Philip Burley Talks

 

Below are two talks given by Philip following the closure of The Awaken the Sleeping Giant prayer project, and they will be of special interest to those who want to know more about prayer and the spiritual path.

Two Kinds of People Who Pray

There are two kinds of people who pray. The first is the person who prays out of a sense of duty and feels good and justified for having prayed. The second is the person who is moved from deep within to pray because of having discerned the need and value of prayer. These people feel or sense the need to pray in their hearts, and they pray from their very souls. It has nothing to do with loudness but with the intensity that comes from clear inner vision and heart-centered earnestness. When one prays for someone else’s child in the hospital, it is quite different from praying for one’s own child in the hospital. This example expresses the difference between the two kinds of people who pray.

Prayer that comes from duty is often rote, somewhat passive about the outcome, and rather devoid of emotion. The person praying may be making deference to a vague and unknown God who may or may not be listening. The person praying earnestly seeks to actually, literally move heaven to act. This person knows God is listening, and that he will and does act according to both spiritual law (merit) and unconditional love.

As we pray for America, we need to take the earnest approach to move the heart of Heaven to intervene and bring to bear the actual energies able to thwart negative beings, bodied or un-embodied, from invading and destroying humanity’s peace and happiness, whether in this nation or any nation on the face of the earth.

When Jesus said, "Blessed be the peacemakers," he was not speaking of those who are comfortably satisfied in simply maintaining their own peace. That is selfish and self-serving. Rather, like Jesus, a peacemaker is one who has peace within and desires everyone else to have peace within. True peacemakers will go out of their way, as Jesus did, to create the physical and spiritual conditions to bring about peace for the whole world and not just for themselves.

One may be an activist for world peace and still maintain his or her own peace. After all, the ultimate realization of permanent peace within is derived from experiencing God within, in the fullest, most real, undeniable way. Once this happens, really happens, and it is not just something wrought by an incorrect imagining, the awareness of God never goes away. The person who experiences this is never without the awareness that he is in God and God is in him. One may consistently realize God’s presence within and still go forth into the world to make a positive difference. Such a person may even enter into suffering and not lose God within. That is who the man Jesus was and is.

I am sure that many of you—due to the seriousness of what we have been praying for—are having to deal with questions such as "Just how much do I have peace? How much do I trust God? How much am I able to maintain my inner peace in the face of possible physical and spiritual negative circumstances?" Additionally, I am sure that many of you have played out the scenario in your head as to who or what you would be in the face of disaster.

The day after 9/11, on 9/12, which was a Wednesday, I had to go on the air to do my radio show The Inner View, Adventures in Spirit. I was exceedingly welcomed at the station, whereas many of the staff, including the station owner, were usually so earthly-oriented that they were even cynical about spiritual things. Not that day. They were faced with the reality of asking themselves, "What if such an attack had happened locally? What if people here had died at the hands of terrorists?" This made my work as a bridge between this world and the next appear much more important than it had before they experienced the events of 9/11. One man even went so far as to bow from the waist to me when I came in; and it was not to make fun but to show respect. He had the look of one having been stirred to his core by what had happened just twenty-four hours before.

When I went on the air to address a body of listeners, typically numbering 70-80 thousand per week—plus listeners around the world on the internet whose number I did not know—I said… very directly and simply as I opened my show that day: "For those who already know God and have experienced God within, nothing is changed. Only the outer circumstances have changed, but we are not changed. And this is the way it should be for one who truly knows God experientially."

In light of the seriousness and blessing of what we are doing on our prayer conference calls, and for some of you who are praying on your own or in addition to the call, I am saying this to put into perspective our lives and what we are doing in this prayer effort. Each one of you is needed, and all prayer counts; but let us raise our prayers to the highest spiritual manifestation by meaning every word we speak—feeling as if we are truly praying for our lives, our neighborhoods, our cities, our countries, to forestall another attack. This is the kind of prayer needed to not only protect our own lives and life of faith, but also that of countless others, many who are innocent and don’t have a clue about possible problems ahead. They know nothing about the presence of God, or the ability of heaven to intervene, save, and heal our land and the world.

The Way to Self-Mastery

Freedom to do what one likes is really bondage, while being free to do what one must, what is right, is real freedom.

