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Source: Mildred F – Sunlight of the Spirit 2014 – Conscious Contact 2 – Date Unknown.mp3 File: mildred-f-sunlight-of-the-spirit-2014-conscious-contact-2-date-unknown.mp3 Duration: 01:19:07
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While we're getting settled, could we take a moment to turn within to that quiet place that is spoken of deep within you and me is the fundamental idea of God. Don't have to tell God anything. I think God likes to be recognized. I am willing, God, to hear what it is that you would speak to me, through me, to us. Amen. Okay. Thank you for your kind words. I said that now we'll get into some of the practices and not that I think that I know everything. You know, by the way, I want to, where's Dolly? Is she around? I just want to thank Dolly and Chris. What beautiful people you are. What loving, generous, kind. I go to a lot of things and I don't think I've ever had a more beautiful welcome than you and Dolly provided.
Thank you. And then there's Erin, beautiful Erin over here, who came to get me at the airport and has taken such good care of me. I love you dearly. We're going to be good friends, Erin. And I asked our speaker for tonight about where she's from and she told me somewhere around Tujunga and of course I never forgot Tujunga because I know a hunk from there. I said, do you by any chance know Doug? And she said, yeah, I'm married to him. Life is amazing, isn't it?
And I have in my hot little hands three CDs of three of my heroes. Wesley, I talked about, and Chuck, and I haven't mentioned Mac Cheater, but Mac Cheater was one of my heroes. Mac was from Saskatchewan where I was born and Mac's death, sometimes people speak to us more powerfully in death than they could in life. His obituary when it was published, by the way, I just finished saying nice things about you, Dolly. If you'd have been at your seat, you would have heard them.
And when his obituary was written, he had all kinds of, he had been a trustee, he had all kinds of business accomplishments. And in his obituary, it just said, you know, the fact that his son had died and who was left, etc. And it said, at Mac's request, none of the things that he did while he was here are going to be mentioned. No big, long, and then he did this and he was president of that and he did this and, you know, and I thought, Mac, no wonder I loved you. So we're going to talk now about where do you go when you are like me and you come into the program. Well, I got a sponsor.
We're going to talk first about prayer. I feel that I was like the prodigal son. From 1973 to 1994, those are the first 21 years of my sobriety. You know, I'm going to say something. If this is about growth in God consciousness, if this is indeed about that, I promise you something. You will not be a bad AA member, you know, because sometimes, well, you know, I got to do this and I
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got to do that. You will do those things, but you will be doing them from a different perspective. You know, it is possible to look good on the outside and be totally out of whack on the inside. You know, one of the great masters said, we're not here to be good human beings. I'm saying it again. We're not here to be good human beings. You can be a good human being and be an ass kisser. You know, the years when I was in the convent, I believed in a God out there and all that nasty stuff that I said I believed and I hated the world kind of as much as I could stay drunk. If I was in a good mood, I would treat you well and I was very concerned how you thought about me and therefore I went to any lengths as a teacher, as a counselor, as whatever I was doing to manipulate you to do what you thought, what I thought you wanted me to do and then you would like me and you would say nice things about me and that was my whole world. And did I look good on the outside most of the time? People don't expect a nun to be drunk, you know, and in those days we wore the big habit. We wore all that stuff on our heads and a big long black gown and the rosary and all of that kind of thing. And people used to say, oh that's sister Eugenia, she's such a good person. She's so holy and she's so this and she's so that. I was just flying high because I was drinking, that's all.
So I understand when they say I'm not here to be a good human being because I can orchestrate that so you will look on the outside and if you don't know better you'll think isn't she great. The only place that matters is what's in here and like I said I believe if you make growth in God conscious consciousness your object, I'll tell you something, you'll never have to walk out of AA because you find the meetings boring and you'll never be bored with life. I guarantee you that because if you understand that this power is pushing and wants to do things through you, you'll never feel as if you don't fit, you won't feel that you don't belong, you won't feel that you have no purpose. But I didn't know that always. So as I said from 1973 to 1994 I'll explain what I used to do. But what I will say is God takes us where we are. You know if you have all the old ideas that I had, you can run to all the meetings you want. That isn't necessarily going to change you. See and I used to think I had to change me. I don't believe that today. I have to do the work but it's only God that changes us and that's really what the whole program is about. And see that's why I say God has done for me what I couldn't do for myself. And so I want to make this clear. I'm not a guru. I'm not religious. I'm not a holy woman. I'm a person who believes that God is everything and that prayer and meditation are the most important elements of what we do here. They put the fire in our belly. They make service what it should be. Not so I'm going to feel good. They make service what it was always meant to be.
