The Certain Way - 30 Days at a Time - a Deep Journey into The Science of Getting Rich

2010: I get it.

2010-01-05T17:51:00.000-08:00

Hello Loved Ones,

I haven't been visiting you much here, and it's good to be back.

I'm inspired tonight to write out my list that I've been creating with the help of a little book published in 1926 called, simply, It Works. Follow this link to the SGR Network update page and scroll down to the section that reads "A holiday gift for you: 'It Works!'" and treat yourself to download and print the little ten page book.

This author is clearly a student of Mr. Wattles, and, if he's not, then they both are channeling the same information. It's delightful. And in this little book, the author helps distinctly in creating the clear mental image, which is something I've struggled with from time to time with SGR.

He recommends we write out a list daily (reading it three times per day) of what we want in the order in which we want it. He says to take things off the list and put them back on and move them around as suits you. It's great.

So here's my current list for 1/5/10:

I want
1. inner peace
2. absolute trust and faith
3. an enduring mutually adoring partner
4. a strong and healthy body
5. to be totally financially supported
6. $3500 or more cash incoming this month (Jan. 2010)
7. two new outfits to wear to work
8. two new bras!
9. $4500 or more cash incoming next month (Feb. 2010), increasing to a steady $6600 or more cash each month through 2010.
10. to write for the sake of writing.
11. a really relaxing spa vacation: 3-4 nights at a nice hotel with a great spa and spa services and good food and quiet sleeping conditions.
12. to be in the front row at the Patti Smith show on 2/20/10.
13. very comfortable place to stay in Chicago and mild weather for the Patti show.
14. a six week solo road trip in the U.S. stopping anywhere I want and doing anything I want.
15. to make Diamond calls from other countries.
16. to go to New Zealand in the fall of 2010.
17. to learn to solo on guitar.
18. to play in a band.
19. a Gibson SG faded electric guitar and amp.
20. to see beautiful mountains.
21. to be around really big trees.
22. to clean my floors.
23. to go back to India.
24. (this actually goes in at about #10) people to make food for me.

So I know there are details I still need to clarify and can keep tweaking the list, but I read somewhere a recommendation not to let one's self feel hungry, and I'm over-hungered with dinner on the stove, so I'm going to go eat.

Thanks for being here, Formless Substance, to receive from me. This is the year I GET IT.
RIGHT NOW.

xo

IP

p.s. add on to there To be fully gifted in the Diamond at least twice in 2010. Thanks! I love it!

Me in Five Years

2009-12-09T20:02:00.000-08:00

Dear Friends,

This week on my Diamond call, we looked at where we see ourselves in five years, where we'd like to be. I took this as a good opportunity to create a Clear Mental Image. Following is what I wrote when I considered what I'd say about my life, ideally, five years from now. I have to admit, though, as far as any of the themes in the world of form in this message, who am I to say what's ideal?

I just read in The Power of Positive Thinking (a very SGR book) that an important part of prayer is to be open to God's will beyond our own. Mr. Wattles discusses this when he talks about the man who had a specific business venture planned that fell through at the last minute.

But he was not disappointed. On the contrary, he thanked God that his desire had been overruled, and went steadily on with a grateful mind.
- Chapter 16

(an amazing chapter, by the way, that's been blowing my mind
and answering my questions)

Still, I learned something - or clarified something - about myself and what my Clear Mental Image encompasses. Big thanks to my Diamond community for asking this question, for holding the space to have me create this vision, and for encouraging my writing and asking to read the vision.

So here you go. I love you.

Me, in Five Years

I love my life. I'm grateful for my amazing man who is my true partner on this journey. We laugh a lot.

I have enduring inner peace. It radiates and I am deeply comfortable, relaxed, healthy and guided.

I live a creative life playing music, writing, playing in various visual arts and sharing my creations.

We have a radio show from the road and I write articles for columns and books that are published effortlessly. That is, everything is in the flow.

I live totally by guidance. As does my man. We are guided to travel, create and also be still. We have a home-base in the [Texas] Hill Country and travel the U.S. in our - what else - Airstream. We also travel internationally, often to places we can surf.

We have easy relationships with our friends and families and are committed, always, to opening our hearts, above all else.

Financially we are always taken care of. We have learned to live in the Certain Way and trust the Formless Substance to take care of our every need and desire. We have been playing in the Diamond for five years now and it has been a huge financial and spiritual blessing and we've share it with many, many people in our life. It has contributed greatly to our freedom and we know that it arose for us out of transforming our consciousness and understanding our divinity.

We relish sharing this conversation through the Diamond and other venues.

We are happy with our lives in a very grounded and peaceful way and continue to train in practices like Vipassana which support us in equanimity and non-reaction. In this way we live in love more and more fully and less encumbered by worry or doubt.

We model such things from a quiet beingness and share our guides whenever asked.

Meanwhile we follow our hearts. At home we eat beautiful, wholesome foods and create our art. Our lives are filled with exercise, meditation, community, peace and music.

We have been shown that we exist fully in the arms of the Divine and we are 100% trusting.

Exponential love expands when we come around. It's very, very beautiful and ultimately peaceful. We are blessed.

Sat nam. Truth is [our] identity.

THANK YOU.

Everybody can have what they want . . . it's beautiful!

2009-12-04T22:13:00.000-08:00

I saw tonight that everybody can have what they want. That I don't have to cling to something that I think I want when it's not really what I want. What I want is mutual love. Not to knock on the door of someone who's not aligned with me. I want what I want. He wants what he wants. And we can all have it!

I looked up an old fling on FB tonight and saw that he's in a relationship. Okay, to be honest, my stomach kinda flipped. It felt like an ego hit.

I'm grateful to my studies for training me to feel the hit. Open to it. And to realize that who I really am is not changed by such things. In fact that one can actually expand into her beingness from such blows to the ego. But we have to be willing to feel what it feels like to get that expansion.

But if I'm being honest, what I felt -- and the thoughts I thought -- were along the lines of, why couldn't he be in a relationship with me? How could they be in a relationship together? What was wrong with me? Why couldn't he love me? Wha? Wha? Wha?

Even though logically I knew we weren't a match. Did you see the condition of his bathroom?

Heh heh. How's that for justification trying to cover up disappointment?

I'm so tired right now I'm not writing eloquently or really expressing much or tying it into SGR, I don't think.

Here's a major declaration and entry into the Clear Mental Image that I distinguished today.

This is some major shit. We'll get back to it soon. Maybe tomorrow.

Big gratitude for the Universal support and for "Africa Unite" playing on my Pandora station.

I love you.

cc

It's thrilling and sweet and easy and natural.

2009-12-03T20:12:00.000-08:00

There is a power which never fails to present opportunity to the advancing personality who is
moving in obedience to law. God cannot help helping you if you act in a certain way. He must do so in order to help himself.

Wallace D. Wattles, The Science of Getting Rich, Chapter 15

I read this chapter this morning in the bathtub before going to meet a friend for breakfast and then going to work. Just reading the words brightened my morning. There is such a vibration about this book. I'm grateful for it in my life.

I feel like going to work is such an opportunity for me to be in the vibration that Mr. Wattles teaches us about. The impression of increase. The advancing personality. It's a joy.

Today I was taking a walk when I got home from work on this gray, chilly December day in Austin, getting fresh air and trees and movement, and I was thinking some woeful thoughts but then reminded myself to say this: I have an amazing man in my life; and I'm so grateful. That's been my mantra lately, and I absolutely love it. I just FEEL good when I say it. It opens up so much room for any man who might naturally step into it, without pressure to any. I dig it!

Also today, I'd thought about posting on-line to see if any friends wanted to come by or meet at a cafe this evening to work so I could get support in doing Artist's Way homework. And then I forgot about it. So this evening I was home and a friend left me a phone message inviting me to go to a cafe in the neighborhood to work. Turned out she then suggested coming to my house -- where I then could hang out in my jammies -- AND she brought me a black bean and guac taco. I got my Artist's Way chapter read and did the exercises in the chapter AND balanced my checkbook. AND got to catch up with my friend.

All this occurred just because I THOUGHT what I wanted to do. I IMPRESSED MY THOUGHTS UPON THE FORMLESS SUBSTANCE by LIVING IN GRATITUDE, with FAITH and PURPOSE.

It's all happening. It's thrilling and sweet and easy and natural. And I'm grateful. And I never quite know how things are going to show up.

Bring it on. I'm ready.

I humbly and gratefully and lovingly thank you,

I.P.

"If God be for us, who can be against us?"

2009-12-02T19:37:00.000-08:00

I don't know what I'm doing. Surely there's something in Wattles that would soothe my mood, but I don't know if that's where I want to go. Do I need a snack? Maybe a piece of toast with almond butter on it.

I watched, yesterday, the Universe give me something that I'd specifically asked for: exposure to Rolling Stones music. And not only did I get exposed, but it was extraordinary music. I mean, really the tops. Funny thing was, I made it about the man whose record it was, rather than the general thanking of the Formless Substance.

When I think it's coming from a person, rather than from God, I get attached. And that perpetuates the ache.

I feel like a f-ing fool today. Please, Formless Substance, help me heal my heart and forgive this gentle being who means no harm and only love but who gets confused and driven . . . who knows her actions may not be the optimal or may not look good or may not be what someone else wants, but by God, in her eveahlovin way, they happen.

"If God be for us, who can be against us?"

And is not God always for us? Always? I mean, really. How can it be otherwise?

The toast will be good.

2009-11-30T20:08:00.000-08:00

I don't know what this latest 30 day commitment really means.

But I can say that I had a sweet day today. I worked, and was pleased to find out that I have some hours scheduled for me later in the week. I told my co-worker, "Working is good for me right now."

I was grateful (and AM grateful) to be in a peaceful mood and to have been in a peaceful mood all day.

This evening, about an hour or so ago, I started feeling physically funky. Am I just tired? I hope so! I realized, though, that I was resisting the feeling. The way I noticed this is that I considered what Mr. Wattles teaches us: to see TRUTH, regardless of appearances. He says the truth is health.

And in considering that, I relaxed, and in relaxing, I realized I'd been gripping onto resisting not feeling well. Like pushing against it to push through it. Maybe it's just time for bed. Maybe it's just a message to quiet down and slow down and listen to my body.

I am to do, every day, all that can be done that day, but I'm not to rush. There's no hurry on the creative plane.

I did accomplish a lot today! And while I was at work, I held the visions of what I'm imaging: that money comes to me from expected and unexpected sources and arrives to me in the mail and in direct deposit to my mailbox; and that I have an amazing man in my life. It's sweet and fun.

And guess what! I went to my p.o. box today to pay rent on it for the next six months and in it was an unexpected check for $50! Cha-ching! Being rich IS awesome.

When I considered whether or not to park in the parking garage on this chilly, rainy day (rather than park a few blocks and across the highway away and walk), I realized the only thing that would stop me was some kind of lack mentality. And I remembered Mr. Wattles. The money I need will always be there.

And it always has been. And it is.

And I'm grateful.

Good night.

Love,

I.P.

How can something ever part from that which it is in its essence?

2009-11-29T19:34:00.000-08:00

It's been a while since I've written, and I've missed it. The Certain Way brings such comfort, such relaxation, such spaciousness and such good cheer to my life.

This is the Sunday of Thanksgiving weekend. This weekend I was blessed to get away . . . no phone, no computer. Just nature, good friends - old and new, great food, and practicing receiving. I also took some time to get back into the little green book. And I'm grateful.

I do have some fears. AND I'm counting on Mr. Wattles and his coaching. So far so good, right? And I notice that when I'm steeped in the Certain Way, flow and brightness abound.

So I returned home today and have been enjoying my re-entry. Before I left on my trip I was feeling ungrounded, disconnected, anxious. I felt forsaken, if I may admit. I had to have many a conversation with the Lord, imploring to feel the connection again. Scary! But I'm back.

As if we ever could lose it, really. We just go to sleep. It never leaves us. The connection never leaves us. The Formless Substance. The Thinking Stuff. God. How can something ever part from that which it is in its essence?

But the mind. The mind is so convincing.

ANYWAY, here I sit, comfortable in my home. Beautiful music playing. Warm blanket on my lap. Feet up on foot stool. Grateful to be writing. Where I was going with this is . . .

I returned home today and I read Chapter 12, Efficient Action, gratefully.

I've discussed this topic here before. Let's read some of Mr. Wattles' words:

The matter turns, then, on the question of whether you can make each separate act a success. And, this you can certainly do.

You can make each act a success, because the Infinite is working with you, and the Infinite cannot fail.

The Supreme Power is at your service. To make each act efficient you have only to put your own power into it.

What a joy and what a relief to read those words. Sometimes when I read about being efficient and about making each act a success, an old voice comes in to tell me I'm not doing it right, or I'm not working hard enough or some other reason that I'm failing. And yet, here is our fearless leader reminding me: I can. Because the Infinite is working with me, and the Infinite cannot fail.

In fact, I AM that.

The conversation reminds us that we are to do today's work well; not worrying about yesterday's or tomorrow's.

I interpret all of this to mean that THIS MOMENT is the most important and is all there is. And in order to make each act efficient, all we need do is to be very present with each act. Feel my fingers on the computer key board. Chew and taste my food. Feel my feet on the floor and be present to the warmth and texture of the water as I'm washing a dish. Notice my breathing. Know that this is how I am aligned with the Infinite. This is how I allow the power of the Infinite to come through me.

It is there, and it is love, and it wants to play. It wants peace and gentleness. It IS peace and gentleness. All we need to is chill out and allow that to be. Allow our true nature to be.

There's nothing we need to work for. We simply need to do what's right in front of us. All the while, says Mr. W., holding with faith and purpose our vision.

I love this, too:

If you wish speedy results, spend practically all your spare time in this practice. By continuous contemplation you will get the picture of what you want firmly fixed upon your mind and completely transferred to the mind of the formless substance. Then, in your working hours, you need only to mentally refer to the picture to stimulate your faith and purpose and to put forth your best effort. Contemplate your picture in your leisure hours until your consciousness is so full of it that you can grasp it instantly. (Here comes the part I dig:) You will become so enthusiastic about its bright promises that the mere thought of it will call forth the strongest energies of your whole being.

I spent some time really deeply allowing myself such imaging this weekend, and felt in absolute glee. So I can see the benefit of spending time in such contemplation, and I also see the importance of getting the details down, of really getting into the world and vibe of it. I mean, really, it's just fun. And then calling forth that vision in the moment of working makes that moment even more yummy. It reminds us, then, to live in the Certain Way, to work presently and to allow the Infinite to drive, and to have a fun time while at it! The Universe wants to give us what we want, because we are it! We want what we want!

Okay, I'm going to get ready for bed now, and I say, thank you.

I thank you for so much more than I could possibly wrap my mind around, and I thank you for this venue to write and for the coming back to it. I've missed you! Let's do another 30. That'll take us right up to 2010!!!!

All love,

I.P.

Some Practice Receiving

2009-11-14T11:47:00.000-08:00

I haven't been writing on here much, but the Certain Way remains a major part of my point of view on living. And I'm grateful.

It folds in, as I've mentioned, so beautifully with The Artist's Way, which is taking a lot of my focus. This week we're studying financial abundance, so it's really great. Here are some great quotes:

"Looking at God's creation, it is pretty clear that the creator itself did not know when to stop. There is not one pink flower, or even fifty pink flowers, but hundreds. Snowflakes, of course, are the ultimate exercise in sheer creative glee. No two alike. This creator looks suspiciously like someone who just might send us support for our creative ventures."

"We have tried to be sensible -- as though we have any proof at all that God is sensible . . . Creativity is not and never has been sensible. Why should it be? Why should you be?"

"'This is extravagant but so is God' is a good attitude to take when treating your artist to small bribes and beauties. Remember, you are the cheapskate, not God. As you expect God to be more generous, God will be able to be more generous to you."

(The Artist's Way, Week 6)

This last quote brings me to a topic that I've begun to contemplate this past week, thanks to the subject of my last Diamond call: receiving.

Mr. Wattles teaches us that in order to receive we must be acting on our present environment. Sometimes there seems to be so much to do (really that I want to do) I don't know what to do. Or I worry about the how of it all. So I've been praying just to do one thing at a time and trust that the next step is revealed to me. And sometimes, like when I'm feeling run down from having a cold, the thing to do is to chill out. Sit down for a while. Rest. Write my blog.

