Our Universal Reflections & Wednesday Wisdom Potluck

Join us Wednesday night and bring Joy to the world and a dish to share!  

Our reality is determined by how we perceive and relate to our self perception and other people.

Our physical perception of reality is based upon temporal circumstances that are constantly changing. It often creates feelings of fear, worry and stress that leads to illness and depression.

Our spiritual perception is based on our universal reflection of divine love and joy.

It is a perception of Oneness with everyone and being in harmony with the universe.

Every day we can be in harmony with universal reflections by bringing joy into our life and sharing joy with others.

Join us Wednesday night and bring Joy to the world and a dish to share!
Love,
Rev, Geoff Layng

A cancer survivor of more than 20 years, Rev. Geoff is dedicated to inspiring people to find their wellness. He has facilitated many support groups at the Wellness Community, area hospitals, North County Oncology Associates in Vista, and a support group at our Center. Also an international speaker, he founded the San Diego Chapter of National Speakers Assn. in 1982. He has been a student of Quantum Physics and Metaphysics for over 40 years. Revs. Geoff and Madi live in San Clemente and have eleven grandchildren and seven great grandchildren.

Starting this month, March 5th, the first Wednesday of each month we will have a potluck and social time starting at 5:45 pm. in the multipurpose room. 

 Bring your favorite dish to share with others. The service will start at 7:00 PM.

To Hell with Extraordinary, I'm Settling for Ordinary

Nature brings on pretty major revelations for me.

So, it's no surprise I had another one, but this one was so pivotal.

So pivotal, in fact, that I wanted to share it on this blog because I think there are many who could gain an awareness from my experience.

 I spent the day in Lewiston, CA…yeah, I didn't know where it was either, up until about a week ago.

 My mom and stepdad decided to throw their "balls in the air," sell everything, move from South Carolina to Northern California to live in an RV and see what life was really all about…in their early 60's, I might add!

I went on a 12 hour road trip from Southern California to Northern with my two boys to check out my mom's new digs.

It was COUN-TRY!

Up a mountain, 30 miles from the nearest town, BLACK as black gets at night, but the sounds of nature roaring outside.

Born and raised in the country, I spent a majority of my adult years living in cities to escape the past and be "born again" in city living.

That said, the minute I passed through Redding, CA and started up the mountain to Lewiston, I knew I was back to my roots….my innards just expanded with joy.

As I spent the last couple of days painting with deer grazing 20 yards away, journaling

The "she-Buddha" painted in nature with deer grazing 20 yards away.

and meditating by a river so crisp and clear, I forgot that rivers existed like that, I started to "download" some pretty clear messages.

 First, I realized how nice it is to be disconnected from technology.  I have no cell phone service and no wifi.

I am fully dependent on my own natural abilities to entertain myself and kids….who knew I had it in me without technology?!?

So, we painted. Searched for acorns then planted them. We waded in the crisp Trinity River.

We explored by driving up and down mountain roads to see deer, horses, sheep and other creatures living their own "ordinary" lives….hell, we even saw a rattlesnake basking in the afternoon sun totally freaking me out.

An "ordinary" deer that was breath-taking in it's natural environment.

Here was the realization that came to me…. Everything around me is so….well, ordinary.

 Every redwood tree looks like the next.

Every river, lake and/or tributary looks the same.

The deer grazing in the yard all look the same.

Hell, even the stars that cover the night sky, just like my MacBook desktop, look the same.

Why, then, are they so damned extraordinary?

Why, then, do they make me feel so alive?

Why, then, does my soul expand every time I change eye direction?

I find myself so consumed with the "ordinary" beauty around me. You see one mountain in California, you've seen them all. You see one deer, you see them all...right?

One would think.

 But, I am so moved, almost to tears, every time I see another mountain expanding into the sky around a bend in the road. I've seen the same doe with her twin fawns multiple times a day since we arrived here three days ago, yet, they take my breath away every time I see them again.

When did "ordinary" become so extraordinary?

My contradiction? I've been blogging, tweeting, and creating programs teaching people to go from "ordinary to extraordinary," yet, my realization in the last couple of hours was… …that ordinary is, in fact, perfect.

 It's exactly what we are supposed to be because ordinary is perfection.

The tree is perfect.

The deer is perfect.

The Trinity river is perfect.

All of them "ordinary" to many, yet so freaking extraordinary if you really see it.

My life is ordinary, yet so freaking extraordinary….because I saw it for the first time today....in a different light.