The carrying of the grace of God just like that was carried to me. You know there's a young woman in the audience. Her name is Sue. She's remember that old Western song? My name is Sue how do you do? She is the daughter-in-law of my sponsor and she's he is the person who really guided me through those years and he knew what was the art of the possible. He taught me how to behave. He taught me
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how to practice as he said I'm not going to run your life for you and I took him and I know I had a male sponsor. I wasn't looking for sex. I was looking for somebody strong enough to give me the discipline and somebody that I would respect. At one and two and three and four and five years I didn't like women a lot and I always had looked to men for power and intelligence and wrong wrong wrong I know that but I had so this man walked into our meeting and I knew he was strong enough to deal with me so I asked him to be my sponsor and he said yes. He said I'm not going to tell you how to run your life but he said I will teach you the principles of the program and how you have to live and well the rest is history so look her up she knows what if you want to know what I'm really like so I'm not here to tell you anything that I haven't experienced. See I'll say this again here I am I don't know who I am I've believed in the God up there out there somebody who should fix the world and so am I go how am I going to have a relationship with that God I didn't see that as an important thing I saw that as if I'm a good girl there was some of that it's it's interesting to me how these old ideas stick and so how am I going to have a relationship with that God how am I going to grow in God consciousness it's just next to impossible so I'm going to tell you about prayer the first 20 years of my sobriety I said prayers I think of what Eric Butterworth said you know about prayer being a question of the heart relating to its God and he said having been at a dinner party where the six-year-old was brought into the living room and the mother said let's listen to him say his night prayer and he said it was kind of like saying let's watch him gargle it's something he does and that's kind of the way prayer was for me it was perfunctory and it was sporadic I did not have a prayer life you have to understand if you look at what you believe about the higher power or God as you understand God but I think it's not we'll ever understand it's how we experience God that's what has changed me I don't know I'm not going to talk about how I understand God how would I understand that power that makes planets I read the other day they have found out the years ago that there were a hundred to two hundred billion stars in our galaxy now they have found that there are a hundred billion galaxies and each of them probably as big or bigger than ours how are you going to fit this into this let's not be ridiculous see so you know I'd say these prayers and often there was nobody home in here I was saying prayers because I knew I had to but it was sporadic I love the third step prayer I love the seventh step prayer I love the serenity prayer and sometimes when I'm disturbed I still just sip and say those prayers phrase by and let them sink in and then of course there's the prayer of st. Francis and of course the our father and I find it interesting that some people we have places in Toronto where they don't want to say the our father because it's a Christian prayer prayers prayer I don't think God belongs to a church frankly you know if there's a good Muslim prayer I'll say that if there's a good Jewish I'm up for that it's just that we started from a Christian perspective anyway shut up Mildred I prayed because my human resources had failed utterly that's why every once in a while things would happen and I would pray and it probably sounded more like I would pray, and it probably sounded more like this, God, I don't know how, help me.
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So I certainly had had the benefit of the professionals. The doctors, the psychiatrists, the psychologists, the bishops, mother superior, counselors, but you know, again, I say, the book says, that's what we're about, to help you find the power, with a capital P, that will solve your problem. It doesn't even say, it will help you solve your problem. Now as I look at it, I think, what does that mean?
Well, of course it means, that as I get right with God, you know, and that, page 164, see to it, that your relationship with him is right. Has nothing to do with what a church says. My relationship with God. If God is love, then I should be love. If God is life, then I should be alive. If God is energy, if God is goodness, then those are the things that should manifest through me. That's what the book is about.
See and that's why one of my teachers said, what you want to experience, you must express. See if I can give you a hundred dollars, I must have had it in the first place. If I can give you love, rather than sitting at home saying, well, you know, nobody loves me and I'm all alone. Go love somebody else, show them, help them to feel okay. And then what happens is, you know you have it. That's what the prayer of St. Francis is about.
So I, you know, I think about the story of having a lamp. And knowing that the lamp should give light. But I'm not getting any light. And then somebody says, maybe we should plug it in. We still don't get light. And then somebody else comes along and says, how about we screw in a bulb? Still no light. The switch needs to be turned on. And then voila. That's what conscious contact is about. That's what prayer is about.
And you know, I really believe that God takes us where we are. You know, when the master was here, he said, he lets his sun shine on the just and the unjust. You know, I think sometimes we have ideas. Somebody's sober five years. Like I hear people say, watch out, you're sober five years. That's what happens when you're sober five years. How do you know? Souls are at different places. We all know things different.
We all experience things in here. The way you experience is sacred. It is where you are and it's where God finds us. And it's through that that we find God. And that's why you have somebody like me, sober 21 years, feeling suicidal. What had those 20 years? I'll talk about that tomorrow morning. But what had those 20 years been? They had been years of eventually I got the debts paid off. I got a job again.
I am a high school and college teacher. I started buying houses. I made lots of money. I had lots of men. I had lots of all kind promotions. I had it going on. And I'm suicidal. I'm also a good member of AA. I had that sponsor. He would have killed me if I hadn't marched correctly. I sponsored people. I was going to meetings. I did the steps and so on. And so if you looked at me at 21 years on the outside, you would never have had a clue what was going on.
Had I committed suicide, people I'm sure would have said, what in the name of God was wrong with her? What happened? Did she just flip? No, I didn't flip because I often think I was broken in 1973. But in 1994, I was broken wide open because I don't know how to do life. I'm not okay. I've got everything I thought I wanted and I'm not okay. And I go to meetings. I still feel alone. See, when you've got this crust around you and it hasn't been broken yet.
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So God has ways and means. And I think life is perfect. I really do. Sometimes I don't like what's in my life, to tell you the honest to God truth. But I know it's there because there's another layer of something that has to be eliminated. And it's not I'm the one that has to do the work about that. So this day when I was thinking suicide, I'm lying in bed that afternoon and just thinking about all of this.
And I reach my hand out of the bed and there's a three ring binder with notes in it. And I just open it at random. And the first thing I see is this. In my handwriting, at some point I had written, can you take your life out of the dumper? And I had written, absolutely not. Can you make your life be the way you want it to be? And I had written, absolutely not. And I have to tell you, a feeling of joy, a feeling of happiness.
