GUIDANCE FOR YOUR LIFE Radio Show
with Hans Christian King www.HansKing.com
and Alfred Ricci www.AlfredRicci.com
Topic: Best of Radio: Counting Your Blessings and Gratitude for God
January 18, 2014
Alfred:
Hello everyone and welcome to GUIDANCE FOR YOUR LIFE. Yes, this is Alfred the Padawan to the Modern Day Mystic Himself, Hans Christian King. We are continuing with “The Best Of Guidance for Your Life” from last year. This new year's topic is “The Spirituality of Gratefulness". We have two entire full shows that we're playing for you on "Gratefulness" and how gratefulness can change your life. The first one is: "Counting Your Blessings" and we'll follow up with "Gratitude for God". Now, I present to you Hans Christian King.
Hans:
Good Evening everyone. How wonderful to be back with everyone. One of the things that Spirit has always reminded me of is the fact that we never seem to be quite grateful enough. In other words - what they see when walking with us is our mind chatter trying to show us how much is wrong, how much we don't have. I once told you that Garth Brooks had a song out many years ago and he said in that song, he said: "Sometimes I thank God for unanswered prayers". We never see how much good that Spirit does for us. We're talking about the spirituality of gratitude. Remember, you're not here by accident, you're here by design. Remember, no one set up these lessons but you. No one chose the people to be in our life but you. No one chose our life's purpose but you...and me...and Alfred. And all the wonderful volunteers and people that work with us. Spiritual gratitude means: “witnessing that you are co-partnering with Spirit and everything is in it's divine and right order”. No matter how “bad” things look. Remember, being a victim of it will serve you not. So many people have the appearance of loss at this time of the year after all we have all been through. And the terrible things that have happened to the economy and to our wonderful citizens. But each and every one of us, no matter how crabby we get, no matter how angry we get, everyone still asks God for "more". More. “Can you just do this?...If you just do that, I'll believe...” I had an email that came to me today from a lady who has lost faith in God...lost faith in Spirit. I get these periodically, as you can imagine. And no where in the letter did she say one thing that God "had" done for her.
But her whole vision of her life was rooted deeply, in victimization. So blinded was she that she was trying to decide whether to stay in life or exit it, believing that I could fix that situation for her. That's not my job people. My job is to point out to her what are the lessons - what she may want to look at. I go back to my famous quote from Dr. James Allen, in which he says: "They themselves are makers of themselves". Christ said: "Learn to be in the world, not of it". When we switch from being “of it", we begin to see all of the things we should be grateful for. Alfred and I had to make a trip yesterday to go pick up his Jeep which had been towed up to Claremont, California, about 74 miles from here. Traffic was hellacious. We noticed that the traffic coming back was even worse. And I said a quiet little prayer to Spirit: "Would it be possible for you to lighten that traffic on the way home?" We both thought, well you know actually it's going to get a lot worse because people are getting out of work. And then suddenly, I said: "No, the traffic's going to be fine. They will clear it". Alfred's looking for another route to get back... I said: "No, it'll be fine". We sailed home, no problem. Being grateful... How many of us have asked God for something? How many of us have begged Spirit to make something happen for us and it's happened? And for a moment we say, thank you. But then as something else comes along and it wipes out that sense of gratitude... “Oh, here's another thing that I need to fix.” Learning to sit in a moment of gratitude every day...You folks remember about 10 years ago and Oprah had that...I've brought this up before, thought it was a great idea...Oprah had this thing that she did. And she said: "Every day, wake up and write down one thing you are grateful for just this day, every day." I asked many of you to do this 2 years ago. Some of you did. Some of you did not. But the people who did, I got the nicest emails from. Who said: "I dug deep into my history and I found hundreds and thousands of things that Spirit came in and rescued me on. Things that couldn't have happened without Spirit, without the Godforce". So our life is actually one continuous spirit seeking to resolve issues with and for us based on our dharma. Always though holding us towards the light. Trying to face us towards the light. Today I was out front very early this morning, I had to go somewhere about 8 or so... And I stopped for a minute before I got in the car. I decided to go look at my roses. As cold as they are, there they were sending out new buds. The little bedding plants that I put in survived the frost last night. Some of the Bougainvillaea got a little burned. They'll be alright. I looked up when I saw the mountain. What a lovely dusting of snow on it. And I thought at that moment, this is where I need to be today, “grateful”. Because each and every one of us don't realize that in the complexity of our lives that we have manufactured, we leave relatively no space to be grateful for the fact that we're actually working on what we asked God for. Remember, you've heard me say this for years: "Nobody else made our drawing board. Nobody else brought our dharma but us". So that job you have, the teachers you have, the schools you have, all of that - the parents, the children, where you live, how you dress... All of that is "choice". But we forget that because it appears as real. The life that we're living appears as real. But it is not you see, because it's an illusion. It has been created "by you", "for you". But sometimes it's created “by you” - “against you”. How many people have I said to in a reading: "Why are you doing this when Spirit says you should be over here doing that?" And they'll always say: "Well yes I know, but how do I make a living at doing that?" Well you certainly don't do it that way. So if you could all understand...there isn't a day, there isn't a day in my life, even when I've been in the hospital, even when they told me I was going to die, that I haven’t said, every day and every night: "Thank you for letting me be here this day".
