Posts
The question that you raise re choices, lifedesign, and the place of the deep unconscious (Soulmind) is arguably the most profound question ever raised in the history of philosophy. Too be completely honest and candid, its answer functions as a subset of a larger question: Does the suffering in our lives have any meaning, as in education, or is it just random, chaotic, and empty?
It seems that the answer that you choose for this larger question will form, or at least, greatly influence, the answer at which you arrive for the secondary inquiry. That is, if you have decided that the cosmos has meaning, this can imply that every event within it has meaning as well. If so, that meaning is not always evident,and might require much work to discover or to understand. It is, in essence, this embrace of meaning and Mind over emptiness and chilling void that marks the Enlightenment Tradition.
It is also true that the great mystical classics that you mention do not clearly teach the understanding about Soul-design and Soul-choices that we have discussed. Every mystical teaching is not taught in every mystical book, just as every text on mechanics does not include every one of the billions of mechanical facts in the world.
In the Way, we must use extrapolation and common sense to figure out the cosmos for ourselves. Unlike fundamentalism, the Way does not seek to answer every question for you, in the form of dogma carved in stone. It gives you the basic facts, and lets you fly solo from there. So, perhaps no two mystics have ever believed exactly alike re every microdetail of creation.
Friday, February 25, 2005
Prayer Request Hoaxes
NOTE: This note was written in response to a friend who revealed that a prayer-request had been a hoax.
Thanks for the technical legwork. Unfortunately, it was all unnecessary. For when a prayer-request comes to us, it is a test of our compassion for strangers. The critical question is not whether or not the strangers exist; the only critical factor is our response to people in need. No prayer is ever "wasted," since every time a person prays, or reaches deeply within, to Lovemind, her life is significantly improved. So, for that matter, is the shared life of the community, and the world. Your desire for technical accuracy is nevertheless appreciated, for it is one that is usually shared. And your feedback is received with gratitude.:)
There are many much more important factors in life than "doing things right," and the elicitation of compassion is one of these. If the story awakens compassion, then it has served its fullest purpose.:)
Thanks for the technical legwork. Unfortunately, it was all unnecessary. For when a prayer-request comes to us, it is a test of our compassion for strangers. The critical question is not whether or not the strangers exist; the only critical factor is our response to people in need. No prayer is ever "wasted," since every time a person prays, or reaches deeply within, to Lovemind, her life is significantly improved. So, for that matter, is the shared life of the community, and the world. Your desire for technical accuracy is nevertheless appreciated, for it is one that is usually shared. And your feedback is received with gratitude.:)
There are many much more important factors in life than "doing things right," and the elicitation of compassion is one of these. If the story awakens compassion, then it has served its fullest purpose.:)
Love and the Way
The idea that the cosmos is "indifferent" does not imply that it is malevolent. All the foolish anthropomorphisms about a personal God who is a "big daddy in the sky have been dropped and abandoned. It takes no rocket scientist to determine that "God" is not interventionistic." These are Pollyanna fairy-tales of only wishful thinking. God is no caring grandfather or father, no genie, and no Santa Claus. But, on the other hand, God is no psychotic Jehovah.
In fact, God is no external person at all. "God" is the very best that exists in all sentient minds throughout the galaxies. God is the sum total of all wisdom, and all Love, in all sentient hearts everywhere.
Clearly, this is by no means limited to the earth-- a kind of revived geocentrism. So, we start with the simple premise that mind does exist. This is experiential rather than theoretical for all of us.
The second part of our premise is that goodness, valuable and positive qualities, exist within mind. That, too, is largely experiential, and is also evident by non-biased observation. While mind or consciousness contains much of horror and nightmare, it would be lop-sided and biased to claim that it contained no goodness.
So, wehn you gather all the best of all the goodness from all the sentient minds in existence, you have "collected" God. That collection IS "God." This is the meaning of the mysterious declaration of mystics that, "God is Love."
This is not pantheism, which defines "God" as the sum total of the material cosmos. For it presents God, not as matter, but as Mind. (Still, this is not true dualism, for "matter" is also Mind, being dream only.) So, "God" is Mind, not cosmos. This Mind dreams the cosmos into bbeing, but does not become the cosmos any more than you become your nightdreams.
Further, God is not only Mind, but is exclusively all the positivity found in all Mind. God is all the Love, none of the fear. God is all the wisdom, none of the folly. God is only positivity, by definition. "God" is all the good stuff, as the etymology of the word suggests. All that is "outside" Godmind is nothing, or mere illusion.
Does this mean that hatred is unimportant? Just ignore it, and it will go away? No, for that is childish thinking too, just like "big daddy." The people of wisdom are the people of Love. Yes, a cosmos that is dream could well be a monstrosity in itself. A cosmos in which "evil" serves immediate improvement could be equally monstrous and psychotic. That is why the very CORE, the essence, the indispensable, is Love. That is why the center of all my teaching, and of the whole Enlightenment Tradition, is "agapology"-- the psychology of Love. Without Love, the whole philosophy unravels and falls apart. It could indeed be interpreted to be unloving or uncompassionate as a mere intellectual explanation. And, in history, it has been so misunderstood and distorted. So, that is why the philosophy of the Enlightenment Tradition must be received as an indivisible whole. Any recipe tastes bad if you leave out its most abundant ingredient; and the philosophy of the Enlightenment Tradition is indeed distorted if you accept it in part only. Without Love, it "tastes bad" to the sensitive heart, for it is literally "spoiled." If, for example, you accept the perfect balance of karma, or of Soul-choices, but without Love, you could imply a totally heartless and unfeeling view of the cosmos.
The average Protestant, Catholic, Jew, or Muslim would call me an "atheist," because I do not believe in her interpretation of "God," which I see as a silly and desperate fairy-tale. So, in our shared quest for truth (reality), we share very much in common.
In fact, God is no external person at all. "God" is the very best that exists in all sentient minds throughout the galaxies. God is the sum total of all wisdom, and all Love, in all sentient hearts everywhere.
Clearly, this is by no means limited to the earth-- a kind of revived geocentrism. So, we start with the simple premise that mind does exist. This is experiential rather than theoretical for all of us.
The second part of our premise is that goodness, valuable and positive qualities, exist within mind. That, too, is largely experiential, and is also evident by non-biased observation. While mind or consciousness contains much of horror and nightmare, it would be lop-sided and biased to claim that it contained no goodness.
So, wehn you gather all the best of all the goodness from all the sentient minds in existence, you have "collected" God. That collection IS "God." This is the meaning of the mysterious declaration of mystics that, "God is Love."
This is not pantheism, which defines "God" as the sum total of the material cosmos. For it presents God, not as matter, but as Mind. (Still, this is not true dualism, for "matter" is also Mind, being dream only.) So, "God" is Mind, not cosmos. This Mind dreams the cosmos into bbeing, but does not become the cosmos any more than you become your nightdreams.
Further, God is not only Mind, but is exclusively all the positivity found in all Mind. God is all the Love, none of the fear. God is all the wisdom, none of the folly. God is only positivity, by definition. "God" is all the good stuff, as the etymology of the word suggests. All that is "outside" Godmind is nothing, or mere illusion.
Does this mean that hatred is unimportant? Just ignore it, and it will go away? No, for that is childish thinking too, just like "big daddy." The people of wisdom are the people of Love. Yes, a cosmos that is dream could well be a monstrosity in itself. A cosmos in which "evil" serves immediate improvement could be equally monstrous and psychotic. That is why the very CORE, the essence, the indispensable, is Love. That is why the center of all my teaching, and of the whole Enlightenment Tradition, is "agapology"-- the psychology of Love. Without Love, the whole philosophy unravels and falls apart. It could indeed be interpreted to be unloving or uncompassionate as a mere intellectual explanation. And, in history, it has been so misunderstood and distorted. So, that is why the philosophy of the Enlightenment Tradition must be received as an indivisible whole. Any recipe tastes bad if you leave out its most abundant ingredient; and the philosophy of the Enlightenment Tradition is indeed distorted if you accept it in part only. Without Love, it "tastes bad" to the sensitive heart, for it is literally "spoiled." If, for example, you accept the perfect balance of karma, or of Soul-choices, but without Love, you could imply a totally heartless and unfeeling view of the cosmos.
The average Protestant, Catholic, Jew, or Muslim would call me an "atheist," because I do not believe in her interpretation of "God," which I see as a silly and desperate fairy-tale. So, in our shared quest for truth (reality), we share very much in common.
THE CULT THAT SWALLOWED MY CHILDHOOD
Before I was four, my family made the most tragic error of this or any other life: They joined a humorless extremist rightwing "Christian" cult.
This was to ruin many of my most potentially joyful moments for years to come.
The cult stole from me, and probably from hundreds of thousands of others(it now numbers five million) essential components of a healthy, happy childhood. As in other cults, the ancient Hebrew text was favored that says, "Spare the rod, and spoil the child." Taken literally, this is a full approval of child-abuse. Cult-elders taught parents to be grimly aware of the need to remain always disciplinarian and hyperauthoritarian.
The cult soon convinced my family of many grim and bizarre ideas:
Santa Claus was a lie, so it was evil and dishonest to tell your kids that he existed. Christmas was an evil and pagan celebration. There went the irreplaceable childhood-memories of Christmas warmth and brightness. All money that an ordinary family would have spent on Christmas gifts was to be sent to the "Organization," to promote the "work of Jehovah." Most Christmas-seasons were experienced as deflated and rather dead. I felt as if there were a thick glass wall between me and the laughing, singing children.
Birthdays were also pagan and evil. So, that very special day came and went every year without much fuss, and often, even without notice. Your birthday was regarded seriously as "too much attention paid to a creature, rather than to the Creator." (Their god had serious problems with selfesteem!) The real motive? You guessed it! The money was to be sent to the Org, not wasted on kids.
Predictably, Halloween was evil, too. And when other kids were laughing, cutting (and dressing) up, collecting candy, I too was going from door-to-door. But I was dressed in a suit. (Parents in the cult expect their small children to dress, and act, like full-grown ministers.) I was trying to sell extremely boring religious propoganda. Training in this saleswork began at age six, and we were taught that "Jehovah God" would murder us and our families if we did not participate regularly in selling the ragsheets produced by the cult.
The idea that "god" was an unforgiving macho-monster in the sky removed what little joy might have remained in the heart. I lived in ceaseless, relentless fear of a psychotic god! He was "very soon" going to bring about "Armageddon"-- an agonizing bloodbath of mass-murder, slaughter, and massacre that would make Hitler's concentration-camps look like a Sunday picnic! This absurd god was apparently bored out of his gourd, for he had nothing better to do than to watch me, twenty-four seven! And, if I slipped from the cult, or ever said anything against it, it was sure and certain that he would murder me! For he was planning to murder the population of the whole world, except for cult-members!
When you were a cult-member, everything in your life centered, day and night, around the cult. So, you missed so many warm, tender, intimate moments of family-sharing enjoyed by the normal family.
Even playing with other kids was often prohibited, lest they contaminate my "pristine religion," polluting it with theirs. For when Jehovah murdered all the children in the world, what would happen to me if I were among them?
Very early, I learned the art of fleeing from this frustrating life. My haven was books. There, you were not always under the magnifying glass of an angry, vindictive "god" or "his appointed elders."
The life-denying, mind-numbing, joy-killing cult made me superaware of how important and healing is humor, and childlike play. Now, as a writer/teacher, I try to apply those lessons every day. But still, it cannot really be denied, I wish that I had known a normal childhood, and often wonder how much richer this life could have been!
This was to ruin many of my most potentially joyful moments for years to come.
The cult stole from me, and probably from hundreds of thousands of others(it now numbers five million) essential components of a healthy, happy childhood. As in other cults, the ancient Hebrew text was favored that says, "Spare the rod, and spoil the child." Taken literally, this is a full approval of child-abuse. Cult-elders taught parents to be grimly aware of the need to remain always disciplinarian and hyperauthoritarian.
The cult soon convinced my family of many grim and bizarre ideas:
Santa Claus was a lie, so it was evil and dishonest to tell your kids that he existed. Christmas was an evil and pagan celebration. There went the irreplaceable childhood-memories of Christmas warmth and brightness. All money that an ordinary family would have spent on Christmas gifts was to be sent to the "Organization," to promote the "work of Jehovah." Most Christmas-seasons were experienced as deflated and rather dead. I felt as if there were a thick glass wall between me and the laughing, singing children.
Birthdays were also pagan and evil. So, that very special day came and went every year without much fuss, and often, even without notice. Your birthday was regarded seriously as "too much attention paid to a creature, rather than to the Creator." (Their god had serious problems with selfesteem!) The real motive? You guessed it! The money was to be sent to the Org, not wasted on kids.
Predictably, Halloween was evil, too. And when other kids were laughing, cutting (and dressing) up, collecting candy, I too was going from door-to-door. But I was dressed in a suit. (Parents in the cult expect their small children to dress, and act, like full-grown ministers.) I was trying to sell extremely boring religious propoganda. Training in this saleswork began at age six, and we were taught that "Jehovah God" would murder us and our families if we did not participate regularly in selling the ragsheets produced by the cult.
The idea that "god" was an unforgiving macho-monster in the sky removed what little joy might have remained in the heart. I lived in ceaseless, relentless fear of a psychotic god! He was "very soon" going to bring about "Armageddon"-- an agonizing bloodbath of mass-murder, slaughter, and massacre that would make Hitler's concentration-camps look like a Sunday picnic! This absurd god was apparently bored out of his gourd, for he had nothing better to do than to watch me, twenty-four seven! And, if I slipped from the cult, or ever said anything against it, it was sure and certain that he would murder me! For he was planning to murder the population of the whole world, except for cult-members!
When you were a cult-member, everything in your life centered, day and night, around the cult. So, you missed so many warm, tender, intimate moments of family-sharing enjoyed by the normal family.
Even playing with other kids was often prohibited, lest they contaminate my "pristine religion," polluting it with theirs. For when Jehovah murdered all the children in the world, what would happen to me if I were among them?
Very early, I learned the art of fleeing from this frustrating life. My haven was books. There, you were not always under the magnifying glass of an angry, vindictive "god" or "his appointed elders."
The life-denying, mind-numbing, joy-killing cult made me superaware of how important and healing is humor, and childlike play. Now, as a writer/teacher, I try to apply those lessons every day. But still, it cannot really be denied, I wish that I had known a normal childhood, and often wonder how much richer this life could have been!
The "Gifts" of Illness
The health of your "donkey" (body) is often challenged. It's already known that, in your mind, your real self, you are doing superbly. For this illness has given you the greatest gift that can ever be given to a human being: It has made you aware of your deep calling from, and to, the service of Love. Love is the most powerful healing-force in the whole cosmos.
I am sending Love as these words are written, and every day. Love fills your entire being, surrounds you and fills every cell of your body, every atom, with its bright healing Light.
This illness has granted another gift of immeasurable value: It has strengthened the Love between you and Sarah [pseudonym]. Even when that Love seems tested, and weak, it is growing always stronger. Enormous pressures make it enormously powerful!
To stay positive, and to welcome the healing energy into your body, it is important to focus on these two great and wonderful gifts. You have also unlocked Love in any number of hearts, which have been awakened to the desire for your fullest healing.
These are three of the greatest gifts in the cosmos, and you carry them within your heart every minute of every day. They also exercise a healing-effect, making you stronger through your own personal Love blending with the Love of others.
I am sending Love as these words are written, and every day. Love fills your entire being, surrounds you and fills every cell of your body, every atom, with its bright healing Light.
This illness has granted another gift of immeasurable value: It has strengthened the Love between you and Sarah [pseudonym]. Even when that Love seems tested, and weak, it is growing always stronger. Enormous pressures make it enormously powerful!
To stay positive, and to welcome the healing energy into your body, it is important to focus on these two great and wonderful gifts. You have also unlocked Love in any number of hearts, which have been awakened to the desire for your fullest healing.
These are three of the greatest gifts in the cosmos, and you carry them within your heart every minute of every day. They also exercise a healing-effect, making you stronger through your own personal Love blending with the Love of others.
The tm Cult
About thirty years ago, the tm people were usually quite sincere, kind, and intelligent.
But a lot has changed since then. During that time-period, the once-sincere group has grown into a shameful, money-grubbing cult. (It offers to "meditate the crime away" in major cities, but charges millions for the privilege. Its headquarters is in a small burg called Fairfield,Iowa, where, even in this tiny village, they have proved that they cannot stop all crime.:)
My advice is to run, not walk, away from this dangerous, mindcontrolling cult! You can easily study meditation without the aid of the cult, or its idolatrously worshipped guru! And you can use absolutely any phrase as your mantra. (We usually recommend a four-syllable mantra, such as, "I am at peace," or, I am Love, and..." or, "Does not matter," or, "God is Love and..."
