Losing weight can be a long hard process that sometimes produce amazing results and sometimes produce little progress. Whether this is because your body can’t shed the pounds fast enough, whether you just can’t help yourself eating another bar of chocolate or whether you’ve tried everything and nothing works, the whole weight loss process can be extremely stressful and demanding. However sometimes although you might think it’s all about how your body responds to exercise, it is instead about how your mind and spirit prepares itself to overcome a weight loss barrier. Marianne Williamson’s A Course In Weight Loss: 21 Spiritual Lessons For Surrendering Your Weight Forever addresses this issues in-depth and so here we will review her book and methods, seeing if they really enable you to overcome that barrier to shed those extra pounds.

The overall aim of this book is to address the various connections between your spirituality and your weight loss journey in order to identify and effectively address the key causes of any weight loss issues you may have. This is a very interesting approach to weight loss, putting a greater emphasis on the mental obstacles that restrict your ability to carry out physical activities every day rather than a problem with the exercises themselves. Therefore even though you may think specific exercises are not working this may not be true as other mental issues may be having a greater effect on your weight loss. In this book Williamson aims to retrain your conscious in relation to your weight stating that if your mind set doesn’t change any weight that you lose will be gained back immediately or later on in life.

To combat this Williamson directs readers through 21 lessons which encourage your body to reclaim its natural state of mind, body and spirit helping the relationship between your body and mind change from one of fear to one of love and comfort. You are encouraged therefore to be more conscious of your eating habits and your thoughts when eating healthy foods, changing any negative perceptions into positive ones, allowing your weight loss journey to produce effective long lasting results.

As you take your steps to changing your thoughts from negative to positive Williamson advises you to increase your exercise routines increasing your chances of losing weight over long periods of time. Exercise from Williamson’s point of view are a way to give your body what it really wants and needs in order to stay healthy for longer and not what fast food companies want your body to crave for.

Colors carry their own special influence on every aspect of life. Surrounding yourself with a particular color will bring its special qualities to you in a greater way. For instance, if you are facing a day where you will need the courage to express yourself in a creative way then wearing something red will give you a boost or you can try eating red foods like strawberries, apples or tomatoes.

Wearing violet will make you feel very spiritual while wearing green will make your feel ready to take on a strenuous day of work. If you wake in a very bad mood and need something to get you out of the doldrums, try wearing lots of bright yellow. Eat eggs for breakfast and carry a banana for snack time as a real energizing treat.

RED (FLAME)

Creative intelligence – This is an intelligence that comes from the Mind of God.

Courage – A quality of being brave or the skill to confront peril, struggle, insecurity, or anguish without being overtaken by anxiety. Courage denotes bravery, guts, and nerves of steel. The courage to take a stand. (Psalms 31:24)

ORANGE, SALMON, PEACH, GOLD

Patience – The ability to hang in there while waiting for something and still displaying serenity and real staying power without becoming agitated. Patience is the capacity to demonstrate persistence and the staying power to wait without complaining. (James 1:3)

YELLOW

Joy -Joy brings feelings of great happiness or pleasure, especially of an elevated or spiritual kind. Several Bible scriptures speak of shouting for joy or making a joyful noise.

GREEN

Practical Christianity – This refers to the teachings of the Spirit that are used in everyday life. The true object of hard work is to express the powers of one’s being and benefit mankind.

TURQUOISE, AQUA

Freedom-Experiencing freedom is the characteristic or condition that has no boundaries or constraints in thinking that results in a feeling of happiness and safety. (2 Corinthians 3:17)

ROYAL BLUE, INDIGO (DEEP SKY BLUE)

Love – This color refers to the type of love that is the inner quality that sees goodness everywhere and in everybody. It insists that all is good, and by refusing to see anything but good it causes that quality to finally appear uppermost in itself, and in all things.

VIOLET, PURPLE

Spirituality – Represents the perfection of the God energy in you. It is the triumph of spirit over matter. (Matt. 5:48)

BROWN, PINKISH BEIGE

Divine Principle -This is about the underlying power which is the basis of Spirituality. Even though Divine Principle is without form, it is the underpinning of form bringing the finite and the infinite together into harmony. Divine here means the nature of God.