Anonymous

There are three kinds of responsibility in life: God’s, others’ and yours. Some have said three kinds of business—God’s business, others’ business, and your business.

It is not up to us to know God’s business or responsibility. How can we? God is infinite and, for most people, while we are in the body we are finite. Then who can fathom the mind and heart of God completely, in minute detail, and in the broadest of cosmic strokes? At best, and maybe through all kinds of life’s blessings, struggles, and suffering, we may come to realize that God is unconditional love.

We may know, from observation or from life experiences, what God’s business or responsibility is but not in all things. What we can know is that whatever God does with anyone’s life, it is always motivated by his divine care and love; therefore, it is always for the ultimate good of the person, regardless of the appearance of things. Even if people die what appears to be untimely death, they will find themselves in the world of spirit where the next phase of their life is to open. They will quickly know that their death was not an accident, even if it appeared to be, nor was it untimely. It was their perfect time and way to leave the body and earth behind and move into the next phase of life in the world of spirit.

As part of our business or responsibility, we must remember that we did not come here to this world of effect to stay but to be a temporary guest on earth. We are here for a while to learn and grow. At our appointed time, and in our appointed way, we move on, born of the womb of Mother Earth into the world of cause (the spirit world), a much greater and infinitely more expansive, expanded existence.

Once having transitioned into spirit, a thousand questions whose answers were not available on earth will flood into our awareness. Much of the cloud and mystery of life will lift, and we will feel freer than we have ever felt as we become fully aware of who and what we truly are. In our new home, we will be able see the cause and effect in our lives, if we are ready for such revelation. To the degree that we have lived correctly on earth, we will be free from the body and attachments to the earth and come into the knowledge as to why we came to earth.

Very quickly, especially if we have lived a fruitful, meaningful life on earth, we will discover that God is readily available. We will understand that our lives have been playing out just as they should have, so that we could learn everything we were to learn on earth according to a personal, eternal, divine plan (God’s business) for each of us.

We will readily experience that our "life" in the body did not end but continues in a world of greater hope, greater possibility, and greater freedom and love than we knew on earth. With everyone who has lived positively on earth who transitions into spirit, we will say, with a smile on our faces and sense of relief in our hearts, "I never want to return to earth again to take up my former life. I feel as if I have come home at last, born into a world of unfathomable beauty and love. Knowing and experiencing God will not be a guessing game nor will it require one ounce of faith."

In spirit, we know God firsthand by direct experience, and he knows each of us and speaks to each one directly in the heart and mind, and in a thousand different ways not perceivable on earth. He speaks in all that surrounds each person in the world of spirit.

Others’ business is just that. We may try to get into the mind of someone wanting to harm us or into the mind of someone who does things not in keeping with what we would do in the same situation, but to try to fathom another’s mind is to try the impossible. It puts us out of our area of responsibility or business and into someone else’s and God’s business. Second-guessing someone brings untold suffering and confusion. It is better to take that person on face value and stay out of the mental gyrations of morbid pondering and wondering just what someone is thinking. Who can truly know another’s mind when we don’t yet comprehend our own? We are not easily able even to quiet its constant utterances.

What is more, when you get into someone else’s business, who is at home taking care of your business? The sad reality of many people is that they are so busy trying to run other’s lives that they have no time for their own; then they wonder why they are not happy with themselves, and why they are mentally and emotionally divided and confused.

Staying in our business is like staying on our path. It is important to remember that wherever we are is our path, and that everything that appears is there to teach us under all circumstances. There is no such thing as being off our path. Only the phenomena of memory and imagination make it appear that there is some alternate course.

We did not come to earth as anyone else but us. There is no other life to live but the one before us—as our own journey, minute by minute, day by day, unfolds. We know that we cannot live our own children’s lives. Many parents try but fail miserably, because it is impossible to think and feel for another or to take responsibility for their lives. We provide for our children as babies because they need care, but they are the ones who cry for food when they are hungry. We cannot do that for them. They laugh when they laugh. You can stimulate them to laugh, but they are the ones who laugh from within themselves. You cannot learn for them to stand, walk, or talk. These are all within the realm of personal, individual accomplishments and responsibility. Each must walk a solitary walk. This obviously is the grand plan, and it works best when thoughtfully, prayerfully, and carefully observed and practiced.

