Inlightened Enterprises - Midlife Messages Blog

Of course this list is not complete… But, I find these the easiest to focus on.

ABUNDANCE - Plentifulness, profusion, and ample or overflowing quantity. (The state of having more than enough!)

BALANCE - Equilibrium, harmony, an aesthetically pleasing integration of elements. (Giving enough energy and time to everything that is important to you.)

BEAUTY - Loveliness; the quality in a person or thing that gives pleasure to the senses or pleasurably exalts the mind or spirit.

FREEDOM - Liberation, independence, ease; the absence of necessity, coercion or constraint in choice or action.

JOY - Delight, gaiety, bliss; a state of happiness; the emotion evoked by well- being, success, good fortune or by the expectancy of good. (”Joy is a sure sign of the Presence of God.” - Yogananda)

LOVE - The self-givingness of God to Its creation; affection, devotion; unselfish concern that freely accepts another and seeks her/his good.

ORDER - Regular or harmonious arrangement; organization; a straightening out so as to eliminate confusion.

PEACE - A state of tranquillity or quiet; freedom from disquieting or oppressive thoughts or emotions; harmony in personal relations.

POWER - Possession of control, authority or influence; physical, mental or spiritual ability to act or produce an effect.

UNITY - Oneness; accord; continuity without deviation or change.

WHOLENESS - The quality or state of being complete, perfect, restored, unhurt, healed and having all parts or components.

WISDOM - Knowledge, insight, good sense; ability to discern inner qualities and Relationships.

For more information on the Qualities of God and how to use them in goal setting, call Dr. Toni or check out her home page at http://www.tonilamotta.com

One of the major truths of the Spiritual life is that there is ALWAYS more. It is the nature of Spirit to expand and our nature to continually be seeking SOMETHING MORE. We don’t have to be frustrated in the search. Just like there are laws that govern mathematics, music, physics and the physical universe, so there are spiritual laws that teach us how to prosper.

LAW 1 The Bible describes the first law when it speaks of sowing and reaping. Scientists describe it as action and reaction. Economists call it supply and demand. Emerson called it the law of compensation - like attracts like.

That which you radiate outward in your thoughts, feelings, mental pictures and words, you attract into your life and affairs. Each of us is a magnet. We don’t need to force success and prosperity. We need to develop an expectant, prosperous state of mind that is a magnet for all good rather than entertaining the tense, critical, anxious, depressed, unforgiving, possessive state of mind that is a magnet for all kinds of trouble and failure. Nothing can stand between you and the good you
dare to choose.

LAW 2 –You have heard it said that “Nature abhors a vacuum”. It is particularly true in the realm of prosperity. If you want greater good in your life, start forming a vacuum!! Get RID OF WHAT you don’t want to make room for what you do.

If there are clothes in your closet or furniture in your home or office that no longer seem right for you, give them away.

If there are people among your acquaintances and friends that no longer seem congenial – begin moving away.

Often it is difficult to know what you do want until you get rid of what you don’t. When you let go of the lesser, you make room for the greater. When you dare to form a vacuum, the substance of the universe rushes in to fill that empty space.

LAW 3 – the Law of creation says:

• have a plan – write it out and constantly expand it
• mentally imagine the plan as fulfilled
• constantly affirm its perfect fulfillment

LAW 4 Dr. Emile Coue first declared that the imagination is a much stronger force than will power. When the imagination and will are in conflict, the imagination always wins. Spend time picturing what you want to happen coming to pass. Feel the feelings; get ONE WITH God/the Good on this.

LAW 5 – There has never been a nation in which the practice of this last ancient law has not prevailed. The early Egyptians, Babylonians, Persians, Arabians, Greeks, Romans and Chinese were among those who used this method. Even primitive man, through the financial sacrifices he offered his gods, practiced it.

True prosperity has a spiritual basis. God is the Source of your supply. Your mind, body, abilities, talents, education, experience, job or profession are all instruments and channels of your prosperity, but God is the Source.

You must do something definite and consistent to keep in touch with that rich Source, if you want to be consistently prospered.

Systematic giving opens the way to systematic receiving. Give through the consistent sharing of your tithes with God’s work and workers at the point or points where you are receiving spiritual help and inspiration. The word TITHE means TENTH and the ancient people felt that TEN was the magic number of increase.

Jacob, at a low point in his life, made a tithe covenant with God, in which he asked for prosperity, guidance, peace of mind and reconciliation with his family. In turn, he promised, “Of all that thou shalt give me, I will surely give the tenth unto thee.” It is little wonder that Jacob became one of the bible’s early millionaires…

Make a COVENANT with God - — what do you want to receive? What are you willing to give?