WHITE, CLEAR – OR PASTELS

Divine Wisdom – This represents a fully conscious energy that is wisdom attained. The power is the fusion of a fully conscious spirit with the material world. The purity of white or clear brings Spiritual Wisdom into a material world.

SILVER, GLOSSY SILVER

Intuition -This is the instinctive capacity for knowing. Intuition is that inner knowing or instinct often referred to as the sixth sense. It can also be thought of as ‘heart wisdom’.

RED/GOLD, BRONZE

Maturity or Mastery of Thought -This is the demonstration or authority over negative or destructive thoughts. This is the capability of persistently thinking thoughts of strength and power in the purist principle of Truth. (Acts 17:28)

POWDER BLUE

Love Mastery – This is the Master of love or the true essence of Being that binds together the whole human family and expresses all the attributes of God. This represents compassion and unconditional love. (Romans 13:10)

A Spiritual Relationship is when the two or more parties involved experience harmony, joy, understanding and peace. With a spiritual relationship the persons involved are connected at the heart. Emotionally they sense the deep connection they have together, and it is felt at their core or heart. A spiritual relationship is one that has a spiritual union felt both physically, mentally and at other levels. Both parties feel like their spirits are connected. There are certain people we connect to instantly. These are people to whom we have karmic connections. The same holds true for people we can’t stand immediately. We have a karmic connection with them as well. Both of those types of relationships are spiritual because our spirit as or essence either is attracted or repelled beyond our conscious control.

A soul mate is another spiritual relationship that many folk encounter in a lifetime. With a soul mate there is a karmic connection that can span several lifetimes or incarnations. We can have more than one soul mate and they can be incarnation with us in a lifetime or serve as a spirit guide if they are not incarnated in our lifetime. Soul mates have shared many experiences with us and know us inside out. This kind of spiritual relationship can be very deep and stir both positive and negative emotions out of us. Just because someone is a soul mate does not make him or her always peaches and cream with us.

For the most part, a spiritual relationship has a lesson for us to learn. They give us the tools to develop characteristics and qualities that we need as human beings. A relationship founded on spirituality can also be identified with the patterns we pick in relationships. Issues of abuse, abandonment, love, manipulation, power struggles, intimacy and rejection all fall under the category of karma and spiritual relationships. These situations all teach us a lesson or two. The trick is do we really learn from these types of experiences or ignore the lesson. This is particularly true when one partner executes power over the other as a dominating person over a dependent person. The karmic lesson is the struggle that ensues as the dependent person struggles to regain the independence and get their power back.

Sometimes we become spiritually stuck and cannot evolve in a relationship. These are not spiritually based relationships. These types of relationships hold us there not allowing for growth or other experiences. It is true that being a victim, martyr, persecutor, rescuer or love addict may have a karmic lesson but in this case the spiritual lesson is learning how to let go.

In conclusion a true spiritual relationship is one where both parties feel wholeness and complete together. It is the harmonization of male and female energy, which creates freedom within the relationship to accept each other unconditionally without hidden agendas. In a true spiritual relationship one know how to give or take without being asked and to meet the other parties needs without question.

To find out more about spiritual relationships check out http://www.soulsynastry.com

Fasting can help you to renew your body and your mind and to deepen your awareness of the spirit within you. On a physical level, as your body gets rid of toxins and has the opportunity to renew and recharge itself, many even seemingly incurable health problems will simply dissolve.

Dr. Oda Birchinger who supervised over 70,000 fasts, pointed out that fasting can heal and help rheumatism in the joints and muscles, circulatory problems, skin diseases, allergies, respiratory problems, eye problems, to name just a few.

Dr. Tanner who fasted for 53 days when he was 77 years old discovered among other things that his thin, grey hair was replaced with new black hair, the same color he had as a young man.

On a mental level, fasting will help you to get rid of worries, fears and anxieties. It will also help you to get rid of all sorts of addictions.

On a spiritual level, not only will your awareness of the spirit within you deepen, but as different energy centers open and balance, different powers will begin to emerge spontaneously from within you.

There is no other way for certain powers to emerge from within you, except through fasting, because fasting removes both physical and mental obstacles, allowing the spiritual energy to express freely through you.

