Turn the Corner in 2010!

In just 24 hours from this writing we will be celebrating New Year 2010. Will this next year bring ease and grace or struggle to our lives? Will 2010 be a year we look back upon with fond memories of great times and abundant living or will it be remembered as a tough year, best forgotten? Will this New Year be the year that we make the big change in our lives or will we experience just 12 more months of the same old life with the same old problems? What are we to think and do as we contemplate the ending of the old and the beginning of the new that lies just ahead? What do we do to really turn the corner and leave Hum Drum Blvd and get on Prosperity and Happiness Ave?

Many of us make New Years Resolutions to be a better spouse, lose weight, stop smoking, etc. New Year's Resolutions won't do the trick for most of us; we have proven that time after time. Good intentions that are not followed by will, belief and directed action are mental gymnastics that produce nothing. What do we do to really experience that "breakthrough" year, the year that it all changes for the better?

The first step is to take stock of 2009 and see where we progressed and where we slipped back in realizing our desires and dreams. We don't dwell on this but we examine areas where changes must be made in order to get different results. What did we omit to do that we knew we should have done? Where did we take the easy road rather than the right road? Where did we fail to love, to cherish, to nurture those that are dear to us? Where did we lose faith in our desires and dreams and sink into mortal mind thinking rather than trusting in our God given power to create the life we want?

As you review 09 I am certain that you will be able to spot areas where you went off the path - where you were not the best you could have been. Now you are ready to create your personal version of 2010!

Start by listing the 5 things you want to have or to accomplish in your life in the coming year. What do you desire in your life? In order to create anything there must be a desire. Lack of desire produces stagnation and eventually death. When I say desire, I do not mean merely material wants - a desire could be as spiritual as a good conversation with God or as material as a new home or car. Desire is what motivates humans to do and to create.

As you write these desires down, be sure to list the 5 key desires. We keep the number small so that we can focus on a few desires or goals at a time. A common mistake is to make a huge "laundry list" of everything we want or need. You will never achieve anything unless you focus on a few key goals and keep your mind, heart and soul on those and nothing else. Focus is what produces results. Keep focused.

After you have written down your 5 desires or goals for 2010, now review them and make sure that this is what you really want to create in your life. Be sure that these desires are yours and not someone else's desires for you. You are sovereign in your life, you have a license from God to create whatever you can believe and imagine. You are here to live the life you want to live; the life that fulfills you and makes your heart sing. That is the abundant life that God promised each of us.

Now begin to make a mental movie of each desire. What would it feel like to have this or be that? What would you do if your desire was realized right now? What would you say, whom would you share the news with? Imagine the locale, the taste, smell and texture of your realized desire. Make it real - live it long before it comes to you in form. It must be real to you in your mind or you will never experience it in your life! Play your mental movie every morning as you rise and every evening right before you close your eyes. Say a prayer of gratitude for having these desires fulfilled in ADVANCE of receiving them in fact. Know that they are yours, for God has promised that whatever you can believe, imagine and accept is yours.

Leave the "resolutions" to the weak of heart and those of little faith. Resolutions have no power and are easily broken because they depend on the weak reed of human will power. Your mind movie, the mental pictures of your desire, will be made manifest through the power of the Most High God operating through the Indwelling God; which are one and the same. Some call the Indwelling God the Holy Spirit which is fine if it pleases you. We in New Thought use Indwelling God because it is not just a "ghost of God" or a reflection of God but the literal presence of God that is within each of us.

Remember dear ones, you are God expressing as you. There is no separation between God and you, you are in Him and He is in you. The difference is only of scale and degree. You posess in the micro, the entire power of the Universe. God has bequeathed this to you as your birthright but it is your obligation to discover and use this power in love and with care. You are authorized to create a Heaven on Earth or a Hell. The choice to totally yours - but so are the consequences so mind what you create!

God will not judge your life because he had given you free will to create it, but you will be subject to the Divine Laws of the Universe that God has instituted before the beginning of time. Who and what you are inside is what you will experience in your life. What you sow, you shall surely reap. When, and at the hands of whom the harvest will appear is not yours to know but Divine Justice will come and it comes impersonally; not as reward or punishment.

Remind yourself daily that God is not a human with human ego and human faults. God is perfect Mind, Perfect Being, Perfect Love. Do not make the common error of trying to make God small enough for your understanding. Just love God, speak to God each day and listen to what God says to you each day. Converse with the Great Mind of the Universe and He or She will converse with you. God is your power, your best friend, and your constant help and comfort.

With God all things are not only possible but easy. Without God we struggle like children trying to stand upright only fall on our bums again and again. With God we are towers of strength and pillars of wisdom to all who come in contact with us each day and we bless each life we touch. Join your mind with the Mind of God and experience the peace, prosperity, health and joy that we all yearn for. It is your birthright - claim it!

Make 2010 the Year of Your Transformation; the year you turn the corner! May God Bless Your every thought, word and deed. AND SO IT IS!

Rev. Dore' Jacques Patlian

Beyond The Christmas Story

Billions of people around the globe know at least the basics of the Christmas Story; The Greatest Story Ever Told, as it is often called. We sing about, read about and hear sermons about the birth of Jesus. We enjoy the Nativity Scenes displayed with the babe in the manger, the "three wise men" with their expensive gifts, the sheep, the cows, the shepherds and, of course, Joseph and Mary. There are school pageants where this story in reenacted by the children all dressed up in what we suppose 4 BCE folks wore in Judea and other kids dressed as cows, sheep and donkeys.

