Ep.059 How to be Closer to God? – I asked 9 very spiritual people “How they do it” and this is what they shared!: Spirituality w/ Mark Zaretti

Episode transcript:

[00:00:00] This is Mark and I’d like to invite you to join me in listening to episode 59 of the discussing Spirituality Live show. Now this was recorded last night on the 15th of May, 2025.

[00:00:22] And guys, this, this one is special.

[00:00:26] You know all I really enjoy every episode and I, I hope and I aim that every episode has value and helps you to become more spiritual. But once in a while an episode comes along that is, is one of the cornerstones, if you like. And I believe this is one such episode. Now it’s all about God and it’s about spirituality and how we can be more spiritual, which means being, being closer to God. And this episode wouldn’t have been possible without the amazing people that helped make it and contributed towards it. So without naming them, you know who you are. And I just wanted to thank you for your input and making this possible and for sharing and yeah, this, this is special. I wish this was kind of episode I wish I’d had all those decades ago when I started my own journey.

[00:01:25] This would have really helped me. So I hope that it will in some way help you and those that you care about and love. So please feel free to share it with them and without further ado, Please enjoy episode 59.

[00:01:40] God bless you.

[00:01:50] Good evening everyone. This is Mark from The Way Back and this is “Discussing Spirituality, the live show”, episode 59, I believe, and it is the 15th of May, 2025. And thank you for joining us. If you’re joining us live and if you’re listening again, then thank you as well. Now we’ve got a show tonight that is one that I’m very excited for and hopefully you are as well. And there’s already quite a few people in the chat, so it’s great to see you guys there. And greetings one and all. Now this is the live show and let’s just dive straight in and see what it is. Well, I’ve already kind of given, given the clue in the title, but we are looking at how can we be closer to God?

[00:02:41] And to answer that, let me bear with me a second.

[00:02:46] So these are the actual things we’re going to be looking at. So closer to God. We’re going to be doing more of the book reading, we’re going to be doing some remembering. So this is going back in time and I think it will become more obvious what we’re going to be remembering as we progress through this episode. That’s something to look forward to after the book reading and then as ever, questions and answers from yourselves. So any Questions that you’ve got, put them in the chat with question mark, question mark, question mark at the start and that way they stand out.

[00:03:18] So how did we end up with this episode? Well, during the week I hosted a meetup with some people online who I meet with regularly online.

[00:03:31] And I asked them, and they’re all very spiritual people. I asked them what do they actually do on a daily basis to be closer to God, to be more spiritual.

[00:03:42] Because remember, before we go any further, I think it’s worth just reminding us all, does that mean that, what does spirituality mean? So, because obviously, it’s a word that I think a lot of people have heard of. Obviously. But let’s just define terms here so that we’re all on the same page.

[00:04:01] Spirituality in simple terms is the, the more spiritual are, the more you desire to be closer to God.

[00:04:10] And this really speaks to the spirit part of you. So we have a soul, we have a spirit. There’s also things like mind and consciousness and things like that. Now mindfulness is actually about in training and becoming more aware of and accepting of the mind. But it actually isn’t spiritual. The clues in the name. So spirituality is to do with the spirit. And the spirit is the purest, highest, most aligned with God, part of us. And it’s a gift from God and it’s there like a beacon of light and love within us to show us the way to God. Okay.

[00:04:43] And that’s typified in the spiritual journey where people undertake spiritual meditation. But that’s quite different and far fetched from a lot of the more mundane types of meditation that people will be familiar with. And that would be things like mantra, mandala, mindfulness is a good example. Counting, breath, breathing, yoga, visualization, all of these kinds of things are actually nothing to do with spirituality or the spirit. But they are, can be interesting, they can reveal things. So when I talk about spirituality, what we’re talking about is that desire to go past the little self, go past the personality, go past what we identify with, to let go of all of that and to be as close as possible to God. And then the hand in hand with that is the soul growth part of the journey. And the soul growth is taking that, what we’re aspiring to and embodying it in everyday life through our, through growth and development of our soul. And so that would be becoming a more good person. Good in terms of virtue, in terms of qualities of character, that whenever you see these qualities in others, you’ll always recognize them as being good. So courage and wisdom and things like that are good examples. And so the soul journey is embodying and becoming them. The spiritual journey is moving towards. And hopefully that. That. That’s a very quick summary, but hopefully that answers that question. I’m just quickly writing something down and bear with me a second. So just make notes. So anyway, the.

[00:06:23] These people that I was talking to very kindly answered this question, but I want to give you a little bit of a background about where they’re coming from so that it helps us understand why this is so.

[00:06:36] And it was a real pleasure, first of all, to be able to have this opportunity with them. So collectively, They’ve got over 150 years of collective spiritual experience.

[00:06:45] A group made of men and women.

[00:06:48] And from. They have come from some. So some of them have only ever been taught by myself or worked with myself, but quite a few of them have come from other spiritual or meditation groups.

[00:07:00] So a diverse background. And people from different countries, nationalities and backgrounds as well. So we’re talking about parents, non parents, married, single, that kind of thing. So covering a broad range and ages of people.

[00:07:14] And then all of them, what they do share in common is all of them have gone through a process which we refer to as initiation, which is the revelation of spiritual light so that they can actually meditate and be aware of spiritual light. And that’s often referred to as light and sound meditation.

[00:07:33] So all of them have experienced that to various degrees. So some have completed that journey, some are partway through it.

[00:07:39] And what they also have in common at this time is that they all follow the teachings of the way back. And that just means that they’re aware of the way back and that they meet regularly and we discuss the same kind of things that we’re discussing right now. So this is kind of like overspill from that meeting to this live show, which is wonderful. And so I’m. To each of those people who contributed, they’re going to remain anonymous, but I just wanted to give you a little bit of background about them. Thank you. And if any of them are here right now, then thank you very much.

[00:08:09] So what we’re going to do is we’re going to go through.

[00:08:14] I wrote down notes as they were talking, as I kind of asked them the question and they were giving their answers.

[00:08:19] And I kind of took their answers and looked for commonalities and looked for trends. So one might have said something like, I read, you know, I read X. And another one might have said, phrased it in a different way.

[00:08:34] And so I’ve kind of grouped similar things Together to try and look for patterns and trends for what makes people more spiritual. But the key thing is, what do they do? Now, spirituality is not about doing. It’s about being. So this might seem like a paradox, and it is.

[00:08:51] Ultimately, the soul journey is about being more good. Good meaning godly. The root of the word good is godly or God. So the soul journey is about embodying and becoming, and the spiritual, but journey is about letting go. So nowhere in that really is doing. And yet I’m asking them a specific question. What do you do on a daily basis that makes you more spiritual? That is closer to God?

[00:09:16] And the reason is that if you think about it, there’s a lot you could do that takes you in the wrong direction. So you could be listening to really aggressive dark music, or you could be dabbling in kind of like dark magic and occult stuff that’s not very good. Or you could be worshipping the wrong things. So it’s very easy to identify. Identify things that take us in the wrong direction.

[00:09:38] And the kind of opposite corollary to that is that there are things that we can do that will take us in the right direction.

[00:09:47] So although the end goal isn’t the doing, it’s the state that that engenders.

[00:09:53] The doing is a way of aligning our everyday lives. And as you’ll see from the examples and the point of this episode is to draw on this. What did I say? Over 150 years of experience.

[00:10:07] To draw upon this experience of a number of people who’ve proven their spiritual kind of credentials so that we can share it, so that we can all benefit from it. And I found it extremely useful as well. Just asking the question and seeing what people came back with. And what I’ve done is I’ve kind of found these patterns. And then I’m going to present them to you with the ones that most, you know, the most popular ones are the ones that people were doing the most first.

[00:10:36] So bear with me as I move on. So this is the thing that most of the people were doing to help themselves become more spiritual and closer to God. So they express gratitude to God.