As a side-effect of fasting, you will discover that your abundance will increase also.

In short, fasting is the fastest way of bringing miracles into your life.

The difference between dieting and spiritual fasting is that while you are engaged in spiritual fasting, and are abstaining from food, you are focusing your thoughts on that which is eternal within you. By directing your attention to that which is eternal within you, through meditation, chanting, heartfelt prayer or by repeating spiritual affirmations throughout the day, you will discover that you can go for a long time without food and still not feel hungry, because you will be absorbing the energy directly through breathing and through the energy center on top of your head.

When you focus your attention on that which is eternal within you, you may experience a sensation of electricity running through your body, because you will literally plug yourself into an ocean of boundless living energy and power.

We live in an ocean of boundless, living energy and power – in an ocean of boundless life-force. Energy flows where attention goes, so as you direct your attention to it you open yourself up and allow this boundless living energy and power to flow through you.

You should listen to your body when you fast and you should prepare your mind and body for the fast. If you regularly engage in some kind of spiritual practice, you will find it much more enjoyable and effortless to fast.

If you have never fasted before, you may begin fasting just for 24 hours. If you want to go on longer fasts, you may prepare your body by eating light food for a while. You may then try fasting for 5 or 10 days on liquids – fruit or vegetable juices, even clear broth, or you may try fasting on water alone and see how long you can do that while feeling reasonably comfortable. Slowly you can work your way up to 40 day fasts or even longer.

If you keep on fasting frequently, you will develop a habit of fasting and you will also discover that you can fast longer and longer with greater and greater comfort and enjoyment.

When you complete your fast and return to eating food, do so gradually. Begin with soups, raw or steamed vegetables or fruits and light salads. Let your body adjust to digesting food again.

Not only will you fast longer and longer with greater and greater comfort, but you may enjoy it more and more as you experience the spiritual high and all kinds of benefits that will emerge spontaneously from fasting.

You can fast for a particular purpose, for healing, abundance, supernatural abilities, for any other specific blessing, or simply because you enjoy the depth of spiritual awareness you experience while you are fasting.

One side effect of that deepened spiritual awareness is that you will open yourself to information that was not available to you before. You will begin to clearly hear the voice of the Spirit within you.

As you remove the obstacles that are clouding your awareness of the Spirit within you, your Inner Light will begin to shine brighter and brighter and you will begin to notice more and more Light radiating through your eyes.

You will begin to experience greater and greater sense of profound inner peace and whatever you may want to manifest in your life will begin to manifest faster and faster simply because you have removed the obstacles from within you.

The first time I heard someone say that animal communication was a spiritual path, I was startled by the idea.

For me, talking with animals was a natural and “normal” part of my life. I had been doing it since I was a child. How could this be a spiritual path when it was an every-day event for me?

I was already a professional Animal Communicator when I first encountered this idea, and over the years, it kept reverberating through my mind.

In retrospect, I can see now how very true it is that Animal Communication has been a spiritual path for me.

It was Echo, my Arabian horse, who opened me up spiritually in the 1980’s. She has been my companion, guide, teacher, and friend for many lifetimes. Whether in or out of a body, she is with me all the time.

Echo, just by being who she is, showed me more about myself, about animal communication, and about the vast possibilities of spirituality.

And today, Echo is still with me. She is Starlight while still in her spirit form, all the at the same time.

The animals are spirit in a body, just as we are. When we open ourselves to receive their messages, we learn more about who they are, and even more about who we are.

This is why Animal Communication is a spiritual path.

It’s a way to discover the vastness of human potential.

It’s a way to merge our consciousness with that of another.

It’s a way to expand our awareness.

It’s a way to experience Unity Consciousness.

Have you ever merged into an animal body?

The meditation, “Becoming an Animal” is one I love to share with students in my classes. You can do it over and over again because it’s never the same. Each time you merge, you learning something new about an animal and, potentially, about yourself.

Merging with an animal confirms that we are not limited to our own body. We are consciousness first and a physical body second.

Merging with an animals enhances your animal communication skills by taking them to another level.

Merging with an animal expands your spiritual consciousness.

