A Note From Anne

Dear ,

I’m in heaven. Talk about south of the border. I’ve gone south of several borders, to get to Costa Rica, but no matter where I go, I carry my mind with me. I can look for impending doom in this place of heaven or I can look at impending ease, joy, and abundance.

When someone says the world is a terrible place, s/he becomes the champion of suffering – projecting the thought that “there’s something wrong here” onto everything. Life includes suffering, pain, and hardship, but to use these words as a description to cover all of life, is blasphemous. It’s good to be realistic, but not pessimistic. Pessimism sucks the good out of the best life has to offer. Now is the time to look up, even when others try to get you to look down, resist. There’s a middle ground somewhere between Pollyanna and Jack the Ripper and it’s waiting for you. Go there, because when you do, you will find that life is EZier and EZier.

Anne

  Divinity Incarnate

I believe we are divinity incarnate. We are spirit in the flesh. That means that we maintain the same qualities while in a body that we had before we enter and will have after we leave the body. Those qualities can be described as our true nature. Our true nature is love, peace, compassion, abundance, and joy. The list goes on, but this gives a picture of our true nature.

When we live in harmony with our nature, we tend to be healthier, wiser, and satisfied with life. When we live outside our nature, we are forced to go on a journey to find ourselves. We call this a spiritual journey. It's ironic that we quest to find what we think will restore us to our original state of love, peace, compassion abundance, and joy. Why ironic? Because we are always intrinsically immersed in what we are. Regardless of whether we experience our true nature or not, we are already that. Can you imagine an elephant going on a quest to find out what it's like to be an elephant?

The seminal question in the spiritual journey is "Who am I?” Most people think the question points to our roles or preferences. I am a mother, I am a wife, I am single. We use these phrases when we communicate with others and when we think of ourselves, but none of these responses answer the question. As we spiritually mature, we answer the question differently. We respond, "I am spirit. I am joyful. I am unlimited. I am abundant." However, as we move along in our journeys, we discover that the question is not to be answered in words. The question calls us to still our minds and directly experience who we are. That experience is not to be mitigated by thoughts or beliefs. The question calls us directly to experience the reality of who we are.

Once I spent three days asking that question as often as I could think of it, "Who am I?" I took the task literally. I figured that if I asked the question, that at the very least my mind wouldn't keep spinning in its usual endless psychodrama. On the third day "I" arose. That inner voice rose up saying, "Everything after 'I' is a story." It was a beautiful revelation. Maybe as you read this you are not touched as I was, but to me the implications were profound. To me it said that reality could not dwell in any story, and everything we talked about was a story or virtual reality. That's why "Be still and know that I AM God." is the most important axiom of Christianity. That statement tells us to stop the inquiry and rest in what is.

Most religions offer comforting thoughts to those who want to feel better in psychological hell realms, but to leave these hell realms we must go beyond beliefs, words, and concepts. Fortunately, the mystical aspects of every religion guide the earnest seeker back home. Unfortunately, most people approach their religion as if it were a "to do" list. If I do this, this, and this, then I will be safe. Karl Marx said, "Religion is the opiate of the masses." Too often people see religion as offering something in the future. That keeps them hoping things will change, therefore putting up with untenable circumstances, so they can just make it. That idea might have more relevance if you are a slave or prisoner, but the promise of things changing in the future is a dangling carrot that keeps us arranging and rearranging our lives in the hope of fixing a problem that does not exist. All along, we are who we are, and when we try to fix the discontent caused from false identification with ourselves or lack of identifying with ourselves, we miss the mark.

When I communicate with others about being who we are, as we are, this is where I get stuck. The mind wants techniques. I myself love to hear how to do things, yet the whole idea of techniques is an impediment to self-actualization. It really keeps the idea of the direct experience of self off in the future - if I do enough of this, then sometime in the future I will be okay, feel safe, be enlightened. This is not to say that I don't exercise, meditate, eat well, and question my insane thoughts.

