'I' and what is around me

We tend to think of 'I' as an identity on its own. This may be because we experience the center of ourselves as a continuum, or because we put too much emphasis on our ego. But in reality, the definition of 'I' cannot be given without considering what is around me.When i am alone i feel different than when i am among people. When i go over the street back to my safe home, i feel different than when i would be homeless. When we are surrounded by friends, we feel different than when attacked by enemies. I certainly believe that 'I' exist as an individual identity, but that identity cannot be understood without awareness of my surroundings. This is significant for the sake of our restoration. It is through reaching individual maturity that we should learn to be independent enough to know God's will for our lives under all circumstances. But even as a mature or perfected individual, we change continuously while engaging in relations, by getting married, getting children, relating to friends and taking care of our house and belongings and the earth, animals and plants around us and the spiritual world.In our lives we need to build up a reliable and good environment, in the form of good relations to God and people and human spirits and angels, and to the living beings and things of creation. It is by learning to do this in a good way that we can improve the well-being of ourselves and of others. We can live healthily both spiritually and physically only when we build a good relationship to all that is around us.How do we build such a good relationship? It is by learning to love, or by caring in the right way. This is a process that sets foundation upon foundation. We need to keep our good relationship to God and take care of friends (who could be called spiritual children or archangels in other terminology). We also need to build a safe home, a place of a secure and beautiful and harmonious environment around 'I' and my family. 'I' am not just I. I exist by my relations. My spiritual and physical health depends on how well i manage my relationships with God, other people, the creation, the spiritual world.

The energy reality of a garden

Image by lensa13.smugmug.com via Flickr

All that exists also exists on the level of energy.

Sometimes we tend to think that energy is just energy, but in fact, there are many types of energy. Each energy has a certain inner character and it has a special effect. For example, the sun gives off energy that we perceive as light and warmth. But the sun's energy is not just that. Some elements of the sun's energy color our skin, tans our bodies. The sun doesn't feel the same each day. Sometimes the sun feels pleasant and sometimes it doesn't.

It is on the level of energy that bridges are made between the spiritual and physical reality. All physical energies have a spiritual aspect and all spiritual energies affect the physical world.

We can learn more about the reality of energy by working with plants. Of course, there are many other methods to learn about energy, but plants and gardens give an easy access to learning about energies.

Each plant contains its own mix or composition of energies. Energy always radiates out, forms an aura. This aura can be seen around trees and plants. Healthy plants give a shining aura. When a tree is ill, the disease can be seen as a dark spot in the aura and the aura won't be strong.

When more plants of the same species grow together, the individual auras blend into one larger field. Different plants growing together in a garden form a composite aura that can be seen more easily. It needs repeated and long exercise to learn to see such auras and to interpret them better.

The energy aura of a plant gives information about its healing properties. The words 'medicine' and 'energy' are used as synonyms in some cultures that use herbs as medicines.

Rather than sowing and planting plants in straight lines in one field, i like to make compositions of several vegetables, herbs and flowers in a separate field. These fields can be smaller or bigger. In my garden most fields are between 15 and 30 m2. Each of these fields become a creation on their own, and together with the other fields they compose the garden as a whole.

Some plants like to grow together, thrive better when they are sown in one field. This has physical explanations but can also be understood in terms of energy. Some energies blend well together, others don't.

A method that i learned from a Native American tradition is to take very well care of one particular plant and to put this plant in the center of a field with other vegetables, herbs or flowers. The central plant makes a strong and healthy aura that protects all the other plants.

When you manage to make your garden into a strong energy reality, it will attract good spirits. They will like to be there, just like physical people enjoy being in a lovely garden.

When you eat the plants from such a garden, they fill your body with good energy. Even when you eat a small quantity, you feel well-nourished and full. You won't feel the craving to eat more and much. Many people become obese because they eat junk food that has no energy content. It's just physical food and it doesn't nourish your body's energy systems. You may get all the physical elements that your body needs but you still get sick easily as your immune system works to a large degree on good energy.

To learn to relate to the energy reality of a garden is a good method to nurture and maintain your garden. You don't always need to know the physical properties of fertilizers and your soil when you center on improving the energy in your garden. You will intuitively know what the soil and plants need.

Each living organism and therefore also each plant works as a receiver of energies. These energies come from various sources. For example, flowers take in much energy from the sun while plants with big roots take in energy from the earth. Other plants assimilate special energies that the cosmos provides. Plants process such energies and then transmit them to their environment. This is why plants growing together in a garden can mutually benefit each other.

Information about individual plants in my blog Research Topics

Training in the Home

The normal order of education is that we first grow up to a mature individual. It means that as an adult we know how to live life as an individual, without the need of supervision by parents and elders. In an internal sense, that maturity means that we do what is good, that we know how to follow God's will in each situation.

The next level is that mature individuals learn to live together as husband and wife getting children. The family structure is very much more demanding than life as an individual; it also is a great environment for learning to love and live together.

In that family environment it is possible to be trained in the care for all things, all things firstly meaning the living animals and plants. There are many elements to be harmonized and many factors to be taken into consideration. We live between heaven and earth, heaven meaning the environment of spirit world and earth meaning the environment in which we were born and are growing up.

The place for these levels of training is what we all know as the Home.

We tend to think of 'home' as the place where we grew up and where we live with our families. That, in practice, is our home, but the Home ideally is more than that. The Home is actually meant to be a Garden of Eden, a family living in a house and a garden where everything is under God, where people and angels live in harmony, where family members among each other have balanced relations, where the entire cosmos comes together in a focal point of attention and a center of past, present and future generations.

The Home is a mini-cosmos in the sense that we can find there all elements of life and creation. Above you are the sun, moon and stars and below you is the earth and around you are the birds, animals, trees and flowers. In the home you have access to all elements of physical creation and all beings in the spirit world. You will attract the entire spirit world to your place when you make it into a thriving and fulfilling home.

Most problems in the world are because leaders haven't passed the most fundamental training of all, the training in the Home. They learn about life at universities where professors teach from books written by scholars who also haven't completed the Home training.

The Home is the school or training environment for everyone to learn the implementation of God's Principles. It's where the Divine Principle from ideas and concepts become substantial bodies of truth.