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Dealing with the Negative

April 29, 2009 by zgardener

What is meant by negative thinking? A negative thought is any thought of failure, disappointment, or trouble; any thought of criticism, or spite, or jealousy, or condemnation of others, or self-condemnation; any thought of sickness or accident; or, in short, any kind of limitation. In practice you will never have any trouble in knowing whether a given thought is positive or negative. Even if your brain tries to deceive you, your heart will whisper the truth.

 
Second, you must be quite clear that what this scheme calls for is that you shall not dwell upon negative things. It is not the thoughts that come to you that matter, but only such of them as you choose to entertain and dwell upon. Many negative thoughts will come to you all day long. Some will be given to you by other people, or you will hear disagreeable news. These things, however, do not matter so long as you do not entertain them. An analogy is furnished by the case of a man who is sitting by an open fire when a red-hot cinder flies out and falls on his sleeve. If he blows that cinder off at once, without a moment’s delay to think about it, no harm is done. But if he allows it to rest on him for a single moment, under any pretense, the mischief is done, and it will be a troublesome task to repair that sleeve. So it is with a negative thought.
 
Repent therefore of this thy wickedness, and pray God, if perhaps the thought of thine heart may be forgiven thee. (Acts 8:22).
 
People often find that the starting of this seven-day mental diet seems to stir up difficulties. It seems as though everything begins to go wrong at once. This may be disconcerting, but it is really a good sign. Suppose your whole world seems to rock on its foundations. Hold on steadily, let it rock, and when the rocking is over, the picture will have reassembled itself into something much nearer to your heart’s desire.
 
Do not tell anyone else that you are on a diet. Remember that your soul should be the Secret Place of the Most High. When you have secured your new mentality, then tell the story to anyone else whom you think is likely to be helped by it.

Think good, think God,

Z gardener

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Watch and Work

April 28, 2009 by zgardener

To train yourself in the habit of thought selection will be difficult for the first few days, but it is the most interesting experiment that you could possibly make. You will be amazed at the things that you will learn about yourself. This week may be the most significant week in your whole life; not only will you be able to face your present difficulties in a better spirit, but the difficulties will go. You cannot change conditions directly—you have often tried to do so and failed—but go on the seven-day mental diet and conditions must change for you.

 
This then is your prescription. For seven days you must not allow yourself to dwell for a moment on any kind of negative thought. You must watch yourself for a week and must not under any pretense allow your mind to dwell on any thought that is not positive, constructive, optimistic, kind. This discipline will be so strenuous that you could not maintain it consciously for much more than a week, but a week will be enough, because by that time the habit of positive thinking will begin to be established. Some changes for the better will have come into your life, encouraging you enormously, and then the new way of life will be so attractive that you will find your mentality aligning itself almost automatically.
 
Watch and pray, that ye enter not into temptation: the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak. (Matthew 26:41).
It may seem an impossible task to think only positive thoughts for an entire week. In fact, without God’s help, it is impossible. Discovery of that truth is one of the main reasons to engage in the seven day mental diet. God does not want us to be worrying, fretting, fearing or being angry, sad or judgmental. God created an Eden for us to live in, yet our negative thoughts block us from fully living in our Garden. When we turn to God and ask for help, we then tap into our relationship with God and the Creator’s power and will flows through us into our world. It is through this relationship that we are able to lift our thoughts words and deeds into the positive realm and are then able to live in our gardens. May God bless each of us as we journey into this new positive reality we will create through and by God.

