by Fredd Dunham • Brother Lawrence became a monk in the seventeenth century. His whole life was devoted to practicing God’s presence. When he worked in the kitchen he said he loved to cook and clean for his fellow monks. Although at first he disliked the chores, he was happy to be of service. Later he was moved to a shoe repair shop on the premises. He was happy there, but location or occupation seemed to make no difference to him. All he cared about was his connection with God. He viewed work time as equal to time spent in traditional prayer. His goal was to be aware of God every moment.
For Brother Lawrence, this meant denouncing everything that distracted him from the presence of God. His soul knew he should entertain a continuous conversation with his Creator, a conversation of utmost simplicity, free of mystery. He sought, every moment to ask for and discern Divine Will in all doubtful things. Doing well the things asked of him, he offered his labors humbly to God—with prayer before doing them, and thanks for the opportunity to serve after doing them.
In this continuous conversation we, likewise, can be unceasingly engaged in loving God. Brother Lawrence asserts, “We should ask for grace in every moment, in every action. In time of doubt God never fails to enlighten us when we have no other purpose than to please him and ask for his love. People always mistake the means for the end, attaching certain importance to the work they do….” He found that the best way of reaching God was to do ordinary work, performed entirely for love—not for the value man places on it. He thought it a great delusion that time set aside for prayer should be different from other times.
Something that has brought me closest to actively knowing God’s presence is feeling the vortex of Spirit’s energy spinning above me, around me, and entering my body through the crown of the head. I first became aware of this in quiet meditation. But we can talk to God at any point in our day, and may subtly or dramatically feel God’s presence moving through us. That Presence brings with it a feeling of ecstasy.
Once feeling the life force of Spirit, you can expand the vortex to include your environment and ultimately the whole planet. Imagine it nurturing everything. I’ve found, that if something happens in my life causing me a moment of need, I can draw on this vortex and be protected by the Spirit of God. Having Spirit’s love around me gives me the peace of knowing that everything is going to be okay. We each can harmonize with God’s will through our devotion and practice.
Brother Lawrence lived in times much simpler than ours, but he managed to disengage himself from the complications of daily life by focusing on his inner connection with Spirit. We can do much the same in our busy lives. If you can devote even five minutes twice a day in meditation—morning and evening—to connect with Spirit, you will help yourself and others immensely. Brother Lawrence advised us to practice awareness of God all day and night. Through that dedication he was able to live a humble, purposeful and joyous life, and so might we.
•by Jake Collier•What an incredible imagination the Great Spirit has—to not only bring into being all of creation, but to have the imagination to create these amazing bodies, our earthly temples. Sometimes we might ask ourselves, “Why is the energy of karma woven into this divine plan?”
The original concept of karma was to perpetuate ecstasy in these bodies so that in each lifetime souls who walked in the body would live in virtue, peace, and harmony. In this way they would be creating wondrously helpful energies to take into the next life [good karma], further perpetuating ecstasy in each existence on Earth.
Think of life here as being like taking a hike in the wilderness. No matter how hard we try to not break or hurt anything, we crush the grass that we walk on; we might step on some insects; branches break under foot. It’s impossible to make the journey without affecting something, and creating karma.
How many of us, when we go on vacation, pack a bag, or several. Yet when we get to our destination, we’re inspired to purchase more things, more bags with souvenirs and gifts from that experience, that existence. So it is with karma. All the energetics of our past actions are packed, and coming into this life with us—we bring our soul’s baggage from past existences due to the law of cause and effect.
Karma belongs not only to individuals—there is group karma, community karma, city karma, and country karma. It can be seen throughout history, wherein civilizations have risen and fallen, countries have flourished and perished.
Cause and Effect is really a wonderful cosmic design because, like the scales of justice, we can pack our virtuous thoughts and purely motivated actions onto one side of the scale, tipping it toward a better life for ourselves, a higher consciousness, and toward a positive effect on others and our communities.
Many times people use the idea of karma as a cop-out, an excuse: “Oh, it’s my karma to do this.” In reality, each moment we have the ability to change our lives, to perpetuate pure thoughts and actions. Thankfully, there have been those souls, those evolved beings, who have come here and passed on techniques of meditation through which we can burn up karmas that we brought into this life, as well as karmas we are generating.