I just remember I bounded out of bed and I thought, it's okay. And it was okay. Not because things didn't have to change, but because that was the cracking open of another layer where I could start to see things different. You know, if it happens to you when you're 40 years sober, who cares? This is the deal. It's about waking up to the presence of God. You will wake up to it when you can. And this kind of stuff happens.
There are no timelines that this is my timeline, oh my goodness, now somebody else has to have that timeline. I don't believe that. And people started to show up in my life. And I had retired from, officially, and I went into, I was feeling, what do I do now? And I would say a kind of depression. My sponsor said, get up, regular time every morning. And he gave me marching orders and I did that. And one day the phone rang and it was Father O'Brien.
And Father O'Brien said, I've never met you, Mildred, but people have been talking to me about you. I'd like you to come and give a retreat. What? Of all things that I might have contemplated doing, giving retreats was not one of them. And he said, people have been talking to me about you. I'd like you to come and give a retreat. And so I went to give a retreat to 70 women after I had told him how many times I'd been excommunicated.
Said I don't care. So I went. The morning I finished that retreat, this is why I'm telling you this, a big event took place. I'm standing in front of 70 women and I start to bawl. I didn't cry pretty like they do in the movies. I bawled. The screwed up face and the whole business. And out of me came words I had not prepared for. You tell me that God isn't in this? I don't believe that. And all of a sudden I'm saying, I don't have a friend in the world.
I'm the loneliest person in the world. Don't you know? See, all my life I felt different. You've got it better than I. I'm different. I don't fit. Nobody cares about me. And I said, I don't have a friend in the world. I've got lots of acquaintances, but no friends. And I just bawled. And it was as if the walls were just crumbled. Absolutely crumbled. See, when I look at that experience, it was another crisis in my life.
If you've got walls, you're safe in a sense. You're miserable, but you're safe. And now the walls were gone. I felt like a chicken with no feathers and the cold wind was blowing. I didn't know how to be the way I was. People used to say to me, you intimidate me. I thought it was a compliment. That's how sick I was. And now the walls were gone. And I had to show my face. I had to let people know what was really going on in here.
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I had to be, and I didn't know, I just didn't know how. And those women stepped forward and said, come on over, we'll have a cup of coffee. And you know, that was a big life changer for me. And then I realized something. I need to meditate. If I don't learn to meditate, I remember saying. I said it to Jim. I said, if I don't learn to meditate, I'm going to die. Now you say, you were a nun for 15 years.
Sure I was. And we used to meditate three quarters of an hour a day. But I'd get up a half hour before the other sisters and I'd drink my whiskey. And then by the time I went down to the chapel to meditate, I was feeling holy, I can tell you. And we'd meditate all right. And so I didn't, I really didn't know how to meditate. And it was serious enough to me. There was a man in Toronto giving instructions on relaxation and meditation.
And I went and took that weekly course. His stuff is still on the, that's where I started. Because when you've never been still inside, when you're jittery and you don't know how to be still, it's very important that you learn how to get this body to experience some kind of stillness. This is serious business. I'm a whole being. I'm not meditating in a ghostly fashion. I'm meditating in this third dimensional body.
And if this body and this mind is going 60 miles an hour, how am I going to meditate? What is meditation? Silence. The silence that we finally develop the ability to experience. And so I took that course and it was amazing. And then I decided I needed to go further. And I thought I've got to make some, so I took transcendental meditation. And I did that for a year, but I couldn't sit still. I'd sit there and I'd jiggle in the chair.
You know, they give you a mantra to say. And after about a year, I gave it a good shot. And I was by that time doing retreats. And one of the women who was doing the retreat with me, she came and said to me, would you like to learn how to do a form of meditation with a mantra? And I said, absolutely. And so she taught me how to do Christian, it's called Christian meditation. Don't let that scare you.
It's just the use of a mantra. And if you're interested in that, see, sometimes I think, I used to think, and that's what I was taught in the convent. You read a passage from scripture and then you think about it. And then you pray about it. And then you ask God, like, you know, Jesus healed the blind man. So now Jesus heal my, it's not bad. But I think that the whole purpose is to grow in silence, not to keep yapping.
And so the use of the mantra, as Father John Main says in his writings, he says the whole purpose of it is to get still. You're not going to figure out your life anyway. God knows we've done enough of that, haven't we? Trying to plan and figure and analyze and manipulate things so I get it the way I want it. In other words, we just simply say, God, I know you're here. I'm going to get out of the way.
I'm going to focus on the mantra. And, you know, Eckhart Tolle talks about this. He talks about God being in the present moment, right now, no other place, right now. Not in the past minute, not in the future minute, right now. And so when you say the mantra, people think, well, I should be thinking about something. No, I don't need to think. God is here. God takes care of things. I need to get still.
I love it because I want, you know, if left to my own devices, I want to think and plan and organize this thing. And to sit for 20 minutes and just repeat the mantra one syllable at a time. Even somebody as stupid as I am can do that, see. And I like that. And I started to see the benefits of that. And he recommended, he recommended.
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If you want to pursue it, I'm not saying do it, I'm going to just tell you a few things that I've experienced about meditation. And I do 20 minutes in the morning and 20, and there's lots of stuff on the internet about this. And there's another form started by one of you. You know what I often say at retreats? I feel as if I am an expatriate American because it feels to me as if everything good I know I heard from an American.
