Tag: ask seek knock

Posted on

The Downfall Of The Empirical Mind

The Rise Of Empirical Mind

The 1600’s brought us the rise of the empirical mind with the Scientific Revolution led by Isaac Newton, Francis Bacon and John Locke, among others. Next, the 1700’s led us into what is termed the Age of Enlightenment. This era of history was led by such people as Voltaire, Benjamin Franklin, Johann Goethe, Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson, Immanuel Kant, Rene Descartes, Antoine Lavoisier, Thomas Hobbes and Baron de Montesquieu.

The above two eras were a general progression from the effects of the Renaissance Era (1300’s to 1600’s). The Renaissance (literally Rebirth) led the Western world out of the stagnation of the Middle Ages. The Scientific Revolution and the Age of Enlightenment were both highlighted by the pursuit of knowledge obtained by means of reason and the evidence of the five senses.

The Scientific Method

In the above noted eras of the 1600’s and 1700’s, a series of events took place marking the emergence of modern science. As a result of developments in mathematics, physics, astronomy, biology, anatomy, metallurgy and chemistry, the viewpoint of society moved toward empiricism. Then, in the 1800’s, this viewpoint culminated in the formation of what is known as the scientific method.

The scientific method is an observation-based process. To illustrate, the general structure of the scientific method is: (1) form a general question about something; (2) research the topic; (3) establish a hypothesis (a tentative conclusion using limited information); (4) experiment to gain more data; (5) analyze the data from your experiments; and (6) make a conclusion based on all observations.

In brief, empiricism has become the predominant worldview in today’s world. Empiricism is the conclusion that all knowledge is derived from sense experience. Accordingly, the empirical mind is the idea that everything that mankind knows to be true, comes from logic, experience and observations. If it is unseen, it is untrue.

C’mon, Let’s Be Logical About This

Have you ever heard anyone say, to you “C’mon, let’s be logical about this” or something similar to that? What they are saying to you is that what you are saying or proposing just does not make logical sense. When someone says that, they mean that what you are saying does not match up with the world’s reality. You may hear the words, “face the facts, things just don’t happen that way”.

They are operating in the empirical world. If the eyes do not see it (even with microscopes or telescopes), if the ears do not hear it, if it cannot be felt, then it ain’t there. Human logic is a way of thinking about something that seems correct and reasonable. Accordingly, a logical conclusion is always based on the existence of documentable proven facts.

Right Side – Left Side – Teamwork

The left side (or hemisphere) of your brain handles reading, writing and calculations. It is usually referred to as the logical side of the brain. Language, logic, critical thinking, numbers, reasoning all emanate from the left side of your brain.

Conversely, the right side (or hemisphere) of your brain deals more in images and processes in an intuitive manner. Some of the abilities of the right side are: imagination, expressing of emotions, intuition and creative arts.

Today neuroscientists know that the two sides of the brain work together to perform a wide variety of tasks. The two hemispheres communicate with each other through a structure called the corpus callosum. Each hemisphere has its unique specialties. Nevertheless, they have an intimate and collaborative working relationship with each other. And so it is in the world of manifesting. Your vision and your imaginative belief work together to manifest your desire.

A Truly Remarkable Woman

One of the most remarkable human beings of the twentieth century was the woman named Helen Keller. She lived from 1880 to 1962. Keller was an American author as well as a tireless advocate for those afflicted with blindness. In addition, she was a political activist and a well-travelled lecturer.

At 19 months of age, she contracted an unknown illness, possibly meningitis. This illness left Keller blind, deaf and unable to speak. The trifecta of tragedy. As a last chance before institutionalizing her, her parents hired a woman named Anne Sullivan to be her personal one-on-one instructor.

To make a long story short, under Sullivan’s tutelage, Keller would go on to successfully deal in a magnificent way with what life dealt her. She was the first person with combination blindness and deafness to earn a college degree from Radcliffe College of Harvard University in 1904. Furthermore, she wrote 14 books as well as numerous magazine articles. Along the way, Keller learned how to speak She was a prolific lecturer, travelling to 35 countries during the course of her life.

Helen Keller Was Blind – Her Vision Was Great

Helen Keller was blind but she had great vision. Inner vision. She understood that the Kingdom of God was within. Here are her words. “I know life is given to us so that we may grow in love. I believe that God is in me as the sun is in the color and fragrance of the flower, the Light in my darkness, the Voice in my silence”.

Jesus Christ clearly stated, “the Kingdom of God is within”. Helen Keller understood. She got it. Living within the Kingdom of God, she understood the words of Martin Luther King Jr. “love is the greatest force in the universe. It is the heartbeat of the moral cosmos. He who loves is a participant in the being of God”.

