What to tell a beginner?

[AlFike]

The Divine Love in our souls adds a component to everything we do Beth. As we become more attuned to this Love energy, our actions, thoughts and intentions begin to be in greater harmony with God's Laws of Love and Will. This shift towards Divine Love rather than natural love is gradual but consistent so it would be difficult to delineate the difference until one is far along in the process. Since the process begins in the soul and the mind continues to insist on its own formula and reality, one might never become aware of the difference until they graduate to the spirit spheres. For those who have more of an intuitive nature and sensitivity, it may become evident and felt early on. For those with powerful minds and intellects, obviously it will take more effort to shift into soul perceptions. Since the majority of the changes are centered in the soul, eventually moving up to 'mind' consciousness, we rely on faith to sustain our commitment in prayer. Most feel something in prayer, some are immune to consciously feeling the energies of Divine Love until it builds in strength to overcome the dominance of the mind's control, but eventually everyone feels some upliftment and effect from prayer. How we integrate this upliftment into our thinking and doing as we receive more of this blessing is primarily determined by our minds. But there is always a subtle and sometimes not so subtle force from our souls and from spirit influence which will edge us closer to harmony and God's will. Often in retrospect we can see the changes of thinking, attitude and motivation but for most of us it takes many years to be able to delineate the difference between the two polarities of natural love motivation and Divine Love . Faith then is our friend and prayer our rock and anchor to this truth. All else unfolds in accordance to your capacities and will to recognize the power of Divine Love emanating from our souls and all around us from God and the Angels. Even the disciples of Jesus had trouble understanding this concept and truth until the experience of the Pentecost shook them to their bones. You are certainly not alone in your questionings and frustrations but I urge you to hang in there. The very fact that others bear witness to the effects of this blessing validates its existence and potentials. May you find that true moment of recognition and understanding of soul transformation through Divine Love. My prayers are with you my sister. God bless.......Al

[Geoff]

Dear bro,

I am not sure what this latest post of yours added. This is the difference between us:

But I still am unaware of a specific activity that is exclusively about the Divine Love path besides praying for Divine Love. I should qualify that I mean a specific activity for beginners ... as I'd grant that channeling Celestial angels or guides is an exclusively Divine Love activity.

To take a very simple example. Expiation. What makes expiation DL based as opposed to NL? This is where I think putting things in boxes is not terribly useful. But I suspect many activities people have undertaken in the past towards "expiation" would be put in a box by yourself. We know for sure that NL will expiate. We also know taking the DL route - i.e. PRAYING for DL - is faster. But "expiation" itself as an activity does not fit in just one box. Even if you know someone does not pray for Divine Love, you cannot say they have no Divine Love. We know this because of this message.

I just wish we would stop putting people and activities into boxes and labelling those boxes. Like Yoga. Yogananda developed his own Yoga. Called "Kriya Yoga". Meant to be for connecting to God. Now however its secret, not public. And those that teach it, certainly do not seem to have the limited D.L. insight that Yogananda had. (I have a Kriya Yoga manual and its all NL) But my point is you could have Yoga as a DL activity which attracts DL spirits. If that's your main criteria for looking at things. But D.L. spirits do deal with every human. They just follow guidance. So that's what we should do. Just follow guidance and leave all this human judgement to God.

hugs
Geoff

[Terry Adler]

What a great conversation! I am a "johnny come lately", re-entering weeks after the start of this thread.
So much has been said that I agree with. And I see fundamental agreement amongst all who commented, but we are all challenged to find the language that elicits understanding from others.

I don't see a duality or tension between the natural and the Divine path, rather I see a complementarity.
Let me explain what I mean . . .

For me, the Divine Love path is all about developing an intimate relationship with God, a relationship where I am talking with God, calling upon God throughout my waking hours, inviting God's help as I am sleeping and desiring to serve God both waking and sleeping. I am far from my goal, but I am happy to say I am making progress. I see natural pathway strategies as possible tools to help me achieve this goal. I also recognize that some natural pathway beliefs and practises can be time-consuming detours rather than fast tracks to my destination. So, I am very selective about what I choose to use to strengthen my relationship with God, and what I see as a waste of my time (though they may not be a waste of time for others).

For example, knowing that the one thing that for sure will transform my soul is prayer for God's Love, I would rather spend time doing that than attending one of Joe Dispenza's workshops, or reading "A Course in Miracles". For some, these may be steps that bring them closer to God, but not for me.

What I had to do to build a relationship with God was to recognize and clear the barriers within me to such a relationship. Barriers like beliefs that I am not worthy (though everyone else on the planet is!), feelings of anger, distrust towards God, plus all the feelings related to the false beliefs I carried over my lifetime. So, I needed to change my inner self-dialogue. Instead of self-judgment, I had to maintain awareness of my discordant beliefs and feelings while at the same time staying in a place of self-compassion, viewing myself through God's eyes of Love. I had to hold both in awareness so I could choose to release one and strengthen the other. I have had to practise mindfulness to maintain awareness, especially of the habit patterns, because only with awareness do I have choice, whether to dig the pit of despond deeper or to reach for the Love.

