Monthly Archives: May 2014

The Creator and Leadership

Talks With God, , , , ,

The following is an excerpt from The Creator’s and my  book, Talking with The Creator, Book One. When I was listening to  The Creator and writing this down, the image s/he gave me of a peach pit took me completely by surprise.

Namaste, Sheryl

 

Chapter 17, “A Long Chapter”

God: I have asked Sheryl to let me ramble in this chapter. It will be long by the standards of the other chapters, and the topics may not all fit together, but so be it. It’s what I want. Being the co-collaborator, I get a fair amount of say of the content. (smiling)

Sheryl, are you ready to listen?

Sheryl: Yes, I am. Go for it…

God: Peaches. Peaches have these large hard pits in the middle of them. The pits, besides being hard, are spiny and if you try to bite down on one of them, it can really hurt the soft tissues in your mouth. My point is that people are a lot this way, too. All my Creation mimics each other/itself. When you get to know a person, they have a hard shell around them that protects the soft inner core of their being. Approach them too harshly and they show their protective instincts. They are hard to penetrate, maybe even impossible. But leave them alone without a harsh approach and accept them gently for just who they are, and then you can watch them grow and bloom. Your very greatest leaders have appreciated people just where they are, expected the best from them and then stood back and watched them bloom. Can you be a leader like this? Can you accept the people in your life – your children, your spouse, your bosses, and your employees – with this type of attitude?

What people, like peach pits, need to grow is an appreciation of who they are, an acceptance of their total self and an understanding that their best days lay ahead of them. A little sun, a little rain, a little dark, but not too much of anything helps them to grow. A successful farmer leads his crops gently. He provides as much as he can to help them grow but has an innate understanding that much of the success depends on the crop itself. Were the seeds as potentially strong as he thought? Will the crop soak up enough rain and sun? Will it be safe from unexpected weather conditions?

Leadership is firm but gentle, whether it’s leading crops or people. Leadership is providing the example and understanding without prejudice or malice that not everyone will follow the lead.

(chapter continues but is not included in this blog…)

Forgive, don’t forget, and heal

Contemporary Spiritual Master, ,

“The practice of forgiveness is our most important contribution to the healing of the world.”

– Marianne Williamson

I will let you in on a pet peeve of mine. It’s the phrase “forgive and forget.” This saying really bugs me, because it keeps me from being better at forgiveness.  If I have to pretend like something didn’t happen every time I need to grant forgiveness, then I will not be prone to forgive.

You see, there are people who do wrong and are not sorry for what they’ve done and will very likely repeat their actions. Why would I want to forget about that? Doesn’t that leave me likely to be hurt again?

Instead, I choose how I want to continue in a relationship with the person who hurt me. There are too many possibilities to name here, but the gamut runs from full reconciliation to a complete split. Regardless of the outcome, I am then ready to forgive. Granting forgiveness brings me peace and closure. It restores my wholeness.

Remember, the benefit of forgiveness is for the forgiver, not for the forgiven. The act of forgiveness requires only one person, the one who needs to become whole again. Thus, healing takes place and peace is restored.

Find three people or incidences today to forgive and experience what that feels like.

Oh, and when it’s your turn to need forgiveness, try to get to that state of remorse as quickly as you can. The three little words “I am sorry” can express as much love as “I love you.”

Namaste!

Sheryl

 

God as a Close Associate

Talks With God, , , ,

“When a problem arose he [a friend] talked it over with God very simply and directly in prayer. Moreover, he did not talk with God as to some vast and far-off shadowy being but conceived of God as being with him in his office, in his home, on the street, in his automobile, always near by as a partner, as a close associate.”

– Dr. Norman Vincent Peale, The Power of Positive Thinking

Norman Vincent Peale ( 1898-1993) published The Power of Positive Thinking in 1952. It was on the New York Times Bestseller List for 186 weeks, and it has sold 5 million copies in 15 languages. Peale was a widely-known minister and co-founded Guideposts magazine.

I had this book on CD in my car and listened to it so many times that I still remember much of it from memory. The idea that Peale presents here is a powerful one. Instead of considering The Creator to be a far-off figure, why not believe The Creator to be at your side, with every step you take? If you believe that you are a spiritual being living a human experience, then it only makes sense that God would always be with you. If you believe that you’re a specialized mammal reaching out to God, then I challenge you simply to sense The Creator’s presence. When you have a quiet mind, your five senses can find The Creator quickly.

Dr. Peale brings up the idea of prayer as conversation. So many times, we are taught that prayer is like sending a message by carrier pigeon and hoping to get a response. Fortunately, we are not limited by that definition. Moses was not the only one who could speak with God directly.  We are all able to do that when we tune into The Creator’s ever presence by our sides and in our lives. Personally, I have much new knowledge from my conversations with The Creator that I could never have gleaned by myself or from other human beings.