The Downfall Of The Empirical Mind

Your empirical mind looks at known causes and effects. Then it makes logical conclusions for the outcome of your action. Thus, it is a wonderful way to eliminate superstition, uncertainty or fear about an outcome. The “because it has always been done this way” argument for an action becomes obsolete. The “because fearless leader says to do it that way” becomes invalid if you know through empiricism that it is wrong. Logical empiricism is a beautiful thing. It has allowed the world to rid itself of many different “chains around the brain”. With that said however, the ultimate downfall of the empirical mind is its neglect of the spiritual underbelly of reality – imaginative belief. Faith.

The Courage To Go Beyond Logic

Conscious manifesting throughout your life has two distinct parts. First, in conscious manifesting, you have the prayer. It is the technique or method that you employ to manifest your desire. All the practical manifesting techniques that I have offered you in various articles in this blog are simply different forms of prayer.

Next, the second part in conscious manifesting, is the belief part. It is the illogical, nonempirical part. Develop a mindset of believing that your desire is real right now. It is called “living in the end”. What you wish to manifest is not in your future, but is with you right now. That part is the really hard part. To proceed beyond logic, beyond the empirical mind, takes courage. That is active faith. It is using the power of the Kingdom of God. It is what the Bible talks about when it calls faith the evidence of things unseen.

The Power Marriage

To empirically engage in a logical progression of actions is how you usually go about attempting to satisfy your desires. Conversely, prayer usually winds up being a begging or pleading with God to bring the specific desire to you. Consequently, this begging type of praying only serves to magnify the feeling within you that you do not already have what you desire.

Many solely use the empirical mind (the brain’s left hemisphere) to attempt to manifest their desires. It is a way of manifesting that is fraught with problems. You are attempting to break through a wall using your head as a battering ram. You may get through but boy, will your head hurt. Use the imagination part of your mind to formulate a crystal clear image of what you desire. Then preside over the ultimate power marriage. Marry your clear vision to the power of your faith – the power of imaginative belief. Live in the end.

Ask. Seek. Knock.

So how the hell do you get belief? How in the “real world” do you get faith when your problems are right in your face? As always, the answer is in the Bible. Ask. Seek. Knock. Then expect. Live in the end. Expect what you ask for to be revealed to you. Be alert when it is. Trust that what you seek will be shown to you. Be observant when it is. Finally, when the door of opportunity is opened for you, step on in.

Live within the Kingdom of God by practicing the Presence of God. Do this regardless of any and all outer negative circumstances. Circumstances do not matter, only state of being matters. Within this blog I have already posted a number of articles for you suggesting how to do this. Scroll to the search box. Enter the search term “Presence of God”. Can practicing the Presence of God be hard to do? Yes. Will it be rewarding to you? Very much Yes. You were created by God to consciously manifest. What are you waiting for?

Conceive. Believe. Receive.

Posted on

Time – If I Knew Then, What I Know Now

I Could Have Had A V8

Are you old enough to remember the old V8 commercials on tv? The commercials that I refer to are the ones that had different people saying “I could have had a V8”. They frequently were on television during the time of the 1970’s and 1980’s.

V8 is a drink produced by the Campbell Soup Company. It is primarily tomato juice, but it also has 8 other vegetables in it, hence the name V8. The commercial was so ubiquitous at the time that the phrase was coined of someone “having a V8 moment”.

A Healthy Alternative

The basic premise of the commercial was to sell V8 as a healthy alternative to soda or other sweet drinks or snacks. I will walk you through one of the commercials. As the commercial begins you see a young guy with a can of soda in his hand. After a few seconds, he stops as if thinking of something. Then a picture of a large can of V8 flashes up on the screen. Then back to the guy who gives himself a palm slap on the forehead. At the same time, he says out loud, “I could have had a V8”!

The next scene shows a woman stuffing a cupcake down her gullet. Likewise, the picture of the large can of V8 is flashed on the screen. Then back to the woman. She puts the cupcake down. She also gives herself a palm slap on the forehead saying “I could have had a V8”! Then you see a hand pouring a glass of V8. An unseen announcer touts the benefits of V8.

The final scene shows a woman seated at a desk. She has a cup of coffee in her hand. A large can of V8 flashes on the screen. Then back to the woman. She says, “I could have had a V8” while giving herself a palm slap with her other hand.

A V8 Moment

The long running series of V8 commercials spawned the phrase “having a V8 moment”. This phrase meant that you proceeded in a situation in a certain way that you quickly regretted. Or it could also mean that upon reflecting on an event in the past, you now see how you handled it all wrong.

