Eric Butterworth - Inspirational message for today

[Naptaq]

.. and any other day ;D

I listen to him once in a while. He's great. I'm too lazy to read it, so I listen to it. He has a cool voice.

www.ericbutterworth.com/

Enjoy

[Naptaq]

"A good practice is to always look for, what I call, “the advantage of disadvantage.” When facing any kind of a burdensome problem that is weighing on you, look for the good in it. Take a sheet of paper and list all the advantages that you can think of about this thing that is disturbing you. Keep trying, you’ll find them, many advantages if you think about them long enough. I love the attitude of the young man who had lost both of his legs in a freak accident. (Now, that’s a tragic situation.) His family and his friends gathered around often to comfort him, or at least they thought they were trying to comfort him. But they were all laboring under the burden of sympathy, and they all brought such a gloom into the room and such long faces and a such a whole demeanor of sadness that he usually ended up having to cheer them up. He would say such things as, “Look folks, I’ve always had a problem keeping my feet warm at night. That won’t be a problem anymore.” Obviously, one should not make light of such a tragedy as this, but he could make light of it himself. It was his own problem, and he knew that life goes on. He knew that he was in the Flow of Life, and he was not going to carry this burden around to completely foreclose or mortgage his future." Eric Butterworth

[audioalone]

It's good he's got some inner strength, Nap!

I don't know what "good" I can find in noise disturbing me, but hopefully I'll find it someday. I keep asking God "Why noise?" I hate it SO bad! I have a cousin who is autistic, and I heard that he hated noise also. Can't help but wonder if I might be a just a highly functioning autistic, like Rain Man. Anyway. I say to God, "What is it I'm supposed to learn from this trial?" I keep coming up with the same answer. Or maybe He's trying to teach me patience, which I don't have (in my hypocrisy, I try to seem patient, but it is really fear).

Take care, Nap !

OA (lol!)

[Naptaq]

I think I'm gonna use this outlet to copy/paste passages that I found interesting & inspirational and hopefully someone else will find it helpful too

"Do you know the difference between success and failure? Does the successful salesman make every sale, and the failure make no sales? No. The difference may be little more than ten percent or twenty percent. Let’s consider the major league baseball player, the so-called “300 hitter” who gets three hits out of ten. Usually, if he hits 300, he commands a huge salary and is a superstar. The “200 hitter” is on his way back to the minors. Just one extra hit out of every ten makes all the difference. Can you believe that there is always more in you than you have ever expressed? Can you believe that you can increase your output by ten percent, or twenty percent, in your job or in your relationships? Can you put that much more enthusiasm, creativity, and drive, and inspiration into everything that you do…just ten percent? Not very much, is it? And yet, it can make all the difference."Eric Butterworth

We don’t receive what we want, or even what we pray for, but what we expect. Many persons prepare for the worst, just so they won’t be disappointed…and they rarely are."
Eric Butterworth

[adion]

Jun 17, 2008 19:20:59 GMT -5 Naptaq said:

"Do you know the difference between success and failure? Does the successful salesman make every sale, and the failure make no sales? No. The difference may be little more than ten percent or twenty percent. Let’s consider the major league baseball player, the so-called “300 hitter” who gets three hits out of ten. Usually, if he hits 300, he commands a huge salary and is a superstar. The “200 hitter” is on his way back to the minors. Just one extra hit out of every ten makes all the difference. Can you believe that there is always more in you than you have ever expressed? Can you believe that you can increase your output by ten percent, or twenty percent, in your job or in your relationships? Can you put that much more enthusiasm, creativity, and drive, and inspiration into everything that you do…just ten percent? Not very much, is it? And yet, it can make all the difference."Eric Butterworth

We don’t receive what we want, or even what we pray for, but what we expect. Many persons prepare for the worst, just so they won’t be disappointed…and they rarely are."
Eric Butterworth

I really like this quote.

