Intentions versus Goals

While we were discussing the “Universe of Possibilities,” (chapter 2 of the Art of Possibility  one member of our small group discussion insisted that we need concrete goals to achieve any kind of objective, not just have wishes and ideas and think of possibilities.  He pointed out that we need to get out of the “la-la” mentality and not only have good intentions.  Being an engineer, he is used to laying out plans clearly and realistic.

Not until a few days later I became aware of a good explanation how goals and possibility fit together.  Here we go:

For a goal to manifest we need a clear decision and a plan.  The intention is created in the NOW while goals are plans for the future.  A goal without the intention behind is an empty wish.  Although we know we can never truly be certain as to the exact outcome of any event, we can be certain about our intent.  The intention is the outcome you want to achieve.

An intention and a dream are two vastly different things. Watch as Cheryl Richardson explains the difference between a "soul goal" and a "head goal." Plus, find out what lesson Oprah learned about intentions.

Goal setting is warrior mentality – conquering and gaining step by step.  Goals take time and discipline to be accomplished.  It is easy to get discouraged and give up.

Intentions are dreams and passion coming from the gut and more spiritual in nature.  Children play-act their dreams and are absorbed by a world of phantasy which adults often don’t understand.

Goals are mechanic and realistic; intentions are creative and make goals possible.  The difference is in “HOW” – allowing the process be determined by the universe by surrendering the outcome.  We are not in control on how it should happen but BEING certain that it will happen.   Allow the magic of the universe to surprise us.  Create the definite intention for the outcome and surrender the process to the universe.  Intentions come from the heart, goals come from the head.

Dr.Wayne Dyer wrote a book “The Power of Intention:”

 

The “Power of Intention” is related to the “Law of Attraction.”  Dr. Dyer has pulled together the ancient spiritual principles in order to help us realize our unlimited potential and explore infinite possibilities.

“Inch by inch, life's a cinch. Yard by yard, life's hard.”

~ John Bytheway

In my own life I have made plans and have created goals which ended very often after a short time because I became discouraged or ‘somebody’ talked me out of it.  I know now that with a well-defined intention I can build up my way to achieve any goal. 

Let Us Celebrate the Resurrection of Jesus



Resurrection and springtime are very closely connected.  One may not believe in the resurrection of Jesus which is celebrated worldwide on Easter Sunday, but one cannot deny the magic of the reawakening of creation, especially after a long and hard winter as we had this year.

In this sense we are all reawakening during the months of April and May, rejoicing in the appearance of the green grass, the flowers, and blooming trees.  In spring it is easier to open ones heart to new and fresh ideas.  The creator has put a lot of effort into the process of the first season after winter.  The course from dormancy to new life is truly a miracle which we can experience in our personal life as well.  In this sense we can discover and look forward to something new and exciting.

Would you Recognize Jesus?

I was reading an article in the Whole Living Magazine Mar/April 2014 issue by Betsy Whitfill which posed the question “Would you recognize Jesus?” She talks about that every tradition, religious and non-religious, expects the return of their teacher with a new revelation: Christians expect the return of Christ, Jews the Messiah; Muslims await the Imam Mahdi, Hindus Sri Krishna; Buddhists await the 5^th Buddha, Maitreya. Certainly, the time we are living in could benefit from a heavenly messenger and show us how we could live more peacefully together. Ms. Whitfil emphasizes that it is crucial for us to recognize this herald if we want to determine humanity’s future in a positive way.

Discovering Who was Jesus – and Who is Jesus

Even for those of us who were raised in a Christian Church there are many things about Jesus which are not easily understood.  That’s why I appreciate an article I read on the “Real Easter.”  Some Christians believe that Jesus had to die for us so that we may experience resurrection.  As the Son of God he was able to forgive “sins” while he was on earth.  His main mission was to teach people about God, the heavenly Parent.  Going beyond the 10 commandments of the Old Testament Age, Jesus' message was condensed into two phrases: Love God, and love your fellow men.

“Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.”

~ Matthew 22:37-39

The Life and Mission of Jesus Christ

Rev. Sun Myung Moon, who met Jesus when he was only 16 years old, gives the deepest account of the life of Jesus Christ.   He had several personal opportunities of meeting Jesus and consulting on very profound events during Jesus’ life on earth in regards to his physical family, his relationship to John the Baptist, and why he had to go to the cross.  When we learn more about Jesus’ mission, we can certainly be better prepared for his return.

