Read an Excerpt
Morning Notes
365 Meditations to Wake You Up
By HUGH PRATHER Red Wheel/Weiser, LLC
Copyright © 2005 Hugh Prather
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-60925-193-2
CHAPTER 1
1 To choose love is to begin again.
Clearly, our human family is in distress. Yet because of this, it is also more open to change. Today I join with countless others in a renewed determination to be a better person—a truer parent to children, a more tolerant friend to others, a kinder coworker, a more committed partner. For this to happen, I must make up my mind, because behavior that flows from conflicted thoughts can't be controlled. Engaging in trench warfare with my personality doesn't work. Nor does making resolutions that last only days or weeks. To succeed I must unite my mind around a single purpose. And love is the only true purpose, and the only real unity.
2 I know what to do. The only question is, will I do it.
I have never lived this day before. I am free to start fresh. My mistakes are in the past. They can be my shame or my treasure of useful indicators. I will use them to renew my faith and strengthen my resolve. Because of my mistakes, I know what to do. Today I release the old ways that have split my mind and drained my power. I will fill my thoughts with the newness of love and the simplicity of peace. Today I open myself to others so that I may open my heart to God.
3 The answer is to let go of pressure, not add more.
My tendency is to make matters worse. Let me at least pause a moment and see what I want to do. When I set up a war within my mind, I put it between myself and God, because I make conflict more important than everything else. When I try to thwart other people, winning becomes more valuable to me than Love. And when I try to dictate the course of events, I am immediately at odds with the situation I'm already in. Yet when I relax into equality and trust in a greater Reality, life becomes simpler and my behavior modifies itself naturally.
4 To free myself from useless battles, I put all things in God's hands.
Sooner or later, I must take a leap of faith. The existence of a sustaining Love makes no rational sense. It can only be felt when I exercise trust. As long as I wait for signs, miracles, fulfillment of dreams, or just a slight improvement in circumstances, I will never know Reality. The divine can only be seen through the eyes of faith. Today I will proceed as if I already believe.
5 Because the truth is true, letting go is all there is to do.
Everything I do today is like a little test. Do I want the question or the answer, mental conflict or peace, to be right or happy, to be a burden to others or a blessing, to awake or continue sleeping? Each decision I make moves me a step closer to Home or a step further away. Therefore, it's clear that since the choice is between Truth and error, all I need do is to question—and thereby release—my desire to continue making the same mistakes.
6 Instead of trying to force the day I want, let me embrace the day I am given.
Change begins with the willingness to make a modest effort each day. To at least try to let God be God, to let Truth be my truth. I betray what I believe when I push against events and other people. Naturally, if some change is helpful to me or another, I make it. But it's simply a fact that life is happier when I listen to the music behind the scenery than when I nosily try to rearrange it.
7 To be in God is simply to be connected.
I need something more than free will, independence, or specialness. I need something more than private thoughts, a personal code, or a splendid point of view. I need people. Not in order to stay alive but in order to be fully alive, fully human, to be affectionate, funny, playful, generous, happy. I can love a concept—I can study it, meditate on it, and repeat it to others—but I can't throw my arms around it. And that's what God is: arms around us all.
8 Oneness is not cooperation. It is experiencing the familiar in another.
No one owes me anything. No one is obliged to meet my needs. People are people. They are not sexual experiences or career support or a series of well-wishers on my daily rounds. They are not enemies of my enemies or my personal support group or a way of killing time. People are not even a means for us to "get to the next level." They don't exist to give to us, or to withhold. They are us.
9 The only cost of forgiveness is to again be whole.
Isn't it obvious that anyone who wants to for give forgives easily? I must not underestimate my desire to continue judging. But the problem with grievances, grudges, bitterness, and hurt feelings is that I have to remain damaged. I have to remain living proof of the other person's guilt.
10 When I see your heart, I want what you want.
"Love your neighbor as yourself" implies nothing more complicated than the fact that anything less than love is not love. The golden rule is not asking "What would I want?" The question is what does my child, my friend, my partner, my parent truly want? Love does not guess; it enfolds, embraces, and understands. If we do not love someone outside ourselves, then quite simply, we do not love ourselves. God is love, and within the love of God there is no discrimination.
11 Kindness is the touch of God.
If God is love, kindness is the key to happiness, freedom, and true success. And if God is one, it is impossible that the practice of love would mean choosing between myself and another. I am being dishonest when I say that I must put myself first. I must put love first. Today I will use the most powerful and transformative of all spiritual practices: I will be kind. I will be kind to myself, to everyone I encounter, and to everyone who crosses my mind.
