California Free Press

Look for the Good and Praise it

Dear friends,

Marcus Aurelius: “take care that you don’t treat humanity the way it treats human beings.”

     It is incredulous to me that human beings, the expression of the Spirit, are daily maligned, slaughtered, robbed, starved and more by other human beings, usually acting as “humanity” or some version of superiority. The cultish behavior of so many, the willingness to surrender one’s better self, the mob mentality, is running rampant in this world. Yet, we must have faith in humanity to awaken to its higher inclinations; to love, to unite with, to bless, to prosper together, to celebrate this Life we are living.

     We must be the champions of human potential; insist on it, speak about it, stand up for it and act as if it were so. Always, the spiritual approach to lasting change is to begin with oneself. How are we representing humanity, the expression of the Spirit? Are we railing against what we see or are we seeing through it to the greater possibility within it?

     Look for the Good and Praise it. That is from long ago but very apt today. Be for humanity, not against it. Be for freedom and peace, not merely against war. Be for equality and justice, not simply angry about the inequality and injustice we can identify. Our attention must be on what we know is possible and to call it out with our own behavior. We model what we wish to increase in our world. How else could it happen? To paraphrase another old saying “consciousness is contagious.”

Stay tuned in,

Carol Carnes

www.carol-carnes.com

www.cslbakersfield.com  

www.californiafreepress.net

We are Responsible for the Quality of Life Here on our Little Planet

Dear friends,

     This is late today because I have been having computer problems all morning. It turned out to be a connection problem.   Isn’t that always the case? If it is not properly drawing current, nothing works!   The same is true for us as well.   We “plug in” through the right use of mind. It all begins with the declaration of our unity in the field of possibility. A religious person might say our oneness with God.

     How to stay connected? It has to do with a spiritual practice that is regular and intentional. Next is paying attention to how we react to the experience we are having, which would include the images on television. Do we make an effort to see through the appearance and to judge it righteously? By that I mean, can we see the bigger picture, place the event in the context of a larger something happening?

     As terrible as the suffering of humanity is right now, I do believe something more is coming through. We are experiencing the effects of our past ignorance and our refusal to consider that we are responsible for the quality of life here on our little planet, and in fact, the planet itself. We have dumbed down our relationship to the Whole and thereby we have caused the suffering we see right now. It is up to us to make the changes necessary to put things to rights. It is not too late but it is a right now project.   Let’s stay connected to the Source and claim our power!

Stay tuned in,

Carol Carnes

www.cslbakersfield.com (web launch on Dec 2, 2018)

www.californiafreepress.net

We Draw From the Well of Abundance

Dear friends,

     Meister Eckhart of the 11^th century said “God is a great underground river that no one can dam up and no one can stop.” It is a lovely image which connotes movement and energy. Perhaps it is like molten lava out of which new worlds are built. The river of Spirit flows within our own Being to be directed by us as we tap into its resources and express them.

     In other words, there is, as one example, a river of Love moving in us. If we would allow it, it would take us somewhere we have never been; perhaps into compassion and unconditional acceptance of difference. It might act as cause to how we care-take the planet. There is a river of supply, as well, to be used by us to facilitate our expression. We draw from the well of abundance when we have passion and a willingness to work to achieve our goals.

     Meditation is a way to move into the river of possibility and to float in it. Done regularly, we develop a sense of being one with something that enlivens greater love and peace in us. Spiritual practice is never about getting things, it is always a way in to what is already ours by definition of our unity with Source. We discover the resources within and begin to reveal them in our daily activities. Life gets better because we have claimed our truer identity.

     Sit still. Go down into the river. See what comes back with you.

Stay tuned in,

Carol Carnes  

www.carol-carnes.com (note the hyphen)

www.californiafreepress.net

Science and Religion Shall Walk Hand in Hand

Dear friends,

     We have heard from spiritual teachers that “the day will come when science and religion shall walk hand in hand.” However, the religion that science will partner with is not the religion of the West, but the mystical traditions of Eastern philosophies. Last night I awoke in the wee hours and feeling wide awake began to scan my bookshelf. I took out The Tao Of Physics which I haven’t read in 25 years. By Fritjof Capra, this is the definitive statement on the topic.

     The New physics demands the inclusion of the Feminine in our very masculine world view. We have been operating with only half of our natural being! It is crucial in these times that we stem the tide of rampant toxic masculinity. It is not about men and women (although we are each affected) as much as it is about the direct experience of our own spiritual wholeness, and the science that supports it. The Feminine values that have been almost completely ignored by western religion and old paradigm science are desperately needed in our perception of reality and our relationship to the universe.

   What Quantum physics and Eastern Philosophy have in common is the “unity of all things” viewpoint. From the cosmic to the atomic, everything is one something particularizing itself. It is in deep meditation that we begin to feel the truth of that astonishing truth. ( We knew it before we learned to talk and before we were talked out of it!) What this does to the thinking mind is to enliven our love, our sense of unconditional acceptance of difference. We know that we are one with Nature and our decisions must be in accord with her well-being. We perceive that we are immersed in Cause and all that it can do must come through us if we are to experience its Presence . We know that our personhood is both masculine and feminine and each one is necessary for the full expression of our true nature. Imagine how different the world would be if that were a shared perception by all of humanity.

Stay tuned in,

Carol Carnes

www.carol-carnes.com

www.californiafreepress.net

Evoking the Connection with Boundless Possibility.

Dear friends

     Rupert Sheldrake, the scientist who is known for his work with Morphic Resonance said, in a talk with Matthew Fox, “because the mind is not localized in the brain” but exists in a field, intentional thoughts could have definite effects on the course of Nature. Including positive thinking, he was also referring to real prayer, which declares the existence of a higher presence that is in some way responsive to our intentions. That is an apt description of what 21^st century prayer is all about. In modern New Thought we call it spiritual mind treatment. We are giving our own mind a treatment of spiritual truth, in order to dispel limited ideas which commonly occur as we look at the world as it appears to be.

     It stands to reason that a higher presence would co-respond to higher ideas that speak of its nature and our unity in it. Our prayers are not always answered because we are assuming we must earn the favor of a remote power that sits in judgement of our request. Science is telling us a different story of the cosmos, one which New Thought has been telling for decades and others told in the ancient world. Our minds are the extension of pure intelligence and absolute love. We are the way the extension continues into time and space and therefore, becomes personal experience.

     The New Science and spirituality are actually one thing. They direct us to think above our experience, to declare what we intend over what already is. The Higher presence does not fix anything.   It re-creates the original image and likeness of wholeness that precedes all form. When we sit down to commune with our Source, we are evoking from within our own mind the connection with boundless possibility. Let’s be very intentional about what we drop into the Field of co-creation.

Stay tuned in,

Carol Carnes

www.cslbakersfield.com (being recreated !)

www.californiafreepress.net

Let Your Spirit Encompass All the Children of the World

Dear friends,

     It has become impossible for me to do a Spiritual Mind Treatment for myself or my children without including all the children of the world and all of humanity. If there is one aspect of the chaos we are experiencing that is useful, it is our understanding that we are all in this together; that we are the way and the means through which Spirit expresses and we have everything we need to turn things around.

     There is great power in numbers. It has been proven that when 1% of any population is meditating regularly, the crime rate drops and a greater peace permeates the environment. That is one thing we could be doing together that would have a direct impact in our own neighborhood. It has to be regular, though, or the benefits are not measurable.

     Spiritual self-reliance is not a selfish ego-driven state of mind. It is the awareness that what we think, feel, allow or promote have effects in the world. Our power is great and must be managed. The great problem in the world today is that those despots do not know what internal power they possess; they fight for external power, and that is the way oppression and violence begins.

     Do not underestimate how much your internal state of mind affects the world in which you live. Let’s make a concerted effort, together, to stabilize our own inner life and to continue to know the truth about humanity, its origins and what is possible. It is never too late to start an evolution!

Stay tuned in,

Carol Carnes  

www.cslbakersfield.com (launch date Dec 2, 2018)

www.californiafreepress.net

Life Demands That We Get Back in the Game

Dear friends,

     It is always difficult when we blame others for our own experience. We miss the opportunity to grow beyond whatever produced the situation in which we find ourselves. It is never about anyone else, not really. How we react to anything comes from deep within our own self-identity.   It might seem that the other person has triggered our reaction but really, we were just waiting for an opportunity to let it out!

     Forgiveness is the act of taking self-responsibility for what is happening in the moment. After all, we are the only one who is always present in our personal experience. Bless the thing and move on. Call it a blessing and get going in a new direction. It is not easy to do when there is a real tragedy involved. When we lose a loved one to violence, do these spiritual principles prevail? As hard as it is to see, the answer is yes. The day will come when we simply must forgive and let go. The grieving process is necessary for most of us and is to be honored. But it cannot go on forever.

     Life demands that we get back in the game, as it were. Our gifts and our love and our compassion are needed in this world.  We are at our best when we allow them to take the lead and direct our actions. Real positive change comes, not from anger, but from a deep belief in the ultimate Good in all people. We find ways to bring it out, see it in everyone, but begin with ourselves.

