Hello fellow journeywomen and men. I hope that everyone is having a safe and peaceful holiday experience. This can be such a wonderful time of the year because, despite the crass commercialism that pervades our culture and the Christmas holiday, I still observe more acts of human love and kindness throughout this month than at any other time of the year. Our challenge, as I see it, is to expand this experience from the "holiday season" (when it seems most of the major faiths - Muslim, Jewish, pagan, Bhuddist, etc. - are celebrating some momentous historical occassion or another) to our everyday lives.
In the spirit of this thought, I would like to share with the readers a comment I provided in response to a blog post on my brother's blog site, Wilder Daze. (Before I continue here, I would like to strongly recommend that anyone reading the posts on this site check out the Wilder Daze blog site [I have a link to this site under "Enlightening the Burden" at the top left corner of the page you are now reading]. Dustin's [that's my brother's name] posts are very insightful and inspiring. I feel that everyone can benefit from exploring the depth of his spiritual knowledge, which has truly been a blessing for me to read and consider deeply.) My commentary was inspired by his post entitled "This Reckless Caring," and in Dustin's post he wrote about the idea of caring for someone and, indeed, for all of life in general without regard to the personal (physical, mental, and/or emotional) consequences to your "self" (please read the entire post at your earliest convenience). He went on to state very eloquently that "in that self-denial [each of us find] our true selves, that for which we exist." Read his statement over and over and let the words float softly down through your thoughts and deep into your heart. What I just quoted will appear to be oversimplified and even nonsensical to your mind, but I assure you that Dustin has given us something profound to consider here. In fact, it is this message that goes right to the heart of expanding the love and compassion most of us grab hold of only once a year during this "holiday season."
Below are the thoughts and feelings I shared with Dustin (with a few expansions and revisions - for the original comment, check out Dustin's Blog Site) in response to my meditations on this post:
"Hey Dustin,
I know this post is a bit old to just now be getting a response from me. I have intended to respond for quite some time, but I just have not taken the time to do it. I love the paradox of the phrase "reckless caring" as well as the paradox that you allude to regarding a self-denial that allows us to find our true selves. The second seeming-contradiction, I feel, should make us ponder the reason that selflessly caring for others and for life in general brings us some of the most powerful and positive experiences of who we really are. As you stated, this idea is one of the overall themes of Christ's teachings, but I think most of us have not been able to comprehend the implications of such a paradox:
Why do we feel the best about ourselves, why are we filled with the greatest love and joy, when we help another? I have to say that only one understanding at this point in my life makes sense to me in trying to explain this: to quote Neale Donald Walsch, "There is no one else in the room."
There is only one thing, and that one thing has many forms that we see with our human eyes, but it does not change the fact that there is one thing behind us all. So when we help another, we are quite literally helping ourselves. I'm not talking about some indirect assistance we give ourselves by helping another in a way that implies they can do good in the world and eventually, maybe even help us directly. I mean that we actually raise ourselves up directly anytime we truly assist another or life in general without worry over what will be the outcome or inconvenience to us for providing that help. The fact that we are all One accounts for this phenomenon. We are One, but we had to appear not to be in order to actually experience the wonder, power, and joy of our True Connection to one another, and we get to experience that when we can at last let go of the idea that there is an "other."
This is an implication that stimulates resistance in many of us because it would require us to sacrifice our judgments and our discriminations and our stereotypes and our superiority complexes and our victimizations and all the other mayhem that we love to create through our illusion of separation from God and each other. But the evidence is overwhelming: when any person helps another or even helps an animal or the life of the planet in general, that person experiences the satisfaction of fulfilling his/her true purpose. And that person's sense of fulfillment is genuine and complete. Love cannot know Herself when She is only One, so She must appear to be many in order to comprehend her grandeur. Thus, when we "recklessly care" for anyone, we have fulfilled the purpose of Love Herself. The perfect circle from God to human and back to God is complete and the mission is accomplished (ok, yes, I know I am throwing in a lame military cliche here, but what the hay). The beauty and the majesty of it all is that we can fulfill this inspiring promise of our lives over and over again.
Yet, these words and thoughts are ultimately meaningless. Just believing this does nothing at all, and in fact, it is almost impossible to believe this without actually experiencing it. And we cannot sit around and say, "Oh if only I had a good opportunity to try this out or the time to experiment with this idea, I could then prove its reality to myself." I assert that each day is filled with hundreds and perhaps thousands of chances to put this insight to the test. Anytime one is late for some meeting or appointment, put the safety of others first by not speeding to your destination. Anytime one is busy with commitments of work or other responsibilities, put first that other person who calls you for help with their own work. Anytime one is degraded, uplift the person doing the degrading. Anytime one is suffering from feelings of being overwhelmed, put first the person to whom you would complain about your life by choosing not to complain. Anytime that one finds himself/herself in a tense situation with another, put first the feelings of the other person by deeply listening to what the other is saying. Anytime one is standing in a long line in the grocery or department store (particularly relevant to this season), put first the over-worked cashier doing his/her best by choosing not to complain or make rude faces at him/her. Anytime one observes another person who is suffering in the grip of rushing, anxious thoughts, such as when someone is trying to cut in front of you on the highway or when someone in that same long supermarket line is huffing and puffing and complaining endlessly, allow that person the space to pull in front of you on the highway or allow that person in line to go before you (thank you for this, Stephanie) so that you might be an example that there is nothing we need to hurry toward. When someone at work (even your own boss) is stressed about some deadline, refuse to submit to the incessant planning and worry over all that is left to be done - just continue to fully focus on the one task before you - and you can lead others to the realization that there is no reality to this idea of being "overwhelmed." Anytime one encounters an indigent person on the street in need of money or food, put first that person by providing what you can without regard to the mental labels and judgments that arise calling that person a bum or lazy and without this idea of "they do not deserve anything because they do not work hard like me." We should all have equal access to the daily necessities of food, water, and shelter regardless of our life choices that have led us to be without these things. In fact, only our misunderstandings of God and Life would allow us as a species to so callously neglect and reject those in need based on our delusions of moral superiority. Our goal as a race should be that the "necessities" of this physical existence can be accessed by all so that all then have the opportunity to shift from this pervasive concern with physical survival to a new and empowering emphasis on our spiritual growth.
These are just small instances, and there are many, many other ways, large and small, in which we can know the truth of our deep connection to one another. I feel that it is incumbent upon all of us, and I place the most emphasis on myself, to go into each moment and experience this, to put ourselves always in the second position so that we might then know that who we really are is always First."
May you all remember the blessing that is this Life.
Thursday, December 21, 2006
Saturday, December 09, 2006
Love Is All We Are
Yesterday morning, I awoke to my mind scrambling through a devastating routine. Like most weekday mornings, I got out of bed and went to sit in the cozy sofa chair in our living room to meditate. I cherish those silent moments before I wake up the kids when no one but me (and the dog and the cat and the sun) is stirring in the house. This is when I rejuvenate my love for being alive at this very moment.
Anyway, I became aware of a very acute sense of suffering in my mind. As usual when I awaken, it was struggling to plan out the course of my day, but its determination seemed darker and more powerful than I had experienced of late. I could feel its despair as it catalogued one "duty" after another that I had to accomplish that day all while it screamed - through my shaking nerves - that there was too much to be done, that it hated knowing what had to be done, and it hated having to be there to help me know what needed to be done.
The fact is, I had faced this same anxiety and despair and resistance to the day each morning of the past week during my little meditation time. Each morning, I was able to look upon the pain and surround it with the sacred silence within me. I smiled at it, and I loved it, and I calmed its struggle. However, when I arose from my meditation and began the tasks of getting ready for work and getting my daughter ready for school, I would notice, first through the body then through the thoughts that were running me to and fro, that my silence was blotted out by the identity I experienced through this suffering. God, I did not want to submit to these negative energies another day!
Yesterday, I was determined not to be broken from pillar to post by these same anxieties and worries over what the day had in store. Yet, I believe now that it was my very determination that actually made these shadows loom larger within me. During meditation, I could feel myself - really for the first time during the week's worth of meditation times - actually fighting against the nervous energy of hurt over what "must be done." I wanted to push it down and obliterate it, and with each push, with each force of repression I directed at it, it became more imposing, more sinister, more energized, and more sickly alive. I was more afraid now because I was failing - my determination to overcome the harsh confinements of my fears and resistances was not strong enough! I broke out of meditation several times to discover all the muscles in my body were contracted and trembling from the clinched shaking of nerves, all of which made my stomach feel quite ill. I was weak, I heard a voice not unlike my own say. I gathered what little will to break this pattern I had left, and I went back in, but the battle was lost before it even begun as my Silent Ally was no where to be found within the noise of my doubts.
Eventually, I arose from the chair disheartened and afraid of being torn to pieces by the negativity that I just knew would plunder me throughout the day. I brushed my teeth, and I kept trying to remain present to what I was doing. But all I saw there was the futile world of conflicting emotions rushing me to do what my thoughts did not feel like doing because, in their view, the doing was bigger than they were - bigger than I am - which made me hate having to do anything - even move to brush my teeth, even lift my leg to step into the shower - because each thing I was doing in the morning at home only led me closer to the duties of the rest of the day that I could never accomplish.
Oh, there was a weeping of my soul and there was a gnashing of my teeth as I rushed blankly to wash my hair in the shower. I was pitiful and the pathetic, suffering me was disgusting even to itself.
Is anyone reading this a fan of Lord of the Ring movies? Well, in the final (and I thought best) movie, Return of the King, Frodo and his faithful and loving friend Sam, have just watched Smiegel/Gollum (spelling?) dissolve into the same lava that swallowed the ring whose charms and powers had cast such a dark spell over both him and Frodo. The cataclysmic rending of the earth caused by this final epic battle between good and evil caused the molten lava within to flood forth, and all Sam and Frodo could do after such an exhausting journey was lay on the jagged rock that had yet to be covered by the lava, completely surrendered to the fact of their impending death. Then, beautiful, soulful, sorrowful music is cued as we see, but do not hear, a peaceful bird (I can't remember what kind) glide gracefully down through the dark clouds of burning rock and rescue our two Hobbit heroes from the throes of extinction. It's a very powerful scene in a movie filled with such moments.
Yes. Yesterday, I too was gently lifted from the clawing clutches of my suffering. I'm sure to the reader it hardly seems as dramatic as the movie scene above, but I assure you, for me it was. A simple question created a space for itself in my head: Would Love ever require me to suffer? This inquiry seemed to have a bright energy of its own that lovingly held in suspended position all the painful thoughts and emotions running through my mind and body. It then gave birth to another question: Am I being Love when I harm myself in this way? Then another: What would Love do with this pain? And each question asked by this calm presence was actually the answer at the same time. All of my inner-writhing was released instantly in that moment. I was not determined to do anything about the hurt anymore. The questioner within me accepted the pain, and the pain was no more.
I drove to work yesterday morning with more peace and more joy and more wonder at the world around me - the birds on the wires, the dancing trees, the sleeping human beings in their cars who have no idea the experiences of liberation that await them - than I have ever experienced on the same such drives before. It was like it was the first time I ever drove to work. It was the first time I ever saw the streets and the neighborhoods and the houses and buildings that I had driven by and upon at least a thousand times before. My sight was new because the seer was new. Little old me was no longer there. I was everything I saw, and I knew I had always been. Freedom held me close and Love carressed me with these true visions of the nature of the inseparable world around me that was me. There was nothing to do anymore because I could see it had all already been done. Perfection was vibrant in everything I saw, and it was good.
Anyway, I became aware of a very acute sense of suffering in my mind. As usual when I awaken, it was struggling to plan out the course of my day, but its determination seemed darker and more powerful than I had experienced of late. I could feel its despair as it catalogued one "duty" after another that I had to accomplish that day all while it screamed - through my shaking nerves - that there was too much to be done, that it hated knowing what had to be done, and it hated having to be there to help me know what needed to be done.
The fact is, I had faced this same anxiety and despair and resistance to the day each morning of the past week during my little meditation time. Each morning, I was able to look upon the pain and surround it with the sacred silence within me. I smiled at it, and I loved it, and I calmed its struggle. However, when I arose from my meditation and began the tasks of getting ready for work and getting my daughter ready for school, I would notice, first through the body then through the thoughts that were running me to and fro, that my silence was blotted out by the identity I experienced through this suffering. God, I did not want to submit to these negative energies another day!
Yesterday, I was determined not to be broken from pillar to post by these same anxieties and worries over what the day had in store. Yet, I believe now that it was my very determination that actually made these shadows loom larger within me. During meditation, I could feel myself - really for the first time during the week's worth of meditation times - actually fighting against the nervous energy of hurt over what "must be done." I wanted to push it down and obliterate it, and with each push, with each force of repression I directed at it, it became more imposing, more sinister, more energized, and more sickly alive. I was more afraid now because I was failing - my determination to overcome the harsh confinements of my fears and resistances was not strong enough! I broke out of meditation several times to discover all the muscles in my body were contracted and trembling from the clinched shaking of nerves, all of which made my stomach feel quite ill. I was weak, I heard a voice not unlike my own say. I gathered what little will to break this pattern I had left, and I went back in, but the battle was lost before it even begun as my Silent Ally was no where to be found within the noise of my doubts.
Eventually, I arose from the chair disheartened and afraid of being torn to pieces by the negativity that I just knew would plunder me throughout the day. I brushed my teeth, and I kept trying to remain present to what I was doing. But all I saw there was the futile world of conflicting emotions rushing me to do what my thoughts did not feel like doing because, in their view, the doing was bigger than they were - bigger than I am - which made me hate having to do anything - even move to brush my teeth, even lift my leg to step into the shower - because each thing I was doing in the morning at home only led me closer to the duties of the rest of the day that I could never accomplish.
Oh, there was a weeping of my soul and there was a gnashing of my teeth as I rushed blankly to wash my hair in the shower. I was pitiful and the pathetic, suffering me was disgusting even to itself.
Is anyone reading this a fan of Lord of the Ring movies? Well, in the final (and I thought best) movie, Return of the King, Frodo and his faithful and loving friend Sam, have just watched Smiegel/Gollum (spelling?) dissolve into the same lava that swallowed the ring whose charms and powers had cast such a dark spell over both him and Frodo. The cataclysmic rending of the earth caused by this final epic battle between good and evil caused the molten lava within to flood forth, and all Sam and Frodo could do after such an exhausting journey was lay on the jagged rock that had yet to be covered by the lava, completely surrendered to the fact of their impending death. Then, beautiful, soulful, sorrowful music is cued as we see, but do not hear, a peaceful bird (I can't remember what kind) glide gracefully down through the dark clouds of burning rock and rescue our two Hobbit heroes from the throes of extinction. It's a very powerful scene in a movie filled with such moments.
Yes. Yesterday, I too was gently lifted from the clawing clutches of my suffering. I'm sure to the reader it hardly seems as dramatic as the movie scene above, but I assure you, for me it was. A simple question created a space for itself in my head: Would Love ever require me to suffer? This inquiry seemed to have a bright energy of its own that lovingly held in suspended position all the painful thoughts and emotions running through my mind and body. It then gave birth to another question: Am I being Love when I harm myself in this way? Then another: What would Love do with this pain? And each question asked by this calm presence was actually the answer at the same time. All of my inner-writhing was released instantly in that moment. I was not determined to do anything about the hurt anymore. The questioner within me accepted the pain, and the pain was no more.
I drove to work yesterday morning with more peace and more joy and more wonder at the world around me - the birds on the wires, the dancing trees, the sleeping human beings in their cars who have no idea the experiences of liberation that await them - than I have ever experienced on the same such drives before. It was like it was the first time I ever drove to work. It was the first time I ever saw the streets and the neighborhoods and the houses and buildings that I had driven by and upon at least a thousand times before. My sight was new because the seer was new. Little old me was no longer there. I was everything I saw, and I knew I had always been. Freedom held me close and Love carressed me with these true visions of the nature of the inseparable world around me that was me. There was nothing to do anymore because I could see it had all already been done. Perfection was vibrant in everything I saw, and it was good.
