7 Practices For Realizing Your Highest Possibilities # 6

Practice 6 – Take Time to Nourish Your True Self

When it comes to a choice in meals, deals, even making plans, one can afford to make certain mistakes; these decisions, including their delay are generally not irreparable. But this isn’t so when it comes to the interior work required to develop the nascent soul. The choice and eventual cost of delaying, or otherwise ignoring its needs, is to lose a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to realize your highest possibilities.

Transcript

Our sixth practice is entitled Take Time to Nourish Your True Self.

And before I read the key lesson I just would add one comment.

These practices,

Each and every one of them,

Can be no more effective than is our willingness to learn what we can by our effort to put them into practice.

That's why,

As the key lesson says,

When it comes to a choice in meals,

Deals,

Even making plans,

One can afford to make certain mistakes.

These decisions,

Including their delay,

Are generally not irreparable.

But this isn't so when it comes to the interior work required to develop the nascent soul.

The choice and eventual cost of delaying or otherwise ignoring its needs is to lose a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to realize your highest possibilities.

Along the upper path there comes a time when the aspirant,

You and I,

Must make a choice.

Either we change what we've been doing,

Pursuing in our life,

In order to spend more time nourishing the needs of our soul,

Or too soon we will watch,

And helplessly I might add,

As the effect of a certain withering of the soul begins to change our life for us.

And in many cases,

Making it too late for us to have any say in the direction that these changes take.

I've seen this too many times.

There must be a first.

But what is that first to be?

Well,

We talked about it in the last practice.

But let's take a new slant.

Whenever we feel the onset of a thirst,

That physical sensation,

It invites us to seek something that's going to quench it.

In much the same way,

There comes times when we can all feel a certain kind of thirst to know the truth of ourselves.

To discover a new and higher understanding by which we might realize,

With some certainty I might add,

That there really is a higher purpose to our life in this world.

But what is the nature of this ineffable longing?

I've always called it divine dissatisfaction.

Those moments when,

Even those surrounded by friends and family,

There is an unexplainable sense of loneliness.

Where,

In the midst of all the gifts,

The abundance of our life,

There is this unshakable feeling that something is somehow missing.

It is in the most unwanted moments of awareness,

That in that same moment there is a realization of a kind of an invisible hole in our soul.

The presence of an emptiness that,

Try as we may,

Has never really been filled.

At least not in any way that lasts.

And not by anything we've been able to create for ourselves in this world.

And certainly by no means the last of these indications,

And yet part of the above,

Is what we can call the presence of some deep-seated,

Inexplicable pain.

That while we may,

And we do indeed,

Find temporary relief from it,

We're never quite able to release ourselves from its on-again,

Off-again appearance and grip.

Actually,

Though by and large virtually unrealized,

This hunger and thirst that we have to know the truth of ourselves,

Never stops rising up from the depth of our own being.

And in some ways,

As does the newly opened spring flower raise its petals to receive the nourishing sunlight that's streaming down from above.

So is it true when it comes to the light of the divine truth.

It never ceases to pour down on us,

Revealing the presence of its celestial principles within us.

The question is how do we catch these messages?

That's really the purpose of this sixth practice.

If we ever really want to answer this divine dissatisfaction,

Which by the way is really nothing more than an invitation to realize consciously our highest possibilities,

Then we,

You and I,

We must become a message catcher.

It's an unusual set of words I first heard long ago when a small group of students,

Including myself,

Were sitting and listening to a great illumined man by the name of Vernon Howard.

And he told the story of the message catcher,

A man who would leave town every day and travel up a mountain and unlike all the others who were making the same journey,

Unfailingly found himself to a field of flowers whose healing herbs were medicine not just for himself but everyone in town.

And everyone who wanted to make the same journey,

Come to the same discoveries,

Asked him one day finally how it was that he was able when no one else was able to reach that valley where these flowers lived.

And he said,

It's quite simple really.

I'm a message catcher.

I always follow the river that as you know always changes its course almost moment to moment.

And if I wait quietly by the river long enough,

A message will come floating down.

And the message tells me the next place,

The next place to look,

The next place to go and wait to receive the next lesson.

As implied by this story and I think that many of us have experientially proven this,

That we receive certain life-changing lessons only when at last we've expired all of our own answers.

That when we wait,

Which is the first of the seven particular practices in this sixth practice,

If we will do what I call wait for it,

Then what we wait for will come for us.

How does it work,

This exercise,

Wait for it?

Whenever there comes any disturbance there always appears with it,

Actually from out of the reaction we've had to that same moment,

A desire.

A desire appears in the midst of that disturbance to do what?

To reconcile the pain that has come into our awareness that we blame on the moment.

Disturbance produces desire.

Desire always wants to find what it needs in order to bring an end to the disturbance.

And so when we have that longing to free ourselves or at least find some path back to a relative peace of mind that was suddenly taken from us,

Our mind asks questions like,

Well now what do I do?

How do I fix this?

We know the drill.

And as we also know too well,

Almost immediately pops into that same mind some familiar answer that at least holds the promise temporarily of bringing an end to that disturbance,

To that pain.

