Hello and welcome to
Decide on Joy
Jim:new, this is our first edition podcast. We're at Harmony Spiritual Center in Fort Worth, Texas and I am Jim
Pjae:Kovalt and I am Rev. Dr. P. J. Stanley. Welcome. So glad to have you.
Jim:And we're planning to be talking about some basic sort of new thought questions and, and how, and principles and how those might work in daily life, how you can in fact co create your own life. Absolutely. Using those principles. And we're going to start off with a kind of big question. We should mention here that Reverend P. J. is the minister here at Harmony Spiritual Center. I'm a congregant and board member, but I'm here more as a questioner. I've only been involved with New Thought for, I guess it's three or four
Pjae:years now. I've been here since, what, 1995. Right. Been involved in it. So it's, it's my life. So
Jim:I, I, I still have questions. As I might even if I'd been
Pjae:here for 40 years. Exactly. I still have questions as well. Absolutely. So no worries.
Jim:But well first there's a starting point there. What is New Thought
Pjae:anyway? That is such a great question because it's such, so much confusion about why do we call ourselves New Thought when in fact what New blee, be on the blah blah blah. aNd it's really not about a new thought on the planet. It's about you as an individual deciding to have a new thought, a different thought, which really means just changing your mind about something. So as you kind of are going down a road or down a particular path and you're not getting where you want to go, you can actually just change your mind about it. Have a different thought, see something different and then have a different outcome for your life. So that's really what new thought means. You have a different thought.
Jim:Yeah. Yeah. That's excellent. Yeah. I like that. Me too. Because honestly, the other one gave me trouble for quite a while. I was like, is that new? What are we
Pjae:claiming here? Exactly. And how many thoughts are there? So I'm not supposed to remember all these thoughts that
Jim:are out there? Exactly. No. So the thing we're launching with here today is a question that I brought up, which is where is
Pjae:God? Hmm. A little question, so we're starting off with small things. A small thing. I like it.
Jim:But we can see how that applies just in, in the daily grit of life also. But you know, we all, if we come from Christian backgrounds anyway, or probably Jewish, we inevitably had these images. Yeah. Mostly from Renaissance painting, I think, but, you know, of this stern old man, somewhere up there in the sky, although exactly how that works and a very judgmental, taking
Pjae:notes, absolutely taking notes, got his eye on all of us, basically a moral
Jim:judge, although also omnipresent and omniscient, but
Pjae:while while up there taking notes.
Jim:Yes, but that's still the image that gets stuck in your head. And that's not It's not our position on that
Pjae:at all. It isn't. It's not what we believe in New Thought. And when I say New Thought, let me just clarify a little bit that the New Thought group is, we're talking about signs of mind and unity We have CSL, which is the Centers for Spiritual Living, which is actually how I got started, which is Science of Mind. And so all of these, and there's a number of them, but all of these religions or spiritual thinkings, spiritual thoughts that say, We are, all of us, individualized expressions of the one love, which is God, if that's what you want to call it. You can call it God, I particularly call it George, because I'm talking to George all the time, doesn't have to be a guy. My friend sees George as a hummingbird. It's a hummingbird because it comes to her whenever she needs answers. Hummingbirds show up because that's what she asked for. So to your question, where is God? God is absolutely everywhere, present and everything on this planet. Because think about this, aren't we all, DNA of our parents? Aren't we all part of our parents? So if God, this universal presence, this, which is greater than ourselves, is also our father, the progenitor of all of us, then we would have to be a part of that. That would have to be within us. We can't be separate from that. And so that's what we believe. If we simply know for a fact that we are individualized expressions. of the one love of God, and because we are, we get to not create, but co create our lives with that one that is within us. And so it's with us all the time. Where is God? With you, wherever you are. That is why God can be everywhere present. Because it's everywhere you are. Right,
Jim:and you can, you can actually, as you were just talking about there, actually with the hummingbird and all, you can talk directly.
Pjae:Absolutely.
Jim:Right, right. Which amounts to, I guess, what, say, the Abraham Hicks things refer to as your higher being, or whatever. Exactly.
Pjae:That which is greater than yourself. But
Jim:it's in you as well.
Pjae:There's no question about it, which to me, again, is, is so powerful, is that you don't have to, there's no one outside of you, up above you, anywhere away from you, judging you and, and, and saying all these horrible things you're doing. What that presence is, is, is, is unconditional love. It's unconditional love. This is what God is. Unconditional love. Which means, it's on your side. It, he, they, whatever you want to call it. It's on your side. So whatever you are going through whether in relationships or just trying to get another job or all the humanness that we go through, we can talk to God at any moment of any day. Anytime that we want we can call on it and ask the question what? is going on here. I ask it all the time. And
Jim:what, what form do we expect those answers to take?