 The clincher for this realization was today's reading in Science of Mind magazine:

"…we release the obsession with being extraordinary to the extent that we realize that we are already Godlike."

Shazam! 

The idea that was brewing in my mind over the last couple of days hit me like a ton of bricks.

I AM extraordinary just by being ordinary me because ordinary me is part of that Infinite Universe that mesmerizes me with all it's natural creation.

 I work my ass off to "be extraordinary," and it's been so darn exhausting!

And, how do I know when I've gotten there…to extraordinary, that is?

I am here now….at extraordinary.

 …And so are you.

 I take back all the "forget ordinary, be extraordinary's" I've ever put out to the Universe…

 I don't make any apologies for misleading you or anyone else if I did because our "job," if you want to call it that, in this lifetime is to evolve our thinking, and that's just what I've done in the mountains of California.

 What an amazing realization!

Instead of busting our asses to be extraordinary, one of the easiest ways to be happier in life is simply to embrace or ordinary-dom! I have spent some time, back in my roots in the country, and have allowed the "real me" to stand up and exclaim…

"Forget extraordinary, be ordinary!"

...and I'll add, "...and be DAMN proud of it!"

Because ordinary is where it's at.

Let's rock out some ordinary and walk proud knowing we are Divine perfection!

A Universal Principle to Achieving Your Biggest Dream

Just a small reminder today that whatever dreams pop into your head while you are daydreaming, sleeping, or wishing for are all possible because they are your dream.

Do not downplay them.  Do not negate them...

...most importantly....

Don't ignore them.

They are there for a reason.

Guiding you.

Inspiring you.

Motivating you.

You have these dreams because they are your ideal life right now.

They may change as you walk the path towards them, but right now, in this moment, that very thing that is calling to you, that is captivating your mind, that is making your heart beat a little faster...

...is the very thing that you are meant to follow.

Not sure how to do it?

Answer this:

What is the smallest, seemingly insignificant step you can take TODAY towards it?

Remember, walking the path of your dreams is one, seemingly insignificant step towards it every day.

You do not have to quit the job, leave the family behind, or go all "Eat, Pray Love."

Just like compounded interest, small, seemingly insignificant steps compound over time.

They add up until one day, you look and you realize, that your dream has appeared into your life.

You ask, "How did that happen?"

It isn't a big-bang, lottery-winning kind of explosion into your life.

It appears a little each day, and when you diligently take a daily step, it comes a lot faster.

So, what is that longing you have deep in your heart?  How can you take a step today?

Could you buy a book about it?  Invite someone to lunch who is already doing it? Take a class? Could you simply pray asking for guidance?  Could you find mentors on Twitter or Facebook to follow and learn from?

All of these are SMALL, easy steps.  YOU can do any one of them...today.  They aren't scary.  They aren't intimidating.

Do ONE today, and tomorrow, you will be one step closer to that dream.

Do you get how easy it can be to live the life of your dreams?

It's as easy as one step....what will that step be for you today?

How Evolved Are You? Visit Your Family - Part 2

Last week I posted a blog about the anticipation of visiting my drama-ridden family in Pennsylvania.

I had mentioned a saying I once heard, "If you want to know how evolved you are, visit your family for three days."

So, after almost eight years of being away from my family, I set off for a 12 hour drive with my kids and my mom to visit our family in Pennsylvania...the family I had left at the age of 18 and rarely visited since.

I was worried about the drama.  I was worried about the lower energy.  I was worried about what would happen.

Well, contrary to everything I know, my worry was simply worrying about something that hadn't happened....

....and, to my surprise, it didn't.

After traveling so far, I took time to reconnect with my cousins, aunts, uncles, grandparents, etc. and sat up night after night reminiscing about old times.

We had a picnic in the very spot in the yard of my grandmother's house that we had spent so many summers in the past.

My kids saw lightening bugs for the first time.

Catching Lightening Bugs

They experienced my crazy uncle throwing boxes of firecrackers into the fire scaring the sh*t out of all of us as he did EVERY summer that we picnicked in that same spot.

We went horseback riding.

We laughed, we hugged, and we remembered good memories....forgetting to bring up the old, not-so-memorable ones.

Was there drama going on around us?  

Of course.

Did I notice it?

Not really?

What I noticed were the family members who wanted to catch up.

What I noticed was the quiet beauty all around me that I took for granted all those years growing up in Pottstown....the rolling farmland, the blackest black of night, the lightening bugs, the deafening sound of crickets.

I noticed the kids of my cousins laughing with my own boys.