What fun! We all love this story and it helps us to remember that this holiday is really more than just an excuse to buy gifts for those we love and to shop till we drop. Is the story of the birth of Jesus the real meaning of Christmas? Are the circumstances of the birth of Jesus the real point of the story? I think not.

I believe that while Christmas is the celebration of the entry into the world of a Great Soul, a Master Teacher, a true messenger of Light and Love, a man sent from God to bring the Light of God's Truth to a world ignorant of the reality of the Most High God and the Indwelling God, which are one and the same; that the message is so much bigger than most of us realize. Perhaps we make Christmas too small by focusing on the biography of The Master and often ignoring the message. Consider this, if you will.

Have you ever wondered how a Jewish baby who in the eyes of his neighbors was born out of wedlock into one of the poorest towns in Judea (He was born in Nazareth not Bethlehem, that was Luke's invention) became the man touched by God and given the task of inaugurating a new age of human history into being? This man we call Jesus was born of the humblest of origins in the poorest province in the entire Roman World and yet He so touched the hearts, minds and souls of those who heard him (probably not more than 10,000 people) that His message spread far and wide and changed the entire course of world history. What other man's life and message was so transformative that the entire world counts time from the estimated year of his birth?

The real message of the birth of the Christ Child is the dawning of the concept of a God of love, a forgiving God who loves us unconditionally. Every civilization and culture before the birth of Jesus had a God or Gods who demanded sacrifice, propitiation, and the worship of their idol in a temple dedicated specifically to them. These concepts of God had all the faults and foibles of humanity - they were capricious, unreliable, angry, played favorites, seldom forgave anything and were quick to take offense. They even took sides in human conflicts and often switched sides where it suited them. One could not depend on them at all; you made your sacrifice and hoped to stay out of their bad graces for a while.

Even the God of the Old Testament was a tribal god, the god of the Jews. Talk about playing favorites! This God had his own chosen people and protected them at the expense of everyone else - even the highly civilized and peaceful Canaanites. The Old Testament concept of God is almost totally at odds with the concept of Jesus' idea of the loving and all encompassing Father who loves all humanity.

For this reason, the early Church fathers advocated the exclusion of the Old Testament in the developing Christian Scripture we now call the Bible. After all, did not God send Jesus to bring us a New Covenant - a new contract between God and His creations? Why then do we study the old covenant which has been supplanted by the new? The inclusion of the Old Testament and its angry, parochial concept of God has produced much of the conflict, negativity, misunderstanding and spiritual duality of Christianity.

Jesus taught love - not a weak flabby love but a robust, rather tough love. Jesus would tell us that God loves you, empowers you but it is your job to make a life for yourself and your family. The outcome of your life is your responsibility. It is your job to love God and your fellow human. You reap the harvest, good or bad and God cannot and will not keep you from the bitter harvest any more than He will send the unearned abundant harvest. Your birthright is the abundant joyful life but its manifestation is in your hands. God has given you all the tools you need to build a palace. If you live in a shack, that is largely of your making.

Your Word, your thoughts and the content of your heart is what opens the Kingdom of Heaven - not doves or sheep or praying to a golden idol. God is not a thing or an animal, He is a Spirit that is everywhere present all at the same time. God is with us in our waking, our sleeping, our going and coming, our working and playing, our praying, our loving and our weeping. There is no place where God is not, except in the denying heart of the unbeliever and even so, God knocks at the door of this hardened heart constantly asking admittance but never forcing the door.

Jesus' God was universal, not the God of the Jews as Yahweh was or the God of the Greeks as Zeus was, or Ra of the Egyptians. The idea of one God for all that exists was revolutionary and greeted with great ridicule by the "pagan" world of the Roman Empire. The Romans used to joke that the Jews had one God because they were too poor to afford more than one.

What made Jesus' teachings so different, so memorable and so lasting? Jesus taught for the first time from a feminine point of view, by that I mean that he taught about a loving and nurturing, supportive God, not a God of punishment or wrath. Jesus taught mankind to meet an adversary with love not a sword or a fist. He knew the great lesson of life that love disarms the opponent and leaves him without moral authority. He knew that to resist with violence validates the opponent and makes him feel justified.

There is an old Taoist saying that what you resist persists and even though that flies in the face of Western thought; it is true nonetheless. Push against anything and it pushes back. Bend and the storm moves on. Jesus would never approve of the Old Testament formula of "an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth". That is the recipe for a dog eat dog world of never ending offense and retribution and is a total repudiation of everything Jesus taught, but still we hear Christians teaching this in church and even teaching their children to live this way. Too often we honor the Master and ignore His teaching.

What a revolutionary idea this poor Jewish boy had! Meeting force with love was a totally weird idea in 31 CE when Jesus preached His new Gospel of Peace on Earth and Good Will to Men. Perhaps the most revolutionary teaching of Jesus was His insistence on the Universality of Humankind. He clearly stated time and time again that all humanity was One with God, that God was the God of the Universe and all that was in it. Jesus' God was a God for the Jews, the Romans, the Greeks, the Persians - all men and women - now one God and one humanity.

In just 18 months (the estimated total time of Jesus' ministry in Judea) this humble man we call Jesus made such an impression on a few thousand poor Jews and a scattering of Roman soldiers, Greeks and others, that His name is today honored by billions all over the world. Even the Muslim world considers Him a prophet of God second only to Muhammad and Muslims must say the blessing "May Peace Be Upon Him" when speaking His name. It must be said that Christians do not return the courtesy, which is not to our credit.

