Winner of The Ashton Wylie Book Award 2012

The God Franchise: A Theory of Everything has just won the prestigious Ashton Wylie Charitable Trust Book Award 2012. It was judged best book in a field of over fifty entries.

The AWCT Book Awards have been awarded for the past nine years and seek to “reward excellence for a published book in the ‘mind, body, spirit’ genre.” Amongst other criteria, the judges considered “the work’s ability to enhance the understanding of people in society.” They were also looking for “a significant addition to the ‘mind, body, spirit genre.” With a prize of $10,000, this is one of the major awards for writers in New Zealand, and certainly the major one for this type of work.

If you have bought a copy of The God Franchise you will have seen the words “Ashton Wylie Charitable Unpublished Manuscript Award 2011 Finalist” on the front cover. To this I can now add “Ashton Wylie Charitable Book Award 2012 Winner.”

May I share with you how I came to be an award-winning author? I first heard of the Ashton Wylie Book Awards seven years ago when my wife and I were invited to attend the Awards evening. I had been interested in writing for many years, but had never written a book before. Anyway, each time we went to the Awards evening I vowed that my book would one day be there on the finalists table. I was very clear about it, and felt certain that I could write a book that would be worthy of a spot on that table.

Two years ago, when I was writing The God Franchise, I decided to enter it in the Awards as an Unpublished Manuscript, which has its own prize, and I was very pleased when it was nominated as a finalist by the judges. The day after that award ceremony in August 2011, the AWCT held a day of seminars for writers, and the theme was self-publishing. I decided there and then that is what I would do.

I had seven months in which to publish The God Franchise, and so qualify for this year’s Book Award, and I managed it in five months. The rest, as they say, is history.

The moral of the story: Never overlook the power of vows – both positive ones and negative ones. They will strive to fulfil themselves.

A Universe from Nothing? Has Lawrence M. Krauss Missed the Point?

To cut to the chase it is my view that Dr. Lawrence M. Krauss, eminent cosmologist, theoretical physicist, and author of A Universe from Nothing: Why There Is Something Rather than Nothing,[1] has missed the point of the argument. Yet, his book is fascinating, and the discoveries he discusses are very significant, perhaps in ways he has not yet considered.

Let me state quite plainly that I accept and respect all the scientific discoveries and theories that Krauss describes. I have neither the skill nor the training to counter them, and nor do I feel a need to do so. I have faith in the integrity and dedication of the scientists who are collecting and analysing the data, and proposing the theories based on mathematical calculation and/or study of the data. If they have it wrong, I know they will correct it, and slowly but surely, the physical scientific realities of the universe will be uncovered. So that is not my focus.

My concern is the philosophical and spiritual interpretation that is derived by scientists from their theories and data, even if it is purely to say that there is no need for God or that what philosophers or theologians might have to say is necessarily of little worth. Accordingly, my mission is to find the middle path reconciling both the scientific and philosophical/spiritual views in a way that is coherent and all-embracing. It is logical to me that there is a theory of everything being uncovered, and that this theory must incorporate science, philosophy, spirituality, religion, and every other body of work and view of the universe, each of course honed to its own accurate and “perfect” set of truths.

Krauss initially changes the question from why there is something rather than nothing, to how there is something rather than nothing. As he points out, using the word why implies purpose, and as a scientist he would rather describe the process of how it is possible for something to derive from nothing.

As with many scientists who see everything as being explained by science, Krauss sees no need for a God or a Creator. Krauss does not consider the possibility that God designed and implemented science’s physical laws in order to create the universe as it is. While I can understand that physical laws need to be coherent and obviously are, there is no reason in my mind why these could not have been designed by a superior Designer to work in just that way. It would appear to me that the how that Krauss insists on discovering is exactly the uncovering of the path that God took to achieve what He (She, It) achieved. In many ways the why question is far more challenging and momentous than the physical and cosmological discoveries under discussion.

Krauss explains three ways in which something can come from nothing. In brief they are (though I accept that my descriptions may not be perfect):

•  In the first fraction of a second of the Big Bang a period of inflation occurred, where the universe expanded by a factor of more than 10²⁸, and the resulting quantum fluctuations allowed matter to form out of nothing.
•  A quantum gravity of zero allows, and even initiates, matter (and thus the universe) to be created from nothing. A state of nothing is ultimately unstable.
• The concept of a multiverse shows that up to 10⁵⁰⁰ (that is 1 with 500 zeroes) unique universes may exist. Thus by chance our one happens to have the perfect set of physical laws to produce the universe we see.

 Krauss admits that in the first of these three possibilities, the nothing described is empty space storing energy, and allows for the existence of the Laws of Physics. In the second possibility, the need for pre-existing space has been removed. In the third and final way in which something can come from nothing, Krauss takes away the Laws of Physics, in that they become measurements and descriptions of what exists as opposed to needing to pre-exist in order to create the universe we know.

It does not take much to see that we are still not talking about creating a universe from nothing, or answering the question of why there is something rather than nothing. Krauss suspects that at the time of Plato (423-347BC), or even St Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274), they were defining nothing as empty space, as they considered why there was something rather than nothing. I suspect that this is very far from the truth.

