Ye are the light of the world.
St. Matthew 5:14

The outer world is changing.  The only thing that is not changing and will never change is the sacred and holy place within you.  

The messaging we are receiving in all forms of the media is contributing to the separation we are experiencing now in ourselves and with each other.  We must wake up lest we become divided against ourselves.  Can you see that concepts of right and wrong are man made?  We have to search inside ourselves now to find “the way, the truth and the life.” It is in that place that you will find the answers to all your questions and the clarity that is so needed at this time.  It is in that place that we can reconnect to the oneness of all life and the unity of our humanity.  It is in that place that you raise the consciousness and find the power to rise above any outer circumstance and the peace that enables you to endure any outward condition. 

It is your holy essence, that which is the same yesterday, today and tomorrow which has been there since the beginning of time.  All the answers lie within you.  It is the gift of life—the treasured essence and clarity of your being.  You will find it and utilize it through inner exploration, meditation, quiet walks in nature, and being still with the Self.  That is the answer for these times in which we live.

We cannot count on the outer world to give us what we are seeking.  Our charge then is to realize our oneness with all of life and the peace and harmony that comes from that awareness.  Blessings then abound even in what seems like the darkness.  Truly, our richest life is lived from the inside out.  We find in the center of our being everything we’ve been seeking, including freedom, and we are at peace at last.

Affirmation
I am here for the healing body, mind and spirit of everyone on this planet and for the healing of Mother Earth.

Rev. Karen Wylie

At the present time, the dysfunction of the old consciousness and the arising of the new are both accelerating.  Paradoxically, things are getting worse and better at the same time.  Although the worse is more apparent because it makes so much “noise.”
Eckhart Tolle, Stillness Speaks

Recently I was playing a doubles tennis match and something interesting happened to one of the opponents on the other side of the net.  He became very upset with himself over the way he was playing and he began pummeling himself with negative self-talk.  As expected, the more he railed against himself, the more his game deteriorated.  He became angrier and angrier.  As I watched him, I realized he was really in a tennis match with his ego, not us, and his ego was winning.  He told me later that his ego has been in charge for most of his life.  He’s used it as a defense mechanism while inside himself, he’s often felt weak and vulnerable.

We now have evidence every day of what happens when the ego takes charge.  As we have seen, an ego out of control can be a dangerous thing.  When the ego is allowed to take charge, we often discover a scared being out of control.  The ego is run by fear, and the greater the fear, the greater the need to control everything.  Sometimes we think a huge ego is a great power but that is never the case.  It is in the letting go of our need to be seen and heard that we find our true power.  True power is humbling.  It is not arrogant and forceful.  

So we check in with ourselves.  What are we saying and doing that is real and how much of it is a lie trying to cover up a false sense of self?  Now, more than ever, we must be in high integrity with the self.  Now more than ever, we must shine the light of truth and beauty everywhere we go.  The world needs our compassion and understanding.  The world needs our clarity and conviction.  Through living in our highest integrity, we give others the opportunity to do the same.  Inside each of us, whether we know it or not, is the most beautiful essence of divine life.  We are meant to live from that place…defenseless, for in that place, there is nothing to defend against.

Affirmation
I choose to live in highest integrity with myself!  I know who I am!  

Rev. Karen Wylie

Know Thyself
One of the Delphic maxims inscribed in the forecourt of the Temple of Apollo at Delphi.

When Martin Luther King said “But it really doesn’t matter with me now, because I’ve been to the mountaintop…I’ve seen the Promised Land,” he was not talking about having reached a level of popularity and acclaim in the outer world. He was talking about what he had discovered within himself.

He was telling us, just like Jesus before him, to seek ye first the kingdom of God within. It’s about learning to live from the inside out. This spiritual aspect of you has been there from the beginning of time. It has never succumbed to the illusion of separation. It knows only oneness, unconditional love and eternal life.

We are here to get to know and trust that place within each of us. It is a safe harbor in any storm that arises. This world we are living in is filled with ups and downs, things and events we call good or bad. That within us, which is our connection to the Christ Presence, will always show us the way to peace and love in troubled times. It will always provide answers to our toughest questions and comfort in our greatest need and biggest challenges.

Our job is to become so aligned with the Spirit within us that we are the beacons of light for others who are lost and cannot see. We become the visionaries, the instrument through which a great transformation takes place on planet earth. We rise together to see a glorious new day filled with oneness, peace, love and inclusivity. We are not at the effect of the coronavirus or the economy or separation of any kind that may occur in the outer world. We are the change makers of our time. Peace and prosperity show up as soon as we open the door to our own inner storehouse of well-being.

Know Thyself…Great words for an important time in our history. There is a great healing in body, mind and spirit happening individually and collectively on the planet at this time. We keep our eye single upon a great vision for oneness and unconditional love throughout the land.

