WHAT’S GOING ON? #75 NOVEMBER 2000
ALONG THE WAY: I am a spiritual being having a human experience.
THIS MONTH’S THOUGHT. Idols are anything we make important.
CHECK IT OUT:
Am I an idolater?
What is my purpose of living?
Am I free to feel fear?
What is my responsibility?
What do I put value on?
Do I treat myself as gently as I would my best friend?
Have I stopped being a controller and manipulator?
How do I make myself feel gratitude?
What is freedom?
Am I still controlled by what other people think?
Am I living without conflict?
Am I able to take criticism cheerfully?
Can I recognize when I am being a victim? How do I
handle it?
What am I doing that creates difficulties for me?
Thomas A’Kempis wrote: “Leave off that excessive desire of knowing. Therein is found much distraction. There are many things the knowledge of which is of little or no profit to the soul”. Am I still trying to figure everything out?
How important is it for me to be right?
SCHOOL TALK #30: (Excerpts from a talk by Dr. Bob Gibson, Scottsdale, AZ)
Today we’re going to talk about suggestion. Now suggestion is a fact of everyday life. You are 100% subject to suggestion 100% of the time. And we are constantly surrounded by suggestion. Now let’s don’t assume that to be suggestible is bad. Or let’s don’t assume it’s good. It simply is. What could be unpleasant about it is for a person to be unaware that suggestion was going on and you might accept a lot of suggestions that wouldn’t be decidedly to your advantage to do so. But if you’re aware that you’re 100% subject to suggestion 100% of the time, it behooves us to pay a little attention to the suggestions around us. Now some suggestions that are around us, I’d like to accept. And if I’m not paying attention to the suggestion, I probably will accept about everything that comes along. All advertising is a form suggestion. We can read the paper or listen to the radio and television and they repeatedly suggest that we’re going to have all kinds of illnesses in the world. That there’s dozens of them up here floating around. It’s ready to attack us. Now I’d rather not accept that suggestion, if you don’t mind. Another place suggestion is quite rampant is that people go to so-called psychics or fortune tellers or what have you and they will give you a prediction. Only that prediction is a suggestion. And if you accept the suggestion and start acting upon it you probably will bring it about to happen. And then you say the psychic foretold the future. But they didn’t. They only offered you a suggestion. Somebody can suggest to you that a certain food is fattening and it no doubt would turn out to be that way if you accept it. Somebody else doesn’t accept it and they go ahead and eat great gobs of it and they don’t get fat.
Now, of course, the most powerful suggestions are the ones that arise within from the “not-I’s”. They are the master suggestionists. In fact, they are such good suggestors that they could almost be qualified as hypnotists. The “not-I’s” are very good at putting you in an hypnotic state. And so the most powerful suggestions come from within, because you accept that you are being given intuitive knowledge from somewheres. But it’s very well to know that you’re 100% subject to suggestion 100% of the time. Knowing this, one then begins to pay attention. You don’t usually don’t see the necessity of staying awake simply because you are surrounded by suggestion. And you are usually not totally aware that you’re 100% subject to suggestion 100% of the time. So it’s well to be aware of these two things: That you are 100% subject to suggestion 100% of the time; and that if you’re unaware of how suggestible you are you’re going to buy a lot of very adverse suggestions. In order for a suggestion to be effective it has to threaten you with a loss or prevent you from having a gain of some sort of other. It is difficult to accept a suggestion that you will do real well! We accept negative suggestions a lot easier than we do positive suggestions!
Now, the suggestion has no strength over us until we accept it. Now we have a statement somewheres along as to how the origin of “not-I’s” is that once a decision, a conclusion, has been made, it is the rule of attitude/action until that decision or conclusion is recognized and re-evaluated and put out. When this can be looked at, brought up and re-evaluated that that is not true for me. When that is done, then you can begin to accomplish a whole lot. You cannot start with a new suggestion without undoing the old one or it won’t do any good, whether it’s autosuggestion or suggestion from without. It won’t work. In order to get any permanent well-being you have to find out about the fundamental conclusion you are living by.
A STORY: The body, this house I live in, has been in a state of adaptation for the past several weeks. Since I know everything has value, I decided to discover the value in what appeared to be physical misery.
At first, I tried to figure out what misconception I was operating from that was creating stress. I continued to ask, “What is going on?” I didn’t seem to get any answers, at least none that I wanted to look at, so I set that issue aside and got busy dealing with “what is”. By this time the adaptation was rather intense. It was time to go to the doctor. I waved the white flag in surrender and got some medical help. It was time, I guess, because the x-ray showed pneumonia.
I have had time to re-evaluate some ideas. I know in no uncertain terms that X can perfectly run this instrument called the body. However, I am not fully integrated. I’m not there yet. What then, blocks the healing? Do I have expectations based on an ideal that keep me hooked into the vicious cycle? Probably. At what point do I go for the medical help? How far do I go in letting the body handle the adaptation? How do I recognize the point where I need to get help as opposed to knowing that Spirit will do the appropriate thing to restore balance to the body.
Most of the time I was able to say, “I am free to experience this wonderful life-saving adaptation,” which helped to reduce the resistance to chills, fever, throwing up, misery, pain. Several times I cried and screamed, however, I did it with great gusto!
I know one thing for sure. I have greater understanding of those who are ill. It is very, very difficult to not let the condition of the physical body determine the inner mood, but it is not impossible. Maybe from this experience I will see differently. When I see differently, I will have a different behavior. When I have a different behavior, I will have a different state of being. Somehow it all gets connected.
Today I am totally thankful that the body adapts. What a miraculous phenomena that is!
