If you truly trust in this notion, you realize that everything that you perceive as missing in your life is a part of the same energy that you are. Manifesting becomes the art of bringing to yourself that which is already you.
In a sense it is like thinking of the things you want as being on a string that is infinitely long, but is nevertheless attached to you in some invisible way. It is only a matter of trusting that you can bring that string to you and that whatever is supposed to come to your life will be there when you have developed the capacity to receive it. But the trick is, you cannot receive it or even come close to manifesting it if you have an absence of trust in yourself as an extension of God.
I like to think of God as the ocean and myself as a glass. If I dip the glass into the ocean, I will have a glass full of God. No matter how I analyze this, it will still contain God. Now, the glass of God is not as big as the ocean, nor is it omniscient or omnipotent, but it is still God. This metaphor allows me to trust both in myself and simultaneously in the wisdom that created me, and to see the oneness.
I have deliberately chosen not to use many quotations in this book. But I want to emphasize that every spiritual master and all of the saints, teachers, gurus or priests throughout history have espoused similar advice. This perennial philosophy connects all humanity, from tribal and ancient to civilized and present times. It is the message that God is within and outside every living thing. Also, there is a world we are a part of that is not subject to the changing world of time and space. Moreover, we are presently a part of that invisible spiritual world.
Since it is everywhere, it is not only within you, it is you. The meaning of this is that God is not to be found so much as discovered within yourself. The statement “You and the Father are one” is more than an ecclesiastical admonition. It is a statement of your reality.
With practice, you can learn to know this reality. You can learn to see the aura around all living things. You can learn to assist others by projecting your energy and giving them strength and sustenance. Actually, it is not a skill to learn so much as it is trusting the energy to be part of you.
It may be that the most effective way to trust your reality is through the power of prayer. Prayer and trust offer us seemingly magical methods for manifesting the divine desire. But, first you may have to shift old perceptions concerning prayer and discover a whole new inner vision about praying and prayer.
PRAYER AND TRUST
In the matter of prayer it seems that we often view God as a gigantic vending machine in the sky who will grant us our wishes when we put in the proper tokens in the form of prayers. We expect to insert prayers, then pull on the knob and hope that God will dispense the goodies. The God vending machine becomes the object of our veneration. We tell the machine how good it is and how much we worship it and expect it to be good to us in return.
The basic premise here is that God is outside us and therefore what we need and want is also outside us. This form of prayer is like practicing the absence rather than the presence of God. If we believe that we are separate from God, the vending machine approach to prayer reinforces and deepens that belief.
I prefer to promote the idea of prayer in its essence as a communion with God. Praying at the spiritual level then becomes communing with and knowing that God is as close as our breath. What we seek in prayer is the experience of co-existing with God. Prayer is our communication of readiness for the desires of this sacred energy to manifest through our human form. No separation, no absence of God within, simply the presence of this force within ourselves.
Therefore, the true experience of God does not change or alter God, but it changes us. It heals our sense of separation. If we are not changed by prayer, we have denied ourselves the opportunity to know the wisdom that created us.
The search for happiness outside ourselves rekindles an idea that we are not whole and relegates prayer to the status of a plea to a boss/God. We are then asking for favors rather than seeking a manifestation of our invisible, inspired self.
Prayer, at the spiritual level I am writing about, is not asking for something any more than the attempt to become a manifester is asking for something to show up in your life. What I call authentic prayer is inviting divine desire to express itself through me. It is a prayer for what it is that is for my highest purpose and good, or for the greater benefit of all mankind. Prayer at this level expresses my experience of oneness with the divine energy.
This may sound like a radical or even blasphemous notion to you, but it is the source of all spiritual traditions. Here are a few examples.
Christianity: The kingdom of heaven is within you.
Islam: Those who know themselves know their God.
Buddhism: Look within, you are the Buddha.
Vedanta (part of Hinduism): Atman (individual consciousness) and Brahman (universal consciousness) are one.
Yoga (part of Hinduism): God dwells within you as you.
Confucianism: Heaven, earth and human are of one body.
Upanishads (part of Hinduism): By understanding the self, all this universe is known.
Overcoming your conditioning in this area is crucially important. At first, you may be able to accept this idea on an intellectual level, but be unable to make it your authentic experience. So, I suggest you make prayer your experience by using it to replace the random, continuous thoughts that you have all day. Use your trust to commune with God rather than to be in a constant state of chatter.
Replace thoughts about your experiences with the experience of prayer. For instance, praying in this sense can be a sentence such as “Sacredness guide me now” or “Sacred love flow through me now” silently recited instead of thinking thoughts. Prayer in this form is tilling and clearing the inner self of ego chatter so that what you desire and what desires you can grow. My personal practice of prayer is participating in a communion with God wherein I see God within me and ask for the strength and the inner awareness to handle whatever confronts me. I know that I am not separate from this vital force that we call God. I know that this force connects me to everything in the universe and that by placing my attention on what it is that I want to attract to myself I am really doing nothing more than manifesting a new aspect of myself.
I then let go of the results and let the universe handle the details. I retreat in peace and keep reminding myself that heaven on earth is a choice that I must make, not a place I must find. It is my choice to live with the God force flowing unrestricted through me, and it is the way of co-creating my life at this moment. Trust, then, is the cornerstone of my praying, and with it comes the peace that is the essence of manifesting.
PEACE: THE RESULT OF TRUST
The highest self wants you to experience peace, which is a definition of enlightenment. You may recall that I wrote earlier in this book that I define enlightenment as being immersed in and surrounded by peace. The more you trust in the wisdom that creates all, the more you will be trusting in yourself. The result of trusting is that an enormous sense of peace becomes available to you.
When the ego insists on winning, comparing or judging, you will be able to soothe and calm the ego’s fears with the peacefulness born of trust. When you are able to trust, you know that God and you are one, like the glass of ocean water and the ocean itself. You are what the God force is doing, just as a wave is what the ocean is doing.
As this awareness grows you will discover that you