Every day. I found the cutest show you've ever seen in your life on TV. It's called "The Cutest". And it's on the Animal Channel and they have baby puppies that are born, and baby kitties that are born, and baby ducks that are born... Watching them frolic, grow up...the simplicity, the beauty of just "being"...you see. This is what I'm talking about. In the movie "White Christmas", truly one of my favorite films... In fact I will watch it again most likely close to New Years. There is a song in there, that since I was a child struck me. Because Spirit always reminded me when things got very foggy - the appearance of “difficult” - and the song goes: “...And I fall asleep counting my blessings”. How many of you fall asleep counting your blessings? The song tells us to be grateful for what we “do” have. Sometimes...sometimes we get caught up in the appearance of...and I'm not saying to you children that Alfred and I or Monica or anyone of us, Michael, don't get caught up sometimes in the appearance of things. I'm not saying that. But if you can catch yourself, and giggle...laugh a little bit... “Oh, my God here I go again you know”. It's like Spirit suddenly says: “Hey, everybody come on in here, look - Alfred's on Channel 13 again tonight. Oh my gosh there he goes again. Why can't he see what we already have done”? Or “Listen to Hans, he's on Channel 9 - what a mess he's become today. Forgetting his principles sometimes. Having to be reminded to be grateful”. All of us...All of us - how many times do all of us actually get what we ask for? And the minute we get that, we're grateful for a moment. Then we start thinking about what else we need to add to what what we already have. If you have your health, if you have your love for you, you have ALL you will ever need. Because Spirit is your resource. Spirit attaches itself to the goodness of who you are and the goodness of your thinking and the goodness of your gratefulness. Not to the victimization of your human mind. They don't want anything to do with that. They gave us the human mind as the counterbalance of the purity in good of God. That's why you'll hear Alfred say: "That the greatest gift...One of the greatest gift's God has ever given us is...One of the greatest gifts is Free Will”. Alfred, would you come in a little bit on that if you can? I think I caught him by surprise...
Alfred:
Hi, I'm here Hans.
Hans:
I have not prepared him for this.
Alfred:
I'd like to share something that Hans just caught me with. I've been working all day long, and I was very tired and I was very grumpy and grouchy and just mumbling things... And Hans just looked at me and says: "Have you been grateful? Have you been grateful to Spirit for all their help? Have you been grateful for the people that you've brought to us"? I was just working with Monica who has volunteered to not only help us do audio editing, but video editing and I just get a little exhausted. And Hans says: "Did you tell Spirit that you were grateful for sending Monica"? And I just sat there for 15 seconds and said how many things I was grateful for. And within 15 seconds, my entire energy completely changed. I went from being grumpy, tired, not depressed...
Hans:
Trust me everyone grumpy is mild... (Hans chuckling)
Alfred:
Yes. And from being...all of a sudden, my energy completely picked up to being happy and just bouncing around the house and playing with the dog. In 15 seconds! Only because Hans, thankfully, caught me from instead of looking at it "my glass is half empty", instead "my glass is half full".