The Christmas Story is a grand story that teaches of a great Soul, The Christ, entering our world and beginning the transformation of our way of thinking, speaking and living. It is a story of revolutionary change, the kind that comes only once every two thousand years or so. It reminds us that God is very much alive and active in our world and our lives - to the extent that we recognize Him and allow Him in.

As we ponder the meaning of Christmas let's remember that every day should be like Christmas Eve when strangers embrace and say, "Hello" and wish each other Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. Every stranger we meet is our brother or sister and their welfare is our welfare for we are bound together in the great fraternity of God's Creation. We are all One in Christ and one in God. Let's act as if this is so, because my friends it truly is. There is not one human on this planet, or one being on any other, who is not the child of God. If we ever really all believe this, Paradise here on Earth will surely come to pass. What we imagine, we can create. Join me and imagine us all brothers and sisters all over the globe - one family.

May you make every day of 2010 your Christmas Day where Peace on Earth and Goodwill toward Mankind is manifested in your life. May you be a Christ in training and live the teaching. That is the key, to live the teaching - The circumstances of His life wasn't the point, where He went and what He did was not the point. Even the sacrifice of His death was not the real point of the Greatest Story. It is how He taught us to love, to care about each other, to bless even those who will not bless us - that is the True Christmas Story.

May each of you experience the Blessing of God each day of 2010, may you walk with the Father in all that you do and may your Christmas, your Holiday time be the merriest ever.

AND SO IT IS!

Rev. Dore' Jacques Patlian

How To Be Happy!

Happiness! Who in the world does not yearn to posses this often elusive state of mind? We all seem to want it; most of us have experienced it for a while only to see it evaporate like mist in the morning.

Happiness is enshrined in the consciousness of every American child when he or she learns that in our Declaration of Independence we have the inalienable right, given by God, to Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness. If there is another country that makes the pursuit of happiness a right of every citizen, please send an e-mail to me and let me know about it. It seems to me to be a uniquely American obsession.

Think about this phrase in the seminal document that launched the great American Experiment in representative government - Pursuit of Happiness; as if happiness were a fox or a rabbit that we pursued through the tangle of underbrush that makes up our lives. Just think of what that phrase really says. Happiness is something that you can acquire if you chase it hard enough and long enough or if you are good enough! Is that really what happiness is? Can you really "find" happiness in relationships, money, posessions?

I don't believe it! Happiness is the ultimate "inside job". It comes from within or not at all. Americans probably spend more time and treasure chasing happiness than any people in the world, but I have observed that we are not the happiest people in the world.

Why? Because you cannot acquire happiness from a thing or an outside circumstance in your life. A new face, new car, new job, new spouse, new address, does not make you happy because you are still you. Wherever you go, there you are! "As within, so without", Scripture tells us bluntly. Listen to what one of the greatest teachers God has sent to us,Jesus of Nazareth, had to say.

Jesus said that the Kingdom of God is not up there or over there or in this or that. He said it was within each of us. To Him the Kingdom of God was not a place but a state of Mind; of course we misunderstood His words as we did most of what He taught. We equate the Kingdom of God with a place or a time when God rules the Earth in the form of Jesus. Jesus was pretty clear that it is a state of mind or a beingness. You become the Kingdom of God, you do not travel to it!

You will find happiness only when you learn to love yourself and your neighbor - your fellow human. At no time did Jesus tell us that a bigger house, a nicer car or a better job would transport us to the Kingdom of God or into a permanent state of bliss. Only a renewal of your mind and heart will make you happy. Only then will your life be transformed.

Now be clear about this! There is nothing wrong with having a comfortable, abundant life. We are not condemned to a life of lack or suffering in order to be One with God. The point here is that while we can enjoy driving that nice car, living in the lovely home or working in the top floor corner office; the pleasure, the "high", always wears off. Soon, this new state of abundance becomes ordinary and then we need more and more and more and there is never enough to fill the hole in our soul that we desperately need to fill to feel satisfied. Enjoy the "stuff" but know that it is just "stuff" and that the thrill is short lived. Know that to be happy every day of your life you need to do two things.

Here they are: read, re-read and heed.

Keys to Happiness:

1. Know that you are a Creation of the Most High God who is the Indwelling God in you - not a mistake or damaged goods. You are not a surprise to God - He made you, He loves you, He is pleased with you, no matter what you are now or what you have done in the past. You are a work in progress. God knows who you are. He loves to see you grow and learn and to atone. Look at that word atone. It is AT ONE, isn;'t it. That is the key, to be AT ONE with God. It is not about apologizing or promising to be better, but about waking up to the reality that you are a Divine Expression of God; that God lives through His Creations including you. You are literally an experience God is having right now.

You and God are one. Once you get this, you will change because you have just come face to face with your Higher Self, the Self that know that it is One with God. You will never feel the same again. The things that used to "push your buttons" (American for causing upset) no longer have power over you. The people that you used to look down upon or judge, you now know are literally your brothers and sisters. The things that used to cause stress and worry are now seen as minor bumps in a road on which all are guaranteed to reach their destination. You finally understand that you are invincible, you cannot really be hurt - you have all the power of God as close as your Mind and your Word and your acceptance of God as the center of all there is.

Knowing that, how can you not be happy every day of your life? You are not a weak worm in the dust, you are made of the stuff of God. You are of Royal Blood and are a magnificent being, an eternal Spirit in training. Self hatred is the great enemy of your perfect life. Loving yourself is essential if you are to love God and to love other people. You cannot give love if you have no love to give! True happiness comes only when you understand what and who you are.

