Heartland Publishing House

Marianne Stevens:
Author, filmmaker humanitarian activist...

More books by Marianne Stevens are coming in 2009 and 2010:

So…How’s Your Life Going?
The 12 Spiritual Steps of Manifestation 

Witch
A story about the witch hunts in 16th century Scotland.

Angels on Overtime
A romantic comedy of angelic proportions.

My Beautiful Child
A beautifully illustrated love letter from a mother to her child.

If you would like to schedule a group visioning, speaking engagement, class, workshop, book reading, or individual session with Marianne, please email info@heartlandpublishinghouse.com

Read my Spiritual Q & A

Heartland Publishing House
3115 W. 6th Street, Suite C, PMB 218
Lawrence, KS 66049
info@heartlandpublishinghouse.com

Spiritual Q & A

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Welcome to the Q&A Column, where you can ask questions about metaphysics, manifesting, visioning, anything spiritual - from basic Metaphysics 101 to masters level topics. If you have a question for Marianne, please email her at info@heartlandpublishinghouse.com.


Q: Would you please write a prayer for me to call my life partner?

OK....Let all the hurry of the day leave for these few minutes....Just sit comfortably and read this very slowly, letting the power of the words resonate.

Beloved Mother Father God, thank you for this moment; thank you for this day; thank you for this life, thank you for this opportunity to remember that Love is all there is.

God – Love – is all there is, from the center of the Earth to the outmost reaches of the universe. All is connected, all is one, all is Love. Love is the power that lights up and animates every atom in all of creation, in all of infinite space and time, in all of eternity – before the beginning and after forever.

Love is the true Light which lighteth every woman and man that cometh into the world, and love is the power that lighteth up me. All that I am is love in form, love expressing, love smiling, love calling to itself, love in a body, love wrapping its arms around itself, love remembering itself, love calling to itself From the center of my heart to the farthest star, all is one, all is love, and I am one with all of it. Right where I am, love is.

As I know this is true for me, I know this is true for my spiritual sisters and brothers reading these words. All that they are is love in form, love expressing, love smiling, love in a body, love wrapping its arms around itself, love remembering itself, love calling to itself. From the center of their heart to beyond eternity, all is connected, all is one, all is love and they are one with all of it. Right where they are, love is.

I give thanks for the movement in consciousness of the person reading these words to allow this love awareness to spread through their being. I give thanks for the knowing that when deep calls, deep will answer – so when deep love calls, deep love will answer.

Love magnetizes itself. Love’s greatest desire is to fulfill itself. Love always loves and in this spirit I give thanks for forgiveness of all previous relationships, for any and all hurts caused by people following their path to the best of their ability…some leaving the relationship or even leaving the body before what we would think was their time, but they were following their path, their right journey.

I give thanks for any and all the pains that have been centered around love now being eased away – while being grateful for the lessons the pain taught and the gifts the pain delivered. I give thanks for any and all the mental blocks and obstructions to the high holy path of love being eased away. I give thanks for any and all opposing thoughts to return to the void from which they came….for love is truly all there is, when we recognize it.

I give thanks for the movement in consciousness for the person hearing these words to see with crystal clear vision and set 100% intention to: 1) love like they have never loved before, starting with that very special, sacred being: themselves, be the high holy path of love themselves, and be the love of their lives themselves
2) open to the high holy path of the loving partnership and call it in, in its perfect right time
3) let go and let the universe handle the details….and have a really wonderful, joy-filled, fun-filled, high service life….filled to overflowing with love, love, and more love.

Thank you beloved Mother Father God. Thank you for the miracle that is this life, for that miracle that is Love, and for the miracle that is this awareness.

I know this prayer was prayed before I was born. Before any of us were here, this moment was already ordained. This moment is a true deep gathering and awakening of souls who are ready to actualize their agreement of being the face of love on this planet at this time and for all time. I give thanks for those who are stepping up to the high spiritual path of true love of the self and to the high spiritual path of the true love partnership…. for this partnership brings about tremendous spiritual growth, eases away our rough edges, and is our opportunity to love and make love to Life. I know the highest good is unfolding and I give my loving thanks.

I release my word into the Law of Mind, knowing that the Law’s only job is to respond to that which has been firmly impressed upon it with full intention. And so it is done. Blessed be.

(OK, just sit with that for a moment. Breathe. Let it in.)