[00:10:51] Now, people put it in different ways. So some people purposefully sit down and literally list what they’re grateful for and thank God for it. Some just have a general, I have gratitude and thank you, God. But the point was that five out of the nine people I spoke to expressly said that this is what they do. That part of their strategy for being closer to God is to express gratitude to God.

[00:11:18] So the list is quite long, so I’m not going to overly kind of explain all of these. Some of them might lend themselves towards more explanation.

[00:11:29] But what I encourage us to do, actually, as we, as we go kind of go through this, what, what would be a good idea is just, I mean, you can, you can refer back and I’ll put notes in the write up for the podcast in a day or two when I’ve done the podcast. So don’t worry about, you don’t have to write stuff down, but you might want to just keep track of things that you are doing and things that you haven’t thought to do.

[00:11:53] And although I’m starting with the most popular, they might be the most obvious, but they might not be the ones that actually have the biggest impact in your life.

[00:12:02] And then the other thing I want you to notice as we go through these is see if there’s any that you resist and then will come back to that. So just make a note. If I suggest something and go, oh, I can do that.

[00:12:16] Just make a note. Because I think that’s really, really interesting and that might be the one that we want to focus on down the line. And also if there’s ones that you think, oh, I do that anyway, to the point where perhaps we’ve become complacent, that’s worth noting as well.

[00:12:35] So either way, just pay attention to how you react as I mention each one. Okay, so let’s go back to the list. So the number one was gratitude, expressing gratitude to God. And it’s worth noting that when we were discussing this, it was God and Jesus because it’s recognized that you cannot really separate them. God and Jesus are, you can say, are different, but God is Jesus, Jesus is God. Okay, so one is what you could think of Jesus as God that took on form so that we can recognize God in Persona. Okay, so you could equally say expressing gratitude to Jesus is the point I was making. And obviously Jesus isn’t Jesus’s original name. J’s didn’t even exist back then. J is a more modern character or letter. And so you could equally say Yeshua or whatever.

[00:13:32] But we know who we’re talking about here, so let’s, we won’t get lost in the reeds. Okay, so expressing gratitude to God, the Source, Yeshua, Jesus, etc. But that which is most high, that which is the absolute, is what we’re really talking about here.

[00:13:49] Okay, so what’s the next thing?

[00:13:52] Well, the next thing wasn’t so much a doing, but it was a when so again, five out of the nine people I asked had it as part of their morning routine or ritual. So whatever they were doing, whether they were expressing gratitude or some of the things that were going to look at down the list, they do it as a conscious thing in the morning. And I think this is really, I mean, I’ve got my, my morning routine that is focused on spirituality as well.

[00:14:23] And the reason is that it means that you’ve put the most important thing first each day. So I mean, literally I get up, I let the dog out because he needs to be let out, and then I go and sit in bed sitting upright and I do my spiritual work and focusing on things.

[00:14:43] And in that I do some of the things that are in this list as well. But I do it every day and I make a point of doing it first because it’s like a statement, it’s saying, no, this is more important than say, the exercise I’m going to do or walking the dog or eating or anything. The first thing I want to do each day is mark the day spiritually, set the day up as a spiritual day, set my intentions, etc.

[00:15:09] So interestingly, five out of the nine people all said that they in various ways said no. The more it’s a, it’s part of their morning routine. Now I need to be clear, that doesn’t mean the others didn’t or don’t have something in their morning. But that wasn’t the thing that came to them when I asked, what do you do? And if you, if, if you ask people a question, they tend to prioritize and give the most important things first. So it might be that they’re still doing stuff in the morning, but to them that isn’t the most important thing. The most important thing was whatever they said. And each person gave a number of things and they were given time to reflect and to consider adding to their answer. So what we’re getting here really is not an off the cuff answer, but a considered reflection of what they do that they value that brings about greater spirituality in their lives. So that’s, I think, wonderful thing to be able to share.

[00:16:11] So so far we’ve got expressing gratitude to God and a morning routine, a morning spiritual routine. Okay, so the next thing is that, and this surprised me that four out of nine people, or 44.4%, said that they bless others.

[00:16:35] And I mean, that’s wonderful because what it means is that they’re putting focus on others, but they’re doing something for the benefit spiritually of others. And if you’re wondering what that means or what do you mean bless others?

[00:16:49] Well, just simply saying I bless, for example, I bless the other people who follow the way back is a blessing. Or, you know, I bless my family, I bless my friends.

[00:17:06] You can even bless upwards, so you could say, I know I bless Jesus. It’s a way of, a nice way of understanding what a blessing is, is to say, what does a blessing do?

[00:17:20] In very, very simple terms, keeping things really gentle and easy to understand.

[00:17:26] A blessing is saying, I appreciate this thing and I want what is best for it from, from, from the highest perspective.

[00:17:35] So it’s not about money or wealth or that it’s saying, I bring it to God’s attention, that God may favor this thing that God made, watch over it, that God may help it, heal it, whatever. And so to bless someone is kind of saying, dear God, please look over and watch over and take care of this thing, because I value it. And so to bless others is an amazing, amazing thing to do. Because first of all, it will only work if you’re in state. And we’ll probably be referring to in state quite a lot throughout tonight.

[00:18:13] But if you’re, in other words, sincere, humble, coming from the heart, present.

[00:18:19] So if you’re in state and you bless someone, you really are being quite spiritual because you’re putting others, you’re considering others. So that’s compassion and kindness and you’re engaging with God fundamentally because you’re bestowing a blessing which all blessings ultimately come from God. So, you know, that’s a lovely thing to do. And I was surprised how high up the list that was in terms of things that we can do to be more spiritual. So blessing others, the next one is go the right way is to pray.

[00:18:54] So when people.

[00:19:00] Yeah, just checking my list over there. So when people pray, again, we’re talking spiritually. So we’re not necessarily saying the Lord’s Prayer or the Hail Mary or some prescribed set of words belonging to a particular denomination or belief system. We’re not necessarily talking about forehead on the ground or bent over, anything like that. What we’re simply saying is that in humility, the person or the people, these people are asking of God. It might not even be asking, because what a few people said is they pray in a form of gratitude. So they’re not asking for anything. They’re just simply saying, thank you, God. You know, so their prayer is one of thanks rather than, you know, necessarily a request for some kind of divine intervention or guidance or something. But it doesn’t matter. What the point is that they are communicating upwards. So they might pray to Jesus, they might pray to God, and in so doing they are orientating towards Jesus and God and therefore their focus spiritual. And that helps them to be closer to Jesus and closer to God.

[00:20:23] So the question really was, you know, what can we do to be closer to Jesus, closer to God? And the obvious one is pray. Now, you know, this is we. I’ve got to stress this. We’re not talking religion, we’re not talking beliefs, we’re talking experiential spirituality.

[00:20:41] So when you pray, if it’s a new concept to you or understanding it from a spiritual point of view is new, then let me just kind of elaborate a little bit.

[00:20:54] Again in states, so from the heart, being humble, being respectful, simply saying dear God or dear Jesus, and then whatever it is. And it doesn’t have to be like deep meditative state. It doesn’t have to be eyes closed even. You don’t have to put your hands in a particular position.

[00:21:14] And it doesn’t have to be long. It could just be, you know, you getting into the car. Dear, dear God, please watch over me on this journey, keep me safe, or you’re struggling with a situation. Dear God, please help me to see a way of resolving this for the greater good. You know, it can be just literally something like that. It doesn’t have to be deeply profound or long or complex. And in some respects, the less prescriptive you are. Like if, you know, for example, supposing you’re having financial problems and you say, dear God, please help me get that job, because then I can pay my rent and then I can. Well, God might not want you to have that job. God might have a better job lined up. And in order to get to that better job, you first of all need to fail or end the current job. So if you’re praying, you know, for a specific outcome, it might not be the right outcome. So I would always say keep it loose, just set your intention.

