Three,
Two,
One.
Music Love that.
Perfect.
It's perfect.
So we're just eight days into spring,
And now we're entering what many people throughout the world consider one heck of a holy week coming up.
Now last Saturday was No-Ruz,
And No-Ruz is the Persian New Year celebration.
And also last week we wished a good journey from suffering into enlightenment when the Buddhists celebrated their festival called Egon.
And also Osterra was celebrated.
She was the,
Or is,
The nurse goddess.
Norse goddess.
Well,
There could be a Norse goddess.
She's the Norse goddess,
And there's a six-day spring harvest festival that people celebrate.
And that was also last week.
I want to wish all my meshwacha pesach samayach to all of you out there.
Happy Passover.
Like I said earlier today,
And tonight.
Tonight is very special actually as well.
It's not only the Seder this evening,
The supper for the Passover celebration.
It's also the first full moon of spring.
And some people call it the worm moon,
The crust moon,
Or the sugar moon,
Depending on which tribe as far as the Native Americans go.
They call it different things.
This Thursday,
Many people celebrate Maundy Thursday,
Which commemorates the Last Supper,
Which was also a Passover-type dinner.
And then of course Good Fridays on the 2nd,
Which was not such a good Friday for one guy a couple of thousand years ago.
And that's followed by Holy or Black or Glorious Saturday,
Depending on where you're from in the world here.
And that's the prep day,
Or of course next Sunday,
Which is Easter.
So Passover.
Passover retells the story of the Exodus.
It is the basis of the Passover holiday at the dinner,
Which is called the Seder.
The youngest of the family,
Usually the male,
But no need to do that kind of stuff anymore,
Asks what they call the four questions.
Ma'a nishtana,
Halayla hazeh,
B'kol hale lut,
And so on and so on and so forth.
Basically inquiring to everyone,
And especially whoever's leading the Seder,
What's so special about this holiday?
Now you're probably thinking,
Seen it,
Heard it,
Been there.
People talk about this every year.
Come on now.
Now what?
That's what I want to talk about today.
Now what?
In the Talmud,
It is said,
The dream not interpreted is like a letter from God not read.
The dream not interpreted is like a letter from God not read.
So let's read this letter.
Imagine with me,
Step into the dream of the Hebrews 3300 years ago.
Obviously an estimate.
Who knows if this all really happened or not?
Who cares?
Because we want to see what the themes are.
We want to glean from it what the story is really about.
So with your mind,
Listen,
With your heart,
Absorb the story of the Exodus.
So there was once an orphan,
Also a husband,
Father of two,
A shepherd,
A defector actually,
A murderer in fact,
And possibly a stutterer.
We're not sure exactly,
But there's thoughts that Moses,
Which means out of water,
Was a stutterer.
On a Thursday afternoon,
Moses was taking his flock of sheep,
Like I said he was a shepherd,
For a walk in the desert when suddenly he came upon this bush.
And this bush was on fire.
And it was a burning bush,
You might say.
And in fact,
It was actually a talking burning bush,
And it insisted that Moses take his sandals off while in the vicinity of the burning bush.
And this flaming little chaparral told our hero,
And Moses is our hero in this story,
Look,
I see what's happening to the people of the Hebrews,
And I don't like it,
And I need you to fix it.
So go to the Pharaoh and tell him,
Let my people go.
Well,
Moses freaked.
He actually kind of giggled a little bit.
Because this was a task that was definitely out of Moses's comfort zone.
Nobody's going to believe me,
He says to this fiery bramble in front of him.
Who could I possibly say sent me to insist on such a thing from the Pharaoh?
And the bush said,
Well,
Hmm,
And this is a very commanding voice from this bush.
He says,
Tell them,
I A Asher,
I A,
I am that I am sent you.
Basically,
Spirit was saying,
I see what's going on.
I'm not here to magically fix your problems for you,
But I am totally here to support you with all the power you need.
Do what I say.
Go get them,
Tiger.
But nonetheless,
Our hero was very much still in doubt,
Not believing that the universe had his back.
Who hasn't felt that at times?
You see a burning bush in front of you,
It talks to you,
And you don't believe it.
It's not possible.
That's not how the universe is going to converse with me.
Who hasn't felt that?
Anyway,
Back to the story.
Moses says,
Have you met this guy?
