The Law of Attraction – Part 2

After listening to The Law of Attraction abridged version, I decided to download The Secret by Rhonda Byrne. The Secret is about Rhonda Byrne's experience with The Law of Attraction. Her marketing gambit with The Secret is in making reference to great people from the past - such as Plato, Mozart and the like, whom she claims used The Secret, although they might not have been aware of it. The book seemed to consist of a lot of quotes from various self help author's such as Joe Vitale and Jack Canfield. In fact, the quotes made up about 20 to 25 percent of the actual book. As you'd expect, there's not a great deal of new information in this book - it basically echoes what was already said in the LOA (as well as many other related books). However, there are some good points she makes. She emphasises the need to be grateful for what you have and to take the time to express that gratitude. She also emphasises the need to have positive emotions in order to attract positive circumstances. Rhonda Byrne recommends finding those things that make you happy and doing them when you feel down, in order to make a positive shift in your emotions.

As you'd expect, The Secret was full of anecdotes from well known self-help guru's of how they achieved amazing things. There's a testimony from Morris Goodman, the Miracle Man, who, after being paralysed from a plane crash, made a remarkable recovery through positive thinking. There's also a testimony from Jack Canfield, who was able to purchase a 4.5 million dollar mansion through believing in the success of his Chicken Soup for the Soul books. These people and their books often go on about how we can achieve anything we want. I'm uncomfortable with this approach as it encourages insecure people to try to attract incredible things into their life - things that they think will make them happy. What is evident to me is that in order to attract positive things into your life, you first have to be a balanced, secure and positive minded person first.

I read in a related book by James Weaver that its important to be content just as you are: you need to be able to live without those things that you're trying to attract. This probably goes a long way towards explaining why these things didn't work for me in the past. But I'm convinced that there is something to all of this - once you get away from all the marketing hype. In reality, I believe what we're able to attract is probably somewhat more down to earth than the stories we've been told. Its all about being true to what you really want in your heart - what is truly right for you at that time. But when a person is negative and confused - it becomes difficult to identity or to believe in those things. They say its as easy to attract a million dollars as it is to attract ten dollars. I suppose they're just trying to take the limits off our thinking. But its not an invitation to fantasise about things that are really not meant to be in our lives. There is a lot of confusion about this kind of thing and I wish self-help authors would do a lot more to clarify these things.

As I said before: I wasn't ready to use the Law of Attraction in the past as I was too negative. Its all about a person's disposition: if a person is positive, on the whole, they'll tend to attract positive people and things into their life; the reverse is also true. In fact, I'd say that positive people don't really have to use the LOA, as they're already using it, to some extent, without realising it. If a person is struggling with depression and anxiety, they'll no doubt want to attract a few, big, incredible things into their life, which they believe will change their life and make them happy. This approach won't work. For these reasons, I'd say that any method that shifts a person's overall disposition towards the positive, is more important than LOA related teaching and activity.

As a Christian I needed to focus on and accept the grace message. I needed to go beyond the righteousness-by-faith message of Joseph Prince, and to embrace the Freebeliever message, in order to take a critical look at religion and the church-life. Many Christians seem to stay at that stage: going over the grace message again and again. For me, I also needed to release negative beliefs by using The Work of Byron Katie. But now I feel that I can't progress much further with these methods. I've come a long way in the last five years and can honestly say that I've changed a lot and can be truly grateful for what I have. But I feel as if I'm living my life to fifty percent capacity. Some days I feel like my glass is half full, other times I feel my glass is half empty. I go from feeling genuinely grateful for what I have, to feeling unfulfilled.  I've made a big effort to come to terms with reality and to be happy with what I have, but I feel like I'm missing out on some things and I could do better.

I wanted to get the perspective of the LOA from someone lower down the food chain than Jack Canfield and his 4.5 million dollar mansion. So I downloaded a couple of eBooks by James Weaver to my Kindle. They're only short books, less than fifty pages, that relate his experience with LOA. James Weaver related things like how he was able to get some animals for his farm for free - through belief. He describes his experiences and some of the things he attracted, in the eBook, The 30 Day Attraction Experiment. In The Attraction Blueprint, James Weaver recommends a series of steps to attracting what you want in your life. He recommends taking time to determine what you really want and then making a written statement declaring that you already have it. He lists the techniques in the following order:
1) Visualisation; 2) Expressing gratitude; 3) Practising acceptance; 4) Reading your intention statement; 5) Eliminating limiting beliefs; 6) Raising your expectations; 7) Affirmations.

I've been thinking about what I really want. Unsurprisingly, a brand new Ferrari is pretty low down on the list.  I feel as if I'm in a stalemate situation now and that nothing will change unless I do something about it. So I'm going to make a written statement of my intentions for the things that are important to me now. James Weaver recommends reading your statement of intentions a few times first thing in the morning and last thing at night (and once or twice in between, during the day if you can).

The LOA and The Secret both quote Bible verses pertaining to asking, believing and receiving. It struck me that there is actually and accord between LOA and Word of Faith as taught by Kenneth E. Hagin. There are verses about faith in the Bible that cannot be ignored. It seems that with the focus that people put on the grace message, they seem to forget all about these verses of faith. But to do this would be to ignore a significant aspect of The Gospel of Jesus Christ. I couldn't get LOA-style self-help and Word of Faith teaching to work for me in the past. So when the grace message came along I kind of ring-fenced all of that off in my life. If there is no credibility to faith and LOA then that would refute a substantial amount of Christian and self-help teaching out there - including the Bible. I feel as if I've come full circle now and have returned to the very kind of teaching that set me on my spiritual path. Its good to know that perhaps all of that teaching in the past is not all bogus after all. But I'm interested in knowing more about why it didn't work for me in the past and, more importantly, how I can apply these teachings and methods into my life now.

The Need for Inquiry – Part 2

I have been using inquiry through The Work of Byron Katie for almost three years now. I am amazed at the way in which inquiry seems to work for me every time, in that by the time I reach the turnaround, I experience a release from stress and the knowledge of the truth (whether or not I really wanted to hear that truth before I started asking the four questions). The only times that inquiry has not worked are when I have been drinking alcohol or when I’m very tired – but that is what you would expect anyway.

Inquiry – the Ultimate in Self-Realisation

I am convinced that inquiry is the ultimate method for establishing a conscious awareness of the truth from within. It is this awareness of the truth which can change a person’s beliefs, attitudes, and desires and ultimately their actions and behaviour – it all starts with what we think and believe. Who would have thought that our very own anxious thoughts provide us with everything we need in order to know our own mind and thoughts intimately and to find our own way out of the complex web of lies in which we have been caught-up in for so many years of our lives? You could say that inquiry is the ultimate in self-realisation.

Platitudes

For decades, self-help and spiritual gurus have written scores of books which tell people who they should think, feel, and behave in certain situations. All of this teaching has been well intended, but most of it doesn’t work. The reason for this is that a lot of it operates on the basis of giving a person a platitude and expecting them to do something with it. Such platitudes could include telling people to not get angry when someone provokes them or to do something nice for someone you love.

Changing Beliefs

What we believe establishes our attitude, which determines our feelings or desires, which in turn give rise to our actions or behaviour. So if you want to change your life, you need to change your beliefs.

It was around 1994 when I first read the book The Power of Your Subconscious Mind by Dr Joseph Murphy. This book changed my perspective towards my mind and my life when I first read it. It made so much sense to me that I had a conscious mind and a subconscious mind; our feelings and behaviour is governed largely by the beliefs we hold in our subconscious mind; and the beliefs we have in our conscious mind and subconscious mind can become significantly out of synch. This explained to me why I would find myself habitually doing the things I didn’t want to do, whilst struggling to do the things I wanted to do.

For many years now affirmations have been seen as the main way to change the beliefs we have in the subconscious mind. I remember when I first started to use affirmations about fifteen years ago. I got off to an enthusiastic start but then my efforts seem to wane. Like any other new habit such as eating healthily or keeping fit, I would go in predictable cycles of making a spurt of effort, putting it off to another day, before then forgetting about it until a few weeks or months later. I can’t honestly say that during that time I saw any significant change to my life.

Word of Faith

I eventually gave up on affirmations and self-help as I became more engrossed in Christianity. During the early "noughties" I became rather obsessive about Christian Word of Faith (also known by its critics as “Name it and Claim it”), particularly the teaching of Kenneth E. Hagin. Word of Faith is like a Christian equivalent of The Secret and The Law of Attraction. The whole idea behind W.O.F. is that if it is written in the Bible – you can have it. So if someone from ancient times middle-east was blessed by God with lavish wealth – you can have it too because it is written in the Bible. Obviously this system is abusive, misleading and does not work. I eventually started coming out of W.O.F. after about five years.

Why Affirmations Don’t Work – Part 21

The Need for Peace of Mind

I think when it comes to money the best thing in the world you can do is to not worry about it. In fact, I would say that this concept applies to everything in life. There is a natural order and flow to life, things happen around us and good things come into our lives, oftentimes, without us even having to do anything for it, without doing anything to deserve it, without thinking about it and certainly without having to claim it or attract it.