Hans:
It was a matter of less than 2 minutes.
Alfred:
It really was. And this is what we're trying to say is, the power of gratefulness is absolutely underestimated. Gratefulness can change the world. It really can. But that's not the topic of tonight. The topic of tonight has to do with gratefulness in a general sense and what are the different components of gratefulness? And that's what we wanted to share with you tonight...that your mind perceives the physical aspect of things. And if your soul can come in and instead worry about the way things are or look at the physical aspect of the way that you feel and instead just say, you know what - that's not what's important. Or create some type of trigger when you feel negative...when you feel tired. To say: "Let me just take a minute and be grateful for what I have". The amount of energy that is drawn towards you is so overwhelming, so uplifting...it has to do with say, meditative practice. Everybody knows if you meditate and you raise your vibration, you feel better. Gratefulness is in the same line.
Hans:
Hold on son. I want to clear something up for people on what you just said. You said we all know that meditative practices... Alfred, as I've pointed out to you there are some people who can't do meditation, or it doesn't work for them. How would they, Alfred, find that place? Would they just be still?
Alfred:
Sure. There's a lot of people that can't meditate. I can't meditate. Hans can't meditate...we all fall asleep.
Hans:
No... (Agreeing)
Alfred:
There's another one of the guys who's helping me, Mike, he can't meditate. A lot of people can't...because they just fall asleep. And what I say is: Do something to not only achieve the meditative state, but do something while you're "in" that meditative state. So there's two different things. How do you achieve it? Number One - the point that we're talking about. You want to be happy...you want to reach a higher vibrational state...you want to be part of the "oneness"...you want to be peaceful...you want to have positive thoughts. Quite simple. Think about all the things you're grateful for. Things in the moment...your life... The easiest one is: "Thank you for allowing me to be born and helping me through this life". Every single person can say that because there was an enormous amount of effort that happened before you came down. Be grateful that happened. Be grateful you did come down and you were provided with unlimited opportunities and possibilities. Be grateful for that. Every single person can be grateful for those things. Which will get you into a higher vibration...into peacefulness...into that meditative state.
Hans:
And don't you think Alfred, that people have a tendency to get caught in the illusion of their life? Rather than looking at all of the apparent problems as lessons and saying: “Ah, I wonder what this one has to offer me”? Rather than doing that...to suffer all the lessons that they chose.
Alfred:
And this is part of spiritual practice is: “That the spirituality of life is more important than the appearance, the physical aspect of it”. Just walking...no driving down in Palm Springs today there was a Billboard that said: “The harder it rains, the bigger the Rainbow”.
Hans:
Exactly...
Alfred:
Hello? That that's the whole purpose of Life is for you to be in this dense energy, this gravitational pull, in this body so that things are made more difficult for you so that you may overcome...so that you may have soul growth. So that you don't focus on “the issue", you focus on "what you get out of it"...you focus on "how you become"...you focus on “the soul growth”...you focus on “the lesson that you've learned”...you focus on “compassion” and all of those other things. We're not focusing on all those other things - we're saying the one simple thing that will absolutely change your life, that will absolutely change things "in the moment" within 15 seconds...this happened just an hour ago...
Hans:
Uh hum...
Alfred:
Simply to be grateful. And it's not being grateful just for the sake of being grateful. Even though that in of itself is a wonderful things because it tells the people on the other side who are watching over you: Yes, I do appreciate you for dealing with my mind chatter...
Hans:
(Laughing) You know what I find Alfred that a lot of us do...I think we're all guilty of this is: “We suffer our choices”. And we don't realize that we made the choice based on where we were at the moment, thinking it was a good choice. Rather than say: “Oh, you know what? I've learned from this, I won't do that again. We actually become a victim of it”.
