WHAT IS GENIUS?

What is genius? By definition, genius is an exceptional and ‘natural’ capacity of intellect impressed with intelligence and ingenuity and expressed in creative and original work in science, art, music and humanities. It is the capacity to utilize a ‘natural’ and inherent insight to observe, collate and evaluate situations, circumstances, events, occurrences and the behaviors of others and to understand exactly what the original motivations and causes were that created these expressions. It acknowledges and accepts the observed ‘truth’ revealed by the senses.

Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe once said, “The first and last thing required of genius is the love of truth.” It takes what appears to be a common and everyday occurrence and awakens us to the marvel underlying its manifestation. Goethe expressed this as follows:” It is the great triumph of genius to make the common appear novel.”

Genius invigorates one’s being with the confidence needed to succeed, even though it might face many challenges in the expression of being successful; take Dr. Stephen Hawking for example. He was told he would die years ago but his drive and determination to seek the truth of our existence literally kept him alive and ‘successful’.

Goethe said, “Beware of dissipating your powers; strive constantly to concentrate them. Genius thinks it can do whatever it sees others doing, but it is sure to repent every ill-judged outlay.” A genius implies that in of and as itself, it is special. However, the fact is that we are all special. We all have the capacity to embrace genius when we seek to be greater than we are.

True genius is in mastering the whims of the ego and allowing the guidance from the Spirit of God to fulfill the expectations of our inner desires and manifest our Divine purpose in Divine order. The following statement sums it up: “For a man to achieve all that is demanded of him he must regard himself as greater than he is.” ~Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe.

Albert Einstein, the most recognizable embodiment of genius, once said, ““Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.” He also said, “Genius is 1% talent and 99% percent hard work.” Furthermore, Einstein focused on what creates genius in all of us and that is the development and use of our imagination: “Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited to all we now know and understand, while imagination embraces the entire world, and all there ever will be to know and understand.”

Through the development and freedom of our imagination, we can begin to observe external patterns and rhythms of the perceived dualistic reality and organize them into a workable model of universal impression and expression of all that exists. Einstein sought, through his genius, a Unified Field Theory (a unification of the General Theory of Relativity and Electromagnetism), or a Theory of Everything (explanation of all physical constants of nature without a basis of nature to be ‘fields’), that he never found in his lifetime.

Genius always desires to go one step further in order to discover the truth. It requires us to be committed and to act upon that commitment in a ‘timely’ fashion. When we move toward the realization of our desire to ‘know’ and ‘manifest’ it, it moves towards us concurrently; not because it actually ‘moves’, but because our awareness opens up from its possibilities into its probabilities.

Once we make the decision to open ourselves up to a greater perspective, things begin to happen that we hadn’t considered or even thought were possible. The secret to opening up to your inner genius is to start moving toward it NOW! Genius is fully actualized in being bold enough to trust in the Spirit of God and not get in the way of the manifestation of your Divine purpose being unfolded in Divine order.

Being a genius imbues many characteristics that are developed in you by making the choice to act on them at critical points in your life. Geniuses are NOT born, they are made as once stated by Dr. Alfred Barrious. He further stated that geniuses have 24 characteristics in common and each and every one of us can develop these traits in ourselves.

Make that step toward unfolding your inner genius as Goethe revealed in the following statement: “Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of initiative and creation, there is one elementary truth the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one's favor all manner of unforeseen incidents, meetings and material assistance which no man could have dreamed would have come his way. Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it. Begin it now.”  ~Dean A. Banks, D.D.

WHAT IS GRIEF?

What is grief? Technically, it is a sharp emotional and mental suffering or distress over an affliction, loss or painful regret. It is a reaction to the loss of something or someone that is close to you, resulting in physical, emotional, mental and even spiritual effects. It is ultimately an acceptance of what has been and a resistance to what is now; or should we say, living in the past and not living in the now. When the grief builds and grows daily it becomes chronic and a person begins to identify with this reactive state as being ‘how it is' and that it will never change.

Grief is an ongoing reaction to loss and bereavement is a state of loss that lessens over time. When someone dies most of us bereave the loss of that person. When we internalize that loss and it begins to be a habit that we cannot shake we are suffering from chronic grief. But is there a way out? Most definitely! Elizabeth Kubler-Ross in her book, "On Death and Dying" revealed the five stages of learning how to live with the loss of someone or something close to you. The five stages are denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance.

At first we deny the occurrence out of sheer lack of belief that it happened. When we are faced with the fact that we have to accept the facts, we sometimes get angry. Anger is a feeling that we haven't been treated fairly and why was this person or thing taken from us! It is a reaction from the ego that feels we need this person or thing to survive. We begin to bargain with God, our friends and family to deal with the loss. What can we do to change the occurrence or make it better? Next we fall into a depressive state where we realize that we are powerless to change the situation. Finally, we accept what has occurred and begin to re-construct our emotional belief system to deal with the facts.

