LECTURE - 5 May 2024
Presented by Matu Apiata
PASSION and PURPOSE
For the last few weeks my guides have been bringing through what I am speaking about today and one of the things I have been reflecting on is my journey over the last year.
And that has been about what I am doing, my Lecture and Speaking events, and I realized I have been following a particular purpose and that is, to help people awaken to the inner truth of themselves and who they are.
It is when I started looking at that, I found that I am interested in what it means to be a Mystic. A Mystic is a person who removes the separation between the mind and us as humans. There is no separation, we are all one. How we work, how we live while having that connection all the time is not easy. I have exercises that I do but life keeps getting in the way. As Val was saying, it is just a click of the fingers, and it is over. The week has gone and how to be aware when you are always rushing.
I nearly didn’t make it today. We have hard waste, and I was putting out our rubbish and it was a real slog then I realized the time and I had to hurry, and that made me think of the things that slow us down, and it could be so that you missed that accident or that you need to take time for yourself. I use my driving time to learn and what I am learning is that when we are asked to slow down, we are asked to take account of what is going on with us at the moment.
I was speaking with my wife as I was driving here, and she was talking about what we will be doing next week and I said to her that I just wanted to stay in the moment to concentrate on what I was to say because, the moment you begin living in the future you lose contact with the present, and the only point of power is in the moment. But sadly, most of us live in the future or in the past and it is hard to get ourselves back but, using techniques like mindfulness practices, or when you focus on your breathing, your focus causes you to concentrate on what is happening in the present.
I found that today Pluto is in retrograde and what it is doing is urging us to take up a personal cause, something that has deep meaning within us. I realize that is what I have been doing. I have a personal cause to help people reconnect to the deeper awareness of who they are, to realize that we are part of the God mind. ‘We are not the body’ as my favorite quote of Ram Das says. We are not the space suit. We may fluff it out, we may tattoo it, but it is not us. We are the Soul spark that sits within it and works it.
Did you realize that today is a power day – 5th day of the 5th month – and we are in the middle of the solstice and the equinox, so we are being pulled between the two. And sometimes we are pulled towards our purpose and at other times we are moving against it. I found myself saying to my wife that I just want to be ordinary. I don’t want to ‘adult’ today. It feels a bit torn, but the thing is to honour that feeling and it doesn’t matter if the sheets don’t get changed or the grass doesn’t get mown. If it needs to wait, let it wait. One more day will not matter.
So, part of the conversation my Guides were having with me today is that they brought to me a web cast by Mel Robbins, and she was talking about passion and purpose. My ears pricked because that is what I have been working on and she was saying that passion and purpose are often confused and seen as one when they are not. We have things that generate passion in our lives and for other things there is a sense of purpose.
When you look at passion it is an emotion and what you do that generates that emotion reactivates you, enlivens you so when you say that you love going walking in the forest with huge trees, that is a passion. I love to eat. That is a passion. As Mel says - “passion is about what excites and motivates you, and purpose is your deeper reason for existence. These concepts are deeply interconnected and aligning them will give you the best chance at having a fulfilling life and career.”
We don’t find passion, we feel it. When we do what we are passionate about we feel energized and excited. If you are feeling stuck or depressed, then there is the strong possibility you haven’t done something that brings excitement to you or enlivens your spirit. It is part of that butterfly wing effect, the little touches. My wing touches your wing, and we change the world one wing at a time. By focusing on your passion, it is surprising how that can change the vibration of the world.
I love walking through tall, established trees. I love learning something new. I love painting and being creative … what do you love? What excites your life and gives you energy?
So, what is purpose? How is that expressed in our lives. Purpose is things that give you meaning. We can find little purposes in our lives, and these add up to give our lives meaning. When you do something that gives you a sense of purpose, it gives your life meaning. But we get lost in the desire to find our ‘Life Purpose,’ and we say, “I don’t know what my purpose is. That one thing that I was born to do.”
But what I have found during my life is that it’s more about the little things, things that, when looking back over your life, add up to an extraordinarily purposeful life. It’s great if you have that sense of having a big purpose in your life but we don’t need to have that and if you are like me, I’m what you might call a late bloomer, it has taken me sixty years to figure out what I want to be doing. But that’s okay. I now understand that every moment I have experienced in my life has served me in a way that gives me purpose.
So, when we are doing what we are meant to be doing in our lives, we need to pay attention. This is why raising awareness of who we are is important. If we are not paying attention, then we lose connection with the God mind. We are distracted by the body, the world of form. We need to pay attention to every moment, and I hear some of you thinking, ‘I don’t think that I can do that. There are so many things in my mind. Which do I pay attention to?’
Abraham Hicks taught us about the emotional compass, about the feel-good emotions, and the possibilities. The emotional compass guides you to where you are meant to be so, one half of the compass is all the feel-good positive emotions from love through to neutral. And the other half is about the negative emotions, hate, fear, lack, jealousy. And there is so much of that in the world so, if you find yourself at any stage feeling more of the negative part, you are out of alignment, you are no longer focused on the purpose or on your connection. And you need to take steps to change that so, how do we do it?
You change it by doing what gives you passion. Go for a walk on the beach. A friend likes to do jigsaws. She finds that fitting one piece into another quietens her mind. Meditate. How many here meditate every day. Meditation helps you quieten the mind because it is the chatter that distracts you and when you quieten the mind you can hear the true voice of your true self.
