God is Your Partner: Your online source for tithing and seeding information

Sunday, January 4, 2009

Societies will fall many, many times in the evolution of the planet, and governments will come and go; that is the nature of this planet. But the Spirit stays forever. The key is this: reach always into the Spirit for the highest good of all and perceive all situations from that point.

(From: Timeless Wisdoms by John-Roger, DSS)

Yes, this was in Loving Each Day today, but it was too good not to be read again as it is germane to this site.

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Here are my thoughts for the new year:

1) The spiritual principles of abundance and prosperity will outlive the financial system.

2) Last year proved the fraud was endemic to the system.

3) That will not change this year.

4) Government intervention was necessary to save the world financial system from collapse.

5) This intervention will undoubtedly lead to more fraud and future financial collapse.

6) Printing trillions of dollars out of thin air will have long term negative consequences.

7) Thus prepare yourself inwardly and outwardly.

8) You have time, as it will probably not happen this year.

9) None of this is new. It is just history repeating itself. For us old souls it is just watching the same movie we’ve seen many times before, just with different clothes.

10) The spiritual principles of abundance and prosperity will outlive the financial system.

I will be commenting on each of these points throughout the year.

Posted by Paul Kaye at 7:01 PM
Keywords: God, The Economy
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Saturday, January 3, 2009

Let's Not Forget That We Are Divine

A lot of people say, “There has to be something better than this. There has to be a lot more than this.”

There is a lot more than this, but not necessarily on the physical level. Wherever you are, no matter what you are doing or what you have with you, you can have the greatest experience possible: the awareness that you are a child of God and are divine. The one you have been waiting for is already here—and has been here for a long time. You are the spiritual being you’ve been searching to find.

At some time, within your inner consciousness, you vowed to become aware of your divinity. Eternally, that awareness is yours. You are the one you seek. You are the divine one, the promised one, the Beloved, and indeed you are the Light, you are divine, and you are in a state of becoming aware of what you already are.

You may shut down your awareness of God by putting your faith in the world, professing God’s greatness out there. But God’s greatness isn’t out there. It’s inside you. If you cannot find God within yourself, I will guarantee you, you cannot find God anywhere else. And when you start to find God in yourself, then you can find God anywhere. When you totally find God in yourself, then you will find that God is everywhere.

(From Timeless Wisdoms by John-Roger, DSS)

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Lots going on in the world and I have lots to say, but let’s relax for the weekend.

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I enjoyed this fun thought provoking post from Paul Kedrosky on What Have You Changed Your Mind About?

Excerpts:

What Have You Changed Your Mind About?

So, what have I changed my mind about? It is a question that has been gnawing at me a great deal lately, with a general sense that changing my mind on things is more important than ever, and that I’m not doing it often enough. Not, of course, in some whimsical sense -- today I like blue, tomorrow I like red -- but in the sense that the world is saying on many levels that so much of what I thought I knew is wrong. I can hardly keep up with the long list of things that I’ve changed my mind about recently.

Some examples of things I’ve changed my mind about in the last year:

Whether there are institutions that are too big to fail (No)

Whether phones need keyboards (No)

Why TV exists (I don’t know anymore)

Whether blogs matter (More than I thought they did)

Whether Twitter is any use (Yes)

Whether AM radio is a wasteland (Yes, but still matters)

Reading books on screen (Totally doable)

Venture capital (Much closer to unnecessary)

Hedge funds (I’ve gone from it being mostly about chance to it being almost entirely about chance)

Sincerity (Under-rated)

Professional sports (Gone from being a waste of time to a complete waste of time with looming bankruptcies)

This time it’s different (Sometimes it really is different)

Whether oil can get to $200/$20 again in 12 months (Yes and yes)

Posted by Paul Kaye at 8:33 PM
Keywords: God
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Friday, January 2, 2009

Illusion Within Illusion

You are worthy of God because you are one with God. You have never been separate; it is only the illusion of this physical level that causes you to think so.

So don’t be ashamed of what or who you are. You are divine. You are perfect. If the human condition doesn’t always reflect the perfection, that’s because there is no way to manifest the perfection here. So don’t worry about it.