Affirmation
I am an instrument through which God’s love reveals itself.

Rev. Karen Wylie

Pilgrimage to the place of the wise is to find escape from the flame of separation.
Rumi

Fear not; for I have saved you, I have called you by your name because you are mine.
Isaiah 43:1

The planet used to seem so big, so spread out. Not anymore. As much as some of us would like to isolate, that can no longer work on Mother Earth. What happens somewhere on the planet winds up affecting another part somewhere else. This is a fact we are going to have to get used to, but I think just as we’ve done our spiritual work on the microcosmic level, we can begin to do our spiritual work in the macrocosmic realm.

Jesus, the great teacher and mystic whose life we celebrate this month, has provided a way forward. We cannot live in separation and isolation anymore. We are now being called as never before to remember our oneness with God and with all life everywhere. We are to find that place within us individually and collectively of forgiveness, peace and love.

As we raise the consciousness individually and collectively on this planet, we can overcome any obstacle and begin to create a world that works for everyone. I’m choosing to lift my sights that high for planetary peace.

If we could but realize the depth of God’s love for us, we would be able to release and let go of the fear that has been running amuck in our world of late. The enemy uses fear to gain power, decrease our hope and limit our victories.

A new day is coming. I see it and declare it so.

Affirmation
I release any sense of fear and separation within myself now.

Rev. Karen Wylie

There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus.
Galatians 3:28

Emmet Fox has said, “In a much more literal sense than people are aware, we are limbs of one Body.” Craziness goes on in this world, much of it in the name of God. If we really felt we were “limbs of one Body”, would we cut off one of those limbs?

Jesus was saying in Galatians, there is no person, race, class, color or nation that is superior to any other in the sight of God. There must be a purpose to all this madness. Perhaps the gravity of the situation is what wakes us up in a big way. We cannot possibly stay asleep while the limbs are being cut off. We begin to see as never before how much we have damaged our mass psyche and the door is opened to the opportunity for redemption, healing and forgiveness within and without.

We pray not just for ourselves but for all mankind. We lay down our arms and stop the war inside of us. We let go of our sense of separation, our need to be right, our judgments and our anger. Little by little, we correct the wrongs that we’ve been committing inside ourselves, no matter how small, no matter how clever we’ve been about it.

When we are free from our own internal war, our own bondage, we see differently and we can become a catalyst for change. So we pray for peace, love and joy inside ourselves and all across this precious planet of ours, and our prayers shall be heard.

Affirmation
I see a new world. It begins with me.

Rev. Karen Wylie

Love Yourself.
Gautama the Buddha

What I desire is to become a servant of love in its purity. That is, I wish to serve love in all its many facets.

Osho says much of our conversation around love involves feeling obligation, but real love is a nourishment; it strengthens the soul. It is nondemanding. It is given from a place of fullness, from a place of the radiant wholeness within.

In our culture, we throw the word around easily. We say we are in love when we barely know the meaning of the word. We confuse attraction for love. Real love is a sharing. It knows the joy of giving. One feels grateful to be able to give love. There is no expectation, just the joy of sharing from a very deep place. True love is nourishment for the soul. It gives you insight and understanding; it empowers you.

The very first step in love is to love yourself. Soon, you will want to share that love with others. Love is such a light that the darkness of the ego cannot exist in it at all. The inner light of love will dispel your inner darkness, your inner weakness. Love makes you a tremendous power, a spiritual force. Through great love you witness eternity. That kind of love never dies.

Don’t be afraid to love yourself. Love totally, and you will be surprised. The day you can get rid of all self-condemnation, self-disrespect—the day you can get rid of the idea of original sin, the day you can think of yourself as worthy and loved by existence—will be a day of great blessing.

Love is the natural evolution of a consciousness seeking to know itself. Socrates said: “A man who practices the mysteries of love will be in contact not with a reflection, but with truth itself.”

Affirmation
I open my life to the great love that resides within me!

Rev. Karen Wylie

The greatest habit you will ever break is the habit of being yourself, and the greatest habit you will ever create is the habit of expressing the divine through you.
Dr. Joe Dispenza, Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself

This month is special to me because I was first born in January. Today, I realize though that I’ve been born again and again. Each birth has made me a little wiser. It’s been an evolution of spirit, mind and body. Over the years, I’ve been more than willing to see where this evolution would take me. It has taken me to a very beautiful place in life, a place of peace, love and joy unlike anything I ever thought possible. Because I was willing, I have been carried by Spirit, guided and directed and loved unconditionally.

Each rebirth brought me closer to dissolving all the shame, blame, fears and doubts I have been harboring in mind for a lifetime. All that was never real to begin with, just a story I made up in my confusion to make sense of my world. I would have called myself a victim in the early part of my life, but I no longer see it that way. I have been “transformed by the renewing of my mind.” All events have brought me to the preciousness of this now moment.