Pharaoh is not going to care that I am that I am sent me to tell him to let my people go.
Come on now.
Well,
A dodo head replied the bush,
You don't actually say it.
You know it,
And thus,
You will show it.
At least act as if,
Moses.
So then the infinite being showed Moses a few talents that he didn't know he had at his disposal to prove that the divine was within him and with him and that he could actually and confidently be a representative of that power,
Of the Spirit of God.
And in this case,
It was that stick and it turns into a serpent trick.
You've probably seen that,
Very impressive,
Great with the ladies.
But still not convinced.
Our little 80 year old,
And that's how old Moses was,
Our little 80 year old rascal brought up another one of those limiting beliefs that he had,
Thinking it surely would be a detriment to this whole affair and stop it in its tracks.
And that's his speech impediment.
And the bush said to him,
Look,
Have a little faith,
Dude.
I am giving you this job because of that supposed quote unquote speech impediment.
If I sent some big handsome guy like Charlton Heston,
For instance,
Yeah yeah everyone would be wowed,
But it's better they are wowed,
Not by the person,
But by the energy of my presence that is in someone like you.
Moses,
You are a unique expression of me.
I created you,
And you will.
I will always be there for you in you.
Remember,
Just call my name.
And I'll be there.
Still,
Moses wasn't convinced.
We ever had that.
But in retrospect,
Can you see the signs from the universe showing you the next step on your journey and you don't listen?
I know I have.
So anyway,
Back to the story.
So the universe and its kind of cause and effect splendor says,
Geez,
Okay,
Okay.
It doesn't matter to me if you want it to,
If you want to do it all the hard way.
Great,
Fine.
Believe what you want.
I don't really care.
I'm pretty non-judgmental.
Great.
So you think it's practically impossible?
I'll help you out.
I'll just harden Pharaoh's heart and make it that much more difficult for you.
You ask,
You get.
That's the way the universe works.
Go have a blast.
Be happy and get your people free.
Now,
The lesson here is if you think something's going to be difficult,
The universe is happy to oblige your limiting belief.
That's how the law works.
And that's how it worked for Moses.
However,
As Rumi reminds us,
The inspiration you seek is already within you.
Be silent and listen.
And that's what Moses started to do.
Continuing with the rest of the tale.
So Moshe,
Another word for Moses,
Moshe goes to Egypt,
Gets an audience with Pharaoh,
And Pharaoh says no,
No,
No,
And more no.
Lots of no's over and over and over again.
He wasn't impressed by the stick turns into a serpent thing.
And even Moses' brother Aaron,
Who's a very good public speaker,
Wasn't any help.
Then we have the ten plagues.
And it's important to note here that the Hebrews were in bondage,
But not just physically.
Right.
But emotionally and spiritually.
This has been happening for hundreds of years for the Hebrews.
But the big idea that's important to remember is they accepted their strife was their truth and not just a fact of their present circumstances.
Thus,
They made it harder for themselves and any of us in a similar limited belief to have.
To have the ability to leave this constricted place,
Which in this story is Egypt and the Pharaoh's reign.
They weren't getting it.
They weren't getting that.
They were the power.
They were the boss.
They were the Pharaoh of their experience.
The Hebrews in their perspective on life were just giving their power away.
So after the first nine plagues,
What a mess.
There's the bloody Nile River,
Which was probably some sort of red algae.
There was the frogs,
The lice,
The flies,
Dead livestock everywhere.
Probably some sort of virus for them.
The boils were going on,
Maybe a smallpox pandemic.
Who knows?
Fiery hail was happening.
A volcanic eruption probably was going on.
Locusts,
Which because of the ash fallout from the volcanic eruption around that time,
There's higher precipitation and humidity.
And that brings locusts.
Locusts shows up.
And then there was this whole three-day long darkness.
And there happened to be an eclipse around 1223 BC.
So maybe that's what those three days of darkness were.
But after all that,
It was time for number 10.
Number 10,
The big one,
The big Kahuna.
Where the holiday gets its name.
The killing of the first-born Egyptian sons.
Except the angel of death passed over the houses where lambs or goats blood was splashed on the sides and the tops of the door frame.
And there were other preparatory rules to doing that,
But that was the last step.
But only the Hebrews knew about this,
So that did the trick.
