Insight into Truth

View this email in your browser Dear Friends, This week's quote is from spiritual awareness class entitled, CC 53, which was published in Volume 3 of The Living Light Dialogue. This quote begins with a question from a student, which is in italics.   "How does one determine the aspiration of one's soul?" "'How does one determine the aspiration of one's soul?' My friends, soul aspirations are not known by what we call a mental body or a mind, because they are of soul substance. Now, for example, the mind—and we have discussed this before—the mind is a dual vehicle: it is in a constant process of accepting and rejecting. It is in a constant process of analyzing. Now, when you take that which is finite to analyze that which is infinite, you're not going to find the essence of truth itself. And this is why the statement has been made that, "When of thy mind thou seekest to know the truth, / On the wheel of delusion thou shalt traverse [Discourse 1]." Now, truth expresses in a multitude of ways. Truth is one. It is constantly and continuously individually perceived. That is why, my friends, when we make the statement that we have truth, what we are stating is that we have accepted the facts, the patterns, that are in our own mind and, to us, of course, that is a truth. Truth, it is stated, is like a river: it continuously flows. It is not something that you can grasp and you can hold and you can state that it is yours. Because, my friends, in doing that, you've brought it into limitation and stagnation. You see, a wise man is ever open: he is ever ready and willing to change. He is ever ready and willing to accept that what he has accepted in the past is in the process of change, because man is in a constant process of change. All of form is in a constant process of change. And mind is an effect of form. Therefore, things of the mind are not permanent. Things of the mind are not stable. Things of the mind are not eternal. Now truth—I am sure we will all agree—truth, to be truth, is eternal. And so how does man perceive truth? He can only perceive it with the part of him that is eternal, and that we understand to be spirit. To try to perceive truth with any other part of your being is only to guarantee discouragement and disappointment. Therefore, my friends, let your eternal spirit express itself. Let your mind accept the divine law that governs creation, that governs form, that it will ever change, for it is its very nature."   Some, but not all, of the early teachings that are rather like parables, like the teaching from Discourse 1, are discussed in later classes. And I find such discussions very helpful because often my understanding of that teaching is quite different from that of the teacher. But those discussions are not only helpful for a broader understanding, they are also helpful in showing how to work with these teachings, for it is up to the students to make the effort to study and apply, ever considerate of the teaching that we get out of a thing what we put into the thing and not one iota more. And, of course, even though the teacher is offering a perspective of a parable or teaching, there could also be many other perspectives for that teaching. But change does not have to be traumatic or involve emotional upheaval. It can be the fresh breeze of reason if we pause, if we are not over-identified with the judgments that we often believe that we are. When we make the conscious effort to affirm that we are something greater than the thoughts of our mind, we establish the law to experience that. If you have any topics you would like addressed in these weekly emails, please feel free to email your request. To ensure that you consistently receive Serenity's weekly emails, be sure to add Serenity's email address to your contacts and your white list. This will help ensure that the emails are not treated as spam. Additional information on these teachings is available on Serenity's website: http://www.livinglight.org Sincerely yours, Russell Fitzgerald Vice President Copyright © 2021 Serenity Association, All rights reserved. You are receiving this email because you opted in via our website. Our mailing address is: Serenity Association PO Box 4187 San Rafael, CA 94913-4187 Add us to your address book Want to change how you receive these emails? You can update your preferences or unsubscribe from this list.

