That’s one of the reasons
why I sometimes say that “It’s never crowded along the
extra mile.” On the extra mile, choosing inner peace and
attracting success into your life while living in the present
moment become a way of being. So, make the commitment to live joyfully in the moment. Stop dreaming about the futur e and get back to the only
thing any of us have: Now. Decide to live fully in the
present, withdrawing attention from past and future. Your
desir e for inspiration activates the world of Spirit from which
you came. Your imagined  futur e, the stuﬀ of goals, is an
unnecessary way of squandering the present moment. Be
Here Now is more than a great book title by Ram Dass, it’s
the essence of inspiration. Being in the now is the way to
remove anxiety, str ess, and even some illnesses. As I sit here writing, I can daydr eam all I want about
completing this book, but in reality, all I can really do (which
is precisely what I am doing) is listen to my inner voice,
oﬀer a match ing vibration  to those inner pleadings, and feel
the joy of allowing the thoughts to come through me onto
the pages. The “goal” has been suspended in favor of being
here now, living out what I’m being directed by my “SeniorPartner ” to do. The end result takes care of itself,
particularly since I see the end result in my mind, and I use
my pr esent moments in har mony with that vision. I recommend that you ﬁnd a way to transfor m your past,
and remind yourself as you do that you’r e transfor ming any
and all beliefs that you’v e used as labels or indicators of
your limitations. To empower yourself in the present, replace
all that with a knowing that you’r e not what you’ve done,
what you’ve been, how others have taught you, or what has
been done to you—instead you’r e a part of the beloved,
connected now and always to your Source, and therefore
connected to the unlimit ed power of the beloved. You can
be all things at any pr esent moment in your life. OceanofPDF .comYou Can’t Solve a Problem
with the Mindset That
Created It
Today we are examining  the topic of problems and how
changing the way we think can solve them. Any problem can be resolved with a spiritual solution. One
of the most intriguing passages in A Course in Miracles
suggests that you don’t have a problem; you only think you
do. The open ing lines of the Torah, as well as Gene sis in the
Bible, state, “God created Heaven and Earth,” and later,
“And all that God created  was good.” If you interp ret those
words literally, it’s quite clear that problems are impossib le.If God created everythin g and all that God created was
good, bad does not exist. “But,” you say, “disease,
dishar mony, despair, and so on all appear to exist and run
rampant in our world.”
When we feel separated from our sacred center, it’s easy to
believe so strongly in the separation that we explain any
unpleasantness as a problem. In the world of Spirit, or God,
problems simply don’t exist and aren’t real. When your
spiritual conn ection is weak, you move away from the world
of Spirit, and problems come from your belief in separation. Your mind creates the illusion of separateness, and your
body, inﬂuenced by your ego thoughts, takes on diseases. Our societies are the creation of our collective thoughts. They take on the same separation-sickness, and then we
have what we call social problems . All of the so-called
problems, however, represent a spiritual deﬁcit that can be
remedied with spiritual solutions. Think of it this way: If you
change your mind , you will solve your problem. (I’ve written
an entire book on this subject called There Is a Spiritual
Solution to Every P roblem .) How to Go about Changing Your Mind
Can you accept the idea that it’s your belief in your
separation from God that creates the attitude that you label
a problem? Can you explore this idea that what you’r e
calling problems are all simply illusions, or mistak es of your
intellect? If God is everywher e, there is no place that God is
not; therefore, you have God with you at all times. You may
believe otherwise. It is this belief system that creates your
so-called problems. If you can bring truth to the presence of
these illusions, they will dissolve—just as you know that
three plus three equals six is true, and that three plus threeequals 10 is untrue. By bringing truth to the presen ce of this
arithmetic er ror, it simply dissolves. So too will all of your beliefs that create “problems” in your
mind dissolve when you bring the higher energy of truth to
them. St. Francis of Assis i, in his famous prayer, beseeches
us to change our mind to this thought: “Wher e there is
hatred let me sow love.” Light always dissolves darkness. Love always nulliﬁes hate. Spirit always cancels problems. Problems exist as beliefs of your ego mind, which is unable
to conceptua lize an awar eness of your spiritual mind, just as
dark has no concept of light. By actually rewriting your agreement with reality, you can
change your mind and send away any perceived problem. Change your attitude towar d yourself, and r esolve to believe
in your connectedness to the higher energy of God, even in
the direst of circumstances. Turn anything that seems
problematic over to your higher self, trusting that the
“problem” is not what it seems to be. Rewrite your
agreement about who you are and what you’r e capable of
achieving. Your New Agreement with Reality
Your thoughts are the source of virtually everything in your
life. Every relationship that you’r e in is something that you
carry around  with you. If your relationship is lousy, it’s
because you think of it that way. The person you’r e in a
relationship with isn’t with you in this moment, or when
you’r e at work, or when you’r e in the bathr oom, but your
thoughts about that person are always with you. The only
way you can e xperience another person is in your thoughts.You can’t get behind their eyeballs and be them. You can
only process them with your thoughts. If you look for what’s
wrong about  them and store that negative imag e in your
mind, then that’s wher e your relationship exists. If you
change your thoughts to what you love rather than to what
you label as wrong, you’ve just changed your entire
relationship. It went from lousy to great by your changing
your mind! Try to always remember that you carry every relationship
around with you in your head. Robert Frost reminded us,
“You love the things you love for what they are.” When you
forget this and process other people on the basis of what
you think they should be, or what they used to be, or how
they compar e to what you are, then you’ve sent love away,
and in your mind, the relationship has soured. You
experience every thing and every one in your thoughts. Change your thoughts, and you change what you carry
around in your head as pr oblems. The world is just the way it is. The economy is just as it
should be. The people who are behaving “badly ” in the
world are doing what they’re supposed to be doing. You can
process it in any way that you choose. If you’r e ﬁlled with
anger about  all of those “problems”, you are one more
person who contributes to the pollution of anger . Your desire to do something about the lowest energies will
motivate you to be more loving, more feeling, and more
peaceful. And in so doing, you may inﬂuence those who are
the farthest removed from God to return to their Source. This new agreement with yourself to always stay connected
to Spirit even when it seems to be the most diﬃcult thing to
do will allow whatever degree of perfect harmony that your
body was designed for to proliferate. Turn “diseases ” over to
God, and treat your body  to regular exercise, healthy food,large amounts of pure water, and plenty of rest to allow it to
function as a container for Spirit to ﬂow thr ough. Your new agreement with reality in which you’ve blended
your physica l self and your personality with your spiritual
God-connected self will begin to radiate a higher energy of
love and light. Wher ever you go, others will experience the
glow of your God consciousness, and dishar mony and
disor der and all manner of problems simply will not ﬂourish
in your presence. Become “an instrument of Thy peace,” as
St. Francis desir es in the ﬁrst line of his famous prayer . Move
up the ladder of human awar eness from the lowest to the
highest. Become a mystical being by simply changing your
mind from one that created and experienced problems, to
one that r esolves them. OceanofPDF .comThe Three Levels of
Consciousness
We saw yester day how changing our mindset and increasing
our human awar eness can help us to resolve problems. Today I’d like to introduce you to the three levels of
consciousness, which will help you to gauge wher e you are
on the ladder of awar eness. Throughout your life, you can measur e yourself on the
following three levels of consciousness. Few, if any of us,
ever stay at any one level all of the time. These levels of
awar eness ar e presented fr om lowest to highest.1. The ﬁrst level is ego consciousness. In ego
consciousness, your primary emphasis is on your
personality and your body. There’s an exceptio nally
strong belief in your separateness from everyone else,
from all that you’d like to attract into your life, and from
God. This attitude puts you into a state of competing for
your share as if your job is to get there ﬁrst. Winning
and being number one seem to be the most important
things you can do when you live at the level of ego
consciousness. You spend a lot of your time measuring
your success on the basis of how you stack up against
others. If you have more than others, you feel better about
yourself . Having more money makes you feel better . Accumulating more awar ds and prestige and climbing
higher on the corporate ladder encourage you to feel
good about yourself . Ego consciousness prods you to
