Apprentice Of God

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Apprentice of God Patricia Kenney

Introduction

What motivates our search for God? For many, it is the need for some kind of support; after all, living is not easy. The search has always existed for the vast majority who co-exist with some feeling of shortage in life, due to a financial issue, love shortage, lack of health, or safety, or feelings of fear and anxiety. Curiously, the search for God knocks first on the door of these folks apparently less fortunate, but who, for this very reason, end up by being privileged. After all, good life puts off this encounter almost indefinitely. Not because God is not within the reach of everybody in all circumstances, but because, without a hole in the chest, there is no search and no fulfilling. So, one of my most important lessons in life was to discover and accept that my problems have been my greatest allies in conducting my encounter with God’s presence. And, yes, I met Him. Not like a glaring radiance in the sky that appeared suddenly to talk with me, but like a matchless feeling of peace… The end of my fears and anxieties and some small little miracles that, here and there, started to show that a new way of living is beaming for me. And I am only an apprentice, at the beginning of the journey. Luck or else, I have been one of those people who were entitled to free choice of religion and I have always allowed myself to search answers in any religion because I believe that every one of us has a small piece of the puzzle. And, ironically, I was right: everybody has, not only a piece of the truth, but all of it, within oneself. And, for reaching it, one just has to go on pulling the end of the thread. I have, also, been someone who has always turned inside to search for answers, and, when a child, I even remember placing my hand over my heart to sense what I, really, wanted or what I should believe. And that is how I selected, among dozens of discourses on God, just the ones that my heart said it was true. Intuitively, I knew that the answer was inside myself; the answer to each small doubt, whatever. I was unable to believe that there could be a God that just saves one or the other among hundreds of fatal victims from a serious accident. Another example: I can not find acceptable that God could have been present at dreadful events like wars atrocities, and had done nothing to stop it, independently from anybody’s personal faith. There must have been another explanation.

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What to say, then, of accepting a God who, silently, indifferently or impotently, watches all the misery of human sufferings - or worse - sometimes, even valuing them for the good reason that “suffering humanizes men”? No, this can not be right and that’s why I grew up with many unanswered questions… However, on the other hand, I was brought up in the country-side, surrounded by God from all sides. Just watching a sun-rise through a dense fog in the morning; a golden sun-set over the lake or appreciating the sun-rays shining through a dark forest; or even just getting charmed by infinity of flowers and smells were enough to feel His presence. Just perceiving the silence that speaks to one’s heart was enough to see and feel God all around, one that I did not know, yet, to be God, Himself, manifested. I thought that it was just His work, but that was already enough to make me feel moved. Today I know that it was Him, it has been Him, all along. One grows up hearing things like: God is everywhere. God is power. We are the chosen children of God. God is love! God is life! And, so on… and so forth…We hear, but do not understand. Why don’t we understand? Should it be because we’re bad? No, that is not why. It is because the lives we live do not agree with these affirmations. One question we always ask is: WHERE IS GOD? And we feel small, uncared for, rejected, because we do not hear a reply. Then… as we are separate from God, it is better we fend for ourselves whatever way we can. The result is this world as it is, with whatever good or bad it has. A lot of what I learned is due to years of reading about searches from all men, of all races and creeds. A lot of what I built in my inner self comes from tens of illuminated writers who reported their discoveries and, from these readings and apprenticeships, I chose what reverberated as truth within me. I have never been fanatic for anything. Thus, I hope that my reader does the same: choosing that which resonates in his/her heart. It is God blowing at one’s chest. I owe, too, great leaps to one or other master who has crossed my way. Some teachers engaged in their own searches, who had trailed the way first and who have made my course easier. Other people, here and there, even without intention, said something that caught my ear and which I, rapidly, stored somewhere with all my love for making my own quilt about God. However, I have to say that, recently, I owe to Joel Goldsmith, the opening of the latest door. His writings perplexed my being, leading me to find the answers to several questions that roamed around still without solution. Thus, if my writings wake up your soul, make sure you read his books, too.

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God is everything

Stop for a moment to think about this: God is Everything. This is the principle of the whole truth and it is from this point that we should begin our study as apprentices of God. You have heard this before, but have you paid attention to what this really means and which should be the consequences of incorporating this truth? Think again: God is everything. My daughter once told me: Ah! Mom, we don’t even know if God exists! Then, I had a minute of inspiration and replied: - My daughter, the only thing that we can be sure of is God’s existence. If we could, undo, dismount, dissolve everything we see, there would remain only atoms, particles, energy, spirit, God. Everything comes down to God. Later, I kept thinking of this. Thanks to Science, we know that this is true. Ancient peoples of the world had to depend on their faith. We do not. We reached such an advanced technology that we have the corroboration that everything, absolutely everything, comes from the same substance and, that the most solid of the matters are reducible to subatomic particles even smaller. Nevertheless, still the same divine substance of which you and I are made, as well as everything that surrounds us. Science is our ally on this search for God and I believe that, in the end, this was a very wise way of leading us to reveal Him. Well, if we accept that God is everything around us, including each one of us, we have to accept some obvious conclusions: 1) God and I are one. 2) Everything around us is God. 3) God is Spirit that infinitely manifests Himself in everything that you can see, feel, touch and experiment. 4) Wherever you are, you are on Sacrate soil. 5) We are in God, have always been and there is no separation between God and us. 6) Everything and everyone of us are one in God. 7) Each human being is God individualized, even when this is not known. 8) There is only God. 9) There is only one Power. God is far more than this. However, an apprentice, like us, needs to deal with things far more simple at the beginning of our journey and, in here, there is already enough to make a revolution in our lives. And, for this to happen, we must meditate on every one of these affirmations above and I explain why: Once, strolling along somewhere, I started meditating over the idea that “I am God manifested”. OK, I can deal with that, I though. But there was incongruence. Why was there a part of me which did not manage to fully come through? Why I did not feel I deserved everything good that there is life? Of course, being a manifestation of God, I should have a perfect life, as He is. I tried, unsuccessfully, to formulate the following sentence: - If I am manifest God, I deserve… What an immense difficulty to complete the sentence! Even if I added anything afterwards, things that I wished to have or to be, that sounded false.

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OK! There is something wrong here, I thought. Both things cannot co-exist together. I cannot affirm being God manifestation and accept that I, or He, did not deserve whatever it might be. To say that God does not deserve something is a huge absurd! With all my forces, I know that THIS is not possible! Then, my Truth has to be coherent. And it should start from the first premise: God is everything. And God deserves… And I, who am part of God, I deserve. HURRAY! The first and great barrier stopping me from awakening in God finally fell down to earth. But this only managed to come through because I truly UNDERSTOOD that there were antagonistic premises in my mind and choosing only one was a must. If everything comes down to God, I cannot believe that any part of God does not deserve whatever it may be. After that, without difficulty, I could say things like: I deserve a new and better job; I deserve a better house; I deserve to be happy. It was surprising to realize that for many years, things like “we are God manifested” and, at the same time, believe that “we are not deserving people” have co-existed in my mind side by side without realizing that one of these affirmations should be false. For me, this was the first sign that there are many conflicting affirmations and concepts about what we are, and God. What do we exist for, and God. What is real, and God? Questioning our truths is a must. We are an enormous cultural depositary and we act according to acquired truths, creeds and myths without confronting them as we should. We blindly welcome affirmations coming from outside and never hear our own inner self.

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Misleading Concepts I think this is a good moment to show why some of our concepts are misleading and why what we say we believe does not go with what we see manifested in the world. Sometimes someone asks us if we believe in God and, it does not take more than a few seconds for us to answer: Yes! But, one should seriously start thinking about it. After all, we have to be honest and ask ourselves what we believe in relation to God. It is easy to say that we believe that God is all, that God is love, abundance, life… But if he is everything, why the world we see does not reflect the manifestation of what we believe God to be? God is everything that surrounds us, as everything is made of the same substance and there is nothing beyond God. Therefore… God is abundance and, so, there is no place for limitation and shortage. God is infinite supply; therefore, there cannot be poverty. God is love, for this reason; there cannot be suffering, lack of love. God is life; therefore, there is no infirmity, sickness or death. God is infinite intelligence, so, there cannot be any insanity, mental deficiency, lack of limitations of memory, of intelligence, capacity or creativity; God is the only power, consequently, there is nothing that opposes Him, and there not being power in disease, scarcity, fear, hazards… God is the way, so there is no possibility of going astray. God is joy, so there cannot be dissatisfaction. God is peace; therefore, there should not be affliction, war, misunderstanding. God is light; consequently, there should not be ignorance, darkness, purgatory, hell. God is everything; therefore there is not the possibility of separation between God and you, never, nowhere, in whatever situation. God is Presence, so one is never alone. God is Omniscience, hence; nothing goes unnoticed by God, not even you most insignificant worry. God is the Truth; as a result, everything that opposes to God is not true and does not really exist.

