Teachings Of Abraham Quotes

My father taught me to work; he did not teach me to love it.

If something you want is slow to come to you, it can be for only one reason: You are spending more time focused upon its absence than you are about its presence. If

If you want it and expect it, it will be yours very soon.

Outside his office my father had a framed copy of a letter written by Abraham Lincoln to his son’s teacher, translated into Pashto. It is a very beautiful letter, full of good advice. “Teach him, if you can, the wonder of books…But also give him quiet time to ponder the eternal mystery of birds in the sky, bees in the sun, and the flowers on a green hillside,” it says. “Teach him it is far more honorable to fail than to cheat.

Education does not mean teaching people what they do not know. It means teaching them to behave as they do not behave.

He was teaching me how to die, just as he'd taught me how to live.

that nothing will come into your experience unless you invite it through your thought—with emotional

Rather than being so ready to jump into action to get the things that you want, we say think them into being; see them, visualize them, and expect them—and they will be.

In order for things to change, you have to see them as you want them to be rather than continuing to observe them as they are.

There are no two hours alike. Every hour is unique and the only one given at the moment, exclusive and endlessly precious. Judaism teaches us to be attached to holiness in time; to learn how to consecrate sanctuaries that emerge from the magnificent stream of a year.

I spent as much time as I could with Ghosh. I wanted every bit of wisdom he could impart to me. All sons should write down every word of what their fathers have to say to them. I tried. Why did it take an illness for me to recognize the value of time with him? It seems we humans never learn. And so we relearn the lesson every generation and then want to write epistles. We proselytize to our friends and shake them by the shoulders and tell them, "Seize the day! What matters is THIS moment!" Most of us can't go back and make restitution. We can't do a thing about our should haves and our could haves. But a few lucky men like Ghosh never have such worries; there was no restitution he needed to make, no moment he failed to seize. Now and then Ghosh would grin and wink at me across the room. He was teaching me how to die, just as he'd taught me how to live.

Do they listen?" He held up a finger. "Every year one does," he said, ginning, "But that one makes it worthwhile. Even Jesus only did twelve. I try to get one a year.

It makes no difference whether you want the specifics of it or not; it is the vibrational essence of the subject of your attention that is attracted. That which you really, really want, you get—and that which you really, really do not want, you get.

To better understand the Law of Attraction, see yourself as a magnet attracting unto you the essence of that which you are thinking and feeling. And so, if you are feeling fat, you cannot attract thin. If you feel poor, you cannot attract prosperity, and so on. It defies Law.

that you are free to create your world as you want it to be, while others

Your Inner Being, or Source Energy, always offers a perspective that is to your greatest advantage, and when your perspective matches that, then positive attraction is occurring.

The greatest gift that you could ever give another is the gift of your expectation of their success.

You are here for the experience of joyful expansion. It was by the power

Respected Teacher, My son will have to learn that all men are not just, all men are not true. But teach him also that for ever scoundrel there is a hero; that for every selfish politician, there is a dedicated leader. Teach him that for every enemy there is a friend. It will take time, I know; but teach him, if you can, that a dollar earned is far more valuable than five found.

When joy is really important to you, you do not allow yourself to focus upon things that do not feel good—and the result of thinking only thoughts that feel good would cause you to create a wonderful life filled with all things that you desire.

Ghosh trusted me to do whatever it is I would choose to do. That, too, is love. He'd been dead more than a quarter century and he was still teaching me about the trust that comes only from true love.

the combination of being more deliberate about what you want, more clear about what you intend, and more sensitive to the way you feel is, in essence, what the Deliberate Creative Process is all about.

The longer you focus upon something, the more powerful it becomes; and the stronger that your point of attraction is to it, the more evidence of it appears in your life experience. Whether you are focusing upon things you want or things you do not want, the evidence of your thoughts continually flows toward you.

It is our desire to help you understand that you can get to wherever you want to be from wherever you are, no matter where you are or what your current state of Being.