[Naptaq]

"So the need is not so much to change yourself, as it is to accept yourself, to change the way you see yourself or to alter your "self-image." Emerson says, "Man surrounds himself with the image of himself." So, if that image is faulty, then the world a person creates will have many a flaw. In the end we discover that it is not so much a question of can you change, but whether you are willing to change your attitudes— to let go of the mental baggage that you may have accumulated." ~ Eric Butterworth

[Naptaq]

Normally I don't do this but I'll copy this whole transcript because it's amazing. Plus it changes everyday, so here's where I come to re-read it Here it is:

Assert Your Mastery

Are you an optimistic person? It is easy to be optimistic when everything goes well. But when things are not going well, when you are faced with difficult conditions, when you are in pain, when you have failed or lost the loved one, this is when your resources are really put to the test. Do you have a goal that you want to reach? Do you have a need that is not easy to meet? Perhaps your need is a healthy body, peace of mind, financial success, or some kind of artistic achievement. Do you want more love, more friends, more happiness? Do you have to overcome some personal shortcoming? These are real problems for many of us.

To satisfy the need or to reach the goal, the important thing is to begin to assert yourself. You control your moods or emotions, or you are going to be controlled by them. You control them, and you can do so if you really try — if you understand the principles involved. This is a matter of fact. It is, of course, one thing to say that you are going to assert yourself and quite another thing to do it. It is so easy to shout from the sidelines, "Be brave, be firm, press on! Don’t be disturbed, relax!" It is another thing entirely when you yourself must press on through difficulties toward the goal. Then you must put forth the highest spiritual effort of which you are capable and continue to do so unceasingly, facing your fears and doubts, going forward in spite of pain, striving to focus all your energy, physical, mental, spiritual, on the attainment of your goal.

Don’t think you do this by the act of the will alone. No one ever mastered life by merely willing to do so. You must make the decision that you are going to be the master, but that decision is only the first step. Then you must keep on taking steps. Trying to master yourself in life by an act of will is like trying to pull yourself up a mountain by your thumbs. To assert yourself, you must use all the faculties that you have. You must understand that you are a Whole Person and use the Whole Self, body, mind, and spirit — put it all into a coordinated activity and work with it and keep on keeping-on.

The essential thing is for you to assert your mastery of heart. Any words, actions, thoughts, feelings, or steps that you can take to do this are excellent. But never think of yourself as a slave to circumstances. Don’t let yourself believe that you are poor, inadequate, weak, or unloved. Don’t give power to old habits of thought by dwelling on them or acting as if they were true. If you feel yourself being swept up by self-pity, self-condemnation, then change your mind. Set your mind to valuing, appreciating, and loving yourself instead. When old habits of thought try to reassert themselves, face them squarely and think them through. Question them, challenge them, begin asserting the reasons why they are not true and start finding reasons for your potential mastery. Practice the consciousness of prayer and meditation. Pray not only at regular intervals, but whenever any kind of fear or challenge arises. Take time immediately to turn within, to "be still," to experience Oneness with your true God-Self. Turn your mind and energy to constructive tasks. For instance, you may want to get away from the problem to work on a hobby, or fix up the garden, clean the house, go out and take a walk, help somebody in the time of need. Keep building new reactions by building new things. There are a thousand things to be done; find the things that you want to do.

The old habits may rise up again and again and again. If they do, then you must face them and face them again and again and again. Not only do you want to achieve mastery over whatever problem you have, if you do it, then you must determine that you can achieve it, believe that you can. Don’t doubt, say to yourself, "I know that I can do this thing." Even if you can’t believe it, assert that you believe it and keep on asserting it. This is the key to asserting — keep on, and keep on keeping-on, and keep on keeping-on, keeping-on. Find reasons for wanting and having to keep on.