2. Love everyone you meet. They are literally your brothers and sisters. We all came from the same Creator, the same Universal Mind that created all that exists in this world and billions we have yet to experience. We are literally One in God, we are individualized expressions of that God. Put God at the center of your life for God is the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and ending of all things, including us. Each of us are bound together, no matter our skin color, culture, religion, by a common parentage - God, the Most High and the Indwelling God which are one and the same.

Here is the essential key to Oneness and the freedom and power that it brings to your life. Know that the fellow in the next office that is so irritating is your brother - he is a Creation of the same High God that created you! Like and love are not the same thing. You do not have to like him but you do have to love him. That means accept him for who he is, get out of judgement and find the good in that person and magnify that in your Mind. Give little or no thought to the unpleasant aspects of their being. See yourself as being One with this person, knowing that we are all One since God creates all that exists. There is NOTHING outside of God, including your irritating neighbor in the next office.

3. Practice Gratitude twice each day without fail by doing this: Upon awakening and just before sleeping, take time to speak your Word of Gratitude for at least 5 things for which you are grateful this day. Never start or end a day without thanking God for every blessing of your life, even if it is that you are still alive and that you will see the sun tomorrow. There are always things for which to be grateful.

Throughout your day, focus your thoughts on all the things for which you are grateful. Gratitude brings more to you, you become a magnet for your Good. I call gratitude the "motor oil" of God's Universe. It lubricates the engine of your life, bringing you more of what you cherish. Here are some examples of what gratitude and the understanding of who we really are can do in the lives of some men in the worst possible situations:

I did some spiritual counseling in prisons a while back; I was amazed that there were several of the inmates I worked with who were really quite happy in their state of being. How can you be happy in prison? They did not wish to be in prison - who does? But they had accepted that their choices had put them where they were, they were not victims and that realization freed them to use the experience for learning, growth and to become a new person. These men each told me that the change came when they surrendered to the moment and to a power greater than themselves. At that moment, the chains of victimhood fell off and they could see prison as a soul school and not a punishment.

One that was particularly memorable earned a Phd. in psychology while serving a 15 year sentence at San Quentin Prison. As he told me, he certainly had the time! His degree was from the University of California, Berkely - one of the top five Universities in the world! He received it free of charge, courtesy of the taxpayers of the State of California. He was a convicted armed robber and an attempted murderer who transformed his life when given the chance. 12 years he worked on his Doctorate and when he finally finished his Dissertation and was granted his degree he was given his parole and became a Professor in the University of California System.

That is turning hard time in one of America's worst prisons into a new life. That is creating happiness from the inside out and demonstrating the power of gratitude in your life. "Sweet Ernie" as he was called on the streets of South Central LA in his gang days, had come from the dregs to the halls of Academe. Can you do the same? Like Ernie, you can change the worst childhoods, the worst circumstances and the worst punishments into a life transforming experience - do you have the courage, the belief, the imagination to see beyond the "facts" of you life now? Can you be grateful when all around you seems bleak?

More on happiness next week.... May God Bless and Keep You!

Rev. Dore' Jacques Patlian

Living The Abundant Life

Let's talk about wealth and living the abundant life. In the last message we discussed health and how to begin to use the power of God's Law to heal our body, our mind and our lives. Now we will turn our attention to perhaps the most misunderstood area of human life - wealth and abundant living.

In many cultures, notably in the US, there is a very conflicted attitude about wealth. Everyone seems to want it, our society glorifies the "good life" and the American Dream which includes a comfortable, happy life, but many disdain those who have wealth as unworthy, greedy and uncaring of others. While there are certainly many examples of wealthy people who fit that description well, there are also many, many more who spend much of their time giving a great portion of their wealth away to good and noble causes.

I believe that our problem with wealth lies with us being a predominantly Christian nation that has often misunderstand the Bible and what it has to say about wealth and the wealthy. As children we were spoon fed Bible tales that seemed to say that to go to Heaven you must be meek and poor. We have an idea that goodness and money are mutually exclusive. Few people plan to be a bad person, so its no wonder that we seem to make poverty somehow noble and fine and it is anything but! We often hear the phrase "money is the root of all evil" spoken in churches across America and in many other cultures and countries. The Bible does not say that money is the root of all evil.

What the Bible actually says is that the love of money is the root of all evil which is certainly true! To place your focus on money as an end and take your attention and focus off of the Creator of the Universe; the Indwelling and Most High God, is to miss the entire point of your existence on this planet. You were not put here to see who could die with the most toys and have the most money in the bank. I have never seen a luggage rack on a hearse, have you? You were put here to learn to love unconditionally and to enjoy the abundant life while learning unconditional love. It is very possible to do both at the same time.

Remember, money is a tool, nothing more. To love money is error thinking; it is a bit like the carpenter falling in love with his hammer. He may value the hammer as the instrument of his work which allows him to make a good living, but he understands that taking care of his family and himself is the goal and the focus - not the hammer. So it is with money. Money is a tool that allows us to be comfortable and to give comfort and pleasurable experiences to those we love. Money gives us choices and freedom of action and as such is a gift from God. God wants us to be free to choose the life we wish to live but living without a dime makes this pretty difficult. The freedom to thrive economically is vital to living the life we are all born to live-the abundant life.

Without economic freedom, there is no real freedom - the Founding Fathers of the United States knew this very well and that is why they enshrined the sacred right of acquiring and protecting property as a pillar of the American way of life. This does not mean that money should ever be the focus or center of your life. Living a money centered life brings emptiness and the nagging feeling that there must be more and indeed there is.

