Navigating with Spiritual Laws

Transcript

Jim: 0:01

Hello, and welcome to today's episode of Decide on Joy, a podcast coming to you from Harmony Spiritual Center in Fort Worth, Texas. My name is Jim Alt,

Pjae: 0:11

and my name is Reverend Dr. PJ Stanley. Thank you so much for being here today,

Jim: 0:16

and today we're talking about the. Power of spiritual connection. Yeah. And navigating life with universal laws. Yeah. Navigating life with spiritual laws.

Pjae: 0:28

Yes. Yes.

Jim: 0:30

Yeah. And what does that involve? Yeah,

Pjae: 0:33

so. You know, we're, we're, again, what we're what we're talking about is how we have the best life possible in any given moment. To me, it's moment by moment.'cause every moment is your life. So how do you have the best life in any given moment? I think you need to know about the, the universal. Rules, laws that are effective and effective in our lives all the time. It's like if you didn't, and I used this in another podcast before, but it's so easy to understand. If you're not aware of the law of gravity, you're just gonna be falling off of roofs and falling outta trees and everything else. If you didn't understand that, you can't do that, that gravity sucks. It's gonna pull you down. And so that's just a physical law of the universe. Well, there are also spiritual laws of the universe that we wanna be aware of. So we're gonna share a couple of'em today. And, there's, there's quite a few, but we just wanna share with you the ones that we think are, are really, if you understand those and you, you have more control over your life. And yes, I know the control is an illusion. However, there is a certain amount of control. Like I use the gravity thing, you know, that gravity sucks. So you're not going to try to step out of a tree. You're not gonna do that'cause you know you can't.

Jim: 1:37

Right. So

Pjae: 1:37

you use it. Mm-hmm.

Jim: 1:41

Also in another sense, you might, sometimes it can be a negative thing to try and control your life too much, you know, true to, to, to that sometimes we're advised to let go and let Spirit take care of it.

Pjae: 2:03

That that part right there. So when I say. When I say just getting, getting, getting in control of your life, what I'm saying is to understanding how life actually works, what spiritual laws are in place that you can use for your benefit. So that's the part of, well, you're not, you can't control anything, but you can have an understanding. Of how things work and what you want, and decide what you wanna do, or what you don't want to do to bring things into your life or to release things from your life. We do have, we do get to do that. And so that's what this is about. Just being aware of those kinds of, of of rules that go on. And so the first thing you want to do is just be aware of them. You know, just be aware that they, they're in existence. There's a lot of people that don't know that they're available but they are, and they're using, they're creating our lives and then we, sometimes we wonder, how did I get here? Why is my life turning out this way? So kind of understanding what, there are some things that are going on and you can decide on some of these things and say, I'm not going in this direction. That's the part of the control that we're talking about. Mm-hmm. Just knowing. Mm-hmm.

Jim: 3:03

Yeah. So how do we cultivate that awareness? Yeah.

Pjae: 3:07

And, and so that's, yeah, that's the number one is cultivating the awareness and really, it, it's about introspection. It's about self-reflection. It is really about coming to know. Who you are, who you really are. There's a lot of noise in our heads all the time. If you try to lay out and take a nap, there's all kinds of stuff telling you about, oh, you gotta do this, you gotta do that. And don't forget this. And don't forget that there's a lot that's just the conscious stuff that we're aware of that are also unconscious things that are going on in our minds that hold us in place, like our parents telling us. Well, you know, cursing is a bad thing. Or years ago, you can't women don't wear pants in church or any number or, you know, to be a good wife. You should have children and stay home with your children. Whatever those rules are that your parents may or may not have told you. And so because there are parents or our grandparents we just assumed that that was the truth. Well, it probably was the truth. But it's not, it's not the truth. It's a truth for them. So when we start to reflect on our lives, it's particularly useful to reflect on your life when it's not going well. That's, that's when it becomes, yeah, you see, you regular that face. Because, because if it's going along just fine. It's not like, it's not bad, it's not good. It's just benign. There's no impetus to change anything. Mm-hmm. But when it's not going well, your relationships are not going well, you find yourself in a relationship with the same kind of person again and again and again. Now there's something you can do'cause those people aren't seeking you out. There's something that within you that says it's okay for you to be with these people. And so what is that? Or, and that's just one example. So self-reflection, looking at why do you behave the way you do? Why are certain things okay with you when you look around and you see everybody doesn't live this way? One thing in particular that I had at the beginning of this journey, the spiritual journey, was the idea that, and I think a lot of people have this, that money is the root of all evil. So that, so you, you push away money in your mind. You're telling money don't come by way. But if you think about what you do when you have money, you're funding your life and the life of the people you love. So you're doing good things with money. And so to have a negative thought about money, it's something you wanna take a look at. Why?'cause the money itself is not negative. It's what you do with it. That's what you do with it. So that's just one, that's just one idea that people have. Yeah.