How do we Experience Resurrection?

Even though some people believe that Jesus resurrected physically, I believe that it was Jesus’ spirit that was raised.  For us to know the process of resurrection (Sect.II:1) is to learn about the heart of God which is equal to salvation or restoration.  For that to take place we need a physical body to do good deeds, we need the word or the truth, we need to go through a growing period, and finally we need the benefit of “Merit of the Age” which means to be born based on the groundwork of many saints and sages and righteous people who have broadened the foundation of heart. 

A few months ago I wrote a book review of “Proof of Heaven” by Dr. Eben Alexander who had a near-death-experience (NDE).  He is urging all of us to become aware of the fact the time has come for all people to know God and to feel that we are loved by this Heavenly Parent.

May you experience the joy and the peace of resurrection and renewal this Easter.  This spring season is perfect timing for not only believing in the resurrection but to experience it ourselves.

 

 

 

Celestial Phenomenon

I am not an astronomer, just a bit interested in cosmic events and certainly looking for a planetary show.  That’s why I am curious about this month’s full moon event.  We may not be able to see it in our hemisphere (Southwestern Ohio) because of a cloudy sky; none-the-less, it will take place this night and early morning of the 15^th of April.

The blood moon is certainly a rare phenomenon; Monday night will host a rare celestial event: a “blood moon,” which occurs when the earth spins between the sun and the moon.  The four up-coming blood moon (also known as the tetrad) will occur in roughly 6-month intervals on the following dates: April 15, 2014, October 8, 2014, April 4, 2015 and September 28, 2015.

 

What is a Lunar Eclipse?

A lunar eclipse can be watched with the naked eyes.  When the earth moves between the sun and the moon, the moon will be temporarily darkened and disappear from our watch.  This month’s “Blood Moon” gets its name from the reddish hue which surrounds the moon because of the indirect sunlight which will illuminate it.

 
Some people believe that the additional showing of the “Cardinal Grand Cross” is a significant astrological occurrence and gives deep importance to prophetic meaning.

 

 

The astronomical event co-insides with a rocket launch to Mars which marks a big space day.

 

Some other people consider the astronomical incident part of prophecies recorded in the Bible such as in Matthew 24:29:

“Immediately after the tribulation of those days shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken.”

 

John Hagee, a TV and MegaChurch Pastor of Cornerstone Church in Texas, has preached sermons on the “Red Moon Prophecy” which he claims foreshadow “a world-shaking event.”

 

 
"There's a sense in the world that things are changing and God is trying to communicate with us in a supernatural way."

"I believe that in these next two years, we're going to see something dramatic happen in the Middle East involving Israel that will change the course of history in the Middle East and impact the whole world."

~ Rev. John Hagee to CBN News.
 

On the other side of the world Buddhist tradition observes eclipses as high holy days;  during those days believers offer special prayers and set new intentions.  The idea is that what we keep in our thoughts and declare our intention during these times reverberates throughout time, space and all dimensions.

Whatever our beliefs are, we can always benefits from positive intentions and reflect on ways we can materialize them.  With all the turmoil we hear of and may experience in our own lives, it will be helpful to take a reflective stand and be open for Divine intervention.

  

Every Path Leads Home

I have been part of the Religious Recovery Group for about a year now.  Having met Wayne Holmes years ago at a Toastmasters Club I thought that I knew something about him.  I knew that he was an aspiring author, a dedicated father and husband and a loyal citizen.  When I met him again as the founder of the Religious Recovery Program, I discovered his deep love for the Devine and his profound desire to help his fellow man who has been disappointed, discouraged and betrayed by their various religious experiences.

Wayne describes in Every Path Leads Home the different religions he has studied, and the many various disillusionments he has encountered.  Through all this he has strengthened his faith and is dedicated to serve his God the best he knows how to.

The Religious Recovery Program described in the book follows somewhat the 12-Step (in his case 13 steps) Program of Al-Anon.  These steps are complemented by 13 stones which provide a guideline to follow and challenge us to awaken to new possibilities of spirituality beyond religion.

The Religious Recovery Program encourages religious tolerance and to build relationships beyond traditional religious segregation.  Therefore, Every Path Leads Home goes further than doctrines and promotes forgiveness, reconciliation and acceptance.