Why is there something instead of nothing? My definition of nothing, and I would have thought, the definition of everybody else except scientists, is that nothing means absolutely and entirely nothing at all. Therefore no space, no time, no physics, no mathematics, no nothing! Krauss complains about people redefining nothing to suit their purposes, but frankly, I believe that is exactly what he has done. To me, nothing means absolutely nothing at all.

So on to my argument. Yes, there could have been nothing at all instead of a universe. There really is no reason why there should be anything. Why bother? And who would there be to bother? Yet clearly we have a universe, as so ably described by Krauss and his fellow scientists. Therefore there can never have been the state of nothing, because if there were nothing, absolutely nothing at all, how would anything ever have got started? There would be no virtual particles to pop in and out of existence as suggested by quantum mechanics, and there would be no space in which they could pop. There would be no source of a multiverse and there would be no conditions to initiate a Big Bang.

It follows that something did pre-exist the Big Bang, and Krauss confirms that today’s thinking is that the Big Bang was a certainty. Great, I am perfectly happy with that, and happy that it happened too, as I am sure you are. It would also seem sensible to suggest that, whatever pre-existed the Big Bang, it has existed eternally, whatever that term might be interpreted to mean. There could never be the time, place or situation where there was nothing at all, as even this pre-existing state could never have got started.

My suggestion is that the eternal, pre-existing state was Consciousness. It could also be called Life or Being. By many people, especially those with religious beliefs and affiliations, It is called God (or their alternative words for God). In my book, whatever Its nature or qualities, that eternal, pre-existing state that enabled there to be something rather than nothing, and got the universe started, is absolutely worthy of the name God, whatever that Ultimate Reality is.

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[1] Krauss, L., A Universe from Nothing: Why There Is Something Rather than Nothing, Free Press, New York, 2012

The Illuminating Blogger Award – what an honour

I have been away from blogging here for way too long – looks like 7 weeks! Where does the time go? I have been active on Twitter, a new medium for me, and that has been feeding through here, but yet… 140 characters brings a whole new meaning to keeping it brief. So, I’m back.

Anyway, I am delighted to discover that Leigh (yogaleigh) of BlueGrassNotes blog has nominated my blog, The God Franchise, for the Illuminating Blogger Award. That is a wonderful honour as I have been so impressed by her frequency and quality of posts.  As well as her likes and positive comments on my blog from time to time.

 

 

So thank you so much, Leigh (http://bluegrassnotes.wordpress.com), for nominating The God Franchise as recipient of an Illuminating Blogger Award. 

The rules for the Illuminating Blogger Award are: 

Food Stories is pleased to present the Illuminating Blogger Award, a fabulous award that anyone can bestow on their fellow bloggers for illuminating, informative blog content. Here’s how it works: 

1. The nominee (i.e. = recipient) should visit the award site (http://foodstoriesblog.com/illuminating-blogger-award/) and leave a comment indicating that they have been nominated and by whom. (This step is so important because it’s the only way to maintain a blogroll of award winners).

2. The Nominee should thank the person who nominated them by posting and including a link to their blog.

3. Share one random thing about yourself in your blog post.

4. Select at least five other bloggers that you enjoy reading their illuminating, informative posts and nominate them for the award.

5. Notify your nominees by leaving a comment on their blog, including a link to the award site (http://foodstoriesblog.com/illuminating-blogger-award/). 

Something random about me is that I take a walk every morning, for about 40 minutes during the week, and up to twice that at the weekend. Most of the walk is on paths through reserve areas, so off-street. This is not specifically for physical exercise, but to have time at peace with myself, to celebrate the new day, to see the other people on their walks, the birds, the cats and the dogs, and generally come back home feeling inspired and fired up, ready for the day. 

My nominees for the Illuminating Blogger Award are: 

The Math of God (http://themathofgod.wordpress.com) – Lyle  

Loveviewz (http://ok2loveagain.wordpress.com) – Audrey 

Brain Brew (http://brainbrewblog.wordpress.com) – Christine 

Alicia’s Roses (http://aliciasroses.wordpress.com) – Alicia 

Knowthesphere (http://knowthesphere.wordpress.com) – Jeremiah

So thank you once again, Leigh, and may the Illuminating Blogger Award continue to illuminate through the blogosphere.

Wanted! Some honest feedback on The God Franchise

Time for some honest feedback, please. I have been writing this blog about The God Franchise for over four months, and I would dearly love to know how you feel about the blog and about the ideas it contains. Does The God Franchise grab you at all?

The book, The God Franchise, is a work of discovery – I wrote what I was inspired to write, and then assessed it afterwards. I have found it fascinating, and have learnt a huge amount from it. It really became A Theory of Everything. The contents of the book can be found here or on the website http://publishing.lifemagic.co.nz.

To make it easy, here are the main points I have covered in this blog so far. I invite you to check out the original blogs, which you will find in the archives in the right hand column, if you wish.