Jim: 5:37

And so I see here in the notes, so that mindfulness is Yes.

Pjae: 5:40

Yeah. And so that's just practicing being in this moment. So, so many times we're walking around wherever we are at the store or whatever, and we're ahead of ourselves. We're thinking about what's next instead of being right here. Right now, which is how we miss things. How we miss, oh man, I meant to pick up this, whatever it is in the grocery store or, you know, you, you step off a curve'cause you're looking ahead at something else and you're not paying attention to where you are. Mm-hmm. Right now. So mindfulness is about paying attention to what is right now. And that's, that's a practice.

Jim: 6:11

Yeah, it is. It's a practice. Yeah. No, no question about that.

Pjae: 6:14

That is a practice,

Jim: 6:15

not an automatic thing at all. It's not an

Pjae: 6:16

automatic, and just observing your thoughts, like I was just talking about, what do you think about certain things when something is not quite going the way you'd like? This is a perfect time for you to think, what do I think about that? Why is this okay for this person or this thing or whatever to be in my life right now? What in my mind am I saying to myself? That this is okay.'cause obviously I'm saying it's okay. It wouldn't be here if I wasn't saying it's okay. So what am I'm thinking about this? And so that's a good time to observe your thoughts about something when it's not going right, or like he thought it was gonna go

Jim: 6:52

right.

Pjae: 6:52

Yeah, it's a good time.

Jim: 6:53

Yeah. So let, let's talk about these, these spiritual laws that we brought up earlier.

Pjae: 7:00

Yeah. So one of the words that we don't like as human beings is control. You have control issues. You did? Yeah. But the law of control is not it's not, it's not that kind of, it's not that kind of control. What it says is that you feel good about yourself to the degree that you feel in control of your life and not controlling your life, but in control. Meaning that you are being mindful, that you're looking at your thoughts, that you're making decisions based on the now, not based on. Paradigms, which is just the rules that you think life should be like, that someone that aren't actually your rules, they're rules that you were given as a kid or even maybe as an adult being married. And you live with those rules until they're no longer working for you. And so the law of control just says that we feel. Better about ourselves to the degree that we feel we are in control of our lives, meaning we are making the decisions we wanna make and living the life that we want to live. That's what the, that's all the law of control says. You can't control anything. That's, that's I wanna make that really clear. I'm not saying you can control anything, but you feel better about the about your life. The more that you understand, you are looking at your life and making definite decisions about it. Not just walking around willy-nilly and just doing stuff. Because it's the way it's always been done. It's the way my, and this is, I hear this a lot. I do. My family does it. We don't even do that. My, our family doesn't do that. Mm-hmm. That's not, that's not what we do. You know, we, I hear that all the time. Why not? Why don't we do that? That's the question I ask. It really pisses people off. But I don't care. I don't care. Well, let's take a look at that. Yeah. So that's the law of control is about are you feeling good about yourself?

Jim: 8:43

And the next one here is the, the famous law of attraction.