But we also know something else to be true.

The only thing all of these familiar so-called tried and true answers do is momentarily relieve us of what's disturbing us.

It never really releases us from the lower level of our own consciousness that invariably finds its way back into some new conflict,

Some new disturbance,

And the thing repeats itself and repeats itself.

So the practice,

Which is called Wait For It,

Means that in the midst of some trial or tribulation,

We must stop answering our own questions.

We must refuse to console ourselves with what amounts to little more than failed ideas that have been reconfigured into some new promise.

And by the way,

A promise that always involves a time to come.

Real spiritual nourishment,

Our truest highest possibility,

Is not found in a time to come.

It's always found now or never.

Which brings us to the second practice of nourishing our true self.

And as you'll see,

It's directly connected to the first.

I believe it was St.

Paul who really outlined this practice,

In my opinion,

Best of all,

Including its power to help us realize our highest spiritual possibilities.

With one simple sentence,

He summarized this exercise.

He said,

In your patience,

Possess you your soul.

This exercise,

That's part of this sixth practice,

Is in any and every unwanted moment as simple as learning to be patient with yourself.

Patience is everything.

With it,

Life eventually reveals the secret of its invisible celestial perfection.

But without patience,

We struggle and struggle with the perceived imperfection of a world that simply refuses to march to the drum of our own self-induced demands.

Few know the following,

But you will now.

The word patience,

The original meaning of it,

Is to suffer yourself.

Think about it.

To be patient means to suffer ourselves.

And so the unspoken meaning relative to this exercise,

The divine idea that is hidden between these lines,

Is that we must learn to suffer ourselves for the sake of a greater self,

A latent greater possibility that is already within us,

But that we rarely have access to because we always remand ourselves over to a relationship with what is old,

With what is known.

And that we cannot see is old and known because we're blinded by its promise to renew us if we'll do what it tells us to do.

And this brings us to the third exercise in this sixth practice.

And this practice is,

As was the second of the first,

A continuation of the theme of wait for it.

Because now we're talking about the exercise of conscious persistence,

Especially in the face of unwanted or otherwise unyielding circumstances.

We already know,

To some extent,

That acquiring power or social influence can never make us whole,

Let alone deliver us from that irreconcilable loneliness or fear or whatever that unwanted feeling is,

That tells us by its very presence that somehow we're separate from life and must do something to rejoin ourselves to what is whole.

It's only through our consistent,

Persistent interior work,

Remember,

To return home,

To nourish the whole of ourselves,

That we're able to realize through that conscious persistence the source of another kind of power,

Of an altogether higher influence,

That if we will agree to place ourselves under its influence,

That we can realize our highest spiritual possibility in that same moment.

How so?

Very few know what I'm about to tell you.

But you must prove it to yourself.

Patient persistence,

With any limitation,

Is an invitation to the powers that be to step in and take you through that trial,

And reveal to you everything that has created that trial,

Releasing you from it at the same time.

In my own personal experience,

I cannot tell you how many times,

Through understanding what I'm describing to you,

That by persisting and being patient with my own limitations,

Even in a physical level,

Someone,

Somewhere,

Something comes along and gives you,

Gives me,

In just the moment needed,

What was not understood the moment before.

That willingness to meet the limitation persistently with patience invites the revelations that release us from it.

And this is why,

In part,

As we just realized when we talked about this spiritual quest,

That patience should always hold the reins,

But a steady,

Ready persistence to walk into the new and to realize what's true must lead the way.

Once we realize that what makes any moment seemingly impassable is nothing more than what we have yet to realize about ourselves,

Then remaining with what we have yet to realize places us where it becomes possible to receive the lesson in that moment.

That's why,

To the one who persists,

Everything eventually yields.

Now I trust that you'll see without too much explanation how the fourth of these exercises is,

In fact,

Tied directly to the first three.

The fourth of these exercises that nourishes our true self is simply to slow down.

For starters,

To begin to see that it's literally impossible to rush through a moment and realize the great abiding lesson that is already present within it.

And what is that abiding lesson that's already within every last moment of our life that we rush by?

Take a nice deep breath.

You are the answer to any and every question you will ever ask.

Let me repeat it.

You are the answer to any and every question you will ever ask.

To realize this true self-knowledge,

Itself born of higher self-understanding,

Leads to a life without fear and to a faith that grows daily.

But to realize the grace of this spiritual gift,

Of what it means to remember there is no place like home,

And to take the step that you're sure you can't,

Requires developing patience and persistence.

Which is why it's impossible to awaken,

Let alone perfect,

Our highest spiritual possibilities if we're always in a rush to somehow or other get past the pain that has appeared with realizing that limitation,

Whatever it may be.

Slowing down begins with becoming aware of just how painful it is to be carried off in a flood of anxious thoughts and feelings.

Let me say it again.

We're never really aware of how painful it is to be in a rush because the parts of us that are rushing have been promised that if we will rush to that place,

Which by the way is outside of our true home,

That we'll find the healing and the wholeness we seek there,

But it isn't there.