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I am God The title of this chapter made me think for a long time. Humbly, I decided that I should write: I am God Manifested. I laughed at myself for my lack of courage. Come on… Be brave… Say it out loud: I am God! To say “I am God” is really very difficult, and, as an apprentice of God’s truth, this sounds like a blasphemy to me and, in the past, I would be damned for daring to say this. But, after all, isn’t this an absolute truth? Isn’t God everything? Isn’t our body made of divine substance? Isn’t our soul a divine spark? Isn’t our mind a conscience of God? Of course I have full awareness that I am not the totality of God. I’m Him individualized in my own self, like all the other people are individual manifestations of Him too. But it requires conviction to say: “I am God” without suffering, without guilt, or feeling cheeky and cursed. What in the past would have instilled so much personal disapproval into myself? We are a God manifestation. (OK! Let’s be a little humbler, hehehe). Everything that God is, we are. Just like a sea wave is made from the same substance of the ocean, we are made from the same principle that makes God what he is. Everything God has, we have. God is all power and God’s power resides in us, in every one of us. There are some who feel uncomfortable with the “arrogance” of thinking themselves a bearer of God’s power. Many people resent that. We are led to believe that this is a blasphemy, because we imagine that we are unworthy and we fear the consequences of this power in wrong hands, including ours… Something in us signals that this belief can represent a serious danger. Who gives us this alert is our own ego, that historic being that composes each personality and was built according to the cultural beliefs of each one. It is not a real alert. Therefore, do not fear. I can guarantee that when one is under the presence of God, the command of God, under the influence of God, it does not even cross one’s mind anything that is not love, peace, well-being, abundance, plenitude… And, whoever feels such a thing does not need to see anybody as an enemy; does not need to defend oneself from anything; does not put anything in jeopardy; neither wishes anything evil. Being with God is so pleasantly superior, that there is no space for anything else but happiness and the wish to share this divine essence with everyone. We have always heard that we should practice the nobler qualities of the human being if we wish to reach God: love, tolerance, compassion, etc… This is true, but I was surprised when I had my first experience of God’s presence and I noticed that, in that state, I could not think or feel anything less noble than whatever God could manifest. Note. The account of my experiences is in the topic “Diary of a Hero”.

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The carnal Me and the divine Me Just a while ago, for the first time, I mentioned the idea of the EGO. Until now, we have thought that we are our minds and our personalities. It could not be different, because we were not awake. People talked to us about our Spirits, our Souls, but none of that could mean anything, as we were not capable of feeling this presence. Soul and Spirit are abstract concepts and, without the perception of this presence, very little can be done, unless faith is put into use. However, our Spirit, Soul, Conscience are our true self: the conscience of God individualized. This conscience is made to the image and similitude of God, not to the mortal human being. Our body and our personality are just the carnal manifestation of this conscience on Earth. What you see on the mirror is your condensed cosmic mind; your history in this life; your personality constructed according to your culture and education. Our egos and personalities have acted on their own, without the leadership of the Spirit and lives and bodies are the results of this separation. They reflect the maximum our human minds were capable of doing by itself. Poor mind! It is not its function to govern our lives, but as there was nothing else incharge, it started taking over and it could not have done differently. However, as brilliant as our human mind may be, it is only a tool of God’s Conscience, of the Being that we really are. We have to understand who we really are and who we refer to, when we say I AM. Our human mind, which has bravely fought up to here, must open space for the true Self to assume and this is what we call Illumination, Salvation. If we were born with all the powers of the Spirit, we would never have acquired the awareness of our individual Self. We would be just a unique mind: the perfect and divine mind which is God. But, I think that this was not the plan of God. In my humble reasoning, God creates and, in doing so, He expands himself. Nevertheless, each one of his children is autonomous, and so it should, because He has created them to HIS own image and similitude. Therefore, He, patiently, expects all and each one to wake up to whatever they truly are. There is no hurry… Eternity is all there is! On this search for Illumination, being born again is a must: Dieing for the mortal human being and being born for the Immortal and Divine Spirit. In this process of awareness of the Divine Self, there will be many times when you will become aware of your personality, your ego, fighting each other for the control of your life. This is often motivated by fear. It is natural. Do not think that your human mind, which had control over everything, feels at ease in delivering the command of an “existence” about which it, the mind, knows very little, has never seen and does not know if it truly exists. Daily meditations are, therefore, fundamental to this process of delegating the authority to our Higher Self. Only by feeling the presence of God in your meditations will you acquire the conviction of our true potential. Thence, there comes the confidence and the realization of the harmonious action of His divine conscience on your carnal subjects: love, health, work, family, safety.

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God does not expect you to deliver yourself to a blind belief. He is available here and now, so that you may have the experience of His presence. He knows that, the moment you feel this Presence, you will not be able to, ever, doubt that He exists and you will be able to say with plain conviction that “God and I are One”.

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God is everything and is perfect. If I am God manifestation, my life should be perfect, harmonious, up to the image and similitude of God and nothing less than that, because God can not do differently. Right? Now, the great truth is that life does not seem to be like that. Why? We look around and do not see this perfection, this harmony, but a lot of suffering, disease, poverty, ignorance, and alienation, instead. Then, there is something wrong and the mistake must be at the beginning, where we first understand that everything is God. This is our premise in this study. It is our greatest truth. If God is everything, the evil can not exist. Let’s make a small pause… Think of the Universe. Yes, the whole universe, if you are capable of doing so: the cosmos, the stars, the planets… Think of the Earth, so small compared to the size of the Universe, but, a giant seen from here, from our point of view. Think of nature where there has not been interference of Men. Think of the jungles, the ocean, the immense mountain ranges... What do you see? The perfect world in total harmony! Unquestionable Beauty! Who has never seen images of scientific documentaries capable of taking our breath away? From the macrocosms to the microcosms, a perfection so well lined-up that, not even in our wildest dreams, would we be capable of reproducing. THIS IS GOD! And that’s how we would be if we allowed that He flowed through us. Getting to know the reality of God and compare it to what we are able to create demonstrates a piece of truth that we must recognize. This imperfect world, where we live, is not God’s world. The human world is not the world of God. It is only a very limited version of our capacity of creating from His substance. Nevertheless, God is everything you see, but a mistaken, distorted, and molded to the human standards, molded from our belief of being separate from God and there is nothing that God can do about this until we, folks, wake up. In this separation from God lies the belief on the duality of good and evil. Since we have eaten the fruit that woke us up to the perception of good and bad, we have lived separate from God, deprived of Paradise and bound to create our own reality from the sweat of our faces. You can get a little confused at this moment and ask: - Are there two realities? Yes and No. We are aware of two, but there is only one, which is God. Let’s be objective… There are many inexplicable things in this world: parallel worlds, spiritual cases, sensitive people and undisclosed mysteries… Well, there are, certainly, a lot of things in this life of ours that cannot be explained. That’s why, as small apprentices that we are, it is not worthwhile trying to understand, yet, what is real and what is not. There is only something that we can, actually, identify: there is God and there is all the rest that we think is separate from God. And that’s where the MISTAKE lies. This reminds me of a story: One disciple asks his master where to find the Divine and he replies: - Open your eyes and see! In this acknowledgement is the total transformation of your world.

