Dwelling Place - The Manifest Cookbook

What Is Time?

Eckhart Von Hochheim, commonly known as Meister Eckhart, was a German theologian, philosopher and mystic. He lived, taught and preached in the late thirteenth century, early fourteenth century At the time of his death, his teachings were attacked as a result of internecine intra-church intrigue.

While Meister Eckhart himself was never branded a heretic, the Avignon Vatican pronounced certain of his teachings as heretical. It was just another chapter in the never-ending human drama of one group of humans fearful of losing control over another group of humans. Recent efforts by Eckhart’s Dominican Order to confirm his theological orthodoxy resulted in a letter from the Vatican in 1992 to the Master of the Dominicans stating, “we are perfectly free to say that he is a good and orthodox theologian”.

Eckhart taught that God is a totally transcendent Being, beyond all words, beyond all understanding. From his writings, he stated that “Time is what keeps the Light from reaching us”. With regard to our reality and the “now” of it, he also wrote, “There exists only the present instant…….a Now which always and without end is itself new. There is no yesterday, nor is there any tomorrow but only Now, as it was a thousand years ago and as it will be a thousand years hence”.

Urgent Care Centers

A relatively recent occurrence in the field of healthcare is the proliferation of neighborhood clinics known as “urgent care centers”. When I was very young, the family doctor still made housecalls for urgent care situations. Then, as that era came to a close, the hospital emergency room became the option for immediate medical attention.

In today’s world, the urgent care center, open seven days a week, twelve hours a day, and has emerged as a viable treatment option when you need to do something now about a health related problem. There are even specialized urgent care centers now such as pediatric urgent care, orthopedic urgent care and mental health urgent care.

Awareness Of Being

In your life today, right now, you are in a situation that requires urgent care on your part. So many human beings, the overwhelming majority of inhabitants of planet earth, defer their awareness of being to tomorrow (or some later date). For example, if you do this, then tomorrow you will get that. If you go to work, you will get pay on payday to pay for your food, your lodging, your car, your clothes, your child’s braces, and so on.

All activity is geared to doing something today in order to get something or be something tomorrow (or some later date). It is a true blessing to be able to earn enough money to pay for your needs. The urgent care that you must attend to however, is the endless deferring of your Now awareness of being.

For just a few minutes, cut away all the layers of crap and focus in on exactly what you are aware of being right now. Not what you will be five minutes from now. Not what you will be tomorrow or next week or next year or five years from now, but what you are aware of being right now. This awareness of being, moment by moment by moment, is the very essence of your life and of your existence in this dimension. It is urgent that you realize this because everything that occurs in your life flows outward from your now awareness of being.

Smothers Brothers

Back in the 1960’s, the Smothers Brothers (Tom and Dick) were a very successful pair of folk musicians who specialized in comedy. At home we had one of their comedy LP albums and thoroughly enjoyed it. The brothers went on to have an hour long television variety/comedy show on CBS. While the show proved very successful, it was ultimately cancelled by the network in 1969 due to content that was considered too controversial.

On one of their shows, they had a short film segment that was brilliant. This film was entitled “American Time Capsule”. It was a film that consisted of a multitude of still photos presented in kaleidoscopic fashion and set to a vibrant, yet subtle drumbeat solo. It is actually available to watch on the internet if you choose to do so. It portrayed two hundred years of American history in three minutes.

A Lasting Impression

This short film made a lasting impression on me. From time to time, I reflect upon it as sort of a microcosm of how time flows in the life of a human being. The film commences with the events of the American Revolutionary War in 1776. It proceeds to display in brief but recognizable image flashes, thirteen hundred different images of American history in a chronological fashion until reaching the current date at that time, 1968.

One of the things fascinating about this short film was the subtly changing speed of the display of the images. If you take one hundred and eighty seconds (three minutes) and divide it equally by thirteen hundred (images), it would come to about thirteen hundredths of a second each. The film however did not display each image in equal time amounts. As the film progressed to the latter half of the nineteenth century and throughout the twentieth century, it moved ever faster as the amount of time allotted for each image was shortened. It is a remarkable piece of cinematography.

The sands of time of your life move past you in approximately the same manner as the images of the film American Time Capsule. As you get older, the time, the events, the circumstances of your life, move by with ever increasing speed. Time is the ultimate trickster in this regard. It moves turtle-like when you want it to speed up and then it becomes Speed Racer when you would appreciate it slowing down just a tad.

Time Is What Keeps The Light From Reaching You

So how exactly do you deal with this mischievous imp called time? There is only one best way. Focus. Make the irrevocable free will choice to focus. Focus on the present instant. Leave all temporalities behind. Yesterday is gone. Tomorrow is merely an illusion. There is only Now, your current awareness of being.