Without the peace of knowing that you are God expressing as you, that there is no separation between you and God; how does it profit you to be a billionaire? But with the peace of God, with the knowledge of who and what you are; with wealth you can be of service to your fellow human in ways that can make a lasting difference and perhaps change the world.

The great Truth about material wealth is that poverty is a state of mind and not a state of your bank balance. Poverty is optional and if you like poverty you have a perfect right to it. This is what Jesus meant when he said that the poor will always be with us. Some people would rather live in lack than learn the lessons and make the deep changes in thinking that are necessary to truly get out of poverty or the state of "just enough", which is the state of being in which so many of us spend our lives.

Are you ready to move from not enough or just getting by to the Abundant Life? To do this you must first change your thinking and speaking about wealth and the people who have it. Do you believe that you cannot be a spiritual person and be wealthy at the same time? Do you believe that you must "sell your soul to the devil" to become abundant? Do you believe that people of wealth are less worthy or less good? If you have these beliefs you will never be abundant! What you are inside and what you believe at your core of being is what you create as your life. You cannot change your life in any meaningful way until you change you from the inside out.

Why do so many live in poverty if abundance is just a change of mind and heart away? Our beliefs imprison us in the state of mind we inhabit right now. If you live in the mind state of poverty, you can struggle all you want and you will remain poor. Even if you inherited or won riches, you would find a way to get rid of the wealth in short order because you cannot inhabit a state of poverty thinking and be wealthy. You mind creates your reality. You must change your belief in the nobility of poverty and that somehow it is better to be "poor but honest". This belief implies that to be wealthy is to be a dishonest, deceitful and a crook..

There are thousands and thousands of wealthy men and women who are wonderful people who help millions directly and indirectly with their wealth and their love. Have you ever considered that the poor have only their labor to give and thus can only make a limited impact on the world? A billionaire can, and often does, change society, fund a cure, create wealth for others through employing thousands. Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, T. Boone Pickens, John Templeton - this list is endless of these modern day "angels" of prosperity.

Your poverty thinking will keep you scraping along with just enough all of your life.
Get over it! Remember poverty is a state of mind, not a financial fact. Mike Todd, the famous movie producer and first husband of Elizabeth Taylor, led a millionaire's life one year and flat broke another. He was a classic risk taker, a throw the dice and let it ride kind of man and he made no apologies for it. He is quoted as saying "I have been broke many times in my life but I have never spent a day poor". He may have not had a dime in his pocket but in his mind he was wealthy and what the mind believes tenaciously and consistently will always come to pass.

As long as you think, speak and act poor you will be poor. If you read our last message then you know that the same is true for health. Think sickness, speak of illness and expect illness and you will surely have it. Is it just happy talk or "positive thinking" that will make you rich? No, I am sorry to say that it takes much more than that. Here is how it can work for you.

You decide to change from the poverty state of mind to the abundance state of mind. OK, fine, that's a great start but you still won't wake up the next morning with a million in the bank. You have, however, ploughed the soil of your Mind and planted the seeds of abundance with your new thinking, speaking and new expectations. You have made a great start. Now what?

In your poverty mind, you would say: "things like that never happen to people like us", or "I could never have anything like that". And so it was. As you thought, so you were. Now you say: "I can see myself living in that lovely home - I belong there, I deserve to be there". Or "my children are going to go to that college, they are smart and they deserve to be there and I will make sure they can go" instead of "no one in my family ever went to college, who do you think you are?" This is poor folks talk and I heard it for 18 years as a teacher in inner-city Los Angeles. The only difference between the people in South Central and the people in the Valley (sections of Los Angeles) is that one section accepts their condition of lack and limitation and expects more of the same and the other section, even if they are working class people, believe that they can live the good life and that they will. Both areas have fine people who deserve the very best but to get it they have to learn to expect it, think abundantly and imagine it as done regardless of their current bank balance.

It is all about belief - "it is done unto you as you believe".

Here are the basics:

1.Think about where you want to go in life, never about where you are now.

2.Expect what you want in life, no matter what the "facts" are now.

3.Remember, today' facts are the results of yesterday's thinking and believing and today's abundant thinking will produce tomorrow's life of abundance!

4.Watch programs on TV about the life you want. Read books about the life you want. Spend time with the people who are living the life you want; watch how they talk, what they talk about, who they are inside.

5.Then, use the greatest gift God has given to each of us, and humanity alone, the power of imagination. Imagine yourself in the fine home, that nice car, those lovely clothes and your children happy and safe.

6.Imagine everything about the life you want - the sights, the smells, the feel of it. Make it real. Go see homes like the one you want. Go look at cars or boats or RV's like the one you want. Imagine yourself owning and enjoying these things.

7.Imagine yourself as God's deputy, licensed to have the abundant life. The fact that you are here on this planet means that you deserve abundance. It is your birthright, claim it!

8.Imagine yourself as One with the Infinite Mind of God, able to create your desires with Love and Light and ease.

9.Imagination is the portal to all of your life. Positive and negative - it is neutral; it works both ways so watch how you use this greatest power that you posses!


10. Fear not for I am with you always, God has promised you this, so no fear! Your greatest fears will come to pass! So will your greatest desires if you use God's Law of Mind Action.

Next time we'll explore the concept of happiness, what is it and how do we get it.

God loves your and so do I!

Rev. Dore' Jacques Patlian

Health, Wealth and Happiness

In our last post we discussed the ideas of reward and punishment and our deep cultural belief in them. I suppose it appeals to the "fairness" we all seem to seek in a world never designed to be fair. The world is just in the sense of karmic justice; what you put out in life you do receive, pressed down to overflowing. What you sow you surely will reap, but rarely from the same person or in like manner.