Namaste!

You Don’t Have to ‘Believe’

Contemporary Spiritual Master, , , ,

“The Creator exists and is part of your life regardless… You can ‘not believe’ in God, you can deny God, you can even hate God. It doesn’t matter. The Creator is still part of life and the rules of spirituality still apply.”

– Sheryl Miller

I live in an area that has many fundamentalist Christians and often I see and hear advertisements for churches that emphasize belief in God or belief in Jesus Christ. My conversations with the Creator tell me specifically that God supports all the paths/religions/belief systems that bring people closer to God, so I will not enter a conversation about holy people that have walked among us, whether it’s Jesus or Buddha or Moses or the many thousands more.

What I do want to say is that to ask me if I believe in God is akin to asking me if I believe my shirt is red. It just doesn’t matter what color anyone believes my shirt is, it is red every day of the week!

The same idea applies to the spiritual laws put in place by and governed by the Creator. Whether you believe in them or not, or use them or not, or ignore them or not, or tell your friends about them or not… they do exist: “What you give, you receive.” “Treat others as you want to be treated.” “Believe in your dreams and you’re halfway there.”

So how about taking the pressure off yourself (and others, for that matter) to believe or not believe?  If you will give your focus to putting into practice the laws of spirituality, you will bring about everything you want and make the world a better place, too.

Namaste!

Rumi – The Creator’s Dance

Ancient Spiritual Master, , , ,

The teaching below is copied from the book A Year With Rumi: Daily Readings by Coleman Barks. Jalal al-Din Muhammed Rumi (1207-1273 CE), popularly known as “Rumi,” was a Persian poet, jurist, theologian and Sufi mystic.

In your light I learn how to love

In your beauty, how to make poems.

You dance inside my chest,

where no one sees you,

but sometimes I do,

and that light becomes this art.

When we get quiet and go inside ourselves and simply observe (without judgment or pressure or expectation),  we find the Creator of All rejoicing! The Creator is there always waiting to speak with us, dancing with joy that we want to connect. As you learn to trust and love your Creator within, you uncover whatever you want: peace, gratitude, information about your purpose in life, the reason for a situation you’re in or for a person in your life, and so much more.

Take a moment, right now, no matter where you are and ask quietly, “Show me how to find You.” Then listen. Many people connecting with the Creator can hear a voice seeming to come from the right ear. Trust that the Creator wants to speak with you even more than you could ever imagine.

 

Words from Anita Moorjani

Contemporary Spiritual Master, , , , ,

Anita Moorjani’s near death experience (NDE) in 2006 and her ensuing miraculous cure of final-stage cancer is the subject of her book Dying To Be Me: My Journey from Cancer, to Near Death, to True Healing. To find it on Amazon, click here. Anita’s book was published by Hay House, and she now travels and speaks with other Hay House authors such as Louise Hay and Wayne Dyer. You can find more from Anita by following her on FaceBook.

Below is an excerpt from page 155 in her book. Please leave your thoughtful comments below.

“So in the end, my NDE brought me back to myself. I believe this is the most powerful idea for each of us: realizing that we’re here to discover and honor our own individual path. It doesn’t matter whether we renounce the material world and meditate on a mountaintop for 20 years or create a billion-dollar multinational company that employs thousands of people, giving them each a livelihood. We can attend a temple or church, sit on a beach, drink a margarita, take in a glorious sunset with a loved one, or walk through the park enjoying an ice cream. Ultimately, whichever path we choose is the right one for us, and none of these options are any more or less spiritual than the others.

I’m not saying that I’m against organized religion, but I am skeptical of any message when it leads to all the divisiveness, strife, and killing that go on in this world in the name of religion, when in truth, we’re all One — all facets of the same Whole. Human beings are so varied that some fare better with organized religion or spiritual paths, whereas others don’t. If we simply live in a way that nurtures us and allows us to express our creativity, letting us see our own magnificence, that’s the best we can possibly do. To advocate any option or doctrine as being the one true way would only serve to limit who we are and what we’ve come here to be.” – Anita Moorjani, Dying to Be Me: My Journey from Cancer, to Near Death, to True Healing

Peace to you today and every day!

 

The Creator’s Protection

Talks With God, , , ,

Sheryl’s Prayer of Protection: “Thank you, Creator of All, for your protection. You have protected me from my enemies, past, present and future, and both real and imagined. You have thwarted their evil schemes, so that I may do your work unimpeded.”