Oh father Abraham, what kind of people are these Christians? Their own meanness teaches them to suspect other people!

I want to know what I want. For in setting forth

True Allowing is maintaining your own balance, your own joy, no matter what they are doing.

That which is like unto itself, is drawn.

want it and expect it, it will be yours very soon. However, it is not often that you have

think them into being; see them, visualize them, and expect them—and they will be. And you will be guided, inspired, or led to the perfect action that will bring about the process that will lead you to that which you seek . . . and there is a great difference between that which we have spoken and the way most of the world is going about it.

As you talk to others about what you know they do not want, you assist them in their miscreating, because you amplify the vibration of attracting what is not wanted. If you see friends who are

Knowledge (curriculum) and behavior (pedagogy) are embedded in everyone’s core beliefs about the nature of God, humanity, and the world.

Your current situation is a platform of experience that inspires the next thought and the next. When

Teach the children so it won't be necessary to teach the adults.

it is the vibrational essence of the subject of your attention that is attracted. That which you really, really want, you get—and that which you really, really do not want, you get.

EVERY SIN CAUSES a special anxiety on the spirit, which can only be erased by repentance, which transforms the anxiety itself into inner security and courage. —RABBI ABRAHAM ISAAC KOOK (1865–1935)

miscreating. And so, when you recognize that you are feeling negative emotion—no matter why, no matter how it got there, no matter what the situation is—stop doing whatever it is that you are doing and focus your thoughts on something that feels better.

That which I give thought to and that which I believe or expect—is.

Tattitude: Wow, Jeff, who's the babe? Dangerous_pie: Your mom. Tattitude: No, the one three feet away from you. Dangerous_pie: Oh, that's Lindsey Abraham. I had her flown in from California for my personal amusement. You can look at her if you want, though. Tattitude: Sweet. But have you talked to her yet? Dangerous_pie: Uh-huh. We're really close. Tattitude: Intro me? Dangerous_pie: After class. Tattitude: Duh. Just then, I noticed that a large shadow had fallen over my screen. I couldn't even bear to look up as Mr. Laurenzano said, "Thaddeus Ibsen, Lindsey Abraham. Lindsey, Thaddeus. There, you've been introduced. NOW can I teach some science?" Wow, it looked like this was going to be my year for unusual teachers.

OUr teachers at LT&C had their A levels and the odd teaching certificate. It is astonishing how a black crepe robe worn over a coat or blouse gives a Cockney punter or a Covent Garden flower girl the gravitas of an Oxford don. Accent be damned in Africa, as long as it's foreign and you have the right skin colour.

And as you deliberately direct your thoughts and focus upon the things that you do want to draw into your experience, you will begin to receive the life experience that you desire on all subjects. Your

Christianity, Islam and Judaism, the dominant faiths in our culture, were devised to guide people living in very different circumstances to our own – put simply, deserts. How do the teachings of Christ or Abraham or Muhammad help us in the modern, post-industrial, secular world? Not to say these stories are totally obsolete; there’s some terrific advice in all of them. Primarily, though, they have become tools for oppression, segregation and conflict. The aspects of these ideologies that testify against oppression, segregation and conflict, which would seem to be the most vital bits, are consistently ignored.

Deliberately guiding your thoughts is the key to a joyful life, but a desire to feel joy is the best plan of all . . . because in the reaching for joy, you find the thoughts that attract the wonderful life you desire.

We know that words do not teach, that only life experience teaches, but the combination of life experience coupled with words that define and explain can enhance the experience of learning—and it is in that spirit that we offer these words.

It is a well known fact that Abraham Lincoln spent much of his spare time visiting wounded soldiers in Union Army hospitals. I've spent thirty years teaching history at Columbia and I don't think I've spent more than fifteen minutes in the freshman dorm. Are we the ones keeping Lincoln's memory alive? Or are we burying it?