Now, of course, everyone gets discouraged at times. It is nothing to lose heart, but keep on keeping-on, because if you keep on, you will soon find heart again. It is nothing to be fearful if you keep on, since fear can be a spur to keep driving you forward. Sometimes the very desperation of your plight makes you take action. When you find yourself on the face of a precipice with nothing to do but climb or fall, you can assert energy that you never dreamed you had to get to the top. If you had only a gentle slope to climb, you might be content to stop half way up. This is true for so many of us so much of the time. This is probably the reason prayer sometimes works in urgent cases, where it doesn’t appear to work in much easier things. Faced with a desperate need, a person often prays like he or she has never prayed before, and experiences the answer. It comes, it happens…because the person has reached out to the very depths of his or her being. This is the reason people with great handicaps so often achieve great goals…far greater than those who have no handicaps. So it is well to keep in mind, when we seem to be having a hard time, that the hard time may be the most important thing for us — to help us to deal with life from a deeper and deeper awareness. It may actually help us in times of urgent need, and we will succeed not in spite of the difficutly, but actually because of them.

In whatever situation you may find yourself, the important thing is the attitude you take toward it. If you want victory, you must prepare for victory. Victories are not won by planning for defeat. We can accept failure and find all sorts of excuses for it or, come what may, we can push on and push on and keep on pushing on. We can rise up no matter how many times we fall down. We can turn failure into success. Whatever reasons we may find for doubting our ultimate success, we must push forward, because only if we push forward can we hope to reach our goals. No one who has ever set out to better himself or his life has not heard the voice of despair, at some time, from within him saying: "Turn back, turn back!" But, like Columbus, he must say "Press on! Press on!" When things are the hardest, this is when we must try the hardest. If we suffer a setback, this is the time to press on, and to keep on pressing-on.

When we make a good struggle and win through to considerable confidence and good strength, perhaps even feeling somewhat proud of our progress, we sometimes experience the blow that falls, crushing us. This is a crucial time. In such moments we can give up or get out. We can fall to the old habits of thought and accept defeat, or we can pull ourselves together, clean up our rooms, dust ourselves off, and keep on…and keep on keeping-on. To do that is to assert yourself and demonstrate your mastery. We are like the man who has a mountain to climb. The path is not always an ascent. Sometimes we may go down into deep valleys, sometimes we may have to fight our way through fierce storms and underbrush, but those are the times we must assert our mastery and determine who is the master — ourselves or the circumstance. When everything in you is crying, "Turn back! Turn back! I must turn back!" that is the time that you must decide whether you or your fears are going to shape your destiny. Are you going to be driven about by every changing wind or circumstance, turned back by every looming cloud of fear, or are you going to push forward in spite of every fear and difficulty? Are you going to keep on? Are you going to know that there is that within you that is transcendent to the difficulty? Are you going to believe that by the power of your own indwelling Christ Self, you can overcome? Yours is the choice, and you always have that choice.

Sooner or later, we come to a place where we must take a stand. If we decide that we are going to rise superior to circumstances, if we take command of ourselves and seize the reins of our lives, from that moment on we live on a new level. Of course, we may have to struggle to maintain our command. The old laws of thought, the old habits and reactions may seek to reassert themselves, but we shall find that our whole attitude toward life has changed. We shall have new powers, new energy, new understanding, new love. We shall have a sense of purpose in life, and our life will broaden and deepen. Our whole personality will expand. But, of course, as hard as we may have to struggle against the old ways of thought, we shall have a peace of mind and a joy of living beyond anything that we have ever known.

So, take your stand right now. Before you beckons infinite possibilities, before you lies your own summit. Make your choice! Take your stand! Assert your mastery! Remember, if you are determined to do it, you are the master. Be optimistic about reaching your goal, whatever it is. To solve your problem, to satisfy your need, to reach your goal, you must assert yourself. You master circumstances, or you are mastered by them. Remember to accomplish that which you want to accomplish, summon all of your energy in the attempt, and decide that you are going to be the master of your affairs, and then…assert yourself.