Stay tuned in,

Carol Carnes

www.cslbakersfield.com

www.californiafreepress.net

Insist on the Higher Nature of Humanity

Dear friends,

     We are each born into a collective “soul”, that is, the shared beliefs of our group.   We come into a family, a culture, perhaps a religion, a country, a world that has already decided what is reality.   We are quite influenced by them as children and might take the tribal beliefs into adulthood, or we rebel against them. The important aspect of collective beliefs is that they are always subject to creativity.   It usually only takes one mind who perceives a new way of describing reality, and will not be silenced, to get the group to shift.

     Called revolution, it is an evolution of possibility. Two events may occur in the midst of us trying to awaken our loved ones to new ideas. They could reject us and we may feel ostracized in a deeply spiritual way, as if we do not belong with them, or we might realize we can still love them, think differently, but need to move on, regardless. In extreme cases revolutionaries are threatened with violence or banished forever. Common examples are the mistreatment of adult children who “come out” to their parents with devastating results. Being homosexual simply is outside of the reality of such people, although with time, and as the culture shifts, they may see things differently.

     In the early days of American culture, women and black people were not considered full humans. They were known as creatures. We could not own property or vote. Of course the African Americans were actual slaves and that was commonly seen as acceptable. Today it is a horrifying idea! Yet, in some parts of the world women still suffer at the hands of men who deem them objects to be done with as they desire. People of color are yet the recipients of mass prejudice.  

     Having said all that, we can change things for the better. But we need to speak up, act out, vote and make our voices heard. Everything we detest about society today is nothing but a cluster of ideas that began in fear. Think up!   Affirm! Declare! We must use our minds to envision and insist on the higher nature of humanity. It’s in everyone of us.

Stay tuned in,

Carol Carnes

www.cslbakrersfield.com

www.californiafreepress.net

Get in Sync with Mother Nature

Dear friends,

     The one thing about humans that keeps hope alive is our innate capacity for changing our ways. It was evident in the abolishment of slavery; women granted the right to vote; the legalization of same-sex marriage; passing of laws that guaranteed reproductive rights; conservation of national parks; the end of child labor. We have changed our ways innumerable times for the betterment of our shared reality. But we are a bit overdue right now for some major shifts in our collective perception of what is acceptable human behavior.

     It is election day in America. We will, hopefully, vote for those who seem to be on board with a higher vision for what we must and can change right now to turn the momentum away from self-destruction into loving respect for all life and what that means in our policies and decisions. It applies to each of us as well. What are we voting for in our behaviors? Are we living up to what we demand in our leaders? Are we modelling the very things we say must happen?

     Our daily choices are, metaphorically, a vote for something. What we praise, we tend to protect. Do we praise the air, the water, the sun and the rain? Do we praise the animals and the land and the rivers and plains? Seriously, how removed from the natural world have we, ourselves, become. Let’s get in sync with Mother Nature; praise her, love her, support her, protect her. Vote for her with our actions. We know what we need to do. Let’s go out and vote.

Stay tuned in,

Carol Carnes

www.cslbakersfield.com

www.californiafreepress.net 

Unfreeze Your Heart and Let the Sun Shine In

Dear friends,

     Matthew Fox, one of our greatest spiritual teachers today, said “lack of forgiveness is being frozen. Forgiveness is movement.” Our hearts must move if we are to thrive and remain alive with eager anticipation of our future. If we become fixated on getting even or in anger, we freeze the mind in a way that rules out possibility. We get stuck, as it were, in images of the past and some perceived slight or wrong done to us. We are the only one who is negatively affected by our refusal to move on.

     Fox also said that forgiveness is not altruistic. It is something we do for ourselves, no one else. We open up the floodgates to that magnificent field of infinite possibility. We seem to be at our most creative when we are open, trusting and full of open spaces.   A lack of forgiveness is counter-productive. How to know if you have truly forgiven? By being happy anyway. By living a life of love and joy. By understanding the motivation behind the others unkind or violent actions; it is always pain masking as false power.  

     The opposite of frozen is melting. Love melts the heart, leaving us in the flow of its energy. This kind of Love begins with self-respect, that is, a reclaiming of our spiritual wholeness, despite our past experiences. We declare ourselves to be completely new right now.

Try this:   I am free to Love, to celebrate my life, to succeed and prosper in radiant joy and vitality.”

Stay tuned in,

Carol Carnes

www.csl.bakersfield   (under construction)

www.californiafeepress.net

A Story Unfolding in Time and Space

Dear friends,

     Our life is a story, unfolding in time and space. It has a beginning, a middle and a completion. Chapter by chapter, we move in and out of relationships; express various aspects of our nature, develop new talents and skills, have great highs and some down times, but always we are opening to the world, offering our gifts, receiving the gifts of experience. A life well lived is one we wish could continue, never coming to completion. But that is not in the Divine plan.

     Last night Ericka Luckett moved out of our realm and into the not-yet-known beyond.   She is one of the most extraordinary people we have ever had in our midst. We were fortunate to be in the circle of love she created with her songs, her music, her quiet presence. Personally, I always felt she might not be here as long as we would like. She seemed, as they say, “too good for this world.”   But while she was here, she made our stories richer. Gratitude is what I feel today.

     And so, her Lisa will be a solo voice. I know she will sing again and her song will contain the gifts that Ericka brought into her story. Forever one, they are truly inseparable.

     Let’s take a look at our own story today. Is it unfolding into greater good all the time? Does our life represent the Spirit in human form? Most of us will not come up to Ericka’s level, but the attempt will be well received.

Farewell Ericka, thank you for the experience of you.

Stay tuned in,

Carol Carnes

www.cslbakersfield.com

www.californiafreepress.net

Apathy is Our Only Enemy

Dear friends,

     One thing we must never do is think nothing will get any better. Everything can be completely different in the blink of an eye, so to speak. It is easy to adopt the stance of powerlessness when it seems as if someone or something else is controlling us. But that is always a temporary arrangement that we have got ourselves into, usually by giving up our authority. We always have a vote in what kind of life we are willing to live. It begins with how we believe things happen. When we really understand that everything comes as an idea, first; then, if it meets no resistance, will become something we can point to and give a name.

     One of the tenets of New Thought spirituality is “spiritual thought force is greater than any resistance to it.” This means what we believe to be true with deep conviction must come about in our experience. I believe that pure Intelligence and Absolute Love are guiding and directing the people right now. I believe wisdom always triumphs over ignorance. I believe that we are on the brink of a whole new way of being together on planet earth. I believe nothing can stop truth, beauty, liberty and justice for all from manifesting in new and equitable ways. I believe my vote counts.

     In the fifth grade my teacher said “apathy is our only enemy.” I never forgot that, once I learned what apathy meant! Indifference is deadly. Please exercise your spiritual thought force and get yourself to the polling place. Believe in the Power that Makes All Things New. It is here, in us, awaiting our direction.

Stay tuned in,

Carol Carnes   

www.cslbakersfield.com

www.californiafreepress.net

Trust in Change!

Dear friends,

     Life is so different today than when I was young. Here I am at the car dealership getting some service while I use their internet, eat some yoghurt and enjoy their coffee. It is a clean garage and I can see what they re doing through a large plate glass window. So different from the old filthy garages with the naked girls on the calendar on the wall. Some changes are definitely for the better but the thing to remember is, things will change! Everything must evolve, grow or die. Those who resist it are destined to be very unhappy.

     Being uncomfortable is a sign that we have hit our growing edge. There is an opportunity to move forward in some way; mentally, emotionally, spiritually. We might prefer to stay exactly where we have been with our definite ideas about how things ought to be or how to feel about something. Yet, our discomfort is an signal to look within and ask ourselves a few questions such as “ How long have I believed this or that? Is it true today? Would it serve me to upgrade my ideas a bit? What do I fear losing if I let this go and adopt a new way of seeing things?”

     We can be sure there is a fear of loss of some kind when we defend our stance but everything around us indicates we may be out of date! Being current means being in the flow of creative energy. It will take us forward if we allow ourselves to be available to new ways of being in the world. Trust change! It is the most natural activity in the universe!

Stay tuned in,

Carol Carnes

www.cslbakersfield.com

www.californiafreepress.net

The Power that Makes All Things New

Dear friends,

     Ernest Holmes, in his book “This Thing Called You” wrote that we must “eliminate the idea of good and evil as entities opposing each other and realize there is but One Life Principle.” That Life Principle can be used in any way we choose. I try not to use good and bad or even positive and negative in reference to current events. I prefer possibility or limited, thinking. We have limited what is possible for humanity by thinking of some as good and others as evil. That pits us against each other, which does not move us forward or solve our problems.

     The problems we share have come about through limited ideas of what is possible.   Thinking like that causes us to beg, steal and decimate the land. We will fight over just about anything we feel is in short supply; oil, water, air, food, love, money, land etc. etc. etc. We may think the “evil-doers” are the enemy but really it is our collective misunderstanding of the laws of the universe as they apply to us.