[00:22:12] You know, if you’re praying for something and you can pray for others, you know, just as with blessings people who bless others, you could pray for others. It doesn’t have to be about you.

[00:22:23] So, yeah, an obvious thing. I think prayer is an obvious thing. And just remember this, okay?

[00:22:36] Prayer existed before.

[00:22:39] Religion doesn’t belong to religion and neither does God and neither does Jesus.

[00:22:45] Okay? Religion is something different.

[00:22:48] Prayer is your communication with God, with Jesus. And prayer is as old as man. Okay?

[00:22:59] So it’s not a religious thing, although it may have been appropriated. Religiously so the next thing, the next thing going to the list is because I’ve literally just said not religion. The next thing is to read the Bible or the gospel.

[00:23:17] And you may wonder what. Hang on a sec, he’s just waxed on about. This isn’t religion. Why would we read the Bible or the Gospel?

[00:23:27] We. I, I can’t speak for everyone.

[00:23:33] What was shared in the group and my own insights into this.

[00:23:38] First of all, I, I have a list which I’m not going to share here. But I don’t see the Bible collectively as one thing. I see it as a collection of firsthand kind of eyewitness accounts of what happened with Jesus. The Old Testament seems to be a lot of accounts of a lot of different things, lot of different people. You know, in modern parlance, you could say a lot of it is kind of like ancient alien encounter stories like Ezekiel and stuff like this.

[00:24:08] Maybe I’ll go into that one day. But the point I’m kind of skirting around to make is some of the Bible I value because it’s the, you know, the Gospels, it’s the people who walked with Jesus, their story being told either directly or by kind of firsthand, secondhand word of mouth, but written soon after. So in other words, it’s the best. It’s the closest thing to eyewitness accounts of what happened and the repetition of the teachings of Jesus, which is what I draw inspiration from when I read the Bible. Well, I may read the Bible for other reasons and you know, from this show that sometimes I read it so that I can give examples. Now, why is that important? Well, a lot of people have read the Bible and to a lot of people, it’s a point of reference. So if we can speak in people’s language, if they speak the language of the Bible and they understand those kind of points of reference, and it’s, it’s wise to be able to engage with people where they are at. That that’s respectful as well. And so, you know, I don’t just read the Bible. I’ve read the Bhagavad Gita or I’ve read the Tao Te Ching. I’ve read lots of different ancient books, partly for interest and partly so that I understand the concepts. But the point is getting back to the point, because this is about what brings you closer to God and Jesus.

[00:25:31] So what people were saying is reading the original accounts of the time of Jesus and what Jesus had to say about God helps people to focus on Jesus and God. So reading the Bible and the Gospel Came up and just looking over here, then three out of the nine people. So a third of the people said that’s what they do to help them to be closer to God. So I share it here. That might be one of the ones that you kind of felt like couldn’t do that, that there was resistance. So interesting.

[00:26:06] And the next one is worshiping God.

[00:26:11] What does that mean? So again, again, we’re not talking about religion, but for some people it might be going to church. And the example there was singing. And so one of the people who’s extremely spiritual, they’re not religious, they don’t consider themselves religious, but they said they like to go to church to sing from their heart. And it’s such a, for them, it’s such an opening kind of connecting, visceral experience that it lifts them up and literally carries them throughout the week. It fills them with so much joy to sing the psalms and the songs in adoration of Jesus and God. Now they’re not buying, they’re not kind of there for the religion, but they’re there for the joy and for the expression of worship and reverence and awe towards God and Jesus and.

[00:27:05] Wonderful, wonderful, you know, and isn’t it nice to know that we can actually say, well, there’s nothing wrong with that. You can go along and sing, you know, join a choir or go to Sunday church and sing your. Sing your lungs out.

[00:27:23] But it’s not about.

[00:27:25] It’s not about the beliefs, it’s about the experience.

[00:27:30] See, I’ve said this in so many ways, so many times, but belief will get you so far and it will get you out of bed.

[00:27:39] But belief is a very poor cousin to experience. So analogy I use, I’ve used before.

[00:27:47] Before I had my first motorbike, I believed that I would enjoy riding a motorbike. It looked cool on tv, you know, in the films. And I thought, yeah, I want a motorbike. But it was only once I got a motorbike that my belief about what it is like to ride a motorbike was changed, was replaced by the far superior experience of what it’s like to ride a motorbike.

[00:28:13] And so when I talk about riding a motorbike now, and I’ve had quite a lot of motorbikes and I’ve ridden in the Alps and in Scotland, Route 500 and things like this, when I talk about riding a motorbike, I’m talking from experience.

[00:28:28] Religion fundamentally is belief, spirituality is experience. If you, if you can understand that difference, would you rather be talking from experience? Or would you rather be talking from belief?

[00:28:39] So you can go into an environment like go to a church and sing along with everyone else, but you’re there because of the experience, not because of the belief. Does that make sense? And therefore the net end result is what we’re talking about today, which is how can you be closer to God? If it actually brings you closer to God, then it’s worthwhile.

[00:28:58] So worshiping God. And again, this doesn’t just mean singing. You could be worshiping God in any way that’s based on reverence and awe and giving God your attention and just. I will cut to the chat at this point because it’s relatively quite funny. Panther 9 has said God didn’t give me a singing voice. I lip sync now if I visit a church service. You know what? Let it out. That’s what I would say. You don’t. You’re not singing for others. You’re singing for yourself. You’re singing for your heart. Who cares if. If you’re a bit off key, you know, that might be the thing that you’re challenged by. And let it out, let it rip.

[00:29:43] You know, sing from the top of your lungs, not with pride, but with adoration for God. You know, that might be a wonderful thing to do.

[00:29:52] So, worshiping God. You know, in fairness, if your singing voice is terrible, maybe the kindness is to worship God in silence. Who knows?

[00:30:03] All joking apart, follow your heart. What we don’t want.

[00:30:09] In seriousness, what we don’t want is anything in this list that I’m sharing.

[00:30:13] What I’m sharing with you tonight is to inspire you, to maybe give you ideas, ways of making things new and different that you haven’t explored, and perhaps even challenge you and challenge some of the assumptions. But what I’m not trying to do is say anything along the lines of you should or you must. That’s nonsense. That doesn’t really exist in spirituality. There is fundamentally good and bad. There is fundamentally towards God and away from God, but there’s no, you know, you have free will. So all I’m doing is sharing stuff that it may inspire you. Okay, so worship God.

[00:30:58] In other words, it doesn’t matter how. It matters that you do if you choose to do so. And it’s sincere. And as long as it’s from the heart and sincere, it might be that you worship God with your art or by simply doing whatever is before you. Be at work or chores or family stuff, but doing it from the best place, from the heart. You could worship God in your deeds and your actions. And your attitudes as much as anything else.

[00:31:25] So sit in stillness with God. I put with God in brackets because some people described it as just sitting in stillness, but they weren’t talking about meditation. And that’s quite interesting. So if we were to recap, I won’t do it now, but if we go back to the very first list I’ve got over here, then I said that all of these people are initiated.

[00:31:49] All of them have access to the light and can access vast states of awareness. And isn’t it interesting that not one of them so far has listed meditation as the thing that brings them closer to God? Interesting.

[00:32:04] But sitting in stillness did come up. And I’m just looking over here. So two out of the nine people quoted it directly as something that they do each day.

[00:32:14] And one of them described it as sitting in stillness. And the other one said sitting, sitting with God in stillness.

[00:32:21] So, yeah. What does this mean? What in lay terms, if this is something new to you, what does it mean? It means not trying, not striving, not going right. I am now going to pray. I am now going to tune in to God. I am now going to X, Y or Z. It simply means I’m going to stop.

[00:32:40] I’m going to stop doing everything.

