4. You have the power to change anything about your life at this instant

In chapter one I described some of the fundamental properties of the universe as discovered by physicists within the last century or so.  One of these properties is that nothing is absolute.  Everything is relative, the time that you are experiencing at this moment is different than the time that I am experiencing at this moment.  Time is a human construction that is helpful in describing happenings that occur in succession.  Just as graphs are helpful in describing trends in data, time is helpful in describing events.  

What time is there, really?  What time is there except the time at this instant?  There are human constructions called the future and the past.  But the future is simply a way of expressing the fact that humans realize they will probably be here tomorrow. You cannot do anything in the future.  The past is a human construction used to describe events that have occurred; you cannot do anything is the past.  You have only this current instant, this moment right now.  Each and every moment is the same, it is here right now at this instant.  It is this instant that contains all of the world and all of you.  What you decide to do at this instant can change the entire world or just a small piece of it.  What you decide to do at this instant may affect billions people or just a small speck of dust.  The choice is yours.  In guidepost 16, I will discuss more about free will, but it is precisely this free will that gives us all the power I am describing in the current moment.  You have the decision making ability right now.  YOU decide what will happen at this instant.

Think back to when you had to make a life changing decision.   How has your life been since you made that decision?  What do you suppose would have been different had you made the other decision?  What decision will you make next?  How will it affect your life?

Because there really is no other time BUT now, there is no other way to change your life except through decisions you make right now.  

Once you accept that there is no other time for action but right now, you are half way there.  Now you must realize that you have the power to actually change what troubles you.  As mentioned in Guidepost 2, you get what you concentrate on.  Take a moment right now and tell yourself that you are OK.  Tell yourself that the problems you are having are now over.  Say this to yourself:

I no longer have the problems I was worried about earlier.
My problems are being resolved even as I speak these words.
I feel thankful and relieved that my problems are resolved.
I have resolved my problems by changing what I think about them right now.

Speak these words whenever you have problems that seem to plague you or keep you from being who you really want to be.  Speak them again right now.

5. You have chosen, consciously or unconsciously, the situations in which you currently find yourself.  

This is really a result of getting what you concentrate on and the fact that you have the power to change anything about your life at this instant.  If you are currently in a situation that does not make you happy, think about the decisions (or lack of decision) that led you to where you are.  If you find your self in an unfulfilling marriage, a job that seems to be going nowhere or if you feel you are lacking something in your life, you have chosen it to be that way.  This may seem like a harsh accusation, but it is the truth.  You have chosen your situation, good or bad.  It does not need to be this way. You, throughout your daily activities, determined what must be in your life.  You determined what would be missing in your life, maybe through thoughts like "I guess I'll never find the right mate" or this job is awful, I'll never be happy here.  Remember from guidepost 2 that if you concentrate on these thoughts you will manifest them into your life.  You decided to concentrate on negative thoughts and feelings and they have been realized.  The opposite is also true of course.  When you choose to walk into work and think "this job is getting better", you have begun to make a change.  When you think "I know I can work out the problems I am having with my spouse", you have begun to create the situations that will actually resolve your problems.  

All of this presupposes that you have control over what you think about.  Many years ago, my father said to me "if our bodies were as undisciplined as our minds, we'd never make it across the street alive".   In the current western society, this is quite true.  Our minds wander from topic to topic, leaping from work thoughts to grocery lists without a hesitation.  You can master what you think about though.  One hundred years ago, humans had a much better capability to control their thoughts.  Thoughts themselves were not confined to be less than 15 seconds.  A single thought could sprout and grow and take up the better part of 15 or 20 minutes, with many variations and facets.  One could sit and talk with another person for hours about many and varied things, or about one thing only.   The attention span of the average person was much longer then than it is today.  There are many reasons for this decrease in attention span, and it is accentuated by the current trend of visual and audio stimuli that strives to get as much information as possible in the shortest amount of time.  When this trend declines, the average attention span will again begin to increase.  In chapter 6, I will discuss ways that you can begin to control the beehive of thoughts you have, and you will find that the process is simpler than you might think.  But it will take practice, just as anything does that you want to become good at.

When you can concentrate on those thoughts that will make your life the way you want it, you can learn to control your negative thoughts as well.  Learning to control what you think is a great amplifier to getting what you want.  Your conscious mind is quite like a two-pan scale.  On the left side are the thoughts you really do not want to have.  On the right side are the thoughts you want to think.  If you are living your life with more unhappiness than happiness, your scale  is tipping to the left.  When you can begin to think only the thoughts you want to think, your scale will tip to the right.  

6. YOU decided what your life would be before you were born.

By YOU, of course, I mean the YOU as described in guidepost 1.   Yes, YOU have always been.  YOU have decided what to experience, what to do and be. YOU get to pick.  As you will see in the next guidepost, we are all small pieces of God.  As such, we have the ability to see different aspects of ourselves by selecting different types of lives on Earth that may represent a new aspect of ourselves not yet discovered, a new feeling not yet felt or a new angle not yet tried.  YOU decided to be born to the parents you were born to because YOU thought that experience would be good for YOU and for all of US.  

Now you may or may not agree with what YOU decided long ago, but that's OK.  Challenge is a good thing, you'll come to find out.  Once you realize that you are here to learn something, to accomplish something, you'll see the wisdom in YOUR decision. Ask yourself, what purpose am I hear to serve?  What am I to learn during this life?  Ask this when you are in a quiet, calm mood, or while you are meditating.  The answer is already there and you will become aware of it.  You will feel an urge to do something or a longing for someone or something.  Concentrate on this for awhile.  Experience what this feeling is telling you.  As you go through the day, think about what you feel and see if it gets stronger.  If this is what your purpose is, it will get stronger.  It will.  There is no doubt.  Trust that YOU knew what YOU were doing and let that trust calm you and allow you to experience your purpose.  