In joy,

Z gardener

 

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Training Your Thoughts

April 27, 2009 by zgardener

Thought is the real causative force in life, and there is no other. You cannot have one kind of mind and another kind of environment. You cannot change your environment while leaving your mind unchanged. This is the real key to life; if you change your mind your conditions must change too—your body must change, your activities must change; your home must change; the color tone of your whole life must change.
And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind… (Romans 12:2).
This may be called the Great Cosmic Law. The practical difficulty in applying it arises from the fact that our thoughts are so close to us that it is difficult, without a little practice, to stand back and look at them objectively. Yet that is just what you must learn to do. You must train yourself to choose the subject of your thinking at any given time, and also to choose the emotional tone.
If you are not determined to start in now and carefully select all day the kind of thoughts that you are going to think, you may as well give up all hope of shaping your life into the kind of things that you want it to be. The way to start on a seven-day mental diet is to begin now.
Make no mistake about, this is work. It is the mental equivalent of digging up all the foundations of your home and rebuilding it from the ground up. But unless we understand and practice this principle, our lives will be as a castle built on sand that can be washed away with each tide. When we are controlling out thoughts and emotions and directing them to God and good, then our lives are on an immovable rock foundation that will with stand even the greatest storms. We will then be at peace in our lives and whatever difficulties we face will not cause us doubt, fear or anger. Further, it will give us the hope, confidence and strength to count our blessings and live each day in appreciation for all our gifts and for another day of life.

On the Rock,

Stan

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The Seven Day Mental Diet

April 24, 2009 by zgardener

The subject of diet is one of the foremost topics of the present day public interest. Newspaper and magazines teem with articles and bookshops are filled with volumes unfolding the mysteries of proteins and vitamins. Experts are saying that you become the thing you eat.  This is perfectly true, as far as it goes, but I am going to deal with the subject of dieting at a level infinitely more profound and far reaching in its effect – mental dieting.

 
The food you furnish your mind determines the character of your life. The subjects that you allow your mind to dwell upon, make your surroundings what they are. As thy days, so shall thy strength be (Deuteronomy 33:25), which in modern language may be translated “as thy thoughts so shall thy life be.”
 
Everything in your life today – the state of your body, the state of your fortune, the state of your home, the present condition of every phase of you life – is entirely conditioned by the habitual tone of your past thinking. And the condition of your life next week, and next year, will be conditioned by the thoughts and feelings that you entertain from now onward. In other words, you choose your life.

Making a commitment to control our thoughts and keeping a positive mental state at all times is one of the hardest things we will ever try to do. Decades of mental habits will not be overcome quickly or easily. However, the benefits of such a commitment will be dramatic and immediate. One of the first benefits will be a keen awareness of how much our thoughts are in the negative column. Another immediate change will be reflected in noticeable improvements in our own spirits, attitudes and personal environment. We will experience diminished stress, increased peace and our lives will go much smoother. All of the benefits of this way of thinking will work together to create and nurture our Gardens, where we can fully experience the joy and wonder that God gave us. As hard as this experiement will be, the benefits will dwarf the investment in the first week. In the words of the old television commercial, “Try it, you’ll like it”.

On the diet,

Z gardener

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Blessing and Cursing

April 23, 2009 by zgardener

Life is a reflex of mental states. As far as you are concerned, the character that things will bear will be the character that you first impress upon them. Bless a thing and it will bless you. Curse it and it will curse you. If you put your condemnation upon anything in life, it will hit back at you and hurt you. If you bless any situation, it has no power to hurt you, and even if it is troublesome for a time it will gradually fade out.

 
Bless your body. If there is anything wrong with a particular organ, bless that organ. Bless your home. Bless your business. Bless your associates. Turn any seeming enemies into friends by blessing them. Bless the climate. Bless the town, and the state, and the country.
 
Bless a thing and it will bless you.
 
So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it. (Isaiah 55:11).

How strange it seems to bless that which plagues us, yet that is the way to turn any negative into a positive. If we keep in mind that the nature of anything we experience is determined by our thoughts about it, then it makes sense to bless that which curses us. Beyond that, we should ask ourselves whether we want to spend our days blessing or cursing things. From either point of view, the answer seems clear. Blessing all things around us is a sure way to spend more time in our Garden in peace, harmony and joy.