[00:32:43] I’m not going to move my body, I’m not going to going to breathe very gently.

[00:32:47] You could say it’s where people start with going into meditation. But the point is you’re not even going into meditation. You’re simply just being still.

[00:32:57] And I like the idea of sitting with God. In other words, forget about everything else. It’s just me and God.

[00:33:06] No expectations, no looking, no hoping to sense. Because by the way, look, if you sense something, that ain’t it.

[00:33:15] God doesn’t have an edge. How can you sense something that has no edges?

[00:33:19] God is beyond time. How can you have a sense or a sensation of something that is beyond time?

[00:33:26] Okay, so in other words, the people who go looking for phenomena are blinded by their looking.

[00:33:33] The people who just sit in stillness. And it’s like instead of saying, I am looking for God, saying I am getting out of the way here. I am God.

[00:33:44] And that’s, that’s wonderful.

[00:33:47] So that is what is kind of alluded to by sitting in stillness with God.

[00:33:54] And the next one is acknowledging God. Now this is similar to, but different from the first one, which is expressing gratitude towards God.

[00:34:02] And different people describe this in different ways. But one example was along the lines of I acknowledge that God is a source of all that is good. I acknowledge that God is beyond everything and is greater than everything. I acknowledge another person just simply said I acknowledge God.

[00:34:23] So it’s kind of taken it as detailed or as fundamental and simple as you want, but it’s a sincere acknowledgment of God.

[00:34:37] I’m just going to. Yeah, someone said something really nice in the chat, so let’s just bring that up because I was just talking about sitting with God and Rachel B. Jones said it’s a bit like a pause in a conversation with a friend. Sometimes you don’t need to talk. You can sit in warm peace and love.

[00:34:56] Yeah.

[00:34:58] There’s nothing you can bring to the table that God, you know, you can’t enrich God’s experience. God already is one thing everywhere and knows everything, experiences everything, knows you better than you know yourself.

[00:35:09] So the sitting in stillness with God.

[00:35:13] And as Rachel has added there, Rachel B. Jones, but in a state of humility. Yes. Going back to what I said about being in state, then humility is the cornerstone of that. Everything we’re describing, take it as read that it has to come from the heart and from a place of humility. If you’re going, hey, look at me, I’m sitting with God. Me and God are on equal terms, then you are not sitting with God. You are sitting in your ego. And the one that you think you’re communicating or tuning into is probably the antithesis of God, you know, but we want to focus on God today.

[00:35:49] So let’s, let’s look at the next thing that we can do. So as well as acknowledging God, we can, and this is interesting, we can listen to the Bible like an audiobook.

[00:36:02] So earlier we had read the Bible and Gospel, but we’ve also got listen to the Bible. And that was quite interesting when that came up because another person said they get a completely different kind of experience from listening to the Bible versus reading it. And everyone’s different, but some people when they read it, becomes too analytical, too much from the head. But when they listen like an audiobook, then they can kind of lose themselves in it a bit and come more from the heart.

[00:36:36] And so it depends only you know yourself well enough to know.

[00:36:41] But if you’re always reading a Bible, see what changes if you were to listen to it. And if you’re always listening to it, see what would change if you were to read it.

[00:36:50] Okay, so different experiences, slightly different outcomes.

[00:36:56] And the point being that these things help people to become closer to God. And that’s what we want more of.

[00:37:04] And you can tell that we Were two. We’re about two thirds of the way down the page and there’s still more to go.

[00:37:11] So I wonder, just a moment of reflection here, but I wonder how this list is measuring up against the things that you enjoy doing or that you do habitually to bring yourself closer to God. And maybe you’ve never done any of these things, in which case, how lucky are you that you’ve now got all these different strategies? And if you’re already doing all of them, then that’s amazing as well. And we’ll probably talk about that a bit later. If you’re doing a lot of things to get closer to God, we may well touch on that. And if I don’t, remind me in the.

[00:37:46] In the Q and A section at the end, but bear with me a second coffee, something I am grateful for. Thank you. Thank you, God, for the things that we have to support us.

[00:38:03] So, yeah, let’s move on and see what the next thing is that we’ve got to benefit from. So listening to the Bible.

[00:38:14] Oh, wrong button.

[00:38:17] And let’s jump over here and then back to that. And that should sort things out.

[00:38:24] Just did that on purpose just to prove it’s a live show, if you believe that.

[00:38:30] Right.

[00:38:31] So the next one that came up, and genuinely this wasn’t me, was that people listen to the Wayback podcasts and that helps them to get closer to God. And, you know, going back quite a few years, I released the first podcast where I talked about, you know, having more God in our lives and little exercise and things like that.

[00:38:55] So over the years, I’ve gone more and more into how we can be closer to God and the refinement of the six virtues and things like this.

[00:39:05] So people.

[00:39:08] Some people find that listening to the Way Back podcasts, particularly the ones about God and Jesus, can really help them to become closer to God.

[00:39:17] And I guess one way of looking at it is they’re spiritually focused. And there’s two main podcasts that I’m referring to here.

[00:39:28] In fact, let me just see if I can find something and make this a bit bigger. I’m just going to show you something.

[00:39:37] So what we’re talking about here is if you were to go to the Wayback website, at the top, you’ve got podcasts. So if we click on that, then there’s four different podcasts that we’ve done. And the first one there is the Wayback Spiritual Awakening podcast. And then the next one is the Way Back Live Show. So the second. The second one is this live show as a podcast.

[00:40:06] The first one is the one that I think they’re referring to in terms of there’s a lot in there to do with becoming closer to God.

[00:40:15] And that’s all free. You can Download it as MP3s. If you go to our website to listen to the podcast, you can actually download it, but you can find it on Spotify and things like that as well. And someone’s just saying in the chat, which is really lovely feedback.

[00:40:29] Listening to this show helps me to feel closer to God as well. And that’s wonderful because that is the purpose of a spiritual show, is to in different ways, reach people because everyone’s looking for, you know, we’re all coming from different places, but there’s only one mountain we’re trying to climb. So I guess that’s why I cover a lot of different topics in this live show, is that some topics will represent a path at one side of the mountain, other topics the other side of the mountain, but they all lead to the same thing, which is, as I say, to seek the truth is to seek God. So I’m really pleased to hear that people are finding that listening to this show as well can help them to get closer to God.

[00:41:11] So if we dive back into the list, then, so listening to the Way Back podcasts and, you know, maybe there’s other podcasts as well, you know, that might help. And marigold0 in the chat is echoing what the last person said as well about listening to this show helps people to feel close to God. I mean, certainly this episode, I would hope when people listen back, or as you’re listening now and watching, is reminding you that it’s all about God.

[00:41:44] But let’s just, let’s just take a moment.

[00:41:49] You know, why are we all here? I’m talking to you right now. Why are we here? We’re here because we want to be closer to God.

[00:41:57] So let’s go. The first thing on that list was expressing gratitude to God.

[00:42:04] Put it in your own words. But I invite you to just join me. I’m just going to take a moment and we’re going to do that and we’re going to do the fourth thing, which was to pray. So if you, if you want, feel free to join me. So, dear God, thank you for this. Thank you for this show. Thank you for the opportunity to be in communion, in communication with like minded, beautiful people.

[00:42:29] Thank you for literally the voice and the mic and the equipment to do this. But also thank you for those who have ears to listen and eyes to see.

[00:42:40] That I hope that this message reaches them.

[00:42:44] And I’m grateful for all that you do, that you’ve guided all of us to be here at this time that we may learn how to be closer to God.

[00:42:55] And the third item in the list, blessing others. So I, I bless everyone who is listening to this now or in the future that they find more peace and a closer alignment with God and Jesus. There we go.