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Human hypnosis One of the most important answers, which I found in my recent readings, has to do with the reality of our world. I like to remind myself that I am only an apprentice of God, but I am convinced of what I am going to develop next: It may sound complicate when I state that this human world of ours is not the world of God. I have always had a difficulty in accepting the coexistence of a present and acting God and this world full of suffering. There are many beautiful things in our world, but also, an infinitude of conflicts. It is so imperfect that it cannot be manifestation of God. There is a lot in this world that can only be, exclusively, creation of our own and, although it is hard to believe, we have to accept that a lot of what we suppose to be real, is not real. In fact, it does not exist. Then, if God is all there is, this poor world of ours must be, really, an illusion. We have to agree with that. No one can understand that God can overlook everything that is wrong in the world, including, all the hunger and suffering… How to accept that God can condone with that? He does not, but unfortunately, He can do nothing, because none of this, in fact, exists. It is like a kind of hypnosis: For us, a tough reality, but for Him, a bitter hypnosis from which we have difficulty in getting out of. This collective hypnosis must be real, for, only thus, can we accept that God may witness all this and do nothing to change it. I like Goldsmith’s example: He states that we live, in fact, a kind of collective hypnosis. It is as if a hypnotizer called someone from the public and told him that, whatever he tried, he could not get rid of a fierce white poodle that was on the stage. All of us witnessed the participant, under hypnosis, trying his best to get rid of the white poodle which only he could see. The suffering, for the voluntary, was real and nobody could help him to get rid of what did not exist, unless he were awaken from the hypnosis. Only then, would he see that there was nothing there. Our world of illusion, imperfect, limited, ceases to exist as we wake up to the world of God. It ceases to exist at the right moment that we begin to reach a little of what Jesus tried to teach us. Jesus was capable of seeing the world with God’s eyes and that is why he could perform the miracles he did. Evil was not real; it did not have power; that is why he could command a cripple to walk. We can also say that man should die every day as a human-being and be reborn as the divine being that he is. As a divine being, he becomes a light in the world and helps to clear the mist that blinds us to the greater truth. Each one can begin to trail this path and listen to the voice that comes from within, which, softly, whispers into our conscience.

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God is Love and this is Our only Destiny Many of us are afraid to let their higher SELF take control of their lives. For a lot of people it is difficult to say “Thy will be done.” I confess that, for a long time, this part of the Lords Prayer aroused my reservations. To let God govern our destinies scares us because we are wary of God’s plans. Exactly: we are afraid of the destiny that He may design to us. After all, we grew up hearing that God was capable of letting his dearest son be sacrificed. Why should He spare us, then? Us, just common apprentices? We witness so many miserable lives and we believe so much that suffering builds a man, that we do not expect benevolence or compassion from that being Who, ironically, has nothing different to offer. Here there is one more mistaken belief of what God is and how He acts. Our premise is that God is everything. God is the creator and His nature is generous, as He does not cease to devote himself to creation. Everything God is, we are. All God has, we have. God being everything, and perfect, and good, there is no room for pain and suffering in God. How could God harm himself? How could He create or act differently, in dissonance with his own Being? God can only manifest the glory of God. He can only do good! Everything He creates is done to His image and whoever has had an experience of His presence, knows that, involved in this presence, is not possible to think, feel or experience anything that is not good. When we pray the Lord’s Prayer and say “your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as in heaven.”, we are asking for God’s Kingdom, perfect, in our lives. We pray that Thy will be done, because it is God’s wish to give us His Kingdom. Today, I am convinced of this and I can pray this prayer with open heart and believing that this is what Jesus wanted to teach us. There is a world of God’s that I am not even capable of imagining. There is a perfect, beautiful, abundant, harmonious and healthy world that is everything God is. And all this should come to the surface through us, every one of us. It is worth emphasizing: The ugly, poor, cruel, distorted world that we see is not the world of God: It is the world of men. We are given the right to create by using the grace and the substance of God. However, in our limited capacity, we have created an imperfect world and today, immersed in this human world, we think that THIS is work of God! The good side of discovering this truth is that, together with it, there comes the understanding that this human world can not be real. After all, there is only God. This human world is not eternal and it dies with the last mortal human-being. When we discover that we are the IMORTAL conscience of God, we live the real perception of this truth. When we have the opportunity to experiment the presence of God, we discover the other world, the real and eternal world that can manifest itself in this earthy life of ours today and now. We are led then to fulfill our destiny. Through God and as His channel, we start to use God’s grace and His substance the correct way, as we will, no longer, create from the human perspective, but under the Divine regency.

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Our destiny is to manifest the glory of God and, curiously, we will be surprised to discover that what we wish mostly to be and do, it is exactly what is reserved for us. He has the power to be ahead of us, making straight our tortuous paths. He can grant grace and beauty to our walk on the Earth and all we have to do is to realize and marvel with the grandiosity of His Presence.

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Diary of a hero – My mystic experiments I have woken the Lord of the carriage! My instructor of Yoga, Caetana, always says that we are like a carriage: The whole assemblage, including the team of horses represents our physical body; the horses are our emotional body; the conductor is our mind and, within the carriage itself, the sleeping Lord, the master of the carriage, our Higher Self, reposes. The horses (our emotional body), full of energy, when uncontrolled can take the whole carriage to absolute danger. The conductor (the mental body) must be at the total control of the horses to take the carriage to some destiny. But, if the master (the Spirit) reposes in deep sleep and does not say where he wants to go, we run around, lost in the world. Caetana is one of these great masters whom I mentioned at the beginning of this chapter. Through these masters, I discovered marvelous things about myself! Today I see that the entire journey has been and is a necessary must, but I wish to leave registered here how everything has happened; when did I finally woke up and what has led me to, truly, experiment the presence of God. This, because, surprisingly, it was far easier than I had ever imagined. I call this account, the “Diary of a Hero,” as we are all heroes in search of God. Nobody should think that I am in heaven. This is a long journey, but I feel happy to know that I have reached a new land-mark. I am working hard to hold on to here, trying to solidify what I have been learning so as not to be anymore, or remain anymore, where I was a few months ago. In this Diary of a Hero, you will find every one of these experiences.

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12-12-2008 – Diary of a Hero: Spiritual Cure On the week-end before Christmas 2008, my husband traveled and my daughter went to her uncle and aunt’s house in the interior of Minas Gerais State, Brazil. Suddenly, I found myself alone and happy for having several days to devote to reading and meditation, without domestic shores to do or the responsibility of feeding the family. The first curious fact took place after many hours of reading Joel Goldsmith’s books, recommended by my instructor of yoga. Line after line of reading, I got more convinced that everything he said made sense and had logic for me. He states that, for thousands of years, we have been talking and discussing about God and nothing changes in the world. According to him, it is time to stop talking and begin to do and live the experience of God in practice: actually experiencing His presence. He, Goldsmith, is an inspired great master and, before starting to write, he acquired and participated, in more that 30 years, the proof of God’s curing power. He witnessed the cure of incurable diseases and learned and performed the presence of God on Earth. He says that this capacity is available to everyone and reminds us that Jesus did not come to Earth to show off his powers, but to show the way to God. Resuming: That night, I was feeling very bad, after having abused of delicious food, but hardly the appropriate one (I was having a vacation from cooking!). Nevertheless, I went to bed. I knew I would not have a good night, for sure. My stomach was unsettled; I felt articular pains (something that has been bothering me recently) and a blocked nose (sign of a cold coming up). After wallowing in bed for some time, I decided to sit down and meditate, TRULY, about Goldsmith’s ideas. It was time to put into practice the ideas from books. It is more that 30 years that I spend time reflecting about God. Let’s go… Have the courage of putting your beliefs into check, I thought to myself. I began by pondering about the saying: “God is everything and the only power.” “In God, pain is not a reality. In the totality of God’s presence, heartburn and physical indisposition do not exist. God being all and being good, evil does not exist except in human’s belief of a world separate from God.” “My body, being made of God’s substance, is also perfect.” And I went on, going over affirmations like that until, in that silence and solitude, I soon reached an altered state of conscience. I was firm in my affirmations and, in my confident state, I suddenly felt a surprising well-being coming down on me, making the pain on my articulations disappear. Soon afterwards, the heartburn also went away and, before I marveled [too much] at all that and let that huge energy I was feeling escape, my nose began to breathe freely. I still tried to remain a little longer in that state, but it was not possible. The wave came and was gone, and, taking away all my indisposition. The pains did not return and, laughing, I thought… And now? What am I going to do? I have just witnessed that everything I read is true. Delighted, I simply noticed that there was nothing else to do, except sleep in that peace of God I was immersed in. I went back to bed and slept the sleep of angels. After all this, I cannot doubt the capacity of spiritual cure. Disease is not power. If disease was sent by God, nothing on Earth would be capable of subduing it.