I'm excited today to do some shopping -- which is a big part of this receiving -- and to rearrange my bedroom. Those are plenty of things to do! I've been contemplating whether or not I set myself up to receive. Do I welcome some things/people/attention and close myself off to others?

I turn it all back over to God, with gratitude. Mr. Wattles generously reminds us not to worry and not to hurry. He says we never have to be concerned that someone else will beat us to what we want or that opportunities will run out before we get to them. He says all of what we want is available to us, and, in fact, that the Universe is more anxious to bring it to us than even we are to receive it. What's up with that?

I pray to be fully relaxed, surrendered and trusting. And free to receive.

So the receiving. We are to act upon our present place - doing only today's work today: not tomorrow's, not yesterday's. And while we do it, we are to hold our clear mental image and we are to do it with faith, purpose and gratitude.

I still sometimes wonder about the clear mental image. Am I handling everything as I should? Ooooh, did I just use that word? In big orange letters on my white board are the words "NO SHOULDS."

For me, it seems that presence and faith and purpose, and, of course, gratitude are an extremely strong foundation for me. And I believe The Artist's Way is helping me hone in on my clear mental image. Without any force or should. It's helping it arise. I know what I want.

Today I want to rest next (sitting down to write I realize I'm still feeling wiped out from the cold!) and I want to rearrange the bedroom, and I want to do some shopping. I want full, strong, healthy energy when it's time to have it (and ideally regularly). I want faith, faith, faith and to be totally relaxed and surrendered. I want to trust, trust, trust and get my inseparable nature. The inseparable nature of all.

What else is there?

With all that I will have the absolute trust that I can create what I want and that the Universe is always for my highest good. I'm coming more and more to that, too. Less judgment about events. There is no end that we're headed to. That is, we don't know what the end result of any one event or circumstance will be. Like Eckhart Tolle says, if we want to know what caused what's happening now, we have to go all the way back to the Big Bang.

So just hang out in this moment. Allow yourself to have things, with deep peace and gratitude, joy and real love as the primary state of being. In that state, all is a gift, for life itself is a gift, and in that state, we [know we] are one with all of life.

Again: "As you expect God to be more generous, God will be able to be more generous to you."

And a nap on a Saturday afternoon with the windows open is about as generous as I can imagine right now.

I love you.

Your,

I.P.

2009-11-12T18:55:00.000-08:00

Regarding that last entry, I don't know that I have strayed. I trust in God more and more. So many reinforcements of SGR in my world; mainly The Artist's Way.

My body feels sick, and I'm choosing truth, regardless of appearances. Still, listening to the flow and heading to bed early. My heart is wide open and I absolutely love falling back on the love of the Formless Substance.

More soon.

I love you.

I.P.

Chapter 5

2009-11-08T22:03:00.000-08:00

I love and appreciate this chapter and think I've strayed. So I'm grateful to be back with it and trust that my study of it and of the rest of the little green book will have me back on the creative course. Without guilt, simply allowing.

Gotta get to bed.

I love you.

Big Thanks

2009-11-05T20:38:00.000-08:00

I really just wanted so say hi and express my gratitude.

I've sort of complained or worried that I haven't been clear enough on my clear mental images. I've also mentioned on here that I'm working through the twelve week creativity course, The Artist's Way, and how aligned it is with the good Mr. Wattles.

I'm coming to find that it is step by step helping me create and CLARIFY my clear mental image. So HUGE THANKS. It's totally downstream and super fun. Seems effortless and there it is, arising.

The two books align so nicely that I could in some ways merge the blogs. Such joy!

Also today I got back to actually reading some of the little green book after reading deprivation week last week. It was very sweet to nibble on. I love the edition I have (Joshua Books) and felt like I'm experiencing it all on deeper and deeper levels.

And in going deeper and deeper into the philosophy - or science! - I'm deeper and deeper in joy and gratitude.

And for THAT I'm deeply grateful.

Right now I feel really sleepy, for which I'm also grateful.

I'm getting really clear on what works for THIS being and allowing that to flow. My gratitude knows no bounds. Nor does my love.

Thank you.

Yours,

I.P.

Clear Mental Image

2009-11-01T15:55:00.001-08:00

Actually, I want the king sized bed. But you get the idea . . .

Update and love!

2009-11-01T13:28:00.000-08:00

Hey y'all!

So let me give an update . . .

I'm on week four of The Artist's Way which includes reading deprivation! That means, among other things, that I haven't been reading SGR. I've also been staying off of the computer, at least more than usual. It's a challenge!

Anyway, what's happening being away from the little green book is that I'm pulling it into my consciousness from my familiarity with the text.

And it's sweet.

I get nervous - and I'm reluctant to write that because Mr. Wattles tells us not to worry about future emergencies and says that the money we need will always be there - still, I feel like part of the purpose of this blog is to be honest with myself and see where there's room to apply the Certain Way. So that's one of them.

Another way to apply the Certain Way to worry, besides dropping the worrying, is to get into gratitude. And that's a very present thing to do. I was at the gym today, which is a place one's thoughts can kick in, and I felt some worry, some nervousness. So when I became conscious of it, I pulled myself into the present and asked, as Eckhart Tolle taught me, "Is there any problem in this moment?" And there isn't. And from there: gratitude. Gratitude that I can stand, that I can lift weights. Today I even said thanks for my looks, for my eyes.

Right in this moment I'm pleased that the second song on my newly created Dave Matthews Band Pandora station is one of my favorite Jack Johnson songs, "Flake". Where does that darn period go??? I can't surf the Net to find out right now . . . reading deprivation and all . . . I oughta know these things.

It's a gorgeous day in Texas. One can tell the seasons have shifted. Shoot, it's November 1 and the first day of Daylight Savings. :-(

But I'm grateful that I got that extra hour of the morning! And I'm grateful that I slept last night and that when I couldn't sleep I stayed pretty chill and just practiced techniques I know, including thinking what I'm grateful for. It's a soothing practice.

Then today as part of my Artist's Way homework, I got to write a letter to myself from my eighty-year-old me. It was absolutely joyful. I'll link to it here (once I put it on my AW blog next). In it, I was reminded, THERE'S NOTHING TO WORRY ABOUT. Life will continue to overflow with blessings. This morning I wrote, "Every moment is gold." My eighty-year-old me reminded me of that.

Also in reading The Artist's Way, I've had the joy of seeing the over-lap between that book and our faithful little green book. Our roots as the Creator itself. I'll also link to my Artist's Prayer.

My sweet worlds are over-lapping.

I look forward to reading SGR again next Wednesday.

My friend, Annie, shared with me a great SGR story: she injured her foot recently and was seeing her doctor about having a surgery. Since her insurance deductible is $5000 she pays out-of-pocket for most medical expenses. The doctor told her she didn't have to have the surgery, that her foot might just heal kind of funny, with a few of her toes sticking out sideways.
Annie said, No, I want my foot back. Let's do this. We can do this.

She asked the cost of the operation and the doctor told her it was $1500.

Annie, confident that she wanted to have the operation went home and received a phone call from a customer who told her she wanted to pay off her balance on her Rainbow sweeper she'd bought on installments from Annie. Annie looked at her records and found that the balance was $1500. The customer said, "Great, let's pay it off. Here's my credit card."

THANK YOU for sharing that with me, Annie. I need to hear these things! I miss having people around me playing in this world. It makes such a difference. Makes me consider joining Rebecca's program. But in any case, I won't be doing that until after reading deprivation week's over.

So for now, I'm grateful I know the book well enough to pull Mr. Wattles' words into my mind, reminding me to buzz with the impression of increase, to do - every day - all that can be done that day - with the Supreme Power working always with me, never to rush, and to work with purpose, faith and gratitude that I already get all I want and that's just how it is.

I do feel a little nervous! Help me to drop that nervousness, Lord! Let me trust!

xo

hmmmm . . . just wondered, as I saw the words "clear mental image," if this is one of those circumstances where I'm not generating my C.M.I. strongly enough. Do I not know what I want? Do I have to ask in specific dollars or can I say, I want, always, to have the money to pay my bills, rent, etc. and to keep living the lifestyle I do. For I don't seem to be stopping any behavior. I go in in faith that all is taken care of. YES! I do have faith!

Nice. Thanks.

And DMB now sings "The Maker" - quite certainly a nod to Jerry. I love it. Bad ass. If I look up the chords to this is that cheating on reading deprivation? ;-) ;-) ;-)

Every Act Brings Riches

2009-10-26T19:07:00.000-07:00

[this puppy's giving me a little hassle on the spacing. please forgive it and read on and enjoy.]

I've been having sweet moments of non-linearality. Heh heh. It's always fun to try to come up with that word. Non-linearality. Ha! I just looked it up. Linearity. Non-linearity. I sorta like my word better. Well anyway! . . .

Like the things we do that might not seem like money-makers are what brings us riches. And the things that seem like they're obviously for money may have other purposes.

On the court: I go to work at the psych hospital for a handful of hours each week. I really like it. I woke up late this stormy morning, thinking it was early from the darkness and chill in the room, so I just stayed in bed. When I got up I called the woman I work with at the hospital to let her know when I thought I'd be in and check on whether that worked for her or not. She said, "You know, if you don't want to come it, I'll be okay." She said, "Unless you want to. Do you want to?"

And I checked in with myself. "I like to," I said.

What a joy!

I went through a stretch a little while later, as I sat eating my lunch, feeling kind of sleepy, craving just to play my guitar and read my kids' book.

I argued with myself a little bit and grumbled in my pms mind about well, I'd said I was going to go into work, but I kinda wanted to get back in bed, in jammies, hole up. And I looked to see why I'd said I'd go in. Was it out of fear, like I need the money? Was it out of the desire to more than fill my present place (it's a great opportunity to do that!)? Was it to get my head out of my ass (it did)? Or is it just that I do like it and it's what's there to do?

I don't guess it matters.

As I was driving over in the rain after lunch, though, I had a sense of work not necessarily being a linear money-maker. And I think this is, in part, what Mr. Wattles points to in the book. There is a scientific method that creates riches, but it's not necessarily the linear model of work harder and work more and more money will come. True, some work is indeed necessary. But he doesn't even define work. He does say, "Do all the work you can do every day, and do each piece of your work in a perfectly successful manner." And then he goes on to say, "Put the power of success and the purpose of getting rich into everything that you do."

And so, driving to work, writing this blog, brushing my teeth are all actions that bring riches to me. And going to "work" at the hospital, while - and I'm grateful - it brings cash into my bank account (very grateful!) does not have its sole purpose in directly, linearly making me rich.

At least not in the way one would think.

I remember when I worked full-time as a social worker, worked my ass off, I couldn't imagine that at my rate of less than twenty bucks an hour, I was ever going to get anywhere. Never going to pay off student loans or other debts. Never get ahead. And it drove me nuts. I was miserable.

What could it have been like had I discovered the Certain Way back then? What power I could have brought into that setting! Imagine, giving off the impression of increase in such a place!

Well, as my friend Randall told me, months before I eventually resigned -- over a year, in fact -- I had outgrown that position. But I was not more than filling my present place; I'm quite sure of that.

But wait, is this focus on the past and how it used to be what Mr. Wattles guards against? I don't know. Where was I?

Oh yes, the non-linear viewpoint.

When I get into that space, when I'm graced to have that space arise within me, beyond the thinking mind or the mind that is trained by this fear-based society, this - God bless 'em - limited, hypnotized by appearances society, I experience the Formless Substance and know that money is just like anything else. It is created out of the formless substance just like this apartment was, just like this laptop, just like the John Coltrane Pandora station. Just like my trip to India so long ago. Just like my recent trip to California. Just like everything else we will ever create and have ever created.

It's all one thing and we are that.

The mind quiets down in those moments and my whole being has more fun. Lightens up. Doesn't worry.

Chapter 16 of the little green book really inspired me when I read it earlier today. It got me psyched to pay the bills that have been sitting on my desk. Here are some of the inspiring notes:

"The more men who get rich on the creative plane, the better for others."

"When you enter on the creative plane of thought, you will rise above all these things and become a citizen of another kingdom."

"Do not spend any time in planning how you will meet possible emergencies in the future. You should be concerned with doing today's work in a perfectly successful manner -- not with emergencies which may arise tomorrow. You can attend to them as they come.

" Do not concern yourself with questions of how you will surmount obstacles which may loom upon your business horizon. Ignore these questions unless you can plainly see that your course must be altered today in order to avoid these obstacles.

"No matter how tremendous an obstruction may appear at a distance, you will find that if you continue in the certain way, it will disappear as you approach it -- or that a way over, through, or around it will appear."

"Give no anxious thought to possible disasters, obstacles, panics or unfavorable combinations of circumstances. There is enough time to meet such things when they present themselves before you in the immediate present. You will find that every difficulty carries with it the wherewithal for its overcoming."

"When you make a failure, it is because you have not asked enough. Keep on, and a larger thing than you were seeking will certainly come to you. Remember this."

All quotes courtesy of Wallace D. Wattles, The Science of Getting Rich. Click the title to link to the book.

I'm gonna go clear those bills off my desk. Paying THEM brings me riches, like all things, when done with faith, purpose and gratitude, do.

Thank you! I love you,

I.P.

It's Continually Coming Around

2009-10-23T09:10:00.000-07:00

This morning I was inspired to put a $20 bill in an envelope and take it to the bus stop. Yesterday I'd been feeling nervous about money and recalled the story from DarynKagan.com about the woman who was instructed by her spiritual teacher to give things away (to get her head out of her own booty). She was told that she had to give at least some things that were hard to give . . . things she thought she couldn't afford to give.

I thought about that this morning and chose to put a twenty in an envelope. It felt great and clear.

So out to the bus stop I went, making sure there was nobody there. I taped the envelope to the bench as the owner of the business (a barber shop) behind the bus stop pulled into his driveway. I'd actually noticed that his car wasn't there when I walked out, thinking it odd that it was 10:30 in the morning and he wasn't there yet.

I went over to say hi and I said, "You're late," and he said, "No, I'm not. I'm my own boss." He said, "You're just used to seeing certain things." So true!

So he said, "You're the one who's been leaving that stuff on my front stoop." I told him, it's not his front stoop, it's the bus stop, and he said he'd been wondering when he was going to catch [the gift-leaving bandit].

I told him what was in today's envelope and he couldn't believe it. He went and looked at it and said, "I found it." Also true.

He took it down and held it up to the sun, not believing that I (or anyone?) would do such a thing! He kept asking me, "Is it real?"

I assured him it was and he said, "I'm gonna give this back to you for Christmas."

I checked in with myself to see if that felt in the flow or if I wanted him to put it back on the bench. A part of me longed for the idea of someone finding the envelope and it making their day. I also know this is not the last time I leave treats like this around town. No, he was right. He found it. And I liked the idea that it was almost instantly coming back to me, if that's what he chooses to do with it. It was like a message from the Universe saying, it's continually coming around.

I look forward to the day I leave $100 bills out there!

You never know what's going to be at your bus stop!

Have a great day.

Love,

I.P.

Clear Mental Image

2009-10-23T09:06:00.000-07:00

Deep peace, and a vessel for God's love, above all else.

Abundance beyond what my mind can comprehend

2009-10-22T20:12:00.001-07:00

Click here and really look. Then meditate on that being the same as what makes us up. That could be existing inside your body. The Formless Substance has not stopped creating and even if it did, we cannot possibly run out.

When I really look at this image, I see true abundance. Abundance beyond what my mind can comprehend.

Inner Peace, Before All Else

2009-10-22T19:33:00.000-07:00

There is never any hurry on the creative plane. And there is no lack of opportunity.

When you get out of the competitive mind, you will understand that you never need to act hastily. No one else is going to beat you to the thing that you want to do. There is enough for all. If one place is taken, another and a better one will be opened for you a little farther on. There is plenty of time. When you are in doubt, wait. Fall back on the contemplation of your vision and increase your faith and purpose. And, by all means, in times of doubt and indecision, cultivate gratitude.

A day or two spent in contemplating the vision of what you want and in earnest thanksgiving that you are getting it, will bring your mind into such close relationship with the Infinite that you will make no mistake when you do act.