When practiced on a regular basis, meditation can transform our lives, altering our future. We can begin to experience the taste of ecstasy, and once we have that taste, it’s all we desire—to taste it again and again. When we feel God’s ecstasy, we know there is nothing in this life better than that. When we are totally in that moment, feeling the Divine vibrating all around and within us, it’s such joy, such peace.
Mother Father God, make your truths known to us. May our vision become clearer and our thoughts purer,
that we might dwell in your house here on this Earth
as a pure reflection of you. Amen
•by Norman Paulsen, Sunburst Founder•In our deep meditations, each one of us can sit in the presence of I Am That I Am, our Creator, our beloved Father and Mother. We are all connected in that energy, in that wondrous Spirit. Like the wind, it blows life through all our souls and caresses our hearts.
Oh Beloved, we all want to see you as you really are, face to face. Like a son, like a daughter looks at their earthly parents, so we want to look upon you, to really see you, to hug you, to have our hearts filled with your great love. This is what this life is about. You created each one of us—each one with a different face—that you might enjoy and work and live through each of us, and that some day you might awaken us to your presence within. Yes, to know who we really are, to know that you really exist—we can know, see, and feel you.
I know this Being that we call by many names loves each one of us so very, very much; and cares for each one of us, and has so uniquely created each one of us. Just look at all the faces, each one different. All the faces of our Creator cover this world today, but how many really know who they are? The Infinite One is pleading with us, its children, that we sit down and find out who we really are.
The opening of the way that is being offered to all of us, if we seek it, can save our planet. This beautiful jewel floating here in space has become polluted by the mismanagement and waste of mankind, yet it struggles on. The effects of this maltreatment can be seen in the weather and the natural catastrophes that continue to come. We each need to live a virtuous life the best we can, and make the effort to sit down in stillness and meet our Creator face to face.
Our energy emanates out through our meditations and prayers and it becomes a tool in God’s hands for helping others, and for saving this world. We really need to do something about what is happening around us in our world.
The good news is that God is present in the hearts and minds of each one of us, hearing us as we think, feel, and desire. Our work within and without becomes a force for good to turn the tide.
“Your problem is how you are going to spend this one odd and precious life you have been issued. Whether you’re going to spend it trying to look good and creating the illusion that you have power over people and circumstances, or whether you are going to taste it, enjoy it, and find out the truth about who you are.” – Anne Lamott
by Sibylle Custer•One of Sunburst’s eight paths of conscious living is Recreation. This story is about recreation. When I was a teenager living in Germany, my family visited a farm in the north because my Mom knew the people there. They were friends of hers, and had invited us to visit them.
At the time, I went to a very rigorous school, requiring a lot of academic learning. I was doing homework and reading books all the time. Going to that farm was a totally different life experience for me because we were helping out there, and that meant hard, physical work, which I was not used to at all.
The work went all day long, and the hardest part was being out in the field in the hot, summer heat. Although the oat field was ready to be mowed, a tractor couldn’t be used because the ground was too boggy, too marshy. The whole field had to be cut by hand with a scythe.
The women were working behind the men who were cutting. We had to gather together all the cut oat stems, put them in a bunch and tie it up with some other oat straws. It was hard work, bending down all the time and picking up oat stalks. This was in a big field; it went on and on. The sun was burning down on us, but everybody was moving ahead. I tried to keep up.
When I went back to the house at night, I was so tired and hot. Wringing out my T-shirt, I could see drops of sweat dripping onto the ground; that’s how hot it was. And this was supposed to be a vacation!
Although I was dead tired, somehow I felt absolutely great, really elated. Having been out there and a part of the process of getting the grain harvested and ready to go into the barn for threshing, I felt very good about myself. I was feeling excellent just for being part of a crew working together like that. I thought “Well, this vacation turned out really great!” It was such a balance to what I was usually doing, and it gave me all these new life experiences.
Since that time on the farm in Germany, the borderline between what is work and what is recreation got a little blurred. At some point, I couldn’t tell anymore. “Is this work now, or is this vacation time?” I saw no difference.
