God loves you and the people around you love you back

 Many times each one of us faced with “who does love me?” It’s the craving of the heart that seeks the fulfillment. I recall when I was living a single life and had a similar inquiry. Deep down I knew my parents and siblings loved me. But the thing many overlook is, God loves us all, regardless of who we are. God is always good. God always resides in us and we are surrounded with Gods people. Love is something we feel and accept it. We know it when touched from within. When we open to divine spirits love, which is God, we are blessed with love, security and stability. It’s our human ego which is defensive and we must learn to clear from our hearts and minds to recognize and to be receiving love in our hearts.

 Since God or spirit resides in each individual regardless of their circumstances, open your heart and mind to receive the love from others. By acknowledging others and their willingness to spread the love, take it and embrace it. People that are close to you, be it loved ones, friends and even strangers will open their hearts when you open yours first for the love to flourish. It’s the attitude as to how we look into ourselves and how we treat ourselves. If we constantly critique ourselves and beat ourselves with unpleasant feelings, we cannot project happy thoughts or send out positive vibrations to the outside of our own boundaries or environment.

 In order to receive love, we must learn to pave the way for receiving. For that to happen, our hearts and minds must be ready to accept others. Offer a smile and be pleasant and nice to others. Go out of your way to assist others. When we build those habits from inside, the spirit (the God in us) from within attracts others and in turn creates an atmosphere of receiving the love from others. Sometimes we expect why we are not experiencing love. Now we know what we must do  to attract love in our life. It’s creating an attitude to project love from within towards others, and see God in others and witness and feel the love being returned to you. Love goes around.

Blessings, Rev. Ernie Martin, The Reverend of Love, Las Vegas

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Your Eyes – Window to your soul

 Have you ever noticed looking at people’s eyes when they are talking and you are listening, or vice versa? Did you look into their eyes and not analyze or rationalize their other parts of their bodies or personalities? Your eyes are the windows to your soul. There is somethings about the eyes. You can see yourself in other persons eyes, and goes straight into their mind and soul. They can see your eyes too, and see your soul through their eyes. The beauty is to be aware or in the knowing when you look into other people eyes while sharing and talking. You see your spirit or the God in you while looking deep into their eyes. This phenomena of connecting the divine with each other subconsciously in the moment are connected and see the charm and beauty of each other.

 As a minister and a wedding officiant, I’ve seen several wedding couples who are standing just two feet from me, exchanging marriage vows and rings, I can see in their eyes the joy, love, elation, light, charm, the closeness projecting into each others eyes and into their soul. Most of the brides at that time were very emotional and tearing. I’ve seen few grooms shed their tears too. I make the couple to hold hands and look into each others eyes and repeat the marriage vows. The couple show the God in them in action and travels in each others souls. I feel much joy and elation looking at the couples eyes and taking the marriage vows and exchanging weddings rings.

So, next time in your daily life, make an effort to look at them in the eyes. Maybe at a grocery store, when the cashier looks at you for the payment for your groceries. Look into her or his eyes. See yourself into their eyes and her/his in your eyes. Or next time when you see and converse with your supervisor at work, or your business associates, your customers, or at school/college, or your minister at a church/temple, or at a restaurant. You will be amazed how much trust and confidence you will develop. Looking into people’s eyes with focus, also helps the other person. they will develop trust and confidence  in you too. Let the God in you shine and project that light.

Blessings,

Rev. Ernie Martin, The Reverend of Love, Las Vegas

 

Smile! You are vibrating

 Use your God-given gift, your smile.  Almost all of our human brethren have a gift of smiling. When we smile, we send out the vibrations from within ourselves and project it towards others. Project towards friends, loved ones, work associates, business clients, employees and even total strangers. It sounds very simple, but, many of us have difficult time of smiling due to several reasons. Maybe it is internal turmoil, or things didn’t go as expected, or misunderstanding with the loved ones, loneliness, the list goes on. When we smile, the world smiles with us. But, when we show or project our seriousness or depressed feelings to the outside world, the feedback is who cares?

Smile is contagious. Something from within, which is inner directed, propels that energy or vibrations moves the flow and is contagious as well as sends positive feedback from others. It’s also healthy and good for the soul. The smile that I am saying is a genuine one, not just revealing your white teeth “for the sake of smiling.” Smile is inner driven at people or even at some marvels such as architecture or buildings. I smile at the gym when I pass by a fellow gym member. I just do not smile for the sake of smiling. When I see and make an eye contact, somehow my inner energy, which is God driven connects with the other individual. Many walk around or not aware of the energy they are sharing. Next time when you see someone, and they happened to share a smile, you smile with a genuine feeling in return and go on.

 If you have difficult time smiling even with your friends or anybody, practice smiling in front of the mirror. Practice at least 3 times a day. When I am at gym 5 days a week or sometimes 6 days a week, I reinforce my smile by opening my jaws fully and let my teeth expose and my cheeks pulled back at the dry sauna. Smiling is good for health and spreading the smile to others will bring joy, general uplifting and using your God-given vibrations to shine. Go spread your smile and charm, its good for your well-being and well beings of others.

Blessings,

Rev. Ernie Martin, The reverend of Love, Las Vegas

You are Happy!

 Just few days ago (mid November)  I was at the local gym and humming “Besame Mucho” (which means “Kiss me More”),  Mariachi Mexican song (I memorized the lyrics) very softly and with a smile. As I was hanging my shower toiletries at the jacuzzi area, a middle-aged man was sitting at the bench and observed me and said “you are Happy”. I said “yes I am happy.” I told him I love to hum songs I like to sing. He also smiled at my comments, and then I proceeded to the hot jacuzzi and onto dry sauna and steam room.