Wallace D. Wattles, The Science of Getting Rich, Chapter 13

What an amazing book. I read some comments by people today who talked about how they get more and more out of it each time they read it. I've probably read the book somewhere around fifty times now (actually, I have no idea. It's just been constant since February), and I swoon over little tidbits as I go through. The perfect message appears at the perfect time.

This passage above has me looking at what my vision is. Sometimes I feel iffy about my vision. I often feel the pull of travel -- and I know Mr. Wattles recommends against vague visions of travel. He says, be specific. So what is it, underneath that, that I'm seeking?

It's freedom.

And today I was chatting with a friend about money and how I'd like to have at least $10,000 in the bank at all times. That it felt like that would lend a feeling of security. And then I saw that, like wanting to hear that another person loves me, cannot give me the ultimate security that I seek. I can only get that in the arms of God.

So my friend and I talked about how we have security collapsed with money, self-worth collapsed with the apparent love of others. He told me it's not like we have to try to get rid of those thoughts; we can simply distinguish them.

So what else, outside of the appearance of security?

Well, like I mentioned above: freedom.

And before all else, INNER PEACE.

For years that was my primary prayer. In the past few years I've come to find that all that praying had paid off. So it's interesting to play in game of creating in the world of form.

Will having my car painted freshly and a new windshield lend itself to my feelings of inner peace and freedom, or do those feelings come first, and from there, I'm able truly to connect with the source [that I am anyway] and create a freshly painted, new-windshielded car?

One of my favorite songs just came on my Joni Mitchell Pandora: Coyote.

You know what's cool?

I'm writing almost every day. Whether here on this blog or another, the writing is coming out of me. And that's a joy. It's what I love to do. It's flowing. I'm grateful for that.

And when I start to get nervous about my financial picture -- and I have been getting nervous a little bit in the last few days -- I'm deeply grateful for the teachings of Mr. Wattles. He's so incredibly generous and soothing. And I believe him. I do what he tells me to do, as much as I'm able.

There seems to be a lot around me about unearthing what it is we really want. What are those clear mental images? Some of them still feel like shoulds.

Right now: freedom and inner peace. Freedom to move around the planet unencumbered. Freedom from guilt that I'm not living up to what some people might want of me. Freedom from guilt of any kind. Freedom to do everything I choose to do without worry about where the money is going to come from.

I want to have my car painted and have the windshield replaced.

I want to go to Hawaii in December to see Ram Dass et al.

I want to be so relaxed that I never think twice about paying bills or where the money's coming from.

I want to access the ever-flowing river of abundance so I don't sit on the sidelines and admire others who have it and keep myself tethered to them by some strange voyeurism.

I'm grateful to The Artist's Way for helping me unearth some of this. These two books absolutely go hand-in-hand. I AM on the right path. My guides are telling me what to do and I'm listening.

Thank you.

Different from what I sat down to write . . .

2009-10-21T17:32:00.000-07:00

I realize as I prepare to write this evening that the words I was inspired to share earlier are not so much what I'm up to in the moment, as wonderful and perfect and beautiful as they were to read in the little green book this morning. Perhaps tomorrow . . .

Two quick notes today.

One, I am feeling strangely under-the-weather. Like I have a low fever or something. Headache, face tingly. Earlier when it was coming on I felt really weird and I was in a store and I got scared and kinda freaked out. One thing that got me through was remembering what Mr. Wattles says about health:

"Every appearance in the visible world tends to produce a corresponding form in the mind which observes it, and this can only be prevented by holding the thought of the TRUTH.

To look upon the appearances of poverty will produce corresponding forms in your own mind, unless you hold to the truth that there is no poverty; there is only abundance.

To think health when surrounded by the appearances of disease or to think riches when in the midst of the appearances of poverty requires power, but whoever acquires this power becomes a "master mind. That person can conquer fate and can have what he wants.

This power can only be acquired by getting hold of the basic fact which is behind all appearances, and that fact is that there is one thinking substance from which and by which all things are made."

So contemplating this helped me keep it together rather than freak out at the pasta counter at Whole Foods. It also reminds me of what Eckhart would teach, or any number of other teachers and sages. Even if I were to die in this body right then (I know, I was being dramatic, but I felt weird!) I remain the Formless Substance.

The other thing that I wanted to touch on is that I'm now in Week 3 of The Artist's Way, and I love it, AND it's SOOOOO SGR! The author this week talks about synchronicities and I see how the studying that I do is all lining up so that I am more and more dialed in to creating. It's as if The Artist's Way has arisen to nudge my SGR world ahead and to help me clarify my Clear Mental Images.

It's wonderful, positive and good fun.

And for now, even though I can hold to truth regardless of appearances, I'm gonna take this body that appears to be a little under-the-weather into the kitchen and get some food and get on to resting.

More soon.

Your,

I.P.

What Truer Love?

2009-10-20T15:10:00.000-07:00

I'm gonna send a quick note because I want to leave the computer off for the rest of the day.

This continues to be my prayer:

"You must learn to see the underlying truth in all things. You must see beyond all seemingly wrong conditions the great one life ever moving toward fuller expression and more complete happiness."

What deeper path could there be than this? What deeper relief? What truer love?

Also up for me has been a noticing in which ways I've slipped back into the competitive plane, forgetting the creative plane. Forgetting there is nothing anyone else has of which I cannot have the same, only my getting it does not need to take from anyone else. On the creative plane, when I get mine, everyone wins.

I'm not gonna criticize myself here. I got on my knees again to pray last night out of confusion and mental/emotional struggle and it gave me some space. Turning such things over to God is about all I know to do. Just to notice and do my best not to make wrong. See the quote above!

Finally, for today, I'll share this passage and say this: I do believe this is the life I'm living and continue to live. Today has been downright dreamy. After I write here I'll have a snack and go out for a long walk on this spectacular late afternoon. I live the life I love. I'm deeply grateful and blessed and thank the Lord (and Annie White) for bringing this book to me. Here's the passage:

"You will get rich most easily if you do that for which you are best fitted. But, you will get rich most satisfactorily if you do that which you want to do.

Doing what you want to do is life. And, there is no real satisfaction in living if we are compelled to do something which we don not like to do and fail to do what we want to do. And, it is certain that you can do what you want to do; your desire to do it is proof that you have within you the power which can do it."

Wallace D. Wattles, The Science of Getting Rich, Chapter 13

May these words be helpful to another.

May you live the life you love.

Stay tuned for on-going exploration, peace, presence, joy and increase and more life for all!

I love you!

I.P.

Living the Certain Way Today

2009-10-19T20:30:00.000-07:00

It's been a sweet day in SGR world.

I'm grateful to be easing back into the flow. I wonder what has me dance away from it? Am I every really away from it?

Today I went to work and had opportunities to more than fill my present place, for which I was grateful.

I also had my head up my butt, well, let's say it was, like, up my butt, but peeking out. LOL! I kept hearing the words, "Do today's work today." They helped me keep returning to the present. I also was saying to myself, "I am the awareness that is aware."

I felt better after lunch and wondered if maybe the unease was just hunger.

Also tonight I was on my Diamond call (excellent) and heard some things about how some Diamonds can take up to almost a year to fully cycle. I felt sort of nervous because I feel like I somewhat count on my Diamond to bring me cash. But recently, when coming present to this, I've realized the limitation of the thought, and opened up to all sources. Opened up to be pleasantly surprised. But, in a way, not surprised. As Mr. Wattles reminds us, gratitude begets faith, and living in faith, we expect good things. We ARE infinite.

I stood on the lawn in front of the Allman Brothers Band and knew that I am the very same as those guitars, as the sound, as the people, as the lights, as the trippy visuals on the screens. I felt absolute peaceful gratitude.

So as I had my moment or two of worry, I gratefully remembered the words that I read today:

" . . . do not spend time in planning the best course in possible future emergencies. Have faith in your ability to meet any emergency when it arrives."

Wallace D. Wattles, The Science of Getting Rich, Chapter 11

It's such a relaxing statement. In those moments I do a quick scan to see if there's any problem in the moment or anything I need to deal with in that moment, and there is not. What's there to do is today's work - and to do today's work well.

I'm grateful for opportunities to do work, to more than fill my present place, to give off the impression of increase, to be grateful.

AND, I need to take good care of this generous body, so I'm going to get on to bed.

Thanks for reading. May your day be filled with the impression of increase.

Yours,

I.P.

Where are you trying to get?

2009-10-18T18:40:00.000-07:00

"You cannot act where you are not. You cannot act where you have been, and you cannot act where you are going to be. You can only act where you are."

Wallace D. Wattles, The Science of Getting Rich, Chapter 11

Funny, even as I sat down to write this, I started to scroll backward through the days and found myself about to read about my past. Sometimes I find it useful or even inspiring to read some of my past writings, but that's not my intention today.

A few days ago I took twenty-plus pounds of journals and threw them in the trash can on trash day.

I've been slowly but surely purging things in my house. A few weeks ago I donated about half of my books to the library. I could keep going and not miss most of them. During my next upcoming visit from my organizer, we're hitting the closets and clothing. I can hardly wait!

Sometimes it feels great. Sometimes it feels weird. Purging those journals was mostly weird and kind of reactionary.

I'd been wondering for a while what, if anything, I should do with them. But I'm pretty hip to what's in them: past.

Does relieving myself of past writing free me from my past? Perhaps it helps. I've been known to open those books and just get lost in them. Solidify a false sense of self based on how horrible I think I am that I haven't grown more (that I'm still whining in similar ways, still having relationships that make my friends say, "That's not what you want.") or feel guilt or shame for how out-of-it I've been. How wistful and naive. Other times I become present to my on-going commitment to and devotion to the Divine and see in writing the continuing unfolding of that experience.

Any journal I write today would be more or less the same.

Last night I was at a concert (thanks, Giraffie, for going with me and making it all possible! I had a great time!) and I had a great ah-hah moment:

I saw that I've been living as if there's some place to get to. The money. The man. The Airstream Dance Party.

And as I sat on the toilet at the Cynthia Woods Pavilion, I knew: THIS IS IT. There is nothing else but this.

There's nothing else but me here, legs crossed (feet freshly pedi'ed), Ray Brown Trio playing on my Abdullah Ibrahim Pandora, the slight breeze from the ceiling fan making itself known to the left side of my face, my clothes clicking against the side of the dryer in the next room, this key board warm underneath the heels of my hands.

Where else is there to be?

I'd been wondering earlier yesterday evening if almost 40 is a little late to be getting my life started. What I wonder now is, what would have me think that it's just starting. It is a continual becoming.

Somehow I've been duped into thinking that there's somewhere else to be. Some other way to be before I've made it, am complete, worthwhile, a success. And such sweet relief at dropping that from a place of knowing, rather than theorizing.

So I go back to the quote from our good little green book at the top of this page:

"You cannot act where you are not. You cannot act where you have been, and you cannot act where you are going to be. You can only act where you are."

There truly is no place to get. The only place we're eventually going to get, in this lifetime, is to our death. And if I'm scurrying to do things -- to make it -- before I get there, what real use is there? I'm going to achieve that finish line no matter what, right? And what about right now?

This music I'm hearing is super mellow and fits in nicely with my now 3/4 drunk cup of chamomile and my pensive and fatigued mood. I have to remind myself that I'm very tired from the big night last night and not to get too lost in thoughts or emotions, for they are all passing.

What's left to do is make my bed, fold and put away my laundry, rest. A little meditation sounds nice. For really, there's nothing else to do. There is this moment, opening up always.

I appreciate this part of Mr. Wattles' philosophy that helps me calm down and focus in a little more. Act more efficiently. But just remember, we do this not to get somewhere. We are right here, aligned with the Supreme Power, that which takes total care of us.

My Prayer

2009-10-15T19:10:00.001-07:00

I get so much comfort when I'm in this place:

"You must learn to see the underlying truth in all things. You must see beneath all seemingly wrong conditions the one great life ever moving forward toward fuller expression and more complete happiness."

- Wallace D. Wattles, The Science of Getting Rich, Chapter 10

My prayer is that be where I exist fully. My prayer is not to judge, as the Lord does not judge. It is not to me to judge any situation. I don't know what benefit may come. And it may be years before I can actually see a benefit from a particular situation, but I can remember that I don't know what's to come. I don't know right/wrong. Still, I have this judging mind that thinks it knows, and it keeps me in depression and guilt and shame and fatigue and fear and bullshit places that are not what we read in the above quote.

"You must see beneath all seemingly wrong conditions."

This is my prayer. That I can do that in each moment.

Lord, neutralize my opinions and judgments and allow Your love to flow through, unencumbered by opinion. And if this person, Carin, isn't able to do so, allow my Higher Self to be aware of this truth and smile in compassion, even as the person stumbles through the dance of this dream.

Thank you.

Yes.

2009-10-15T18:51:00.000-07:00

I'm so grateful for this blog and for Mr. Wattles and for The Science of Getting Rich.

I'm in week two of the twelve week course of The Artist's Way. One of the assignments this week is to read these "Basic Principles" each morning and evening. We're to look for where we're able to let go of skepticism. I'm grateful for my SGR studies, cuz this stuff is totally in the flow:

1. Creativity is the natural order of life. Life is energy: pure creative energy.

2. There is an underlying, in-dwelling creative force infusing all of life--including ourselves.

3. When we open ourselves to our creativity, we open ourselves to the creator's creativity within us and our lives.

4. We are, ourselves, creations. And we, in turn, are meant to continue creativity by being creative ourselves.

5. Creativity is God's gift to us. Using our creativity is our gift back to God.

6. The refusal to be creative is self-will and is counter to our true nature.

7. When we open ourselves to exploring our creativity, we open ourselves to God: good orderly direction.

8. As we open our creative channel to the creator, many gentle but powerful changes are to be expected.

9. It is safe to open ourselves up to greater and greater creativity.

10. Our creative dreams and yearnings come from a divine source. As we move toward our dreams, we move toward divinity.

I'm looking forward to number 8. :-)
I've had kind of a rough day, emotionally. I haven't been sleeping so well. I've folded in and out of some situations that feel confusing or wrong to me and yet, there they are. Relationships. The ego. Fear. Confusion. Judgment. Loneliness.

Today I literally got on my knees and asked the following of the Lord:

Lord, may I look only to you for approval, only to you for love and worth. And may you send me a man to adore and who adores me in the same way and we're free and willing to do so.

And I got this in response:

You only have to ask Me. I'm the One to ask. I love you, child. All is well.

Thank you, Lord. In those moments, it's so clear. When I have the clarity and humility to ask and to know that You are the only real source.

Get Rich

2009-10-14T19:42:00.000-07:00

Mr. Wattles says, directly in Chapter 9, that the way we can help the poor is to get rich by the creative method. He says, " . . . every person who gets rich by creation opens a way for thousands to follow him and inspires them to do so."

A few weeks ago I met a man who is the chief medical officer of a major city hospital system. I found out that he's also a musician who plays guitar, "and I'm a Dead Head," he told me, a Dead Head myself. He said that he plays music to soothe him when work gets too stressful. I can imagine that it might! And I told him that I'm glad someone's busting their ass; I'm just interested in playing.

[This is funny, my Pandora just started playing "Boy You're Gonna Carry That Weight". Hee hee hee!]

Today I was chatting with a man who has maybe five jobs, several of them which would be full-time for most people. Although he complains about the craziness of his schedule, he also acknowledges that he loves it. He told me recently, when I asked him why he'd just picked up another job, "I like money. I like challenges. I like to 'win.' . . . Hence, another job."

These two conversations had me consider my own situation and philosophy. The latter of these guys told me that he likes nice things and that with more money, you can have nice things.

Yes. Agreed. Let's have lots of money! I'm all for that.

Still, I wonder about the need to work harder to bring the money in. To have the nice things.

Mr. Wattles never says it's an easy trip. He says we have to work at guarding our thoughts and keeping focused with faith, purpose and gratitude. He says we're to do our best with our current situation, more than filing our present places. He says to do, each day, all that can be done that day. However, he reminds us (and I love this) not to hurry, as hurrying is an expression of fear that there's not enough of something (time, money, opportunities, resources, etc.).

Where am I going with this?

I guess I'm wondering if I'm doing enough and if what I consider my job is ample, if I compare myself with these others. But Mr. W might likely - were he here to ask - recommend against comparison. Is that not competitive in nature?