Even though, I am very happy with my faith,  I am still working on an authentic way of life.  In the past forty something years of pursuing my spiritual journey I have dealt with plenty of criticism, rejection, persecution and misunderstanding both within the church and from the outside.  It is only natural when we look at human relationships that problems arise.  When men lost their connection to the Divine during the Fall of Man, we also lost our connection with each other.  Mankind is now like a big family of children who are fighting among each other because their parents have been absent.

Reading Wayne’s book Every Path Leads Home is one other step to bridge the gap between God and man.  The book is a resourceful testimony of finding the spiritual path rather than the religious.  Although religions have had their purpose throughout human history, their true purpose of bringing man back to God has often been distorted. None-the-less, the many various religions have become mainstreamed into Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism and Buddhism.   Rev. Sun Myung Moon speaks about the unification of all religions on the return of the “true man.”  Most major religious teachings are talking about the return of their leader/founder.  This Messiah/Savior concept has Jews expect the Jewish Messiah, the Christians wait for Christ’s return, the Muslims anticipate the Mahdi or Isa (Arabic name for Jesus), while the Buddhists believe in the arrival of the Maitreya, and the Hindus wait for the Kalki. 

During this time where we are all looking for connecting in a new way with the Divine, we often have a spiritual awakening where nothing of the past makes sense any more.  We may interpret it as disappointment or betrayal and wait for other bad things to happen.  Or we can also use it as an opportunity to reinvent ourselves to live a more authentic life.  

 

When Calls the Heart

I truly enjoyed the series “When Calls the Heart” on Hallmark Chanel with 12 hourly segment each week. 

The movie is slightly based on the book with the same name by Jeanette Oke, a Canadian Christian writer.  I read the original story as well and discovered it quite different from the movie. 

The series describes the life of a young woman, Elizabeth Thatcher, who follows her dream to the Canadian West.  She is deeply moved by her faith as she is confronted with the pioneering life and encounters many problems many of us face: loneliness, misunderstanding, disappointment, rejection and grief but her faith, perseverance and commitment sustain her and show her the value of listening to God and obeying His voice.

Today, I finally understood why I was so moved by the story.  It reminded me in many ways of my own life.  I had been restless and searching for more than seven years when I got my call from God.  Finally, at the beginning of 1973 I met a lady from the Unification Church who introduced me to the study of the Divine Principle.  I wrote once before of my experience of coming to America.

Following this call from God, I experienced all the same emotions Elizabeth was faced with.  I didn’t go to the Canadian Wilderness, but rather became a pioneer to experience people and situations in this country with different belief systems, diverse backgrounds, and most of all unusual behaviors which challenged my own faith in humanity.  Through it all I have come to depend more on my internal guidance and trust in God.

While watching the movie series and also reading the book and other writings of Jeanette Oke, I learned to appreciate her approach of always going back to the basics: prayer and study of the word.  Our faith becomes often weak, and we forget who is really directing our lives.

“Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.”

~ Hebrews 11:1

What I liked most about the show is that it allowed things to happen naturally without forcing them.  It permits God to work in our lives when we agree to the truth and be agreeable with others.  I refer here to the way the relationship between Jack and Elizabeth developed.  Both of them in their own way were resolved to not marry.  Jack was honor-bound to his job as a Mountie with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, while Elizabeth didn’t want to marry a Western Canadian and wanted to pursue her courier as a teacher.  Except the Lord had different plans for both of them, and they finally surrendered to the love they felt for each other.

 

“Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven.”

~ Matthew 5:16

I am deeply grateful to God for allowing me to delight in a modern-day show, using it to renewing my faith and discovering the burning light within me.

Chronos Versus Kairos

Time is a dimension in which events can be ordered from the past through the present into the future, and also the measure of durations of events and the intervals between them.

The ancient Greeks had two words for time.  The first was chronos, which we still use in words like chronological and anachronism, and kairos was the other.  Chronos refers to clock time – time that can be measured – seconds, minutes, hours, years. 

Where chronos is quantitative and exact, kairos is qualitative and expansive. It measures moments, not seconds. Further, it refers to the right moment, the opportune moment; the perfect moment. The world takes a breath, and in the pause before it exhales, fates can be changed.

  

“The Greeks had two words for time: chronos and kairos.  Kairos is not measurable, it is ontological.  In kairos we are, we are fully in isness… fully, wholly, positively.  Kairos can sometimes enter, penetrate, break through kairos: the child at play, the painter at his easel, the saint at prayer, friends around the dinner table, a mother reaching out her arms for her newborn baby, are in kairos.”