In our moments of pause

View this email in your browser Dear Friends, This week's quote is from spiritual awareness class entitled, CC 178, which was published in Volume 6 of The Living Light Dialogue.   "Each change that takes place in your life is freeing you from something. So let the change be harmonious to you by the divine will of acceptance. For it is the will of Divine Intelligence that all be accepted. When you stop the battle of the mind, which insists on holding on to that which is passing, when you stop the battle of the mind that uses fear to protect its so-called holdings and possessions, you will experience harmoniously the changes taking place in your life. To say that yesterday was better is to live in a world of delusion, created by those levels of consciousness, by those entities and form in the mental world who are crying out to once again receive energy and sustenance from you, your soul, the true being. That is not you that cries for yesterday. It is not you that rushes tomorrow. It is you that pauses in the moment and experiences the fullness of life. It is the moments in which you pause that you broaden your horizons. It is the moments in which you pause that you free your being. Let those moments increase in your life that you may be free from this mental world of form that ever cries and demands more time and energy from you. He who shows no patience reveals the degree that he is controlled by mental forms of yesterday. He who experiences frustration is locked in the mental worlds of self, where the battles ever rage. Look at the world of this mental experience as you view the movies of your world, for that, in truth, is what they are. They are not eternal. They are born and die. But you are forever and forever. From forever you came, to forever you go. No ending, my friends, no beginning. Why spend so much of life's beauty by restricting that beauty by the dictates of mental thoughts?"   Change is often a struggle for many reasons. We often have a false sense of security in the things with which we are familiar. And when those things change and pass from our lives, we believe our security is being threatened and often react from a level of self-preservation. But that expression of self-preservation is not an expression of our true being, although it is, at that moment, an expression of what we believe we are. We believe we are a physical form or a certain thought or attitude. But we are not those things. They are like a suit of clothes that we wear for a time. The degree of emotional upset that we experience as we face the changes of life reveal our attachment and dependence to them. It also reveals to what extent we are over-identified with our own mental world. But change does not have to be traumatic or involve emotional upheaval. It can be the fresh breeze of reason if we pause, if we are not over-identified with the judgments that we often believe that we are. When we make the conscious effort to affirm that we are something greater than the thoughts of our mind, we establish the law to experience that. If you have any topics you would like addressed in these weekly emails, please feel free to email your request. To ensure that you consistently receive Serenity's weekly emails, be sure to add Serenity's email address to your contacts and your white list. This will help ensure that the emails are not treated as spam. Additional information on these teachings is available on Serenity's website: http://www.livinglight.org Sincerely yours, Russell Fitzgerald Vice President Copyright © 2021 Serenity Association, All rights reserved. You are receiving this email because you opted in via our website. Our mailing address is: Serenity Association PO Box 4187 San Rafael, CA 94913-4187 Add us to your address book Want to change how you receive these emails? You can update your preferences or unsubscribe from this list.

Manifesting our desires

View this email in your browser Dear Friends, This week's quote is from the spiritual awareness class entitled, "Class November 15, 1974," which will be published in Volume 18 of The Living Light Dialogue.   "You know, there's nothing that keeps a man where he is, except satisfaction. When you're satisfied, you certainly don't make any effort to do anything different. So, you see, the teaching is "Irritation wakes the soul and satisfaction lets it sleep." So let us not be so satisfied and so pompous in what we have or have not. Let us be a little irritated because then we'll be about the business of the Divine. Then we will not look out into the world and say, "Oh, there's a sugar shortage. There may be a depression and there's a shortage of this and there's a shortage of that." Well, what was it? Last year there was a toilet paper shortage. There's always some kind of shortage in the consciousness of the human mind. But is there a shortage? Where does it exist? I assure you, my good friends, it is not the time of year for our annual forecast, but I can assure you of this: there is no sugar shortage. There is in truth no paper shortage. And you will never be short of anything you desire if you will accept that you have it. All you have to do is to learn to control your mind. Accept that you have whatever you desire. But do not desire what another has, for that is a transgression of the divine law. Whatever another has, you may desire from the universe, which is limitless, but do not desire to remove it from another human soul, for if you do that, you will set a law into motion guaranteeing all the experiences necessary to understand why that person has it and you have it not. So let your desires be directed to the Divine. The Divine is the only one capable—believe me!—of fulfilling them. You see, through an error of ignorance, of course, our mind says, "I have this desire and it's over there. And I must move over there and I must go through a certain path in order to fulfill it." As long as the mind has accepted that as the way, then it has set that law into motion. But isn't it better to sit at peace to see, in full visualization, all that you have desired and to say, "Thank you, God," [and] to accept it in your consciousness? Remember that gratitude is the first soul faculty: duty, gratitude, and tolerance. And it is through the soul faculty of gratitude that man's supply and abundance constantly flows. And so, accept what it is you desire, and don't tell the Divine Intelligence that you have to do a certain thing in order to have it. Because when you do that, that's the law that you set into motion. You descend from a spiritual realm where all things are in the eternal now, and you descend into a mental realm where you must go through the necessary mental gymnastics of what your tapes are dictating in order to experience it. Now which is the best way? Which is the simplest way? Which is the easiest way? But that takes a slight dethronement, a slight dethronement of what they call the unbelievable, tenacious human ego. That's what that takes to accept an intelligence in the universe that is greater than our brain."   For example, if you have a desire for a car and you allow your mind to think, "I have to do this; I have to do that; I have to have so much for the down payment," those are all laws that must be fulfilled before you will merit a house. An alternative path is to accept the possibility, but avoid dictating the form of that possibility. I am reminded of an affirmation that I have found very useful when I was over-identified and dictating how my desires will manifest. "That which is mine knows my face and is already on its way to my heart." If you have any topics you would like addressed in these weekly emails, please feel free to email your request. To ensure that you consistently receive Serenity's weekly emails, be sure to add Serenity's email address to your contacts and your white list. This will help ensure that the emails are not treated as spam. Additional information on these teachings is available on Serenity's website: http://www.livinglight.org Sincerely yours, Russell Fitzgerald Vice President Copyright © 2021 Serenity Association, All rights reserved. You are receiving this email because you opted in via our website. Our mailing address is: Serenity Association PO Box 4187 San Rafael, CA 94913-4187 Add us to your address book Want to change how you receive these emails? You can update your preferences or unsubscribe from this list.