Alfred:
Yes. This is a good one. Imagine on this side you have a bunch of friends and you plan for about a year you're going to go on a trip. And you go on the trip with all your friends and all you do is bitch and complain about the trip. Okay, excuse my Italian - but imagine how all your friends would feel if all you did was whine and complain. And they're like, but we are here to help you, we're here to get you through this. We spent a lot of time on it...why don't we just...we're on the trip, and just have fun? It's the same exact thing with your guidance. You're on the trip, they're on the trip with you. All you need to do is just be on the trip and be grateful and they'll be happy and you're happy. It is that simple.
Hans:
Well, you know Alfred, you could worry which causes mind chatter. You could be stressful and have a restless night... But if you stop for a moment and say: “Do you know that I saw a butterfly today”? Just break your concentration. Totally break it... “Do you know that I saw a father hugging his daughter today”? “Do you know that there are clouds in the sky moving really quickly”? Break the normal mind chatter routine. We all have, Alfred, a routine. And whenever a particular thing strikes us, it tends to call up a whole bevy, if you will, of old crud we have attached to that one thing. Recognizing that and saying: “You know what, I choose now. I choose in this moment to count my blessings”. Take the time to sit and be grateful. Because being grateful leads to positive thoughts...a higher vibration and peace. Now Alfred, you were talking about that a minute ago. Do you have anything else that you would like to add to that?
Alfred:
Just to follow up. There's so many different ways to meditate. What is the purpose of meditation? The purpose of meditation is to get into a peaceful state. It's to get into a higher vibration. It's to become part of the "oneness", part of the universal energy. Well instead of going through all of that, just take 15 seconds, 30 seconds and “be grateful”. And watch what happens...
Hans:
It's amazing. It's like Spirit hears it and BOOM! They en-thrash you with a bunch of light.
Alfred:
Yes. And that's the point. Not everybody has 15 minutes, or 1/2 an hour to meditate. Not everybody can meditate. But the point is that through gratefulness the results are the same. And it's not that whether you can hold that gratefulness for a long time. It's not whether you can meditate for 1/2 hour, or six days, or a week. It's that in the moment...in the moment that you're in, is that you raise your vibration. That you are peaceful. You don't think about how long in the future. You don't think how long you did it previously. It's just - “in the moment you are connected”. “In the moment you are peaceful”. And that's what's important here.
Hans:
Thank you Alfred. So what we're saying is being in a meditative state leads us closer to God and our sleep. So counting your blessings before you go to bed, pulls us towards the positive power of God and Spirit and away from the darkness...the heaviness of the day. You see? So when that we go to bed counting our blessings...when we wake up in the morning saying: “Thank you for letting me be here today. Today is first day of the rest of my current existence. Thank you for letting me be here today. Help me to be mindful of the things I chose to learn. Let me not be involved in too much mind chatter today”. And then again going to sleep and thanking Spirit for all that they have given you. Even gentle people, if you feel the worst has happened to you. If you're still walking, or still breathing, it will pass, okay? You're not going to go down the drain if you get grateful. But the more ungrateful you become, the more of a victim you become. The greater the discourse, the greater the disconnect...like where is God in my life? When I saw Alfred doing what he was doing I had to say: "Hey, hold on here. You teach better than what you're just doing now." He does that with me sometimes. And I'm now doing it with all of you. We're about to head into the year 2013. For our country it will be a better year. For millions of our people it will be a better year. Give yourself the gift of gratitude - for you. Thank You for being in your life - Thank You for taking care of You - Thank You for reminding You of who you actually are which is this baby angel in human form. I'm installing Sirius in my car and all we could get were a couple of channels and they were all Oprah. I heard Oprah talking to someone and she said: "You know we all know that we're just spirit in human form". And it blew me away because I'd been teaching that long before anything like that could be said on radio or television.
