The Stages Of A Sacred Contract! Divine Grace & Acts Of Light.

Transcript

Uploaded 1-11-22

Hello Light Wizards. So we're back with another read through of Caroline Mason's book. And I swear that I read other authors. I don't just read her books. However, this New Year, this Mercury Retrograde. Is calling for me to review how my energy's leaking. Where my energy is going. What my contract is evaluating my connection with all that is and with. The force and how I can relinquish my need to control. How life unfolds, what other people are doing. Not that I really try to control other people are doing, but you know, there are things that you just care about people. You don't want them to make a mistake. But people have their own lessons. They have their own sacred contract. So we're going to be reading through Save Your Contracts, his beautiful book. I got this. Um, I started reading it on September 26, 2020. 2:18 p.m.. And if you haven't read this book. It's I feel like it should be a textbook in school. It's school was actually teaching us stuff, right? And we're just going to read through the stages of a sacred contract. And there are five of them. So we're going to read through them. And I think that. You should pick this book up like I. If I could go through each chapter and read it to you, I would. But I want her to get the pay that she deserves. Okay.

So we're going to start with the first one, which is contact. A moment of connection occurs between you and the divine. According to the biblical account in Genesis seven, direct encounters occurred between Yahweh and Abraham in the first encounter. We're told that the Lord spoke to Abraham, but in subsequent directives the Lord appeared several times to Him, and the Word of the Lord came onto Abraham in a vision. Jesus, while being baptized by John in the River Jordan, experienced enlightenment as heaven was opened, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and lightning came on him. Matt 316. For the Prophet Muhammad. The connection came while he was meditating in a cave not far from Mecca. In the angel Djibril Djibril, the Arabic name for Gabriel, delivered his first revelation from Allah. The Buddha did not believe in a supreme being, although he did accept the presence of many lesser gods from the Hindu pantheon. Yet during his enlightenment, as he sat in prolonged meditation under the boat. Body high body tree. Body High tree, he connected with a level of universal knowledge and wisdom that rendered him omniscient. We will all be introduced to the divine through ordinary an extraordinary experiences, even as spiritual messengers are not involved. For instance, the divine influence is evident when a cluster of disasters occurs in a remarkably short period of time and reroutes your life.

This Aster means from the stars, indicating a long held belief that bad things happen for reasons known by the heavens. Or an unforeseen opportunity might present itself. The divine might also be revealed through dreams, extraordinary coincidences, a transcendent experience of the natural world, or during prayer or meditation. The hallmark of a divine experience, regardless of what form it takes, is that it gets your attention and leads you to think something out of the ordinary might be happening to you. Divine encounters will be ongoing as opposed to a one time phenomena. That does not mean that disasters will be continuous, but it does mean that once you make a conscious connection with divine energy, that presence is forever within your awareness in life. Your encounters may not be as dramatic or clear cut as Abraham's, but the outcome is generally irreversible. Take a few minutes to examine your life for turning points that represent some departure from the tribal values in which you were raised. Perhaps you encountered an inspirational figure or mentor, either in person or through reading or the arts. Ask yourself how that individual book or esthetic experience entered your life and draw a line from that point to where you are today. Then add other points along the line where other individuals or experiences helped to reinforce the initial message.

And for me, this is clearly why I keep talking about all the evil I see that is occurring with this mass mind manipulation and genetic. Destructive terror because. I'm not afraid to speak what I see. And I don't care about the tribe because I am my own person now. Leo and Mercury. Sorry for Ram Dass. The moment of contact occurred on his first trip to India when he was still known as Richard Alpert. One night during his travels, Ram Dass related. Really you related and be here now. He had a vision of his mother who had died the year before spleen ailment in which she urged him to not turn back on his search for inner liberation. Not long after that vision, he was standing out under the stars, thinking about his mother and felt her presence guiding him. Ooh, I have to stop for a second. I'm having, like, a really big flashback to. I feel as though this is a past life memory of mine where. Oh, okay. I'm in front of a congregation right now and I am reading from some sort of scripture. And. Now it has evolved into this life where I'm reading. To you through this. Hot damn. Who? Not long after that vision, he was standing out under the stars, thinking about his mother and felt her presence guiding him. The next day he was taken to meet the man who would become his guru, whom they simply. Then simply. Uh. Well, first I have to work on my. Me, me, me, me, me. Uh, yeah. Not long after the vision, he was standing out under the stars, thinking about his mother and felt her presence guiding him.