For more information on how to hire Dr, Toni for a speaking engagement or workshop CLICK HERE NOW

How do we practice peace? I call it nonviolent living and here again we can go on forever - individually, in our relationships, and in our world. What about nonviolent living with ourselves? How many of us are living driven? We’ve got to get this done, we’ve got to do that thing, and the world is going to end if this doesn’t happen… Can you see how that’s violence? We are doing violence to ourselves. We were never meant to live at the pace that our modern society is calling us to live. Let’s think about that.
We have all these modern conveniences that are making it twice as hard for us to live at times. What is this about? Think about it. We have to acquire them and we have to maintain them. We have to do all these extra things. I think our forefathers gave us something challenging in the pursuit of happiness, because that’s what we do – pursue it continually – instead of accepting that it already is. I constantly say to people and to myself, if amassing all these things, and getting all these things done were really
important and you were to die today, what would you take with you? What’s really important? Where is your energy going?

What about all the over-indulgence in whatever it is? It’s doing violence to ourselves. What about putting ourselves down? Most of us do violence to ourselves in the way we talk about ourselves, in the way we deal with ourselves, instead of seeing ourselves as the very expression of God. How would you treat someone if you knew that right through your front door was coming God Itself right now? What would you do? How would you treat God? How would you experience God? That’s the Truth about who you and I
are. If it’s the Truth that we are individualized expressions of God, then why aren’t we treating ourselves as such? Look at the way we put ourselves down and find ways of making ourselves wrong.

In that chatter that says, not enough, you should be doing this. What’s wrong with that? Why isn’t this happening? Anybody else have that going on? Peace, the practice of peace, is looking in the mirror every day and saying, “I love you exactly as you are.” It’s a very interesting practice. If you haven’t done it for a while, do it for a week. Look in the mirror and say, “I love you just the way you are.” Let it be God’s voice – that Christ nature that’s trying to break through. Let the Buddha nature within
you, let your higher self within you, tell you what it thinks of you. Stand there and look in the mirror so you could hear it coming back. There’s a song, “How Could Anyone Ever Tell You?”, that makes everyone I know cry when they hear it: “How could anyone ever tell you, you were anything less than beautiful? How could anyone ever tell you, you were less than whole? How could anyone fail to notice that your loving is a miracle; how deeply you’re connected to my soul.” How about saying those words as you look
in the mirror? “How could anyone ever tell you?” and that means YOU. That’s the first person where the violence needs to stop. We need to find the peace within ourselves.

There’s a peace inside of us that’s unchanging, that’s transcendent. I love the passage where Jesus said to his disciples, “Let not your hearts be troubled. Do not be afraid. My peace I leave with you. My peace I give to you.” That was a promise. Perhaps some of you might not have read the Bible in a long time. I recommend pulling it out and seeing the promises. MY PEACE I GIVE TO YOU. It’s yours. It’s yours already. Are you willing to accept it? Are you willing to take it or are you hell bent on living the way
you want to live, putting yourself down? I have given you a gift. Do you want to use it or not? That’s what I hear happening here. So many of us are in effect saying that we’d rather live in pain and suffering, and would really rather focus on the things that aren’t working in life. Sometimes I think I do that. I wonder why I would rather focus on what’s not working rather than on the gift that I’ve been given? So, focusing on the Qualities of God is an opportunity to focus on that gift that has already
been given to us.

If anywhere in my life I still think that someone else or something else is the CAUSE of anything, I’m abdicating the very gift of the Universe/Life/Universe/Life/God that makes me as human – the quality of Universe/Life/God that makes us most like Universe/Life/God – our FREEDOM.

When we are speaking of Freedom as Universe/Life/God’s quality, we are primarily talking about the gift of free will. Free will is a basic right bestowed upon us by our creator so that we can learn to be co-creators. We don’t ever create anything. We don’t create out of nothing. Only Universe/Life/God creates out of nothing. But, it is in co-creation with Universe/Life/God that everything comes into being. So, because we have this right, we should use it, take advantage of the precious gift that it is.

If you had purchased or was given a ticket to a BUFFET, you would then have the right to take from this buffet whatever you would choose to take. You paid your $9.95 and that then, gave you the right to eat whatever you choose. Would you sit down and complain that you didn’t get any dessert, or salad, or something that you chose? Not if you are thinking at all. You would get up and go get it. We spend a lot of our lives complaining because things aren’t the way we want them to be. But, we’ve already been given the whole gift, to make the choices that we make and then, we say, it’s not happening. It must be something else out there.

Albert Einstein once said: .The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and all science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed.. Can we see? Wrapped in awe and wonder. When was the last time you let that happen? How many people walk around in life feeling wrapped in awe and wonder? Most of us are wrapped in confusion and fear; wrapped in I can’t do this, wrapped in: What’s going to happen?.

What are you wrapped in? When was the last time you took time out to notice something beautiful? Remember, the Law of Attraction teaches us that whatever we focus on increases. Spend time each day NOTICING beauty around you and let it touch you. Helen Keller tells us, “The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched. They must be felt with the heart.”

