Can You Walk On Water?

Ever wonder how the "big guy" walked on water, healed the sick, raised the dead, and kept a cool head all at the same time? I never really gave it much thought, until now. In the past, I just thought Jesus had the hook-up that I didn't have. But now, that glib, dismissive way of thinking (just so I didn't have to think about it) isn't cutting it for me.

So . . . I thought about it. Now, admittedly, I'm not a bible expert in any sense of the word, but I just love how scripture, spiritually discerned is so compatible with metaphysical teachings.

Yup, Jesus did have the hook up, and so do we. We too have the spiritual mojo to rise above the turbulent waters, rejuvenate the dormant places in consciousness and embody wholeness in all our affairs. How? By understanding and embodying the absolute reality that God "is." It's that simple - God not only "is," It is all that there "is." It is all power, infinite wisdom, divine love, unlimited possibility, and guess what - It is You. No, really - it is you!

I have found that it is important to practice this truth until it becomes accessible to our conscious mind, not just as an abstract idea, but a dynamic fact of every thought and action. That's what Jesus did. He didn't just hangout in this spiritual practice when it was convenient for him.

He didn't say, I can't meditate today because I've gotta go multiply some fish," or "I don't feel like it." He practiced the presence of God until there was no place in his consciousness where Spirit left off and he began. From his realization of oneness, he acknowledged no barriers or limitations - therefore, he didn't experience any.

So through our deliberate and consistent practice of the Presence as our very lives, as we allow our thoughts to rest clearly and definitely on the fact that God "is" that which we are, we too have the power to walk on the water (above the appearances and conditions).

"Fundamental to your experience of more abundance, is the development of your concept of what God is." Willis Kinner (30 Day Mental Diet)

I love you,

Ester

You're a Trust Fund Baby

We've all heard the sayings "he was born with a silver spoon in his mouth." We've designated this privilege only to those born into families that were able to manifest in tangible form financial opulence, affluence and success. But here's the thing, those families could've only manifested abundance by releasing the prosperity that was already within their own consciousness.

Did you know that you too are a Trust Fund Baby and that you were also born with a silver spoon in your mouth? The proof of that fact is demonstrated in the very nature of life. How can the trees in their due season overflow with leaves, and flowers bloom so effortlessly and abundantly, yet some of us struggle to manifest supply? You don't hear the trees freaking out in the winter because it is devoid of leaves. They trust that it is within their inherent nature to manifest what belongs to them by divine birthright. They understand that in the Spring, they will overflow abundantly again. So they chill out in peaceful and joyous expectancy.

We are told in Scripture over and over again "I am forever with you, and all that I have is thine." We are assured the kingdom of heaven is within us, nearer than hands and feet, closer than breathing. The Universe challenges us to "Prove me now herewith if I will not open the windows of heaven and pour out a blessing that there is not enough room to receive."

So, what's up, why aren't you prospering? Because, you don't believe, you don't trust and you don't know what's being held in cosmic escrow for you right now!

How do we connect, accept and manifest the good that is "already done?" We must rest in the realization of oneness with the Divine Nature of the Universe. We clear away the debris of negative thought patterns and fearful beliefs through meditation, meditation and more meditation. From this sacred space, we are led to forgive the resentments we have harbored in consciousness that have blocked the waves of good ready to express in our lives. We become the instruments which the Universal Presence declares its word of absolute good through us. This spiritual activity transforms us by the renewing of our minds and the conditions are made right to receive the gifts of life.

"Set yourself," as Joel Goldsmith of the Infinite Way would say. Set yourself in the realization that the kingdom of God is for you, and nothing is against you.

All is well.

I love you,

Ester

Hi, I'm Ester and I have spent years of my life struggling with food and my weight, or so I thought. I was actually struggling with the false belief that God didn't want anything to do with my food issues. After achieving sobriety based on my spiritual connection, you would think I'd know automatically that there was an obvious disconnection happening where my eating was concerned, but I didn't put those facts together until much later.

It just didn't occur to me in the past that this area needed my spiritual conscious awareness just as much as any other area of my life. This was one place that I thought I could handle on my own, with lots of will power and dieting. I'd do great for a week or two, and then BAM - I'd be on a binge before I even knew how I got there (sound familiar?)

I had to deeply realize that there was another level of spiritual disconnection going on within my consciousness, and that if I was going to ever get a real handle on this, it needed to be addressed from that place. When I overeat, it is not solely based on emotional inbalance and physical cravings, or that "I simply love food".

