Been growing and been busy, how about you?

For some strange reason I decided to check out my favorite blog instead of going on FB. I found that just like myself the person I follow has also been busy too busy with life to get much blogging time in. Now in times past I might have felt guilty for this but now I know that the only way I have anything to give to anyone is if I first take care of my self. 

I am 43 days post surgery on my knee surgery (yea) and 5 months post surgery tomorrow on my back surgery. I'm not sure why I mention this, I guess to let you know, that we all have things that we have to work on and over come. There is a quote that goes, "A burden shared is a burden halved, nonetheless a joy shared is often a joy doubled." 

I need to get ready for dinner, the sun is shining and it's a good day in my neck of the woods. Love, light, peace and joy be yours!

Sid Og

Youtube and Ken Wapnick

The wonderful thing about having a space (which is quite ironic because I haven't believed in space or time sense my early twenties, not to say it hasn't messed me up)to explore my higher self. I have stumbled onto a most wonderful resource on youtube. As you might know Ken Wapnick is the oldest and leading instructors of a Course in Miracles. I found a somewhat large library of excerpts of his teachings that have been uploaded from "fndtnACIM". So, is you search on youtube for Ken Wapnick, ACIM and fndtnACIM you can tap into some pretty amazing teachings from a truly gifted teacher.

A word on teachers, I have been taught over the years that if it walks like a duck, if it quacks like a duck, it's probably a duck. There are several Course in Miracle teachers out there. They are all human as far and I know.  The best ones I have found are Ken Wapnick, Gary Renard (he has channeled writings--read some of those) and Brent Haskell (read his channeled writings). Ken Wapnick is the only person I would trust to interpret the Course for you--not even me--I will hopefully only be sharing my experience, strength and hope, my experiences of and with the course and A.A. and the impact they have on my daily life.

Love, Light, Peace and Joy! Sid Og

Feeling Good and Feeling Bad

Have you ever had someone who you loved hanging out with, they made a great friend, but you didn't give them a chance to have their needs met too.  I'm talking a platonic relationship, and I talking about having someone who you could spill your guts to. Well I have/had someone like that in my life and now I'm worried about them.  They came to me for help and I enjoyed their company maybe too much and I monopolized their time, maybe too much. Interesting thought, thank God, God's in charge because I would screw it up in a red hot minute.
I had a sponsor who used to say, "Do you want to be right, or do you want to be happy?" It took me a while to choose happy and today I automatically choose happy, right off the bat.
I still exercise my options on occasion to choose my ego over God. I have no excuse, it's just that some days I'm already asleep and I don't bother to check in with God, I'm lazy.  Ain't that the shit's!

Well, on that bright note, I shall leave you with one of my favorite quotes from A Course in Miracles

Perfect love casts out fear.
If fear exists,
Then there is not perfect love.
        But:

Only perfect love exists.
If there is fear,
It produces a state that does not exist.

Believe this and you will be free. Only God can establish this solution, and this faith is His gift.

ACIM ch1 pg14-15

15 Beans and a Pork Roast, AND GOD'S GOOD ORDERLY DIRECTION

Greetings Fellow Citizen, I've a need to write this down before I forget it, and if you happen to read it you might just be the one who was supposed to have found it and read it.  I had neurosurgery on my lower back Jan. 24th this year and it has been healing quite well. Yesterday the first meal I had prepared that took longer than putting something in the microwave to micro-zap cook.  I am also awaiting knee surgery the word next month that I am on the surgery schedule for a total knee replacement. Ok, so here I was yesterday, I had soaked the beans over night and here it was 8 am and time to add the pork roast to the crock pot that was now 3/4 full of beans.  Well, this extra large crock pot now wasn't gonna work so after trimming all the fat I could and moving everything into a huge pot onto the stove pot I was back in business and everything was back on schedule. Before my back surgery I couldn't stand and work with my hands in front of me for anywhere from 1 to 5 minutes. Here I had been at this for going on an hour and I hadn't noticed any huge complaints yet. I still had the dishes to clean and I was now starting to have bone on bone wear on my where I need my knee replaced and my back was starting to complain but, I decided despite better advise to just get it done. I have been told over and over again if it starts to hurt that I have to stop other wise it will put me out of commission.
Well, that's exactly what happened. Within 2 hours my knee was swollen real big, my back was hurting as bad as right after surgery.  So, that's what was going on the rest of the night, I slept on the couch and iced and elevated my knee.