Tuesday, November 28, 2006
Sleepy Night of the Soul
Hello everyone. I have missed writing on here. I have received some topics that I would like to develop and publish on here, but I simply have not made the time as yet. And that's ok, too. Yesterday while flying from Salt Lake City to Dallas, I was reading an excellent book I just bought entitled The Power of Now by a man named Eckhart Tolle. There was a statement in there that pointed the light of my consciousness directly at a part of my being I all too often resist:
Many of us (including me) have known the pain of pushing ourselves through these low energy cycles. However, I have never quite looked at myself doing that in this light. There is a summer and there is a winter. Everywhere we look in nature and in the physical world in general, we find a period of great vitality followed by (or, rather, following) a dormant stage. This "low energy cycle" is absolutely essential for all living things, and it the acceptance of the necessity of both cycles that enables all living beings in nature to surrender to this cycle without anxiety over the inactivity of the season and without judgment of this natural process, and for this unconditional surrender, all of nature returns each spring more splendid than ever. All living creatures except, of course, human beings. No, we are drawn along by a compulsion of the mind to keep doing, doing, doing - to force ourselves to work longer, to accomplish more, to be the best, to achieve success, to look good in the eyes of others, and other such nonsense. If only we were to hear the lessons of Nature, to look deeply into the barren winter and know that it is the seed of magnificent spring and summer, we would then know the beauty of winter and the joy and wonder of the winter of the heart.
I think of all the times I force myself into "doingness" even for supposedly good deeds. Such as experiencing mental and physical fatigue but feeling compelled to be active with the kids in order to keep my mind from judging me a "bad father." Is not this nonsense? Can I not be an excellent father by showing my children that activity does not equate with success? Is it not more important to lead them by example into a state of freedom from the throes of judgment - either self-judgment or the judgment of others. This is just one example, but I think it acutely emphasizes what Tolle is saying. In those moments, I am "identified" with the mind, yet I am a "house divided against itself" because my energy level is very low while my thoughts tell me I'd better get moving or they will judge me. And, taking it a step further, I am actually decreasing the quality of my interactions with my children and what we "do" together by not heeding and accepting the guidance of this lower energy state.
Tolle is not advocating laziness, and, at the same time, he is not condemning it either. His point is that we should be aware of these states and accept them. The only way this is possible is to stay awake to the present moment through acceptance of what is. As indicated by my personal example above, we are in perpetual denial of our dormant stages - because of an unconscious negative pressure within that drives us to go, Go, GO! - and it is because of this that we are so zombified as we live lives of dreadful routine in which creative positive action and real change cannot be fathomed by our burnt-out thoughts nor by our worn-down feelings due to our glossy-eyed exhaustion.
Winter is approaching. Stop for a moment each day just to notice the incredible love and compassion that provides all physical forms with such a period of gentle repose. Apply this same love and compassion you observe in nature to the wintry bare moments in your life. Know that these stagnant moments within you hold within them the seeds of magnificent creation and glory. Like nature (and we are a part of nature), accept with full gratitude and blessing the cycles of low energy that flow through you. I know deep in my heart - already! - that if we all practice this unconditional acceptance of what is, we will begin to change our world in a cosmically significant way.
There will be times of low as well as high energy. There will be periods when you are highly active and creative, but there may also be times when everything seems stagnant, when it seems that you are not getting anywhere, not achieving anything....Many illnesses are created through fighting against the cycles of low energy, which are vital for regeneration. The compulsion to do, and the tendency to derive your sense of self-worth and identity from external factors such as achievement, is an inevitable illusion as long as you are identified with the mind. This makes it hard or impossible for you to accept the low cycles and allow them to be. Thus, the intelligence of the organism may take over as a self-protective measure and create an illness in order to force you to stop, so that the necessary regeneration can take place. (184)
Many of us (including me) have known the pain of pushing ourselves through these low energy cycles. However, I have never quite looked at myself doing that in this light. There is a summer and there is a winter. Everywhere we look in nature and in the physical world in general, we find a period of great vitality followed by (or, rather, following) a dormant stage. This "low energy cycle" is absolutely essential for all living things, and it the acceptance of the necessity of both cycles that enables all living beings in nature to surrender to this cycle without anxiety over the inactivity of the season and without judgment of this natural process, and for this unconditional surrender, all of nature returns each spring more splendid than ever. All living creatures except, of course, human beings. No, we are drawn along by a compulsion of the mind to keep doing, doing, doing - to force ourselves to work longer, to accomplish more, to be the best, to achieve success, to look good in the eyes of others, and other such nonsense. If only we were to hear the lessons of Nature, to look deeply into the barren winter and know that it is the seed of magnificent spring and summer, we would then know the beauty of winter and the joy and wonder of the winter of the heart.
I think of all the times I force myself into "doingness" even for supposedly good deeds. Such as experiencing mental and physical fatigue but feeling compelled to be active with the kids in order to keep my mind from judging me a "bad father." Is not this nonsense? Can I not be an excellent father by showing my children that activity does not equate with success? Is it not more important to lead them by example into a state of freedom from the throes of judgment - either self-judgment or the judgment of others. This is just one example, but I think it acutely emphasizes what Tolle is saying. In those moments, I am "identified" with the mind, yet I am a "house divided against itself" because my energy level is very low while my thoughts tell me I'd better get moving or they will judge me. And, taking it a step further, I am actually decreasing the quality of my interactions with my children and what we "do" together by not heeding and accepting the guidance of this lower energy state.
Tolle is not advocating laziness, and, at the same time, he is not condemning it either. His point is that we should be aware of these states and accept them. The only way this is possible is to stay awake to the present moment through acceptance of what is. As indicated by my personal example above, we are in perpetual denial of our dormant stages - because of an unconscious negative pressure within that drives us to go, Go, GO! - and it is because of this that we are so zombified as we live lives of dreadful routine in which creative positive action and real change cannot be fathomed by our burnt-out thoughts nor by our worn-down feelings due to our glossy-eyed exhaustion.
Winter is approaching. Stop for a moment each day just to notice the incredible love and compassion that provides all physical forms with such a period of gentle repose. Apply this same love and compassion you observe in nature to the wintry bare moments in your life. Know that these stagnant moments within you hold within them the seeds of magnificent creation and glory. Like nature (and we are a part of nature), accept with full gratitude and blessing the cycles of low energy that flow through you. I know deep in my heart - already! - that if we all practice this unconditional acceptance of what is, we will begin to change our world in a cosmically significant way.
Thursday, November 16, 2006
Meditation On The Body
Breathing in, I am thankful for my body.
Breathing out, it is a wonderful gift.
Breathing out, it is a wonderful gift.
Tuesday, November 14, 2006
Purpose, Mr. Anderson, Purpose
Purpose, that ever-evolving idea we hold about Who We Are, preoccupies our minds in every moment. I have recently undertaken a very interesting and enjoyable step-by-principal-by-step approach to declaring some of the intentions I have for this life as I see it at the moment with the guidance of a nifty little book entitled Bringers of the Light by Neale Donald Walsch. I just wanted to share these with the .25 readers of this blog. Just to make clear, this is, as I said earlier, an ever-evolving process as we define our purpose anew in every moment. Thus, I realize that these are not "goals," which tend to be limiting and ambition-driven. Rather, as you will see through the process, this expression of intention is just that, and I work in each moment to empty myself of any preconceived notions I have about the physical form of these purposes (and, by the way, I wrote the following expression of purpose in my journal on 10/22/2006, so I am just now, for the first time here exclusively, revealing my purpose to the public, which waits with bated breath).
CHOOSING THE PURPOSE OF MY LIFE:
1. I intend to write - both fiction and non-fiction - in order to:
a. Fulfill the love I have for this art form and express my passion for language.
b. Present to the world, through what I write - a new way of seeing Life and the Love, Freedom, and Perfection inherent in It.
c. Channel my creative instincts into a form that will, I hope, reach and touch many people in a way that will stimulate them to aspire first and foremost to realize the glory of Who We All Are, which then inspires them to create a change for the better of the world that perhaps they always knew they would make but that they were hesitant to put in motion because of the enormity of its implications (i.e. fear of rejection and being misunderstood).
So writing, it seems, is something I choose to do so that I can be a Messenger of God's Love, so that I can be creative, so that I can be a positive force of change to the world, so that I can be an inspiration to those in need.
1. My purpose is to be a Messenger of the Love of God that now permeates my being. In fact, my purpose is to be this Love so that, through me, Love's message will have the opportunity to find it's home in each person I come into contact with.
2. My purpose is to be creative at all times, entering every moment looking only to myself (through God) to develop the reality I choose.
3. My purpose is to be an energy of positive change in each moment of this life, transforming any "negative" event, situation, relationship, or person who desires a new life into the Magnificence it/him/her is through the message and creativity with which God has blessed me, and, indeed, the entire world.
4. My purpose is to be an inspiration to those who desire a new life in a new world that they help create, a change that they may have been unable to initiate each time their minds show them pictures of how big a mess is the world today while also lying to them about the feebleness of their personal efforts to clean up that mess. I, too, have lied to myself in this way, and now I choose to be unbound from the chain of lies.
These are the purposes of my life translated from statements of "doing" into statements of "being." These intentions are what I am, and I will be these in whatever form of "doingness" I find myself from moment to moment.
CHOOSING THE PURPOSE OF MY LIFE:
1. I intend to write - both fiction and non-fiction - in order to:
a. Fulfill the love I have for this art form and express my passion for language.
b. Present to the world, through what I write - a new way of seeing Life and the Love, Freedom, and Perfection inherent in It.
c. Channel my creative instincts into a form that will, I hope, reach and touch many people in a way that will stimulate them to aspire first and foremost to realize the glory of Who We All Are, which then inspires them to create a change for the better of the world that perhaps they always knew they would make but that they were hesitant to put in motion because of the enormity of its implications (i.e. fear of rejection and being misunderstood).
So writing, it seems, is something I choose to do so that I can be a Messenger of God's Love, so that I can be creative, so that I can be a positive force of change to the world, so that I can be an inspiration to those in need.
1. My purpose is to be a Messenger of the Love of God that now permeates my being. In fact, my purpose is to be this Love so that, through me, Love's message will have the opportunity to find it's home in each person I come into contact with.
2. My purpose is to be creative at all times, entering every moment looking only to myself (through God) to develop the reality I choose.
3. My purpose is to be an energy of positive change in each moment of this life, transforming any "negative" event, situation, relationship, or person who desires a new life into the Magnificence it/him/her is through the message and creativity with which God has blessed me, and, indeed, the entire world.
4. My purpose is to be an inspiration to those who desire a new life in a new world that they help create, a change that they may have been unable to initiate each time their minds show them pictures of how big a mess is the world today while also lying to them about the feebleness of their personal efforts to clean up that mess. I, too, have lied to myself in this way, and now I choose to be unbound from the chain of lies.
These are the purposes of my life translated from statements of "doing" into statements of "being." These intentions are what I am, and I will be these in whatever form of "doingness" I find myself from moment to moment.
Mysterious Ways
I sat today alone in a conference room at work that is too large for one person. The length of the table at which I sat was littered with piles of charts and paperwork waiting patiently for me to give them my seal of corporate approval. I was looking very intently at a business email I was typing up, engrossed in communicating coherently with the receiver of the email. Then, without hearing a word, I looked back and to my right at a woman who was standing outside the conference room in the space between the door of the neighboring office and the conference room door. This woman asked the man in the next room if he was talking with me over the computer. He seemed (from the mumblings I heard coming from his office) to have no idea what she was talking about (I am working in one of the company's Florida locations, which means I am relatively unknown here), and without missing a beat, she began talking to me in a Spanish accent as if she'd known me for years:
"You are filled with creativity. You have so many wonderful ideas, and your aura is very powerful. You are like a genius or something. You are very shy and quiet and unfriendly. Not that you are nasty or mean or anything, but you live and keep yourself in a box, but your box is filled with amazing ideas and creativity. You are a genius. I can sense your energy is very creative, very amazing...."
She continued on in this vein, and I found myself completely absorbed in what she was saying. I was (and still am) quite literally bursting with awe and love and excitement for this woman and for the chance to hear her speak even if only for a couple of moments. Not because she was heaping this praise on me (she was not telling me these things to boost my ego; she also seemed to sense, quite accurately, what I would consider to be my faults - read that: my attachment to being quiet and staying distanced from the masses) but because she was expressing her intuition about me without fear of me potentially rejecting her and her message by applying such a label as "psychic mumbo jumbo" to her message for me or by patronizing her with my words, tones, and actions and/or air of superiority that so many of us defend ourselves with when confronted by someone expressing some aspect of enlightenment that for its beauty and power and energy frightens that darkness in which we most often abide. She felt a deep truth come to her about me, and she expressed it without regard for all the possible "outcomes" of her expression.
I do agree with her that there is an "aura" of creativity about me just as I experienced intuitively the very powerful, creative consciousness of this woman who chose quite deliberately to express herself to me. Such people are an inspiration to me. I feel emboldened by the perpetually renewed sense of purpose and gratitude I experience in every moment. Yet, connecting with "another" soul, as that woman allowed me to do today, that has already been where I am and that has done the work, and continues to do the work, to transcend all self- and worldly-inflicted boundaries seems to speed the evolution of my soul light years ahead of where it was in the moment before that connection.
Then, I consider that my soul called this woman to me today at that exact time. And her soul, that already knew (and knows) me because it is really "our soul," brought her lovingly along to fulfill its and our creative purpose for each other. I am just so thankful and blessed to have had the presence of mind to have been there to receive that gift she and I gave to each other. I know in the past I would have blown off such talk - dismissing her intuitions out of fear for my own lost instinct for truth - or I simply would not have listened, being so involved in the worldly pursuit of the perfect business email communication as I was at the time.
I am a new being now, even different from the being who began typing this sentence. I do not want to define this experience or ask what it means or draw some conclusion about this woman or our short, but powerful and soul-challenging conversation. Rather, my only intention here is to declare the perfection of this Life as embodied in the microcosm of this one encounter. I am not here to explain what that perfection is as it must be experienced by each individual lest any attempt to summarize the perfection of the process through the use of limiting language come across to the reader as meaningless as words are anyway. I just know that all is perfection, and there is no moment, no person, no relationship, no circumstance, no anything that is not included in that perfection.
However, I will offer this: we can all experience this perfection of God/Life anytime we choose. In order to do this, there must be a letting go - through whatever method of meditation, prayer, or other technique of quieting the mind - of our deep-rooted desire to remain in our cozy, but painful, hypnotic state. We must confront, without fear or judgment, the preconceived, conditioned ideas we normally bring into each moment. We must see clearly that all such ideas have led us into a dull existence with their comfortable, but limiting, definitions of what that moment means. And we must decide, without hesitation, that, in order to break free of the spell these ideas have cast over us since birth, our only intention in each moment is to enter the moment empty of these ideas or any conclusions about that moment (which spring from the ground of these ideas) in order to receive what our souls (God) give us in that moment. Trust the process, and you will find an experience of perfection - an experience of God - in everything.
Thank you anonymous, but known, gentle woman for the reminder of our Oneness. Thank You, God, for the infinite experiences of You that we are given in each moment of Now.
"You are filled with creativity. You have so many wonderful ideas, and your aura is very powerful. You are like a genius or something. You are very shy and quiet and unfriendly. Not that you are nasty or mean or anything, but you live and keep yourself in a box, but your box is filled with amazing ideas and creativity. You are a genius. I can sense your energy is very creative, very amazing...."
She continued on in this vein, and I found myself completely absorbed in what she was saying. I was (and still am) quite literally bursting with awe and love and excitement for this woman and for the chance to hear her speak even if only for a couple of moments. Not because she was heaping this praise on me (she was not telling me these things to boost my ego; she also seemed to sense, quite accurately, what I would consider to be my faults - read that: my attachment to being quiet and staying distanced from the masses) but because she was expressing her intuition about me without fear of me potentially rejecting her and her message by applying such a label as "psychic mumbo jumbo" to her message for me or by patronizing her with my words, tones, and actions and/or air of superiority that so many of us defend ourselves with when confronted by someone expressing some aspect of enlightenment that for its beauty and power and energy frightens that darkness in which we most often abide. She felt a deep truth come to her about me, and she expressed it without regard for all the possible "outcomes" of her expression.
I do agree with her that there is an "aura" of creativity about me just as I experienced intuitively the very powerful, creative consciousness of this woman who chose quite deliberately to express herself to me. Such people are an inspiration to me. I feel emboldened by the perpetually renewed sense of purpose and gratitude I experience in every moment. Yet, connecting with "another" soul, as that woman allowed me to do today, that has already been where I am and that has done the work, and continues to do the work, to transcend all self- and worldly-inflicted boundaries seems to speed the evolution of my soul light years ahead of where it was in the moment before that connection.
Then, I consider that my soul called this woman to me today at that exact time. And her soul, that already knew (and knows) me because it is really "our soul," brought her lovingly along to fulfill its and our creative purpose for each other. I am just so thankful and blessed to have had the presence of mind to have been there to receive that gift she and I gave to each other. I know in the past I would have blown off such talk - dismissing her intuitions out of fear for my own lost instinct for truth - or I simply would not have listened, being so involved in the worldly pursuit of the perfect business email communication as I was at the time.
