Tag: prayer

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Thy Will Be Done – A Non-Personal Perspective

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Thy Will Be Done npacentral.comThis Easter musing on NPA & Life takes a good look at the idea of ‘Thy Will be done’. From a Christian-centric Easter perspective and the story of Jesus in The Garden of Gethsemane – the events that lead to The Passion of Christ – through to a very non-personal perspective on the idea of ‘handing it over to God’.

So let’s crack open this sweet egg, and take a ride down the Easter Bunny hole…

The Garden of Gethsemane, Jerusalem, 2008

In 2008 I had the privilege of teaching the first ever Journey Intensive Weekend for Brandon Bays in Israel. During that trip I had the opportunity to visit Jerusalem – an opportunity I was NOT going to miss.

I was raised Christian, my Grandpa was a Vicar; I went to Sunday school and sang with the church choir. I didn’t really relate to all that bible stuff, but no doubt it’s in my blood. Later as I walked the path of awakening, I was re-introduced to the core spiritual ideas that appear in Christianity, but also within the other main religious texts. In my ‘conversations with God’ over the years, Jesus has regularly been a ‘form’ through which the Divine has spoken to me. And often when Christ was around there was a good deal of talk about the nature of surrender and Divine Will.

So, on reflection, it is no surprise to me that of all the places I visited in Jerusalem, it was the Garden of Gethsemane that touched me most deeply.

The Garden of Gethsemane, Jerusalem, Circa AD 33

What took place in the garden marks Maundy Thursday and begins the Passion of Christ and all the Christian events associated with the Easter Festival. While much of the Easter attention falls on the crucifixion and the resurrection, in my mind ALL of that is cradled in the teaching of surrender that was reached through Jesus’ very human conversation with God; often known as his anguished prayer.

In case you don’t know, The Bible tells how after the last supper, in full awareness of Judas’ imminent betrayal, Jesus takes his disciples to their usual hangout, the garden of Gethsemane. As he waits there he goes off to pray, beseeching God to spare him. He basically says: “God, I know all things are possible to You, so please show me if there is another way? In fact, if there IS another way please, please, please do that!”, and yet with full authenticity he finishes his prayer with “and always, Thy Will be done”

The lesson here is not one of personal power, it is one of non-personal awareness. Jesus does NOT set a personal goal of living without suffering and make that happen, glorifying in his awesomeness when he hits his goal or entering a self-blame/critique/lesson scenario if he misses.

Rather, he shows us that you can be fully present and acknowledge the human expression (the experience of the frightened personality in this case) and still be fully connected to the true source of all decision, consequence & experience: The Infinite, The Origin, God.

Non-Personal Responsibility

You see, often ‘Thy Will be done’ is interpreted as a personal doing. In other words, “It’s my personal responsibility to hand it over to God”.

A non-personal interpretation would be that if, like Jesus, you become fully awake to the realisation that there is no personal causality, and every perceived reality is, in fact, at consequence only to God (or ‘The Field’ if you prefer) – then you will understand that the fundamental spiritual dictate: ‘Hand it over to God’ is not an instruction for ‘you’ to ‘do’ the handing over. Rather, it’s an invitation to simply realise the True source of all experience, inspiration and action.

So, Jesus understood that no matter what personal action he undertook, God was in charge. In the end; Thy Will be done. Byron Katie (author of Loving What Is), who’s term for God is ‘reality’ puts it nicely, saying “When you argue with reality you lose, but only 100% of the time”.

So, this Easter, I invite you to entertain the notion that Thy Will is being done. I encourage you to notice how you are being moved, being breathed, being ‘done’. I also invite you to honour your personal experiences and wishes in that, and be with them as kindly as possible. The Morning Prayer which I share on my Heaven & Earth CD (http://www.shop.npacentral.com/other-products/), provides a format which fully embraces these ideas, so that could be a great resource for you if you’d like a little support with that.

Sending you always, love & blessings

Joel

[JY-General-Bio]

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The Birthplace Of NPA

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The Birthplace of NPAAs this post get’s published it’s NPA’s 7th birthday!

It seems like ages ago that it popped out of me in Costa’s in Abingdon. It tickles me that Divine births can happen in the most ordinary places.

There I was in my own little vortex of guided communication while around me; kids were squashing the remains of muffins into hot chocolate soaked saucers; an amazing carer calmed the colourful tourette’s syndrome shouts of her ward; a suited salesman wheeled and dealed on his phone and mid-life girl friends supported each others judgements about the this and the that of their lives…

And in amongst all that, six little lines that would rock my world (and countless others) just popped out. Lot’s of people have told me they were inspired by the story of ‘how NPA was born’ so I thought I would share it here amongst the Musings of NPA & Life. If you share this post you can watch a video of me sharing the story, and help spread the word about NPA… otherwise – simply enjoy the read:

The Birth Of NPA

“I’ve been working in the field of human consciousness and personal growth for approaching 20 years. Back in 2007 I’d had the privilege of working with many amazing people and yet…

On 29th January 2007, I was sat in a Costa coffee shop in Abingdon, Oxfordshire where I lived and quite literally a prayer was ‘born’ through me and it went like this:

“OK God,” Grace, whatever you want to call that, “Is there something specifically that wants to come through me, in service to the world… and if there is, please let me know?”

I’m very clear about this. If the answer was no, then that would have been really fine. I’d have happily just carried on teaching what I was teaching.

However, literally a week later (on February 5th) I was in the same coffee shop, journaling on my computer when the six simple lines that I now call the NPA Process literally popped out of me! They came with that tingley-wingley sensation – which is sort of a signal to me. It was like, “This is the answer to your prayer. There will be seminars and books.”

You Have To Be Kidding Me

My response was, “You have to be kidding me. That’s just too simple, too easy!” But I’ve discovered that the simplicity of NPA is its genius in as much as it means it can be used in so many different ways and yet it’s really, really powerful.

For quite a long time I kept it very, very close to myself. I wanted to discover for myself, through direct experience, what this ‘Non-Persoanl Awareness’ was? And it quickly busted many of my illusions – the things that I’d learned and taught for all those years were really challenged by this little NPA thing.

It wasn’t until 2008, in November, that I first taught it publicly and not until 2009 February when I first taught it in an official way and since then it’s just exploded. It’s in countries all over the world and that’s down to the fact that it’s so simple and it just works.”

[JY-General-Bio]