Ok, HERE'S THE PART THAT I CAN'T DO FOR MYSELF, my morning meditation this morning was about where we seek and find and experience God.  (I will try tomorrow to quote it for you tomorrow) It said something to the effect, that when we go inside to the place where we experience Joy, and if we think that there is anything that can threaten that Joy than we are not in God's Joy, we are in a construct of ego--a construct of the ego, an illusion.

I was hurting really bad after whatever I did to my back and my knee (not positive if from standing too long) and it was very hard to go to the noon A.A. meeting but I was so glad I did!  At the meeting, GOD DID FOR ME WHAT I COULD NOT DO FOR MYSELF. I went inside to the place that is where God is to the joy is to where there is no threat to the joy and slowly but progressively I rose above the aches and pains of my body and everything changed. My entire vibration, my entire perspective changed.

These kinds of experiences are becoming more and more common and I look forward to the time when I am no longer lead astray by the false universe at all.

God's Peace, Love and Joy, Sid Og

ACIM TEXT PG 366

(the 2nd full paragraph) The holy instant is your invitation to love to enter into your bleak and joyless kingdom, and to transform it into a garden of peace and welcome. Love's answer is inevitable. It will come because you come without the body, and interposed no barriers to interfere with its glad coming.  In the holy instant, you ask of love only what it offers everyone, neither less nor more. Asking for everything, you will receive it. And your shining Self will lift the tiny aspect that you tried to hide from Heaven straight to heaven. No part of love calls on the whole in vain. No Son of God remains outside His Fatherhood.

My experience is that the bleak and joyless kingdom it is talking about is what my/our ego and our disease has made/makes for us. AND because WE BELIEVE IT IS REAL, WITH ALL OUR MIGHT. Sadly, A LOT OF US WOULD STAKE OUR LIVES ON IT.

BUT, The holy instant can and DOES, in a proverbial instant transform our pile of poop into a garden of peace and welcome to God, us and our fellows. 


I'm not at top form which might be a good thing?? I made a list of stuff I need to do each day and I believe I need 48 hrs a day to get it done w/in that 24 hrs. time period.

I wish anyone and everyone who reads this the peace of your mothers or fathers first embrace, the unconditional love of a sibling, or grandparent or lover.  But most of all, I wish you the peace that can only be found in your heart when you feel safe and warm and protected.

God's Peace, Love, Joy and the realization that he or she created you and truly has never let you or wanted you to believe that you were more than a breath or a thought away from him, ever.


And as he glances over as you/us now he sees us/you asleep on the pillow beside him and he is well pleased with is precious child.  Good Night, Pleasant Dreams to me also, Sid Og.

(Chapter 29 The Awakening) VII Seek Not Outside YourSelf (A Course in Miracles page 617)

Seek not outside yourself. For it will fail, and you will weep each time an idol falls. Heaven cannot be found where it is not, and there can be no peace excepting there. Each idol that you worship when God calls will never answer in His place. There is no other answer you can substitute, and find the happiness His answer brings. Seek not outside yourself. For all your pain comes simply from a futile search for what you want, insisting where it must be found. What if it is not there? Do you prefer that you be right or happy? Be you glad that you are told where happiness abides, and seek no longer eleswhere. You will fail. But it is given you to know the truth, and not to seek for it outside yourself.