   The notion of good and evil as powers in opposition is a metaphor for the tendencies of mind to react to appearances rather than respond from deep spiritual truth. We have to believe that humans are capable of stunning awakening and a complete turn-around from what is now the norm. We are operating in ignorance, but that is something that can be removed quickly.   Let’s do our part in holding to the truth and acting as if it were so. How? Gratitude, generosity, compassion, kindness and knowing the Power that Makes All Things New is leading, guiding and directing the whole of humanity into the creation of a world that is a safe haven for all.

Stay tuned in,

Carol Carnes

www.cslbakersfield.com

www.californiafreepress.net

Let the Music Come Through

Dear friends,

     There are many ways to listen to music; on vinyl records, CD’s, on your phone, on radio or tv, in a live concert. However we access it, music is always music. It is the vehicle for its transmission that determines the quality of the sound.  Imagine if the Source of all Life were singing your personal song of love and joy, abundance and vitality, peace and creativity. All you need do is tune into it and provide the clearest “channel” for those qualities to be shaped by you. It is the condition of the channel that is the key.

     If our mind is so cluttered with limiting ideas, we are, in a sense, refusing to hear the song of the Spirit which is forever attempting to be used by us.   Many spiritual traditions teach mindfulness and meditation as ways to clear the mental field. We become, in a sense, more available to God when we allow it entrance. It is we who must prepare ourselves to receive the gifts that are forever trying to come through us. They do not happen to us, although in this time space dimension, it appears that they do.   They are generated from within each one of us.

     One of the best ways to clear the mind throughout the day is gratitude. Be thankful all the time for the smallest things;   a smile from a stranger, a red balloon, a child’s laughter, a soft breeze, the warmth of the sun, rainfall or the beauty of snow on the trees. Be grateful that you can be grateful! Our most important activity is the care and feeding of our mind. Give it the good, the true and the beautiful and soon the music will come through you.

Stay tuned in, 

Carol Carnes  

www.cslbakersfield.com

www.californiafreepress.net

You Have Innate Worth and Boundless Potential

Dear friends,

     Spirit never struggles. Life, if left in its natural state, never struggles. Grass grows through concrete with ease and the rain falls without restraint. Birds fly and ants build. Why do we struggle with money, with love, with health? Is it because we are holding to the notion that we are unworthy in some way? Is our past behavior shaming us today? Do we feel guilty about a decision? Are we afraid that others will be jealous if we succeed beyond what is average? Living with chronic lack of any kind is usually self-punishment. Of course I am speaking about those of us in a rich culture with many opportunities to do well. We are not dealing with famine or plague, are we?

    So much can be healed with a larger perception of our Source. This universe and everything in it is the visible evidence of an incredible intelligence in constant giving mode. That is, all we desire is inherent within its nature and you and I are of its nature.   We are not random acts of anything, but the visible expression of an outpouring of that intelligence. We are so constituted as to be lavishly supplied with whatever is necessary in the moment for our thrival! Struggle usually represents a feeling of being left out of that equation. We are not!   No one is. But our made up stories about the nature of reality have left a stain on our hearts and a dark place in the mind.

     Spiritual practice is about removing the stains and the darkness by bringing in the Light. And that means a change of perception; rethinking our place in the universe; being willing to step out of the law of averages into the Law of self-generation. We generate what we believe to be true of ourselves, our Source, our birthright.

Try this:   “I am free of the effects of past experiences that do not validate my innate worth and boundless potential.”

Stay tuned in,  

Carol Carnes

www.cslbakersfield.com

www.californiafreepress.net

Vote for the Kind of World You Want to Live in

Dear friends,

     Emerson wrote “a greater self-reliance, a new respect for the divinity in man, would work a revolution in all the offices and relations of men; in our religion, in education, in our pursuits, in our modes of living, our associations, our property, our speculative views.”

     He did not say things would merely get better or we would be a bit happier. He said it would be REVOLUTIONARY in all aspects of our life. We are living in a world that has practically NO sense of the divinity in humanity. The effects are devastating. It is changing however, thanks to things like New Thought spirituality, science, and the natural evolution of intelligence.

     This is election time so it feels right to invoke my favorite quote; “the God you believe in is your vote for the kind of world you want to live in.” What if the God we believe in were known to be within each and every person, all sentient life, indeed the universe itself? That would definitely be revolutionary. Existing power structures would tumble; the need to kill to get our good would cease; war would be obsolete; our biggest challenge would be to decide what to do with our boundless creativity.

     With respect for what we have been and done so far, it feels like we have been acting in a story ; a story where no one knew how things happen and so the drama of dealing with whatever befalls us, and fighting life, unfolds. But now we are ready to tell and live a new story. We are bored with pain and suffering as drivers of our plot. We are wanting a new game to play. Emerson had the answer. It all starts with where we believe the power to make all things new actually is and how we make use of it.

Stay tuned in,

Carol Carnes

www.cslbakersfield.com

www.californiafreepress.net

Life Is For Us And Never Against Us

Dear friends,

     Yesterday a lady ran a red light and collided with my car as I was inching forward to make a left turn. I was not hurt but my vehicle had to be towed to a body shop. The other driver was taken by stretcher to the hospital for observation. She was quite frail and elderly. At the same time a dear friend is in hospice preparing to leave this realm of life. As hard as it may be to accept, each experience is just life happening.   Things come and go. Is there some deeper meaning for us as we live in the midst of it? For me, everything comes back to “Life is for us and never against us.” When someone close to us makes that transition, it is a beautiful example of that simple truth. There is no loss, there is a new beginning for them. The loss is our wanting to keep everything the same. We cannot do it and be in harmony with Spirit, which is always on the move. To try is to induce pain.

     No one expressed it more eloquently than Emerson, when his young son died. He wrote how he had expected to be more devastated, that he might never recover.   But no, he said a calm peace came over him and sustained him. Of course he grieved but it was in the context of a larger perception of what life is. Our sense of who we are in this universe and what may be behind it, colors our every reaction or response to the changing effects of being human.  

     Allowing for the natural flow of life in and out of form is not cold or uncaring. It is simply the sweet sigh of awe and wonder at how effortlessly Spirit moves.   I suppose the meaning is to be fully present for all of it, knowing we are forever blessed, no matter how it looks.

Stay tuned in,

Carol Carnes

www.cslbakersfield.com

www.califoniafreepress.net

Love is the Best Thing in Life

Dear friends,

     Love is still the best thing in life no matter what the world is doing. It is alive and well in feast or famine, in good times and in trying times. People still find others to love and to hold close. Sometimes it is not a person but a memory or a beautiful bit of nature.   But love will not leave us, ever.   It is one of the gifts of the Spirit that help us to rise above mere existence into truly being alive.

     The sad idea that we have to be in some kind of committed one to one relationship to know love is so wrong. Love comes through our dedication to great ideas, or through music, art and words of inspiration. Love is the motivation behind everything that begins with a desire to make things better; the situation, the relationship, the world. Love is the grand and glorious reason we are here.

     To feel that we have no love is to deny our birthright. It is an egoistic point of view. It ignores our true nature. People who feel left out of love have a mistaken self-identity. We can only feel love when we express it to ourselves, first. “I love being me” is an affirmation of our origins; a statement of gratitude for the Source of our aliveness, our consciousness, our very being.   It is a true psalm of praise, not for our local self, but for the Spiritual Love that has become us.

Say it out loud this morning."I love being me!"   Look in the mirror and tell it! Repeat it like a mantra in the car, while you work. You might be very surprised at how much love is alive in you and available to be extended into your world.

Stay tuned in,

Carol Carnes  

www.csl.bakersfield.com

www.californiafreepress.net

We Are Vehicles for the Future

Dear friends,

     There is an old jazz ballad, “Imagination” that has this line in it “imagination is funny, it makes a bee think of honey..” This reminded me of a line from one of Rumi’s poems: “the thirst in man’s soul is put out by the water itself.”   Another way to think of it; does the oak tree ‘pull’ itself out of the acorn or does the acorn push the oak tree out?   The idea of anything exists first in the quantum (spiritual) realm. It is already whole and complete. Al it needs is the vehicle to carry it into visibility and form.

     What this means to me in the context of New Thought spirituality is that you and I are vehicles for the future to be revealed. Our job is to make the idea part of us, our self-identity, as in “ I am love in action or I am wealth in motion or my body is the vitality of wholeness in form.”  The idea then “pulls” us into its vibration, so to speak, and we experience what it is, individually, in our own perception.

     We know the potential chicken is in the egg. But why does it come out of the shell unless there is the imagined chicken pecking around for worms pulling it out. Why would a baby leave the womb, which may be the safest, most serene place in the universe? Is the adult human being calling it forward? Does this distinction matter to us? It might help us to see how little we have to do to create a life worth living, or a world that works for everyone. Really, it is in allowing the fully orbed idea to draw us into it.   This is where our own mind is so important. We have to stay clear, stay in trust and be available to what is trying to happen.