We should expect nothing less from the language that was originally given by God, to His human family. Hebrew was the method that God chose for mankind to speak to Him, and Him to them. Adam spoke Hebrew—and your Bible confirms this. Everyone who got off the ark spoke one language—Hebrew. Even Abraham spoke Hebrew. Where did Abraham learn to speak Hebrew? Abraham was descended from Noah’s son, Shem. (Ge 11:10-26) Shem’s household was not affected by the later confusion of languages, at Babel. (Ge 11:5-9) To the contrary, Shem was blessed while the rest of Babel was cursed. (Ge 9:26) That is how Abraham retained Hebrew, despite residing in Babylon. So, Shem’s language can be traced back to Adam. (Ge 11:1) And, Shem (Noah’s son) was still alive when Jacob and Esau was 30 years of age. Obviously, Hebrew (the original language) was clearly spoken by Jacob’s sons. (Ge 14:13)

Such will be a great lesson of peace: teaching men that what they cannot take by and election, neither can they take by war; teaching all the folly of being the beginners of a war.

David Seabury’s book The Art of Selfishness,

A teacher is only as effective as his ability to understand where his student is.

That which you really, really want, you get—and that which you really, really do not want, you get.

you feel sad (because you are focused on their lack and activating that within your own vibration), and from your place of sadness you offer them the action of money or food. The vibration that you are transmitting is actually saying to them, I do this for you because I see that you cannot do this for yourself. Your vibration is actually focused upon their lack of Well-Being and therefore, even though you have offered money or food through your action, your dominant offering is perpetuating their lack.

Medicine is a demanding mistress, yet she is faithful, generous, and true, She gives me the privilege of seeing patients and of teaching students at the bedside, and thereby she gives meaning to everything I do.

And it is nice to know that it matters not what others are choosing, or what others are even thinking about what I am choosing. What is important is that I am pleased with me, and as I see myself, I certainly am.

You can speed the creation of something simply by giving it more attention—the Law of Attraction takes care of the rest and brings to you the essence of the subject of your thought. We would define the words want or desire as follows: To focus attention, or give thought toward a subject, while at the same time experiencing positive emotion. When you give your attention to a subject and you feel only positive emotion about it as you do so, it will come very quickly into your experience.

The new naval treaty permits the United States to spend a billion dollars on warships—a sum greater than has been accumulated by all our endowed institutions of learning in their entire history. Unintelligence could go no further! ... [In Great Britain, the situation is similar.] ... Until the figures are reversed, ... nations deceive themselves as to what they care about most.

Creation Here is an exercise that will assist you in your Deliberate Creating: Take three separate pieces of paper, and at the top of each page write one thing that you want. Now take the first page, and beneath the subject of what you have written, write: “These are the reasons that I want this. .. .” Write whatever comes to your mind—write whatever flows forth naturally; do not try to force it. And when nothing more comes, you are complete for now. Now, turn your paper over and write at the top of the second side of the page: “These are the reasons that I believe that I will have this.. . .” The first side of

By deliberately directing your thoughts—rather than merely observing what is happening around you—you will begin to change the vibrational patterns to which the Law of Attraction is responding. And in time, with far less effort than you may currently believe, you will no longer—by responding to what others perceive you to be—be creating a future that is so similar to your past and present. Instead, you will be the powerful deliberate creator of your own experience.

In order to effect true positive change in your experience, you must disregard how things are—as well as how others are seeing you—and give more of your attention to the way you prefer things to be. With practice, you will change your point of attraction and will experience a substantial change in your life experience.

When an idea occurs to you and you feel eagerness about it, that means that your Inner Being is a vibrational match to the idea, and your positive emotion is an indication that the vibration of your thought in this moment matches that of your Inner Being. That is, in fact, what inspiration is: You are, in the moment, a perfect vibrational match to the broader perspective of your Inner Being, and because of that alignment, you are now receiving clear communication, or Guidance, from your Inner Being.

hospitals are filled to the brim with those who are now taking action to compensate for inappropriate thoughts. They did not create the illness on purpose, but they did create it—through thought and through expectation—and then they went to the hospital to take physical action to compensate. We see many people spending their days exchanging their action for money, because the money is essential to the freedom of life in this society. And yet, in most cases, the action is not action in joy. It is an attempt to

all people, circumstances, and events are invited into your experience by you, through your thought,

You get the essence of what you are thinking about, whether it is something you want or something you do not want.