The possibilities are literally endless! At any rate, the high prices that they charge for mantras "specifically designed for only you" is a fraud. (In one study, it was discovered that several members of an ashram shared a single mantra, even though they had been fed this line, this lie, about "receving a mantra designed for only you.")
Keep reading, keep growing, keep loving, but please keep away from this silly cult.:)
But a lot has changed since then. During that time-period, the once-sincere group has grown into a shameful, money-grubbing cult. (It offers to "meditate the crime away" in major cities, but charges millions for the privilege. Its headquarters is in a small burg called Fairfield,Iowa, where, even in this tiny village, they have proved that they cannot stop all crime.:)
My advice is to run, not walk, away from this dangerous, mindcontrolling cult! You can easily study meditation without the aid of the cult, or its idolatrously worshipped guru! And you can use absolutely any phrase as your mantra. (We usually recommend a four-syllable mantra, such as, "I am at peace," or, I am Love, and..." or, "Does not matter," or, "God is Love and..."
The possibilities are literally endless! At any rate, the high prices that they charge for mantras "specifically designed for only you" is a fraud. (In one study, it was discovered that several members of an ashram shared a single mantra, even though they had been fed this line, this lie, about "receving a mantra designed for only you.")
Keep reading, keep growing, keep loving, but please keep away from this silly cult.:)
Wednesday, February 23, 2005
Mysticism: Notes
It is the wee hours of the morn, and everyone with a trace of common sense is soundly asleep. I've been giving some serious thought to our shared predicament as human beings-- the "existential crisis," i suppose you could call it.
I felt a call from the deeper Mind-- you would probably say, "imagination"-- to come into the office and write you a letter. This was a compelling pull of Love.
All the things that I believe-- about pre-existence of the Soul, about polybiography, about Mind and world, about God as supreme Unconscious--these are not just cheap, shallow ideas that came off the top of some "new ager's" head. It was not all made up by some yuppie who was looking for something to do on a boring Sunday afternoon. These teachings represent a very profound, ancient, and venerable philosophy. It has a few names, but I call it the "Enlightenment Tradition," or,
"Love-tradition."
It is also called the "Way of Love," "psychonautics," the "Way of Mind," and,most commonly, mysticism. Please do not let this word turn you off. It is abused regularly by religious leaders, scientists, and journalists, who should all know better. In fact, the only ones who use it correctly are academic scholars of religion and history, and mystics themselves.
What is a "mystic"? She is a person who has discovered that Mind is more real than matter. She has also found that Mind has several levels, including a "collective Unconscious," and a Core that is indivisible and perfect, traditionally called "Spirit," or "God."
So, she has completely, absolutely rejected the childish image of God as a "big daddy in the sky," a fairy-tale knight who gallops into your life and makes everything "okay." She knows that the only God is Love. God has never been the "ultimate extraterrestrial," some person "out there." God is "in here." God is not loving grandfather, Santa Claus, or genie.
This Way is not a religion. In fact, its major adherents were usually hunted and even murdered by the orthodox of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.
This philosophy was born in the crucible of agonizing pain, horrific, utter anxiety. It was created by men and women who felt backed into a corner, squeezed mercilessly by a relentless universe. They were forced into the position that I (and probably you) have found ourselves in: Figure things out, or just go nuts! (That is, at any rate, how the discovery happened to me.)
Mysticism grew out of an ocean of blood, sweat, and tears. Its founders and proponents were people exactly like us-- those caught in the merciless tines of what seemed to be a blind, deaf, and uncaring cosmos.
Either the cosmos has meaning, or it does not. To live in a cosmos without any meaning was unacceptable to the sages, teachers, and masters of the Enlightenment Tradition. Did they have to come up with some very "strange"-sounding ideas? You bet that they did!
But it was better than going mad! These were sensitive, intelligent people who never gave up hope that the cosmos did have meaning. For some reason, they humbly concluded, they were just not seeing (able to see) that meaning. They were forced, often by horror, to think, not only "outside the box," but outside the familiar cosmos as we have always known it.
Here's just a simple example: As a part of their philosophy, they said that nothing existed but "Mind" or energy, sometimes organized into patterns. They made the most outrageous claim that could ever be imagined in your wildest, craziest dreams: They claimed that the whole "material" world existed only because that is the way that we perceive or interpret it. And finally, they also concluded that the entire cosmos was a dream-state within a great Mind. "Solid matter" did not really exist. Ultimately, that is, in "truth" (reality), there was no material cosmos.
Physicists, who were no-nonsense, hard-nosed, skeptical, materialistic, and scientific, had a ball, that lasted for centuries, laughing at these crazy mystics. In the twenty-first century, they are no longer laughing.
Why? Because of research in quantum physics, also called "ultramicroparticle physics." For we have known for a long time that everything is made of atoms. Atoms are made of neutrons, protons, and electrons. These are called "microparticles."
But when we started to ask the final question, "What are these microparticles made of?" we discovered an amazing, astonishing truth: There was never anything solid within the atom. Atoms are made up of "bundles" or "packets" of force called "quanta." Matter was a kind of mythology or "illusion," as the mystics had always claimed! The entire "material cosmos was energy, after all!
If the mystics had been right in such an outrageous, mind-blowing claim, might they not be right about other things as well?
When I first heard the word "mystic," probably as a teen, I just carelessly dismissed it as some kind of satanic or demonic "thing," although I had zero education or exposure.
Now that I've read fifty, and written twelve, books about the subject, I feel that I have a basis to be able to talk rationally and meaningfully about it. In fact, it is the greatest pleasure in the world to help people sort through the billions of haystacks to find the precious platinum "needle" of reality (truth). For, in the end, it all comes down to that single, simple question: What is real? With that, comes a secondary: Is anything ABSOLUTELY real?
Please take a couple of minutes of your valuable time to check out our website, at: loveministries.org
There, you can access, free, all of my books. You can also download them, free. (If you like real books, you can also order them.) Hang in there! The "fires" of hell are not to torment, but to burn away all the excess dross, leaving only the nonflammable Jewel!
I felt a call from the deeper Mind-- you would probably say, "imagination"-- to come into the office and write you a letter. This was a compelling pull of Love.
All the things that I believe-- about pre-existence of the Soul, about polybiography, about Mind and world, about God as supreme Unconscious--these are not just cheap, shallow ideas that came off the top of some "new ager's" head. It was not all made up by some yuppie who was looking for something to do on a boring Sunday afternoon. These teachings represent a very profound, ancient, and venerable philosophy. It has a few names, but I call it the "Enlightenment Tradition," or,
"Love-tradition."
It is also called the "Way of Love," "psychonautics," the "Way of Mind," and,most commonly, mysticism. Please do not let this word turn you off. It is abused regularly by religious leaders, scientists, and journalists, who should all know better. In fact, the only ones who use it correctly are academic scholars of religion and history, and mystics themselves.
What is a "mystic"? She is a person who has discovered that Mind is more real than matter. She has also found that Mind has several levels, including a "collective Unconscious," and a Core that is indivisible and perfect, traditionally called "Spirit," or "God."
So, she has completely, absolutely rejected the childish image of God as a "big daddy in the sky," a fairy-tale knight who gallops into your life and makes everything "okay." She knows that the only God is Love. God has never been the "ultimate extraterrestrial," some person "out there." God is "in here." God is not loving grandfather, Santa Claus, or genie.
This Way is not a religion. In fact, its major adherents were usually hunted and even murdered by the orthodox of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.
This philosophy was born in the crucible of agonizing pain, horrific, utter anxiety. It was created by men and women who felt backed into a corner, squeezed mercilessly by a relentless universe. They were forced into the position that I (and probably you) have found ourselves in: Figure things out, or just go nuts! (That is, at any rate, how the discovery happened to me.)
Mysticism grew out of an ocean of blood, sweat, and tears. Its founders and proponents were people exactly like us-- those caught in the merciless tines of what seemed to be a blind, deaf, and uncaring cosmos.
Either the cosmos has meaning, or it does not. To live in a cosmos without any meaning was unacceptable to the sages, teachers, and masters of the Enlightenment Tradition. Did they have to come up with some very "strange"-sounding ideas? You bet that they did!
But it was better than going mad! These were sensitive, intelligent people who never gave up hope that the cosmos did have meaning. For some reason, they humbly concluded, they were just not seeing (able to see) that meaning. They were forced, often by horror, to think, not only "outside the box," but outside the familiar cosmos as we have always known it.
Here's just a simple example: As a part of their philosophy, they said that nothing existed but "Mind" or energy, sometimes organized into patterns. They made the most outrageous claim that could ever be imagined in your wildest, craziest dreams: They claimed that the whole "material" world existed only because that is the way that we perceive or interpret it. And finally, they also concluded that the entire cosmos was a dream-state within a great Mind. "Solid matter" did not really exist. Ultimately, that is, in "truth" (reality), there was no material cosmos.
Physicists, who were no-nonsense, hard-nosed, skeptical, materialistic, and scientific, had a ball, that lasted for centuries, laughing at these crazy mystics. In the twenty-first century, they are no longer laughing.
Why? Because of research in quantum physics, also called "ultramicroparticle physics." For we have known for a long time that everything is made of atoms. Atoms are made of neutrons, protons, and electrons. These are called "microparticles."
But when we started to ask the final question, "What are these microparticles made of?" we discovered an amazing, astonishing truth: There was never anything solid within the atom. Atoms are made up of "bundles" or "packets" of force called "quanta." Matter was a kind of mythology or "illusion," as the mystics had always claimed! The entire "material cosmos was energy, after all!
If the mystics had been right in such an outrageous, mind-blowing claim, might they not be right about other things as well?
When I first heard the word "mystic," probably as a teen, I just carelessly dismissed it as some kind of satanic or demonic "thing," although I had zero education or exposure.
Now that I've read fifty, and written twelve, books about the subject, I feel that I have a basis to be able to talk rationally and meaningfully about it. In fact, it is the greatest pleasure in the world to help people sort through the billions of haystacks to find the precious platinum "needle" of reality (truth). For, in the end, it all comes down to that single, simple question: What is real? With that, comes a secondary: Is anything ABSOLUTELY real?
Please take a couple of minutes of your valuable time to check out our website, at: loveministries.org
There, you can access, free, all of my books. You can also download them, free. (If you like real books, you can also order them.) Hang in there! The "fires" of hell are not to torment, but to burn away all the excess dross, leaving only the nonflammable Jewel!
Giving Up on the World
Meditating a little earlier. It is now 12:19 am, and the wee hours of the morning are particularly sweet when it comes to inner exploration. As has happened in every meditation during the last few days, your case arose in mind again.
It is not at all certain that everything that was revealed by the unconscious Mind can be fully explained here, but an attempt will be made:
Love tests everyone, but certain people, for whom It has a special task, are "purified by fire." This is a state of mind that older Christian writers called "purgatory," which means "purgation" or purification.
Love wants you to learn a very important and valuable lesson, and to take it into yourself, and make it one with your inner mind, so that the lesson will be yours forever. That lesson is that there is no hope in the world. There is no wisdom there, no future, no answers, no solutions. The one who truly knows this spiritual jewel is very rare. Almost everyone has more faith in the scientific, social, economic, or political structures than they have in Love. Love wants to demonstrate to you the absolute uselessness of the world so that you will take the only alternative path available: You will turn to your inner mind for answers. For it is there, and there alone, that God dwells, as Love.
We have all had to learn, the hard way, that God is no genie, here to serve us; God is not Santa Claus, here to fill our wish-list; God is no knight in white armour who will gallop in to save us at the last minute; God is no Pollyanna being whose job is to make sure that we live "happily ever after." We all learn, with wisdom, to dismiss such attractive fairy-tale images of God.
Instead, God is the deepest Love within our nature. God is the sum of all the Love in the hearts of all sentient beings everywhere among the galaxies. This Love lies so deeply within the Unconscious that most people do not know that It even exists. In order to discover this Love, to tap into Its great Power, we must first give up completely any fairy-tale images of God as a "big daddy in the sky." We must also be forced to give up on the "world." It cannot give satisfying answers.
God does perform miracles, through Love. But they do not come because we beg and plead. They increase with the intensity of our Love. Everything in our worlds-- yours and mine, and those of all people-- is designed to get us to go within, to look inward, for this secret, deeply hidden Love.
This Love is deeply concerned with our spirituality. In fact, you could say, our spirituality is ALL that It cares about! Since that is so, It is concerned very little with the items, objects, and events of this world. It will do, or allow, anything to shake us loose from "faith" in ourselves, or in normal intellectual solutions. This Love wants us to abandon all "faith" in the world. Love is the only healing energy in the cosmos, and everything that God (Love) allows is designed to shake us awake to that fact.
The huge mountain of challenges that you have received recently is a special calling to become a very special kind of being. This outer world is worthless, and it is not your home. Your "home" is the "inner world" of your own mind. And it is here, not above the clouds, not among the galaxies, that God dwells as Love.
Love can never be harsh or cruel. But Its techniques and methods can seem so to our human understanding. When you take a puppy to the vet, for his own good, all that he knows is that he is going to be stuck with a needle. An act of great kindness (a hshot might cost a hundred bucks) is seen, within his limited perception, as an act of harsh cruelty.
Take another example: A third-grader is terrified to take a math test at school, for she has not studied. She screams and cries-- real tears. Her pain and agony are truly real and genuine. Despite this, her loving mother still forces her to go to school. She hates her mother, and believes that her mother really hates her. But her mother's only motive is Love. It is just a Love beyond the comprehension of the little girl.
You will no doubt agree that human consciousness is limited, in more than one way. If you know this, then you can be open to the fact that we might misinterpret reality. That admission is only realistic. Like the pup, and the little girl, a limited view of Love can make it seem like indifference, or even hate.
Losing my vision was the worst thing that ever happened to me. My entire being rebelled against it. I threw away God, and all that God stood for. But, in time, I came to believe that God was a vast, immense Love much greater than the ancient middle eastern deity called "Jehovah" or "Yahweh," who was the wargod of a minor tribal group. The closing of the outer eyes opened the inner in-sight, and forged a personal and deep relationship with the God of Love.
Love "flipped the script" of the entire cosmos, and allowed me to extract what "good" could be extracted from the situation. Many people say that they would rather die than to go blind. I can see why. But I also have come to see what nuggets of gold are buried within the "mud" of harmful, hurtful events.
As human beings, we find it very difficult to shake the old assumptions--believed by all our ancestors-- that death is "bad." This is an example of how what seems to be "bad" can really be good. Early Christians, closer to the Master Jesus, saw death as a release and liberation. They made it an art to escape entanglement with this world, so that, in the end, they did not cling to it. They saw this life as a launch-pad for eternity.
Love wants all of us to awaken to this same profound realization-- that the world is empty, hollow, hopeless, and void. Love then directs us to the real answers inside ourselves.
Sorry, I know that this sounds disjointed and rambling, but it was hard to keep up with the Flow of words pouring through the mind. It is hoped that you can find something of value in these words. You are going to find more of God within yourself during the next five months than you have during the last five thousand years. I think of you with fondness every day, and with very much Love.
It is not at all certain that everything that was revealed by the unconscious Mind can be fully explained here, but an attempt will be made:
Love tests everyone, but certain people, for whom It has a special task, are "purified by fire." This is a state of mind that older Christian writers called "purgatory," which means "purgation" or purification.
Love wants you to learn a very important and valuable lesson, and to take it into yourself, and make it one with your inner mind, so that the lesson will be yours forever. That lesson is that there is no hope in the world. There is no wisdom there, no future, no answers, no solutions. The one who truly knows this spiritual jewel is very rare. Almost everyone has more faith in the scientific, social, economic, or political structures than they have in Love. Love wants to demonstrate to you the absolute uselessness of the world so that you will take the only alternative path available: You will turn to your inner mind for answers. For it is there, and there alone, that God dwells, as Love.
We have all had to learn, the hard way, that God is no genie, here to serve us; God is not Santa Claus, here to fill our wish-list; God is no knight in white armour who will gallop in to save us at the last minute; God is no Pollyanna being whose job is to make sure that we live "happily ever after." We all learn, with wisdom, to dismiss such attractive fairy-tale images of God.
Instead, God is the deepest Love within our nature. God is the sum of all the Love in the hearts of all sentient beings everywhere among the galaxies. This Love lies so deeply within the Unconscious that most people do not know that It even exists. In order to discover this Love, to tap into Its great Power, we must first give up completely any fairy-tale images of God as a "big daddy in the sky." We must also be forced to give up on the "world." It cannot give satisfying answers.
God does perform miracles, through Love. But they do not come because we beg and plead. They increase with the intensity of our Love. Everything in our worlds-- yours and mine, and those of all people-- is designed to get us to go within, to look inward, for this secret, deeply hidden Love.
