So I'm going to give 10 ways that are kind of,
For me,
Really good,
Easy ways to stay attuned to the divine that are not just a list of things to do,
But they're sort of like invitations to just be.
This is a way to be,
To be able to cultivate this kind of all day,
Every day experience of the divine.
Okay,
This one is,
I love it because it's so challenging for most of us to do in this life right now,
But it's to be still long enough to notice.
Just be still,
Just be still.
Notice that if I all of a sudden got like crazy and upset and up in arms or frantic or tried to overextend and help,
I'm not still long enough to be able to have anything come in ways that surprise and delight.
In the absence of movement,
Often you'll find that the awareness is right beneath.
And just letting yourself get still.
Take moments each day to practice this.
Just practice doing nothing.
Simply being.
And in that still space,
The divine whispers its presence,
Truly,
Truly.
It whispers its presence.
That's when you start to have mystical experiences.
You don't have to summon it.
You don't have to do anything special.
You just recognize it.
And the more you begin to recognize it as your priority,
The more it appears.
The divine loves to surprise us and delight us.
And let us know that it's listening to us now.
By the way,
I just want to emphasize one other thing here.
No matter how many humans there are on the planet,
There are infinitely more of us beings that are divine,
That are out of bodies,
That are there to supply and to support and to help.
They love it.
They love it.
So everybody here has a lineage.
Even if you were an orphan and you didn't know who came before you,
You have lineages of beings that once they left their physical body and their limitations and their challenges,
And the things that kind of.
.
.
Begot you as a human being.
They now know.
That there's an easier way to do things.
And they didn't get the opportunity when they were still in their physicality,
And they like to give you a leg up on the ladder.
The only thing that they don't do is interfere if you're not inviting them.
So all of us have,
You know,
Divine beings and angels that support and supply us always,
But you want to make it part of your maybe daily morning,
Evening,
Prayer time or stillness time where you're inviting them in.
Make yourself evident to me now.
Ask for the divine to make itself evident to you because otherwise it remains invisible but always there.
And you want tangible touches and tastes of this.
Another way that I have helped people be able to see the divine where before they didn't have that capacity and to grow their mystical nature is to see through soft eyes.
What I mean by that is that your eyes are softer because you're not like intensely riveted on looking for the problem or looking for the pain or judging things harshly.
You're looking at the world actually as though it's already forgiven.
You forgave it.
It's just the world.
It's a stage.
All life's a stage.
Everyone's doing the best they can.
We all have creative capacity and some of us are making drama with it.
And instead,
Let yourself really soften and watch how your perception starts to clear.
It's sort of like,
You know,
You join your an angel in the clouds,
Then what once looked ordinary now starts to have you can start to see there's like a glow to things.
And,
And that's a way to start to let your eyes Begin now to see innocence instead of imperfection.
You know,
Really focus on the innocence instead of the imperfection of things.
Deliberately see through soft eyes.
That means you have a soft heart,
By the way.
And it's not a vulnerable heart,
It's a soft heart that's being able to see things more clearly.
Another one is listen beneath the noise.
Every sound,
Even traffic or people's complaints,
Can become sacred.
When you start to listen for what's beneath it.
As A Course in Miracles would call it,
Everything's love or a call for love.
You start to listen beneath the noise.
You start to hear the call for love.
And it's much more heartening to hear the call for love than it is to think that love is nowhere in evidence.
So feel this divine presence hums through every vibration.
When you truly listen,
You can hear harmony everywhere.
I know we have some musicians here,
And that's a gift to be able to innately know that you can hear harmony of creation.
You know,
Just letting yourself relax and kick back and listen beneath the noise.
The next one.
This is number four.
Bless the ordinary.
Just treat every small act like it's extraordinary,
Washing dishes,
Even answering emails.
Everybody has that pile of emails.
Feel as though you're doing something sacred and would you do it if it doesn't feel sacred?
Can you take that off your plate if it doesn't feel sacred or as though it's feeding the truth of you?
Breathing.
As just a silent prayer.
Just breathe.
Just be with your breath.
You came in with that first breath.
You'll leave with the last.
Every breath you breathe connects you to the divine.
And notice that holiness doesn't arrive in these like special ceremony things.
It reveals itself in the way that you hold the mundane as miraculous,
That every small moment has a chance for you to step into heaven.
And when you show up and bless what's in front of you,
Then heaven rushes in.
Heaven rushes in.
The other thing that A Course in Miracles really stresses in this way is the holy encounters.
With other people that every encounter is a holy encounter and I remember during those days,
Three days with my mind being still that when I was in the parking lot at Kmart and just pushing like a shopping cart,
Very mundane and I remember seeing two people that were crossing each other's paths and they didn't smile at each other and I wanted to say,
Stop.
You orchestrated this in timelessness and time and space.
You orchestrated the two of you just to see each other and smile.
That was a holy encounter and it was a missed event.
Now,
The divine is perfect so we can bring things around again,
But it was so obvious to me that everyone was in the midst of being preoccupied about the things that didn't bring them that deep soul satisfaction that even just showing up to a moment and letting themselves have holy encounters with other people anywhere anytime that's just a brief smile in some instances a little like just you know acknowledging something that make people feel much more connected that's the only thing about holy encounters is that they connect rather than separate.