compete, compar e, and conclude that you are the best,
so you concentrate on running faster and looking better
than others. It’s at this level of consciousness that
problems exist. This is wher e inner peace is virtually
impossible and success eludes you, because you must
always be striving to be someplace else. In order to walk comfortably along the extra mile, you
must tame this ever-demanding, impossible-to -satisf y
ego. Feelings of despai r, anger, hatred, bitter ness,
stress, and depression stem from the ego’s anxiety and
insistence on living up to an external standar d. The
result is the anguish of not measuring up or ﬁtting in
properly . The ego will seldom allow you to rest, and
demands more and more because it’s terriﬁed  that
you’ll be called a failur e. When you move beyond ego
and make your higher self the dominant force in yourlife, you’ll begin to feel that contentment and inner  glow
of peace and success that characterize the e xtra mile. 2. The second  level is group consciousness. Group
consciousness is very similar to ego consciousness  with
the e xception that you move past yourself as the central
focus of your life, and you now include others who are
members of your group or your clan. You suppr ess your
individual ego and join a larger organization, the group
ego. Your membership is based upon your family, your
heritage, your racial backgr ound, your religion, your
language, your political aﬃliation, and so on. You’re
requir ed to think and act like the group to which you’ve
been assigned. At the group consciousnes s level, you’r e often dedicated
to continuing social problems such as war, brutality, and
religious persecution, which originated in ancestral
enmities that have existe d for thousands of years. But it
also comes right down to daily living. Families insist that
you adopt their viewpoint, hate whom they hate, and
love whom they love. You have blind allegiance to a company that may be
making weapons of destruction, a concept to which
you’r e normally opposed, but you do it anyway because
“It’s my job.” Some policemen and soldiers victimize
their fellow human beings by behaving worse than the
criminals or so-called enemies they abhor so much. Our
inhumanity to our fellow human beings is often justiﬁed
on the grounds of a group-consciousness mentality . Members of gangs or societies will behave in horrid
ways, spurred on by a group or clan mentality . In short,
what the group dictates becomes your identiﬁc ation
card as a human being.Remember that, as we discussed yester day, you can’t
solve any pr oblem with the same mind that cr eated it. In
order to resolve a struggle that results from group
consciousness, you have to change your mind or
continue to have the problem haunt you. Resolving
problems related to group consciousness involves
moving into the highest level. 3. The third level is mystical consciousness. This level
of problem-fr ee consciou sness is distinguished by the
feeling of connectedness  rather than separatenes s. At
the level of mystical consciousness, you feel conn ected
to every individual, every creatur e, the entire planet,
and God. Feeling connected means you truly sense that we are all
one, and that harm directed at others is really harm
directed at ourselves. Here, cooperation supplants
competition; hatred is dissolved with love; and sadness
is reduced to nothingness  with joy. At this level, you’r e a
member of the human race, not a sub-gr oup. Here,
you’r e a nation of the world with a global awar eness,
rather than a patriot of any one country . In mystical
consciousness, you won’t feel separate from any one,
any thing, or God. You won’t be what you have, what
you accomplish, or what others think of you. You will be
the beloved, and you will have changed your mind! Problems will now be only illusions of the mind that you
no longer car ry around with you. As the great humanitarian Mahatma Gandhi put it, “Man
becomes great exactly in the degree to which he works
for the welfar e of his fellow man.” This is the level of
mystical or God consciousness. It is a place wher e you
can live a problem-fr ee existence by changing your
thoughts from ego and group consciousness to thehigher level of mysticism. Here, you truly understand
what Thoreau meant when he said, “Ther e is no remedy
for love but to love mor e.”
OceanofPDF .comThere Are No Justiﬁed
Resentments
You hear people say this all the time: “I have a right to be
upset because of the way I’ve been treated. I have a right to
be angry, hurt, depressed, sad, and resentful.” Learning to
avoid this kind of thinking is one of my top
recommendations for living a life of inner peace, success,
and happiness. Anytime you’r e ﬁlled with resentment,
you’r e turning the contr ols of your emotional life over to
others to manipulate. Today’s topic is taking responsibility
for everything (and I mean everything ) in your life. I becam e awar e of how powerful this lesson was many years
ago while sitting in on a meeting of 12 people who were in arecovery group for alcoholism and drug addiction. All 12 of
those people were accustomed to blaming others for their
weaknesses, using almost any excuse as a rationale for
returning to their self-defeating ways. On a poster hanging
in the room were these words: “In this group, there are no
justiﬁed r esentments.”
Regardless of what anyone would say to another group
member, no matter how confr ontational or ugly the
accusations, each person was reminded that there are no
justiﬁed resentments. You may need to consider whom you
resent befor e you can make your own choice about whether
this is useful  for you. Resentments give you an excuse to
return to your old ways. This is what got you there in the
ﬁrst place! Why Resentments Are There
You may be familiar with a popular television show called
Who Wants to Be a Millio naire? If the contestant correctly
answers 15 multiple-choice questions, he or she wins a
million dollar s. Starting with a $100 question, the person in
the “hot seat” answers ﬁve questions befor e reaching the
$1,000 level. A t this point, the person is guaranteed to leave
with something. Then the questions increase in diﬃculty . If
the contestant reaches $32,000, again, there is a guarantee
of leaving with that amou nt. So, there are two crucial levels
to attain: The $1,000 level, which is achieved by answering
ﬁve relatively simple questions; and the $32,0 00 level,
which involves ﬁve incr easingly diﬃcult questions. I’ve just related details about this TV program to present the
idea of the two levels that you must achieve in order to
have a chance at the highest “million-dollar ” level of
awar eness. The $1,000 level is one in which you learn toleave blame behind in your life. If you don’t do so, you go
home with nothing. Removing blame means never assigning responsibility to
anyone for what you’r e experiencing. It means that you’r e
willing to say, “I may not understand why I feel this way,
why I have this illness, why I’ve been victimized, or why I
had this accident, but I’m willing to say withou t any guilt or
resentment that I own it. I live with it and I am responsible
for having it in my life.” Why do this? If you take
responsibility for having it, then at least you have a chance
to also tak e responsibility for r emoving it or lear ning fr om it. If you’r e in some small (perhaps unknown) way responsible
for that migraine headache or that depressed feeling, then
you can go to work to remove it or discover what its
message is for you. If, on the other hand, someone or
something else is responsible in your mind, then of course
you’ll have to wait until they chang e for you to get better . And that is unlikely to occur. So, at the $1,000 level, blame
has to go. Otherwise you go home with nothing and are
unable to participate at the higher levels. You must be willing to pass a new test at the secon d critical
level, the $32,000 questi on, which is the ﬁnal obstacle you
must face in order to move into the more exalted realm of
self-actualization and higher consciousness, the million-
dollar spiritual level. At this level, you must be willing to
send the higher, faster energies of love, peace, joy,
forgiveness, and kindness as your respon se to whatever
comes your way. This is the start of the uncrowded extra
mile wher e you have only love to give away . Someone says something to you that you ﬁnd disagr eeable,
and rather than opting for resentment, you are able to
depersonalize what you’ve just heard and respond withkindness. You would rathe r be kind than right. You have no
need to make others wrong or to retaliate when you’ve been
wronged. You do this for yourself . There is a Chinese
proverb, “If you’r e going to pursue revenge, you’d better dig
two graves.” Your resentments will destr oy you. They are
low energies. And along  the extra mile, you’ll only meet
others who have fully grasped this concept. The ones who
haven’t made  it to this level are all back with the crowd who
went out of the game long ago on an easier ques tion, and
most are still back there wondering why they keep going
home with nothing! But I can assur e you that they continue
to blame others for their emptiness. First, you have to get past blame. Then you have to learn to
send love to all, rather than anger and resentment. The
story is told of the enlightened master who always
responded to outbursts of criticism, judgment, and ridicule
with love, kindness, and peace. One of his devotees asked
him how he could possib ly be so kind and peace ful in the
face of such disparaging invective. His response to the
devotee was this question: “If someone oﬀers you a gift,
and you do not accept that gift, to whom does the gift
belong?” Ask yourself, “Why would I allow something that
belongs to someone else to be a source of my resentment?”
