EVERY MOMENT IS SACRED

          We are not a society that accepts the personal or the sacred experience as valid. Instead we want the scientific explanation, evidence and proof that reality is black and white.  We want things that we can measure and explain in a scientific way and these we value more than the things that we can't explain or measure. We have accepted the values of technology as our personal values.

          I was in a conversation with someone this week who became upset while discussing the idea that we are God.  We had two different beliefs about that concept and he ended the conversation by yelling, "What you believe doesn't make it true."  It was a great example of how we are caught between the personal experience or belief that we know is right deep inside and the scientific experience we have been taught to believe.

          I just watched a new television show called "Past Live." How many of you have seen it?  The stars are a scientific team who believe in past lives. They work with people who are experiencing past life trauma to help them confront what happened in the past so they can go on with their lives in the present.  We also have "Medium," "Ghost Hunters," "Ghost Whisperer," "Paranormal State," "Psychic Kids," and "Dog and Bear Whisperers."  And movies are reflecting the same shift.  Movies and television are great indicators of what is happening in the world.

          We also see this playing out in global events.  On the one hand in Haiti, for example, we see the world coming together to give tremendous humanitarian aid to a people in great need, with individuals helping each other on a heart level.  But on the other hand we see the government of Haiti arrest 10 missionaries who wanted to help by taking a group of young children out of Haiti.  The government chose to arrest and jail the missionaries and keep those children in the destruction and poverty, even though the parents had given them to the missionaries to save, while their other 200,000 thousand plus people were starving and homeless. What is going on?

          It is fear.  It is the age old battle between personal experience and what we believe about the outside world, the scientific world.  I was reminded again this week that Fear stands for False Evidence Appearing Real.  We face this all the time even in our own lives.  We face it in our prosperity work.  Being poor, not having enough money, not having a job, or a car that works, or any number of other ills are all based on our belief that the illusion of the outside scientific world is true.  The Truth with a capital T is that we are co-creators with God and can create anything that we want.  But we first have to release the old training, the False Evidence Appearing Real, and reclaim our inner beliefs, our inner Truth.

          At one time in the not so distant past, religion and science were one in the same in the Western World.  All the great scientists worked for the churches.  Even today, the Catholic Church fully supports its scientific priests. And the new scientific field of quantum physics has brought science back to religion in a way we could never have imagined. We cannot understand the realities of the multi-dimensional universe without using spiritual principles.  I brought these flower examples to help us understand this concept.  This drawing is only two-dimensional.  We can only see the flower and create its picture. This artificial flower is three-dimensional, it has form.  We can see it and feel it and if we wanted to, we could taste it and we can make a replica of the flower it represents.  This flowering plant is multi-dimensional.  We can see it, feel it, smell it, taste it, and hear it if we hooked up electrodes to it, but we cannot create it.  We cannot make it come to life in this dimension.  We cannot tell the essence of this flower to bloom.  We only know that there is something infinitely larger than we can understand that can bring life to it. And we know, without a doubt, that there is that something, that Creator of Life.  We can't prove it, we simply know it.

          One of my favorite stories, and one I have told here before, is about the Dalai Lama.  Here is a very scientific minded man who was raised in and taught everything known about Buddhism.  Although he is the spiritual head of an oppressed people, he is a simple monk.  He could live in luxury, travel the world in private jets, have whatever he wants, but he chooses to live a life of simplicity because he knows the Truth, that Love is the basis of all life.  And even though he and his people have been pushed out of their homeland, he teaches and believes that Love prevails.  One morning there was an unusual racket coming from the Dalai Lama's rooms in India.  His assistant rushed in to see what was wrong. He found the Dalai Lama standing in front of his bathroom mirror brushing his teeth and laughing hysterically.  The Dalai Lama had been struck by the idea of teeth, a joke of the Creator about the illusion of the physical body.  This was a sacred moment, for the Truth bubbled up out of this precious being and came to light.  He realized that we are more than our teeth.  We are more than who we think we are.  We are more than we can even imagine.

          It is in these moments when we recognize the sacred that we are the most truly alive.  We have all had these moments and the more we are awake to them, the more Truth and Love of the Divine will bubble out of us. 

          As we are called to be the change, we are called to wake up and see the sacred.  Every thought, word and deed is sacred and we must release the illusion of fear to claim the sacred.  Did you realize that just opening your eyes in the morning after being asleep is a sacred act?  Did you realize that every expression of who you are and what you do is holy?  Putting on your shoes or boots to come to church this morning is a sacred act.  In hugging someone or shaking their hand you have shared Divine Love, another sacred act. God's presence comes through the light in your eyes and the curve of your mouth when you smile.  God's Love comes through your voice as you sing and God doesn't care whether you can carry a tune or not.  Every bit of food you take into your body is filling you up with abundance and that is why we bless our food and express our gratitude. Every thing is sacred.  Every moment is sacred.  God, the Creator, Spirit, the Infinite Presence is here in this moment and every moment.  As Dan Millman says, "There are no ordinary moments." Every moment is sacred. All we have to do is wake up and see it.

          Every time we say, "I don't have enough," we have gone to sleep again.  Every time we release that thought, that old belief, we wake up to the Truth that we know fully from our personal and sacred experience, that abundance and prosperity is all around us in every sacred moment.  Can you not see it?  Can you not feel it, taste it, hear it?  Can you not smell it?  What does prosperity smell like to you?  When you can smell prosperity, you will know you are fully awake.

          Rachel Naomi Remen is the founder and director of the Institute for the Study of Health and Illness.  I put another one of her quotes on the insert to the bulletin today.  She says, "I am amused by the efforts to prove the reality of sacred experience.  It is as if we are trying to prove the soul to the mind.  Some things cannot be proved, but can be directly experienced.  And the experience of such things can alter a life.  In a funny way, we ask the smaller world to validate the larger realities, and you cannot do that.  There are many things we cannot prove, but we can know and feel their power.  Like Love."

          We cannot prove Love, but we know it is a sacred and meaningful part of our life and we cannot exist without it. We cannot prove there is a God, but we know that such an Infinite Power exists and is working in our lives right now.  Every moment is sacred.  Every breath is holy.  We stand here as the living outcome of the Creator's Love. We are sacred.  We are holy.  Let us awaken fully to that sacredness.  Namaste.