And if I read back over my last entry, I seem confident in my job.

My job, to me, seems to be being present and loving in any and every situation. Keep opening my heart. Opening my consciousness. Waking up to the fact that there isn't even anything for me to merge with: I'm it already (So are you. So is this keyboard. So is this couch. So is the furry feeling on my teeth, and so is my headache.).

Fascinating that in tonight's fatigue I'd go down this road of questioning. Also today I had a conversation with a friend who completely lives his life on guidance. He shared with me about his fiance and about a decision she's looking at, and he said that she's waiting to get guidance one way or the other.

That was sweet to hear because that is how I live my life, more or less. In the flow. Allowing flow to show me. Trusting in God and my path. I find that when I'm resisting, mentally, what's arising in front of me, I'm fighting against the flow. There's no room for any movement in such resistance. No space.

To see negativity, at all, goes against seeing truth regardless of appearances. I've been playing with not having an opinion, with neutrality. It's sweet.

Eckhart Tolle says, how do you know that you're having the right experience for your spiritual growth? Because you're having the experience you're having.

Again, where am I going with this?

I guess, looking back at the original topic tonight, I continue to be encouraged to get rich on the creative plane. And I have faith and purpose and vast amounts of gratitude, love, exuberance for life and appreciation. Yeah, I'm on track.

If I want to see how I stack up with these others, is that competitive? I think so.

May I just continue to keep my heart open, love everyone, celebrate our ultimate oneness, and, as Mr. Wattles says, inspire others by being rich in the creative realm.

I am.

Interesting and also beautiful day. Praying for good, restorative sleep. Grateful for the beautiful food I ate today, for seeing and talking with my friends and relatives (!), sunshine, taking a walk, my body, money, Paul Simon Pandora, my home, climate control (tonight it's a.c.), this blog and the on-going inquiry, and reducing my emailing and Facebooking time so I am more efficient.

I love you,

I.P.

Thinking in the Certain Way

2009-10-11T21:08:00.000-07:00

Chapter 8 of our good book discusses the importance of having a Clear Mental Image of what you want before you can impress it on the formless substance. I love the part where he says, if you want to send your friend a message, you wouldn't send the letters of the alphabet in order and expect your friend to sort out the message. Ha! Wallace D. Wattles and his humor.

So I was reading this chapter tonight and asking myself if I have my clear image of what I want. Sometimes I think I don't. Sometimes I think I need to put more concentration and focus on such things. I kept on reading.

I'm always relieved at this part:

"Remember that no one needs to take exercises to concentrate his mind on a thing which he really wants. It is the things you do not really care about which require effort to fix your attention upon them."

So practical! So easy! So downstream.

Here's what really had me relax:

"Behind your clear vision must be the purpose to realize it, to bring it out in tangible expression. And, behind this purpose must be an invincible and unwavering faith that the thing is already yours -- that is at hand and you have only to take possession of it."

What I see in my life right now is definitely the purpose. As I came to realize in the course of writing this blog this past month, "purpose" - in the way Mr. Wattles distinguishes it - is like insistence.

I came to the point several months ago when I realized that my life had to be the way it is . . . and that it will be, as well. I've been blessed to have that work out in my favor.

Some time ago I struggled with whether or not there was something other than what I was doing in the moment that I was "supposed" to be doing. In other words, was I supposed to be looking for a job rather than concentrating on creating a collage (for Neal's birthday!), and I came to realize: no. I was living my purpose moment by moment.

I trust my intuition because, ultimately, it comes when "I" get quiet enough that the wisdom of presence can come through. I know I can count on that. It's been taking good care of me for quite some time now. And will continue to.

So eventually, whether consciously or not, I came to insist that my life continue to be supported. That being present and listening to my intuition and trusting that I'm led to the actions I need to take are really my jobs.

Wow, I just realized I'm getting sleepy and am losing track of what I'm saying.

I just wanted to say that I'd read tonight with a little bit of doubt or thinking that there was something else I needed to do, and I came to see, in reading further and contemplating the journey of this past month or so, that all is well. I have my vision and my purpose and my faith. I'm grateful as heck.

Wonder if this will make sense when I read it tomorrow?

Nighty night loves.

Increase and More Life for All!!

2009-10-10T23:05:00.000-07:00

Saw a story about this on Daryn.Kagan.com. Check out the site for a video about Cami and click here to visit her amazing site: 29-Day Giving Challenge.

THIS IS INCREASE FOR ALL!

LOVE IT!!!!

This is Beautiful . . .

2009-10-10T21:54:00.000-07:00

I did a Google search tonight for Henri Pierre Koubaka. Many years ago when I was living in San Francisco I used to listen to his radio show on local public radio. I was deeply moved as he introduced me to music from Africa and the African diaspora. He taught me, in fact, the word diaspora. :-)

Anyway, I was looking for him tonight as I was programming stations into my Pandora and wanted something of the type of music he played.

One of the first links that came up was something posted on a blog called Live in Abundance. Hello!

Turns out, it's Rebecca Fine's blog. Rebecca writes a wonderful Science of Getting Rich newsletter that I always find enlivening and inspiring. How wonderful to be connected through my heart's searching for music!

Another great sign that all is dialed in. I feel relief, as I had a pretty moody day. This evening has lightened up, and for that I'm deeply grateful. In the tub I read the Gratitude chapter of SGR. Thank you. And, wow, do I love and appreciate my bathtub!

More soon.

Love,

I.P.

2009-10-10T15:45:00.001-07:00

I feel a little out of touch. I sat down to write some stuff last night and it was inauthentic for where I was at the time, so I stopped. I feel like I've been so steeped in other stuff or head up my butt or sleeping or whatever . . . that I haven't written. I kinda want to take my library book to the gym and just walk on the tread mill and read for a long time.

On the tv is a video of Ryan Adams in Jamacia and my favorite part is Ryan playing with Toots. THAT is inspiring. I'm also looking at my negative thoughts (my "blurts") as part of my Artist's Way work. There must be some crossover here. I think I'm hungry.

I don't even have an SGR in front of me to grab a blurb from. Let me look for one.

God, the one substance, is trying to live and do and enjoy things through humanity. He is saying
“I want hands to build wonderful structures, to play divine harmonies, to paint glorious pictures. I want feet to run my errands, eyes to see my beauties, tongues to tell mighty truths and to sing marvelous songs,” and so on.
All that there is of possibility is seeking expression through people. God wants those who can play music to have pianos and every other instrument and to have the means to cultivate their talents to the fullest extent. He wants those who can appreciate beauty to be able to surround themselves with beautiful things. He wants those who can discern truth to have every opportunity to travel and observe. He wants those who can appreciate dress to be beautifully clothed, and those who can appreciate good food to be luxuriously fed.
He wants all these things because it is himself that enjoys and appreciates them; they are his
creation. It is God who wants to play, and sing, and enjoy beauty, and proclaim truth, and wear fine clothes, and eat good foods. “It is God that worketh in you to will and to do,” said the apostle Paul.
The desire you feel for riches is the infinite, seeking to express himself in you as he sought to find
expression in the little boy at the piano.
So you need not hesitate to ask largely.
Your part is to focus on and express that desire to God.
- Wallace D. Wattles, The Science of Getting Rich, Chapter 6

I dig it. Two of my Artist's Way affirmations are:

I AM A CHANNEL FOR GOD'S CREATIVITY.
I AM WILLING TO LET GOD CREATE THROUGH ME.

And so it is.

One of the things I love about SGR is that it doesn't take me through all sorts of digging for old thought patterns and disempowering beliefs. We just move forward and swim in the loving arms of God. I dig that. It's pretty easy, and downstream. Yeah, this book helps me feel good. I'm glad for that. :-)

I'm gonna go make some dinner.

Awakening

2009-10-08T07:33:00.000-07:00

There is a thinking stuff from which all things are made, and which, in its original state, permeates, penetrates, and fills the interspaces of the universe.

A thought in this substance produces the thing that is imaged by the thought.

A person can form things in his thought, and by impressing his thought upon the formless substance, can cause the thing he thinks about to be created.

- Wallace D. Wattles, The Science of Getting Rich

We are made of the formless substance. We are made of the living, thinking stuff. It's almost not that we're made of it; rather, we are it. There is nothing that isn't it.

We're dreaming it all, and all we have to do is awaken to that, and we can "have" anything we want. We wake up to consciously dreaming. It's fun.

I held a three-week-old baby girl yesterday and had the clear sense of her being an expression of the formless substance throwing itself into form to express itself more fully. Where else did she come from? Yeah, yeah, sperm and egg and all that, but when you look at the little child, her ears, her fingers, her eyes . . . there is more there beyond what our minds can comprehend as biology. It's magic.

It IS our source. We are inseparable from the creative substance that makes babies. That has plants grow. That vibrates as music.

We need only awaken to this simple fact. And everything is an invitation to awaken.

Gratitude

2009-10-07T18:59:00.001-07:00

Just wanted to stop by and spread the good cheer for a moment.

I was feeling out of sorts earlier tonight. Doubtful. Upset. It wasn't horrible but there were definitely voices in my head saying things didn't look so good.

The best thing that I touched on was the fact that this, too, shall pass. Got space right away and freedom in that moment. Thank you, Vipassana!

Then I went to meet my new Artist's Way partner, Deborah, to sign our contracts. We are now committed to twelve weeks of self-discovery and unleashing our creative sprites! I'm psyched! And having that meeting totally helped shift me out of the head-up-my-butt state that I'd been in. Much thanks to all and to God for that one.

Then I got home and made a date with a friend to have smoothies and go for a walk around my neighborhood in the morning and another friend is coming 'round in the afternoon. What a downstream day I've created for myself! And I'll get my exercise in! Thank you!

And THEN, my neighbor knocked on my door and said, "Veggie lasagna?"

Um . . . let me think . . . OF COURSE! HELLS YES!

Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you.

When I'd been feeling doubtful earlier, I recalled Mr. Wattles reminding us to spend time in gratitude (and contemplating our vision). I have to admit that my vision was blurred at the time and I wasn't too present to my gratitude at the moment either. Still, with a bit of patience, the love unfolded all around and within me.

I don't feel disappointed at all right now. Fascinating how we think feelings are real and solid and have foundation.

So I'm saving my lasagna for tomorrow and about to make a snack to eat right now because, even though I had dinner, I feel really hungry. I'm grateful for the fruit and yogurt and chia seeds and flax oil I'm about to eat!

I'm blessed! The universe is infinitely generous!

And I'm deeply grateful to have been returned to this state.

Oh yeah, and I got to be with baby Chloe for a long stretch today. We had a date. It rocked.

Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Playfully Wearing Costumes

2009-10-07T10:21:00.000-07:00

Wow, I was so . . . deep feeling when I was writing yesterday. It was really good. I sat for almost a full hour of Vipassana for the first time in a long time. I was/am grateful.

Also yesterday I had the opportunity to be on a three-way call with my friend Mitch, who's in another Diamond Experience, and I also got to be a guest during his Diamond Experience group call. Both calls were very stimulating, as I saw how the Diamond is a truly outside-of-the-box, creative plane way of being. It's very exciting.

On his group call each of the participants contemplated and shared his or her personal spirit medicine. I thought about music and dancing at first and then noticed people were looking at their own inherent deeper traits.

I looked, thanks to someone else's sharing, at what seems to be at the core of my personality, of this being that is its own unique manifestation of God. And I saw that my spirit medicine is my exuberance and love of life. My being in love with life. It is such a HUGE gift and also one that sometimes takes openness, forgiveness and diligence to allow. Funny to say those words, because it would seem like it's more just a letting go, a taking my hands off the wheel, a turning the boat downstream, a releasing the brakes that allows such love to flow. So I suppose that's where the diligence comes in. Let's share some of Mr. Wattles words:

Every person has the natural ability and inherent power to think what he wants to think, but it requires far more effort to do so than it does to think the thoughts which are suggested by appearances. To think according to appearances is easy. To think truth regardless of appearances is laborious and requires the expenditure of more power than any other work a person has to perform.

There is no labor from which most people shrink as they do from that of sustained and consecutive thought; it is the hardest work in the world. This is especially true when truth is contrary to appearances. Every appearance in the visible world tends to produce a corresponding form in the mind which observes it. This can only be prevented by holding the thought of the truth.

Wallce D. Wattles, The Science of Getting Rich, Chapter 4

I read this passage last night and was particularly moved by the last two sentences. He is such a genius and this book is filled with brilliance. Again: Every appearance in the visible world tends to produce a corresponding form in the mind which observes it. This is judgment. Categorization. Putting things and people in boxes. Assumption. Guilt. Limitation. Fear. This can only be prevented by holding the thought of the truth. This is love. It is not even a thought. It is beyond and before thought. It is a feeling, a vibration, the truth of our being-ness.

This morning I was blessed to wake and notice my thoughts, rather than get taken over by them. I made myself a note on my bathroom mirror: Observing, without added thoughts. Then I added a smiley face.

So this is my practice today. When I'm blessed to notice, may I observe, withought adding thoughts. From that place, I am only love. Ultimately we are all only love; we just get hypnotized by thoughts that tell us otherwise. Those thoughts are not different from love either! They're just playfully wearing costumes.

2009-10-06T11:49:00.000-07:00

I want to share one of my favorite bits of "the little green book" from reading I've been doing today and yesterday.

The universe of forms has been made by formless living substance, throwing itself into form in order to express itself more fully. (Ch. 3)

I don't feel the need to expound on this. What more needs to be said? It's a fabulous statement in its visual nature and in its taking a universal - beyond universal - point of view. I love what he goes on to say:

The thought of a moving universe extended throughout formless substance, and the thinking stuff — moving according to that thought — took the form of systems of planets, and maintains that form. Thinking substance takes the form of its thought, and moves according to the thought. Holding the idea of a circling system of suns and worlds, it takes the form of these bodies, and moves them as it thinks. (Ch. 4)

I just want to share the lyrics to the beautiful song I'm hearing right now, Wade Imre Morissette's Ganga River:

Ganga River, Ganga River

Which way am I going?
Can you see me growing?
Can you feel my longing?
Do you think I am belonging?

Ganga river cause the rivers flows
Ganga river cause the rivers knows
Ganga river flows

What is your message?
Which path do I take?
Am I taken care of?
Is it safe to come out?

Ganga river cause the rivers flows
Ganga river cause the rivers knows
Ganga river flows

How I am gaging?
Your grace and your guidance
What can I do for you now?
I offer my life

Cause the river flows
Casue the river knows
Cause the river flows

Shows me the way
Sits me to pray
Helps me to say

Ganga Ganga
I choose to take flight
With all of my might
I am taking no prisoners
I am creating my life

Cause the river flows
Casue the river knows
Cause the river flows

Lead me home

I don't have much else to say right now. I'm going to go meditate.
Gratefully yours,

I.P.

Ask and it Shall Be Given . . .

2009-10-05T20:18:00.000-07:00

"It is important for you to remember that spirit awaits direction from the soul. 'Ask and it shall be given,' was excellent advice." - Wallace D. Wattles, The Science of Getting Rich, Chapter 1

As I sat down to write just now, I didn't want to hold the hot laptop right on my lap, thin jammies and all. From where I sat I looked around the room, with purpose. At first I didn't see anything I could use as a desk, and then I saw, on a chair across from me, the perfect notebook. Hard cover, spiral. The kinds I use for my Morning Pages.

*** That was fun! I just "mistyped" the beginning of the word Morning, and what came out was: Om. As if that isn't sweet enough, on my Pandora right now is a song called "Inside the Om". Nice. ***

It's all connected like that.

So many things I can point to in the SGR world today. An interesting thing came up for me while I was at work that hasn't come up since I've been doing the job I currently do: I felt - for the first time - like I was getting ready to move on.

I've been so grateful for this position, for the ease of it and for the way I created it in a way that really works for me. I don't know what was different today. It could have easily been the food I'd eaten. It could have been the gray skies. And it could have been old sankaras coming up. Who knows. It could have also been none of that. Regardless of any why, the experience I had was of sleepiness and boredom. I felt like I was outgrowing it.