I am a new being now, even different from the being who began typing this sentence. I do not want to define this experience or ask what it means or draw some conclusion about this woman or our short, but powerful and soul-challenging conversation. Rather, my only intention here is to declare the perfection of this Life as embodied in the microcosm of this one encounter. I am not here to explain what that perfection is as it must be experienced by each individual lest any attempt to summarize the perfection of the process through the use of limiting language come across to the reader as meaningless as words are anyway. I just know that all is perfection, and there is no moment, no person, no relationship, no circumstance, no anything that is not included in that perfection.
However, I will offer this: we can all experience this perfection of God/Life anytime we choose. In order to do this, there must be a letting go - through whatever method of meditation, prayer, or other technique of quieting the mind - of our deep-rooted desire to remain in our cozy, but painful, hypnotic state. We must confront, without fear or judgment, the preconceived, conditioned ideas we normally bring into each moment. We must see clearly that all such ideas have led us into a dull existence with their comfortable, but limiting, definitions of what that moment means. And we must decide, without hesitation, that, in order to break free of the spell these ideas have cast over us since birth, our only intention in each moment is to enter the moment empty of these ideas or any conclusions about that moment (which spring from the ground of these ideas) in order to receive what our souls (God) give us in that moment. Trust the process, and you will find an experience of perfection - an experience of God - in everything.
Thank you anonymous, but known, gentle woman for the reminder of our Oneness. Thank You, God, for the infinite experiences of You that we are given in each moment of Now.
Saturday, November 11, 2006
Something Biblical
Aha! Now that should interest some people. This title. It's time for all of us to save ourselves, and that is what this particular post is all about.
Ah, the Bible. People have killed and been killed for this book. Not just for the messages within it but also for the messages that were excluded from it. A very poignant fact about the Christian Bible (that goes along with most of the thoughts and insights that have been published on this blog) is that it was created by man. This just further supports my understanding that creativity is the very essence of this physical existence.
"Life is to build up a definition of what Life is."
I love this idea (insight). It is a lyric to the Gorillaz song "Clint Eastwood." This lyric was written and performed by Del the Funky HomoSapien. This man gets it. He recognizes what we are all meant to see. The evidence is all around us, gently splashing against us every moment, a wave carressing the beach.
The Bible is one of humanity's many attempts to "build up a definition of what Life is." For the most part, it is an excellent book, particularly the New Testament Gospels - in which several different authors (and many more than we actually find in the canonized Holy Bible) attempt to bring us the "good news" (although in some instances, this news may be a bit slanted toward reinforcing each author's beliefs - which is quite okay because we are all here doing the same thing) of Christ's enlightenment and our potential for the same. The words in this book are, again, for the most part, divinely inspired. This I truly believe. However, we rarely reflect on the manner of this divine inspiration. We simply accept it - through years of conditioning from our parents - as The Definition of what Life is.
As a former atheist (Thank You, God!), one of my arguments against the Bible was that it was man-made, and thus, full of contradictions, littered with quotations from an imperfect God, violent, mythical, shallow in some cases and beautiful and inspiring in others. All of this supported my view that, at the very least, the God depicted in the words of the Bible is not real. Now, however, I realize a very subtle reason why my view was incorrect.
The God(s) in the Christian Bible was/were very real for the men who wrote of Him/Them. This is why even a small child can point out the contradictions of what we find within the whole of this book. Yet, we need not fret about this or seek to find scripture to justify our beliefs. We only undertake such behaviors when we have built our faith on a house of sand, and I say this right here and now: if you have established your faith in the Bible only - and many, many of us have - then it is destined to crumble at the smallest signs of resistance. You don't believe me? Just look at the heinous acts of violence, persecution, and destruction that have been perpetrated under the banner of the messages found within this book. Was not even Christ hated because he, in the view of the Jewish leaders of the time, "contradicted" so freely the "laws" found in the Old Testament? This is just one example, but it should help to bring home to us all what I hope for us all to understand here.
The time has come for a new perspective on reading and understanding the Bible. I think each book in the Bible has something powerful to offer any sincere seeker of Truth because, like all true, spiritual books, each one reveals the grand vision of Life as it was experienced by the authors and the subjects of their writings. It seems to me, though, that we have damaged the value of what is found within the Bible by trying to force each other to accept it as a whole. Only, this is not the worst of it. After men put it together by deciding which writings were "divinely inspired" and which writings were not, and even after trying to assert that all the writings must be taken as a whole which only confuses anyone who tries to reconcile the many contradictions found in viewing the Bible in this way, we devalued the Bible the most by labelling it "The Source of Truth" and then preaching the message that those who do not follow its messages (no matter how contradictory these messages may be) are doomed.
The psychology that explains why we have done this with this book for thousands of years is actually quite simple: when one discovers something that he/she feels is valuable, many times, one will then seek others to agree with the value of this "thing" (whatever it is) in order to feel reinforced in his/her belief. Thus, we build our house on sand. And when others do not agree with one's own assessment of value for this "thing," one's house of faith begins fall in upon itself. And to stop such a catastrophe, one will then use fear to intimidate these others (who disagree) into submission to one's ideas of what is valuable. Hey, we've all done this, everyone of us. So let's not deny it because our denial precludes our transcendence of these base behaviors.
I propose, therefore, that we all come together to understand the Bible for what it truly is: it is a collection of spiritual writings written by men who were inspired by the God that they experienced within. Does this make these writings above reproach? Of course not. We all experience God in different ways (which is further proof that we create our reality), and each individual one of us even experiences God in different ways from day to day. Moreover, when we make our experience of God our priority in this life, we find our understanding of God evolves, and our experience of God, thus, evolves on a moment to moment basis.
Observing and studying the words found in the Bible in this way literally means there is something in it for everyone. Rather than trying to fit the round ideas of one book in the Bible into the square hole of the insights of another book in the Bible, we can utilize the contrasting ideas to go within ourselves to discover which one (if either) is true for each of us as individuals. We do not even have to look at the contradictions in order to have this very powerful, spiritual experience. If you do not notice contradictions between authors of the books, that is excellent as well. I simply advocate the idea that we discontinue forcing the Bible upon others as "The Definition of What Life Is" because it is through this manipulation of it that we have become shallow and fearful and mere shells of what we are meant to be.
I observe on a daily basis individuals who seem incapable of deciding for themselves what is true without using some quotation from the Bible to rationalize their thoughts, motives, and actions. This is fine for these individuals, but I also observe how limited they are in their experience of God. These individuals believe that God "divinely inspired" the words in the Bible, but they do not believe that they can be divinely inspired. They are bound in their experience of God to what the transitory words on the crumbling page tell them can be their experience of God. Are not words the least reliable medium of communication? What of instinct? What of feelings? Do not we always "regret" not trusting our instincts? I have experienced that my true instincts (once I transcended all the false, conditioned instincts of fear) always lead me right where I need to be. Yet, when my thoughts "talk" to me, I usually find myself lost again. We have buried our instincts underneath the "Word of God" as found in the Bible, and, in doing so, we have created a Bible with little value outside of being a tool of manipulation of the masses.
I heard a very striking comment once by a man named Guy Finley, whose works and words have been a guide (more on this in a moment) to me during my journey to remembrance of Who I Really Am. Someone asked him what was his source of truth, and the questioner stated that his own source of truth is the NIV Bible. He then asked, is the NIV Bible (or the Bible in general) the source of all truth. And Guy, without hesitation (which is simply amazing to me), said, "No, God is."
Can any of you feel that idea reverberate within you, coming from the very center of your being and penetrating the outer realms of your physical body? If you can, then you are experiencing God. God is what you already know but what you only need to remember that you forgot that you know. That is what the writers in the Bible were doing: they were trying to communicate what they remembered that they forgot that they knew. Because each of us are creative, we remember and perceive God in our own unique ways, and this is true freedom. This also means no one person's experience of God is "better" or more "true" or more "meaningful" than anyone else's. So we can just stop trying to force our beliefs and values on others in order to help ourselves feel more certain about what we find valuable. It is this idea that "our religion, our God, our ways of worship, our morals" are "better" than another individual's or group's that has allowed us to rationalize our wars and our mistreatment of other human beings. We can end the spirit of fear and agression that pervades this world by simply doing away with this idea of "better" and "superior." With our ability to create comes our ability to un-create any creation that no longer works for us.
Everything I have said here can be applied to any true, spiritual writing (e.g. the Koran, Buddhist writings, etc.). The Bible, like all other books of its type, is meant to be, as I understand it, a guide in our search to create and discover Who We Really Are. However, it is a very weak substitution to your personal experience of what is True about God and Life (these are one in the same). When we read the words of any one of these books, it is our instincts that we must trust. If we do that, and read without the conditioned instinct of fear (why do we fear the words, thoughts, and ideas of others?), then when we read a message that is true, we will know that we have always known that and that we only forgot that we knew. It is with this knowledge that you build your faith on a rock that you will find cannot be destroyed no matter who chooses to disagree with your experience of God.
With this said, I want to acknowledge some of the spiritual writings that have guided me to the "Kingdom of Heaven...within" - regardless of whether I agreed or disagreed with all the messages found within the pages of these writings: the many books of the Bible - particularly the Gospels and some of the letters from the apostle Paul, Conversations with God Trilogy, Friendship with God, Communion with God, The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight, Going Home: Jesus and Buddha as Brothers, Let Go and Live in the Now, The Secret of Letting Go, Apprentice of the Heart: Lessons in Life only Love Can Teach, Living Christ, Living Buddha. There are, of course, many others. But my final acknowledgement is to God, who guided these individuals from within to express their experience of Him/Her/It so that I might see the Joy, Freedom, Contentment, and Love in discovering my own Connection to All That Is. We can all be Grateful for this opportunity to create - collectively and individually - "a definition of what Life Is." We can all be Grateful, most of all, that Life Is.
Ah, the Bible. People have killed and been killed for this book. Not just for the messages within it but also for the messages that were excluded from it. A very poignant fact about the Christian Bible (that goes along with most of the thoughts and insights that have been published on this blog) is that it was created by man. This just further supports my understanding that creativity is the very essence of this physical existence.
"Life is to build up a definition of what Life is."
I love this idea (insight). It is a lyric to the Gorillaz song "Clint Eastwood." This lyric was written and performed by Del the Funky HomoSapien. This man gets it. He recognizes what we are all meant to see. The evidence is all around us, gently splashing against us every moment, a wave carressing the beach.
The Bible is one of humanity's many attempts to "build up a definition of what Life is." For the most part, it is an excellent book, particularly the New Testament Gospels - in which several different authors (and many more than we actually find in the canonized Holy Bible) attempt to bring us the "good news" (although in some instances, this news may be a bit slanted toward reinforcing each author's beliefs - which is quite okay because we are all here doing the same thing) of Christ's enlightenment and our potential for the same. The words in this book are, again, for the most part, divinely inspired. This I truly believe. However, we rarely reflect on the manner of this divine inspiration. We simply accept it - through years of conditioning from our parents - as The Definition of what Life is.
As a former atheist (Thank You, God!), one of my arguments against the Bible was that it was man-made, and thus, full of contradictions, littered with quotations from an imperfect God, violent, mythical, shallow in some cases and beautiful and inspiring in others. All of this supported my view that, at the very least, the God depicted in the words of the Bible is not real. Now, however, I realize a very subtle reason why my view was incorrect.
The God(s) in the Christian Bible was/were very real for the men who wrote of Him/Them. This is why even a small child can point out the contradictions of what we find within the whole of this book. Yet, we need not fret about this or seek to find scripture to justify our beliefs. We only undertake such behaviors when we have built our faith on a house of sand, and I say this right here and now: if you have established your faith in the Bible only - and many, many of us have - then it is destined to crumble at the smallest signs of resistance. You don't believe me? Just look at the heinous acts of violence, persecution, and destruction that have been perpetrated under the banner of the messages found within this book. Was not even Christ hated because he, in the view of the Jewish leaders of the time, "contradicted" so freely the "laws" found in the Old Testament? This is just one example, but it should help to bring home to us all what I hope for us all to understand here.
The time has come for a new perspective on reading and understanding the Bible. I think each book in the Bible has something powerful to offer any sincere seeker of Truth because, like all true, spiritual books, each one reveals the grand vision of Life as it was experienced by the authors and the subjects of their writings. It seems to me, though, that we have damaged the value of what is found within the Bible by trying to force each other to accept it as a whole. Only, this is not the worst of it. After men put it together by deciding which writings were "divinely inspired" and which writings were not, and even after trying to assert that all the writings must be taken as a whole which only confuses anyone who tries to reconcile the many contradictions found in viewing the Bible in this way, we devalued the Bible the most by labelling it "The Source of Truth" and then preaching the message that those who do not follow its messages (no matter how contradictory these messages may be) are doomed.
The psychology that explains why we have done this with this book for thousands of years is actually quite simple: when one discovers something that he/she feels is valuable, many times, one will then seek others to agree with the value of this "thing" (whatever it is) in order to feel reinforced in his/her belief. Thus, we build our house on sand. And when others do not agree with one's own assessment of value for this "thing," one's house of faith begins fall in upon itself. And to stop such a catastrophe, one will then use fear to intimidate these others (who disagree) into submission to one's ideas of what is valuable. Hey, we've all done this, everyone of us. So let's not deny it because our denial precludes our transcendence of these base behaviors.
I propose, therefore, that we all come together to understand the Bible for what it truly is: it is a collection of spiritual writings written by men who were inspired by the God that they experienced within. Does this make these writings above reproach? Of course not. We all experience God in different ways (which is further proof that we create our reality), and each individual one of us even experiences God in different ways from day to day. Moreover, when we make our experience of God our priority in this life, we find our understanding of God evolves, and our experience of God, thus, evolves on a moment to moment basis.
Observing and studying the words found in the Bible in this way literally means there is something in it for everyone. Rather than trying to fit the round ideas of one book in the Bible into the square hole of the insights of another book in the Bible, we can utilize the contrasting ideas to go within ourselves to discover which one (if either) is true for each of us as individuals. We do not even have to look at the contradictions in order to have this very powerful, spiritual experience. If you do not notice contradictions between authors of the books, that is excellent as well. I simply advocate the idea that we discontinue forcing the Bible upon others as "The Definition of What Life Is" because it is through this manipulation of it that we have become shallow and fearful and mere shells of what we are meant to be.
I observe on a daily basis individuals who seem incapable of deciding for themselves what is true without using some quotation from the Bible to rationalize their thoughts, motives, and actions. This is fine for these individuals, but I also observe how limited they are in their experience of God. These individuals believe that God "divinely inspired" the words in the Bible, but they do not believe that they can be divinely inspired. They are bound in their experience of God to what the transitory words on the crumbling page tell them can be their experience of God. Are not words the least reliable medium of communication? What of instinct? What of feelings? Do not we always "regret" not trusting our instincts? I have experienced that my true instincts (once I transcended all the false, conditioned instincts of fear) always lead me right where I need to be. Yet, when my thoughts "talk" to me, I usually find myself lost again. We have buried our instincts underneath the "Word of God" as found in the Bible, and, in doing so, we have created a Bible with little value outside of being a tool of manipulation of the masses.
I heard a very striking comment once by a man named Guy Finley, whose works and words have been a guide (more on this in a moment) to me during my journey to remembrance of Who I Really Am. Someone asked him what was his source of truth, and the questioner stated that his own source of truth is the NIV Bible. He then asked, is the NIV Bible (or the Bible in general) the source of all truth. And Guy, without hesitation (which is simply amazing to me), said, "No, God is."
Can any of you feel that idea reverberate within you, coming from the very center of your being and penetrating the outer realms of your physical body? If you can, then you are experiencing God. God is what you already know but what you only need to remember that you forgot that you know. That is what the writers in the Bible were doing: they were trying to communicate what they remembered that they forgot that they knew. Because each of us are creative, we remember and perceive God in our own unique ways, and this is true freedom. This also means no one person's experience of God is "better" or more "true" or more "meaningful" than anyone else's. So we can just stop trying to force our beliefs and values on others in order to help ourselves feel more certain about what we find valuable. It is this idea that "our religion, our God, our ways of worship, our morals" are "better" than another individual's or group's that has allowed us to rationalize our wars and our mistreatment of other human beings. We can end the spirit of fear and agression that pervades this world by simply doing away with this idea of "better" and "superior." With our ability to create comes our ability to un-create any creation that no longer works for us.
Everything I have said here can be applied to any true, spiritual writing (e.g. the Koran, Buddhist writings, etc.). The Bible, like all other books of its type, is meant to be, as I understand it, a guide in our search to create and discover Who We Really Are. However, it is a very weak substitution to your personal experience of what is True about God and Life (these are one in the same). When we read the words of any one of these books, it is our instincts that we must trust. If we do that, and read without the conditioned instinct of fear (why do we fear the words, thoughts, and ideas of others?), then when we read a message that is true, we will know that we have always known that and that we only forgot that we knew. It is with this knowledge that you build your faith on a rock that you will find cannot be destroyed no matter who chooses to disagree with your experience of God.