Recreation, really good God-felt recreation, can give you the deeply satisfying feeling of being in unity with everything. Do an activity out in nature and be in unity. Feel all the parts of the experience, and be happy that you’re there.
Sunburst founder Norm Paulsen says that conscious recreation is discovering your true Self within, and I think that’s what I discovered out there in the oat field. My innermost Self was part of everything. No matter what my body felt, or how tiring it was, my inner Self was enjoying life there.
The best thing we can each do for ourselves is make time in our day—in our years—to discover this true Self in us, this spark of God within that resonates with everything around us.
Dear Spirit, when ewe find unity with you, then we’ll know that we have picked the right activity on this vast playground, the activity that gives us fulfillment. Please help each one of us to find this joy of unity with you.
• by Norman Paulsen, Sunburst Founder • The lives of the saints and prophets are expressions of divine Spirit, to show us the way to live if we want to meet and know God—if we truly want to be in an eternal existence with the Divine. Every man and woman alive who has felt true love, true peace, and seen true beauty, wants to live in that energy forever. We all want to see the sun rise tomorrow and feel its warmth, see the blue sky, feel the wind in our face, smell the fragrance of the flowers, and hold and touch those dear faces and friends. Yes, we all want continuous life.
If we want continuous, or eternal life, we must seek it where we were told we could find it. We have to make an effort to meet God. But how can we accomplish this? How can we become more like our divine Father and Mother, to draw that Presence into our lives?
I find that God’s power responds almost immediately when it is for the benefit of others that we pray. We then see miracles and the presence of the divine power working. For the most part, when people pray and ask for things for their own self gain, God doesn’t acknowledge this, and people wonder why. It’s because we aren’t fulfilling divine law. God is constantly giving and serving every particle of creation in every moment. When we can align ourselves with this energy, the floodgates are released, and the divine power can flow through us.
When we are more concerned with helping those around us than we are with helping ourselves, then we can see God’s power working. God watches the humble servants who have become more concerned for the welfare of their brothers and sisters than for themselves. Then God says, “I have to help her (or him), because nobody else is going to. He (or she) is too busy helping everyone else.”
I’ve seen it over and over again, that God takes care of the humble servant, miraculously. Those who set their own desires aside, and entertain the one desire to serve God, have all things added unto them. God loves them so much, and loves divine communion with their souls. God’s living presence becomes so strong within them that every desire of their hearts is miraculously fulfilled.
When you are one with God, you say, “Lord, I gave that desire up; it really doesn’t matter anymore.”
And God says, “That’s alright, just take it anyway.”
But then you can give it all away if you want to. These are the things that we see, that God does for us. Humble servants for God have seen miraculous power at work to build things for the betterment of all human beings.
• by Barbara McCaughey • Oh Mighty Spirit, my Mother, my Father, my Creator, we are thankful you have given to us a mission to be good and faithful stewards of our planet. We are blessed to be surrounded by flowers and plants. Under our watchful care, they spring forth in beauty. Their form and their exquisite color remind us of the perfect idea that created them, and that you are present everywhere. We are blessed to be surrounded by animals who count on us to respect and protect them. Might we give them their rightful place in this creation and might they in turn give to us their wisdom. Help us to make the choices that will harmonize our heart song with the song of creation. Amen
We’ve all been told that if we listen to our conscience it will keep us on the straight and narrow path. The conscience is God’s life in each one of us, communing with us and directing us, unimpeded by the chatter of our minds. When we seek to live a virtuous life, we are willing to sit and listen for the voice of conscience before we act.
When we hear the directive and act on it, we can see the result of our actions. We notice that they either bring us joy or they bring us pain. Our Divine Mother and Father love us unconditionally. There is no judgment from our Divine Parents.
But when we don’t feel the joy that is our birthright, we can look honestly at our choices to help us change that which keeps us from union with the consciousness that we’re here to express. When we have this personal relationship with God we recognize it in all life. We see other beings, our brothers and sisters, plants and animals, as teachers.
In this world of images, our greatest challenge is to know we have been given the creative force. We must look through the images in order to bring into manifestation our divine nature. Let’s call into us today that life force. Let it move through us, and inspire us. Then let’s give it back in service and love and apply our will to look honestly at how we can strengthen a permanent union with all we hold dear.