Remember, whatever situation in which you find yourself, the important thing is your attitude toward it. You can accept failure and find all sorts of excuses for it, or you can push on and rise above the failure and the problems that confront you. You can turn failure into success. When things appear hardest, that is the time you must try the hardest. Just remember: You can give up or get up.

So, you can take a stand. Determine, right now, that you’re going to rise up above that which seems to hold you back or to cause unhappiness, poor health, and inharmony. You are a child of God, and the Infinite Process is forever supportive within you. Before you lies fulfillment, perfection, and achievement. At the time of your creation all power was given to you from the Spirit of God within you. Keep on, and keep on keeping-on…and Assert Your Mastery!

Eric Butterworth

ericbutterworth.com/html/radio_transcripts/view_transcript.php

[Naptaq]

"Love is not a personal feeling or an emotion. It is neither sense nor sex. It merely uses these areas as a conduit through which it expresses in the process of transcendental oneness. Love is Divine Law that flows impersonally, like electricity, through all who allow themselves to be open and nonresistant channels. Love is a "magic catalyst" that lifts up and transforms and fulfills all in whom it and through whom expresses, and all to whom it is directed." ~ Eric Butterworth

"In a way, it is always true that I am in love with you no matter who you are. We are all in love because we are in God, and God is in us, and we are all in this love together. I am in love with you, and you are in love with me, and we are in love with all persons everywhere. Gandhi of India once said, "We must widen the circle of our love until it embraces the whole village, and the village in turn must take into its fold the district, and the district the province, and so on until the scope of our love becomes conterminous with the world." " ~ Eric Butterworth

[deadendphilosopher]

Thanks for posting all this stuff Naptaq! I just read the Assert Your Mastery thing and yes it is amazing! I feel inspired . . . and a little scared. . .

[Naptaq]

Jun 25, 2008 18:22:52 GMT -5 deadendphilosopher said:

Thanks for posting all this stuff Naptaq! I just read the Assert Your Mastery thing and yes it is amazing! I feel inspired . . . and a little scared. . .

Thanks. That's why I do what I do

[Naptaq]

Magnify the Good

Do you ever wonder why most persons seem to talk more about negative, unwanted things and conditions than they do about the positive and constructive and the good? It would seem that the human mind, somehow, loves to magnify that which is evil. No doubt they don’t realize that it is by this destructive habit that they tend to multiply the limited things in their lives and in the lives of their loved ones, as well as in the consciousness of the world.

In the study of Truth, we emphasize that God is good and that He is the only power in the Universe. We also learn that the only power that evil has is that which the person gives to it by believing in a power that is opposed to God—by thinking about it, by talking about it. It is evident, then, that to dwell on negative things is certainly not the solution. To do so simply increases the difficulties, whatever they may be. On the contrary, to believe in, to think about, to praise, and to talk about only the good in ourselves, in people, and in the world, is to increase our good, increase our happiness…and increase our prosperity.

But you may say, as one person once said, “Sometimes I get so incensed at the cruelty and the injustice and the downright devilment that is present in politics and in churches and in government and in people in general that I just wanna go out and fight.” Of course, that certainly isn’t the way to remedy any kind of troubling situation. The best way is for a person to become so attuned to a God-Mind activity within himself that he is not conscious that evil exists. In other words, don’t think about the problem…think about God. “Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is staid on Thee” [Isaiah 26:3], says the Scripture.

Now, there are obviously many persons who share the feelings of the man who wants to go out and fight everything, the reformers who want to set the world and all its people right. If we examine history, we find that many of these reformers neglected, first, to get themselves in tune with the Divine Flow. If they had done so, they probably would not have wanted to do any more fighting of error, because to fight evil or error or darkness or limitation is to be overcome by it.

