Planting the Seven Seeds of Serenity

As the holiday season approaches, many of us stress over the perfect setting, the thoughtful gift giving, the dynamics of family and friends. In the November issue of Guide for Spiritual Living: Science of Mind magazine, writer Kathy Juline, RScP, offers seven seeds that we might plant to achieve serenity, even if we find ourselves surrounded by chaos.

“To embrace serenity as a way of life is to find freedom from emotions that have their origin in fear and insecurity,” Juline writes. But how to we achieve — and sustain — a serene state of mind? Here are seven seeds we might plant:

1. Solitude — Turn within to your deep self, communing with that which is most alive and real.
2. Silence — Stop the live streaming of old programming. “Listening to the silence of our being,” Juline says, “we hear more clearly our own authentic promptings….”
3. Stillness — Enable the quietude of your mind to spread throughout your being, embracing an inner sense of calm ease.
4. Simplicity — Let go of excesses. “A crowded mind cannot think as clearly or effortlessly as one that is kept free of complexity and confusion,” Juline writes.
5. Sufficiency — We are enough. And we have enough.
6. Surrender — “Surrender brings out strengths,” Juline posits. “When we surrender, we turn from the lesser within ourselves and allow the greater to be expressed.”
7. Shift — Decide to regulate your thinking so you “turn completely away from the appearance of imperfection and hold fast to the belief that we live in a spiritual universe.”

Juline adds, “Through daily practice, we enter into a deep sense of assurance and freedom, a partnership with the Divine.”

Loving Kindness Meditation

Rev. Dr. Petra Weldes explores how we replace a culture of fear with a culture of love in the November issue of Guide for Spiritual Living: Science of Mind magazine. As part of the insights she offers, she also suggests using affirmative prayer and other forms of prayer. To that end, we share with you the Loving Kindness Meditation (Metta Sutta):

May I/we/you/they be well. May I/you/they be happy.
May I/you/they be healthy.
May I/you/they be at peace.
May I/you/they be free from pain and suffering.

Join the Conversation — Make a Nomination

As one of the organizations honoring the 2018 New Thought Walden Awards honorees, we encourage each of our readers to spend some time being part of the recent conversation among those whose work is changing our world. While the honorees’ summit has already taken place, you can still access the video — and prepare to be challenged, uplifted, changed.

You can watch the summit either by accessing the Zoom recording or by watching the Facebook Live video. You can access either by visiting https://scienceofmind.com/new-thought-walden-awards/.

While you’re watching, please consider making a nomination for the 2019 Walden Awards in any or all of six categories. You can nominate as many people as you please in each category. Nominations may be made for well-known leaders or for the unsung heroes who deserve some recognition. Details appear on the website listed above. Nominations will be open until December 31, 2018.

All Truth Is Our Truth

— Dr. Ernest Holmes

We live in a universe of Spirit and of Law. From the one we are to draw inspiration, from the other we are to utilize power. Each is a complement to the other, and both are necessary to existence. …

All Truth is our truth. No man robs us of our own soul, and our spirit is already one with the eternal Goodness. …

We study the thought of the ages and are not ashamed to admit any falsity in our own thought. We are after the Truth and shall be satisfied with nothing less than that Truth which proves Itself to be really true. We are scientific searchers for that Truth which makes man free, and we know that we have found entrance to It.

The past is behind and whatever doubt it may have held is gone with it. The future is before, bright with prospects; the eternal sun of righteousness is ever ascending, never to descend. Let us look toward the high goal of lasting attainment, fearless and happy.

Let us live in the present, looking neither backward in horror, not forward with apprehension, but looking into the present with joy — “abiding in faith.”

— Excerpted from the book Living Without Fear, available at SoMArchives.org and as reprinted in the November 2018 issue of Guide for Spiritual Living: Science of Mind magazine.