Stay tuned in,

Carol Carnes

www.cslbakersfield.com

www.californiafreepress.net

Heed Mother Nature, Not Organized Religion

Dear friends,

     Rupert Sheldrake, the scientist who conceived of the theory of morphic resonance, saw our unconscious mind as a field and the conscious mind as creativity.   This is completely in line with New Thought spirituality that sees the vast unconscious as not only a field of possibility, but also our link with all other beings who share the field, collectively.   It is our conscious mind that selects what to draw from the field and to act on or feel or allow. Too often we allow our mind to draw only from the most recent deposits in the field, which would be our own personal history.

     The practice of inner silence is the vehicle that takes us into the deeper realms of the field; that is, to bypass our own stored up images and to access the infinite realm of potentialities. This is the best kept secret on the planet. This, alone, grants us power beyond any we have ever known.   This is the way the human leaps out of the mud into the blue sky, as it were, where anything is possible and whatever we choose to promote finds its way into our shared reality.

     Matthew Fox said when Augustine brought Original Sin into the theology of the day, he created a great wound that we have endured for over 1600 years. It is the loss of Grace and unconditional love that we are meant to know firsthand as the Presence of our Source. But as “sinners” we must bow down to priests and kings (and pay dearly ) to be granted Grace.   You can see what this has done to the power structures of the church. Today we are waking up to the fraudulent claims of those who would enslave us. Let’s get real with our perception of our place in the universe. It is in the lap of Mother Nature and she is singing us into consciousness.

Stay tuned in,

Carol Carnes

www.cslbakeersfield.com

www.californiafreepress.net

Science and Spirituality Shall Join Hands

Dear friends,

     If, as quantum theory has shown, there is one undivided whole of which we are part, then our thoughts do not travel anywhere in time, but are instantaneously “caught” by whomever we are thinking about. The same is true of our WORD spoken in a deep faith of its veracity.   When we declare that our body is strong and vitalized with the consciousness of wholeness, it resounds instantaneously at the quantum level and is echoed by the Source itself, as a felt Yes!

     Just as two electrons act as one, even when they are separated by thousands of miles, so do we and “God” interact as one. The wave and the particle are one action of an unbroken connection. For us this means when we speak our Word, the wave (The Whole) collapses into the particular experience we have desired.   As science delves deeper into the quantum realm, it will prove the words of the Master teachers, and there have been many. Most of their teachings were misunderstood, misinterpreted, watered down or dismissed. But the time has come when science and spirituality shall join hands.

     Meantime, do not abandoned your faith in the unseen, but do try to expand your sense of what it is. It is not a person, it is a Field; a responsive Field of pure consciousness.   It is what we arise from and into which we think. The response, like two electrons, is to mirror our desire, bringing it out of the invisible into the seen and felt world. It is a system of pure Intelligence and Absolute Love, guaranteeing the gift of individual expression and the advancement of the species.   As the ancients proclaimed “what you are looking for, you are looking with and at.”

Stay tuned in,

Carol Carnes

www.cslbakersfield.com

www.californiafreepress.net

Get to NO and a YES Will Surely Follow!

Dear friends,

     In football, a player will be penalized if he interferes with a pass. In science, quantum physics was at first laughed at by the established scientific community. It interfered with their long held notions of a mechanistic universe. Voting for a new candidate to replace someone we deem ineffective is another kind of interference. People who have made great strides forward in any walk of life have had a moment when they interfered with the accepted way.

   It occurs to me that we also have to interfere with our own habituated thinking. If we seem to be headed into the same kind of situation that has limited us in the past, we have to look at how we have been thinking and interfere with it!   We do that with bold declarative statements, sometimes a resounding NO! will lead us into a much needed YES!

     If there is some area of your experience that needs to be upgraded, try this: (as an example) “I am done with struggling with money! I say NO to the belief in lack wherever it originated. I say YES to ongoing financial flow and prosperity.   I am well-supplied with whatever I require for my personal well-being.”

     Interference is a good thing. Almost every great cultural change has come about because someone or some group of humans had just had enough of the old ways and with a resounding NO went on the YES.   They interfered and their insistence convinced others to look at the situation and to rethink it. That’s how the Civil Rights Act came to be. It is how women got the vote. It is how anything that has made life better for humanity has come to be. Get to NO and a YES will surely follow.

Stay tuned in,

Carol Carnes

www.cslbakersfield.com

www.californiafreepress.net

Outer Space and Inner Space

Dear friends,

     The irony of wanting to “go into outer space” is that we are already there! Astrophysicist, Carl Sagan, remarked that that was just as important a question as Who am I? or Where am I? That question was answered in that iconic photo of our planet taken by astronauts on their way back from the moon. There we are, a blue pearl in a vast universe. Another photo shows us to be a tiny, almost imperceptible dot, in an immense Galaxy.

     We exist in something so mind-bogglingly huge that we are unable to feel part of it.   That is why we want to go there and it is also why we are so focused on life here. Many people think we are the only intelligent life forms, a point of view that is utterly ridiculous. But it is a way of coping with our apparent insignificance. Having said all that, does it detract one bit from our ability to invent, design, create, love and celebrate being alive? No, and furthermore, what if the universe were as much an event as a place? That would also describe us. We are a happening, yet also a physical form.

     There comes a time when we must simply accept the fact of our life; that we are a conscious being with origins in this universe. We are some extension of consciousness that pre-existed our birth.   We are one way that the event is kept moving. We are part of some cosmic celebration of Life itself. Personally, I love the idea of space travel but I am equally happy to visit Paris. There is a vast mini-universe right here with daily opportunities to prove that our existence is also something to celebrate. Let’s re-discover where we are and let’s begin with Who.

Stay tuned in,

Carol Carnes

www.cslbakersfield.com

www.calfiorniafreepress.net

Life is a Marathon. Approach the Finish Line Gladly.

Dear friends,

   The day will come when we will be asked to give up this life, hopefully, as Marcus Aurelius advised, without complaint. I believe it was Irma Bombeck who said something like wanting to slide into home base all used up. It can only happen if we see transition, not as a loss, but as a completion of one particular experience. Think about how you felt as a child when you had to leave the amusement park. You had a wonderful day, filled with wild rides and sugary food, but you were sleepy and ready to go home. It all comes to a point when we must get on with our particular journey and that always includes some kind of leaving.

     That happens while we are very much alive and well, too. We are made to leave the party, again and again. The moves we make in one lifetime are almost countless.   We move through sadness and pain, joy and sorrows. We leave friends and they leave us. Sometimes we feel forced into choices but we make the best of it and then the day comes when there is a good opportunity and we grab it; suddenly everything looks wonderful again.

     We make small moments and very dramatic ones but, always, we are the main character.   We often do not notice just how resilient and creative we really are. If today was your time to take your leave, could you do it without complaint?   Could you be grateful for everything and let it go? If we could begin to practice that right now, we might find the life we are now living to be filled with more joy than sorrow, more fun than work and more love than we ever thought possible.

Stay tuned in,

Carol Carnes

www.cslbakersfield.com

www.californiafreepress.net

Time to Rid Ourselves of Superstition

Dear friends,

     Does the rose think the soil is God or the bulb it sprang from? Maybe it is the sun or the rain that it worships? No, she simply gives forth her sweet aroma and reveals her beauty without questioning how it came to be. Unlike other life forms, it is almost impossible for a thinking human to not wonder what is the source of life. It seems we cannot resist inventing a story or a few thousand of them, to account for our existence. The most obvious choice is to make it (whatever it is) in our image and likeness. We gave it a personality much like a king or a benevolent dictator, since those were most likely the only models of power we had when all this began.

     Some people attribute Life to ‘aliens’ coming down to populate the earth. Not much is said about what the source of the aliens is! We simply do not know much about how matter becomes conscious or how consciousness becomes matter. The best we can do observe how things seem to come about and take note of patterns that precede the arrival of things. Over time, with diligent attention, we begin to see the link between what we think, feel and believe with what occurs for us personally. Inherent in that realization is a sense of being cared for or looked after, as if our capacity for happiness is built in to the system. That is when we feel a Presence, something in the atmosphere that is responsive to us.

       The saddest conclusion we can make is that our Source is not the same for everyone, or that we gain its favor by performing certain rituals or incantations, wearing clothes of a certain color, growing our hair or shaving our heads.    That kind of thinking causes violence and mayhem, caste systems, racism, sexism and apathy.  It leaves some people out of the equation and therefore not deserving of freedom and justice, prosperity and opportunity.   It is an insidious and ego-gratifying way to take power over others.

       In this day and age, isn’t it time we rid our collective consciousness of superstition, dogma and made up scenarios of what is our Source? Isn’t it time we included everyone in the story? We are here and Life is for us, never against us.   What can we do with that information?

Stay tuned in,

Carol Carnes

www.cslbakersfield.com   www.californiafreepress.net

While You're Alive, Choose to Live

Dear friends,

     The fear of death is rather futile when considered this way; if there is nothing after physical demise, then we won’t even know it. If there is something, then great, a brand new experience awaits us.   It is the belief in a punishing God that bothers many people. The possibility of going to “hell” is frightening.  One of the many aspects of New Thought spirituality that is so healing is the insistence that Life is for us and never against us. That means a loving God or a Source that is invested in our Good. It does not punish nor reward but functions in time and space as a principle of natural consequences of our choices.