So I was so grateful. I said to Alfred: "It's okay now, I don't have to try so hard. It's out." Others are using it. You know that I'm sure many others had the same thought or the same idea that I did...at the same time I did. Being grateful for who you are...look at your children or your lover or your puppy or your kitty or your goldfish or your bird or your backyard and be grateful that in that moment you are at one with Spirit. Everyone remember, this new year will afford you an opportunity to grow beyond all your current limitations and expectations. This coming year be in the moment of "now". Be in the moment of "I'm enough". Be in the moment of "God doesn't love anyone more in this world than me". Be in the moment "that if I can dream it, I can have it". Be in the moment that there's no such thing as loneliness. You are surrounded every day by the presence of God and Spirit in your life. All you have to do is reach out for a hug. That's what Alfred did, he reached out for a hug. And you can hear Spirit say: “Now, now just get over yourself and everything will be fine, okay?” So “counting your blessings” - I want to be the "theme" for many of you as we move towards this new beginning in January. Remembering always that no matter what the appearance of things, God is greater, Spirit is greater than your humanness, your human thinking. And that concludes the lesson for this evening.
Alfred:
And that was "Counting Your Blessings" - our theme for the end of 2012 - and the theme for the beginning of 2013. Both were the "Best Of" topics. The most requested topics were about gratitude and how that can change your life. And our next topic "Is Gratitude from God".
“Gratitude for God”
Alfred:
Hello everyone and welcome to Modern Day Mysticism. Tonight's topic is "Gratitude from God". And to explain why gratitude is so prevalent throughout the world, I present to you Hans Christian King.
Hans:
A gracious good evening everyone! Have you ever noticed that most parents teach their children to say "Thank You"?...“Thank you”. Two words that are so simple. It means "I'm grateful...I'm grateful". How often in our daily life do we take the opportunity to stop for just a moment and turn to the universe and say: “Thank you, I am so grateful for all that you have been and all you are now doing and you will do for me in the future”. How often do we do that? Or do we often take kindness or abundance that suddenly arises from nowhere... Do we take those for granted? Oftentimes I think that we do. You know most religions teach gratefulness as part of their spiritual practice. So if most religions teach gratefulness and most parents say, "Thank you", why do we have such a hard time in letting Spirit know how much we appreciate all that they do for us every day? Even in the midst of the thunderstorm...suddenly there's a little shelter. Why do we have such a hard time in saying: “Thank you”? I've asked Alfred to come in and step in on this with me and get a younger point of view. Alfred why do you suppose it is that people have such a hard time in saying "thank you", if they're taught at an early age to say "thank you"?
Alfred:
It's not logical. Saying "thank you" is not really something that the brain really wants to do. The brain really doesn't want “to give”. “It's the spiritual aspect in us that wants to give and understands that through giving, you become more in tone with the flow of the universe”.
Hans:
Would you say that the brain considers "giving as loosing"?
Alfred:
As giving something up...
Hans:
Yes, that's what I mean - giving something up.
Alfred:
It's the way I review in my Spirituality and Career Class. There's one way to view life which is through Scrooge - “more for me”, “I want me”. The end path of that is selfishness and people view you as Scrooge. The complete opposite end of taking and hoarding is giving...is gratitude...is going with the flow of the universe. And that's illogical because we're told to be happier you have to have more. But what we're teaching you, in a spiritual sense, is to have more happiness, to have more bliss, to have more spirituality, to have more soul growth, to be more in the flow of things - you give. And being grateful is part of that giving. It's part of that circular energy that you give away that comes back to you.
Hans:
Very good, thank you for that. I had a friend of mine, who's now passed away, and she used to say to me: "Hansy, you must be wary of being a do-gooder". And I used to think very hard about that. And I thought “my intention to do good is not right”? And I think your intention to be grateful, your intention to do good...you are so rewarded from Spirit for being grateful. Just being grateful... Just for a moment look around. We were talking about this last week. Just look around and you will find something in your life that you're grateful for. As I may have mentioned last week, every day I'm thanking Spirit more and more for things that I'm grateful for. I had the other day, what Alfred refers to as a "pity party". And I was looking at a bunch of stuff from my humanness as opposed to from my spiritual being. And on appearance the humanness actually believed what it was telling me. However my spiritual side was saying: “Silly boy, now you know that's not true”. And I had to stop for a moment and say: “Oh, I need to remember to live in gratefulness”. And each and every one of us, every day has so much to be grateful for. As we were saying last week, even when we don't know where to turn, if we say: “Thank You Spirit, Thank You God for bringing those doors that I might discover where I need to be”. Rather than saying: “Why don't you tell me what to do”? Be grateful that they will present the doors - that's the key. Do we know why being grateful is such a common practice across religions and cultures? Alfred, would you like to comment on this? Oh Alfred, where did you go??