So I'm just curios to see if that's because I'm more than filling my present place and I am, in fact, evolving out of it. Nothing I can do to move that along than to keep on living in the Certain Way. Focused on and grateful for the present. Holding the clear mental images in the mind with the faith and purpose that they're coming to me. It's a trip to walk up the stairs at the hospital and bring myself fully into that moment and also mentally declare: this is making me rich.

I'm steeped more deeply in this paradigm, that's for sure.

I feel like I had something deep I wanted to share, but the thought was fleeting.

So here's another SGR moment: Tonight I tried out a new recipe and was sort of feeling sorry for myself, missing the chef who used to hang around, wanting to share my food. Well, as it turned out, I overcooked just about everything in the meal that could be overcooked -- but the flavors were good. So I got to practice making this meal with its failures and didn't have to serve anyone else, lover or not, mushy food. In the end, I was grateful that I was cooking for myself. Everything works out.

I played the Patti Smith song, "Grateful", tonight (dang! where do those commas go?) on my guitar and sang it. Every time, the refrain is the same: It all will come out fine . . . I've learned it line by line. And as I sat on my couch, lights dim and comfortable, feet cool and bare on the clean hardwood floor, I knew the absolute truth of that statement.

Often in the moment of disappointment, it's hard to surrender and not to feel blue, as Mr. Wattles suggests. He reminds us that there's a greater mind at play and that, in fact, that greater mind is more eager to give us what we want than we are to get it. (Say what? Wow.)

I told someone yesterday, "I trust in the greater good." Looking back on that conversation now, I recognize that I was surrendering. Even though there were things my ego wanted, I tapped into something higher. Something I could trust more than my base cravings, and I asked it to choose for me.

And so I pray to God to handle things for me. I take my hands - mostly - off the wheel. It seems to be the smarter thing to do. Rather than to push against my cravings. Rather than to make anything wrong. I simply pray for the greater good, with FAITH that we are in the arms of the Benevolent Creator.

I'm curious. Things look pretty neat around here.

Abraham quote for the day. Thanks, Jenny!

2009-10-05T16:11:00.000-07:00

This is such a great quote and so relevant. Had to share it here! xoxoxo

Achieve, first, the vibrational essence of your desire—and then, through the crack of least resistance the manifestation will be delivered... work on the essence of the feeling of freedom; work on the essence of the feeling of empowerment— work on the essence of the feeling of Well-Being... And how do you do that? You can imagine it already having happened and pretend what it will feel like when it is that way. Or, you can look for things in your life that are already like that and beat the drum of that until they play a higher percentage of time in the vibrational signal that you are emanating.
--- Abraham

Good News & Generosity = the Impression of Increase!

2009-10-04T20:40:00.000-07:00

Okay, first of all, how totally freakin' awesome is this?

DarynKagan.com, a site dedicated to hopeful news stories! People living their dreams! Successes! Daryn Kagan IS sharing The Certain Way! She is showing increase and more life for all. She worked for CNN for 12 years and when they didn't renew her contract, she set up a focus on the world that's positive. That's becoming. Hallelujah! All things are possible!

I was so psyched when I saw an article about her in Body & Soul magazine. It was especially great because I haven't been reading my copies of the magazine lately, and, in fact, had this one in a pile to give away, but, well, I took it into the bathroom with me this morning. I also came across two inspiring recipes that shaped my grocery shopping and will shape my eating this week. Mmmmmm Wild Salmon with Yogurt Dill Sauce. Aw yeah.

Thank you, formless substance.

And something else I'm getting that I want to share with you:

In my gifting circle I'm in (called the Diamond Experience), I'm in a position called Generosity. I was just reminded a few days ago of this by Victoria, who's in the Abundance/Gratitude position in our Diamond. It was so cool to see that reminder from her! I saw these words in a text message: " . . . because you're in Generosity."

What a beautiful thing to be told!

Ahhh! How wonderful!

I recalled right away how when I was traveling this week, I had several opportunities to give big tips . . . bigger than expected in those situations. It was great and helped me see my Clear Mental Image of putting $100 bills in the tip jar at Cafe Mundi, my favorite morning hangout in a town full of great ones. My friend calls it my "second living room". Anyway, so I'd been giving big tips, and that was fun. And doing so also helps me get into the feeling of infinite increase, as I just know I can "afford" to hand the shuttle driver a twenty dollar bill. Of course I can! Increase for all!

Also since I've been back from my trip, I've had two opportunities to give things away at the bus stop next door: a stack of records, and a ticket to a concert. I even got to trace the ticket a bit as the person who picked it up emailed me (I'd posted on craigslist that there was a free ticket to a show taped to the bench at the bus stop) so I looked him up on Facebook, where he'd posted about going to the show! How cool!

Those moments have been giving me joy.

So I looked to see how it connects with the Science of Getting Rich. And what I saw is this:

Generosity is like giving off the impression of increase. When we feel that we can give freely of anything - money, time, food, attention, other resources - we are living from abundance. When we feel that we can freely share, we are not coming from any lack. And according to Mr. Wattles, there's no hurry on the creative plane. And the stuff from which we create is infinite, as are our opportunities, resources and positions.

Being in generosity is relaxing, like being in the relaxed state studying Mr. Wattles puts me in. Just present. Just trusting. Just being and relaxing and celebrating. It's so fun!

One last thought for tonight that stems from this.

Today I got to do something that gives me great pleasure, usually after I've completed the task. I swept and mopped all the floors in my apartment. I have wood floors (except in the bathroom and tiny kitchen) and a wild assortment of spider webs and dust bunnies that exponentially produce the moment the floor dries from its last mopping. And, um, its last mopping could have been as long as a year ago. I don't like doing floors.

But today!

When I remembered, I held the impression of increase as I worked. I looked to see if I was doing the work efficiently, as Mr. Wattles teaches us (see yesterday's post). And so, especially when I was getting tired, I reached for the Supreme Power, which, for me, means getting really present. It helped keep me focused throughout the cleaning AND when I remembered I would tell myself that that activity was keeping thousands of dollars in my bank account and bringing me all I want.

And now I have clean floors and it rocks!

It's all very interesting, and I'm having fun.

Love,

Your loyal,

I.P.

2009-10-03T19:17:00.000-07:00

Thank you for this opportunity. This has been a great project so far.

Tonight I watched a beautiful movie called Shakespeare Behind Bars. Redemption is ours to have. The love of God misses no one.

Contemplating this idea of redemption (not to mention digging the theme of the film, as I have a strong feeling about what's available to people living in prison), and contemplating SGR, I see that Mr. Wattles sees through love's eyes:

"Train yourself to think of and to look upon the world as a something which is becoming, which is
growing, and to regard seeming evil as being only that which is undeveloped. Always speak in terms of advancement."
The Science of Getting Rich, Chapter 16

What a beautiful sentiment. What a beautiful book. Both SGR and the movie tonight remind me of A Course in Miracles and the implicit love of innocents. And that we all are that. Being surrounded by these reminders is, indeed, God's grace and an answer to prayers. Something to be grateful for.

********

I've been watching as I go through the day and asking myself, Am I living in the Certain Way? I just watch. Often, I conclude I am. I do, each day, all that can be done that day. Well, I am active, most of the time. And I believe on the resting days, Mr. Wattles approves as well. He says that R & R are essential parts of overall health. I bring the Power of Now into my actions, or, as Mr. Wattles says, "You can make each act a success, because the Infinite is working with you, and the Infinite cannot fail. The Supreme Power is at your service. To make each act efficient you have only to put your own power into it." (SGR, Chapter 12)

I believe he means that we only need bring the power of presence into what we do, and in those moments, we have the Supreme Power at our service. We ARE that.

Also today, I started reading The Artist's Way - again. I'm starting a group to work through the book this coming week. I'm glad to pick it up again after the long studying I've been doing of SGR, because the author points right to the creative nature of the formless substance. I'm in! (And I'm also intimidated. This might be where I actually have to let some of my emotions out of my seemingly rigid system.)

I saw today that when I was younger and fell head over heels in love (with a little band called The Grateful Dead), and I was so rejected by my father, I could well have made a decision about the "okay-ness" of feeling passionate about the things I do. It's such a relief to be able to distinguish what I've been clinging to around that relationship and how it has continued to effect my life. I'm not sure how much of this I want to get into, because I'm not sure how open I am when I'm writing it.

Just noticing that I'm moving more into a knowing that we can live lives that are FILLED with joy. We are infinite beings. Sky's the limit, and the sky doesn't stop. At least not anywhere near where our minds can comprehend.

I'm grateful for playing my guitar and singing. Those are some of the clearest untethered moments I have. Really grateful.

And for this Planet Chant CD that I think I bought in California. Haight Street, maybe. Reminds me of travel and how, yes, this is part of my life, and I dig it. People often say to me, "You travel a lot!" and I say, "Yes, I do." And I smile.

Thank you, formless substance. Thank you for creating this being that went for a walk in the rain today. Thank you for the rain and for having me out in it and for mp3 players and clothes to change into and the fun of jumping up and down in puddles, running like rivers through the gutters. Thank you for continuing to show this being that all we want to do is have fun, and that has no limits, no real structure. It's ALL made up. So go on and have a great time! It is your true nature.

This is the beak poking its way out of the egg.

Such a time of inquiry. Such a time of curiosity, of watching.

Let's bring this around with another little bit from our faithful teacher:

"You must get rid of the last vestige of the old idea that there is a diety whose will it is that you should be poor or whose purpose may be served by keeping you in poverty. God loves you and wants you to live an abundant life." (SGR, Chapter 5)

Thank you, Mr. Wattles, formless substance, etc. Really. I do appreciate this apparent waking up.

Clear Mental Image

2009-10-03T08:24:00.000-07:00

Clear Mental Image, baby!

And I'd also like to add how grateful I am for the use of this computer. It enables me to write this wonderful blog and to stay in contact and make new friends and to come up with new ways to celebrate life! Thank you!

Right On Track, and it feels great. Thank you.

2009-10-02T20:47:00.000-07:00

I just want to say that I could tell that I'm on the right track today. Feeling very aligned with the Certain Way. In fact, last night during the night I woke to one of those moments of not really knowing where or sometimes even "who" I am, and in that state of, perhaps, egolessness. I saw a vision of my bank account, as if on a computer screen. And I felt a deep calm about the message. I KNEW FOR SURE that all is cared for. That there's nothing to worry about, that I'm living in the Certain Way and it is real for me. In all of its magic.

Another major thing that I realized today is that this book is highly useful for people like me, people like Michelle, who are on a certain path that has us living on a different plane. We do our work and it just looks different. We have our vocations. So for folks like us who do live on a different plane, we need to know how to create so that it all works for us and so that we can continue to make whatever our craft is, whatever our guided inspiration, and still be cared for on the basic level, and, says Mr. Wattles, well beyond.

It's been interesting and very cool to contemplate that.

. . . for they see the world as kind.

2009-10-02T14:07:00.000-07:00

"The Holy Spirit has given you love's messengers to send instead of those you trained through fear. They are as eager to return to you what they hold dear as are the others. If you send them forth, they will see only the blameless and the beautiful, the gentle and the kind. They will be as careful to let no little act of charity, no tiny expression of forgiveness, no little breath of love escape their notice. And they will return with all the happy things they found, to share them lovingly with you. Be not afraid of them. They offer you salvation. Theirs are the messages of safety, for they see the world as kind."

A Course in Miracles

87

2009-10-01T20:53:00.000-07:00

"The path you're on supports the flow of your abundance. You're on a roll in many ways, and have 'struck gold' by tuning into and following your innermost guidance. You're now realizing the secret of giving and receiving."

From Angel Numbers, over dinner with Michelle

eye-yup.

I am.

2009-09-30T20:13:00.000-07:00

Hi friends.

I am exhausted and emotionally fried.

AND I want to tell you that today on the plane back from Chicago, after writing five or six pages of "morning pages" (read "venting and spewing") and strolling up and down the aisle smiling at people and talking with a little boy about his panda bear who has recently been advanced from orange belt to green belt in some sort of teddy bear martial arts, I read the last few chapters of The Science of Getting Rich, and my heart opened up. The work is magnificent and full of love and encouragement. I was really moved and grateful.

I arrived after an effortless flight to the welcoming Austin airport where my bag was already on the luggage belt by the time I got to it. I oozed gratitude as I took the shuttle to my car, choosing the $10 bill over the $1 bill because I KNOW there is more and that we are giving increase to all! Almost nothing jazzes me up like tipping big. In my Clear Mental Image, I leave $100 bills in the tip jars at my favorite cafe. Cafe Mundi, this means You!

Had beautiful conversations with good friends, including one in person over lunch, went to the gym, and am home in my pajamas now.

The afternoon and evening took a turn for the intense for me mentally and emotionally (not to mention being exhausted from all of the above and more), and still, I sit in gratitude.

I see that there are places to let go of before I can fully be living in The Certain Way, and they are presenting themselves to me. As much as I have feared them, I can see how they can also be compassionate changes for all involved: liberating. I must liberate myself. Otherwise I'm suffocating. And that is the OPPOSITE of what the good Mr. Wattles teaches us.

Treat yourself. Read the last few chapters of SGR if you haven't lately. It's a joy.

I'm deeply grateful for the book and for the focus on gratitude. I know I was present to it before, and I see how much more deeply I am present to it now as well as to the way it makes one buzz with presence.

And I called up a good friend having forgotten that she is also a devotee, as it were, of Eckhart Tolle, and I knew that was the answer to the prayer I put out to God earlier in the evening. I told Him, "You never let me down." I have faith.

And for that I'm deeply grateful.

Sat Nam.

Love,
IP

What do I CHOOSE to focus on?

2009-09-29T18:26:00.000-07:00

I feel I'm being pulled in different directions by my thoughts and emotions.

[But those guys dancing up there are just TOO FUN!]

I want to celebrate the feeling of gratitude. Today I got to sleep late after a wonderful night's rest. Then I ate a delicious breakfast and had a good workout. Then I got to accompany my step-mom, Ronda, and a devoted employee of my dad's to meet my dad at the March of Dimes Leadership in Healthcare Awards where my dad was honored.

It was very sweet, and I was grateful to be there.

After lunch I bought a small chai and chatted on the phone with my dear friend Jodi who is also traveling and felt the joy of walking through beautiful downtown Chicago. I felt fantastic. Then I was blessed to come across dancing puppets and was blessed to give them a $10 tip because that was what I had available to give. They grabbed the money and danced with it. It was awesome! Then the puppeteer spoke to me from behind the screen, speaking his gratitude. It was wonderful.

Then I enjoyed the sculpture garden outside of the Art Institute of Chicago, my favorite art museum in the world, and then I went inside, where I asked the security guard for a band-aid and he had one in his pocket! Wonderful.

Then I got to swim in the joy of the artwork from Caldecott Award children's books. The art was moving and magnificent and I was swept away into reading the full-featured books that were available, like perfect courses of a tasting menu.

I read about Harriet Tubman and her absolute devotion to and trust in God and what she was able to accomplish from it. Miracles, really. I read about a man who mailed himself to freedom. I read about two little boys who had the best week ever! Thank you, thank you, thank you.

I wandered the halls of the East Asian exhibit and fell in love with a 14th century statue of Guanyin and an ancient sandstone Hanuman head.

When I got back to the house, I had a tasty dinner made for me and got to eat with my dad and his wife.

These beautiful events are what I want to focus on.

Truthfully, there are emotions tugging me in other directions, however, since I'm following the Certain Way, I'm going to focus like that. That's what this experiment is all about, isn't it?

F it, that feels inauthentic.

I just want some space to say that I feel troubled that my father thinks I don't do anything productive. Mr. Wattles, can you please guide me here? It hurts!

It's so awesome: I just uploaded the photo at the top of the page, and it's so incongruent with opening sentence and with the above paragraph! I had opened SGR to look for guidance.

This is the section I turned to:

Convey the impression of advancement with everything you do, so that all people shall receive the impression that you are an “advancing personality,” and that you advance all who deal with you. Even to the people whom you meet in a social way — without any thought of business and to whom you do not try to sell anything — give the thought of increase.

You can convey this impression by holding the unshakable faith that you, yourself, are in the way of increase and by letting this faith inspire, fill, and permeate every action. Do everything that you do in the firm conviction that you are an advancing personality and that you are giving advancement to everybody. Feel that you are getting rich, and that in so doing you are making others rich and conferring
benefits on all.