As the title of a popular book says, “What you think of me is
none of my business.” Indeed, there are no justiﬁed
resentments if you wish to walk along the extra mile and
enjoy inner peace and success on every step of the path. OceanofPDF .comStop Looking for Occasions
to Be Oﬀended
When you live at or below  ordinary levels of awar eness, you
spend a great deal of time and energy ﬁnding opportunities
to be oﬀende d. Today we’re going to examine how you can
stop allowing yourself to be oﬀended by others and instead
respond positively with love and for giveness. A news report, an economic downtur n, a rude stranger, a
fashion miscue, someone cursing, a sneeze, a black cloud,
any cloud, an absence of clouds—just about anythi ng will do
if you’re looking for an occasion to be oﬀended. Along the
extra mile, you’ll never ﬁnd anyone engaging in such
absur dities.Become a person who refuses to be oﬀended by any one,
any thing, or any set of circumstances. If something takes
place and you disappr ove, by all means state what you feel
from your heart; and if possible, work to elimina te it and
then let it go. Most people operate from the ego and really
need to be right. So, when you encounter someone saying
things that you ﬁnd inappr opriate, or when you know
they’r e wrong, wrong, wrong, forget your need to be right
and instead say, “You’re right about that!” Those words will
end potential conﬂict and free you from being oﬀended. Your desir e is to be peace ful—not to be right, hurt, angry, or
resentful. If you have enough faith in your own beliefs, you’ll
ﬁnd that it’s impossible to be oﬀended by the beliefs and
conduct of others. Not being oﬀended is a way of saying, “I have contr ol over
how I’m going to feel, and I choose to feel peaceful
regardless of what I observe going on.” When you feel
oﬀended, you’r e practicing judgment. You judge someone
else to be stupid, insensit ive, rude, arrogant, inconsiderate,
or foolish, and then you ﬁnd yourself upset and oﬀended by
their conduc t. What you may not realize is that when you
judge another person, you do not deﬁne them. You deﬁne
yourself as someone who needs to judge others. Just as no one can deﬁne you with their judgments, neither
do you have the privilege of deﬁning others. When you stop
judging and simply becom e an observer, you will know the
inner peace I’m writing about here. With that sense of inner
peace, you’ll ﬁnd yourself free of the negative energy of
resentment, and you’ll be able to live a life of contentment. A bonus is that you’ll ﬁnd that others are much more
attracted to you. A peaceful person attracts peaceful
energy. You won’t know God unless you’r e at peace,
because God is peace.Your resentments literally send God out of your life while
you’r e busy being oﬀended. Not being oﬀended will mean
eliminating all variations of the following sentence fr om your
repertoir e of available thoughts: “If only you were more like
me, then I wouldn’t have to be upset right now.” You are the
way you are, and so are those around you. Most likely, they
will never be just like you. So stop expecting those who are
diﬀer ent to be what you think they should be. It’s never
going to happen. It’s your ego that demand s that the world and all the people
in it be as you think they should be. Your higher sacred self
refuses to be anything but peaceful, and sees the world as it
is, not as your ego would like it to be. When you respond
with hatred to hate directed at you, you’ve become part of
the problem, which is hatred, rather than part of the
solution, which is love. Love is without resentment, and
readily oﬀers  forgiveness . Love and forgiveness will inspir e
you to work at what you are for rather  than what you are
against. If you’r e against violence and hatred, you’ll ﬁght it
with your own brand of violence and hatred. If you’r e for
love and peace, you’ll bring those energies to the presence
of violence, and ultimately dissolve the hatred. When
Mother Teresa was asked to march against the war in
Vietnam, she replied, “No, I won’t, but when you have a
march for peace, I’ll be ther e.”
A Final Word about Forgiveness and
Resentment
At the root of virtually all spiritual practices is the notion of
forgiveness. This was what came out of Jesus of Nazar eth
while he was being tortur ed on a cross by a Roman soldier
throwing a spear into his side. It is perhaps the most healingthing that you can do to remove the low energies of
resentment and r evenge fr om your life completely . Think about every single person who has ever harmed you,
cheated you, defrauded you, or said unkind things about
you. Your experience of them is nothing more than a
thought that you carry around with you. These thoughts of
resentment, anger, and hatred represent slow, debilitating
energies that will disempower you. If you could release
them, you would know mor e peace. You practice forgiveness for two reasons. One is to let others
know that you no longer wish to be in a state of hostility
with that person; and two, to free yourself from the self-
defeating energy of resentment. Resentment is like venom
that continues to pour through your system, doing its
poisonous damage long after being bitten by the snake. It’s
not the bite that kills you; it’s the venom. You can remove
venom by making a decision to let go of resentments. Send
love in some form to those you feel have wronged  you and
notice how much better you feel, how much mor e peace you
have. It was one act of profound forgiveness towar d my own
father, whom I never saw or talked to, that turned my life
around from one of ordinary awar eness, to one of higher
consciousness, achieveme nt, and success beyond anything I
had ever dar ed to imagine. OceanofPDF .comTreat Yourself as If You
Already Are What You’d Like
to Be
Whatever it is that you envision for yourself—no matter how
lofty or impossible it may seem to you right now—I
encourage you to begin acting as if what you would like to
become is already your reality . This is our topic for today,
and it’s a wonderful way to set into motion the forces that
will collaborate with you to mak e your dr eams come true. To activate the creative forces that lie dormant in your life,
you must go to the unseen world, the world beyond your
form. Here is wher e what doesn’t exist for you in your worldof form will be created. You might think of it in this way: In
form, you receive in-for mation . When  you move to Spirit,
you receive in-spiration . It is this world of inspiration that
will guide you to access  anything that you would like to
have in your life. What It Means to Become Inspired
Some of the most signiﬁcant advice I’ve ever read was
written more than 2,000 years ago by an ancient teacher
named Patanjali. He instructed his devotees to become
inspir ed. You may recall that the word “inspir e” originates
from the words “in” and “spirit.” Patanjali suggested that
inspiration involves a mind that transcends all limitations,
thoughts that break all their bonds, and a consciousness
that expands in every direction. Here is how you can
become inspir ed. Place your thoughts on what it is you’d like to become—an
artist, a musician, a computer programmer, a dentist, or
whatever . In your thoughts, begin to pictur e yourself having
the skills to do these things. No doubts. Only a knowing. Then begin acting as if these things were already your
reality . As an artist, your vision allows you to draw, to visit
art museums, to talk with famous artists, and to immerse
yourself in the art world. In other words, you begin  to act as
an artist in all aspects of your life. In this way, you’re getting
out in front of yourself and taking charge of your own
destiny at the same time that you’r e cultivating inspiration. The more you see yourself as what you’d like to become,
the more inspir ed you are. The dormant forces that Patanjali
described come alive, and you discover that you’r e a
greater person than you ever dreamed yourself to be. Imagine that—dor mant forces that were dead or non-existent, springing into being and collaborating with you as
a result of your becoming  inspir ed and acting as if what you
want is alr eady her e! By having the courage to declar e yourself as already being
wher e you want to be, you will almost force yourself to act
in a new, exciting, and spiritual fashion. You can also apply
this principle to areas other than your chosen vocation. If
you’r e living a life of scarcity, and all of the nice things that
many people  have are not coming your way, perhaps it’s
time to change your thinking and act as if what you enjoy
having is alr eady her e.