And the angel of death passed over those houses,
But not for the Egyptians and actually not for Pharaoh.
So he got the picture this time and he told the Hebrews to hit the road.
Now that brings us to the big segment of the tale where we're parting the Red Sea.
So anyway,
These millions of people,
And there were millions of them,
Are going through the desert and they've been in bondage for 430 years now.
They're crossing the desert.
Doesn't some of our limiting beliefs seem like they've been around for 430 years?
Anyway,
They've come all this way out of bondage,
Out of slavery,
Out of misery,
Survived the plagues,
And they're finally on their way to the Promised Land.
And suddenly they had a wall,
A wall of water,
Impassable,
Wide.
They didn't have any boats.
Who thought of that?
Scouts are coming,
Warning that the Pharaoh and his army were on their tails.
So what did the Hebrews do?
They have all this confidence.
They've been let go.
They see the power of spirit coming through Moses and feeling better about themselves,
But not really.
All of a sudden there's a little wall in their way.
And what do they do?
They plead,
They help,
They cry for help,
They whine and bitch and moan and cry about the obstacle,
The setback that they think is in front of them.
They're still in that mindset that there's always something in the way,
And of course,
Boom,
It's going to show up,
In this case,
From both ends.
They're not sitting in their truth.
It's like the old joke,
You know,
The guy on the roof and the flood and,
You know,
All these things come to help him and he says,
No,
No,
God's going to help me and then nothing shows up and he says,
God,
What's going on?
Well,
I sent Japone,
I sent you a helicopter,
Etc.
,
Etc.
,
Etc.
It's like that old joke.
Here's an opportunity for growth and progress and leaping past previous junk thinking by connecting with the divine within they've been told about,
They've read about.
It's part of their philosophy,
Actually.
And then using that power of the divine within to transcend into declaring and revealing,
Like we always do,
With gratitude,
Acceptance for what is to be,
And then just piss and moan and forget about who they truly are.
But Moses,
The activist,
He steps up,
He's pretty confident now,
He evolved by involving,
By communing with spirit,
And he's reaching out now with the power of divine intelligence within him,
The creative loving energy of the universe,
The I Am that I Am that is within him.
And he stretched out his hands and the sea went back by a strong east wind and all the night and made the sea into dry land.
The Red Sea parted,
Allowing the Hebrews to move forward on their journey to their greatness and leaving behind eventually drowned.
And they made a huge chunk of their limiting beliefs,
Which their stories called Pharaoh and the Egyptian army.
But that's only the beginning.
There's still this wandering in the desert stuff,
The 10 Commandments,
The other burning bush conversation,
The golden cap,
Etc.
You can watch the movie.
Michael Beckwith reminded us all spiritual growth,
100% of it is about releasing and eliminating rather than attaining something because we're already it spiritually.
You know what you're looking from your divine matrix.
That's what we talked about in the first week,
You know what you're looking at the essence of the divine and all we talked about that in week two.
And we know that when we ask the right questions,
We get the best answers and you learn to respond instead of react to situations at hand in week three.
And when we ask the Egyptians,
I'm sorry,
Like the Hebrews of that time from the Egyptian,
We cannot solve a problem at the same level of consciousness that created it like Moses in the Hebrew people were being called to a higher level of consciousness to go beyond our head and tap into the infinite nature spirits wisdom and align ourselves with our divine purpose.
And that takes commitment.
Yeah,
It takes willingness to do the spiritual work to release and replace that which does not serve us anymore into with the highest idea of ourselves,
And then allow and embrace these new ways which unfold organically through divine wisdom,
As we can really connect with it.
Don't allow yourself to become bitter.
Because of the past,
Because of your old stories,
And then harden your heart like Pharaoh did be an activist,
Like Moses was despite your upbringing spider checkbook,
Despite your education or your stories,
Despite your will fullness,
But you don't want to be will full will laying is cool.
But despite your willfulness or whatever you allow to get your way activate your communion with the universe.
And thus,
Activate the highest ideas in your belief.
Want to read a quote from Ernest Holmes,
Of course.
In 1959 he said we are taking I trust the vision,
Something beyond a hope and a longing that the living spirit,
Shall through us walk in you into its own creation,
And the glory come with the dawn.
Enter your land of milk and honey,
Because all are welcome.
Thank you so much.
Namaste.