Anyway, a lot of things. Father Thomas Keating, who's in Denver, he's actually in Snowmass, he's about 93, I think he's still alive. He started Centering Prayer. And again, it's just the same kind of thing. You pick a mantra. And if you don't, you know, there's all kinds of stuff. Again, he has published a book called, it'll come, but he's published a number of books. But he says pick a phrase, if that's what you want to do, or pick a word like love, and you keep repeating it.
Not to think about it, but just to keep yourself focused on that. I love that idea because I know that God takes care of things if I show up. I've got to show up. And so I always start my meditation saying, God, I know you're here. I'm going to shut up now. I'm going to just quiet down as much as I can and be in your presence. I give you this 20 minutes that I dedicate to the meditation. It's amazing what happens through that process.
And I want to talk about the reality of that. I'm not saying that I'm just, I said to myself, I will tell the truth about that. And you pick it up if your soul is there. I want to tell you about two sponsees who have given me permission to talk about something that has happened. I have a sponsee. She's got a husband. She's got a job, a responsible job. She's got a house. They've got a child. He's got parents.
She's got parents. She's a member of my home group. She's got a lot going on. Where do you find time to read? Where do you find time to meditate? So, is it practical to say? Because I think that this works. You've got to make it work in your life. I'm not saying, like John Main and people like Dr. Herbert Benson and people like that, they say it takes at least 20 minutes for the body to respond to meditation.
Well, that may be true. But in our world, if people can't squeeze in the 20 minutes in the morning and the 20 minutes at night, you know, we do live in 2014, and we live in the third dimension. And if you're at a place where you can't do that, let's find a way to make that work. And so I said to this sponsee, I said, It's not ideal, but rather than feel like a loser, and we keep on saying, I should do this, and I'm not doing it.
That's not going to advance you spiritually. That's not going to help you grow and love yourself. God loves me. Why should I not love myself? I make mistakes in the third dimension, but my fourth dimension reality is perfect, just like yours is. And so we figured something out that she could talk to her husband, and he'd look after the boy, and she could sit quietly for 10 minutes in the morning and, you know, get everything ready.
And that has changed. Now she's up to 10 minutes in the morning, and at night she's doing 3 minutes. Not perfect, but it's good. She has found time to do spiritual reading, which we'll talk about, and some of the other things, because I don't think it's just prayer and meditation in isolation. It's like when you want to make a change, you have to put a structure in place. You know, if you want to change your eating habits, you have to put a structure in place, because otherwise, when I'm saying I'm not going to eat carbohydrates, I'm reaching for the ice cream, you know.
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Somehow or other, and I think this is where a sponsor, this is where a spiritual director is so important, somebody that can guide you and help you figure out your way through this, that these practices bring you joy, that they bring you a sense, I'm on a great path. And then you will see how instead the 6 minutes become 10, and so on, and how your life changes. Like this sponsor keeps saying to me, oh, Mildred, you know, you've changed my life.
I haven't changed anybody's life. I can tell people things, and if they incorporate it, God changes us if we do the cooperation and do the work. So I had another one I want to tell you about, because I have learned from working with people. You know, there was a time I would have been rigid, and I would have said, well, you know, if you can't do 20 minutes, shame on you, you know, whatever. Maybe I wouldn't have said shame on you, but they would have gotten the message.
And this kid had, you know, and I do sponsor a few young men. Don't be shocked by that. I'm not after sex with a 25-year-old, you know, and they're not after sex with an 81-year-old either, so we're good to go. And he had dropped away from meetings a bit and so on, and he had been ill. And so one day we got in a car, and I was speaking somewhere, and he came with me, and on the way home I said, how is your spiritual work going?
And he said, I'm not doing any. And so we talked a bit, and then I said, are you willing to get back and do some spiritual work? And to my utter amazement, he said no. We weren't quite home yet, so I prayed. So when we got home, I parked the car, and I said, I think we need to talk. I said, I can't believe you've been so dedicated to the program. Like, are you willing? He said, I don't know. I said, are you depressed?
He said, maybe. And then it came to me. I said, are you disappointed in God? Are you disappointed that your life doesn't have the pizzazz you maybe thought you were going to get, because you're in the program and going to meetings and doing the steps and doing this work? And he started to cry. And he said, yeah, I'm very disappointed. I said, you're probably disappointed in me, too. Well, he said, a little bit, because I haven't got a magic wand to make it all okay.
He works in the television industry. He's got a very responsible job there, et cetera, et cetera. So I said, do you think that it's like would you be interested in getting back on this horse? And he said, yeah. He said, now that you put it, I'm disappointed. He said, I get that. And so from that place, I said, well, how can we make this work again? You're not going to sit and meditate 20 minutes. I know that.
I said, would you be willing in the morning to sit for two minutes, two minutes, just say, God, I know that you're here, and I want to spend two minutes in the silence with you, acknowledging that. He said, I can do that. And then I pushed. I said, do you think you could do two minutes at night? And he said, yes, that I will commit to. That's where we started. I said, what about during the day when you're going up and down the corridors of your office and, you know, people are clamoring and this and that?
I said, is it possible that you could make a little plan so that you would remember God during the day? He said, yeah. He said, I have to go to the bathroom. And I said, when you're walking up and down the halls, I said, could you say this? And it came to me. And it's my favorite.