So then the next one is practice radical gratitude,
Where gratitude you see as the doorway.
Where awareness steps us into communion.
The more we thank everything,
The easy and the difficult.
The more we find ourselves being brought home to presence.
Just be like,
I don't know what this is.
Just I'm going to love it and thank you.
Thank you.
Bless each moment and then it blesses you back and you start to see things be revealed that you never would before.
So gratitude is always a big one.
It's always on the lists of anybody who is ever an aware person that that's the way to get ourselves connected is through gratitude.
Then six is really powerful for me because sometimes we don't do this unless we get into places like nature,
Where we allow ourselves to feel set apart a little bit from our normal lives,
But follow the thread of aliveness.
Some things,
Even walking into your kitchen,
Some things make you feel more alive than others.
Those are the things you choose to eat.
You don't have to be doing things in routine ways.
That feel as though they're not sacred or beautiful or blessed or miraculous.
Notice what makes you come alive,
Not as excitement and over the top kind of thing,
But just a deep resonance with things.
What quiet thrill can you add to the day and expand in your chest and open your eyes with This is how the divine says,
You know,
This is the way,
Follow me this way.
Whenever you see things that make you feel alive,
Follow that thread.
That's an empowering and impactful thing to notice that whenever something makes you feel alive and connected,
That's the thread to follow.
Number seven is really important here and maybe,
I don't know,
It might be the most important one to keep yourself happy consistently and having persistent peace.
Surrender the story.
When you drop narratives of who you think you are or who you think you should be or what happened in the past and what happens happening now or what could happen in the future,
Then reality begins to shine with its original clarity.
You know,
You see the original clarity is that you're perfect,
It's perfect,
Everything's fine,
You came here to bring the good,
The true,
The beautiful and holy,
What could be wrong with that?
The divine doesn't need your control,
It needs your openness.
It needs your receptivity.
So you can let go of the story.
Once you let it go,
You leave space.
To be carried by the divine beings that know way better than you and the divine being that you are.
That also knows that there is a life of grace and bliss that's meant to be for you.
So I've got three more.
Be fully where you are.
Everywhere that you think you should be,
Spiritually,
Emotionally,
Physically,
Is just an idea.
Just an idea.
The divine will only ever meet you right here,
So be where you are fully,
Fully,
Completely.
The more fully that you arrive in this moment now,
The more sacred you see that it becomes.
It just reveals itself.
Because now you're here in this moment.
You shouldn't be doing anything else.
You can't be anywhere else.
Now you're here.
You know,
I used to work in Boston and my kids,
I lived a half an hour north of Boston.
And so lots of times Boston has traffic and I'd be coming home in traffic and things.
And I remember thinking,
Oh my God,
You know,
If I'm,
I'm picking up the kids at school,
I should be there.
And then all of a sudden,
You know,
I'm here,
I'm now awake to a different reality and I'm realizing,
Hey,
This body is a gift because if I'm here,
This is where I'm supposed to be.
If I can't be picking him up at school and I'm late,
I can't be there.
There must be like I totally forgave myself.
I exonerated myself from problem and pain.
I didn't have any story around it.
I'm in the car driving.
I don't have to give everybody the finger on the road to make a move faster to get out of my way.
I can instead just show up now and when I get there,
I'll see what I arrived to.
I can't do anything about this.
I'm driving the best I can,
But I'm going to be present driving.
Be fully where you are.
And then I arrive and I realize that my daughter's with her best friend who she doesn't get a chance to spend time with because her mother was late at the same time.
And they're running around the playground all happy and bouncy because they got time to spend with each other.
Because I wasn't there!
And I would never have noticed that in the past.
That would have totally right over my head.
I would never have noticed that since I was being a realist I can only be fully where I am.
And this is the human body that I have that shows me I can only be where this human body is right now.
I might as well,
You know,
Love it.
And that's what happens.
So paying attention,
You're gonna notice that your life is on a divine trajectory.
The divine doesn't try to make it harder for us.
The more we just are fully where we are and recognize these things that we could normally have dismissed,
We start to see heaven amongst everything and everyone.
Okay,
Here's number nine.
It's see everything as a reflection of the divine.
Just feel this,
10,
000 faces of God.
Every other person is the face of God.
God showing you something about love,
Or how you can love,
Or how you can learn love,
Or how you can better love,
Or how you can let go of things to love.
And notice that the kind people out there reveal the light of us.
It's easy to be the light of who we are around the kind ones.
The difficult ones reveal where we forgot the light that we are.
And then you can just like in the Buddhist tradition often,
It's just bow inwardly to each one.
Seeing the divinity in them.
Bow to everything and everyone as a reflection of the divine.
And notice that when you do that with other people,
You know that you are too.
And then this is the big one of all,
Kind of encompasses all of the rest of them,
Number 10.
Remember that you're not separate.
You can't be separate.
It's impossible.
That's an impossible dream.
You don't find the divine,
You remember you're the divine.