(The Science of Getting Rich, Chapter 14)

Thanks, Mr. Wattles. And, thanks, also, for going on to say that one must not brag or boast. It helps me to see that defending is the same type of thing, like boasting or bragging. So when my beloved dad challenges me on what he thinks would be productive and what he thinks I'm not doing, I don't answer. The productivity in that situation is to keep my heart open. That is it. And also to see that that's just his point of view, and that my role continues to be giving off the impression of increase = love, compassion, presence and devotion.

Ah, the roller coaster of life! Didn't I read somewhere today to SURRENDER?

Grateful for my Diamond

2009-09-28T18:11:00.000-07:00

Wow. I got a really big ah-ha moment as we wrapped up our wonderful weekly call tonight (see previous post where I mention the group that I'm in and the topic we discussed).

I realized that I have kept myself from asking big. I'm choosing in this moment not to have to explore the why of it! It doesn't matter. I can just shift. I can choose to ask - or choose not to. Yes.

Mr. Wattles, what do you have to say?

All that there is of possibility is seeking expression through people. God wants those who can play music to have pianos and every other instrument and to have the means to cultivate their talents to the fullest extent. He wants those who can appreciate beauty to be able to surround themselves with beautiful things. He wants those who can discern truth to have every opportunity to travel and observe. He wants those who can appreciate dress to be beautifully clothed, and those who can appreciate good food to be luxuriously fed.

He wants all these things because it is himself that enjoys and appreciates them; they are his
creation. It is God who wants to play, and sing, and enjoy beauty, and proclaim truth, and wear fine clothes, and eat good foods. “It is God that worketh in you to will and to do,” said the apostle Paul.

The desire you feel for riches is the infinite, seeking to express himself in you as he sought to find
expression in the little boy at the piano.

So you need not hesitate to ask largely.

Your part is to focus on and express that desire to God.

This is a difficult point with most people. They retain something of the old idea that poverty and
self-sacrifice are pleasing to God. They look upon poverty as a part of the plan, a necessity of nature. They have the idea that God has finished his work, and made all that he can make, and that the majority of people must stay poor because there is not enough to go around. They hold to so much of this erroneous thought that they feel ashamed to ask for wealth. They try not to want more than a very modest competence, just enough to make them fairly comfortable.

I recall now the case of one student who was told that he must get in mind a clear picture of the
things he desired, so that the creative thought of them might be impressed on formless substance. He was a very poor man, living in a rented house and having only what he earned from day to day, and he could not grasp the fact that all wealth was his. So, after thinking the matter over, he decided that he might reasonably ask for a new rug for the floor of his best room and a coal stove to heat the house during the cold weather. Following the instructions given in this book, he obtained these things in a few months.

And then it dawned upon him that he had not asked enough.

He went through the house in which he lived, and planned all the improvements he would like to
make in it. He mentally added a bay window here and a room there until it was complete in his mind as his ideal home, and then he planned its furnishings.

Holding the whole picture in his mind, he began living in the certain way and moving toward
what he wanted — and he owns the house now and is rebuilding it after the form of his mental image. And now, with still larger faith, he is going on to get greater things.

It has been unto him according to his faith, and so it is with you — and with all of us.

(The Science of Getting Rich, Chapter 6)

That quote is taken right from here: The Science of Getting Rich, and I invite you to swim in its yumminess as I have been.

I'm so thankful tonight for my Diamond call and for the gentle and generous folks on it. I told them tonight that I'm positive that my coming into the Diamond is a direct result of my studying SGR (that is, if we're playing the game of cause and effect). For the fun of it, let's play!

Thank you!

To quote another friend of mine:

"Keep on creating, inventing and celebrating life! Keep on waking up inspired and tending to the garden of your dreams!" - Shawn Madden (click his name to see and hear more!)

Inner Peace Dance Party, Anyone?

2009-09-28T15:44:00.001-07:00

I'm in a gifting club that meets once a week by conference call to talk about all sorts of inspiring topics. Following is the topic for this week's call:

Topic: The well respected author and educator, Dr. Vernon Woolf, who is head of the International Academy of Holodynamics, related in one of his workshops a fact published in an Australian magazine: That if all of the combined wealth of the world were gathered up into one place and then re-distributed equally to all of the worlds' seven billion people, we would each be billionaires. We would each have 4.7 billion dollars! Now, this information is staggering, yes? Well....are we not aware that we live on a very fertile planet in an infinitely abundant universe?
The question: If money were this abundantly plentiful in your life, what would you choose to do with your time on planet earth? Describe the life you would create if money were no object....

I love the question, and I feel that it is very much in alignment with what I write about here. However, first I want to share that I did some looking into that statement. So, it turns out, if all the wealth in the world were evenly distributed, we would each get about $9000. Quite a difference from each of us being billionaires.

But am I bringing negative talk into this conversation?

I don't mean to. What I want to do is contemplate the above question: If money were this abundantly plentiful in your life, what would you choose to do with your time on planet earth? Describe the life you would create if money were no object.

Let me first throw a little Wallace Wattles in here.

"Know that there are countless millions of dollars' worth of undiscovered gold in the mountains of the earth. Know that if there were not, more would be created from the thinking substance to supply your needs. Know that the money you need will come -- even if it is necessary for a thousand people to be led to the discovery of new gold mines tomorrow.

Never look at the visible supply; always look at the limitless riches in the formless substance and know that they are coming to you as fast as you can receive and use them. Nobody, by cornering the visible supply, can prevent you from getting what is yours."
(The Science of Getting Rich, Chapter 5)

So here's the question again: If money were this abundantly plentiful in your life, what would you choose to do with your time on planet earth? Describe the life you would create if money were no object.
I think when I come to Chicago, I would stay in a nice hotel or find an apartment to sublet. I might buy a small house or a condo in Austin to have as my nesting place while in town. It would surely have a great big claw foot tub like I have now and like I saw at Shelly's the other day. It was good for me to see her tub because I think my bathtub keeps me attached to my place. Great to see great big claw foot tubs elsewhere!

Now here's the big question: would I grab an Airstream and a truck and a dj and a chef (can it all be the same person? anyone want to enlist? I can think of at least one person . . . though he suggested we get TWO Airstreams) and hit the road for towns with mild climates and throw impromptu dance parties and food giveaways? What stops me from doing that now?

Am I lazy?

I feel a little tense right now. My nose is stuffed up and runny and I have a head ache and it's cold and windy outside and I'm confused about what I'm doing here and and and and I think about what I read yesterday: Nothing is worth closing your heart over. Nothing. You can relax.

Who am I trying to please in this life?

Am I resisting the Airstream Dance Party idea because I don't want to do it on my own? Could I put an ad on Craigslist? What kinds of weird freaks would I get then? Am I resisting it out of loneliness and not wanting to go alone? Am I resisting because I want my Airstream Dance Party partner also to be my romantic partner?

One thing I know: I'd go to Hawaii in December for the Ram Dass/Krishna Das retreat. That one I know for sure.

And I know that the dance parties are ALL ABOUT increase and more life for all. That is FOR SURE.

I watched some of The Ellen Show today and I'm so glad I did. She had a thirteen-year-old boy on there who loves dancing and she talked with him about how FREE it feels to dance. Yes. I have felt that she would be a great supporter of the Free Organic Veggie Hippie Food Love Van Dance Party.

What stops me?

Yes, being on the road and discovering this country (this WORLD!) is my passion. As is awakening my consciousness, which is my primary purpose and commitment. Does that focus keep me from spreading my focus on this plane?

What stops me?

In contemplating the question for tonight's Diamond call, I wondered how much energy I spend worrying about money? I can feel the pressure that seems to hold me in place. Am I kidding myself to think that that's not the case? What is it that I need to create? What is the clear mental image that I need to create in order to do what I really want to do?

Mr. Wattles tells us that we must work in and on our present place and situation in order to get where we want to be. I can go to work at Austin Lakes Hospital, filled with gratitude, as I typically am there. I can more than fill my present place and hold with faith and purpose (insistence) that I get what I want. And allow it to come to me. It doesn't seem to make sense, but I am committed to this certain way, 30 days at a time, am I not?

I don't know what I want.

It feels like there's a SHOULD out there. That these visions somehow are to lead to happiness, when what I really want is inner peace and a deep knowing of the infinite love and peace within us all. Everything beyond that is icing on the cake.

And, YES, free dance parties and A BIG FAT ROAD TRIP would be a blast.

Will you come with me?

*****

Um, oh yeah, I'd get myself to the dentist. And buy my mom her retirement, however she wants it.

A Ramble of a Blog Entry, from Chicago

2009-09-27T17:25:00.000-07:00

I flew to Chicago today. On the plane I read from the book The Untethered Soul by Michael A. Singer, loaned to me by my friend, Annie, who was the person who sent me to the bookstore to buy The Science of Getting Rich last winter.

I read a chapter that suggested one keep one's heart open, no matter what.

Dig this:

"The most important thing in your life is your inner energy . . . Learn to work with these things . . . You do this by opening and releasing. You do this by not buying into the concept that there is anything worth closing over. Nothing, ever, is worth closing your heart over." (The Untethered Soul, Chapter 5)

Sound familiar? Like maybe, truth, regardless of appearances?

Most everything I read these days I look to see how it relates or fits in with SGR since this is the study I've taken on. And I hope for the best results because I haven't been able to drop my other studies, as Wallace Wattles suggests. Awakening my consciousness and opening my heart - if I do have control over such things - are the most important things to me. Everything else is secondary.

********

I feel that my writing today lacks organization or one particular point. Which, overall, is pointing to my general ADD style of things. So distractable! Sometimes I make a commitment only to look at email/Facebook twice a day. It's interesting to see how much more focused I can be. It does take practice in this ADD world I've created around myself.

Which brings me to the topic of Efficient Action (SGR, Chapter 12). This morning I felt the smoothness of efficiency: getting up and getting ready to go on my trip and making breakfast and cleaning it all up and driving to the airport and getting to my flight, smoothly, easily, on time. No hurry, no worry.

I heard from a friend the expression "stop the splatter" referring to doing too many things at once. What's possible if I actually focus on just one thing at a time?

Mr. Wattles:

"The matter turns, then, on the question of whether you can make each separate act a success in itself. And, this you can certainly do.

You can make each act a success, because the Infinite is working with you, and the Infinite cannot fail.

The Supreme Power is at your service. To make each act efficient you only have to put your own power into it." (SGR, Chapter 12)

I like to look at this through the lens of presence. When we are present with an action, when we are understanding that there is no other purpose at all for us than what's happening right in that moment, we are dialed in to the power of the Infinite. It is the Power of Now that Eckhart Tolle talks about. From there, every act is a success.

There is a de-programming that one must do in order to have a focus like that. In our culture, we are trained that most acts are a means to an end.

Ralph Waldo Emerson said this:

"The good news is that the moment you decide that what you know is more important than what you have been taught to believe, you will have shifted gears in your quest for abundance. Success comes from within, not from without." (Ralph W. Emerson, 1803 - 1882)

That means doing things in the certain way. Mr. Wattles reminds us that in living in the certain way, we may not be doing different things than what we were already doing; we just begin to do them in a different way. Success comes from within.

In my estimation, then, it is not about a competitive push to see who can do more faster than whom and all that jazz. It is about how present we are when we are doing things. And how filled with faith, purpose and gratitude.

I walked along Lake Michigan with my dad today after I arrived in Chicago. It's gorgeous out there, just across the street from his apartment building. I notice in myself when I come here to visit that sometimes I feel awkward. I still feel some of this, even now; worry that I'm disappointing him or causing him discomfort in some way. But I called on what I've been studying and practicing: presence, the impression of increase, keeping the heart open - no matter what, truth regardless of appearances. And noticed my mind wanting to make wrong and then just breathed, looked at the sky, the lake, the trees, the people, and kept feeling the openness and peace and love that I live in and just hung out in that, hoping that it translates.

My dad said to me, "I'm not sure if you're actually my child," jokingly and mystified as to how we can appear to be so different in how we live our lives. I told him, "That could be a liberating thought!" He said it wasn't. He said he still feels responsible for me. I told him, "You don't have to. I know you can't help it, but you really don't."

Would riches satisfy his concerns? Would him knowing somehow on a deep level that I am giving off the impression of increase and that my success is for the good of all? Will he come to know those things?

I hope so because my dad is a good and caring man, and I'm clear about my path, too. May my being radiate peace, radiate the impression of increase, so that others may benefit in exponential ways and so that we all may drop the false need for fear.

That IS the ultimate aim, is it not? Without fear, all things are possible. All love. All celebration.

Saturday and Grateful Vision of Maui

2009-09-26T13:51:00.000-07:00

I dig weekends. Especially when I don't have anything scheduled.

I watched an Eckhart Tolle video today in which he said that the more you are in presence, the less you actually have to do. It gave me pause, as I contemplated Mr. Wattles' direction:

"Do, every day, all that you can do that day, and do each act in an efficient manner." (The Science of Getting Rich, Chapter 12)

In fact, this is one of the core elements of this teaching.

So here's what I see:

When we are fully present, if there are things that need tending to, we will do them. In their own moments, without hurrying (Say what, Mr. Wattles? Never hurry? Cool!). What I find in my life is that when I take time to slow down and get present, it is restful, and often my energy will increase.

I do notice in myself, however, that I have a nearly vicious tendency to project my thoughts into the [imaginary] future and think about things I may or may not need to do. But it doesn't really matter if I need to do the act or not, if I'm doing something else now, I can't do the other act. And so the thought is purposeless.

A few days ago I held this paragraph throughout the day:

"Whatever your action is to be, it is evident that you must act now. You cannot act in the past. It is essential to the clearness of your mental vision that you dismiss the past from your mind. You cannot act in the future because the future is not here yet. And, you cannot tell how you will want to act in any future contingency until that contingency has arrived."

As has been happening as I read this book in this new ways, I am seeing certain sentences stand out in ways I hadn't before. How is it that this sentence didn't stand out to me before?

It is essential to the clearness of your mental vision that you dismiss the past from your mind.

I can see in reading over that statement that holding on to certain images from the past can taint the clearness and optimism of a vision. Mr. Wattles firmly instructs us not to contemplate or talk about past [financial] problems. He says not to talk about how bad things used to be, whether for us or others, because, he says we align ourselves with [poverty] when we put our focus there, even if we're comparing the past with a more favorable current situation.

Something else that's interesting and challenging is the instruction to talk about the things you want as if you already have ownership of them. That is really a new muscle to grow. Because if there isn't faith and purpose (and of course gratitude) in the statement, it won't work. And I, the speaker, won't enjoy the speaking of it for feelings of inauthenticity. So, just another thing to consider as I'm creating things like a Ram Dass retreat in Maui in December, a few months from now. See, even there. That was said with a lack of faith. The instruction is this:

I'm going to a Ram Dass retreat on Maui, December 10 - 15 of this year!

(I feel nervous! But I'm so glad to have the new distinction of "purpose" because I just call that insistence. So I can insist. Yes, this is a new muscle! We're trying it all out here!)

In December I'm traveling to Hawaii for my first time! And visit with the Frires and RD and KD and the awesome other people there, and I'm in love with Hawaii and the people and the peace I carry with me throughout my life. And the food is amazing and we never have to think about it. And my room is great as is the weather. And it's beautiful to be with my old friends again. All is peaceful and well and I'm deeply grateful.

Now we're getting somewhere.

I think I'll go get in the bathtub and read some of this book, eat some strawberries, and then I will see what comes next. I will watch for those moments when I'm projecting into the past or the future. And I'll lovingly touch them and smile and thank them for quieting me down and bringing me right here.

Wow, I can see a place I still can use some distinguishing. Holding the vision vs. being present. How much do we really have to hold that vision? Can we not send it out to the Universe with faith and purpose and gratitude and then just be really present?

. . .

Purpose

2009-09-24T07:28:00.000-07:00

Okay, I'm needing to get myself ready to go to work and stuff like that, so for now I'm just going to say

PURPOSE = INSISTENCE

I've been unsure about the "purpose" part of the Certain Way and last night, while reading SGR, I saw that purpose, in my world, equals my "insistence" that I live the life I want (see last post).

More on this later? Maybe. Or maybe this statement is complete.

This is a big realization for me.