This is not the usual response of the material mind (mine anyway), which is more like self-blame, self-judgment, self-pity, accompanied by overwhelm, hopelessness plus patterns of negative thinking that have become habitual and are activated often below the level of self-awareness. Or, the material mind can look solely to mind-based strategies for resolution. I prefer to pair so-called natural pathway, mind-based practices with prayer for Divine Love, a combo which greatly accelerates positive change for me.

I really resonate with what Jane says, about falling in love with God. At a certain point, I received enough Divine Love to feel it like a gift within me. I could choose to be in that Love, to build on that Love, to nurture that relationship, or stay mired in my old, familiar thought patterns with their accompanying horrible feelings.

With every prayer, my faith grows. And with it, my ability to manage my thinking, to know Divine Love as a better choice than feelings of overwhelm, helplessness, fear in the face of uncertainty in my personal life and the wider world, a better choice than anxiously projecting into the future, imagining catastrophes.

I know I have a very long way to go, I know I will be challenged greatly, but I now trust God and myself to turn to God. And I know that no one else but me can clean up my inner life and invite God's Love to transform it. God needs me to do that, as no one else can do it for me or as well as me. And God needs every single soul to turn to Love in order for His plan to be realized.

For me, faith is not a belief system. It is a feeling that comes in prayer, the feeling that God is real, God is Love, God is here, now. I am the one who puts up barriers and with God's help, I can release these, even those I am not consciously aware of.

Love to you all,
Terry

[AlFike]

Well said Terry. Its the commitment to the practice of prayer for God's Love that is the corner stone to this conversation. Being human, living in a very diverse world, we are likely to add various ideas and spiritual practices to this one key undertaking. Whether one wants to put these ideas and expressions of spirituality into boxes or make a big messy stew out of it is up to the individual. But if you add too many ingredients then the individual flavours will be very indistinct. In every case, focusing on whatever practice you adopt will bring at least some results. Being unfocused, not so much. As we all know, praying for Divine Love is the highest blessing to nourish the soul and this simple teaching will bring what the soul requires for its growth and awakening. The act and practice of prayer is what we teach the beginner and all else follows from there. If the individual wants to seek in other directions then the focus is diminished to some degree but as I said, being human almost ensures distraction and a blurring of the intent. I am not saying that people will not benefit from these 'other' efforts because that is not the case. Its what you focus on, especially in the beginning is the key issue and the key message of this forum. Divine Love is our path to soul awakening and often things like Yoga and Joe Dispensa can help us in our mindful/physical practices which in turn can lead to a greater focus in prayer but if the cart is put before the horse, it is not so helpful.

[BethM]

Divine Love is our path to soul awakening and often things like Yoga and Joe Dispensa can help us in our mindful/physical practices which in turn can lead to a greater focus in prayer but if the cart is put before the horse, it is not so helpful.

I don't see anyone here trying to put the cart before the horse, or to argue for the priority of natural love methods.

I am completely with Terry ... the value of natural love practices is to "recognize and clear the barriers within" to "developing an intimate relationship with God."

[Geoff]

Divine Love is our path to soul awakening and often things like Yoga and Joe Dispensa can help us in our mindful/physical practices which in turn can lead to a greater focus in prayer but if the cart is put before the horse, it is not so helpful.

We know Mother Teresa passed to the Fifth. Thats an astounding amount of DL. Yet she would have never prayed directly for DL. And I suspect if her prayer practise were analysed here, it would be dismissed as "natural love". And this is simply because we cannot tell what the soul is doing, only what the mind shows.

Unless someone comes to you Al, and ASKS how they can improve their receipt of Divine Love, I don't think either you or I have any call to pass comment, or think judgmental thoughts over how they live their lives. Just love them for who they are.

hugs
Geoff

[Eva]

I echo Geoff that none of us have any right or indeed the ability to judge another person's journey as to natural love path or Divine Love path because to outside appearances, the paths are parallel as the message in TGRABJ, vol. 1, p. 12 says. The only difference is in the soul -- and none of is privy to see what is happening in another's soul.

Here is another interesting message that Geoff referred to on the forum -- this or another thread --
https://new-birth.net/contemporary-mess ... july-2001/, which in part says this:

I am most pleased that you have given us this opportunity to write you in answer to your question of what percent of people who are not aware of the Divine Love actually receive It. At the heart of this, of course, is the question of what you may do to more effectively bring the truth to the world, and so I will answer in the best way that I can - as the Divine Love in my soul allows me to.

It is the truth that many souls who have no intellectual understanding of the way to receive Divine Love have received It. When I say “many,” and D__ asks “how many?” answer for him that it is more than he would think. Percentages of souls would be difficult to estimate because this number changes all the time, but I could safely say for D__’s benefit that not much less than half of these populations of non-Christians have actually received small portions of the Divine Love.

If this is true, this is something that should make us very humble. And it talks about non-Christians, not just among Christians about whom the messages say that many church goers have some of the Divine Love.

So there are MANY in the world -- Christians and non-Christians -- that have at least some Divine Love in their souls without having actively prayed for it.