Good Morning Garden

If ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you (Matthew 6:14).

Setting others free means setting yourself free, because resentment is really a form of attachment. It is a cosmic truth that it takes two to make a prisoner; a prisoner and a jailer. There is no such thing as being a prisoner on one’s own account. Moreover, the jailer is as much a prisoner as his charge. When you hold resentment against anyone, you are bound to that person by a mental chain. You are tied by a cosmic tie to the thing that you hate. The one person perhaps in the whole world whom you most dislike is the very one to whom you are attaching yourself by a hook that is stronger than steel. Is this what you wish? Is this the condition in which you desire to go on living?

Remember, you belong to the thing with which you are linked in thought, and at some time or other, if that tie endures, the objects of your resentment will be drawn again into your life, perhaps to work further havoc. No one can afford such a thing; and so you must cut all such ties by a clear act of forgiveness. You must loose him and let him go. By forgiveness you set yourself free; you save your soul. And because the law of love works alike for one and all, you help to save his soul too.

There is another element to the act of forgiveness. One must also forgive one’s self. Most of our anger toward, and resentment of others finds its true source in our anger and resentment toward ourselves. Whatever one has done, whatever one has failed to do, whatever one is disappointed about in one’s self must be forgiven if we are to live by God’s law. All it takes is to admit the wrong and repent of it, ask God to forgive it and commit to change it. Then one will find the grace to offer that same forgiveness to others. God’s grace flows best through an unburdened soul.

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And as ye would that men should do to you, do ye also to them likewise (Luke 6:31).

The forgiveness of others is the vestibule of Heaven. You have to get rid of all resentment and condemnation of others, and, not least, of self-condemnation and remorse. You have to forgive yourself, but you cannot forgive yourself sincerely until you have forgiven others first.

Of course, nothing in all the world is easier than to forgive people who have not hurt us very much. But what the Law of Being requires of us is that we forgive the very things that are so hard to forgive that at first it seems impossible to do it at all. But the Lord’s Prayer makes our own escape from guilt and limitation dependent upon just this very thing.

If your prayers are not being answered, search your consciousness and see if there is not some old circumstance about which you are still resentful. Search and see if you are not really holding a grudge against some individual, or some group. If so, then you have an act of forgiveness to perform, and when this is done, you will probably make your demonstration. If you cannot forgive at present, you will have to wait for your demonstration until you can, and you will have to postpone finishing your recital of the Lord’s Prayer too.

Forgiveness is not debatable. Forgiveness is not conditional. Forgiveness is not earned nor is it bought. If any of these were true, we could never be forgiven by God. Yet God does forgive all things when asked by a repentant sinner. What is required is that we forgive ourselves and others in order to receive God’s forgiveness. We also must forgive if we are to be free from that which offended us in the first place. We are the prisoners of our own anger and judgement. When we release that which hurt or angers us through forgiveness, we break the chains that bind us to our anger and hurt. When we remove the heavy yoke of judgement and condemnation, and take on the light yoke, which is obedience to God’s will, we set ourselves free to live in the Eden God created for us.

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As we repeat the Great Prayer intelligently, we are suddenly caught up and grasped as though in a vise, so that we must face this problem of separation from God. We must extend forgiveness to everyone.

Notice that Jesus does not say, “Forgive me my trespasses and I will try to forgive others.” He obliges us to declare that we have actually forgiven, and he makes our claim to our forgiveness to depend upon that. Who could be so insane as to endeavor to seek the Kingdom of God without desiring to be relieved of his own sense of guilt? We are trapped in the inescapable position that we cannot demand our own release before we have released our brother.

Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts (Psalm 139:23) .

“As ye judge, so shall ye be judged”. However you say it, the truth remains the same. We can not be forgiven except that we forgive. We are locked and chained to our judgement and condemnation of others. It separates us from each other and from God. There can be no unity in division and no communion in separation. “Love ye one another as I have loved you.” Forgive others, love others and open the floodgates of God’s love and forgiveness.

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In speaking of the “bread of life,” Jesus calls it our daily bread. The reason for this is very fundamental—our contact with God must be a living one. It is our momentary attitude that governs our being.

…behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation (2 Corinthians 6:2).

The most futile thing in the world is to seek to live upon a past realization. The thing that means spiritual life to you is your realization of God here and now.

Be thankful for yesterday’s experience, knowing that it is with you forever in the change of consciousness that it brought about, but do not lean upon it for a single moment for the need of today. The manna in the desert is the Old Testament prototype of this daily nourishment. The people wandering in the wilderness were told that they would be supplied with manna from heaven every day but they were on no account to try to save it up for the morrow. When, notwithstanding the rule, some of them did try to live upon yesterday’s food, the result was pestilence or death.

So it is it us. The art of life is to live in the present moment, and to make that moment as perfect as we can by the realization that we are the instruments and expression of God Himself.

Living in a perfect present is the fundamental premise of the Good Morning Garden. When we separated ourselves from God in the original garden, we lost the perfect present. In Ephesians, Paul said that God had removed the wall and partition that separates us from God and the Eden created for us. When we truly realize God’s immediate presence within us and we express that realization through out thoughts, words and deeds, God will provide for all our needs in a way that allows us to live in our garden in joy and gladness regardless of what we face in our daily lives here below.