[00:43:08] So anyway, we will, we will move on to the list. Let’s have a look at the list. So listen to the Way Back podcast and there’s one more comment in the chat which I’ll just read out and on that note, and then we’ll move on. And it says, I have listened and re listened to many of the Wayback podcasts. Very supportive in moving closer to God. Highly recommend.

[00:43:32] Thank you.

[00:43:34] You know, I listen to them myself because when I’m doing the show, it’s a different kind of state from when I’m, you know, when I’ve done the podcast, I normally go for a walk with the dog and listen back. And it’s the first time I really hear it as you, as just another person listening to some other person talking. Obviously it’s my voice, which is no one likes to hear their own voice, but we have to put our egos aside and get over things like that to do the work that will help ourselves and others. And so I bent. What I’m saying is I listen to it and get similar benefits because it comes through me, not from me. So I can also listen as a, as someone on the other side of the microphone, on the speaker end of things.

[00:44:23] The next thing that people do is they welcome God and Jesus into my heart. So into their hearts. So what does that mean? Okay, with all of these, it means that whatever it is, like acknowledging God or blessing others, that it’s a proactive, conscious thing done from state, in other words, from a place of humility and gratitude and neutrality and stillness and being present.

[00:44:50] You say or you intend, because it doesn’t have to be out loud.

[00:44:54] I welcome God into my heart. I welcome Jesus into my heart or into my life, or both.

[00:45:01] In fact, let’s just try that on now. So I’ll say it and then we can say it together. So I welcome Jesus and God into my life.

[00:45:14] So we’ll say that together. Now I welcome Jesus and God into my life.

[00:45:22] And we’ll do the same for heart, so we’ll say it together.

[00:45:26] I welcome Jesus and God into my heart.

[00:45:32] Imagine doing that every single day at the Start of the day. Okay, maybe you don’t have to imagine it. Maybe that’s what you already do. In which case, fantastic.

[00:45:46] So what’s the next thing? Ah, this one’s good. So reaffirm my connection often.

[00:45:52] Look, we’re talking about quite a lot of this you could imagine people do at the start of the day. And as I said, a lot of people. The second thing in the list is have it as part of my daily morning routine.

[00:46:02] But we’re not one and done every moment.

[00:46:06] So it comes down to.

[00:46:08] In a previous episode, we talked about the unit of spirituality. The unit of currency of spirituality is choice. So throughout the day, represented with choices, hundreds, maybe thousands, who knows? But every choice matters. And if we’re out of alignment, if we’re not connected, then we’re not likely to make the right choices. So reaffirming the connection is invaluable because you say, hang on a sec, just take time out, even while driving or whatever. Hang on a second. God matters. Jesus matters. Okay? I intend that I reaffirm my connection. I reaffirm that they are in my life. I reaffirm that I love them. I reaffirm that I want them in my life.

[00:46:51] And then you carry on, and it’s like a reset, just checking that you’re not drifting from. The way is narrow, as we’ve said previously. So just making sure that we haven’t taken too many steps out of the way. Okay.

[00:47:08] And the next thing is practice letting go and letting God. So that’s a wonderful saying to let go and let God. And it basically means faith.

[00:47:19] So, you know, we can’t be in control. It’s exhausting trying to be in control of your life. It’s exhausting trying to have all the answers or trying to anticipate what we should be doing or what the right thing to do.

[00:47:32] That’s, you know, we’re.

[00:47:35] We don’t even know ourselves as well as God knows us, so how could we?

[00:47:40] So sometimes we just got to trust. It’s much better. I think it’s much. It’s much greater to say, God, I don’t have all the answers.

[00:47:49] I don’t know what’s the right thing for me.

[00:47:53] But I trust you and please guide me and please show me the right way and, you know, if you’ve got choices, please help me know what the right thing to do is.

[00:48:06] Let go and let God. So practicing that intentionally on a regular basis is demonstrating faith.

[00:48:15] Had a really good. We did a podcast, a video quite a while back about Faith and why it’s so important. So I’ll put a link in the description. So as ever, when I do the write up for the podcast, I’ll put all the links to the stuff that we’re discussing in there.

[00:48:32] But that’s a really good one to understand faith a lot better. And again, not. I’m talking about real faith. Faith in God and Jesus based on an experiential connection and having them in your life rather than just a belief about them. Okay, powerful stuff.

[00:48:51] So let’s go back to the list and see what’s next.

[00:48:56] And put God’s will before my own. I can’t. I guess we kind of just touched on that with the saying to God, look, I don’t know what’s right. Can you, can you show me the way?

[00:49:09] If you were to say something along the lines of, dear God, let your will be done.

[00:49:19] Another way of looking at it is help me to let go of desire, expectation and pride and ego. Because pride and ego will make you think that you know what’s right or what you need or where you should be or what you should be doing.

[00:49:37] Humility will say, God is greater. You’re, you know, you don’t have the bigger picture, God does. Let God lead the way. Let God’s will be done.

[00:49:49] But again, what this means by having it in the list, what this means is that the two people, yeah, two people who mentioned that in their strategy for being closer to God meant that they consciously, often, maybe every day, maybe many times a day, have the intention to put God’s will before their own. Let God’s will be done.

[00:50:13] Okay, and the last one on this list is ask, and the what’s in brackets is God, Jesus and hs. So what that means is ask God, Jesus or and. Or the higher self, your higher self to help you to be closer to God, to be more spiritual, to make the right choices.

[00:50:39] And yeah, ask and it shall be given. Ask and you shall receive. I believe is the saying, or those that don’t ask, don’t get, is maybe a more modern take on that.

[00:50:51] So don’t be afraid to ask.

[00:50:54] State. So from a state of neutrality, no expectations, no judgment, humility, acceptance, faith, all of these good things.

[00:51:07] So ask for help, dear God, please show me. Please help me to be the best version of myself or to be more aligned with what you want me to be. That. That putting it that way also means let your will be done. In other words, God help guide me to be what you want me to be.

[00:51:31] Powerful stuff. That’s Actually, one I use a lot or I try, you know, when I remember.

[00:51:39] Yeah.

[00:51:40] So that’s a lot of things on that list.

[00:51:45] And you may be surprised to know that that’s only the first half of the list. And I’m looking at the clock, so I’m going to go quickly through the next list. Okay, so all of those that we’ve just listed, at least two people or more out of the nine did. What we’re now going to go through quickly is a list of the things that only one person mentioned. But that doesn’t mean that they’re less valuable or less powerful or. Or less profound. It simply means that only one person prioritized this in their description of what they do on a daily basis. It could be that one of these things is the thing that will have the most profound effect on you.

[00:52:25] So take a deep breath and we begin.

[00:52:30] So I’ll go quickly, but one person said they copy Jesus example. In other words, they try and be more like Jesus in how they act and how they go about their day. And that’s a very good kind of embodiment of the phrase, what would Jesus do?

[00:52:49] The next one is aid memoirs. So one person said they’ve got a picture of Jesus on their computer screen so that throughout the day they keep being reminded about Jesus.

[00:53:00] Another person talked about focusing on humility. How many times?

[00:53:04] How many times so far? Rhetorical question. But how many times have I already mentioned how important humility is? It’s the bedrock of the six virtues. And the six virtues are literally there to bring us more into state, and that means more aligned with God. So humility, focusing explicitly on humility is a powerful thing to bring you closer to God then.

[00:53:28] And these are in no particular order, but focus on the six virtues. So I said the humility is the bedrock of the six virtues. But all of those six virtues are invaluable tools to help your spiritual growth. And I’ve got lots of information about the six virtues, a free ebook and things like this, so links to follow.

[00:53:48] I love this one.