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13.12.2008 – Diary of a Hero: We all are one For days, I had been reading mystical books and, for this reason, I felt plunged in a distinctive aura from our day to day. The night before, I had had my first great experience of God’s presence and I was in a full state of grace. Not like a saint, but as someone who is in peace, feeling happy and safe. I had just come out of a meditation, when I received a phone call from a friend, telling me that she would not come over, as we had agreed, because some acquaintance of her had suffered a heart attack and she was going to take his wife back to the hospital. As I knew him, I told her to take him MY love and, after mechanically saying that she would do so, she hung up. As soon as I put the phone down, I was inundated by such a happiness, as if I knew that he would be all right. The feeling of happiness was so great that I leaned against the wall and I remember having thought that I was getting, really, very strange. I had just received a worrisome phone call and I being taken by such a joy, with no apparent justification, was, at least, weird. However, deep down, I KNEW that, when using the world MY, I was not speaking about my human person, but about the SELF of God that is in me and, thus, I had made an instant connection with the Friend who had suffered an infarct, for we are all SELVES of GOD and we are all interconnected. I was so impregnated by that certainty that I thought of contacting my friend, later, to get the confirmation of my feelings about him. I did not need to, for, the next day, I received an e-mail from her saying all was well. Days later, I met him in the street, happy and talkative. Wouldn’t it be good to have this conviction of everything being well exactly when it is needed? When in God, we are all connected. Goldsmith says that a healer does not even need to know who is the infirm or the nature of his/her disease. It is enough someone coming to him looking for help that, during the treatment – that is nothing more than a meditation to become conscious of the presence of God – the infirm, wherever he may be, will be reached by the transforming cure of Christ-Messiah-Holy Spirit. He, the healer, is only the vehicle, the means of contact. Once in God, - the headquarters, the source – every one, in a ray of conscience of whoever meditates, will be touched by the presence of God. For this same reason, there is no need of trying to transform whoever may be. For this very reason, only a few are required to save a whole society, as, each one that tunes in to the divine presence, will be benefiting all within the range of action of their consciences. All those who have met you; all those that talked to you someday in your life; all the people who have waken you attention, will be benefited. You do not need to think, pray for every one of them. All you have to do is to open your conscience to God.

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The nature of the Error Disease, limitation, scarcity, everything that appears as error, does not possess any of the qualities of Reality. There cannot be God and the existence of error. And which is the Reality? God! There is only God and He is all the power, all the presence. Whatever is shown as error is a mistaken belief in an existence of life separate from God. It is a result from the limited capacity of the human being in creating from the substance of God. Human beings separate from God reflect their own limitation. The mistake exists because man is given access to God’s grace. To man was given the right and the intelligence to create like God, but the result has not been necessarily satisfactory. One must know what to do with this Divine substance that is manifested in all things and circumstances around us. I would like to make here an analogy with a small child who was asked to draw a man. The child will, probably, make a drawing of a ball, a deformed body and sticks representing legs, arms and hands. One day, this child is going to grow up and will know how to draw a lot better and, eventually, he or she will become a professional if they study art. However, being small, they are only capable of drawing according to their limited capacity. That is how we are trying to create the world of God. We are children of God learning how to create in God’s world. We are children playing God and our production is a portrait of the fact that there is much to be learned yet. When are awaken in God, it is not possible to create a bad world, but as only very few of us are awake a hundred percent of the time, we are still experimenting a world of faults, calamities, plagues, power disputes, fight against famine, etc. Only when we recognize our limitations, as spiritual children that we are, and open our hearts and minds to the tutorship of the Master, will we allow Him to manifest Himself and make, then, a demonstration of HIS perfect world. Jesus knew this and always said: “I, on my own, can do nothing”. He was capable of curing because he did not see either the mistake or the sin. He was capable of seeing God’s manifestation beyond the human and limited world that surrounded him. As he saw perfection, he could say to the cripple, to get up and walk and, to the moribund, to get out of the sepulcher. If this human world is the world of the effects, all we see demonstrates our limited capacity of creating the world of God. Like as a make-account world, this imperfect world is not real, it does not have power. And, each time a miracle happens, the world of God can be seen.

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Disease is no power If you are sick or you love someone who is, I recommend that, before anything, you should read the books of Joel Goldsmith. He devoted his life to curing people with an enormous success. It was his gift for healing that made him study everything which I try to transcribe here. He is an enlightened being and nobody can talk better about spiritual healing than he does. From the reading of his books, I learned that disease is not power and that healing, whatever it may be, is possible. Today, I truly believe that and I had an unquestionable personal experience. You can read about this on chapter: 12-12-2008 – Diary of a Hero: Spiritual Cure.

I like to remember the words of Goldsmith which say that, if a disease had been sent by God nothing in the world could beat it. For all diseases known today, there are reports of cure, sometimes miraculous. Just like fear, disease is a sign that we are not living in the plenitude of God. However, the most important to learn about this is the following:

It is not our fault. Never is! How to blame a child, who knows nothing, for being sick? We inherited our beliefs, perhaps, even bringing them with us in each incarnation, or impregnated in our DNA, or in our unconscious mind… Once, I read an article written by Rupert Sheldrake. The article states that there is a field of information called Morphic Resonance which we pick up instinctively and unconsciously and that there are proofs of this. One of the cited examples reports a research done during the Second World War. In England, before the war, birds had learned how to break the sealing-wax of the milk bottles left on the door-steps of the houses. Soon after this started, it was noticed that, in several places in England, birds of the same species started to do the same. Even if that had been an action passed from generation to generation, it could not have spread in such a fast way. Soon it reached birds in Europe. The most curious is that this species does not live long and when the war started, there was an interruption on the milk supply. Years after the end of the war, when the distribution of the milk was normalized, the birds of the same species, but different generations later, immediately started breaking the seal of the bottles in the whole country. To this, the scientists called Morphic Resonance. For more information, search on the Internet. Thus, you are a receptacle of information that were not created by you, but, somehow, accepted and even incorporated. Don’t keep asking yourself what you have done wrong? You did nothing. Our body is made of God’s substance, of His manifest conscience – made flesh. Despite being matter, it is composed of microcosmic particles, that are nothing else than energy. Thus, it is spirit, God’s Spirit. It should be perfect and renew itself constantly in the high conscience of I AM. However, we feel separate from God: We here, in our imperfect world and He, up in heaven, untouchable. We only see him as The Almighty who, for one reason we ignore, allows all this suffering of ours. Due to this, erroneously, we conclude that we deserve our pain (we must have done something wrong to receive such a punishment)