This Love is deeply concerned with our spirituality. In fact, you could say, our spirituality is ALL that It cares about! Since that is so, It is concerned very little with the items, objects, and events of this world. It will do, or allow, anything to shake us loose from "faith" in ourselves, or in normal intellectual solutions. This Love wants us to abandon all "faith" in the world. Love is the only healing energy in the cosmos, and everything that God (Love) allows is designed to shake us awake to that fact.
The huge mountain of challenges that you have received recently is a special calling to become a very special kind of being. This outer world is worthless, and it is not your home. Your "home" is the "inner world" of your own mind. And it is here, not above the clouds, not among the galaxies, that God dwells as Love.
Love can never be harsh or cruel. But Its techniques and methods can seem so to our human understanding. When you take a puppy to the vet, for his own good, all that he knows is that he is going to be stuck with a needle. An act of great kindness (a hshot might cost a hundred bucks) is seen, within his limited perception, as an act of harsh cruelty.
Take another example: A third-grader is terrified to take a math test at school, for she has not studied. She screams and cries-- real tears. Her pain and agony are truly real and genuine. Despite this, her loving mother still forces her to go to school. She hates her mother, and believes that her mother really hates her. But her mother's only motive is Love. It is just a Love beyond the comprehension of the little girl.
You will no doubt agree that human consciousness is limited, in more than one way. If you know this, then you can be open to the fact that we might misinterpret reality. That admission is only realistic. Like the pup, and the little girl, a limited view of Love can make it seem like indifference, or even hate.
Losing my vision was the worst thing that ever happened to me. My entire being rebelled against it. I threw away God, and all that God stood for. But, in time, I came to believe that God was a vast, immense Love much greater than the ancient middle eastern deity called "Jehovah" or "Yahweh," who was the wargod of a minor tribal group. The closing of the outer eyes opened the inner in-sight, and forged a personal and deep relationship with the God of Love.
Love "flipped the script" of the entire cosmos, and allowed me to extract what "good" could be extracted from the situation. Many people say that they would rather die than to go blind. I can see why. But I also have come to see what nuggets of gold are buried within the "mud" of harmful, hurtful events.
As human beings, we find it very difficult to shake the old assumptions--believed by all our ancestors-- that death is "bad." This is an example of how what seems to be "bad" can really be good. Early Christians, closer to the Master Jesus, saw death as a release and liberation. They made it an art to escape entanglement with this world, so that, in the end, they did not cling to it. They saw this life as a launch-pad for eternity.
Love wants all of us to awaken to this same profound realization-- that the world is empty, hollow, hopeless, and void. Love then directs us to the real answers inside ourselves.
Sorry, I know that this sounds disjointed and rambling, but it was hard to keep up with the Flow of words pouring through the mind. It is hoped that you can find something of value in these words. You are going to find more of God within yourself during the next five months than you have during the last five thousand years. I think of you with fondness every day, and with very much Love.
Life, Challenges, and Death
I'm going to take a chance, and send this note to you anyway, just in case it can help you in your moment of most unyielding, blackest darkness: As an empath, I was crushed and shattered by the awful, hideous intensity and gravity of the nightmarish, ghastly agony that you are now going through. This little note is straight from the heart. No philosophy. Just real concern.
What I want is to minimize your suffering. For when you and I met, a miraculous thing happened-- Love. On the conscious level of mind, you and I are strangers. But at much deeper levels, we are much more than that. We are brothers, or what might be much closer an ddeeper-- we are friends.
We are united by our chosen friendship-- not artificially by religion or politics. Spiritual (or, inner) freedom is absolutely sacred. In the most important questions of life, one adult should never control, or even influence, another. In fact, in the midst of those crucial questions, a wise person should not allow herself to be influenced even by groups, organizations, or societies.
Each person is absolutely free to make any choice that she considers best. That would be, of course,the path that minimizes interior pain. For if you cannot maximize joy, the very least that you can do out of Love for yourself is attempt to minimize inevitable pain.
At a deep unconscious level of the Mind called the "Soul," we decide the moment of our birth. All of the major events of our lives are "contracted," pre-arranged, or predesigned by that same deep level of Mind.
I have never been, or pretended to be, your "guru," your teacher, or anything like that. Nor do I ever want to be seen in any such capacity. I am not a priest, I am not an elder, I am not any kind of formal minister. I believe in no organization or organized, orthodox church.
The very best and most productive life is led by each of us when we make our own personal spiritual decisions without allowing anyone else to influence us in any way.
I try to "move beyond this world," every day, in meditation. But what I had in mind was more of a steady and lasting state. As you know, especially if you have seen my novel, I believe that this life is only a tiny part of a greater life. The "good news" is that, if I am wrong, there is nothing to lose anyway.
But if right, things change: These ideas agree with those of the greatest luminaries in the history of spirituality. There is very much to be gained in loving yourself so much. You want to spare your bodymind all the pain that you possibly can.
What I'm trying not to say, so clumsily, is that the human mind has real limits in terms of what it can bear. I do not believe that we are wise to push ourselves beyond those limits. Of course, this requires a lot of transcendence of normal limits. For it goes against the most immense biopressures that say, "material life is all there is."
But I just do not buy that. The process of nde's demonstrates with clarity that the mind continues indefinitely, perhaps even eternally.
With a sad smile, I reflect on how much simpler my life would be at this moment if I simply forgot the whole thing. I could just say, "It's not my problem." But it's not that simple; every human problem is my problem.
Let me apologize in advance for the lack of clarity that is involved in a communication such as this. But I think that you know that this must be so.
People can be helped from a distance, by focusing the mind on Love, and then, on the person. A lot of this depends on the sender, and much also depends on the receiver. But please know that, through Love, I send to you the best of mindforces, the best of energies of strength so that you might choose to remain within, and endure, your test as long as your free will directs you to do so. I've been thinking about you all day, and will no doubt do so all night as well. You cannot just drop someone else's pain and pretend that it does not exist.
It's already getting late, and there is not a lot more to say. In fact, it's wondered whether there is anything left at all to say. Just know that sincere Lovenergy is being sent your way.
What I want is to minimize your suffering. For when you and I met, a miraculous thing happened-- Love. On the conscious level of mind, you and I are strangers. But at much deeper levels, we are much more than that. We are brothers, or what might be much closer an ddeeper-- we are friends.
We are united by our chosen friendship-- not artificially by religion or politics. Spiritual (or, inner) freedom is absolutely sacred. In the most important questions of life, one adult should never control, or even influence, another. In fact, in the midst of those crucial questions, a wise person should not allow herself to be influenced even by groups, organizations, or societies.
Each person is absolutely free to make any choice that she considers best. That would be, of course,the path that minimizes interior pain. For if you cannot maximize joy, the very least that you can do out of Love for yourself is attempt to minimize inevitable pain.
At a deep unconscious level of the Mind called the "Soul," we decide the moment of our birth. All of the major events of our lives are "contracted," pre-arranged, or predesigned by that same deep level of Mind.
I have never been, or pretended to be, your "guru," your teacher, or anything like that. Nor do I ever want to be seen in any such capacity. I am not a priest, I am not an elder, I am not any kind of formal minister. I believe in no organization or organized, orthodox church.
The very best and most productive life is led by each of us when we make our own personal spiritual decisions without allowing anyone else to influence us in any way.
I try to "move beyond this world," every day, in meditation. But what I had in mind was more of a steady and lasting state. As you know, especially if you have seen my novel, I believe that this life is only a tiny part of a greater life. The "good news" is that, if I am wrong, there is nothing to lose anyway.
But if right, things change: These ideas agree with those of the greatest luminaries in the history of spirituality. There is very much to be gained in loving yourself so much. You want to spare your bodymind all the pain that you possibly can.
What I'm trying not to say, so clumsily, is that the human mind has real limits in terms of what it can bear. I do not believe that we are wise to push ourselves beyond those limits. Of course, this requires a lot of transcendence of normal limits. For it goes against the most immense biopressures that say, "material life is all there is."
But I just do not buy that. The process of nde's demonstrates with clarity that the mind continues indefinitely, perhaps even eternally.
With a sad smile, I reflect on how much simpler my life would be at this moment if I simply forgot the whole thing. I could just say, "It's not my problem." But it's not that simple; every human problem is my problem.
Let me apologize in advance for the lack of clarity that is involved in a communication such as this. But I think that you know that this must be so.
People can be helped from a distance, by focusing the mind on Love, and then, on the person. A lot of this depends on the sender, and much also depends on the receiver. But please know that, through Love, I send to you the best of mindforces, the best of energies of strength so that you might choose to remain within, and endure, your test as long as your free will directs you to do so. I've been thinking about you all day, and will no doubt do so all night as well. You cannot just drop someone else's pain and pretend that it does not exist.
It's already getting late, and there is not a lot more to say. In fact, it's wondered whether there is anything left at all to say. Just know that sincere Lovenergy is being sent your way.
Tuesday, February 22, 2005
Life-suggestions
I know that it seems as if some things from the past cannot ever be retrieved. But you would be amazed what can be repaired! You just have to put some effort into it. If you add a little Love to the recipe, then Goddess is on your side, for Goddess is Love! That's a winning combination that just cannot be beat! Believe me!:)
Re healing the past: Have you thought about writing a letter to your dad? A letter is very fine, for you can write it several times, rewrite, and rewrite, until it says exactly what you want. You cannot do this in normal conversation, or over the phone.
If you fill the letter with sweetness, kindness, courtesy, and tenderness, this will be very therapeutic (healing) for you, and it will also help to heal your father's heart. It's a real win-win!
The only way to know whether someone REALLY cares for you is to watch her/his behavior. Do not listen to words; words are cheap, and lies are very easy. If a person really loves you, she/he should SHOW it. How? By doing, and saying, kind and supportive things. By being there for you when you need help. By sharing all that he/she has with you, holding nothing back. By working hard actually to change his/her personality--not just making hollow promises (remember, those are just words.)
Falling very deeply in Love can happen more than once during a lifetime. But it will go nowhere if the Love is not reflected right back at you!
You might believe that another would never love you. But I sense (intuition again) that you are a very sweet person, with many good qualities and characteristics. When you are happy and at peace, you can give very much Love. And you are the only one on the whole planet who can give YOUR SPECIAL Love! Someone, somewhere will consider themselves very, very blessed to receive your Love,and will never take It, or you, for granted. NEVER allow yourself to be "abused," by being ignored or neglected. Do not ever put up with verbal or emotional abuse, and never for a moment with any kind of physical abuse! You are worth much more than that! Try always to love yourself, and that will make it easier for others to love you!
Re healing the past: Have you thought about writing a letter to your dad? A letter is very fine, for you can write it several times, rewrite, and rewrite, until it says exactly what you want. You cannot do this in normal conversation, or over the phone.
If you fill the letter with sweetness, kindness, courtesy, and tenderness, this will be very therapeutic (healing) for you, and it will also help to heal your father's heart. It's a real win-win!
The only way to know whether someone REALLY cares for you is to watch her/his behavior. Do not listen to words; words are cheap, and lies are very easy. If a person really loves you, she/he should SHOW it. How? By doing, and saying, kind and supportive things. By being there for you when you need help. By sharing all that he/she has with you, holding nothing back. By working hard actually to change his/her personality--not just making hollow promises (remember, those are just words.)
Falling very deeply in Love can happen more than once during a lifetime. But it will go nowhere if the Love is not reflected right back at you!
You might believe that another would never love you. But I sense (intuition again) that you are a very sweet person, with many good qualities and characteristics. When you are happy and at peace, you can give very much Love. And you are the only one on the whole planet who can give YOUR SPECIAL Love! Someone, somewhere will consider themselves very, very blessed to receive your Love,and will never take It, or you, for granted. NEVER allow yourself to be "abused," by being ignored or neglected. Do not ever put up with verbal or emotional abuse, and never for a moment with any kind of physical abuse! You are worth much more than that! Try always to love yourself, and that will make it easier for others to love you!
Love-recommendation
The second most sacred, and important, possession that anyone ever finds in this world is the right to design the inside of her own mind. This is called "freedom." It is a great gift, a great accomplishment, second only to real, genuine Love.
Often, people carelessly use the word "Love." Sometimes, they just mean sex. Real Love is a lot more-- so much more-- than just sex. Sex by itself just gets boring, but Love is always new, always exciting!
The word "Love" is used very carefully. What is meant by "Love" is understanding, compassion, kindness, goodness, tolerance. It means giving the other the freedom that she needs to be whatever she has to be. It means caring dearly and deeply for her. It means supporting her. Sometimes, it means even giving up what you want so that she can have what she wants, or needs.
Some major decisions in life must be made with a mind-gift called "intuition." A decision that comes from intuition might not always acknowledge all the facts; it might not be just logical. It is often better than mere logic or reason.
I've done couples-counseling with dozens of couples, for many years. I can tell you that when one partner ignores or dismisses the spiritual path of the other, this is a MAJOR danger-signal. You will have to keep a strong hold on spirituality for the rest of your life. This will give you strength, peace, sanity, and wisdom. It is just not worth it to throw away this great treasure simply because a potential Love-partner refuses to understand it.
Spend some more time in meditation, within and with yourself. Do not let your strength depend on a potential Love-partner.
Re your dad: I'm sure that he still loves you. You say that you cannot apologize to him,b ut you can. You need to do that, with sincerity. If you do, you can melt his heart in tender Love.
You say that you cannot hug him, but you can. If you do, you will help to heal his heart, and your own. The lines of communication have broken, and shut down. Now is the best time to begin to repair them. I sense--intuition again-- that your dad wants to reach out to you, but is being stopped by his pride. I sense that he is embarrassed, even ashamed.
So, let your own heart begin to melt. Become a fountain of Love for all those around you. This is the only way to open your heart up to the universe. Let infinite Love flow THROUGH you, for it cannot come FROM you. Love everyone, love everything, all the time. This will make you a kind of medicine for the heart and mind, for yourself, and for everyone else around you. You are a natural healer, but have not discovered it yet. If you start to love, you will get everything in your mind and heart ready to heal. It all starts with yourself, with your dad, and it all starts today.
Clean up your life, remember what a good and beautiful person you are, and get away from the alcohol. Then, give your dad a sincere and warm hug.
Everyone in the world is "starving" for Love. And if you give it, you will find that everyone loves you! the only way to get it is to give it. Love is respect, goodness, courtesy, friendliness.
Give it a try. You will happily bless the day that you decided to become a messenger of Love.
Often, people carelessly use the word "Love." Sometimes, they just mean sex. Real Love is a lot more-- so much more-- than just sex. Sex by itself just gets boring, but Love is always new, always exciting!
The word "Love" is used very carefully. What is meant by "Love" is understanding, compassion, kindness, goodness, tolerance. It means giving the other the freedom that she needs to be whatever she has to be. It means caring dearly and deeply for her. It means supporting her. Sometimes, it means even giving up what you want so that she can have what she wants, or needs.
Some major decisions in life must be made with a mind-gift called "intuition." A decision that comes from intuition might not always acknowledge all the facts; it might not be just logical. It is often better than mere logic or reason.
I've done couples-counseling with dozens of couples, for many years. I can tell you that when one partner ignores or dismisses the spiritual path of the other, this is a MAJOR danger-signal. You will have to keep a strong hold on spirituality for the rest of your life. This will give you strength, peace, sanity, and wisdom. It is just not worth it to throw away this great treasure simply because a potential Love-partner refuses to understand it.
Spend some more time in meditation, within and with yourself. Do not let your strength depend on a potential Love-partner.
Re your dad: I'm sure that he still loves you. You say that you cannot apologize to him,b ut you can. You need to do that, with sincerity. If you do, you can melt his heart in tender Love.
You say that you cannot hug him, but you can. If you do, you will help to heal his heart, and your own. The lines of communication have broken, and shut down. Now is the best time to begin to repair them. I sense--intuition again-- that your dad wants to reach out to you, but is being stopped by his pride. I sense that he is embarrassed, even ashamed.
So, let your own heart begin to melt. Become a fountain of Love for all those around you. This is the only way to open your heart up to the universe. Let infinite Love flow THROUGH you, for it cannot come FROM you. Love everyone, love everything, all the time. This will make you a kind of medicine for the heart and mind, for yourself, and for everyone else around you. You are a natural healer, but have not discovered it yet. If you start to love, you will get everything in your mind and heart ready to heal. It all starts with yourself, with your dad, and it all starts today.
Clean up your life, remember what a good and beautiful person you are, and get away from the alcohol. Then, give your dad a sincere and warm hug.
Everyone in the world is "starving" for Love. And if you give it, you will find that everyone loves you! the only way to get it is to give it. Love is respect, goodness, courtesy, friendliness.
