Welcome to the Lake Tahoe Spiritual Living Center!

The first crocus of the season made its appearance in my garden today, on Easter Sunday.

I thought that was appropriate because I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about what Easter means to me. Before I began ministerial school, the traditional stories of Easter never made much sense to me. What has made sense is the renewal and new life of spring, sort of a Wiccan/Native American/early goddess kind of thing.  I’ve written about such translations before.  But this year I’m in a new place.  It’s a bit of a different place, because for the first time in my life, due to a class called Metaphysical Bible, the Bible has come alive for me.

While many in New Thought consider themselves Christian and celebrate all the Christian holidays, I don’t.  So along comes a Christian holiday and I just want to hide under the covers until it all goes away. Even after two years of a very challenging Masters degree program designed to turn me into a minister.

I’m turning into a minister, but not a Christian one. I’m turning into a New Thought minister, and I am happy to embrace anything and everything as a spiritual tool if it will help improve my life and yours.

So I got to thinking about Easter this year, and about what I have learned, and about how what I have learned has once again changed me from the inside out.  What I really wanted to do was give a kick-ass Easter talk from a podium somewhere today, but in the absence of that, I’m just going to write this blog.  But if you ever see me behind a podium on Easter Sunday, you might hear a talk based on this post.

Easter, at least as the Bible tells it, is about the literal resurrection of THE son of God who gave his life so that all of us could be saved.  And then he was resurrected so he could come back and teach us all about the word of God.  Like I said, I have issues with this. I believe we are ALL the children of God. Not only that but I have been taught, and also believe, that we are physical manifestations of God, created so that God could experience the physical. And in New Thought we are taught that there is no such thing as sin, only a mistake, so being saved is totally unnecessary.

But what if there were another interpretation of that Bible story? I’ve learned the Bible is rich with wonderful life lessons that are indeed spiritual tools that can improve our lives. So let’s take a look at this story and see if we can’t bring out some richness in this story, maybe a spiritual tool or two that you can use to improve your life.

First of all, know that I’m going to take things out of context here.  I’m not going to write about the whole story leading up to the death of Jesus, and all the rich meaning in that story.  As I mentioned, the Bible is rich with good stuff, and I could write an entire post about one or two verses.  Maybe next year I’ll tackle Good Friday or Palm Sunday.  But for now we’ve got Easter, and the resurrection, the story of which is in Matthew 28.  Basically the story says that Jesus not only rose from his tomb, but there were witnesses in the form of his apostles and disciples.

Here’s where the richness comes in:

According to the Metaphysical meaning of the word resurrection (from the Metaphysical Bible Dictionary by Charles Fillmore, co-founder of Unity) is “the raising of man’s mind and body from sense to spiritual consciousness.”  A little bit further in the definition Fillmore says that resurrection is a lifting up, a renewal of the mind that makes a complete transformation of the body.”  And again, “The resurrection is an organic change that takes place daily…” and “the resurrection takes place here and now in all who conform their lives to the spiritual law under which it works.”

Dr. Rocco Errico is an expert on an accurate Biblical translation, and has worked to free the Bible from 2000 years of literal translation.  He has this wonderful explanation of the resurrection story (from the book Let there Be Light), which ties in nicely with the metaphysical definition.  Errico says that “the answer to understanding the resurrection of Jesus lies with the apostles and the disciples themselves.”  He says that when Jesus was crucified, all the hopes and dreams of the apostles and the disciples disintegrated.  They experienced a dark night of the soul, and from that proceeded to experience deep mental and emotional changes in their consciousness.  These changes allowed them to “transcend their former reasoning and begin to perceive things spiritually.”  Once they began to perceive things spiritually they were able to know that the spiritual influence of Jesus lived on.

Jesus did not resurrect physically, what he taught resurrected in the consciousness of his apostles and disciples.

This is what Easter is all about.  It’s about a change in our consciousness, a raising up of our consciousness, to allow us to see things in a spiritual way.  Such a change, unfortunately, usually only comes about after a dark night of the soul, a loss so great that we wonder if we will ever recover from it.  The Easter story says yes, we will recover.  It says yes, we will experience an uprising of our soul.  It says we will transcend the difficulty, whatever it is, and we will know peace.  I think the Easter story is a story of hope.

In a way, the springtime metaphor really is a good one.  My crocus has been underground, in the dark and cold, all alone, desolate, waiting for a signal to spring forth.  Since this morning, the bud that emerged has opened up a bit to reveal a beautiful bright orange piste inside.  It has transcended the darkness.  We don’t know, really, the process of how a bulb transforms from a bulb to a beautiful flower.  But I can tell you how a human can transform from darkness to light, from grief to peace, from shattered dreams to joy:  it’s about forgiveness and connection and process.  Again, the subject of several more posts, lest you begin to think I’m writing a book. Blog posts are supposed to be short so I’m going to stop here.

