What is the Spirituality Guidance Channel? SGC is a video portal designed to introduce spiritually inclined individuals to be exposed to spiritual videos, radio, teachers, music, art, books, resources and links from a selected group of teachers and requests from viewers. Each featured coach/teacher will have their own page highlighting any videos, audios, websites or printed material they have produced. This portal will be regularly promoted on the Internet through social networking and targeted marketing channels. Please visit the website at the following address:http://www.spiritualityguidance.com and email me at webproducer@hotmail.com with any suggestions, links or materials. Thank you for your most courteous participation in this project. I welcome your input. ~Dean A. Banks, D.D.

WATCHING OR
PARTICIPATING

You can watch a movie or video and always see just what they want you to see and feel what you feel as a result. You can read a book and create a reverie in your mind and see what you have been reading based on how it makes you feel. The instantaneous creation of mental pictures from words on a paper involves the higher brain and heart functions.

Watching something is just that; watching it without participation in the creating of it. Reverie is a state where imagination runs free. Your brain is observing, collating and creating images that you react to with your feelings. Does your imagination run free when you are watching a movie or a video? Perhaps a little here and there when answers are needed, but for the most part not as much as when you are reading.

Reading is the gateway to your imagination creating a reverie where you can see what the author has written and picture what the author is describing. Movies, videos and video games are intriguing to many people; but reading a good book increases your mind and heart to experience an imaginary life that is different from your actual life, where YOU are the creator of what it looks like, feels like and does for your spirit.

Watching what others create can be entertaining, but using your brain to create with imagination actually causes you to grow and expand beyond your current state. You feel things other than what you have experienced and those feelings create questions that need to be answered. Reading is the gateway to others’ minds and other worlds. It is the key to stimulating your brain to go beyond where it is and become what it will be.

A good book can take you places that a movie, video or video game cannot. It can open the door within to your inner heart by experiencing our collective nature and our ways of describing that nature. You can pause and think about what you are reading and sort out just where the author is taking you. You can revisit it at any time and pick up just where you left off. It is a source of information that actually forces you to ‘use’ your brain and not blindly watch the passage of life.

Pick up a good book and travel to places ‘where no one has gone before’! Use the brain you have been given to excel through reading! ~Dean A. Banks, D.D.

NO COMMON SENSE

Some religious zealots have no common sense whatsoever. They go out of their way to impose their way of thinking on the rest of us. Showing them love and not judging them is the correct way to handle them up to the point where they try to force their warped belief system on you.

That's the point where they must learn that their childish conclusions and antiquated belief systems are alright for them; but please don't try to change laws based on your religious viewpoints that affect every else that DOESN"T believe as you do.

Some of these people are just perpetually spreading hate against those who choose to live with love. Call them on their B.S. or they will NEVER learn what love truly is. If you let them slide, they will fester and return. Be strong and stand your ground no matter what they say or do. ~Dean A. Banks, D.D.

 ARE YOUR BELIEFS VALID?

Are your beliefs valid or are they based on what you feel is correct? Do you make the time periodically to test your beliefs to see if they are still valid? Or do you simply defend them no matter what circumstances are presented?

If someone has said or done something that makes you uncomfortable, it doesn’t mean that you are guilty of what makes you uncomfortable. It means that your ‘beliefs’ about what they have said or done create reactions to what they have said or done and that makes you uncomfortable. In essence, you automatically defend what you believe because you have accepted what you believe emotionally as true.

Whether you have challenged those beliefs before you accepted them or not doesn’t matter. You are invested in those beliefs because you accept them as being true and to you they do NOT require any further challenge. Your ego will defend what you believe at all costs because your beliefs are what are referenced to ensure your self-survival. You have become accustomed to the results they have yielded and know they ensure your ongoing safety.

