Fruits of the Spirit

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Knowing One’s True Self

“My question is pertaining to knowing one’s true self and truth. How do we know we are making the right decisions and being true to ourselves and not just making a wrong, selfish decision? God is telling us things all the time, but how do I know which voice It is? The one that says “be true to yourself and go for what you are feeling right now ( this feeling overwhelms me)” or the one that says “are you sure you want to do this, the grass may not be greener on the other side, and people will get hurt in the process?” Its like a battle. How do I know the right way to go? Which voice is right?” M.

How do we know?  Through practice, practice, practice, practice and more practice. Life is not just a process of learning what God wants of us. It is a process of learning about our own self, in addition to common sense, understanding, and wisdom (eventually), and even with all this, learning that mistakes can be learning opportunities, also.

Think of this process, even this life as a “school-like” opportunity, not a tight-rope that one has to get perfect or else lose everything. This is why Christ is recognized as a teacher rather than a judge, jury and executioner. He is a gentle yet persistent teacher.

Our life is more like a school that gives us many, many opportunities to learn about how to live our lives with love from our hearts and what we’ve learned in our minds.

Some advice I encourage is:

  • Continue to practice having an open mind and an open heart. God can fill both of these.
  • Continue to practice the Fruits of the Spirit – like kindness, patience, mercy, forgiveness and more. God comes into this world in those moments that these are expressed.
  • When praying and meditating, pray for sincerity in one’s prayers.
  • And another: it helps to regularly ask ourselves, “Am I willing to learn, to love, to live, and to practice? Am I willing?”

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“If you can’t decide between the left hand choice and the right hand choice, then throw them both out and pick from the third hand.” The Rainbow Cards, ©, 1993, Jodie Senkyrik

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Attacks and Attackers Part 2: Karma

“If we meet insults, contention or other unpleasant experiences, it is not the fault of the aggressor, but actually our own. The reason is that they are simply a manifestation of our heart. If we have no roots or thoughts of contention or insulting speech in our heart, this would not happen. Thus, by wiping away our greed, hatred or ego with kindness, virtue and forgiveness, we eradicate our past/current evil karma and habits and change the outside for the better.” Bc

What a good opening to present Part 2.

How you’ve written your comment could potentially be confusing, so I want to use this as a way to write about Karma.

To me, it’s not quite as simple as you’re presenting – with respect to responsibility and Karma.  Remember, everyone has freewill to decide their own thoughts, feelings, actions, behaviors, beliefs, etc.  This means that we are not responsible for others’ actions – those others who have freewill.  We are all responsible for our own steps we take on our path.  This means we are all responsible for our own thoughts, our own feelings, our own behaviors and more.

To try to explain Karma would be daunting, but this much I’ll offer.  When we throw a pebble into a lake, the ripples go out in all directions.  As the ripples go out, some ripples then also return back to the thrower of the pebble.  In effect, we have created the ripple that returns back to ourselves.

When we create an experience within life for someone else – for that person to go through – we are also creating the same experience for ourselves – and as hard as this is to fathom – we are creating this experience for all life in all existences – even for God, Himself, to experience.  The same ripple must then also return home.

Part of the experience we have as human beings is that when we receive back the experiences of life, we don’t remember throwing the pebble – creating the experience.  We blame others for what we experience or we (most of the time) erroneously blame the person we are today for what we experience.  As humans, our memories tend not to include soul memories of past lives and past experiences.  Many times this is a merciful thing for us, helping us to start over without remembering the person we were back then.

The soul or the Higher Consciousness of each human being remembers, however.  In time, we will come to understand how each experience we have in life is an experience which we helped to create for ourselves and others.  In addition, what experiences we create in the lives of others now – experiences which even God is touched by – will be what our path will include further down the way.  This includes whether we, of our own freewill, choose to attack with bitterness and vengeance, or to heal with understanding, mercy, and compassion.

What this means of Karma is that there is no judgement with karma.  There is no censure or condemnation.  There is no punishment with Karma.  Karma is simply the pebble’s ripple which has arrived back to where it started.

But, that’s not all.  The healing of “karma”, or rather the healing of experiences can happen by raising the vibrations of the “ripple”, which actually exists in time, space, and consciousness.  Since all things are vibration, the addition of higher vibration actions can affect the lower vibrations actions.  What is it that brings forth higher vibrations? Prayer, meditation, Loving kindness, forgiveness, patience, mercy, understanding, compassion, cooperation, and the like.  Each of these fruits of the spirit when brought forth into the world for another to experience opens the doors for the God Consciousness to be present in the moment.  The God Consciousness is Love and is the Highest of all High vibrations.  This vibration affects all vibrations/events/experiences with which it is present.

So, the bringing forth of God Consciousness through prayer, meditation and demonstrating the fruits of the spirit raises the vibration of the ripple.  This raised combination of vibrations goes out to all existence, and also returns back to us.  While sometimes the ripple vibration that goes out also comes back unchanged, with the presence of God, the presence of Love, kindness, mercy, etc, the ripple vibration is changed and returns in a higher vibration form.

The purpose of Karma is to raise vibrations to the level of God Consciousness – Love.   With this done, Karma is absorbed into the experience of understanding and awareness.  This is why prayer can help change human experiences.  This is also why mercy, kindness, cooperation, etc, can help change human experiences.

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“Experiencing bliss is not experiencing God.  Helping someone else experience bliss is experiencing God.” (The Rainbow Cards, ©, 1996-2015, Jodie Senkyrik)

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Leaving the World a Better Place

We’ve all heard of the phrase, “Leaving the world a better place than when we came into it.”

We can also leave a day a better day than when we entered into it.

We can daily leave a relationship a better relationship than when we entered into it.

We can also leave our mind and heart a better place than when we first started the day.

We can do these by adding kindness and patience to the day, or adding forgiveness and understanding to the relationship, or adding wonder and compassion to our hearts and minds.

We can by also adding mercy, or letting go of criticism, or by fostering a sense of humor towards all that exists.

Cheesecake, although wonderful on any day, won’t do it by itself.

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“Have we really chosen to end the day without changing anything about our self for the better?”  The Rainbow Cards, (©, Jodie Senkyrik, 2012)