And just so you know, it is not a voice. It is more of a feeling or, if you are clairaudient, then you may hear a voice. But, if you are like me, it is just a knowing, so pay attention to that. Ask yourself, “What is happening that I need to pay attention to?”
You know that you all have wings and when you extend them you are brushing against the people beside you. And each time you brush against those wings you send out a vibration. The opening prayer started with a vibration which you all shared so, as a group, we have raised the vibration of this entire area. This entire neighbourhood has benefited from our focus on that prayer. Every time you do a meditation you do the same. If there are other people in your house, in some way they in turn are affected by the meditation.
Living a life of purpose is about being authentic and inspired. When you live like this you share your unique self with the world. It takes courage to live authentically but when you do, your life becomes a beacon of inspiration for others.
Love and Light
While smudging my house last week I was using a mantra which included the phrase “Love and Light” which got me thinking … what does this mean. When chasing my guides I asked them to help me understand the meaning of this phrase and they showed me a deeper understanding.
When using this phrase, I imagine filling the space with Love and seeing sparkles of light shining in each room and my guides tell me that this activates a process that shapes what we experience.
When we think of Love, we may think that it is an emotion, or a deep affection for someone or something psychological in nature. We may also think of it as something connected to romance or intimacy.
My guides however specified that Love is much more. It is the expression of the God Mind into the world of form. The source of Love is God’s presence within our minds.
The more you explore and express Love, the closer you get to your true nature. When you recognize yourself as an extension of God, the more you become Love.
Louise Hay described love as Self-Love, in that when you love yourself you recognize your worthiness and accept yourself without exception.
So, when I am smudging my home, I connect to the Love that is God, and being Love, I transmit it into every space I touch, every person I connect with - like a ray of Light streaming forth from the Divine.
I remember that I am as God created me and in this remembering the space is transformed … it must because the darkness cannot exist in the light.
Light
We think of Light as a vibration, a frequency that shines down upon us. My guides speak to me about metaphors and the meaning of this phrase is more about the illumination of my mind rather than a photonic experience.
When Light is used in Spiritual work it refers to the Right-mindedness that occurs when we are in alignment with our inner True Self.
This light is a way of thinking. Right-mindedness is thinking as a Spiritual Being compared to the ego-based thinking of the world of form.
In ‘A Course in Miracles’ it is defined as, “Darkness is lack of light as sin is lack of love.” (ACIM T-1.IV.3:1)
Darkness is the absence of Light and when you think about the Dark Night of the Soul, a phrase describing moments in our lives when we may feel a sense of despair, an absence of faith, focus on what is not happening or not right in lives. All this describes moments of pain and difficulties that can either result in growth or a deepening crisis in our lives.
In these moments we are thinking with our ego self and using personality-level mind. This level of mind holds our attention on the world and what the world is doing to us, and our fear is heightened.
When working with Light and allowing the Light (right-mindedness) to illuminate our minds, we allow our connection with the God-mind within to show us how to navigate our experiences.
When you think this way, you are aware that you have everything you need and if there is a problem you understand that the solution is already present and only needs your recognition.
The world pushes us to think in dualist terms. That is, there are two ways of looking at things - good or bad, black or white, abundance or poverty, life or death. This means there is always a battle causing cycles of happiness and sadness, feast or famine. And yet, the Law of Cause and Effect would say that it is all in our minds.
LAW OF CASUE AND EFFECT
The law of Cause and Effect demonstrates that a Cause causes the Effect that we see. The law also states that the cause is always a thought.
We create the moment we begin thinking. Everyone thinks that the emotions come about the moment we begin thinking but it is the other way around. Our emotions are triggered by what we are thinking. We need to remind ourselves that what we think is powerful. What we need to do is listen to our thoughts, and to do that we need to be still, something that we often find difficult but, when we meditate then we can be still, and we are open to the message that our guides are trying to make us understand.
We think a thought and we then see it as an experience in our life. We can’t change the world but what we can do is change what we are thinking so, when you experience something that disturbs you, you create an effect in the world, and you then need to correct that by accepting that abundance is ours. We take responsibility for our thinking because we recognize that the world we are creating, is a witness to how we are on the inside and when you want the witness to show you something that is special, then you need to practice being special even in the moments when that is the last thing you want to do.
Some of you will not accept this as true but I would encourage you to pay attention to your life. Imagine every experience you have is a witness to what is happening in your mind.
Our imagination is the engine of reality. What we hold in our imagination must become manifest in our experience. This is a natural law and will happen even if you do not believe in it.
This natural law makes us responsible. Responsibility is one of the principles within Spiritualism that requires us to take account of our actions and words. For there is always an effect that is caused by what has been done or said.
Why is it immutable? This is true because of who we are.
We are extensions of the God-mind. We are co-creators with the Universe. This makes us powerful beyond measure. We are not our bodies … we are one with the energy and force that created the Universe. Everything we think of becomes our experience.
So, when we are vigilant in our thinking and hold ourselves in alignment with that part of ourselves that is the God-mind, we operate in a state of Right-mindedness, we become the Light. When we stay true to the Light, the world reflects at us a beautiful witness to our truth.
So, when you use the phrase “Love and Light” you are placing yourself in a state of being that expels any darkness, and you reaffirm that you are a co-creator with the Universe.
I will close with the Prayer to St Francis of Assisi.
PRAYER of ST FRANCIS of ASSISI (PRAYER FOR PEACE)
Lord, make me an instrument of your peace:
where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
where there is sadness, joy.O divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek
to be consoled as to console,
to be understood as to understand,
to be loved as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive,
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.