Let's carry this discussion of Universal Law, the Law of the Most High God and the Indwelling God, who are one and the same, into the realms of health, wealth and that most elusive of human conditions - happiness. Just as there is Divine Justice in returning to us what we sow in like or greater measure, so it is with heath, wealth and happiness. Let's look at health, that most important of the three because without it, wealth is meaningless and happiness is fleeting.

What we mean when we speak of health is really wellness. Wellness is an overall feeling of physical and mental well being. We in the West are finally making the first strides toward learning what the East has known for over 3,000 years - that the Mind is the cause all everything that exists in our world including the state of our physical body.

To separate the Mind from the body, as Western Medicine has done for 1400 years, is to see our body as a machine that operates independently from the Mind; a mechanical device capable of getting "sick" without any help or hindrance from the very Mind that animates the body. What an incredible idea - one wonders how such supposedly learned men and women could believe this foolish notion and prescribe remedies based on this error thinking with a straight face!

What about germs, you say! Don't we get sick due to germs? Isn't that proven by Science? Yes, and NO! There are biological beings we call germs, viruses and the like and they do carry the seeds of certain diseases, we all accept that truth as a great discovery of Western Medicine. However, why is it that one person will succumb to flu every time flu season comes around (you can see where the dis-ease is caused already if you think about the term "flue season") and another person in the same environment and same circumstances will not? If the germ is the causative factor, then why aren't all who come in contact sick?

Well, you might say, one person's resistance to the dis-ease is stronger than an other's. Yes, that is true but why? What lowers the resistance? Our belief in the dis-ease and its inevitability in our lives is what sapps our ability to resist the agents of dis-ease that are all around us. This belief in disease programs the Mind to allow the carriers of the dis-ease into the body and allows the body to feel the symptoms of the dis-ease.

By now, you have probably noticed that I am writing dis-ease rather than than the usual disease. That is because disease is dis ease in the Mind - the Mind is not at ease and therefore neither is the body. Wherever the Mind goes, the body must follow. The body has no volition of its own, any one can see that. Without the Mind, the body can do nothing. It has no function other than to play host to the Mind. Do you realize that the Mind is NOT the brain? The brain is the electro-chemical organic computer that the Mind uses to communicate with it's host body.

Have you ever thought of the relation of your Mind to your body just this way? Think about it. No scientist knows where the Mind is located, the latest theory is that it is located in every cell of our body. I believe that the Mind is our Soul, they are one and the same. Our Mind is God in us, it's our Spirit, our Soul and it lives on after the body, the host, is no longer needed and is dust.

How do we maximize our health and well being using this divine principle of Mind Action? We stop thinking sick thoughts, we stop expecting illness at certain times of the year, (flu season, who declared that? Why the makers of cold and flue medicine, who else?) we stop talking about illness, sharing juicy stories of our operations and illnesses with our friends over lunch and begin to think wellness, health, well being.

Talk about how young we feel at 64, how amazing it is that even though we were once "sick" now we fee just fine. We use our Mind to heal our body, that is a gift given to every human on Earth by our Good Father. We all have the power within us to heal ourselves and others, if we so desire. Sometimes we cannot do this because we are too caught up in the symptoms of the illness to see the Truth. That is normal and is not to be seen as a failure or a sign of a lack of faith. You cannot expect the lobster sitting in the pot of boiling water to cure his condition - he may need a hand out of the pot. Sometimes, so do we.

We may want to seek help from a person who totally believes in our health, sees our health for us when we are too much in affect ( the symptoms of the illness) to see our wellness as Truth. These healing people in Science of Mind are called Practitioners and you could say they are professionals in healing the Mind which then heals the body. Through Spiritual Mind Treatment, our form of affirmative prayer, we see the Truth of our patient's Perfection, the Divine Truth of a perfect creation of a perfect being we call God. Prayer, properly applied, is the most powerful tool available for healing the Mind, Soul and Heart.

Oh, we do not deny the symptom, we just deny that it is our Truth. We say when we feel illness coming on, take a pill and a prayer! We do believe very much in using modern medicine to alleviate the symptoms while we heal the cause with prayer.

Illness is not who you are, it is only an experience you are having and it can be changed when you change your Mind. Your symptom of disease is a symptom of your belief in disease and illness. Once that is dispelled, so will be the illness. That is the power of so called "faith healers"; they induce absolute belief in the Mind of the one they are treating and thus the patient is often healed. They have no special gift other than charisma and the ability to transmit absolute certainty to another. You can do what they do when you learn how. The power to heal yourself and even others is your birthright but like any other great gift, if must be carefully developed and practiced. That is what we will teach here in this blog.

To be healthy, by all means take care of the physical body - do not induce poisons into it, eat well but in moderation. (by the way humans were designed to eat meat, be a vegetarian if you wish, but it is NOT our natural state, we are created to be omnivores - in other words we'll eat anything!)

Do all things in moderation - the Greeks knew it 2800 years ago and it is still the greatest truth there is. Most of all, fill your Mind, your Heart and your mouth with thoughts and words of good report. Think well, speak of wellness and good feeling, expect to be well regardless of all the reports of disease, flu other maladies. Be openhearted - shun resentment and bitterness; anger kills so be forgiving in all things. Remember that nothing and no one can make you happy. Happiness is an inside job, only you can make you happy and you are happy only when you believe that you are -regardless of the circumstances around you.