The phrase even entered the world of the television animated comedy, “Family Guy”. In this particular episode, Peter Griffin is laying on a psychiatrist’s couch. The psychiatrist asks Peter to reach back into the deepest memories of his childhood. Peter then says that he recalls a traumatic childhood scene. In the scene, when Peter gave his father a Father’s Day card, his father grumpily told him that he was not his real father.

At this recollection, Peter sits up in the couch and says, “Oh my God, Francis Griffin wasn’t my real father! I wonder what else I repressed in my memory”. After a second or two, he says, “Oh my God, I could have had a V8”, as he gives himself a palm slap.

It Is Poison

How often have you had a V8 moment? That moment when you realize that you did not so the right thing in a situation or event. I confess that I have had way too many. I certainly wish I had the ability to go back and do things differently in those situations. It is the old “if I knew then what I know now” conundrum.

There is something vitally important for you to remember about every V8 moment. Refrain from allowing them to become recurring feelings of regret. Lingering regret is toxic. It is injecting yourself with poison. To learn from your mistakes is growth. Sometimes it takes awhile before you learn something. To revise your subsequent actions based on what you learned from your mistakes is the productive option. Choosing to live with never ending regret is detrimental. It produces nothing good. It is sin.

It Is Going To Happen

The ultimate V8 moment occurs after your body stops functioning and you are declared dead. At that time, your spirit energy, your essence, travels to another realm of existence. You will then experience your life review. It will be an observation and evaluation of your entire lifetime. It will cover everything. You will see your first moment of consciousness to your last breath of life. You will see the good, the bad, the ugly, the beautiful.

There will undoubtedly be V8 moments galore. Of course, there will be good things to view as well. Nothing whatsoever will be hidden. Everything will be laid bare. Nothing will be covered up. You will see the good, the bad, the ugly, the beautiful. A unique feature will be the ability to see how your actions made a difference (or made no difference). You will be able to see the effect (or lack of effect) that you had on others. Your life review will be glorious or it will be pure hell. It entirely depends on you. Like it or not, the life review is gonna happen. You can’t say I didn’t warn you.

Yes, Absolutely Yes

At one time or another, everyone has said “If I only knew then, what I know now”. I readily confess that I have said it regarding a whole assortment of things in my past. If I knew then what I know now, I would have definitely done some things differently. How do you know which ideas to follow in order to live successfully? How do you know when to speak up and when to shut up? When you reach that fork in the road of life, how do you know which side of the fork in the road to travel? Is there a testing device that you can use? The answer is yes. Absolutely, yes.

The book of Matthew describes the unfailing testing device. Ask, and it shall be given. Seek, and you will find. Knock, and the door will open. ALL who ask, will receive. ALL who seek, will find. ALL who knock, will gain entry.

Ask, seek, knock are, of course, all metaphors for prayer. Feel free to study the original language. You will discover the true intent of the terms, ask, seek and knock. The true intent is to guide the reader to engage in a continuous ongoing action. This is clearly stated in another Bible verse, “Pray without ceasing”. Ask, and keep asking for guidance. Next, seek, and keep seeking for the right way. Then, knock, and keep knocking. The door to the wisdom of the Kingdom of God will be opened. Continually ask, seek and knock. As a result, if you do this every day, every day of your remaining life will be fruitful. And that, my friend, will make for one orgasmic life review.

Why Do You Exist?

Here is the progression of the average human being. I fully understand that there are variants and exceptions from this progression. First, you are born. Then, you grow up under the auspices of a father and mother. You go to school. Next, you graduate school. Then you get a job. You earn money. You find a place to live independent of your parents. Next, you get married. Then, you have children. You go to work every week for the next forty to fifty years or so. Then you retire from the work world. Next, you live in retirement for an unknown number of years. Then, you get sick and die. Then, within a few generations, all memory that you ever even existed, is gone forever as if you were never born.

If that was all there was to it, you would be no different than a bird, or a squirrel, or a goose. Live. Eat. Shit. Sleep. Work. Copulate. Reproduce. Die. You are different however. You, as a human being, are a child of God. In the book of Genesis, it is stated, “God created mankind in his own image”. Human beings are in the image of God in their spiritual and intellectual nature.

An Expression Of The I AM

You are an expression of a power infinitely greater than you – the Infinite Power, The I Am That I Am – God. Your awareness of being expresses God. First, your mind generates your thoughts. Then, your thoughts generate your feelings. Next, your thoughts and feelings (including your intuition), generate your beliefs. Your inner beliefs then generate all the outer circumstances of your entire life.

