the Joy Academy

Welcome!

The blog is a place for me to provide spiritual food for you.  Please read and take what works for you and leave the rest, but I delete all unsoliticed advice - that is not what this site is for. Thanks so much! Scroll down for today's entry.

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Prosper, Flourish and Thrive!

Yes! That is the name of the private classs recording I'll be doing this weekend for the student practitioners. There is no live lecture this weekend so on those weekends I do a recording at my desk at home in the WeHo Zendo. Now, more than ever, these weekends without a live lecture are savored by me because they allow me to work more on writing projects since I don't have to spend so much time on the road driving.

Here's the deal - in just 3 short weeks we've built the basic spiritual foundation of relationships. There isn't all that much more to teach. As I said at the start, it's all SUPER SIMPLE because there is so little we need to know. It's now just about practice, practice, practice. And that's what the 7 year series is about - PRACTICE, not theory. And the miracles that many of you have experienced in the past 3 weeks only prove that this is the area that most quickly demonstrates positive change if we are only willing to DO the thing that we need to do to have the miracle. So each weekly class will just focus on some small aspect of practice reminders, but the rest of the class will be the basic Principles we've been working with for quite some time having to do with our MIND.

We were born to prosper, flourish and thrive! And I'm pretty dang good at teaching those principles of living so we're going to continue right along the path beating that drum. In this weekend's class we'll discuss Imagination and Manifestation as we continue using the technologies of modern mysticism.

There has never been a better time in history to be alive AND to be alive and studying these fabulous Principles. It is an incredibly satisfying time to be an Urban Mystic!

The Holy Instant

"And it will come to both at the request of either. Whoever is saner at the time the threat is perceived should remember how deep is his indebtedness to the other and how much gratitude is due him, and be glad that he can pay his debt by bringing happiness to both."
A Course in Miracles

When one person in a relationship changes, it changes the relationship. If you work on YOU, the relationship will change too.  If you choose the loving perception in your relationship with your boss, with you mother, with your mate, with your neighbor, with your sister, with your kids . . . the relationship will change because of the shift IN  YOU.

Very often we unconsciously keep the war going by focusing on how things ARE and HAVE BEEN. It takes willingness and vision to stop being HYPNOTIZED by WHAT IS, in order to invoke something greater from within yourself. 

Everyone who pisses us off and pushes our buttons is someone we owe a debt of gratitude to because they are giving us an opportunity to choose even MORE peace and JOY. It's that "alarm clock" that Katie talks about - waking us up to the fact that we're in the nightmare again. It's EASY to fool ourselves into thinking we are a spiritual master when everyone is doing exactly what we want them to do and we're getting our way all the time. And don't get me wrong, I LOVE it when that is happening - but, if I make my JOY and peace contingent on that, I am no different than any ego-driven madman walking the planet.

As WE keep doing the positive aspects of EVERYTHING, WE change - and that means every relationship we have changes to match that vibration. It is LAW, not coincidence.

(Two of our Joy Academy faves - Katie and Martha Beck on stage.)

Secret Society Lesson for Advanced Students

Building Consciousness is our ONLY work as Urban Mystics. We build our Conciousness and understand the Course lesson of "I need do nothing." Unless you are at the Consciousness of Grace at a particular moment, you will want to argue this and find evidence and exceptions against it - so this lesson is for those who have ears to hear only and have the humility to step aside and focus on wordlessness and oneness . . . it is effortless accomplishment . . . it has nothing to do with strategies or speaking up for yourself or marketing or selling or saying how you feel . . . those are all lower kingdom tools . . . this is about vibrational resonance which goes out across the invisible planes and invites your good TO COME TO YOU . . . to the whole world and even millions of spiritual people, this will seem 100% insane and irresponsible and foolish beyond words . . . to the Urban Mystic, it's just another Tuesday full of ordinary miracles . . .

 

Grace, Grace and then more Grace

The more I APPLY the Love Principle to ordinary experiences all day long, the more effortlessly problems just dissolve and solve themselves. However, this does require great willingness and keeping ego in check.

Most New Thought is all about GETTING WHAT I WANT, GETTING WHAT I WANT, GETTING WHAT I WANT - but not what you REALLY want, which is the peace and joy of God.

Applying the Love Principle allows what we REALLY want -without our interference, manipulation, fire walking, breaking barriers, struggle or even much efforting. And that seems almost unAmerican to most people.

