When-Then Zen

Seeds IX, 29

Seed: When-Then Zen

You’ve heard of If-Then Statements. It’s a set-up for logic. I want to talk about something I read in the writing of Dr. Barbara White Steinberg. She writes about When-Then Statements, and my take is that it’s a set-up for illogic.

Try these out:

When I lose ten pounds, then I’ll . . .
When I retire, then I’ll . . .
When I clean out the garage, then I’ll . . .

When-Then, as a rule, sets up a thoroughly false premise which leads to a false, and less than satisfying result. This is mostly because the When part of these statements puts into the future something you actually want right now.

The universe is not set up on a reward system unless you set up your universe that way. Try rephrasing your When-Then Statements into what I call Zen-Then Statements.

Now that I am losing ten pounds, I’m . . .

Placing your good in the future . . . well, places your good in the future. There is no When; there is no Then; there is only Zen—now.

Be serene,

Dr. Susan Corso

Seeds are remarkable gifts. Sown in consciousness, they bring you to the most important part of your being—your Divine Spark.

When you have friends you would like added to the Seeds e-mail list, send their addresses to me at SeedsDrCorso@comcast.net and please visit my blog entries at Ode Magazine.

At The Mercy Of

Does this ever happen to you? You hear a word differently than you normally do, and then you hear it all the time? The word mercy has caught me this week.

A newscaster said that the United States is at the mercy of one or another terrorist organization. At the mercy of, in that case, must mean a victim of. I don’t like that, so I repaired to the OED.

The OED says that mercy, in this sense, means wholly in the power of. We’re not wholly in the power of any terrorist anything—unless we agree to be.

Later I was reading a coming-of-age-spiritually book and the author wrote that she was at the mercy of God. Living wholly in the power of God sounds good to me.

The word mercy comes from Latin roots meaning reward. Its French equivalent is merci, which means thanks.

I wonder at the usage of this phrase in our world today. Shouldn’t it be our delight to be at the mercy of any benevolence? And can’t we transform any malevolence by giving thanks for how whatever it is might change us for the better?

I’ve had my fair share of challenges in this lifetime. What I’ve learned to do is give thanks in the midst of the things that I used feel victimized by. What happens is that living in gratitude allows the negatives to be transformed into positives.

Declare for yourself:

I am at the mercy of no one but Divinity.

Then expect the rewards that come with surrender.

A New Kind of Gratitude

I learned something fascinating about gratitude this weekend. It’s something I might already have heard, thought of as valuable, and then forgotten. Certainly, anyone who works with the fundamentals of metaphysics is familiar with the idea of having an

Attitude of Gratitude

Crystal Cathedral founder Robert Schuller was famous for preaching about having an attitude of gratitude, and how gratitude greases the wheels of creation in our favor. He’s right. Look at this though—they’re the words of St. Paul’s first epistle to the Thessalonians (5:18):

In every thing give thanks . . . .

If your mother was anything like mine, one of the things you learned as a child was the mannerly art of writing thank you notes. The rule in our house was that we couldn't have whatever gift that grandmother had sent until we had written our thank you note. Think of a younger you. How might you have started that little missive?

Dear Grandma,

Thank you so much for . . . .

Do you see the difference between Paul and the note? I’ll give you a hint—it’s all in the prepositions. Eric Butterworth taught me this in his book, Spiritual Economics.

Giving thanks for certain people, places, things, events has an implicit judgment in it. Actually, two judgments. First, it assumes that gratitude is a reaction to things outside of us. Second, when we are grateful for certain things, it implies that there are also things for which we are not grateful.

Giving thanks in every person, place, thing, event uses the tool of gratitude properly. Genuine gratitude is a state of being and does not require outer stimuli. This is what makes gratitude open the windows of heaven—it’s causative.

Is something in your life stuck? Unstick it by being grateful right in the midst of whatever is stuck. Watch it unstick—Butterworth says gratefulness makes you full of greatness—and turn into your next blessing.