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God, I know you're here. God, I know you're here. He said, yeah, I can do that. And that's how we started this process again. And, you know, I learned that meditation is more than the time that you take to sit there and be quiet. And I've learned it in my own life. Because as I was embarking on meditation, I realized something. If what I'm doing, I meditate in the morning, and then I meditate at night, and the rest of the time I'm busy with my third dimension life, that meditation isn't going to go so well.
The great spiritual teachers throughout have talked about practicing the presence of God during the day. And I think that's more, like, I've got a lot of God information running around back here. And I bet you have, too. That's a big difference from actually talking to God and saying, God, I know you're here. I'm aware that you're here. And then allowing that to then animate and allowing it to express.
And then by the time I get home at night and I'm going to meditate, it's not like going to a foreign country. See, and the same with then in the morning, you know, meditating. It's not a foreign country. I'm undertaking the day, and then during the day I'm going to speak to you, God. You know, I think that word on page 164 is so crucial, relationship. How do you build a relationship? Have sex with somebody and then you don't talk for two weeks?
If you want a relationship, it's not just, well, I know I had sex with that man, and then you don't see him again. You talk to that person. That's how you get to know somebody. You listen to what they say and you tell them about yourself. That's how you build a relationship. Now, I said to a minister the other day, my minister friend who I trust, and I said, is it wrong to call ourselves God beings?
And he said, why would it be? He said, we call ourselves human beings in our bodies. Isn't that true? What about saying I'm a God being? The book says it, deep within every man, woman, and child is the fundamental idea of God. It is only there that he may be found. And if you have been at a deathbed like I was at my sister Dora's deathbed, she was there one minute, and then the next minute that deep reality had departed, and all that was left was atoms and molecules.
And that looked like Dora, but she wasn't there. And I like to think I'm a God being, and I find that really helpful. Because when I say to myself, you know, you shouldn't talk nasty to people and you shouldn't do this and you shouldn't do that, I now say to myself, would a God being say that? Would that be right for a God being to say that to another God being? If you don't like that language, I don't have a problem with that.
Find your own way of expressing that. Because that's what has come to me. Eckhart Tolle, in one of those talks that he did with Oprah, he said he gave three beautiful ways to practice the presence of God. You know, if that doesn't appeal to you to say, God, I know you're here, that just resonates in me. I love it. But he said, try this. Consciously take a breath. And while you're taking in that breath and then taking that out, you're in the presence of God.
Number one. Number two. He said, if you're working at a desk. He said, maybe you want to keep a flower or a plant there. And then you look at that plant and you remember the life force in there and the life force in you. What have you done? Force in There and the Life Force in You. What have you just done? You've brought yourself back into the presence of God. And he said, when the phone rings, let it ring two more
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times unless your boss is going to fire you. But if you can, just let it ring two more times and while the phone's ringing, just remember, there's a God being phoning me. God wants to talk to me through that person. Beautiful, simple things that we can do. And I guarantee if you get, it takes effort to do this. Because when I was going through that period of trying to, starting to meditate, I was having a prayer meeting with a friend of mine. We'd get together once a week and we'd set ourselves some goals, etc., etc.
And my goal always was, I'm going to practice the presence of God ten times every day. Seems simple, right? Wrong. I'd get to the end of the day and I might have practiced the presence once. So then I thought, I need to get creative. I'm going to leave myself messages on the dining room table and on the kitchen counter and so on. Maybe I'd do three that time because I could look at those messages and walk right past them because don't you know I'm a busy woman. Yeah, right. And then I decided something else. Instead of just saying the prayer because I live alone, kneel down. Kneel down and take that ten seconds to have a real communication. God, I know you're here or whatever. See, I know now people put little timers on their cell phones or they put them on the computer. I heard a good one the other night. The speaker at our meeting was talking about being impatient. And one of the members at my group had put at the bottom of his computer, angel of patience, slow me down. So that this message would go across the bottom of his computer. And then it was going too slowly so he speeded it up. You know, I think it's great when we can laugh at ourselves. Angel of patience, slow me down. The third thing, so we've talked meditation and I think that practicing the presence of God, however you decide to do that. Maybe you promise yourself, I will never take a bite of food without remembering, God, you have given this food. Thank you. Or you find your own way to do it. You do it while you're washing your hands. You think of the life force flowing through you. There are countless ways. Be creative. The third thing I think that has nourished me is spiritual reading. I can't live without spiritual reading. I can't live without meetings. But I can't live without spiritual reading. Our lives are full. You think about your day. Are you not bombarded with third dimension information? Turn on the television. Go to a bookstore. 130 ways to have an orgasm. Do this and your boss will love you and whatever. Just checking. But it's true, we're bombarded with third dimension information. And it's fine. We live in the third dimension.