Pay Pal

Seems that there is some glitch with the Donation/PayPal link on my sites on certain browsers (like Firefox) so if it doesn't work for you, you can go directly to paypal and make donations using the "send money" link and making a personal gift using my email address: jacobsmiracle@aol.com

Or you can always make a donation/tithe by check mailed to me.

Thanks so much!

Willing to be willing

It's amazing how quickly lives can be healed by love when we are willing to do what we don't want to do. Victory goes to the willing. It's why that word is used SO MUCH in the Course. Willingness requires humility and as I said in class yesterday, Americans are not big on humility. It's considered unAmerican.

The passing of Whitney Houston was to me another example of what arrogance, pride and competitiveness does to us humans. In so many of the interviews that were shown of her since her death she still felt that she was personally tough enough to conquer all her demons. She would surrender to God, but not to any person. Well, God works THROUGH people. When we are not teachable because of pride, the addiction wins. The relationships in our lives are our greatest teachers - and we must be teachable if we are going to receive the lesson.

I see this in relationships ALL THE TIME. Pride and unwillingness stops love from healing hearts. That is a mistake I made too many times in the past to make again without knowing that it is ME who is doing it. The unwillingness to be truly soft and understanding. The rush to "get things done" and the arrogance of taking a position, drawing lines in the sand, making deals instead of making love . . . these are all the arrogance of the ego - the pridefulness of the ego thought system which hardens the heart. And it makes no difference the form of the relationship - whether it is a relationship in a family, or in a business or between nations. It's all the same, same, same.

I'm too old and too tired for all that bs now. There is too little time left in this particular body. I don't have the energy to go around the bottom of the mountain one more time. Whatever time I have left here is about nothing but learning joyful non-attached true love. In the end, it's the only treasure that we take with us. The money, homes, success, achievements, adventures, fame, hot body - none of it goes with us and all will turn to dust far sooner than you'd think. What goes with us into the next realm is all the love given and received. None of it is lost or wasted. It is the only investment which always always pays off.

This is BIG for a cranky judgmental old sob like myself. But lots can happen and I've consulted a Higher Authority to Help guide me. I forget 1,000 times a day about the love, but it's fine because at our house we just do 80%. I'm just shooting for mediocrity as I penguin step my way to mastering love.

And in just 3 classes, the miracle results are pouring in for me. I don't know if they are for anyone else, but for me the doors of love are opening, opening, opening. A wave of kindness has entered my life which increases every time I up my willingness to DO and say the more loving thing.  I'm slowing down quite a bit these days. I'm savoring whatever time is left on this journey and making the most of my part of the garden. Things are very good, and the better it gets, the better it gets.

Auntie Louise

Palm Springs!

Don't forget that I am in Palm Springs this Saturday, February 18 at 10:00 a.m. at Hotel Zoso again. $15 tuition - hope to see many of you there!  Address and such are on my website.

 

Happy Valentine's Day!

We think that relationship is an area that is separate from health, business, money, politics, and the rest of life. But in reality, EVERYTHING is about relationships. As I enter this deeper focus on teaching about JOYFUL love that just crystalizes more and more for me.

Relationships have more effect on our employment than skill and talent. "It's not what you know, but who you know" is more than a pithy saying. Almost every job in which I worked for someone else came because of someone I knew who hooked me up. When layoffs and downsizing come, it is usually an easy way for employers to clean house of the people they have personality issues with or don't particularly like on a personality level. People want to work with people they get along with or like because they usually spend so much time at work. 

Right now I have a business issue with someone at a place I teach. This person rarely ever returns my calls or emails me back and I am always challenged to keep my center of peace. This is NOT a work issue. It is a relationship issue. It's MY job to clean up my own vibration around this relationship - to do my positive aspects lists, to TREAT, to praise and uplift when I'd rather pitch a fit, to see how this reflects my OWN issues since it pushes my buttons and has happened more than once, to see how I can GROW from this rather than calcify and retreat into old patterns.

Of course my ego wants to just pull the pin and throw the grenade behind me as I walk out the door. Ego is always OFFENDED easily. The ego fantasy is to say "You can't treat me like this! I'll just take my business elsewhere if you don't appreciate me and want to take my money!"  But of course this only hurts ME. When he huff off in anger or hurt, we TAKE that anger and hurt with us right into the next situation and recreate it all over again. There is nothing wrong with leaving - but we must leave in peace, release and forgiveness in order to create something new elsewhere.