It is for this reason why inquiry is so effective: inquiry does not seek to claim things from God or attract things from the Universe – inquiry seeks to maintain peace of mind which is our optimum state of being. When your mind is at peace, free from worry, you are better able to make good decisions and to live without all of that stuff that you think you can’t live without.

A lack of money is a classic symptom of a myriad of issues in a person’s life – all of which can be traced down to the way they think. If a person struggles financially, it could be indicative of a lack of confidence leading to unwillingness to take risks; it could point to a disorganised mind that forgets things easily and makes silly mistakes.

So when it comes to having more money – I would say that what most people really need is peace of mind, confidence, happiness, contentment, intuition, balance and good self-esteem. It seems to me that most affirmation-based systems do not encourage these things – perhaps it is because they don’t seem to “sell” very well?

With the pursuit of money, job titles and salary figures comes a staunch effort-and-reward mentality that can result in a rather bitter, competitive mindset that does nothing more than enlist you in the rat-race of life.

I am a Christian and I know all the things that put people off Christianity and I accept that. But I must say that there is an exquisite beauty in the Words of Jesus in Matthew Chapter 6:

²⁶ Look at the birds of the air, for they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?

²⁷ Which of you by worrying can add one cubit to his stature?

²⁸ So why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin;

²⁹ and yet I say to you that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.

³⁰ Now if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is, and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will He not much more clothe you, O you of little faith?

³¹ Therefore do not worry, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?'

³² For after all these things the Gentiles seek. For your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things.

³³ But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you.

³⁴ Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about its own things. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.

Matthew 6:26-34 nkjv

I like The Message translation, which is a modern paraphrase, of Matthew 6:26, “Look at the birds, free and unfettered, not tied down to a job description, careless in the care of God. And you count far more to him than birds.” Isn’t that what happens with a lot of people? They become tied down to job description?

But don’t take my word for it – do The Work for yourself and find the truth inside of you. But I hope you can see that without inquiry you have nothing to question your most pressing wants – nothing to bring a vital balance to your mind. Without inquiry, if you are prone to anxiety, you are likely to go off on a tangent, using affirmations to get what you want - the end result of this is inevitably disappointment, frustration and a conviction that affirmations don’t work.

Positive Thinking versus Negative Thinking

The conclusion I have come to so far, after everything that I have learned up to this moment, is that what shapes the course of a person’s life in relation to how happy and confident they are and what they experience – all comes down to their thinking (positive or negative).

It is our beliefs, and therefore our thinking, which determines how rich or poor we will be, how effective we will be in relationships and how good we will be at making decisions. If you think positively – life will tend to go well for you; if you think negatively – life will tend to be one big drama. There has been a lot of self-help books published on the subject of positive thinking. There has also been a great deal of emphasis in charismatic Christian circles on positive thinking from a Biblical perspective.

It was around 1994 when I first read the book The Power of Your Subconscious Mind by Dr Joseph Murphy. It was this book which started my spiritual journey and it changed my perspective on how we influence the way in which we relate to, and experience, life.

I have struggled to implement the positive thinking and affirmation techniques that were presented by self-help and Christian teaching. A lot of the time I was just trying to avoid negative circumstances, influence other people and make things happen just the way I wanted them to. This just led to stress and a great deal of naivety and arrogance on my part, as I tried to live life on my own terms – as if I knew what was best for me. I came to understand the futility of positive thinking and affirmations, as I realised that I had no tenacity to keep going with them and my efforts felt coaxed and unnatural.

I have found that the most fundamental need in the life of a person, regardless of their beliefs, is the need to be free from his own negative thinking. I have found through releasing and inquiry that it is a person’s contraction around a thought, a belief, which causes the stress, confusion and suffering in their life. Without that contraction around a thought – they would be free to experience life to the full; they would be more confident, happy and spontaneous without those thoughts that seem to weight them down. Also, without contraction around beliefs, there is a sense of inner peace, clarity of mind which is conducive to drawing upon wisdom and making good decisions.

I have found that to a great extent, life just does itself, when we are no longer holding onto beliefs and trying to control our lives with our minds. Without the stress created by our own thoughts, we can be free to live life with peace and happiness. This does not mean that we will no longer experience “bad” circumstances. But I do believe that freedom from contraction around beliefs is by far the best way to attract positive circumstances into our lives. Therefore, there is a need, especially for anxiety sufferers, to be free of the contraction around beliefs.

I have found that inquiry through The Work of Byron Katie has been the simplest and most effective means of becoming free of the tyranny of our own beliefs.

Inner Transformation

There is much debate in Christian circles about the subject of inner transformation. Christianity is seen by many as a means of changing yourself from the inside out: transforming a person mentally, emotional and even physically, for the better. Rules-based Christianity puts the onus on the individual with demands for good works and clean living.

The grace message emphasises resting in the knowledge that your sins have been laid upon Jesus on the cross and you have been given a new nature that does not sin – the divine nature. This change of nature is also known as the new birth or being born again. When Jesus told the religious scholar Nicodemus in John 3:3 that he had to be born again – Nicodemus could not understand Him. It is the same today not only with the Jews (who follow the Old Testament law), but also with most Christians (who seem to follow a mixture of law and grace – self-effort and belief in Jesus).

Inner transformation, whether by self-effort or by faith, is debatable. Some Christians believe that by adhering to morals and making an effort to be a better person – you can be transformed. Some Christians believe that by simply resting your mind on the finished work of the cross, in other words, by faith – you can be transformed. The latter category leads believers to study and meditate upon the Biblical concepts of God’s nature and power abiding in us. The focus on God-in-us leads us away from self-effort and allows us to trust in God to live His life in-and-through us. Bible verses which back-up this concept include: 2 Peter 1:4, Ezekiel 11:19, Romans 5:5, 1 Cor. 12:13 and John 14:16.

I have observed the lives of other Christians over the years and I struggle to see much in the way of inner transformation in them. It seems that most Christians seem to live from their own personality which has been shaped and formed over the years through experience.

I will admit that I studied the Bible a great deal when I came into the revelation of God’s grace towards us. I even tried to verbally declare certain Bible verses in an affirmation style, in the hope that I would experience this new nature in me. I must admit that although I did mature naturally over time, I cannot say that studying the Bible made much of a difference to my life. I have struggled with anxiety for most of my life, even before I was a Christian, and I still do today.

Christian “Square One” – Part 2

What I have found is that when a Christian makes the transition from religious legalism into grace – to a great extent they tend to be very much the same person as they were before they became a Christian. But now they believe in Jesus, but without the stress, naivety and dogma. The process of experiencing Christianity as it is perceived but actually is not – has the effect of driving a person as far away from those things as possible. When before you used to criticize people for indulging their sins, now that you have experienced the struggle of keeping your own life clean, and you know you are righteous by faith, you are now inclined to see the struggles of others with compassion.

I do also find that no matter what your religious or spiritual convictions are, seeking justice in one form or another seems to be a constant factor in many people’s lives. I suppose it is this tendency to seek after justice, which makes it so tempting to criticize and judge other people. If someone does me wrong or they are abusing me, I ought to consider taking some kind of action against that. If someone commits a crime against me or another, I am responsible to report that person. This kind of action has little to do with a sense of seeking justice - it is more along the lines of simply doing what is right. When it comes to seeking justice I suppose what I am trying to highlight here is the need to get away from stewing over something that is simply out of our hands and is, quite frankly, none of our business.

I believe that The Work of Byron Katie is probably the only spiritual or self-help method which accepts people and things, just the way they are, without seeking justice. I suppose it is for this reason that it is seen by many as being rather controversial.

Christianity is meant to be something which radically changes a person’s life for the better – that is the ideal, but it is not what I have experienced. If someone came into Christianity as an anxious, negative and timid person – those negative traits will still tend to exist to a great extent. Likewise, if someone became a Christian when they were confident and out-going – they will still be confident and outgoing when they come into the grace message. This raises the question as to whether Christian spiritual concepts can actually make a difference to a person’s life: does reading the Bible regularly change a person’s character? Does prayer change negative circumstances to positive ones?

This Christian “Square One” is fine if you are relatively happy, positive and good things happen in your life – but what do you do when you are not happy and satisifed and things just tend to go wrong most of the time? It is at that stage that you need something that really works – something that will make a positive difference in your life. It is at that moment that all the spiritual teaching you have had up to that moment, is put to the test. Unfortunetly, I have found that most of the things I have learned have not made a bit of difference in my life – that can be a tough reality to deal with! When you have clung onto all sorts of high-hopes for many years, only to realise most of it does not really seem to work – that is a hard thing to deal with. This raises the question of what really does work?

This brings us swiftly onto the subject of inner transformation – the topic of the next blog post.

Christian “Square One” – Part 1

What I have found with the Christian grace message is that it basically brings you back to square-one: you return to that point in your life just before you became entangled with all sorts of religious demands and intimidation. For many such Christians there is a great deal of anger and frustration that you were lied to and abused for so long.

