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Soundings, Issue #44
January 01, 2015

News from the Unscripted Self

Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you have imagined.

Henry David Thoreau

The New Year Edition

Welcome to 2015

Let’s kick off the new year with some humour.

The Buddhist and the Sandwich Bar

A Buddhist walked into a sandwich bar one day, bowed gracefully to the man behind the counter and asked for a sandwich.

What would you like in it sir, the man asked.

Make me one with everything, the Buddhist replied, smiling (feeling very Zen).

After receiving his sandwich the Buddhist hands over a $50 bill. The man takes it, thanks him, puts it in the till and then proceeds about his business.

After some time the Buddhist asked, what about my change, getting a little irritated.

The man behind the counter smiles back, ‘change comes from within’.

try this . . .

Close your eyes, go inward and just try and ignore what’s going on in your head. After about 10 minutes see if you can sense pure Presence. If you can it had to be there all the time, you just didn’t notice it because of all the thoughts, feelings and emotions that go on constantly. So who is it that's thinking ‘you’ behind all those thoughts, feelings and emotions? Now open your eyes and see if you can still sense Presence. It is always there.

You are far more than you think.

Just what you need on these cold winter days. Delicious hot chocolate. (I can never resist the marshmallows!)

Gratitude and the New Year

This is a good time to reflect on what we are grateful for. But I always think it’s easy to be grateful for the things that we enjoy, that give us pleasure. But what if we were grateful for the challenges, and problematic stuff in life? Often we see the gift in a challenge after the event when we look back at it. It’s harder to see it in the moment. Ask yourself:

what have I learned from this?

what benefit has accrued to me from it?

how has it impacted in a positive way in my life?

You may be surprised by the answers!

The fear that something is wrong with you is your greatest block to joy.
In truth, there is no other block,
Robert Holden

time for another joke:

A Catholic boy and a Buddhist boy were talking one day and the Catholic boy said,

"My priest knows more than your Buddha."

The Buddhist boy said, "Of course he does, you tell him everything."

To look upon the appearance of disease will produce the form of disease in your own mind – and ultimately in your body. Instead you must hold the thought of the truth, which is that there is no disease. Disease is only the appearance, and the reality is health.

From, The Science of Getting Rich, by Wallace D Wattles.

What is a Conditioned Response?

It’s what happens when you walk past a bakery shop and inhale the beautiful fresh smell of newly baked bread and you’re transformed back to a time when you were young. A song on the radio can do the same thing. This is because everything takes place inside you, and not in some world out there. Nor does it happen in a linear way. So, if you wanted you could tap into any memory or recreate any state that you wanted to whenever you wanted.

Healing Request

Please send healing energy to the relatives of those lost in the Asian plane crash, and to all others who lost their lives over the holiday period.

Your prayers, and distant healing do make a difference you know. Thank you so much.

hear this . . .

If the rate of expansion one second after the big bang had been smaller by even one part in a hundred thousand million million, the universe would have re-collapsed before it ever reached its present size.
Stephen Hawking.

It can’t all be random.

(Love that man and can’t wait to see A Theory of Everything in January).

And with that all that remains is for me to wish you and yours a truly happy, peaceful, loving and joyful New Year.

May all your dreams come true this year. That's all folks

Take care,

Talk to you soon.