"Seek first to UNDERSTAND, THEN to be understood" is one of the Habits of Highly Effective People and it is one of the golden rules of relationships. This can be problematic when the other will not communicate with us, or tell us the truth. It makes it difficult to understand IF that happens. So then HOW can we understand? Simple. We understand that we don't understand rather than making ASSUMPTIONS. We understand that everyone has some wounds  and they most likely have NOTHING at all to do with us or this situation and so we don't NEED to know the specifics in order to drop the story and release our rigid control of everything. We let go of TRYING TO FIGURE IT ALL OUT as we ALLOW the solutions to come to us.

We surrender the relationship to the Holy Spirit and ask to have our minds healed. If we must assume, we assume the best rather than the worst. We give the other person the benefit of the doubt as we allow HS to work on the logistics of it all. We go to wordlessness and oneness as we then Imagine a happy outcome to all things even though we don't know the specifics.

So all of this can look like a success issue, a prosperity issue, a career issue. But really, it's a relationship issue. EVERYTHING is a relationship issue. It's why the Course speaks of little else. And it's why the answer to almost every problem is to ask ourselves, "Who have I not forgiven?"

Miracle Report

Hi Jacob,

Had I written this a few days ago, I would have written a very different note -- probably asking for your help to keep going with the homework under an avalanche of evidence that tried to tell me I would be justified in lashing out against by ex-boyfriend who was harrassing me with texts and emails.  But this did not happen.  As I have stayed my course, with great difficulty, today I saw fruit.

I wish I could say this has been a delightful spiritual experience.  No, it has been hard work.  It took every fiber of my being and all the strength in my body and soul to continue to write the lists of positive aspects and do worksheets every day, multiple times a day, as it seemed what was happening was going to inevitably take me down.  Every clever, unloving, scathing reply I hatched -- I did not send or speak.  That was the best I could do. Not reply. Do my homework.  Yet the shower of insanity from him continued. 

As I reached deep inside for my own answers, reading Joel Goldsmith, sitting quietly and walking along the beach, I tried to become as quiet as I could.  Everything in me was screaming I was justified in making a nasty reply.  I managed not to.  As I did I became aware of all the dialogue in my head -- all day long it kept up at me, at night it put me to bed and it was exhausting me -- plotting what I would say to him, write to him reviewing, rehearsing and regurgitating the 'wrongs' done to me, the crazy texts on and on and on....

I continued my lists.  Sometimes squeaking out only one or two lame things to appreciate, all the while the so-called 'truth' of his actions was firing bullets my way.

It seemed like I really couldn't see how this was helping.  I didn't feel better.  But I kept at it.  Retreating inside, refusing to act against him, going to bed early and ending my day with appreciation. Rising the next day and not getting up until I found something to appreciate about him or the perfection of my life.

Today, something shifted. I suddenly heard my nasty inner dialogue -- loud and clear as ever I'm afraid -- but somehow I was noticing it. I saw it was ruining my life. It wasn't him at all, it was really my own obsessive repetition of the wrongs he was doing me.  I was doing it. There was no power there. He wasn't there. It was me.

It is rare that I become so aware of my own thinking, and I've tried many times to keep this awareness going and failed utterly. And it's not as if it stopped. It didn't, I just saw it for what it was: me hurting me.

It was only a few hours later that he called. We spoke calmly and he apologized.

Without the detail, and there is a lot more, suffice it to say, we had a good conversation. He listened intently. We reached an understanding that in months since our separation we've never been able to reach. (He's been constantly pressuring me to get back together, sleep together etc.).

When I first heard your homework I knew it would be a challenge for me.  I realized that the way I was using to keep myself "safe" from falling back into a relationship with him was to be unloving and to keep tabs on all the things he did wrong now and in the past.  So I wouldn't forget and go back!  When you said, "give the person what they want in the form THEY want, not what you want." I got very frightened thinking that would take me right back into a relationship I'd already worked so hard to get out of!  All he wanted was to sleep together and start up again.

I embarked on what seemed like "mission impossible" homework, I had no idea I would end up being able to stay firm in my conviction not to get back together, but to do it in a very loving way.  And believe me, I told him the truth! 

But somehow, by grace I know and relying on this truth about both of us going in two by two, the bare and raw truths that needed to be said were said with love and received with love.

We are not "back together." And we seem to have an understanding now and a clarity and honesty that we have never had in the nearly two years we were together.

I'm very grateful. Thank you.  And my gratitude to Joel Goldsmith's Parenthesis In Eternity, that spared no punches telling me where my own feelings were coming from. 

Me. But only always, eh?

Loving you,
M.