The next day, he was taken to meet the man who would become his guru, whom he then called simply Morarji. The first thing Maharaj asked was whether Alpert would give him the expensive Land Rover that he had driven there and that belonged to a friend of Alpert's. A request he quickly denied. Some time later, Maharaj took Alpert inside and said to him, You were out under the stars last night. You were thinking about your mother. MAHARAJ You somehow knew that Alpert's mother had died the previous year. She got very big in the stomach before she died. The guru said. Spleen. She died of spleen. The first thing that happened, Albert later wrote of that moment, was that my mind raced faster and faster to try to get leverage to get a hold on what he had just done. I went through every super CIA paranoia I've ever had. Who is he? Who does he represent? Where's the button? He pushes where the file appears. And why have they brought me here? None of it would gel. It was just too impossible that this could have happened this way. The guy I was with didn't know all that stuff. And I was a tourist in a car and the whole thing was just too far out. He tried to relate the experience to those he had had with psychedelic drugs, but it didn't fit that pattern. And instead his mind continued to speed up. I felt like, what happens when a computer is fed in in so insoluble problem insoluble and so l u b l e. The bell rings and the red light goes on. And the machine stops. And my mind just gave up. It burned out its circuitry, its zeal to have an explanation. I needed something to get closure at that rational level. And there wasn't anything. There just wasn't a place I could hide in my head about this. And at that same moment, I felt this extremely violent pain in my chest and a tremendous wrenching feeling. And I started to cry and I cried and I cried and I cried and I wasn't happy and I wasn't sad. It was not that kind of crying. The only thing I could say was that it felt like I was home. Like the journey was over. Like I'd finished.

At that point, Alpert was willing to offer Maharaja the Land Rover anything else he wanted, although the guru simply took him on as his disciple for no fee. Through the medium of an Indian holy man, the American academic had made contact with divine power, and his life was irrevocably changed in a way that LSD, insight and psilocybin would never have accomplished. Hot damn. To heeding the call. Having been having been awakened, you apply new wisdom to your life at hand. Abraham's first step after receiving his directive from God at 75 years of age, was to set out with his wife, family and possessions and head for the land of Cannon Keenan. Awakening to the divine is meaningful only as a step in the journey of spiritual transformation. It is a big first step, to be sure, but then you must act and take another step. As Abraham showed an old Zen saying has it before enlightenment, chop wood and carry water. After enlightenment, chop wood and carry water. Heeding the call of the Divine Within does not mean retiring to a life of contemplation in the mountains of Nepal or a cabin in the north woods. As rigorous and demanding as the traditional management ascetic monastic life can be, with its enforced periods of silence and vows of obedience. It is also a somewhat privileged life in which the responsibilities of raising a family and earning a living are replaced by prayer and study in a controlled environment. Today's mystics are more likely to continue to live in the material world, but with an entirely different orientation and set of values a challenge that can easily be as rigorous as any cloistered life.