But there is inevitably a huge sense of relief that the intimidating, judgemental God that you believed in for so long – does not exist. Now, you are able to see God in a new light, free of the misunderstanding that turned Him into a tyrant in your mind. Now you see God as kind and loving. It is difficult to reconcile all the scary verses in the Bible in which God brought His wrath to bear on some people. But our perspective of everything in the Bible changes when viewed through the lens of love.

I think there are many Christians who are basically happy to just come to the grace message and live their life from there. Sure, there is a lot of soul-searching, re-discovery of self and a quest for answers, which takes place the moment you step into the grace message. But I think that for many Christians there is a genuine sense of relief when you know that God is not all those things you hoped He was not. Many of the grace Christians that I have befriended on Facebook, who had stopped going to church, eventually just move on with their lives and you hardly hear from them again over the internet. There is a phrase, which I daresay has become a bit of a cliché now, which says, “Just rest in the finished work of the cross.” Basically, Jesus Christ did all the work for us over 2000 years ago, and now we who believe in Him, can enjoy all the benefits of His death, burial and resurrection.

I think for most grace Christians, the message of grace is all that they need in order to just move on with their lives. There is a lot less stress in their lives as they realise that they are not going to go to hell just because they did not pray that morning and so on. I think there is a lot of religious detoxification that goes on as you no longer do the things you used to do. You might still read the Bible and enjoy doing so without it being a chore. But there is no longer a need to pray or read the Bible because you feel you must do so.

I’m not saying that life is just “plain sailing” for most Christians when they finally come out of religious bondage and into grace – everyone has their ups and downs in life. I feel that by the time a Christian has been around the religious circuit a few times, and they have experienced a life rule-keeping, by the time they come into grace they are older and more mature. The positive benefits of suffering and trauma are indeed debateable. But I think there is something about trials, struggle and suffering that has an attritional quality about it: life’s tests have an inbuilt function which grinds away at those negative aspects of our personality and makes us better people.

Gospel Basics – Part 4

I have really calmed-down a great deal from studying the Bible. I now realise that a lot of the time I was studying the Bible because I was anxious and desperately in need of something. Some Christians believe that they can claim wealth and power – only if they have enough faith; this equates to basically praying and reading the Bible over and over again. I wrote about this in my blog entry entitled The Harvest Mentality – Part 1 and The Harvest Mentality – Part 2.

For other Christians, they read the Bible and pray a lot because they believe that it is the only way they will be happy and transformed on the inside. Have you heard some Christians pray? Most of the time they sound anxious, desperate and frustrated – does that sound like faith to you?

I also feel that there is a category of Christians who just basically get carried away with spiritual concepts: they love the theology aspect of it all and get rather obsessive with the study of the Bible. I suppose what keeps such people motivated is the desire to be an known expert in something; I would also add that perhaps there is also a measure of one of the above motives at work as well.

Unfortunately, it seems that merely believing in the basics of the Gospel is not enough for most Christians. There is an incessant demand to “bear fruit” in the lives of those who believe. This distracts people away from accepting themselves as they are, and others as they are, leading to guilt and judgementalism.

But we are left with the question of why those who believe in Christ do not experience transformation in their lives and abundant happiness and blessings. Some would say it is because of sin; others would say it is because people don’t pray enough or read the Bible enough; whilst others would say it is because people don’t serve in the church enough; some would even insist it is because Christians don’t give enough in the offering! This is a particular favourite amongst church pastors and Televangelists.

Having become acquainted with releasing and inquiry techniques, I can say emphatically that the reason why Christians don’t experience the fullness of what belongs to them in Christ – is because they are too contracted around thoughts. That really does explain everything, I believe. There is no need to study myriads of spiritual concepts, read the Bible over and over again or attempt to adhere to all sorts of principles. Contraction around beliefs explains everything when it comes to understanding the reason for dysfunction in a person’s life.

I have noticed that when I use inquiry – I often touch base on the Gospel basics, including the Four R’s which I have mentioned: righteousness, redemption, remission and reconciliation. I don’t believe I use Biblical concepts in my inquiry sessions which could be construed by anyone as “excessive”. Quite often I find that I don’t even quote Bible verses at all during inquiry and I don’t even mention “God” or “Jesus”. I don’t refer to the Bible during inquiry in a coaxed fashion because I feel I have to out of religious duty – I just do it spontaneously and naturally, because it is what I believe. Why, for instance, would I fear death when I know I am saved and will go to Heaven when I die? Why would I fear never getting my needs met when I know that I am right with God the way I am and I am redeemed from the curse of the law?

I don’t believe that a person will necessarily experience inner transformation or incredible blessings from God as a result of listening to Christian grace teaching over and over again. But what this grace message does do is that it sets you free from religious obligations and your own efforts to please God – whilst maintaining a person’s Christian integrity and belief in Him. This leaves a person free to live their lives without a sense of condemnation hanging over their heads like a dark cloud. I think this Gospel message gives a person hope without them having to study scripture incessantly and repeat Bible verses, over and over again.

Gospel Basics – Part 3

It would seem that as soon as a person becomes a Christian, they are led into a maze of religious obligations and excesses, such as over-analysing things and studying the Bible incessantly. But to a great extent, this indulgence of the ego can have the effect of wearing a person out so that they finally relinquish all of the excesses and rule keeping in favour of simply embracing God’s unconditional love for them. The Message translation of the Bible refers to this as being burned out on religion:

²⁸ "Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you'll recover your life. I'll show you how to take a real rest.

²⁹ Walk with me and work with me - watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won't lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you.

³⁰ Keep company with me and you'll learn to live freely and lightly."

Matthew 11:28-30 msg

It is debatable as to how much a person enjoys the benefits of these promises, according to how much he believes he has them through faith in Christ. A religious legalist would say that a person does not have these promises afforded to his account, unless he says a “Sinner’s Prayer” and repents of his sins. But those who are more freely inclined to accept God’s unconditional grace tend to be more open to the idea that these promises are for everyone – believer and non-believer alike.

An ardent follower of The Work might say that as these are beliefs – I should do the Work on them: inquire and see that they are not true. After all, Byron Katie often says that there is no such thing as a good belief. That’s fair enough and if those beliefs were stressful – I would do just that. But you see, these beliefs are not stressful because righteousness, redemption, remission and reconciliation are all precious promises – the Gospel is Good News. There is no obligation or stress associated with God’s unmerited favour and grace whatsoever. It is only when we strive to merit such blessing and favour according to our own efforts, that is when we wear ourselves out and it becomes stressful.

I do wonder to what extent a Christian needs to study Biblical concepts and understand them. I went completely overboard with studying these Biblical concepts and my life was not much bettered for it.

I was left wondering just how much I should study the Bible and what I really needed to know. But I am now inclined to believe that all that is required is to just know and believe the absolute basics of what belongs to us in Christ – “The Four R’s”. I don’t believe that there is a so-called “advanced” level to attain. I really think that spiritual concepts have to pass the “three year old” test – it should be so simple that a three year old can understand it. I don’t believe it really goes much beyond that, as there is nothing we can do for God, as such. God did everything for us through the death, burial and resurrection of Christ Jesus.

Christians only believe that they have to go beyond the very basics of the Gospel when through guilt they believe that they should have, be or do something beyond what they experience in this moment. It seems noble to attain to some kind of moral standard, but to a great extent, it is guilt and an unwillingness to accept the fact that you are right with God – just the way that you are.

For some Christians, it is imperative that they eradicate anything in their life which may be deemed sinful; there is a cliché in the church which is based on 1 Thess. 5:22 that says, “Abstain from all appearance of evil.” But when Christianity become about sin-management, we veer away from the main message of the Gospel. The promise of righteousness is, after all, through faith – faith is believing in something which is not confirmed by your physical senses.

Gospel Basics – Part 2

I know it is impossible to try to reduce the Bible, or more precisely the Gospel, down to a pamphlet or a single sheet of paper listing all the basics. But I think Christians who finally get the revelation of God’s grace towards them, can simply rest in the fact that they finally know and believe that the wonderful gifts of righteousness, redemption, remission and reconciliation are already bestowed upon them.

I think most educated people know that the Bible is split in two halves: The Old Testament and the New Testament. These Testaments are covenants: agreements made between man and God through the shedding of the blood of an innocent animal. The New Covenant was made through the blood of Christ, which is why He is known as the Lamb of God. The Old Covenant, which includes the Ten Commandments and all the Jewish laws, was actually never meant to be kept! It was a forerunner, a shadow of the new and better covenant that was to come. The Bible actually calls the Old Covenant the ministry of death (2 Cor. 3:7).