Give it a try. You will happily bless the day that you decided to become a messenger of Love.
Jehovah and Cult-psychology
Your friend John sounds like a lovely, sincere man. Please do feel free to share my emailaddress with him, if he is interested. Please also inform him that I have written a book called Jehovah, Good-bye: The "New Theism" of Love. This book has as its major premise the desperate need of our societies to replace the ancient wargod of the Israelis with a higher vision. We in the twenty-first century need to return to the image established by Jesus and other great masters-- that God is Love plus nothing. This Love is not contaminated with fear, hatred, judgment, or any other contaminant. It is only purest Love.
The second part of this book is about the "new theism" that sees and understands God as pure Love. The only job of this God is to forgive, as a part of Love. (This book can also be accessed, free, on, and downloaded from, the website loveministries.org)
Your friend John indirectly confirms what I've heard from so many gays-- that the tendency is inherent. I also believe that being gay is genebased, as it has been observed in a number of species. I believe that this "cross-over" occurs when a Soul has incarnated many times in a female body, and then, to learn what male-lives are like, decides to incarnate as a male. Or vice-versa, with lesbians. But still, inside, the feelings/attractions remain the same.
Re the Bible: I never use the Hebrew Scriptures ("Old Testament"). On the surface, they contain very little of mystical interest or value, unless understood metaphorically. I am not a Jew, have never been a Jew in this life, and have no plans of becoming a Jew. Why, then, should I ever even consider being bound to the socioreligious or sociocultural rules of that particular religion/genetic grouping?
I am not antisemitic! Not at all. But I consider myself as a free being to be as free from the laws of ancient Judaism as from those of ancient Greece, ancient Peru, or any other ancient culture.
Just because the grumpy old men-- murderers, thieves, and liars-- who compiled the present Bible were foolish and biased enough to jam the Hebrew Scriptures together with the Christian, pretending, in effect, that the writings were one, solid, indivisible "Holy Bible," this proves nothing. A study of history shows that they were wrong.
This is why "Christianity" and "Judaism" are, and were, two completely separate religions. They teach differing ideas, have separate histories, separate Bibles, separate teachers, and separate gods. They are completely separate. Not only is Jesus absent from Hebrew religion, but so is grace (universal forgiveness), and even the idea that others are equal before God. The entire Epistle to the Galatians is about how free people are not bound to law, or "the Law"-- in this case, meaning the
Hebrew Scriptures.
The Hebrew Scriptures-- as a respected Jewish man reminded me recently--are allegorical. (I prefer "Hebrew Scriptures" to "Old Testament," because the latter represents a Christian bias that is unfair, presenting the texts as only a prelude to the "New Testament.") Those ancient writings are symbolic or metaphorical. This is how the Enlightenment Tradition among the Hebrew people (called Kabbalah) always regarded the ancient texts. For these Jews believed in a God of Love, and had to reject the historical Jehovah-- as indeed, all spiritual people must, sooner or later. So, I do not believe that a literal guy named Lot offered his literal daughters to a crowd of sex-perverts to do them harm, nor do I believe that "Lot's wife" was turned into a pillar of literal salt.
David, whose murders of "bad guys" were celebrated as history for centuries, is a little more problematic. (Let's just say that I do not regard him as a pinnacle or paragon of virtues.) But as a human being, he was a lousy moral example, not only because of his mass-murders, but also because of his despicable behavior with Bath-Sheba. Allegory or not, the story of David leaves a bad taste in the mouth. Whatever he was, he was clearly NOT a "man of God." (This is just a personal belief,
but his conscience later could have driven him quite mad; and while not a historical fact, this can be inferred from many of the Psalms attributed to him.)
Re the "Ark of the Covenant": This large box also might well be allegory. But if, as some say, the Ark was a kind of battery, the poor fellow who tried to catch it was electrocuted, and the wargod Jehovah was not even involved in this wasteful destruction (although I'm the last to defend him).
I find your friend John's characterization of Jehovah's mental development refreshingly realistic. I have made a similar decision, but consider Jehovah, with all his temper-tantrums, to have the emotional abilities of a four-year-old! (This is in the book.) Those ancient Middle Eastern wargods were all emotionally arrested and regressive. They were a collection of maniacs, barbarians, and idiots! Today we would diagnose all of them as psychotics. They had only one function: Being wargods, they were designed to scare the hell out of their enemies. So, they were all presented as brutal monsters. This was simply to intimidate the enemy. Mercy and Love in their gods would have been fatal weaknesses for states surrounded by vicious enemies.
Although both John and you might have drifted from the cultdogma for different reasons, that is the very best thing that could have happened to either of you. To reject the cult, with its most anti-human teaching of the slaughter and massacre of the entire human race, in the name of Love, is particularly sweet!
Please tell John that he deserves much better than this little microcult. There are giant spiritual traditions, such as the intercultural one called the "Way of Love" (mysticism or the Enlightenment Tradition) in which he can think. He can grow. He can thrive. He can find real and true friends. (Those he will never find in the cult; they do not know how to love their friends, and will betray them in a second if commanded to do so.) The world is filled with a splendid smorgasbord of delicious, freeing, ecstatic, joyful spiritual paths. The cult taught that all other religions contained only garbage and hypocrisy. Actually, it is a delight to see, with experience and history, that every path contains so much beauty, nobility, goodness, and, yes, truth! So, please also encourage him to open his mind without fear. If he begins to study other faiths, no "evil spirits" are going to jump down his throat!:)
No one could ever have believed in the Organization more than I. But I was forced to resign because of integrity and a dawning higher vision. Btw, if John has resigned, he need not be "disfellowshipped" (excommunicated from the cult) at all. For he is in exactly the same status to the elders and to those still stuck. (If his mother ever even speaks to him, it is next to a miracle!) I also began to use other translations of the Bible, in the sales work of the cult. Finally, I stopped carrying my sales-briefcase altogether, and carried only a hand-sized KJ Bible, and shared the good news straight from the Bible! How the elders sizzled at this act of "rebellion"! Tell John that he should be proud of his independence! Independent thinking, far from being a "sin," is one of the greatest gifts that God has given us!:) Just ask any normal person!:)
Tell John to try, please, to realize that mistrust of all outside the cult is a clear mark of group-paranoia-- and any good psychologist will confirm this. All groups that feel that they are on very shaky ground do not want the members talking to nonmenbers or exmembers. As John why, if they are so sure that they have the truth, they, like nazis, burn books of exmembers? Why do they, like mormons or the Hare Krishna people, not want members freely to discuss religion with others? And why, finally, do they avoid and evade public debates with exmembers-- which has happened dozens of times in the U.S?
When you attend the discussion-group tomorrow, please convey my very best wishes and most sincere blessings. Please also share my email address with the whole group.
The second part of this book is about the "new theism" that sees and understands God as pure Love. The only job of this God is to forgive, as a part of Love. (This book can also be accessed, free, on, and downloaded from, the website loveministries.org)
Your friend John indirectly confirms what I've heard from so many gays-- that the tendency is inherent. I also believe that being gay is genebased, as it has been observed in a number of species. I believe that this "cross-over" occurs when a Soul has incarnated many times in a female body, and then, to learn what male-lives are like, decides to incarnate as a male. Or vice-versa, with lesbians. But still, inside, the feelings/attractions remain the same.
Re the Bible: I never use the Hebrew Scriptures ("Old Testament"). On the surface, they contain very little of mystical interest or value, unless understood metaphorically. I am not a Jew, have never been a Jew in this life, and have no plans of becoming a Jew. Why, then, should I ever even consider being bound to the socioreligious or sociocultural rules of that particular religion/genetic grouping?
I am not antisemitic! Not at all. But I consider myself as a free being to be as free from the laws of ancient Judaism as from those of ancient Greece, ancient Peru, or any other ancient culture.
Just because the grumpy old men-- murderers, thieves, and liars-- who compiled the present Bible were foolish and biased enough to jam the Hebrew Scriptures together with the Christian, pretending, in effect, that the writings were one, solid, indivisible "Holy Bible," this proves nothing. A study of history shows that they were wrong.
This is why "Christianity" and "Judaism" are, and were, two completely separate religions. They teach differing ideas, have separate histories, separate Bibles, separate teachers, and separate gods. They are completely separate. Not only is Jesus absent from Hebrew religion, but so is grace (universal forgiveness), and even the idea that others are equal before God. The entire Epistle to the Galatians is about how free people are not bound to law, or "the Law"-- in this case, meaning the
Hebrew Scriptures.
The Hebrew Scriptures-- as a respected Jewish man reminded me recently--are allegorical. (I prefer "Hebrew Scriptures" to "Old Testament," because the latter represents a Christian bias that is unfair, presenting the texts as only a prelude to the "New Testament.") Those ancient writings are symbolic or metaphorical. This is how the Enlightenment Tradition among the Hebrew people (called Kabbalah) always regarded the ancient texts. For these Jews believed in a God of Love, and had to reject the historical Jehovah-- as indeed, all spiritual people must, sooner or later. So, I do not believe that a literal guy named Lot offered his literal daughters to a crowd of sex-perverts to do them harm, nor do I believe that "Lot's wife" was turned into a pillar of literal salt.
David, whose murders of "bad guys" were celebrated as history for centuries, is a little more problematic. (Let's just say that I do not regard him as a pinnacle or paragon of virtues.) But as a human being, he was a lousy moral example, not only because of his mass-murders, but also because of his despicable behavior with Bath-Sheba. Allegory or not, the story of David leaves a bad taste in the mouth. Whatever he was, he was clearly NOT a "man of God." (This is just a personal belief,
but his conscience later could have driven him quite mad; and while not a historical fact, this can be inferred from many of the Psalms attributed to him.)
Re the "Ark of the Covenant": This large box also might well be allegory. But if, as some say, the Ark was a kind of battery, the poor fellow who tried to catch it was electrocuted, and the wargod Jehovah was not even involved in this wasteful destruction (although I'm the last to defend him).
I find your friend John's characterization of Jehovah's mental development refreshingly realistic. I have made a similar decision, but consider Jehovah, with all his temper-tantrums, to have the emotional abilities of a four-year-old! (This is in the book.) Those ancient Middle Eastern wargods were all emotionally arrested and regressive. They were a collection of maniacs, barbarians, and idiots! Today we would diagnose all of them as psychotics. They had only one function: Being wargods, they were designed to scare the hell out of their enemies. So, they were all presented as brutal monsters. This was simply to intimidate the enemy. Mercy and Love in their gods would have been fatal weaknesses for states surrounded by vicious enemies.
Although both John and you might have drifted from the cultdogma for different reasons, that is the very best thing that could have happened to either of you. To reject the cult, with its most anti-human teaching of the slaughter and massacre of the entire human race, in the name of Love, is particularly sweet!
Please tell John that he deserves much better than this little microcult. There are giant spiritual traditions, such as the intercultural one called the "Way of Love" (mysticism or the Enlightenment Tradition) in which he can think. He can grow. He can thrive. He can find real and true friends. (Those he will never find in the cult; they do not know how to love their friends, and will betray them in a second if commanded to do so.) The world is filled with a splendid smorgasbord of delicious, freeing, ecstatic, joyful spiritual paths. The cult taught that all other religions contained only garbage and hypocrisy. Actually, it is a delight to see, with experience and history, that every path contains so much beauty, nobility, goodness, and, yes, truth! So, please also encourage him to open his mind without fear. If he begins to study other faiths, no "evil spirits" are going to jump down his throat!:)
No one could ever have believed in the Organization more than I. But I was forced to resign because of integrity and a dawning higher vision. Btw, if John has resigned, he need not be "disfellowshipped" (excommunicated from the cult) at all. For he is in exactly the same status to the elders and to those still stuck. (If his mother ever even speaks to him, it is next to a miracle!) I also began to use other translations of the Bible, in the sales work of the cult. Finally, I stopped carrying my sales-briefcase altogether, and carried only a hand-sized KJ Bible, and shared the good news straight from the Bible! How the elders sizzled at this act of "rebellion"! Tell John that he should be proud of his independence! Independent thinking, far from being a "sin," is one of the greatest gifts that God has given us!:) Just ask any normal person!:)
Tell John to try, please, to realize that mistrust of all outside the cult is a clear mark of group-paranoia-- and any good psychologist will confirm this. All groups that feel that they are on very shaky ground do not want the members talking to nonmenbers or exmembers. As John why, if they are so sure that they have the truth, they, like nazis, burn books of exmembers? Why do they, like mormons or the Hare Krishna people, not want members freely to discuss religion with others? And why, finally, do they avoid and evade public debates with exmembers-- which has happened dozens of times in the U.S?
When you attend the discussion-group tomorrow, please convey my very best wishes and most sincere blessings. Please also share my email address with the whole group.
Saturday, February 19, 2005
75 Reasons not to hire Georgie!
Reasons not to Hire George Bush to Do Anything Important:
Past work experience:
1) Ran for congress and lost.
2) Produced a Hollywood slasher B movie.
3) Bought an oil company, but couldn't find any oil in Texas, company went bankrupt shortly after he sold all his stock.
4) Bought the Texas Rangers baseball team in a sweetheart deal that took land using tax-payer money.
5) With fathers help (and his name) was elected Governor of Texas.
Accomplishments:
6) Changed pollution laws for power and oil companies, making Texas the most polluted state in the Union. Replaced Los Angeles with Houston as the most smog ridden city in America.
7) Cut taxes, and bankrupted the Texas government to the tune of billions in borrowed money.
8) Set record for most executions by any Governor in American history.
9) Became president after losing the popular vote by over 500,000 votes, with the help of his daddy's appointments to the Supreme Court.
Accomplishments as president:
10) Attacked and took over two small, helpless countries. Slaughtered over 100,000 innocent Iraqi men, women, and children.
11) Spent the surplus and bankrupted the treasury.
12) Shattered record for biggest annual deficit in history.
13) Set economic record for most private bankruptcies filed in any twelve-month period.
14) Set all-time record for biggest drop in the history of the stock market.
15) First president in decades to execute a federal prisoner.
16) First president in US history to enter office with a criminal record.
17) First year in office set the all-time record for most days on vacation by any president in US history.
18) After taking the entire month of August off for vacation, presided over the worst security failure in US history (911).
19) Set the record for more campaign fund-raising trips than any other president in US history.
20) In his first two years in office, over 2 million Americans lost their jobs.
21) Cut unemployment benefits for more out of work Americans than any other president in US history.
22) Set the all-time record for most foreclosures in a twelve-month period.
23) Appointed more convicted criminals to administration positions than any other president in US history.
24) Set the record for the fewest pressconferences of any president since the advent of television.
25) Signed more laws and executive orders amending the Constitution than any other president in US history.
26) Presided over the biggest energy crises in US history, and refused to intervene when corruption was revealed.
27) Presided over the highest gasoline prices in US history, and refused to use the national reserves, as past presidents have.
28) Cut healthcare benefits for war veterans.
29) Set the all-time record for most people worldwide simultaneously to take to the streets to protest against him (15 million people), shattering the record for protest against any one person in the history of humankind.
30) Dissolved more international treaties than any president in US history.
31) His presidency is the most secretive and un-accountable of any in US history.
32) Members of his cabinet are the richest of any administration in US history. (The 'poorest' multi-millionaire, Condoleeza Rice, has an Exxon oil tanker named after her).
33) First president in US history to have all 50 states simultaneously go bankrupt.
34) Presided over the biggest corporate stock market fraud of any market in any country in the history of the world.
35) First president in US history to order a US attack and military occupation of a sovereign nation. Many American boys and girls were lost to his greed, and countless civilians.
36) Created the largest government department bureaucracy in the history of the United States. How can he make government even bigger? Perhaps by establishing a Bureau for Acceptable Sexual Practices!
37) Set the all-time record for biggest annual budget spending-increases-- more than any president in US history. His tax-giveaways to the very rich alone might require three million million dollars!
38) First president in US history to have the United Nations remove the US from the Human Rights Commission.
39) First president in US history to have the United Nations remove the US from the Elections Monitoring Board.
40) He removed more checks and balances, creating less Congressional oversight, than known by any presidential administration in US history. Now, no one knows his plans until they are already accomplished!
41) He took from sound programs that helped people, and gave the money to the richest people in the world.
42) Rendered the entire United Nations irrelevant.
43) Withdrew from the World Court of Law.
44) Refused to allow inspectors access to US prisoners of war.
45) So, by default, he no longer abides by the Geneva Conventions. These have been mocked by his appointed puppet, Alberto Gonzales.
46) First president in US history to refuse United Nations election inspectors (during the twenty-oh-two US elections).
47) All-time US (and world) record holder for most corporate campaign donations.
48) His biggest life-time campaign contributor presided over one of the largest corporate bankruptcy frauds in world history (Kenneth Lay, former CEO of Enron Corporation).
