A.R.E. Meeting for 5/7/18

Hello All,

We had a good meeting with John leading. We discussed a thought to ponder; today's world conditions parallel many in the final years of Atlantis. There were the sons of Belial polarized against the followers of the Law of One. We are highly polarized. Us against them is perpetuated in our news.  We see self interests empowered and served.

We have already had twice as many earthquakes this year than we observed last year. We see the volcano in Hawaii erupting destructively on homes there.  We've had fires, floods, tornadoes, and hurricanes. We remember Cayce stating that our thoughts and emotions, wars or peacetime, both affect our earth quite differently.  At what point will conditions here begin to improve?

We read the corresponding lesson in our experiments book. We agreed our experiment is:

Observe how you evaluate the greatness of others. Work at recognizing and reinforcing (or reflecting) greatness in the lives of ordinary people who give of themselves and love.

We read the remainder of chapter III, God the Father and his manifestations. We closed the meeting praying the 23rd Psalm, then discussed this question: Is the Trinity one God, or is it  separated into The Father, The Son, and the Holy Spirit? Is the Advent of The Word, The Logos, God, the the form of Jesus a Story or a historical fact? If you missed this interesting discussion, you might have guessed various opinions were quite different.

We are looking forward to seeing you next Monday.

In Living Service,

Sylvia

A.R.E. Meeting for 4/30/18

Dear Friends,

Attendees were Eric, Sylvia, John and Scott. 

June will be our leader for the month of May.

We read pages 164 & 165 from A Search for God II. Sylvia shared how she thought Washington Carver exhibited Christ Consciousness during his life. We also discussed the concept of no space and time. 

The Experiment for next week:

Replace any thoughts that God may be punishing you or making you repay an old wrong, with the understanding that it is mankind that chooses the way of trial and suffering. Pick an area of your life where there tends to be some suffering on your part (physically, mentally, emotionally) and see if you can find some way to put that lesson into application through loving and serving others.

'Enjoy the little things, for one day you may look back and realize they were the big things'

 - ROBERT BRAULT

Everyone have a blessed week!

Scott

A.R.E. Meeting for 4/23/18

Dear Friends,

Let's remember to send prayers of healing to Cindi, who had her cataract surgery yesterday, and will be rehabilitating the next two weeks. Let's send healing prayers as well to Eric, who was just not feeling as well as he could.

Scott is our leader for April. He asked me to lead instead this week only.

We had a good meeting and excellent discussion of Christ Consciousness. That is basically what Tom Baker, former professor of theology in a Catholic seminary and currently a speaker for ARE's national programs, introduced and described as the main idea in his presentation of "Awakening the Spiritual Master Within."

Tom Baker seemed amazed (as was I ) that another attendee described herself as spiritually neutral. She was given no spiritual teachings or beliefs during her upbringing. She thought having no expectations, rules, or teachings about either spirituality or religion was a benefit to her in accepting God, Universal Forces, The Holy Spirit, or whatever your understanding of GOD is. She had an experience at age 18 and knew immediately that it was Universal Forces or God taking care of her needs and protecting her. She was able to do so because of the absence of expectations and religious beliefs. That made it so EASY for her to accept and know she would always be taken care of and protected. Then some years later she had another spiritual experience. She was awakened during her sleep by the tone of a crystal sounding. She had built that sleeping room. She had put everything in it. She knew there was NO CRYSTAL in the room to ring or sound out. But she knew it was the affirmation of her benevolent protector in that 2nd spiritual experience. 

Among the first of the audience to speak up, a silver haired man told of being ill. He dreamed of a man with a particular necklace in gold robes coming to him in his dream. (Sorry  I heard only part of it, but I think he was hospitalized at the time of the dream).  Later when he saw a photo of Edgar Cayce, he realized  Edgar Cayce was the same man with the necklace in a gold robe who had appeared to him earlier in his dream!

Throughout the day the audience told of spiritual experiences, of experiencing light, of descriptions of Christ Consciousness. Our discussion of Christ Consciousness included remembering people in our lives expressing perfectly the Christ Consciousness.  One amazing mother of five very active young men known for fighting and smashing birthday cakes at parties they crashed if uninvited, always remained kind, calm, loving, patient, soft spoken no matter what situations her son's life created.

Another wonderful example was a below average income Sunday school teacher with a gift of capturing her pupils enthusiastic attention for her Bible lesson with: I will tell you a story even better than all your (popular story and comic and movie hero s) current ones. She even testified to  a modern day miracle  personally experienced. She told of having one lung removed and my LUNG GREW BACK.

Another woman spoke of a quote she had in several places in her house. The quote came from someone she respected spiritually. It goes: What if nothing is wrong.

Who exemplified the Christ Consciousness in your life?  Have you experienced any modern day miracles?  I imagine most, if not all, of us have.

We are working on the same experiment again this week.  I believe it is on page 34 of our Experiments book. 

Most of us have trouble knowing what to do with our anger.  Then there are three good Cayce quotes on anger. One is below.