Insight into Changing our Experiences

View this email in your browser Dear Friends, This week's quote is from the spiritual awareness class entitled, "Class November 15, 1974," which will be published in Volume 18 of The Living Light Dialogue. It contains two questions from one student and both of the questions are italicized.   "OK. You were talking about not becoming involved in a situation or, like, if there's a person that you didn't agree with their actions, to not be, that if you did become concerned, that you'd become a victim of it, of this . . ." "That, yes, is absolutely true. Number one: we cannot have an experience in life that we have not first in our own consciousness become receptive to. Now a person may say, "Well, I have someone that calls me every day and they're always in a low level of consciousness." Well, my dear friends, if we were not in a low level of consciousness, we couldn't attract that person to call us every day in a low level of consciousness. Because one of the basic teachings of Spiritualism is that like attracts like and becomes the Law of Attachment. "Now, you may say, "All right. I'm having these experiences in life, and I choose not to have them anymore." The place to go to work is not outside, for that is not where the cause is. For Life herself is a mirror reflecting where we are at any given moment. The place to go to the cause is inside our self, to find out what level we are on and, once finding that out, to raise our soul consciousness to another level. If we do not do that, then we continue on with experiences that are distasteful to us because we have lost control through a lack of awareness. Does that help with your question?" "But what if that lady calls again? What do you say? "I'm sorry, I don't want to listen to you." Or, you know, what do you do?" "Well, no, my dear friend. My dear friend, you have what all souls have: the divine right of choice. You may listen and yet hear not. In fact, even the Bible prophets said, "You have ears to hear and hear not. You have eyes to see and see not." So, you see, if you go to work on you, that person will not call you in that level of consciousness again. Do you understand? Now give it, if you wish, give it a try. Because, you see, it works. Like attracts like and becomes the Law of Attachment. "So if we are not happy with the experiences that we are having, if we are not happy where we are in life, all we have to do—it is so simple. You see, truth is simple and unconcealed; 'tis falsehood that is complex and deeply hidden—all we have to do is stop and think: "I do not care for this experience. Therefore, I will change my attitude of mind concerning it. I will rise to another level of consciousness." And then you will no longer experience that experience."   We change our experiences by going to work inside. To argue or battle with experiences that we do not appreciate only feeds them more energy, and that energy allows those experiences to grow even stronger. A wiser path is to go within. First, accept the right of that experience or person to express. Accept that we are responsible for the experience, even though we may not be consciously aware of the level within us that is bringing that experience into our lives. Accept and then redirect. Our experiences are the effect of energy directed through the vehicle of thought. So it only makes sense to direct more of our thoughts to that which is harmonious, uplifting, and encouraging. A related spiritual exercise is to ask ourselves, "Why this and why now?" If we are sincere and if we are persistent, we will awaken to an understanding of the cause of any of our experiences. As with any skill or talent, it will take effort and energy to develop, but a broader understanding is possible for all of us. And that, I find, is very encouraging. If you have any topics you would like addressed in these weekly emails, please feel free to email your request. To ensure that you consistently receive Serenity's weekly emails, be sure to add Serenity's email address to your contacts and your white list. This will help ensure that the emails are not treated as spam. Additional information on these teachings is available on Serenity's website: http://www.livinglight.org Sincerely yours, Russell Fitzgerald Vice President Copyright © 2021 Serenity Association, All rights reserved. You are receiving this email because you opted in via our website. Our mailing address is: Serenity Association PO Box 4187 San Rafael, CA 94913-4187 Add us to your address book Want to change how you receive these emails? You can update your preferences or unsubscribe from this list.