You say that you can’t. You have tried and you keep thinking about stuff that is “coming up” tomorrow, next week, next month. Try as you might, you keep ruminating over past events, past grievances, past mistakes. If that is the case, you need to go to your own personal urgent care center. You must generate a desire to “live in the end” right now with as much urgency, with as much feeling, as you are humanly capable of. If you do this, it will assuredly be to your benefit.

Discard Your Concept Of Time

When my youngest boy was around four years old, he became ill one day with a high fever caused by a childhood flu bug of some sort. All of a sudden his temperature spiked with such an intensity that he suffered a grand mal febrile seizure. I was in another portion of the house and immediately heard my wife shout in distress. I did not wait for an ambulance. I scooped him up, ran out to the car and drove at once to the local hospital emergency room which was fortunately only two minutes away.

Pulling up to the ER entrance, I jumped out of the car and carried him inside, imploring the nearest nurse to help my boy. They quickly took him and employed immediate measures to hydrate him and successfully reduce his temperature. He recovered nicely. During that entire urgent situation, there was no yesterday, there was no tomorrow. The entire focus of my life at that time was totally centered on one thing – getting my son help in that Now instant. I had no concept of time.

What Do You Desire To Be?

I now pose a question to you – What do you desire to be, to have, to achieve, to experience? In your Now awareness of being, be that – now; have that – now; achieve that – now; experience that – now. Commit yourself, once and for all, to choose your ever present Dwelling Place to be the Kingdom of God within. Humbly allow the Divine Presence to fill every part of you. Heed your intuition and pay attention to Divine inspiration. Do this with a peaceful urgency and every other thing in your life will subsequently fall into place naturally for you.

Believe. Receive.

Your Power To See The Unseen

Faith is the solid reality of what you hope for.

Faith is the solid proof of what is unseen.

What is hope? The dictionary defines hope as: “a feeling of confident expectation for a certain thing to happen”. Faith is your power to see the unseen. Faith is available to every single human being on the face of the earth. You do need to activate your faith however. You do this by going to a beautiful mystical Dwelling Place every day. This Dwelling Place is the Kingdom of God within.

For any problem, for any situation, for any decision, for any manifestation – dwell on the only true power – God, the universal I AM. Dwelling on God is dwelling within your place of power – the Kingdom of God within. Do not search for God up on Mt. Olympus nor do you have to travel to the peaks of the Himalayas. It is not mandatory to travel to an ecclesiastical building of some type. God is not some Jack and the Beanstalk giant with a long white beard peeking at you from behind the clouds or up on the planet Mars. The Kingdom of God is within you, right now, The price of admission is to focus your mind and your heart on what you are able to perceive about God.

Visiting the Kingdom of God within is about seeing only God if even for only a few minutes a day. Go beyond your problem or situation, whatever it is. Keep going until you arrive at the feeling that the problem does not even exist, you know nothing about it. “How can I do this”?, you ask, “I can’t stop worrying. I’ve tried”. You not only can stop worrying but you must stop worrying. Focus your mind on God. Dwell on God. Dwell in God. You were not created by Original Source in order to demonstrate worry and fear. You were created by Universal Intelligence so that you can bring to fruition in the 3D world the majesty and glory and attributes of the energy of Original Source. Fear and worry do not demonstrate the glory of God Almighty. All humans experience some degree of worry at times. To stubbornly continue however in a state of worry and fear about a problem is sin. It is a falling short of what God created you for. Valid concern is one thing. Prolonged worry is quite another. It is a “holding on” to your lack of faith.

The Photo Shoot

I am grateful over this lifetime to be the father of three precious children, two males, one female. Back when the youngest one, the daughter, was about three or four years old, we decided to take advantage of a big box store “photo shoot special” for all three children. The store had a small room that served as a photo studio. A professional photographer took a photo that was subsequently enlarged and suitable for framing.

In order to keep small children occupied while others were getting their photo taken, there were a few toys and what not there. Included was a lightweight, colorful ball, about the size of a basketball. While waiting, my daughter became enthralled with this ball. When it was her turn to get her photo taken, she steadfastly refused to let go of the ball. The photographer said that it would interfere with the quality of the photo. When we went to take the ball out of her hands, she started crying. Well, we did not want to pay a photographer for a photograph of a crying child so we let her have the ball and the photo was taken.

So it is with free will, faith and choosing to dwell on God. We can choose to just let go (for our benefit) and place our focus on God or we can stubbornly hold onto worry and fear (to our detriment). God allows us the total freedom to make either choice.

OK, So How Do You Get There?