With this said, I want to acknowledge some of the spiritual writings that have guided me to the "Kingdom of Heaven...within" - regardless of whether I agreed or disagreed with all the messages found within the pages of these writings: the many books of the Bible - particularly the Gospels and some of the letters from the apostle Paul, Conversations with God Trilogy, Friendship with God, Communion with God, The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight, Going Home: Jesus and Buddha as Brothers, Let Go and Live in the Now, The Secret of Letting Go, Apprentice of the Heart: Lessons in Life only Love Can Teach, Living Christ, Living Buddha. There are, of course, many others. But my final acknowledgement is to God, who guided these individuals from within to express their experience of Him/Her/It so that I might see the Joy, Freedom, Contentment, and Love in discovering my own Connection to All That Is. We can all be Grateful for this opportunity to create - collectively and individually - "a definition of what Life Is." We can all be Grateful, most of all, that Life Is.
Saturday, November 04, 2006
Stephanie
I would just like to take a moment out of the day - a moment that I always make difficult to find - to express the honor, love, joy, and passion I feel for my partner, Stephanie. She is a loving wife who expands my understanding through her selfless devotion to her family (in which I am so grateful to be included), her amazing artistic creativity, and through our wonderful late-night conversations.
Stephanie, you are an inspiration to me. I will always cherish our time together. I Love You.
Stephanie, you are an inspiration to me. I will always cherish our time together. I Love You.
Wednesday, October 18, 2006
The (Gun) Show Must Go On!
A large, flourescent-orange billboard announcing, "Gun Show Coming!" God, why do we continue to believe in all the works and ways that have brought us to a world-wide depression? You hear me asking this question now, and I know you have already answered me.
An advertisement on the radio with a young man explaining, "My life was going nowhere until I joined the Army." God, how do we stop the mass-exploitation of our children? You watch us move through this vain cycle of violence, destroying all we create, even the lives of our kids.
A first grade boy at my daughter's school exclaiming, "Kill, Kill, Kill!" God, why have we thrown away our love? You long for us to observe what we are doing to ourselves and re-direct our lives toward Love, and all the while, we blame You for the suffering that pervades our entire being.
There is nothing enlightening being given to the world by our corporations, our schools, our governments, our religions, or even our families, and this is simply because we are living from nothing real within ourselves. We are so unreal, so Zombified, that most of us cannot even sense the absurdity of the three quotations above. Most of us would chuckle at the little boy at my daughter's school, and say something to comfort ourselves, such as, "Boys will be boys!" Most of us have been so inundated by military advertisements that mislead and lie and prey upon the innocent, young, and impressionable that we barely notice the message of inferiority they present to all those kids who do not have the "courage" to join their violent crusade. In fact, we even invite their ambassadors in our homes to pressure our children into seeing that their lives will amount to nothing if they do not join the "armed forces." Most of us just love a good gun show because it is our "God and Constitutional-given right" to bear arms, and when you look in the eyes of us who defend our love of guns with these words, you can see so clearly that there is absolutely no understanding of what any of that means. Force-fed logic from our childhood being force-fed again to our children who just so happen to be at the gun show with us so they can see and learn how cool are these toys and perhaps take one to school and Kill! Kill! Kill! in a perfect exhibition of the "courage, strength, and integrity" sought after by the military that will turn our children, all the same, into Someone.
Someone Dead.
Love would never kill. Love would never protect itself from those who would kill It. Love cannot die. Neither can you or I. Yet, we do not believe in this promise because it is "too good to be true," so we fear. In our fear, we set out to protect ourselves from the hatred and violence we witness in the world by developing our own hatred and turning it into the action of violence.
You are my brother. You are my sister. You want to kill me, and I will not stop you. I love you all the more because I know you suffer, and because I know you fervently believe in the lie that you can kill me. I will readily give you my life in order that you might have the opportunity to see that you cannot take anything away from me, which, in turn, means that nothing can be taken from you. I require no gun - neither to kill animals nor to "protect" myself from humans.
I pray that we all make room for this True Love in our hearts. Our Souls already hold Love's promise out to us in a gesture of compassion that is full of the secrets to our salvation. We have but to turn around and look at what is in the other direction. The question is, will we choose to be the Love we truly Are. There is only right Now to decide. Do you have what it takes to be one of the few, the proud, the Loving?
An advertisement on the radio with a young man explaining, "My life was going nowhere until I joined the Army." God, how do we stop the mass-exploitation of our children? You watch us move through this vain cycle of violence, destroying all we create, even the lives of our kids.
A first grade boy at my daughter's school exclaiming, "Kill, Kill, Kill!" God, why have we thrown away our love? You long for us to observe what we are doing to ourselves and re-direct our lives toward Love, and all the while, we blame You for the suffering that pervades our entire being.
There is nothing enlightening being given to the world by our corporations, our schools, our governments, our religions, or even our families, and this is simply because we are living from nothing real within ourselves. We are so unreal, so Zombified, that most of us cannot even sense the absurdity of the three quotations above. Most of us would chuckle at the little boy at my daughter's school, and say something to comfort ourselves, such as, "Boys will be boys!" Most of us have been so inundated by military advertisements that mislead and lie and prey upon the innocent, young, and impressionable that we barely notice the message of inferiority they present to all those kids who do not have the "courage" to join their violent crusade. In fact, we even invite their ambassadors in our homes to pressure our children into seeing that their lives will amount to nothing if they do not join the "armed forces." Most of us just love a good gun show because it is our "God and Constitutional-given right" to bear arms, and when you look in the eyes of us who defend our love of guns with these words, you can see so clearly that there is absolutely no understanding of what any of that means. Force-fed logic from our childhood being force-fed again to our children who just so happen to be at the gun show with us so they can see and learn how cool are these toys and perhaps take one to school and Kill! Kill! Kill! in a perfect exhibition of the "courage, strength, and integrity" sought after by the military that will turn our children, all the same, into Someone.
Someone Dead.
Love would never kill. Love would never protect itself from those who would kill It. Love cannot die. Neither can you or I. Yet, we do not believe in this promise because it is "too good to be true," so we fear. In our fear, we set out to protect ourselves from the hatred and violence we witness in the world by developing our own hatred and turning it into the action of violence.
You are my brother. You are my sister. You want to kill me, and I will not stop you. I love you all the more because I know you suffer, and because I know you fervently believe in the lie that you can kill me. I will readily give you my life in order that you might have the opportunity to see that you cannot take anything away from me, which, in turn, means that nothing can be taken from you. I require no gun - neither to kill animals nor to "protect" myself from humans.
I pray that we all make room for this True Love in our hearts. Our Souls already hold Love's promise out to us in a gesture of compassion that is full of the secrets to our salvation. We have but to turn around and look at what is in the other direction. The question is, will we choose to be the Love we truly Are. There is only right Now to decide. Do you have what it takes to be one of the few, the proud, the Loving?
Monday, October 09, 2006
The Maze of Expectations
Today I began to cry so hard over the suffering I am going through inside. I know I chose a purpose when I came into this earthly existence, but I feel with every cell in my body that I am not living up to that purpose, and the idea that I am trapped in the life I have created for myself - that does not live up to who I know I really am - becomes so overwhelming sometimes that I encounter only "Do Not Enter" signs around every corner on my attempt to sprint out of that idea at record speed.
I have chosen this morning to be The Sufferer. I have called forth many, many thoughts to help create this reality of being a suffering being: the thought that I am trapped in a job I hate because of my responsibilities; the feeling that what I do at that job is so mundane and energy wasting that I am limited as to any real "meaningful" contributions I feel I should be making to the world; the fear that I cannot say what I really feel (without being mocked or punished - why am I being a coward?) about the useless stress that others at this job constantly wish to express to me; the idea that I am a fake human being - choosing to appear to be stimulated or to even act like I give a damn about anything going on with my job - who communicates only what others want to hear while disregarding my truth; the tantalizing desire to do something that I have defined as "more meaningful" in this life.
It is my expectations of what I "should be doing" that are brutalizing my heart on this day. I talked to a very loving person this morning, and I burst into tears because I could see that I know the answers in my mind to this painful predicament of feeling useless and limited. This person (my wife) was very understanding, and she could see as well that I already knew the way out of the pain I am experiencing. She offered me nothing but support. She told me I could leave the job - that there was no pressure for me to be anything coming from her or my family. Yet, even this is something I already know. I realize that I am all that stops me from leaving this job. Yet, I also understand in a very deep, tangible way that "stepping down from or out of" the job will only be me running from this pain. This is here for me now because I have called it to me.
I need, in this moment, a patience with the pain of these thoughts so that I can really incorporate the understandings that my soul intends for me to gain from this experience that I have created. The problem I am having is that I just refuse to accept (have faith in) what I know about the reason for and solution to my suffering. As such, I continue to try to think my way out of this hurt by dreaming of what I can "do" to get me out of this feeling. Even as I am dreaming, though, I sense that nothing I "do" will take me away from this pain, although it may help to delay the inevitable experience of it. There is no doubt in my mind that this exact circumstance will surface again (no matter the change of job/scenery I give myself in hopes of escaping what I feel now), and if I make any external changes to my life now before fully understanding the purpose of this suffering, I will just remain ill-equipped to deal with the resurfacing heartache.
No, I must be patient with myself right now. I must embrace this experience and be loving toward the suffering self that I am being right now. I choose not to run from the horrible emptiness shuddering inside my wounded heart. It is time to change who I am, not what I am doing. With this change, I know that all other obstacles to my success in what I choose will fade like the hallucinations that they are. My soul has work to do, and this experience is a vital part of that work. I choose to have faith that the sole concern of my soul is to unbind me from the chains of suffering that I have wrapped around my throat. The moment is now at hand for me to step back and put into action that knowledge I have gained. Now is the moment for me to be Wise.
For those who have loved me patiently, I am eternally grateful. For those who are lost, I am eternally compassionate. For those who are afraid, I am eternally comforting. For those who hate, I am eternally loving. For those who are angry, I am eternally kind. For those who are frustrated, I am eternally patient. We can all be this together for, in truth, we are all of these emotions/feelings all the time. Every opposite is held within the whole of our souls that are held within the whole of The Soul of God. I now choose to move out of this suffering "part" of the soul and into the joyful "whole" of remembering that I am all of this and more.
I have chosen this morning to be The Sufferer. I have called forth many, many thoughts to help create this reality of being a suffering being: the thought that I am trapped in a job I hate because of my responsibilities; the feeling that what I do at that job is so mundane and energy wasting that I am limited as to any real "meaningful" contributions I feel I should be making to the world; the fear that I cannot say what I really feel (without being mocked or punished - why am I being a coward?) about the useless stress that others at this job constantly wish to express to me; the idea that I am a fake human being - choosing to appear to be stimulated or to even act like I give a damn about anything going on with my job - who communicates only what others want to hear while disregarding my truth; the tantalizing desire to do something that I have defined as "more meaningful" in this life.
It is my expectations of what I "should be doing" that are brutalizing my heart on this day. I talked to a very loving person this morning, and I burst into tears because I could see that I know the answers in my mind to this painful predicament of feeling useless and limited. This person (my wife) was very understanding, and she could see as well that I already knew the way out of the pain I am experiencing. She offered me nothing but support. She told me I could leave the job - that there was no pressure for me to be anything coming from her or my family. Yet, even this is something I already know. I realize that I am all that stops me from leaving this job. Yet, I also understand in a very deep, tangible way that "stepping down from or out of" the job will only be me running from this pain. This is here for me now because I have called it to me.
I need, in this moment, a patience with the pain of these thoughts so that I can really incorporate the understandings that my soul intends for me to gain from this experience that I have created. The problem I am having is that I just refuse to accept (have faith in) what I know about the reason for and solution to my suffering. As such, I continue to try to think my way out of this hurt by dreaming of what I can "do" to get me out of this feeling. Even as I am dreaming, though, I sense that nothing I "do" will take me away from this pain, although it may help to delay the inevitable experience of it. There is no doubt in my mind that this exact circumstance will surface again (no matter the change of job/scenery I give myself in hopes of escaping what I feel now), and if I make any external changes to my life now before fully understanding the purpose of this suffering, I will just remain ill-equipped to deal with the resurfacing heartache.
No, I must be patient with myself right now. I must embrace this experience and be loving toward the suffering self that I am being right now. I choose not to run from the horrible emptiness shuddering inside my wounded heart. It is time to change who I am, not what I am doing. With this change, I know that all other obstacles to my success in what I choose will fade like the hallucinations that they are. My soul has work to do, and this experience is a vital part of that work. I choose to have faith that the sole concern of my soul is to unbind me from the chains of suffering that I have wrapped around my throat. The moment is now at hand for me to step back and put into action that knowledge I have gained. Now is the moment for me to be Wise.
For those who have loved me patiently, I am eternally grateful. For those who are lost, I am eternally compassionate. For those who are afraid, I am eternally comforting. For those who hate, I am eternally loving. For those who are angry, I am eternally kind. For those who are frustrated, I am eternally patient. We can all be this together for, in truth, we are all of these emotions/feelings all the time. Every opposite is held within the whole of our souls that are held within the whole of The Soul of God. I now choose to move out of this suffering "part" of the soul and into the joyful "whole" of remembering that I am all of this and more.
Thursday, October 05, 2006
Thursday, September 28, 2006
I'm So Tired, I Can't Sleep
During late nights such as this one, I long to stay awake just another minute if only to wait to see what more I can discover about You in that next moment. I am the newborn kangaroo slowly making its necessary and inspiring journey up the body of its mother, searching for the peace, comfort, warmth, and security that comes only when it reaches its home in mommy's pouch.
I cannot be
Without me in You
And You in me.
You and I are coming together again at last! I know it has only been I who has delayed our reunion - although I now begin to understand that we have never been apart except in my mind, which has caused me to experience a separation that has never been, and never will be, real. I never want to leave You or the Love You breathe into me even for a few hours of physical rest. And, of course, I even realize (with my mind only at this point) that You do not leave me even then. Yet, what is it that I am trying to say:
Can it be that I am nothing when I do not know You as Me? This certainly strikes right at the heart of the matter. I could fall into You for an eternity and never grow tired of the wonders I would behold as I continued floating and circulating through the veins of Your Life. I sit here tonight typing these feeble words to express my gratitude to You - to All of You - for Being You and Being Me. I am in awe of this Power found in the unbound Soul. Your Soul. My Soul. Our Soul.
I know not what else can be said.
I cannot be
Without me in You
And You in me.
You and I are coming together again at last! I know it has only been I who has delayed our reunion - although I now begin to understand that we have never been apart except in my mind, which has caused me to experience a separation that has never been, and never will be, real. I never want to leave You or the Love You breathe into me even for a few hours of physical rest. And, of course, I even realize (with my mind only at this point) that You do not leave me even then. Yet, what is it that I am trying to say:
Can it be that I am nothing when I do not know You as Me? This certainly strikes right at the heart of the matter. I could fall into You for an eternity and never grow tired of the wonders I would behold as I continued floating and circulating through the veins of Your Life. I sit here tonight typing these feeble words to express my gratitude to You - to All of You - for Being You and Being Me. I am in awe of this Power found in the unbound Soul. Your Soul. My Soul. Our Soul.
I know not what else can be said.
Tuesday, September 26, 2006
A Love Note
I Love You. All of You. There is nothing of You that I do not Love.
You Love Me. All of Me. There is nothing of Me that You do not Love.
All is Well. All is Joy. All is Love.
I Love You.
Love,
Paul
You Love Me. All of Me. There is nothing of Me that You do not Love.
All is Well. All is Joy. All is Love.
I Love You.
Love,
Paul
Wednesday, September 20, 2006
Looking Out a Black Window
Looking out a black window
I can know only me
As me.
There's something in the way
Of what the Soul seeks
To see.
Wind blows; light breaks through.
My image fades; I soar
With You.
I can know only me
As me.
There's something in the way
Of what the Soul seeks
To see.
Wind blows; light breaks through.
My image fades; I soar
With You.
The All and The Everything
I am coming to know myself now as I truly am. I am truly Infinity, Eternity, Love, Compassion, Peace, Serenity, Contentment, Joy. There is nothing that I am not: I am Everything!
I just wish that everyone could read these words and repeat them with me - without shame or fear, without unnecessary modesty, without arrogance:
There is nothing that I am not: I am Everything!
