Graduate Level Living – Outline

Part I

  1. We know how we’re living our lives depending on what’s showing up in our lives.
  2. When things don’t go as planned how do we react?
  3. Do you go to a place that is bigger than those things?
  4. It’s okay to have human emotions about it, but does it derail your peace of mind?
  5. We are bigger than any situation or circumstance.
  6. Jesus offers Graduate Level Living when he speaks of “Life and life abundantly”.
  7. Our lives have a gravitational pull so it takes a lot of energy to break free of our habits.
  8. You must be deliberate, diligent, and disciplined in your spiritual practice.
  9. Casual spirituality will not produce long-term results.
  10. The Dalai Lama says every problem is a spiritual issue.
  11. Life will get louder and louder until it gets your attention.
  12. We must be receptive to God’s nudges
  13. In Jesus’ Sermon on the MountHe says, “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.” Meek, in the Aramaic translation, means teachable, open, and receptive.
  14. The evidence that God loves us is that we exist.
  15. Graduate Level Living begins with cultivating healthy self-esteem.
  16. There is a deeper self-esteem than how much money we have, how much we weigh, how we look, etc.
  17. You must continue accomplishing more and more to maintain that kind of self value – it’s a hole that won’t get filled.
  18. Psychologists say that 97% of the time we’re talking to ourselves.
  19. How much of that is negative chatter?
  20. Spiritual self-esteem is “keeping the high watch”, or moving your awareness to a place of high consciousness and living from there.
  21. None of us are perfect at this.
  22. Paul said it this way: “Whatever things are pure and perfect and of good report, think on these things.”
  23. Don’t diminish your self-esteem by pushing the good away.

Part II

  1. We are in conscious connection with God’s presence.
  2. As Paul called it, “prayer without ceasing.”
  3. It’s the building of connection that becomes more and more conscious
  4. Moments of remembering God’s presence expand, and moments of forgetting who we are get narrower.
  5. Meister Eckhardt said, “The unmistakable evidence of God’s presence is joy.”
  6. Joy isn’t contained by or dependent on the experiences in our lives.
  7. There is plenty of joy available wherever you are in your journey.
  8. Elizabeth Barrett Browning wrote: “Earth’s crammed with heaven and every common bush is a fire with God. But only he who sees it takes off his shoes. The rest of us sit around and pluck blackberries.”
  9. Teaching story about a man who loves his home and the nearby dam breaks. The coast guard comes to warn him with a jeep. They tell him to evacuate and he refuses and says that, “God will take care of him.” The river rose and his first floor gets flooded. The coast guard comes with a boat and tells him to evacuate. He refuses again. Second floor floods. Man is sitting on the roof. Helicopter comes with a life-preserver and a ladder and he still refuses. The man drowns and asks God why he didn’t save him. God replies that he sent him a jeep, boat, and a helicopter!
  10. There are some jeeps, boats, and helicopters in our own lives right now.
  11. Pay attention! Don’t blow off the signs.
  12. Story of Jonah and the Whale – jeep story
  13. Life will get your attention one way or another – God’s will for us is greater than any resistance.
  14. In Jeremiah we hear, “Behold, these are the plans I have for you, plans to give you a future with great hope… Like clay in the hand of the potter, so you are in my hands,’ saith the Lord.”
  15. This is God saying “Let’s do life together!”
  16. Prayer - God, take me today and let me be what you want me to be. Let only your will be done in my life. Take away my difficulties that victory over them would bear witness to those that I would help of your way of life.