[00:53:50] One person expressly goes out of their way to communicate with other spiritual people. In other words, they just drop a line, a text message, or WhatsApp, an email, whatever it is, go for a coffee, meet up, do it online, have a phone call with spiritual people. And you know, this works on so many levels. You’re supporting them, they’re supporting you because they’re spiritual and you’re spiritual, you’re in. And you can forge a relationship based on the heart rather than intellect. And you get to talk to someone who’s on your level. And like, supports, like. And there’s this idea that you are the sum of the people you spend the most time with. So if you spend time. If you seek out and spend time with people who are. Who inspire you, who motivate you instead of draining you and holding you down and criticizing you, if you find those bright lights and hang around with them, then you will become brighter. So that’s a really good, really nice thing. And, you know, the reciprocal of that. If you are a bright light, you can help support others.

[00:54:54] You know, intend to be in my heart.

[00:54:59] Powerful, powerful, powerful stuff.

[00:55:02] So this. Keep talking about state. The state is the state of being in your heart. So intending to be in your heart is another way of saying to go into state, to be in the right state, intend to make good choices. Now, this one was very specific. It was part of a larger discussion, but basically it was along the lines of what when in a stressful situation or when you realize that you could make. Like, perhaps you’re on the edge of getting frustrated or angry or something is to rein it in. And this is actually another way of putting this one would be to say to demonstrate spiritual maturity. So I salute this one. Because choices matter.

[00:55:43] Every choice you make moves you closer to God or away from God. So intending to make good choices means intending to make choices aligned with God. Good means God. Okay?

[00:55:54] Intend to be a better person.

[00:55:58] I think that goes hand in hand with the asking your higher self or God or Jesus to guide you to be the best version of yourself or to let God’s will be done.

[00:56:09] Check in with myself to ensure I’m aligned.

[00:56:12] Again, this is one I relate to. So this is very much just stopping, stopping what you’re doing and going, hang on a sec. Where am I coming from? Am I in my heart? Am I.

[00:56:23] Would I be?

[00:56:25] What would God think? Well, if. If he looked at me right now, am I being the best version of myself? So in other words, just checking in with your. With yourself, really where you’re at, and hand in hand with that, reminding myself that Jesus is watching. So, yeah, if you remember that God sees all and that shouldn’t be a fear thing. That should be, you know, drive your car like Jesus is in the passenger seat.

[00:56:51] Conduct your business like Jesus is in the boardroom.

[00:56:55] Speak to your family like Jesus is sitting next to them.

[00:57:00] You know, if that’s how you. If you would be happy to be who you are with Jesus present, then you’re doing all right. If you know that if Jesus turned up, you would sort your act out and maybe be a bit more polite, a bit smart, softer, a bit more compassionate, then maybe now’s the time to start doing those things, you know, and I’m not preaching. This is, you know, it applies to all of us. So next one is, ah, have I asking yourself, have I made the best use of today?

[00:57:35] You know that the best, the best day you’re ever going to have is tomorrow.

[00:57:41] So spend it wisely.

[00:57:44] You know, the next best day is the day after.

[00:57:48] But don’t live for the day after tomorrow. Don’t even live for tomorrow. Live for right now. Being present is being in state.

[00:57:57] So if you want to be closer to God, you’re in state, you’re present. So have you made the best use of today from a spiritual perspective? Ask yourself that every single day.

[00:58:07] Well, you could. I’m not saying you must, I’m not saying you should. I’m just simply saying that you could.

[00:58:15] I forgive myself for mistakes. We’re all going to make them. It’s part of learning. But if you can’t forgive yourself, you can’t move on.

[00:58:24] So this one came up that the person forgives themselves for mistakes so that they can stop wasting energy on feeling negative and bad, which isn’t very spiritual, and they can focus on learning and moving on.

[00:58:38] Okay, brilliant.

[00:58:40] So we have reached the end of the second list and we will rendezvous over there in a moment. I’d like to do something special with you. Now. Someone once described this book as a living book.

[00:58:57] Every time they read it, they get something new from it. So what I’m going to do is we’re going to read a few pages together and I’m going to break down the meaning behind the words and give you more of an understanding because this book really is like a spiritual user guide, helping each of us to get more from our spiritual state. So if that sounds interesting, then join me now.

[00:59:21] Okay, now, hopefully the mic is working and you can all hear me. Let’s just look over there. Yep, looks like it’s working fine.

[00:59:31] So thank you for your patience, everyone.

[00:59:34] We finished chapter nine, so we’re on chapter 10, which is page 18 of this book, which is spiritual life explained the wake up call, the way back to God, and I will just dive straight in. If you’re reading along with me, then page 18 halfway down.

[00:59:52] And if not, don’t worry.

[00:59:55] You know, the book is based on four podcasts, which I’ll link to and the book is also available. It’s not for profit. So it’s priced literally just enough to cover the costs.

[01:00:10] Chapter 10 when we do wrong and interesting because I was literally just talking about forgiving ourselves when we make mistakes. So what about those times when we have done wrong, having made bad choices?

[01:00:24] Well, for free will to work, God does not intervene. Rather, God totally respects your right to choose, make mistakes and will remain neutral.

[01:00:34] This means that you could in theory, turn so far away from God by ignoring God’s guidance that you become bad.

[01:00:41] God won’t intervene, but that does not mean you are alone.

[01:00:45] For those who are going the wrong way down the metaphoric path, there is still guidance. And this leads on to the next topic. Health and healing.

[01:00:56] Chapter 11 always a choice.

[01:01:00] That’s actually always a choice. Question mark.

[01:01:04] But before we go more into health and healing to explain why some people just cannot be healed, let us recap.

[01:01:11] We understand that we have always got a choice in any situation and that at least one choice is is the right choice.

[01:01:18] But I hear you say it is not that easy. What about if someone is imposing their will on us or and this really happens, there is negative influences beyond our control?

[01:01:32] Well, God is always there. And there is not anyone, anything or any force that can push God aside. So God is always there. And the right choice, the truthful choice, is always there too. It is our perception that makes the right choice seem out of reach.

[01:01:48] And yes, sometimes making the right choice is really tough. But your higher self is there guiding you.

[01:01:56] And it has got the positive experience of every single life you have ever had up till now to draw upon.

[01:02:02] So if you need courage, fortitude, wisdom, strength, positivity or tolerance, for example, you’ve got it.

[01:02:11] And if you use these positive qualities, then you actually enrich your higher self. For example, if you show courage to do what is right, then your higher self grows in courage because you have demonstrated courage.

[01:02:27] Then in the future you will have more courage to draw upon.

[01:02:32] Doing what is right is a win win situation.

[01:02:36] You win and your higher self wins.

[01:02:38] So at the moment of choice, you have got the guidance from God to do what is right via your spirit. And you have got the resources and support of your higher self, willing you on to do what is right too. I’ll just interject. So the resources and support of your higher self is referring to the soul. And you remember right at the start I talked about the soul is the soul journey is you becoming more good. And it’s through making good choices that you gain good experiences that you can then draw upon to be even More good.

[01:03:14] And so this is. It’s all tying together here. Lovely.

[01:03:20] We can still make the wrong choice for a number of reasons, including habit, ego and fear. And so it’d be nice if we.

[01:03:29] And so it would be nice if we got even stronger guidance when we are going in the wrong direction. The good news is that you do and you have most likely already experienced it, which leads on to part three.

[01:03:41] Now, I’m going to stop there because we’ve got a lot to cover still.

[01:03:45] So we’re at the end of page 20 and we’ll pick up part three next week, which is on health and healing.

[01:03:55] I hope you’re finding what we’ve discussed so far really useful, but I just wanted to take a moment to thank you for watching this live show and also for your support. If you haven’t already done so, remember to hit the like button, subscribe and importantly, share this with other people so that they can benefit too. The Way Back and all the work that I do is completely not for profit. And most of what I do I give away for free. The only exception being the books which are priced not for profit. And every single penny of the book sales goes towards supporting the Way Back, therefore supporting this show. So thank you for all that you do and all the support that you give. And let’s return to the live show and I’ll see you soon.