Some people reading this will already know what they are here for; they are born knowing exactly what they are here to do.  Others do not and get caught up in day to day activities, forgetting they have something to learn if they choose.  Those that already know typically have been through many physical lives (see guidepost 11) and are here to help the rest of us along.  To remind us that there is more to life than reality shows and French fries.

Still not sure?  Be sure to ask yourself what your purpose is as I described above, an answer will come.  Just by asking you are guaranteed an answer, just be sure you are aware when the answer arrives.  Many people have such a scattered mind that when the answer comes it is tossed around with all the other thoughts of the day, unable to get your attention and then dismissed when the body goes to sleep.  Forgotten by the next day.  Be sure to take a bit of time each day to relax, calm your mind and listen to the quiet .. and for the persistent knocking of your answer.  Open the door.

7. We are all small pieces of God

Let's take a walk shall we?  This may take a little convincing.  To start with, I want you to look at how you view the world, you see things; planes overhead, cars here and there, rocks, trees, other people.  Now ask yourself how you see those things.  Are they part of you?  Of course not, you'll say, they are separate from me, it's obvious that I am not a car or a tree or another person, I am myself, separate from the other things I see.  By the way, this is exactly how the scientific community views the world, as separate from themselves, though some scientists are questioning that belief based on the implications of the laws of quantum mechanics.  

Now, how do you view God?  (If you are an atheist, hang in there, you've read this far, why not play along?)  Most major religions adhere to the belief that God is a supreme being that sits in Heaven making judgments about each individual on Earth.  God tells individuals to pray every so often (depending on your religion) and to follow strict rules (again, depending on your religion).  Usually there is some kind of severe punishment if the rules are disobeyed (or if you ask for forgiveness, all is forgotten -- cleared to perform the same wrong-doings and ask for forgiveness the next week).  Thus, God is separate from any one person.  Most religions teach that God IS separate and must be obeyed, worshipped and treated with respect, from afar.

Now, according to major religions, God created man in his image and He created all the heavens and the Earth.  God created all there is, everything, nothing left out, so God must have created...God.  God cannot be separate from his creations or he would exist in some place that he did not create.  He cannot be someplace he didn't create, because He created everything.  Following this line of thought further, God created the heavens, the heavens are God, God created the Earth, the Earth is God, God created humanity, humanity is God.  Each of us has God's qualities.  We are NOT separate from God, we are just the opposite; since God created us, we all have some of God in us. No matter what religion you believe, if you believe in a divine being that created all, you must come to a similar conclusion.  Since the major religions ask you to accept their ideas (without question I might add!), accept this idea for awhile.  What if you did have some of God in you?  What would you do?  Do you view the world differently?  Do you see how things can be different now?  

To see how this idea fits in with the rest of the guideposts, look back at number 1; We Are More Than Our Physical Body.   The soul, Ka, YOU, the part of you that is aware even when your body is not, is this piece of God I'm speaking about.  Like a small shards of glass that are pieces of a beautiful creation, our souls, our inner selves long to be put back together.  The creation longs to reunite and see itself again, bringing all the pieces together, fitting snug, one by one exactly, where they belong until none are recognized as separate any longer, but simply a whole in and of itself.

8. There is no evil or hell or Satan, unless you create them

Again, you get what you concentrate on.  Religious references to a hell in which the inhabitants are continuously scorched by flame and burned alive in agony are terrifying.  Images of screaming people writhing in pain haunt our memories, making us shudder when the thoughts are brought to the surface.  Just as a parent orders a small child, so have religions ordered their congregations.  Instilling fear in any individual is the easiest way to control them.  Maintaining control over a congregation is important to remaining in a position of power within a religion.  Images of hell, images of a red devil with a long fork and tail are ingrained in humanities subconscious.  Because many people fear these images and what they might represent, they concentrate on them more, constantly fretting about them, thinking of them and worrying themselves sick.  Unfortunately these people have forged a hell from their worrisome thoughts and their worst fears just might come true.  That is, unless they learn that THEY are creating the situation realized in their thoughts.  If they were to just step back for a moment, take a small step and look at the situation from a different perspective, they may see a little light in this fiery darkness.  The message here is simple, do not believe and it is not so.

9. Today's mainstream religions have lost their original focus

From the Microsoft Encarta (2004): these are the major religions practiced in the United States (NOT including the rest of the world)

There are 75 different religions on the table above, there are likely hundreds more religions around the world.  While there are arguably several points within these religions that are similar, there are surely many more tenets that are dissimilar, yet clergy from a given religion listed above would tell you that their religion is the correct one.  Very few would tell you that others may be correct too.  How can they be right?  Can one church state that their religion is correct when another church says that it is correct?   Of course, the answer is yes.  There can be as many religions as the mind can conceive and they can all be right.  Because we get what we concentrate on, we get what we believe, we get as many religions as we want.  Religions help people cope with sorrow, provide an avenue for thanks and respite and give individuals a structure within which to live.  Religions help many people in their everyday lives, keeping them strong and giving them a source of peace; something sorely needed in this time.

When religions start to tell you though that another religion is wrong, they are trying to control their congregants.  When a religion demands that others who do not believe must be killed, their religion is no longer bringing peace and solace to its followers.   Religions, above all, must bring peace to its believers, otherwise, it is of no use.  There are countless ways to peace and the list above demonstrates that peace can be achieved in a variety of ways.  However, be wary of religions that promote only their ways, that demand you disrespect others who follow a different path to peace.  Be aware of YOUR peace and take the path that leads you there.