Blessing the days and ways,

Z gardener

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Let God Have Your Burden

April 22, 2009 by zgardener

Once you have contacted the Power within, and have allowed it to take over your responsibilities for you, it will direct and govern all your affairs from the greatest to the least without mistakes. The government shall be upon his shoulder. You are tired, and driven, and worried, and weak, and ill, and depressed, because you have been trying to carry the government upon your own shoulder; the burden is too much for you, and you have broken down under it. Now, immediately you hand over yourself-government, that is, the burden of making a living, or of healing your body, or erasing your mistakes, to the Child. He, the Tireless One, The All-Powerful, the All Wise, the All Resourceful, assumes it with joy; and your difficulties have seen the beginning of the end.

 
Cast thy burden upon the Lord, and he shall sustain thee… (Psalm 55:22).

In order for God to govern our lives, we must turn over control to God. That means we must decide that God is directing our lives and that we will follow God’s will in all ways. It does not mean we can pick and choose when to obey God. It is easy to obey God when obedience is something we want to do. It is much harder when obedience requires us to do that which we fear, dislike or when it requires us not to do things we like, cherish and want to continue doing. These times are when it is most important to obey. God can and will lift all our burdens, resolve all our challenges and strengthen us to do our part here below if we truly turn over our self-governance to God in all things.

Let God,

Stan

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The Lost Corot

April 21, 2009 by zgardener

There is a quaint old legend that is firmly believed in the artists’ colony in Paris. It appears that many years ago a poor struggling artist was so hard up that he did not have even enough money to buy a piece of canvas upon which to paint what he did felt sure would be a masterpiece. Going along the quays he saw an old daub selling for a few sous, frame included. It was supposed to represent Napoleon III in full dress uniform, and doubtless had adorned some wall in the days of the Second Empire. That artist decided that he could clean off the picture and use the canvas for his own work.

 
Arrived home, he proceeded to remove Napoleon III, not a difficult task, and to his astonishment found that there was another picture underneath. The last artist had not even removed the original but simply worked over it. When the last traces of Napoleon III had disappeared, the student was amazed to discover what looked to him like a very fine Corot. Of course, his days of poverty were ended.
 
Whether this story be truth or fable, it is a perfect allegory of the nature of man as we know him. Outside we find the “marred image” showing limitation, sin, sickness, and inharmony—the unskilled daub; but underneath is the masterwork of the Great Artist, and our prayers act by clearing away the false accretions—the “many inventions” of the carnal mind—that the already existing Truth and harmony may appear.
 
Lo, this only have I found, that God hath made man upright; but they have sought out many inventions (Ecclesiastes 7:29).

Each of us is a masterpiece created by God. Our job is to reveal that masterpiece by living our lives according to God’s will. As we do this, the true beauty of our spirits show forth, and we see clearly that we are perfect creations of God. Once we remove our self-imposed image and reveal the true self, we then will know the true value of our lives and the great care with which the master artist rendered every brush stroke of our being. Then we can create a masterpiece of our lives as God intended when he created us. 

Seeking the masterpiece,

Z gardener

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The Law of Growth

April 20, 2009 by zgardener

            What you think upon grows. This is an Eastern maxim, and it sums up neatly the greatest and most fundamental of all the laws of mind.

 
What you think upon grows. Whatever you allow to occupy your mind you magnify in your own life. Whether the subject of your thought be good or bad, the law works and the condition grows. Any subject that you keep out of your mind tends to diminish in your life, because what you do not use atrophies.
 
The more you think about your grievances or the injustices that you have suffered, the more such trials will you continue to receive; the more you think of the good fortune you have had, the more good fortune will come to you.
 
This is the basic, fundamental, all-inclusive law of mind, and actually all psychological and metaphysical teaching is little more than commentary upon this.
 
What you think upon grows.
Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things…. (Philippians 4:8).