12 All around us is a welcoming Presence, but only by being kind can I feel it.
A gentle affect can disguise a malicious intent. Kindness is not smiling or agreeing or speaking softly. It must come from my heart and if expressed, always include a silent blessing. Letting people know that I hold them in my prayers sometimes engages my ego because of the acknowledgment I seek. At other times, telling them that I am praying for them can be a way of connecting and showing support. Kindness must dictate the form my efforts take. Every living thing is held in endless blessing by the divine. By being like God, we feel God.
13 When I submit to Truth, I submit to harmlessness.
Submitting is not saying yes to every ego request or condoning destructive behavior in myself or others. It has nothing to do with indecisive stands, shaky loyalties, or "seeing both sides" when a friend has been mistreated. Submitting is an impulse of sincerity, not an act of passivity or a show of impartiality. It is focusing sharply on my deeper self rather than on the superficial. My behavior is filled with God only when my heart is filled with God.
14 By letting go, I fall into God.
If I "let go and let God," I allow Love to be within me. I quietly acknowledge and embrace my true nature. Letting Love is extending love, looking gently, being quick to understand and slow to judge. It is relaxing, being still, accepting, and above all, giving up the illusion of control.
15 The ego is always up to something. Unless I remain conscious, I will act it out in some way.
An action can't exclude the mind of the one who acts. My behavior may seem appealing or unappealing, admirable or objectionable, depending on the reactions of those who view it. But another's take on what I do doesn't alter my intent, which is the true content of my behavior. Since all minds are connected, the deeper effect of my actions is in what I think. That is why there are no private thoughts or completely hidden motives. I can't expect to be a person who consistently makes life easier on my loved ones if I don't stay aware of my thoughts.
16 We can accept one another and enjoy life, or judge one another and be unhappy.
Self-preoccupation is an unhappy state of mind, yet it offers several temporary pleasures, and these must be honestly looked at. For example, revenge can seem deeply satisfying for a while and acts of ill will can make us feel more confident. But there is another set of pleasures that comes from empathy, tolerance, and trusting other people's processes, which never leads to misery. If there is indeed a greater Guidance, who am I to know what anyone else should be doing? This is what is meant by trusting others.
17 Closeness to God is first experienced as closeness to others.
There are personality types that are universally disliked. There are also individuals who are destructive, even murderous. Yet personality is not all there is to anyone. The experience of connection isn't dependent on how others talk to me or behave. Nor is it a matter of making someone like me. If we can feel close to individuals who are miles away or even to people after they die, surely the potential exists to be at peace with those who are physically present.
18 A gentle and accepting mind always feels close to God.
I alone block my perception of Oneness by thinking defensively. It may be rational to fear someone physically, but not spiritually. God does not hold me back from feeling close to anyone—telemarketer, teenager, politician, postal worker, cable company executive, spouse, or self-help author. When I relax my mind, my vision can now move past the sur face of things, and there, awaiting me, is a great Splendor.
19 Make your state of mind more important than what you are doing.
Only the mind can be controlled. Health, income, relationships, longevity, reputation, and the like, can't be controlled. Personal destiny is merely the story told by my body. Even the tiniest event can't be controlled, and the attempt to do so always splits the mind. In trying to control what I believe to be outside my mind, I discount the power of my thoughts and fail to take responsibility for them.
20 Inner peace is letting go of being right.
Obviously, I can't make myself right without making someone else wrong. Forgiveness is a choice. If I want to change my mind from an environment that tortures me to an environment that comforts me, I must make forgiving as routine as breathing. Forgiveness isn't something nice I do for another person; it's something nice I do for my mental health.
21 Acceptance is the way I bless myself.
My disdain, dismissal, hatred, or dislike of another does not punish that individual. It punishes me. I am the one with the bitter mind. I can' t pass on that little piece of hell to another. Hatred destroys all awareness of light within me, but unless I go out of my way to make others aware of it, they don't even know I judge them.
22 Our core is already positive. Choice is made possible by seeing how we routinely betray our core.
If I look at a shadow closely enough, I see that it's merely a shadow. I release my negative impulses and thoughts by giving them more attention, not less. No one acts out a judgment of which they are acutely aware. No one makes a conscious decision to act insanely against their own interests.