I was in great distress a few days ago after dealing with people who are toxic to my life. When was the last time you dealt with one of those people? I believe the Creator sends us these people for us to deal with directly, but then the Creator wants us to send them on their way, preferably wishing them peace or love as the door is hitting them on their backside!  (Lol! I’ll probably get a little reprimand from the Creator for THAT one!)

So, in my case, I have needed several months to directly deal with said toxic people, and I sent them away with peace, but I still had fear on my part. I feared direct and indirect retribution from them based on past abuse, and the fear was consuming me. It was time to talk with God.

Always the voice of love, reason and calm, The Creator inspired the prayer above, which I wrote down. Saying it slowly either out loud or silently brings me safety, protection and the ability to breathe easily. No human is larger than The Creator of All, and this prayer makes that clear not to God, who already knows it so well, but to ME!

The Creator of All wants to help you, too. Just reach out…

Be Still and The World Will Come to You

Ancient Spiritual Master, , ,

Verse 35 from the Tao Te Ching 

Written by Lao Tzu (ca. 6th Century BCE). Translation by Michael Rossman (1940-2008). View the entire text here.

Grasp the formless form
and the world comes to you.
All come to you unharmed
for peace, security, rest.

Music and tidbits
tempt the passerby to pause.
By mouth the way
is tasteless,
it can’t be seen,
it can’t be heard.
but use doesn’t exhaust it.

——————————————————————————

It is clear that the “formless form” and “the way” refer to what I call The Creator of All. In spiritual circles and many religious ones, too, becoming quiet is prescribed for bringing peace, creativity and power to one’s self.

Franz Kafka (1883-1924) wrote, “You need not leave your room. Remain sitting at your table and listen.  You need not even listen, simply wait. You need not even wait, just learn to become quiet, and still, and solitary. The world will offer itself to you be unmasked.  It has no choice; it will roll in ecstasy at your feet.”

God Speaks About the Environment

Talks With God, ,

The following is an excerpt from the book, Talking With the Creator, Book 1, by Sheryl Miller and The Creator of All.

Sheryl: Do you have a message for us regarding recycling or the use of trees or water?

God: Yes. Everyone, every where in the world, has the ability to live his/her life to the fullest, and in doing so, be cognizant of being respectful of the Earth and its resources. However, unless one is an Environmental Engineer by passion and by calling, it’s not necessary to over-focus on one’s carbon footprint.

Do you understand? Make care of the Earth something you do on the side. Think of preschoolers playing with classroom toys. The children are not allowed to throw, stomp on or misuse the toys. Still, from time to time, a toy gets broken. That’s okay. And that’s how I want you to think of the Earth. Use her, explore her, take care of her, but don’t worry if you can’t find a recycling bin when it’s time to throw away your garbage. And if you forget to turn off the lights in your kitchen because you’re in a hurry to  get to your  work, don’t fret.

And above all, stop shoving the environmental message down the throats of your children! They will completely miss getting the message of taking care of people, of sharing, of being kind, and of pursuing their dreams. That is so much more important than turning off the water when they brush their teeth!

Sheryl: I can feel your passion about this.

God: Yes, I am aware that there is a group of people who care more passionately about garbage than about people. It is very disturbing. When my senior citizens have guilt over not taking their recycling to the curb, rather than tending to their own physical needs, I have a problem. The same goes with parents of young children. The expectation for everyone to recycle is a human expectation, not an expectation from me.

If everyone who lived on Earth simply did what they could to clean up after themselves, without taking undue attention away from their work, that would be enough. That goes for individuals, and it goes for companies and industries, too.

Does that make sense?

 

Courage

Talks With God

Sheryl: Hi, God!

God: Hey, Me! So, I like this new blog. You are reaching out, my friend.

Sheryl: Yep, it’s time for you to spread your wings and reach yet another group of followers. How many blogs do you think have been created in and around you?

God: Oh, a zillion or so. (laughs) I love that number. It’s so much funnier than saying “almost infinity.” So, let me share about courage.  Courage is a simple thing that can be difficult to accomplish. When you are faced with something you know you need to do or say, you do or say it, even if it will be difficult.

Sheryl: I apologize if this sounds curt, but that’s not exactly rocket science. I mean, a whole lot of people have defined courage in this way.

God: And that’s what makes this so tough. Because you have all heard this a million times, but when it comes the time for execution, you fall on your faces. You are in a great hurry to get from point A to point B, not taking the time to be courageous in your journey. Instead, you take the easier route. You avoid someone who needs an attitude correction. You don’t follow through on a promise, because it takes too much time from your day. You don’t step up to volunteer your time, because your personal agenda is “more important” than that of a group who supports you.

Courage! Get some!!  (smiles)