This was always my goal when I road Echo: to be physically and spiritually merged at the same time. She showed me how to do that, and it was AWESOME!!

So if you feel called to animal communication, perhaps one reason is that this may be a part of your spiritual path.

Let the animals guide and teach you. They have much to offer.

This beautiful nun vowed she would come down and let fall a shower of roses before she died at a very young age. The more I learn about St. Therese, the more I understand she has the capability to commune with us and even bring us into a communion with the saints in heaven. She brings roses to those who seek her help.

St. Thrse of Lisieux known as the Little Flower and Saint Theresa wrote one of the most widely read spiritual books in the world entitled, Story of a Soul. She penned the manuscript while in the Convent of Carmel in France where she died very young of tuberculosis. Her vocation was love and her mission was to teach her little ways to souls. While dying she asked God to allow her to spend her heaven on earth doing good until the end of the world. She also declared “after my death I will let fall a shower of roses” and vowed “I will come down!”

Have you been a witness to the presence of St. Therese? The experience was probably subtle since she practices little ways of teaching souls to love the Lord. I have been privy to her little ways and amazed at the realization of her presence and gifts. It is indeed a great blessing to know this beautiful saint, and I am honored that she is the one I chose as my patron saint when confirmed in the Catholic Church many years ago.

I treasure the little ways in which she has communed with me. My first impression of St. Therese was as a young child gazing upon her picture. She was such a beautiful nun clutching the crucifix and roses with the black veil of her habit framing her face. This picture hung in Lillian’s living room where I spent many hours as a young child. She was a babysitter who was more of a grandmother to me. I had lost my father and maternal grandmother by age four, and Lillian more than filled a void in my life. She absolutely adored and spoiled me. She and her husband also imparted in me a reverence for prayer and devotion.

Quietly and surely Saint Theresa has always watched over me. At age 12 I chose her as my patron saint because of that lovely picture. Speed forward to age 36, and I am trapped in a frightening and devastating marriage to a sociopath. I don’t know which way to turn and depression and grief overwhelm me. At this point I spoke to a co-worker who was also a psychic and she informed me that I had a spiritual guide. She described her as a woman with dark hair standing behind me. I had no idea who this spiritual guide might be – but I asked whoever she was to please help me.

I returned to my office where I was alone at my desk and I began to pray for help. I had a pencil in my hand and a yellow tablet on my desk. My prayers were pleading for help because I didn’t know which way to turn. My life was so hopeless with no prospect for escape. While praying silently I noticed my pencil move. I then watched in amazement as that pencil began to gently glide across the tablet. Words appeared which I will never forget: Lousy World Better Love Now.

Fast forward another ten few years and I am very happily married to a wonderful man. We are in Los Angeles working on the Northridge Earthquake. One Sunday we took a break and he drove me to a flea market being held at the Rose Bowl. As we meandered up and down the aisles of merchandise in that parking lot, my eyes fell on the beautiful picture of St. Therese. It now hangs in my bedroom twenty years later and I still marvel that I found St. Therese at the Rose Bowl, no less.

I did not discover the presence of St. Therese until years later. It was after I had started my own search for spiritual truth. That journey began when I was about 43 years old and I picked up the Bible that Lillian had given me and read it – all of it many times. My study evolved from that intense study of the Bible to include apocryphal books and lost ancient manuscripts. I read books on Kabala, Eastern mysticism, Zohar and Jungian theories. Then to my surprise I discovered the Western mystics.

I had been raised in the Catholic Church but had no idea that we had Western mystics! I was fascinated by St. Teresa of Avilla, St. John of the Cross and astounded by St. Therese of Lisieux!

I found St. Therese in her book, Story of a Soul. She had always been with me and I hadn’t noticed before. It was while reading this book that I came across her dying days that told how the pen she used to write with became too heavy. She finished her last words writing with a pencil! Oh, yes, I recognized her then!

Our relationship has continued to grow and I marvel at the roses I find along the path and silently acknowledge the help and guidance of my wonderful St. Therese.

On a recent trip to Chicago I was delighted by the water tower of roses across from my hotel room in Rosemont, Illinois. I knew that St. Therese and Mary Magdalene were greeting me when I arrived.