I feel better about Easter now, don’t you?  It’s a beautiful time to be alive!  A great time to enjoy new life, and to see that new life as a metaphor for our own lives:  a raising up of consciousness to an existence of joy and peace.

Happy Easter!

Life is good.

Isn’t it?  I think so!  Last night I finished up with the first class of Money, Metaphysics and the Meaning of Life and thought to myself, “wow, this is SO cool!”  Students in both classes (Center for Spiritual Living in Carson City on Wednesday nights and Lake Tahoe Spiritual Living Center on Thursday nights) showed up enthusiastic and ready to change their lives.  We had some great discussions and I can’t wait to hear more from them!  My plan is to continue to write about creating more abundance in your life through changing your consciousness.  I think we’re on a roll here!

One of the things we discussed in last night’s class was the consciousness of the general population.  In New Thought circles we call this group mind or race consciousness.  It refers to the general mood of the human race.  These days, the mood seems to be a bit gloomy sometimes and I am here to tell you that you do not have to join the rest of the crowd.

The news is full of negative statistics about stocks, home foreclosures, joblessness.  But what they don’t talk about is how those statistics got there.  Those numbers get to where they got through a mystical process.  If the public is feeling optimistic, the numbers show it.  If the public is feeling pessimistic, the numbers show that too. It doesn’t work the other way around.  We, by our thinking, affect the state of the world.  It works from the inside out.  We must change our insides first, then the outside will simply follow, because it has no choice.

If you truly believe that you must be the change you wish to see in the world, then you must change your consciousness to one of optimism.  You  must always place your attention on the good in your life.  I am not telling you to go into spiritual bypass here, or to ignore doing the things that must be done.  I’m saying that there are ancient laws which are applicable today, and you can make them work for you.

In physics, there is a law called the observer effect.  It basically says that whatever you place your attention on changes simply because you have placed your attention on it.  The observer effect has been scientifically proven and the web is full of discussions about the discoveries in quantum physics and the implications those discoveries hold for us.  In a nutshell, look on the bright side.  And when someone starts talking gloom and doom, see if there isn’t anything you can do or say to elevate the mood of that person a little bit.

Happy elevating!

Money, Metaphysics and the Meaning of Life starts this week!  I’m so excited!  The roster has exceeded my expectations and I am so grateful for the opportunity to be able to teach and learn with such a great group of people.   The Lake Tahoe class is just about where I want it to be for everyone to get the maximum benefit! And the Carson City class presented some pleasant surprises with the registration of people I never thought would be interested (a great illustration of how I limit myself in my own life by the way!)!  We are going to have eight weeks of fun, learning, growing and spiritual awakenings, that’s for sure!  If you think you might want to take the class, you can still register, but call me today!  My number is at the bottom of this post.

For the benefit of those of you who are not taking the class, I’ve been writing about some of the concepts which will be presented in the class.  The basic foundation from which all other ideas stem  is one of the divine flow that comes from within.  What is it?  How do we enlarge this flow?  How do we connect with it?  How do we go within?  What on earth does that mean?  All of the daily readings in the Abundance Book are centered around this theme, and in doing them every day I’ve been thinking a lot about this concept, and today I read a section in Spiritual Economics that helped to tie everything together.

In our society, most of us are conditioned to think that the money we earn comes from outside things like jobs and investments.  But the reality is that jobs and investments are only manifestations of our consciousness, our way of thinking.  It is really the Consciousness of the Divine within each and every one of us that creates the jobs, and it is our attitude about our jobs and our lives that determines all of our outside circumstances.

Do you go to work determined to do the best job you can, even if all you are doing is putting together widgets?  Do you go to work determined to not only do the best job you can, but to figure out ways to grow in that job, and do things perhaps a bit differently?  When I was a kid, I worked as a waitress in a coffee shop.  I had progressed from a bus girl, but I really didn’t know how to be a good waitress.  And back then all I could do was complain about the bad tippers in the restaurant.  There was a lady there who had been a waitress for years, and she took me under her wing.  She taught me that being a waitress was about much more than slinging hash.  It was about remembering how people took their coffee, and preparing it for them as soon as they walked through the door, so it was ready at their seat by the time they got there.  She taught me that taking the extra step to heat the dinner rolls would make their dinner much more enjoyable.  She taught me that paying attention to the customers and making their dining experience a special thing would not only earn me better tips, but would make my job a whole lot more pleasurable.  I don’t know if she realized that she was teaching me about divine consciousness back then.  I certainly did not see it that way.  But I grew to love my job while I was a waitress, it became fun.  I came to take a personal interest in my customers, and like my waitress mentor, soon had a base of customers that would come into the restaurant to sit at my station and enjoy their meal with me.   Today I still use the principles she taught me, as they are applicable in any job.