Alfred:
I'm right here.
Hans:
(Chuckling)
Alfred:
In case you're wondering where I'm going...I'm running this show in the background... “It's because it feels right". A lot of the cultures...a lot of the traditions are because they try to bring their children up in the "right way". Well what is the "right way"? The "right way" is what feels good to them at the time. Of course there are a lot of survival issues that come up with traditions. But the reason that so many cultures in Asia, in Europe, across the U.S. teach their children to say "thank you" is because “it just feels right”. You don't have to explain in great detail why you say "thank you". It just seems like the right thing to do. To teach your children to say "thank you". For religions to teach their students and disciples to be grateful because it's just part of the flow. And that's one of the things that we try to teach to everyone is "feeling what is right". Going with the flow of universal energy may be one of the most important things you can learn to do in spirituality.
Hans:
Yes. Absolutely. You know Alfred, people want to say "thank you". People want to “be grateful”. But what I find is that the humanness of us often considers that a bit of a weakness.
Alfred:
And it's also: “Did you live up to my expectation” ? Again we teach: "Don’t have an expectation”. “Don't have an opinion”. “Don't have a perception”. And when the mind has an opinion about what someone did for you... For example: “Well, I thought you should have done something more for me, so I'm not going to say thank you, I'm not going to be grateful”. Well, what's interfering? The mind chatter.
Hans:
Well, you're too young to remember this song but it was: “Is That All There Is”? In other words she kept looking at life and seeing different events in her life, relationships and all this...but she wound up always saying: “Well, is that all there is”? I think what we don't do Alfred...for a lot of people...I try very hard to do this everyday...but I think one of the things that we find difficult is finding gratitude in the smallest, the most normal thing. Well you've heard me often mention seeing a bird fly by...seeing a butterfly outside your window...going and sitting outside on your deck or your backyard or wherever you can go...or the park and just watch the squirrels play. Being able to find beauty, kindness, God's perfection...causes us, or “should” cause us to be, for that very moment, grateful to witness this.
Alfred:
That reminds me of a quote from Einstein who simply said: “There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.” And in those terms I think it's perfectly fine that every single day you can be grateful to God for running the universe...for creating the universe. You don't even need to look at yourself and your life to be grateful. And the monumental part of being grateful is that it follows the law of giving that we were talking about last week. And part of the law of giving is - If you want bliss, if you want friendship, if you want happiness, if you want joy, those are the things that you need to give away in order for those things to become who you are. In order for those things to come back to you in your life. And by being grateful to the universe, you're talking to God, the universal energy, the spirits and angels that watch over you. You don't need to be grateful just for people. You can be grateful for every single aspect of the universe. There are millions and billions of things that are going on on the other side, many on your behalf, that you have absolutely no idea about. But it doesn't matter. The details absolutely do not matter because what you give out will come back to you. And it's an emotion. So it doesn't need to be exact. You don't need to know the details of being grateful.
Hans:
You know I wrote this down. You said: "Consider that gratefulness follows the law of giving". That's a wonderful, wonderful analogy Alfred.
Alfred:
Yes. And the problem is “the brain doesn't understand the law of giving”.
Hans:
No, it doesn't.
Alfred:
And this is the main lesson of being human. It's the dichotomy... The difference between the brain and the soul...is the main lesson is "to overcome". It is to overcome in so many different ways because the natural law of the way of the universe is the way of the soul...is the flow of the universal energy. However, we're put into a human body. And the human body instinctively wants to hoard, wants to survive, worries about itself, what can I do for me? And that embodies the overcoming...the growth of the soul...the strength of your soul. That when you can overcome the mind chatter that wants you to be an individual by yourself and realize: “No. Giving, loving, participating, oneness is so much more important”. And to grow the strength of your soul through daily practice like gratitude.
Hans:
You know Alfred, what I've noticed with a lot of people is that taking and hoarding tend to lead to selfishness, control issues, isolation...
