The Rainbow Path | Sunburst

Finding Courage

by Sandy Anderson • Courage is a universal virtue. All beings want it; all beings need it to survive, to thrive, and to move forward in their lives, to protect their young, and to go for their goals.

This quote is from Norman Paulsen, founder of Sunburst Community: “Your inner quest and surrender to God gives you the strength and confidence to face and overcome your fears. The presence and attainment of courage on the pathway homeward is realized through your unceasing love and devotion to God. Love bestows courage.”

All beings require courage to stand up, to be a part of this mighty miracle, to be a part of this beautiful life that moves in all of us. Courage is essential to affirm “I am,” to become who we really are. Every step of the way demands courage.

Every virtue is tested at some point in our lives, at a time when we must stand up and claim that virtue. Courage is a multi-faceted jewel that is reflected in all virtues. It’s a jewel of joy. Day by day, in many ways, we are tested in it. We all feel fear at some time. And we can all claim the virtue of courage. It is within us.

I want to tell a little story about when I had to face my own fears. For me it was a victory I’ll never forget it. My husband and I planned a trip to Santa Cruz Island to go kayaking, when there was to be no swell and the tide would be low. Two days before we went out, we found out it was going to be windy, but we went anyway.

We got in the water, and because of the wind, there were big waves. They looked like they were going to break on us, but they weren’t. I remember at one point there was a huge wave coming right at me, and I almost screamed. Then I remembered, “No, it won’t break on me,” and it just went right underneath the kayak. It took me awhile to relax and trust that I would be safe.

My companion in overcoming that fear was the One that can allay all fears. It was Living Spirit. We went through the big waves and into the sea caves together. We went into almost every cave, every tunnel, and every arch.

I remember on the way home feeling thoroughly ecstatic, not just because I’d been kayaking, but because I had conquered my fear. Spirit gave me the confidence, strength, and courage to feel the fear and move through it. That’s one of the blessings that we can call on everyday while in this great earthly drama. My experience that day inspired this prayer:

Living Spirit, you bestow on us courage whenever we ask for it.
You bestow courage from your essence, from your blessing.
We reach out with both our hands and our hearts to embrace you,
to allow your freedom to move and create within our lives.
We offer this canvas of our lives to you for a beautiful painting.
We will paint with you, and sing along with your sacred song.
Amen

Opening of the Heart

by Norman Paulsen, Sunburst Founder • We are all looking for love. Not just love that flares up and lasts a short time, but love that is enduring and ever new. It can only be found in knowing God. God’s love for us and our love for God is eternal and enduring. The most important thing we can do in our lives is to seek God. to feel that great love that God has for each one of us, to feel it take fire in our hearts and grow.

Bringing Spirit Inside

by John Kiddie

We join together as one family, and offer up all that we are to Spirit. We do this with our meditation technique and the devotion of our heart. We reach down into the center of our Mother Earth and bring her energy up to our spine and offer it to our Father. We open the door at the crown of our head, looking for the white light, and draw the Father’s energy down through our spine.

As we do this, we are mixing and melting our Mother and Father’s energies in us, healing us, giving us strength, and wisdom. We’re also growing our spirit bodies. You can imagine that, as we bring the energy up and down our spine, a layer of light covers our spirit body, one breath at a time. With each circulation, we’re adding to that spirit body. It gets larger, and spreads out in all directions. Spirit wants to experience the joy of the creation through us.

As we grow our spirit bodies through meditation, and through our daily lives of virtuous living, we are holding space for Spirit to share our earthly experience. In this way, we become a vehicle for Divine Will.

As we meditate today, let’s open our hearts up to our best Friend, our dearest Companion, that we may be filled and transformed into that vehicle of white light. Thus, our actions may be in harmony with Spirit’s will, manifesting the kingdom of heaven here on earth.

People of good heart, find one another;

Together there’s much work to do.

The natural laws of our Mother and Father

In our hearts are written anew.

Amen.

Find God Within Yourself

by Norman Paulsen

How blessed we each are to be alive, to be present in this moment, and when we ask God to reveal himself to us. I see him in every face, beating in every heart, existing at the center of every soul. To find that light within us, to let it grow, to nourish it, to receive its love and allow it to open our hearts, this is why we meditate.

This Being that has created all of us wants to become conscious in our minds, in our thoughts, participating in everything we do that is virtuous, giving and loving. We each have this wonderful gift of God’s presence in our souls—that light of consciousness, that spark that God gave each one of us.

Years ago, I began my journey, seeking the light of soul within myself. I was finally led to a teacher who gave me the direction I needed to begin my meditations. Meditation is the key that unlocks the door to our souls. I spent many hours in meditation every day, calling on God to reveal himself to me. I wanted to see God face to face; this was my desire. Could it happen? is it possible that the Creator of everything we see could reveal itself to each one of us?

After years of meditation and service, God did come to me in a body of light as bright as the sun shining in the sky today. Wondrous it is that God will come to us if we persist and call with all our love, and open our hearts to receive this visitation. With diligent practice, meditation will bring us to that point in our lives when God is going to open up the window of our soul and say: My son, my daughter, it is me; I am here! It has been me all along that you were searching for.