Part III

1)Story about yogi who wants to be enlightened. His teacher tells him to go to the hills and find a cave. Meditate from dawn to dawn and bring nothing with him. The yogi goes but he takes a loincloth in case it gets cold. After weeks his loincloth is dirty and he needs to wash it. While it’s drying mice come chew on the corner of it. He goes to the city to buy a cat to scare off the mice. He then needs milk for the cat twice a day and eventually buys a cow to provide milk. He then realizes he needs a pasture for the cow to graze. Then he decides he needs a wife to help plow the pasture. He gets a wife. Before long the wife wants things. Then they have children. About five years later the Master comes looking for the yogi student. He’s looking around and finally goes to a farmer to ask if he’s seen a student who came to the hills to be enlightened. When the Master realizes who the farmer is, he asks what happened to him. The yogi replies, “I brought a loincloth with me.”

a)What is your loincloth? What are you holding onto?

2)“Letting go and letting God.”

a)We’ve all heard of this practice, but there’s a difference between conceptualizing it and doing it.

i)Fruits of spiritual life according to Ghandi– openness, presence, the ability to listen, the ability of being, seeing, spontaneity, joy, and profound peace

ii)Who we become in the process of life is the great gift

3)Who’s holding up your world?

a)Are you doing it yourself?

i)Are you feeling anxious or a rub of any kind? Let go and let God.

4)You can’t let go and then let God. It is one thing. Letting go is letting God.

a)Comes from a place of perfect balance.

i)You don’t surrender your desire for a certain outcome, you surrender your attachment.

5)Bob Trask says in God’s Phone Number, “Being helpless does not mean being powerless.”

a)Sometimes you have to let God take the reigns.

i)Sidestep your ego.

ii)Facts don’t determine your outcome

b)Make a “God Can” – get a can, write “God Can” on it, write down any problem or concern you have, put it in the can.

i)This can help anchor the idea. When your mind wants to go back to the problem say, “No, I gave that to God.”

Part IV

1)Aligning our will with God’s

a)This is the will that will be most supportive, the highest, and the best.

i)Why would we want anything less?

b)At an ego level we struggle with this.

i)This is about letting go and breathing into the struggle.

2)Jesus “cleared the temple of all that sullied it.”

a)What is in your temple that is sullying it? An old resentment, hurt, or fear?

b)Something in you is signaling you right now.

i)Pay attention to that – that is God.

3)There is that in each of us that wants to burst forth.

a)This is not age dependent

b)It wants to break free from limitation

4)Sometimes we hang onto our littleness. The humility step is asking what love would do?

5)WILL Acronym

a)W – Writing.

i)Take a sacred moment to express what’s inside of you. It’s just between you and God.

b)I – Interact with good as you recognize it

i)The more you focus on the good, the more the good expands.

ii)Claim the good even when you don’t see it.

c)L – laughter

i)Make light of difficult situations

ii)Sacho noye practice of laughing creates different energy

d)L - looking for the good

i)God is everywhere present

i)and turn your attention onto something greater. Love’s unbound presence in your life

Week 4

1)Signs you’re in a difficult relationship:

a)When someone leaves you a message and you feel anxiety about calling them back.

b)Person you have just been with leaves you feeling drained.

c)When you have fantasy conversations in your mind where you just let them have it.

d)When you’ve “let them have it” you feel vindicated and/or triumphant.

2)We only love BECAUSE we are loved.

a)Unconditional love is liberating – it frees you from conditions

b)Don’t love strategically, don’t give in order to receive.

3)Lack of love and respect for yourself cuts off your capacity to live in Love

a)We all wear “As Is” or “Slightly Irregular” signs, but Love has the final word.

4)Difficult relationships show us the condition of our own hearts.

a)You get the perfect mirror of your ability to love.

b)Where is your edge? Is it ethnicity, education, size, economics? What causes your barriers with people?

c)Always speak the truth with love.

i)Sometimes it doesn’t feel good, but some of the greatest gifts come from friends who are willing to help you see where you can improve or see how you’re affecting them.

5)How open are you in your relationships?

a)Are you willing to be 100% truthful about what you want or what might be bothering you?

6)Encourage each other’s fulfillment.

a)Love always wins out. Be there for each other.

Phone: 503.922.3460 • Fax: 503.922.2553 • PO Box 630269, Simi Valley, CA 93063

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