The foundation of all discord is based on a spiritual malady. This spiritual malady is an erroneous belief in separation from our source – God, Universal Presence, Life or whatever you’re comfortable calling It. When we straighten out spiritually – we come into emotional and physical balance. Through prayer and meditation, we are inspired and led to divine right and perfect action of balanced eating and disciplined loving exercise. Our eating is always a mirror of where we are spiritually vibrating, just like everything else is a mirror for where we are on our spiritual path. Releasing of resentment is an imperative path to reconnecting to Spirit.

Let’s talk about all of it. But most importantly, let’s learn to pray about all of it from the place of our oneness and union with God. From that place, we are already fulfilled, so there’s no craving or compulsion to gorge ourselves by over-filling up on food.

Send me your questions and comments. Share your experiences with us. Let's anchor in a spiritual practice together that will heal and dissolve this issue once and for all. You're also welcome to email me at esternik@earthlink.net

In John 4:32, Jesus is quoted as saying “I have bread to eat that you not of.” The bread he is referring to is the bread of life, of Spirit that is nearer than hands and feet closer than breathing, but we must consciously connect to it, and bring this specific subject to the alter of our spiritual consciousness and intention.

I look forward to healing with you.

Ester

DOMESTIC VIOLENCE AND DRUG ADDICTION

Drug addiction was one of many addictions.  My first addiction was love.  No matter what the cost, if my attention fixated on one particular man, I would do anything to make him love me.  I look back now, and can’t believe the crap I accepted from the men in my life, thinking, hoping, praying, wishing that they loved me.  More importantly, I have compassion for myself with the understanding that at that time, I didn’t love me, or think that I was worthy of love.  The men in my life mirrored back to me exactly the way I felt about myself.  They showed up as my angels clothed in the form of my deepest wounds.

 Excerpt from soon to be released “She Lives” This wasn’t the first time Mark put his hands on me in a violent way.  I’ll never forget when he spent the night at my house verbally and physically abusing me.  He tried to ram my head into a concrete wall.  I was able to escape his grasp and run down the street to the telephone booth to call the police.  I ran past a few guys coming outside of a store, and I said to them “please help me, my boyfriend is beating me up”, and one of the guys looked at me and said, “a man has a right to do what he wants with is woman”.  Even then, I couldn’t believe it.   I made it to the telephone booth and dialed 911, but Mark came up behind me and slammed the phone down before I could talk to the dispatcher.  I fought him off and picked up the phone and dialed again.  He slammed the phone down again.  So, I gave up.  He took me by the hand to lead me back to my apartment, but before we got there, five police cars surrounded us.  They had traced the call I had tried to make.  They jumped out of their cars and asked if I was the one who made the call.  I told them yes, and that I was having a problem with my boyfriend.  This one police woman looked me straight in the eye and said “did he hit you”?  Mark looked like a deer in headlights.  He was scared shitless.  I averted my eyes from the policewoman, and said, “No, he did not hit me”. So, I would go and get high, blow all my money and then sleep with a stranger for drugs.  I would tell myself it served him right for being such a jerk, but of course, the real reason was, it paid for my drugs when I was out of money.  But I was also trying to make myself feel better about being so powerless and out of control.  I was hurting so badly, and felt so rejected and abandoned, I thought if I slept with someone else, even though drugs was one of the payoffs, it would somehow hurt this man that held my distorted attention in every waking moment, and who one minute gave me his heart, and the next, would leave me, abandoned, beaten and broken again. - end     Domestic violence was a huge part of my life growing up.  The way things were handled in my family, in particular with my siblings, were with violence.  I saw family members with black eyes and bloody noses one day, and cuddled up with the spouse that did it the next. I thought this was love.  I thought this was how it was done in relationships.  I thought the way you responded to a disagreement was with rage, screaming and hitting.  So, I lived that pattern out in my own life.  I attracted men in my life, where we were perfect mirrors for each other’s sorrow, rage and ignorance. 

Healing is possible.  It’s a long road from such a depth of low self-worth to self-love, and there are days when you might feel like you can never have anything better, because the scars are so deep, and the patterns are so etched in your consciousness.  You might feel like giving up, but don’t. Keep on growing, keep going, you’ll make it.  In quoting another amazing woman, Hillary Clinton in her 2008 democratic speech, she says “By following the example of a brave New Yorker , a woman who risked her life to shepherd slaves along the Underground Railroad.   And on that path to freedom, Harriett Tubman had one piece of advice.  If you hear the dogs, keep going.  If you see the torches in the woods, keep going.  If they're shouting after you, keep going.  Don't ever stop. Keep going. If you want a taste of freedom, keep going.”

