Perfection is Not the Criteria

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Perfection is Not the Criteria

I’ve been a pastor for over eight years and during that time I have had many people come to see me to discuss problems they are having in their lives. The issues often return to the same theme. They feel like a failure because they are not perfect, or they are afraid of being seen by others as less than perfect. No matter how you look at any situation, it’s a lot of pressure to put on a person. So, I decided to explore this theme of perfectionism at last Sunday’s service and was surprised at what I found.

I started by researching the word perfect in my favorite textbook, the Bible. The Gospel of Matthew 5:48 immediately came up, “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” What?!? This stopped me in my tracks. Had Jesus really said to only accept perfection in myself? I knew that I had three choices other than taking it literally as it was written.

The first thing I could do, and the easiest, would be to pick another verse about perfection that would fit in better with my talk. Another option was to go straight to the metaphysical interpretation of it, leaving the literal behind. Or I could let the research lead me where it would, allowing the talk to develop from what I learned instead of from what I wanted. I decided to the let the research lead me on this journey and it proved to be fascinating.

I began by thinking about how the writer might have written this during Jesus’ time. We’re not sure who the author of Matthew was, or who any of the writers of any of the Gospels are, but we do know they were originally written in Greek. Like any good Bible Nerd, I did some research on the passage and found a lot of information. (Yes, I Googled it.) First and foremost, I found out that the Greek word for perfect in the New Testament is teleios and that it has a different meaning than what we give it in the English language. The word in Greek means ‘complete.’ After digging a little deeper about where the author from the Gospel of Mark would have gotten the word, I found it in the Hebrew language. The word for perfect in Hebrew would have been tannin, which means ‘whole, sound, mature, helpful and having integrity.’

At that point I looked at the original scripture again, “Be perfect, therefore, as your Heavenly Father is perfect,” and knew that this talk was going to come out with the same premise I had originally intended, but get there in a very different way. With my new information, the meaning of the verse changed from “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect,” to read, “Be whole, complete, and mature in integrity in your love of others.”

That is very different from instructing us to be perfect. Instead we are to focus on our wholeness and love for others. I think Jesus would have taken it a step further to say to accept, even love, the imperfections in ourselves. Because the Truth is there is only love and wholeness anyway.

What dreams have you not fulfilled because you felt there were less than perfect conditions? Or what negative tapes are playing in your head about yourself that have held you back? It’s time to let them go and embrace what you may see as imperfection. Don’t let negative thoughts hold you back from accomplishing your dreams, or damage your relationships, or destroy your happiness. You deserve so much more. You deserve prosperity, health, joy, peace, and love.

For this week, let’s shake off those negative thoughts and shine your light brilliantly! It’s what you're made to do.

Please join us next Sunday at Unity Radiant Light at 10:30AM to explore “Just Say Yes and Do It” with Cherie Ruffo, Spiritual Leader. Unity Radiant Light is at 155 Douglas Avenue, Providence, Rhode Island. You can find more information about Unity Radiant Light at www.unityradiantlight.org, Facebook or meetup.com.


 

Cherie Headshot.jpg

Cherie Ruffo is and has been the co-founder and Spiritual Leader at Unity Radiant Light for over eight years. She is also a freelance writer, entrepreneur, and the author of the middle grade fantasy series, The Source Crystals.

Cherie has a Bachelor’s Degree from Old Dominion University and is currently pursuing her Master’s in Divinity at Unity Worldwide Spiritual Institute. She lives in Norwich, CT with her husband, Daniel, and their three crazy dogs. 

Introduction of Ray-Na

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Introduction of Ray-Na

I first met Ray-Na in this lifetime in August of 2014, while I was at a Kryon conference in Portland, Maine. Kryon is an angelic entity, known as the Magnetic Master, and is channeled through Lee Carroll.  I’ve followed Lee’s work and Kryon since 2002, reading all his books and attending several conferences. While I was attending this conference, I dropped into a meditation, and a name came through. The name was Ray-Na, and I figured she must have been a past life remembrance or something to that effect. After that, I didn’t hear anything for almost a year and forgot about the encounter.