49) Spent more money on polls and focus groups than any president in US history.
50) First president in US history unilaterally to attack a sovereign nation against the will of the United Nations and the world community.
51) First president to run and hide when the US came under attack (and then lied, saying that the enemy had the code to Air Force One).
52) First US president to establish a secret shadow government.
53) Took the enormous, overflowing sympathy of the whole world for the US after 911, and in less than a year, made the US the most resented and despised country in the world (possibly the biggest diplomatic failure in US and world history).
54) With a policy of "disengagement," created the most hostile Israeli-Palestinian relations in at least 30 years.
55) First US president in history to have a majority of the people of Europe (71%) view his presidency as the biggest threat to world peace and stability.
56) First US president in history to have the people of South Korea feel more threatened by the US than by their immediate neighbor, North Korea.
57) Changed US policy to allow convicted criminals to be awarded government contracts.
58) Set all-time record for number of administration appointees who violated US law by not selling huge investments in corporations bidding for government contracts.
59) Failed to fulfill his pledge to get osama binladen "dead or alive."
60) Failed to capture the anthrax killer who tried to murder the leaders of our country at the United States Capital building. After 18 months he had no leads and zero suspects.
61) In the 18 months following the 911 attacks, he prevented any public investigation into the biggest security failure in the history of the United States.
62) Removed more freedoms and civil liberties from Americans than any other president in US history.
63) In a little over two years, he has created the most severely divided country, where people used to stand in unity. This is possibly the most divided the US has ever been since the Civil War.
64) He entered office with the strongest economy in US history; and, within less than two years turned every single economic indicator south.
Records and References:
65) At least one conviction for drunk driving in Maine (Texas driving record has been erased and is not available for public inspection).
66) AWOL from National Guard.
67) Deserted the military during a time of war.
68) Refused to take drug test.
69) Refused to answer any questions about drug-use.
70) All records of his tenure as governor of Texas have been mysteriously spirited away to his daddy's library, sealed in secrecy and unavailable for public view.
71) All records of any SEC investigations into his insider trading or bankrupt companies are sealed in secrecy and unavailable for public view.
72) All minutes of meetings for any public corporation in which he served on the board are sealed in secrecy and unavailable for public view.
73) Any records or minutes from meetings he (or his VP) attended regarding public energy policy are sealed in secrecy and unavailable for public view.
74) For personal references please speak to his daddy or uncle James Baker (They can both be reached at their offices at the Carlyle Group for War-profiteering).
75. Last but not least, he has taken very important and significant steps to transform the United States into a truly fascist country.
("Fascism" is sharing governmental power with corporations.)
*****
See: http://www.hyperreal.org/~dana/marches/
*****
If you feel as strongly as I, please copy this, making as many as possible. Also, please pass it along to all your email buddies!
Past work experience:
1) Ran for congress and lost.
2) Produced a Hollywood slasher B movie.
3) Bought an oil company, but couldn't find any oil in Texas, company went bankrupt shortly after he sold all his stock.
4) Bought the Texas Rangers baseball team in a sweetheart deal that took land using tax-payer money.
5) With fathers help (and his name) was elected Governor of Texas.
Accomplishments:
6) Changed pollution laws for power and oil companies, making Texas the most polluted state in the Union. Replaced Los Angeles with Houston as the most smog ridden city in America.
7) Cut taxes, and bankrupted the Texas government to the tune of billions in borrowed money.
8) Set record for most executions by any Governor in American history.
9) Became president after losing the popular vote by over 500,000 votes, with the help of his daddy's appointments to the Supreme Court.
Accomplishments as president:
10) Attacked and took over two small, helpless countries. Slaughtered over 100,000 innocent Iraqi men, women, and children.
11) Spent the surplus and bankrupted the treasury.
12) Shattered record for biggest annual deficit in history.
13) Set economic record for most private bankruptcies filed in any twelve-month period.
14) Set all-time record for biggest drop in the history of the stock market.
15) First president in decades to execute a federal prisoner.
16) First president in US history to enter office with a criminal record.
17) First year in office set the all-time record for most days on vacation by any president in US history.
18) After taking the entire month of August off for vacation, presided over the worst security failure in US history (911).
19) Set the record for more campaign fund-raising trips than any other president in US history.
20) In his first two years in office, over 2 million Americans lost their jobs.
21) Cut unemployment benefits for more out of work Americans than any other president in US history.
22) Set the all-time record for most foreclosures in a twelve-month period.
23) Appointed more convicted criminals to administration positions than any other president in US history.
24) Set the record for the fewest pressconferences of any president since the advent of television.
25) Signed more laws and executive orders amending the Constitution than any other president in US history.
26) Presided over the biggest energy crises in US history, and refused to intervene when corruption was revealed.
27) Presided over the highest gasoline prices in US history, and refused to use the national reserves, as past presidents have.
28) Cut healthcare benefits for war veterans.
29) Set the all-time record for most people worldwide simultaneously to take to the streets to protest against him (15 million people), shattering the record for protest against any one person in the history of humankind.
30) Dissolved more international treaties than any president in US history.
31) His presidency is the most secretive and un-accountable of any in US history.
32) Members of his cabinet are the richest of any administration in US history. (The 'poorest' multi-millionaire, Condoleeza Rice, has an Exxon oil tanker named after her).
33) First president in US history to have all 50 states simultaneously go bankrupt.
34) Presided over the biggest corporate stock market fraud of any market in any country in the history of the world.
35) First president in US history to order a US attack and military occupation of a sovereign nation. Many American boys and girls were lost to his greed, and countless civilians.
36) Created the largest government department bureaucracy in the history of the United States. How can he make government even bigger? Perhaps by establishing a Bureau for Acceptable Sexual Practices!
37) Set the all-time record for biggest annual budget spending-increases-- more than any president in US history. His tax-giveaways to the very rich alone might require three million million dollars!
38) First president in US history to have the United Nations remove the US from the Human Rights Commission.
39) First president in US history to have the United Nations remove the US from the Elections Monitoring Board.
40) He removed more checks and balances, creating less Congressional oversight, than known by any presidential administration in US history. Now, no one knows his plans until they are already accomplished!
41) He took from sound programs that helped people, and gave the money to the richest people in the world.
42) Rendered the entire United Nations irrelevant.
43) Withdrew from the World Court of Law.
44) Refused to allow inspectors access to US prisoners of war.
45) So, by default, he no longer abides by the Geneva Conventions. These have been mocked by his appointed puppet, Alberto Gonzales.
46) First president in US history to refuse United Nations election inspectors (during the twenty-oh-two US elections).
47) All-time US (and world) record holder for most corporate campaign donations.
48) His biggest life-time campaign contributor presided over one of the largest corporate bankruptcy frauds in world history (Kenneth Lay, former CEO of Enron Corporation).
49) Spent more money on polls and focus groups than any president in US history.
50) First president in US history unilaterally to attack a sovereign nation against the will of the United Nations and the world community.
51) First president to run and hide when the US came under attack (and then lied, saying that the enemy had the code to Air Force One).
52) First US president to establish a secret shadow government.
53) Took the enormous, overflowing sympathy of the whole world for the US after 911, and in less than a year, made the US the most resented and despised country in the world (possibly the biggest diplomatic failure in US and world history).
54) With a policy of "disengagement," created the most hostile Israeli-Palestinian relations in at least 30 years.
55) First US president in history to have a majority of the people of Europe (71%) view his presidency as the biggest threat to world peace and stability.
56) First US president in history to have the people of South Korea feel more threatened by the US than by their immediate neighbor, North Korea.
57) Changed US policy to allow convicted criminals to be awarded government contracts.
58) Set all-time record for number of administration appointees who violated US law by not selling huge investments in corporations bidding for government contracts.
59) Failed to fulfill his pledge to get osama binladen "dead or alive."
60) Failed to capture the anthrax killer who tried to murder the leaders of our country at the United States Capital building. After 18 months he had no leads and zero suspects.
61) In the 18 months following the 911 attacks, he prevented any public investigation into the biggest security failure in the history of the United States.
62) Removed more freedoms and civil liberties from Americans than any other president in US history.
63) In a little over two years, he has created the most severely divided country, where people used to stand in unity. This is possibly the most divided the US has ever been since the Civil War.
64) He entered office with the strongest economy in US history; and, within less than two years turned every single economic indicator south.
Records and References:
65) At least one conviction for drunk driving in Maine (Texas driving record has been erased and is not available for public inspection).
66) AWOL from National Guard.
67) Deserted the military during a time of war.
68) Refused to take drug test.
69) Refused to answer any questions about drug-use.
70) All records of his tenure as governor of Texas have been mysteriously spirited away to his daddy's library, sealed in secrecy and unavailable for public view.
71) All records of any SEC investigations into his insider trading or bankrupt companies are sealed in secrecy and unavailable for public view.
72) All minutes of meetings for any public corporation in which he served on the board are sealed in secrecy and unavailable for public view.
73) Any records or minutes from meetings he (or his VP) attended regarding public energy policy are sealed in secrecy and unavailable for public view.
74) For personal references please speak to his daddy or uncle James Baker (They can both be reached at their offices at the Carlyle Group for War-profiteering).
75. Last but not least, he has taken very important and significant steps to transform the United States into a truly fascist country.
("Fascism" is sharing governmental power with corporations.)
*****
See: http://www.hyperreal.org/~dana/marches/
*****
If you feel as strongly as I, please copy this, making as many as possible. Also, please pass it along to all your email buddies!
Thursday, February 17, 2005
Love's Success
All intensely personalLove involves and includes trust, but cosmic Love, given to strangers, does not.
Positive humaninterest stories are much preferred over the headline-grabbers, tales of woe and violence. News-stories do not reflect the true state of mind of most people. If they did, the stories would be so common that they would elicit no interest whatsoever. Yet it is amazing how many seem to believe that news-stories somehow reflect a decrease in human goodness.
Those with this distorting thought lose sight of the fact that, if criminals did represent normal behavior, their antics would not even be news! It has always been this way. For we all possess two natures-- the lower, thriving on fear, and the higher, subsisting on Love. Human nature is just in the embryophase of transfiguration. In cosmic time, humanity began its spiritual evolution only a few seconds ago!
In fact, people were, in some ways, arguably worse in the past than they are now! Ours is not,by far, the worst of all possible worlds. What springs to mind are the literally unspeakable horrors of the Inquisition and witch-hunts of Europe. If ever evidence of human bestiality were needed, this one is "right up there" (or, perhaps, "Ddown there":) with the losers and boobs called the "nazis." Thank Love that those periods in our history are over!:)
We(good people) are, in our billions, people of peace working incessantly against the lower nature of fear to build a better world! And, despite real "failures," we can also celebrate a number of significant successes!:) And more every day!:) (As mystics or universal beings, we number among our greatest successes our "failures," for it is all about learning!:)
Positive humaninterest stories are much preferred over the headline-grabbers, tales of woe and violence. News-stories do not reflect the true state of mind of most people. If they did, the stories would be so common that they would elicit no interest whatsoever. Yet it is amazing how many seem to believe that news-stories somehow reflect a decrease in human goodness.
Those with this distorting thought lose sight of the fact that, if criminals did represent normal behavior, their antics would not even be news! It has always been this way. For we all possess two natures-- the lower, thriving on fear, and the higher, subsisting on Love. Human nature is just in the embryophase of transfiguration. In cosmic time, humanity began its spiritual evolution only a few seconds ago!
In fact, people were, in some ways, arguably worse in the past than they are now! Ours is not,by far, the worst of all possible worlds. What springs to mind are the literally unspeakable horrors of the Inquisition and witch-hunts of Europe. If ever evidence of human bestiality were needed, this one is "right up there" (or, perhaps, "Ddown there":) with the losers and boobs called the "nazis." Thank Love that those periods in our history are over!:)
We(good people) are, in our billions, people of peace working incessantly against the lower nature of fear to build a better world! And, despite real "failures," we can also celebrate a number of significant successes!:) And more every day!:) (As mystics or universal beings, we number among our greatest successes our "failures," for it is all about learning!:)
Predestination and Predesign
Most items in a person's life are not predesigned by the Soul. But in every life,there are a few, very important, events that are just too important, and too complex, to occur "by chance." Randomness is a NONANSWER. It does not really explain a thing! It is an evasion of an answer. It just says, in effect, "Things just happen. There is no reason for any of it. Nothing really means anything. The angel of death just drops out of the sky, and lands on your back."
Most spiritual people live in a much more ordered and orderly cosmos, in which "randomness" plays no part. "Randomness" is just a thin veil to cover ignorance.
Did God use evil men such as hitler to do His/Her will? No, that is absurd. Why? Because God is Love, and these men had anything but Love in their hearts. Besides, the death of one is just as significant, and just as mysterious, as the death of millions.
But the fact that God does not use losers and jerks such as binladen or hitler to do his will does not preclude the possibility that Souls do indeed design the time of their own exiting.
The truth is, the ego never wants to die! It is terrified! It believes death to be always bad! And death is not consciously created by the egomind (the one that we use every day). It is created by the Unconscious. And we not only do not control unconscious processes, but are usually completely unaware of them altogether!
But the fact that we are unaware of a process does not mean that it does not happen. A myriad of bioprocesses are occurring in your body right now. They are keeping you alive, but if you were asked to describe them at a cellular level, where would you begin?
So, as human minds, we are embedded in much greater minds in the Unconscious. One of these is the Soul. It makes Its own plans. If we are aware, we can sometimes, but not always, "read" the Soul's plans inside our own heads.
But stil, It is very mysterious, as there are a hundred million things that we cannot read.
The teaching of the Enlightenment Tradition is that the Soul can read the human genome before birth. It is the Soul that selects the proper sperm-cell out of two to four hundred million, and causes it to enter the egg, forming a zygote. Science has never been able to answer the question of why one sperm makes it, and 399,999,999 perish. For the egg is NOT fertilized by the most perfect, strongest, or fastest spermcell.
So, it is due to the Soul's choice that we are born with bodies with genetic predispositions. These usually imperfect conditions are designed to polish our love, wisdom, or strength. It is probable that, in many people, the moment of death is also "built into" the genome.
But what about people who do not die a "natural" death?
In order to die this kind of death, you must be at a particular place at a particular time. If you were elsewhere, you would not die. Death is one of the most important spiritual events of life.
The Soul does everything out of the deepest Love. So, even though death NEVER seems loving, in the larger picture, it can be liberation and joy.
Most spiritual people live in a much more ordered and orderly cosmos, in which "randomness" plays no part. "Randomness" is just a thin veil to cover ignorance.
Did God use evil men such as hitler to do His/Her will? No, that is absurd. Why? Because God is Love, and these men had anything but Love in their hearts. Besides, the death of one is just as significant, and just as mysterious, as the death of millions.
But the fact that God does not use losers and jerks such as binladen or hitler to do his will does not preclude the possibility that Souls do indeed design the time of their own exiting.
The truth is, the ego never wants to die! It is terrified! It believes death to be always bad! And death is not consciously created by the egomind (the one that we use every day). It is created by the Unconscious. And we not only do not control unconscious processes, but are usually completely unaware of them altogether!
But the fact that we are unaware of a process does not mean that it does not happen. A myriad of bioprocesses are occurring in your body right now. They are keeping you alive, but if you were asked to describe them at a cellular level, where would you begin?
So, as human minds, we are embedded in much greater minds in the Unconscious. One of these is the Soul. It makes Its own plans. If we are aware, we can sometimes, but not always, "read" the Soul's plans inside our own heads.
But stil, It is very mysterious, as there are a hundred million things that we cannot read.
The teaching of the Enlightenment Tradition is that the Soul can read the human genome before birth. It is the Soul that selects the proper sperm-cell out of two to four hundred million, and causes it to enter the egg, forming a zygote. Science has never been able to answer the question of why one sperm makes it, and 399,999,999 perish. For the egg is NOT fertilized by the most perfect, strongest, or fastest spermcell.
So, it is due to the Soul's choice that we are born with bodies with genetic predispositions. These usually imperfect conditions are designed to polish our love, wisdom, or strength. It is probable that, in many people, the moment of death is also "built into" the genome.
But what about people who do not die a "natural" death?
In order to die this kind of death, you must be at a particular place at a particular time. If you were elsewhere, you would not die. Death is one of the most important spiritual events of life.
The Soul does everything out of the deepest Love. So, even though death NEVER seems loving, in the larger picture, it can be liberation and joy.
World-destiny
Many radicals and kooks have come up with the idea that just getting away from people whom they dislike will solve all their problems. Seperatists from both the Nation of Islam and right-wing whackos have talked about "starting their own country" within the US. But it would not be very long before they started hating each other within their little countries!:)
Sane, healthy, spiritual, wise people must work to replace separatism in the community, and world, with "unitism." We desire to build bridges, not walls. We seek to find our commonalities, not to emphasize our differences. That is, in fact, why we prefer spirituality to religion!