Alfred:
Yes.
Hans:
...and trying to talk them out of that...trying to help people see beyond "more is better" if you will... The selfishness isolates you from God. The control isolates you from God. But we are brought up, so many of us, to believe that to be out of control is to be dangerous and fearful.
Alfred:
Yes. And the way I like to explain it to the brain is: Brain you have two choices. If you want to be in control and you think you have the answer, then fine you're on your own. You're by yourself. Option Two is to surrender, go with the flow, let go of your rudder, put up your sail, feel the flow of universal energy in order to receive the guidance and the miracles and the blessings of the army of angels and spirits that watch over you. For me, I'd rather have the backing an army of people that love me unconditionally.
Hans:
Absolutely...you like to have all your angels right there with you.
Alfred:
Brain be quiet. I want my army of people watching over me.
Hans:
You know, one thing Alfred, people need to understand that they literally..they literally can stop the mind chatter by being grateful. Because when you're grateful, you're saying: “Oh, this isn't to my highest good. Spirit is to my highest good. God is to my highest good. I'm grateful that they're here”. How often do you say: “I'm grateful my mind chatter is here”? You see, we actually know what is best for us. It's all these pre-concieved notions, I think, that tend to get us in our way.
Alfred:
It is. And those pre-concieved notions are opinions, judgments...all the things that we list that are “of the mind”, “of the humanness”. And it's overcoming those things that are part of soul growth. Realizing that surrendering is infinitely more important than being in control.
Hans:
You know on that issue, I've really noticed that in readings. I remember the other day I said to a lady: “Truly ma'am, you should be grateful for all that you have”. She says: “I didn't ask for it”. And we're talking about substantial...substantial wherewithal. And she said: “I didn't ask my mother and father to leave me anything. I didn't need it”. What she failed to understand was her dharma spoke to the fact that she had been very giving and very caring and that this money if you will, this wherewithal, was part of a universal plan of gratitude towards her. And instead of taking it and saying: “Oh, I wonder what I can do good with all this money”? She's suffering it because she says her parents took away her ability to take care of herself with the money. Isn't it interesting Alfred, how when we should be in a place of enormous gratitude and gratefulness, that we become victims?
Alfred:
Well again, it's part of the overall lesson. As you said it was part of her dharma. But the wonderful thing of gratefulness is: “the less you understand about it, the more you can go with the flow”. The more you try to understand your situation, the more you become more human. It's along the lines of a glass half full of water. The glass is half full of water. You have two choices. You can say: “Well, why isn't the glass full of water? Why do I only have 1/2 glass of water”? And it brings up the vibration of anger...it brings of the vibration of negativity...it brings up the vibration of pain...of isolation. However, if you look at the same glass of water and say: “Thank you universe. I don't know how the glass of water got there but I'm grateful for the glass of water. I wish everybody could at least have a glass of water. I'm so grateful for the abundance of sharing water”. With less thought, you have a higher vibration, happiness, bliss...you're giving out positive energy. There's nothing different except one just "feels" better.
Hans:
You know Alfred, what we don't realize - all the tiny blessings. We don't even see them. Somebody once wrote: “I thank God for small things every day”. Every day in our life something good is presented to us in one form or another. Do we let it in? A thought...even the thought of: “Maybe this will get better” is quickly squashed by the mind: “No, it won't...In fact you can look for more of this dysfunction”. That's how the mind treats everything that pops out of the internal mechanism of the soul in human form. It happens over and over and over. What we don't "see" is all that there is to be grateful for. Because some people don't have vision. Some people don't have hearing. So we have these marvelous small mercies, these wonderful small blessings every single day of our life. You know Alfred, giving, blessing and praying lead to peace...leads to togetherness and it leads to oneness.
Alfred:
Yes, and that's part of the reciprocal flow of the universe. It's part of “the law of giving”. That God is actually grateful for us when we're grateful for God. When we're simply grateful, God almost immediately...the universal life force, the universal energy, immediately returns that upon us. What sense does it make that you give something away but you're richer? You're richer inside, you feel better, it makes no sense.
Hans:
Yes.