Any negativity is just pointing out the next thing for you to work on and to bring across into the Divinity, until one day, and truthfully so, it will all be divine and you will know it as that. There will still be negativity, and there will still be positivity, and you will see it all equally as the Divine. That is your heritage.

(From: Timeless Wisdoms by John-Roger)

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Well if you hadn't gotten the idea that this level is an illusion, hopefully the last few months have helped you out. Take money, for example. Dollars are printed out of thin air. I am not making that up. It's no wonder they have "In God We Trust" written on them, because you had better not put your trust in the Federal Reserve which, by the way, to add illusion within an illusion, is not "Federal" at all, but a private banking cartel.

I have been paying an average of $40 for a pair of pants (trousers to our English readership) for about 40 years. (I adjust my standards to my budget--or buy less pants). In that time the Government has gone from talking about millions, to talking about billions, and recently is now talking about trillions!

What is a trillion?

A trillion dollars = $1,000,000,000,000.
That's 12 zeroes to the left of the decimal point. A trillion is a million million dollars.

One trillion dollars would stretch nearly from the earth to the sun. It would take a military jet flying at the speed of sound, reeling out a roll of dollar bills behind it, 14 years before it reeled out one trillion dollar bills.

(From:100777.com)

In short, a lot of money. Here is another way to look at it:

1 million seconds ago was December 22, 2008. (12 days)

1 billion seconds ago was 1976 (32 years)

1 trillion seconds ago was 30,000 B.C. (32,000 years)

But that's ONE trillion. In the last 5 years American debt has grown by SIXTEEN trillion dollars. That's mostly money that has been spent--not invested in business.

Stay tuned.

Posted by Paul Kaye at 10:15 PM
Keywords: Getting Ready, The Economy, Trust
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Thursday, January 1, 2009

New Beginnings

Many years ago I had reached that state in MSIA where one feels one knows absolutely nothing. I went into an Initiates Meeting at Conference, having been in MSIA for 20 years or so and having been working on the Walking with the Lord book, wondering what it was all about. As I recall, J-R started the meeting by saying:

The only thing I can tell you about spiritual exercises and this path of Soul transcendence is, he wins who endures to the end.

That did it for me. I knew he was speaking directly to me. Everything cleared up and the quote went right at the end of the book.

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I'll be writing in future posts about what we should be looking out for in the next year and beyond. For now, please re-read this Seth Godin post below. I have included it before, but came across it again when reading a summary of his most popular posts of the year. Even though it may not apply directly to you, the advice is sound and it sets the correct financial tone to begin the year.

Urgent personal finance advice

If I could only share one piece of personal finance advice to grads or to just about anyone, it would be this:

Only borrow money to pay for things that increase in value.

It's a short list: your business, your house and your education, mostly. Stocks if you're smarter than me. That's pretty much it.

If you have credit card debt, you're in big trouble. Your bank account has a huge leak in it, and it's getting worse. Hence the urgency.

If you have credit card debt, that means that every time you spend money (even cash), you're borrowing money to do so. And so, if you're going out to dinner or buying a new pair of shoes, you've just broken the single most important rule of personal finance. You're spending borrowed money on stuff that is decreasing in value.

This is an emergency. It's an emergency because every single day you wait, the problem gets worse. A lot worse.

My suggestion: Do it immediately. Shift gears to live well below your means. That means:

No restaurants
No clothes shopping
No cable TV bill
No Starbucks

It means:

Take in a tenant in your spare bedroom
Carpool to work
Skip vacation this year

Eat brown rice and beans every night for dinner. Act like you have virtually no income.

The result? You'll save $5,000 to $20,000 a year. Send all of it to the credit card company. Do this until you're debt free, the faster the better.

There. Now you're rich. Now you get interest on your savings instead of paying the bank. Twenty years from now, this emergency action will translate into perhaps a million dollars in the bank, depending on how much you earn and how serious you are.

You can thank me then.

Posted by Paul Kaye at 8:15 PM
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Wednesday, December 31, 2008

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year Everyone!

In the new year I would like the readers of this blog to:

1) Have their personal finances recorded in their computer through programs such as Quicken or free online programs such as mint.com.

2) Have a clear budget in place.