My old sponsor, she was the one who introduced me to The Course in Miracles, she used to ask me, "Do you want to be right or do you want to be happy?" I don't remember running into where this was in the course Text of The Course in Miracles, so when I found it I thought I needed to post it.  When she first asked me this question I either wanted both or if I had to choose I chose right. Now I clearly choose to be happy knowing that, that is what is right for me today!

I have used the question on people I sponser in A.A., (the lady who asked me this question was also my A.A. sponsor) and it has been equally helpful to them in unraveling certain spiritual problems they have had.

I hope that if you stumble upon this that it is equally helpful to you!  You are also able to post questions in this venue and I will do my best to find you an A.A. and/or A Course in Miracles based suggestion for you.


God's Peace, Sid Og

Freedom

Chapter 12

THE HOLY SPIRIT’S CURRICULUM

1.The Judgment of the Holy Spirit

1.  You have been told not to make error real, and the way to do this is very simple.  If you want to believe in error, you would have to make it real because it is not true.  But truth is real in its own right, and to believe in truth you do not have to do anything.  Understand that you do not respond to anything directly, but to your interpretation of it.  Your interpretation thus becomes the justification for the response.  That is why analyzing the motives of others is hazardous to you.  If you decide that someone is really trying to attack you or desert you or enslave you, you will respond as if he had actually done so, having made his error real to you.  To interpret error is to give it power, and having done this you will overlook truth.

This quote is from the Text of A COURSE IN MIRACLES, it has been my path to Freedom

and a Guiding Light for me to Truth, Love, Light, Peace and Joy.  Before I found The Course in Miracles I had no way to tell if I was listening to God or my ego/disease.  With sections in the book like this and the Workbook for students I have a way to know which is which.

Like I tell people all the time: If you don't know what to do, just go from peace and calm to peace and calm--just like you were walking on stepping stones walking from peace and calm to peace and calm.  This has worked for me where it was all I had, it works! 

Love, Light, Peace and Joy, to you All, SidOg        

More Recovery, More Freedom

PICTURE YOURSELF: You are in a cylindrical room and you are standing in the center of this room and there is this magnificent beam of white light shining down on you from above which is your Higher Power. On the walls of the cylinder are all the different identities you have identified yourself with in this lifetime. This light continues to shine down on you and you start to become uncomfortable and think what do I do? Do I grab one of my old identities off the wall that surrounds me or do I stand here in this light of my Higher Power? What would you choose?

Choice in this citation is not an easy one for the uninitiated on weak at heart! Scratch that------WHAT IT IS, is that NOT MANY PEOPLE WILL CHOOSE TO IDENTIFY WITH GOD WHEN THEY CAN IDENTIFY THEMSELVES WITH SOMEONE OR SOMETHING ELSE! IT’S JUST TOO DARN SCARY FOR THEM! BECAUSE, they are too busy listening to their ego and trying to make error or fear (f—false, e—evidence, a-appearing, r—real) to bother trying to "STAND" IN THE LIGHT OF TRUTH!

There you have it the entire ball of wax! Isn’t that wonderful!

God how I love you, and how I love to see you in my Brothers and Sisters!

Update on the Body Repairs

I'd forgotten that I'd been talking about going into the body shop so it's good to find one's blog on occasion. I fell which I didn't remember to mention on Sept. 23 2010 and in that fall I finished off my Left knee and my lower back. I would highly recommend this to anyone who is tired of the doctors saying, "Yes you are in pain, or disabled, or unable to work, stand, walk, etc." I am pleased that I have been moved out of all of these terms and experiences and am now in the healing stage being 3 weeks post op on my back surgery. Once that is healed and I've regained my strength I will get my total left knee replaced.  I supposed after the last post today I would rather choose the beam of light!!! A joke for you...my Neurosurgeon said Tuesday that I could fall off a 2 story building and I wouldn't mess up my back where he had fixed it, so what do I do but go looking for a roof to jump off of try er out!  Ha, Ha