Remember, Jesus said, “Ye have heard that it hath been said: An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth, but I say unto you, resist not him that is evil.” [Matt. 5:38-39] In referring to the dictionary, we find that the word “resist” comes from the Latin word that means, “to stand against.” It also means “to oppose, to hinder, to antagonize, to strive against, to defeat, to exert physical or mental force against.” It seems obvious that if we take a stand against evil, it will also take a stand against us, and this means strife. Does any peaceful person want to be continually fighting with what he may think to be evil? It would seem to be a losing battle. The pity of it all is that by the use of non-resistance and cooperation, humankind could enjoy peace and prosperity. When will the world learn?

Referring to the dictionary again, we find that the meaning of the word “magnify” is “to enlarge.” It would seem that almost anyone would want to enlarge the good in his life, to increase it. The word also has another meaning: “to extol, to laud, to praise.” May it not be that there is a definite connection between the two meanings? In other words, isn’t it possible that to laud and to praise, also to bless, magnifies, or multiplies, the good? For instance, just suppose that we have a difficult problem confronting us. If we concentrate on all the darkness—all the difficulties, the limitations about it—if we worry over it, if we’re afraid of it, it’s going to increase. On the other hand, if we look for the good in the situation and praise and bless it, we so increase, or magnify, the good that it simply has to magnify itself for us. The reason for this is that God, or Good, is the only reality, and when we let go of darkness, of evil, of limitation, it disappears into its native nothingness, where it belongs. By dealing with the situation in this manner, we are proving God, as we are told to do: “…prove me now herewith, saith Jehovah of hosts….” [Malachi 3:10] And the Apostle Paul says, “Prove all things, hold fast that which is good.” [1 Thessalonians 5:21]

There is no reality—by which we mean no life or intelligence or power—in fear or sickness, ill will, lack, or unhappiness. Fear is the seeming absence of faith…faith in good. Sickness is the seeming absence of life. Hatred is the seeming absence of goodwill or love. Lack or poverty is the seeming absence of Substance or God’s Abundance of Good. Of course, these are only illusions. They are like a bad dream. And we have to shake ourselves and say again and again: “But it’s only a dream! It’s not true!” before we can convince ourselves that we have no real existence in the dream. And so it is with life. The mortal mind of man has been trained to believe in falsehoods about God, about people, about the world in general. Now we must deny our false beliefs and affirm that good is the only reality. If we continue this practice, we shall find that, as we renew our consciousness, our lives are transformed.

Whatever your particular trouble may be, begin at once to deny that it is evil and to affirm that God, your Good, is present right where you are. You will find that the darkness of error will disappear and the Light of Truth will reveal your good as present with you, right here and now.

“Nothing foretells futurity like the thoughts over which we brood,” someone once said. To “brood over” is eventually to “hatch out.” So, we must be very careful of the thoughts and attitudes that we “brood over,” because they will “hatch out” They will become manifest just as surely as chickens hatch as the result of the mother hen’s sitting on a nest of eggs, if she sits long enough and complies with the other laws of nature. What are you brooding over? Are you worrying about things that someone has said or done to you, or about the unjust way the world has treated you? If this is the tenor of your thoughts, it is quite likely that you will bring forth more unhappy circumstances. And you really don’t want to do that, do you?

If it is loss or lack on which you dwell mentally, on which you’ve been brooding, the chances are that you will attract more conditions of loss and lack to yourself. For each thought brings forth after it’s kind, and one cannot create happiness, health, and plenty out of thoughts and emotions of fear, sadness, weakness, self-pity. Thoughts are our “little creatures.” Since we are made in the Spiritual Image and Likeness of God, it is our privilege to create the good things we desire to see manifest in our lives by holding such thoughts and attitudes and mental images and words as we wish to see out pictured for us.

So, let’s brood over the loving kindness of God if we’re going to brood over anything. Brood over the innate goodness of humankind, brood over the beauties of nature. Remember we’re told, “Whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just,…pure,…lovely,…of good report, if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things.” [Philippians 4:8] This was Paul’s statement to the Philippians.