What a supreme unimaginable day it is when we meet God, our Creator, face to face, when we can actually get our hands around God and hug him, love him, and bare our hearts to him. God is so close. My teacher, Yogananda, used to say, “If you only knew how close God is, you would see him right now.”

God wants you to know him, wants you to see him. The unimaginable can be seen. When the inner eye of soul is opened, God comes blazing into our consciousness, filling you with the greatest love you can ever conceive of. Why meditate? To find God within yourself, to follow a spiritual life, a virtuous life, to become a true servant of God that you may help others, that you may support our world that so desperately needs support today.

Meditate on the fact that when Jesus was baptized in the waters by John, the Spirit was seen descending like a dove upon his head. What was actually seen were the dual sacred forces, the right and left hands of God that descend like spirals, the baptism that waits to settle upon each of us if we seek to receive it. It brings with it the sacred birth, the birth of the Christ child inner-dimensionally within our hearts of love.

Yes, Jesus spoke of the new creature we can all become if we but receive and believe. That Christ child is waiting in the center of our souls to be born in its light, and ascend to the throne of consciousness within us.

This can happen for each one of us in this lifetime. This is the promise, this is the pledge that Spirit has made to all the children. I bear testimony of it; I humbly submit that it has happened to me. We need but to ask; the promise is: “It shall be given,” if we but believe, if we but make the effort. Breathe in that light of God through the crown of your head. Let it descend into your heart. It builds a mighty heart within us that can withstand anything. It makes living virtue wonderful and simple. It makes our work and our lives a joy.

Episode 2: Insights into Life-Love-God

God is Pure Consciousness

by Norman Paulsen

I Am the space between that which observes and that which is observed.
I am the Pure Self; I Am That I Am.

Consciousness is the key to where I AM exists. Consciousness is the Pure Self existing within, watching me, the soul. If consciousness is absent, soul has no awareness. Consciousness is beyond light and time. Consciousness created light and time. Consciousness created the miraculous five senses of sight, hearing, smell, taste and touch. Consciousness is God surrounding me, watching me, the soul.

In meditation, I cannot become totally conscious until I can observe that it is my thoughts that carry me away. When I’m able to concentrate fully conscious upon the Light at the smallest of all places before me, this experience touches the very roots of my existence. I have touched the hem of Christ’s garment.

In the space between the cessation of one thought and the birth of another, thoughts suddenly cease; pure consciousness speaks. It is the voice of God, I AM THAT I AM, saying: I love you.

Stop thinking, and see and hear God speaking to you!

Can we identify thoughts? If we can, we can identify God. Thoughts, as energy particles, exist upon the surface of Pure Consciousness, like clouds in the sky.

God is the space between and around my thoughts. God is Pure Consciousness surrounding me, watching me, the soul.

Pure Consciousness is ecstasy. It identifies the smallest of all places and expands into the largest of all places, the expanding sphere of creation. Transcending the creation, It exists beyond space and time, in the eternal “Thatness” of Divine Spirit as ever-new joy, bliss and love! Cosmic consciousness means being aware, as a soul, of Pure Consciousness, God. That man becomes a true son of God, that woman a true daughter, when soul uses awareness to perceive Pure Consciousness, God, as the only substance supporting soul.

Pure consciousness designed the physical great upper brain structure with its right and left cerebrums. Jesus referred to the great higher brain as the upper room, the upper chamber, and invited his disciples to follow him there. Jesus was well aware of this great structure and its functions. It was designed by Pure Consciousness, God, for the sixth sense, the Christ sense, Christ consciousness to function through while the soul is in the physical body.

The attempts of mankind to reproduce the capabilities of the Cosmic Mind through computer technology are a detour away from the truth within each one of us. The computers of today cannot compare to the latent powers locked up within this upper brain, fashioned by the Divine. If as much time was spent on learning how to meditate and how to live a loving, virtuous life accessing this divine gift, as is spent on the pursuits of wealth and keeping better records on computers, our world would be God- realized. Every day would be a joy and an ecstasy to live.

Yes, the great higher brain was created for God, I AM THAT I AM, to inhabit and enjoy the fruits and beauties of the world through the physical body. In today’s terms, it is the greatest of all computers, capable of containing the wisdom, draft and design of all images in creation. How do we gain access to it?

The secret is meditation upon Christ, I AM THAT I AM. Christ consciousness will anoint and descend upon the meditating soul within the dual sacred spirals, sacred vortexes of white fire. This is the baptism of fire. These dual forces of power descend through and around the door on the crown of the head, and move toward the heart center, to meet the meditator’s ascending life forces. These dual forces begin to program the great upper brain structure to function at greater capacity. As if through an umbilical cord, the meditator’s great upper brain and spinal centers are nourished with the energy of Christ, I AM THAT I AM. The growth of Christ consciousness—the process of divine illumination—has begun. This is the true destiny of each one of us.

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