It might actually surprise a lot of people, even Christians, to learn that the Four Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke and John), are actually not really part of the Gospel, the New Covenant at all! The New Covenant was not forged until Christ rose from the grave. It is actually in what are known as the Pauline Epistles, the letters to the church from Apostle Paul, that we learn of the true significance of the death, burial and resurrection of Christ. We should not be surprised, therefore, to learn that Jesus’ earthly ministry was a preparation for the true Gospel. If you read the Four Gospels, you will see that Jesus actually spends a lot of time provoking the Pharisees, the religious Jewish elite of the day. These Pharisees took pride in their rule-keeping, up-over-and-beyond the really important things, such as showing kindness and mercy to others.

²³ "Yes, woe upon you, Pharisees, and you other religious leaders--hypocrites! For you tithe down to the last mint leaf in your garden, but ignore the important things--justice and mercy and faith. Yes, you should tithe, but you shouldn't leave the more important things undone.

Matthew 23:23 TLB

A tithe is a “tenth”, by the way: it is an offering of a tenth of your income or produce.

Once a Christian gets to that place whereby knowing the love of God and living in that freedom, is more important that keeping rules and maintaining religious pride, the actual Gospel message becomes a short message.

Yes, we can derive some useful information from other books of the Bible; but to a great extent, I think that a Christian can really make the most progress by just reading the Epistles. I would even dare to go further than that and say that the book of Romans probably contains most of what a Christian really needs to know. If I was to condense things even further, I would say that Romans Chapter 6, especially in a paraphrased version such as The Living Bible or The Message, goes a long way to convey the core essentials of the Gospel.

Gospel Basics – Part 1

I am still not quite sure just what exactly a Christian should know in order to be considered fit to live a good, Christian life. I have personally gone into a great deal of detail when it comes to scripture – I feel as if I’ve gone overboard with theology, all in the hope of changing my life and the lives of others. I don’t really feel a great deal better for it, to be honest. One thing I do know, above everything else, is that trying to use the Bible to discern principles and moral standards to live by, simply does not work.

When it comes to the message of the Gospel, the good news of Christ, I believe that we only really need to know, understand and believe, the very basics of the core message – all of which is good news to us (no demands, “shoulds” or rules to follow). If people were to take this truth on board, there would be no need to set themselves in staunch opposition to Christianity. Yes, I agree, there are abuses that go on in the church, together with a lot of confusion and contention; many people have worked their way through the maze of all of this and come to know what true Christianity is all about.

These great and precious promises are things that the Bible says we already have in Christ. There is no “trying” to get or working towards something: aiming towards a pre-determined moral standard. According to the Bible – we already have these promises in our possession, in our heart, right now!

So let us now consider some of the things that the Bible tells us we already have in Christ:

• Love (Romans 5:5)
• The life-giving power of God in us (John 10:10)
• Spirit of power, love and self-discipline (2 Timothy 1:7 NIV)
• Redemption and forgiveness / remission of sins (Ephesians 1:7).
• Reconciliation (Romans 5:11)
• Righteousness of God (2 Corinthians 5:21)
• No condemnation (Romans 8:1)
• Partaker of the divine nature (2 Peter 1:4)
• The Holy Spirit living in us (John 14:16)
• Holy Spirit guidance (Romans 8:14)
• Gifts of the Spirit (1 Cor. 12:4-11)
• Material needs supplied (Philippians 4:13)

If I have left anything out here, then we should bear in mind that Ephesians 1:3 says that God has blessed us with every spiritual blessing.

If I had to put the Gospel in a “nutshell” and provide a summary of what Christ’s finished work means, in just one sentence, I would use what I call “The Four R’s”: righteousness, redemption, remission and reconciliation. These are four incredibly powerful concepts which are the mainstay of the Christian belief system. As a Christian I would say that “The Four R’s” are immutable facts, rather than something we strive to attain or to earn. Whether these precious promises are available to non-Christians to enjoy is a subject which is hotly debated amongst some Christians.

Righteousness

This is seen by some as a believers ability to live his life right, free of sin. Indeed, if we have the nature of God imparted to us through the new birth, we ought to be able to live free from sin – so it can include that. But that type of righteousness is often used to put the onus on the believer, instead of on Jesus. Righteousness has more to do with our being accepted by God, not because of what we have done, but because of what Christ has already done for us. There are no obligations attached to righteousness – it is a free gift to those who believe.  We are right with God through faith in Jesus Christ.

Redemption

Redemption is a term used in relation slavery, which means to be bought out of slavery. This relates to being set free from sin, both in terms of our being held captive to its allure, and also, to the punishment of sin by God. The latter part is also referred to as redemption from the curse of the law. The curse of the law being the curses that God would allow to come upon those who failed to keep the Old Testament rules, including, but not exclusive to, the Ten Commandments. Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law (Gal. 3:13).

Remission

The New Testament often states that our sins are forgiven in Christ. But oftentimes the Greek work translated “forgiven” is actually the word for remission. When something is remitted – it is taken away forever. In Christ, our sins have been taken away as if they had never existed. For this is My blood of the new covenant, which is shed for many for the remission of sins. (Matthew 26:28). When the Bible talks about sin, it is mostly in the context of man’s nature without God – it is a state of being. In Christ, the “old man” which loved to sin has died and we have been raised up with Christ with the nature of God abiding in us.

Reconciliation

In Christ we have been reconciled to God, brought near to Him and restored back into relationship with Him. We were never made to live apart from God; we cannot exist without Him. We were created for fellowship with God, just like a son to his Father. Adam knew God intimately, but lost that fellowship when he sinned. In actual fact, God seeks to live His life in us and through us. (See Acts 17:28, Ezekiel 37:27, Phil. 2:13, 1 Cor. 6:19).

Christianity and Inquiry

I have been wondering to myself what the purpose of this blog really is. After some thought I would say that it is all about making a case for people using releasing through The Sedona Method or The Release Technique/Abundance Course and inquiry through The Work. After using both methods now for around 2 years now, I tend to use Inquiry more than releasing.

I particularly want to make a case for Christians using these methods. The typical Christian carries around so much religious baggage and concepts, which makes them refuse to do anything like release and inquiry – typically dismissing such methods as “New Age”. But I am adamant that Inquiry has its place in the life of the Christian. I have even made an attempt to find Bible verses which attest this conviction.

The Grace Message

I have been through various different “phases” or “seasons” in my Christian journey. I’ve experienced the manipulation, fads and formulas; I’ve made financial offerings to the church with the promise of wealth, I’ve prayed incessantly for “revival”, I’ve experienced healing miracles and I’ve feared that I might have lost my salvation more times than I can count. The religious oppression or rituals and rules eventually led me to what is now knows as the “grace message”. This grace message veers away from rule keeping and focuses on God’s love for us and how Jesus Christ paid the price for our sins. Now, instead of trying to gain God’s approval through our good deeds and behaviour – we are to rest in the finished work of the cross.

I recently wrote some entries in my Christian blog The Divine Nature which I feel provide a summary of my journey into the Christian “grace message” so far:

Grace Origins…How It All Started

Grace Elements…Righteousness and No-condemnation

Grace Elements… Unionist Teaching

Grace Elements… Free Believers / Anti-I.C.

A New Found Freedom

I also have a list of links to various Christian teachers and preachers who teach this grace message on the Grace Preachers List.

The interesting thing is that if I had not come to this “grace message”, I would not have even considered anything along the lines of releasing and inquiry. It is only the grace message which paves the way for releasing and inquiry. If a Christian is “law-oriented” rather than “grace-oriented” – there is no way they would even consider releasing and inquiry. When I think about it now, the Christian grace message, releasing and inquiry have only become popular in recent years. The form of self-inquiry known as The Work, has not been around all that long at all. I know that releasing was discovered about thirty years ago, but the Sedona Method basic course, in CD and book form, has not been around for all that long.

For Such a Time as This

There is a Bible verse, Esther 4:14, which ends with the statement, “for such a time as this.” It just makes me think that everything I’ve experienced in my life so far has been for this moment I now experience. Even all the difficult times and the so-called “mistakes” I’ve made – it’s all been for such a time as this. There has never been a time in history when the Christian message has been so pure and undefiled by man-made religious oppression and manipulation, together with the incredible methods of releasing and inquiry. Releasing and inquiry provide tools for self-improvement and self-realisation which, I believe, are unparalleled. Furthermore, without the freedom of what is now known in Christian circles as “The Grace Message”, there is no way that I would have ever gone near releasing or inquiry techniques.

The Misunderstood God

As I have mentioned in my Grace Elements series – there are different facets of the Christian grace message which different Bible teachers and Christians focus on: some focus on correcting a misinterpretation of the Bible and use Bible verses to do so. Other people focus more on the “essence” of the Gospel, without quoting Bible verses. This focus on the “essence” of the Gospel, also seeks to address the frustration and anger of the manipulation of the institutional church. My favourite blog which focuses on the “essence” of the Gospel is The Free Believers Network. I recommend the book, The Misunderstood God, by Darin Hufford, founder of The Free Believers Network, which aims to correct the misunderstanding Christians have about God, in relation to His love for us.