He was teaching me how to die, just as he’d taught me how to live.

In your lack of self-appreciation, you deny yourself your natural inheritance of continuous joy.

The first Law, the Law of Attraction, says: That which is like unto itself, is drawn.

The second Law, the Science of Deliberate Creation, says: That which I give thought to and that which I believe or expect—is.

The third Law, the Art of Allowing, says: I am that which I am, and I am willing to allow all others to be that which they are.

If you are resisting anything, you are focused upon it, pushing against it, and activating the vibration of it—and therefore attracting it.

You are not here to prove your worthiness. You are worthy! You are here for the experience of joyful expansion.

Now and then Ghosh would grin and wink at me across the room. He was teaching me how to die, just as he’d taught me how to live.

You have come forth into this physical life experience with the intention of experiencing the variety and contrast for the very purpose of determining your own personal preferences and desires.

Some books about the Holocaust are more difficult to read than others. Some books about the Holocaust are nearly impossible to read. Not because one does not understand the language and concepts in the books, not because they are gory or graphic, but because such books are confrontational. They compel us to “think again,” or to think for the first time, about issues and questions we might rather avoid. Gabriel Wilensky’s book, Six Million Crucifixions: How Christian Antisemitism Paved the Road to the Holocaust is one book I found difficult, almost impossible to read. Why? Because I had to confront the terrible underside of Christian theology, an underside that contributed in no small part to the beliefs and attitudes too many Christians – Catholic, Protestant, and Orthodox – had imbibed throughout centuries of anti-Jewish preaching and teaching that “paved the road to the Holocaust.” I cannot say that I “liked” Gabriel Wilensky’s book, Six Million Crucifixions: How Christian Antisemitism Paved the Road to the Holocaust. I didn’t, but I can say it was instructive and forced me to think again about that Jew from Nazareth, Jesus, and about his message of universal love and service – “What you do for the least of my brothers [and sisters], you do for me” (Matthew 25: 40). As Abraham Joshua Heschel once said, the Holocaust did not begin with Auschwitz. The Holocaust began with words. And too many of those hate-filled words had their origin in the Christian Scriptures and were uttered by Christian preachers and teachers, by Christians generally, for nearly two millennia. Is it any wonder so many Christians stood by, even participated in, the destruction of the European Jews during the Nazi era and World War II? I recommend Six Million Crucifixions: How Christian Antisemitism Paved the Road to the Holocaust because all of us Christians – Catholic, Protestant, and Orthodox – must think again, or think for the first time, about how to teach and preach the Christian Scriptures – the “New Testament” writings – in such a way that the words we utter, the attitudes we encourage, do not demean, disrespect, or disregard our Jewish brothers and sisters, that our words do not demean, disrespect, or disregard Judaism. I hope the challenge is not an impossible one.

Try to give my son the strength not to follow the crowd when everyone is getting on the bandwagon. Teach him to listen to all men but teach him also to filter all he hears on a screen of truth and take only the good that comes through.

Mr Harrison taught him about Attila the Hun, Vlad Drakul, and the Darkness Intrinsicate in the Human Spirit. He tried to teach Warlock how to make rabble-rousing political speeches to sway the hearts and minds of multitudes. Mr Cortese taught him about Florence Nightingale10, Abraham Lincoln, and the appreciation of art. He tried to teach him about free will, self-denial, and Doing unto Others as You Would Wish Them to Do to You. They both read to the child extensively from the Book of Revelation.

you are truly on the Leading Edge of thought, adding unto the Universe with your every thought, word, and deed. You are not inferior Beings here trying to catch up, but instead, Leading-Edge creators with all of the resources of the Universe at your disposal.