This pure and high unity cannot be found through institutions, organizations, or organized religions. For these are all designed to create conformity, not communication. They have never learned to celebrate diversity! Yet nature does so all the time! Birds, stars, and flowers come in hundreds of thousands of varieties, each as beautiful as the others. Nature hates sameness, despises dull monochromaticity!
We are in the Age of the Individual. It is no coincidence that this parallels and, later, converges with, the Age of Aquarius. In this Age, the seeds for universal sister/brotherhood are planted and cultivated. During this age, divisive religion will be replaced by a wise, benign, loving spirituality. This seems idealistically hopeless to us, but remember that we have been largely reared in an age of synicism,
brutality, greed, and violence. Why should it seem less likely that people should live out of the positive side of their intrinsic nature? The evolution of spirituality is the development of transcendence, and this arises from the cultivation of simple goodness.
We have gone through, are going through, and will go through phases of anarchy, confusion, and even chaos on our social journey to a perfect world. But destiny has it that the world will someday settle into its ultimate political unity. At the human rate, this will require a few thousand years. But someday, we will all awaken to an "agapocracy," or control/rule/government by the inner heart of Light and Love. This will result in supreme honor among people.
How? The answer is breath-taking. Indeed, it is beyond even the imagination of many, or most, people. In this futureworld, everyone will live lives of unimaginable honor and honesty. How can this ever happen?
It is not as complex as we might think. It is really a matter of allowing everyone to find inner happiness. For a happy person does not become antisocial.
It will all begin by fulfilling everyone's most delicious material and sensual dreams, by a combination of nanotech and virtual reality. And when a person is absolutely, totally satisfied, completely content,an astounding transfiguration occurs in her personality: She becomes honest. She becomes even kind, even other-centered, abundant in compassion and glorious in generosity. This is how the final "political" system will be, and will arise from, inner and personal regulation.
The brain, under the right conditions, is capable of the endogenous production of a spectrum of euphoric "drugs." This family of psychoactives is created naturally with only one goal: To make you feel good! Although not all of this family has been molecularly mapped by our primitive science, the family of endogenous euphorics will be found to contain at least thirty-five neurochemical entities, some more powerful than acid or heroin (although these often occur naturally in nanoquantities). We often catch glimpses of these natural neurochemicals during moments of great happiness, when we describe ourselves as "naturally high." When something very good happens, our brains release these euphorics into the bloodstream. When we love,it releases more than one simultaneously! Indeed, whenever we love anything or anyone, including ourselves, there occur cascades of euphogenicities within our brainbloodsystems. A person who can learn to train her brain to produce these factors need never rely on either artificially synthesized or natural psychotropics ever again. This is, in fact, why good, loving people feel better than average more often than average!
Sane, healthy, spiritual, wise people must work to replace separatism in the community, and world, with "unitism." We desire to build bridges, not walls. We seek to find our commonalities, not to emphasize our differences. That is, in fact, why we prefer spirituality to religion!
This pure and high unity cannot be found through institutions, organizations, or organized religions. For these are all designed to create conformity, not communication. They have never learned to celebrate diversity! Yet nature does so all the time! Birds, stars, and flowers come in hundreds of thousands of varieties, each as beautiful as the others. Nature hates sameness, despises dull monochromaticity!
We are in the Age of the Individual. It is no coincidence that this parallels and, later, converges with, the Age of Aquarius. In this Age, the seeds for universal sister/brotherhood are planted and cultivated. During this age, divisive religion will be replaced by a wise, benign, loving spirituality. This seems idealistically hopeless to us, but remember that we have been largely reared in an age of synicism,
brutality, greed, and violence. Why should it seem less likely that people should live out of the positive side of their intrinsic nature? The evolution of spirituality is the development of transcendence, and this arises from the cultivation of simple goodness.
We have gone through, are going through, and will go through phases of anarchy, confusion, and even chaos on our social journey to a perfect world. But destiny has it that the world will someday settle into its ultimate political unity. At the human rate, this will require a few thousand years. But someday, we will all awaken to an "agapocracy," or control/rule/government by the inner heart of Light and Love. This will result in supreme honor among people.
How? The answer is breath-taking. Indeed, it is beyond even the imagination of many, or most, people. In this futureworld, everyone will live lives of unimaginable honor and honesty. How can this ever happen?
It is not as complex as we might think. It is really a matter of allowing everyone to find inner happiness. For a happy person does not become antisocial.
It will all begin by fulfilling everyone's most delicious material and sensual dreams, by a combination of nanotech and virtual reality. And when a person is absolutely, totally satisfied, completely content,an astounding transfiguration occurs in her personality: She becomes honest. She becomes even kind, even other-centered, abundant in compassion and glorious in generosity. This is how the final "political" system will be, and will arise from, inner and personal regulation.
The brain, under the right conditions, is capable of the endogenous production of a spectrum of euphoric "drugs." This family of psychoactives is created naturally with only one goal: To make you feel good! Although not all of this family has been molecularly mapped by our primitive science, the family of endogenous euphorics will be found to contain at least thirty-five neurochemical entities, some more powerful than acid or heroin (although these often occur naturally in nanoquantities). We often catch glimpses of these natural neurochemicals during moments of great happiness, when we describe ourselves as "naturally high." When something very good happens, our brains release these euphorics into the bloodstream. When we love,it releases more than one simultaneously! Indeed, whenever we love anything or anyone, including ourselves, there occur cascades of euphogenicities within our brainbloodsystems. A person who can learn to train her brain to produce these factors need never rely on either artificially synthesized or natural psychotropics ever again. This is, in fact, why good, loving people feel better than average more often than average!
Allembracing Mind and Love
There is a thin line between naivete, which can be dangerous, and a sincere attempt more fully to trust strangers. I do not believe that trust should be given freely to just everyone. It is not unconditional, as Love is. Trust is in the same category as respect: It must be earned.
We are wise if we can love everyone. But we can be very foolish if we trust everyone, and just silly if we respect everyone with the same quality and quantity of respect!:)
A couple of newspapers have been tried that sought to emphasize the good news only. But on this kindergarten planet, it appears that so much of human nature is still so undeveloped that people generally-- and incredibly-- still prefer to read about bad news. The source of part of this perversity might be, "It didn't happen to me"-- an artificial, contrived way of feeling "special" or even "blessed."
The wise and enlightened mystic grows to the point where "all news is good news," but that, as you might imagine, takes quite a long time on the "rollercoaster"!
Still, even after she reaches that millennia-old goal of perfect "allembracing" Mind, in which she knows all to be good, she does not allow complacency to overcome active compassion. She never looks at a suffering being and dismissively says, "It's her karma." Instead, enlightenment has active Love as its nucleus. It is the job of the enlightened to alleviate suffering whenever and however she can do so. Love moves her to eradicate suffering whenever and wherever she finds it.
We are wise if we can love everyone. But we can be very foolish if we trust everyone, and just silly if we respect everyone with the same quality and quantity of respect!:)
A couple of newspapers have been tried that sought to emphasize the good news only. But on this kindergarten planet, it appears that so much of human nature is still so undeveloped that people generally-- and incredibly-- still prefer to read about bad news. The source of part of this perversity might be, "It didn't happen to me"-- an artificial, contrived way of feeling "special" or even "blessed."
The wise and enlightened mystic grows to the point where "all news is good news," but that, as you might imagine, takes quite a long time on the "rollercoaster"!
Still, even after she reaches that millennia-old goal of perfect "allembracing" Mind, in which she knows all to be good, she does not allow complacency to overcome active compassion. She never looks at a suffering being and dismissively says, "It's her karma." Instead, enlightenment has active Love as its nucleus. It is the job of the enlightened to alleviate suffering whenever and however she can do so. Love moves her to eradicate suffering whenever and wherever she finds it.
God as Pure Love
Once you outgrow the "big daddy in the sky," and get over the childish fairy-tale idea of a "God" who is a "person out there," you can really get serious about independent, strong spiritual growth! For the "big daddy" only cripples you.
"He" can also embitter you; for if "He" is out there, is "He" deaf? Or just stupid? Or, much worse, is "He" indifferent? What if "He" doesn't care for you? What if "He" hates you?
This monstrous humanoid godimage has ruined many lives. When we awaken to the fact that God does not HAVE Love, but IS Love, that changes everything for the better! Then, at last, we can get a handle on what's really going on! Then, we can stop wasting our breath, and timenergy, begging the unresponsive skies for special favors! Then, we can determine just "how much" of God we want in our lives, by regulating the inner "Love-valve." Want more God? then, just open your Love-valve wider! This is the paradox: The only way to get more Love is to give more Love!
"He" can also embitter you; for if "He" is out there, is "He" deaf? Or just stupid? Or, much worse, is "He" indifferent? What if "He" doesn't care for you? What if "He" hates you?
This monstrous humanoid godimage has ruined many lives. When we awaken to the fact that God does not HAVE Love, but IS Love, that changes everything for the better! Then, at last, we can get a handle on what's really going on! Then, we can stop wasting our breath, and timenergy, begging the unresponsive skies for special favors! Then, we can determine just "how much" of God we want in our lives, by regulating the inner "Love-valve." Want more God? then, just open your Love-valve wider! This is the paradox: The only way to get more Love is to give more Love!
Karma, Memory, and Imagination
Life is indeed a "test," most of the time. A favorite teaching-phrase is, "Earth is a prison, a school, or a playground. Which one it becomes most often in your life is largely up to you."
Experience is valuable even when your conscious mind does not remember it. How much do you remember about yourself between ages two to four? Yet during those largely memory-irretrievable years, you learned to walk and talk-- skills that were implanted in your mind, even without memory.
And you still use them every day. Experience creates changes in, leaves traces upon, the unconscious Mind (Soul and Spirit).
Specifically, we have all come to this little planet to learn and to polish the art of unconditional Love. This must begin with genuine Love for yourself, which is never arrogance or egotism. No one that we meet on earth is a true "stranger," in the cosmic sense.
How can you get access to memories from previous lifexperiences? They are not usually crystal-clear, like those of what you did yesterday, for example. Instead, the larger life of "polybiography" is more like a puzzle. You try to get to know yourself better. You analyze your likes and dislikes, your thought-patterns, your dreams. In time, and this is gradual, you begin to piece everything together. Sometimes, you are not certain whether a "karmic memory," one from a pastlife, is a true memory, or merely imagination. With tongue half in cheek, we call this explorationprocess "imaginemory.":) But keep in mind that even imagination does NOT come from nowhere. Why you imagine A instead of B is usually relevant to your past. You can also learn, if you are interested, a technique called "guided visualization," which can provide important clues.
Experience is valuable even when your conscious mind does not remember it. How much do you remember about yourself between ages two to four? Yet during those largely memory-irretrievable years, you learned to walk and talk-- skills that were implanted in your mind, even without memory.
And you still use them every day. Experience creates changes in, leaves traces upon, the unconscious Mind (Soul and Spirit).
Specifically, we have all come to this little planet to learn and to polish the art of unconditional Love. This must begin with genuine Love for yourself, which is never arrogance or egotism. No one that we meet on earth is a true "stranger," in the cosmic sense.
How can you get access to memories from previous lifexperiences? They are not usually crystal-clear, like those of what you did yesterday, for example. Instead, the larger life of "polybiography" is more like a puzzle. You try to get to know yourself better. You analyze your likes and dislikes, your thought-patterns, your dreams. In time, and this is gradual, you begin to piece everything together. Sometimes, you are not certain whether a "karmic memory," one from a pastlife, is a true memory, or merely imagination. With tongue half in cheek, we call this explorationprocess "imaginemory.":) But keep in mind that even imagination does NOT come from nowhere. Why you imagine A instead of B is usually relevant to your past. You can also learn, if you are interested, a technique called "guided visualization," which can provide important clues.
Goodness and News
Your friend will reach out to you and to others when she is ready, and anything before that would be premature and inappropriate. So, we will let her find the pulse and pace of her own inner Tao, and follow It. Interior goodness will be her guide.
We have found reason to celebrate in the quiet goodness of people-- in fact, of most people. People range a very wide spectrum, from the nightmare psyches of the Inquisition to Francis of Assissi and Jesus! But newspaper headlines do not represent "truth"; instead, they are the worst stories that the best reporters can dig up! "Good news is no news" precisely because it is so common. The reason that "bad" news is news is partly because it is uncommon!
We have found reason to celebrate in the quiet goodness of people-- in fact, of most people. People range a very wide spectrum, from the nightmare psyches of the Inquisition to Francis of Assissi and Jesus! But newspaper headlines do not represent "truth"; instead, they are the worst stories that the best reporters can dig up! "Good news is no news" precisely because it is so common. The reason that "bad" news is news is partly because it is uncommon!
Tuesday, February 15, 2005
Mysticism Everywhere
Your friend made the incredible claim that mysticism was found "only" among Catholics and "New Thought" types. Mysticism is the very theme of the faiths of Buddhism, Hinduism, and Taoism. It permeates early Christianity, and, as Kabbalism, is found universally in Judaism. As Sufism, it is also quite widespread in Islam. It is scattered throughout the wide spectrum of nature-faiths, including the "high shamanism" of native Tradition.
This Way is not a religion, but is the most universal of platinum threads sewing together all the faiths of the world. Yes, your friend was right: It is found in both Catholic tradition and "New Thought" traditions, but is by no means limited to them.
This Way is not a religion, but is the most universal of platinum threads sewing together all the faiths of the world. Yes, your friend was right: It is found in both Catholic tradition and "New Thought" traditions, but is by no means limited to them.
Saturday, February 12, 2005
Humility and Realism
There are a number of ways of loving yourself. In some important ways, you do already love yourself. But in other areas of your life, selflove needs more cultivation. We are all and always unconsciously motivated to think that we have completed our Journey. But this is always delusion and ignorance. We need to continue to work maximally on ourselves, erasing and erasing until only the pure, bright, egoless state remains.
If you really believe that you are "better" than others, this is a clue as to where you can start in your spiritual journey. For possibly the most indispensable part of the Journey is humility. The humble person does not see herself as less than others, but she takes every precaution never to regard herself as superior, either. Her secret: Most of the time, she just does not even think about selfevaluation. It is the furthest thing from her mind!
A practice that helps here is called "Ifree." In this experiential spiritual practice, you go as long as possible without using the words "I,," "me," "my," or "mine." Try sincerely and often to practice this, and you will find your mind more often opening up to the great treasures of Love, compassion, and other-centeredness.
You are also still stuck in the illusion that God should "reward" you in the material world. It is not known how this can be stated more clearly, but:
GOD DOES NOT "REWARD" PEOPLE WITH MONEY OR MATERIAL THINGS.
The rewards of God are Love, joy, peace, compassion, bliss, tranquillity.
He gives us fulfillment, satisfaction, and contentment.
The economic and relationship structures of our lives he leaves up to our free will. This is where lifedesign comes in. There is no advantage, no virtue, in poverty. God wants us to walk the Middle Way in every part of our lives, avoiding extremes. Try not to go too far to the right, or to the left. (One pole is greed, the other poverty.)
Keep in mind that if God gives you the grace to think about Him, as an act of free grace, that does not make you "better" than anyone else. The hunger for God is Love wanting Love; it is not anything that we do personally, for which we should seek credit-- much less, reward.
If, in everything that you do, you put Love first and foremost, you will absolutely and inevitably succeed!:)
If you really believe that you are "better" than others, this is a clue as to where you can start in your spiritual journey. For possibly the most indispensable part of the Journey is humility. The humble person does not see herself as less than others, but she takes every precaution never to regard herself as superior, either. Her secret: Most of the time, she just does not even think about selfevaluation. It is the furthest thing from her mind!
A practice that helps here is called "Ifree." In this experiential spiritual practice, you go as long as possible without using the words "I,," "me," "my," or "mine." Try sincerely and often to practice this, and you will find your mind more often opening up to the great treasures of Love, compassion, and other-centeredness.
You are also still stuck in the illusion that God should "reward" you in the material world. It is not known how this can be stated more clearly, but:
GOD DOES NOT "REWARD" PEOPLE WITH MONEY OR MATERIAL THINGS.
The rewards of God are Love, joy, peace, compassion, bliss, tranquillity.
He gives us fulfillment, satisfaction, and contentment.
The economic and relationship structures of our lives he leaves up to our free will. This is where lifedesign comes in. There is no advantage, no virtue, in poverty. God wants us to walk the Middle Way in every part of our lives, avoiding extremes. Try not to go too far to the right, or to the left. (One pole is greed, the other poverty.)