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Claiming Our Daily Bread

            The common mistake, of course, is to suppose that a formal recognition of God is sufficient, or that talking about divine things is the same as possessing them; but this is exactly on a par with supposing that looking at a tray of food, or discussing the chemical composition of sundry foodstuffs, is the same thing as actually eating a meal. It is this mistake that is responsible for the fact that people sometimes pray for a thing for years without any tangible result. If prayer is a force at all, it cannot be possible to pray without something happening. Pray regularly and quietly—remember that in all mental work, effort or strain defeats itself—then presently, the realization will come.   Another reason why the symbol of bread for the experience of the Presence of God is such a telling one, is that the act of eating food is essentially a thing that must be done for oneself. No one can assimilate food for another. In the same way, the realization of the Presence of God is a thing that no one else can have for us.   For he satisfieth the longing soul, and filleth the hungry soul with goodness (Psalm 107:9).

To be filled with God’s love, grace and peace, we must take it into ourselves as we partake of food. Looking at it, reading it or even accepting faith is not enough. We must consume it for all our needs, digest it it so that it can be used by all parts of our spiritual bodies and then convert it into the energy that fuels every thought , word and deed. In essence, it must become the bread of life for our spiritual bodies which we call the soul. Then the soul will be the fully nourished, strong and vital force for goodness, joy and peace in our lives and in the lives of all we touch.

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In its inner and most important meaning, our daily bread signifies the realization of the Presence of God—an actual sense that God exists not merely in a nominal way, but as the great reality; we can rely upon Him to supply all that we need to have; teach us all that we need to know; and guide our step so that we shall not make mistakes. This is Emanuel, or God with us.

People think of their supply as coming from certain investments, or from a business, or from an employer, perhaps; whereas these are merely the channels through which it comes, God being the Source. A particular channel is likely to change, because change is the cosmic law for manifestation. Stagnation is really death; but as long as you realize that the Source of your supply is the one unchangeable Spirit, all is well. The fading out of one channel will be but the signal for the opening of another.

But my God shall supply all your need…(Philippians 4:19).

Man truly does not live by bread alone. The fulfillment of all our needs is to be found in the daily bread given us by God. But, as with all that sustains us, we must partake if it is to nourish us. We partake of all God’s blessings when we believe God’s word, accept and follow God’s will and when we embrace the changes it brings. Then we shall be nourished and fulfilled in body, mind and spirit.

Realizing God’s presence,

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Give us this day our daily bread (Matthew 6:11).

Because we are the children of a loving Father, we are entitled to expect that God will provide us with everything we need. If we do so expect, in faith and understanding, we shall never look in vain.

It is the will of God that we should all lead healthy, happy lives, full of joyous experience; that we should develop freely and steadily. To this end we require such things as food, clothing, shelter, means of travel, books, and so on; above all, we require freedom. In the Prayer all these things are included under the heading of bread; that is to say, not merely food in general, but all things required for a healthy, free, and harmonious life. But in order to obtain these things we have to claim them, and we have to recognize God alone as the source and fountainhead of all our good. Lack of any kind is always traceable to the fact that we have been seeking our supply from some secondary source, instead of from God himself, the author and giver of life.

When we seek our sustenance from the true source, we shall never lack for anything that brings our best good. That does not mean we will get everything we want, but that we will get what we need. The great challenge is to embrace what we need and submit to their will of God regarding those things we want that are not good for us.

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Thy Will Be Done

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.”

Our free will and creativity is what defines us as human beings. Yet, they are most often the very attributes which separate us from God’s will or cause us to act against God’s will. Until we sublimate our will to God’s and use our creative capacity to manifest God’s will, we will find happiness, peace and fulfillment to be elusive states. When we achieve unity with God’s spirit and will, all things will lead to our best good. If we base our plans, decisions and priorities on God’s will, they will give us hope, confidence and harmony in all we do. This is not easy to hear or easy to do, but it is nonetheless true.

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If we trace the derivation of the word hallowed we will discover a most extraordinarily significant fact. The word hallowed has the same root as holy, whole, wholesome, and heal, or healed; so we see that the nature of God is complete and perfect—altogether good. Some very remarkable consequences follow from this fact. We have agreed that an effect must be similar in its nature to its cause, and so, because the nature of God is hallowed, everything that is projected by that Cause must be hallowed or perfect too. God cannot cause or send anything but perfect good. God cannot, as people sometimes think, send sickness or trouble, or accidents—much less death—for these things are unlike His nature.

Thou art of purer eyes than to behold evil, and canst not look on iniquity…
(Habakkuk 1:13).

This truth turns human perception on its head. We look around us and see sick ness, trouble, accidents and death. Then we might conclude that these things are caused by God, or that they are part of God’s creation. In fact, they are caused by our separation from God, supplanting our will for God’s or from the inability to control our thoughts as God directs us to do.

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He prayeth well, who loveth well
Both man and bird and beast;
He prayeth best, who loveth best
All things both great and small:
For the dear God who loveth us,
He made and loveth all.
—Coleridge

But ask now the beasts, and they shall teach thee; and the fowls of the air, and they shall tell thee: Or speak to the earth, and it shall teach thee: and the Fishes of the sea shall declare unto thee…that the hand of the Lord hath wrought this (Job 12:7-9).

The love we give to others is the surest demonstration that we understand and appreciate the love that God the Father gives to us. So today, let us love fully, serve happily and live gratefully that we may exist in the reality of the Garden that God created for us.

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