Happiness begets wellness. Sorrow, bitterness, anger kill the Spirit and with it destroy the body. Why do we have an epidemic of cancer in the world today? I believe the cause of cancer is sorrow, bitterness, resentment, unresolved anger and guilt. These very strong emotions turn the body against itself and that is the very definition of cancer. The location of your particular cancer will be the region of the body that harbors the anger, guilt, sorrow or the area of your abuse (smoking, drinking, gluttony).

This explains why the old fellow who drank a quart of whisky a day and smoked three packs of smokes every day, lived to be 96 in perfect health and a Mormon friend of mine who never drank and never lit a cigarette in his life, died of lung cancer at 49! One was happy, at peace with his world, even though he abused his body, his Mind was at peace. The other took marvelous care of his body but not such good care of his Mind,; guilt, sense of unworthiness, anger all took their toll on his well kept body.

Next week, we'll talk of wealth and material well being. Tune in for this one, it's always a favorite topic! Until then, may the God within you and the Most High God bless you, give you peace and make Her face to shine upon you!

Rev. Dore' Jacques Patlian

Reward and Punishment

Does God reward us when we are very good and punish us when we are bad? I suspect that most people around the world would say: Yes! Isn't that the way the world works? You get rewarded when you do the right thing and punished when you don't. No, actually it isn't how the world works most of the time and that is what creates the great tension between what we are taught as children in church, temple, shul, or mosque, and what we see and experience in the world around us. Our life experience just doesn't square with our religious training in so many instances.

If that is so, then our religion quickly becomes less and less relevant to our daily lives and soon becomes a set of rituals that give us some comfort and a sense of belonging but have little real impact in our daily lives. For our spiritual practice to really be the center of our lives, it has to reflect how life really works and how things can really be if we follow the teaching. When we see a person judged by most in our community as bad but living a lavish and prosperous life, while the hard working, honest and good person barely scrapes by and encounters all manner of obstacles and hardships, we have to wonder why bad things happen to good people and the converse.

Jesus told us how it really works but we did not listen or understand because what He told us ran counter to what we were taught as children and how we thought it OUGHT to be. The Universe does NOT operate as we think it OUGHT to operate - it operates according to immutable laws laid down before the foundation of the Universe.

When Jesus told us that "To those who have much, even more shall be added unto them and to those who have little, even the little they have shall be taken from them" we recoiled from this seemingly unloving and unfair statement. It is often seen as one of Jesus' most controversial statements and causes a crisis of faith among many Christians. He was saying that those who think, speak and live poverty will receive even more. Those who think, speak and live wealth will receive more wealth. What you focus on, you create in your life!

Jesus told us the truth, often the cold hard unvarnished truth, but always the truth. Let's review what He said and what WE often believe.

Jesus said that it is done unto us as we BELIEVE. We are taught that it is done unto us as we DO.

Jesus said that the Kingdom of God was within each of us. We are taught that the Kingdom of God must be earned through good works and that it is located in a place called Heaven.

Jesus said that each of us gets in our life just what we believe in and expect to receive. We are taught that we get in our life what our Good Father wishes to give us and not one thing more.

Jesus said that we can heal anything in our lives, including our bodies with our faith and our belief. (It is your faith that does the work, not I). We have been taught that healing and life transformation comes from the Father by way of miracles and does not come from within each of us.

Jesus told us that no one can enter the Kingdom of Heaven unless he or she develops the Christ Mind, that mind that KNOWS THE LAWS of God and how to operate them. (No one comes to the Father except through me). We take that central statement of Christianity as the ultimate ego trip, if you don't worship me, you will never get to Heaven or be one with God.

Jesus was incapable of the human flaw of egotism - he had learned to literally develop the absolute unity with God that we call the Christ Mind, which is why he was called Jesus The Christ in His own time. He knew how to think as God thinks; He knew how to create as God creates.

He was telling us that until we learn what He had learned, we will never see the Father and we will never enter the Kingdom of Heaven (which is the peace that passes all understanding) The entrance to this Kingdom is within our own hearts and minds.

Then to make sure we understood that this was not just HIS gift but the gift of every human who will seek it; He told us that everything that HE did, we can do also -if we become students of Divine Law and learn to use it as HE did. It really is our good Father's pleasure to give us the Kingdom of God. In fact he has hard wired it in each one of us. All we need do is learn God's simple instructions for Living in the Law and we can do what the Christ did so long ago.

Now, I know that many readers may say, "Why Rev. that's blasphemy, only Jesus could do those things". I say to you that you could not be more mistaken. He told us repeatedly that He did only what each of us could do if we were willing to devote the time, the practice and the study of God's Laws, both spiritual and physical. Most of us are not willing to devote this much time, energy and focus so few ever achieve proficiency as Master's of Law and so only a very few possess this "gift".

Start today to understand this. There is no outside force that rewards and punishes. The Law instituted by God at the beginning of time creates our life experience in this life and in succeeding lives in response to just what we believe, think, speak and do. Nothing more, nothing less. We sow seeds with every thought we think that hardens into a belief. We sow seeds with every word we speak to ourselves or others, for good or ill. We sow seeds with every deed we do or every deed we omit doing.

Our greatest errors are in what we do not do, even though we are prodded to do it by the voice of God within. We allow fear, sloth and ignorance to keep us from the Kingdom time and time again. We know that we have done this the moment we decide that it is inconvenient or dangerous or scary to do the right thing. We always know!

What we sow, we surely do reap. If we plant corn we shall harvest corn. If we plant weeds, we shall harvest weeds! So many of us seem to believe that God will play favorites just this once and give us a bountiful harvest of luscious fruit from a lifetime of sowing weeds. Never has happened and never will. God is not and never has been in the punishment or reward business. We do it to ourselves! Hear this now!