• Consciousness is the Uncaused Cause of everything – Man has called It God.
• I have used the term God-Consciousness to clarify that God is Consciousness rather than a superhuman-like being sitting in a place called Heaven.
• Consciousness is the fundamental element of the universe. The universe is made of the very fabric of God. You can say that we exist in the Mind of God.
• You might agree that a God displaying the following qualities would definitely be worthy of the name, God:
  • God is conscious
  • God is eternal. God-Consciousness was all that existed prior to the start of the universe.
  • God is omnipotent (all-powerful). Since nothing can be conceived where God-Consciousness is not the one conceiving it, nothing more powerful can exist.
  • God is omnipresent  (present everywhere). There is no alternative when God-Consciousness is everything that is. Nothing else exists.
  • God is omniscient (all-knowing). Because God-Consciousness is everything, He must know everything.
  • God is the Creator of the universe. To be rational and truly scientific there is no alternative.
  • God has a purpose for His Creation: to add experience, expression, and enjoyment into His Life.
  • God is absolutely good (omnibenevolent). Since God-Consciousness has created the universe out of His own essence, why would He create anything that He did not see as good?
  • God is likely to be immutable (unchanging through time). The universe only works as it does because of immutable physical and mathematical laws. God is as immutable as His laws.
• Accepting these qualities, extend that sense of God-Consciousness into the realms of the Unknowable, and get an unbiased, un-predetermined, unlimited, formless sense of God-Consciousness. This is a tiny pointer to the true essence of God, which we can best simply call God-Consciousness.
• Of course we have free will. Why would God create a bunch of automatons?
• You are a unique aspect of consciousness, coming from one particular perspective. You by some strange happenstance are you.
• Your Higher Self is God-Consciousness. This is God expressing Himself in the form of a human being. God is everything in the universe (omnipresence) and is the only reality.
• Your Lesser Self is an illusion. It hides your Higher Self and pretends to be you, and your Ego and mind, which are created through expressing free will.
• This Lesser Self is not separate from God — as it cannot be — it just lives in the illusion that it is separate from God.
• All the experience your Lesser Self and Higher Self have, is perfect. The Lesser Self (Ego) judges itself and others. From God’s perspective, the perspective of the Higher Self, what you do is experience.
• Healing comes from God-Consciousness. Prayers to God are heard by the God-Consciousness of the Higher Self, and can be immediately answered if the Lesser Self is prepared to allow the healing in.
• So who am I really? Individually we are like a splash of water from the Ocean of God-Consciousness that is briefly separated from the Ocean, and then falls back into the Ocean again.
• Any degree of impurity or evil in the Creation is purely due to the Ego acting as a filter.
• By creating Mankind in His own image, God-Consciousness franchised His Creative Power to each and every man and woman on Earth. In fact, He gave us all His qualities to a greater or lesser extent. He franchised everything to each of us in what may be termed The God Franchise.
• Whether we are a spiritual adept, a high-flying businessperson, or a beggar in the street, we have an equal stake as a God Franchisee. God is an equal-opportunity franchisor!

So, please tell! What do you think of all this? I must admit I was blown away by the implications of The God Franchise. Likewise, all the feedback I have had from people who have read the book, has been equally positive.

Now I would like to know what you think, both of The God Franchise and of this blog. What else would it be good to know before you decide that this is one book you need to read? (Availability)

If you are at all interested in the reality and deeper aspects of life, I believe you will find this book, The God Franchise: A Theory of Everything, extremely interesting and thought-provoking. Not only that, it will stir you at a deeper level, far beyond thought and interest.

What more can I say? Over to you now …

I Know the Title, but What is The God Franchise?

When I realised the tremendous implications of The God Franchise, I was astounded. Initially I thought it just meant that while God had “created” the natural aspects of the universe, He had given Man a franchise to create technology and all the manufactured and developed things in the world today. No! It is so much more than that.

In the book I start by describing a franchise as developed in the business world. A franchise agreement between a franchisor (the originator) and a franchisee (you) allows you to create and run a business under the franchise name, and market and sell the franchised product or service.

For the privilege of being able to do this, you pay the franchisor a franchise fee, plus a percentage of the sales of your business. In return, the franchisor provides the systems you will need to run the business, as well as some marketing support, including group advertising. 

The God Franchise takes this concept to the ultimate. It states that God-Consciousness (God) can be seen as a Franchisor, and that you and I and every other person on this Earth individually is a Franchisee. By creating Mankind in his own image, God-Consciousness franchised His Creative Power to each and every man and woman on Earth. This is a key concept of The God Franchise. In addition, God-Consciousness gave us free will (as He naturally has), consciousness, and purpose. In fact, he gave us all his qualities to a greater or lesser extent: He franchised everything to each of us in what may be termed The God Franchise.

Now, before you get too carried away with this concept, let’s look at it more closely. It does not mean that you can rush off and create universes. We have many veils covering our Godhead (such as unconsciousness, Ego, self, separateness, and materialism), and there are other constraints, some of which I have covered in recent blogs.

You and I are franchisees in the ability to create and to live our lives from a divine perspective. The qualities we have discussed in earlier blogs as being God’s qualities, are available to each of us to a greater or lesser extent, whether we use them consciously or unconsciously. Remember that God’s use of these qualities is way beyond what we need to use, and our personal application of them is really as much as we can handle, and for practical purposes is unlimited.

