No Limits!

I was so glad to share the platform on Sunday with Jeanie Ward, who in years past has given some wonderful talks at One World on how we can truly live with no limits.

How have you been living? Do you feel powerful, connected and complete, able to step into your gifts with no holding back? I hope you do, because that is the truth of who you are. No matter how your day is going, how well you’re doing at work or the condition of your waistline or finances, as you go through your day “spirit is streaming, pouring, rushing, and shining into you, through you, and out from you in all directions while you sit quiet.” (to paraphrase Plotinus, the third century Greek philosopher.)

Our foundational belief is that Spirit, the infinite and universal, expresses as all of physical reality, including the stars, the sun, all physical matter throughout this universe, and as you and me. The same power holding the planets in rotation, that sends light streaming onto us from 93 million miles away, pours through us, each of us, unceasingly. Our journey on this earth, in this physical plane, is to bring ourselves into truer alignment with the power that called us into physical being as expressions of itself.

You are what Eric Butterworth called “the flowing forth of the One.”

In his classic work “Discover the Power Within You” Eric Butterworth tells the Hindu legend of the time when all men were gods, but they so abused their divinity that Brahma, their leader, decided to take their divinity from them. He wondered where to hide it, so that men would not be able to find it.

The lesser gods advised that Brahma bury man’s divinity deep within the earth, but Brahma said no, man would learn to dig and explore, and would find it. The gods then said, well, we’ll bury his divinity in the deepest ocean, but Brahma said no, for man will learn to dive into the deepest depths of the seas, will search out the ocean bed and will find it.

The gods then suggested that they take man’s divinity to the top of the highest mountain and place it there, well out of sight. Brahma said no, for man will learn to explore and seek, and climb the highest points of the earth. Man will find it and take it up again for himself.

The lesser gods gave up. They said we do not know where to place it, for it seems there is no place on earth or in the seas to hide man’s divinity from him.

Then Brahma said – here is what we will do with man’s divinity. We will hide it deep down within man himself, for he will never think to look for it there. Ever since then, man has been searching for his divinity high and low, looking for something that is already within him.

We are still searching for our connection to Spirit, to the One Mind, even though it is right here, in us. As Alfred Tennyson wrote of God – “closer is he than breathing and nearer than hands and feet.” This sentiment is echoed in the Koran, which teaches that God is closer than the veins in your neck. Jesus taught that the kingdom of God is within us.

We continue to search because we know that God is here, in us. We feel Spirit’s presence, we know there is more and that that “more” profoundly involves every aspect of us on a personal, experiential level.

Ernest Holmes, founder of the New Thought school of Science of Mind, wrote the following:

“Somehow or other everyone has a feeling that he is only half living, half expressing himself, and through some inward awareness, whether you call it intuition or not, you feel within you an echo of something deeper and bigger and broader and more expansive than that which you are now aware of. This feeling could not be there, could not be so universal, unless it had an element of reality behind it.”

What is that which is deeper and bigger and broader, which is so much more? Living with more involves moving past our limits, into lives of joy, creativity and fullness.

Let’s figure out how to get out of our own way.

In his book The Big Leap: Conquer Your Hidden Fear and Take Life to the Next Level, author Gay Hendrix identified a phenomenon he called the “upper limit” problem. He suggests that we each have an internal thermostat (if you will) that dictates how much success we can have, how high we can go, how much joy we feel we should be permitted to enjoy. Spirit hasn’t assigned us that limit – we do it for ourselves. We are made to be unlimited, and the first thing we do is build ourselves walls, barriers, and speed bumps.

Jeanie once gave a talk at One World where she suggested that we place rocks for ourselves in the river of our lives – sound familiar?

How does this upper limit work? I’ve seen it in my own life – when I approach that upper limit, I unconsciously manage to sabotage myself so I don’t exceed the internal ceiling I created for myself.

Do you ever find yourself doing that? We are doing well at work, and then we manage to fall short on a project that we know we could have done better. We don’t return a phone call we need to return. We are having a good, joyful day, and suddenly we start to worry about a future event that we fear will go bad. We fill in detail about how bad it’s going to go, and then we worry about that. Can’t have too good a time! We are only allowing ourselves so much joy.

Ask yourself what limitations, what upper limits are you putting on yourself? What if you started living as if you refused to believe what you’ve been telling yourself about yourself? What if you just started living the truth of who you are?

When we see the world through the consciousness of the divine within us, when we know that we are the divine expressing as us, we shift our consciousness into alignment with infinite source. There is no lack, no fear, no limitation. How can there be? When we take action based on that knowing, confident that our good has already present, our physical reality shifts and we welcome with gratitude the abundance that comes to us.

Living in the truth of who we are gives us power, clarity, and purpose. Take some time in the coming week and see how you can apply these principles in your own life – it’ll make all the difference!

Watch Rev. Melanie’s talk now…