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and, with this, (resigned, hurt and even resentful) we reinforce our distancing from Him: An endless and equivocated cycle. In the book “A course in Miracles”, from Foundation for Inner Peace, it is said that, for God, to intervene is to acknowledge separation, something He does not acknowledge. To intervene means, also, to recognize that His children are not perfect and therefore they are not the image and similitude of Himself. It would be just like affirming that they are weak, fragile and incapable, something that He does not acknowledge either. What can God do if we continue to see the “White Poodle”? (*) All He, God, can do is to hope we wake up. He sends hundreds of signals for us to wake up and, when in fact this happens, everything gets into harmony and spiritual healing takes place as if by a miracle. If someone that you love is sick, there is no need to convey all this knowledge to them. When we are sick, the sensation of separation is even larger. Thus, the best is for you, yourself, to search and propitiate your encounter with God. Remember: when in God, we are all connected. Goldsmith says that a healer does not even need to know who the sufferer is or the nature of his disease. It is enough that someone comes to him for help, for the infirm, wherever he is, to be touched by the transforming cure of Christ. He, the healer, is just the vehicle, the means of contact. What he calls “treatment” is the exercise of meditation: the moment in which the mind calms down and yields to the presence of God. Once in God - the central power station - the source being contacted - every one in the sphere of action of whoever is meditating, will be reached by His Presence and Grace. I think disease if the greatest challenge. In our body, we feel the effects of the pain, the discomfort, indisposition and we need to be very strong to overcome all this. It seems so real, that only a mind in Christ can make a disease disappear completely. But it is not impossible. In the experience I cited before, /I had a bad nausea, pain on the articulations (elbows, knees, and hands), and a blocked nose. A reasonable collection of items for my experimentation. I entered a state of meditation, willing to put into check everything I was learning. I agree, in number and degree, with Goldsmith when he states that is more than appropriate time for us to feel the presence of God in our lives. After a few minutes of positive affirmations, I really felt the manifestation of a presence. I don’t know if from inside to outwards, or from top to bottom, it just started coming as a wave. Joel Goldsmith says it does not come the same way, and that it happens differently from one person to another, but when it happens, no one has any doubt that it is the Presence of God. We are able to recognize it…

(*) Please see the article: Human hypnosis

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As I was undergoing a sensation of peace, all my ailments started coming apart one by one and this surprised me a lot, indeed! After all, Medicine could not explain the sudden disappearance of a severe nausea and articulation pains, as the ones I was feeling; without the use of a potent pain-killer or an anti-acid. Of course there are people who believe our mind has this power. I do believe that, and I even wrote a book meant for young Brazilian readers about the law of attraction (*). Nevertheless, the mind alone cannot change our world. It is a tool of something larger, our spirit, which is the conscience of God’s manifested. The Spirit, yes, can change the world, but it takes being awaken, reach a minimum degree of illumination for the true miracles begin to take place indeed.

(*) “Agora é com Você" (Now, it is up to You) published in 2008 by Madras Editora, São Paulo, Brazil.

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You are what you think – the Law of Attraction According to the Law of Attraction, you are what you think. If you make an effort and think tirelessly about whatever you wish to be or have, you are going to manifest that in your life. Your emotions, too, are important tools for you to generate the necessary energy for manifesting what you with. When I wrote the book “Now it is up to you,” (*). I was convinced of the power of the Law of Attraction, and still am. I even believe that we are what we think and that our lives do reflect our mental and emotional attitudes. However, I have always felt that there should be something else, for, spending an enormous part of our time envisioning what we want was too much effort. It should be simpler. I think that the concepts of the Law of Attraction are correct and they are the first steps for apprentices like us. After all, we are responsible for the world we construct. My search comes from a long way and, in spite of believing in the Law of Attraction, there were questions without answers. Goldsmith gave me answers to these questions. He just queries the sheer power of the mind. After all, if that was so, all mothers, alone, would be capable of curing all their children’s ailments, just with the force of their wish and their tireless loving and positive thoughts towards their children. When a miracle takes place, something else has been part of the process. We must not forget that the human mind is a receptacle of cultural information and creeds. It reflects your personality, but it is not your spirit and, for that reason, it is limited and produces a limited world. To learn that the hazards of this human world are like a collective hypnosis, is already a great advancement. Recognize the truth that in God, the evil, the sin do not exist either. Then, instead of going on exhaustively focusing whatever it may be, just open the door to God. SIMPLE LIKE THAT! After all, He knows what you wish and what you need. In God, you have the power to build a perfect world. The Law of Attraction is a powerful tool, for it helps us to discipline our mind, which is the ultimate cause of our problems on Earth. Our mind, built from our inherited cultural and creeds is the matrix of what we are and how we live today. To change this requires discipline and the concepts of the Law of Attraction do help. However, when connected with God, we do a lot more than that: we bring His reality to our world, and therefore, miracles take place. Most of us just want our lives to be wholesome and happy; perhaps serve the humanity from one’s personal endowment (we all have one); have a good health; and find peace and love. For that, find God! For, in most cases, we do not know well what we want, but He does. He knows our purpose. Each one of us, each God individualized was created with a purpose and nothing is going to give us more pleasure that fulfill our personal design. According to the Law of Attraction, you attract what you focus on. If you focus on God, you will, definitely, attract Him to your life. (*) “Agora é com Você" (Now, it is up to You) published in 2008 by Madras Editora, São Paulo, Brazil.

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God is available to everyone without reservation In a recent class of Yoga, the instructor and we, the pupils, were analyzing some aspects of the Law of Attraction. The discussion started with the following concern from some of us: Our “asking” God is a thing of the Ego or of the Higher Self? Whoever is on the way to illumination begins to keep a watch on themselves to check if their demands are true, and not insatiable aspects of the Ego. Some wonderful ideas popped up here and there. The first one is that everything is INDEED available and the proof of this is that all you look and wish is, on itself, the testimony that everything is available to everyone. After all, it is there, it exists… be it a beautiful house, a Mercedes, a high level job, become a millionaire like Bill Gates, etc. If it is already there, it is God’s manifestation and is equally available to everybody, because God does not have favorites. This is so much so, that there are people of the worst kind swimming in inexhaustible supply. That is, the substance of God, which is materialized in all things, is there, here and now, available to each and every wanting. Then, the great issue for all of us, is defining which part of our “self” is going to manage this abundant supply: Our ego or our higher self? God gives Himself without reservation and this is a universal law. Whether it is our ego or our higher Self that wishes something, it makes no difference to God. The ego uses its mind to create, which is all it can do and the higher Self, awaken, has the power of the Divine Will at his disposal. We can go on to the end of our lives, asking to our ego to fulfill our wishes or we may remain in peace, assured that, as apprentices of God that we are, we will always create the best and it will never be more then it has to be, because who has everything, is never in a hurry. Bear in mind that the issue here is that, deep down, we fear and distrust of our own ego, so, a part of it denies itself what it wishes, because it mistrusts its own sanity. We imagine that we ran the risk of becoming worse people if we become millionaires overnight, what we believe some magnates are: blind to the sufferings and the misery of the world. However, on the way to illumination and reasonably conducted by our divine Self, we would not be like that. There is nothing to fear, then. Our ego may ask and manifest a million in money. The sanity of this is going to hover over the action of our Higher Self who is aware and grateful of the source and is not going to be misled by the Ego, who projects and defines itself by what it owns. If we have an economic car, we wish a larger one, but something within us turns up saying that this can be a sign of greed. This internal alert against greed does not come from the Higher Self, but from the ego itself and its limiting beliefs. Can we call greed a Bill Gates who, ultra-millionaire, invests fortunes to help Africa? Who could do that without all this money? On the other hand, how many people, with money, do nothing? Recollecting: The problem lies on who is going to administer the supply. A higher Self awaken would never worry with the power of abundance, either financial or material, as he, himself, knows how to be the witness of the infinite riches of God. Resuming, the whole grace of God is available without making assertions. God is not going to judge us by what we wish. After all he knows that all that the ego does, is done because he is alone and, going further, all the ego manifests belongs to this human world which is sheer illusion, anyway. That is, the world of God, eternal, spiritual, is never affected by this. It is always safe.

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This does not change the fact that God’s giving was total and unrestricted. For God, do not matter who demand: if it is your ego or you Higher Self. For us, it all depends on who is going to administer this abundance. If it is your ego, it can very well be that you get lost in your own illusions. If it is your Higher Self, everything will be shared. The Law of Attraction is the same that enriches the drug-traffic dealer or supports someone like Jesus. It is just as powerful as it is infinite. When we are awakening by our Higher Self, God’s Will becomes our will. After all, at that moment, we are really ONE. God’s love becomes our love; God’s joy becomes our joy. The Law of Attraction, at this level, is the power of God in His maxima and becomes also our power. Everything begins to be manifested by the Will, and not only by the thought. Our ego, as a leader, ceases to exit or at the best hypothesis, it becomes what was meant to be: our spirit’s tool for working and communicating, our garments, in this life. Awaken; we create the opportunity for God to manifest HIS perfect world, which we, for the time being, do not have the least idea of what it is.