Keep in mind that if God gives you the grace to think about Him, as an act of free grace, that does not make you "better" than anyone else. The hunger for God is Love wanting Love; it is not anything that we do personally, for which we should seek credit-- much less, reward.
If, in everything that you do, you put Love first and foremost, you will absolutely and inevitably succeed!:)
"Saved" by Love
According to the Christian Scriptures, we are "saved" or enlightened, not by anything that we do, but because God loves us actively. In other words, God does all the work, because He is Love. It is in discovering inner Love that we are brought into grace. It is not something that we do, or can do. Grace is something done TO us by God (Love).
People believe that they are "saved" because they belong to a particular church, or adopt certain beliefs or dogma. No. This is like working to earn a gift. You do not earn a gift. It is given freely to you out of Love. This is the way it is with grace.
Everyone is ultimately saved, because God (Love) does not practice bigotry, prejudice, or favoritism. So, if anyone is "saved" by the limitless Love of God, everyone has to be.
Of course, saving every living thing from ignorance takes time. But God has forever! So, life after life, we all grow, gradually, into better and better people, until one day, we reach "perfection" or perfect enlightenment. This is how God saves the whole universe.
People believe that they are "saved" because they belong to a particular church, or adopt certain beliefs or dogma. No. This is like working to earn a gift. You do not earn a gift. It is given freely to you out of Love. This is the way it is with grace.
Everyone is ultimately saved, because God (Love) does not practice bigotry, prejudice, or favoritism. So, if anyone is "saved" by the limitless Love of God, everyone has to be.
Of course, saving every living thing from ignorance takes time. But God has forever! So, life after life, we all grow, gradually, into better and better people, until one day, we reach "perfection" or perfect enlightenment. This is how God saves the whole universe.
Friendship and Detachment
True, often hidden, goodness lies within all human nature. This is a delightful summary of the teachings of the Way. Only fullest harmony, complete resonance, with this wisdom exists here!:)
The Enlightenment Tradition goes significantly further than merely saying that people, at the core, are very good. It teaches (we teach) that all human beings are incarnations of perfect Mind, Lovemind, Coremind, Spirit, or God(dess)! And you just cannot get better than that! Mind comes in no finer variety!
This deepest Self just gets covered, and obscured, with the opacities of ignorance and distraction. Then, It is covered further by pain and fear. These are the elements that cause people to degenerate from their "Eden" state. ("Eden" means "pleasure," so this is the fall from bliss.)
Yes, there are some real "hard nuts" to crack in this world. But if we insisted on taking only the easy tests, we would never move out of kindergarten or first grade. To progress, we must incrementally take more difficult and challenging tests. That is the way that life, nature, and Love have arranged our lives.
It is healthy that you have not been dominated by the "slave-driver" of having to visit your friend every day. Visiting should be something that you want, not something that you have, to do. Once you started to react and respond out of your "inner adult" instead of "inner child," what a difference! And how liberating!:)
Can you unilaterally break a karmic bond, so that you do not have to spend the next thousand years dancing around with another's karma on your back? Yes, you can! The keys are detachment and forgiveness. You must, in order to be free from her karma, do two things with your friend: 1) Completely release, let go of, and forgive all wrongs and errors; and 2) Find enough detachment that you are no more upset or affected by her than you are by a stranger. Both of these are extremely challenging, and this is no easy "course" in Love 404! But with the help of the Lovespirit, Who lives deeply within your mind, there is literally no challenge that You cannot overcome.
Keep up the excellent growth! Keep analyzing and understanding, as well as learning from, your life!
The Enlightenment Tradition goes significantly further than merely saying that people, at the core, are very good. It teaches (we teach) that all human beings are incarnations of perfect Mind, Lovemind, Coremind, Spirit, or God(dess)! And you just cannot get better than that! Mind comes in no finer variety!
This deepest Self just gets covered, and obscured, with the opacities of ignorance and distraction. Then, It is covered further by pain and fear. These are the elements that cause people to degenerate from their "Eden" state. ("Eden" means "pleasure," so this is the fall from bliss.)
Yes, there are some real "hard nuts" to crack in this world. But if we insisted on taking only the easy tests, we would never move out of kindergarten or first grade. To progress, we must incrementally take more difficult and challenging tests. That is the way that life, nature, and Love have arranged our lives.
It is healthy that you have not been dominated by the "slave-driver" of having to visit your friend every day. Visiting should be something that you want, not something that you have, to do. Once you started to react and respond out of your "inner adult" instead of "inner child," what a difference! And how liberating!:)
Can you unilaterally break a karmic bond, so that you do not have to spend the next thousand years dancing around with another's karma on your back? Yes, you can! The keys are detachment and forgiveness. You must, in order to be free from her karma, do two things with your friend: 1) Completely release, let go of, and forgive all wrongs and errors; and 2) Find enough detachment that you are no more upset or affected by her than you are by a stranger. Both of these are extremely challenging, and this is no easy "course" in Love 404! But with the help of the Lovespirit, Who lives deeply within your mind, there is literally no challenge that You cannot overcome.
Keep up the excellent growth! Keep analyzing and understanding, as well as learning from, your life!
Friday, February 11, 2005
Growth beyond Ego
The cosmos has finally granted you the secret to total freedom! That secret comes in two parts: 1) Don't allow anyone to control you, especially against your own will or best interests, and 2) Don't try to control any other adult; loving them is a galaxy away from controlling them!
The wonderful and beautiful relief, and the feelings that come from it, are enormous! And these feelings are not just phases or stages. You are experiencing a real rebirth, as a totally new kind of creature! (Of course, you can still maintain and keepwhatever is beautiful of the ego, but there is nothing at all that you need from her.:)
A transcendental view of ego shows that it is so dysfunctional that we actually grow to the point where we do not even want to retain any molecule of it! It has too many fragilities, too much selfconsciousness, too many timidities, too much reluctance, too much fear! It is too concerned with its errors, and always overactive in "compensation." It also carries all the baggage of the years that it has lived on earth -- going all the way back to consciously forgotten childhood. While traditional psychotherapy might be a valid part of some patterns of growth, it seems that, now, you have seen the higher Way. You are no longer interested in pouring your timenergy down the black-hole drain of ego-repair, but are getting a grip on ego-elimination! This is a state that, in our teaching, we call "illumination through elimination.":)
It is just inexpressible to get the joy felt from your new realizations onto paper! It's impossible!:) Like trying to squeeze an elephant into a thimble! Just please open your heart completely, and feel the celebration!
Good news! This path gets brighter, better, and easier every day! Instead of becoming boring, as materialism and other stuff does, the path of the inner Journey gets actually more exciting every day!
Caution: Your ego is not yet gone. It will rear its head,and make a grab for dominance again. But you've really got that old thing on the run! And You are winning over it! (It is in a tizzy because it knows that it hasn't a chance against You, and the Goddess indwelling You!:)
The wonderful and beautiful relief, and the feelings that come from it, are enormous! And these feelings are not just phases or stages. You are experiencing a real rebirth, as a totally new kind of creature! (Of course, you can still maintain and keepwhatever is beautiful of the ego, but there is nothing at all that you need from her.:)
A transcendental view of ego shows that it is so dysfunctional that we actually grow to the point where we do not even want to retain any molecule of it! It has too many fragilities, too much selfconsciousness, too many timidities, too much reluctance, too much fear! It is too concerned with its errors, and always overactive in "compensation." It also carries all the baggage of the years that it has lived on earth -- going all the way back to consciously forgotten childhood. While traditional psychotherapy might be a valid part of some patterns of growth, it seems that, now, you have seen the higher Way. You are no longer interested in pouring your timenergy down the black-hole drain of ego-repair, but are getting a grip on ego-elimination! This is a state that, in our teaching, we call "illumination through elimination.":)
It is just inexpressible to get the joy felt from your new realizations onto paper! It's impossible!:) Like trying to squeeze an elephant into a thimble! Just please open your heart completely, and feel the celebration!
Good news! This path gets brighter, better, and easier every day! Instead of becoming boring, as materialism and other stuff does, the path of the inner Journey gets actually more exciting every day!
Caution: Your ego is not yet gone. It will rear its head,and make a grab for dominance again. But you've really got that old thing on the run! And You are winning over it! (It is in a tizzy because it knows that it hasn't a chance against You, and the Goddess indwelling You!:)
Getting through to Fundies
When someone is encountered of the fundy persuasion, an attempt is made to do as little "damage" as possible. These people usually have not a clue, and so, are, in consequence, very fragile. Deep down, unconsciously, they doubt their grasp on "truth," which is amazingly shaky.
In a situation where "Christ" is said to be the "only way," I would have said, "I agree that Christ is the only way." For "Christ" is very different from the historical man Jesus. In fact, from a cosmic perspective, "Christ" means "Buddha," or "brahman," and has many other synonyms in different cultures. "Christ" is, in fact, another name for the One, cosmic Mind, Lovemind, Coremind, or God. Then, that statement would probably have been followed by something such as, "Do you believe that people are saved because of what they believe, or because of God's grace?"
Many of these fundies, despite lack of both education and understanding, are familiar with the idea of grace-- a core-teaching of the Christian Scriptures. If, as is probable, the fundy replied that people are saved by grace, that would have been followed by something such as, "I do not feel qualified to judge whether God chooses to save people who are born,and live, in ignorance of Jesus. But I do know one thing: No sin that has ever been committed, no person ever born, is beyond God's Love. And I think that that Love is so great that people cannot even understand it. Do you believe that there could ever exist a sin greater than God's Love?" That would surely have given the fundy something to think about, a "seed of Light."
If the conversation did not end there, probably another question brought up would be, "If a person lives in love, tenderness, forgiveness, and compassion all his life, and never hears of Jesus, do you really think that God will send him to hell forever?" Most, except the hardshell dogmatists, might be opened at least a crack by this question. If the fundy set up in concrete at this point, the conversation would be over. You do not gift a pig with a pearl necklace!:)
In a situation where "Christ" is said to be the "only way," I would have said, "I agree that Christ is the only way." For "Christ" is very different from the historical man Jesus. In fact, from a cosmic perspective, "Christ" means "Buddha," or "brahman," and has many other synonyms in different cultures. "Christ" is, in fact, another name for the One, cosmic Mind, Lovemind, Coremind, or God. Then, that statement would probably have been followed by something such as, "Do you believe that people are saved because of what they believe, or because of God's grace?"
Many of these fundies, despite lack of both education and understanding, are familiar with the idea of grace-- a core-teaching of the Christian Scriptures. If, as is probable, the fundy replied that people are saved by grace, that would have been followed by something such as, "I do not feel qualified to judge whether God chooses to save people who are born,and live, in ignorance of Jesus. But I do know one thing: No sin that has ever been committed, no person ever born, is beyond God's Love. And I think that that Love is so great that people cannot even understand it. Do you believe that there could ever exist a sin greater than God's Love?" That would surely have given the fundy something to think about, a "seed of Light."
If the conversation did not end there, probably another question brought up would be, "If a person lives in love, tenderness, forgiveness, and compassion all his life, and never hears of Jesus, do you really think that God will send him to hell forever?" Most, except the hardshell dogmatists, might be opened at least a crack by this question. If the fundy set up in concrete at this point, the conversation would be over. You do not gift a pig with a pearl necklace!:)
A Positive Spin on Life
Don't hang on to your failures. Everyone who has ever tried anything has failed. If you have failed a lot, that is the greatest item on your resume, for it proves that you have attempted a lot! You must try to put the most positive spin on your life. Try to assess and inventory what you do have, and turn away from, refuse to think about, what you do not have.
Yes, writing down your thoughts can be very therapeutic. It can surely help to clarify your interior mind. And that is where the whole spiritual journey begins!:)
Re the spiritual seminars, you never have to pay to attend them! They are all supported by Love-donations. Why? So people such as yourself can come! Also, my work as a lifedesign consultant and psychospiritual advisor is free.
Never let your errors or mistakes ("sins") from the past hold you back. At this moment, all your sins are forgiven! Just trust that the grace/Love of God is greater by far than your actions. God's Love is a galaxy, all your sins a tiny spark. God's Love and forgiveness are an ocean, your sins but a portion of a single drop! God has already forgiven you for every error that you have ever made. Paul, the famous mystic, says, in his famous "Canticle of Love," in First Corinthians, "Love does not keep records of harm." Since God is Love, we know that Love keeps no records. He has forgiven us, and simply waits for us to forgive ourselves.
What you need most is motivation. So, you need to grow in selflove. When you love yourself enough, you will take action to enrich your life -- not only by money, but by productive activity that aids, helps,and blesses others!
When you love yourself enough, you will want to give to yourself the very best life possible. You will want to give yourself things of comfort and beauty. You deserve it! Not that you will want to be greedy! Never may that happen! But the material or physical world is created by God, out of Love, to be enjoyed!
By refusing comfort, by living in poverty, one is just abusing her/himself; she is not "paying" or "compensating" for sins. Besides, God has arranged it so that Her/His Love does not have to be "earned." We do not have to compensate for our errors; we simply must try our honest best not to make them again!
Yes, writing down your thoughts can be very therapeutic. It can surely help to clarify your interior mind. And that is where the whole spiritual journey begins!:)
Re the spiritual seminars, you never have to pay to attend them! They are all supported by Love-donations. Why? So people such as yourself can come! Also, my work as a lifedesign consultant and psychospiritual advisor is free.
Never let your errors or mistakes ("sins") from the past hold you back. At this moment, all your sins are forgiven! Just trust that the grace/Love of God is greater by far than your actions. God's Love is a galaxy, all your sins a tiny spark. God's Love and forgiveness are an ocean, your sins but a portion of a single drop! God has already forgiven you for every error that you have ever made. Paul, the famous mystic, says, in his famous "Canticle of Love," in First Corinthians, "Love does not keep records of harm." Since God is Love, we know that Love keeps no records. He has forgiven us, and simply waits for us to forgive ourselves.
What you need most is motivation. So, you need to grow in selflove. When you love yourself enough, you will take action to enrich your life -- not only by money, but by productive activity that aids, helps,and blesses others!
When you love yourself enough, you will want to give to yourself the very best life possible. You will want to give yourself things of comfort and beauty. You deserve it! Not that you will want to be greedy! Never may that happen! But the material or physical world is created by God, out of Love, to be enjoyed!
By refusing comfort, by living in poverty, one is just abusing her/himself; she is not "paying" or "compensating" for sins. Besides, God has arranged it so that Her/His Love does not have to be "earned." We do not have to compensate for our errors; we simply must try our honest best not to make them again!
Thursday, February 10, 2005
Intimate Internationalism
It is crying over megagallons of spilled milk to keep moaning and complaining about atrocities already done. What we need to do is study history with the strongest intention never to repeat it! So much timenergy is utilized berating and blaming, bemoaning a past that is fact, and irreversible.
As in all situations, a little common sense-- anything but common-- would go a long way! If blended with only a pinch of compassion, this recipe could help us solve many world-problems. For world-problems, as grandiose as that sounds, come down always to the problems of one person. Then, when he/she joins with other individuals, they try to solve community-problems, which later evolve into difficulties on a planetary scale.
Our major geopolitical challenges are really, then, psychospiritual. They consist of two parts: the eradication or minimization of greed, creating justice; and the cultivation of compassion, guaranteeing empathy.
As only one human being, with severely restricted and limited resources, the best solution for me personally is to devote this life to the dissemination and celebration of the message of Love-- empathy, compassion, goodness, justice, peace with self and neighbors, and kindness. This is a viable, practical solution for even world-problems. In the light of gigantic population and internationalism, even globalism, it is far too easy to forget that the "vast world" is just people--
people exactly like you and me. So, if we can straighten out things inside our heads, and then reflect those solutions in our families and communities, that will, in the end, be the real solution to gigantic and complex social and sociospiritual problems.
Spiritual Calling, Hebrew Scriptures, and Spiritualism
Re being "different": bottomline: You cannot be "average" (read "normal") and extraordinary at the same time. So, if you are going to reach for the platinum, you are going to have to leave more traditional types in the dust. And that is okay; everyone has to be exactly where she is, when she is there! But you must also walk the path of your authentic inner calling,and the "danger" here is that people with extraordinary potential often allow others to hold them back. This is a real "lose-lose.":(
The good news is that you can walk the interior path, and keep peace with all around you, simply by remaining silent. Not every spiritual person is called to be a teacher. And so not everyone has to get into the same social "hot water" that is the inevitable fate of the spiritual teacher.:) Of course, you are always free to share your personal views with anyone, anywhere, at any time. But as you know, you will not always be received, or understood.