A note about this prayer: I was licensed as a Practitioner with the Centers for Spiritual Living, where we are trained to do these five step affirmative prayers. The 5 steps are:

1) Realization - where we realize God is all there is
2) Unification - where we realize that we are one with God and that the person(s) we are praying for are one with God
3) Declaration - where we give thanks for the release of old life conditions and acceptance of new conditions the person being prayed for wants to experience
4) Thanksgiving
5) Release

Affirmative prayer is an important tool in the Law-of-Attraction, New Thought-Ancient Wisdom philosophies.


Q: How do we beat the Fear Catch-22, i.e., "I'm too afraid to take steps that will help me grow past my fear?"

What a wonderful question!

That’s where faith comes in. There’s a line in a song sung by the Agape International Choir that goes something like: “I will not take a step until I’m anchored in God.” When we are firmly anchored in God there is no fear, there is only faith.

We are eternal beings – we weren’t really born and we’ll never really die. We are one with the infinite and we come here for the evolution of our soul – our individualized expression of God. God is all there is, so that’s all we are. Everything is of God – expanding, expressing, knowing more of itself….and that includes us.

Many of the people who have near-death experiences come back and talk about the whole of creation being love and light. That’s it. With that knowing, then, we are protected.

Fear is rampant these days. Many people are in fear of losing their home, job, life savings, health, or business – if they haven’t experienced that loss already, that is. Sometimes our greatest fears include sickness, failure, pain, our death or the death of a loved one – the list could go on and on. But….the pain of divorce ends and new love comes. The pain of mourning subsides and new life comes. The pain of a business failure ends – although nothing is ever really a failure – and new ideas come.

There are practical things to assuage some fear – like having enough money in the bank when you start a new venture. Like not sleeping with him/her on the first date. Like taking excellent care of our body through eating well and exercise. Like….well, many of the things our mothers told us. But the intense fears of life can bring us closer to God and our own true nature, which is God.

The searing pain that our hearts sometimes go through in life can enable us to love more, do more, be more....and have a greater capacity for understanding what other people are going through.

The heart can sometimes close down after the pain of divorce or the death of a loved one or a big failure or any of life’s catastrophes. It wants to ward off any more pain of that magnitude and who can blame it? But the nature of the heart, of Love, of Life, of God in us and as us is to expand and express more and more and more. Love loves to love….and this inherent nature that is who we really are will always triumph over fear.


Q: How in the world can spiritual people say “All is well” when all is so clearly not well? Have you seen the headlines? We're in a global economic crisis and people are suffering! There are wars going on! Do you know people are being tortured right now, at this very moment? Have you seen the sky over Los Angeles lately? Have you SEEN Los Angeles lately?

“All is well” is both an affirmation and a statement of how things are at the very highest level. It’s like saying “Hitler’s in Heaven” (At Home With God, Neale Donald Walsh). At the very highest level all is perfect as it is, given our present level of consciousness. It doesn’t mean we don’t do our work to improve things, however.

From the highest perspective, everything that happens is a consciousness necessity, an evolutionary driver (I term I got from Barbara Marx Hubbard) – something for the expansion and growth of our soul. We choose what we want to work on, so nothing comes in to our experience uninvited.

To paraphrase a story from Neale Donald Walsh, “The Little Soul and The Sun” (from two Conversations With God books and then a stand-alone book): a soul wanted to experience forgiveness and another soul volunteered to do something horrible to it that would require forgiveness. “You would really do that for me?” the first soul asked.

Life is eternal. We are one with life, so we are eternal too.

AND, while we’re here, we do all the work we can within our power to feed the hungry, stop torture, clean the air, bring about peace, raise awake and conscious children, and be as kind as we can.


Q: How can an affirmation work if I don’t really believe it yet?

An affirmation is like trying on a magnificent garment that you don’t feel belongs to you or that you deserve yet. The more you put it on, the more comfortable it will feel, until you at last feel like that garment belongs to you and is yours by right of consciousness.


Q: How does one manifest?

1. Get clear on what you want.

2. Set your intention of having whatever it is you want.

3. Get involved with the wonderful feelings and emotions of having what you want – the joy of the new relationship, the peace of the home in the country, the wholeness of the new job, the vitality and lightness of being in the slimmed down body.

4. Get out of the way! Once you’re completely clear and set the intention, it’s done. You know the what. Let go and let God handle the how, the when, the where.

5. Take all the steps in the world that come to you: i.e. send the resume, write the book, make that phone call, join the gym, flirt with that guy at the watercooler. Pray, mediate, vision, get calm and centered too.

6. Watch out! It's on its way.

The main thing is to enjoy your life, so that all that comes is just icing on the cake.


However…..

Q: I’ve been clear about losing weight and have gone on many diets, but it’s still a challenge for me. Help!