3) Be tithing and seeding consistently

4) Know what your values are

5) Spend your money in line with your values

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I am about to facilitate a New Years Eve Sacred Tones Workshop at Prana. Nice way to let go of the 2008 and welcome in 2009.

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This is a great interview with Jim O’Donnell author of The Shortest Investment Book Ever. Best parts below. For full interview go here.

With all the talk of a recession, what do you think most people should do to prepare for it and, should we be so lucky, what should we do to benefit from when we exit the recession?

To prepare for the recession that is upon us: We need to examine our own houses. We need to spend less, save more - sometimes LOTS LESS. We need to discipline our sometimes crazy natures to understand the difference between WANTS and NEEDS. I’m convinced that contented people - which should be our goal - don’t necessarily get what they want but they learn to live with and maybe like what they get.

For those near retirement, the recent market drubbing is, of course, more challenging. We may need to defer some dreams, keep working a bit longer, and rework our budgets and plans. We may need to learn to live on less and reinvigorate such easily overlooked joys as time with family and friends, being or becoming involved in community or church work, even enjoying simple, cheap pleasures, like a movie at home with friends or family.

We’ve got to challenge the cockamamy notion that, if I don’t spend a lot of money, we can’t enjoy life or that we’re not a “success”. Nonsense! For those of us - even if we’re near retirement - and still saving for retirement, check your asset allocations. Get them back in line. Don’t let the numbness of the disaster knock us silly or punchy.

Don’t chase the “hot” asset of today - cash or Treasuries - as if that will save you. (It won’t.) What you can save in your retirement plan today is being accumulated at bargain basement prices. This is especially helpful the farther we may be from retirement, but it can help “oldsters”, too. Young people are going to be great beneficiaries of this meltdown, if only they have the courage and discipline to save and accumulate quality, low-priced funds at these once-in-a-lifetime prices.

One question I’ve often asked myself is, knowing what I know about life in general, what advice would I give to myself ten years ago. Given your experiences and knowledge, what advice would you have liked to give yourself many years ago? (financial, or otherwise!)

First, I’d say that the important stuff is the relational stuff, not the money stuff. The money stuff is just a “funding vehicle” to enhance the relational. In the end, PEOPLE matter, not stuff or things. On the other hand, we have to be good stewards of much of the stuff and things we have been given. I’m a person of faith, so I put my trust in unseen things. I know others of great faith who seem to despise “stuff and things” and seem to value only what is eternal and invisible.

Here, I beg to differ with them. While we are in this world, we must not treasure our “stuff,” but neither should we neglect or misuse important, helpful things -even money - we have. They can helpfully serve us and others and, when cared for, can last, making us able to spend more on others or other NEEDED things. I’m uncomfortable with both those who think money is the measure of all things AND, too, with those who think it is the measure of nothing, that it is meaningless. The latter folks practice irresponsibility and think it is faithfulness or praiseworthy selflessness.

Lastly, I would say we all need to do the best we can with the gifts and talents we have been given. I think I used to believe that life would get easier as I grew older. It has not. It’s hard. There’s trial. There’s suffering. There’s reversal. There’s loss. But there’s lots of joy and lots of beauty. too. We have to manage through it all, not just through the good or the easy. We have to avoid fantasizing, too — a real, real problem in a world of endless pop culture and celebrities.

We need - all of us, young and old - to finally grow up into mature people who can make this broken world a better place for us and others.

Posted by Paul Kaye at 6:14 PM
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Tuesday, December 30, 2008

Making All Things New

Yesterday makes little difference to the process of NOW. At best, it can be a stepping-stone into the moment, but always and forever, you must let go of the past and move into the present and make this moment work for you. People often come to me and say, “You know, two years ago you told me...” and I look at them and think, “So? You’re not through that yet?” I tell them that there is no need for me to attempt clarification about what I said two years ago. If necessary, they can recall the information, bring it up to date, and make it work in this moment. But if they are still hanging on to an “answer” from two years ago, they are living in the past. They must bring it up to date, make it work right now, or forget about it. If you try to work out yesterday or last week or last year from the position of NOW, you can’t do it, and you experience lack. Bring everything up to date, to this moment. Then in this moment you can work it or dismiss it and create all things new.