And anything else is you temporarily in a state of what,
Of course,
Merkels would call insanity,
Dreaming that you're somebody that you're not.
So every time you remember this,
You awaken just a little more.
I'm divine.
I'm divine now,
I'm divine last week,
Even when I made problems and challenges for myself.
So what?
I'm going to make the next iteration of this come to life.
I'm going to create my way out of this.
I am a creator.
I am part and at one with the great creator.
Every time you remember this,
You awaken a little more and the world becomes brighter and softer and more whole and more alive because of you.
And just now go back to that thought and if there are any young people in your life this would be the thing to teach them.
That they will know what separates and contracts them because it doesn't feel good.
That separates them from the divine.
It doesn't feel good.
You don't have to think that thought.
Let's go back to the thought that feels connecting and embracing.
And then be aware of what feels embracing and connecting and really,
Really lean into that.
Lean into that with all of your heart and all of your soul.
And then what's going to happen is you're going to see those 10,
000 faces of the divine everywhere you go.
You're going to see the multiplicity within the one.
You're going to see the divinity everywhere,
All over,
Everywhere,
Always,
Never any place that you're not going to see the divine.
And you're noticing that if you were using the analogy of the sun,
The sun shines through all kinds of windows.
And it's going to bring different.
Features and different things to light in whatever window it shines through but it's the same sun,
It's the same divine.
If we see ourselves just as like countless windows here,
We're all Taking a big,
Deep breath here and exhale.
I'm sorry,
I'm like a fire hose sometimes.
But let's just close our eyes for one moment now just to bring all this together into our awareness.
You know,
You've remembered who you are.
That's what all this time is about.
What us sharing in the light and the wonderful,
Extraordinary time that we've shared together,
Remembering who we truly are.
Everything else is just a false misperception.
Your true miraculous self is here,
Arriving present,
Wholly present now,
Completely available,
And this is where you're living from now on.
So as you close your eyes now for a moment,
Bring someone to mind.
Who you've had a difficult time with.
Relationship with Lele,
If anyone.
A person or even a situation or recurring thought that you have.
Something that doesn't feel divine to you right now,
Entirely divine.
And without trying to fix it,
Or changing in any way.
Just ask.
What face of the divine might this be?
By that,
I mean,
Is the face.
Patience.
Then I show up with patience.
Is the face requiring trust?
Is it the face of trust?
The face of non-judgment.
The face of release.
Just see which of those things are multiple things that you're really learning.
What phase of the divine is this particular difficulty?
Person or situation or place.
Making you come up with from within yourself.
That's a quality of the divine.
Patience.
Trust non-judgment.
Release.
All these things that are qualities of your true,
True nature.
And just breathe into that with a moment.
Use yourself.
Commingle.
This thought,
This truth.
Of your true self and this recognition of your true self,
This face of the divine that's coming forth now.
Just breathe into that.
And let it soften your perception of what before could have felt difficult.
And now you're realizing it's asking you to step up in a miraculous way to allow yourself to wholly align with your true,
Divine,
Miraculous self.
The part of you that can collapse time and space and bring beauty to life instantaneously.
Healing to life instantaneously.
Joy,
Love,
Peace,
Ease,
All these qualities of divine to life.
They're there in the invisible right now,
Surrounding you,
Part of you,
At one with you always.
We want to bring them into the visible.
They're there.
We're not disputing that,
But now we become the vehicle,
The vessel.
That brings them to life.
Feel how your heart expands.
Even in the instant that you see a struggle as sacred.
You step up into who you truly are.
Just feel that space,
Hold that space.
Of your awareness of your true nature,
Dissolving anything and everything.
That's not true.
Love.
And use your breath.
To connect you.
That infinite nature of you.
And now just see in your mind's eye the miracles that you're about to bring to life.
This very next moment,
The next day,
The next week,
The next months,
Bringing the miracle with you everywhere you go.
Just got these invisible wings.
And you're being the earth angel everywhere you go.
And now,
Take your time,
But open your eyes.
And look around you.
Just like that lesson from A Course in Miracles,
The table's not a table,
A chair's not a chair.
Everything you see.
Every object,
Every being.
Is shining in the same light.
The light that you are.
And now you've just remembered how to see it.
Consistently and always.
This is where the sacred becomes practical.
And where your awareness meets life.
Your awareness meets your life.
And morphs it and changes it and miraculously shifts everything that's going on.
And you seeing the divine everywhere is not about rising above this world,
It's about being in it with boots to the ground,
Seeing through all the obstacles and pain.
When you remember that everything is a miracle or a miracle in the making,
Then you stop waiting for heaven and you start right now,
Today,
In this moment,
Loving it.
There's nothing but grace about that.
So tomorrow when you make coffee in the morning,
Or when you answer an email,
Or when you comfort a friend,
Just whisper inwardly to yourself.
The divine is here.
The divine is here.
The divine is here.
And watch how your day changes.
Watch how the mundane turns into the luminous.
And watch how.
You begin to feel that you're bowing to the holy.
Okay,
So.
Let's just end with this one recognition collectively that the divine is here,
The divine is there,
And the divine is everywhere.