You are. You really are. And if you could just remember this, if each of us could just recall who we really are, our world would change completely in that instant. If we know this statement to be true, then we see the God in ourselves and the God in everyone else and we know not what separation is anymore.
I know you may not know this yet, and I know I am still in the process (and I will always be, thank God) of fully remembering who I am and what I am doing here, but everything I have experienced in my life has led me to this moment to declare that I am the All and the Everything. I say this with only Love even as many of you would hate the "over-confidence" of the declaration. I do not, however, limit being "the All and the Everything" to just me. Everyone of us are the All and the Everything for it is not possible for there to be anything that is apart from "the All and the Everything."
When I look at each of you as you rush past me in your cars, when I see you running anxiously to catch your flights in the airports, when I observe you working so hard to make another person look bad, when I notice the misery in your hearts over the delusions in which you believe, when I watch you hate and destroy each other and our world, I see only God. I stare right at every human being, and I see God - another aspect of God - God being God in His/Her/Its myriad forms.
Yet, I also understand something else when I observe you doing everything you can to defeat yourself: I understand that the God I see does not know that he/she is God.
The only thing I want to convey here is that Now (and only Now) is the perfect time to remember the Divine Stuff of which you are made. There is nothing hindering you. There is nothing binding you. There is nothing enslaving you. There is no situation that is greater than Who You Are. All of these excuses that you make for not knowing, for not becoming awake to Reality, are as transparent as the wind. Unless you choose for them to be as unconquerable as the universe itself. For God cannot be bound by anything except by what He/She/It chooses to be bound by.
This means that you are deciding in each moment, albeit unconsciously, to wallow in the futility of believing that what you see with your human eyes can somehow contain the Force that You Really Are. Nothing can impose anything upon you without your choosing for it to be so. And you choose to be defeated, limited, and tortured each time you believe you are at the mercy of forces greater than yourself.
So all I hope to do here, both for myself and for everyone, is to remind each of us that it is impossible for us to be victimized in this life. Everything we experience, we have chosen to experience. This is the greatest secret on earth, and it is filled with all of the Love that is God. Why would this be the most wonderful wisdom for all the world to understand? Because, if all we have chosen to experience thus far has brought us nothing but suffering, we can now see that we have the power to call forth a new experience without being constrained by any of the perceived limitations that we once believed held us back.
We cannot be stopped accept by our own willingness to be. There is great Power in that. There is great Beauty in that. There is great Love in that. There is great Truth in that. Remember this in every moment you can, and you will trust, as I now do, that You are God and God is You.
I just wish that everyone could read these words and repeat them with me - without shame or fear, without unnecessary modesty, without arrogance:
There is nothing that I am not: I am Everything!
You are. You really are. And if you could just remember this, if each of us could just recall who we really are, our world would change completely in that instant. If we know this statement to be true, then we see the God in ourselves and the God in everyone else and we know not what separation is anymore.
I know you may not know this yet, and I know I am still in the process (and I will always be, thank God) of fully remembering who I am and what I am doing here, but everything I have experienced in my life has led me to this moment to declare that I am the All and the Everything. I say this with only Love even as many of you would hate the "over-confidence" of the declaration. I do not, however, limit being "the All and the Everything" to just me. Everyone of us are the All and the Everything for it is not possible for there to be anything that is apart from "the All and the Everything."
When I look at each of you as you rush past me in your cars, when I see you running anxiously to catch your flights in the airports, when I observe you working so hard to make another person look bad, when I notice the misery in your hearts over the delusions in which you believe, when I watch you hate and destroy each other and our world, I see only God. I stare right at every human being, and I see God - another aspect of God - God being God in His/Her/Its myriad forms.
Yet, I also understand something else when I observe you doing everything you can to defeat yourself: I understand that the God I see does not know that he/she is God.
The only thing I want to convey here is that Now (and only Now) is the perfect time to remember the Divine Stuff of which you are made. There is nothing hindering you. There is nothing binding you. There is nothing enslaving you. There is no situation that is greater than Who You Are. All of these excuses that you make for not knowing, for not becoming awake to Reality, are as transparent as the wind. Unless you choose for them to be as unconquerable as the universe itself. For God cannot be bound by anything except by what He/She/It chooses to be bound by.
This means that you are deciding in each moment, albeit unconsciously, to wallow in the futility of believing that what you see with your human eyes can somehow contain the Force that You Really Are. Nothing can impose anything upon you without your choosing for it to be so. And you choose to be defeated, limited, and tortured each time you believe you are at the mercy of forces greater than yourself.
So all I hope to do here, both for myself and for everyone, is to remind each of us that it is impossible for us to be victimized in this life. Everything we experience, we have chosen to experience. This is the greatest secret on earth, and it is filled with all of the Love that is God. Why would this be the most wonderful wisdom for all the world to understand? Because, if all we have chosen to experience thus far has brought us nothing but suffering, we can now see that we have the power to call forth a new experience without being constrained by any of the perceived limitations that we once believed held us back.
We cannot be stopped accept by our own willingness to be. There is great Power in that. There is great Beauty in that. There is great Love in that. There is great Truth in that. Remember this in every moment you can, and you will trust, as I now do, that You are God and God is You.
Friday, September 08, 2006
The Limitation of Imitation
Accept no imitations! How clear can this be made to all of us? No one wants to hear this, of course. Therefore, if we don't want to hear it, we won't. This life really is wonderful, and we truly always get what we request in our experience of creating ourselves.
Ok, ok, I'm not making any sense to most, probably. I get so excited about all of this - so impassioned by what I am seeing and so eager to pass it on to anyone who will hear so that they, too, may know who they really are.
Where do I begin? Back to the beginning I'll go. We are imitators! This is how we live our lives and this is why we find no real spiritual satisfaction in most of our organized religions. Should a caterpillar decide to hold at bey its butterfly nature because it meets with worms a few times a week and worms say it is good to be like them, to follow the rules of their life, to stay on the ground, to not change form? Would not the caterpillar be missing out on the greatest part of its life if it decided to live like the worms with whom it meets just to stay in their community? Could the caterpillar realize the joy of the life it is meant to have if it refuses to believe that its unique butterfly nature is its true nature in favor of believing it is better to conform to the truth of the worms in order to avoid being alone? Is it not obvious that the caterpillar would experience misery and suffering in resisting the truth of its being, yet that it would experience only an exquisite peace and contentment in allowing its true nature to express to the universe what the caterpillar truly is?
I know some reading this may find my example absurd. However, I tell you with all the love in my heart that this is EXACTLY how we live! We are a Soul that, as Emerson stated, "refuses limits," yet we pain ourselves by limiting it to the life we would say it should have based on the ideas and doctrines that have been force-fed us by selfish, psychopathic individuals. We have, in fact, accepted these "beliefs" so readily because we ourselves are selfish, psychopathic individuals and it serves the selfish desire of the mind (that believes that the person must be divided in order for it to remain relevant and thus "alive") from which we are living to have someone tell us every week what is right and what is wrong without us ever having to figure that out for ourselves. Then, we actually have the gall to wonder why we feel no depth to what we study in our religious environments, and we don't understand why we cannot find practical applications for the rules and laws we go there to have brainwashed into our minds so that our minds can then try to impose these arbitrary limits upon our Boundless Souls.
We look to books and we look to so-called prophets and we look to the "Only Begotten Son of God" and we beg these resources to "be my source of truth because I cannot bear to think for myself." The ignorant mind is then confounded when reading book after book after book and imitating the messages of the books and the teachers and the prophets fails to quiet its incessant desires that cause it to suffer. How can such a person who looks outside of himself/herself for Truth find anything but discontent and suffering? This is the very definition of a "house divided against itself."
This is what Christ and Buddha (I use these names as very popular spiritual masters, although there are and have been many, many others who have been here to show us the way) tried to show to us all: set no one above you (even Me Christ, Me Buddha) because everything I am you can be (and, in fact, already are), too. Yet, you cannot be this by imitating those who would constrain you to their view of the world. You cannot be the God You Are by analyzing "scripture" and books and even Me (Christ, Buddha) who is showing you this. Rather, these scriptures and these books and I (Christ, Buddha) am here to guide you back to the only real source of Truth for anyone: Yourself!
Just observe that these two Beings are considered two of the most creative and original people ever to have walked the earth. Their teachings and examples were so controversial, so far off the beaten path, that many in their presence did not know what to make of them. Still, all who had the honor of being in the presence of these enlightened men could sense they were witnesses to Someone Magnificent. Then, observe the religious culture of the times and societies in which they lived: the Pharisees were self-righteous, hypocritical, blind slaves of a "law" that they could not even comprehend yet that they followed in order to look "holy" before other men. And the Buddha was a man in search the root cause of suffering in order that he might end it once and for all, and during his quest, he tried the fasting and other ritualistic techniques of the spiritual seekers in the forest. Did either man, however, follow in the footsteps of the accepted relious establishments of the time? The answer is obvious to anyone observing this with the least bit of objectivity (i.e. without the conditioned eye bent toward holding onto the idea that these men somehow accomplished something that we cannot).
Both Christ and Buddha did something remarkably simple that for its simplicity is totally incomprehensible to most of us now: both men observed what was not working (e.g. the rules and observances of the Pharisees and the practices and rituals of the spiritual seekers in the forest) for humans in their attempt to connect with the Ultimate, and both men then dropped what was not working and made their own way. They did not imitate. They Created. Each one then set out to show us that we are Creators as well.
Oh, look at us now! We meet in churches or temples or whatever we want to call them, and we do our damnedest to box in the teachings of these men by calling them greater than us and accepting that we are "Children of a Lesser God" through our creation of stale doctrines, dead mythologies, and empty rituals that we say Jesus and Buddha commanded us to believe and imitate without questioning. If we do not obey these (and notice that everyone has their own interpretation of these - who in the world is right?), then we will be punished with eternal damnation and suffering. Now this, to me, sounds like the old, unoriginal, imitation-worn, self-serving ideas of beings who have decided to be both "in and of this world." This sounds like human history to me, and Christ and Buddha, we have already observed, were Creators, not imitators. Therefore, how could I possibly accept (if I am observing properly) that they would reduce themselves to being the way humans have chosen to be for millenia by becoming imitations of how the rest of us choose to act and see the world (i.e. our desire for the comfort of routine [doctrines and rituals], our resistance to change [doctrines and rituals], our fear of dying [lack of true connection with God], our belief in punishment for those who wrong us [mythologies], our need for "rules" or "laws" to tell us what to do [doctrines and rituals], our longing to judge those who do not follow these "laws" [doctrines], etc. etc.)?
No, what we have reduced the lives of Christ and Buddha to is abhorrent. In our desire to imitate, we would have them be imitators of our imitations. You can all deny this until Kingdom Come (although Its already Here), but our world and its present condition, and the suffering condition of human beings all over it, is a testament to the shallow "herd" mentality to which we have attached, and enslaved, ourselves. Do not even dare to try to tell me that we do not have the power of Christ and Buddha to do something as simple as observe that what we are doing does not work for Who We Say We Want To Be. If we just looked at everything within and outside of us without justifying what we see, we would become "the Way" that Christ knew himself to be because we would no longer be wasting our real powers on denying what is True. If we just look at ourselves without fear of what we may find, we will see (it is guaranteed by God) why we have created such a mess. In that same moment, we will know exactly how to create ourselves and the world anew.
Imitating the truth that others would force upon you will always bring you back to the same pain, selfishness, misery, and suffering that comes with not allowing the Soul to express Itself and create Who You Are based on the Eternal Truths only It can reveal to you. Like Christ and Buddha, we are all Glorious Creators because we are all a part of the Ultimate Creator - God.
Therefore, the next time you feel spiritually starved and you return to the same futile search for your truth by asking others to tell you what to do about the suffering you are experiencing, create a new option, a new path, by going within and allowing yourself to remember the Truth by tapping into your True Nature that understands that imitation is death and Creation is Life. If you persist at this, you will come to accept what is (right now, in your present condition) so painfully obvious, and yet, so consistently denied by the mind: I hurt only because I have chosen to suppress what is Real and Original about me in favor of creating a false life of imitation of what everyone else tells me is real. This insight is the cocoon in which your butterfly nature will, with patient self-observation, create you anew with the wings of the Magnificent expression of Your Truth.
Ok, ok, I'm not making any sense to most, probably. I get so excited about all of this - so impassioned by what I am seeing and so eager to pass it on to anyone who will hear so that they, too, may know who they really are.
Where do I begin? Back to the beginning I'll go. We are imitators! This is how we live our lives and this is why we find no real spiritual satisfaction in most of our organized religions. Should a caterpillar decide to hold at bey its butterfly nature because it meets with worms a few times a week and worms say it is good to be like them, to follow the rules of their life, to stay on the ground, to not change form? Would not the caterpillar be missing out on the greatest part of its life if it decided to live like the worms with whom it meets just to stay in their community? Could the caterpillar realize the joy of the life it is meant to have if it refuses to believe that its unique butterfly nature is its true nature in favor of believing it is better to conform to the truth of the worms in order to avoid being alone? Is it not obvious that the caterpillar would experience misery and suffering in resisting the truth of its being, yet that it would experience only an exquisite peace and contentment in allowing its true nature to express to the universe what the caterpillar truly is?
I know some reading this may find my example absurd. However, I tell you with all the love in my heart that this is EXACTLY how we live! We are a Soul that, as Emerson stated, "refuses limits," yet we pain ourselves by limiting it to the life we would say it should have based on the ideas and doctrines that have been force-fed us by selfish, psychopathic individuals. We have, in fact, accepted these "beliefs" so readily because we ourselves are selfish, psychopathic individuals and it serves the selfish desire of the mind (that believes that the person must be divided in order for it to remain relevant and thus "alive") from which we are living to have someone tell us every week what is right and what is wrong without us ever having to figure that out for ourselves. Then, we actually have the gall to wonder why we feel no depth to what we study in our religious environments, and we don't understand why we cannot find practical applications for the rules and laws we go there to have brainwashed into our minds so that our minds can then try to impose these arbitrary limits upon our Boundless Souls.
We look to books and we look to so-called prophets and we look to the "Only Begotten Son of God" and we beg these resources to "be my source of truth because I cannot bear to think for myself." The ignorant mind is then confounded when reading book after book after book and imitating the messages of the books and the teachers and the prophets fails to quiet its incessant desires that cause it to suffer. How can such a person who looks outside of himself/herself for Truth find anything but discontent and suffering? This is the very definition of a "house divided against itself."
This is what Christ and Buddha (I use these names as very popular spiritual masters, although there are and have been many, many others who have been here to show us the way) tried to show to us all: set no one above you (even Me Christ, Me Buddha) because everything I am you can be (and, in fact, already are), too. Yet, you cannot be this by imitating those who would constrain you to their view of the world. You cannot be the God You Are by analyzing "scripture" and books and even Me (Christ, Buddha) who is showing you this. Rather, these scriptures and these books and I (Christ, Buddha) am here to guide you back to the only real source of Truth for anyone: Yourself!
Just observe that these two Beings are considered two of the most creative and original people ever to have walked the earth. Their teachings and examples were so controversial, so far off the beaten path, that many in their presence did not know what to make of them. Still, all who had the honor of being in the presence of these enlightened men could sense they were witnesses to Someone Magnificent. Then, observe the religious culture of the times and societies in which they lived: the Pharisees were self-righteous, hypocritical, blind slaves of a "law" that they could not even comprehend yet that they followed in order to look "holy" before other men. And the Buddha was a man in search the root cause of suffering in order that he might end it once and for all, and during his quest, he tried the fasting and other ritualistic techniques of the spiritual seekers in the forest. Did either man, however, follow in the footsteps of the accepted relious establishments of the time? The answer is obvious to anyone observing this with the least bit of objectivity (i.e. without the conditioned eye bent toward holding onto the idea that these men somehow accomplished something that we cannot).
Both Christ and Buddha did something remarkably simple that for its simplicity is totally incomprehensible to most of us now: both men observed what was not working (e.g. the rules and observances of the Pharisees and the practices and rituals of the spiritual seekers in the forest) for humans in their attempt to connect with the Ultimate, and both men then dropped what was not working and made their own way. They did not imitate. They Created. Each one then set out to show us that we are Creators as well.