Visualize the beautiful automobile that’s your dream car and
paste it on your bedroom door, as well as on the
refrigerator . While you’r e at it, paste it on the dashboar d of
the car you’r e now driving! Visit a showr oom, sit in your car,
and note the beautiful new-car aroma. Run your hands over
the seats, and grip the steering wheel. Walk all around your
car, appreciating the lines of it. Take your car for a test
drive, and visualize that you’r e entitled to drive  this car,
that you’re inspir ed by its beauty, and that it’s going to ﬁnd
a way into your life. In some way, somehow, this is your car. Talk to others about your love for this car. Read about it. Bring up a pictur e on your computer screen, and leave it
there to view each time you’r e near that computer . All of this may seem silly to you, but when you become
inspir ed and act as if what you want is already here, you’ll
activate those dormant forces that will collaborate to make
this your r eality . Extending Inspiration EverywhereTreating yourself in the manner described above can
become a habitual way of life. This doesn’t involve
deception, arrogance, or hurting others. This is a silent
agreement between you and God in which you discreetly
work in harmony with the forces of the universe to make
your dreams become a reality . This involves a knowing on
your part that success and inner peace are your birthright;
that you are a child of God; and as such, you are entitled to
a life of joy, love, and happiness. In your relationships with your lovers, co-work ers, and
family, act as if what you would like to materialize in these
relationships is already here. If you want a sense of
harmony in the workplace, maintain a clear vision and
expectation of this harmony. Then, you’r e out in front of
your day, seeing 5 p.m. arriving peacefully for everyone
when it’s still 7:30 a.m. Each time you have an encounter
with someone, your 5 p.m. vision pops into your head, and
you act in a peaceful, harmonious way so as not to nullif y
what you know is coming. Further more, you act towar d
everyone else as if they, too, are all that they are capable of
becoming. These kinds of expectatio ns lead you to say, “I’m sure you’ll
have everything ready this afternoon,” rather than, “You’re
always late with everythin g, and I wish you would get on the
ball.” When you treat others in this way, they also fulﬁll the
destiny that you’ve r eminded them is ther e for them. In your family, particularly with your childr en, it’s important
to always have this little thought in mind: Catch them doing
things right. Remin d them often of their inher ent brilliance,
their capacity for being responsible, their innate talents, and
their fantastic abilities. Treat them as if they’r e already
responsible, bright, attractive, and honorable. “You are so
terriﬁc. I’m positive you’ll feel great about your interview .”“You’re so smart, I know you’ll study and do well on that
exam.” “You are always connected to God, and God doesn’t
do sickness. You’re going  to feel much better tomorrow at
this time.”
When you act towar d your childr en, parents, siblings, and
even more distant relatives as if the relationship is great
and going to stay that way, and you point out their
greatness rather than their gooﬁness, it is their greatness
that you will see. In your relationship to your signiﬁcant
other, whoev er that may be, be sure to apply this principle
as frequently  as you can. If things aren’t going well, ask
yourself, “ Am I tr eating this r elationship as it is, or as I would
like it to be?” So how do you want it to be? Peaceful? Harmonious? Mutually satisf ying? Respectful? Loving? Of
course you do . As such, befor e your ne xt encounter, see it in
those ways. Have expecta tions that focus on the qualities of
inner peace and success. You’ll ﬁnd yourself pointing out what you love about that
person rathe r than what they’r e doing wrong. You’ll also see
the other person respon ding to you in love and harmony
rather than in an embitter ed way. Your ability to get out in
front of yourself and see the outcome befor e it transpir es
will cause you to act in ways that bring about these r esults. This strategy for living works for virtually everything. Befor e
I speak to an audience, I always see them as loving,
supportive, and having a ter riﬁc e xperience. Befor e writing, I
see myself with no writer’s block, being inspir ed and having
spiritual guidance available to me at all times. As A Course
in Miracles  remin ds us, “If you knew who walked beside you
at all times, you could never experience fear again.” This is
the essence of inspiratio n, as well as seeing the futur e in
terms of how you want it to be—and then acting exactly in
that manner .OceanofPDF .comSynchronicity and Inspiration
There are no coincidences . Anything that coincides is said to
ﬁt together powerfully . You move into Spirit and feel inspir ed
when you’r e activating the forces of the universe to work
with you. Today we are looking at synchr onicity and
inspiration. Since all is guided by Spirit, there is less of a gap between
your thoughts and seeing the result of those thoughts
materialize for you. As you place more and more of your
energy on what you intend to manifest, you start seeing
those intentions materializing. You’ll think about a particular person, and that individual will
“mysteriously” appear . You’ll need a book for your studiesthat you can’t ﬁnd, and it will show up in a “mysterious”
delivery . You’ll have in mind that you want information on a
vacation spot, and it will arrive in the mail “myst eriously”. All of these so-called mysteries will soon be viewe d by you
as part of the synchr onicity of the universe working  with you
and your highly ener gized thoughts. You must hold on to the idea that you can nego tiate the
presence of these things by keeping your energy ﬁeld
always focused with love on what you passionately  intend to
create. The Law of Attraction is put into play, and your
thoughts literally become attractor energies. At ﬁrst, it will
seem startling and almost unbelievable. As you stay in Spirit
and act as if what you desire is already here, you’ll ﬁnd it
less and less puzzling. Connected to God as you always are, you are the Divine
force that puts this synchr onicity into your everyda y life. You
will realize very soon that what you think about is what
expands; therefore, you’ll become more mindful and careful
of what you think about. This process of treating yourself
“as if” begins with your thoughts, impacts your emotional
state, and ﬁnally stirs you into action. Treat everyone you encounter with good intentions. Celebrate in others their ﬁnest qualities. Treat them all in
this “as if” manner, and I guarantee you that they will
respond accor dingly to your highest expectations. It’s all up
to you. Whether you think this is possible or impossible,
either way you’ll be right. And you’ll see the rightness of
your thoughts manifesting everywher e you go . From though ts to feelings to actions, they will all react
aﬃrmatively when you stay inspir ed and get out in front of
yourself in ways that are consistent with what you want to
become. Declar e yourself to be a genius, to be an expert, tobe in an atmospher e of abundance, and keep that vision so
passionately that you can do nothing but act upon it. As you
do, you will send out the attractor energy that will work with
you to materialize your actions based upon those stated
declarations. Small steps will activate matching vibrations to what you
desir e. So if you want to live close to natur e, plan a visit to
the place of your dreams and take the small steps to
experience what it feels like. If you can’t or won’t do that, or
if you aren’t ready to go yet, you can read book s or rent
movies in order to have the experience vicariously . But be
alert to the vibrational energy of thought and action that
you oﬀer Spirit. When my daughter Skye wanted to produce an album of her
own compositions, it seemed like a daunting task to write,
perfor m, record, and arrange for all of the studio time and
musicians. She continued to shy away from what inspir ed
her, so I encouraged her to take a small step and write just
one song. I gave her a suggestion for a title and a deadline
—and then I watched with joy and pride as she sat at her
piano, engrossed in her inspiration, creating. One small step
put her on the path of inspiration, as Napoleon Hill
suggested when he said, “If you can’t do great things, do
small things in a great way. Don’t wait for great
opportunities. Seize common, everyday ones and make
them gr eat.”