23 If we are each in God's hands, judging another is an act of arrogance.
I merely delude myself if I think it is possible to judge. How could I know a faster or better way to transform another person's heart than the way God has already chosen? Judging is a not so subtle way of procrastinating, of putting off something I need to take responsibility for this instant. What am I avoiding that I am taking time to judge?
24 How could one person's way possibly be superior to another person's way if God is leading us all?
If I believe that my spiritual path is superior, my path is not spiritual. Spirit is One. The divine doesn't contain degrees of correctness. Either we all share the same Truth and ultimate destiny, or there is no truth and we are lost in a reality of private perception and momentary interpretation. The way out of chaos is to stop analyzing and start experiencing, to stop looking for better ways to say it and start practicing more peaceful and inclusive ways of doing it.
25 All thoughts are equally a part of the mind.
Notice how difficult it is merely to think in peace about any individual who comes to mind. Still, that must be my aim if I am ever to experience consistent mental wholeness. My tendency is to disown the negative parts of my mind because it's uncomfortable to admit what they say about me. Yet I think what I think by choice. All of it is my mind. My motivation to learn how to react peacefully to those who people my thoughts should be enormous—once I consider the effects my attitudes have on me.
26 I release you from your past, that I may see you as God sees you.
In conversations, those who are not present are often described in terms of their mistakes. Even individuals before us now are seen as stories and not as they are this instant. In faithlessness we think, "You are created in the image and likeness of your past." Yet it's not mentally dishonest to focus instead on what is fresh, different, and unexpected. The encounter I am having now has never occur red before. Except on a spiritual level, no one is ever the same, and their progress will not be evident if I only stare at the decisions I have already made about them.
27 We each journey on a path of mistakes.
When I look back, I don't have a consistent interpretation of which acts were victories or defeats. And I have seen the same childhood circumstances as both damaging and beneficial. This much is clear: Many important gains have come on the heels of my greatest mistakes. Progress is the process of correcting mistakes, not of being perfect. Today I will make starting over more important than looking back. Those who make no mistakes have already arrived. I simply don't know what mistakes anyone needs to make. Therefore, I am in no position to be "helpful."
28 True helpfulness comes from connection, not from words.
Words alone don't help. It is what God speaks in our hearts when we read or hear words that helps. That's why familiar passages from sacred scripture often mean something new each time we reread them. And that's why it never works for me to decide what someone else needs to hear. If I want to be of use today, I must focus on my feeling of connection with others, because God is hear d within the experience of love.
29 Trusting a greater Reality makes relationships easier.
When I judge others, I question the innocence God has placed within them. Seeing my mistake, I must immediately put them back in God's hands. Today I will acknowledge that I really don't know how hard people try, how far they may have come, or in what ways God is transforming them this very instant. Comparing is the opposite of r elating. Going Home is not a foot race in which I compete. To conclude that I am ahead or behind another, I must first break with the peace of Oneness.
30 Only love can discern the bridge that stretches between two hearts. In love it is seen, and in love it is crossed.
What another person does has no fixed meaning. I interpret behavior as I choose. What do I want it to mean? I perceive others through either my moods or my peace. Stillness sees oneness; moods see chaos. Don't fight thoughts; change the source. Since I am responsible for which part of my mind I use, today I will keep returning to my quiet mind.
31 Dare to be ordinary.
God is One. I experience God by experiencing equality: the sameness in another person and the divinity in all living things. Today I will dare to turn my back on the world's shrill urgings that we should each strive to be the best. Instead, I will embrace my ordinariness. I will be normal and equal. I will have no "spiritual" posture, tell no ego-enhancing "spiritual" stories, think no separating "spiritual" thoughts. I did not create myself, and today I will relax into who I already am.
32 God knows the way to my heart.
God is not nearer just because we think about God. God could not be nearer. God's strength is our strength. God's life is our life. God's happiness is our happiness. We are each made out of God. Even now, God breathes into us our purpose, our motivation, and our fulfillment.
33 Discouragement is not helpful.
Discouragement is love of the ego because it turns to the ego for its sense of reality. Spirit will not and cannot confirm "low spirits." Discouragement is never necessary. And it isn't much fun. But the answer is not to fight it. If I fight it, I make myself a victim of my own mind, which is impossible. When I am discouraged, no matter how slight the feeling, I will be still a moment and find the place in me where I am whole. I will let my mind fall gently back into place. Then, I will start over by doing just one thing without discouragement.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Morning Notes by HUGH PRATHER. Copyright © 2005 Hugh Prather. Excerpted by permission of Red Wheel/Weiser, LLC.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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