Oh, look at us now! We meet in churches or temples or whatever we want to call them, and we do our damnedest to box in the teachings of these men by calling them greater than us and accepting that we are "Children of a Lesser God" through our creation of stale doctrines, dead mythologies, and empty rituals that we say Jesus and Buddha commanded us to believe and imitate without questioning. If we do not obey these (and notice that everyone has their own interpretation of these - who in the world is right?), then we will be punished with eternal damnation and suffering. Now this, to me, sounds like the old, unoriginal, imitation-worn, self-serving ideas of beings who have decided to be both "in and of this world." This sounds like human history to me, and Christ and Buddha, we have already observed, were Creators, not imitators. Therefore, how could I possibly accept (if I am observing properly) that they would reduce themselves to being the way humans have chosen to be for millenia by becoming imitations of how the rest of us choose to act and see the world (i.e. our desire for the comfort of routine [doctrines and rituals], our resistance to change [doctrines and rituals], our fear of dying [lack of true connection with God], our belief in punishment for those who wrong us [mythologies], our need for "rules" or "laws" to tell us what to do [doctrines and rituals], our longing to judge those who do not follow these "laws" [doctrines], etc. etc.)?
No, what we have reduced the lives of Christ and Buddha to is abhorrent. In our desire to imitate, we would have them be imitators of our imitations. You can all deny this until Kingdom Come (although Its already Here), but our world and its present condition, and the suffering condition of human beings all over it, is a testament to the shallow "herd" mentality to which we have attached, and enslaved, ourselves. Do not even dare to try to tell me that we do not have the power of Christ and Buddha to do something as simple as observe that what we are doing does not work for Who We Say We Want To Be. If we just looked at everything within and outside of us without justifying what we see, we would become "the Way" that Christ knew himself to be because we would no longer be wasting our real powers on denying what is True. If we just look at ourselves without fear of what we may find, we will see (it is guaranteed by God) why we have created such a mess. In that same moment, we will know exactly how to create ourselves and the world anew.
Imitating the truth that others would force upon you will always bring you back to the same pain, selfishness, misery, and suffering that comes with not allowing the Soul to express Itself and create Who You Are based on the Eternal Truths only It can reveal to you. Like Christ and Buddha, we are all Glorious Creators because we are all a part of the Ultimate Creator - God.
Therefore, the next time you feel spiritually starved and you return to the same futile search for your truth by asking others to tell you what to do about the suffering you are experiencing, create a new option, a new path, by going within and allowing yourself to remember the Truth by tapping into your True Nature that understands that imitation is death and Creation is Life. If you persist at this, you will come to accept what is (right now, in your present condition) so painfully obvious, and yet, so consistently denied by the mind: I hurt only because I have chosen to suppress what is Real and Original about me in favor of creating a false life of imitation of what everyone else tells me is real. This insight is the cocoon in which your butterfly nature will, with patient self-observation, create you anew with the wings of the Magnificent expression of Your Truth.
Friday, September 01, 2006
What You Would Have Me Remember
All this week I have thought myself into forgetting where I am and where I am going. After all this time I see it is still so easy to do. Then, that same forgetful thought, once I have grabbed onto it and called it Me, transforms into something more imposing: it whispers menacingly in my head - day and night - that I am failing in my efforts to know You. Again, I find myself overwhelmed by worries with the world, and, through the fog of the suffering caused by these worries, I cannot see or even believe that You can do anything to help me.
I have tried to remain diligent anyway. I sense even in moments of very little consciousness of what I am being in these moments that I am supposed to remember something vital about this life. This unexplainable feeling seems to ask me to look at...what? Perhaps, I think, I am being invited to look at what is hurting within me in order that I might see Your Will in that pain. Of course, I know, even in my darkest moments, that it is not You Who brings the pain, but I also know from experience with Your Majestic Ways that, if I just go into the pain of which I am so afraid, I will find You patiently waiting there to reveal to me that what I thought was real was but an illusion. There have been several situations this week, while I was doing things but forgetting what I choose to be because I was so immersed in the doing that I could not conceive of being anything, in which the pressure within me became so unbearable that I just cried out inwardly to just know Your Will for me.
I have known futility firsthand this week (not for the first time by any means), and it is this: trying to find an escape from who I am through judgements about this world and me and comparisons to what my thoughts tell me I should be doing about the conflicting states I find myself in.
You have been with me throughout, and, if I was not sure of this, You renewed my faith again today. While driving home from another day of what I have judged to be burdensome and banal work, I was able to see clearly, even if for but a moment, just how far You have brought me from where I was. For instance, at the first sighting of troubled thoughts about an event or person or situation, I used to run away - many times physically run away and many times run away into some self-pity or despair or depression. I have felt that tug on my mind to run again this week. Yet, I did not surrender to its unconscious prodding.
I will stay the course, not out of any stubbornness or fear of being wrong, but out of a deep longing for You and a pervasive understanding that Your Love is my only salvation. Thus, walking back to where I used to be - where my mind finds a familiar, but tormented home - just because my mind, in its panic over how far we've travelled from the lies it has built its home upon, tells me I am going in the wrong direction is now known to me to be the most useless option. In fact, it is no longer an option, so clear is my vision as I look upon the ruinous wasteland this constant "turning back" has made of me up to this point. I never could have seen with this clarity before You (although I acknowledge - as if You need me to do that - that You were always with me only I cared not to notice), and this gift from You alone has changed me in ways I could never describe to anyone who has not personally seen Your Will in their own transformation without that person thinking me insane. You are allowing me to see just who I am being - whether my mind likes it or not - so that I may know intuitively the next step toward transcending any lower levels of being I have trapped myself within, which moves me, then, into successively higher remembrances of who I really am. I must now take action that is guided by the Light of the knowledge You are giving me about myself. The key is that I must take these new actions despite the protestations of a mind that sees its power being usurped by Your Higher Wisdom, and, because it feels betrayed, it accuses the Wisdom of being Ignorance. Yet, I know You are true because of this: You do not judge or hate the mind for judging You to be ignorant and even evil. Instead, You welcome the confused mind, too, to share in Your boundless Love.
You found Me! I did not find You. There is ultimate comfort and peace and joy in this understanding. You never required me to go on a journey to search for You. You have always been there just waiting for me to notice You, never pushing me to see you and never becoming impatient with my ignorance. You have designed this wonderful life to help me remember that You never forget me, even if I forget about You. I know there is nothing that You will not do for me, if only I remember to ask for Your Help. You will not force Yourself upon us because that would defeat Your purpose for creating us, and this contributes to another way in which You do not judge us: whether we choose Your Will or not in any given moment, You are always standing by to lighten our burden even in that moment in which we have denied Your ability or power to show us the way in this Life. We cannot know a Love any greater than this, but we can choose to be this Ultimate Love that is You.
The diligence that You have provided me was born out of Your diligent watch over me. Understanding today (again) that You found me, not the other way around, has obliterated any false thoughts about what You can do for me when my mind puts me on the chopping block. The doubts I experienced earlier this week while being consumed by worry and fear and frustration could only, and can only, be healed by You, never by the promises these same negative feelings manifest in my thoughts. You found Me! And for this, I am eternally grateful.
I have tried to remain diligent anyway. I sense even in moments of very little consciousness of what I am being in these moments that I am supposed to remember something vital about this life. This unexplainable feeling seems to ask me to look at...what? Perhaps, I think, I am being invited to look at what is hurting within me in order that I might see Your Will in that pain. Of course, I know, even in my darkest moments, that it is not You Who brings the pain, but I also know from experience with Your Majestic Ways that, if I just go into the pain of which I am so afraid, I will find You patiently waiting there to reveal to me that what I thought was real was but an illusion. There have been several situations this week, while I was doing things but forgetting what I choose to be because I was so immersed in the doing that I could not conceive of being anything, in which the pressure within me became so unbearable that I just cried out inwardly to just know Your Will for me.
I have known futility firsthand this week (not for the first time by any means), and it is this: trying to find an escape from who I am through judgements about this world and me and comparisons to what my thoughts tell me I should be doing about the conflicting states I find myself in.
You have been with me throughout, and, if I was not sure of this, You renewed my faith again today. While driving home from another day of what I have judged to be burdensome and banal work, I was able to see clearly, even if for but a moment, just how far You have brought me from where I was. For instance, at the first sighting of troubled thoughts about an event or person or situation, I used to run away - many times physically run away and many times run away into some self-pity or despair or depression. I have felt that tug on my mind to run again this week. Yet, I did not surrender to its unconscious prodding.
I will stay the course, not out of any stubbornness or fear of being wrong, but out of a deep longing for You and a pervasive understanding that Your Love is my only salvation. Thus, walking back to where I used to be - where my mind finds a familiar, but tormented home - just because my mind, in its panic over how far we've travelled from the lies it has built its home upon, tells me I am going in the wrong direction is now known to me to be the most useless option. In fact, it is no longer an option, so clear is my vision as I look upon the ruinous wasteland this constant "turning back" has made of me up to this point. I never could have seen with this clarity before You (although I acknowledge - as if You need me to do that - that You were always with me only I cared not to notice), and this gift from You alone has changed me in ways I could never describe to anyone who has not personally seen Your Will in their own transformation without that person thinking me insane. You are allowing me to see just who I am being - whether my mind likes it or not - so that I may know intuitively the next step toward transcending any lower levels of being I have trapped myself within, which moves me, then, into successively higher remembrances of who I really am. I must now take action that is guided by the Light of the knowledge You are giving me about myself. The key is that I must take these new actions despite the protestations of a mind that sees its power being usurped by Your Higher Wisdom, and, because it feels betrayed, it accuses the Wisdom of being Ignorance. Yet, I know You are true because of this: You do not judge or hate the mind for judging You to be ignorant and even evil. Instead, You welcome the confused mind, too, to share in Your boundless Love.
You found Me! I did not find You. There is ultimate comfort and peace and joy in this understanding. You never required me to go on a journey to search for You. You have always been there just waiting for me to notice You, never pushing me to see you and never becoming impatient with my ignorance. You have designed this wonderful life to help me remember that You never forget me, even if I forget about You. I know there is nothing that You will not do for me, if only I remember to ask for Your Help. You will not force Yourself upon us because that would defeat Your purpose for creating us, and this contributes to another way in which You do not judge us: whether we choose Your Will or not in any given moment, You are always standing by to lighten our burden even in that moment in which we have denied Your ability or power to show us the way in this Life. We cannot know a Love any greater than this, but we can choose to be this Ultimate Love that is You.
The diligence that You have provided me was born out of Your diligent watch over me. Understanding today (again) that You found me, not the other way around, has obliterated any false thoughts about what You can do for me when my mind puts me on the chopping block. The doubts I experienced earlier this week while being consumed by worry and fear and frustration could only, and can only, be healed by You, never by the promises these same negative feelings manifest in my thoughts. You found Me! And for this, I am eternally grateful.
Sunday, August 27, 2006
The Need for True Prayer
First of all, I hope everyone receiving and reading this post is well. I ask that, before reading my post, each of you read the bold, blue text (this was a chain email I received) that precedes my post as this is what inspired my post. Also, look at the pictures (if these make it to the post) and contemplate deeply what you see going on with all three parties involved in the email. Then, read slowly and patiently through my email at your leisure. Be especially patient with yourself as you read the words. I know that we can all come to a new, higher understanding just by working to remain aware of what moves through our minds as we read my post and the email that inspired it.
This is the chain email I received to which my below "essay" was a response. There were also pictures of soldiers praying, which I have tried to attach here. If the pictures do not show up on the post, just read the message of this email, and my post will make more sense below. The email content is in bold, blue font, and my post response is in black:
What's wrong with this picture?
If you look closely at the picture above, you will note that all the Marines pictured are bowing their heads. That's because they're praying.
This incident took place at a recent ceremony honoring the Birthday of the Corps, and it has the ACLU up in arms. "These are federal employees," says Lucius Traveler, a spokesman for the ACLU, "on federal property and on federal time. For them to pray is clearly an establishment of religion, and we must nip this in the bud immediately."
When asked about the ACLU's charges, Colonel Jack Fessender, speaking for the Commandant of the Marine Corps said (cleaned up a bit), "Screw the ACLU." GOD Bless Our Warriors, Send the ACLU to France .
Please send this to people you know so everyone will know how stupid the ACLU is Getting in trying to remove GOD from everything and every place in America . May God Bless America , One Nation Under GOD!
What's wrong with the picture? ABSOLUTELY NOTHING
GOD BLESS YOU FOR
PASSING IT ON!
Prayer for our Military... Please send this on after a short prayer.
Prayer for our soldiers..
Prayer
"Lord, hold our troops in your loving hands. Protect them as they
protect us. Bless them and their families for the selfless acts they
perform for us in our time of need. I ask this in the name of Jesus, our
Lord and Savior. Amen."
Of all the gifts you could give a Marine , US Soldier, Sailor, Airman, &others
deployed in harm's way,
Prayer is the very best one
My Response:
Have we not all killed in our lifetimes? This is a shocking question with which to open a letter to everyone, but it comes to me from deeply contemplating the below pictures and even the corresponding story - whether true or not - about the ACLU's attempt to suppress the "prayer" of the soldiers. The pictures, as I understand them, are a part of the email to elicit our sentimentality and attachment to the image to these men praying - men whom we are all supposed to show the utmost deference and respect because of their duties to "protect" us - as well as stir our feelings of outrage for the ACLU's supposed actions to end this practice.
I look at these pictures, and I read the captions, and I know I need to pray. The prayer that I send, however, most likely cannot be comprehended by the majority (or all) of the Marines in the pictures, nor the outraged writer soliciting my identification with his/her reasons for rage, nor the ACLU group and their possible disdain for what is taking place in these pictures. God welcomes us in every moment to see the Reality of Life by touching the awareness he blessed us with. Even as we see this email, we can suspend our reactions and look deeper within ourselves, which translates into seeing deeper into the nature of the world. I look deeply at this email, and I see a world lost, I see a world in need of Love, I see a world that lacks the realization of its need for Love, I see and I read fear in the hearts of the men in the pictures and the causes of the writer of the email and the ACLU. I see darkness turning into evil once again in all aspects of the email, and I also see me - who I could be and who I have been.
We can wake up and enter Reality as we reflect on these pictures. As we do, we may begin to see within ourselves a growing agitation with the pictures. We may wonder at what point human beings began to so distort this beautiful gift of prayer. We may remember that we have never really felt that prayer, as it has been taught to us, was anything more than something we do because we're told to. We may dwell on our past prayers in which we asked for this or that outcome or possession that did not come to fruition. We may even believe or feel strongly that we know why we pray and our own prayers are the real and only way to pray. In our awareness, we may see these or myriad other reactions to prayer inspired by these pictures. It is important that we recognize these reactions within us while not attaching ourselves to the pressure created by these reactions. This is because anytime we say that our "self" is for something we set ourselves against something else. If we say or imply that we are against something, we are incomplete. Being either "for" or "against" anything only deepens our attachment to the opposites that bring us so much pain in this life. The stronger we hold to one side, the more fear we have of the other, which keeps us anchored to the "other side" that we fear. We want to go deeper than the reactions that automatically pit us against anything because, when we are in opposition to any one aspect of anything, we, in that moment, exclude ourselves from the potential to live in the Wholeness of God.
Be careful and patient with yourself as you look deeply at these pictures. As I look deeply, past the oppositions within me, I try to comprehend the effectiveness of praying to God to protect me as I train to kill other creatures and human beings or as I ready myself to go into a battle such as one can imagine these soldiers to participate in after the prayer. As I ponder this, I can understand why there is so little real faith in, or understanding of, the nature of prayer. I can see that, if I prayed in this way, I would eventually discontinue the futility of such a practice because, underneath the moral superiority that leads a soldier to pray for protection while he/she kills another human being that is also a part of God's Life, I would not experience any connection through my soul (as it is decaying from lack of nourishment) with God. This is why I see a world lost, a world in need of every individual's commitment to wake up from the collective nightmare or war and fear and anger and hatred that we have created for ourselves.
When we practice true prayer or meditation or awareness, we have the opportunity to lose our isolation from any living creature or organism in the universe. True prayer is a moment of connection with the Father through which we begin to understand that each of us is a part of the Whole of His Life and each of us is the Whole of His Life. We are a part of the Whole because we dwell within His never-ending existence, and we are the Whole because He dwells within each of us.
The entire universe - all of its different elements: sun, rain, dirt, clouds, plants, animals, humans, gases, liquids, solids, and on and on - is in a constant state of change in which each part is constantly remanifesting itself into the creation of all the other parts. My body would not exist without the sun and rain and dirt and all the other elements contributing to its creation, and this same dirt and sun and rain goes into the creation of each one of us. When the body "dies," it decays back into the earth and contributes to the creation of dirt, water, light, plants, animals, and even human beings. Don't get caught up in the idea of what these words are saying, but try to understand the principal behind the ideas: something can never become nothing and, conversely, something can never come from nothing. The body is something, and it never changes to nothing because, even when it no longer moves or functions as it does when we are "alive," it is being tranformed into other "somethings." Even if we can see the simplest implications of this principal, we begin to lose all fear of what we have perceived as the "death" of our life in this world. Yet, we can look at this even further to see that there is more direct evidence of the existence of God because this perfect system of renewal, which is something, could not have come from nothing. I realize that I am not writing this to debate the existence of God, but I had to insert the previous statement to help us see that there must be an Original Source (call it whatever you want) to this system of life in which we presently find ourselves based on this principle of something cannot come from nothing. This Original Source is the Whole, and whatever comes from it must therefore contain the Whole within it.