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Abundance and bountifulness After these latest pieces of learning, I noticed that I know very little about bountifulness, and, for this reason, I have to open my soul to God and allow Him to teach me about it. I need to become permeable in order to let myself to be led in this learning about all the richness and infinite abundance of God. If there is something that we can be certain of is that He is all abundance. From the microcosm to the macrocosm, everything is manifested with a richness of colors, forms, aromas, sounds, flavors… and a lot more, far beyond our senses are capable of revealing. Thus, there is no way one can deny that any sign of lack is an indication that, in some aspect, we have an enormous difficulty to manifest the greatness of the infinit Spirit. I know this because I can make real parameters with other aspects of my life that manifest themselves splendidly. My intimacy with the natural world, especially with animals is so rich, real and powerful, that it generally takes me to quite uncommon experiences and which, in some case, surprise people. My little piece of world - the one that I am capable of manifesting - often presents itself in the form of interaction with animals, like an unknown monkey, a wild lizard, a porkpine, an opossum and a rich fauna of birds of all sizes, all under curious circumstances, like a sparrow alighting on my shoulder to rest; an owl sitting on my bedroom window sill to have a talk; or, even, an unknown cat found laying down on my sofa, wounded, asking for help. Actually, animals and birds show up quite often coming to interact with me under odd circumstances and, through them, I could say that I became a witness of this ABUNDANCE of God, at least on this aspect. I am aware that this happens in my life because I have ALLOWED myself to be invaded by this particularity of divine manifestation. In my childhood, I lived in the country-side and I used to bring home a variety of wounded animals for me to look after. Even a black vulture was provided a shelter in my home with the blessed tolerance of my mother. All this specific riches is very much part of me, because I have coexisted with it since I was a small child, something very common among folks from the country-side. Thus, I notice that God’s abundance takes place for those who allow it to manifest itself and wherever they allow it. For me, to co-exist with animals is so natural, that it never occurs to me the astonishment that it may cause to the urban majority. A millionaire, who was born rich, accepts the financial universe so naturally, that others may be surprised with the uninterrupted way riches manifests in his life. Another example is to do with health. Since a small kid, I have heard that our family is VERY healthy and most of them die naturally at a very old age. As a consequence, I never get sick, really. It may seem a mental process, but I begin to understand that the acceptance of a fact, as natural in itself, helps every manifestation to perpetuate itself. Be it an acceptance of what is good or what is bad, this is our capacity to create events and circumstances. If we get stuck to our world of effects, we create and recreate this imperfect world. It can be good, like my relationship with nature, but it can have undesirable aspects, like financial or loving limitations, health or safety shortcomings, and so on.

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How can this be? God is the same in all aspects. God is abundant in everything! God is generous in health, love, beauty, supply. In a perfect form, abundantly and uninterruptedly, He, simply, is. Then, how can I manifest Him in such a profuse way in such a rather uncommon way, like this especial relation with animals and not do the same with other aspects of my life? I think that here we have one of those concepts or creeds that we accept rather naturally, without ever questioning. God is all the riches, in all areas. Then, if we agree that God if perfect, being awake is to allow all this unlimited abundance to manifest itself in our lives, with no interference of our mistaken creeds. For example, how to believe that there is not enough money for everyone? We accept that, do we not? Our human reality says that this is a fact. Our humanity believes that, and, therefore, that is what we have got. But is there a thing more without materiality reality, consistence than money? It represents an exchange, which could be infinite, if conceived that way. Imagine all the riches of the universe. God cannot stop its infinite development. Only in the human universe there is limitation. Therefore, whenever we perceive any limitation in our lives, we must stop and recognize it for what, effectively, it is, a NOTHING: A mistake in the interpretation of the real world of God. However, we should not try to resolve the problem itself. Pondering about it; argumenting; talking or working on the problem only gives more value to its supposedly reality. One needs to open an internal space; to look inwards; and recognize that there is only God and, therefore, in his kingdom, this does not exist. Full stop. Each time this limitation comes to one’s mind, give it a treatment. Yes, a treatment, like a medical therapeutic treatment. Get into meditation. Meditate about the totality of God and relax. I do not mean for you to go on saying repeatedly that God is everything and that, in his kingdom, this or that problem does not exist. These are only words, it is not the presence of God. When in meditation, you experiment the manifestation of the divine presence, you have no doubt that the experience is real. Positive arguments are only a means of reaching a state of conscience that allows the MANIFESTATION OF THE PRESENCE. Once this attendance is felt, you will have the certainty that the mistake, the limitation that has motivated the meditation, in fact, does not exist. This certainty is going to build a new belief in your inner self; it is going to strengthen your hopes, so as to, positively, be reflected in your life.

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Fear God is Omnipotent, Omniscient and Omnipresent. Yes, He is, however, all of us, one way or the other, feel fear. No matter what the reason for fear is, it is always an awareness of another power. It is a sign that we do not experience the plenitude of: GOD IS POWER ALL OVER. Even within this learning process about God’s truth - where we try to reformulate our beliefs and surmount our limitations - we, in our day-today, discover and identify what we still fear. If, on one hand, we regret this occurrence, on the other, we can take the opportunity to overcome it. I made a list of things that the humanity fears and I certified that, in different degrees, we all identify ourselves with one or more of these listed items. Fear of disease Fear of hunger, of poverty Fear of wrong doing/sinning Fear of failing Fear of vice and things that cause dependence in us or in others Fear of the Bomb and arms Fear of cataclysms Fear of hate and wrath Fear of one’s mother, father, children, boss, neighbor Fear of someone we think is our enemy Fear of the world’s economy Fear of communism Fear of capitalism Fear of political power Fear of authorities Fear of Islamism Fear of Atheism Fear of Fundamentalism Fear of Death Fear of Living Fear of Fear Make your list. One should be alert and be happy, when one becomes aware of the nullity of these false powers. Each overcome item gets us nearer God’s truth. And, the only way to completely overcome each one of them is to meditate, envisioning that God is everything there is and just what there is. God is present everywhere and in everything. It does not matter if I go to “heaven” or to “hell” in each of my experiences in life. My physical and spiritual substances are made up of God’s substance and that is all I have to remember. By doing so, I allow His presence to manifest in my life and that this presence anticipates me in my journey, making straight the bandy paths. Aware of God, we live and we move by the grace of God. I do not mean that I am an expert on it. If that was so, I would not present myself as an apprentice of God, but, I am trying. Jesus already oriented us… “Do not resist to Evil.” Do not fight against it. Do not get into panic or live plunged into the problems that disturb you so much, that nothing can

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wake you up to the good. Notice that who is afraid in you is your personality; your ego formed from cultural concepts. Your personality wishes to preserve your existence, but this fear makes you get lost in a reality that does not exist. It is your “white poodle;” your private hypnosis. Your Higher Self does not fear anything, because the Self knows that beyond God, nothing exists. Abandon the error, the fear. Ignore it. Think of something else. Focus your mind and your heart on God and remember that fear is an acknowledgement of another power, but, beyond God, nothing else exists. For apprentices of the Infinite Path, Goldsmith recommends three or four minutes of meditation, three times a day. It is not much if we stop to think that this can transform our lives. He also says that, at the moment that one identifies a lack, a limitation, a mistake, we should stop everything and meditate, even if for just a few minutes. If anyone comes to ask for help, the same procedure should be followed. To stop whatever one is doing and reserve a few moments for meditation about God’s presence. After some practice, a few moments are enough to reach that state of peace and confidence that allows a manifestation of God´s conscience. Further on, as you develop the capacity to connect with God, Goldsmith suggests that one meditates for one to five minutes up to twelve times a day. There are those people capable of meditating for hours, but we are just apprentices and know little, therefore, our initial steps should be taken according to our gradual knowledge. It is no good to meditate for hours and then, in fifteen minutes, be plucked out from God’s peace, by any human problem of one’s life. No matter what we are doing, whether washing the pots or writing a thesis, we could spend this time remembering issues of our apprenticeship and educating our minds to stop, reflect, and imagine how that moment would be, if immersed in the presence of God. This reminds me of some very curious thing. Have you seen yourself in a situation of real fear? Have you noticed that in times like that, instinctively, we think of God? When the collapse of our mind takes place and there is nothing we can do, we open our door to God. We shout for him. On these occasions, many of us become witness of some kind of miracle. However, this should not happen on our worst moments only, but always, every day and all day, for the most ordinary things of life. God is present ALL THE TIME and not only when we are really in a mess.