Abraham: It is not possible to push things that you do not want away from you, because in your pushing against them you are actually activating the vibration of them and therefore attracting them. Everything in this Universe is attraction based. In other words, there is no such thing as exclusion. When you shout “No!” at those things you do not want, you are actually inviting those unwanted things into your experience. When you shout “Yes!” at those things you do want, you are actually inviting those wanted things into your experience

Buddhism is more philosophical among the most widely practiced religions of the world, if Buddhism can be viewed as a religion in some context, because its questions are more open, but not strictly closed, as in Abrahamic religions, and therefore less dogmatic. Buddhists do not believe that their teachings are the words of a Supernatural Deity, which cannot be changed, modernized and adapted to new circumstances, but the words of the Buddha, who was just an enlightened person. The very fact of this enlightenment is a distinctive element between him and you.

as you are moving through your day, be sensitive to the way you are feeling. And whenever you find yourself feeling negative emotion, stop whatever it is you are doing that is bringing the emotion forth, for the negative emotion means that, in this moment, you are negatively creating. Negative emotion exists only when you are miscreating.And so, when you recognize that you are feeling negative emotion—no matter why, no matter how it got there, no matter what the situation is—stop doing whatever it is that you are doing and focus your thoughts on something that feels better.

You are here to create the world around you that you choose, while you allow the world—as others choose it to be—to exist, also.And while their choices in no way hinder your own choices, your attention to what they are choosing does affect your vibration, and therefore your own point of attraction.

Disappointment is communication from your Inner Being letting you know that that which you are focused upon is not what you want. If you are sensitive to the way that you are feeling, then the disappointment itself will let you know that what you are thinking about is not what you want to experience.

Keep in mind too, our failures serve to teach us, and usually teach us more than our successes do. What we may perceive as a failure is also an opportunity for someone else to rise to the occasion and perform a mitzvah, or mitzvot. Do not begrudge someone their joyous performance of mitzvot. Sometimes, perhaps even more often then you may think, what we consider our failures were blessings in disguise for ourselves, or others, or everyone. Abraham did not change the world just because he himself changed, and followed his own destiny. He changed the world through his giving others opportunities to rise to their own greatness.

Many around you want to point out “reality” to you. They say, “Face the facts. Look at what-is. ” And we say to you, if you are able to see only what-is—then, by the Law of Attraction, you will create only more of what-is. . . . You must be able to put your thoughts beyond what-is in order to attract something different or something more.

Abraham’s first teacher24 in Indiana was Andrew Crawford. In addition to teaching spelling and grammar, he instructed the children in courtesy and manners, including the art of introducing and receiving guests. A student would leave the schoolhouse, and as he or she reentered another student would introduce the guest to all the children in the room.

There was something undeniably compelling about this book, though, and after I’d gotten only about 12 pages into it, the hair was standing up all over my body, and thrill bumps were rippling up and down my spine. We’ve now come to understand that these physical, visceral sensations are confirming evidence that we’re currently on the path to something of extreme value,

Ever since black people came to this country we have needed a Moses. There has always been so much water that needs parting. It seems like all black children, from the time we are born, come into the world in the midst of a rushing current that threatens to swallow us whole if we don't heed the many, many warnings we are told to heed. We come into the world as alchemists of the water, bending it, willing it to bear us safe passage and cleanse us along the way, to teach us to move with joy and purpose and to never, ever stop flowing forward into something grand waiting at the other end of the delta. We're a people forever in exodus. Before Moses there was Abraham, and ever since black people came to this country we have needed an Abraham. We have always been sending each other away -- for our own good, don't you know it -- and calling each other back, finding kinship where a well springs from tears. We are masters of the art of sacrifice; no one is more skilled at laying their greatest beloveds on the altar and feeling certainty even as we feel sorrow. And when we see the ram, we know how to act fast, and prosper, even as the stone knife warms in our hands.