~ Madeleine L’Engle – A Circle of Quiet
 
Chronological time does not allow us to get lost in the moment.  We are always aware of the clock and that time is moving on.  Our society is very chronos-oriented; we are overly scheduled, trying to cramp in more and more in a day, in a minute, etc.  Being so time-bound, we are victims of the clock.

 “and a time to every purpose under the heaven:

A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted…”
~ Ecclesiastes 3

Fortunately, we are discovering more and more the other aspect of time: kairos allows us to get lost in the moment, truly experiencing quality time over quantity. Kairos is expansive, full of possibility, and we can enjoy play, passion and the experience itself.  We can lose our self-consciousness, doubts and fears.  Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi calls it being in the “flow.”  In that synchronicity we can experience a higher dimension or the spiritual reality and ultimately unite with our Creator, the Heavenly Parents.

Time is too slow for those who wait, too swift for those who fear, too long for those who grieve, too short for those who rejoice, but for those who love, time is eternity.

– Henry van Dyke (1852-1933), American author, educator, and clergyman

I was inspired to write this article by reading a book "The Art of the Possible” by Alexandra Stoddard.  She writes therein about the path from perfectionism to balance and freedom.

Who is Brer Rabbit?

We all may have heard of Bugs Bunny but only the older folks among us may remember stories of Brer Rabbit.  Brer Rabbit is a character in folk tales of African-American and Native American origin.  He is also known as the “trickster” character because he can even outsmart the other characters in the stories.  

In folklore, the animal trickster represents an extreme form of behavior which people may be forced to use in extreme circumstances in order to survive.

Brer Rabbit is representative of how a smaller, weaker, but cleverer force can overcome a larger, stronger, but less clever power. He continually outsmarts his bigger animal rivals, Brer Fox, Brer Wolf, and Brer Bear.

Author Joel Chandler Harris used and popularized these characters in his series of Uncle Remus tales. One of the most well-known Brer Rabbit tales is a story of Brer Rabbit and the Tar Baby. Brer Fox has been trying and trying to trap the rabbit and finally discovers a way to do it. He sets up a tar “baby,” and when Brer Rabbit encounters it, mayhem ensues.

 

Br’er Rabbit and the Tar Baby

The rabbit becomes stuck to the tar baby and the more he fights against it, the more stuck he becomes—that alone could be a lesson for readers. But it doesn’t stop there. Brer Rabbit manages to trick the fox into throwing him into a briar patch. It sounds like a horrible punishment—at least that’s what we think at first. But, the rabbit has lived his life in the briar patch, so he easily works his way free.

Though the Uncle Remus stories were written in the late 1800s, the stories of the “trickster” rabbit go back centuries in time and will be passed along for centuries more. Brer Rabbit will continue to triumph and get into and out of sticky situations by outsmarting his foes.

Storyteller Diane Ferlatte/ Brer Rabbit's Dance

 

"They cannot distinguish even between Negro demonstrators and negro spectators.”

~ Wyatt Walker

I read about the “tricks” of Brer Rabbit in a book called David and Goliath by Malcolm Gladwell.  Mr. Gladwell writes about ‘Underdogs, Misfits, and the Art of Battling Giants.’  In his book, Malcolm goes into a lengthy account of the Civil Rights Movement and how in 1963, Dr. Martin Luther King and Wyatt Walker together used the “Brer Rabbit” ideas to their advantage.  E.G., when they organized street protests, they waited until the early evening when the black residents were walking home from work.  They became onlookers and were mistaken for part of the demonstrations, therefore increasing their numbers.

"We need to remember that our definitions of what is right are, as often as not, simply the way that people in positions of privilege close the door on those at the bottom of the pile."

~ Malcolm Gladwell

Mr. Gladwell makes his point well: Underdogs have to use whatever they've got.

I was very moved by the book because in one way or another we all feel like underdogs at times.  Malcolm’s referrals to the bible reminded me that all throughout human history God has been on the side of the underprivileged; this is the history of restoration.  Because of the Fall of Man, man(kind) lost his proper position and became the underdog.  Once we recognize this weakness, it can become our strength, with God on our side.

If you like to read some more Brer Rabbits stories, here are the links: A Brer Rabbit Story

 
The Origins Of The Br’erRabbit Stories