God is conscious, eternal, omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient, creator, purposeful, omnibenevolent and immutable. So I am saying that we have access to these very qualities at some level. To be more specific than that would take more space than is available to me in this current blog. I do go into all the details of both this and the franchise comparison in Chapter 11 of The God Franchise.

This is all very well, you say, but does that make me God? No, not quite. Just because God is you, does not make you God. Just because you are a McDonald’s franchise holder does not mean you are McDonald’s! It means you have the right to run a store according to some very strict rules, and you are compensated for your efforts. However, you also need to pay dues to McDonald’s Corporation, and you cannot claim to be the McDonald’s Corporation.

As spiritual adepts know, it is possible to get close to God-Consciousness. In doing that, they usually, if not always, leave behind the trappings of the earthly experience. Nevertheless, all the powers and qualities of God-Consciousness are represented in each of us in a more manageable potency. We have all the powers and qualities we need and, frankly, all we can handle.

Whether we are a spiritual adept, a high-flying businessperson, or a beggar in the street, we have an equal stake as a God Franchisee. God is an equal-opportunity franchisor!

So isn’t this great? Does this not change your view of life? What do you think? I would very much appreciate your comments.

(This is largely an extract from Chapter 11 of my book, The God Franchise: A Theory of Everything, which is now available to you in paperback from over a dozen major online bookshops)

God’s Decision to Create the Universe

In my last post I listed a series of different experiences that God-Consciousness might choose to experience. Of course there are billions of others. So what happened next?

With these sorts of experiences and goals in mind, God-Consciousness set about creating the universe exactly as it needed to be to fulfil these ideals. While God-Consciousness would be able to interfere if He needed to, there was no challenge in constantly tweaking this universe when something went wrong. As He could see ahead in time how things would pan out, He could create the universe with a set of rules or Laws that would see it through.

I am certainly not able to list what is needed to create a universe; however, our scientists have figured out some of the requirements, for instance:

• A stable set of rules or laws
• Oxygen, water, and carbon to sustain life
• A particular range of temperatures to support life
• A particular set of universal constants
• A supply of energy to make the universe dynamic
• And so on …

And so it was that God-Consciousness created a universe that met His requirements. While complicated in its details, mind-boggling in fact, it is very simple in its concept. We, as humans, overcomplicate things as far as I can see. The real Truths are essentially very simple.

God-Consciousness created the universe in a Big Bang. He created the Laws that were needed and the building blocks of matter – namely the 94 natural elements in a very simple system we can see today in the Periodic Table of the Elements. He watched through time as 14 billion years passed, developing the rich and bountiful world we have around us today.

Finally, the time came for Man to appear on the scene. Bearing in mind that God-Consciousness is within each person on this Earth – in fact, within each cell of the bodies of each person on this Earth, and is them – He played His trump card.

He introduced The God Franchise.

(This is largely an extract from Chapter 10 of my book, The God Franchise: A Theory of Everything, which is now available to you in paperback from over a dozen major online bookshops)

God’s Motivation for the Creation

Instead of there being one point of God-Consciousness as there was before the Creation, He wanted there to be a universe where He would be able to experience things from every possible perspective:

He could feel how a rock feels warming in the Sun.

He could feel the rain on His petals.

He could feel His fruit being eaten by a bird.

He could taste the fruit like a bird.

He could make love as a badger.

He could make love as an elephant.

He could make love as a man.

He could make love as a woman.

He could see the beauty of the sunrise.

He could be the power and light of the Sun.

He could swim as a fish in the sea.

He could be pushed helplessly as seaweed in the currents.

He could be smashed on the rocks.

He could feel joy as a child.

He could feel the pain of a rejected lover.

He could drink the water.

He could drink the wine.

He could die in the desert.

He could die on an executioner’s cross.

He could experience the flight of the electron in the atom.

He could mystify scientists.

He could be a mystified scientist.

He could make spells.

He could make smells.

He could rot on the ground.

He could enrich the earth with His life-blood.

He could break His leg.

He could heal His leg.

He could be without legs and slither on the ground.

He could be inside the mouth of a lion.

He could be inside the stomach of a whale.

He could smile.

He could cry.

He could live at the depths of the ocean.

He could be a molecule of water at the greatest depths in the ocean.

He could be the next molecule of water to that, rubbing up against it.

He could fly through the air as a beam of light, or as a bird.

He could be the air, the trees, the earth, and the sky.

He could live on Earth or on Mars or on Betelgeuse.

He could use a telephone.

He could design a rocket ship.

He could be inside a turbojet at full power.

He could fling Himself over a waterfall, as a drop of water and as a log.

He could experience the fullness of life in the universe.

You may have the idea by now. God-Consciousness is in everything and is everything. As the Bible says, “For in him we live, and move, and have our being.” (Acts 17:28). And it is not just you and me, it is everything that is in Him, that lives in Him, and that moves in Him. I am not saying this from a religious viewpoint. I am saying this from a realist viewpoint.

This is how it is.

(This is an extract from Chapter 10 of my book, The God Franchise, which is now available to you in paperback from a dozen major online bookshops)

A Successful Book Launch

The God Franchise: A Theory of Everything is officially launched!

