Good morning. This morning let's go right to the subject I want to speak about and that is the reality of your life.

This past week you have had many experiences. You saw a business fall down; you saw the opening up of an individual with whom you are very close here; you had a successful operation, W [wife], and a recovery period that is looking good; you have many things. And I want to speak this morning about the whole reality of life in terms of many events going on at the same time, some that go up and some that come down. It's like a roller coaster, and, in some respects, it's like many roller coasters all going up and down at the same time.

In the fallen world, where there is a great lack of relationship with eternal things, and especially your relationship with Me, these roller coasters in our lives tend to become everything. Yet, even in the fallen world, people are looking for something to sustain them, something to dull the effects of the rising and falling. Unlike the amusement park, the roller coasters in our lives are not just fun. In the amusement park, whether you're going up the hill or down, it's all rather fun. Although down the hill is rather uncomfortable to the stomach, still there is a joy and elation at the end of that ride.

But I want to ask you, how many people come within the last years or months of their lives before death with a sense of elation and gladness for their personal ride? It is true that there probably are many who have a sense of satisfaction and joy with their lives. And there will be many as well who turn bitter or sour, who look back on their lives with a sense of confusion or anger toward others and other unresolved issues, and they may die that way. In essence, this is what keeps many spirit men (who represent those who have passed on) stuck on the earth in unresolved situations, whether it be unresolved love or rivalry, or the sense of attachment to things that were attractive to them here on the earth. And so, that roller coaster of life is not like an amusement park roller coaster. It's a serious one.

Let's take, for example, the roller coaster of marriage. You have an engaged couple who are anticipating their marriage ceremony with great hope, great expectation, tremendous excitement about being able to come together as husband and wife. There is such elation as the roller coaster goes up the incline toward the peak. And as they go higher and higher they see further and further, almost to what they imagine to be eternity. And if they are religious people they may feel My involvement in their relationship, may feel somehow the blessing of God to have brought them together. Yet, after that peak on the roller coaster there can very easily come a decline. This doesn't have to mean destruction of their marriage, but because of their various personalities or their ways of relating or thinking about their lives, they will face a test with one another. Suddenly, the roller coaster seems to be going down. Many marriages will break up after a few of these rises and falls.

When we speak of business, as you have witnessed recently, on the rise everyone is elated, excited, so happy because they feel a great blessing is coming. Yet, there may be a plunge. Who is to guarantee that there will be no plunge? Money is lost. Relationships are lost. Hope is lost.

In so many different areas of life you are going to find this rising and falling, this incline and decline. The question is: How to go beyond? One cannot prevent it; even in the Kingdom of Heaven there will be rises and falls. That is the nature of life, just as it is the nature of the surface of the ocean where you have waves.

Do you think that in the Kingdom of Heaven the ocean is going to be smooth as glass? No. The gravity of the moon and the relationship with the earth create the tides. Life has tides as well. But here is where I want to express to you the difference between the so-called fallen world and the Kingdom of Heaven. And, very simply, that lies in our relationship. Or, I might say more broadly, in your relationship with eternal things and the eternal part of yourself that you call your original mind, which is, in essence, your spirit. But most specifically, it lies in our relationship.

What we are doing now, and the kind of work that I am pushing ahead in this world on the foundation of history, is to build a relationship with My children. This is very real. Not conceptual, not just ritualistic, but real. Not conditional, but real. I am building this network of heart, because I want My children to recognize this point beyond the roller coaster of life. This isn't easy to express in your words, but I will guide the speaker as best I can.

There is a part of you that is outer-directed, whether it be business or relationships or any number of things in your life that happen so-called externally. There is a part of you that must invest in those things. For example, if you go to college or if you do business, it is very important that you fully invest yourself. On the other hand, it is also very important that while you are directing your energies outward and investing everything in the business, the education, or the relationship, that there is another part of you internally that serves as a point of very deep gravity. And again, with the analogy of the roller coaster, another part of you is not in the roller coaster car but is outside of it. That part of you is the part that really truly needs to be built up, strengthened.

When you look at the world, you see people who are on the rise and people who are on the plunge, people who are looking very successful, and people who have passed the point of success and may be in a state of decline. Many of them have so completely invested in the outer, with no realization of the inner and, therefore, when the decline comes, they feel their life is 100 percent in ruin. When the rise comes, they feel 100 percent elated, and they may even thank Me for their blessing if they believe in Me. But can they thank Me when they're plunging downward?

Can they learn how to be grateful even for that? Of course, nobody thinks of thanking God for financial ruin or for a divorce or whatever, but I have to say that so many have failed to build this inner relationship with Me that takes them beyond the rise and fall. Of course, I don't take joy in anyone's decline. When My children are hurt, I am hurt to see them in a state of decline after their initial hope and elation. But, again, I have to say that the key point is not how they can begin to rise again; the key point lies outside of the roller coaster that you call life. The key point lies in this place of absolute relationship with Me and between Me and you. That is eternal.