Therese leads me onto the right paths in my search for truth about mysteries of the Bible. She brought answers to my questions about the mysterious Mary Magdalene and her relationship with Jesus. She shines a new light on the bible stories and persons of old. She brings answers that complete the story. St. Therese inspires me to write.

St. Therese wrote her manuscript until the pencil fell from her hand. The last words she wrote are “… through confidence and love.” The book was first published in France and entitled Histoire d’une Ame in 1898. It quickly became a spiritual classic read by millions and was translated into languages around the world. Therese was born on January 2, 1973 and died on September 30, 1897 at the young age of 24.

I believe St. Therese still guides my pencil. I have no doubt but that St. Therese can come down and has come down. She showers those who can see with her roses!

NIEBAUR, MORMONS AND ‘SPIRITUAL WIFERY’:

One of the most important people that the esoteric societies used to control the likes of Hitler, Napoleon, Nixon and others is the personal physician. In this context we find Napoleon was later poisoned by his physician after one from Ireland refused to do what he was directed to do and we find the egis of something even more far-reaching. The religions of this world are all tools of the elite and their social engineers as Francis Fukayama proudly proclaims in his late 20th Century book The End of History and The Last Man. He does not tell us who created these religions or what their secret rituals are; if he even knows. The primary purpose of this book is to explore the esoterics of Josephine and Napoleon with a view to garnering more insight into who managed them and how it was done. With that in mind we look to a Kabalist who institutionalized the less-than-egalitarian treatment of women by Joseph Smith and the Mormons. This man’s father was the physician of Napoleon and his father wanted him to be a rabbi so I am sure his father knew the Kaballah to some extent too.

“The Council of Fifty in Nauvoo manifest a distinctly Masonic character, and Masonic ceremonial elements were incorporated in the council’s meetings. A similar tenor emerged in Strang’s Order of the Illuminati. It was only a few months after the claimed revelation commissioning him to organize the “Illuminati” at Nauvoo that Bennett initiated efforts to form the Masonic lodge. But Mormon historians have yet to specifically explored implications of another fact: both the name given by Bennett for the organization, “Order of the Illuminati,” and the political concept embodied by the organization had a clear Masonic heritage. The parallel is so close that one wonders whether Bennett might have brought this and other more esoteric Masonic concepts with him into Nauvoo. At about this same time the practice of “Spiritual wifery” or plural marriage was also introduced. Bennett made several exaggerated claims in his later exposés about libertine sexual practices, claiming the women of Nauvoo were inducted into three ritual orders based on the sexual favors expected of them. Such claims are not tenable, but nonetheless recent historians have noted the apparent association of the Relief Society with Masonry. And Bennett’s more slanderous claims aside, it is a fact that the female leaders of the Relief Society in Nauvoo were at one time all wives of Joseph Smith. Whatever the actual relationship to the practices in Nauvoo, Masonic lodges had existed which did indulge in such practices, the most specific example being Cagliostro’s {Part of the Crowleyan soul-continuance and if Paschal Beverly Randolph [Merovingian Physiocrat like Dupont] is right in his claimed similar connection to Eliphas Levi then to him as well.} Egyptian rite. By all reports, Bennett would have intimate interest in this sort of Masonry–or this sort of Mormonism–and it would be hard to imagine him not encouraging Joseph’s ideas about new forms of ritual marriage.

In this context, another question lingers: Is it possible Bennett’s meteoric rise to prominence in Nauvoo was related to some unsuspected Masonic factor? Did he arrive in Nauvoo claiming independent esoteric lineages of Hermetic or Masonic priesthood, or some ancient and occult knowledge–declarations that Joseph, because of prior life experiences and associations, choose to honor? Though Bennett finally may have been nothing but a talented charlatan, it must be granted that a complex legacy of spiritual insight was embedded in Masonic rituals, myths, and symbols; they had a history and a lineage reaching back many centuries into Hermetic, Kabalistic, and alchemical Gnosis. John C. Bennett may have brought something more than Blue Lodge Masonry to Nauvoo. And, regardless of his true intentions, what he brought may have been useful to a prophet.