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God manifests Himself in every shape or form – Our daily bread… Thankfully, we always think that the assets that are given to us are presents of God. But we must begin to look with “divine eyes” and see that an asset or any thing in front of us is not separated from God, but rather He, Himself, manifested. Thus, God did not send a column of fire to guide the Jews on the way out of Egypt. He appeared as a column of fire. God did not send you a very desired new job. God APPEARED as your new job. The Verb has become flesh does not just refer to this manifestation as something extern to God. God is the one who appears in the form of what is needed. That is why we should not become attached to the form, but rather to the Source. Our joy, for answered prayers, for things achieved, should be directed to The One who deserves gratitude. It seems obvious, but we are used to cheer for the new car, the new house, for the recovered health, for the salary rise and we forget that this is God’s MANIFESTATION in our lives. We focus on the effect and not the cause. The Source is the true gift. If we change our focus to the world of effects, we loose our connection with God; get stuck in our human world; and get subjected to the forces of good and evil that lie therein. When Jesus said: “I have overcome the world” he was referring to the fact that he was not a victim of the illusions from this world anymore. When we are capable of saying: I have won the world. I am in this world but I do not belong to it, we can be sure that our focus is uniquely and exclusively God. I can usufruct the effects and the good things of this world, but I do not give it a misleading value. We should not live from the manna of yesterday and neither the one that will come in the future. Each day of work; each realization or manifestation from the presence of God takes place TODAY, in the present time: Our every-day bread. God is in constant manifestation and we should live in the present in order not to lose the focus of the Font of all things. We are children of God, created, maintained and supported by Him. We do not need to worry about tomorrow. When we become capable of living like this, we will be able to say that we have overcome the world.

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31-12-2008: Diary of a Hero: I manifest myself in all kinds of ways. Goldsmith has already said that, in this awakening path, there are high and low stages. Sometimes, we are awaken and other times we see ourselves, still, tied to our personality, the human ego. I went for a walk in the woods near my house and sat down near a lake under the shadow of a tree. I was sort of gloomy because I felt distant from the advancement of previous days. I remembered that Goldsmith had said that all God needs is someone to be quiet to allow his presence to be felt: A healing presence, capable of reaching anyone in the orbit of our conscience. I sat down in peace and tried to meditate about this. I dearly wished to be this channel. I remember the happiness I felt when I thought of that friend who suffered an infarct and I was able to feel connected with him and be reassured that he was well. I was curiously sad and silent. All of a sudden, a hummingbird began to insistently sing above my head. Still in meditation, I laughed to myself and thought: - With so many trees, why, in heavens, should this bird choose this very one to come and sing? It was the place I often came for meditation and had never seen the hummingbird. I looked up and saw the red beak tinny bird and such a dark body that it seemed black All he did as going from one twig to another, singing above my head. I decided to give him attention, which made him come near to about a meter and a half from my arm’s reach, right in front of me. I was amused with the fact that he would not leave, as if he was there singing to me. Suddenly,I remember of the following words that I had read in the book: I manifest myself in all forms. That sounded like a blow on my head. I looked again at the hummingbird… For me, suddenly, that sounded like God telling me: - I can manifest myself in whatever form and now… I am right here, singing for you. I have made myself visible to you, for you to remember that I AM, REALLY, always with you. God, how I cried! At that instant I had the certainty that the hummingbird that was there singing to me, was not there without a purpose. It remained for a few more minuts and then, was gone, leaving my soul light and happy. There, thus in God, I remained a long time until I saw a lizard approaching. It looked at me with curiosity and was heading toward a tree near where I had left chopped bananas for the marmosets that usually turn up. I thought: Too bad that I did not leave some bits of banana on the ground for the lizard… Then, I noticed that there were two tanagers eating the fruits I had left and I though again. If we, indeed, are ONE, the birds could very well drop some banana for the lizard. Even before I could finish the word lizard in my mind, I saw something incredible: One of the birds taking off, dropped the banana on the ground. Soon, the lizard approached and ate the fruit I just laughed, marveled! I remained for some time there, in that paradise. I had learned important things.

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Meditation One can never feel God’s presence until we are in silence: physical and mental silence. That is why; meditation is the best way to quiet down the agitation of our earthly existence, and to allow this state of conscience to be established. Perhaps, when we become good at this, like Jesus was, we will be capable of making the connection even in the middle of a crowd. For apprentices like us, Goldsmith recommends three or four minutes of meditation, three times a day. On a second phase, he suggests that we meditate up to 12 times a day: from one to five minutes a time. There are some who are capable of meditating for hours, but as we are just apprentices and know nothing; our initial steps should be according to the measure of our knowledge. Meditating is opening a space in your day to think of God: Who He is and which is the relation between Him and you. Look for a quiet place and find your form of meditating. Find a theme and meditate on it. Goldsmith’s suggestion is to initiate an affirmation from the Gospel or any other religious text, or any simple idea like: God is everything. The idea is not to keep repeating God is everything, or any kind of mantra but to pick a line of reasoning and reflect upon what it means. God is everything. All I see is manifest God. Then,I am God manifested. Just as a wave is ONE with the ocean, so am I one with God too… Go on involved in this flow of thoughts, until you get to a state of peace. From then on, everything may happen, or nothing. You can be taken to an altered state of conscience or just stay in peace, thinking about the existence of God. In any way, you have opened an space for God in your life. It is worth reading Goldsmith’s books. In all of them, he talks about a process which he calls the Treatment, which is this moment or reclusion, where a contact is made with our higher Self. They are such sublime descriptions that I could not do better. Nevertheless, once you feel the presence of God, you will, inevitably, feel a huge sense of an enormous, wholesome happiness, and will know that nothing is lacking and that everything is in perfect order. According to Goldsmith, when he is prforming a healing process and he feels This presence, he knows that the cure was reached and that he can go back to his normal like. Personally, I meditate every day, but I do not experience this sublime exaltation every time. I am just and apprentice, remember? When we are feeling this Presence, we are not meditating anymore: we are praying, because praying is not demanding or telling God what He should do, but listen to Him, participate in His existence. At this moment, we can just stay immersed within the feeling of plenitude, or we can also be inspired and listen to capture something directed to us. I have not had this experience, but Goldsmith says he heard this voice, which he describes as being soft and smooth, which tells you something which deserves further reflection. All he wrote in his books, in years of study, were revelations received in a state of meditation; inspirations that made him reflect and find the answers he looked for. Meditation can take you to sublime experiences, capable of giving us what we are looking for: the certainty of God in our lives.

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19-12-2008 – Diary of a Hero: Where are you? One afternoon my husband went out to visit a friend, I stayed at home reading “The Master´s words”, of Goldsmith and, in this book, there was an exceptional exercise, at least for me. I am going to describe it the way I practiced it. To start with, one needs to take it very seriously and I would suggest that you do not carry on reading this chapter if it is not you intention to try and practice it at that exact moment, for I do believe that the effects reached depend on the sequence of actions. Sit down comfortably with your bare feet within the reaching of your sight. (I sat down on my bed with my legs stretched on the mattress.) Take your time looking at your feet… Then try to answer the following question and feel the answer that comes from your soul: - Would you say that you are in your feet, or that those feet are yours? Feel the answer. Go ahead. Look at your legs. - Are you inn your legs, or you would say that they are yours, as tools for transport? Feel the answer. Stretch your hands ahead and take your time looking at them. - Are you in your hands, or they belong to you? - Are you in your arms, or they belong to you? Look at your abdomen and think. - Are you in your intestines, or would you say they belong to you? - Are you in your liver, or it belongs to you? - Are you in your lungs, or they belong to you? Go on doing this seriously and feeling the answer. Step by step you get the notion that you are not your body and that you can not either find yourself in none of your body’s specific parts. When I asked the question about my heart, I felt that it pulsed in conformity with my soul, but I was not there, at the organ called heart. I thought: it is going to be difficult asking the question about my mind. But I became aware that it was not to my mind, but to my brain, that I should ask the question. - Am I in my brain, or is it a tool at my service? Yes, my mind is active, but I do not feel that I am in my brain. And then, the fundamental question. And after I had asked it, I closed the book for not carrying on reading, because I, MYSELF, had to obtain the answer. - If you are not in your body, where are you? Mentally, for a few moments, but intently, I went on looking for where I was. My mind sounded all the area around me in search of the place that I could be and, it was then, that I had the great revelation and, here, I ask you to stop reading right now if you intend to try this exercise yourself some day in your life. If you are doing this exercise right now, stop reading and ask yourself YOUR question. Close you eyes and answer…