I still work with the public, and I do not think it is an accident that when I forget about Divine Consciousness and come from a place of fear and lack, that is what I experience in my job.  When I come from a place of serving my clients as best I can, with imagination and gratitude, not only do I enjoy my job more, but I earn more money!

You might be in a job where you enter  numbers into a computer, or empty the garbage.  You may think that there would be no opportunity for imagination or growth in your job.  If so, I urge you to change your thinking, for it is in the changing of our thinking that we change the circumstances of our lives.  Explore ways in which you can enlarge your consciousness.  Think about how you can come from the Divine Flow within you, instead of expecting something outside of you to provide you with sustenance.  Even if all you are doing is emptying the garbage, think about how you do that.  Do you make a mess while doing it, or do you perhaps think about the part you are playing in keeping things clean and neat?  Could there be a better way of doing it?  Maybe you could use scented trash can liners?  Do you “whistle while you work?”  Is there a way you can be a source of happiness for  your co-workers?  Are you a part of a team, or do you consider yourself a loner in your job?

These are the kinds of principles that apply no matter what.  It doesn’t matter where you are a waitress or a sanitary engineer or the president of a large corporation.  The same Consciousness applies.  Develop that Consciousness, and watch your life prosper!

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Karen Linsley, RScP, is a licensed Spiritual Coach and current Ministerial Student at Holmes Institute.  She will be teaching Money, Metaphysics and the Meaning of Life on Wednesday nights in Carson City (for 8 weeks beginning October 13) and on Thursdays (beginning October 14) in Lake Tahoe.  For more information, email her at karen@laketahoespirituallivingcenter.com



I was all set to write something else today, then I logged in and read Monty’s comment to my previous post and decided to continue that discussion.  If you want to follow along, Monty is really commenting on my post of April 15, titled “a bit of a rant.”  There is a link to an article about visioning in that post, here it is again:  http://www.religiousscience.org/ucrs_site/pdf/visioning_interview.pdf

Thank you Monty!  You are a wonderful man!  I know we will have some talks about this and I’m looking forward to it.

Something clicked, tying much of this together, when I read my meditation this morning in the Science of Mind magazine.  We’ve been talking about visioning vs visualization.  I still maintain that a God separate from me is of little use, and in fact creates a victim mentality.  If God is in charge, and lives somewhere else but within me, then it really doesn’t much matter what I do because God is in charge and separate from me.  To me that spells victim.  One of the things I like about New Thought is that it gives us power.  We are responsible (which can be kind of scary to some, which I think is a reason why a lot of folks like to maintain that separate God, because then they don’t  have to take responsibility), but we are connected with, a part of, and have within us a Source, a God, that is so powerful as to be indefinable with mere words.  We try of course to define it (this blog, a zillion books, lots of conversation) but the bottom line is one simply can’t define Infinite.

So, back to the what clicked:  visioning and visualization are specific processes, tools we use in our lives to improve ourselves, progress spiritually, and achieve our goals.  Visualization is along the lines of stating what we want, visioning is along the lines of actively and consciously listening for answers. 

But there’s another aspect to all of this, and this is where it all comes together, at least in my mind.  It’s the consciousness that we carry with us all day, every day.  Sort of like a state of awareness.

I can vision and visualize till the cows come home but it isn’t going to help much in my life unless my overall state of consciousness matchs what I am visioning and visualizing about.  I can vision and visualize abundance all I want, but unless I KNOW that I am worth abundance, unless I have that awareness and that belief that there is no lack, there is enough to go around, and I deserve my fair share, I simply will not achieve abundance.  Apply any spiritual attribute you want to it, it’s the same concept.

Here’s an example:  I work a lot with folks in recovery.  Things happen when they are not in recovery:  accidents, lost jobs, drama and trauma.  I call it “drama du jour” because those things are a daily occurrence when someone has a substance problem and is not in recovery.  So, let’s say a person who has a substance abuse problem stops using the substance.  That’s it, they stop.  You would think the dramas du jour would stop happening right?  WRONG!  They still have the consciousness of an addicted person!  They might stay clean/sober for the rest of their lives, but if they still have the consciousness of an addicted person, the dramas du jour will continue to manifest in their lives.  They have to change their consciousness if they want to change what is manifesting in their lives.

It’s the same principle no matter what we are working on.  Our consciousness must be changed if we are to change manifestation in our lives. Visioning and visualization will help change that consciousness of course, just as meditation and all other spiritual practices do.  This is why I mention spiritual practices in almost every post.

It’s all about having a consciousness, an overall awareness, of the way we want to be, have and do in our lives.  That’s what clicked for me this morning.