I noticed the love that our family has for each other that sometimes is blinded by the arguing that goes on.

Mostly, I noticed how far I have come in my own mind.

I could have gotten involved in the gossip or drama going on, but I chose to notice the beautiful love deeply embedded in my family.

As I returned back to South Carolina in another 12 hour drive, I noticed how well-behaved my kids were.

The worry I had going into this trip was all for naught.

Another reminder that worry is all about something that hasn't happened, and if we are aware enough of our thinking, probably won't happen.

Thank you, Universe for this amazing reminder, this amazing family I have, and this amazing life I am living!

I am truly grateful.

Religion 101: Spiritual Not Religious

Which of the world’s religions most accurately defines me as a person?

One of my very favorite parts of the service is in the very beginning. “Lighting the Flames of Faith, a Call to Service” when a reverend will light a candle for each of the world’s religions

“We perform this ceremony at the start of Sunday service to promote the universal consciousness of Life which acknowledges that all peoples and all faiths, all sentient beings, come from the One Great Universal Presence, which we call Spirit. Fundamental to this truth is the unifying nature of all Religious thought and experience, which we honor here today.”

It also makes me giggle a bit. I think of “Religion 101.“

It’s spring 1986. I am looking through the college catalogue to pick my classes for my first semester. I choose Religion 101. It not only provides me an opportunity to examine my beliefs but also fulfills a Humanities requirement.

Fall arrives and I’m a freshman in Religion 101 and our first paper is due. I diligently read all the reading assigned and proceed to answer the essay questions. I’m confused. My studies didn’t give me the world religion sampler platter I was anticipating.

I have vague, very vague, memories of those reading assignments, scattered pages across multiple obscure titles in the dusty section of the library, some selections just a page or a paragraph each. Something about a pole and everything revolving around the center ...

I was just wondering if I should remain a Catholic or maybe check out the Unitarian Church down the street?

Does it matter? Is church just a way to ruin a perfectly good Sunday. I remember going to church with my “Protestant cousins” and was shocked when I discovered we sang and recited from the very same missalette. Maybe we weren’t that different?

Does organized religion have anything to offer me?

In a panicked scramble that I failed my first paper and a desire to tell the professor that I AM LOOKING FOR ANSWERS HERE I end up furiously writing a 17 page stream-of-consciousness rambling missive of my religious beliefs sprinkled with a few incidences of psychic phenomenon. I run to the professors office to deliver this masterpiece. I blurt out a few incomprehensible statements and run off to my next class.

Now I cringe just thinking of the babbling dither that was on that paper. But I was honestly looking for answers and all I knew to do was to look at my personal history.

The following Monday our papers were handed back. My paper had received an A. After all that ... my paper was fine. Wish I understood it.

I was feeling a bit exposed in class. I settled down and realized this class was probably not going to be guiding my personal decisions. I had assumed that a religion professor, someone who had devoted ones life to the study of religion, would pick the best one.

Throughout the semester the professor revealed he had practiced about 44 religions up to this point and the last one he mentioned I was sure I read about in the paper. They were accused of behaving very inappropriately with one another on some international plane flights and they wore a lot of red.

I resolved to never let myself get that crazy.

It’s much different now. I’m not looking for a label. Labels I did wear in the interim “Spiritual Not Religious” or "Recovering Catholic." But I have come to believe that Truths are repeated across centuries, civilizations and religions. I can appreciate them dressed in whatever tradition they come.

For me ... it’s in that candle lighting ceremony.

“Fundamental to this truth is the unifying nature of all Religious thought and experience, which we honor here today.”

And that’s why I’m here. To get a piece of that.

Peace.

What is the path that led you here?

Remembering to Pray Instantly Eases A Frantic Life

I like to consider myself a positive person, but I have to admit that I arrived at my daughters’ water polo practice yesterday afternoon feeling more than a little frazzled, as the challenges of the day and a scheduling nightmare looming for this weekend had begun to take their toll.

As I was ruminating over my predicament, a friend from church happened to call, regarding a project I’d been working on. Her first words, after I told my tale of woe, were to ask whether I’d prayed about it. Well, you could have knocked me over with a feather! I’d been so fixated on putting out fires all day, that I hadn’t even stopped to contemplate the idea.

As soon as she said it, I instantly felt lighter. Of course! That was exactly what I needed to do! How fortunate that God sends us messengers, if we are willing to listen.

