see. Following the retreat, I sent the YouTube video of Les Crane singing Desiderata to my dharma sister co-hosting the retreat.

    You are a child of the universe.
    No less than the trees and the stars, you have a right to be here.
    And whether or not it is clear to you,No doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.
    Therefore, be at peace with God, whatever you conceive him to be.
    And whatever your labors and aspirations,
    in the noisy confusion of life,
    Keep peace with your soul.
    With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams,
    it is still a beautiful world.

    Desiderata: Les Crane

    Yes, it is a very beautiful world within and without….

  • Hip Hip Hooray!

    “Just because we are afraid doesn’t mean anything is wrong.
    Doesn’t mean a mistake is being made.
    Doesn’t even mean, necessarily, we’re in danger.”

    ~ Adyashanti, “Letting Go of Fear”
    from In the Face of the Infinite

    It is 6:21 am and I am sitting with an ice pack on my left hip writing this post.

    My relationship with this left hip has been long standing, pun intended.

    My left hip was dislocated at the pelvis August 12, 1962, in an auto accident.

    An auto accident which resulted in my having an out-of-body experience.

    There, I have said it.

    I distinctly recall floating above my physical body watching the scrambled flesh on my forehead being sutured.

    I was watching from a “space” of no pain, no fear, no sense of myself as a separate being.

    The summer of 2021 has been a time of revisiting this experience. I have connected with dozens of others who had similar altered states of being. Many shared much more extreme experiences, including those who were clinically dead for some time, but everyone identified ways that experience shaped the rest of their lives.

    Possibly EVERYONE knows someone who has had some type of experience.

    Profound gratitude for each person who has spoken out loud. (The International Association for Near-Death Studies is a non-profit organization based in Durham, North Carolina in the United States, associated with the academic field of near-death studies.)

    It is likely not an accident that I was immersed with this community, nor a co-incidence my hip would flare up as I process that experience I had when I was twelve years old.

    I will give a talk at St. Johns UCC in New Buffalo, Michigan titled, “Time Change.” Notes from that draft:

      Now is not a moment moving through time. Now has no duration. There is no time through which we move.

      Time is imagined to be real only when we have forgotten our true nature of ever-present awareness.

      We imagined ourselves instead to be limited, located entities. Time and space are born with that thought, but there is no present moment.

      This ever-present now is eternity.

      Time is thought superimposed upon eternity, and eternity is just another name for our true nature of awareness.

      ~ Rupert Spira, “Time and Death”

    Louise Hay, in You Can Heal Your Life, shares a probable mental cause related to hip problems: Carries the body in perfect balance. Major thrust in moving forward. Fear of going forward in major decisions. Nothing to move forward to.

    Oh, my….

    While the night is still dark, before I have welcomed relief from discomfort, even as you seem to be there and I seem to be here and we seem to not yet know what we moving forward to, truth embraces and erases each of these distortions.

    In 1988 I was told I needed to have a hip replacement. I was only 38 years old, considered to be too young. They only got about ten years from an artificial hip at that time. The same hip could only be replaced twice due to the formation of scar tissue. The doctor said, “Replacing this hip now would leave you with no options. You just have to face it, you will never have quality of life.”

    I tell the entire story in Freedom from Pain.

    Yesterday morning I cried when I saw my doctor, Dr. Leanne Mancini, DO, at Family Physicians of Sanit Joseph. “Does this mean I have to give up on this hip?”

    “No,” she gently reassured me, “it simply means we have to treat it.”

    Thus the ice, and the ibruprofen, and the rest.

    And, of course, the affirmations by Louise Hay:

    Hip. Hip. Hooray — there is joy in every day.

    I am balanced and free.

    I am in perfect balance.

    I move forward in life with ease and with joy at every age.

  • Need to Do

    You must cherish one another.
    You must work —
    we all must work —
    to make this world
    worthy of its children.

    ~ Pablo Casals

    Is this opening quotation, as it is written, true? Less and less I am concerned with being a doer, as more and more I am aware of the importance of how I am being. Listening to Rupert Spira speak about there being no doer, however, I also recognize the stages of learning we are experiencing around all of this. Spira says the belief and feeling “I am a person” is the same belief and feeling of “I am a doer.”

    In mindfulness, this thought “I am a person” could be seen as operating from ego.

    New Years Eve 2000 — twenty years ago — our meditation focus was a powerful writing titled “The Recovering Hero Proclamation.” Here is the last stanza:

      I allow things to unfold naturally, and I trust the flow.
      I joyfully accept and experience my humanity.
      I need nothing.
      All already is.
      Blessed be.

      ~Aaliyah LivingWell
      aka Gina Dawn Gavaris
      GeneratingLove@aol.com
      www.GeneratingSolutions.org

    It is important to realize that this does not mean all action ceases. As Spira says, “No…. Cars continue to be driven, meals continue to be cooked, inquiring into the nature of experience continues to be undertaken.” Everything continues, but it doesn’t imply that there’s a doer.

