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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 Joy of Transformation” 

By Rev. Phillip Smedstad

This past Sunday, the lesson was all about personal transformation.  My ministry used to be all about positive thinking.  However, for the past 30+ years, its purpose has been to support us all in transforming our lives from fear based to love filled.

Jesus’ entire message was focused on this – how to transform our lives so that we might live in Heaven now, not after we die.

Rev. Jack Boland, the originator of the prayer program called “The Master Mind Principle,” once said, “My prayer life got a lot more productive when I stopped saying ‘God help me’ and started saying ‘God change me.’”

Alan Cohen, the author of the best-seller The Dragon Doesn’t Live Here Anymore, said, in one of his books, “Self-Help programs which don’t include transformation are about as effective as rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic.”  And someone (I don’t remember who) said, “Saying affirmations without a commitment to deep inner change is like putting frosting on an undone cake.”

Jesus constantly spoke of moving from one level of our inner being to another.  For example, he said, “Unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone.  But if it dies, it bears much fruit.”  How can a grain of wheat die?  It can die to knowing itself as a separate grain of wheat.

Often, Jesus used the phrase “his own” to refer to living on the level of our ego mind.  Here are some examples:

• “Whoever would save his own life will lose it, but whoever loses his own life for the sake of the kingdom will find it.”
• “Whoever would be my disciple, let him take up his own cross (face himself) and follow me.”
• “A man’s enemies will be they of his own household.”  (his ego mind)
• “A prophet is not without honor except in his own country.”  (again, his ego)
• “Greater love has no person than that he would lay down his own life for those he loves.”

Jesus also said, “Do not put new wine in old wineskins.”  That is, don’t put new understanding of spiritual principles into an old belief system.  Over and over, he spoke of asking for and welcoming inner change.  Why?  Because the purpose of life is to heal our sense of separation from God.

Literally, nothing but this will give us peace and true happiness – not money, not outer success, not that perfect relationship, and not fame.  The only thing that will fulfill us is oneness with God.

The fulfillment of what we sometimes call “the great American dream” (life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness) turns out to be a profound spiritual quest.  True liberty is not about adding something in order to be complete.  It’s about UN-learning our ego beliefs, like:

• The belief that we are all beings who are separate from God and separate from each other.
• The belief that death and fear are real, and love is not.
• The belief that judgments are a form of wisdom, and we need them.
• The belief that there are only so many pieces of the pie, so the more you have the less I have and vice versa.

None of these are true, but most of us have believed them our whole life.  In this belief system, we believe there is something lacking in us so we see lack wherever we look.  This is the thought system into which we were born.

On Sunday, I shared the story of Jesus healing the man born blind.  If you want to read it, it’s found in John, chapter nine.  In a very real way, we were ALL born blind – blind to the real divine truth of ourselves and that of each other. 

The interpretation I shared on Sunday was about this spiritual blindness into which we were born.
In the story, the blind man represents every one of us.  Because of the culture into which we were born, we grew up blind to our divinity.  Jesus represents the Christ consciousness.  This is the place in each of us where we know and accept our oneness with God.  This story is about what happens when we become conscious of this truth.
The Pharisees represent an aspect of our ego mind, the part which wants to use spiritual teachings to make itself (the ego) more solid. 

Jesus called the Pharisees “blind guides of the blind,” and said that if we follow them, we’ll all fall into the ditch.

In the story, the disciples ask Jesus, “Who’s guilty, this man or his parents?”  Jesus replies, “No one is guilty.  This all happened so that the works of God may be made manifest in the world.”

Then Jesus says something truly remarkable.  He says, “For judgment came I into the world, that those who are blind might see, and so that those who see might become blind.”  Wow!

In today’s language, what this means is, “I came into the world so that those who KNOW that they are spiritually blind might learn to see with a new vision, and so that those who DON’T KNOW they are blind might discover it so they can be healed.”

The joy of living in the Kingdom of Heaven is immense, but it’s important to know that getting there will bring up anything unlike Heaven, especially anything from the past which we have suppressed.

If you want your experience of life to change (if you want to be transformed), there are several requirements.  I invite you to see if one of these is your next step:

• Stop making a god out of comfort.  Facing ourselves is not always comfortable.  That’s why we suppressed certain things in the first place.  However, the results are so worth it.
• Accept the divine truth about yourself that you are already whole and complete, and that nothing can be added to you to make you any more complete.
• Be willing to face your shadow, and be willing for your unresolved issues and mistaken decisions to come to the surface.  It’s the only way they can be released.
• Practice seeing everyone in your life as your mirror – especially those you don’t like and those you admire.  Then, practice loving these parts of yourself.
• Last, but certainly not least, be willing to completely surrender to God.  As it says in A Course In Miracles, “Fear of the will of God is the strangest belief mankind ever came up with.”

This week, let your prayers go from “God help me,” to “God change me.”  The reason to do this is because you deserve the joy of living in the Kingdom of Heaven.  You deserve the joy of transformation.