 When we are in happy mood or smiling, we do send out the vibrations and people around us pick up the vibes and affects them as well. This is also true, when we are conversing on the phone or cell phone, and people detect our demeanor and pick up the vibes. Also, in this high-tech internet age and social media, when we express and share thoughts, people pick up our vibes and attitudes. Its like antennas picking up the messages. Happy vibrations are picked up fast, because others feel good and able to laugh and smile. Happy feelings do bring out healing in our lives. Sometimes when we are faced with challenges of ill feelings or depression or loneliness, happy thoughts and expressions have a way of healing our bodies.

 When we are surrounded by people and share happy thoughts, they will like to be around us. This doesn’t mean people around us don’t want to experience sadness or psychological problems. The journey in life has sadness and psychological set backs. But, we have coping mechanisms via spirituality within and loved ones and friends around us. Even simple walking with a headset or just walking around puts us in a happy mood. Maybe, chanting a prayer within might as well get into a happy mood.

 So next time when you see someone humming or singing or saying a prayer/meditating, they are bringing happiness into their lives and bringing stability and caring themselves. All these traits are picked up surrounding people, friends and loved ones. Good way to be Happy!

Blessings,

Rev. Ernie Martin, The Reverend of Love, Las Vegas

Diversity of various communities taught me tolerance

 I grew up in India till the age of 18. I was born into an Indian Protestant Christian family. Both my parents were Christians. In India there are several religions. My family and I lived among Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs, Buddhists, Christians and Jains in major metropolitan area of Mumbai (formerly Bombay). I also went to a Methodist boarding school at age 12 in Hyderabad, South India. In boarding school and regular classes, there were several Hindu, Muslim and Buddhist students. I have learned to respect all the religion beliefs while I was growing up.

Even though India is 80% Hindus, 12% Muslims and only 2% Christians, being Christian,  I have developed respect and tolerance with other people’s beliefs. All the major religions in India as well-respected other people’s beliefs and upbringing. The diversity of beliefs and religions gave me an opportunity to study various religions and understand them. I lived in the diversified communities with my family. Played with children from different backgrounds and went to school with them. I migrated to USA when I was 18 years old and joined my father, and later my mother, sister and brother migrated to USA. I am happy and proud to live in the diversified communities of India, that taught me tolerance and understanding of different beliefs and religions. This in turn paved in my later adult life to become a non-denominational Interfaith Minister.

 Living in USA , in various different communities of Washington DC for couple years, 35 years in Southern California and over 13+ years in Las Vegas, Nevada, I’ve experienced racial diversity of various communities and learned to live harmoniously and peacefully. Me and my family lived in close communities surrounding African-Americans, Hispanics, Whites and Asian. Coming to America has also empowered me to experience various different denominational churches, including Catholic, Presbyterian, Methodist. I also learned and appreciated other beliefs which added understanding and tolerance and belief systems in my life. Unitarian, and Meta-Physical churches gave me extensive devotional and meditation experience and tolerance towards all belief systems.

 Living harmoniously within belief systems and various races does provide a sense of peace and respect others for who they are. I believe God works through each one of us and we are an expression of God from within. When we live a life of tolerance, understanding and caring in our communities, we experience joy, harmony, giving, understanding and compassion towards others. We learn about others, when we are open to others respect for who they are.

Blessings,

Rev. Ernie Martin, The Reverend of Love, Las Vegas

What do the holidays mean to you?

 As we look forward to holidays every year, such as Thanksgiving Day many personal issues come up. Issues as the significance of celebrating holidays is a personal matter and most of the nation celebrates the holiday. First of all remember what thanksgiving means. Thanks and then Giving. Are you grateful for having a healthy life? Are you appreciative and thankful of your family relationships and having wonderful friends in your life? Are you thankful for food, shelter, clothes and daily sustenance? Are you thankful for receiving income by means of a job or business or other means?

It’s time for introspection and sharing with family members and friends. Hopefully, the self-reflection being thankful shows and feels how your inner self is in contentment. In this blog, I minimize talking about holiday stress, even though it exists. The more we look holidays from a positive aspects,energy and spirituality, the more enlightened we become. The more we are enlightened and loving, the stress becomes less and less. Holidays must be treated as joy, fun, recreational, sharing, caring and feel a sense of fulfillment. Joy and sharing is a great healer.

 The other part with the thanksgiving is the “Giving” part. It’s about sharing with others. When we count our blessings, we are blessed with abundance in our everyday living. Abundance of prosperity in our lives keeps us in balance with “Thanks”. When we have a mindset of abundance and prosperity, we attract finances, excellent health, a giving and sharing attitude, thanking and praising God for our well-being. There is so much need in our own communities. Some people are desperate. They are facing challenges with food and money.  This is where compassion and caring comes in. Without judging others. It’s not beneficial to analyze and rationalize why people are poor or not working or not successful with their lives. People are poor for variety of reasons. It’s our choice and awareness to help those that are in need by way of sharing our bounty. It can be canned food, cash, clothing or even being a volunteer at a homeless shelter and help out a the tables. We do get inner contentment when we reach out to others.

 As we take the initiative to be thankful for what we have, and acknowledge that we are a miracle in this world, we begin to see how we are blessed. It’s not just materialism or large bank account or a big house or number of cars we drive. Sure money does help. It’s the holistic approach to life and how we interact with our loved ones and neighbors and those that are in need. We must balance holidays with “Thanks” and “Giving”. It’s great for the soul. Sharing is loving.

Blessings,

Rev. Ernie Martin, The Reverend of Love, Las Vegas