Your Desires Don’t Arrive by Your
Schedule
Remember that all you desir e will arrive in your life when
and only when you’r e aligned vibrationally with the energyof your Source. Your ego won’t be consulted or get to
deter mine the schedule—God reveals His secrets when He is
good and ready. Your job is to take the focus oﬀ the when
and put it on being conne cted to your originating Spirit. Your
job is to stop challenging and demanding responses from
God, and instead be more like Him. Your job is to understand
and accept that all of the things that show up in your life,
which you often ﬁnd contradictory or troublesome, are there
because you’ve attracted them… and you need to have
these obstac les in order to clear an opening for your true
Spirit purpose to emer ge. So rather than making demands of God to follow your
schedule, you can let go, surrender, and remind yourself
that all is in Divine order. You’re much more successful when
you allow inspiration to ﬂow in on God’s terms than when
you’r e impatient and demanding. As always, your job in
God-r ealization is to become more like God—that means
surrendering to the timetable that’s always perfect, even
when it seems to you to be full of er rors. OceanofPDF .comInspire Others
Just as we’re all students throughout life, we’re all teachers. In fact, we learn best by oﬀering what we desir e for
ourselves to as many individuals as we can, as frequently as
we can. So, it’s imperative that we make a deliberate eﬀort
to increase our inspiratio nal energy, as this will lead us to
being both a spiritual learner and teacher simult aneously . Today we ar e exploring ways to inspir e others. Spiritual teachers have raised the vibrational frequency of
their daily life to a point wher e they’r e able to provide
inspiration to others merely by their presence, and this is
the standard to which you need to aspir e. It isn’t necessarily
a scholarly undertaking— there are no lesson plans or report
cards for the kind of teaching I’m writing about  in thesepages. Rather, I’m talking about the things you can do each
and every day to inspir e your fellow humans. Act with Kindness
You can be on the lookout for opportunities to be a source of
inspiration. For example, when I board an airplane,  I tend to
look for the chance to extend some sort of service to
“strangers.” (I put the word in quotes to emphasize that
there aren’t actually any strangers anywher e in the
universe.) Helping vertically challenged passengers place
their carry-on luggage in the overhead compar tment is
perfect because others noticing this act of kindnes s may be
inspir ed, while, at the same time, I’m heeding my own
calling to be both inspir ed and inspiring. I know that someone who needs my assistance is really a
Divine emiss ary who’s right there in front of me, oﬀering an
opportunity for me to be in-Spirit. For instance, I ﬂew from
Maui to Los Angeles and then boarded an all-nigh t ﬂight to
New York. On the way to L.A., I’d watched the fabulous
movie Chicago ; once on the plane to New York, I noticed one
of the stars of that ﬁlm, Renée Zellweger, getting on. Vertically challenged with heavy luggage, she certainly met
all of my criteria for being both a source of inspiration and
becoming inspired. I helped her with her baggage and then
gave her a copy of one of my books. Many people on the plane approached her, including the
ﬂight attendants, and I watched and felt inspir ed by the
kindness, patience, and personal concer n Renée showed
towar d everyone she talked to. As we left the plane, she
handed me a note thanking me for both the book and my
help. Whenever I see Renée in a movie or an interview, I
recall the extraordinary, gentle kindness that she displayedtowar d everyone who approached her, and it inspir es me. My moment or two of extending service to her was a gift to
me, not because she’s a celebrity, but because of that dual
rewar d of being in-Spirit. The Power of Gratitude
Without exception, I begin every day of my life with an
expression of gratitude. As I look in the mirror to begin my
daily ritual of shaving, I say, “Thank you, God, for life, for
my body, for my family and loved ones, for this day, and for
the opportun ity to be of service. Thank you, thank you,
thank you!”
If you practice gratitude as opposed to maintaining an
attitude of entitlemen t, you’ll automatically extend
inspiration wherever you go. Being grateful helps remove
the inﬂuence of your ego, which is certain that you’r e better
than everyone else. An attitude of gratitude allows you to
adopt what’s called “radical humility,” a trait that’s very
persuasive in helping others feel inspir ed. Most of the people I’ve met or observed who are at the top
levels in their chosen ﬁelds have these attitudes of gratitude
and radical humility . After all, when so many high achievers
reach for their statuette or championship trophy, they say,
“First I’d like to thank God.” It’s almost as if they can’t help
themselves—they’r e so grateful for their accolade,  but even
more than that, they know that there’s a Force in the
universe way bigger than they are that allows them to act,
sing, write, compete, or design. And if you adopt this kind of
an attitude, you’ll inspir e others. It’s that simple. Pomposity, on the other hand, will never inspir e anyone. When you encounter someone who brags and uses thepronoun “I” excessively, you’ll ﬁnd that you want to get
away from them as quickly as possible. Vanity, conceit, and
boasting are all signs that a person has edged God out of
the pictur e.
Gratitude and humility send signals to all who meet and
greet you that you’r e connected to something larger than
life itself. This reminds me of the wisdom I discove red many
years ago reading the Kena Upanishad : “At whose bequest
does the mind think? Who bids the body live? Who makes
the tongue speak? Who is the eﬀulgent Being that directs
eye to form and color, and the ear to sound?” When you
know the answer to these questions, you not only become
inspiring beings to others, you also gain immortality . Being at Peace Inspires Others
Lecturing or demanding that others live peacefully is one of
the least eﬀective ways to inspir e them; however, when you
simply demonstrate that you’r e living peacefully, you oﬀer
other people  a large dose of inspiration by your mere
presence. During my ﬁrst encounter with Swami Satchidananda, for
instance, he emitted such an aura of peacefulness that I felt
inspir ed by merely standin g next to him. It would have been
impossible for me to feel anything other than peace in his
midst. That day I purchased his wonderful book Beyond
Words, and on page 21 was given an inkling as to why I felt
so inspir ed merely by being in his company : “If anybody
asks me, ‘What is your philosophy of God?’ I say, ‘Peace is
my God.’ If they ask, ‘Wher e is He?’ I reply, ‘He is in me and
He is everyw here. He is all peaceful; He is all serenity. He is
to be felt and e xperienced within oneself .’”Being at peace with yourself is a way of going through life
eschewing conﬂict and confr ontation. When you’r e in a state
of tranquility , you actually send out a vibration of energy
that impacts all living creatur es, including plants, animals,
and all people (even babies). And, of course, the reverse
applies as well: Belliger ent individuals who live in turmoil
and revel in hostile encounters send out nonverbal energy
that adverse ly impacts those around them. The immediate
impulse is to remove yourself from these low-ener gy, non-
peaceful people because sticking around means tension and
a lowering of your energy. Moreover, you become a
counterfor ce to what you’re experiencing, meaning that you
become angry at their anger and arrogant towar d their
arrogance. Practicing a peaceful approach to your life on Earth  is a way
of returning to wher e you came from. At the same time, it’s
a powerful sour ce of inspiration to all living cr eatur es. OceanofPDF .comTreasure Your Divinity
You are a Divine creation of God. Today it is time to explor e
and value your own divinity . You can never be separate from that which created you. If
you can think of God as the ocean and yours elf as a
container, you may ﬁnd it helpful in moments of doubt, or
when you feel lost or alone, to remember that you are a
container of God. When you dip your glass into the ocean,
what you have is a glass of God. It’s not as big or as strong,
but it’s still God. As long as you refuse to believe otherwise,
you won’t feel separate fr om God. Think of a drop of water from the ocean of abundan ce that’s
separated from its source. Separated from its source, thatdroplet of water will ultimately evaporate and return to its
source. The point is that while it’s in liquid form,
disconnected from its source, it loses the power of its
source. This is the essence of the secret of always
treasuring your divinity . While you’r e separated in your mind from your Source, you
lose your Divine power, the power of your Source. Just like
the drop of water, you too will change form and ultimately
return to your Source. As long as you feel disconnected from
God, you lose the power of your Source, which is the
unlimited power to create, to be miraculous, and to
experience the joy of being alive. The drop of water,
disconnected fr om its Divine Sour ce, symbolizes your ego . What Is Your Ego? Your ego is nothing more than an idea that you carry around
with you everywher e you go. This idea tells you that you are
the sum total of what you have, what you do, and who you
are. Ego insists that you are a separate being, that your
personality and your body are your essence, and that you
are in competition with every other ego to get your share of
the pie, which is limited and ﬁnite. Therefore, ego asserts,
you must be wary of others who also want all that they feel
they’r e entitled to. Consequently, ego leads you to believe
that there are enemies to be wary of at all times. Since
you’r e separ ate from them, you must disdain cooperating
with them for fear of being cheated. The result is that you
have to distrust everyone! Your ego also tells you that you’r e separate from everything
that’s missing in your life, and so you must spend a great
deal of energy chasing after what’s missing. Moreover,
because who you are accor ding to ego is your body andyour personality, you’r e separate from God. God is outside
of you, a force to fear just like all of those external forces
attempting to contr ol you. So you beg this external force to
provide you with special powers to overcome all of those
other egos who are trying  so hard to snare what is rightfully
yours. Your ego keeps you in a constant state of fear, worry,
anxiety, and stress. It implor es you to be better than
everyone around you. It beseeches you to push harder, and
to get God on your side. In short, it maintains your separate
status from God and allows you to be terriﬁed of your own
divinity . Embracing Your Divinity
There is no place that God is not. Remind yourself of this
every day. It has been said that God sleeps in the minerals,
rests in the vegetables, walks in the animals, and thinks in
us. Think of God as a presence rather than a person—a
presence that allows a seed to sprout, that moves the stars
across the sky, and simultaneously moves a thought across
your mind. A presence that grows the grass and grows your
ﬁnger nails all at the same time. This presence is
everywher e; therefore, it must also be in you! And if it’s
everywher e, it must be in all that you perceive to be missing
from your life. In some inexplicable way, you’r e already
connected to all that you’d like to attract into your life by
the pr esence of this universal, all-powerful Spirit called God. You may have read about some of the great saints in India. They seem to possess the magical powers of instant
manifestation, their presence appears to heal the sick, and
they commu nicate a sense of divine bliss and peace to all
those they encounter . One saint was asked by a reporterfrom the West, “Are you God?” The saint responded without
hesitation, “Yes, I am,” to which everyone in attendance
seemed stunned. Then after a brief pause, he continued,
“And so are you. The only diﬀer ence between you and me,”
he said, “is that I know it and you doubt it.”
