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NOTE: Saturday is Prose & Poetry Day here on the blog, a time to take a moment once a week to relax the mind, open the heart, and access the soul through the gift of prose from one of the many books of The New Spirituality, and through the poetry of m. Claire, author of the forthcoming volume, Openings.
This week’s prose…the first in a series of excerpts from the newest CWG book, Happier Than God, to be released in nine weeks by Hampton Roads Publishing Company.

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Life was meant to be happy.
Do you believe that?
It’s true. I know it doesn’t seem like it when you look around, but it’s true. Life was meant to be happy.
You were meant to be happy. And if you are happy, you were meant to be happier. Even if you’re very happy, you can be even happier.
How happy? Just how happy can you be? Well…you can be happier than God.
I once heard a lady describing a gentleman who was very wealthy. She said, “He’s got more money than God!” That’s how I mean this. I mean to use the ultimate superlative.
I also mean the words I have used literally. I mean just what the words say. Which brings up a lot of questions. Does this mean that God even experiences the thing called “happiness”? (Yes.) Does that mean that God experiences unhappiness? (No.) If we can be happier than God, does that mean that we are separate from God? (No.) Then how is this possible?
Well, as it happens there is a formula by which you can be happier than God. All mystics have known it, most teachers of mystical wisdom have known it, some contemporary spiritual messengers know it, but it’s become, through the centuries, sort of a “mystery formula”…because it’s not talked about very much. Not very much at all.
Why? Simple. Very few of the folks to whom spiritual teachers and messengers might be talking have been able to believe what the “mystery formula” is said to be able to produce. And when you talk about things that no one believes, you can become very unpopular.
So even today, in what is supposed to be a time of intellectual and spiritual enlightenment, not many teachers and spiritual messengers reveal this formula, even if they know it. Or if they are talking about it, they are talking about only half of it. Most of them are keeping the other half, the most breathtaking part of this formula, under wraps. So what we have here is an amazing truth, but you don’t know the half of it.
What good is a truth if it’s not fully revealed? None at all, of course. In fact, only half a truth can be misleading. It can even be dangerous. So we’re going to speak the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth here. We’ll start with a look at…

…why you’re holding this book, and when we finish, we’ll have described an extraordinary mechanism.
Okay? Good. Here goes.
Ask yourself why you picked up this book.
Never mind. I’ll tell you. You picked up this book on an impulse.
And where did that impulse come from?
You. It came from you.
Why? Why did the impulse originate in you? What caused that to happen? And from what part of you did it come?
Those answers take up much of this book—and they’re pretty darn exciting. But for now, let’s move to an even larger question: How is it that this book just happened to be here—right here, where you are, right now—for you to even see, much less have an impulse about?
Ah, yes, now that is the key question. If you knew the answer to that question you could change your whole life.
Here’s the answer to that question. Get ready to change your whole life…
(This series of excerpts from Happier Than God continues in this space next Saturday. The book is scheduled for release March 1 and may be pre-ordered today at www.Amazon.com)
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This week’s gift of poetry
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We say that we will have a Good Life.
This is a guarantee
if We are kind
to one another.
If We are patient.
If, when I speak, you listen
and if when you speak, I hear you.
This is assured,
if We continue to look
for one another.
If We want to find.
If, when I am here, I am seen,
and if, when you are here, I see you.
We say that this will be a Good Life.
This is a guarantee
if We are Naked
with one another.
If We are clothesless.
If, when I am vulnerable,
you shelter,
and if, when you are defenseless,
I protect.
(If, We Are Naked – m. claire – copyright 2007 – all rights reserved)

For more of the work of this new poetic voice you are invited to www.mclairepoet.com.