In Nauvoo, in 1842 and after, I suggest Joseph Smith encountered a reservoir of myths, symbols, and ideas conveyed in the context of Masonry but with complex and more distant origins in the Western esoteric tradition. They apparently resonated with Smith’s own visions, experiences modulating his spiritual life from the time of his earliest intuitions of a prophetic calling. He responded to this stimulus with a tremendous, creative outpouring–the type of creative response Gnostic myth and symbol were meant to evoke, and evidently had evoked across a millennium of history. But, leaving Masonry, there was still another, more primary transmission of this esoteric tradition that would touched Joseph’s creative imagination during his last years in Nauvoo.

Joseph Smith and Kabbalah in Nauvoo

By 1842 Joseph Smith most likely had touched the subject of Kabbalah in several ways and versions, even if such contacts remain beyond easy documentation. During Joseph’s final years in Nauvoo, however, his connection with Kabbalah becomes more concrete. In the spring of 1841 there apparently arrived in Nauvoo an extraordinary library of Kabalistic writings belonging to a European Jew and convert to Mormonism who evidently new Kabbalah and its principal written works. This man, Alexander Neibaur, would soon become the prophet’s friend and companion.

Neibaur {The Rothschilds were Bauers before they took the occult symbol and shield as their name. Could this be a ‘nee’ [French for ‘born’]-Bauer?} has received little detailed study by Mormon historians, and his knowledge of Kabbalah has earned only an occasional passing footnote in Mormon historical work. Neibaur was born in Alsace-Lorraine in 1808, but during his later childhood the family apparently returned to their original home in eastern Prussia (now part of Poland). His father, Nathan Neibaur, was a physician and dentist, who family sources claim, was a personal physician to ‘the’ Napoleon Bonaparte and whose skill as a linguist made him of “great value” to Napoleon as an interpreter (claims perhaps inflated by posterity). Like his father, Alexander became fluent in several languages, including French, German, Hebrew, and later, English. He also read Latin and Greek. {It is reasonable to expect that he understood symbology and archetypes and what became Neuro-Linguistic Programming and its hypnotic ‘charms’ to control people.} Family tradition claims that as the first child and eldest son, his father wished him to become a rabbi, and that the young Neibaur was begun in rabbinical training.” (2)

Human beings have created dozens if not hundreds of methods to let go of their ordinary hustle and bustle and move inward, closer to an unseen reality. Many of these practices stem from faith traditions, for example praying the rosary as in Roman Catholic, Anglican, Lutheran and other denominations. The various forms of Yoga can be connected to religious groups. Some methods such as the popular TM meditation practiced by Dr. Oz and his staff offer programs to help people learn how. Freer from organizational connections is the simple One-Moment Meditation by Martin Boroson.

Whatever the method, spiritual practices have much in common. Overall, there is a release from the outer world and a turning inward to seek a connection to the ineffable, the divine, or the ultimate reality. The experience can be deepened by elements such as music, lighting, scents, and so on. The key factor is that the human being can travel to another dimension, so to speak. The world of habitual everyday life is set aside for a time to journey into another realm, beyond regular routine life. Spiritual practices can provide an array of benefits from simple stress reduction through creative insights and improved relationships to overcoming the fear of death.

One not-so-well-known way to connect with mystery beyond ordinary life is to read poetry. In addition, listening to poetry can be a vehicle into a blissful state. Reading, reading aloud, and listening on a regular basis can produce rich spiritual experiences. Poetry can be found virtually free in libraries, online, and at local poetry readings among many other places.

Often reading poetry sparks the inner fire of writing it, as well. When an individual is open to mind, body, and spirit, any experience whether joyful or painful can be transformed into a state of flow, inviting the gift of a poem. Stafford’s son, Kim Stafford, tells the story of his father arising every morning before dawn. He would sit in a chair in a dim room with his poet notebook in hand, sit and wait for what gift would form onto the page that day. He would follow that “golden thread,” as he called it, as far as it wanted to go. That was his practice, quite a devoted and spiritual one-he wrote that he would trade all his poems for the experience of writing the next one.

Reading poetry and writing poetry can be a path to profound spiritual awareness. Taking this road “less travelled by” has been for many people, including myself, a rewarding practice to explore mystery, wonder, forgiveness, grief and transformation.