Because I am only human, I know that what has been possible for me in this life’s journey is possible for others who are willing as well. We can spend a lifetime recounting and reliving our suffering or we can decide that we want to know what it’s like to experience Heaven on earth. It is a decision that one makes. What I know with certainty is that we are loved unconditionally by that Love Intelligence which created us, and It supports and sustains us in ways unimagined.

Living Heaven on earth is my choice for the rest of my life. I look to the mountaintop in faith and trust!

Affirmation
I live to express my divine nature in everything I do.

Rev. Karen Wylie

Learn to be at home in the universe. No more loneliness. No more sense of isolation. See God in everyone—the same God with a different face, the same animating principle with a different form, the same Divine Presence clothed in individual expression.
Ernest Holmes, This Thing Called You

How about showing up this holiday season as love itself? To do that, you may have to let go of some pretty clear boundaries you’ve created to keep yourself from being hurt or disappointed. You may have to take a chance on love. We can always think of a good reason to withhold our love.

Maybe your motto this holiday season could be “I’m going to lead with love.” What’s the worst that can happen? You give it and you feel you don’t get anything back. You give it and it is unappreciated. You will survive.

Love is the last outpost of great living. Love heals everything, including your own heart. Love opens up avenues to forgiveness and understanding. We think we are very loving beings, but I think many of us are living with hearts that have been blocked by the pain and suffering of the past. As those places within our hearts have been blocked, it limits our ability to see the world as a safe and loving place. We begin to define our outer world and its parameters based upon our inner pain.

We can live in limitation until we die or we can choose to take a chance on love. We can decide that we don’t want to live the rest of our lives hiding out from ourselves. We can decide to open ourselves up to greater living.

So, without regard for what you are receiving, decide this holiday time to be a giver of life. Decide that you will be the one who brings the love, beauty and grace to every situation. You will be the one to shine the light wherever you are. You will be the instrument through which great healing happens. It will be your best holiday ever!

Affirmation
I live my life from the love that I am!

Rev. Karen Wylie

Love yourself says Buddha. And this can transform the whole world…it can be the beginning of a new humanity.
Osho, Love, Freedom, Aloneness, the Koan of Relationships

The most important relationship you will ever have is the one you have with yourself, and I’m sorry to say that many of us don’t love ourselves enough to be alone with the self even for a few moments’ time. We seek out others and distract ourselves in a million ways so that we do not have to spend time alone. It is natural that if you don’t care or love yourself, you will not enjoy being in your own company.

Somewhere along the way, many of us have forgotten the innocence of our first days on the planet. We have forgotten that in the beginning, we knew nothing about good or bad, right or wrong. We did not judge. In the beginning, we lived in wide-eyed innocence. Everything was exciting, new and interesting. We were open and available to all kinds of experiences. Soon enough, however, based on things we heard from others about ourselves and based on the way we were treated, many of us begin to believe we were unworthy. We became filled with shame and doubt.

Our job here and now is to recapture the innocence of our youth, and to forgive ourselves and all others that we’ve encountered along the way. We now choose to remember our source which is God and our innate connection to the whole! We are to free ourselves from the constriction of our faulty thinking. In doing so, we fall in love with the self and in that loving of self, we become able to love others. This is our journey on the planet. The love which is our true nature cannot be denied!

Affirmation
I remember who I am as Love itself!

Rev. Karen Wylie

Who stops us from being free? We blame the government, we blame the weather, we blame our parents, we blame religion, we blame God. Who really stops us from being free? We stop ourselves.
Don Miguel Ruiz, The Four Agreements

Arise Beloveds. Freedom calls. You have a choice. Will you live forever under the oppression of your own negative thought forms or will you set yourself free? You are a genius creator, and it is time to realize that if you don’t like your life, you can change it by changing your own inner dialog. In doing so, you will begin to see that you have the power to create a new way of being in the world. You are not a victim unless you claim that identity for yourself. You have the capacity within you to rise above anything that seems to be holding you back. You can set yourself free from your own mind imprisonment.

Sometimes it’s easier to claim your victimhood. Then you don’t have to take responsibility for your life, but our life’s journey on this planet is to take dominion over our own becoming. We came here to live in the paradise we’ve been dreaming of. We came to know the oneness of love, the joy of unlimited living, and the peace that soothes the essence of our soul. We did not come here to suffer. We came to rejoice in our own unlimited potential.

This year, July 4th, is the perfect time to declare your own independence. I’m setting myself free from my own mind oppression! I know who I am! I have come from the One who gives all life!

Affirmation
I claim my freedom today! I change my thinking by renewing my mind!

Rev. Karen Wylie