On Tuesday 27 March 2012 we held a book launch at Goodeys Bookstore in Newmarket, Auckland, New Zealand. We had a good turnout of over twenty people, and the presentation went easily and smoothly. I read some chosen parts from the book, interspersed with an overview of the book’s contents. This was followed by questions and answers.

Not to mention the cheese and biscuits, and a glass of wine or two…

Sales of the book were good too. And I kept busy signing copies of the book afterwards.

I have had subsequent feedback from many who attended the launch that they enjoyed the evening and found the talk on The God Franchise very interesting.

If you would like more information about what was said at the talk, or The God Franchise itself, and you are not already on our mail list, please click on the Life Magic Publishing (http://publishing.lifemagic.co.nz) website.

Alternatively, please purchase your copy of The God Franchise: A Theory of Everything from Amazon or one of the many other online stockists around the world. See http://publishing.lifemagic.co.nz/stockists.htm for a full list of stockists.

Over to you now!

The Filters from the Scriptures

There are many scriptures and holy books in the world, written at different times and from different perspectives. These include the Holy Bible (Old Testament and New Testament), the Koran, the Bhagavad-Gita, the Upanishads, and the Tao Te Ching. I am not a scholar of these books and am only familiar with the Bible to a certain extent, so I will limit my comments.

The books of the Old Testament were originally transmitted by word of mouth and were written down between 1200 BC and 100 BC, while the New Testament books were written down between 50 AD and 150 AD. As Bible scholars will tell you, there were many authors of these books and there is still considerable controversy about much of the detail and circumstance of the Bible. Of course, now is not the time to debate this, nor am I equipped to do so.

What I can say is that the Bible is the inspired Word of God. I can say this because God-Consciousness is the being of every one of us, and of course every one of the authors of the Bible. Just as we have filters come into play in everything we do and say, as discussed in earlier blogs, so is this true of the authors of the Bible. The Bible was written to the level of understanding and the terminology of the people of those times.

Likewise, every other scripture, and for that matter every other book ever written on spiritual or other matters, is to some greater or lesser extent the work of God-Consciousness. However, and I accept this is a big however, the filters of the author’s own Ego make a huge difference to the importance and trustworthiness of the final work. Thus, one cannot equate the Holy Scriptures listed above with say a formulaic Mills & Boon romantic novel, or the work of a biased, egocentric, down-on-his-luck-and-skills pseudo-scientist or pseudo-spiritual teacher.

Each one of us, individually, comes from our own place. This is part God-Consciousness and part Ego. The mix differs for each person, and this is what makes it interesting. This is what makes each individual’s contribution to evolution and continuing creation interesting, and it is from this that wars, corruption, and poverty spring. They do not come from a Satan lurking in the background, from Original Sin, or from a dystheistic (possibly evil) God — they come from free will and the Ego, nothing else.

St John chapters 13 to 17 are very interesting chapters in the Bible. These are the words of Jesus at the Last Supper, just before he was betrayed by Judas. They are worth reading and studying. Christians take the words to mean we need to be Christians and follow Jesus in order to know God. I believe the meaning of the words is much broader, so please do take some time to read these five chapters of St John with an open mind.

These passages point to God-Consciousness being in Jesus, and that there was still a differentiation. It is not that God and Jesus are identical entities. Jesus was not speaking from a point of Ego here, so when he speaks of I or me, he is speaking of the Christhood or God-Consciousness in him. And so, “He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do.” (John 14:12) This refers to anyone who recognises the God-Consciousness in themselves. We all, without Ego, can do greater works than Jesus did. This is not a competition. This is reality, and it is evolution in all things.

So the Scriptures are very important in that they are the way most of us get to hear about, and start to think about, God. However, the Scriptures cannot be taken as literal in their entirety. Firstly, they were worded for an audience different from today’s audience, and secondly, while they may be the inspired Word of God, there is also the human element of Ego filtering the work, either intentionally or unintentionally. This does not invalidate the Scriptures — it just means you need to use them as a source of inspiration and of pointers, not of literal facts. Having said that, this current book, my humble offering to the spiritual literature, is also not a book of literal facts — it is offered as a source of inspiration and pointers to the Truth, whatever that really is.

The Truth is within you, within the God-Consciousness that you are.

(This is largely an extract from Chapter 14 of my book, The God Franchise: A Theory of Everything, which is now available to you in paperback from over a dozen major online bookshops)

Writing The God Franchise: A Potted History

The process of writing my first book, The God Franchise, is very interesting, and I thought I would like to share it here.

I started way back in 2003 writing a book which I called Life Magic: Your God Franchise. The emphasis was on various aspects of Life and how we could perform magic on our lives, Life Magic being defined as “the art of creating your own experience of life at will”. The first half of the book covered principles, and the second half practice. After writing for about six months, I realised that the book needed, and I needed, more practical experience of what I was writing about.  

Accordingly I took some training on spiritual healing (late 2003), and set up practice as an energy healer in 2004, using the name Life Magic Associates. In 2004 I flirted with Life Coaching and completed the NLP Practitioner Course, adding Neuro-Linguistic Programming to my practical offering. I also became interested in bio-energetics and even bought a BioMeridian MSAS Professional System at the end of 2004. This system is used to conduct a comprehensive evaluation of a person’s energetic health and balance, as well as producing an energetic homoeopathic-like remedy to aid the client regain their health. 