Pjae: 8:48

And so this is one, it sounds like a big old deal, but you've done this your whole life. Birds of a feather stick together. That's what law of attraction is. You are attracted to the people, the places and circumstances that are in line with your dominant thinking. So if your dominant thinking says, money's no good. People that have money are terrible people, you're just gonna, where's the money gonna go? It's not gonna come to you, so you're gonna be poor because that's how you think. Birds of a feather stick together. That's what the law of attraction means. So you, you, you just want to get in, in, in mind what it is that you focus on, what it is that you think about all day long. We are really good. We, meaning human beings, we're really good at storytelling. We make up stories all the time. Can you imagine, I think I shared this one with you when I was in Walmart one time and this kid he was working and he was, he was doing something that I didn't like and I had all kinds of stories in my, I don't know, this kid from Adam, I, that was the first time I'd ever even seen him at the store, but I had all kinds of stories going on about who he was, what was going on, until I just said, you know what? Stop it. I caught myself stop it. And it turns out he was a great kid. He was funny, and he was really, he was wonder, wonderful. But we make up stories all the time. We just look at something and we go, Ugh. She thinks she's all that, or what makes him think he could, whatever? Who, no, it's not what makes them think. What makes you think? Because whatever's going on in your head. It's going on in your head. It's not necessarily going on in anybody else's head. Mm-hmm. So the law of attraction says that we draw to us the things, the places, the circumstances that are aligned with our dominant thinking. So if we have things coming into our lives that we don't want. The, the easiest thing to do and the thing you have the most control over is to look at what you think about it. Why is it okay for that to be in your, in your in your life? I think it's, I don't, I can't remember who it was. I could see her face but I can't call her name up. But anyway, she says, when people tell you who they are or show you, tell you by showing you who they are, believe them. Believe them. So people show up the way that they are. You show up the way that you are, that's who they are. You don't have to try to change it or give them a story. It's what they are. This is why we, we end up in relationships because we're, we always think we're gonna fix someone else. Yeah, yeah. I know they're not that good about this, but I can fix that. You know, if they're with me for a while, I'll change that. No, you're dreaming. You, you're dreaming. People are who they are. Why would you, why would you wanna be with someone? You have to fix. And why would you want to be with someone who wants to fix you? So that's what the law of attraction is. That just allows you to to look at your life, to see what's in it.'cause in some way it's okay with you that it's there and change what you think about it. Change why it's okay. And once you do that, you'll start letting it go. You know? No, I don't want that. And just let it go. So that's part of, of, of you being in control of your life

Jim: 11:47

and you, there, you were on the what you don't want part of it, but, but also you can visualize and cultivate what you do want. You Absolutely.

Pjae: 12:01

Can you? Absolutely. I, I actually have I believe that we. There, there's another talk that I'm, we're gonna have on a podcast talk called vision vision Driven Life versus The Condition Driven Life. And that'll be one of our talks that we do. And, and the Bible tells us if you're not a Bible person or not, everybody knows this particular statement. I don't know everybody, but most people know this statement. Without a vision, the people perish. Without a vision, the people perish. Because we are actually live, we actually are drawn into a vision. If you have a vision of your life, you, you, you're drawn into that vision by becoming more energetic and re and aligning with that vision. That's, we want, if we wanna know where we want to go, you wanna go someplace. You wanna, you have to have a vision for it. And really that's just about we, we all know how to vision'cause we've all done it as children, but we forget. There's just, they're just dreams. Kids had dreams all the time, but they were gonna be astronauts and ballerinas and all that kind of thing. I don't know when we lost that, but that's the vision that we wanna have dreams of what we want our life to be and then have that dream pull us forward. So yeah, that's exactly what we wanna do. Mm-hmm.

Jim: 13:05

And then another famous law here coming up, the law of cause and effect. Yes.

Pjae: 13:13

So. An effect is something that's happening, something that's in your life right now. So an effect in my life might be that I'm ill or that I'm overweight. That's an effect. That's what's happening. The cause of that. What is the cause of overeating? I'm, I'm eating stuff that's not healthy necessarily for me. So there is a cause. And there is effect. The reason why this is powerful is because if you look at the effect in your life, the thing that is happening in your life, then you can look back and go, okay, what's causing that? And change that. Stop that. Cause change it and say, I'm no longer going to do this. I don't have to have ice cream every night after dinner if I wanna lose weight. Yeah, I like it. Tastes good. Not necessarily easy to change the cause. I'm not saying that. I'm saying we can look at it and, and make a decision for whether we're willing to stop that cause or change that cause so that we can change the effect that's happening in our lives. So the, the law of cause and effect is really, it's, it's an ironclad, it's a, it's one of the, one of the most ironclad laws of the spiritual realm. Cause and effect it whatever's in your life. There's a, there's a specific cause you could trace it back to.