     The time to get right with the principle is now. We have full say in how we act in this life. Our capacity for love is as great as our use of it and the same is true of all the qualities we attribute to God. We seem to be extensions of It, not creations. Marcus Aurelius said “sunlight doesn’t pour out, it extends.   It’s rays are extensions of it.”   Just so, God did not create us and leave us to flounder around trying to survive; we are extensions of it and by continuing the extension through our actions, we reveal it here.

     The life we live now is Reality. What lies beyond will be nothing or something but need not concern us today. Our time here is a playground of possibility.   Shall we choose to be negative, angry, irritated most of the time, critical of everyone else or shall we choose happiness, fun, love and good relationships? What would keep us from making that choice? Certainly not fear of death. Perhaps fear of Life.

Stay tuned in,    

Carol Carnes  

www.cslbakersfield.com

www.californiafreepress.net

Identify Yourself as the Activity of God

Dear friends,

     It was early in my spiritual studies that it came to me; God is a verb and the only way it could be seen in action was by turning itself into another verb, a Be-ing. In order to guarantee a forward moving evolution, there had to be the experience of individuality. Thus, hidden within the I and the me of each one of us, is the activity of God. It is forever attempting to fully reveal itself as love, joy, peace, vitality, supply and creative intelligence, which turn themselves into human, individualized activities.

     It followed then, that the spiritual path is not to get somewhere but to come to a realization of our true nature. The question becomes, how much more love or joy or peace, vitality and creativity can I allow into my life? How do I bring it through me into action? What is stopping me from fully releasing these natural qualities into the realm of personal experience? "Consider the Lilies." I look at nature and see the only significant distinction between flora, fauna and humans, is that we look outward for our self-identity and the Lilies just bloom.

     It is quite the razors edge to be on, that of being in the world but not done in by it;   of caring about others but not be concerned to the point of despair; of getting involved yet remaining detached; of believing in the Good within everyone while allowing for varying levels of its expression. It is a practice and everyday affords us more opportunities to hone our awareness.

Try this: “My true self is my informant. It prompts me to do the right thing, know the higher truth, choose the best action.   I am its hands and feet, its mind and heart. I identify myself as the activity of God.”

Stay tuned in,

Carol Carnes  

www.cslbakersfield.com

www.californiafreepress.net

Imagine What We Could Do

Dear friends,

I had a funny dream last night.  I was giving a talk to a group of engineers. I told them that nothing would replace human ingenuity; that a robot might be able to build something but if he lost his hammer he wouldn’t be able to find it. Silly, right?  But it made me think of Emerson who wrote about our awe of the great cathedrals and the pyramids, and how we ought to consider how much greater are the hands that built them. 

Ernest Holmes, the founder of Science of Mind spirituality, would have said nothing we have ever done with our creative minds is as great as what we could do.  There is an infinite aspect to us.  We have no ceiling as far as our imagination is concerned.  The interesting point is that once we imagine something, the idea itself seems to show us how to get it done!

Thomas Troward taught that ideas are living entities;  they have the life force in them and contain the fully orbed form in potential, much like the oak tree is in the acorn. He said ideas that we invest with our enthusiasm and attention would naturally draw to themselves what was needed to take shape, like the nucleus of an egg, turning itself into a chicken.

Our part in the creative process is easier than we make it.  All we have to do is keep our enthusiasm, belief and trust in the process active and focused.  The idea knows how to generate in the outer world what belongs with it.  We call that part synchronicity.  I am constantly amazed at how Life has provided everything necessary to keep the creative process in full swing.  What would we like to see appear in our personal experience?  It is an idea.  Give it some life force. Create the mental space for it to lead from within. Clear the path it requires by removing all doubt or fear.

Try this:  My idea for greater levels of___________________is on the move right now, making itself into my experience.  I am its partner and I am its way. I keep the path clear.”

Stay tuned in,

Carol Carnes 

www.cslbakersfield.com

www.californiafreepress.net

Base Your Life on Intelligence and Love

Dear friends, 

    All sentient beings are the activity of intelligence and love. We have long held the erroneous belief that humans are the only intelligent species and the only one that loves. Now we know that such beings as bees communicate in their own language, as do whales and dolphins and birds and your family dog. The plant on the balcony will turn its face to the sun, knowing where it is. Not only are animals intelligent, they also show love and caring for their offspring.   They build things and they make tools.   It is astonishing to think we have had it so wrong for so long.

     Everything that lives is God in action and God is Intelligence and Love in perfect right relationship to give form to a spectacular display of diversity. You and I are such a form, God expressing itself in a way that has never been done. The Game of Life has always been a kind of hide and seek proposition. It is for us to discover the intelligence and love we possess and then to see what we can do with them.   We are fortunate if we had parents, a mentor or a culture that taught us of the creative power we hold, but that is not the case for most of us. We are told all kinds of nonsense about how or why things happen. We grow up, begin to doubt the stories, and start to play the Game.

     My own search for what could be called truth, began with a burning desire for it. I actually called out to God (something I doubted even existed) and in a matter of days I learned an ancient meditation technique that cracked open my mind and set me on a path of self-discovery that is still in motion.   I was led to a Science of Mind Center and from there to here, my life has been about sharing this truth with the world.   I am deeply grateful for everything in my life, including the parts that weren’t so lovely. It can be messy to undo beliefs, making room for new perceptions. We resist, fight and sometimes abandon the Game, only to return once again, ready to let Intelligence and Love have their way with us. That is the spiritual path and we are all on it in some way.

Stay tuned in,

Carol Carnes

www.cslbakersfield.com

www.californiafreepress.net

Love Yourself Unconditionally

Dear friends,

     Are you enjoying yourself? By that I mean, your Self? Or are you, like most people, depending on others for your value? How much feedback do you really need to love yourself unconditionally? It is a balancing act to keep ourselves humble, yet confident and approving of our own way of being in the world. There is a healthy combination of the two and it is derived from spirituality.

     Humility is the natural condition of a mind that is aware of the miracle of their own existence; of the almost impossible odds of getting born at all; of the mysterious, yet palpable Presence of Something perfect that is behind it all. At the same time we have the right to think well of ourselves for managing to live with integrity, love and the ability to forgive and move forward.   That is not conceit, merely the acknowledgement that who we are is always greater than the situation we are in at the moment. We have made good choices.

     Have you ever noticed that you have a tendency to grasp onto any negative remark about you? That it seems more real than the compliments? That is an indication that we need to get back to our spiritual practice and sit with ourselves in silence. It is there we will find the warmth and appreciation we seek in the outer. Any one of us, no matter how schooled we are in spiritual truth, can revert, temporarily, to self-negation. It is in our best interest to pull our mind up to the higher level of awareness that “I am living in great love and peace, unbounded joy and passion. I am never separate from the Source of everything. It is always possible to love myself and others unconditionally. I do so ,now.” Not easy, but worth the effort.

Stay tuned in,

Carol Carnes

www.bakersfieldcsl.com (under construction)

www.californiafreepress.net

Defy Logic When It Is Illogical

Dear friends,

   The other day I went to the DMV to get a California drivers license. Well-meaning friends suggested I take a book because I would be there for hours. I took the advice of a DMV telephone representative and went on a Saturday afternoon, which seemed a crazy idea. Wouldn’t that be the busiest day of the week? However, I took her advice and I was in and out with a new license in under 45 minutes. Sometimes defying logic is the secret to great success!

     It may seem logical to fight against what is wrong or ill-conceived but what works best is to act as if it did not exist and do what we know in our hearts is the right thing. We are taught so many things that are not true that, if we do not come to that moment where we decide to trust ourselves, we will live without energy or passion, moving through life automatically.

   Emerson said something about this; “It is very easy to live by the opinion of the world.   It is very easy in solitude to be centered. But the finished one is s(he) who, in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.” Isn’t he simply saying, let our spiritual understanding and our deepest knowing be the energy of our daily actions?

 Do not set our truth aside and fall into the hue and cry of the nay-sayers. Our lives are best lived in congruency. Do the right thing, be true to our self, defy logic when it is illogical, and trust our higher knowing. There is Reality and there is Appearance. Which one is our guide?

Stay tuned in,

Carol Carnes

www.cslbakersfield.com 

www.californiafreepress.net

Opening Our Minds to Possibility

Dear friends,

     There was a fascinating program on TV recently about how the Dutch have conquered the potential for flooding. It was imperative that they do so since the Netherlands are largely under sea level. A huge storm could devastate the land, and indeed, had done so in the past. They built a series of truly innovative devices that divert the water and put it to good use. Using only the human mind, they are no longer victims of the weather. They are its partner.

     The secret seems to be in NOT fighting something but standing up to it and getting creative. Our minds are the conduit for what has not been previously known. When we decide to take charge of what seems indomitable, we soon discover that we are greater than it. Intelligence, put to creative use, trumps force every time.