So, to cultivate the Quality of Beauty, we need to look beyond the physical and take time every day to look at the physical so that we can see beyond it. As Johann Wolfgang von Goethe once said: “Hear a little music, read a little poetry, and see a fine picture every day of your life, in order that worldly cares may not obliterate the sense of the beautiful which God has implanted in the human soul.” When I first read that, it made me ask myself what I spent my time on. Who has time to read a book, to listen to music, to go to a place of beauty? Isn’t that what we frequently say? I hear more retired people today saying that they don’t have the time. .I’m too busy.. What’s this about? What are we busy about? Take time to smell the roses. Can we, every single day take some time to listen to music, to read some poetry? What would life be like if we started living that way instead? To focus on what is real, what is important in life, what’s beautiful, rather than what we now focus on, whatever that is.

Walt Whitman tells us .A morning-glory at my window satisfies me more than the metaphysics of books.. And, once again, Ralph Waldo Emerson, .Never lose an opportunity of seeing anything that is beautiful, for beauty is God’s handwriting - a wayside sacrament.

Welcome it in every fair face, in every fair sky, in every flower, and thank God for it as a cup of blessing.

One of my favorite Chinese proverbs says, “When you have only two pennies left in the world, buy a loaf of bread with one, and a lily with the other.”

If you truly love Nature, you will find beauty everywhere. The moment that we give attention to anything, like a blade of grass, it becomes mysterious. It becomes awesome. It becomes a magnificent world unto itself.

R. Buckminster Fuller once said: “When I am working on a problem I never think about beauty. I only think about how to solve the problem. But when I have finished, if the solution is not beautiful, I know it is wrong.”

American author, poet and philosopher, Ralph Waldo Emerson said, Though we travel the world over to find the beautiful, we must carry it with us or we find it not.

Beauty is so much more than physical appearance.

Of all the definitions of Beauty that I found in my research, the one that appeals to me most is by a man named George Bancroft : Beauty itself is but the sensible image of the infinite.

Webster’s Dictionary defines Beauty as “Pleasing to the eye; felicity, especially of appearance; graceful or balanced structure; aesthetic perfection “

There’s a lot of emphasis here on the senses – on appearance - …. Today, I want us to stretch our knowing and recognize that to really understand Beauty, we need to SEE not only the appearances, but BEYOND appearances. (actually, that’s how we get to understand God, or Good as well….it’s all about our ability to see beyond appearances! )

Most of us have heard the cliché – Beauty is in the eyes of the beholder… today I want to encourage us to look with new eyes. Let’s change PLEASING TO THE EYE that we see with –to PLEASING TO THE “I” that we are

Ask yourself - how often is the person’s appearance a reason that you admire them? What do you think are the most important attributes a person can have? What would you like another person to most admire in you?

The prophet, Kahlil Gibran, once said: Beauty is eternity gazing at itself in a mirror. If you only see with your senses, you’ll miss so much of the Beauty of life.

In speaking of Poetry, Percy Shelley once said: Poetry lifts the veil from the hidden beauty of the world, and makes familiar objects be as if they were not familiar.

What eyes do you see with? Is your life focused on what the senses tell you – or what you sense beyond the senses?

The classical musician, John Cage, once said: The first question I ask myself when something doesn’t seem to be beautiful is why do I think it’s not beautiful. And very shortly you discover that there is no reason.

And the English painter, John Constable : I never saw an ugly thing in my life: for let the form of an object be what it may - light, shade, and perspective will always make it beautiful.

American author, poet and philosopher, Ralph Waldo Emerson said, Though we travel the world over to find the beautiful, we must carry it with us or we find it not.

Children start becoming judgmental of physical beauty at an extremely young age. All the fairy tales tell us that the Princess or heroine is beautiful and the BAD person or the witch is always UGLY.. Kids are always fighting to be included with the people that make up the “in crowd.” Typically these groups of popularity are the beautiful people and they shun anyone who doesn’t match up to whatever standard of beauty that they have set. Anarexia and bulimia have become commonplace among teenagers.

We have a society that caters to the extremely beautiful, The media does not help this situation at all. Television constantly portrays beautiful people in the shows and in almost every commercial between the shows. It is almost exactly the same with magazines. The media is, and probably always will be, unless something drastic changes it, the biggest pusher of beautiful model type people.

If something or someone isn’t seen as beautiful, TV is filled today with reality shows that show you how they can be. Have you seen all the shows about makeovers? – You can have a room made over, a house made over, then there is Queer Eye on the Straight Guy, where 5 gay men help a straight man impress his woman by fixing his apartment, his hair, his clothing, the way he cooks, walks, well, just about everything. Then, there is the popular show, called “Extreme Makeovers”. Have you seen it? The people on the show are men and women who are not happy with their physical appearance and they are set up with all kinds of doctors and make-over artists. These people make complete changes, plastic surgery, liposuction, breast implants, hair, makeup, clothing. It’s a show that reveals how much pain people have when they identify themselves with their form.

The popularity of the show speaks of the resonance in people everywhere for the aspects of the fairytale archetype. The longing to be beautiful.

Little Johnny watched, fascinated, as his mother smoothed cold cream on her face. “Why do you do that, mommy?” he asked.
“To make myself beautiful,” she replied as she began to remove the cream with a tissue. “What’s the matter,” asked little Johnny. “Giving up?”

We don’t need cold creams, extreme makeovers or face lifts – what we need is a FAITH LIFT