Unfortunately I soon realised that the MSAS was far too subjective in that I was able to directly influence it, and I did not have the background health knowledge to support any conclusions reached by the machine. So through 2005 and 2006 I attended a Naturopathic College fulltime, with the intention of learning all I needed to support my healing work. By mid-2006 I came to the conclusion that the more medical aspects of the course were not for me, and decided to leave before the final year of studies. In 2007 and 2008 I attended all the modules of The Journey Practitioners Programme, as well as completing the 45 case studies that are required. During 2007 I also undertook a course in copywriting, and started working in that field, undertaking a number of interesting projects. In addition, in 2008 I completed the Master NLP Practitioners Course. 

I received my accreditation as a Journey Practitioner in January 2009, and have been practising as a Journey Practitioner since then in what was now termed the Life Magic Healing Centre. For almost 3 years I had premises just off the local high street, but had to move out when my landlord decided to retire.  

In December 2009 I joined Brandon Bays, the founder of The Journey, and about 140 other Journey Practitioners on a three-week spiritual tour of India. We visited Delhi, Rishikesh, Lucknow, Varanasi, Sarnath, Bodh Gaya, Tiruvannamalai (Mt. Arunachala) and Mamallapuram. On my return from India in early January, I was in a state of openness about my life, and decided, after a couple of days, that now was the time to complete my book!

For the first half of 2010 I worked on writing a book which I gave the working title of Stop the Search. Then in August 2010 I suddenly realised that another book had to be written first: The God Franchise. So setting all I had written aside, I started again. This time the work flowed and the book soon started taking shape.

By March 2011 The God Franchise was complete, had had its first edit by a friend, and I was able to enter it into the prestigious Ashton Wylie Trust Unpublished Manuscript Award 2011. By the end of August The God Franchise had been nominated as a finalist (4 out of 57) in the competition, and I decided that self-publishing was the answer for this book. 

The God Franchise: A Theory of Everything was published 25 January 2012, a mere 5 months after I had decided to take that route. In that time I had obtained permission to use various quotes, had the book professionally edited, had the cover and interior professionally designed, and set up a printer (Lightning Source in Australia, US and UK). Phew!

Now all that is left is to entice you to buy a copy. How about it? Try Amazon.com or your favourite online bookshop – a full list of stockists  is available at http://publishing.lifemagic.co.nz. 

Thank you. Please blog your thoughts and queries after reading The God Franchise in the Q & A section of this site, and let’s get to it.

The God Franchise: A Theory of Everything is published!

For two weeks I have been quiet on the blog front. However, on the book front I have been very, very busy! Now I can announce to the world that The God Franchise: A Theory of Everything is well and truly published. It is available for purchase on over a dozen international websites, and it is available for viewing on both Amazon.com and on Google Books.

It is also available in a number of brick and mortar bookshops in Auckland. For a full list of stockists, please see http://publishing.lifemagic.co.nz/stockists.htm.

You have had a taste of the book on this blog over the past 3 months so I don’t need to describe it any more. However, I would like to say that all the people who have read it so far and have come back to me, have been extremely complimentary about it. Likewise, every bookshop I took it to in Auckland commented on the quality of the book’s appearance both inside and out.

I am very pleased (and excited) by the result. I would like to acknowledge my two professional assistants in achieving the high quality: Judith Sansweet of Proofread NZ Ltd did a tremendous job of ensuring the grammar, spelling and language of the book was perfect. Likewise, I am deeply indebted to Justine Elliott for her design of the cover and the book interior. The book has turned out absolutely beautiful.

If you should need the services of a proofreader/copyeditor, email judith@proofreadnz.co.nz and if you need a book designer, email mondo@orcon.net.nz (Justine). I didn’t meet them but worked with them using email (and phone a couple of times with Judith), so wherever you are in the world, you can work with these stars. (By the way, Judith is from the US so is fully familiar with US expectations, while happy to work with my NZ/UK requirements).

The God Franchise has been a labour of love, and I have gained a tremendous amount as the truths revealed themselves to me. This is not a book of recording information I already knew, but a journey of discovery which I am able to share with you.

The ball is in your court. In the US the price is $16.95 or less, in the UK £11.99 or less, in Australia $24.95 or less and in New Zealand $37.99 or less. This is a reasonable price in each of those markets.

The value that you get for your money is incalculable. You have been warned!

(If you would like to drop a review into Amazon, Google Books, or your favourite online bookshop, I would greatly appreciate it. As you know, online bookshops are driven by readers’ reviews).

Thank you and bless you. And enjoy the read!

alan

The Human Being and Emotions – Part 2 of 2

So, how do the emotions act as filters on creation? First, we add an element of judgement to creation. We say some things are good and some are evil. We say this as if our pronouncement was absolutely true. It is not that the created thing is changed by our perception in any way —whatever it is it is a perfect expression of our ability to create through The God Franchise, or if you like, for God to create through us. What is changed by our perception is how we feel about that created thing. It changes our experience of that created thing. God-Consciousness is satisfied with experiencing whatever we choose to experience. We have free will in how we choose to experience any created thing.