     We would all agree that creation can be quite chaotic or messy. When the old forms come unglued, they turn into rubble. That is the stage where people fight to save the old ways. It is like trying to give away your child’s old toys and they simply will not let go of them without making a scene. Some of our cherished ideas have been really hard on some of us.   None of them, however, are more powerful than we are.

     The Dalai Lama once replied, when asked what is needed in our world, “Critical thinking.” We need to think beyond what we already know. That is as true of us as individuals as it is of the collective.   If God is “the Power that makes all things new” and if it lives within each one of us, then what do we need to do?   Activate the Power by opening our minds to possibility.

Try this: My mind is open to receive the very idea that is needed in this moment to create a brand new _________________________(fill in the blank)

Stay tuned in,

Carol Carnes

www.blakersfieldcsl.com

www.californiafreepress.net

We Have Met God and It Is Us

Dear friends,

     There are lots of reasons to be upset these days, to be angry or to lose hope.   There are even more reasons to celebrate the underlying emergent Good that is coming through. It is removing all that is unlike it by making us aware of what needs to be released. We release by adopting a higher idea, one that serves humanity and validates our spiritual heritage. That means we are the cause of our shared reality and we have the resources, each and every one of us, to create a new way of being together that exemplifies our Source.

     What is your motivation today? Is it to welcome diversity into your midst more consciously? How will you do that? Is it to share your prosperity more intentionally? What would that look like? If we want a more just and equitable world, how can we make that happen right where we are? What is our part in this unfolding Good? We do have a part. There is no “they” out there who will make it happen. There is no outer God who will intervene. God is in us, expressing through us by means of our self-awareness.

     We come again to the inescapable conclusion that how we identify ourselves sets the agenda for all we do, for every choice we make. Take the worldly labels off, set yourself free of them.   Claim your true nature.

“I am a forever revealing Spiritual Being. My human experience does not touch or diminish my true self in any way. Who I am is always greater than the realm of form and experience. I honor this self by taking the high road today. Inclusive, loving, compassionate and daring to be who I am, I release all old ideas that seemed to serve me but only kept me hidden. Who I am is the answer to every question.”

Stay tuned in,

Carol Carnes

www.bakersfieldcsl.com

www.californiafreepress.net

Today Let's Offer a Prayer for Humanity

Dear friends,

     In late afternoon, if I am sitting on my balcony, a mother and her toddler, a little girl with huge brown eyes, go by and wave at me. They are from India, so I call out ‘namaste’ which makes the mother smile. She is about to give birth to her second child. I silently hope she cherishes these days with her one baby. I know her life will change drastically with the addition of another. It will be happy times but not as peaceful. There will be more to do, and the little girl will have to adjust to not having mommy all to herself. I wish them well, in my mind. I affirm that her birthing is easy and that the family is joyful and blessed. It is all I can do but it is a good thing, I assure myself.

     There is a lovely old spiritual song “Someone needs a prayer today” that says it all for me. There are countless opportunities throughout our day to know and affirm a deep truth for others. We pass a scene where two cars have collided. Do we offer a blessing? I simply say to myself “all is well. Healing is now. Help is here.” A homeless man is sitting on the curb as I drive by. I need to know “there is God, right there in disguise. There is no lack of anything he desires.” I am not a saintly person. Far from it. I can be goofy or sarcastic, even. But my heart seems to stay open to a higher truth than what I see around me.

     That really is the purpose of spiritual practice; not so much for my benefit as it is to keep me tuned in to the finer vibrations of life, to the inherent perfection of everything; to know it is never too late, too hard, too real, for a new life to emerge right where the old one seemed to be permanent. The song asks us, have you said a prayer today?   Let’s offer one, not for ourselves but for humanity. It is trying to birth a new way of being together.

Let’s know: “We are awake now to the glorious truth of our Being. We are on the move in the right direction. We love each other, all of us. We celebrate diversity and cherish our individuality. We are brand new, all together. We smile and say Namaste.”

Stay tuned in,

Carol Carnes

www.bakersfieldcsl.com

www.californiafreepress.net

Trust the Process of Self-Renewal

Dear friends,

     There was a time when drive in restaurants were everywhere. Once parked in a specified spot, a waitress, sometimes on roller skates, would appear at the driver side window with menus. When the order was ready she would attach a tray inside each window. It was great fun to eat in the car. We also loved drive-in movies and drive-through anything. The automobile was king in the 50’s, largely because of the shortage a few years earlier during WWII. There was no rubber for tires, no materials for the making of anything non-military and gasoline was rationed. After the war, there was a kind of feverish energy to make up for those years of deprivation. In a way our parents were celebrating their freedom once again, as their parents had done at the end of the Great Depression.

     The Law of Compensation, as Emerson wrote about, is always at play in us and is reflected in our shared experience. When things become so one-sided that they start to topple over and pull down systems, we experience the effects as turmoil. What is happening in our collective experience right now is the healing of a one-sided value system that excluded whole groups of people. Those not in the favored system were treated as either indentured servants or chattel. That is now being revealed to be healed.

     In our personal lives, the Law is also working for us. What seems like a great challenge is always some kind of opportunity for us to rise to higher levels of self-awareness, which in turn, always bring higher levels of experience. The body breaks down, the business flounders, the relationship sours, we lose a position of privilege or are simply tired and worn out. Revealed to be healed, these are opportunities to pay attention to the Intelligence operating through us, which seems to be saying “There is Good for you and you ought to have it. If you release how it has been, how you have reacted, and trust the process of self-renewal, you shall be highly compensated.”

Stay tuned in,

Carol Carnes 

www.bakersfieldcsl.com 

www.californiafreepress.net

Enter Into a New Relationship With the World

Dear friends,

     We say opposites attract. Yes, they do, but like the poles of a magnet, they are not separate. They are part of a spectrum.  We are all one something pretending to be separate entities. It is a good game, giving us the world we live in, like fish in the ocean who are not aware of the water as the connective power. We swim around in “God” as it were, oblivious to its presence. We are, for most of our lives, committed to this game of hide and seek.   At some point we are bored with the hiding part and begin to seek. That is the beginning of a spiritual path.

   What do we seek? That One Something that gives rise to the many. It is a spiritual quest but as a matter of fact, it is also the main search of science. What is that Power and Where is it? We are attempting to find the unifying field we are in, but at the same time, like fish, hold the belief that we are separate from it. It is a conundrum. Like trying to be on the inside and the outside at the same time.

     The one thing that opens us to the both/and aspect of our Being and our Reality is mystical experience. It often happens in meditation or perhaps in deep silence, however attained. It has occurred in many throughout the ages with various practices. The search becomes the life. But we westerners are not about to give up the game. We just want to play it with the awareness that we are the very thing we seek and that “thing” is right where we are.

     This is what the Buddhists mean by “Chop wood, carry water” before we are awakened and after. We continue in our separate appearing existence but with the sense of being one with all. That awareness seems to be what is missing for most of us. This is why all our problems are of the mind. When we see it as it is, we enter into a new kind of relationship with the world, and of course, with all the other fish.

Stay tuned in,

Carol Carnes

www.bakersfieldcsl.com

www.californiafreepress.net

The Law of Life is Growth,

Dear friends,

    The worst mistake we can make if we want to be happy, vital and prosperous, is to attempt to keep everything in place. The Law of Life is growth, which means evolution.  I like thinking of it that way because to me, evolution is not about loss, but about what is so now becoming more of its potential.  It is rather like the toddler who becomes the little girl.  We did not lose her, she evolved; or that little boy who “got too big for his britches.”  It is not unlike the crab shedding its shell and creating a new and bigger one.

     Why is this so in humans?  It seems to do with our nature, with our boundless potential.  Once we reach maturity and the physical growth ceases, we begin to create newness through our mental activity.  The ideas we feel strongly about, if they are attached to a resulting greater good, are prompted by our heart.  The heart is a metaphor for the soul, the whole self, the ongoing “I” which contains the evolutionary principle.  It nudges the conscious mind with ideas that promote growth; ^ie: “ love more, include more, give more, celebrate more, express the rest of you.”  They come to our awareness as desires.  If we are not used to listening to our soul, it might feel like frustration. 

     But rather than think “I will never get ahead” listen to the soul which is knowing “This job is too small for me.  I  can do much more with my talents.”  Then we begin to energize the idea with affirmation and cheerful expectation.  We declare we are ready to give more, earn more, be more effective.  When we are clear about that, we will naturally do what needs to be done to facilitate the outcome.  The little crab knows how to shed a shell that is too small.  Do we really think we are not equipped to break through our own self-imposed confines?

Stay tuned in,

Carol Carnes

www.carolcarnes.com

www.californiafreepress.net.

Bring Your Potential to Light

Dear friends,

     Emerson, that wise man of Letters, wrote “by doing our work we make the need felt which we can supply.”

