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Enjoy another wonderful text by Rev. Phil Smedsted, minister Emeritus of Oasis Rising Center

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Phil Smedstad's texts are one of the ways Oasis Rising Center supports members.

A Positive Path for Spiritual Living

Oasis Rising Center Spiritual Center
Oasis Rising Center 8125 West Sahara Avenue
Las Vegas, NV 89125
(702) 804-8189
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“The Parable of the Talents”
`By Rev. Phillip Smedstad

This past Sunday was an exciting day because it was the kick-off for our “Parable of the Talents” event.  We gave out seed money (there is still money for you if you weren’t here on Sunday.  We will offer it again this coming Sunday.) 

Those of you who received the money will increase or multiply it by using your talents, and then, on Dec. 7, we will have a sale and fair to support your efforts.

Later I’ll say more about the OUTER expression of this parable.  First I’d like to talk about its inner or metaphysical meaning.  If you want to read the story before you read about it, you can find it in Matt. 25:14-29.  (Remember, you can easily look this up online.)

Because this is one of Jesus’ parables, it is about the Kingdom of Heaven, as are all his other parables.  That is, this is a story about how to be truly happy and at peace through knowing our oneness with God.  In this parable, the “how to” is finding the joy of God by fully expressing ourselves.

Jesus closes the parable by saying, “To those who have, more will be given, and they will have abundance.  But to those who have not, even that which they have will be taken away.”  Was this Jesus being mean?  No, it was Jesus stating a spiritual law.

In the parable, the “have not” consciousness was represented by the servant who received one talent.  First of all, it’s important to know that there is no being named God out there somewhere with a long white beard saying to one person, “I like you.  Here are a bunch of talents.”  Nor does God say to another, “You only get one talent from the talent store.”

No, the truth is that Spirit extends Itself equally to all of us.  WE decide on the body, the set of talents, and the circumstances we will have for this life on planet earth.

A “have not” consciousness is one which is afraid to give, afraid to love, and afraid to express his or her talents.  It is a consciousness of holding back, holding on, and being miserly.  So the question for us all is, “How much have I held myself back in life because I was afraid?”  This results in us living in Hell – an emotional state of turmoil and regret.

A “have” consciousness is one of being generous and loving, and expressing ourselves fully.  This results in us living in Heaven.  On Sunday, I asked everyone to join me in affirming, “I am rich in all that God is.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson once said, “Man is the inlet, and may become the outlet, of all there is in God.”  This is what personal transformation is all about, realizing that there is nothing missing in us.  We are already whole.  The way to realize this is to fully express ourselves.

In this parable, all three servants are in each of us.  First I’ll speak of the third servant, the one who hid his one talent by burying it in the ground.  He thought he knew what the master was like.  He said, “I knew that you are a hard man, and that you reap where you haven’t sewn.” This reminds me of the old saying:  “God created us in His/Her/Its image, and ever since then we have returned the favor.”  We project onto God the things we see in ourselves.

This servant represents what we might call our “talent of one.”  This is our realization of oneness with God.  This talent is the hardest and most fearful to our ego identities.  Remember, our ego is who we believe we are when we feel separate from God and other people.  When we are in our ego mind, we have thoughts like, “If I surrender to God I’ll be annihilated.  I’ll be a robot.”

I certainly had those fears.  What I have found instead is the exact opposite.  The more I surrender to God, the more I become my true and real self.  To double this talent of one is to manifest the concept of surrender in our lives, to take what has been only potential and live it, to embrace the idea of oneness with and surrender to God.

The second servant represents what we could call our “talent of two.”  This talent is our mastery of duality, which is necessary in order to live here on planet earth.  Duality is expressed as male/female, yin/yang, positive/negative, and especially as yes/no.  Another question we all could ask ourselves is:  “What do I say yes to, and what do I say no to?”

The ego’s use of the “talent of two” is to say yes to fear, to lack, and to separateness.  It is also to say no to love, oneness, generosity, and full self-expression.  The way to double this talent is to open to our real self, our divine self.  Then, we practice saying yes to love, to oneness, to abundance, and to giving.  We also practice saying no to our ego’s belief that we need to hold ourselves back, and the belief that fear and lack are real.

The first servant in the parable represents what we might call our “talent of five.”  When the Bible mentions the number five, it usually represents our five senses.  The ego’s use of this talent is to judge by appearances, to only look at what’s on the surface.  Our real self sees through appearances to the divine truth beneath them.
To double our sense of sight would mean practicing “insight.”  It would mean seeing the opportunity within the problem.  It would mean seeing past what someone has been to what they can be.  It would mean looking beyond our differences to what we have in common.

To double our sense of hearing would mean to practice what we might call “inner hearing.”  An example of this would be to not just ask our intellect what to do, but to go deeper – to ask for and listen to our guidance.  Another example would be to hear beyond a verbal attack to the call for love behind it.

All this is the inner or metaphysical meaning of the Parable of the Talents.  Then, I asked those here to join me in the OUTER expression of this parable.  As I said earlier, we gave out seed money – anywhere from $10 to $50.  I asked people to multiply this money doing something which will be a gift to them personally.

People have used this event to get unstuck and move energy in some part of their lives.  They have also used it to practice a skill they want to develop, or to enjoy a hobby they don’t usually take time for.  Others have used this event to simply do something they love to do while supporting Unity at the same time.

There are a host of examples of things people have done.  Of course, people who see themselves as artists or craft people can fairly easily find some way to express their creativity.  However, there are lots of other ideas.

One man, who loved to cook, sold a “soup of the month” for a year.  He would bring a container of “this month’s soup” to those who purchased it.  Another man, a pharmacist who loved trout fishing, sold “a day of trout fishing with me” for $50.  A friend and I purchased these and had a wonderful time.  Another woman, who loved baking Christmas cookies, sold several tins of them.  Yet another man put his favorite poems in a book and sold that.

Another woman, who had a green thumb, bought seedlings and used the four weeks until the sale as time to grow the plants.  Another woman, someone good at de-cluttering, sold her services to help people de-clutter.  The list is restricted only by our imagination.

In this project, you and I win individually, as we do something we enjoy doing.  Unity wins because this supports us in having the funds to express our mission.  Finally, the community at large wins as we teach more and more people how to live a life of love.

So, join us in this grand adventure.  If you want to participate and you don’t know how, give me a call.  The more you express the talented being you are, the more you will find yourself living in the Kingdom of Heaven.