“I’m like the fog – you’re the Infinite Sea – everything about you is a Mystery.  Your love is always free… like the birds in the air, children everywhere, the winds blowing fair on the sea.”   c1981   

Choose to be Free

What is important to you, right now, in your life?  I have seen how easy it is to get caught up in shallow or temporary distractions.  When I get hooked, I find it is far too easy to forget to look more deeply into my heart and soul and see what is more important to me and what is a minor interest competing for my attention.

Recently a couple of friends came over for a visit.  Our conversation reflected our past and what brought us to our spiritual paths.  Even though we’ve been friends for years, I had not shared a deep part of myself, my passion and journey as a song writer and some of the more meaningful experiences that I had in the entertainment industry.

I shared a couple of the early devotional songs that I wrote in the 1980’s.  The songs were inspired by my study of the “The Course in Miracles,” reflecting some of the moments of amazing grace and an ever deepening relationship with God.  The songs emerged through me in a very magical way and everything about them came forth mysteriously.

One of the lines in a song said, “Everything about you is a mystery.  Your love is always free, like the birds in the air, children everywhere, the winds blowing fair on the sea.”

Today, the wind is blowing fair on the sea.  What is still true for me is the “amazing grace” that comes through those most precious times when I am in attunement with Spirit.  It changes my consciousness, it shifts my heart and awareness and my spirit is lifted out of the mundane.

Learning to deepen my spiritual relationship to my Source through daily spiritual practice helps me keep my heart open and connected to the Divine and my higher self.  The magic is much more subtle than my song writing days were and the vibrations last longer than the intensely short and sweet resonance of a song.   The power of Divine Love opens my heart and lifts me up without setting up an ego trap to reel me in – one more time.

Know that you are Loved,  Rev. Barb Walley

I read a great article by Jyotish Novak this morning.  He and his wife Devi are the Spiritual Leaders of the Ananda Communities Worldwide.   I am consistently blessed by the wisdom and compassion that they share in their blogs.  I recommend signing up for their “Touch of Light” weekly email list by going to Ananda.org

This week has brought forth several opportunities to look at the power of magnetism in my life.  I asked myself what am I magnetizing to myself and is it working.  I will share my discoveries with you as I go more deeply into expanding awarenesses.   The Ananda Community is dedicated to the teachings of Paramhansa Yogananda.  We dedicate our daily practice of Kriya Yoga with the goal of reaching Self Realization. Our daily lives are actively engaged in conscious meditation, yoga and conscious practices that support us as we live in attunement with High Thinking and Simple Living.

What I have discovered on my spiritual path that it is essential to have a tried and true roadmap to reach a fully awakened consciousness.  In Jyotish’s blog he shared 12 qualities that Paramhansa Yogananda, the author of Autobiography of a Yogi,  gave us as a roadmap to help us develop twelve Godly qualities as a means of overcoming the ego.  They are as follows:

1.   Fearlessness and non-attachment
2.   Absence of self-conceit
3.   Purity of heart: no malice towards others
4.   Perseverance (in the acquisition of wisdom and the practice of meditation)
5.   Sattwic charity (including helping others materially)
6.   Self-restraint (which leads to control of the senses)
7.   Freedom from anger and faultfinding
8.   Straightforwardness
9.   Kindness
10. Forgiveness, (giving a person a chance to reform)
11. Renunciation (primarily of the heart)
12. Tranquility in the Self

Those are powerful ideas and I certainly have several on this list that I need to work on. Yogananda suggested that we pick one of these qualities (at a time) to focus upon and that makes great sense to me.  Feel free to discuss any of these ideas that you like with me.   And we will be going more deeply into these 12 qualities in future blog posts. Have a blessed day.

Know that you are Loved,  Rev. Barb Walley

Part 1:   When circumstances or situations are just ripe, many of us can slip into the inadequacy dance.   We go round and round comparing and measuring ourselves and our lives against the perception that we have of someone else’s life.  The very fact that we are doing that, points to a a strong sense of “I am not enough.”   That is not the truth but the habit and seduction of this mind set can erode the tenor of even the most precious times of our lives.

Growing up in my family, I was compared to my older sister for most of my childhood or my cousins, our neighbors and who knows who.  My parents often compared themselves to the lives of others.  Once the habit was established no one had to say a thing, I was off and running my mind in many circles and endless reasons why I did not make the grade.  I was a sensitive child who did not approach things in the ways that my family thought I should and that provoked any number of reasons to tell me who and what I ought to be.

Learning to be our own selves and honoring who we are is so essential.  Learning to stop comparing ourselves and our lives to everyone and their sister is a struggle that we have to overcome to be our authentic selves.   Creative people, and I am one, will often address things in a way that does not conform to others peoples way of going about things.  Other than safety and being kind and considerate, everyone has the right and the need to be themselves.  There is no one who can take their place.  We are all unique souls that are here for a reason.  What that might be is a struggle that many souls wrestle with for years and eve lifetimes.

Please don’t waste your life on endless comparisons.  Take a look at what is going on. Are you feeling badly about yourself or your life because you are comparing yourself to someone else.  Make the decision to honor who you are!  You are a precious soul on this earth and you are here for a reason, a season and this lifetime.  Life is our teacher and many come to our aid to reflect what we need to learn this time through.  Do your best to learn what life is trying to teach you.  You are not alone.  We are all needing to fulfill the larger reason for our presence here on the earth right now.

Know that You are Greatly Loved!   Rev Barb