     There is much to consider in that statement. One, that our talents and gifts, if expressed authentically, will always find an audience, a consumer, a landing place. Did you ever have that Costco experience where you said,” I bought things I didn’t know I needed.” Two, by doing what is ours to do, we “unfold ourselves” as Emerson noted. There is nothing more appealing than an unfolded self!   Authenticity is in high demand these days. We know it when we see it.

     The question “what is mine to do here?” is one we might ask ourselves on a regular basis.   There is something about you that is needed in the moment. If it is authentic, it will be in some way supportive of a higher idea or ideal.   Sometimes we are the one to call out a bully or a manipulator, but if we do it with the intention of creating a space for greater love and creativity, then it is ours to do. We will have honored the need in others for happy collaboration by removing what was in the way.

     There is nothing negative about seeing through the appearances and calling forth what is hidden. That is good leadership. That is a spiritualized perception, one which sees the highest and best in everyone as a potential waiting to be identified. That does not mean we enable disruptive behavior; just the opposite. We know that person has an unfulfilled need, which in some way, we can help come to light.

Stay tuned in,

Carol Carnes

www.bakersfieldcsl.com

www.californiafreepress.net

The Soul is the Individualization of God

Dear friends,

     Marcus Aurelius broke down the threefold nature of being this way:

Reasoning: Mind

Desires:       Soul

Sensations: Body

     But wait! The soul has desires? Yes, but not the way the body does or even the mind. The soul has innate qualities that are meant to be expressed. They are promptings, nudges,a feeling there is more to us than we have as yet revealed. The mind can talk us out of our own potential by insisting that our life was “ruined” by our childhood or some other past experience has damaged us. The body can ignore the soul by medicating, indulging its pleasure seeking tendencies and constant activity; running through life as if it were a marathon.

     The soul is the original individualization of God in us. It is unique to all other souls and is (in religious language) God’s desire to be seen and known as us. Furthermore, there is an infinite aspect to it, meaning there is more than one possibility for us. We're not predestined to become any one particular expression in this life. We have volition. But the nudges are there. It is almost as if Life were saying to us, if you try this, you will be successful, or fulfilled or in service to a greater Good. Then all the doors seem to open and everything falls into place.

       The mind must be involved, supporting our local perception with nutritious ideas and encouraging words. One of my favorite questions to ask is “How would the Infinite think about this?”   You can use the word God or Spirit if it appeals to you. If the potential is within, then success is inherent, but we can dismantle it with limiting ideas. That is why we have a spiritual study to support us. We keep our mind stayed on the wisdom of the ages and the advances of science. We are not “wishful thinking,” we are proactively managing the creative process.

Try this: I am so in tune with my soul’s desire, there is no room in my mind for negating ideas."

Stay tuned in,

Carol Carnes

www.bakersfieldcsl.com   www.californiafreepress.net

Retain the Innocence of a Child

Dear friends,

     It’s a beautiful day in the neighborhood, as Mr. Rogers assured us. The neighborhood is more than the street we live on or the town or our home state. The neighborhood is the content of our mind. Mr. Rogers actually knew that. He taught us to respect others, love ourselves, take care of things, be careful with our words and so many practical things to do to keep the day beautiful.

   As adults we tend to make everything harder than it needs to be! Have you noticed yourself fussing and fuming over something that might happen but has not as yet occurred? Do you have argumentative conversations with people from your past who are not now here?   Do you project worst case scenarios, thinking that is the adult thing to do? Well, you would be right about that! It is the worried adult’s favorite pastime. Mr. Rogers would tell us to relax, sing a song, perhaps recite an affirmation. He was actually teaching the basics of New Thought spirituality in a way children could understand.

     What we engage with in our mind takes on a life of its own if we allow it to run away with our attention. It is the wise grown up who retains some of the innocence of the child and expects the best, is cheerfully present, feels connected to the Source of all and is eager to engage with the world. It is not polly-anna-ish, but a seriously effective strategy to create a life worth living. Let’s make it a beautiful day in our internal neighborhood.

Stay tuned in,

Carol Carnes

www.bakersfieldcsl.com

www.californiafreepress.net

Let's Be Motivated by Love

Dear friends,

     All the ways we can be in love are too many to enumerate. We are familiar with but a few. The reason we are not aware that Love is the highest motivator is simple.   It has been relegated to romance and family. But think about it this way. Whenever we care about anything, we are in love. Tending the garden, recycling our trash, driving safely, helping a friend with a project, voting, sharing food, giving to those in need; really, anything we do with a sense of gladness is Love in Action.

   Here is a wonderful affirmation from Thaddeus Golas:

“Whether I feel it or not, I am one with all the Love in the universe.” Let’s allow those words to be with us today as we go about the business of living, which is actually the business of loving. Let’s release the concepts of work and not work, duty and obligation. Let’s try to see ourselves as constantly engaged in love. How would this awareness change your experience in the office, at the grocery store, in traffic? When we realize that our entire experience is colored by our internal experience, we can see how powerful we really are. Yes, there are people doing unliving things, but they are doing them because they do not know that Love is the real power and is right where they are, all the time.

   If we want to see change in our world we must begin with ourselves. Here is another affirmation from Golas:

  "Whether I am aware of it or not, I am one with the cause of all that exists."

Stay tuned in,

Carol Carnes

www.bakersfieldcsl.com

www.califroniafreepress.net

We Can Still Be Happy Even If the Situation Looks Dire

Dear friends,

     Today is as good as it gets. Well, unless and until there is a movement in consciousness that starts a new series of cause/effect.   Knowing that is the principle of manifestation, why not be happy today? Why wait another minute for someone else to make you smile, or something else to brighten your outlook? Why not take your power back right now and decide to be happy? If we make that leap, are we being callous to the worlds problems?   Are we ignoring our responsibilities? No, we can still write letters to the editor, march in protests, send money to worthy causes, recycle, and go to work. But we will be taking with us, into every activity, an energy vibration of local joy. It is irresistible. It will charge the atmosphere wherever you may be. It will act as cause to the effect you generate.

     Waiting has its place, of course. Patience, trust in the process when you have set a goal in motion is a good thing. But waiting does not come into the equation when we are talking about personal feelings. Although we have been well-trained to think our feelings are caused by others, they never are. No one can actually make us happy, sad, angry, worried, peaceful, loving or miserable. It is entirely up to us to make a real choice as to which we shall experience. Of course our lightning quick reactionary mind will seem to choose without our input, but we can help that, too. By slowing our thoughts via meditation and declarative statements, we will find that in ordinary situations we might be a bit more conscious of how we are responding to the stimuli.  The trick is to not impede our own happiness by self-negation, also known as beating up on ourselves, when we lapse into unconscious reactions. We reflect and decide if that was how we really want to feel.

     None of this makes sense if we hold to the notion that effects act as Cause. They seem to, but watch how quickly things change when a new idea is dropped into the mix and agreed upon. Think of how much has changed in your own lifetime. Did things just happen or were they set in motion by ideas? Ideas are always in very precarious positions. They have no life of their own, only the life we give them. So what is the best idea you have today? Mine is to be happy now and now and now. Why not?

Stay tuned in,

Carol Carnes  

www.bakersfieldcsl.com

www.calliforniafreepress.net

Spend Time Remembering Who We Are

Dear friends,

     Ernest Holmes wrote in The Science of Mind “the wave in the ocean will never be a wave by itself. It will always be the ocean as the wave.”

     You and I are more than what we appear to be. We appear to be separate individuals but we will always be that which has individualized as us. The mystics felt this as the ecstasy of self-realization. Holmes also said science is leading us back to the great spiritual deductions of the ages; the physical universe is One something; Mind is One field of consciousness. Your mind and my mind are of the same Mind, again individualized.

     This is basic New Thought teaching but it is revolutionary to those who have been convinced there is a great separation between us and “God. This error in this thinking has caused most of the worlds problems and is certainly at the root of personal feelings of lack, struggle, fear, ill health and general unhappiness. If our religions continue to denounce science, we will miss the great awakening of all time. For those of us who are already on the path, let’s be sure to spend some time every morning remembering who we are. This is best done in actual practice as meditation, contemplation and self-talk. We tell ourselves the truth by declaring it to be so.

“ My life is the Life of One perfect Intelligence and absolute love. I am the wave generated by the power and Presence of the ocean of God.”

     Change does not happen all by itself. It is generated by mind. As the Buddhists say “nothing moves until mind moves and nothing moves but mind.”

Stay tuned in,

Carol Carnes  

www.bakersfieldcsl.org

www.californiafreepressnet

Literary Inspiration

Dear friends,

     In my packing for a much anticipated move, there are a few books that will travel with me in the car. I read from them a bit every day. They are Emerson, Marcus Aurelius, Ernest Holmes and Alan Watts.  We have here a collage of brilliance touching the mind, the heart and the soul .   Each one of them can make me laugh out loud with their swift sword of Truth, cutting through human folly. At the same time, there is a running theme of reverence for who we actually are; for the Spirit that runs this body and allows this self to think itself separate from all others.