Yet, I want to go deeper than this. If I come from the same elements that went into the creation of you, and the elements that went into our creation all come from the same Source - let's call this source the Father - then we are all connected. Therefore, there is no "me" apart from "you" as 99.9% of the world presently perceives things. You are me and I am you through God and His wonderful creation in which we are integral parts. We can apply this to anyone. I am Christ and Christ is me. Ah, here's where many people in this world will get angry and want to fight and argue and hate even while professing to be a loving Christian, Muslim, or whatever other religious title man has created. Please do not let the words be the stumblingblocks to understanding the idea that we can all be Christ and Christ is all of us. Most would react right away to such words, labelling me a blasphemer or heretic or infidel, and, in doing so, those people would be cutting themselves off from what Christ taught us with his life.
Saying "we are Christ and Christ is us" has nothing to do with what our conditioned minds imagine it to imply. We may conjure up images of arrogance (a God Complex) on the part of the author or ideas about anyone making such an assertion being punished in some kind of hell for trying to equate such a despicable race of sinners to God's "only begotten son." However, Christ taught us this, only we do not have the "eyes to see." When I write "we are Christ and Christ is us," I am merely getting more specific with the principle that I am you and you are me through the Father. Christ said, "I am the vine, ye are the branches." Do not branches contain within them the elements of the vine? Are not the two a part of the same whole? Christ understood this when he said, "I am the way." His life was his teaching, and if we practice living his life - through sacrificing our human will for the will of the Father - he tells us that we are his brothers and sisters, which, in turn, means that we can all be sons and daughters of God. Christ's life provides us the way to come to realizations of this spiritual fact.
When we make a conscious effort to practice deeply living our lives as Christ lived his lifed, then he is alive within us and we are him and he is us. When we work to see deeply into Reality, we no longer have to rely on empty, abstract thoughts and ideas about the blood of Christ or the cross or trying to understand the resurrection and how all of these historical events translate into our salvation. Rather, we are living his life every moment and the understanding of his life becomes a Living Reality within us. The world is so lost today because it seeks only to worship the history of Christ rather than live his life. The world is so focused on the fact that Christ died for our sins, but his death was an example, not the end of it all. Perhaps and probably there was a real/physical crucifixion, but our externalized minds stop there and never grasp that his sacrifice embodies the internal sacrifice we all must make in order to be resurrected into the Peace and Happiness of the Father. Thus, when we live his life, we allow him to "go before us to make the crooked places straight," and we willingly sacrifice the source of our suffering - our human will - in order to be resurrected continuously into a new order of life. Christ is the way, and when I sacrifice the "self" that sets out to be something by gaining commodities at the expense of the entire world, I live in the way he taught us, and he comes alive in me and resurrects me from the ruins of who I was.
How then do we begin to practice deeply living the life of Christ? It starts with true prayer that I alluded to earlier. True prayer is alive and it can be living in us in every moment. Yet, again, we have let words define and box in and limit the life of prayer within us. We think it is about grand words or requests to be physically protected, or asking that events in the world go the way we hope they will go, or desiring that God will bring swift, decisive justice to those who have wronged us, or following a commandment from Christ out of fear of what will happen if we don't pray. Yet, true prayer is actually the absense of all of these limiting factors that we have attached to it:
1. True prayer is not concerned with the words used because it is about connecting with the peaceful silence of God's life.
2. True prayer is not a request for protection of our physical organism because it acknowledges that we exist within the eternal and that the eternal is in us.
3. True prayer is not connected to our desire to control the events in our lives because it brings us a direct understanding that all events are intended to bring us to the end of ourselves and into a new, divine mind.
4. True prayer would never be a request for God to help us cause someone to suffer based on what they have done to hurt us because, through true prayer, we can see that the other person already suffers, and, as there is no "me" apart from "you," it becomes more important for us to try to comprehend why we suffer to bring it to its end for the good of all.
5. True prayer is not an obligatory commandment or "thou shalt" from Christ to be performed in a ritualistic, unaware manner; rather, it is the way that he showed us to the Father and the Father to us.
Christ spent his life praying and meditating in order to cultivat that awareness in him that allowed him to touch the Father deeply, and Christ gave to us the understanding that resulted from this practice. This is what makes him the vine through which we branches can be nourished.
Now that we have discovered some of the things true prayer is not, we can begin to describe (mind you, in limiting words) some of what true prayer is. Still, we must always be careful not to attach ourselves to these ideas. Instead, let us live in the real practice. True prayer is more than any of us can ever describe, but it involves:
1. A deep longing to know the Father's life directly.
2. A loss of self that leads us to the understanding that we have no self to lose.
3. A genuine gratitude for the life we have been blessed with regardless of external conditions.
4. The true desire to live only from Love in all moments.
5. Looking deeply into the present moment through our awareness of the present moment.
6. Bringing together the conflicting reactions, thoughts, and feelings within us through our awareness of the present moment to form one synergetic whole that is much greater than the sum of it parts.
7. A participation in the whole of life that effectively brings to an end the loneliness and isolation we experience when we look out at the world and see it (the people, the events, the places, even the beauty) as separate from us.
8. The need to do the work each of us can do to help bring an end to the suffering and darkness that is destroying our world.
9. The humility to ask God to direct our lives and show us the way to abide in His Grace.
10. A selfless, yet individual, awareness of each moment that is completely independent of any sanctioning body of government or religion in this world.
This last description of what true prayer is brings us right back to the pictures and the email, does it not? We have the ACLU trying to end the type of "prayer" the soldiers were practicing, and we have the person (and after reading the email, the people) who feels threatened by the ACLU's attempted suppression of this practice. Yet, if we look deeply at the three parties involved in this email, we can see the necessity for each of us to enter into true prayer for each party. We can also understand that, if anyone of these parties practiced true prayer, they would not be involved in this email.
First, the soldiers praying before possibly going out to kill other human beings: we have already said that we are all in One, so it is easy to see that killing anyone is the same as killing an integral part of God. John Donne was speaking with a very illumined voice when he wrote, "Do not ask for whom the bell tolls. It tolls for thee." We can realize that, if these soldiers were involved in true prayer, they would not be training or working to kill others, regardless of the wrong done by the nation against whom they are opposed. If they were practicing true prayer, they would know that to kill who they call their enemy is the same as killing themselves because there is no you apart from me. Furthermore, true prayer would gently guide them to a greater comprehension, which is this: our enemy is our enemy only because he/she/they have revealed to us something that is wrong within ourselves. This is another reason Christ said, "Love thine enemies." Our enemies are not really our enemies. We only hate them because we don't like what they show us about ourselves. But if we realize that they are showing us a deficiency, a fault, within our own minds in order that we may let go of that faulty nature, then we see that we should love them for helping us to purefy ourselves. Then, we move through this life in acceptance of the gift of understanding of ourselves each person - whether our minds try to label that person good or evil - can bring us.
As I engage in true prayer for these soldiers, I can see deeply that I am them and they are me. Can you? You see, this is what keeps us from judging others. This is why I asked at the beginning of the letter, "Have we not all killed in this lifetime?" I can see that I have. From mindlessly stomping on bugs to directing anger and hatred to other human beings to, even once, ignorantly kicking a baby bird around like a soccer ball as a young child. Most people do not see the devastating effect of these "killings" on the universe. I want to discuss the first one in more detail because most of the world does not consider this to be killing or a type of murder as long as we do not physically assualt and take the life of another. Christ tells us otherwise. He tells us hating our brother or sister (and we are all brothers and sisters) is equivalent to murder. Why would this be true? If we use true prayer to look deeply at this, we begin to see the truth of it: when we feel hatred for another we destroy that person's humanity in our mind. We are effectively saying that we have judged that person as less than worthy to be a part of our life. When we look at any person or creature from the perspective of hatred, we are saying, "My soul is more important than yours." This is a very strong statement, is it not? What right do I have to make that judgement for God? This is at least part of the reason Christ made hating someone in our minds equal to murder.
It is very simple, then, for me to deduce that we have all committed murder in our lives because everyone of us has had a personal affair with the darkness of hatred. Isn't that wonderful to see: I am you and you are me and we are those soldiers and they are us! We can all recall - if we're not presently involved in it - the suffocating, burning pain of hatred. Therefore, these soldiers who may soon be involved in the hateful act of physically taking someone's life desperately need our true prayer - completely absent of judgement - so that maybe they will come to know that the death they may inflict on the bodies of others also inflicts death upon their souls and our souls. We can pray that they come to realize that we (and they) do not need the kind of protection from violence that they imagine themselves as providing with their own violence. We can pray that they receive true protection by making their connection to God through practicing awareness and true prayer - the precious gifts he gave us for our precious lives. We can pray that each one have the opportunity (and we know deep in our hearts that each one is given the opportunity) to become a new, complete embodiment of the life of Christ by laying down their weapons and refusing to feel superior to, or hatred for, any other human being. And perhaps the greatest part of our true prayer is that we can find real hope in it, and this is the reason why: if we have practiced living with true prayer and continue to practice it, then we begin to see that God is changing us through this practice - purefying us into a people who are no longer interested in killing in any of its various forms. Once we see that we have killed in many forms in the past, but that God has granted us the mercy of his understanding and compassion so that now we know never to kill again, then we have a living faith that true prayer and understanding will find these men one day, if not in this very moment. We now express a new compassion grounded in God's life through practicing true prayer, meditation, and awareness (all are one!), and this compassion would not even kill, with hatred, those who kill. This is True Love, this is God's Love. Finally, we can pray for God to lead us along the path to no killing, either physically or through hatred, for all of humanity. This true prayer is for ourselves and the soldiers (who we know to be us).
We can look quickly at the two other parties in this email. First, the person who wrote the email in outrage over the ACLU's reactions. This person is afraid that someone or some group can take something away from him/her. But this person can only experience this fear if he/she sees himself/herself as separate from the rest of the world. This self-limiting belief translates into a fear that there is something he/she owns that someone else (who is separate) can take away from from him/her. There are many, many ways to look at this, but for brevity's sake, I will look at this from only two or three angles. We have already discovered that no one is separated from anyone else - that we are all one in Christ/God. If we can practice living in the light of this understanding, then we no longer fear what can be taken from us by another human being. We may instead look at willingly giving ourselves for another human being because in that instance we are also giving ourselves to God. This person does not have to fight the ACLU or send out angry messages to make us hate (and kill) the people who form this group in our minds. The only effective way to combat fear is with Love. Love would lead this person to perhaps silently accept the actions of the ACLU with the understanding that the anger rising up in him/her over these actions is another lesson from God, another fault being exposed within that can now be let go. This silent sacrifice is a giving, or transmitting, of God's Love to the members of the ACLU. Also, can not we all now see that true prayer has nothing to do with bowing down our heads in uniformity and conformity as this person seems to believe. Can anyone take away your mind or the mind of God? I only need to stay aware of myself in every moment to be in true prayer. I do not have to be in a group or in a physical pose, and no one even has to know that I am praying. So, we can see that it is absolutely impossible for any group, organization, government, or religion to suppress a true prayer. Engaging in true prayer while that group tries to suppress my prayer is the way to see this clearly, and it also provides that group or person a chance to see the same principle behind true prayer. Yet, if I match their anger and fear over prayer with my anger and fear over their anger and fear, then I have simply chosen to further the cause of darkness in this world.
Now let's examine the actions of the ACLU. The contradiction in their mission and their actions shows us exactly the kind of conflict this group lives with, and, believe me, it is the conflict we all face on a daily basis. They are living with the notion (living with any notion is bad for the spirit anyway) that freedom is dependent upon something. Please, just read that last sentence over and over until the utter silliness of the statement sinks in. Let us move our attention back to ourselves for just a moment. Everyday we set out to find freedom in people, places, things, and events. What do we want freedom from? Suffering. Our minds are in a perpetual search for the next thing that it says will make us free from the pain that it is causing us. Wow! Talk about being duped! We are living a lie!
Just ask yourself this: can true freedom be dependent upon anything? The true answer is so obvious and simple that it will hurt us when we first see it because we will understand that our lives up to the point of seeing this have been spent grazing in the fields of futility. My God! How could we be so stupid! By God, we can see that we never have to live in this false world again. Freedom, by its very definition, would be the absence of dependence upon anything. It must be independent of all conditions. The ACLU, although perhaps having good intentions in what they do, is made up of a group of lost individuals who whole-heartedly believe that freedom depends upon following the rules outlined in a document which "gives us all" certain rights and liberties in this world. The very idea of this is laughable to anyone who understands that no one on this planet can give or take away our freedom. Freedom does not depend upon what you tell me I can or cannot do. Look at this deeply, and you will be amazed that we all have believed in this lie of darkness our entire, miserable lives. Through true prayer, you can discover the truth of the fact that Authentic Freedom is God's gift to the soul, and it is already available in every moment to anyone who consciously chooses to no longer live solely from the deception of the ego, but who instead gives his/her ego to the Father so that it can be transformed by Love. Freedom exists in and of itself, but we have to do the work to participate in it. It is God's promise to us, and the purpose of our lives is to know ourselves within its boundless beauty. Our true prayer for all is that each person comes to understand this. Our true prayer for the members of the ACLU is that they see they no longer have to spend their lives in the pain of fighting for freedom in this world and hurting themselves and others in the process because there is a greater freedom than anyone in this world can offer, but we will not see it while involved in any kind of fight.
I pray all of this to the Father. Amen.
This is the chain email I received to which my below "essay" was a response. There were also pictures of soldiers praying, which I have tried to attach here. If the pictures do not show up on the post, just read the message of this email, and my post will make more sense below. The email content is in bold, blue font, and my post response is in black:
What's wrong with this picture?
If you look closely at the picture above, you will note that all the Marines pictured are bowing their heads. That's because they're praying.
This incident took place at a recent ceremony honoring the Birthday of the Corps, and it has the ACLU up in arms. "These are federal employees," says Lucius Traveler, a spokesman for the ACLU, "on federal property and on federal time. For them to pray is clearly an establishment of religion, and we must nip this in the bud immediately."
When asked about the ACLU's charges, Colonel Jack Fessender, speaking for the Commandant of the Marine Corps said (cleaned up a bit), "Screw the ACLU." GOD Bless Our Warriors, Send the ACLU to France .
Please send this to people you know so everyone will know how stupid the ACLU is Getting in trying to remove GOD from everything and every place in America . May God Bless America , One Nation Under GOD!
What's wrong with the picture? ABSOLUTELY NOTHING
GOD BLESS YOU FOR
PASSING IT ON!
Prayer for our Military... Please send this on after a short prayer.
Prayer for our soldiers..
Prayer
"Lord, hold our troops in your loving hands. Protect them as they
protect us. Bless them and their families for the selfless acts they
perform for us in our time of need. I ask this in the name of Jesus, our
Lord and Savior. Amen."
Of all the gifts you could give a Marine , US Soldier, Sailor, Airman, &others
deployed in harm's way,
Prayer is the very best one
My Response:
Have we not all killed in our lifetimes? This is a shocking question with which to open a letter to everyone, but it comes to me from deeply contemplating the below pictures and even the corresponding story - whether true or not - about the ACLU's attempt to suppress the "prayer" of the soldiers. The pictures, as I understand them, are a part of the email to elicit our sentimentality and attachment to the image to these men praying - men whom we are all supposed to show the utmost deference and respect because of their duties to "protect" us - as well as stir our feelings of outrage for the ACLU's supposed actions to end this practice.
I look at these pictures, and I read the captions, and I know I need to pray. The prayer that I send, however, most likely cannot be comprehended by the majority (or all) of the Marines in the pictures, nor the outraged writer soliciting my identification with his/her reasons for rage, nor the ACLU group and their possible disdain for what is taking place in these pictures. God welcomes us in every moment to see the Reality of Life by touching the awareness he blessed us with. Even as we see this email, we can suspend our reactions and look deeper within ourselves, which translates into seeing deeper into the nature of the world. I look deeply at this email, and I see a world lost, I see a world in need of Love, I see a world that lacks the realization of its need for Love, I see and I read fear in the hearts of the men in the pictures and the causes of the writer of the email and the ACLU. I see darkness turning into evil once again in all aspects of the email, and I also see me - who I could be and who I have been.