You can imagine the shock in the summer of 2015 while I was conducting a group meditation and another voice suddenly came through, the soul group of Ray-Na. That first channeling was the beginning of a wonderful journey. I’m not sure where it’s going to lead, but I am certainly excited to embark on it. I invite you all to join this journey with me.

If anyone ever told me I would be sitting down and writing an introduction like this one day, I would not have believed them. I can’t say that channeling is the last thing I ever expected, because I hadn’t given it enough thought to have an expectation about it. It was always something that ‘other’ people did. I thought it was for people who are more connected to Spirit and have more gifts than I do. So when I was giving a meditation after a Unity Radiant Light church service in August of 2015, I was more than a little surprised when a few minutes into the meditation I found myself sitting in a place of light with someone or something else speaking through me. I was never fearful during the encounter because I felt the love emanating from this entity and embraced what she had to say. As with the rest of the angelic realm, Ray-Na is a soul group that is neither male or female.

In all my research and studies, I have never heard the name Ray-Na before, but had a strong feeling she had something to do with one of my Lemurian lifetimes where I had been a teacher. Until recently, I thought that she was me in that lifetime, but as you will see in the following channeling, I was wrong. After the initial introduction, I filed her name away under the mental file of ‘a really cool, but weird experience.’

When she reappeared this past August, I was actually very uncomfortable with her at first. The people attending the meditation heard and sensed the shift when it happened, and asked me about it afterwards. A week later, while I was giving a meditation during the Sunday Service, I felt the shift again. This time I was actually annoyed because I felt like we needed to set ground rules for when the entity could come through. I had no understanding of how this process works and since then have been coming to terms with what this would mean in my life, especially the fears that began to arise at the prospect of channeling.

My first concern about channeling was of course, what would people think about me? At every crossroad in my life, I’ve had the same question, and it’s sometimes taken me years to resolve the answer. Would people accept me if they found out the truth about my psychic abilities? What would my friends and family say if I became a Unity Spiritual Leader? Had I gone off the deep end when I had a series of dreams in 2012 that have turned into a book series about awakening? And now, will they think I’ve completely lost it now that I’m channeling? The answer to all of these questions is people have responded brilliantly and embraced every aspect of my spirituality as it’s evolved. And I say, God Bless them. Especially my husband, Dan, who has encouraged me every step of the way. From our first date, when I had to tell him about being a Spiritual Leader, to the morning right after we got married when I woke up and told him about the dream I had that would become a book series. And finally, to him witnessing my first channeling. He not only accepts me for who I am, but loves me for it. Above all, he has encouraged me to follow my spiritual path. I realize I’m a very lucky woman. Also, my closest friend Karen, who has witnessed this journey with me from the beginning, didn’t seem phased by this new occurrence at all. She was surprised when she heard me shift to Ray-Na, but encouraged me to embrace it and reminded me that people already think I’m weird anyway.

And what about Ray-Na? I refer to the soul group as her, because she embodies Love, and everything about her messages is for our benefit so  we can awaken to the truth of who we really are. I recently heard her speak for the first time when a dear friend and congregant taped an early channeling. Ray-Na’s pure energy is incredible, and when she leads a meditation/channeling, she often takes people on a journey to places where they have beautiful spiritual experiences.

Lastly, I would have thought channeling would be hard to do and that I would have specific protocols to follow to make it happen. But it comes easily and naturally for Ray-Na and I. I don’t have to follow a set of rules and we’ve become comfortable with the meld.

The following channel is the response I got from Ray-Na when I asked why she is here. The words flowed out of me onto the paper. This is the first of the many channelings I will be posting with messages from her.

I would like to thank Christine, a dear friend and congregant, for her extensive research into the definition of the name Ray-Na. Here is what she found: a tranquil state of the soul salvation through Christ and fearing nothing, the feelings of security, safety, prosperity and great happiness.

For now, the channelings will either be audio or written. I have not discerned yet whether it is okay to post videos of her. I pray they help you with your awakening experience as much as they have with mine.

In Service and Love,

-Cherie

(Week of January 1st, 2016)

 

Message for January 2016 from Ray-Na

Welcome to 2016. A year unlike any other, the year we will begin to see the light shift on the planet, rising above the darkness.