Attachment vs. Non-Attachment – Part 2

A little while ago I posted blog entries on Low AGFLAP People and High AGFLAP People. These blog entries contrasted two states of being - each at opposite ends of the negative emotional spectrum. A.G.F.L.A.P. is an acronym used in releasing circles, both in the Sedona Method and Release Technique, which identifies the negative range of emotions; each letter identifies a particular emotion. For instance, “F” is for “fear” and “L” is for “lust”. When a person is contracted, when they are attached to particular beliefs and expectations, they naturally experience the A.G.F.L.A.P. spectrum of negative emotions in their lives.

I also posted blog entries on CAP People – Part 1 and CAP People – Part 2. C.A.P. is an acronym used to identify the range of positive emotions. It is this state of C.A.P. that we need to seek to maintain in our lives.

The human mind naturally seeks to rationalise this stressful, A.G.F.L.A.P. state by blaming it on things they’ve done in the past or what other people have said or done to them; as well as what they think they need more or less of in that moment. Non-attachment occurs when we no longer allow people and circumstances to dominate our lives by influencing our thoughts and emotions in such a manner. Rather than trying to change our circumstances or change other people in some way – we can simply change the way we think about people and things so that they no longer prompt a reaction of stress from us.

As a Christian, or otherwise a believer in God, if you trust in God, you can allow the past to be as it is and believe that God can still make your future life the best it can be – if you will only believe and trust in Him. Faith, I believe, is the condition whereby you can go with the flow and trust in life to support you – without making specific demands of what you need or don’t need. It is an expression of anxiety and unbelief, if you find yourself feeling agitated and making all sorts of demands.

As a non-believer in God, you can simply derive hope from the fact that without worry, you can be the best “you” that you can ever be and you can make the most of your life from this moment forwards. Life is all about making decisions – if you are less prone to worry, you are more likely to make those decisions that will steer you towards positive circumstances.

Attachment vs. Non-Attachment – Part 1

I think there is a need to veer away from attachment, to rules, rituals, principles, formulas and expectations. There is a need to adopt a lifestyle of non-attachment, in which you don’t hold onto specific expectations and you don’t try to use principles and formulas.

Non-attachment is an alien concept for many people, particularly self-help advocates and religious adherents. I think the Buddhist community have got the concept of non-attachment down to a “T”. I’ll admit that I don’t know much about Buddhism, but what I do know about it really impresses me.  Buddhism seems to be oriented towards allowing things to be as they are, accepting others unconditionally and making space in your life and welcoming peace.

The releasing and inquiry communities tend to adopt Buddhist concepts, some of them are Buddhist, but most of them are not, I find. A lot of people in the releasing community seem to be advocates of Nodualism.

In my experience people who have come into releasing or inquiry, have tried popular self-help methods, particularly affirmations based methods such as The Law of Attraction, and found them wanting. When a person adopts releasing or inquiry as a way of life, there is a shifting away from claiming or attracting things, towards letting go of those wants and desires and beginning to question whether you really need them at all.

Christianity on the other hand has been all about do, do, do: it’s been obsessed with doing things, with the belief that you are lazy or sinful if you stop doing something religious and church-related for just a moment. There is also the awful threat of hellfire and damnation should you do something that is considered “sinful” or if you lapse in your religious obligations.

I find that there are hardly any Christians who use releasing or inquiry. I’m not at all surprise, to be honest; because there is no way that a person who follows a set of rules could incorporate releasing or inquiry concepts into their life and belief system.

Thankfully, the emerging “grace movement” in Christianity is shifting people’s perspective towards accepting yourself, your life and other people – just the way they are. Nevertheless, I still find that there is tendency even amongst some “grace Christians”, to continue pursuing miracles, fantasies, power and wealth. Amongst Christians, there is always the lure of reverting back to rule keeping in its more subtle form of following principles.

It is all a question of focus: with Christianity either the focus is on not sinning and doing something for God, or the focus is simply on knowing that you are loved and accepted by God – just the way you are. With releasing the focus is on understanding that the negative aspects of your life arise from the three wants and that you can let them go. With inquiry the focus is on understanding that all suffering in life arises from attachment to a thought and that through inquiry you can find freedom from those thoughts and the pain that comes when we attach to them.

For me, I believe that there is no reason as to why a person should not allow themselves to hold onto the non-stressful, core aspects of the Gospel which bring peace and hope – whilst releasing on or inquiring into, those wants or beliefs which bring stress.

Knowing the Love of God – Part 2

There is a strong theme of restoration and forgiveness that runs through the Bible. In the book of Job we read about the way in which God miraculously restored Job’s life, after he experienced one calamity after another. We also read of the numerous healings performed by Jesus in the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. We read of the way in which the woman caught in the act of adultery in John 8; we read of how the Pharisees wanted to stone the woman to death and how Jesus forgave her and told to her, “Go and sin no more”.

Christians are to derive strength from the belief that God loves us, He has forgiven us for all our wrong-doing; He knows what’s best for us and He can restore us – no matter what we have been through in the past. But this does not mean that we can just demand what we want, when we want. Christianity has been focused on attachment much more than non-attachment.

There has been the continued, relentless pursuit of doing things for God and believing God for things. It is as if on one side we have had the horror stories of what will happen to you if you don’t do “X-Y and Z”. Then, on the other side, there are the tall stories, the tales of miraculous things that have happened in people’s lives because they prayed a certain way and “stood” on particular Bible verses and so forth. We need to get to a place whereby we realise that God accepts us just as we are, regardless of our performance. The best way to live a blessed way of life, I find, is to find peace of mind, free from the stress of wrong beliefs.

Knowing the Love of God – Part 1

If you have read some of my previous blog entries, you may very well be aware of the fact that I am a subscriber to the The Free Believers Network and The God Journey.

As a Christian I have come to the place whereby I see trusting in God as being the ability to just allow everything to be just as it is. One of the most futile practices that we commit to is that of arguing with the past. Whatever is past is past and unless someone invents a time machine - we cannot do a single thing to change what has happened to us and the things that we have already done.

We cannot do anything to change the past, but what we can do is choose to believe that the future can hold something wonderful in store for us – if we will just think positively and believe that it is so. No matter what has happened in the past – we can cooperate with The Divine in order to live the best future that we can possibly experience. It is in this space of hope and faith in which miracles can happen.

We make a mistake when we insist on a particular expectation for the future. More often than not such expectations are an expression of fear than that of the confidence that comes from true love. 1 Corinthians 13:5 says that: [love] does not seek its own. The Living Bible version says that: Love does not demand its own way. Love abides in the sphere as peace. Love does not exist in the same realm as fear. I like what John 4:18 says about love:

¹⁸ There is no room in love for fear. Well-formed love banishes fear. Since fear is crippling, a fearful life - fear of death, fear of judgment - is one not yet fully formed in love.

1 John 4:18 msg

I think a lot of our fears are centred on a fear of death and a fear of God. It is for this reason that the formation of a proper perspective on death and God is vital in ridding oneself of fear. Christianity has been used throughout the centuries to put men and women under a yoke of religious bondage. However, there is now a move towards understanding the true Gospel message. I believe that the true Gospel, without rules and rituals, provides an antidote the problem of fear and guilt – giving hope, peace, forgiveness and the promise of restoration. Everything changes when we read the Bible through the lens of love. When we read the Bible through the lens of fear and religious obligation – it becomes something stressful and scary. The way in which we perceive God can mean the difference between peace or stress, love or fear.

For more information visit my grace Christianity blog The Divine Nature and look at some of the blog entries and links to other related resources. I recommend the book, The Misunderstood God, by Darin Hufford, which aims to provide a proper perspective on God in relation to love.

My Job is my Only Source of Income…Is It True?

My Job is my Only Source of Income - Is It True?

Yes, it is true because it’s been my experience and it's not just my life that proves it – I’ve seen it in the lives of many other people as well. I find that a person's salary is what ultimately determines their prosperity. Sure, some people do make money through investments or the lottery – but on the whole, it tends to be a person’s job that determines their quality of life from a financial perspective. In my experience, people tend not to win the lottery or have people give them large sums of money or big-ticket items as a gift.

Can I Absolutely Know for Certain it’s True?

No.

Who Am I With This Thought?

With this thought that my job is my only source of income, I become cornered and trapped by that thought. I allow my job title and salary figure to determine God's willingness and ability to bless me and meet my needs. If I think that my job title and salary figure at this very moment in time is a measure of my ability to prosper in the future -- I could descend into a state of despair if I don't feel that I measure-up.

Worry about my job title and salary figure and the desire to get promoted at work, is simply distrust in God's ability as a Father to meet my needs. If I truly trusted in God then I would not worry about my performance in the workplace. What is happening is that I am reacting to other people's performance-driven attitude that one has to work hard and achieve much in order to prosper in this life. I find that people's outlook on life tends to be very self-centred and performance related. It is for this reason why the Gospel of Christ is so hard for people to relate to.

The true Gospel, apart from man-made religion, is a message of God's acceptance of you and willingness to bless you - just the way you are. So why don't Christians get blessed like the Bible, and preachers, seem to say they should? I believe it all comes down to unbelief, or in other words, a tendency to worry. As soon as we look to what we have, what other people say about us, what we did in the past and so on, to define us, we are living in unbelief. Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of thing unseen. We walk by faith, not by sight.

