The Way of Mastery, by Shanti Christo, like a deliciously rich flowerless chocolate cake, is densely satisfying.  Much like A Course In Miracles (Course),   this too is a “down loading” of Christ energy.  Where The Way of Mastery departs from Course is in its inherent readability. 

Every page is immediately rich, clear, flowing, usable, satisfying, enjoyable, insightful and helpful.  

 While The Way of Mastery is incredibly densely packed, page by page, paragraph by paragraph and quite often line by line of smooth rich wisdom, it remains very very readable.

Like Course, there are some study groups studying the Shanti Christo texts.  Unlike Course, this path of study can be entertained solo, due to its simple yet dense message.

One of the things I have learned through Shanti Christo is:   

• while the universe, metaphysics or whatever your vision of God may be,
• we know that ultimately, complete understanding of the infinite, the ineffable, is always more mysterious and wondrous than we can comprehend. 
• There is always another bite of wisdom available. 

Understanding this bit of infinity is the easy obvious part.  The external part.

The next step is:

• we, our lives, as created by and of the universe/God,
• we too are infinite. 
• We too are beyond comprehension. 

Shanti Christo teaches that we, with wonder outrageous joy and fun, discover life AND our own life, our own self.  The internal part.  Yay!

What a wonderous concept that we honor and discover the blessed nature of ourselves the way we honor and discover the blessed nature of our universe.

I love the idea and feeling of exploring me.   With my unity with the whole, there can be no internal without an external.  I too am infinite.  And simlilarly so,  so are we all!  Even the tiny bugs and blades of grass.

My own journey, an infinity of fun and wondrous discoveries to be enjoyed and appreciated in an outrageously fun process of child like wonderment in my experience of life.

The Way of Mastery is so dense and satisfying, it very like a rich desert, I have been enjoying in small yet satiating portions.  A paragraph here, a few pages there. 

Over 400 pages long, I have been enjoying it and the transformations it is enabling in my life for over 6 months now. 

Unlike Course, The Way of Mastery is an easy read. 

Like Course, it gives one much to contemplate.  

Unlike Course, we do not have to use energy in reverse engineering the meaning of the words.  The words are clear.  

While the words are clear, the meanings are infinite and outrageously joyous. 

I highly suggest this guide and look forward to the continued journey.

Warmest,

Yucel

How could our dislocations from the cycle of life via ready availability of prepared foods possibly be linked to the obesity epidemic of 2009?

It will be interesting to see what kind of comments are generated by this post.   

 Though the premise itself seems fairly simple.

If we had to grow our own food and if we had to slaughter OUR OWN food, you think we might be more appreciative of the work and life that went into our bounty?

In this appreciation, do you think we might eat less?

Perhaps we might eat less after we were full to bursting, if we had to slit the throat personally of our 3rd double cheeseburger?  

What if our 4th hot dog meant we had to go out and throttle yet another pig?

What about that biggie fries?  What if we had to plant, tend and harvest an extra acre of potatoes, ourselves personally, to have that biggie fry?

What if we had to move our own personal biggie butts to farm an extra acre of land just to have that biggie fry?

What if we had to personally clear cut, with our own hands, an extra acre of rain forest to have that banana with our fruit loops and milk, would we eat so much still?

I’m not suggesting we would give up meat.   I love and am grateful for meat.  Yum!

Our rancher and farmer forefathers and foremothers ate meat for sure.

However, where we might choose to feel put out that the double cheeseburger took 6 minutes in a drive through lane, they might have been grateful to the cow or chicken for its life and sacrifice. 

They might have treated the creature well, who was a kind of neighbor. 

They might have expressed blessings and gratitude on harvest and on enjoyment of the nourishment.

They might have been a bit less extra fat than we when farming and ranching, what with all that extra work.

They might have been truly hungry  when they ate and not felt like they had to farm another acre to work off that little bitty piece of pie they just were so grateful to have.

They might have been more respectful of and grateful for their integrity with the cycle of life. 

Through action of The Law of Attraction which was set in motion when they expressed their respect and gratitude for their meager sustenance, perhaps they were more healthily sustained by it as well.

I’m not suggesting we go completely native.  Nor do I harbor any illusions of a romantic past where reality was life on the land was hard and food was sparse. 

However, if we ever have a chance to connect with life through its cycle, through growing it, nourishing it, maybe harvesting it directly, perhaps it would increase our appreciations for the fact that we consume what was once alive and has given its life so that we may live.

So through added respect and appreciation for THE LIFE of our food, we may better respect and appreciate our own lives even as we integrate through eating its nutrients and goodness.  

These appreciations may serve us well in many ways, including perhaps improved health and trimmer hotter bods. 

Thus regardless of having these opportunities to farm or ranch, we might surely find ourselves more blessed to feel and truly express gratitude for and connection with the life that is our nourishment.

What do you think?

Gratefully yours,

Yucel

( See also:  http://choose.ws/2009/10/27/spirituality/its-a-fish-eat-fish-world-and-im-grateful-for-it/yucel/ ) 

It keeps coming back to me that pretty much everything we eat which has caloric (energy) value has at one time or another been itself alive.