So, I say to you, no matter what anyone tries to tell you, or what your own habitual negative thinking is telling you, you are worthy, you are deserving of an amazing, loving, healthy life.  The road will seem dark and endless, but your life is right down that road.  Don’t give up on yourself before the miracle happens.  You’re worth it. I’ll be your testimony, until you can be your own.

Peace to you beloved,

Ester

Excerpt from "She Lives"-Domestic Violence: We were both snorting cocaine and Michael was drinking heavily. Our marriage was violent and passionate. Passionate in that even though I knew I didn’t love him, I was still addicted to the thought of love. So we’d fight and makeup, until the truth of how I really felt would take over, and I’d try to figure a way out again.....more to come (promise)

IT’S NOT TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE!

The secret of meeting discomfort  (lack, limitation, fear, doubt, uncertainty, physical and emotional embalance) is in knowing its nature.  The nature of the discomfort can be summed up in words such as hypnotic suggestion, appearance or false belief.  When we are experiencing discomfort or dis-ease, it is because we have become hypnotized into believing in two powers, a power of Good and a Power of Evil.  This erroneous belief has taken control of our minds.

Joel Goldsmith says the nature of discomfort can be illustrated this way: “If there were a plant in the room where you are now sitting and if someone hypnotized you, he could make you believe that, instead of branches, snakes were growing out of the flowerpot, and you would accept and believe it.  Through hypnotic suggestion, the hypnotist has taken temporary control of your mind, and because you are apparently unable to act independently, you follow his suggestion to its logical conclusion.  You run away from the snakes, you may even pick up a knife with which to chop off their heads – all this based on the belief that snakes are actually there”.  How many times have we been hypnotized by the media into believing how bad things are, or hypnotized into believing because someone in our family has cancer, we might get it too, or believing because our family and ancestors struggled financially, that must be the way it really is, and then we act from that false belief?  Whatever hypnotic suggestion you are suffering from has probably been there for a long time, so this mirage seems and feels like Reality.  Our belief, attention and fear of it has made it real.

One of the “appearances” or suggestions I’ve had to deal with most of my life was the erroneous belief and appearance in lack and limitation.  No matter how much money I made, it never seemed to be enough, I was always experiencing some kind of financial crises and I believed that the crises was real.  I would affirm and claim that the crises was healed, and temporarily, it would be.  But you know what?  Because the belief that caused it in the first place was never dealt with at its core,  another crises would crop up to take its place.  Have you ever heard the saying “if it’s not one thing, it’s another”? Just like if you’re hypnotized into believing that there are snakes in the flower pot, you may chop off their heads, but there will be two more to take its place, until you are dehypnotized, and you see there were never any snakes there in the first place.

So, it is never the appearance that has to be healed, no matter what that may look like for you right now.  It is the belief that there is a power and presence other than the power and presence of God.  Once that erroneous belief is healed, the conditions of your life began to straighten out and come into alignment with Spirit.  Why – Because once we recognize God as the one power whose nature is wholly Good, the complete Good, Omniscience (all knowledge and wisdom) and Omnipresence (everywhere present) present right where you are, how could you possibly be afraid, how could you possibly experience anything other than Good in every area of your life?  It’s not possible.

The only way to dehypnotize is to quite the physical senses, to be still inside, and then spiritual awareness reveals the truth and enables us to see that which is not visible, to hear that which is not audible, to know that which is not knowable to that human senses.  Truth must be spiritually discerned.  How many of you have been able to figure out your life with the five senses?  How’s it working for you?

The absolute beauty that I’m experiencing right now is the fullness of life with ease and grace.  Before I even know what I want, it shows up.  I’m not in fear about anything.  I’m just watching God do its thing and it’s absolutely amazing.  I’m hooked.  Once you’ve really experienced God, you don’t want to turn back.  It’s that Good.

It’s not to good to be true.  It’s possible and its waiting for you to make up your mind.  Stop trying to fix the problem from a place of fear and doubt.  Stop trying to cut off the heads of snakes that aren’t there, and watch the crooked places straighten themselves out by your awareness and embodiment that God, Spirit, Universal Present or whatever you call it, is all that there is.  Stop fighting, cease resisting, do your inner work and let go.  It’s that Good and yes - it’s true.