It is an obsession with titles, labels, ability, possessions and the like - that keeps us enslaved to those things. This obsession with what is seen ultimately leads to a sense of inadequacy, because there is always someone better than ourselves who has more than we have.

There are also those people who adamantly cling on to their perception of their own ability in order to determine their ability to live a good quality of life. But this performance-driven mentality is very exclusive: only those who seem to have what it takes and who are able to meet the standards, which will qualify them to reap the rewards of life. In this performance-driven world that we live in, it seems that those people who do not have the ability to meet the standards imposed upon them by others, simply fall by the wayside, deprived of the good things of life (including the approval of others).

The message of the gospel is the message of equality: it is a message of God's acceptance regardless of our behaviour and ability. Some people do not like that because their pride causes them to want to merit the rewards of life and the approval of others, according to their ability. The parable of the workers in the vineyard and the parable of the prodigal son, show us the love of the Father towards us. Even though we don't have the ability to deserve things according to our own efforts and ability -- we can always look to God as our loving heavenly Father who will meet our needs.

The truth of the matter is that nobody has what it takes in order to merit the favour and blessing of God according to their efforts. The Bible tells us that no one can be justified by the law: the keeping of rules. The Bible also tells us that the only thing that we have that pleases God is our faith. It is ridiculous for me to believe that God will not meet my needs and prosper me, unless I achieve certain standards in the workplace. I know for certain that God can give me simple ideas, such as investments, that would make me rich relatively quickly. Am I to believe that God will not give me the knowledge to invest my money properly, until I am working my butt off at the office and meriting the approval of my managers? God is a Father to me -- He is not a schoolteacher who is looking for good grades.

When I believe that my job is my only source of income -- it frightens me. It makes me question God's love for me and his willingness and ability to meet my needs and to provide for me a good quality of life. Self-help teaching and the prosperity branch of Christianity, have led me to believe that there is something that I can do by my own efforts in order to influence God's ability to bless me. These efforts in the past have simply exhausted and frustrated me. The truth of the matter is that the only thing that I can do in order to live the good quality of life and get my needs met -- is to simply trust in God. When I believe that my job is my only source of income, it makes me believe that God will not care for me.

The most likely way that I will prosper in life he is through good investments. If I simply made the right investments in the stock market -- I really would not have to worry one little bit about my job title or salary figure. I could easily remain at the same grade I am now, but with good investments, I could earn more money than CEO of my company. But when I believe that my job title and salary figure control my ability to prosper -- I limit my ability to hear from God and to invest my money properly. Thinking the thought that my job is my only source of income, blocks any inspiration and guidance from God which would enable me to invest my money properly.

Ultimately, what determines my ability to prosper in life from a financial perspective is the ability to make good decisions. I could get promoted three times and be earning twice as much as what I'm earning now; but if I make poor decisions with my money, I could lose everything that I have been made bankrupt. I know people who earn a lot more money than me in their job, but they have made poor decisions with their money and missed important opportunities. If a person is frustrated and unhappy, they are likely to spend a lot of their money of things they don't need, which they believe will make them happy. I know of people with wonderful job titles and salary figures, and yet, they are paying a small fortune to live in a small flat on a busy road in a crowded and rather unpleasant area. God could spare me all of this struggle if I simply rested my mind in his love for me and stopped worrying about money.

I see people in the workplace who seem to derive a sense of purpose and identity through their job title, salary figure and performance. This can become a real sense of pride for some people, and to be honest with you -- it sickens me! A lot of these people go around thinking that they are better than everybody else and they deserve the blessings of life and the approval of others more than the next person. It is this kind of pride that can keep people out of God's blessing and favour. Just because someone does well in his job - it doesn't mean that they are right with God and that they are blessed. I know of people who could be called "rich" and yet their marriage is falling apart and they're suffering from depression.

What would it be like if I didn't think this thought?

If I didn't worry about money I certainly wouldn't worry about my job and my ability to perform in the workplace. If I made a mistake in the workplace, perhaps got something wrong or forgot to do something, it wouldn't bother me, as long as I did not think the thought that my job was my only source of income.

The truth of the matter is that God is my source of income. The Bible says in the book of Deuteronomy, "You shall remember the Lord thy God for it is he who gives you the power to get wealth." We often do forget that it is God who gives us the power to get wealth and to prosper in life. I believe that the way that God moves in our lives is, more often than not, in ways that are natural and inconspicuous - I call this the "everyday supernatural". We are conditioned from a very early age to believe that we are rewarded according to our efforts. At the sports day at school, it is always the winners who come away with the prizes. But our God is not like that: He cares for us and provides for us, not because of what we do for Him, but because of what He has already done for us through Christ.

If I knew that God would provide for me, regardless of my performance in the workplace, I would not be so eager to climb the corporate ladder at any cost. Sure, it is quite possible that God wants to promote certain people in the workplace, myself included perhaps, but I can never look to getting promoted in the workplace as the only means by which I can prosper financially in this life. Freedom from this limiting thought would give me a childlike trust in the Almighty. I would be open to new and different ways for God to move in my life and to meet my needs. I would be free of this concept of effort-and-reward that just brings so much misery to mankind.

Let's turn it around...

My job is not my only source of income -- God is my source of income.

Rating Progress

 

I have used a variety of self-help and spiritual methods over the years, and one of the things I find myself doing at a certain point with each method, is that I want to find some way of rating my progress. If you have used various self-help and spiritual methods and found that they have not yielded any tangible benefits in your life, you naturally find yourself becoming that shrewder when it comes to the next one. It can reach a point whereby you go from being rather naïve and wide-open to the most ridiculous fads, to wondering whether you’re being duped by the next popular method that comes your way.

One of the things that I’ve found to be characteristic with any methods that don’t work, it that I will tend to start off enthusiastically and then trail off into apathy. But those things that really work tend to be engaging and enduring. The thing I love about releasing and inquiry is that they both give you the impression that they are working because you can get tangible benefits from them immediately (with releasing) and almost immediately (with inquiry, after an inquiry has been completed). Take affirmations for example, you could start off enthusiastically, wooed by the promise of becoming substantially wealthy. But then after a while, you find that nothing is changing in your life and the method is becoming a frustrating chore. Eventually, you stop doing it altogether, until you pick-up a book or CD again and the achievements of the teacher and other people give you enough enthusiasm to give it another go, and thus the cycle repeats itself.

I find myself looking back over the previous two years or so that I’ve been using releasing and inquiry. I can’t really say that anything incredible has happened in my life. I would say that over the previous year or so I have been feeling more at peace and more content with my life. I would also say that my job, which has always been something of a struggle to me from day one, has gone significantly better and smoother than a few years ago. But I would not put this down to just releasing and inquiry: I would attribute this in part to listening to The God Journey and The Free Believers Network podcasts Christian podcasts. These podcasts have helped to set me free from years of stifling religious performance.

I recently went on a short holiday back to my parent’s house in the North West. When I returned back to work I remember feeling hit with the most awful depression. It wasn’t really accompanied by a lot of anxiety: it was just a gut-wrenching emptiness on the inside. Naturally, I wondered if there was something that I did or did not do to cause this profound sadness to come upon me. I instinctively used releasing to try to ease the situation; it seemed to help at first, but the depression just seemed to keep on coming back, so I don’t know if I can honestly say that it really helped.

When I got back home after work, I immediately got into inquiry. After the inquiry which lasted about twenty minutes, I began to feel better. I still struggled to fathom the source of the depression that day. I reasoned that if I was making progress with releasing and inquiry, such intensity of negative feelings should be a thing of the past. The unusual depression that day seemed to motivate me to be more fervent with inquiry and I managed to do another two sessions that evening. After this, I felt a great deal better. In fact, the contrast between the depression and the post-inquiry state was rather stark. Perhaps the message in all of this, if there really was a message, was that inquiry really does work and that I can find almost immediate relief from negative emotions and stress, if I can just persevere with it.

I have found myself struggling even more than usual with apathy recently. I feel that to a great degree I have cooled-off from my spiritual pursuits by the realisation that I can’t really grow spiritually by just studying someone else’s interpretation of spiritual truth. The message was reinforced in me today as I listened to the latest The Free Believers Network podcast entitled “Follow the Leader Syndrome” 11^th June 2010. In this podcast, the hosts related how they used to read the Bible and other Christian books over and over again, with the belief that they were growing spiritually through it. The also related how they were driven to levels of obsession in the pursuit of spiritual growth. As soon as you appoint someone else to be your spiritual leader or mentor, you run the risk of disconnecting your mind from your heart, which already knows the truth. The hosts also discussed the way in which you literally come to the end of these things when you realise what is happening and that these things can’t really change your life. All of a sudden you can find that you have a lot of time on your hands and that you don’t really know what to do with your time.