Only when you understand that another cannot be a part of your experience unless you invite them in through your thoughts (or through your attention to them), and that circumstances cannot be a part of your experience unless you invite them to you through your thought (or through your observation of them), will you be the Allower that you wanted to be when you came forth into this expression of life.

But the Catholic Church had another agenda for the Black (Israelite) people living in Africa.  They had to change what the natives in Africa already knew about the Old Testament and then add the New Testaments teachings, but with a “White Supremacy” Europeanized twist.  The first thing they had to do was establish the “Whiteness” of the Bible starting with Adam, Eve, Abraham, Jacob, the Children of Israel all the way down to Yeshua Mashiach (Jesus Christ).  They had to do away with the Sabbath and force the slaves to forget their laws.  They had to explain the Black Negro slaves’ role in the bible as “Cursed Canaanites”.   The “Gentile” Europeans (Greeks, Romans etc.) had to write and insert themselves into the Bible using the Apocrypha Books with the mysterious appearance of the White Greek Jewish Maccabean family.   Many of the Blacks in Africa bought this lie and continued to teach this to their children generation after generation. 

God does not reveal Himself; he only reveals His way. Judaism does not speak of God’s self-revelation, but of the revelation of His teaching for man. The Bible reflects God’s revelation of His relation to history, rather than of a revelation of His very Self. Even His will or His wisdom is not completely expressed through the prophets. Prophecy is superior to human wisdom, and God’s love is superior to prophecy. This spiritual hierarchy is explicitly stated by the Rabbis.

We want to point out that it is not only the doing of the one who is accused of being prejudiced. More often, the one who feels discriminated against is the most powerful creator in that experience. The Being who feels that others do not like him—for whatever reason—whether it is religion, race, gender, or social status . . . no matter what the reason is that he feels that he is being discriminated against—it is his attention to the subject of the prejudice that attracts his trouble.

Don’t talk a lot or brag about yourself.  Don’t say anything in an attempt to make people think you are smart.  Sometimes, it is better not to talk.  We do not have to respond to everything or even give a reply to every comment.  Some of the wisest people in the world are those who have learned to remain silent.  Let your actions speak louder than your words. “A finger over your lips is better than a foot in your mouth.”  Anonymous “Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt.” Abraham Lincoln

But what we have noticed as we have been interacting with physical Beings is that while you may have an experience that only lasts five or ten minutes, and while that experience may be unpleasant and uncomfortable, the majority of your negative emotion comes forth not during the minutes of that negative experience, but they come forth in all the hours that you ponder and chew upon it after the experience. Usually, there is much more of your time spent in thought of the negative thing that has happened than in the actuality of what is happening.

The Bible is not an intellectual sinecure, and its acceptance should not be like setting up a talismanic lock that seals both the mind and the conscience against the intrusion of new thoughts. Revelation is not vicarious thinking. Its purpose is not to substitute for but to extend our understanding. The prophets tried to extend the horizon of our conscience and to impart to us a sense of the divine partnership in our dealings with good and evil and in our wrestling with life’s enigmas. They tried to teach us how to think in the categories of God: His holiness, justice and compassion. The appropriation of these categories, far from exempting us from the obligation to gain new insights in our own time, is a challenge to look for ways of translating Biblical commandments into programs required by our own conditions. The full meaning of the Biblical words was not disclosed once and for all. Every hour another aspect is unveiled. The word was given once; the effort to understand it must go on for ever. It is not enough to accept or even to carry out the commandments. To study, to examine, to explore the Torah is a form of worship, a supreme duty. For the Torah is an invitation to perceptivity, a call for continuous understanding.

Exodus 19:1–13; 20:1–17 19:1–13 What does this passage teach us about God? How does it challenge the way we often think about him? How should we relate to such a God? What has God already done for the Israelites (see also 20:2)? What does he promise to do in the future? How do these promises relate to the promises he made to Abraham (Genesis 12:1–3)? What must the people do? Is that possible? How can God’s promises be fulfilled? 20:1–17 How many of the Ten Commandments have you obeyed? Why should we want to obey them as Christians? Which do you find especially hard to obey? What practical steps can you take to ensure that you obey those commands more?