What is my responsibility, my business? According to Jesus, your business is ultimately to love God with all your heart, mind and soul and your neighbor as yourself. The secret to fulfilling this principle of love lies in the word "yourself." How do you love yourself? Do you do it by trying to figure out all of life and thinking egotistically that you know all the answers? Do you argue with reality, trying to make life conform to your idea of how it should be? Or do you come to humbly accept the inevitable; that is, God’s will? Whatever happens, in the end, God’s will is always done. Always.

This does not mean you should never question, or that you should blindly surrender to anything and everything. This is where wisdom comes in. When circumstances are obviously impossible to change, such as the death of a loved one or friend, it is best to yield. It is best to surrender with joy because such a death means that God loves your loved one so much that he is ready for him or her to take the next step in the eternal journey. Your loved one will more fully know God and will walk perpetually with him on a spiritual path that now exists in the spirit world. There are many lessons to be learned, but the biggest one is to learn to trust God totally—to realize that, as your all-wise, all-knowing, all-caring Heavenly Father, God knows what he is doing and will not fail you, regardless of how things may appear. Everything that happens to you that is beyond your control is God’s business! Knowing this allows me truly to let go and let God. It allows me, as God’s child, to trust him and rest peacefully in the knowledge that he is taking care of me to the nth degree, with a heart that is filled with love.

It is why the great mystics tell us in their writings that in the end they stopped fighting reality as it appeared in their lives; they surrendered. In the latter part of his life, St. Francis bled weekly, profusely, with the stigmata—an excruciating experience where open, bleeding wounds appeared on his forehead, in the center of his hands, in the center of his feet, and in his side. These wounds came because St. Francis gave up his life and sought with everything that was in him to imitate perfectly the life of Jesus.

When you love him totally, you stay out of God’s business, because you simply cannot do for yourself that which is God’s responsibility. Instead, you trust him and have faith in his eternal, loving parenting of you. The more you dwell on practicing this by saying, "Not my will, but thy will," the more you are living correctly, and the greater the peace you will have. When things change or don’t go according to the way that you think that they should, Heavenly Father knows your confusion and the perplexity, at times, in your mind and heart. Since the unarguable reality is there before you, he leads you through this part of your path to be able to one day look back to see and understand exactly why your path led you through certain experiences, even the most unpleasant or tragic ones.

Every day there are things in the earthly realm that you need to take care of. You cannot avoid them and still live on earth. However, only when you love God with all your heart, mind, and soul, and your neighbor as yourself, are you truly connecting to the spiritual realm of your life. These two principles, that of loving God completely (which includes trusting him completely) and your neighbor as yourself, are the hallmarks of great souls. In life or death, they do not waiver in their commitment to God, and neither do they suffer when life does not go the way that they expect. Instead, they come to accept what appears on their path as an opportunity to trust and love God more, even as St. Francis strove to love Jesus completely. They look carefully for what it is that their Heavenly Father is trying to teach them. Inevitably the answer comes—if not today, tomorrow—and they walk even closer to God, trusting him even more. They do this because, time and time again, as they humbled themselves to reality, reality gave back to them God’s reality, the higher, better way, and eternal peace.

Let us consciously choose to stay within the realm of our perceived sphere of responsibility and allow others and God to stay within theirs. If such a harmonious, correctly ordered world existed today, there would be war no more, and heaven would come on earth. If everyone loved God with all their hearts, minds, and souls, and their neighbors as themselves, peace would reign everywhere, and all creation would rejoice.

Until that happens, within the sphere of our own lives let us each allow peace to reign in us. This is the greatest gift we can give to ourselves and is truly the spiritually mature way to live. God has deemed that this shall come to pass for all one day, but right now, taking care of ourselves while staying within our scope of responsibility or business is quite enough.

May this sharing bring some added peace, joy, and love to your life. What you get out of this writing is not my business, but I would hope for you what I would hope for myself; that through the recognition and practice of living within your business and staying out of others’ and God’s business, you will lead a saner, freer, and infinitely more peaceful life. May God bless you, which, incidentally is God’s business!