|
 |
|
I have spent this Thanks-giving day thinking about all of you, and my appreciation for you. Yes, all of you, even those of you that I have not personally met. How can that be? That personal meeting stuff is wonderful, nurturing, educational, joyful and fun. It is about where our forms are located from one moment to the next, and about how those aspects of ourselves called our personalities and histories interact in any point in space and time. But that is not what is essential to who you and I are. Our forms come, grow, mature, and go. Formless to form and back home again. What is changeless is your true nature, the Love that YOU are. That is always present, and accessible to experience when we are open to recieve. In the spirit of my thankfulness for you, I offer you these thoughts on the gift we give ourselves when we live from thankfulness and gratitude.
Give thanks, and it will move you into a state in which Grace can presence itself in your life deeply and forever.
Know that Grace is not moved to appear by the ego's ravenous asking, pleading, desire and want for more. When you vibrate at the frequency of Lack, that is what will manifest. No matter how many things and experiences you have, something will be missing.
What you want more than anything else already lives within you. The Gift of Grace merely illuminates it.
Grace arises effortlessly when you experience Gratitude for what you have received. Stay in that experience of Gratitude even briefly, and you will find yourself transported into a state of awe, humility and wonder for the gift of life itself.
Grace is the flow of Creation and Abundance that waits in the Formless Infinite to be manifested in your life.
GRACE expresses itself as APPRECIATION, as GRATITUDE, as LOVE, as WISDOM, as COMPASSION, as LIVING FROM AN OPEN HEART.
Release the death grip of the mind's plethora of ideals of what should and shouldn't be in your life.
Embrace what is, and you will naturally give thanks, for the gifts of God's miracles will unfold all around you.
When you embrace what is, you shift your attention away from two illusions -- a past that is no more, and a future that has not yet arrived -- and become fully present to where life is actually unfolding --NOW. That is where YOU ARE. That is where LOVE IS.
When you give thanks for what is, you move out of your mind as your primary residence and you move into your Heart. You give up focusing on the mind's addiction to the illusion of separateness. You give up the mind's world of stories, dramas, beliefs, and fears for your security and survival, and find yourself in the real world, in which you are aware of Love, Compassion and inner Wisdom as the foundation for all life.
When you live from your mind, your Heart's Light and your connection with the Divine are reduced or closed. You replace BEING with intellect and unconscious patterns of conditioning.
When you live from your Heart, the mind shifts from being your master to being the Heart's faithful servant. Then the mind functions to support the Self's manifestation in the world. That is how it was designed to BE.
When you live with thanks and gratitude, you become aware of the miracles all around you, and the gift that life itself is.
When you quiet the mind, the gifts you are given shine forth.
I invite you to do a simple, powerful exercise today. As you walk up a flight of stairs before or after your Thanksgiving dinner, or when you take a walk, allow yourself with each step to give thanks for something or someone in your life. Start with something obvious and simple, such as those I've listed below, and the rest will flow. Notice what you experience if you do this fully for only a few minutes.
A THANKS-GIVING DAY THANK YOU LIST:
Give thanks for the gift of sight. Be present to the gifts it has given you -- a child's face, a sunset, a moonlit night, the light on water, the curve of a neck, the purple gash of flowers on the hillside, a painting by Monet, the light in a lover's eyes.
Give thanks for the gift of hearing. The sounds of music, of nature, of voices ---a child's first word, a grandparent's last sigh.
Give thanks for the gift of touch, of speech, of smell.
Give thanks for the gift of having the capacity to feel the whole range and palette of human emotions.
Give thanks for the gift of movement, of walking, of running, of embracing.
Give thanks for the gift that each breath is.
Give thanks for the gift of your Self's expression through art, dance, music, writing, science, sports, love, and birthing new possibilities.
Give thanks for the gift of the friends and teachers in your life who have touched you, moved you, and guided you.
Give thanks for the gift of your parents for giving you physical life.
Give thanks for the members of your family for what they provided for you in your Soul's journey in this life.
Give thanks for the gift of your community and country and the traditions and principles they have given you to live from.
Give thanks for the gift you have gotten from pain, mistakes, traumas, and crisis from which you have learned.
Give thanks for the gift of Forgiveness; the opportunity to discover your power to express unconditional love and be the source of your inner state of Being.
Give thanks for the gift of Love and Compassion.
Give thanks for the gift of being able to listen to your own inner wisdom, to think for your Self, to recognize the path you are to take.
Give thanks for the gift of recognizing the truth of our Oneness with ALL.
Give thanks to THAT which is the Source of all you are thankful for.
I invite you, on this day, on all the days that follow, to live from thankfulness and gratitude.
I thank each of you for the gift you are in my life in whatever form or forms that has taken --- as family, friend, student, client, mentor, guru, acquaintance, or passerby. You are all my teachers. You have all given me the opportunity to relate, to create, to love, and to BE.
Thank you for BEING in my life.
With love, gratitude and appreciation,
-- Hal Isen
From Core Wisdom On-Line Number 35 - Nov. 27, 2003
541-488-7687 |