You are a piece of God. You are a Divine creation—a being of
light who showed up here as a human being at the exact
moment you were suppo sed to. Your body will depart at
precisely the right moment as well. But you’r e not that body
you behold, nor are you its personality or any of its
possessions and accomplishments. You are the beloved. A
miracle. A part of the eternal perfection. A piece of the
Divine intelli gence that supports everything and everyone
on this planet. In a world  in which this Divine intelligence
creates everything, there can be no accidents. Every time
you experien ce fear, self-rejection, anxiety, guilt, or hate,
you’r e denying your divinity and succumbing  to the
inﬂuences of that insidious ego mind that has convinced you
of your disconnection to God. Author U. S. Andersen wrote an inspiring book many years
ago called Three Magic Words. Andersen writes about the
ability to become a miracle work er and to live up to the
ideal of the promise made by Jesus Christ: “Even the least
among you can do all that I have done, and even greater
things.” The author doesn’t reveal what the three magic
words are until the end of the book, when the reader
discovers that the words are “You are God.” Not God in the
sense of “above all others and better than everyone else,”
but in the sense of being eternally connected to your
Source, the ever-present power of love that never abandons
you and never runs dry. You can rely on this Source if you
remind yourself that it includes you at all times. OceanofPDF .comTrust the Spiritual Source
We need to continually trust that the organizing intelligence
of our Source, which is always operating in the universe, is
ever-mindful, and provides us with every blessing in
abundance. But how do we trust a Source that we can’t see
or touch? That is our subject for today . Imagine a camera that can accomplish photographic feats
that no camera has perfor med prior to this time. For
instance, it can take pictur es through concr ete walls, or in
the dark without beneﬁt of a ﬂash. But most ingeniously, it
can record a person’s thoughts, producing an exact pictorial
likeness of what any subje ct is imagining at the moment the
shutter snaps. And inside the camera’s package is an
invitation to talk with the creator of this remark able device.The printed material states that he’ll be happy to discuss
how and why his invention works, along with the amazing
results that it can pr oduce. The conversa tion you’d have with the creator of your new
miracle gadget probably wouldn’t begin with the things you
thought he’d forgotten or should or shouldn’t have done. And it’s unlikely that you’d complain about the price or how
it was mark eted, or attem pt to convince him that you had
more expertise. Instead, you’d probably use the opportunity
to maximize your ability to work with your new camera and
derive the greatest pleasur e possible as it perfor med the
tasks it was designed to accomplish. It’s safe to say that you’d appr oach the cr eator of something
you can see, touch, and use—but haven’t a clue as to how it
came into being—with deference, respect, and awe because
you’d be so eager to absorb all that he has to oﬀer. If this
analogy is unclear, you might want to quit reading at this
point and seek an e xpert to r emove your blinders! When you ﬁnally “get” that your Source is all-knowing, you
can approach the act of spiritual communication from an
entirely ego-less perspective. Your discourse must begin
with a recognition that it’s impossible for you to be ignor ed. You can link up to all-knowingness by thinking lik e God—that
is, by being  an energetic match in your thoughts and
actions, by being grateful, and by thinking of others and
oﬀering them what you desir e.
Since you know that when you ask, it is given, you must
next ask God for what you want. I’m not implying that you
should beg, or think that you’ve been overlook ed, but rather
ask in a way that takes the form of a vibrational shift in
energy. So you’d reques t to be an instrument of God’s
abundance, for instance, instead of pleading for cash. You’dsimply match what you want with the All-Enco mpassing
Abundance that is your Spiritual Sour ce. Note that anything and everything keeping you from
appreciating your Spiritual Source is an impediment. This
particularly includes relying on someone else or some
organization without examining the truths that they insist
you believe. While this may come as a surprise, Jesus wasn’t
a Christian, Buddha wasn’t a Buddhist, and Mohammed
wasn’t a Muslim. These were Divine spiritual beings who
came here as emissaries of truth… yet when their truths
were organized, there were the horrors of inquisitions, mass
murders, crusades, and holy wars all in the name of “ God.”
Those who claim to represent these Divine being s of truth
frequently do so from a decidedly non-spiritual perspective. When an organization includes some, yet exclude s others,
they’r e announcing that they’r e not actually preaching or
teaching truth. Since God excludes no one, any religious
organization that does isn’t aﬃliated with Him. God is all-
knowing. No one else is, unless they experience pure God-
realization… and those beings who have ever lived among
us belong to a very small club. No one else can intervene for you in your eﬀorts to
commune with your Source of Being: You shouldn’t rely on
organizations, gurus, rituals, temples, or any other outside
sources as the means to make conscious contact with God. Instead, you must approach the All-Knowing Source in silent
communion, and be willing to listen and receive guidance. You must speak in words of your own choosing with
statements that tell God: “I know that You are all-knowing
and could never forget me. I desir e to align with Your all-
knowingness, to have the faith that I can attract into my life
all the goodness, peace, and abundance that You are. I willstay in this place of trust, for I am here to serve. I am
grateful for all that Y ou ar e, and all that Y ou allow me to be.”