Techniques are like preparing the meal, and most of what spiritual seekers do is constantly prepare the meal; they never actually sit down and eat it. We've got to quit preparing the table and just sit down and eat. Just for a moment we must drop our need to do something or think sometime to make things better and just rest in what is. The more we eat of the present, as it is, the less need we have to effort, cajole, and complicate life. When we rest in life in its own terms, and stop fixing things, we free up so much energy. And this energy allows us to enjoy life. And this brings us back to our true nature, joy, and that joy, as it exists as our true nature, is now. I wish I could tidy this up in a neat package so we could know our true nature and live it now, but all I can say is stop, just for a moment, and look, and then do it another moment, and keep doing it and see what happens. Be curious; I can't lead you to yourself, but I do know that when we stop the mind's agenda, even for just a moment, and do this repeatedly, we make our lives easier and easier.

Anne

  Quotes

"We seem not to see that when we march toward the next 'spiritual high,' the treasure we seek is to be discovered not in where we are going, but in the simple nature of the very footstep we take. In our rush to find a better situation in time, we trample over the flower of beingness that presents itself at every moment." – Tony Parsons

"Sometimes the words I write seem alive. They emit a blessing and act is if they are grateful to become a part of creation. They seem to say, There is beauty here, life here; we are all one. Maybe it’s through verse, sentence, or song, but we all point to life." – Anne Sermons Gillis

"Quit renting. It’s time to own your life." – Anne Sermons Gillis

  Anne's Books

Standing in The Dark

EZosophy

Offbeat Prayers

Click here to see all three of Anne's books

What people are saying about Standing in the Dark:

"Standing in the Dark, by Anne Sermons Gillis, isn't just another positive thinking book. It's a book about the difficult times in life and what we can do to make it through them. It does, however, give us positive ways to make life easier. It's a short book, but it's one that may just turn your thinking on its head, which will probably be the best thing that's happened to your thinking in a long time. It's about how to bring more ease into a life that isn't easy all of the time. Anne discusses six main areas of life: Ease, Mission, Health, Relationships, Money, and Loss."
  – Charles David Heineke

Now available on Kindle. Click for details.

What people are saying about EZosophy: The Art and Wisdom of Easy or at Least Easier Living:

"Although most conscious people understand that life doesn't have to a struggle, the "how to" has been missing... until now. Anne's book makes it "easy."
  – T. Harv Eker - Bestselling author and Founder of Peak Potentials Training

Now available on Kindle.
Click for details.
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What people are saying about Offbeat Prayers for the Modern Mystic:

"I love your book. It is filled with much wisdom, humor and heart. Really beautiful."
  – Alan Cohen author, Enough Already, mentions Anne and EZosophy on page 99

Now available on Kindle.
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  What is EZosophy?

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Editor/Publisher: Charles David Heineke of TheDoorway.org.

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  Anne's Services

  Schedule Anne

You may reach Anne by phone at 281-419-1775 or click the button below to contact Anne by email. Anne is also available to officiate at weddings and funerals.

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  Anne's Schedule

All times here are Central Time.

Wed. & Fri. Oct. 29 & 31, 2014
1:00-3:00 PM, “EZosophy”
Lone Star College ALL Program
Kingwood Campus
20000 Kingwood Drive
Kingwood, TX 77339-3801
281-312-1600

  Healthy Living

Healthy Fish

Did you know that twenty pounds of fish die for every pound of shrimp you eat unless you buy from sustainably fished sources? Nine pounds to 20 pounds of fish die for that one pound of tuna, halibut, or scrod you eat. Fishermen use large, non-targeted nets, catch fish and other sea life, and throw away the other varieties that don’t sell. The fish they throw back are either dead or dying when thrown back. 85% of all large ocean fish are now dead.

That’s pretty much why I stopped eating fish, but there is some good news. Grocery stores are now selling pole caught tuna. That means 50 to 90% of the catch does need to die when I eat tuna. The Wild Planet Tuna is also non GMO and contains no BPA in the can. We buy ours at Costco in a stack of 5, but I saw this same brand in a small grocery store in Colorado.

My daughter lives in Charleston, SC and is a member of a Community Supported Seafood group that buys from a small fisherman who uses sustainable fishing methods. We need to look at the fish we buy and be conscious of what we buy. One by one, we can be a part of the solution.

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Happy eating.

  Anne Talks

The Power in Other People Short one minute video. Move pointer to the right to display the video player and press the Play button.

  Anne Art

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