What we have is the freedom to have choice, taste, opinions, and preferences. Free will gives us the freedom to prefer one thing over another and one experience over another. We can choose what we love and desire, and we can decide what it is we would rather avoid or not experience. This is what makes us all different, and what gives God-Consciousness the variety He likes to experience.

Unfortunately, at times, emotions get in the way of the creation. Different people (Egos) believe strongly and differently about the same thing and fight over it. The root cause of this is they believe there is a built-in limitation on creation or on the material expression of creation. Two men will fight over the same girl, forgetting there are many other girls in the world with equal if not better qualities. Two people will fight over ownership of the same house, or car, or other unique creation. Egos will try to get as much as they can for themselves, even if they have to resort to crime or war to achieve it. Countries fight over mineral rights or sea access or state security or religion, when in fact, it is just the Egos at the top who want to have their own way. The soldiers who have to fight the wars or the civilians living in the battlefield usually don’t care about the cause being fought for. They just want peace and to be able to get on with their daily lives.

If you look into any of these situations, you will find Ego, and you will find negative emotions. The negative emotions drive the Ego and colour the decisions and actions being taken. These emotions are extremely powerful and are the driving force behind the Ego and in the individual experience of the Creation. The emotions are extremely significant filters on the Creation.

Another interesting aspect of emotions is the fact that those we have classified as negative have a strong impact on the person who is feeling them. While we might try to put the blame out there on Creation, the cause of the negative emotion is within ourselves. It does not feel good, so we react to it or resist it, and this is what causes the pain. This pain stirs us to do more negative things, and we end up in a downward spiral of self-inflicted pain and resistance to reality (what is here now).

By contrast, the positive emotions do not involve the Ego, and you feel closer to your true self, your Higher Self. You could express this as being closer to God. It is not that God-Consciousness is good or only wants good, it is just that the fundamental, non-Ego way of feeling and being is in keeping with what we have termed positive emotions. If we were not coming from Ego, we would not experience the negative emotions at all. Our only experience would be the positive emotions that we would not call positive or good as the duality in the emotions would no longer exist.

So far, I have conveniently overlooked the survival (self-preservation) emotions. Remember, these are only felt as a sense of separation from God-Consciousness. If we truly realise we are one with God-Consciousness and that “in him we live, and move, and have our being” (Acts 17:28), we will not feel scared or worried or overwhelmed — we will feel secure, safe, and protected. Once again, without the duality of fear, etc., the feeling of safety and protection will be “just” a state of peace and wholeness.

(This is an extract from Chapter 14 of my book, The God Franchise, which is now available to you in paperback from a dozen major online bookshops)

The Human Being and Emotions – Part 1 of 2

The emotions are strange things, and I suspect that most of us misunderstand them. Some people might classify them as an aspect of mind (“your emotions are all in the mind”). Others associate them more with spirit, I guess, as they are rather ephemeral. Others, in turn, associate them with the body because they are felt in the body.

Perhaps that is part of the mystery of the emotions, that they don’t have a neat home in mind, body, or spirit, but can be experienced and classified in all those parts of the being. Nevertheless, they are extremely important, and they do act as very significant filters of creation.

It is not a surprise to find that writers apparently do not agree on a clear and consistent categorisation of emotions. Even some states of being like peacefulness, calmness, and tranquillity seem to get overlooked altogether, maybe because they are not active enough. I will, therefore, classify emotions into three groups. Any other emotional words you think of should fit into one of these three groups:

• Positive emotions include feeling amazed, amused, calm, caring, comfortable, compassionate, confident, content, curious, delighted, eager, ecstatic, elated, enthusiastic, excited, glad, good, happy, humble, joyous, loving, optimistic, passionate, patient, peaceful, pleased, surprised, sympathetic, thrilled, tranquil, warm, wonderful
• Survival (self-preservation) emotions include feeling anguish, anxious, cautious, desire, fearful, grief, helpless, homesick, horror, nervous, overwhelmed, panicky, protected, relieved, safe, scared, secure, suffering, terrified, worried
• Negative emotions include feeling alienated, angry, annoyed, arrogant, contemptuous, cynical, defeated, depressed, despairing, disappointed, disgusted, embarrassed, envious, frustrated, guilty, hateful, humiliated, impatient, irritated, isolated, jealous, lazy, loathing, lonely, mean, miserable, pain, enraged, resentful, sad, shameful, shy, sorrowful, spiteful, unhappy.

(An emotion like pride can have either a positive or a negative connotation, and fits in well with either of these once you know the context.)

It is interesting, when we review these lists of emotions, that the positive emotions do not seem to relate to the Ego, whereas the negative emotions shout out the word Ego. The emotions I have classed as survival emotions do not have a sense of Ego about them, although they are protective of the separated self. They give a feeling of separation from God-Consciousness certainly, and they are beyond the Ego.

One can easily and correctly reach the conclusion that emotions that come from the Ego are negative or hurtful ones — ones that cause us pain. Pain comes from resistance, and with these emotions we are resisting something. We don’t like the reality that is facing us, we don’t accept what is, and our Ego becomes angry, depressed, envious, unhappy, or whatever.