Co-creating with Spirit
Keep in mind that you can’t co-create with anyone,
including your Spiritual Source, unless you’r e in a place of
trust and har mony . To that end, you must suspend your false
self (ego) and stop all thoughts of resistance befor e you can
participate in creating the inspir ed life you desir e, in perfect
symmetry with Spirit. Whatever you ask of your Source in
your prayerful communion will no longer be a wish or a hope
—it will become a reality  in your mind, just as it is in the
mind of God. The how and when of its arrival, which have
always tr oubled the ego, ar e no longer issues. You maintain your optimism with thoughts such as I desir e
it, it’s in harmony with my Source, or It’s on its way—ther e’s
nothing to fuss about . And then you can relax and surrender
to your knowing. As Ernest Holmes reminds us: “The thing
we surrender  to becomes our power .” I know that the term
surrender  is generally associated with defeat, but there’s no
victor or victim when surrendering to God—this isn’t about
winning or losing. You see, what you’r e doing here is giving up your false self
in favor of returning to your authentic one. And when you
do, you’ll meet your spiritual creator and become
empower ed to live in the same vibration with It. You’ll
become co-creators by surrendering and joining the all-
knowing, all-cr eating Force that allows every thing to come
into existence. Then your knowing replaces your doubts,
and “Divine will prevails at all times.” Only now, you are in
harmony with that Divine will.OceanofPDF .comWisdom Is Avoiding All
Thoughts That Weaken You
Every single thought we have can be assessed in terms of
whether it strengthens or weak ens us. Today we are
focusing on how to avoid thoughts that weak en us. In fact, there’s a simple muscle test you can do to try out
any thought that you’r e having in the present moment. It
works like this: Hold your arm out to your side, and have
someone else attempt to push your arm down while you
resist. Think of telling a lie, and notice how much weak er you are
than if you think of a truth. This can be done for any thoughtthat elicits an emotional r eaction. In his book titled Power vs. Force, David R. Hawkins, M.D.,
elaborates on this method and provides a map of
consciousness to show you how every thought computes to
either weak en or strengthen you. Authentic wisdom is the
ability to monitor yourself at all times to deter mine your
relative state  of weakness or strength, and to shift out of
those though ts that weak en you. In this way, you keep
yourself in an upbeat, higher state of consciousness, and
you prevent your thoughts from weak ening every single
organ of your body. When you use your mind to empower
you, you’re appealing to that which uplifts and raises your
spirits. Power urges you to live and perfor m at your own highest
level, and it is compassionate. Force, on the other hand,
involves movement. This is unlike power, which is a
standing ﬁeld that never moves against anything. Because
force is in motion, it always creates a counterfor ce. That
counterfor ce constantly consumes, and must be fed, energy. Rather than being compa ssionate, force is associ ated with
judgment, competition, and contr olling others. For example,
in an athletic event, your thoughts are on overpowering
your opponent, being better than another, and playing and
winning at any cost. The entire muscular structur e of your
body is actually weak ened, because thoughts of force
weak en you. On the other hand, if in the midst of an athletic event you
can keep your thoughts on perfor ming at your highest
capacity, on using your inner strength to muster the energy
to be as eﬃcient as it’s possible for you to be, and to have
great respect for your God-given abilities, you will actually
be empowering yourself . A thought of force requir es a
counterfor ce, and a battle  that weak ens; while a thought ofpower strengthens you, since no counterfor ce is called into
play to consume your energy. Power thoughts energize you,
since they mak e no demands on you. Thoughts That Weaken You
If a simple thought will make the muscles of your arm go
weak or strong, imagine what it must be doing to all of the
other muscles and organs of your body! Your heart is a
muscle that’s  weak ened by thoughts that disempo wer you. Your kidneys, liver, lungs, and intestines are all surrounded
by muscles that ar e aﬀected by your thoughts. The thought that makes most people the weak est is shame,
which produces humiliation. The importance of forgiving
yourself cannot be stated strongly enough. If you carry
around thoughts of sham e about what you’ve done in the
past, you’r e weak ening yourself both physically and
emotionally . Similarly, if you use a technique of shame and
humiliation on anyone to get them  to reform, you’r e going
to create a weak ened person who will never become
empower ed until those shameful and humiliating thoughts
are removed. Removing your own thoughts of shame
involves a willingness to let go, to see your past behaviors
as lessons you had to learn, and to reconnect to your Source
through prayer and meditation. After shame, guilt and apathy thoughts make you the
weak est. They produce the emotions of blame and despair . To live in guilt is to use up your present momen ts being
immobilized over what has already transpir ed. No amount of
guilt will ever undo what’s been done. If your past behavior
mobilizes you to learn from your mistak es, this is not guilt;
it’s learning from the past. But to wallow in the presentmoment over your so-called errors is guilt, and it can only
take place now . Releasing guilt is like removing a huge weight from your
shoulders. Guilt is released through the empowering
thought of love and respect for yourself . You empower
yourself with love and respect, letting go of standar ds of
perfection and refusing to use up the precious currency of
your life, the now, with thoughts that only continue to
frustrate and weak en you. Instead, you can vow to be better
than you used to be, which is the true test of nobility . Apathetic thoughts create despair . They are the thoughts
that keep you from being engaged in life. Apathy stems
from self-pity and a need to be entertained continually to
avoid boredom. You can never be apathetic or lonely if you
love the person you’r e alone with. Every moment  of every
day presents an unlimited  number of options for living fully
and being connected to life. You don’t need a telev ision or a
radio constan tly blaring to avoid apathy . You have your own
mind, which is a kingdom of limitless potential. You have the choice each  day to wake up and say, “Good
morning, God” or “Good God, morning!” It’s always a
choice. Any moments that you ﬁll with thoughts of boredom
and apathy will truly weak en you physically, emotionally,
and spiritually . To me, it’s an insult to this wondr ous
universe ﬁlled with a hundred million miracles to ever allow
myself to think thoughts of bor edom or apathy . The other prominent thoughts that compete to make you
weak include  fear and anger. Both of these categories of
thought employ force, which produces a counterfor ce and
an inner atmospher e of tension and weakness. When you’r e
afraid, you’ve moved away from love. Remember, “Perfect
love casteth out all fear.” What you fear, you resent andultimately begin to hate. Thus, the dichotomy of hate and
fear is at work within you, always weak ening you. Every thought you have in which you’r e in a state of fear
keeps you away from your purpose, and is simultaneously
weak ening you. Your fearful thoughts are inviting you to
stay immobilized. When you ﬁnd yourself in a fearful mode,
stop right there and invite God onto the scene. Turn fear
over to your Senior Partner with these words: “I don’t know
how to deal with this, but I know I’m connected to You, the
miraculous creative force in this universe. I’ll move my ego
out of the way and turn it over to You.” Try it. You’ll be
surprised by how quickly that higher energy of love will
nullif y and dissolve your fearful thoughts and empower you
at the same time. Anger, likewise, is an emotional reaction to thoughts that
say, “I want the world to be the way I want it, not the way it
is; therefore, I’m angry .” Anger is often justiﬁed as normal,
but it will always make you weak; and as this principle
reminds you, wisdom is avoiding all thoughts that weak en
you. You don’t have to be angry to right a wrong or work
towar d a better world. When you become more peaceful,
you will only have peace to give away . Mom ents of
frustration won’t trigger anger; they’ll help you be more
awar e, and then they’ll spur you on to a solution. Every though t of anger moves you away from love and into
violence and vengeance, which are forces that spur
counterfor ces, weak ening everyone involved. All of these
thoughts of shame, guilt, apathy, fear, and anger are
energies, since everything in our universe is a vibrating
frequency . Those that weak en you are low/slow frequencies,
and they can only be dissolved by bringing the higher/faster
energies of Spirit to their pr esence.OceanofPDF .comThoughts That Strengthen
You
Your thoughts come with an accompanying energy, so you
might as well shift to those that empower you. When you
move from a thought that’s a very low-ener gy vibration to
one of a higher frequency, you go from weak to strong. When your thoughts are on blaming others , you’r e
weak ened. But when you shift to loving and trusting others,
you become strong. Today we are going to investigate the
thoughts that mak e us str onger . Once you realize that what you think about is the source of
your experience of reality, then you’ll begin to pay more
attention to what you’r e thinking in any given moment.Many years ago, in a tremendously popular audio program
called The Strangest Secr et, Earl Nightin gale taught many of
us that we become what  we think about all day long. Your
thoughts determine whether you’r e being empo wered or
weak ened—whether you’r e happy or sad, successful or not. Everything is a thought that you carry around with you. Happy thoug hts create happy molecules.