That's why the answer to any suffering like that is never found by trying to escape it.

The task is always to illuminate the lower level of consciousness that would have us believe it's better to live to fight another day than it is to die on the spot to those parts of us whose only life is to keep running toward what it hopes will make us whole,

Or running away from the moments it fears is taking away that wholeness that it imagines itself as having obtained.

Deliberately step out of the rush of any anxious,

Worried,

Or fearful thought.

If you'll do that and wait there,

You will see a message come.

And when you catch the message,

It will finally at last help you understand the importance of remembering there's no place like home.

I'm attempting to show you how all of these exercises are connected to each other,

And that includes the fifth of these exercises.

And please remember,

The ways to nourish our true self are as limitless as our willingness to explore the spiritual revelations that never stop pouring down on us,

Which is why the fifth of these exercises is called Always Honor the Lesson of the Moment.

We've all heard the expression that when the student is ready,

The teacher appears.

Well,

What is the teacher that always appears,

Other than the moment that we find ourselves in,

That has brought us the revelation of a limitation?

Because what is it that we learn that allows us to realize our highest possibility,

Other than to release the part of us that stands in its way?

Until we realize that unconsciously agreeing to reject these unwanted moments,

As most of us do,

Is the same as refusing to see the meaning of the event and the lesson in it,

We're never going to know the truth that sets us free.

For what else is our experience of any moment,

Any such moment,

That includes the meaning hidden in it,

If not a ceaseless revelation of our present nature and what it values above all else?

The gist of this exercise is to honor the lesson by slowing down,

Honor the revelation by taking whatever time is needed,

As much time,

To take that lesson into your heart and into your mind,

Where it is meant to be received.

If you have a sudden emotional impression,

If some thought calls for your attention,

Make that moment and that relationship the whole of your existence until you have found and taken from that moment the lesson it has brought to you.

And never mind the seeming cost of slowing down,

Of honoring the moment of that revelation.

You must do it if you want to be given what it has come to give you.

Try and understand and then act from the true knowledge that these moments where some higher impression is trying to break through and then take you into a new world within yourself,

To give you the freedom that it has come to give you,

To receive that gift,

You have to choose to receive it by choosing to give up everything and all things in that moment that want to take your attention away from that relationship.

For those who seek the true self,

There is no substitute for seeing the truth of the following.

Let these moments,

The truth that is offered,

Be your guide.

Whether for the pleasure or the pain in its appearance,

Be true to yourself.

Honor the lesson,

Honor the moment and everything that it has come to give you.

And then you will understand that what it has come to give you is what you have been waiting for your whole life.

The sixth of these exercises,

Simply put,

Start your day on the right foot and end your day with the right wish.

It's a simple exercise but it just means that never launch yourself into the day without having nourished your wish to spend the day in the most profitable way possible.

However that takes,

Do some kind of reading in the morning,

Listen to a truth talk,

Work inwardly,

Find some place where you can have solitude,

Where your attention will be yours because nothing will be taking it from you,

And in that place to deliberately contemplate,

Whatever it may be,

Some wish,

Some worry,

Something that you want to know more about,

Bring that wish to know more about yourself into that solitude,

Into that silence.

The answer to the question is waiting for you there.

Most importantly,

Never go into your day without some kind of higher intention in hand.

Along with taking the time in the morning and in the evening when you lay your head on your pillow.

Work with something,

One of these practices,

Some intention,

Some variation on one of the themes.

The most important thing is to always remember that if we want to realize our highest spiritual possibilities,

Then we're going to have to lend ourself to that task.

There is no alternative to this.

The more we're able to recognize and honor,

Nourish the fact that something in us needs to be nourished by our willing attention to its need,

The more that need will be answered,

And the more it's answered,

The more we will receive everything we need,

Not just to be released from our former limitations,

But to discover that they never existed in the way we imagined them in the first place.

The last of the seven exercises is so simple.

We acknowledge when we study like this the truth of things.

We can feel it.

If we nothing else sense that there is a superior way to meet life using new principles and practicing them as diligently as we can.

So though we acknowledge these things,

Without our work to act on that knowledge,

Which is the seventh and last of the exercises in this sixth practice.

Act on the knowledge.

Act on the knowledge.

Don't let a day go by without your willingness to take what the moment brings to you,

And to bring that moment to remember yourself and bring everything that is in front of you into that awareness that allows you to recognize this moment has not brought a problem.

It has brought the promise of you being able to fulfill your wish to realize your highest possibility.

Reviews

Thanks for being my life Master for life enhancement and enlightenment!
Wish you the best!

Thank you for reminding us of the absolute importance of slowing down to receive the messsges that are always trying to reach us. 🙏

Thank you 🙏

This course has been so helpful and insightful and I’m truly grateful for you! Thank you for sharing !

Thank You ~ I might like to listen again 😊

Just what I needed today.

Oh patience…. You will one day be a friend of mine.

Amazing talk and ties all the practices in so neatly and lovingly. Thank u!