It is up to each of us to control what we think about. Regardless of what the days and nights bring, we choose what will occupy our thoughts. Further, the dispensation of the Holy Spirit  left with us by Jesus, gives us the “law written in our hearts”, so that we can discern, understand and obey God’s will in in our thoughts words and deeds.
 
So, let us today think of joy, peace and plenty for others and for ourselves. Think of the world as a beautiful garden and think of our lives as full of hope, confidence, blessings and adventure. Then our lives will be filled with all the good things life has to offer and we will live in the Garden God created for us.

Think God,

Z gardener

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The Dual Law of Thought

April 13, 2009 by zgardener

            Every thought is made up of two factors, knowledge and feeling. A thought consists of a piece of knowledge with a charge of feeling, and it is the feeling alone that gives power to the thought. No matter how important or magnificent the knowledge content may be, if there is no feeling attached to it nothing will happen. On the other hand, no matter how unimportant or insignificant the knowledge content may be, if there is a large charge of feeling something will happen.

 
It makes no difference whether the knowledge content is correct or not as long as you believe it to be correct. Remember that it is what we really believe that matters. A report about something may be quite untrue, but if you believe it, it has the same effect upon you as if it were true; and that effect again will depend upon the quantity of feeling attached to it.
 
When we understand this law we see the importance of accepting the truth with joy in every phase of our experience.
 
Thou wilt show me the path of life: in thy presence is fullness of joy…(Psalm 16:11).

Our attitudes and feelings create the reality we experience. Any circumstance can be totally altered by our state of mind and emotions. Thoughts and feelings are powerful things because they create words, deeds and environments. If we are to control our thoughts, we must control our feelings. Knowledge informs. Feelings empower.

With feeling,

Z gardener

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Thy Will Be Done

April 10, 2009 by zgardener

Thy will be done on earth, as it is in heaven (Matthew 6:10).

 
Now we too often choose to use our free will in a negative way; allowing ourselves to think selfishly, and this wrong thinking brings upon us all our troubles. Instead of understanding that it is our essential nature to express God, to be ever about our Father’s business, we try to set up our own account. We abuse our own free will, trying to work apart from God; and the very natural result is all the sickness, poverty, sin, trouble, and death that we find on the physical plane. We must never for a moment try to make plans or arrangements without reference to God, or suppose that we can be either happy or successful if we are seeking any other end than to do his Will.
 
Our business is to bring our whole nature as fast as we can into conformity with the will of God. “In his will is our peace,” said Dante, and the Divine Comedy is really a study in fundamental states of consciousness, the Inferno representing the state of the soul that is endeavoring to live without God, the Paradiso representing the state of the soul that has achieved its conscious unity with the divine Will. It was this sublime conflict of the soul that wrung from the heart of the great Augustine the cry, “Thou has made us for Thyself, and our hearts are restless until they find themselves in Thee.”
Good Friday is the greatest example of following God’s will. Just think how the world would have turned out if Jesus had not followed God’s will for Jesus to take on all our sins and die! Then, we would not have been reconciled to God in the new covenant, would not have been given the Holy Spirit, would not have eternal life and would not have God’s laws written in our hearts.
But Jesus did God’s will knowing it meant torture, scorn and death. By his submission to God’s will; Jesus paid for our sins and reconciled us with God, we do have the Holy Spirit to counsel and guide us, we do have eternal life opened to us and God’s law is now in our hearts and minds. All joy and gladness is open to us due to Jesus’ simple statement of submission, “Not my will Father, but thy will be done”.
Many times we will face a choice to follow God’s will that seems too difficult or painful. Yet, we can be assured that if we follow God’s will, our choice will lead us through the pain to a splendid outcome that we could not have envisioned or achieved without the sacrifice. Jesus’ sacrifice turned the cross from a symbol of shame and degradation into a instrument of glory and triumph for all ages.

Lord, let us follow your will in all ways and thereby turn our sacrifices into the triumph of peace and the joy that surpasses all understanding.

By God’s will,

Z gardener

 

 

 

 

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