‘Centerism’ offers way to inner peace

I’d like to share a small version of a spiritual practice that has truly changed my life.

I grew up in a difficult home situation and turned to my Bible and God to give me a sense of security. This place of inner love and calm is where I would go in my mind when my outer life seemed like it was spinning out of control.

When I was 36, I entered Luther Seminary in St. Paul, Minn., and later became an ordained minister. Since childhood, however, I have always had a concern in my heart for those who did not attend church. How would they find that “center” of peace and serenity?

I left the church in 1998 and have been developing what I call “Centerism,” a belief practice which leads to that internal peace no matter who your deity is.

Through this belief system, we practice replacing negative thoughts, emotions and behavior with positive ones. By doing so, we diminish the amount of pain and suffering that we endure from all the daily stresses of life.

We accomplish this by using simple, tried-and-true principles of self-hypnosis, which is basically telling ourselves different things than we normally do. New patterns of thinking begin to form, which in turn start to diminish our physical and emotional stress.

This belief system gives us the ability to be calm in the midst of a storm, and eventually to feel contentment in the midst of outer misery and chaos. We begin to feel more power over our thoughts and emotions, which gives us feelings of greater self-worth.

What prevents us from changing our thoughts and emotions is our belief system. A “normal” human belief system tells us that we can’t help how we respond to nasty everyday problems; “I am who I am” is the barrier belief that keeps us in an unhealthy habit of thinking.

But our suffering is very real, and all of the saviors of humankind have tried to bring us relief by encouraging us to change our thinking.

Centerism is a belief system that includes all people of all faiths. You do not need to accept the teachings of a particular religion; you can visualize the positive ways of thinking as your “center,” and include whatever deity you choose.

The “center” is as close as our breath, as close as our heartbeat, as close as our mind. It is where the Divine lives within us.

It is not always so easy to “go to the center,” though. It’s expected that in this human “club” called Earth we will react to events with “normal” negative reactions: fear, disgust, resentment, jealousy, rage, selfishness and so on.

These emotions are expected in our culture, but they get us into a lot of trouble. They destroy relationships, get us fired, get us thrown in jail and cause our bodies to give way to incessant stress.

So why do we keep doing the same things, expecting different results? I believe that the answer is stubbornness.

Being stubborn keeps us in a negative pattern “just because.” It’s uncomfortable to try something new, even if it is good for us. In order to overcome our stubbornness, we need to choose to overcome it.

The Divine and the Divine’s messengers respect the decisions of human beings. Free will is a very important thing on the other side; the angels, guides or whatever you call them are instructed to respect it.

If our free will is stubborn in its attitude to continue in destructive thoughts, emotions and behaviors, then the “beings” need to allow us to continue. Although there are miracles now and then that keep us off guard, usually we are allowed to experience the results of our actions so that we will hopefully learn from our mistakes.

The act of choosing to intentionally change our thoughts and emotions and behaviors is huge – Jesus called it being “born again” – and it’s essentially giving up being stubborn and letting our deity help us to find our way into the “center.” This is a lifelong process, and an adventure to be sure.

Centerism is a belief system based upon the teachings of the avatars, the gifted ones. Their teachings “save” us from a life of hell on earth.

These teachings are within us, in the center of our souls. We have only to enter in.