But if what I am focused on, how am I going to get the promotion? How am I going to keep the boyfriend? How am I going to control the kids? Whatever, whatever. Got to go shopping. Got to do this. Got to put gas in the car. The car also needs this and that and so on and so on. That's full. And you're going to sit down and you're going to talk to a God that you can't see with your physical eyes and you're going to meditate? I don't think so. See, I need the, and this is one of the gifts I got from the convent. Because while I was in the convent, I learned to do spiritual reading. I began to do the research on what the great thinkers, the great saints or whoever, they're wonderful people today. I stay away from the self-help stuff. Because the program
[00:50:05]
is not self-help, it's not me help. It's God help. That's what it's about. And so if we keep that clear, I'm real careful about what it is I read. And you know, you don't read so you can sound smart. The intellect can't fix us. So I can quote this and I can quote that and I can quote that. If it talks to my heart and it talks to my soul and I've experienced it, yes. If it's just information, it's just information. And that's not why you do spiritual reading. That's why I think there are a couple of authors that I really pay attention to. I don't normally do this, but since we're talking about practicalities, I love Eric Butterworth. He was a unity minister and he wrote stuff. I'm telling you, you'll never find anything more helpful than this book, The Universe is Calling by Eric Butterworth. And then there's Joel Goldsmith, who was one time a Christian scientist and then the Spirit spoke to him. And I'm going to read you something at closing. I think it's not a question of information. I find that it, I like to think of it this way. I wouldn't want to be on the Queen Mary without handrails. And I wouldn't want to be trying to do this without being fed.
My soul feels fed when I take up these books, books that talk to me. And it's what nourishes my heart so that I want to keep growing and that I want to keep exploring things that other people have found helpful. Another author that I think is really helpful is Eckhart Tolle. You know, because I like the fact he showed up one time in California and 2,500 people came to hear him. And he said, he said, isn't it amazing? He said that 2,500 people show up to hear a person who has absolutely no personality. And if you've ever met him, that's exactly no personality. He's just, and he says, and I believe him, he's the one person I really believe has had the false self, the ego, completely taken. So, spiritual reading, I think, is so important.
See, and again, I say, it's not just the information. It's the information I will take and try to apply the action. And don't we talk about that in AA, that we take the action, because it's through taking the action that you find out. I can talk about meditation from now till doomsday. And if I'm not taking the action, what happens to me when I sit down and say, God, I'm going to sit here for 20 minutes. Then you find out what's going on inside.
So, we've talked about three things. The fourth thing I would mention is seeing the presence of God in people. If God is within me, if the book is correct, then God is within you too. And I put up a little diagram here that I like. I don't think there's a place inside me where God dwells, but I think that's my life force. It's who I am. And if that is who I am, that's who you are. And it doesn't mean that I like your outside.
You know, when the master was here, he never said we had to like people. I often say, if you like everybody, you're on something, honey. You know, he said we have to love everybody. And love is a decision. You know, and sometimes people say to me, they phone and they'll say, you know, I don't think that I'm doing God's will because I don't feel God present. I don't feel God present a lot of the time in the sense that I feel your hand if I take your hand, Dolly.
See, it's an awareness. It's an awareness. And that's a different thing than a feeling. See, a feeling is in this sense, the presence. And so I don't have to like you. And for my money, this is how we'll change the world. We're not going to change the world through demands and
[00:55:05]
rules and regulations. We'll change the world by uplifting the consciousness. And I can tell you, when you can look at somebody and say, I don't like that person for whatever reason, maybe he's a murderer, maybe he's this, maybe he's that. I don't agree with the way he does life. I don't have to. I'm not allowed to judge him, though. That's what the master said. If you don't want to be judged, don't judge. And if you take things like this and say, I am going to see, that's why the Hindus have this namaste. I love it. It's clean cut. The God in me salutes the God in you. That's what it means. And I'm telling you, when you put out that energy, life changes.
People, you know, when you go to the grocery store, when you're going out on the street, I try to do this. I don't always succeed. But I try before I leave the house in the morning, anytime, to say namaste. The God is in me. And every person that I meet today, I'm going to recognize the God in them, and I'm going to treat them accordingly. So instead of giving you the finger in traffic, I'm going to remember that you're a God being. And you, too, have a place to go. And you want to get there as much as I do. You see, what happens then? This is practical.
Because instead of walking around with stress and strain and so on, someplace in the book, Bill says, it's a health restorative to practice the presence of God. So that instead of always being tense and worried, you know, what did the master say? He said, be like the birds of the air. They're not worried. The lilies of the field, they don't worry. And yet the Father clothes them in a beauty that not even Solomon had. So I think that's, once a woman came to me one day, and she said, what do you recommend? How can I grow? So I was telling her about practicing namaste, the presence of God with people. And she came back the next day, and she said, doesn't work. She said, I was on the bus. And she said, I was trying to see the presence of God, and all I saw was greasy hair and dirty shoes. This isn't about looking with the third dimension eyes. You know, they say, scientists say, that with our five senses, we experience very little of what's here. You know, this room is dancing with all kinds of energy waves. That's why we can have cell phones and computers and televisions, and get the proper thing to tune into it, and then we find out. I look, and there's space between me and you. No, there's not space between me and you. But my physical eyes can't see it. I have to learn to look with the eyes of my soul. And when I look with the eyes of my soul, I become aware of things different.