From: The Way Out Book by John-Roger, DSS

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Started the morning on a bright, uplifting note, with the MSIA presidency meeting with John Morton at the new Downtown Urth Caffe for breakfast. The owners, Shallom and Jilla, stopped by and said hi. Hugs all around.

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Had to remind a two people today that living the spiritual principles of abundance and prosperity was sometimes not about what you get, but about what you don't get. One, despite an average year financially, had stayed out of the Madoff debacle together with the cients he advises, and the other got away with a fractured rib when he could have been killed in a ski slope collision accident. As the
year draws to a close it is a wonderful time to count your top three blessings of 2008.

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Fascinating Irrelevant to My Life Factoid from veryshortlist.com:

The more you talk to your baby, the smarter your baby will be — and that’s something to keep in mind the next time you shop for a stroller.

According to a new study, babies who sat in strollers that faced their parents during their daily walks had twice as many conversations, laughed ten times as much, and suffered less stress than babies who were in the more common, front-facing models.

The researchers studied 2,722 infants and found that kids who faced their parents had lower heart rates and fell asleep twice as easily as babies who faced forward. So along with generating laughter and baby talk, a face-time stroller will be far more likely to bring you that sweetest of sounds: the snore of your sleeping, soon-to-be-smarter offspring.

PK: I think the babies might have got bored.

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I love this heartwarming story. I am always get verklempt when people demonstrate kindness and unconditionality.

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How It All Went Wrong

Extract from an article by Peter Goodman and Gretchen Morgenson for the International Herald Tribune:

As a supervisor at a Washington Mutual mortgage processing center, John Parsons was accustomed to seeing baby sitters claiming salaries worthy of college presidents, and schoolteachers with incomes rivaling those of stockbrokers. He rarely questioned them. A real estate frenzy was under way and WaMu, as his bank was known, was all about saying yes.

At WaMu, getting the job done meant lending money to nearly anyone who asked for it - the force behind the bank's meteoric rise and its precipitous collapse this year in the biggest bank failure in American history.

In a financial landscape littered with wreckage, WaMu, a Seattle-based bank that opened branches at a clip worthy of a fast-food chain, stands out as a singularly brazen case of lax lending. By the first half of this year, the value of its bad loans had reached $11.5 billion, having nearly tripled from $4.2 billion a year earlier.

WaMu gave mortgage brokers handsome commissions for selling the riskiest loans, which carried higher fees, bolstering profits and ultimately the compensation of the bank's executives. WaMu pressed appraisers to provide inflated property values that made loans appear less risky, enabling Wall Street to bundle them more easily for sale to investors.

"It was the Wild West," said Steven Knobel, a founder of an appraisal company - Mitchell, Maxwell & Jackson - that did business with WaMu until 2007. "If you were alive, they would give you a loan. Actually, I think if you were dead, they would still give you a loan."

Posted by Paul Kaye at 10:25 PM
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Monday, December 29, 2008

Fun and More Fun

Tithing is a way of saying, “God, pour forth whatever blessing You have for me.” God is health, or lack of disease. God is always at ease, always present, always now, and is constantly creating and expanding.

(From God Is Your Partner by John-Roger, DSS)

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Yesterday, John Morton and Leigh Taylor-Young invited the whole Ministers Meeting over to their home for a mid-day party. Needless to say the place was humming. It was a perfect, sunny Los Angeles winter day with not a cloud in the sky. Everybody seemed to be very chatty and having a good time.

Today I got to review my new GPTV volunteer editor's, Emma Fletcher, first cut of my GPTV shoot at this year's Living in Grace. Wow. What a great job. I hope to release the first one in mid-January. As usual, some profound, meaty insights in a four minute package.

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Okay, you may not agree, but I found these photos to be the best of 2008. I have actually been to the Hermitage in St. Petersberg and have wondered about the, mostly, elderly women guarding the world's greatest works of art. I still have the image of one very old, wrinkled and scowling woman guarding the Da Vinci section. Equally memorable was how our MSIA group was behind schedule and how our Russian guide raced us through each section. Ten seconds for the Da Vinci's, five seconds for the Gauguin's, a lingering minute on the Goya. It was utter madness. Please humor me and scroll through these brilliant photos.

Posted by Paul Kaye at 11:19 PM
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