Cultivate joyous expectancy rather than ominous forebodings. Anticipate happy surprises, rather than disappointments. Expect kind and thoughtful expressions from other people, rather than slights, insults and hurt feelings. Count on good fortune and good news, rather than on bad fortune and bad luck. Then watch for better experiences to come to you. You may not see how or through whom you can visualize these marvelous occurrences. However, this is the Divine Flow, and it is not necessary that you know all about it…just let it happen, get in tune. “Thou shalt also decree a thing, and it shall be established unto thee: and the light shall shine upon thy ways.” [Job 22:28] That’s the promise, “Thou shalt also decree a thing, and it shall be established unto thee: and the light shall shine upon thy ways.”

Our part is consciously to decree what we want. We have been unintentionally decreeing what we don’t want and having that established for us by the working of Divine Law. So now, let’s work in earnest to decree and to affirm the good, so that only beneficial circumstances will be created in our lives. In order to become attuned to God, we must think His benevolent, constructive thoughts—keep our minds stayed on good. Avoid the negative, the destructive things that originate in the sense mind of humans. By dwelling only upon that which is good, that which is positive, that which is true and beautiful and vital, we magnify God and magnify the Divine Flow of Good in our lives, as well as in the lives of our associates, our family, our office. And the light shines through us in marvelous ways.

So as we close, may I just say again: The only real power that evil has is the power that we give it by believing in it as being opposed to God—by thinking about it, by emphasizing it, by talking about it. On the contrary, to believe in, to think about, to praise, and to talk about only the good in ourselves and other persons and in the world, is to increase our blessings, our happiness, our health and our prosperity.

© Eric Butterworth

[Naptaq]

"No matter what the problem over which you may be concerned, the first real step for you is to let go—to get your mind off the side of the problem and onto the side of the solution. As long as you are problem oriented, you are in trouble. When you become solution oriented, things begin to work and they work in no time at all.

Sometimes our tensions are caused by the burden of life’s responsibilities and the pressure of time. For instance, one man, who held a position that called for the constant making of decisions—each one of which was extremely vital to the company—was in a cold sweat most of the time, and he was headed for a breakdown. One day, he let go and turned to God for guidance, feeling that he simply couldn’t make one more decision on his own. Then, suddenly, there was an inner awareness that he doesn’t have to. Suddenly, the man knew just what to do, with no qualifications, no indecision, no hesitancy, no fear; he knew exactly what was right. It was a turning point in his life. And, from that moment on, he has never had a qualm over decisions again. He went, so to speak, into a partnership with God, and now he makes no decisions without taking time to feel his Oneness with what he calls D.G. (Divine Guidance), without taking a moment to let go and know his Oneness. He always relaxes, gets still, gets centered, and lets the Infinite Mind, which he calls D.G., work through him. Remember, Jesus says, “Your Father knoweth what things you have need of, before ye ask Him.” [Matt. 6:8]"

~Eric Butterworth

[Selene]

I have a tape by him called relationships. The other side he talks about hurt.
""There are countless opportunities of feeling hurt if you're so "inclined" It's important to face th fact that We always have a choice no and matter what a person does or leaves undone u do not have to give him the power how ur gonna feel or think. Quiite often a person will say I don't have to take that from anybody, the fact is he says that in that tone he is taking it, he's holding into his unconsciousness". etc.....Where can I find all these words to e-mail to someone?

[gaia]

Jul 8, 2008 8:48:18 GMT -5 Selene said:

I have a tape by him called relationships. The other side he talks about hurt.
""There are countless opportunities of feeling hurt if you're so "inclined" It's important to face th fact that We always have a choice no and matter what a person does or leaves undone u do not have to give him the power how ur gonna feel or think. Quiite often a person will say I don't have to take that from anybody, the fact is he says that in that tone he is taking it, he's holding into his unconsciousness". etc.....Where can I find all these words to e-mail to someone?

I hope Naptaq can help you out with this.
The stuff you wrote sounds like something I (and others, i'm sure) would like to hear.

[Selene]

Okay, TY!