I always feel encouraged with inquiry because although it takes time to do, it always feels natural and instinctive: it is never a struggle and you are never robotically repeating affirmations or “buzz-words” that some spiritual guru tells you to repeat from a bestselling book. So actually doing inquiry seems to be no problem with it once I get started. But I think the problem is just getting started with it. I have found that my enthusiasm has waned because I don’t seem to see any significant evidence of it working. No self-help author has sold a lot of books by just telling people that he now feels more content and peaceful. No, it seems that the only thing that really catches people’s attention is something over-the-top, such as a million dollar contract or a miraculous healing. It seems that we are addicted to these “gains” and need them to motivate us to pursue a self-help method and to verify that it actually works.

In an ideal world I would experience a steady stream of “gains” and accomplished goals as I progress with releasing and inquiry. Unfortunately, it does not seem to be that way. What keeps me going with releasing and inquiry is that I can feel an immediate sense of relief when I release an emotion or want; or when I reach the turnaround during a session of The Work; I also find that both methods feel natural and instinctive, as opposed to awkward, tedious and robotic. These have been the only solid indicators that there really is something to all of this. If I was to go by my feelings, I would have had reason to seriously doubt the effectiveness of releasing and inquiry when I experienced that recent bout of depression. But the irony is that it was that very depression that caused me to do three inquiry sessions in one evening. Recently, I’ve found that I’ve averaged about one session of inquiry every other day. Byron Katie says that if you want to see results with inquiry, you should do this for thing for breakfast.

Despite the enticing testimonies of people who become millionaires overnight and so on, lasting peace and contentment has to be the ultimate goal, in fact, the only goal that motivates us in a spiritual or self-help practice. The thing I like about releasing and inquiry is that peace and contentment are the only goals; anything else such as prosperity becomes nothing more than a by-product. I think Byron Katie has one of the best perspectives on prosperity than any other self-help teacher that I know of. Katie says that if we have peace of mind, we cannot help but be prosperous. Peace of mind knows “how much”, “with whom” and”when”. It is only when we are confused, contracted around a thought, that we make poor decisions and fail to act upon opportunities. If you use something like the Goals Process in the Sedona Method, you should realise that you are only releasing on those goals as a means of finding freedom from the underlying wants – you are not releasing as a means of actually achieving those goals. Either the desire for those goals will fade or you might actually find that you are able to achieve those goals, once you have released on them.

The “system” I use now with inquiry is that I will identify certain areas where I am the most contracted and I encounter the most stress. I will start out with question one (is it true), as “yes” and question two (can you know for certain it is true), as “no”. I will then progress through inquiry, sometimes a week or a few weeks of persistent effort, until question one (is it true), is “no”. At that point, I know that I am clear on that belief, or at least, a lot clearer. There have been a few concepts that I’ve used inquiry on, which I thought to myself, “When I reach ‘no’ on the first question, when I’m finally clear on this belief, then I’ll be completely clear, my life will be better in every way and I won’t have to do inquiry anymore. Well, not for a long while at least.” Unfortunately, despite reaching “no” on question one on a few really tough beliefs – I’m still not “completely clear”.

I think we actually have to be rather careful when we try to ascertain our level of progress according to our experiences. Something could be really working for us, but because we don’t see any tangible benefits, we could be tempted to reject that method. Conversely, even though we might experience some good results that we attribute to our spiritual efforts, those experiences could have little or northing to do with our spiritual efforts. In fact, some rather misleading and harmful fads and practices have arisen out of people following a certain spiritual method, and attributing it to the positive circumstances they experienced during or after that time. I’ve read scores of Christian books in which a person said that they observed a certain principle or prayed a certain way, and then God did something totally amazing like healed them of a terminal illness or something. We can tend to run with these testimonies and turn them into formulas that just don’t work for people. It’s the same, of course, with releasing: a person could say that they released on “this” and then experienced “that”. How do you know that it was releasing that caused that thing to happen? I think when we’re desperate for results; we can grab at anything and use it as evidence that our spiritual efforts are yielding results. On the releasing forums, I sometimes read of people attributing the slightest bit of good fortune to releasing, such as when they find a coin on the pavement or something.

I truly feel as if I have exhausted every other spiritual practice that I’ve ever read about and used. I’m left with the Christian message of God’s unconditional love for us (the grace message), releasing and inquiry. I just have the inkling that at this stage, inquiry is going to be the thing that brings me the most peace and freedom. Sure, I believe that for me, the good news of God’s unconditional love of Christ is key to finding peace. But all the typical Christian formulas and principles, such as reading the Bible continuously, have not worked for me. A lot of wisdom can be gleaned from Byron Katie’s sessions of The Work. In fact, I find that the same things often come out of inquiry that Katie does all around the world. But inquiry is not a message, it is not even a set of concepts, it is just a framework within which you can question your own anxious thoughts and learn to trust your own heart and be led from there. Releasing is a set of methods or “tools” based around a simple concept of letting go of emotions and their underlying wants. Releasing and inquiry are not new religions, another set of principles to live by or a set of outlandish New Age theories.

But I need to overcome the apathy that often prevents me from getting started with The Work sometimes. One thing that works rather well is to release on apathy or release resisting doing the Work – that can be just enough sometimes to get me using inquiry when I would normally be unable to muster the effort to do so.

I cannot look to periodic “gains” or incremental boosts in my overall state of happiness, as a source of motivation when it comes to Christianity, releasing or inquiry. The day that releasing no longer gives me a sense of relief from stress, or the day that I no longer experience stress – is the day that I will no longer use releasing. Likewise, the day that inquiry becomes a chore and I feel as if I am repeating words parrot-fashion, or the day that I reach a turnaround and do not feel better for it, or the day in which I no longer experience stress – is the day that I will no longer use inquiry. To be honest, I feel so fed-up with spiritual formulas that I would probably stop using them altogether once I experience a significant shift towards positive thoughts and emotions.

So perhaps negative thoughts, wants or the contraction around them – are like the layers of an onion or like a set of Russian dolls: when you peel away one layer, there is another layer underneath it. Each layer is just as significant and stressful as the previous one.

I think the best analogy I can provide in relation to progress with releasing and inquiry is that of the game Kerplunk. The plastic cylinder could be likened to the mind. The plastic rods called straws are like the thoughts that criss-cross through our minds. The marbles are like the “orbs” of negative emotional energy, which are held in place in the mind by the web created by the complexes of negative thoughts in our minds. If you’ve ever played Kerplunk before, you will no doubt be aware of what makes the game so much fun: you could withdraw one of the straws, expecting everything to come tumbling down – but nothing happens! Conversely, you could expect nothing to happen when you pull out one of the straws – to find that a whole lot of marbles come tumbling down into one of the four trays at the bottom of the cylinder. You could work on a particular thought with the expectation that when you are done with it, your entire life will change – but nothing happens! You could reach the point of question one “no” – only to discover a profound shift in your mental and emotion state.

Perhaps that’s what all the shocks and trials of life are all about: providing us with the opportunity to inquire into them and be free – nothing more and nothing less. Byron Katie says that we should look forward to stressful thoughts as they bring us back into inquiry. If I did not experience stress, I would not need to use releasing and inquiry. So perhaps releasing and inquiry are methods that you use for just as season, until you have stripped away enough layers of selfishness and fear in order to truly enjoy life and allow God, the heart or the higher nature to take over? I don’t know the answer for sure as yet – but I’ll find out soon enough!

Picture Money courtesy of AMagill.

Picture CreativeTools.se - PackshotCreator - Russian matryoshka dolls courtesy of Creative Tools.

Kerplunk image derived from the photo P1020279 courtesy of Jeff Sandquist.

Rediscovering Hope

As a Christian who is recovering from religious excesses and disappointment with various mainstream spiritual and self-help practices, I am rediscovering hope through inquiry, also known as The Work.

What is Hope?

The modern-day meaning for the word “hope” veers towards wishing for a certain outcome: I hope my team wins on Saturday, for instance. The more archaic and Biblical use of the word “hope” is in the context of an expectation of good. Hope is the opposite to a sense of dread and a sense of despair.

The Bible talks about the hope of salvation in 1 Thess. 5:8. I believe that the Christian salvation experience is meant to bring a sense of hope: a freedom from worry and fear – an expectation of good. Hope is referred to throughout the Bible and it is one of the “three graces” together with love and faith, as found in 1 Cor. 13:13.

A Sense of Security

My many years of pursuing spiritual and self-help practices have led me to the realisation of some fundamental truths. One of these truths has been the realisation that the development of a sense of security is the key to enjoying freedom, happiness and success in this life. It is little wonder that I make mention of this fundamental concept throughout my writings.

I have spent a great deal of time and energy trying to attract, claim, suppress, resist, control and change things; but not of my efforts have really worked. But the more I observe other people with a view to discovering what brings true happiness and success, I have come the realisation that truly happy people do not spend a lot of time and effort attracting things and claiming things. Such people simply live from the position of who they are on the inside – it is this which attracts all the good things that they experience in life. This observation has led many spiritual and self-help gurus to attempt to create a formula out of this concept, so that all one has to do is to think positively and make an effort to do the right things, and success and happiness will be theirs. But it’s not as simple as that.

