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As recorded in John 14:27,
Jesus is reported to have said to
His disciples, as He was
preparing them for His leaving
them as a physical presence:
"Peace I
leave with you, my peace I
give unto you: not as the
world giveth, give I unto you.
Let not your heart be
troubled, neither let it be
afraid."
What Jesus meant by these
words was that He had given them
a gift that no worldly gift could
match, the gift that He believed
in their ability to draw forth
from their own divinity the
fulfillment of every need and the
answer to every problem they
could ever have.
Just think what our world
would be like if every parent
gave the same gift to his or her
children!
We have all heard the old
adage that if you give a man a
fish, he will be hungry the next
day, but if you teach him how to
fish, his hunger will be
satisfied all his life. Jesus
taught His disciples how to
fish!
One time He taught them "to
launch out into the deep." On
another occasion He told them to
"Cast the net on the right side
of the ship." The message is the
same, I believe: work from
spiritual consciousness, draw
from the deep within yourself,
and fish from the "right" side:
trust God, your true Self, to
know where to cast the net - to
know how to solve whatever your
problem may be. God knows and God
will show you, God can do this
because God is within you
too.
Remember, Jesus' problem was
to teach them He represented
their own spiritual capacity to
do all the works they saw Him
doing, and which they had been
thinking only He could do! (This
is the same problem we still have
to overcome: we must accept
Jesus' words as given to us
because He believes in us too! If
you and I receive and live by His
words, our needs will also be
filled, and then we will know how
to give to others!)
In my website essays for June
and July, 2007 (numbers 69 &
70 titled THE
KEY TO THE SPIRITUAL LIFE: THE
PRACTICE OF CONSCIOUSLY LIVING IN
THE PRESENCE OF PURE BEING
and IN
THE PRESENCE OF PURE BEING) I
was writing about exactly what
Jesus did. And it worked! His
disciples had been groomed to
receive the message that they
could do the works Jesus did, or
rather that God could do the
works through them as He did
through Jesus. When Jesus was no
longer here to do them, the
disciples were reported to do
miracles. It took them awhile
because at first they fled in
sorrow because Jesus was gone,
but they came into the
realization of what He had told
them, and they left their nets
and became "fishers of men."
In the July essay mentioned
above, I wrote:
Will you join me at this
moment in time and let yourself
get the feeling that when you are
in the presence of any human
being, you are for sure in the
presence of pure Being?
Pure Being is the best
definition of the reality -the
Truth - of each and all of us. To
practice this is to be in the
best and the fullest support of
another person.
When we worry about whether
someone we love cannot make it on
his or her own, we are not
beholding them in terms of Pure
Being. In the same July essay, I
also wrote:
Judging ourself or anyone
else is to forget two
things:
1. The eternally
unchanging true Self of each
person is pure Being;
2. Human life is the
process of learning how to
express the infinite
possibilities of our true
Being.
Please know that I am not
preaching at you. No, I am only
in the process of learning how to
practice my preaching. I am doing
better and I am seeing
results!
The greatest legacy we could
ever leave for those we love is
their peace in realizing we
believe in them - we believe the
God Self is who they are! And the
greatest gift we could give in
the NOW is that very practice:
beholding in them the pure Being,
the fount of all
possibilties!
Actually life does call for
some giving of material things or
a helping hand. We can do both at
the same time: we can give from a
spiritual consciousness and
impart the message to others that
these are gifts of love, but "you
are never dependent on others."
Life is mutual giving and
receiving, and the greatest joy
of all is in the giving when we
know we are giving the right
message, "I love you." Such gifts
inspire others to have healthy
self-images and to learn the joy
of giving.
PS: I doubted my use of the
word "occasion " as suitable for
Jesus' post-Resurrection words to
His fishermen, but you may enjoy
looking up the word in the
dictionary, as I did. It was
really an important occasion!
Don
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