    I found this note in my journal: I forgive myself for believing it is my job to be the hero in any situation or save anyone else from having the experience they are creating.

    Wow.

    Those familiar with the SCS/NLP materials recognize fully we are moving off the Drama Triangle and experiencing life from the transrational perspective.

    If we are able to drive, cook, and inquire into the nature of things without identifying ourselves as a doer, notice how much more can be done through the expanded awareness.

    Recently a friend who hosts two of the Florida Zoom groups I participate in sent a message saying she has reached her stress limit and is going off the grid. We are still able to use her Zoom account, but she is not meeting with us.

    William Wordsworth’s opening line in, “The World Is Too Much With Us”: The world is too much with us; late and soon.

    Spira invites us to imagine a pink elephant under the chair. Both the statement, “There is something for the pink elephant under the chair to do,” and the statement, “There is nothing for the pink elephant under the chair to do,” are equally absurd.

    Is there something we need to do? Today’s Daily Word:

    Guidance
    I am divinely guided from within.

    There are times I find myself wondering which way to turn. Rather than feeling stressed or pressured into making quick decisions, I know these instances are perfect opportunities to calm myself and check my internal compass for divine direction.

    The source guidance I receive allows me to perceive possible paths and shows me the way if I veer off course. All I need to do is become quiet and feel aware of my connection with God by pausing, breathing deeply, releasing, and relaxing into my intuitive knowing.

    From this place, I instinctively know which way to turn and what to do. In faith, I follow the guidance of my inner wisdom and know everything I will need for the journey ahead is already mine.

    Though we stumble, we shall not fall headlong, for the Lord holds us by the hand.—Psalm 37:24

    Of course we do things. Until the mind jumps in after the activity and claims, “I did this, I did that” there is only a sense of the raw experience. A baby probably does not draw from the mother’s breast and think, “I just ate.” The nourishment and the nurturing and the satiating of hunger are the raw experience. No commentary is necessary.

  • Possessed of the Knowledge of Truth

    I slept and I dreamed that
    life is all joy.
    I woke and I saw that
    life is all service.
    I served and I saw that
    service is joy.
    ~ Kahlil Gibran

    Today’s blog was inspired by last evening’s question from a dear friend who is also a faithful reader of Yellow Brick Road. “Related to your pre-election posts, do you mind my asking whom, if you have a preference, do you prefer would win?” I was tempted to cut and paste the section from my journal in Pondering Becoming a Pundit before recognizing the much larger opportunity her question presents.

    A sister on the Dharma path is Jewish. She is deeply steeped in Mussar, a spiritual practice that focuses on character traits like truthfulness, generosity, patience, and humility in an effort to help people overcome inner obstacles. At about the same time “Whom do you prefer would win?” was being asked, my friend was sharing with me a practice one rabbi suggested for navigating these times, specifically related to Covid, but for sure inclusive of the election:

    1. Develop a relationship with the one above.
    2. Pray — using formal prayers or just when you want to communicate.
    3. Look for signs of divine intervention.

    I have continued to binge watch Rupert Spira on non-duality so I can let go, relax, fall backwards, and sink into, “There is nothing we can say with the mind.”

    I spent some time looking up formal prayers in other traditions (similar to the Lord’s Prayer in Christianity). Here are two that really speak to me:

    Lakota Prayer

    Wakan Tanka, Great Mystery,
    teach me how to trust
    my heart,
    my mind,
    my intuition,
    my inner knowing,
    the senses of my body,
    the blessings of my spirit.
    Teach me to trust these things
    so that I may enter my Sacred Space
    and love beyond my fear,
    and thus Walk in Balance
    with the passing of each glorious Sun.

    – Found on: http://www.sapphyr.net/natam/quotes-nativeamerican.htm

    Judaism Shema Prayer (in English)

    Hear O’ Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is One
    Blessed is the name of His glorious kingdom for ever and ever
    You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.

    The most honest answer I can give about whom I would prefer to win is this:

    I prefer love to win.
    I prefer wisdom to win.
    I prefer kindness to win.
    I prefer truthfulness to win.
    I prefer generosity to win.
    I prefer patience to win.
    I prefer humility to win.
    I prefer service to all beings and harm to none to win.

    These traits are the essence of Donald Trump and Joe Biden. They are the essence of you and me. They are the essence of every candidate who runs for any office. I prefer whomever wins the 2020 Presidential election to live and lead from these traits and from their true essence.

    Hinduism The First Book of Yoga: The Enduring Influence of the Bhagavad Gita

    The unreal has no existence. The Real never ceases to be (never ceases to exist). Men possessed of the knowledge of Truth full know both these.