A sense of security comes when we have an expectation of good. An expectation of good comes when we are free from the sense of dread and despair that result from our attachment to certain beliefs.

The Gospel

I don’t mean to brag and I don’t purport to know everything, but I feel that I have taken Christianity to its fullest conclusion. I can’t see anywhere else to go with it. I’ve been through the charismatic phase with deliverance, spiritual warfare, faith for finances and healing – right the way through to the message of grace which majors on righteousness and no condemnation in Christ. I mean, there is nowhere else to go with this.

What I have discovered is that the Gospel is a short message and it is not meant to be complicated. However, the institutional church has taken this message of grace and turned it into a business. The church has presented a system of “do-good-get-good-do-bad-get-bad”. However, nothing could be further from the truth, because it is not about how good you are – it is about how good Christ was on your behalf.

A sense of guilt can really rob a person of a sense of hope. When a person comes to believe that there is a God, it can soon lead to a sense of guilt, because it all becomes about pleasing God with your efforts. Guilt is the ultimate sense of inadequacy when you realise that your best efforts are never good enough.

Thankfully, we can find a sense of hope in knowing that it is all about what we believe, as opposed to what we do. For this reason, Christianity in its purest form, apart from the warped performance-based message presented by the institutional church, is actually one of the best antidotes to a sense of guilt. There is something freeing in knowing that there is a God who loves you, that you were created for a purpose and that you have right-standing with this God and that you are not judged according to what you do or don’t do.

As a Christian recovering from religious abuse and excesses, I find myself seeking to know the truth, to find balance and to learn what works and what does not work. I find myself revaluating the mainstays of Christianity, such as prayer, fellowship, worship and so forth. There always seems to be a never-ending demand for Christians to have more faith, love, hope and to pray and read the Bible more. However, I believe that maintaining a sense of hope, with and without the Bible, is the best thing that we can do.

A Question of Right or Wrong Motives

I would always make an enthusiastic start whenever I would come across the latest spiritual or self-help fad: be it affirmations, visualisation, prayer or whatever. But I feel that these efforts were always short lived and unproductive, because of my wrong motives. Whenever I tried to claim or attract wealth – it was always with the motive of alleviating a sense of inadequacy and a sense of dread of what may or may not happen in the future.

But rather than seeking peace through attempting to control circumstances – I should have sought after some means of maintaining a sense of hope, which is an expectation of good. This approach is akin to maintaining a sense of security, as opposed to feeling insecure.

I have learned that I can’t always know what is going to happen in the future and I certainly can’t do a lot to change it. But what I can do is to change my perspective in the present movement from something negative to something positive.

I now find that what I can do in this moment is to work with my expressions of anxiety, which is dread and despair, which arise from the subconscious mind. Rather than trying to affirm these anxious thoughts down or trying to change them through positive thinking – I can use this simple process of inquiry in order to move from a condition of despair to a condition of hope. In this way, I ensure that my motives are always pure; I’m not assuming that I know what is best for me, or how other people should live their lives or what should or should not happen in my environment.

Hope through Inquiry

I find that inquiry works every time because it reconnects my mind with that source of wisdom and hope that is within me all of the time. I have worked with various practices over the years and most of them have not endured – the main reason probably being wrong motive. But if I make my motive the maintenance of a sense of hope – I move closer to ensuring that my motives and pure and that the wisdom I receive from the heart is also going to be pure.

I am convinced that the only thing that keeps a person from being all that they were created to be – is contraction around a thought, in other words, fear. Through inquiry, fear loses its power because the framework of inquiry is so designed to loosen the contraction around a thought that we experience as fear. There is a wellspring of hope inside all of us that is waiting to be tapped into. But instead, we just tend to hold onto our fears and try to avert them through logical deduction, aspirations and hasty actions. Maintaining hope is the best thing, and the only thing, we can do in order to ensure a good quality of life for ourselves: that means we can be the best father, mother, brother, sister, friend or work-colleague to someone else.

When we use inquiry, we don’t demand that things change to be the way we want them to be; we don’t demand answers as to why a certain thing happened in the past and how we can avoid it again, and so on. Through inquiry we rediscover hope which lifts us out of a sense of despair – in this position we are more able to live life at an optimum level – without the need to change things, demand things, control things, attract things and claim things. This leaves us open to the element of surprise as we wait with anticipation what life has in store for us.

Thankfully, inquiry does not demand a great deal of spiritual knowledge for it to work for us. All that we need with inquiry is an earnest desire to know truth and experience freedom than we want to uphold our own beliefs, to be right and to get our own way. In order to experience the sense of hope and freedom that inquiry can help us attain – we need to put in the time and effort to inquire into anxious thoughts as they arise, or as soon as possible thereafter.

Right and Wrong Thinking

I recently listened to The Free Believers Network podcast episode entitled “The People Revelation”, May 22^nd 2010. In this podcast episode, the hosts discussed how people tend to not see the other person and truly appreciate them, if they hold onto a particular concept about that person. In other words, when we make our lives about what is right and what is wrong, we totally miss the heart, the essence of other people. It’s as if for some people, the concept of what is right or what is wrong is actually more important than the true value of the other person. When we learn to associate with another person, to connect with them on a heart level and be prepared to see things from their perspective – everything changes. Rather than judging another person for what they do, say, think and believe – we can move to a place beyond that were all of that does not matter and we choose to really love that person.

Christianity can be a belief and practice that is riddled with contradictions, such as, “You’re saved and set free from sin…but make sure you keep the rules, otherwise, you’re sinning.” These contradictions make no sense! Likewise, whether you are Christian or not, trying to love people when you hold onto a concept about that person, being either right or wrong, it causes us to miss the essence of what love really is. When we hold onto labels, such as, “He’s gay”, or, “She’s fat,” we put obstacles in the way of our seeing the light in a person’s life; because it all becomes about some aspect of what they do, believe or have. The biggest contradiction about Christianity is trying to love other people, and yet, holding onto concepts of what is good, bad, right or wrong. There is a desperate need, for Christians and non-Christians alike, to re-connect with the heart.

The use of labels is a sure-fire way of causing enmity and division with other people. I will admit that relationships on all levels have been a struggle with me since day one. I have encountered a lot of rejection and even verbal abuse from people. I believe what causes this is the beliefs and attitudes of a person. When you contract around concepts of right and wrong, even with the best of intentions, you inevitably fall into the trap of judging others.

When you judge other people, I believe it sends out a signal to other people, especially those particularly affected, that they can feel. This concept is not necessarily New Age, not that there is anything good or bad about New Age, but this is something that is rather commonsense and matter of fact. Don’t take my word for it, test it out in your own life, think about some of the relationships you have and your attitude towards those people. We are immersed in an invisible world that only comes alive when we decide to “tune-in” to those things. This concept works with television and radio; this also works on a human level, just search the internet on “kirlean photography”. Even if you don’t believe in humans sending out waves of thought and emotion – there is ample evidence about body language which works on a subtle, physical and psychological level. It is impossible to hold onto judgements and bitterness towards another person, and for them to not feel affected by those thoughts in one way or another. That judgementalism is bound to rebound on you in some way. I love the way The Message Bible puts it:

¹ "Don't pick on people, jump on their failures, criticize their faults - unless, of course, you want the same treatment.

² That critical spirit has a way of boomeranging.

Matthew 7:1-2 MSG

I liked what Aimee Dassele said in the podcast episode “The People Revelation”; Aimee said that she had come to the conclusion that instead of considering what is right and wrong and making blanket judgements from there – it is better to consider whether something brings you life or not. Living life by a set of rules, as some people do, inevitably leads to making judgements about a person that are not true. Even if your judgements towards a person are indeed true, a person might drink excessively, a person might have an anger problem, but those things should not affect the way that you see them and interact with them. Our whole perspective on life, and other people, changes when we consider whether something brings us life and peace, or death, emptiness and frustration. What is right for one person may not be right for us, and vice-versa. The problem with blanket judgements and rules is that there is little or no flexibility for movement. We are all different people with different lives, goals, preferences, upbringings, strengths and weaknesses. When we consider if something brings us life, we re-connect the heart and see what is right for us. We can also connect to the heart of the other person and see things from their perspective – it is also known as compassion.

Releasing and inquiry provides the framework and tools that are conducive to re-connecting to the heart. Releasing and inquiry is not about rules or principles, what is right or wrong, but about welcoming “what is”, embracing reality, allowing other people and yourself to be the way they are, and living from that place. Everything originates from a thought and we can question those thoughts which are stressful to see if they bring us life and peace or frustration and emptiness. We cannot control other people; we cannot control our own thoughts; but by re-connecting to the heart in the framework of releasing and inquiry, we allow ourselves to let go of the contraction around a thought, want or emotion in order to find freedom from it. Only in the freedom from the contraction around beliefs and concepts, can we truly love ourselves, others and life.