You exist in order to demonstrate the glory of God. You exist to express the Most High in a myriad of infinite ways. God has granted you power. God has granted you freedom. You were born with this freedom. Understand that there is only One Presence – God. That One Presence is within you at all times. Spend some of your allotment of time, every single day, without fail, dwelling within the Kingdom of God. Be thankful – thankful you do not have to beg some capricious and arbitrary deity for something that may or may not be granted depending on what mood they are in.

Your Two Precious Possessions

Gold. Cryptocurrency. Stocks. Cold hard cash. Real estate. Classic automobiles. Jewelry. Fine art and other collectables. Society holds these as highly valued commodities as well as precious possessions. They pale in comparison however, to your two most precious possessions. These possessions are your mind and the allotment of time you are permitted on Earth. It is vital to your success in life that you treat them as your two most precious possessions.

If you are young, then start now to learn the art of conscious manifestation. Use your abundance of time to learn how to create your desired reality. Equally important is to shed yourself of the “I’m going to live forever” mentality. You do, but not on this Earth plane of existence. Most importantly, this mentality wastes your precious commodity of time.

If you are middle-aged, there is still time. Call a time out. Step away from everything for a brief bit. Completely and honestly evaluate how you are using your time. Instead of using time on any form of escapism, use your time to create a reality where escapism is completely unnecessary. Do it now. Life really flies by faster than you think.

If you are old, be at peace but also be urgent in the use of your time. There is no longer any time to waste. Not even a single day. Cast aside all resentments as well as any grudges that you have built up over the years. Throw them away. They imprison you in a prison of your own making.. It is very important so I will repeat that –grudges and resentments imprison you. Allow yourself to express Universal Mind. Pay no attention to the opinions of others if it conflicts with you dwelling on the Presence of the Almighty.. Fulfill your true purpose, whatever it may be, while you still have time.

You Possess A Fortune – Use It

Can you think? Then you have a functioning mind.

Are you still breathing? Then you have time.

They are your fortune. Use your fortune to the very best of your ability. Use them in concert with the guidance of Universal Intelligence. Likewise, treat every day as a precious gift, because it truly is, you know.

Conceive. Believe. Receive.

Posted on

It’s Halftime…..2021. Time For You To Get Real.

It’s Halftime

OK, now where did you put those New Year’s resolutions that you wrote down back in January? It’s time to dust them off and see how much you’ve been conning yourself these past six months. Whether it was one resolution or twenty-one, now is a good time to assess precisely where you stand. In the parlance of a football game…..it’s halftime 2021. In halftime of a football game, while the marching band is performing on the field to entertain the fans, the teams go to their respective locker rooms to rest and re-evaluate. Rest up for the final half of the game, hydrate, attend to any injuries suffered in the first half, and generally prepare for the second half. Led by the head coach, the team reviews what happened to make the score what it is at halftime. The team will be advised by the coach what they need to do in the second half to either maintain their success or remediate their failures.

180 Days: July Thru December 2021

You are in life’s locker room now. It is July 2021…..halftime. Your coach is the Holy Spirit of God. Deep prayer is your method of evaluation. Ask. Seek. Knock. Expect. Receive. Thank. If you really desire it, guidance will be given to you. Thoughts will enter your mind. Situations will unfold before your eyes. Someone may say something that is exactly what you needed to hear. Something may bubble up to the surface from your deep intuition. Stop, look and listen. Then it will be up to you to act. Act according to whatever guidance you receive. If things are going well for you, the guidance will be how to sustain it. If things are going poorly, the guidance will be how to improve your situation. If things are just going “so-so”, ideas or avenues will present themselves to you to allow you to bust loose to the “things are going good” plane of existence. Ask. Seek. Knock. Expect. Receive. Thank.

This Game Called ” Your Life”

In 1925, the author Florence Scovil Shinn wrote a book entitled, “The Game of Life and How To Play It”. It is interesting reading and is available to you free, as it is in the public domain. Agreeing with what you need to do is never enough to fulfill those resolutions and change your life circumstances for the better. You need to do. You need to do. Allow the eternal I AM to work through you by you actually doing what you know you need to do. It is halftime 2021 my friend. Time for you to play the second half of the game. If you are ahead in the game, be aware that the other team will come out ferociously in the second half to reverse your position. If you are behind, take stock, put the non-essential aside and come out of the locker room with a calm ferocity to win the game in the second half. If the score is tied, it means you have done some things right and some things wrong. Now is the time to double down on your winning game plan. For the next six months, twenty-six weeks, one hundred and eighty days, live and breathe winning the game through sustained right action. Embrace the guidance of the Holy Spirit and proceed accordingly. If you make the choice to do this, the year 2021 will end with you as the winner and you will enjoy the wonderful fruits thereof.