Jim: 14:22

Yeah. Not always as easy as saying, oh, I need to stop eating ice cream. Not at all.'cause sometimes it's not that easy to identify the cause,

Pjae: 14:32

figure out to figure out what happened, how, how, why, why was this okay? And I wanna come back to money. It's just, I, I am not gonna tell my age, but I'm not a spring chicken and it's taken me a long time to figure out, because I've always, I've never been poor, but I've never had enough, you know? Well, lemme say that was the word I used, that I have enough. So enough is just that enough. There's never any extra. And if you don't have extra, then how do you, how do you bless other people? I have family people that I love, people that I care about, people that I want to help. Agencies that I wanna donate to, how can I do all of that if my thinking is I just make enough, enough meaning just for me to get by? So it took a while for me to start to get that, that is the reason why. That's one of the reasons why the, the money in my, in my, in my surrounding that was coming to me was a plentiful. And so to have to change that thought, to change the effect, that's just enough to a, an effect of abundance. I have to think what's the cause, what's in my thinking, what's acceptable to me, what's unacceptable to me? And so at the, so, so for me it was the whole money's evil. I just was raised with that idea that money was evil. And that, that, you know, poor people are, are fabulous. And so, and so that's, you know, and so I had to say, mm, I really want to have an effect in the world to help people, to help myself first and help other people. And then it's, it's necessary to have some amount of abundance, have some amount of plenty in all things,

Jim: 16:06

right? Mm-hmm. And, and. So there's another element there that of, of taking responsibility for, for what you're doing. Yeah,

Pjae: 16:18

exactly.'cause if you,'cause you can have the mentality of things are happening to you and Yeah. Certainly when you're young. And there are people over, you, parents, teachers, whatever. There are things that you don't have necessarily control over. Although there are a lot of, a lot of people who at, at a young age said no to stuff, said, no, I'm not doing that. That was their personality. Mm-hmm. They were willing to deal with the, with the ramifications of saying no to an authority figure. But for, for us, when we're looking at. Taking responsibilities for our actions and then learning from them. So what that means is if we, if we have, and I'll go back to a marriage that ended, let's just say, because everybody's in relationships, whether there's with parents or with spouses, whatever they are, if we don't take responsibility for our part in it, we're gonna be stuck in it. We're never going to, so we have to look at it and go, it's not their fault. I'm not going to blame other people for where I am, my boss is to blame. My mother is to blame. You know, my whoever is to blame. We get to do that. We get to say, I'm responsible for being in this situation. Yes, they contributed. I'm, I'm not, I'm not saying other people don't contribute. But you, it's your life. And you can say, I'm finished with this. I had a group of young women that I was teaching on, they were junior high school kids, and I was teaching'em about, you know, dating and, and how, you know, how you should be treated. And I was telling them we were, I was showing them about sitting at the table and having a nice dinner and stuff like that. And so, you know, when you walk up to the chair, you know, you wait for the gentleman to pull, pull your chair out. And they said. They just frowned at me and said, what do you mean? And I go, what do you mean? They, it's just polite that they would, you know, pull the chair back for you. Just, is this showing politeness for you, caring for you? Well, if we waited for that, we'd never eat this. This was the response and it just cracked me up. I said, well, you don't have to go out with people like that if, if that person doesn't think that you are worth them caring for, and that's just a small way that you care for people. Just to say, I was to pull the chair off. I'm gonna open the car door for you. Why are, the question is, why are you going out with them? Why is it okay with you to be treated that way? So that's all. And if that's okay, that's okay. I'm not telling you, you don't have to be, I'm saying if it's not okay. Then it's not okay. And just own that. That's where you, there your part come in, taking responsibility for actions and for, and learning from your past, your actions where you've, you let that be okay. But now you're saying, ah, I'm not going to, I'm gonna have a different class of person in my life. That's what you get to do.

Jim: 18:59

Okay? Yeah. So we can stop there on this end. Okay? There's more to come so much on this, this topic. So we will return to it next time, but in the meantime, you can have a better quality of person in your life and we will see for the next episode. Thanks for joining us, and we'll see you then. Yay.