Once you feel the stirrings of initial contact with the divine, look for ways to act on that experience. Ram Dass has said emphatically that genuine spiritual awakening always manifests as a desire to be of service to others. That service can take a bride, forms my riot, forms parenting, teaching, counseling, healing, volunteering, or any form of creative work, as long as its underlying goal is to help others realize their divine potential in some form, as Jesus says in the Gospel of Matthew. By their fruits will you know them. And in many of his parables, he places acts of compassion above, above religious practices. Your compassionate acts are the physical manifestation of all the inner spiritual work you are doing. The Apostle James, in his letter to fellow Jewish Christians, asks James 214 to 16. How does it help my brothers when someone who has never done a single good act claims to have faith? Well, that faith brings salvation. If one of the brothers or one of the sisters is in need of clothes and has not enough food to live on, and one of you says to them, I wish you will keep yourself warm and eat plenty without giving them these bare necessities of life. Then what good is that? In the same way, faith. If good deeds do not go with it. It is quite dead. It is by my deeds that I will show you my faith. Like Jesus, James was steeped in the Jewish tradition that values compassion so highly.

The Hebrew Word Mitzvah refers to any of the hundreds of commandments Jews are traditionally bound to follow. But in customary usage, mitzvah means an act of kindness. Three. Renaming. You assume a new name or role with spiritual significance? After God established his covenant with Abraham, he gave him the name Abraham and renamed his wife Sara to signify his expanded role as father of a great nation. Although the name had literal new meaning, its deeper significance, Lane Abraham's reinterpret reorientation from a traditional clan patriarch to the sire not only of a new nation, but of a new spiritual paradigm. As Thomas Cahill describes it in his book, The Gift of the Jews. That paradigm includes the Jewish people's belief in a unified universe that makes sense in which each individual has value and significance, as opposed to the impersonal compassion and less ethos of the polytheism of his day. The descendants of Abraham, according to Cahill, give us even more than that. They gave us the conscience of the West, the belief that this God who is one. Who is one is not the God of outward show, but the still small voice of a conscience, the God of compassion, the God who will be there, the God who cares about each of his creatures, especially the human beings He created in his own image. And then he insists, we do the same. In the Roman Catholic tradition, boys and girls at about the age of 13 take a new confirmation name. But the ceremony in which they are confirmed in their faith. Like the bar and bar mitzvah of Jewish tradition. This ceremony is an echo of an ancient initiation ritual.

A significant number of adults have undergone renaming rituals as well. Often as a result of embarking on a consciously spiritual path, initiates into the various branches of Buddhism, Sufism. Yoga, the dance that onto Vedanta. Vedanta. And other mystical traditions, too, may take or are given names in the ritual language of the respective tradition to indicate their new spiritual identity. When Neem Karoly Baba gave Richard Alpert the spiritual name Ram Dass, it marked Alpert's entry into a life of devotion to the spiritual needs of the other people. I don't think I took on a new name except like Wizard. Which totally fits me because I love wizard's wizardry. Witchcraft, which is. JJ V Light Wizard. James Vanek Light Wizard. Most of us, of course, do not assume an actual name when we embark on our path. Okay. Never mind. And yet you may feel significantly changed. That may signal that change in a variety of ways. You may create. You may create a home alter or other sacred space where you live. Set time aside each day for prayer and meditation. Work with a teacher or spiritual director to guide your development, create or join a small community of like minded souls that meets regularly to advance your spiritual practice or change your diet or other habits to reflect the new self that you feel emerging within you. In the sense that a name signifies an identity, these changes in spiritual identity are the metaphorical equivalent of renaming. Well, that makes a lot more sense, right?

Okay, we have two more left. This book is brilliant. Four assignments. Throughout life, you encounter extraordinary opportunities and challenges that require continual transitions and adjustments. Abraham was a Klan leader and a man of some means. Yet nothing in his past seemed to indicate that he would father to nations of people, as well as two of the great spiritual traditions in history, Judaism and Islam. Abraham's assignments included challenges that were both physical, traveling to a new land and emotional intellectual dealing with Pharaoh and other foreign leaders. In a vividly detailed scene in Genesis 18, even took it upon himself to argue with the Lord that the lives of the righteous in Sodom and Gomorrah should be spared, though he himself was but dust and ashes. The extent to which he accepted and handled all his challenges as a man and soul makes him a worthy model for coming to terms with the contract. At crucial points in our lives, we are placed in situations that require of us unaccustomed skill, courage or wisdom. Such moments are indications that our sacred contracts, a sacred contract, is in play. But how we respond to these moments is up to us. We grow primarily through our challenges, especially those life changing moments when we begin to recognize aspects of our nature that make us different from the family and culture in which we have been raised. Swimming against the current, which may begin as adolescent rebelliousness but later provides valuable opportunities for artistic, political or spiritual expression becomes part of our energy vocabulary. Oh, my God. Oh, my God.