This, at glance, appears to be a linear process. However, research has shown that it is cyclical as well. Some people start off at bargaining, go to acceptance and revert to denial for varied lengths of time. These stages are real and we, as individuals, deal with them in our own ways.

In order to accept what has happened we need to live in the now. Treat each and every day as a gift that we have been given and that it is up to us to do the best we can to shine forth our light and give to life. This helps the world and puts our egos in check. It provides a pattern of success that contributes to the mutual growth and expansion of our world AND us.

The first four stages involve getting over your ego and the last stage is accepting things how they are. It is truly the spiritual awareness that we can affect our world, but only a small portion of it. When we collectively apply our portions together, we can collectively affect our outer world. Ultimately, grief is a conscious choice and a subconscious reaction to someone's or something's passage through time. Life goes on, whether we want it to or not.

Accepting things as they are doesn't mean that we cannot change them in the future. We cannot change the past but we can reframe it. We can change our reactions to past events and teach ourselves to deal with them more effectively. By daily seeking the still small voice of God guiding and directing us to actualize our potential, we begin to accept His will in our lives and come to an understanding that we never really lose anything. We are always moving forward with the Divine purpose and in the Divine order. In this realization, grief gradually disappears because your life becomes more spirit-based than ego-based. ~Dean A. Banks, D.D.

WHATIS LIFE?

What is life? According to the textbook definitions life is “the condition that distinguishes organisms from inorganic objects and dead organisms, being manifested by growth through metabolism, reproduction, and the power of adaptation to environment through changes originating internally. It is the sum of the distinguishing phenomena of organisms, especially metabolism, growth, reproduction, and adaptation to environment. The animate existence or period of animate existence of an individual: to risk one's life; a short life and a merry one. A corresponding state, existence, or principle of existence conceived of as belonging to the soul: eternal life. The general or universal condition of human existence: Too bad, but life is like that” [dictionary.com]. But what are the distinguishing characteristics that make life ‘life?

Life is organic, animate, metamorphosizing, reproducing and adaptive to its environment by internal changes in order to survive. It is in a dynamic and ever-changing state of existence and not in stasis. Life has an inherent consciousness that moves towards growth and expansion and not stagnation and reduction. Life is ALWAYS blooming outward and reaching toward the source of its existence (e.g. a seed-sprout pushing through the soil toward the sunlight where it grows and flowers) where death is ALWAYS moving in the other direction.
Are you seeking life or death? Are you moving to become the most loving, giving and sharing individual you can become? Are you moving towards life or death? Death is a state where you inner spirit no longer resides as your consciousness in your body as a living soul. It is a state where the body can no longer sustain itself with physical life because the consciousness that determined the drive for life’s growth and expansion is no longer present. But where did it go? Did it simply just fizzle out of existence? Or did it integrate into the dark matter and energy of the omniverse? Since there is no effective way of measuring this we have to surmise where it went by using the laws of the physical universe known as Physics.

The Law of the Conservation of Energy states “that the total energy of an isolated system cannot change—it is said to be conserved over time. Energy cannot be created or destroyed, but can change form; for instance, chemical energy can be converted to kinetic energy. A consequence of the law of conservation of energy is that a perpetual motion machine of the first kind cannot exist. That is to say, no system without an external energy supply can deliver an unlimited amount of energy to its surroundings” [Wikipedia.com]. If this is true, then the energy of consciousness (the aggregate of electro-chemical conversions to kinetic energy) that was inextricably tied to your physical body never dies but simply changes form. In that sense, there is no death but an ‘exchange’ in the expression of the form in which the energy is expressed. Is life after death possible? It all depends on how you define life and death.

The spirit within you never dies; it centers all of existence and your mind or consciousness (energy) ‘refolds’ back into the ‘ether’ of dark matter and dark energy because it CANNOT be created or destroyed! Inanimate objects and animate life ‘unfold’ from dark matter and dark energy just like the sprout unfolds from the seed when the external conditions are conducive to its growth and expansion. That same energy that unfolds ‘refolds’ back into from whence it came when its physical existence has been exhausted. Life goes on because the consciousness of you is eternal.

We live in an omniverse of energy exchange ad infinitum. Be secure in the thought that just who you are is beyond your physical limitations. Know that the Divine is always there within offering Divine love; you just have to recognize it, accept it and share it. Sound too easy? That’s why so many don’t live in it because they ‘feel’ it has to be more complicated than that to be valid. Someday they will realize just how selfish and wrong that thought is; hopefully, it won’t be after they refold. ~Dean A. Banks, D.D.