The route to take in order to get to your mystical Dwelling Place is also the simplest route. Whatever your problem, whatever your frustrated desire, refrain from dwelling on it. Refrain from hanging around in that thought neighborhood. Instead, dwell on God. Whatever it is that you are desirous of manifesting, you place roadblocks in your path when you fret and fuss over how in the world you are going to satisfy that desire. Leave the details to God. Be sure that you are paying attention when Universal Intelligence subsequently provides you with the details.

One road that you can use to get to your Dwelling Place is this: once a day, or more if you choose, say to yourself, “I am turning this whole thing (name the specific problem or desire) over to God. Then for at least a few minutes, think of God and only of God. You can do this by making some statement of absolute fact over and over again with the utmost of earnestness.

Some examples of statements of fact that you can use are: “There is only one true power. It is God”; “God is with me, now and always”; “God is guiding me and directing me with love”; “I am grateful that God is with me now”; “Thank you Father, I thank you with all that I am”, “I am a child of the Most High God”; “The peace and presence of God fills me now”. No matter how mechanical it seems at first, keep at it. Commit fully, heart and soul, to the process. It will work, if you work at it. Refrain from struggling. If a fear or worry enters your mind, acknowledge it, then with quiet but firm insistence, substitute that thought with your thought of God. There is not room enough there for both of them. Whenever your mind starts wandering, just gently guide it back to the Dwelling Place.

Another Road You Can Use To Get There

Sometimes, the urge to think about the problem or frustrated desire can be quite powerful. The urge can be so bullying that you cannot even come up with the words of your chosen statement of fact. If you find this to be the case, here is another road that you can take to get to your Dwelling Place. Just say the word “God” and follow that up immediately with a word that describes an attribute of God. Since you are a child of God, created to manifest the I AM in 3D reality, they become your attributes as well by channeling through God. God is demonstrated through your faith.

A favorite acronym that I use to instantly recall a dozen of attributes that I can demonstrate through God and by God is “LILT*BAPC*ICIJ”. The acronym stands for “Love. Intelligence. Light. Truth. Beauty. Abundance. Power. Compassion. Imagination. Creativity. Impartiality. Joy”. When your mind just does not want to let up in conjuring up the problem or frustration, just say loudly in your mind (or out loud if you prefer), “God, Love”; “God, Intelligence”; “God, Light”; “God, Truth”, and so on for all of the attributes. If you have “let go” and allowed God to fill up your thoughts, you are allowing God to channel those attributes through you. In effect, you are those attributes as long as you dwell on God.

Some Further Details

How long per session should I actively use the Dwelling Place technique? A few consecutive minutes are sufficient as long as you are focused and not dealing with distractions.

How many times a day should I practice this form of scientific prayer? When you get to the point where you can go a few consecutive minutes very quickly, feel free to repeat the prayer several times a day with a period of time separating each session. It is important however, that after you have prayed in this manner, that you completely drop all thought of the matter until the next session. This is important to remember as this “in-between respite” gives your manifestation a chance to grow.

How many days should I continue with this technique with regard to a specific desire? Until its materialization is complete. This can range from a few days to a few years depending on the size of the manifestation and the fullness of your faith. Be alert and pay attention to what is going on around you. Be prepared to take advantage of opportunities as they present themselves. Be thankful when you receive encouraging signs and signals. Refrain from thinking of the probable means of achieving your desired end. Ironically, this will slow things down. Just consistently go to your Dwelling Place and when things present themselves, follow through appropriately on your end.

Can I use this technique to manifest more than one pressing need at the same time? While there is nothing per se to prevent you from doing so, if you can, focus on one thing at a time. Try to come up with one manifestation that will solve both problems at once. The greater the manifestation, the more elongated the time factor. That time lag is what really puts your faith to the test. The more elongated the time factor, the greater the temptation to lose faith. If you never used this manner of scientific prayer before, start small. Then as your results yield success, it will strengthen your faith, which is the fuel to your “rocket ship”. If you have two equal and critical desires, then go ahead but just name one desire at the outset of each Dwelling Place session.

You Are A Scientist

Put on your imaginary white lab coat, get your imaginary clipboard and run your own scientific laboratory experiment. Every day, like clockwork, for the next six months, spend some of your daily allotment of time going to your mystical Dwelling Place. Whatever your religious beliefs, from the very start, just check your doubt at the door. Better yet, throw it in the large trash can outside the door. Dragging around a duffel bag of doubt for this experiment will just be a self fulfilling prophecy for negative results.

In my personal experience in praying in this manner, the time frame for manifestation was longer than I originally anticipated but the manifestations were indeed created. I think my “backsliding” into subtle episodes of doubt served to delay the receiving of my order. In any case, this technique will not cost you anything but some moments of your daily time. As you faithfully await answer to your prayer, how can it possibly hurt you to spend time each day dwelling on God?