But what if they were only true at that time you ‘imprinted’ those beliefs? What if the passage of time and external circumstances have been rearranged enough that the results of those beliefs yielded no longer apply? Would you still refer to those beliefs if they no longer worked and caused you harm? Or would you hold fast to them no matter what happened? Do you make the time periodically to test your beliefs in order to discover which ones still work and which ones are now erroneous? Or do you say that they are always right no matter what the external circumstances may present?

Maturity is a dynamic state where we re-evaluate and re-learn what has worked in the past in order to determine whether or not it still works. Many adults have ‘grown up’ in years but have not matured at all. They stay ‘stuck’ in a static state of reaction to environmental stimuli and say that’s the way life is; and they go about each and every day saying and doing what proves that to be true. Maturity reveals when a person is ‘ripe’. It is when they have become what they were created to be, know it and live it every day. It is not the arrival at an older age carrying the same old baggage of beliefs that no longer work.

Strive for maturity in your life by discharging any and all erroneous beliefs that don’t serve your unfolding of your Divine purpose in Divine order. Living your life without the necessary ‘checks and balances’ of your heart and mind, purging your erroneous beliefs with regular ‘belief system inventories’ and living in the presence of Divine love will never bring you into the dynamic state of maturity. Be ye therefore perfect by investing in removing any and all erroneous beliefs that stifle your growth and expansion. ~Dean A. Banks, D.D.

GOING WITH THE FLOW

Are You Prepared To Go With The Flow? What does it mean to be prepared? Does it mean you just focus on what you are going to do and do the least possible to get ready for it? Or does it mean that you thoroughly prepare for every possibility or contingency? And after you prepare, what do you do next? An old saying might help in understanding the true meaning of being prepared. “Luck is when opportunity meets preparation.” The more you prepare yourself to receive opportunities, the more you become aware of the opportunities that are available that you haven’t seen before.

Why does this happen? Because in the acts of observing studying and learning your mind opens up to more possibilities that you had perhaps not considered. The opportunities and possibilities were always present; it was you who became aware of them due to focusing your attention on the subject of focus. In other words, when you put the energy in through the desire to know more and diligently practice learning more, your awareness blossoms like a thousand petal lotus.

Inputting, impressing and imprinting information is the first part of the equation of learning. The second part is processing the learned information with your mind and heart. The third part is taking what you have learned and sharing it with others. If you are in a perpetual state of chaos your mind and heart will not retain as much as you would like due to your focus on your stresses. Regular daily meditation helps offset the stresses, distractions and annoyances that block your inner peace. With a clear mind and an open heart you can learn effectively and retain what you have learned.

An artist first masters the various brush strokes and color selections before painting a masterpiece. Years of diligent practice afford the artist the ability to replicate the rudiments in a ‘flow’ of Divine insight. A musician diligently practices their instrument to master the rudiments and replicates those movements in creating music that soothes the soul. The more you focus on the rudiments, the more you are preparing to replicate those rudiments in the ‘flow’ of divine co-creativity.

You can never over prepare for anything that your heart desires and your mind focuses on because it is the seed of your Divine purpose. If art or music is what moves your soul then prepare by focusing on the rudiments and practicing their ‘automatic’ replication in order to move in a fluid manner in Divine flow. The saying needs to be updated to “Divine flow is when opportunity meets preparation.”

Luck is a construct for the operation of situational benefits occurring randomly in your life. Nothing is random and chaotic; it just appears that way. Divine order moves natural order when you allow it to operate on your behalf. It comes from letting go of the reins of ‘how’ things will happen and focusing on them happening through Divine expectation. Divine expectation is allowing the best to occur for all concerned and accepting the manifestation of occurrences as the result of Divine will.

Daily prayer, meditation and service prepare you for the fulfillment of your Divine purpose in Divine order: Praying through asking, visualizing and focusing your efforts toward the expectation of the fruits of your labors. Meditating to let go of your perceived control of how things will manifest. Going out into the world and serving others with your talents, skills and abilities to help them realize their innermost dreams. All of these practiced behaviors contribute to the fulfillment of your innermost dreams.