_OceanofPDF.com_21_Days_to_Find_Success_and_Inner_Peace_-_Wayne_W_Dyer.txt
Summarize the following text section accurately and concisely. Maintain specific details and numerical information, and use anti-repetition mechanisms:

        That’s one of the reasons
why I sometimes say that “It’s never crowded along the
extra mile. ” On the extra mile, choosing inner peace and
attracting success into your life while living in the present
moment become a way of being. So, make the commitment to live joyfully in the moment. Stop dreaming about the futur e and get back to the only
thing any of us have: Now. Decide to live fully in the
present, withdrawing attention from past and future. Your
desir e for inspiration activates the world of Spirit from which
you came. Your imagined  futur e, the stuﬀ of goals, is an
unnecessary way of squandering the present moment. Be
Here Now is more than a great book title by Ram Dass, it’s
the essence of inspiration. Being in the now is the way to
remove anxiety, str ess, and even some illnesses. As I sit here writing, I can daydr eam all I want about
completing this book, but in reality, all I can really do (which
is precisely what I am doing) is listen to my inner voice,
oﬀer a match ing vibration  to those inner pleadings, and feel
the joy of allowing the thoughts to come through me onto
the pages. The “goal” has been suspended in favor of being
here now, living out what I’m being directed by my “SeniorPartner ” to do. The end result takes care of itself,
particularly since I see the end result in my mind, and I use
my pr esent moments in har mony with that vision. I recommend that you ﬁnd a way to transfor m your past,
and remind yourself as you do that you’r e transfor ming any
and all beliefs that you’v e used as labels or indicators of
your limitations. To empower yourself in the present, replace
all that with a knowing that you’r e not what you’ve done,
what you’ve been, how others have taught you, or what has
been done to you—instead you’r e a part of the beloved,
connected now and always to your Source, and therefore
connected to the unlimit ed power of the beloved. You can
be all things at any pr esent moment in your life. OceanofPDF. comYou Can’t Solve a Problem
with the Mindset That
Created It
Today we are examining  the topic of problems and how
changing the way we think can solve them. Any problem can be resolved with a spiritual solution. One
of the most intriguing passages in A Course in Miracles
suggests that you don’t have a problem; you only think you
do. The open ing lines of the Torah, as well as Gene sis in the
Bible, state, “God created Heaven and Earth,” and later,
“And all that God created  was good. ” If you interp ret those
words literally, it’s quite clear that problems are impossib le. If God created everythin g and all that God created was
good, bad does not exist. “But,” you say, “disease,
dishar mony, despair, and so on all appear to exist and run
rampant in our world. ”
When we feel separated from our sacred center, it’s easy to
believe so strongly in the separation that we explain any
unpleasantness as a problem. In the world of Spirit, or God,
problems simply don’t exist and aren’t real. When your
spiritual conn ection is weak, you move away from the world
of Spirit, and problems come from your belief in separation. Your mind creates the illusion of separateness, and your
body, inﬂuenced by your ego thoughts, takes on diseases. Our societies are the creation of our collective thoughts. They take on the same separation-sickness, and then we
have what we call social problems. All of the so-called
problems, however, represent a spiritual deﬁcit that can be
remedied with spiritual solutions. Think of it this way: If you
change your mind, you will solve your problem. (I’ve written
an entire book on this subject called There Is a Spiritual
Solution to Every P roblem. ) How to Go about Changing Your Mind
Can you accept the idea that it’s your belief in your
separation from God that creates the attitude that you label
a problem. Can you explore this idea that what you’r e
calling problems are all simply illusions, or mistak es of your
intellect. If God is everywher e, there is no place that God is
not; therefore, you have God with you at all times. You may
believe otherwise. It is this belief system that creates your
so-called problems. If you can bring truth to the presence of
these illusions, they will dissolve—just as you know that
three plus three equals six is true, and that three plus threeequals 10 is untrue. By bringing truth to the presen ce of this
arithmetic er ror, it simply dissolves. So too will all of your beliefs that create “problems” in your
mind dissolve when you bring the higher energy of truth to
them. St. Francis of Assis i, in his famous prayer, beseeches
us to change our mind to this thought: “Wher e there is
hatred let me sow love. ” Light always dissolves darkness. Love always nulliﬁes hate. Spirit always cancels problems. Problems exist as beliefs of your ego mind, which is unable
to conceptua lize an awar eness of your spiritual mind, just as
dark has no concept of light. By actually rewriting your agreement with reality, you can
change your mind and send away any perceived problem. Change your attitude towar d yourself, and r esolve to believe
in your connectedness to the higher energy of God, even in
the direst of circumstances. Turn anything that seems
problematic over to your higher self, trusting that the
“problem” is not what it seems to be. Rewrite your
agreement about who you are and what you’r e capable of
achieving. Your New Agreement with Reality
Your thoughts are the source of virtually everything in your
life. Every relationship that you’r e in is something that you
carry around  with you. If your relationship is lousy, it’s
because you think of it that way. The person you’r e in a
relationship with isn’t with you in this moment, or when
you’r e at work, or when you’r e in the bathr oom, but your
thoughts about that person are always with you. The only
way you can e xperience another person is in your thoughts. You can’t get behind their eyeballs and be them. You can
only process them with your thoughts. If you look for what’s
wrong about  them and store that negative imag e in your
mind, then that’s wher e your relationship exists. If you
change your thoughts to what you love rather than to what
you label as wrong, you’ve just changed your entire
relationship. It went from lousy to great by your changing
your mind. Try to always remember that you carry every relationship
around with you in your head. Robert Frost reminded us,
“You love the things you love for what they are. ” When you
forget this and process other people on the basis of what
you think they should be, or what they used to be, or how
they compar e to what you are, then you’ve sent love away,
and in your mind, the relationship has soured. You
experience every thing and every one in your thoughts. Change your thoughts, and you change what you carry
around in your head as pr oblems. The world is just the way it is. The economy is just as it
should be. The people who are behaving “badly ” in the
world are doing what they’re supposed to be doing. You can
process it in any way that you choose. If you’r e ﬁlled with
anger about  all of those “problems”, you are one more
person who contributes to the pollution of anger. Your desire to do something about the lowest energies will
motivate you to be more loving, more feeling, and more
peaceful. And in so doing, you may inﬂuence those who are
the farthest removed from God to return to their Source. This new agreement with yourself to always stay connected
to Spirit even when it seems to be the most diﬃcult thing to
do will allow whatever degree of perfect harmony that your
body was designed for to proliferate. Turn “diseases ” over to
God, and treat your body  to regular exercise, healthy food,large amounts of pure water, and plenty of rest to allow it to
function as a container for Spirit to ﬂow thr ough. Your new agreement with reality in which you’ve blended
your physica l self and your personality with your spiritual
God-connected self will begin to radiate a higher energy of
love and light. Wher ever you go, others will experience the
glow of your God consciousness, and dishar mony and
disor der and all manner of problems simply will not ﬂourish
in your presence. Become “an instrument of Thy peace,” as
St. Francis desir es in the ﬁrst line of his famous prayer. Move
up the ladder of human awar eness from the lowest to the
highest. Become a mystical being by simply changing your
mind from one that created and experienced problems, to
one that r esolves them.
The author emphasizes the importance of living in the present moment and focusing on inner peace and attracting success. He also encourages the reader to reframe their thoughts to align with their spiritual nature.
What is the author's message about the extra mile?
The author advises against blaming others and instead encourages the reader to take responsibility for their own life and thoughts, as this is a major obstacle to inner peace and success.
What is the author's stance on blaming others for problems?
The author emphasizes the importance of forgiveness and letting go of resentments, as they are a source of negative energy and can lead to inner turmoil and suffering.
What is the author's view on forgiveness?
The author views God as a loving and all-knowing presence that is always available and connected to the reader. He emphasizes the importance of trusting in this presence and aligning one's thoughts and actions with it.
What is the author's perspective on the concept of God?
The author suggests that one should not try to solve problems with the same mindset that created them, but instead, change one's thinking and align with a higher level of consciousness.
What is the author's approach to problem-solving?