Pjae:Exactly. Oh, that's such a great question. Because as I said earlier, my friend sees God or spirit as a hummingbird. And that is because she has such a love for hummingbirds. And when she was praying and needed an answer, she asked God to show her in the form of a hummingbird. I ask God to show me answers in the form of discussion. So when I ask a question, I expect to get an answer in the form of a, just like I'm talking to you. That's how I expect to get it. I had another friend that for whatever reason saw it as getting basketball what do you call it? Points or shots when you get the, through the hoop. So he would go out and shoot. Baskets and know the truth of what he was talking about from whether or not he was able to make a basket or not. That was what he asked for and isn't it? So the point is it's very individualized. It is what you What you can believe what you can understand and so you ask God to speak to you. This is exactly the prayer Speak to me in ways that I can understand So I know for sure it is you and not my ego telling me yes to something that I want Which may or may not be good for
Jim:me. Yeah. Well, that's a trick, isn't it? You have to be able to recognize And how do you know that? Right. You know, because certainly, there are people who hear voices telling them to do quite terrible things.
Pjae:Absolutely. Absolutely. And this is, you're talking about mental illness when you're talking about that. But if you're just talking about just a normal, healthy person, and they are trying to develop a relationship with their higher self, they can ask that very question. How do I know it's you talking and not my ego? talking. Everything you want to know, you can ask exactly that question. So there's no secret to it. There's no special thing. You have to look up in the Bible and say, how do you talk? What do you say? Say what you mean and mean what you say, ask exactly what you need. So when I ask that question is in particularly when there's something that I want like to help my children. And I, and I just, you know, as a mother, as a parent, you think, you know, so much about how your children should be living. And so I. I see them in struggling with things and I want to jump in and I want to help, but before I do I always check in with my higher self and say, what's mine to do? That's my favorite question to ask. What's mine to do? And if I get an answer, I ask, is that me or is that you? Am I just wanting to speak or are you saying I should be speaking now? No. It's me. If it's not, if it's not God, God will say, you know, I don't speak this way. I would never tell you to do, you know, it's not me. It's you. It's very clear to me because that's what I've asked for clarity in that way. You can ask for the same thing. However, it works for you. Ask for that. Right,
Jim:and some people might see images.
Pjae:Oh my gosh, yes. Yes, artists absolutely do. Color, images flowers growing, bees, I mean, whatever. Whatever means something to you, you could be just someone who needs to be out in nature and just, I don't know, see the sun shining or see it streaming or see a leaf turning or falling off a tree. I don't know. It's up to you. It's as individualized as you are in terms of how God speaks to you because it's what you asked for. That's how you know. Right. Yeah, that's
Jim:how you know. A funny story, well, not a funny story, but a true story. A friend of mine's mother, when we were growing up, wrote letters to God all the time and wrote down his answers. And we laughed about that at the time, when we were teenagers. Sure. Right. And now I say, well, no, that's
Pjae:That's possible. If that worked for her. That's exactly how it worked.
Jim:And she did. She asked it because sometimes my friend would read them and and she would ask questions like what color lipstick she should use and, and get answers, you know, so I, and, and why
Pjae:not? But that is such a, that is a great question. Why not? And if we know and believe that the God of your understanding is omnipresent. Omniscient, all powerful, then it knows things that you don't know, that you, and in fact, you know things that you don't know how you know. And this, this gets us in trouble. Like, how would I know that? You know it because your higher self has told you. And understanding and trusting that voice, having the experience of having trusted that voice and seeing how it works. That's how you build faith. That's how you build faith, asking the question, moving forward with what you believe is the answer, and seeing, oh, that was it, that did work, and you do that again and again, you build your faith and your experience of how you and God communicate. Yeah, you learn to trust it. You learn to trust it. You learn to trust yourself, which is what God is, and you, your higher self, and you learn to trust that voice, however that voice is, whether it's an actual voice, or A bird or whatever it may be that's giving you a signal that this is God talking.
Jim:Yeah. Does, does her hummingbird speak to her? No.
Pjae:Just shows up. Oh, it just shows up. It just shows up flying right, like right in front of her face. Huh. It's just there. Flapping. Oh, my stars. Huh. Okay. So I know this is what I'm supposed to be doing. Okay. Cool. It is. It really is.
Jim:So that is a very, sort of direct way that the idea of God being everywhere. You can put that to use in your life, and not in a scary way but in a A very useful way. Yes, not that God is here everywhere as a judge, but as a That part, yes. It's interesting. I a long time ago, and I don't know where it was, I think it might have been something within an article about something in the New Yorker, but they talked about the concept of God as an artist, and I thought, oh, that's interesting.