     These are but a few of my literary guides. I also love Thomas Troward, Jean Houston, Matthew Fox, the poems of Mary Oliver and the sparkling wit of Mark Twain. What is always present in great writing is some defense of the soul, some recognition of our shared and boundless potential. We are quite familiar with our own ignorance as a people.   We do not shy away from listing our shortcomings. But nothing good comes from it unless and until there is that statement of possibility; that remembrance of our origins. Really, that is why religion was born.

     The spiritual teachings of today, replacing old-time religion, that will serve humanity in its quest for true equality, real love and compassion, shared prosperity and creative joy, are the New Thought Centers. They emphasize our innate divinity, our immense capacity for Love, our natural Intelligence, our deep reverence for Nature, our ability to use our mind in such a way as to challenge perceived limitations. These ideas are not new, but they are fresh in a world that has forgotten its Origins. We are so much better than what we have done so far. The ancients knew that as a guiding principle and so do I.

Stay tuned in,

Carol Carnes

www.bakersfieldcsl.org

www.californiafreepress.net

Where is the Source of Beauty and Love?

Dear friends,

Emerson once said “this world is so beautiful, I can scarcely believe it exists.”

     Haven’t you had that experience? You are stopped in your tracks at the rainbow arcing across the road; a butterfly drops down and rests on the edge of a leaf; an owl looms large in the tree outside your window. Maybe you are in the city, but the blue sky peeks through the tall buildings and you see clouds sailing by. Suddenly struck with the wonder of the natural world, it seems a miracle that it exists and seemingly, for our own enjoyment.

     The spiritual path, as it is called, is often sought unconsciously by those of us who have felt the loss of something we cannot name. We have questions, we seek answers, but for the most part we are longing for that child-like sense of being one with the Source of this beautiful world.

     We sensed the Presence when we were very young, but it was soon relegated to the recesses of mind as we ventured out to discover our place in the world. We got knocked about and learned how to navigate the treacherous road of human relationships; we developed skills and earned a living; we had some fun and adventures; but there was that insistent nudge to find the More, the Source, the Cause of it all.   Why Beauty? Why Love? What are we meant to do with them? What is our place in this beautiful world?

     The God men invented is a figment of imagination. There is a real God but it is not located elsewhere. It is lavishly spread out as the universe and everything in it. It is Presence, here and now seeking outlet through you and me. It is Nature, Beauty, Love, Supply, Joy, Peace, Vitality and Intelligence.

As the ancients knew “what we are looking for, we are looking with, and at.”

Stay tuned in,

Carol Carnes

www.bakersfieldcsl.org

www.californiafreepress.net

Speak Your Truth and Let the Infinite Do Its Thing!

Dear friends,

     Petitionary prayers are, according to Alan Watts, an impertinence and a lack of faith.   He goes on to remind us that if God is omnipotent, omniscient and omnipresent, He (It) is quite aware of what is happening and is already on the job. Ernest Holmes figured this out as well with his formation of Spiritual Mind Treatment. It’s purpose is to change our mind about what is happening so that we see through the appearance of lack or illness to the whole Spirit of the person, knowing it is that very wholeness that is now present and revealing itself. We do not know how it will appear, only that it must.

     The realization of God as immediate activity in, as and through every life, completely removes the false notion of Its being far away and needing to be petitioned. Of course we want to think the highest thought about a sick friend, but what could be higher or more loving than to affirm, without a doubt, their spiritual intact-ness and the pure Intelligence of God within?

     A secondary realization is that our mind is part of a collective mind and that what is known ‘here’ is known everywhere throughout the subjective field. Our treatments are felt by the one we are knowing the truth about! Truth of our wholeness, once announced, has a powerfully resounding, positive affect on those who “have ears to hear.” That would be anyone in need, anywhere. We do not need to work hard in prayer, ceaselessly petitioning God to help out. We need to get our “bloated nothingness out of the way” as Emerson advised, and open up to the ‘Divine circuits’ that are already in motion. In other words, speak your Truth and Let the Infinite do its thing!

Stay tuned in,

Carol Carnes

www.bakersfieldcsl.org

www.californiafreepress.net

Honor the Winding Path of Life

Dear friends,

     As Alan Watts asked “Is the River of Life a canal? No, it is a wiggly, winding, flowing dance-like energy, forever swinging around obstacles, moving forward but definitely not in a straight line! Civilized humans have insisted that everything is in a linear progression, straight lines, but that is just not so. There isn’t a straight line in the human body or the ocean or the sky. It is all curved and curving. Imagine how differently we would see our own lives if we had not adopted the straight line hypothesis as our base reality.

     Seriously, think about how much of our perception of success or failure depends on if we reach a goal by going forward in a linear fashion. If we get side-tracked or there is a deviation from the plan, we think we have failed. What if we saw everything that occurs in the journey as part of the ultimate strategy?   What if a setback were seen as necessary to get us where we want to be? The first thing that would leave us would be stress. Stress is dis-ease causing, trouble- making energy. With a sense of “all is well, I trust the process” we retain the creative power of the original idea.

     My observation is that most of us give up too easily. We are disappointed if things seem not to proceed according to our linear image. We think, if we put one foot in front of the other and keep going, we will get there, but we are devastated if somethings seems to interfere with our march to the end.   We fulfill certain aspirations along the way, but the river keeps moving in many directions. I remember reading a book about how the Hudson river was first navigated in Canada. The explorers had to deal with swarms of mosquitoes, terrible heat, and at many points the river was unpassable. They had to get out and carry their canoes for many miles to reach the open river again. They simply followed its course and made history.

     Can we be more patient with ourselves and each other? Can we honor the winding path we are on? Can we trust the process we have set in motion? As the old saying goes “One thing leads to another.” Being at peace with it is what turns an arduous trek into a journey of discovery.

Stay tuned in,

Carol Carnes

www.bakersfieldcsl.org

www.californiafreepress.net

Why is Hitting a Ball Worth Millions of Dollars?

Dear friends,

     Did you ever stop to think about how much value we place on a person’s ability to do things with a ball? I was watching the US Open tennis tournament this week. After seeing many matches it suddenly hit me how peculiar it is that hitting a ball back and forth across a net, and doing it well, is worth millions of dollars. The same is true of baseball, basketball, football, even ping pong. Some of the highest paid people in our world play games for their money. The least   paid are those who fight our wars.   Now, at first glance it would seem backwards, that soldiers ought to make more money than athletes.

     On deeper reflection however, and without taking one iota of respect away from military personnel, maybe we have it right. Perhaps deep within our higher knowing, we understand that killing other people, for whatever high-toned reason, is not something to be rewarded. Yes, we honor the courage, the valor, the sacrifice but not the acts of war.

     My point, I guess, is how we take some things for granted that we ought to look at more closely, if only to see what beliefs are acting as cause to them. It is as true of us personally as it is in the collective. Life is a moving picture of our cherished beliefs. I say cherished in the sense that they are tucked away and not examined, like our grandmother’s jewelry in the box in the back of the closet. We were told there is value there but have not verified it. One day we decide to have a professional assess it, only to discover it is worthless colored glass. Beliefs are like that. I know people who still think God is a man in the sky but if you push them to say why they believe that, they will give some version of “I was taught that.”

     Humanity is in the discovery phase of our evolution. We are looking at some old ideas with fresh eyes. It is imperative that we examine every idea that separates us from each other, from the universe, from Nature, from Love and Intelligence. If we drop the ball on this one, we will lose the whole game.

Stay tuned in,

Carol Carnes

www.bakersfield.org

www.californiafreepress.net

The Open Spaces in Our Minds

Dear friends,

     Life is Activity and Stillness. That is the rhythm of the heart; the beat of music. Art is as much about the negative spaces as it is the images. Printed words on a white page can be deciphered because of the space between them. Movement and rest is dance. Being and doing. Thoughts and no thoughts. Awake and asleep.

     Most of us spend our adult lives almost entirely in the Activity realm. Resting is seen as laziness. Taking breaks at work to sit in silence is viewed as “weird.” It is a National dis-ease to be constantly doing and rarely, if ever, contemplating Being. Insomnia has become commonplace because we have so trained our mind to stay active!

     Animals have enough sense to lie down in the field, curl up in the shade. Even flowers close up for the night! But we humans don’t want to “waste” time with inactivity. It all comes from a skewed perception of Life. The root is a belief that “there is not enough of anything to go around, so I have to make sure I get mine and that means to be hyper-vigilant and always on the job.” It is not only a work ethic but it bleeds into our relationships, too.   We try to control other people; their reactions to us, their emotions, their time, so we can feel “loved.”

     The truth is: There is plenty of everything for everybody. The source of our supply is Infinite but it can only find its way into our experience via the spaces between our thoughts. That is the spiritual path of creation. It is forever attempting to bring forth whatever is necessary in the moment to assure our well-being. As Emmet Fox once said; “money or molecules” whatever belongs with us comes through us. A mind at rest is the conduit for everything. Yes, our thoughts are important But once we have a perception of continual support from the Infinite, it flows freely by means of the open spaces in our mind.

Stay tuned in,

Carol Carnes

www.bakersfieldcsl.org

www.californiafreepress.net