    Meditation for the Day

    Constantly claim God’s strength. Once convinced of the right of a course of action, once reasonably sure of God’s guidance, claim that strength now. You can claim all the strength you need to meet any situation. You can claim a new supply when your own supply is exhausted. You have a right to claim it and you should use your right.

    ~ Twenty-Four Hours a Day, A Spiritual Resource with Practical Applications for Daily Life

  • I am Made of You

    You do live in a physical world,
    but there is nothing about your physical world
    that is not spirit-based.
    There is nothing about your physical world
    that is not Source-based.

    ~ Abraham Hicks

    October 2019 I started reading books about non-duality by Rupert Spira. Yesterday the same friend who introduced me to Spira’s writing last year suggested I check out his teachings on being aware of awareness. This comes at a perfect time for me as I am working on the sensory systems information published in Healing with Language, the SCS/NLP training manual.

    This comes at a perfect time for “us” as we are bombarded by input from the world through these sensory systems! If some of what you see, hear, think and feel, is keeping you awake at night or causing your blood pressure to go up, causing your concern by concretizing your perceptions of separateness, read on.

    Simply put: Whatever we are experiencing, we are aware of that.

    Most often, however, this simple experience of being aware is overlooked.

    Spira gave a powerful example of this. Think of a flashlight. We can shine light on everything else, but we cannot shine the light on the light bulb from which the beam is shining. The light beam is the source — it can only shine on something that is “other than.”

    This flashlight of awareness shines light on your thoughts, feelings, sensations, tastes, smells, memories, beliefs, perceptions, and opinions — all “other than.”

    If awareness is incapable of turning around and looking at itself, then how are we going to know our true nature? Let your attention relax or sink or fall backwards into its source….

    Let go.

    Relax.

    Fall backwards.

    Sink.

    This reminds me of “How to Activate your Diamond Light Body” from Frequency: The Power of Personal Vibration, by Penney Pierce.

    1. Quiet yourself, center your attention in your body, be in the present moment 100 percent, and create calmness and receptivity. Recall some past positive experiences.

    2. Imagine that behind your back, your diamond light body appears. This body looks just like you but is made of pure transparent light and has no wounds or blockages. Your light body radiates wisdom, love, harmony, and the knowledge of abundance. Your light body steps forward and puts its hands on your shoulders.

    3. In your imagination, feel the higher vibration of your light body; welcome it and attune to the frequency. As you do, your light body steps inside you, merging with you seamlessly and easily.

    4. Your light body matches up with your physical body perfectly, each light body part finding its physical body part: the light heart merges with the physical heart, the light cells match the physical cells, the light brain joins the physical brain. Take some time to scan through the various parts of your body as this process occurs.

    5. Allow yourself to let go into the light body as it takes over, saying, ‘You know how to run this brain, this heart, these lungs, how to use these hands, this voice. Please show me how. I trust you to renew me, reorganize me, and teach me.’ Fall into your own light and feel supported.

    6. An odd thing happens as you let your diamond light body take over to guide you, a saturation point is reached where you ‘flip’ and realize you are the diamond light body. Your identity shifts. As you hear the voice of guidance from the light body, you realize it’s your voice. You might say, ‘I am here now, and I know what’s real.’

    7. Let your diamond light saturate not only every cell, but your emotions, feelings, and thoughts as well. Let it work on your brain and body, dissolving shadows, filling in gaps, upgrading all your systems, erasing worry and doubt, opening new pathways, and reprogramming you with updated frequencies. Remain in the silence.

    8. Now, ‘strike the tuning fork’ of your diamond light body’s vibration and let waves of your light and your original tone ripple through every tiny space in your body and out through your skin into the space around you. Let it expand as far into the universe as it wants. As your own diamond light expands, it joins with the diamond light it encounters in the presence everywhere. In the center of the light, is your home frequency.

    In the Christian New Testament (Galations 3:28) this idea is stated clearly, and in churches all over the world people sing the truth: In Christ there is no east or west, in him no south or north, but one great fellowship of love throughout the whole wide earth.

    In Meditation is Simply to BE, Rupert Spira says it this way:

    It is this disinterested but completely allowing contemplation of the body in the world that the body loses its ‘me-ness’ and the world loses its ‘not-me-ness.’ In this way bodily sensations no longer cry out ‘I am separate, I am exclusively you” and perceptions of the world no longer cry out, ‘I am separate, I am not you.’ Everything sings out, ‘I am made of You.’

    If you find yourself tempted to shine your light on republicans or democrats or those who agree or disagree with you, relax into your diamond light body.

    Let go.

    Relax.

    Fall backwards.

    Sink.

    Our home frequency, our Source, knows I am made of You…

    (*Note – Send email to debra@scs-matters.com if you would like my audio recording of How to Activate Your Diamond Light Body.