Examine your own life and look for unusual challenges that present that presented themselves and that seem to go against the grain. More or less forcing you to make changes that you might not otherwise have made. Often we are unhappy with how well we respond to such challenges and opportunities. But total competence, success or victory isn't always necessary as long as you make some response. The old truism whatever doesn't kill you, makes you stronger, may well apply. Don't be overly harsh in your self assessment, but look for unexpected results. By his own account, Christopher Reeve wanted to die after riding accident, left him a quadriplegic and he asked his wife to pull the plug on his respirator. But in time, he became to the point where he chose not only to live, but to show other people how to live. He chose to embody the truth that your value as a human soul does not decline just because your body is seriously impaired. He accepted what was necessary to reach its highest potential. It's quite possible that he would not have been able to do that if he had not been injured. Although his track record before the accident already shows an orientation to higher goals, still, the sight of Superman in a wheelchair is an image of such archetypal power that that alone has doubtless caused many people to rethink their own lives. The last one five surrender. You were given ongoing tests that ask the question, which world will you choose to follow that of the divine or that of the earth? Abraham son Isaac meant everything to him. Yet when God told Abraham to sacrifice the boy, he set out to do what was asked. Although the command was the most difficult order of his life and clearly seemed to go against his best interests, Abraham chose to follow the voice of the divine.

Abraham's response is indicative of the faith you need to have that your contract will never ask more of you than you are able to give. Abraham's response is indicative. Of the faith. You need to have that your contract will never ask more of you than you were able to give. You will never finish the process of choice and surrender until you have surrendered all to the will of the divine. Just when you feel you've reached your limits, your past pushed further. Perhaps your career or relationship seems to decline faster. For instance, the harder you try to revive it, then maybe you decide to let God take over your life's direction come what may. And it takes off but an unexpected direction. Or perhaps you feel an inner urging to try a more creative line of work that is financially risky, but could repay you with a deeper sense of fulfillment. Should you follow your intuition? Perhaps you feel drawn to include more spiritual activity in your daily life, even as your rational mind is saying that you should be putting in more time at work, earning more money, laying away a retirement nest egg. This is where you need to combine intuition and intellect and use a symbolic perspective of your internal and external urgings so that you can discern the voice of the divine within. We'll talk more about how to develop your symbolic site in later chapters. So go get this book.

All five stages of your contract overlap and interweave throughout the arc of your life. And this is especially true of the stage of surrender. Abraham surrendered to God's will when he followed his voice and left home alone in advanced age. He continued to surrender as the voice of the Divine Within led him through Egypt into Canaan, when he had to lead an army to rescue his brother lot from captivity and invading forces. And when his rational mind told him that it was impossible for him at 100 and Sarah, 19, to have a child in order to sacrifice his son was perhaps his greatest act of surrender. In response to his toughest challenge, as we continue to examine how these five stages unfolded in the lives of the great spiritual leaders Jesus, Muhammad and the Buddha, please look for ways in which the sages apply to your own life. Don't focus only on the extraordinary details of their careers. But also on their symbolic meaning and underlying truths for one extraordinary paradox lies at the heart of each of their histories. Although they were uncertain of their sacred contract at key points along the way, and sometimes questioned or even asked to be released from it, they nonetheless surrendered to divine will. Each of those points. I've nothing to say. I keep asking that. Holy shit. The Joy de la wizard's.