However, with the positive emotions there is a sense of wholeness and oneness. The Ego is not present, and instead our Higher Self reaches out to the situation or the other person and we gently feel love, compassion, happiness, optimism, patience, and so on.

The middle group of survival emotions are felt because the self feels threatened, or there is relief that the threat has abated. These emotions are not felt in the same way as the negative group. There is no sense of Ego or self-importance, but rather a sense of separation from God.

So, how do the emotions act as filters on creation? I will write about this in Part 2!

(This is an extract from Chapter 14 of my book, The God Franchise, which is now available to you in paperback from major online bookshops in the US and UK)

How the Ego Filters Creation

If God-Consciousness (God) continues to create through you and me and the other 6,999,998 people in the world, why is there so much wrong with that creation? Why are things not perfect?

The Ego acts as a filter on creation – that is what it is! Instead of creation flowing through us in a perfect way, it is coloured by our Ego, our Mind, and all the fears, pain, and beliefs that we carry. Of course it is not just our own stuff that is in the mix, but all the stuff that has come down the centuries from our ancestors. One could say, all the stuff right back to when Adam and Eve ate of the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. That is when the Ego came into existence – when the gift of free will was first abused.

You and I are perfect aspects of God. We are God incarnate, if you like. It is not that you are God. No, it is that God is you. Many Christians believe that not only was Jesus the Son of God, but that He was God incarnate. The truth is that we are all God incarnate. Jesus, of course, was a shining portrayal of what it is to be God incarnate, and we can certainly acknowledge him for that, as Christians do. Nevertheless, Jesus the Christ was not the only Son of God; we are all sons and daughters of God, and He is “well pleased” (Matthew 3:17) with every one of us. We just have greater Egos than Jesus did!

When God differentiates into an individual, He gives that human being, that incarnate spirit, free will. He does this so He can experience a unique expression of His Life. This free will has been misinterpreted to mean Man can do things of his own volition, so he becomes a creator and can be powerful without any need for God to exist at all. He has even stretched God’s permission or directive to “have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth” (Genesis 1:28) to include his fellow human beings. Over the thousands of years that Mankind has existed, this belief has been extended and developed as free will has gone further and further to our heads.

The Ego, personality, and human beliefs act as filters on everything that God creates through a particular human channel. So, if you are a perfectly egoless channel, the individual creation will be perfect, be it a work of art, a piece of music, the design or prototype of a new machine or device, or a piece of writing. As the Ego gets in the way, this acts as a filter to change the pure creation and produce something that contains traces of the individual’s free will. One could say that the creation is God’s, while the filter is the Ego’s. The creation is the Higher Self’s, while the filter is the Lesser Self’s.

If you watch any performer or artist at work, you will see they are completely open and egoless when they are in the midst of a peak performance. There is pure God-Consciousness in evidence in that moment, and the Ego is set aside. Creation is not limited to works of art, music, engineering, or writing either. Everything we do in our day-to-day lives is a part of the continuing creation process. Everything we are and stand for is a part of creation and a resulting development of that creation. And all the way through the creation is God’s — or to put it another way, the Creator is God-Consciousness operating through the Higher Self. Any degree of impurity or evil in that Creation is purely due to the Ego acting as a filter.

(Parts of this blog are quoted from Chapter 14 of my book, The God Franchise)

Why Is So Much Wrong with The Creation?

Why is there so much around us that appears to be the exact antithesis of what one would expect God to create? If God is still creating His Creation through us as I said in my last blog, why is there disease, poverty, war, corruption, danger, and death? Philosophers ask how God can be omnibenevolent in the face of all these dreadful occurrences if He is also omniscient and omnipotent. The argument is that if God knows about Evil, as He is omniscient, and is powerful enough to destroy all Evil as he is omnipotent, how can He be omnibenevolent if He allows Evil to occur? This is the so-called Problem of Evil.

Let me say that while God is the creator, His creations are filtered through our physical being, including our Egos. If our Ego is so big that we want to interfere with the creation, or so big that we think we have greater skills than we really have, we are dumbing down the creation. Our Egos can even pervert the creative process so that what starts as a benign discovery (e.g. atomic power, motion pictures) is directed by Ego into being something we can view as being very evil (e.g. nuclear weapons, child pornography).

Over the next few blogs I am going to cover what I see as some of the filters that seem to affect and possibly minimise the on-going creation work of God-Consciousness. We will start by looking at you and me, and the other 6,999,998 people in the world, as most of the trouble starts here. The Ego has a lot to account for!

Despite these unhelpful filters, and despite the apparent “wrong” or evil that we see in the creation, in the universe around us, the reality is that you are looked after by God-Consciousness just by being a perfectly open channel for His creation. All you need will flow to you as well, including money as the current common exchange unit. You are constantly in the presence of creation. It is happening all around you.

So, is there much wrong with this creation? Could you have done a better job? I believe the next few blogs will clarify why things are as they are, and why the universe is in fact the best possible universe, and why everything is “right” just as it is.

I hope you will bow with me in awe to the whole of creation!

(Parts of this blog are quoted from Chapter 14 of my book, The God Franchise)