Every emotion that you feel is, without exception, communication from your Inner Being letting you know, in the moment, the appropriateness of whatever you are thinking, speaking, or acting. In other words, as you think a thought that is not in vibrational harmony with your overall intent, your Inner Being will offer you negative emotion. As you do or say something that is not in vibrational harmony with who-you-are and what you want, your Inner Being will offer you negative emotion. And, in like manner, when you are speaking, thinking, or acting in the direction of that which is in harmony with your intentions, your Inner Being will offer you positive emotion.

She had launched right into inflammation, the body’s first response to any threat, the common denominator of all disease. In minutes she had drawn them into the thick of a battle: the invaders (typhoid bacteria) are spotted by the hilltop sentries (macrophages), who send signals back to the castle (the bone marrow and lymph nodes). The few aging veterans of previous battles with typhoid (memory T-lymphocytes) are roused from their beds, summoned to hastily teach untested conscripts the specific typhoid-grappling skills needed, and then to arm them with custom lances designed solely to latch onto and pierce the typhoid shield—in essence, the veterans clone their younger selves.

The fate of the Union, the possibilities of democracy, and the future of slavery, then, were the stakes of a war that Abraham Lincoln chose to wage to total victory—or to defeat. A president who led a divided country in which an implacable minority gave no quarter in a clash over power, race, identity, money, and faith has much to teach us in a twenty-first-century moment of polarization, passionate disagreement, and differing understandings of reality. For while Lincoln cannot be wrenched from the context of his particular times, his story illuminates the ways and means of politics, the marshaling of power in a democracy, the durability of racism, and the capacity of conscience to help shape events.

The big question that usually comes up at this point of our discussion is, “Abraham, how do I know that what comes forth from within me may be trusted? Isn’t there someone greater than I who makes all of the rules and wants me to be or do specific things?” And we say, you are the creator of your experience, and you have emerged forth into this physical body through the power of your desire. You are not here to prove yourself worthy of something else; you are not here because you seek greater salvation on some other plane. You are here because you have a specific purpose in being here. You want to be a Deliberate Creator, and you have chosen this physical dimension, where there is time and space, so that you may finely tune your understanding and then see the benefits of whatever you have created in thought by allowing it to come into your physical experience. You are adding to the expansion of the Universe, and All-That-Is benefits from your existence, by your exposure to this experience and by your expansion. All that you do pleases that which you seek to please. There is not a list of things that are right and a list of things that are wrong—there is only that which aligns with your true intent and purpose, and that which does not. You may trust your Guidance that comes forth from within you to help you know when you are in alignment with your state of natural Well-Being.

them intentionally, effectively, and satisfactorily through your physical expression of life. The Law of Attraction is the first of the Laws that we will offer, for if you do not understand, and are not able to effectively apply, the Law of Attraction, then the second Law, the Science of Deliberate Creation, and the third, the Art of Allowing, cannot be utilized. You must first understand and effectively utilize the first Law in order to understand and utilize the second. And you must be able to understand and utilize the second Law before you will be able to understand and utilize the third. The first Law, the Law of Attraction, says: That which is like unto itself, is drawn. While this may seem like a rather simple statement, it defines the most powerful Law in the Universe—a Law that affects all things at all times. Nothing exists that is unaffected by this powerful Law. The second Law, the Science of Deliberate Creation, says: That which I give thought to and that which I believe or expect—is. In short, you get what you are thinking about, whether you want it or not. A deliberate application of thought is really what the Science of Deliberate Creation is about, for if you do not understand these Laws, and deliberately apply them, then you may very well be creating by default. The third Law, the Art of Allowing, says: I am that which I am, and I am willing to allow all others to be that which they are. When you are willing to allow others to be as they are, even in their not allowing of you, then you will be an Allower, but it is not likely that you will reach that point until you first come to understand how it is you get what you get. Only when you understand that another cannot be a part of your experience unless you invite them in through your thoughts (or through your attention to them), and that circumstances cannot be a part of your experience unless you invite them to you through your thought (or through your observation of them), will you be the Allower that you wanted to be when you came forth into this expression of life. An understanding of these three powerful Universal Laws, and a deliberate application of them, will lead you to the joyous freedom of being able to create your own life experience exactly as you want it to be. Once you understand that all people, circumstances, and events are invited into your experience by you, through your thought, you will begin to live your life as you intended when you made the decision to come forth into this physical body. And so, an understanding of the powerful Law of Attraction, coupled with an intention to Deliberately Create your own life experience, will ultimately lead you to the unparalleled freedom that can only come from a complete understanding and application of the Art of Allowing.