That does not go up and down. That is something that carries you far beyond this life. And that is something that, when it is in place, as it matures, will bring you essential joy, essential meaning, and essential substance that will take you far beyond the rises and the falls. And that's why I told you earlier this year in regard to your business situation, don't lose your hope, don't lose your sense of challenge, positivity, going forward. Those words are not meant to be just empty encouragement. In essence, what I'm telling you is: Remember where to find the center of your life and affirm that through the rise and the fall. That is the most important thing. And that relationship at the very center of yourself, beyond the rise and the fall, is the beginning of Heaven. That is the beginning of the Kingdom right there.

As I said, the rise and the fall of the ocean doesn't mean good and bad. Life is like that, too. There are parts of life that seem simple, effortlessly easy, wonderful. There are other parts that are not easy, they're challenging, difficult. But aren't those the parts that mature you? Aren't those the parts that can bring you the deepest memories when you look back at your life? So, in essence, there is nothing bad when you compare it to eternity. Our relationship, in essence, is eternity, if you know what I mean. If you can sense in your spirit what I am saying: We build our relationship together; that is the very center of eternity. You talk about eternal life in your church or in religion.

Eternal life means that eternal relationship between us. It is that with which I am concerned, and that is the goal of My investment in My children. Please understand that even in the life that you have left on this earth, you'll have the rising and the falling. But build the center within yourself and recognize its importance, especially now, to serve as a center of gravity for you, to take you beyond the ups and downs. It's so important for you to see this. I can't emphasize it enough.

And then someone asks Me, "How can it be done? I pray every morning but my prayer life is not that good. I struggle sometimes with my spiritual routine and, honestly, I don't feel that much of a connection with God." It may be a time to clean out your prayer room, and I say that symbolically, internally. Maybe it's a time to look again at your assumptions about Me as you pray, how you think about Me through your religious training, what you assume I am and what I'm asking of you. All of these things.

Perhaps you should just move them out of your prayer room and come in with nothing. You know, I've heard people say they've had some of their best prayers in the shower. That means something: In the shower you're in a state of great naturalness, no clothes and a sense of joy. In the morning shower there is a cleansing; you're soaping off your dirty body from the day before, and you feel somehow a hope in the shower and, therefore, it's very natural as a time to come together and to experience something. People sing in the shower. Again, it's a point during the day of looking forward. Well, if that's where we can communicate the best, I'm very happy to take a shower with you!

It is so important that you find Me as I am. I have no concepts about you. I know who you are. I know your great points and I know the difficult points in your life. I know your history. Moment by moment I have walked your path with you. So, I don't want you to have any concepts about Me, either. I want you to know Me as any parent wants a child to know his or her heart. You see, when a parent looks at a child, the eye of love can give that parent a deep sense of that child's reality.

But a child who is still immature may look at the parent with many unreal concepts, unreal expectations, such as that the parent could never fail, that the parent is a superman, a superwoman. All kinds of concepts fill the child's mind. And that's beautiful in many ways, but as the child grows, truly it's the desire of the parent's heart that the child know him or her more and more deeply until one day they can look at each other, eye to eye, and truly have complete communication, core to core, heart to heart, no concept. And so, I want you to know Me ultimately in that way.

Up until now, until this very day, people's concept of Me is like a child expecting the parent to be SUPERMAN, to do all kinds of miracles, to have absolute power. Well, I guess you can say I do in many senses. But the greatest power that I can have is at the core of our love together. The greatest power is love, and love includes two people, two beings, the give and take, the sharing. My greatest power comes at the time of your full maturity.

I want to share that power of love with you as you look out to the universe, the world around you. We can love it together. This is My heart. You know, as I told you, the expectations of Me are still very much like little children expecting their parents to be something amazing. Even when you look at your own leadership, many times you have that concept. So, how much more for Me? Again, I want you to know Me as I am. Of course, there are infinite levels of knowledge, infinite levels of coming to know one another. And there is an eternal and infinite path toward complete knowing between you and Me. That's what makes eternity such a delicious adventure and a beautiful journey.

And so, I tell you again, take everything out of your prayer room, and if you can pray to Me in the shower... or rather than using the words "pray to," please just talk with Me and let Me talk with you. I told you a long time ago that so many people speak to Me and then don't give Me a chance to speak. Perhaps they don't expect that I will speak, but they pray out of a sense that they have to or they should or it's the best thing to do, a kind of obligation like saying the Pledge of Allegiance to your flag. But in the next moment it's forgotten and this makes Me very, very lonely. So, please take those things out of your prayer room, take away the concepts about who you are and who I am, and what I can do and what I won't do. Give it all up.

To go back to My first analogy, as we build this relationship together, you'll be able to look much more objectively at the rising and the falling in your life, rather than being caught by it. Life is temporal. Life is a fleeting thing. Eternity is so important because each of you is an eternal soul. You need to build and deepen a sense of that as a deep root in your life. Don't miss that fact.

You have, until this time, put so much trust in institutions that, naturally, rise and fall. But I tell you again: I am not an institution; I am your Parent. Please, never ever give Me up because of the rise and fall of situations in your life, whether personal or institutional. We have much to do together and, as I said before, the greatest power of all lies in our love together. Truly, the universe bows to that love. Everything can flourish in that love... you, Me, and all things of creation. Please remember this.

I'll leave you with this, and I ask you to think deeply about which part of you is on the roller coaster and which part of you is beyond the roller coaster. God bless you. Have a good day.