{"id":117,"date":"2007-11-05T01:01:01","date_gmt":"2007-11-05T01:01:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/conversationswithgod\/2007\/11\/seeing-things-in-a-new-way.html"},"modified":"2007-11-05T01:01:01","modified_gmt":"2007-11-05T01:01:01","slug":"seeing-things-in-a-new-way","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/conversationswithgod\/2007\/11\/seeing-things-in-a-new-way.html","title":{"rendered":"Seeing Things in a New Way"},"content":{"rendered":"

The first step in creating the Holy Experience is believing that it is possible for you to have it.
\nNow you may think that this is an elementary step\u2014almost a given. Yet many people find this a very difficult step because they find it hard to believe that any kind of \u201choly experience\u201d can happen to them.
\n(1) Some believe it is impossible to have the Holy Experience because they do not believe that such an experience even exists.
\n(2) Others believe it is impossible to have such an experience because, while it may exist, they do not know what it is or how to access it. They believe it is understandable and accessible only to aescetics and monks and holy ones\u2014people who have devoted their entire lives to the search for inner truth and higher realities.
\n(3) Finally, still others believe that while it may be accessible to regular, ordinary people, they, themselves are not worthy. They believe this for one reason or another. Some feel that there is something specific that a person has to be, do, or have in order to enter into the Holy Experience. It is reserved for a special class of people who, while they may be ordinary, are single-minded in their determination to know of this experience, and are clear that their particular doctrine\u2014which tells them that there is only one way to have the Holy Experience\u2014is absolute and correct and is to be applied without exception. Others feel that because of their own behavior in this life they are not sufficiently \u201choly\u201d to have the experience in any event.
\n=====================================================================
\nThis is another in a continuing series of blogs on The Holy Experience. The series continues next Monday in this space.<\/strong>
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\nIt is with these varying ideas that people approach the Holy Experience\u2014and life itself. And ideas, of course, rule all human experience. The idea that one has about anything produces one\u2019s reality around that. And where do ideas have their birth? In how you look at things. Your perspective about a thing is what creates your idea about it.
\nI have become more and more clear about this with every passing year since the publication of the first Conversations with God book in 1995\u2014ten years ago to this writing. And now, in the latest and final dialogue book, Home with God <\/em>(ATRIA Books, March 2006)…<\/p>\n


\n…this progression is described specifically.
\nAccording to the text:
\nPerspective creates perception, and perception creates experience. The experience that perception creates for you is what you call \u201ctruth.\u201d
\nBecause I know this I try very hard these days to look at everything from the perspective of my highest desire. This means not looking at things through the prism of what I expect or imagine or think realistically will happen, but rather, seeing things as I choose and desire for them to happen.
\nThis is not easy. I find that I have been programmed by society itself to look for the worst in everything, to anticipate the least desirable outcome, to worry about and fret about and agonize over how bad things can be, rather than how good something could turn out. I have had to fight this tendency toward pessimism all my life. What\u2019s funny about this is that I am at the very same time the supreme optimist. I believe that I walk in luck, that God is always with me, that everything good happens to me, and that I can get out of anything\u2014any jam, any situation\u2014and land on my feet.
\nSo how these two sides of me got to juxtaposed I don\u2019t know, but they are. Fortunately for me the positive side shows itself 80% of the time and the negative just 20% of the time\u2014but both sides are definitely there. So I have to remember to think positively and eliminate negative thoughts from my mental diet.
\n(Incidentally, a wonderful help in this regard is the book Ask and It Is Given, by Jerry and Esther Hicks. It shows you how you can use your feelings as creative tools, and I highly recommend it.)
\nThis series on The Holy Experience continues in this space tomorrow.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The first step in creating the Holy Experience is believing that it is possible for you to have it. Now you may think that this is an elementary step\u2014almost a given. 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