Opposing beliefs cancel each other out. So if you have the intention to lose weight but your self-worth is still low, or if the weight you hold in your mind is still high, or if you cloak the weight around you as protection and you haven't dealt with the underlying feelings that call for the protection, the intention will be cancelled out by the opposing beliefs. And if those opposing beliefs dominate, you’ll find that all-too-frequent problem of dieting and then gaining even more weight. (There’s a physical reason for weight gain from yo-yo dieting, but that’s another column’s specialty!)


Q: Why do innocent young people die?

A: We don’t know what a soul has chosen for their journey. We do that life is eternal – matter cannot be created or destroyed, only transformed. So their journey started long before this one and their journey continues way after they lay their body down. We don’t know what soul choices they have made to call death (or a new life) to themselves at a young age.


Q: What is consciousness?

Consciousness is the set of beliefs and world/life view that you hold. You can have individual consciousness, or there is also group consciousness, or there is also race consciousness. Consciousness is what attracts the things, events, opportunities in your life to you. If you have prosperity consciousness, you are prosperous. If you have poverty consciousness, you live in poverty (and this doesn't just mean financial). If you have a consciousness of health, you are healthy. If you have a consciousness of being overweight, you are overweight. If you win an award, then you have an award-winning consciousness.

Group consciousness could include a church's beliefs in a Heaven far away, or a religion's belief in reincarnation, or a football team's losing attitude, or a family's belief in impoverishment, or another family's belief in education and success.

Race consciousness can include things like: Life is hard and then you die. Nice guys finish last. Slow and steady wins the race. We can't achieve peace without war.

Some people say that consciousness is all there is -- and to the extent that we are connected to All There Is, that is true. All of creation is one unified field, so of course our consciousness would effect everyone, as their consciousness would effect us.

Q: This is total bunk. I don’t buy any of this.

A: Great! You’ve found one thing that doesn’t work for you and you can check it off the list, at least for now. You’re one step closer to finding something that does speak to you.

Spirituality is an extremely personal, individual journey and what works for one might not work for another. Just follow what calls you.... as long as it's for the good of all and the harm of none. If it doesn't fall into that category, please write to me again.


Q: I've been praying and praying and doing my work - in myself and in the world - and what I'm looking for still hasn't materialized.

Don't pray for "things"....pray for the movement in your consciousness that allows the "things" to emerge. Pray to be aware of your oneness of God....and then the added "things" will materialize.

The universe is not a respecter of persons, it is a respecter of consciousness. So when you have the consciousness of being a person who has whatever it is you've been praying for, that thing will appear.... but by then you'll have moved on to the next thing anyway, but that's another question's answer and subject.


Q: Thinking we are one with God is the epitome of hubris.

There is nothing more humbling than realizing how truly tremendous we are.....Those who know they embody the whole of creation are far from egotistical.


Q: How can I live my life in bliss knowing there is such suffering on the planet?

We don't know what soul choices people have made. We don't pity and sympathize people, while at the same time we don't ignore what is ours to do. So we give support of our time, talent, and treasure, and prayers to help feed, clothe, and educate our brothers and sisters all over the planet. And we realize that God is where each person on the planet is. Each person on the planet was made in the image and likeness of God, so the love, power, innate intelligence, and wholeness of God lives within each one of us.


Q: Why do innocent young people die?

We don’t know what a soul has chosen for their journey. We do that life is eternal – matter cannot be created or destroyed, only transformed. So their journey started long before this one and their journey continues long after they lay their body down. We don’t know what soul choices they have made to call death (or a new life) to themselves at a young age.


Q: If all of life is God and Love, why do bad things happen?

In the expression of infinity, Life involves seemingly bad things – our loved ones die in accidents; people are unjustly imprisoned, tortured, and killed; babies are born with birth defects........the list could go on all day.

If bad things come, the main thing is to stay centered, peaceful, and loving. Gandhi gave thanks for the uniform that was crawling with lice that his jailer handed to him, for the lessons it would teach him. He died with the word God on his lips. His was a very high path but we can travel that path too.


Q: I am very devoted to a spiritual path and my partner is not. How can I get him to join me?

You can’t. Spirituality is a very individual thing and comes in its own time and way. I personally feel it is very important to share the path with my spouse…..but if love, reverence, shared passion for living are there, then maybe just give him time. Hold the space for it to happen.

But if your partner puts down your path, then I would find someone else and of like mind.

This is my opinion. Please do your own soul searching to see what’s true for you.

 

Marianne also works with clients on an individual basis over the phone. 
If you would like to contact Marianne for a book reading, group visioning, workshop,
or private session, please email

info@heartlandpublishinghouse.com