In other words, when you feel love, that means that the way you are seeing the object of your attention matches the way the Inner You sees it. When you feel hate, you are seeing it without that Inner Connection. You intuitively knew all of this, especially when you were younger, but gradually most of you were worn down by the insistence of those older and self-described “wiser” others who surrounded you as they worked hard to convince you that you could not trust your own impulses. And so, most of you physical Beings do not trust yourselves, which is amazing to us, for that which comes forth from within you is all that you may trust. But instead, you are spending most of your physical lifetimes seeking a set of rules or a group of people (a religious or political group, if you will) who will tell you what is right and wrong. And then you spend the rest of your physical experience trying to hammer your “square peg” into someone else’s “round hole,” trying to make those old rules—usually those that were written thousands of years before your time—fit into this new life experience. And, as a result, what we see, for the most part, is your frustration, and at best, your confusion. And, we also have noticed that every year there are many of you who are dying, as you are arguing about whose set of rules is most appropriate. We say to you: That overall, all-inclusive, never-changing set of rules does not exist—for you are ever-changing, growth-seeking Beings.

Scripture and Tradition Scriptural exegesis was no mere school exercise. The New Testament text became the battleground for the fierce debates over the nature of Jesus, God and man, that were waged in the fifth century and exegesis was the weapon that all the combatants wielded with both skill and conviction.23 The scriptural witness, often couched in familiar, popular, and even homely language, had to be converted into the abstract and learned currency of theology, the language of choice of the Church’s intelligentsia. Scripture, as it turned out, was merely the starting point. The steering mechanism was exegesis, and behind the exegesis, the helmsman at the rudder, stood another elemental principle: tradition.24 Judaism, Christianity, and Islam each possessed a Scripture that was, by universal consent, a closed Book. But God’s silence was a relative thing, and his providential direction of the community could be detected and “read” in other ways. Early within the development of Christianity, for example, one is aware of a subtle balance operating between appeals to Scripture and tradition. It was not a novel enterprise. By Jesus’ time the notion of an oral tradition separate from but obviously connected to the written Scriptures was already familiar, if not universally accepted, in Jewish circles. Jesus and the Pharisees debated the authority of the oral tradition more than once, and though he does not appear to have denied the premise, Jesus, his contemporaries remarked, “taught on his own authority,” not on that of some other sage. He substituted his authority for the tradition of the Fathers. Thus Jesus was proposing himself as the source of a new tradition handed on to his followers and confirmed by the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost. The Christian view that there was a tradition distinct from the Scriptures may have begun with the early understanding of Scripture as synonymous with the Bible—serious exegetical attention did not begin to be paid to the Gospels until the end of the second century—whereas the “tradition” was constituted of the teachings and redemptive death of Jesus, both of which Jesus himself had placed in their true “scriptural” context.25 Thus, even when parts of Jesus’ teachings and actions had been committed to writing in the Gospels, and so began to constitute a new, specifically Christian Scripture, the distinction between Scripture in the biblical sense and tradition in the Christian sense continued to be felt in the Christian community.26