Hold not malice, though easily ye may at times be angry but sin not. Righteous wrath is a virtue, as well as is patience for they must arise from the same influence, or from the same motivation experience. Edgar Cayce reading # 2635-1

Experiment:  Explore in your own life what it means to be patient and forgiving and yet still be able to be angry and sin not. Act ON anger instead of IN anger.

I'm looking forward to seeing you Monday and hearing how your experiment of using anger as a motivation to take action or to change a situation versus merely expressing or even dumping anger on another. Or perhaps you will want to tell us about your experience of the previous weeks experiment. 

In Loving Service,

Sylvia

A.R.E. Meeting for 4/9/18

Hello all

Attendees for April 9, 2018 meeting were John, Sylvia, Eric, June, and Scott.

We took turns reading from chapter 3: God, the Father, and His Manifestations in the Earth, pages 161 through 164. We had discussions as we read.

We discussed the assigned experiment: Make a list of the ways you see God. We also discussed ancient stone tablets and markers both of old and new and how they play in to the consciousness of today.

We read through to the next experiment on page 32:

Practice true consistency in your relationships to self, others in God. Consider the things you do repeatedly by habit and try to bring conscious awareness to them: aware of the purpose for which you are doing them and awareness of how the things you are doing relate to the whole. For example, on my drive to work in the morning I will be aware of people and places. I will be conscious of why I have chosen to go to the place of work which I do. I will be aware of the part I played in this rush hour traffic and cooperate to help get people safely to work. 

Scott is the leader for April.

Make a commitment to these goals and watch your destiny become your reality.

Everybody have a great week.

Sincerely, Scott

A.R.E. Meeting for 4/2/18

Attendees for the April 2, 2018 meeting were John, Sylvia, Cindi, Donna, Eric and Scott. I, Scott, am leader for April.

We discussed the assigned experiments.  1.  Spend 15 minutes before you go to bed on activities and attitudes helpful for sleep.

2. Spend a week paying attention to to your dream experiences.  3. Relate a specific dark, confusing, or suffering side of your life a new way.

We also discussed the various reasons we penalize people and why we send them to jail.

I read pages 29 - 32 in chapter III GOD THE FATHER, AND HIS MANIFESTATIONS IN THE EARTH.

Experiment Page 32:

Practice true consistency in your relationships to self, others and God. Consider the things you do repeatedly-- by habit-- and try to bring conscious awareness to them: awareness of purpose for which you are doing them and awareness of how things you are doing relate to the whole. For example, on my drive to work in the morning I will be aware of people and places. I will be conscious of why I have chosen to go to the place of work which I do. I will be aware of the part I play in this rush-hour traffic and cooperate to help get people safely to work.

Everyone have a great week,

Scott

A.R.E. Meeting for 3/26/18

Hello All,

We discussed the assigned experiment. Working on connecting Mind, Body and Spirit while improving personal communication, personal health, volunteer efforts, and forgiveness were discussed.

We took turns reading and finished Chapter II, Day and Night, discussing it as we read. John shared some information about the Cathars of southern France and we discussed the history of this group and the Crusades and Inquisition.

We also finished reading the related chapter in Experiments in Practical Spirituality. Everyone gets to choose one of the last three experiments in the chapter to work on over the week.

Experiment Page 25: Spend the 15 minutes before you go to bed on activities and attitudes which you feel will make it more likely that your sleep period will be one of rest and healing. Keep a record of these activities and the results.

Experiment Page 27: Spend a week paying special attention to your dream experiences. Identify those elements of your dreams (symbols or actions) which reflect parts of yourself that you have been ignoring or have been darkened to you.

Experiment Page 28: Try relating to a specific dark, confusing or suffering side of your life in a new way. Nurture a sense of appreciation for difficult or confusing times. Try to step aside and observe things as part of a greater process and find yourself with more patience with others in their periods of darkness because you understand its role in the greater process.

Scott will be the leader for April.

Have a wonderful week and Easter!

Peacefully Yours,
June

A.R.E. Meeting for 3/19/18

We continued a discussion on chakras.

We read the affirmation for our current chapter on "Day and Night" and then meditated as we listened to the ARE Edgar Cayce Pre-Sleep CD "Tuning Your Chakras."

We discussed last week's exercise from page 22. Most of us listed our homes as possessions that we value for comfort and security and our vehicles for our mobility. We discussed our other possessions and their values to us. Sylvia brought up the "nourishment" she feels from possessions like books and family history. We discussed the value of friends and family and personal activities like our study group and hobbies.

We did not read in either book. June, as leader, asked for the group to please read on their own from the exercise on page 22 to the exercise we selected on page 24. We can discuss the reading at the next meeting.

Our exercise for the week on page 24: 
As all three--body, mind and soul--are important, so is it important to have a balanced, integrated life. Select an area of your life in which you need to have a better sense of working with all three aspects simultaneously. Try living that part of your life holistically.

Peacefully Yours,
June