I like to think about this, too, because this is what nourishes prayer and meditation. What moves your soul? Think about this. Is it music? What do you experience that you just don't experience? That you just don't want to talk? Where there's something going on where it's just the beauty of it, the magnificence of it. One of the great psychologists said, we only need 10% of the intellectual capacity that we have available. That 90% of it is about our capacity to wonder. W-O-N-D-E-R. At the starry sky at night, does poetry do it for you? Does Beethoven do it for you? I think rock and roll might be a little hard pushed. Maybe the words, I don't know. It's not my thing. But what is it that is looking into the eyes? Grandparents often tell me.
into the eyes. Grandparents often tell me it's being with their grandchildren. What is it that does it for you? Be aware of that. You're precious. You're unique. You're entitled
[01:00:02]
to be who you are. How about a sunrise? The other night I was on a plane, and I watched the sun set. And I thought, isn't this amazing? The sun was this big red orb in the sky, and as we were flying along, I watched it till it was no more. And yet, if you think about it from what the eyes could see, it looked as if we were just flying straight ahead. And here, you know, you knew that the earth was moving and whatever. The world is so exciting when we see it that way. I often buy four different flowers, and I keep them someplace where I have to look at them every day to remind myself the rose is not angry because it's not a lily, and the lily isn't angry because it's not a daisy, and the daisy isn't angry because it's not a tulip. Each of them has their own beauty, and they blossom, and they show forth their beauty. I'm really a practical chick at heart. I do another thing. I often buy a package of seeds, and I give them to some sponsees and ask them, and we do the same thing. Let's say we buy carrot seeds, and we plant them, and then we pray over them and pray for radishes. I laugh every time I do it. Damn it, they didn't listen to me.
I prayed for radishes, God. Okay. And I'd recommend, too, that you keep a God book. I'll tell you, prayer and meditation will go a lot better if you do some things that support this structure. You won't know yourself after a while. I keep a God book, and every day I write down one thing in that God book where it might be something like, one day I was on my way to the airport. I had changed suitcases and forgot to take my passport.
I locked the door, and I'm about 60 miles from the airport, so it would have not been a good thing if I'd gotten to the airport no passport. As I locked the door, I heard a word, passport. When it's quiet in here, it's amazing what you hear. I don't take that for granted. I don't think that's coincidence. I think that's the spirit of God. You know, sometimes I hear people say they think grace is an unmerited gift. I don't. Everything is unmerited. Like, if you have unmerited gifts, the implication is there must be merited gifts. The Bible says, what have you man merited? In other words, who the hell do you think you are? Grace is the activity of God, and I think when we're willing and say, God, I can't do this, you'd be surprised what you hear. When you get quiet inside, when it's not always buzz, buzz, buzz, buzz, buzz, and that's the business of meditation. I'm not perfect at it, by heaven, no, but I'm a lot quieter inside now, and I can hear things.
You know, as a friend and I were talking, and I said, sometimes I know things that I didn't know yesterday, and I didn't read them out of a book, and he said, I absolutely agree with you, because he meditates. See, because we don't hear words spoken doesn't mean our souls haven't been fed. It doesn't mean our souls haven't been healed, that the goodness has just, it's here. It's just waiting for me to say, here, show me the way, God, show me the way. So, I think that another thing that really is helpful is forgiveness. Make it a day of amnesty. Anybody that has offended me, I fully and freely forgive you, and I let you go free. I wish good for you. I know that, you know, think about it. Have you done perfect all the time? Why should somebody else march perfectly? I don't believe that's
[01:05:01]
the way it is. I make mistakes, and when I make mistakes, I want you to let me off the hook, and by the same token, I think that's one of the things in the morning. I declare a day of amnesty for everybody. I'm going to try and live that way. That's big work, but I'll tell you, it fosters this whole thing of the relationship with God. Otherwise, what am I saying? You know, I'm saying, yeah, I want a close relationship with you, but I sure don't like that, you know, SOB there, because they're not acting right. I don't think that's the way it goes. See, I don't think prayer and meditation are in isolation.
They're about the way we live. It's about the way I think. It's about the way I see you. It's about how all that comes together. So I want to say a little bit about prayer, and then we're finished. Emmett Fox says, in the absence of prayer, all you can do is express the character that you have. You like the character that you have? You like the way you behave? If you do, good. If you want a different experience, just think what would happen if you walked into the office. I have a sponsee. She has given me permission, too.
She's an assistant to the professors, and she's been getting depressed about she wanted a permanent job. She's had contracts, and about two months ago, she said to me, you know, Mildred, I'm really getting discouraged. She said, I don't know if you realize this, but I've put in over 60 job applications, and she said, I'm going for a job interview on Tuesday, and she said, there's always a slick young man at those job interviews, and they look at me, and they've got all the smart current language, and she said, I feel they don't like me, and I'm not going to get the job. And I've been saying to her, practice the presence of God before you go in. Let God walk in ahead of you. Know that the room is filled with the presence of God, and when you see one of those, practice and say, deep within you is the presence of God. So she went to the job interview, and she didn't get it. And when she phoned me, she said, I've got one more interview, she said, and I said, well, you know what, I've taught you. So she went to the interview on Wednesday.
On Friday, she got a call saying she didn't get the job. No, Thursday, she got a call. She didn't get the job. Friday, she got a call from them saying, could we have the phone numbers of your references? And she called me, and she said, what do you think that means? I said, I don't know. Maybe it means just what it means. And so Tuesday, she got a call, and she said, and you know, there was one of those 30-year smart young men there, and she said, I just knew when I looked at him to start with, but she said, I really practiced what you told me. I really said, deep within you is the presence of God. It was him on the line saying, we want you to come and work here. Now, go figure that out. She was told she didn't have the job. And the very person is now her boss, the 30-year-old that she thought, you know, didn't like her. And then the other day, she called me and said, I was just told she has a son. She was told that her son, if he wanted to go to university, would go free of any kind of, like, they've just showered her with opportunity, and they love her, and he loves her. Wow. So, you know, this stuff works. It's practical. When we lift our consciousness to the fourth dimension, that's why we've been rocketed there. We've entered the world of the spirit. And so if we do and live like that, it's just great.