You ask, how can I make a statement like that with what’s happening around us? Ray-Na, have you noticed the attacks, the killings, the craziness over-taking the planet? Yes I have. And I say to you, have you noticed the underlying consciousness rising on the planet, in the face of what’s happening? Have you noticed the children are far different than any other children who have come before in your recorded history? Or are you too trapped in FEAR to see the good that’s happening?

Beautiful Light Being and Old Soul, because that’s what you are if you are reading a message like this. As an Old Soul, the dark energy recognizes your energy and actually fears you. This energy has encountered you before, in the long ago past when the vibration on the planet dropped even lower than where you are now. The Dark Energy knows there is only one way to win. To create FEAR through its dark deeds, because when this happens, your light can’t shine as brilliantly as it’s meant to shine. And when the light is diminished, only then can the darkness rise. Don’t get me wrong, when this happened before, it was appropriate and right. How else would you have been able to experience duality? That was your wish at the time. No one fell from grace as your myths tell you. You simply had a wish to experience duality.

By now, you are probably asking yourself, who is this Ray-Na? We are an angelic soul group that has come to help you raise your consciousness as a light-being. We’ve done this for eons on other planets when they shifted from the heavy material carbon bodies, similar to the one you now reside in, into crystalline light bodies. Or when made the decision to experience duality just like you did thousands of years ago. For that reason, we’ve come now to help you make the shift into a multidimensional reality instead of the third dimensional reality you currently exist in. Our partner, Cherie, likes to number the dimensions. We don’t number realities this way, because we don’t exist in linear time, or limit ourselves in anyway. But we understand the need to create numbered systems to help you understand the system better in linear time.

The last time we were here happened before your recorded time. It was during a time when the consciousness on the planet was much higher than it is now. You’ll never hear us say anything not based in love. Even if you sometimes feel the sting of the truth, it is given in love. We encourage you not to accept anything that doesn’t feel right to you. Simply put, we are here, created in love, to love each and every one of you. We are not strangers, and know you very well. It’s not an accident we are meeting again now either. You’re here by Divine Appointment, and we knew of the potential of our meeting – as you did too. But so many things had to take place for this to happen.

This is not the first time we have partnered with Cherie, although she was not known as Cherie then. She is recording this message through her filters, to bring our teachings to you. We have never been a human like you, but exist as a soul group created to assist you in raising your energy into a pure, higher state. We last worked together during the Lemurian times when the energy first began to drop on the planet, before Lemuria and Atlantis sank. The planet looked and felt very differently than it does today.  That lifetime was the last time her vibration was in a place where she could meld with ours to create a partnership like this.

She is very aware of what’s happening to her because she carries a cellular memory of this happening before. Since that lifetime, she has sometimes been celebrated as a teacher, like in the Mayan and Egyptian times. And other times she was killed for her gifts, such as the Crusades and witch burnings. Many of you have walked this path with her at least once, which is why you feel like you know her so well. You were destined to find each other in this lifetime.

Early on, Cherie was asked to make a choice to accept the contract of carrying our energy again. Would she once again put the Truth out there and risk the consequences, or would she live quietly and safely as she has done in recent lifetimes? She knew by accepting this contract she would have to overcome tremendous obstacles from a very young age to be able to fully access this energy, which she did. She thinks we don’t know the jokes she makes about being really optimistic and agreeing to take on her life contract? And that she needs to have a talk with her Higher Self before she does anything like this again. We laugh with her, because we know as she does, she would do it all over again if given the choice. Because this lifetime has been her reawakening experience too. Every single success and obstacle was placed there to help her arrive where she is today. A place where she can no longer keep quiet about the Truth about who humans really are. She has been given glimpses along the way of a beautiful system and reality that is coming, even to the detriment of computers and electronics around her. Those who know her personally can laugh now, and we do apologize for any of your electronics that may have burned up in the process. It was all for the greater good.

If you are reading this today, you are part of this process. Welcome to the Ascension! This is in no way an exclusive process, where some will be left out while others enjoy the Ascension. The Creator doesn’t work that way. The system is all-inclusive and based on love. Every person’s decision is honored, whether they decide to pursue Ascension or not at this time. Gaia, our beloved planet, is a place of free will.