We can wake up and enter Reality as we reflect on these pictures. As we do, we may begin to see within ourselves a growing agitation with the pictures. We may wonder at what point human beings began to so distort this beautiful gift of prayer. We may remember that we have never really felt that prayer, as it has been taught to us, was anything more than something we do because we're told to. We may dwell on our past prayers in which we asked for this or that outcome or possession that did not come to fruition. We may even believe or feel strongly that we know why we pray and our own prayers are the real and only way to pray. In our awareness, we may see these or myriad other reactions to prayer inspired by these pictures. It is important that we recognize these reactions within us while not attaching ourselves to the pressure created by these reactions. This is because anytime we say that our "self" is for something we set ourselves against something else. If we say or imply that we are against something, we are incomplete. Being either "for" or "against" anything only deepens our attachment to the opposites that bring us so much pain in this life. The stronger we hold to one side, the more fear we have of the other, which keeps us anchored to the "other side" that we fear. We want to go deeper than the reactions that automatically pit us against anything because, when we are in opposition to any one aspect of anything, we, in that moment, exclude ourselves from the potential to live in the Wholeness of God.
Be careful and patient with yourself as you look deeply at these pictures. As I look deeply, past the oppositions within me, I try to comprehend the effectiveness of praying to God to protect me as I train to kill other creatures and human beings or as I ready myself to go into a battle such as one can imagine these soldiers to participate in after the prayer. As I ponder this, I can understand why there is so little real faith in, or understanding of, the nature of prayer. I can see that, if I prayed in this way, I would eventually discontinue the futility of such a practice because, underneath the moral superiority that leads a soldier to pray for protection while he/she kills another human being that is also a part of God's Life, I would not experience any connection through my soul (as it is decaying from lack of nourishment) with God. This is why I see a world lost, a world in need of every individual's commitment to wake up from the collective nightmare or war and fear and anger and hatred that we have created for ourselves.
When we practice true prayer or meditation or awareness, we have the opportunity to lose our isolation from any living creature or organism in the universe. True prayer is a moment of connection with the Father through which we begin to understand that each of us is a part of the Whole of His Life and each of us is the Whole of His Life. We are a part of the Whole because we dwell within His never-ending existence, and we are the Whole because He dwells within each of us.
The entire universe - all of its different elements: sun, rain, dirt, clouds, plants, animals, humans, gases, liquids, solids, and on and on - is in a constant state of change in which each part is constantly remanifesting itself into the creation of all the other parts. My body would not exist without the sun and rain and dirt and all the other elements contributing to its creation, and this same dirt and sun and rain goes into the creation of each one of us. When the body "dies," it decays back into the earth and contributes to the creation of dirt, water, light, plants, animals, and even human beings. Don't get caught up in the idea of what these words are saying, but try to understand the principal behind the ideas: something can never become nothing and, conversely, something can never come from nothing. The body is something, and it never changes to nothing because, even when it no longer moves or functions as it does when we are "alive," it is being tranformed into other "somethings." Even if we can see the simplest implications of this principal, we begin to lose all fear of what we have perceived as the "death" of our life in this world. Yet, we can look at this even further to see that there is more direct evidence of the existence of God because this perfect system of renewal, which is something, could not have come from nothing. I realize that I am not writing this to debate the existence of God, but I had to insert the previous statement to help us see that there must be an Original Source (call it whatever you want) to this system of life in which we presently find ourselves based on this principle of something cannot come from nothing. This Original Source is the Whole, and whatever comes from it must therefore contain the Whole within it.
Yet, I want to go deeper than this. If I come from the same elements that went into the creation of you, and the elements that went into our creation all come from the same Source - let's call this source the Father - then we are all connected. Therefore, there is no "me" apart from "you" as 99.9% of the world presently perceives things. You are me and I am you through God and His wonderful creation in which we are integral parts. We can apply this to anyone. I am Christ and Christ is me. Ah, here's where many people in this world will get angry and want to fight and argue and hate even while professing to be a loving Christian, Muslim, or whatever other religious title man has created. Please do not let the words be the stumblingblocks to understanding the idea that we can all be Christ and Christ is all of us. Most would react right away to such words, labelling me a blasphemer or heretic or infidel, and, in doing so, those people would be cutting themselves off from what Christ taught us with his life.
Saying "we are Christ and Christ is us" has nothing to do with what our conditioned minds imagine it to imply. We may conjure up images of arrogance (a God Complex) on the part of the author or ideas about anyone making such an assertion being punished in some kind of hell for trying to equate such a despicable race of sinners to God's "only begotten son." However, Christ taught us this, only we do not have the "eyes to see." When I write "we are Christ and Christ is us," I am merely getting more specific with the principle that I am you and you are me through the Father. Christ said, "I am the vine, ye are the branches." Do not branches contain within them the elements of the vine? Are not the two a part of the same whole? Christ understood this when he said, "I am the way." His life was his teaching, and if we practice living his life - through sacrificing our human will for the will of the Father - he tells us that we are his brothers and sisters, which, in turn, means that we can all be sons and daughters of God. Christ's life provides us the way to come to realizations of this spiritual fact.
When we make a conscious effort to practice deeply living our lives as Christ lived his lifed, then he is alive within us and we are him and he is us. When we work to see deeply into Reality, we no longer have to rely on empty, abstract thoughts and ideas about the blood of Christ or the cross or trying to understand the resurrection and how all of these historical events translate into our salvation. Rather, we are living his life every moment and the understanding of his life becomes a Living Reality within us. The world is so lost today because it seeks only to worship the history of Christ rather than live his life. The world is so focused on the fact that Christ died for our sins, but his death was an example, not the end of it all. Perhaps and probably there was a real/physical crucifixion, but our externalized minds stop there and never grasp that his sacrifice embodies the internal sacrifice we all must make in order to be resurrected into the Peace and Happiness of the Father. Thus, when we live his life, we allow him to "go before us to make the crooked places straight," and we willingly sacrifice the source of our suffering - our human will - in order to be resurrected continuously into a new order of life. Christ is the way, and when I sacrifice the "self" that sets out to be something by gaining commodities at the expense of the entire world, I live in the way he taught us, and he comes alive in me and resurrects me from the ruins of who I was.
How then do we begin to practice deeply living the life of Christ? It starts with true prayer that I alluded to earlier. True prayer is alive and it can be living in us in every moment. Yet, again, we have let words define and box in and limit the life of prayer within us. We think it is about grand words or requests to be physically protected, or asking that events in the world go the way we hope they will go, or desiring that God will bring swift, decisive justice to those who have wronged us, or following a commandment from Christ out of fear of what will happen if we don't pray. Yet, true prayer is actually the absense of all of these limiting factors that we have attached to it:
1. True prayer is not concerned with the words used because it is about connecting with the peaceful silence of God's life.
2. True prayer is not a request for protection of our physical organism because it acknowledges that we exist within the eternal and that the eternal is in us.
3. True prayer is not connected to our desire to control the events in our lives because it brings us a direct understanding that all events are intended to bring us to the end of ourselves and into a new, divine mind.
4. True prayer would never be a request for God to help us cause someone to suffer based on what they have done to hurt us because, through true prayer, we can see that the other person already suffers, and, as there is no "me" apart from "you," it becomes more important for us to try to comprehend why we suffer to bring it to its end for the good of all.
5. True prayer is not an obligatory commandment or "thou shalt" from Christ to be performed in a ritualistic, unaware manner; rather, it is the way that he showed us to the Father and the Father to us.
Christ spent his life praying and meditating in order to cultivat that awareness in him that allowed him to touch the Father deeply, and Christ gave to us the understanding that resulted from this practice. This is what makes him the vine through which we branches can be nourished.
Now that we have discovered some of the things true prayer is not, we can begin to describe (mind you, in limiting words) some of what true prayer is. Still, we must always be careful not to attach ourselves to these ideas. Instead, let us live in the real practice. True prayer is more than any of us can ever describe, but it involves:
1. A deep longing to know the Father's life directly.
2. A loss of self that leads us to the understanding that we have no self to lose.
3. A genuine gratitude for the life we have been blessed with regardless of external conditions.
4. The true desire to live only from Love in all moments.
5. Looking deeply into the present moment through our awareness of the present moment.
6. Bringing together the conflicting reactions, thoughts, and feelings within us through our awareness of the present moment to form one synergetic whole that is much greater than the sum of it parts.
7. A participation in the whole of life that effectively brings to an end the loneliness and isolation we experience when we look out at the world and see it (the people, the events, the places, even the beauty) as separate from us.
8. The need to do the work each of us can do to help bring an end to the suffering and darkness that is destroying our world.
9. The humility to ask God to direct our lives and show us the way to abide in His Grace.
10. A selfless, yet individual, awareness of each moment that is completely independent of any sanctioning body of government or religion in this world.
This last description of what true prayer is brings us right back to the pictures and the email, does it not? We have the ACLU trying to end the type of "prayer" the soldiers were practicing, and we have the person (and after reading the email, the people) who feels threatened by the ACLU's attempted suppression of this practice. Yet, if we look deeply at the three parties involved in this email, we can see the necessity for each of us to enter into true prayer for each party. We can also understand that, if anyone of these parties practiced true prayer, they would not be involved in this email.
First, the soldiers praying before possibly going out to kill other human beings: we have already said that we are all in One, so it is easy to see that killing anyone is the same as killing an integral part of God. John Donne was speaking with a very illumined voice when he wrote, "Do not ask for whom the bell tolls. It tolls for thee." We can realize that, if these soldiers were involved in true prayer, they would not be training or working to kill others, regardless of the wrong done by the nation against whom they are opposed. If they were practicing true prayer, they would know that to kill who they call their enemy is the same as killing themselves because there is no you apart from me. Furthermore, true prayer would gently guide them to a greater comprehension, which is this: our enemy is our enemy only because he/she/they have revealed to us something that is wrong within ourselves. This is another reason Christ said, "Love thine enemies." Our enemies are not really our enemies. We only hate them because we don't like what they show us about ourselves. But if we realize that they are showing us a deficiency, a fault, within our own minds in order that we may let go of that faulty nature, then we see that we should love them for helping us to purefy ourselves. Then, we move through this life in acceptance of the gift of understanding of ourselves each person - whether our minds try to label that person good or evil - can bring us.
As I engage in true prayer for these soldiers, I can see deeply that I am them and they are me. Can you? You see, this is what keeps us from judging others. This is why I asked at the beginning of the letter, "Have we not all killed in this lifetime?" I can see that I have. From mindlessly stomping on bugs to directing anger and hatred to other human beings to, even once, ignorantly kicking a baby bird around like a soccer ball as a young child. Most people do not see the devastating effect of these "killings" on the universe. I want to discuss the first one in more detail because most of the world does not consider this to be killing or a type of murder as long as we do not physically assualt and take the life of another. Christ tells us otherwise. He tells us hating our brother or sister (and we are all brothers and sisters) is equivalent to murder. Why would this be true? If we use true prayer to look deeply at this, we begin to see the truth of it: when we feel hatred for another we destroy that person's humanity in our mind. We are effectively saying that we have judged that person as less than worthy to be a part of our life. When we look at any person or creature from the perspective of hatred, we are saying, "My soul is more important than yours." This is a very strong statement, is it not? What right do I have to make that judgement for God? This is at least part of the reason Christ made hating someone in our minds equal to murder.
It is very simple, then, for me to deduce that we have all committed murder in our lives because everyone of us has had a personal affair with the darkness of hatred. Isn't that wonderful to see: I am you and you are me and we are those soldiers and they are us! We can all recall - if we're not presently involved in it - the suffocating, burning pain of hatred. Therefore, these soldiers who may soon be involved in the hateful act of physically taking someone's life desperately need our true prayer - completely absent of judgement - so that maybe they will come to know that the death they may inflict on the bodies of others also inflicts death upon their souls and our souls. We can pray that they come to realize that we (and they) do not need the kind of protection from violence that they imagine themselves as providing with their own violence. We can pray that they receive true protection by making their connection to God through practicing awareness and true prayer - the precious gifts he gave us for our precious lives. We can pray that each one have the opportunity (and we know deep in our hearts that each one is given the opportunity) to become a new, complete embodiment of the life of Christ by laying down their weapons and refusing to feel superior to, or hatred for, any other human being. And perhaps the greatest part of our true prayer is that we can find real hope in it, and this is the reason why: if we have practiced living with true prayer and continue to practice it, then we begin to see that God is changing us through this practice - purefying us into a people who are no longer interested in killing in any of its various forms. Once we see that we have killed in many forms in the past, but that God has granted us the mercy of his understanding and compassion so that now we know never to kill again, then we have a living faith that true prayer and understanding will find these men one day, if not in this very moment. We now express a new compassion grounded in God's life through practicing true prayer, meditation, and awareness (all are one!), and this compassion would not even kill, with hatred, those who kill. This is True Love, this is God's Love. Finally, we can pray for God to lead us along the path to no killing, either physically or through hatred, for all of humanity. This true prayer is for ourselves and the soldiers (who we know to be us).
We can look quickly at the two other parties in this email. First, the person who wrote the email in outrage over the ACLU's reactions. This person is afraid that someone or some group can take something away from him/her. But this person can only experience this fear if he/she sees himself/herself as separate from the rest of the world. This self-limiting belief translates into a fear that there is something he/she owns that someone else (who is separate) can take away from from him/her. There are many, many ways to look at this, but for brevity's sake, I will look at this from only two or three angles. We have already discovered that no one is separated from anyone else - that we are all one in Christ/God. If we can practice living in the light of this understanding, then we no longer fear what can be taken from us by another human being. We may instead look at willingly giving ourselves for another human being because in that instance we are also giving ourselves to God. This person does not have to fight the ACLU or send out angry messages to make us hate (and kill) the people who form this group in our minds. The only effective way to combat fear is with Love. Love would lead this person to perhaps silently accept the actions of the ACLU with the understanding that the anger rising up in him/her over these actions is another lesson from God, another fault being exposed within that can now be let go. This silent sacrifice is a giving, or transmitting, of God's Love to the members of the ACLU. Also, can not we all now see that true prayer has nothing to do with bowing down our heads in uniformity and conformity as this person seems to believe. Can anyone take away your mind or the mind of God? I only need to stay aware of myself in every moment to be in true prayer. I do not have to be in a group or in a physical pose, and no one even has to know that I am praying. So, we can see that it is absolutely impossible for any group, organization, government, or religion to suppress a true prayer. Engaging in true prayer while that group tries to suppress my prayer is the way to see this clearly, and it also provides that group or person a chance to see the same principle behind true prayer. Yet, if I match their anger and fear over prayer with my anger and fear over their anger and fear, then I have simply chosen to further the cause of darkness in this world.
Now let's examine the actions of the ACLU. The contradiction in their mission and their actions shows us exactly the kind of conflict this group lives with, and, believe me, it is the conflict we all face on a daily basis. They are living with the notion (living with any notion is bad for the spirit anyway) that freedom is dependent upon something. Please, just read that last sentence over and over until the utter silliness of the statement sinks in. Let us move our attention back to ourselves for just a moment. Everyday we set out to find freedom in people, places, things, and events. What do we want freedom from? Suffering. Our minds are in a perpetual search for the next thing that it says will make us free from the pain that it is causing us. Wow! Talk about being duped! We are living a lie!
Just ask yourself this: can true freedom be dependent upon anything? The true answer is so obvious and simple that it will hurt us when we first see it because we will understand that our lives up to the point of seeing this have been spent grazing in the fields of futility. My God! How could we be so stupid! By God, we can see that we never have to live in this false world again. Freedom, by its very definition, would be the absence of dependence upon anything. It must be independent of all conditions. The ACLU, although perhaps having good intentions in what they do, is made up of a group of lost individuals who whole-heartedly believe that freedom depends upon following the rules outlined in a document which "gives us all" certain rights and liberties in this world. The very idea of this is laughable to anyone who understands that no one on this planet can give or take away our freedom. Freedom does not depend upon what you tell me I can or cannot do. Look at this deeply, and you will be amazed that we all have believed in this lie of darkness our entire, miserable lives. Through true prayer, you can discover the truth of the fact that Authentic Freedom is God's gift to the soul, and it is already available in every moment to anyone who consciously chooses to no longer live solely from the deception of the ego, but who instead gives his/her ego to the Father so that it can be transformed by Love. Freedom exists in and of itself, but we have to do the work to participate in it. It is God's promise to us, and the purpose of our lives is to know ourselves within its boundless beauty. Our true prayer for all is that each person comes to understand this. Our true prayer for the members of the ACLU is that they see they no longer have to spend their lives in the pain of fighting for freedom in this world and hurting themselves and others in the process because there is a greater freedom than anyone in this world can offer, but we will not see it while involved in any kind of fight.
I pray all of this to the Father. Amen.
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