I read this in the book last night:

2009-09-23T19:55:00.001-07:00

" You can serve God and your fellow humans in no more effective way that by getting rich. That is, if you get rich by the creative method and not by the competitive one." (The Science of Getting Rich, Chapter 10)

That statement has never particularly moved me before, in all my months of reading this book. I read it last night and it resonated on a different level. I saw that getting rich by the creative method - living in the CERTAIN WAY - is showing people who they really are. What we are. Our true nature. Behold the love of God.

Fascinating to look at it that way, when I look back over the words. That a conversation about "being rich" is something that seems to awaken the core of love in us?

It's absolutely brilliant.

Here's a man telling me that the way to riches is not to worry and to be really present. Wha?

When all I want to do is come into the present again and again anyway! It's the simplest thing, and so mysterious, and paradoxical in its effect, and yet I am convinced it is the key to All. It IS All. There is nothing but this moment.

I dig playing with this stuff. In the moments when my HEAD just relaxes and allows the creative part of me to arise, I can generate beautifully. I just think so dern much. So the noticing, the getting present, the watching the thoughts, the breathing, the resting, the relaxing, the dropping the hyper-vigilance, . . . hearing the MFC's play the Palace at Auburn Hills, where I saw Jerry play on his birthday in August 1994, . . .

it's all right here. And all is well.

(These guys freakin' rock! Will you confuse my love for the cobwebs?)

Again:

"You can serve God and your fellow humans in no more effective way that by getting rich. That is, if you get rich by the creative method and not by the competitive one."

I do believe that if I continue to insist that I live my life the way I want to, I will continue to have it. Nothing truly convinces me otherwise. It's funny that I would still feel some mistrust, at the same time. But it's not the winning voice. Thankfully.

I listen to Mr. Wattles. He tells me not to worry. He tells me to do all that I can do in a day. Without hurrying, he says. He tells me to give off the vibe of increase (spread love!). He tells me to do today's work today and not worry whether yesterday's work was done well or what will come tomorrow. Right now, he says. (Mais, oui.)

And as I create a more expansive life I see that it shows others what We are. May all reflect back to one another the same Love that created that watermelon-colored sunset blazing through the black trees, after 24+ hours of rain, and then, the clouds closed up and just after the sky grew dark, unloaded more water. We are all that. May we use it to love.

This is what Mr. Wattles teaches us: God wants us to love and enjoy our life because WE ARE GOD. We ARE the consciousness creating all of this. Why wouldn't we make it to enjoy?

Have you ever been to Glacier National Park? Or been with a giant seqoia? A whale? Multiple whales?

We are alive.

My Man

2009-09-22T13:03:00.000-07:00

Here's one area where I am creating a CMI (Clear Mental Image).

I read an article a while back in Oprah Magazine where a woman had made such a list and then put it away and some years later realized her man had all but two of one hundred qualities she'd created. She said she'd made the list and then put it in the back of her closet and forgot about it. I suppose that differs from the Wallace Wattles instruction. He says to spend leisure time contemplating the details of your vision and work time focused on doing your work well, while holding the general image of what you want also in your mind.

In my living room, on a wall I'm currently facing, is the poster I created when I wanted to move into the perfect apartment for me. I'd written the list over and over again in ads requesting a living space. I'd journaled them, I'm pretty sure. It just wasn't coming, but I was so clear on what I wanted. Gas stove, central air and heat, bathtub (remember the big antique claw-foot tub I created?), outdoor living space, good neighbors, you know, stuff like that. So finally I made a poster at someone's recommendation. I sit in the very apartment I created with that poster.

So does that mean now I make a poster about this man of mine? I think the fact that I'm publicly declaring my list is a huge first step.

It started like this:

1. Great kisser.
2. Great hippie dancer and loves hippie dancing.
3. Good looks.
4. Fit.
5. Loves and appreciates Ryan Adams.
6. Can cook.
7. Cooks for me.
8. Skillful masseur and gives me massages.
9. Pays attention to details.
10. Mellow and supportive around menstrual issues.
11. Loves exercise.
12. Monogamous with me.
13. Funny.
14. Smart.
15. Reads.
16. Great sex with me, very present during, loves to hang around together after.
17. World traveler.
18. Also likes to nest.
19. Loves and appreciates Jerry G.
20. Skillful writer.
21. Outdoorsy.
22. Can start a fire and pitch a tent.
23. Musician; we jam together and with friends.
24. Gets along with his family.
25. Gets along with my family.
26. Within five years of my age.
27. Wants children with me.
28. Appreciates a good HBO series.
29. Mostly eats healthily.
30. Quiet sleeper.
31. Minimal (if at all) alcohol drinker.
32. Gregarious.
33. Skilled, authentic communicator.
34. Knows the common, agreed on reality is not real.
35. Takes me to fancy hotels.
36. Senior Landmark grad.
37. Goes with me to India.
38. Adventurous.
39. Doesn't believe in embarrassment.
40. Super respectful.
41. Knows I'm the bee's knees.
42. Into teachings like Eckhart Tolle's.
43. We only have eyes for each other.
44. Conscious, and returns to consciousness.
45. Compassionate.
46. Silly.
47. Balanced between calling me out on my shit and letting me get away with my shit.
48. We laugh a lot together.
49. Really super fun.
50. Clean but not fastidious.
51. Super into the Free Organic Veggie Hippie Food Love Van Dance Party and co-creates it with me.
52. Has good, long-lasting friendships.
53. No powders.
54. Balanced life.
55. Meditates.
56. Great with children.
57. Together we create exponential love and it makes a difference across the universe.
58. We model what's possible in relationships, especially communication, commitment and presence.
59. Committed to the joyful awakening of human consciousness with gentleness and a sense of humor.
60. Loves himself.
61. Likes to go to the moves with stadium seating with me.
62. Feels a sense of protection toward me.
63. Gives me lots of room to do my thing and be with my people.
64. Gets my stuffies.
65. Financially liberated.
66. Reads to me in bed and when I'm in the bathtub.
67. Loves my cooking.
68. Has a very open heart.
69. 100% committed to the relationship.
70. Innately happy.
71. Doesn't smoke cigarettes. Smokes pot occasionally.
72. Inspires me to presence.
73. Between six and eight inches taller than I am.
74. Has country-sounding or English, Australian or New Zealand accent.
75. Digs kirtan.
76. Indifferent to whether or not I remove hair from my body.
77. Loves my appearance and complements me on it.
78. When we go see Patti Smith, he loves it.
79. Confident.
80. Forgiving and light-hearted.
81. Endlessly interesting and interested.
82. Knows when to bring me chocolate and only brings me high-quality dark chocolate.
83. {Hidden cuz it's personal, but I can see it and so can the formless substance.}Nice dick, larger side of medium - large, perfect fit for me.
84. Can do basic plumbing and car maintenance and teaches me.
85. Very patient.
86. Generous and skilled lover.
87. Handy around the house.
88. Deep spiritual commitment: ultimately #1 for him.
89. We're psyched to be in relationship together.
90. Similar sleep schedules and habits.
91. Gives off the impression of increase, naturally.
92. Based in Austin.
93. Welcomes, receives and relishes my love, care and affection.
94. Gives me enduring love, care and affection and I welcome, receive and relish it.
95. Celebrates me.
96. Very sexy.
97. Brilliant.
98. Writes notes about how awesome I am on my bathroom mirror with dry erase marker.
99. Consistent.
100. It's just obvious.
101. Lives by the principles of the Science of Getting Rich.
102. We admire each other.
103. Creative and supports creativity.
104. Engenders peace and egolessness.
105. Loves p.c. with me and we have lots of it.
106. Perfect balance of together and separate.
107. Has a calming effect on me.
108. Grounded.
109. TOTALLY WILLING.

Thank You.

2009-09-21T19:23:00.000-07:00

Thank you for this venue. I am seeing so much in this first week or so.

In just glancing at the title of the last post, I see that, perhaps concentrating too deeply on one aspect of the Certain Way may leave one frustrated if it doesn't feel fully in the flow; and, thankfully, there are many aspects of the Certain Way that may lead us to freedom or space in the other areas.

For example, today I did everything that was on my original to-do list for the day, and even did a few things not written on the list like my morning pages and going to the gym. AND I even got a nap and a bath and saw a movie. Pretty good! "Do all that you can do in a day . . . " says Mr. Wattles. And I didn't rush.

I read this on someone's Facebook wall:

"When someone is counting out gold for you, don't look at your hands, or the gold. Look at the Giver." - Rumi

I felt gratitude at reading that message. This is what I saw:

I'd been sitting on the couch balancing my checkbook and paying a few bills. Lately I do this about once a month and enjoy watching the tally add up perfectly. But this past month seemed much less organized and, for the first time in a long time, I felt agitated and nervous during the process. Like something in me telling a story that something isn't okay -- or at some imagined point in the future, something isn't okay.

Because right here in this moment, there's absolutely nothing wrong. In the above arena, I have plenty of money, I got my bills paid, I continue to get paid, and all is well.

Something in me got spooked and wanted to have more security, assurity.

Then I saw that Rumi quote (whilst an Eckhart Tolle video was showing on my television).

I got the space. Don't look at your hands or the gold. Look at the Giver. Yes. That is the background. The Giver is all there is.

Wallace Wattles calls it the Formless Substance or Supreme Power. Sometimes we both call it God.

A little Wattles:

"Never look at the visible supply; always look at the limitless riches in the formless substance and know that they are coming to you as fast as you can receive and use them." (The Science of Getting Rich, Chapter 5)

At this moment, I'm knowing that this is all true because I'm hearing Neil Young sing "Out on the Weekend" through my laptop -- the same machine I'm using to type this message -- on Joni Mitchell Pandora. Increase and more life for all!

Truth, regardless of appearances, is ease in the appearance of PMS.

Oh yeah, and now they rock Joni's "Refuge of the Road". My anthem. My Clear Mental Image:

I met a friend of spirit
He drank and womanized
And I sat before his sanity
I was holding back from crying
He saw my complications
And he mirrored me back simplified
And we laughed how our perfection
Would always be denied
"Heart and humor and humility"
He said "Will lighten up your heavy load"
I left him then for the refuge of the roads

I fell in with some drifters
Cast upon a beachtown
Winn Dixie cold cuts and highway hand me downs
And I wound up fixing dinner
For them and Boston Jim
I well up with affection
Thinking back down the roads to then
The nets were overflowing
In the Gulf of Mexico
They were overflowing in the refuge of the roads

There was spring along the ditches
There were good times in the cities
Oh, radiant happiness
It was all so light and easy
Till I started analyzing
And I brought on my old ways
A thunderhead of judgment was
Gathering in my gaze
And it made most people nervous
They just didn't want to know
What I was seeing in the refuge of the roads

I pulled off into a forest
Crickets clicking in the ferns
Like a wheel of fortune
I heard my fate turn, turn turn
And I went running down a white sand road
I was running like a white-assed deer
Running to lose the blues
To the innocence in here
These are the clouds of Michelangelo
Muscular with gods and sungold
Shine on your witness in the refuge of the roads

In a highway service station
Over the month of June
Was a photograph of the earth
Taken coming back from the moon
And you couldn't see a city
On that marbled bowling ball
Or a forest or a highway
Or me here least of all
You couldn't see these cold water restrooms
Or this baggage overload
Westbound and rolling taking refuge in the roads

There is NOTHING for me to worry about, ever. Especially not in this moment: which is all there is.

Thank you.

Resting

2009-09-20T14:39:00.000-07:00

Been struggling a little bit with the gratitude today. But what I see is, it's not with the gratitude overall. It's just that there are some areas I haven't convinced myself are benevolent and are pointing my way toward what I really want.

What I see in this moment is that I can focus on what I DO authentically feel grateful for. Like this day. I am doing what I want to do today. Having a chill day. I stayed in bed late. Ate a beautiful breakfast. Went to the gym. Came home and ate more food. And now I'm going to get in bed with a fun book and maybe even nap some.

Rest and recreation, says our good Mr. Wattles, are part of keeping our whole picture healthy.

I will also acknowledge that this morning while writing my morning pages I full-on bitched. I appreciate those pages for giving me space to say whatever dribble is coming into my head. The study of SGR - and my interpretation of it - has had me feel wrong or guilty for some of the thoughts that come up. It's an uncomfortable struggle.

I find it useful to clear that stuff and to forgive myself during those times that I am unable to contentiously shift my thoughts. I'm grateful to have safe venues in which to do that. I'm quite certain that this will be an on-going conversation. I wonder, within 30 days, if I will come to the point where I am authentically feeling gratitude for things I feel grumpy about today?

For now, I can authentically say, I'm grateful that I'm about to go lie down on a Sunday afternoon. He did rest on the seventh day, no?

Now.

2009-09-19T21:46:00.000-07:00

The thing I'm clearest about is that it is Now.

And that's it.

Why worry?

Even the good Mr. Wattles tells us not to think of future emergencies or try to plan to meet them. He says all problems have solutions that appear as we approach them or they disappear all together.

Why envy my friend because she has her Rainbow vacuum selling gig? I have my feet on the wood floor of my living room, the heels of my hands resting on this computer, air from the fan above me subtly touching my upper lip.

I have air conditioning and a wonderful bed and a safe car and consciousness.

A friend who's going through trauma reminds me of the same thing: surrendering to God is what we dig. What else is there?

Cash Flow!

2009-09-19T10:13:00.000-07:00

Last night I was moved to pull The Secret off of my bookshelf. It was given to me by a friend years ago and I only made it half way through, not really connecting with it at the time. Last night I opened to the page where I'd left off, and, now having been a student of The Science of Getting Rich for 3/4 of a year, I resonated much more with it.

So even in my nervousness (wow, it's so interesting to watch my body's response to this statement), I'm welcoming $5000 or more fun cash from unexpected sources, added to my bank account within the next month!

I'm grateful.

This is the first time I've actually taken on creating a number and sticking with it. I have other visions that I'll get to a little bit later. In the intro to SGR, however, Wattles says that this book is for people whose primary need is money and who don't have time to go exploring in the metaphysical, spiritual, etc. In a way, I say, yeah right. I mean, this book is totally spiritual, if you ask me. In another way, I love his directness. I'm taking on the scientific practice.

Right now I'm going to go get in the bath and read Chapter 7: Gratitude.

Can't possibly go wrong.

How are all you doing?

********

Well it's a few hours and some beautiful contemplation later . . . I could share much here, but I specifically signed in to clean up what I'm "asking for" above (asking vs. creating is another conversation that I look forward to having with you!).

I feel it is more downstream, for now, for me to create with a statement like this: always a surplus of cash . . . always more than enough to do whatever I want.

That way it fluxes and flows with what I'm up to. If I commit to going into space, I'll create $2 million (or whatever the going rate is). If it's a ticket to Widespread Panic and the Allman Brothers, it's about 25 bucks. Easy! And it goes without saying, that covers my wonderful current lifestyle, of course.

- - - - - - -

Okay, here's one more tidbit that goes with this whole topic of creation today:

I took a bath in my wonderful antique claw foot tub that my landlord found buried in the back yard when they were building their house. About six weeks before I moved in here, I made a collage poster of all of the qualities that I knew I wanted in a home. I took time to find words like Austin Family; peaceful, restful sleep; and inviting and pictures of lettuce and herbs growing in a garden, outdoor living space, people playing guitar and a claw foot tub.

So sitting in my bath today, I remembered this poster, whose predictions ALL came true within six months of my living here. And I had the distinct knowing that I created the tub in which I was luxuriously soaking.

Only something in me still resisted the deep knowing of that. So . . . we have some more kinks to work out, but we're also getting, this is it. We're doing it.

A brief note on Gratitude

2009-09-18T18:11:00.000-07:00

Gratitude is such a key part of the Science of Getting Rich, it has its own chapter in this short book (that's Chapter 7). I don't actually believe that it's redundant to say that I am grateful to feel so much gratitude. It is a true gift. It is a feeling, an oozing, so different from the head-tripping I was doing this morning.

I wonder about getting too into my head with the study of this work, but then I see that the further one gets into it, the more it becomes about presence and gratitude. What else is there?

I think it's key that we get to that truly quiet place before the real creation and the real dial in to the Formless Substance happens.

