Me (age 22) and My Mom (age 44) in 1978

This post is a way to honor and remember my Mom, Merilyn Massey. She died on August 18, 1998 just before her age 65 birthday. My Mom was born on September 6, 1933.  The story of her remarkable transition and the gifts of her conscious death process are HERE

Merilyn had a bachelor’s degree in Journalism and a master’s degree in Professional Writing but somehow she never found the time to complete or publish her own writing. So in honor of her desire to be a published writer I am sharing the beginnings of a book she had written that I found on a yellow legal pad a couple of years after she passed.

I typed them up way back then and they are presented here exactly as she hand wrote them. I found it interesting to notice that she writes about many of the same things I do! I guess I am my mother’s daughter after all…

Merilyn in her College Days early 1950s.

The Serious Seeker’s Handbook
by Merilyn Massey

I’ve been a seeker all of my life. Earliest memories are of wondering about things I did not understand, dreams, memories, thoughts. “Where do these words in my head come from?” was a favorite question that bugged my parents no end. They didn’t know – and did not want to know – what thoughts were or where they came from. At age 38.8 the answer finally started to come. It’s still coming.

“Seek and ye shall find” Is a favorite quote from the New Testament. Most of my life I thought, as most of us do, this meant that, if I had a great quest for truth and kept asking and persisting that some great revelation would one day be mine. I now know there is a lot more to it than that. Much more. (These words reflect the fact my Mom had Sagittarius Rising. Even the title of this writing reflects the constant spiritual quest Sagittarius is known for.)

The first clue to the truth of the matter came when I was 10 during the second year of WWII. We (my parents and I) were living in Margarita, Canal Zone then. Dad was Chief of surgery and assistant superintendent of Margarita Hospital on the Atlantic side of the Panama Canal.

A US Navy chaplain was giving weekly classes on his biblical interpretation – starting with Genesis and God’s creation of the world. Moving on from there he got to prayer, another subject I had lots of questions about.

“Whether you know it or not,” the chaplain said, “You are praying every moment of the day. Every thought you put your energy into becomes a prayer to God. And God does not discriminate about your prayers. They are all the same to him. Whatever you’re asking for with desire and great feelings, you will receive. If you ever wonder why things you don’t want happen to you – happen anyway, look to what you have been thinking. Invariably you will see a relationship between the two.”

This concept was so new to me, so foreign to all I had been taught up to that point, that my mind almost dismissed what the chaplain was saying, but something in his words rang true in a very deep part of me. So his words were duly filed in my memory bank.

Me and My Mom at my high school graduation 1974

Life is truly a perceptual experience. We would rather protect our investment (patterns) than change. It’s what you keep in your awareness that’s important. Keep reminding yourself of this principal and notice where you are in relationship to it. Watch where you are and don’t judge, especially yourself.

Abundance is the natural state of affairs in the Universe. If you are not experiencing total abundance in all areas of your life – you are actively pushing it out, so when you relax and stop resisting it, you will experience more abundance than you ever believed could exist, and if you don’t – go out and get it.

It looks like when you give something away you don’t have it any more, but in truth you get even more.

Illusions I no longer have. What really is going on is something else – really!

• Give truly what feels good
• Sensitivity to what others would like to receive (honor)
• No strings attached…if you give so you’ll receive something in return, it’s not a gift in universal terms.
• If you don’t feel good about the giving it’s a waste.
• Giving equals you are giving to yourself…when you give a true gift it generates a higher level of joy in life and the joyfulness and the perfection will be felt by the universe.
• Give up struggle and doing as a function of obligation.
• Learn to hang out and do without doing…let the Universe handle the details. You don’t need to do anything to do something significant every day. It’s not necessary. Do for joy or don’t do at all.
• You are most valuable to yourself and others when you are joyful.
• Make a basic decision in your life. Is it more important to be productive with a sense of obligation or more important to have fun and feel good?

Every experience is inherently joyful. It’s all in how we choose to perceive it.

Thanks Mom!