It’s a fish eat fish world; and, I’m grateful for it.

• Cheeseburgers were once living cows
• Bread was once wheat, a living  plant
• Mushrooms are living representatives of the fungi family
• Milk was once living grass, which the cows ate and transformed for us
• Synthesized caloric food additives probably are made from a crude oil base,  which oil itself was once some form of life millions of years ago prior to its tranformation
• Fish, though possessing seemingly expressionless faces, certainly live, can feel and I’ve even heard them scream
• Bacteria break down, transform and recycle nutrients, are essential for human digestion and we eat some of them with every bite we take
• And so on…

It’s all part of food cycle integrity.

What about exceptions?

Well, things like salt and water, though essential for life, have zero energy value.

We may consider that plants for instance can fix carbon in the soil and air and use energy from the sun and grow without other life… however, even plants, when they die,  are broken down and become themselves nutrients for the next generation of plants. 

So, plants too eat plants.

In fact, healthy soils contain quite a great deal of decomposed plant matter for the living plants to feast upon. 

Additionally plants metabolize CO2, Carbon Dioxide, which animals breath out when they themselves metabolize what ever life forms they ate….

So through this cycle, plants too “eat” other once living things in order to grow, thrive, live, reproduce and evolve.

Thus for this point in our evolution anyway, the life cycle seems wholly integral with the food cycle.

It’s a life eat life to live kind of world.

So what?

Well, I eat meat.  I love it and am grateful for it.

And I eat veggies too.   Love them.  Am grateful for them as well.

Mushrooms too, yummy.  Thankful indeed.

And so on…

What I strive to do better now is to be consciously and truly appreciative for the bounty of my food and to be grateful for that which grew and surrendered its life so that I might be nourished by and made joyful through its existence and sacrifice.

Yours in life,

Yucel

( See also:  http://choose.ws/2009/10/28/spirituality/implications-of-life-cycle-dislocation-obesity/yucel/ )

There is much talk about downloading thoughts, words and works direct from God or spirits.  Some of us like the prophets Moses and Mohammad, authors like Neal Donald Walsh, and spiritual channels such as Esther Hicks and Edgar Cayce are said to have direct lines to these sources.

How is this possible for some?

Moses on Mount Sinai was said to have received the 10 Commandments in Stone Tablet form written by the finger of God.

Mohammed is believed by millions of devoted Muslims to have received The Qur’an or God’s word ( distinct from hadith, which are the sayings of Mohammad ) revealed directly to him in Arabic by God over a twenty-two year period starting in the Cave of Hira on Mount Hira ( aka Mountain of Light aka Jabal al-nur ) on the outskirts of Mecca beginning in 610 CE ( Common Era aka AD aka Anno Domini aka In the year of our Lord ). 

Neal Donald Walsh, author of “Conversations with God,” book series, claims to journal questions to God, which God then answers in an interview format.

Esther Hicks claims regularly to channel Abraham, a collection benevolent of alien spirits, both privately and for large audiences of paying devotees for enlightenment on various topics largely centered around The Law of Attraction ( LOA ).

Many of us pray.  Quite a few of us feel we get answers.

Which of these are spiritual revelation?

In many spiritual traditions and in several New Thought and traditional religions and teachings, there is a faith in the universiality of god.  That god is everywhere.  That there is nowhere where god is not.  That we are in fact all part of god, and all connected in some spiritual form with each other.  

That the illusion of separation is a kind of sin or mistake or is just that, illusion.

That we are all in fact part of and one with god, one with one another, and one with the whole which is  the universe.

That is, we are all one with and unified with the universe; and, so are one with and unified with god; and, so are one with and unified with one another.

If we are all in fact one with god and one with each other and cannot be separate, aren’t then the words or thoughts of any of us, of each of us, and of all of us, are they not all downloaded directly from god?

If we cannot be separate from god, and we are all part of god, then are not all our thoughts god’s thoughts?

On some spiritual level, some group consciousness level, is not each of our thoughts also all of our thoughts?

Is not the thought of any of us, the thought of all of us?

There are New Thought concepts that believe there is a universal mind from which all thoughts and knowledge may be and are drawn as needed from an abundant universe, a kind of generous god if you will.  

Wouldn’t this universal mind concept then be consistent with a belief that all thoughts are god’s thoughts, all words are god’s word?

Namaste, a Sanskrit word, is a greeting used by Hindus and translates roughly as: 

“As I acknowledge and honor the Spirit or God within myself, so do I acknowledge and honor the Spirit or God within you.  

I honor the place in you in which the entire universe dwells.  I honor the place in you which is love, of truth, of light, and of peace.  When you are in that place in you, and I am in that place in me, we are one.”

This Hindu concept of namaste is also one of a unified oneness of us all and oneness with spirit. 

If we are all Spirit, and we are all part of the universal all which is God, if this is true, how can any words or thoughts, regardless of the thought or word, be any but of God, directly downloaded?

And, if one of thus “downloads,” do we not all alway download?

Namaste my friends,

Yucel