Peace and blessings.

A BEAUTIFUL MIND

Since the beginning of January, I’ve been committed to a kind of “Spiritual Boot Camp” if you will.  I realized that I was really off center and that I had somehow allowed the illusions of powerlessness and fear of lack and limitation to run my life.  I was basing my security on people and conditions.  Of course, people and conditions are temporal, they change up on you all the time.  Companies that had contracted me for the beginning of the year were canceling on me left and right because of the “appearance” of the slow economy, the nest egg I had put aside was diminishing by the day; and every booking call I made, it seemed that the answer was “no, we don’t have the budget right now”.  Needless to say, I forgot all about God, and I was FREAKING OUT, and then I was FREAKED OUT about being FREAKED OUT.  I’m not supposed to freak out.  I trust God, right? Well, this was a rich, wonderful opportunity to show me just how much I knew and trusted God.

One evening after a particularly bad day, when everywhere I called, no one answered, or when they did, the answer would be “no – we don’t have the budget to hire you right now Ester”, I sat in the middle of my floor and said “NO MORE”.  I will not live in fear, I will not allow the illusion of lack and limitation to run my life for one more minute.  I will not place my faith or my security in man and conditions.  I’m not going to even place my faith in my own thinking right now, because my thinking needs a tune up.  The song written by Rickie Byars-Beckwith and Rev. Michael Beckwith, “I Release” took on a whole new meaning for me, and I’ve been listening to the song for 18 years now.

I released, I completely let go of everything I thought I knew, wanted or needed.  I knew that all I needed was to reconnect on a deeper level than I’ve experienced before with God.  I refused to make one more phone call or send out one more email until I was grounded in the awareness of One Power, One Presence and One Life, and that this One Power contained within it ALL my good.  Was this hard?  From an ego perspective, Yes!!!  If I surrender totally to God, am I gonna get my stuff, am I gonna get what I want if I surrender?  Well, I certainly had nothing to lose, because doing it my way wasn’t getting me my stuff.

So, I committed to sixty day of prayer/meditation/journaling and turning away from every appearance (illusion) of struggle, lack and limitation.  Understanding that in God or Universal Presence, there is no such thing as struggle, sickness, lack or hardship, there is only GOOD!    So, everytime I’d feel fear or doubt I would consciously and resolutely turn away from it, saying to it “you’re not real.  You are an illusion trying to pull my attention away from that which is real. You’re trying to keep me stuck in an old worn out paradigm.  NO, you cannot have me.” And then I would pray until I was re-centered.

This reminds me of the movie “A Beautiful Mind”, where Russell Crowe was suffering from Schizophrenia.  He had created out of this illness his best friend from college, his best friends niece (a 7 year old little girl) and a CIA Agent that made him believe he was on a secret mission.  This illusion wreaked absolute havoc in his life.  He lost his job and almost lost his wife.  But mostly, he LOST HIS MIND to his belief in something that wasn’t real.

He had a turning point one day when at his lowest moment, he almost drowned his baby because of the illusions.  When his wife put the baby in the car and was trying to leave him, he jumped in front of the car and says to his wife “she never grows old, the little girl, she  never gets any older. She’s been seven years old for 10 years.”  It had finally clicked for him that his friends and the CIA agent were not real, but he had been basing his life on what wasn’t real all this time.  How many times do we do that?  Base our lives on fears, doubts and uncertainties?  Think about it.

He made a decision to not take anymore medication, and he would heal himself by acknowledging the illusions when they arose, but not give them any power, ever again.  One of the last times the illusions showed up, he bent down to kiss the little girl on the cheek, and he said to her “I will miss you, but I will never speak to you again”.  The more he ignored the illusions when they appeared and kept his attention on what was real, the illusions started to leave him alone, he not only started living a normal life, he started to thrive.

I now have that opportunity, you now have that opportunity to turn away from the illusions of fear, doubt and uncertainty.  They are not our friends and they mean us no good.  We can acknowledge them when they crop up, but refuse to hang out with them anymore and regain our center in what is real.

When we do this, and the illusions start to fade away, we can truly say, wow, Life really is good.  I don’t have an erratic, crazy mind running the show anymore.  I have a Beautiful Mind, the mind of God that governs my life perfectly, prosperously, joyously and harmoniously.  It’s true.  I’m living proof, because right now I’m thriving.

Peace and blessings,

Ester