Something borrowed, something new
“Change your mind on what you want to see and all the world must change accordingly.”—A Course in Miracles
Two of my early mentors recently showed up again in my life.
They’re both authors and, while I never met either (not sure our time on Planet Earth ever even crossed), they both gave me important inspiration and ideas which I “borrowed” and expanded on to write my own books.
Florence Scovel Shinn, author of The Game of Life and How to Play It, was a favorite in my early days of metaphysics. I was reminded of her last weekend when my friend, Jay, gave a talk on her no-nonsense approach to spirituality. Beware of every word, she cautioned, because each utterance casts a spell and creates reality.
Neville Goddard, another early favorite, came up in a conversation between Michael Beckwith and Abiola Abrams, who just published a book about Abdullah, an Ethiopian rabbi who first introduced Neville to spiritual law.
Neville, as you probably know, taught that our imagination (our consciousness) creates its likeness (its manifestation) in the physical world.
When he was still a young dancer on Broadway, Neville told Abdullah he longed to return for a visit to his native Barbados. Thanks to the Depression, the theater world was on hiatus and well, he hadn’t seen his family in 12 years. Never mind that he was broke.
Abdullah simple shrugged and gave him these three words. “Be in Barbados.”
“But……” Neville sputtered.
“Don’t see yourself going to Barbados. Be in Barbados. Now!”
Neville finally got it and even though he was smack dab in the middle of Manhattan, he began “being in Barbados” in his imagination. He imagined palm trees, he imagined smelling ocean breezes, sinking his toes in a white, sandy beach.
Within a few days, his brother called “out of the blue” to say the family wanted him home for Christmas and had just bought him a ticket for steerage that he was to pick up at the Furness Ship Line.
Abdullah wasn’t finished with his student.
He simply added a second set of three words. “Be in First Class.”
“But this was the only ticket available,” Goddard insisted,
Abdullah would have none of it.
“Be in First Class,” he simply repeated and walked away.
You can guess what happened? Neville Goddard sailed first class to Barbados, spent three glorious months in his home country and sailed back to Manhattan, in, of course, first class.
The “something new“ is my practice of making mandalas each morning. I mentioned it in the last post, but I wanted to further gush (you know how I am?) about the startling abundance that has been so clearly illuminated.
Every single day, there are new, beautiful” art supplies” just waiting for me to pluck up and use in my daily design. It’s not an exaggeration to say that being witness to this ongoing supply has been life-changing. I mean, wow!
By letting go my need to find the extraordinary and spectacular, I am coming to recognize the simple wonder that lies all around me, in the ordinary. And it makes me question, “What else do I miss? What else do I walk by each and every day?”
Life continues to prove that everything I could ever need is right here. Right now. I just need to look.
#222 Forever!
Pam Grout is the author of 20 books including E-Squared, E-Cubed, Thank & Grow Rich and her latest book, The Course in Miracles Experiment: A Starter Kit for Rewiring Your Mind (And Therefore Your World)