I finished my phone call, and prayed about the whole situation. Right there on the pool deck. I’d like to tell you that, through the power of affirmative prayer, solutions instantly presented themselves to the thorny problems that plagued me all day. Alas, that was not the case, but I can tell you that I INSTANTLY felt better when I released those issues through that little pool deck prayer. (Versus feeling exhausted after unsuccessfully forcing my solutions on things all day.)

There is so much power in the simple, symbolic act of releasing one’s intentions to the Universe, and allowing them to unfold.

Knowing that I create my existence according to my belief.

Knowing that it is all right action.

Knowing it is All Good, because it is ALL God.

I was filled with gratitude, as I sat down to watch my two daughters finish practice, and contemplated the teachable moment I’d provided for them.  

-- By Melissa Echelberger

Melissa parents three busy kids, volunteers more than 40 hours a week in her community and recently joined Center for Spiritual Living Capistrano Valley blogging family. 

No one mourns the wicked

No one mourns the wicked.

Yes, Goodness knows
The Wicked's lives are lonely
Goodness knows
The Wicked cry alone
Nothing grows for the Wicked
They reap only
What they sow
-Stephen Schwartz -

Upon viewing the performance of Wicked in Los Angeles about 4 years ago, I remember noticing the metaphysical connections in the lyrics.  Upon viewing the performance for the second time last night in Orange County, I was reminded how it is a great story of the mass consciousness of good and evil.  I liken it to the Taoist parable:"Who knows what is good and what is bad."  In it a farmer has events occur in his life where a neighbor labels "bad", only to realize a fortunate outcome.  All along the farmer is stating, "Who knows what is good and what is bad."

In the lyrics above, the citizens have a collective agreement (mass consciousness) the witch is wicked and lonely, she is "bad" and she gets what she deserves.  They are not able to see the underlying goodness she has done.  They refuse to see it and they have no capacity to accept her goodness.  It's a classic example of duality, that good and evil exists. The witch's actions have always been about doing good, righting wrongs, and fighting for a cause but the citizens only see her as "bad."

Because she is blamed, discouraged or shunned, at one point the witch is in agreement with the citizens singing, "No good deed goes unpunished, all helpful urges should be circumvented."  Deep in her heart she knows her Truth; however, she enters into the mass consciousness of duality.

Then, in the end, the strength of her Truth prevails.  The citizens believe she has died.  She collaborated, with her love, to fake her own death.  Her love, who she turned into a scarecrow to save him from a human death, reunites with her.  The scarecrow and the witch leave the land of OZ together with the decision to not tell anyone, even their friend, the good witch.  They know the citizens wouldn't have the capacity to know the wicked witch still exists.

A line in the lyrics, "Are people born wicked? Or do they have wickedness thrust upon them?" brings up a topic of who we truly are and who we become.  We are all born Good.  Throughout our development we may have entered into an agreement of not being so.  If this is the case, it's time to come back home to the Truth, the knowingness that It's All Good. In the Science of Mind, Ernest Holmes writes, "We experience good and evil because we perceive a presence of duality rather than unity." "The time must come when we shall have left the apparent evil behind; when it shall be rolled up like a scroll and numbered with the things which were once thought to be." Mourning the wicked ("bad") thoughts makes way for a better sense of clarity, an understanding of Universal Principles (we are all One) and the Law of Attraction (reap what you sow). 

Today see only the Goodness of God.

Universal Law Like a Piano?

I was always taught to sit in the front row.

You learn more.  You retain more. You hear more.  You see more.

Today as I sat in the front row of Sunday service, I watched the pianist beautifully navigate the keys of our piano at the Center for Spiritual Living.

What came to me, as I sat mesmerized, was how that very piano was an analogy to how the Universe works.

I was thinking what a disaster it would be if I scooted our talented pianist off the bench and started banging on the piano myself.

Because I don't know how to play the instrument, I would create a chaotic cacophony of sounds that would make most put their hands over their ears.

Yet, a professionally-trained musician can create beautiful symphony of music.

The Universe is like a piano.  

Untrained in universal principles, one will create a chaotic, disorganized cacophony of  events in their lives.  Mainly wondering why "life always happens to them."

When we understand how the Universe works, we can co-create a symphony of music in our own lives.  There is a multitude of things we can know in our lives, yet the one that makes the biggest difference in our lives so often goes unknown.  Mysterious.  Treated skeptically at times.  Yet, proven to be so in quantum physics.

If you are reading this and would like to co-create a symphony in your own life, join us for classes and learn the very principles that will turn your "Universal piano" into a beautiful instrument of joy!