We have joined with our partner at this time to assist you in the ascension process. We are here because we heard you saying, “Enough! No more. I don’t want to live like this anymore.”

This potential has been created for you over many years. We’ve been working with Cherie, mostly with her unaware or in denial about what was happening on a conscious level. There were certain things that had to happen, a green light from her to continue. She not only had to accept her psychic abilities, but embrace them, which has happened gradually over the years. This opened the path to communication. She continued what she calls, ‘chasing God’, through a number of faiths, and the Mystery Schools. We feel some of you smile at that statement about ‘chasing God,’ and you are right, she never needed to look anywhere but within. But let’s face it, the exercise of chasing God can only do her good. The care of her Body Temple will be in the forefront for her in 2016. That’s for her and she knows what we mean.

It was no accident that she was at a Kryon conference in Sedona in 2009 when she heard her first communication clearly from us – ‘it’s time to awaken the children.’ She was open and receptive to it during that time. The time has come for an awakening that the planet has never seen before. And on May 20, 2012, she was ready to accept us and take the next step in understanding her mission when she woke up with a full memory of the dream she had during the night. She mistakenly thought we were someone else she found in her research later. It was her way of interpreting what was happening in your linear time. That was the first meeting she remembers with us, but did not realize it was until this channel. She has tried to identify us as female, but we are a perfect balance of both.

The creation of her book series, which is actually a metaphor for what is happening on the planet at this time, has been a joint process between her and us. It’s a fun story, but I encourage you to read it with the intention of receiving the deeper messages and vibration. There are several people we know who are already doing this, and seeing the benefits already.

The story is written as a collaboration between her energy and ours. As she is discovering now, much of it more true than she realizes. Some of it is entirely fiction because of her filters and imagination. That’s okay too, we’ve found her imagination to be highly entertaining. She intuitively knows she is not at the vibrational level where she would be able to translate some of the bigger Truths yet. Just as you would not be able to understand them yet either. Rest assured, they are coming. She is still trying to get a handle on us being in her life, and we know she’s not even sure she’s willing to publish this.

We look forward to witnessing your ascension process. Every one of you is known to us and completely loved. We ask you to take a moment in the energy that has been created for this message and feel our love fully embrace you. Yes, that’s what unconditional love and acceptance feels like.

We know you’re expecting us to say ‘welcome back, we’ve been waiting for your return.’ But the truth is, you never left. You’ve always been here. There’s been a veil between us that is being lifted now. We invite you to take this journey with us.

Welcome to 2016, the year where the first group of Old Souls will complete the ascension. No matter where you are in the Ascension process, you are loved beyond measure and completely honored in your journey.

“….and then mankind remembered the Truth, the Beauty and the Love that was always there. It was just forgotten for a time.”                           

-Ray-N

Channeling from Ray-Na: "The Hidden Good and What to Expect in 2018"

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"The Hidden Good and What to Expect in 2018"

Cherie: "I am ready to make the connection, Ray-Na. What is it that 2018 is going to bring? As we step into 2018, there are so many unanswered questions. Why are all these political things happening? Things seem to be so bad in the world. How can people say that the light is here?" 

Ray-Na: "Well when you look at it from a universal perspective, things are not as bad as they seem. There is a plan here and quite frankly, it's going very well. Choices have been made because the light is rising and it's rising at a rapid rate now. There's more light in the world, more good coming into the world all the time. 

So let's stop for a minute and let's reconsider things. We had an election in 2016 that is still the shot that is reverberating around the world. The shock that came with it was that the person elected was unconventional, a wild card. No one expected that things would go in this direction.

But when you stand back and you look at it from a universal perspective, from within the blueprint of things unfolding, then we have a whole new perspective on it. So in 2016, we had two candidates. One who basically was going to continue some of the things that have been started in the previous years was planning to continue to make progress, but here's the problem: the problem is that all those things from all hundreds and even thousands of years in humankind that as we progressed, we put away. We put away slavery, we put away racism. We did all those things, but we really didn't.