Pjae:God is a creative. Yes. God is a creative. Yes. That's, so are we. And
Jim:we are. is media in a way. Yes, we are A. I. s, I guess. But you know. And, and I like that because it, because it's kind of a way of looking at because the other question attached to where is God is People frequently ask in difficult times, you know, if you're in Ukraine at the moment or whatever, Where is God? Why can't we let this
Pjae:happen? Well, see this, and that's the question. I love it. How can God let this happen? So here's, here's, here's the paradox for us as human beings. We want free will. Okay? Well, free will allows for the Ukraine. Free will allows for us to love each other, for us to go in and help after you. So we either have free will or we don't. We either want to be able to make up and create our own lives and say what we want and we rub up against people who aren't living their lives the way we think they should be living their lives and we need to be okay with that and know ultimately that love prevails. If you think about what Martin Luther King said, I don't think it was him that originally said this statement, but it's attributed to him because of all the speeches that he did, but he says the moral arc of the universe is long, but ultimately goes up, which means that we get to make mistakes. We get to say that, okay, that person over there just shot someone and that is not, that's his right. Now, it's our right as a society to say, no, we don't want that and we're going to, you know, put him in jail and all the things that we do. But we either have free will or we don't. If we don't want free will, then God is telling us how to do every single thing. But that's not what, that's not, if you read it in the Bible, it talks about, come to me of your own free will. You don't have to believe. Come if you want. Come as you want. And so it's not a requirement. That's free will. And that is why that's allowed. Mm hmm. Okay. Do you understand that? Yes. Yeah. It's hard. Yes. It's hard. Free will is hard. It's like, it's like wanting to be an adult, but not wanting the responsibilities of an adult. Like all the kids want to be an adult, but then they don't want to pay the bills, they don't want to clean the house. They don't want to, right? Sure.
Jim:Yeah. And, and, you know, from the point of view, I mean, thinking of God as an artist, obviously on a much larger scale than we can readily imagine. Anything we talk about, any sort of personification, of course, it's a metaphor. Right, correct, correct. Because we can't conceive of what the actual entity is. bUt there, there is, to let those elements that are created, then get about creating their own
Pjae:work. Whatever it unfolds as, as. Let it unfold and evolve. Correct. We have to let that be. It has to go where it's going. Yeah. Yeah. It has to go where it's going. That is free will. Yeah. That is what we get to do. That's what we get to do. Which I love. So you don't have a right to tell me what to do. I don't have a right to tell you. We can try to coexist and give, give thoughts about how we would like to live in community and we can make suggestions, but we can't say how someone has to be. They get to be how they want to be. And that's, that's unconditional love of everybody, of everyone. Yeah, which is very hard. It's very hard when someone is doing something that goes completely against what your heart feels is right. Yeah. And so that's a, yeah. That's the hard one. That is a hard, that's a hard concept of loving people beyond their behavior. Loving people beyond their behavior. Right. Is a difficult thing, but that is what we're asked to do. That is the requirement. Yeah. Of unconditional love. Yes. Yeah. Which I believe is the ultimate, highest form or understanding of what God is.
Jim:Mm hmm. Okay. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Maybe there's another topic. Probably. Yes. But it's essentially the same, the same one. Yeah. It is. Yeah. It is the same. We may be approaching running out of time here. I looked, but I then forgot what I saw. That's
Pjae:okay. I think this is good, and I think this is As you can see,
Jim:this is a very formal podcast.
Pjae:Yes, and we'll be taking questions. We would, we would, I need to figure out how to do that. Yes, we will. But what I do wanna say is this, is that I know this conversation isn't for everybody and that's okay. People have their own ideas and you are, everyone has their own ideas about who God, who or what God is to you. And that's, again, free will. That is your right. All I'm saying is that this is one way. This is one way to look at it, to look at who God is that works for me, that allows me to love people as they are, not having to judge them, not having to put my thoughts on them to say, you can't be, A good person, if you don't do it this way, I, I won't, I, I won't, I don't want to do that. I want to be responsible for my life and what I'm doing and hope that as Mother Teresa says, as I'm living my life, God is shining through me so much that that's what you see, not me. But the God in me, and that's, that's how I want to live. And however you want to live, that's your choice. Live that way. But these are some answers that we have, New Thought has. And maybe it works for you. And maybe it doesn't, but come anyway. Excellent. Yeah. A
Jim:good place to stop for today. And we will have another one in A week. A week. Or two. Or two. After this. Whenever this Apex War appears. That too. That part too. Yes. Okay. Alright. Thanks for listening. Thank you so much for
Pjae:listening. We'll see you next time. Yeah.