Alfred:
So the trick is not to think about it. Not to understand. But just do what "feels" right...
Hans:
I think that's called "Giving for givings sake".
Alfred:
Yes. And that poor lady trying to figure out why she's miserable is continuing to dig herself into the ditch by trying to figure it out. Instead of letting go and say: “Let me try something different. Let me try not to figure it out. Let me just do what feels right”. And that's what gratitude in this lesson is all about. Part of the universal lesson is to go with the flow...to do what feels right...to follow where there is bliss. As Joseph Campbell said: "Is to do what naturally makes you feel good and the universe will in turn support you in that".
Hans:
Yes, that is correct. Always... “Find your bliss and the energy will follow”. “Find your bliss and the money will follow”. Gratitude, Alfred, feeds into universal energy. And in return we feel the bliss of God. You speak about this a lot when you talk about the goodness and the bliss of God in people's lives. How has that come into your life now since you have been learning and are now teaching this philosophy?
Alfred:
Well, as many of you know I've been around this world a few times. And there are a few things that I've learned. One of the most important ones is that "Everyone wants to be Happy". "Everyone wants to feel good". I have yet to find anyone around this world...I don't care what culture, what language, what country, what history, what their background is - EVERYONE WANTS TO BE HAPPY AND FEEL GOOD. Okay, so if everyone wants to be happy and feel good, then the simplest way to tap into that is to do simple spiritual practices. A lot of people comment that our spiritual practices are too common, too simple. Well, can anybody really tell me that every single day of their life they're grateful? However, such a simple thing can literally transform you energy, transform your vibration, instantly put you into a meditative state. Yet do we have the spiritual strength to remember to practice to be grateful every day?
Hans:
That's a tough one. Because discipline in spirituality is important. I know it seems strange...discipline...what do you mean? You have to have spiritual “discipline” in order to overcome the mind chatter. Because the mind chatter basically wants to tell you where you're failing...Oh, this is a nice idea...well yes, but we can't take that to the bank. It goes through all of this hazary. And as it's doing so, it's taking from you the moment of bliss. You know if you have a home, stop by a wall and put your hands against it and say: “Thank you for being here for me. Thank you for protecting me”. If you have a little animal, grab the little animal and say every once in awhile: “Thank you for teaching me unconditional love”. If you have someone who really plays you up a bit - could be a parent, a sibling, could be a child, could be a boss - say very quietly to that person, of course not out loud, but you say: “Thank you for being there for this lesson that I have chosen to learn. I choose not to be a victim of what I chose to learn”. You can do so many things on a daily basis to let the Spirit know how grateful you are for all that you have. Because believe me, you have a lot more than you know.
Alfred:
Yes, and I have to agree with you that it is important to practice these things that you think are ever so common...
Hans:
Yes.
Alfred:
...so simple, so basic...such as gratefulness on a daily basis. But in my channeling, Spirit comes through very, very clearly and says: "Through every aspect of universal life, the lessons can be found through nature". And many times you've talked to people about weeding their garden. That it seems like such a simple thing to weed your garden. Well, why would I have to weed my garden a lot? Why would I have to continuously weed my garden? I just weeded my garden. Why are these weeds coming back? It's the same thing such as spiritual practice. If you only weed your garden once and say: Oh, I was grateful. That's it. I'm done being grateful. I've already told them I was grateful. I don't need to tell them I'm grateful again...
Hans:
Exactly...exactly.
Alfred:
...the mind chatter will come back and replace where that spiritual practice should be.
Hans:
Well Alfred, in "As A Man Thinketh", one of the things that Dr. Allen says, right in the beginning: “Spirituality is a process of weeding the garden”. That you can't have a beautiful garden if it's full of weeds. So it just lends credibility to what you're saying. Alrighty, I think that concludes tonight's lesson. I really like this topic Alfred - Gratitude. I feel so empowered to say to people: “When you become grateful every day, the gratitude is returned to you in kind”. You see? In other words, what you're putting out then becomes what is coming back to you. It is an amazing law that Spirit works with us. If we could just remember always that we are in fact those baby angels having that human experience, I think that would really, really move us to a new level.
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