[01:04:36] Okay? So isn’t it. I always marvel at how what we’re talking about in the live show, and remember, it’s not really scripted. What we’re talking about actually dovetailed really nicely into that bit of the book that we were reading. And look, sometimes we’ll just read a little bit of the book and sometimes we’ll read a bit more.

[01:04:57] But I wanted to go on to a bit of a reminder. So we covered a lot of very kind of potentially powerful things. Look, I’m sure that there is more that we could do to be closer to God and Jesus. This was just drawing on the experiences of nine very spiritual people.

[01:05:20] But have you noticed not one of them, despite all of them being extremely advanced meditators, not one of them said meditation.

[01:05:29] And that wasn’t, you know, that wasn’t deliberate. I didn’t say to them, don’t mention meditation. That was sincere.

[01:05:35] And I only noticed afterwards, to be honest, that no one had mentioned meditation. And that’s my own experience. Like, I did a load of meditation. I still do occasionally, but it does not a more spiritual person make.

[01:05:51] And I’ve talked about this at length, so I’LL dig up some links to articles, videos and podcasts on that matter.

[01:05:58] And. Yeah, but the thing I wanted to share with you now, if we go back to the right thing, is to remind us of something that we’ve probably forgotten. So back on the 4th of October, 2021, podcast number 33 was actually on. Whoa. I don’t know why that just did a red line. But let’s.

[01:06:26] That’s gone a bit haywire. So let’s just.

[01:06:30] I believe that. Yeah, that’s the button that tends to get rid of that stuff. Okay, so let’s do a quick recap because I listened to this podcast earlier and pulled out the kind of key points and it is basically so part one was reflecting on the qualities of God. Because if God is the destination of the spiritual journey, then God isn’t a place or a time. But God has qualities. Let’s acknowledge those qualities. So love, as in God is love. So we can acknowledge God’s love and accept it.

[01:07:06] Neutral. God is neutral. So nothing is excluded. You don’t need to do or be for God to include you. God is already including you.

[01:07:16] Totally accepting. God knows what is in your heart and accepts you right now. So start your relationship with God now.

[01:07:25] God is everywhere.

[01:07:27] Since God is everywhere, you don’t need to go somewhere. You don’t need to go to a church. You don’t need to go to a place. God is with you right now.

[01:07:35] Eternal God is all time.

[01:07:37] So anytime is the right time. You don’t need to wait till a Sunday evening or a month, you know, Saturday morning right now.

[01:07:47] We’ve already done it. Welcomed God into our hearts and into our lives. Right now is the right time.

[01:07:53] Because God is all time. Okay, so that was one of the, that was a part one and then part two was understanding the six virtues in relationship to your relationship with having more God in your life. Humility.

[01:08:08] Accepting that you are incomplete. We are. I am incomplete. We’re all incomplete.

[01:08:13] This is why humility is the bedrock of your spiritual being. Because if you, if you’re not humble, the opposite is thinking that you, if you, if you don’t realize or acknowledge you’re incomplete, what you’re really saying is your God.

[01:08:29] You’d be saying, well, I already have all the answers. I already know everything I need to know. I am already everything I need to be. And it’s like, no, you’re not. You’re going to make mistakes. You’re getting it wrong.

[01:08:39] There’s things you don’t know. Just be humble. So accepting that you are incomplete and God is what is complete.

[01:08:50] Okay? Gratitude, Everything good comes from God.

[01:08:54] Respect.

[01:08:56] How you live your life demonstrates how much you value what God has given. So if you disrespect someone, God created them.

[01:09:04] So if the person in front of you you are disrespecting, then what you are saying is you are disrespecting something God has put in your path, in your. In your life. Therefore you’re disrespecting God. So respecting yourself, how you eat, how you exercise, your habits, your choices, what you do, what you don’t do, respecting yourself and respecting others is also a demonstration of gratitude and valuing the life that you have been given. Remember one of the things in the previous list was, have you used today to the best of your ability? Have you used today wisely, spiritually speaking, non judgment.

[01:09:49] Only God knows others or you completely, and so only God can really judge fairly.

[01:09:54] Okay?

[01:09:57] You are on the outside of yourself. So in that podcast, I’d recommend listening to it again because it talks about how God knows what’s in your soul and your spirit, whereas you only know what’s really in your mind and on the outside of you. God knows you better than you know yourself, as does Jesus.

[01:10:13] And again, that shouldn’t be a weighty thing. That should be a relief. Okay, that shouldn’t be. Oh no, they’re going to judge me. No, they already know you.

[01:10:21] You’re the one that’s doing all the judging. Stop it.

[01:10:25] Be kind.

[01:10:27] You know they accept you for who you are or they, you know, if you accept them so. And then compassion, God loves you, but it is you getting in the way. Therefore, ask for forgiveness.

[01:10:43] That’s quite a profound summary really, of compassion, unconditional love.

[01:10:50] God already has this for you and others. Therefore try and do the same. This is about aligning, aligning with God and Jesus. Remember I talked right at the start where I say God, you could also say Jesus. Okay.

[01:11:03] And then all of these things I just mentioned are yin. In other words, they’re passive, they’re not active. And the question or the title of this show was what can we do to be closer to God? So let’s look at the doing side that we, we that was given back in 2021.

[01:11:24] So these are the yang things, part three, the doing approaches.

[01:11:29] So this is where it’s going to get interesting. Let’s just have a look.

[01:11:33] Let’s just contemplate how many of these things that I’m about to list, tally with what was in the previous lists, from what Real spiritual people are doing, and some of them would have heard this podcast back in 2021.

[01:11:49] So I’m expecting some overlap.

[01:11:53] So this is the doing list from 2021. So consciously choosing God, that’s a bit like saying, I welcome God into my life or I welcome Jesus into my life.

[01:12:02] Praying to God, but not in a religious way. So again, this is one of the things in that list. Speaking to God from humility. So that would be similar to praying. It’s interesting because I don’t think that one came up in the list earlier.

[01:12:16] So speaking to God, I’m not saying that you’re hearing God or you’re hearing Jesus, but what I’m saying is you’re taking, like they say, take your problems to God, speak it through with God.

[01:12:30] You know, Jesus, I’m struggling.

[01:12:35] Please comfort me. I just want you to know that I’m grateful for all that you do. And I’m going for a difficult time and I just wanted to tell you so I know you’re there for me, but I appreciate it. And it’s that kind of thing. Like, just like you phone up, literally before the live show, I got a friend contact me. And he was, mark, are you free for a moment? I said, I’m about to do the live show.

[01:12:57] So I’m going to speak to him straight after this.

[01:12:59] He just needs to talk it through. I’m just going to listen. I don’t even know what it is, but that’s what friends do. And what a friend, you know, have you heard the saying, what a friend we have in Jesus? Okay, so take, take it to Jesus, speak with him, obviously, as it says there, from humility. Okay? That’s the key thing, hopefully, that you’re learning or being reminded of and remembering in this live show, speaking truth about God. Not preaching, but giving a voice to your experience.

[01:13:33] Wow.

[01:13:34] Now I had some communication, I think it was via telegram earlier today about this very matter of someone was trying to guide another person.

[01:13:42] And when a question was asked, the opportunity arose for them to just speak truth from their own experience about God in their lives.

[01:13:53] And that’s a powerful thing. So you’re not preaching, you’re not going out and saying, hey, you need to believe in God, because I believe in God. When the opportunity comes up and someone says, why are you so calm? Why are you so why aren’t you getting stressed? Or why do you always seem so calm and peaceful? Then you can say, well, you know, I welcomed Jesus into my life and I’m not talking about religion necessarily. I’m talking about just like a personal relationship and this is the effect it has on me. And you’re just literally talking truth based on your own experience, giving a voice to your experience. But speaking truth is so, so powerful.

[01:14:34] Blessing others. So there we go. That one was in the list from earlier. So that’s nice that that’s something that people were doing and then saying thank you. All that is good comes from God.

