Meditation area
With the most recent Horizons Magazine having gone to press, I go into my next stage of the process: bookkeeping and billing. I like every part of my job to be fun and meaningful, and the mundane jobs are no different. in fact, I know that no job is mundane unless I make it so. I don’t like to just send out a boring black and white bill with meter stamped postage. If my mission in life is to lighten things up, I think: what kind of invoice might be fun to open? So I selected as a mascot for the bills, a small fairy on a flower. I print them in color. I always enclose a self addressed return envelope, then those envelopes go on the altar before they go into the mail. When I pick up my mail from the post office, the envelopes go onto the altar before they come in to the office. Blessings for everyone.
Using the altar is just one way I bless my clients and advertisers and basically everyone and everything that comes into my consciousness. When I am doing the billing or the subscription labels, I give a few moments attention as I see each name and say a prayer for each one. I recognize the fact of our Oneness and essential unity with all things. I bring to mind what I know about them, some have advertised for 22 years straight. I take a moment to feel my heart fill with gratitude for their support and friendship these many years. It just takes a moment and lets me feel I am connecting with a friend a couple of times a month, when in fact neither of us have time in person to do so.
I’ve got a great altar and meditation area, and you can see it here in Photos of Our Place. I’ve also got a separate Healing Bench area where friends and clients send me photos and and emails about those they would like to pray for, and then a team and I pray the bench twice a day.
In the morning prayer bench session, I use a technique I discovered first in the Art of Spiritual Healing by one of my all time favorite authors ever, Joel Goldsmith. In the book, he describes that prayer is not asking for healing but becoming present to the Christ within, letting go of pre-conceived ideas and letting grace enter and complete the process. Only then will healing begin. I have found that to be true in my life and the lives of those I know. So for each person whose name is on our healing bench, I do not see them as dis-abled or dis-eased, rather I confine my prayer to this realization of God’s presence, or God’s grace within each one.
In the evening prayer bench session, we do the Ho’oponopono Process. Dr. Ihaleakala Hew Len was a psychologist at the Hawaii State Hospital who – without ever seeing a patient in person – cured a ward of criminally insane patients using the ancient Huna technique of Ho’oponopono. Dr. Lew would study an inmate’s chart and then look within himself to see how he created that person’s illness. As he took responsibility, asked forgiveness and expressed gratitude, he improved himself and the patients improved.
Dr. Len never saw his patients. His agreement was he would have an office and he would review the patient files. While he looked at those files, he would work on himself. As he worked on himself, patients began to heal. Dr. Len says he “was simply healing the part of me that created them.” Dr. Len explained that total responsibility for your life means that everything in your life is your responsibility, simply because it appears in your life. That, in a literal sense, your entire world is your creation.
I have found that to the extent I believe that, to that extent does it work in my life. And I have no complaints about how it works in my life. I see the connection between me and everyone. If they are in my line of sight – even via tv or movies – I know why. If they come into my thoughts, I know why. And I recognize our kinship. And I recognize our inherent divinity, and I say I’m sorry and I ask forgiveness for whatever my part was in creating the situation, and I say thank you. Your name might be on the bench 🙂
In fact, if you’d like to add your prayers every day, we welcome them. Simply go to the Photo of the altar or the bench and pretend you are here with us, and you will be in spirit.
Doing this practice every day – both prayer techniques – goes a long way in keeping my own personal baggage illuminated and shed. Of course, I began doing it with the idea that I was doing a big holy service to mankind, me secretly helping all those folks who needed it (more ego tripping). I soon realized that was Spirit’s way of tricking me into doing the process so I could work on myself, and for myself. Ya gotta love it. And I figure it’s working since I might just be the happiest person I know.
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