Spirituality Sunday - Nine Techniques To Restore One To The Beauty Way

This is a textual version of components from the September 13 Spirituality Sunday broadcast. The full show is archived for your listening pleasure at http://www.blogtalkradio.com/PeterPocklington

ATTITUDE OF GRATITUDE

Thank you to the people of the Pocono Mountain region of Pennsylvania, who accepted my wife and I so graciously as we traveled through their region recently. Oh boy is it a good thing to not be in touch via the internet, to not be in touch via cell phone. Instead to be in touch with a much greater force. The spiritual force. The force of the mountains. The force of the streams. The force of the woods. The force of the valleys. Thank you to the people who live there and gave of their internal beauty as a complement to their surroundings.

NINE TECHNIQUES TO RESTORE ONE TO THE BEAUTY WAY

This was from a book that I picked up as I was visiting the Museum Of The Lenape Indian. Wisdom that comes from a different culture, a different time. But still, as all wisdom, is so relevant today.

What are the nine techniques?

First: Dedicate your sleep to gain knowledge. Dreams can reveal a great deal about what troubles you.

Second: Close your eyes and you see better and hear better.

Third: Ceremonies can remove obstructions. And ceremonies do not have to be elaborate. Something as simple as taking time each morning to feel the dawn.

Fourth: Rise before sunrise and bathe in the coolness. It will help wash badness away and you'll be able to handle any situation.

Fifth: Smile about the problems you receive, they build muscle. Serendipity is around every corner and life detour.

Sixth: What's important is not what happened but to rebuild.

Seventh: Life is great. Life is good, especially when you share it with someone.

Eighth: Teach all the time and learn all the time.

Ninth: The final technique to restore one to the beauty way is prayer. When you pray long enough you will find short cuts to the best path to take.

So let's think about each of these some more:

1. Dedicate your sleep to gain knowledge.

Dreams can reveal a great deal about what troubles you. Two of the most acknowledged self-help books are "Think and Grow Rich" by Napoleon Hill and "The Power Of The Subconscious Mind" by Dr. Joseph Murphy. A less often quoted but, I have found, equally powerful book is by Florence Shinn "The Game Of Life And How To Play It". All of these pay great attention to our self-talk and what is going on in our minds while we sleep.

How often have you gone to bed with a problem on your mind and woken up with a potential way forward, a potential solution?

Do you pray before sleeping? Think about the wisdom of the ancients.

2. Close your eyes and you see better and hear better

Stand beside the ocean and close your eyes. Instead of your senses taking in the visuals and being directed to them, listen. There is so much to hear when you are being still.

When I walk in the woods on a path by a stream I close my eyes. I can hear the water talking. It tells me whether the stream is full of water from the rains of yesterday or waiting for water from the rains of tomorrow.

But using the closing of your eyes to see better. I thought - come on!

Until I thought of the power of visualization. What you think about you bring about. Can it be that by closing my eyes I can see the future? Think about it.

3. Ceremonies can remove obstructions

Ceremonies do not have to be elaborate. Something as simple as taking time each morning to feel the dawn.

Think about ceremonies. There is a song that goes "we all need somebody to lean on". So it is with the familiar. Is a ceremony not something that is repeated so many times over that it becomes familiar. It becomes a rock.

What were your ceremonies growing up?

The family meal?

The coaches pep-talk before a sports event?

The kneeling down to pray before sleep?

What are your ceremonies now?

4. Rise before sunrise and bathe in the coolness

It will help wash badness away and you'll be able to handle any situation.

Another song - I personally love the Emmylou Harris version, she has the voice of an angel - speaks to "The darkest hour is just before dawn". What do I hear so often today? "I don't have time". When did I find time? At the front end of the day.

5. Smile about the problems you receive, they build muscle

Serendipity is around every corner and life detour.

Think about this. Did you know how to walk the day you were born? But when it became a means to an end you solved the problem, rose to your full height, fell forward a few times and suddenly the problem was there no longer.

As soon as you view problems as a blessing the solutions will start to appear. Our Native American forebears knew this!

6. What's important is not what happened but to rebuild

What has happened is in the past. We cannot ever go back and change it. It is what it is.

So why not let go. Learn. Re-group if necessary. And move forward.

The future is what we make of today - not how we live in yesterday.

7. Life is great

Life is good, especially when you share it with someone.

OK! What are the choices?

8. Teach all the time and learn all the time

The phrase "you cannot lead where you will not go - you cannot teach what you do not know" springs to my mind.

By focusing on getting the ability to teach we focus on gaining an understanding AND an ability to communicate. It demands of us a desire for learning.

Another song that springs to mind is "Teach Your Children Well" by Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young. Or how about "What Did You Learn In School Today" by Pete Seeger or Tom Paxton.

9. Prayer

The final technique to restore one to the beauty way is prayer. When you pray long enough you will find short cuts to the best path to take.

Again I point you to the source of these Nine techniques - Native American wisdom.

I point you to the works of Napoleon Hill, Joseph Murphy, Florence Shinn.

Today - the enormously popular - "The Secret".

All pay homage to the most powerful life force of all - Prayer.

May I always turn to the power of a prayer of thanks, because I know that a greater force than I knows what I am being prepared for.

And who am I?

I am Peter Pocklington
I am a Good News Merchant
I am a purveyor of prosperity, and
I am my own personal guarantee.

Contact me any time. My organization is built to help you help yourself by helping others.

Thank you, thank you, thank you for listening

Invest in yourself, YOU ARE SO WORTH IT.

GOD BLESS!