[01:14:46] That’s gratitude. That I think was the first thing, wasn’t it in the list earlier? So there’s overlap. What I’m getting at, I guess is that the message, look, truth is truth. Okay, here we go.

[01:14:57] Truth is truth. And no matter which direction we come at, it will always come to the same truth.

[01:15:05] Fundamental truths don’t change. So it’s really actually quite nice to see that something we were Talking about on the 4th of October 2021, one is being reiterated in a meeting that we had earlier this week and in this live show, the summary of that meeting where I interviewed these people.

[01:15:23] In other words, a lot of the things have come full circle because they’re as valid now as they were then and will be in a hundred years time or a thousand years. Truth is truth is. Truth is truth. It’s quite reassuring really.

[01:15:39] Now put warning. The yang side is empty without the yin side. I talk about this in that podcast, but basically people who go about the doing, and this applies not just to what’s in the list here, but this applies to everything we’ve discussed today.

[01:15:53] If the yin side coming from your heart, being sincere, being humble, being genuine, isn’t there, then it’s just shallow action. So all the praying and posturing and speaking truth about God and blessing others won’t have any effect on them or you if you aren’t grounded in humility and a sincere from the heart connection with Jesus and God. And so that’s why I put their warning, you know, because the yang side, the doing, is empty without the yin side.

[01:16:28] And then I’ve put a note here, so also note the spirit and what it means to be spiritual. It is when the soul desires to let go of sense of self. The paradox is that no action or doing can be spiritual. You have to be spiritual stillness.

[01:16:45] Okay, and we won’t do it now, but when you listen back to that podcast, 12 minutes and 30 seconds in, then there’s a nice little exercise in sitting with God. Okay, but we’ve done quite a few little nice exercises in this episode, in this live show, but that’s something to look Forward to.

[01:17:07] And again links will be. But you can find it’s podcast 33 in the spiritual Awakening podcast series.

[01:17:17] So that’s the end of that and I guess let’s just come back here.

[01:17:28] Questions.

[01:17:29] Hopefully some of you, all of you are still with me. Lots to digest there, guys, lots to kind of reflect on.

[01:17:37] And the write up in the notes will give you all of the things that we’ve listed. So don’t worry about writing stuff down, but questions. And also let me know in the chat if anything really stuck out as something that you’re like, oh, wow, I need to do that, or that you would find it challenging and therefore maybe that’s what you’re going to focus on next. So I’ll just wait because I know there’s a few seconds of lag between now and by the time you’re seeing this, but if you have any questions then it’d be great, put them, pop them in the chat. If not, then we’re pretty much gonna call it a day. But I’ll give you guys a chance just to, just to reflect back on everything.

[01:18:26] Apologies for the clicky keyboard.

[01:18:30] Just going back through the list.

[01:18:33] Let’s pop that list on the thing there just so we can see it. So we’ve got express gratitude, make it a morning routine. Bless others, pray, read the Bible, worship God, sit in stillness, acknowledge God, listen to the Bible, listen to the Way Back podcast. Welcome God and Jesus into, into your heart. Reaffirm your connection. Often practice letting go and letting God put God’s will before my own. And ask God, Jesus or your higher self to help you.

[01:19:03] There’s a lot there, guys, so I’m gonna.

[01:19:09] No questions. So that, that’s fine. I guess there’s a lot to, A lot to process.

[01:19:14] And yeah, I’m actually, I’m, I’m looking forward to speaking genuinely here. I’m looking forward to listening back to this because I want to see how I react to this list when I’m, you know, not in the live show.

[01:19:33] Someone’s saying in the chat, thank you for referring to the podcast about yin and yang. I will have a re. Listen. Yeah, there’s a lot of, you know, look, you could say it’s, you could say it’s disingenuous of me to say, oh yeah, listen back to the podcast. But all I can say is the podcasts, especially the Spiritual Awakening podcasts, where I’m talking about God and Jesus and stuff, they, they come through, not from.

[01:20:08] So I’m just the messenger. And you know, they came from a much higher place. So I would listen back to them every now and then. If it’s been a while, six months or a year or whatever, go back and listen, because there’s some real nuggets, beautiful nuggets of truth and inspiration.

[01:20:26] And, you know, the thing to remember is, seriously, I’m talking to you right now.

[01:20:33] The you that I’m talking to right now is not the you that started this journey. It’s not the you that may have listened to those podcasts in the past.

[01:20:45] You’ve changed, you’ve grown, you’re in a different place.

[01:20:49] You’ve got more experience.

[01:20:53] So you can draw on things that you couldn’t draw on, and you will understand things that you couldn’t have understood in the past.

[01:21:01] So when you listen back to something that is fundamentally founded in truth and is spiritual, what you will get from it today is different from what you would have got from it in the past. And so there is actually and genuinely, there is good value in going back, whether it’s rereading Luke in the Bible or.

[01:21:24] Or what, you know, listening to one of the podcasts or rewatching one of these episodes, you’ll be surprised how much you missed the first time or how much you understand more the second time or the third time.

[01:21:40] And, you know, we are the sum of what we give our attention to. So even if you’ve listened to something before, if you listen to it again and it is positive and spiritual and good, the act of listening to it will help you get closer to God.

[01:21:56] So, you know, rather than just watching another inane movie to entertain yourself for an hour, you could be listening to a spiritual podcast. Even if you’ve heard it a year ago or two years ago. That raises you up during that hour.

[01:22:08] Yeah.

[01:22:10] Anyway, the yin slide, that was really interesting. We’ll need to read that again later. Yeah, exactly. That’s the point that we get more from things as we move on, and then when we look back, we’re like, ah, I missed that. Or I understand that more profoundly now.

[01:22:29] But talking of moving on, it’s the end of the day, so I’m gonna wish you all a good night. Or if you’re listening, whatever time, it is a good day. And keep on making good choices.

[01:22:43] Genuinely, sincerely, come from the heart, and God bless you, and I will see you next week.

[01:22:51] God bless.

[01:23:01] Thank you for being awesome and joining me for this episode. I’m truly grateful. As a spiritual person. I hope it’s inspiring to realize that you’re not alone and that more and more like minded people just like you are enjoying this live show. This means that you’re part of a growing and awakening community. And together we’re all finding the way back to God, going deeper than just ideas and beliefs to experience firsthand real spiritual awakening. This is a journey of the heart, not the head.

[01:23:36] So take this moment to just become a little bit stiller, more present, more neutral.

[01:23:46] Now notice what you notice when I ask you this question.

[01:23:52] What in this particular episode has been most useful?

[01:24:00] Now, who in your life at this particular time would benefit the most from knowing this too?

[01:24:06] Maybe it’s one person, or maybe it’s more than one. But because sharing is caring, it’s really nice to know that you can actually share this show with them and therefore help them.

[01:24:17] This show is completely free to enjoy and benefit from. Now, speaking of free stuff, if you’d like other useful, helpful spiritual resources, then head on over to the waybackgroup.org there you’ll find all kinds of free resources, articles, eBooks, MP3s, guided meditations, and a whole load of other stuff that’s completely free and waiting for you to discover it. So that’s all for this episode, but your journey and my journey continues. And so I look forward to having you join me next week for more revelation and exploration into spiritual things. And together, let’s make more sense of life, not just for us, but for our loved ones so that we can help them too.

[01:25:06] So remember to subscribe and hit the notifications so that you don’t miss out.

[01:25:11] Who knows what we’ll be discussing next week and the next question topic might even be yours. Perhaps there’s a reason you’ve been guided to this show.

[01:25:20] So God bless you. And remember, real change starts when we put into practice what we’re learning so that we go from thinking and doing to finally being.

[01:25:38] So take what you’ve learned today and keep on being the best version of you.

[01:25:44] God bless.