I've been listening to The Power of Now a lot in the past week or so, and it's been wonderful to dive back into it. I'm clear that it IS my path. There have been times when I've been unsure how these two worlds (The Power of Now and The Science of Getting Rich) align, but even as I asked the question, it was answered for me.

And that, my friends, is another blog entry all together. I'll just say, for me, the alignment of the two is the only way I could go deeply into SGR. I'm grateful for that.

And I just want to say: I'm grateful for my life! It really is spectacular: filled with love and wonder. The most wonderful thing is to feel the love that emanates from within me. What deeper blessing could a person ask for except to get out of one's way and allow that state to be present all the time? It is only the thinking mind - and I'm grateful to have one that works well! - that distracts us from the knowing that emanating love is always present.

When I return to moments of quiet and true appreciation, it's a relief. I don't always feel so clear and overflowing. But I was reminded today by a friend's writing that balance is the way of nature. Downs happen. Ups happen. And they all pass. My Vipassana training showing up in the moment. Everything arises to pass away. May my highs be more relaxed. May I not fret when I'm low. Humans miraculously heal. And sometimes we feel tired or sick or sad or anxious or lonely.

And other times we feel a deep and pervasive sense of gratitude.

May the two states not be mutually exclusive. May our hearts stay open - and not just from a heady place.

Love, love,

I.P.

Desire 1

2009-09-18T06:29:00.001-07:00

I trust there will be a lot on this topic as we journey together, friends.

Mr. Wattles says,

" . . . every desire is the effort of an unexpressed possibility to come into action." (Chapter 5, The Science of Getting Rich)

I wake in the morning feeling desire that may be misguided. I miss the attention I used to get from a certain fella. (Wow, it feels challenging to be so forward here! I guess naming names would be really forward. Okay. I'm not that revealed.)

It brings relief to contemplate the above line from SGR. If every desire is the effort of an unexpressed possibility to come into action, I CAN have what I want. I can keep on wanting. Yes, he tells us, never feel disappointed:

"Go on in the certain way, and if you do not receive that thing, you will receive something so much better that you will see that the seeming failure was a prelude to a great success." (SGR, Chapter 16).

He also reminds us repeatedly not to use our powers on other people. Keep 'em at home, says the great Mr. W.

So these teachings, combined, remind me that I CAN have all I want, and that my desire is PROOF of that. Furthermore, I need not feel disappointed nor need I project my wishes onto another individual. Mr. Wattles reminds us that we don't know what's best for others. (But I'M best, aren't I? I mean, come on!) I could also see that extending to us not knowing what's best for us.

My friend Beth posted the following note on Facebook this morning, and it reminded me of this whole contemplation:

The moon is in Virgo and - it's a New Moon that cracks open the heart, and purges the poisons from your mind, body and spirit. This New Moon sees us planting the seeds of reconciling "what is" with the wonder of what could be. This New Moon asks us to see what we've got, right here and right now. And to drop whatever we're carrying that is hurting us. It's a pathway that requires us to discern which pieces we should leave by the wayside, and which are essential parts of who we are. But we are never alone, and can ask for spirit to show us the difference. (from an article by Molly Hall)

Thanks, Beth.

In re-reading that, it has me open my heart to loving those I may still leave by the wayside. We are all becoming. No negativity is necessary. I can just take my hands off the oars and turn downstream.

Grateful and Amazed

2009-09-17T20:45:00.000-07:00

What can I say?

I moved my book mark back to the start of Chapter 5 when I finished reading it today. It's so full of nuggets of love and direction and faith and celebration. It's one of my favorite chapters.

I started my day in the vibe of the following paragraph:

"It is the desire of God that you should get rich. He wants you to get rich because he can express himself better through you if you have plenty of things to use in giving him expression. He can live more in you if you have unlimited command of the means of life."

Wallace D. Wattles, The Science of Getting Rich, Chapter 5

I enjoyed sharing the theme with my friends this morning and started the day off full of cheer. What joy to remember that we are the Divine digging on itself. And that play is full of love!

As the day went on, however, I was tested. I was experiencing a body ache that seemed unrelenting and had me concerned for my health. Again, what did we discuss yesterday? "Disease is only an appearance, and the reality of health."

So I kept trying to think: truth, regardless of appearances; truth, regardless of appearances.

I noticed how my whole body was tensing up at the physical discomfort and fear that there's something wrong.

The shift came when I arrive home from work and relaxed. I believe that part of what was happening was that my body was feeling tired and wanted to rest. Simple as that. I sat on my comfortable couch and lay down to relax for a while before my plans for the evening got going. I was grateful to lie here and see the trees out my front window, feel the texture of the couch beneath me and the blanket on top of me. It was heavenly.

The ache never came back, to my relief.

During my down time on the sofa, I read this sentence, later in Chapter 5:

"You are going to get what you want, but you are going to get it in such a way that when you get it every other person will have more than he has now."

Something about that just blew my mind, as tidbits from this great work do. It reminded me of what makes this book special. This is not about hoarding. This is not about getting more by getting ahead of others. This is about increase and more life for ALL. So beautiful. So generous. So exciting. This is why we love you, Mr. Wattles. You're all heart.

I could go on and on about the joy in my day and the sweet, sweet vibration I feel emanating from within, and the absolute GRATITUDE for this experience and for all of the seeming avenues that have led me to this moment.

AND I know there will me more room for all of that as we go along. For now, some meditation and rest.

With love,

I.P.

Link to The Science of Getting Rich - it's free!

2009-09-17T07:04:00.000-07:00

Here you go, friends: The Science of Getting Rich - free for download. This piece of work is in the public domain and there are FREE versions of it all over the Internet, including free mp3s on Archive.org.

I'm partial to the edition by Joshua Books because it's so readable, and I'm less likely to read something on-line than I am in hard copy, but if you can dig a pdf, then here you go!

This morning I'm contemplating a lot from the book. When I read that the Universe wants me to be rich so that it may express itself more fully through me, I think of my Airstream and travel. I'm quite certain that I'm for more life for all (and none to less), so I've got that one covered. It's more to me to allow such expression and celebration in myself. And to get that I am indistinct from the Formless Substance. Nor are you. What were we talking about yesterday? Truth, regardless of appearances? All love. All love. All love. May I know this well.

Also contemplating that desires are simply possibilities wanting to come into existence. Wattles says that desires are proof that we can have/do/become what we want. They are the Formless Substance wanting to express itself.

Neil Young just came on my Joni Mitchell Pandora station and I gotta get ready to go to work and do today's work well! I cannot fail: the Supreme Power is always with [all of us!].

More later, dear friends. Meanwhile, download your copy of SGR and join me, 30 days at a time!

Truth, Regardless of Appearances or Looking for Love Behind Everything

2009-09-16T17:50:00.000-07:00

Right now I just want to keep digging this Grateful Dead show I'm hearing and smelling the "tranquility" incense burning and see the sky, still a pale white/blue behind the darkened trees. Fall evenings in Texas equal relief.

I'm so grateful I can feel love so easily. The buzz of being-ness. Being, beyond the mind.

This is fun.

I'm betting that what I write tonight won't quite look as I'd imagined it throughout the day.

Today is Day 3 of my concentrated SGR focus. The words I've been holding in my mind today are "truth, beyond appearances."

The good Mr. Wattles writes:

"There is no labor from which most people shrink as they do from that of sustained and consecutive thought; it is the hardest work in the world. This is especially true when truth is contrary to appearances. Every appearance in the visible world tends to produce a corresponding form in the mind which observes it. This can only be prevented by holding the thought of the truth."

Wallace D. Wattles The Science of Getting Rich, Chapter 4

Let me repeat one of those sentences here: Every appearance in the visible world tends to produce a corresponding form in the mind which observes it.

He goes on to say that this story-making can only be prevented by holding the thought of the truth, and that truth is health and abundance, even with the appearance of sickness and poverty. Yes, I say, it's love.

I "happened" upon this in A Course in Miracles today:

"The innocent are safe because they share their innocence. Nothing they see is harmful, for their awareness of the truth releases everything from the illusion of harmfulness. And what seemed harmful now stands shining in their innocence, released from sin and fear and happily returned to love. They share the strength of love because they looked on innocence. And every error disappeared because they saw it not."

A Course in Miracles, Chapter 23

Truth, beyond appearances, regardless of appearances is love. And in this school we are re-training our minds; almost like brainwashing the self? Hypnotizing the self? But, no. These are not things we can only create with the thinking mind. Faith must run deeper. There must be a knowing or we would not be able to see beyond the "corresponding form[s] in the mind" that we create in automated reactions.

This was tested with me today at work.

I walked into the nurses' station on the adult unit of the psychiatric hospital where I work, and from the seclusion room I heard loud sobbing and yelling, and then full-on screaming. I mean: screaming. The wave of intensity rippled over me. And yet I was committed today to practice truth, regardless of appearances. Mr. Wattles says this is key and is also the hardest thing we have to do.

I was in the rest room next door to the seclusion room when I heard the patient's full on, elongated scream. It went on so long without a break that I almost wasn't sure I was still hearing a person's voice. And I breathed, and I thought, truth, beyond appearances. It would have been too close for comfort for me to have looked directly at the person and tried to think "health" rather than illness. It didn't actually even cross my mind to try.

I went right to feeling for love in the background of everything. The space behind which all events are occurring. I leaned over my friend's desk and asked her, "What would Wallace Wattles say about this? Truth regardless of appearances?"

We both kind of shrugged, but I can say that my commitment in the moment was to open my heart to innocence. I believe some grace entered the space, even if I wasn't mentally, fully convinced. It's only Day 3, after all.

This is both fun and fascinating and I'm grateful for the opportunity to write on this topic I've been studying for so long now and also for the ability to write - fingers moving, a laptop to use, a body/mind that fires of just the right charges to make all this go. Amazing. Thank you. I'm curious to see where these days go.

Wallace, Eckhart, Disappointment and Opening to Love

2009-09-15T19:18:00.000-07:00

Tonight I listened to some really juicy chapters of The Power of Now on my mp3 player while I walked, gratefully, in my neighborhood. I heard something very important to the world of this blog, and I remembered that living in The Certain Way will always overlap for me with teachings of Eckhart Tolle. Eckhart is a voice of ancient, primordial teaching, and his absolute presence makes a deep difference for me.

This morning when I woke up, I was feeling disappointed. One of the areas that is interesting to me to apply Mr. Wattles' principles is that of intimate relationships. This morning I was feeling disappointed because it seemed to my mind that I was experiencing a loss. I felt disappointed that a man I'd recently been dating seemed to have exited my life. And I'd liked the guy! Imagine that! My mind was dragging its heels, futilely, against the change.

On top of this disappointment, I was applying pressure. I kept thinking, Wallace Wattles says never be disappointed. He writes hopefully:

"Never allow yourself to feel disappointed. You may expect to have a certain thing at a certain time and not get it at that time. This will seem to be a failure. But, if you hold to your faith, you will find that the failure is only apparent.

"Go on in the certain way, and if you do not receive that thing, you will receive something so much better that you will see that the seeming failure was a prelude to a great success."

And to that, I say, "Tell that to my thinking mind." In other words, this concept, for me, is typically applied in hindsight. It's very hard for me to logic my way into it when I'm experiencing some emotional interpretation. And that's what I was experiencing this morning. Sort of grieving that I didn't seem to have my friend anymore. (I liked him, I said!) And, still, the pressure I was applying on myself, thinking that I shouldn't be feeling disappointed.

And then the miraculous began to happen.

I surrendered to the feeling and dropped my friend a message, expressing his lacking to me and my wondering about how he is in the world. Funny that I would deny myself such communication out of wrong-making. Any opportunity the thinking mind can come up with to make something wrong, it'll take. It loves a good rejection of the Now.

My next stop was to see, gratefully, my healer, Francis. I entered the anteroom and greeted my friend who serves as sort of a clerk for Francis. I told her that I was contemplating this state of disappointment and at the same time looking at Wattles' teaching and was curious how to reconcile the two. In that moment, I simply acknowledged what I was feeling. And I knew, also, that I am committed to practicing The Science of Getting Rich principles and instructions as closely as possible.

That moment was a turning point. I'm so clear that asking produces heavenly results.

I see now that in that moment, I was open and welcoming to both worlds: both the world of sadness or disappointment and the world of liberation and full faith. I closed my eyes and put my hands on my lap and felt love pour out of me from the inside. I saw the contrast to the misguided and oh-so-human belief that love or comfort actually comes from outside of us. I relished the moment. It carried on for hours.

I contemplated my friend - the one whose lack of company I'd been lamenting - and felt absolute love toward him. What a gift.

What I see made that possible was the transmutation of emotion into love, into the joy of being. And it happened because I stopped resisting, and, in fact, leaned in to my experience, feeling it, rather than trying to shift it with logic. Fighting disappointment simply won't work. This is work of love and spaciousness.

The other allowing factor seems to be my willingness and request to see from another point of view: to live in The Certain Way and experience the joy and freedom that comes from there. From a place of trusting a universe much greater than my pea brain which thinks it knows how things should be.

So all of this is to say that I'm reminded of the beautiful overlap of combining the works of my two biggest teachers these days, my rabbi: Eckhart Tolle, and my lifestyle guru, Wallace D. Wattles.

I'm deeply grateful to both of them and to the access we have to teachings that are 100 - 2500 years old.

There will be more on this. I'm quite certain.

Free Will and Freedom of Choice

2009-09-15T11:31:00.000-07:00

"Unlike any other form of animal life that has been created, we were given the power of choice or free will; along with this power came certain responsibilities. The capacity to choose does not involve freedom from the consequences of our choice. The laws or rules which govern every man and which we cover to some degree in this book, are as exact as the laws which govern the material universe. You can act in accordance with these laws or you can disregard them, but you cannot in any way alter them. The law forever operates and holds you to strict accountability, and there is not the slightest allowance made for ignorance."

Wallace D. Wattles The Science of Getting Rich, Chapter 2

Interesting: the first thing I notice as I start to write this post is my inclination to take it all so seriously! Like it's so heavy that we are not free from the consequences of our choices.

I do admit that I've dug my stubborn heels in in resistance to this point. I remember being struck early on by this sentence: The capacity to choose does not involve freedom from the consequences of our choice. And I remember doing my best to ignore it.

This is one of my last strongholds in resistance to living in The Certain Way. There are areas in my life in which I've refused to accept that I can't just go free wheeling and expect everything to come out copacetic. Well, here's the distinction: I can free wheel and whoop it up unabashedly; however, in order to be living in The Certain Way, and in order to allow riches to come to me, I must be living on the creative rather than competitive plane.

So when coming to a crossroads of choice, this is a simple question to ask myself before acting: am I on the creative or competitive plane?

Seems like a simple enough question!

It leads, then, to the question of whether I'm willing to give up my selfish, competitive, addictive desires - IF they are perpetuating competition. If I'm putting all of my eggs in the Wallace Wattles basket, which I'm committed to doing, 30 days at a time, then the answer must be YES. I'm willing.

And that feels scary to me! Here we are on Day 2. Let's see where you take us, Mr. Wattles!

Welcome to The Certain Way!

2009-09-15T11:12:00.000-07:00

Okay, folks, I'm taking it on!

For the past eight or nine months I've been a diligent student of Wallace D. Wattles' 1910 masterpiece, The Science of Getting Rich. My friend Annie recommended it to me when I asked her about how her Rainbow Sweeper business was booming during a time when she kept saying, "In this economy, it doesn't make sense!" Not one to get on board with any talk of "this economy", I was still curious to hear what she had to say.

She told me to go, as soon as we finished our lunch, to the bookstore and buy "the little green book" and to read it, every day, before going to sleep at night.

And I did.

In the course of reading these last months, I've gone in and out of spaces, from feeling doubts and fears come up to the distinct sensation that I'm creating my experience: that magic is shooting out of my finger tips.

This blog is about me taking on an even deeper study and practice of the principles in this book and sharing with you my results. I will share it all, including those fears and doubts and looking at how to still follow Mr. Wattles' advice in the face of those. I will also share with you other stories that relate to living in The Certain Way and will share bits of Mr. Wattles' wisdom throughout.

I'm deeply grateful for this book coming into my life and for the relaxation and spaciousness that have come with it.

Join me on a creative journey and adventure.

Go ahead! Buy that latte! We can have everything we want. This is increase and more life to ALL. That means YOU.