My minister friend says this, what God can do, God is doing. He doesn't need to be bullied. He doesn't need to be told. He's quite capable. What God can do, God is doing. You know, I've learned this. I don't pray for things. I haven't for a long time. I learned as a little girl,
[01:10:06]
God is useless when you talk to him about praying for stuff. Do this, do that, give me that, make that happen. Don't let that one die. Let that one be healthy. I don't know what's best. I don't believe I'm here about the third dimension and making it okay. I'm here about that process of waking up. And if that's the case, then I believe God is everything. And then prayer time becomes an awareness. You know, sometimes people get the idea, well, somebody knows better than me. They'll say, pray for this and pray for that. And, you know, I used to get into a harangue about trying to teach them something.
No. If you ask me to pray for somebody, I just say, sure, I'll do that. But all I do is remember who they are. They, too, live in the third dimension and think they need this and life should be that way and that way. Life has been really tough around me lately. Sandy Beach died. And last two weeks ago, the young 25-year-old son of dear friends of mine was found with a syringe in his arm. And go figure. At his funeral, the night before a thousand people showed up to pay their respects. You go figure. Go figure what this deal is about. And at the funeral, I officiated at it and I was amazed. There were 500 people at the funeral. And then two days ago, I got a call. One of my close friends was found dead in bed. I hope I'm not a bad influence. But, you know, when people say pray, pray for. Pray for God's will. What is God's will? St. Paul put it this way. I don't believe God's will is situational. I don't think it's about a place. I don't think it's about things that should happen. St. Paul said this. Pray without ceasing. In all things give thanks.
In all things. All things. The stuff that hurts. The stuff that you don't like as well as the stuff you do. And what's the other one? Rejoice always. That's a challenge for me sometimes. Because I like to get into a pity pot. And if I'm not careful, think about life. Why is my life this way? And I don't have a man. He offered. I keep telling the men when I give retreats. I keep telling them I'm taking resumes. I'm going to finish this off now. Prayer and meditation feed the soul. Soul needs to be fed just like the body.
It builds discipline and helps us focus our attention. Makes us think about our values. Makes us think about what do I really believe? As I said, you sit down to meditate. And I think it's really important that we make a spiritual practice. That you know what your spiritual practice is. What am I committed to doing today? Because if I leave it to chance, chances are I won't do much. It fosters communication because God speaks to us in the silence.
You will find that it is much easier to see the presence of God wherever you are. And you do build a relationship. Just a few little tips. Be willing to give prayer and meditation a try. Two, make yourself a spiritual plan. And I think a sponsor is helpful. No use saying you're going to do something that isn't practical. No use saying I'm going to meditate half an hour in the morning and you know you're not going to do it. It just adds to the sense of guilt and shame. I find it helpful to have a certain time. I have a certain chair. That's my meditation chair. I sit on it other times, too. But that's where I go when I meditate.
And it's also… Meditate. And it's also helpful, I think, to have a certain time for your appointment with God. Even if you say, I'm going to do it for two minutes, it's my appointment time with God. I'm telling you, that will carry over into your life.
[01:15:02]
And when you pick how you're going to pray and meditate, I think that there are lots of books, but I think that, you know, there's where you work with your sponsor or a spiritual guide, and the biggie is practice. This is my prayer practice. This is my spiritual practice. I think it's only fair that I tell you what that is, that I meditate in the morning and the evening, too, that I do spiritual reading, at least a half hour, preferably an hour a day.
I do a lot of this retreat stuff, and I like to keep current and keep fresh. Not so that I can say, you know, I know this and I know that, but it nourishes my soul. I have a God book, and every day, I write one thing, God, I saw you in that tree, and I know that you are the nourishment for the life of that tree, just as you are within me. Then you start to think different. Number four, before I leave my house, any time I leave, I try to remember, I don't do this as good as I should, but before I leave, remember who you are, Mildred, and you're going to meet other God beings out there, and remember that regardless of what happens.
Number five, at night, I ask myself, what did I give today? Is this world better because I was in it? I write down one thing. Maybe I gave somebody money. Maybe it's a smile to somebody. Maybe it's whatever. It's amazing, because then it becomes alive in you, and then meditation goes so much easier. And one last thing, at night, I always want to remember, did I make an effort today to be happy, and though everything might not be going perfect, did I allow myself to say to God, God, you're doing good.
I want to read you two passages. I know it's not approved literature, but it's good stuff. So it is that when we are aware of the density of human selfhood, we know we're moving a mountain of ignorance, and although a beginning is made with our first serious meditation, progress may not be too evident for a while. Then all of a sudden, it bursts upon us like a flash of light. Our purpose is to be the transparency through which the light shows up, through which it performs its mighty works, to be the instrument through which the divine can manifest and express itself on earth as it is in heaven.
We are never the doer. We are the actor. We are always the vacuum through which the spirit flows. Let us never for a moment believe that by our spiritual endowments, we will ever attain personal or spiritual power. There is no room in spiritual living for egotism or for the exercise of personal power. The power, the glory, and the dominion always remain in God, and we are the instruments, the humble servants or transparencies through which that light may shine.
And for each of you, that is what I wish, that we may do this together. God bless you.