We sow the seeds of our own joy and delight or the seeds of our own barren life of despair and disappointment. We are the directors and producers of our lives and the results of that life. God has cast us in the part and offers advice and direction but the outcome is ours to determine.

What if we have spent most of our life sowing weeds and poison? Are we then condemned by our own foolishness and ignorance to experience nothing but illness, poverty, despair? Oh, we shall experience some of what we have sown surely; but we may change the outcome on the very moment that we change our MIND.

On the day that we change our speaking, thinking and doing, on that day shall we be transformed and it is NEVER too late. God is not interested in how we begin our life's journey or in "keeping score" -that's what humans love to do and God is not human.

God is very interested in how we FINISH this life experience. God's favorite award is the Most Improved Player Award. Ours is the Most Valuable Player award. Can you see the difference? God is not about Champions. God is all about those who, through the renewing of their minds and hearts, rise from the ashes of their previous life of error and sorrow into the bright dawn of transformation and joy. God has no interest in our suffering, only we think that suffering is noble.

Transformation may be the hardest thing you ever do in this life. It takes tremendous will, great focus and discipline and the constant monitoring of what you are thinking, saying and choosing. You cannot any longer live unconsciously, just drifting along until the end comes. Now you live each moment awake and aware of everything you think, say and do and you know that you are totally accountable for all of it. The rewards of conscious living are beyond human comprehension. Are you strong enough? Do you want it enough?

It's very simple but it is certainly not easy! Tune in next week and we'll talk more about it.

God loves you so much and so do I!

Rev. Dore' Jacques Patlian

God and Spirituality

In my last post I shared with you my views on God and religion and the fact that often religion has much more to do with ceremony, ritual, dogma and rules than about worship and honor of the Creator of all that exists. We also examined together the idea that God has nothing to do with religion, did not create it and cares little for it. If God had created religion, why did he create so many and why do none of them agree with each other? Religion is a man made construct used to divide you from me and both of us from "those people" over there. God unites, religion divides.

I concluded my last post by urging each of my readers to begin the journey toward an authentic relationship with God. Let each one of us open a dialogue with that Infinite Mind we call God and begin to truly experience God in our hearts - not the version of God that we were taught in Sunday School, shul, or at our mosque, but the authentic God that lives in our hearts and deep within our soul. Find your own concept of that One Infinite Mind that is the alpha and the omega of all being.

Worshiping your father's God is a bit like living out your father's dream or trying to live his life. It just never seems to fit; its like wearing someone else's shoes. Find your own concept of God. There is only one God, the Most High God and the Indwelling God and they are one and the same but every human has his or her concept of what that God is what God does. No prophet or teacher can tell you what is in your heart and soul. Find out for yourself.

God transcends time and space; is so vast a concept that the human mind has difficulty in creating a concept of something so limitless and all powerful. We create gods in human form in order to obtain a mental picture of the God we worship. Whether a prophet such as Muhammad or a son such as Jesus; we seem to need a human from which to receive our spirituality. The problem with creating our own human image of God is that is that each culture or tribe of mankind makes their own man/God in their image and thus divides God's creations into warring camps; each claiming that their vision of God and their prophet or man/God is the TRUE God.

Why not dispense with the need to see God, to envision God and learn to feel and hear God within you? Your senses cannot lead you to the Father. Your heart can and will if you open it. When you can do this, you have finally found the real God. You have "arrived" spiritually. You have achieved Gnosis or a knowing of the Truth of God.

How then can you and I begin to know God and develop a personal loving relationship with Him?

Let's start with having a conversation with God, just as you would with a good and wise friend. If you believe that God can and just might strike you dead with a thunderbolt, that can make real dialogue rather difficult. In order to be close to God you must realize that in Truth you are ONE with God. You must realize that each of us is to God as the cells of our body are to us. We are part of God and God is part of us, so there is nothing to fear and everything to gain by becoming a friend of God.

God loves you, God knows who you are better than you know who you are - after all He has known you since before the beginning of time and will know you throughout all eternity. You are no surprise to God. He is like an old and dear friend who has lost touch with his favorite childhood friend. He is anxious to connect again with a part of Himself that he has not been able to visit you for a long time. He can only reunite with his wayward creation if you invite Him in. Don't keep Him waiting - go walk on the beach, go up into the mountains, out into the desert - anywhere that brings you peace and serenity and just start talking to God.

Don't pray in the traditional sense. Begging is not establishing a friendship, it is establishing a state of need. If you want to become a partner and friend of God, you cannot be His dependent. He is the Lord of the Universe so approach God with an attitude of gratitude and respect. Be willing to listen to things you really don't want to hear. From a dialogue with God your life will be forever transformed.

He wants to be a part of your life and is eager to help but He never forces Himself upon you. "Knock and it shall be answered" "seek and you shall find", so go and knock upon his door and ask Him to come out and play with you. He will be thrilled, I can assure you. Share with God, don't dump your problems upon Him or complain. Just talk and share the wonderful things in your life and the challenges as well, just as you would do with a friend.

Then just listen. You will not hear thunder from heaven. You will hear your voice saying things you would not say and have not ever said. You will receive ideas and inspiration that you know is not the way you usually speak or think. That is how you will know you are connected to the Most High God and the Indwelling God. No matter what form your celebration of God takes, it is vital that you develop a strong and wonderful friendship with the Great Soul, the Creator of all that is and that it transforms your life forever.

May each of your days and nights be blessed by the Indwelling Spirit of God.

Rev. Dore' Jacques Patlian