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There will be plenty of time, afterwards, to read about what happened to me. Do not miss this opportunity to have your own revelation. Again: If you are not in your body, where are you? Silently, my mind said to myself, almost in a whisper, as it happens in a classroom when one student whispers the reply to another in the presence of the teacher. Speaking in an audible voice, but very low, to myself, I said, slowly: - I am in God. A deep silence followed. My mind needed to incorporate this truth. At that exact instant I, sensitively, perceived the existence of the Spiritual level, parallel to the physical one. My conscience was not in my body, but in God. I felt plunged in total astonishment, in and incredible ecstasy, because I perceived the ultimate reality of my essence. After that, my conscience stated jumping from one revelation to another.

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I am in God! So, I have perceived that… I have always been! Afterwards, I understood that… I am a conscience of God!

All this seems obvious! Crazy-people talk, but LIVING this experience is a lot different from spending one’s life talking about it. For this reason, at that moment, I was overcome by such a joy that I did not know if I laughed or cried… I have always been there, in God… Always… And always will be. On that instant, I felt and understood the meaning of sentences like: “Like a wave is one with the ocean, I am one with God.” Regardless of wherever we may be, whatever we may be doing, there is no possibility of being separate from God, never! My CONSCIENCE OF GOD is always with Him. Suddenly, I was able to perceive who I was, and whose body that was: mine, a manifestation of my conscience. A divine asset, no doubt, which I was capable of manifesting to represent my individuality: My presence; My existence. However it was, it was just a representation of me. And, yet, a limited representation: a body. And this, because, in fact, it was a reflection of the SELF - who was unconscious of its true nature - and therefore, was imperfect. My physique, today, is the best I could do as a human being, lost, as I was, in the world and missing the wholesome conscience of God’s. However, this now was taking new dimensions. I was conscious of where I really was, and, therefore, I existed! Then, I got up and walked around the house, literally taking my physical presence for a walk around the rooms, without loosing consciousness of where my real Home was. I felt a joy out-of-this-world. Nothing was lacking, I felt wholesome: An eternal being living a temporal existence. I was not bound to my human reality: it was just a lapse of time in my eternity. And it was a good one, after all. These experiences are what I consider, today, the grounds for me to keep firm in my purpose of battling along for this apprenticeship of mine. I clearly understood what it means to say: there is God only, and He Is Everything. I realized that all past Messiahs on Earth represent the conscience of God in men, capable of healing all. I can understand that my body is the reflection of my conscience; and everything in my life

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reflects my degree of perception of this reality. I can only think that my sick body could only be a manifestation of my Self separate from God, because, when I managed to connect with Him, all the indisposition and the ailments disappeared. God’s Self is not sick, never! This can not be, because He does not acknowledge sickness and pain. In God, none of that exists. As fulfillment is in God’s nature, if God is allowed to fulfill our beings, we will be able to manifest His reality. Claiming for God is admittance that, on our own, we can do nothing. Then, at that instant, one creates the minimum possible conditions for the contact to be established. God is available all the time, but He can only act when we are conscious of Him. Up to now I am capable of transporting myself to that awareness of outward and upward consciousness somewhere in God. And there, I always feel an immense peace.

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Prayer I feel now that I have to talk about prayer. A large part of humanity has a very mistaken idea of what prayer is and it was in Goldsmith that I found the explanation to this lack of understanding. Since I was small, I felt very uneasy to say my prayers. I thought there was something wrong in what I had learned about praying. I did not agree to ask anything to God. Why, after all, I should have to tell God about my sorrows, my frustrations, my limitations, when I thought that He should ALREADY KNOW ALL ABOUT THEM. Praying the Lord’s Prayer also had some uncomfortable passages, like “Thy will be done,” I was not too sure that what God wished for me would be well tuned with what I wished for myself. But it should not be like that… After all, wasn’t I a child of God? Didn’t God love me and could do everything for me? There was a certain resentment in the air. He should already know what my needs were without me having to remind Him. Thus, my prayers became just prayers of thanks for what I had to thank, and, sometimes a telling-off, when I was mad at Him, because I thought he was not listening and, obviously, that He was distant (separate?) from me. These childlike beliefs have persisted. Even when grown-up and capable of a more harmonious prayer, I still felt frustrated to have to ask something to Him. Asking made me feel the distancing, the lack of tuning in. Goldsmith states that, YES, God knows all about our needs, therefore we do not need to remind Him of them. Also, in good humor, he reminds us that there is no sense at all in praying to tell God what He should or not do. Who are we to tell God what to do? This is so obvious and so funny that whenever I think that we dare tell God what we think He should be doing, I cannot avoid laughing. God is omnipresent; therefore, I do not need to call Him. He is omniscient; thus, He knows what happens to us and what our needs are. And, as we all know, He is omnipotent, and beyond God’s power there is nothing. Then, what is prayer good for? TO LISTEN TO GOD! To hear the truth about God; To learn the truth about God. We should begin with what we understand as meditation, with the affirmations about God that we know. When we reach that state of peace, we are in God. Then it is time to say: Speak to me my Lord. I’m here to hear You. Immersed into the presence of God, you are in prayer. And, it is so nice to be there, that one does not even wish to get back to our limited world.

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About the author: Patricia Kenney is a journalist and writer with over 18 years of experience in the field of Communication and Corporate Training. Has 47 years, is Brazilian, born in Sao Paulo. She grew up surrounded by books on psychology, religion, metaphysics, self-help, health and esoteric. The literary preferences of her mother (translator) and her grandmother (nutritionist) have also become yours, since she was 12 years old. Bailey, Elisabeth Badinter, Rudolf Steiner, Joseph Campbell, Alvin Toffler, Gail Sheehy, Nilton Bonder; Trigueirinho, Fritjof Capra, Paulo Coelho, John Gottman, Ruben Alves, Joel Goldsmith are among the authors that marked his personal training. She always had a special passion for Communication, which led her to study journalism. She worked in training, marketing and consultancy for a few multinational companies, and 12 years ago, she set a design company up in partnership with Richard Mcfadden, a graphic artist. McFadden Design is a company specialized in graphics and web-design. Published Books: ”Now it is up to you!” Released at the 20th. International Book Biennial in Sao Paulo in 2008, by Madras Editora. It is her first novel dedicated to the juvenile; a search through the concepts of Law of Attraction through an inspired adventure. “Now, it is up to you!” represents an important support for adolescents themselves, because it prepares children to pay attention and take care of their mental and emotional productions. Children, who understand the use of the Law of Attraction, can build an exceptional future free of stress, becoming successful adults. A version in English is available to publishers interested “Contos ao Pé-do-ouvido” (Tales to be read together): a collection of children's books, released in 2006 by Editora Educação & Cia.. Hotsite Collection: http://www.mcfadden.com.br/contos/index.htm

“De Lá Prá Cá – Como Se Faz” (From then to now how it is done) will be launched in 2009 by Editora Educação & Cia. Collection Themes: Cotton, Aluminum, Steel, Sugar, Ceramic, Chocolate, Paper, Plastic, Glass and Salt. 35

The collection presents the history and manufacturing processes of various products. It is much more then learns about the production method. It is an intriguing journey of the long human journey. Human's wonderful story of realizations, which was not intimidated and tried every means to improve their conditions to reach the comfort of today. Collection Hotsite: http://www.mcfadden.com.br/comosefaz/index.htm “Apprentice of God” is her first e-book on Scribd. It was translated to English by Maria Kenney. To contact: [email protected]

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