I’ve been thinking more and more lately about the colors green and purple. Green has been my color of choice for years, now. Lately, however, purple has been sharing the spotlight more often than not. I think they are both colors of balance and spirituality (however you define it), and I think that both are colors of “other,” of people who follow paths of their own making.

My high school friend started me thinking about green. She has luxurious, curly, red hair and always wore little green t-shirts. Maybe this doesn’t seem like too much of a fashion statement until you start looking around and seeing the colors people wear. I usually see a predominance of grey, dark blue, red, black, and white, khaki, and maybe some dark greens. Not coincidentally, these are also the colors of most cars that I see. I started using kelly-green t-shirts as my badge of being different. I read once in an interior design book that green was the most harmonizing color. The balance between cool and warm, the color of the natural world. That book also claimed that it was possible to have more shades of green than of any other color. Well, now, that IS interesting! My admiration grew.

My grandmother always liked purple. It never occurred to me to notice that she wore purple sweatpants and a purple sweatshirt all the time. That’s just what grandmas wear, isn’t it? On reflection, I think this was more unusual and quirky than I suspected. Also, two good friends of mine are really in love with purple and I think they’ve gotten me thinking more about it. Both of them are people who contemplate the spiritual daily and I think they feel that purple carries a mystical significance/energy. It’s also the color of that top-most chakra, the one that’s for your spirit, above your head, not in your body like the others. Purple, like green, is also a place where cool and warm colors find balance.

My experiences with these colors lead me to feel that green embodies worldly balance and purple embodies spiritual balance. Green for the physical world, the natural world, a balance of life, of the life force. Purple for enlightenment, for balance of the immaterial, of emotional well-being. I love how these two colors look together. Maybe that’s because they then harmonize and become a balance of all aspects? Or maybe that harmonization is what makes them appear so pleasing to my eye? Or maybe it’s just a fun game I’m going to play with my intellect until I leave this world? All of the questions we ask ourselves about existence rise and fall in the contemplation of two colors.

One of the most active influences on the Believers mind is what I call the “Rear View Syndrome.” It has over the years developed into a pandemic crisis. This virus has caused many Believers to limit their outreach. They have quarantined themselves by being more conscious of their past failures and shortcomings than God’s Grace and forgiveness. Some of the symptoms of RVS are, reactivation of past sins, exaggeration of failures, self-condemnation, unworthiness, and a low spiritual temperature, to name just a few. This virus originated from Satan and has spread worldwide. Christians have gone to mask-wearing to hide their condition. They will be the last to admit that they have the virus. Outwardly they talk the Word but fail to exhibit the Word. When not around other Believers, RVS raises its ugly head. The more the virus continues to flourish, the more the Christian community shuts down.

People would never drive their cars by looking in their rear-view mirror, for they know that would impede their forward progress. When will Believers understand that it is not the negative things in our lives that matter, rather it is the positive things that one can experience through a Spirit-led life! The mistake so many Christians make is replaying their past “forgiven” sins! If God forgives why should we remember what God chooses not to remember? (Isaiah 43:25, Hebrews 10:14-18, Jeremiah 31:34b)

The Christian is not perfect, but we have a perfect Savior. When we sinned and asked for forgiveness, Jesus represented us to God by way of His shed blood, and as a result, we attained complete unqualified forgiveness. (Hebrews 7:25) Satan continually brings up our confessed sins and even the acts that we failed to acknowledge before God. RVS blinds us to the opportunities to grow spiritually. Hindsight impedes our vision to see Divine direction. Satan wants us to have 20/20 vision of our past sins, but blind to God’s forgiveness.

When Jesus ascended into the Heavenlies, His human nature was left behind and His Divine nature reestablished His oneness with God. I do not believe that Jesus looked back at His actions on earth, but rather embraced the “here and now” of eternity. May every Believer grasp his position in Christ. It is not who we were, but who we are! It is not resurrecting memories of past sins, but anticipating what God is and will be doing in our lives! Let us remove the “Rear View Mirror,” and do as the Apostle Paul did, “forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before.” (Philippians 3:13) “Let us run with patience the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith.” (Hebrews 12:2, 3)