What happened was it was pushed down. All these feelings were pushed down. So each of us as individuals, each human being as an individual, has a shadow self. And when things get pushed down, what happens is that the shadow within us hides and our biggest hope as a human being is that that shadow never sees the light of day, that people don't see that part of ourselves.

Well basically, the same thing has happened in the collective mass consciousness. So the United States of America is not alone in this, we see things happening all over the world, but in the United States of America, for example, we see that racism was pushed down. It didn't end. Homophobia. All the isms, basically. We look at that and we see the oppression. And yes, political correctness came in and it was really big in the last couple decades, but it didn't mean that those ideas were gone and that's what we're dealing with today.

So if that first candidate that we're talking about who would have done well, she would have come in, she would have continued things, she would have added new things, and society would have progressed. Over the next couple of hundreds of years, these issues would have come up and they would have been laid to rest. But what happened when this progression of the equinox, when we lined up the planetarian influences, when humanity, in 2012, instead of being destroyed, stepped onto the other path?

It greatly accelerated things. Have you felt like time's collapsing in the past few years? Have you felt like, "Wow, where did that year go?" And everything, time seems to be collapsing, literally collapsing in on itself because we're moving from a linear time frame to a nonlinear time frame. We're stepping into quantum physics, which we still, as a people, don't really understand a lot about, but that's coming too. But as a people, we've been witnessing, as a people, you're progressing much more quickly than was anticipated.

So you have Candidate A who would carry the progression of ideas on or the other choice, Candidate B, a wild card, one who could be put into this time frame, and bring all of these things that are festering below the surface, all of these things that have been pushed down for years and generations, can stir the pot, stir it up and bring it all to the surface where it erupts. And yes, that's what we're seeing, but when we stand here and you stand here and look at it in a negative way... I just invite you to take another perspective about this, invite you to look at it from the perspective of the other side of the veil looking in. And while all these things are getting stirred up, and there's a lot of unrest, things are healing. 

As the human race, we've been waiting for this savior to come and bail you out and have all the right ideas and this wonderful time of peace to come. This has been a big belief system, but what you fail to see is that you are your own savior, and that as these ideas come to the surface, and some of them seem so preposterous at this point, as they rise to the surface, as a people, as these spiritual beings having this human experience, you are awakening.

With all of this happening, people can no longer stand on the side, bury their head in the sand, pretend not to see what's happening. We each are making, we each as we participate in this from our side, we're watching it unfold and holding the energy for it and cheering you on. From your side, you can no longer fence-sit. And what does that mean?

That means as we see these things erupting to the surface, this shadow, this mass shadow consciousness coming to the surface, you need to make your decision. Where do you stand on each of these issues? Because as you make that decision and as you step into the light, that shadow is gonna get smaller. It's going to heal. And yes, it seems like people are so far apart right now but that's just the beginning because as people heal the acceptance of diverse point of views are going to come back, the celebration of different ideologies, all of those things will return. But instead of them returning, going back to the old way where, yes I'm going to speak politically correct viewpoints, instead it will come from a viewpoint of the spiritual being having this human experience. It will come from the viewpoint of yes we've dealt with it. This viewpoint rose to the surface and we healed it. And you'll be able to see from that viewpoint that indeed it was done much more quickly because of the wild card.

Humanity's rising. They're saying, humanity's deciding what's right and what's wrong and it's a beautiful thing. This isn't about one side winning, for the spiritual beings have the human experience, this is about each person taking that journey, healing what needs to be healed, and taking that next step in evolution.

So when we look to what's happening today, try to hold up a different lens to it, look at it from the spiritual side, the spiritual side that sees a tremendous healing on the planet. There are still more things to come, things that are going to be disturbing, but you have a choice to make. Are you going to try to push it back down, be a part of the problem, or are you going to be a light-bearer - stand strong like a lighthouse and shine the light so that healing can take place on this planet?

And a healing like this never happened before. It's an opportunity to step forward, to leap forward, an opportunity to leave that 3D existence with all of its ideas behind to heal and to move into the fifth-dimensional frequency.

Nobody ever said this was going to be a comfortable journey, but it's a beautiful journey with so much promise.

Stay strong.

Stand in the light and know that you are loved beyond measure."