"Pop spirituality," we have called elsewhere "pneumobabble," in parallel to "psychobabble!:)
A person with whom you can pour out your heart is a very rare diamond! (Make that seven hundred carats!:)
The Hebrew Scriptures ("Old Testament") is of very little value in spiritual understanding. Much of it is biased, unreliable history,and much more is all about the ancient wargod adored by the ancient soldier-nation of tough but semiliterate desert-dwellers. Re even the Psalms, there is so much talk about "Jehovah" being against "my enemies," that even in this more redemptive of the Hebrew texts, one does not by any means find the very highest spirituality. (Parts of it were written by David, traditionally a mass murderer/soldier, and you can "see" him trying to live with his angry conscience in many verses.) Isaiah does indeed contain much of beauty, but he too was smothered spiritually by mistaking the ancient wargod for a Lord of mercy, justice, and compassion.
Re words: The word "Spiritualist" must begin with a cap (higher-case)letter. The reason is that it is a proper, not a common, noun. A Spiritualist belongs to the Spiritualist Church, a denomination founded in 1847. It is an organized religion, just like any other denomination. Its main teaching is that people survive death, and its main activity is to get in touch with those passed beyond, into the Afterlife, through seances. (These have a long history of dishonesty.) So, a "Spiritualist" is not the same as a "spiritual person." And "Spiritualism," being an organized denomination or church, is not the same as "spirituality."
Organized Without "Organizationalism"
Life is mud and diamonds. But you gotta go through a mountain of the former to discover the latter. In the end, it is worth every minute, because the diamondmoments are so truly, breath-takingly beautiful! The really good jewels are awesome enough to bring tears of joy!:)
Was there a "gem" (redeeming aspect) in the cult in which i was reared? The Enlightenment Tradition teaches that there is good in everything, so it is an obligation to seek out that good. The last chapter of the book Jehovah Lives in Brooklyn is about all the good stuff learned through the cult.
The cult did teach how NOT to do things, or how to do things WRONGLY. And these are important, nay, crucial aspects of learning. The Soul placed me, via predestination of the spiritual path, in the nutty little microcult for a good reason: That was an invaluable part of spiritual education. It proved beyond the shadow of any reasonable doubt that cults are mind-ruining, antifreedom, and antihuman.
Its great darkness contrasted sharply, vividly with the Light. It was a full education in understanding the backwardsness and close-mindedness of fundies. Understanding this mindset has provided film-clips of the mind that explain Pentecostals, some Baptists, and a wide variety of other fundies. It has emblazoned on the psyche the great lesson, Fundies are no fun!:)
It sets the alarmbells ringing against cultism. Every spiritual teacher is in the perfect position to "start a cult." Indeed, a cult can start around her without her permission! The only antidote: The teacher must maintain a penetrating awareness of this continual danger; and she must give continuous warnings against the dangers of cultism, which are serious and many.
Shortly after the death of so great a figure as Jesus, his followers broke into two groups who are still with us: The ones who wanted to imitate Jesus, and find within what he had found, and the Jesus-cultists. The latter wanted him to do all the work, while their "worship" was a matter of simply falling down at his feet. The "faith of Christ" demanded hard work in selfrenewal; the "cult of Jesus" demanded very, very little; any hypocrite could "join." Jesus himself did not like the idea of a cult forming around him, but with human nature, it was inevitable. We might be so much better off if his warnings about following him as a mere man had been recorded in the traditional Bible, and heeded. Unfortunately,many of his major teachings, including this one, were lost.
The book, The Mystic Gospels of Jesus the Christ has many of his recovered teachings stored in the collective Unconscious. Please take a look at it on the website, and, if you want a copy, just say the word!:)
So, now, every opportunity is jumped at to expound on the dangers of cult-psychology. We have started a group called U.L.T.R.A. Have you seen, or do you receive via email, our Newsletter? (If you want to, just say the word.) You can read all the back-issues on the website. That is loveministries.org
Anyway, in a nutshell, we emphasize that we are NOT a church, organization, or cult. Instead, the Universal Love Teaching and Research Association is a network of fully independent people who join forces to create and implement a vision of a better world. Some of us are Buddhists, some Baptists, and some agnostics. All are equal, and all welcome! As a network, we have no formal leaders or titled hierarchy; each does what her gifts and talents call her to do. We share ideas, concepts, and teachings, but embrace no "dogma" as "infallible." As a group, we embrace no official teachings. I've been called to be a teacher, but that does not put me in a "better" position, just a different one.
The organization is the dead way of the past, while the network is the living Way of the future. Our new efamily is just an extension of the network-family. So is our Pneumariumfamily, which has a gathering once every two weeks.
Meditation, Laughter, and Spirituality
You cannot keep a good woman down! Especially if she is supported by a strong matrix of a good, practical spiritual philosophy! Sadly, however, not everyone is prepared to hear about the Fountain of your interior joy.
Using indirect language-- a libran specialty-- seems the best tactic or strategy with them. Meditation can solve problems with the stomach, headache, nerves, etc. So, it has a double practical use: It allows contact with the deeper Mind (Soul), and aids in relaxing the body.
The more experience that you have with real life, the more obvious it becomes that if you are not happy between your ears, you will not be happy anywhere! So, it makes sense to invest timenergy and Lovenergy there, instead of trying to manipulate others, or things!
Laughter is true "worship," for it shows appreciation, peace, Love, joy, and other positive "fruits" of the holy Spirit! It is a most beloved and chronic activity! Laughing with friends, as a libran, is a special megablast! Don't you love to get together and just "get silly"? That also happens quite often, especially as we move beyond the midnight hour.
Using indirect language-- a libran specialty-- seems the best tactic or strategy with them. Meditation can solve problems with the stomach, headache, nerves, etc. So, it has a double practical use: It allows contact with the deeper Mind (Soul), and aids in relaxing the body.
The more experience that you have with real life, the more obvious it becomes that if you are not happy between your ears, you will not be happy anywhere! So, it makes sense to invest timenergy and Lovenergy there, instead of trying to manipulate others, or things!
Laughter is true "worship," for it shows appreciation, peace, Love, joy, and other positive "fruits" of the holy Spirit! It is a most beloved and chronic activity! Laughing with friends, as a libran, is a special megablast! Don't you love to get together and just "get silly"? That also happens quite often, especially as we move beyond the midnight hour.
Opportunity Knocks
Dearest Friends of the Heart and Spirit,
It is necessary, and a great idea, to pattern our service to Love as much as possible on the examples set by the great mastersages and spiritual luminaries of history. Because we want sincerely to do this, we have a policy of not charging for our email work, personal visits with students, telephone-work, lectures, seminars, tapes, cd's, and of making not a penny's profit on the books. (We sell them at exactly our cost.) We feel that spirituality is simply too precious to "buy and sell," as if it were a common "commodity." Spirituality is in another universe when compared with things of the ordinary market, such as apples, cars, and other material things. It would seriously degrade spirituality to put any kind of dollar-amount of evaluation upon it. Quite simply, it is immeasurably precious. It is not for sale at any price.
Even holding to these highest ideals, however, we must recognize the fact that we live in the twenty-first century. Things have changed quite a lot since the fifth century BCE (the time of the Buddha) or the first century (the time of Jesus).
One of the most serious, and ignorant, of errors is to try to "buy and sell" spirituality, thus making of it a common (but never cheap!) market commodity! This borders on true blaspphemy, and it shows no Love for the people, who must always "foot the bill." The truly enlightened of history come closer to hating rather than loving money and material stuff.
Still, our goal is the truly balanced and moderate perspective. We mystics see the material world, too, as "spiritual," as a "spiritual" creation of the great One, the one Mind. So, material things are also sacred; they have their place in the cosmos. But that place is not the place of God, and a person falls into serious spiritual psychosis if she starts to worship money-- that is, if she starts to put it first in her life.
The enlightened do not hate money, but they do hate the "Love of money." They see money as a necessary evil.
With that preface, the point of this letter: We try our very best never to burden students, clients, or friends with any kind of economic burden, and we are very sensitive to this. We are not like so many "ministries," who are gawdy and shameless in their continual grasping in greed. Some try even to revive the ancient Jewish law of "tithing," a law that was binding upon only Jews, in the Jewish culture, many centuries ago. The only law that exists in spirituality is that, if you give, a multiple of your gift will return to you.
We have a bright new opportunity that has arisen in Cincinnati for the very first time in history. Specifically, we have the chance to start a regular (weekly) radioprogram with the theme of true spirituality. You have probably heard the (usually) disastrous and greedy shows about religion. This show is nothing like that. It will emphasize true mind-transformation and renewal. This show is planned for a very popular commercial station, WCKY. It has a huge audience.
But we need sponsers to make it happen. So, if you have any kind of retail business, or service-business, or know of anyone who has one, and want to get your name and phone-number on the radio-- a superb form of advertising-- please get in touch with me right away. (We'd seriously like to hear from you by Friday, although you need have no plan; we just need to know who's out there.)
As any of you who listens to the radio knows, true quality and progressive programming is virtualy nonexistent. We want together to change that, but the operative word is "together." We are going to need your help, as an "underwriter" (sponser) to bring this great dream into reality. So, please do not hesitate, but act now! With your help, we can begin to change the world very soon-- as soon as next week!
Love,
Richard
It is necessary, and a great idea, to pattern our service to Love as much as possible on the examples set by the great mastersages and spiritual luminaries of history. Because we want sincerely to do this, we have a policy of not charging for our email work, personal visits with students, telephone-work, lectures, seminars, tapes, cd's, and of making not a penny's profit on the books. (We sell them at exactly our cost.) We feel that spirituality is simply too precious to "buy and sell," as if it were a common "commodity." Spirituality is in another universe when compared with things of the ordinary market, such as apples, cars, and other material things. It would seriously degrade spirituality to put any kind of dollar-amount of evaluation upon it. Quite simply, it is immeasurably precious. It is not for sale at any price.
Even holding to these highest ideals, however, we must recognize the fact that we live in the twenty-first century. Things have changed quite a lot since the fifth century BCE (the time of the Buddha) or the first century (the time of Jesus).
One of the most serious, and ignorant, of errors is to try to "buy and sell" spirituality, thus making of it a common (but never cheap!) market commodity! This borders on true blaspphemy, and it shows no Love for the people, who must always "foot the bill." The truly enlightened of history come closer to hating rather than loving money and material stuff.
Still, our goal is the truly balanced and moderate perspective. We mystics see the material world, too, as "spiritual," as a "spiritual" creation of the great One, the one Mind. So, material things are also sacred; they have their place in the cosmos. But that place is not the place of God, and a person falls into serious spiritual psychosis if she starts to worship money-- that is, if she starts to put it first in her life.
The enlightened do not hate money, but they do hate the "Love of money." They see money as a necessary evil.
With that preface, the point of this letter: We try our very best never to burden students, clients, or friends with any kind of economic burden, and we are very sensitive to this. We are not like so many "ministries," who are gawdy and shameless in their continual grasping in greed. Some try even to revive the ancient Jewish law of "tithing," a law that was binding upon only Jews, in the Jewish culture, many centuries ago. The only law that exists in spirituality is that, if you give, a multiple of your gift will return to you.
We have a bright new opportunity that has arisen in Cincinnati for the very first time in history. Specifically, we have the chance to start a regular (weekly) radioprogram with the theme of true spirituality. You have probably heard the (usually) disastrous and greedy shows about religion. This show is nothing like that. It will emphasize true mind-transformation and renewal. This show is planned for a very popular commercial station, WCKY. It has a huge audience.
But we need sponsers to make it happen. So, if you have any kind of retail business, or service-business, or know of anyone who has one, and want to get your name and phone-number on the radio-- a superb form of advertising-- please get in touch with me right away. (We'd seriously like to hear from you by Friday, although you need have no plan; we just need to know who's out there.)
As any of you who listens to the radio knows, true quality and progressive programming is virtualy nonexistent. We want together to change that, but the operative word is "together." We are going to need your help, as an "underwriter" (sponser) to bring this great dream into reality. So, please do not hesitate, but act now! With your help, we can begin to change the world very soon-- as soon as next week!
Love,
Richard
What did Jesus Really Teach?
The feeling of having a very full screen is familiar to us. It just proves that you are alive, complete with goals, lifedesigns, and lifeplans!:)
The vox populi (popular interpretation) has a terrible rep for distortion or dilution. The only solution in sight is to make your nmessage so strong, so simple, so often repeated, that it requires no interpretations at all. Also, as people such as Jesus learned,to their chagrin, it is a better idea clearly to write down your ideas rather than simply speak them orally, trusting the notoriously bad memories of listeners.
It seems that people are by nature divisive. They often prefer bickering and conflict to the Way of peace. This is because, as we all know, we are living on a kindergarten planet.
Also, to make double-sure that you are not misunderstood, it is probablly good to do some even redundant writing. It is a spiritual teacher's worst nightmare that people in the future will misunderstand and misinterpret him/her. Also, despite the wonders ofJesus' teachings, and their deep beauty, it seems better to teach clearly rather than by the use of allegories, parables, and other systems that require interpretations. How much better the world would be if Jesus, in the officially accepted Bible, had said, "It does not matter what religion that you belong to, or what you believe about Me or My Father. The only thing that ever matters is that you love yourself and others." Maybe we would have been spared the lame-brained proliferations of religion, with all their bloody wars.
Or perhaps he could have said more clearly, "The ancient wargod of the Hebrews is not the same as the God of Love, peace, and forgiveness." How many literal and figurative "wars" would that have prevented?
Of course, we have only bits and pieces of the many teachings of Jesus. All the words of Jesus recorded in the Christian Scriptures could probably be read in three or four hours, and he preached, almost nonstop, for nearly four years! It really makes you wonder what the "official Bible," chosen by grumpy old men, left out!
I think that some of the truer teachings of Jesus are recoverable from the deep Unconscious. This has resulted in a six-hundred page book called The Mystic Gospels of Jesus the Christ. Please take a look at it, if you get time, on the website: loveministries.org It can be accessed, free, or downloaded, free.
Tuesday, February 08, 2005
Afterlife
It has always been a dream of people to communicate with loved ones after they have finished "playing their roles" on the "stage of earth." Since Mind is deathless, survival of death is guaranteed.
But not just anyone can do this, under normal circumstances. It often requires what is called "psychic sensitivity." Why? Because the mental energy or force that can be generated by a mind, even one in Love, is limited. And it takes an immense quantity of mental energy to cross the bridge from one mind to another, especially from one universe to another. (The dead are in another universe, and all contact is via telepathy.) The "voice" of a dead person (Soul) is very subtle, almost silent. It is tinier and more quiet even than the famous "still small voice" of conscience. Contact with Souls is much easier in dreamstates, when our conscious "shields" are down.
The "dead" are still alive. They are working out their "karma." They are receiving good for all the good that they gave to others, and pain for all pain that they deliberately caused others. If you choose voluntarily to harm anyone, deliberately, with intention and premeditation (as lawyers call it), you will be messing up your own
personal karma, and you will pay for it. But you do not, cannot, do anything to mess up the overall will of Love to draw the entire cosmos back into Itself someday. No action on your part, as a tiny human being, can make the smallest microscratch on this carefully developed and protected, eons-old plan. For supreme Mind, Lovemind, has already anticipated thousands of errors on your part, and on the part of every
human being.
For example, killing another with deliberate intent will create a very agonizing "hellstate" in your mind. This condition will seem as if it were "outside" and as if it lasts forever. But, in time, you will find selforgiveness and forgiveness, and will emerge from this hellstate to continue your growth-pattern.
Meanwhile, you will have to return to earth and be killed by the one whom you killed, in exactly the same way. Then, you will come back again and kill him, then he will kill you, etc., until one of you forgives and offers unconditional Love. For Love is the only force great enough fully to neutralize the psychogenic factor of karma.
This puts a real cramp in the Soulife of the one killed, but it does not ruin him, or hold him back, entirely. For death of the body is not death of the Soulmind, the thinking, acting, and feeling Self. So, after death, he will just pick up where he left off, and continue to follow his inevitable growth-pattern, in both the afterlife cosmos, and in this one, if he has to return.
God's forgiveness is so illimitable and immeasurable that never has there been a sin greater than God's ability to forgive and to "love away." So, we are given an infinite number of chances, and it simply does not matter, in the long run, how many errors we make. For we will all inevitably be brought into fullest Lovemind. That is why our growth occurs, not only through struggle, but through "grace." Grace means that we are forgiven our errors, not because of anything that we do, but because of God's loving nature.
Jesus said to the superighteous and supereligious people of his time, "The prostitutes and drunkards and theives will go ahead of you into the kingdom of God." (Mt. 21:31) He said, "The kingdom is within you." (Lk. 17:21) Obviously, these "sinners" would not go into the kingdom while still "practicing sin," or making regular mistakes. But Jesus knew that, someday, they would outgrow these mistakes, find selfforgiveness, and begin their spiritual growth! This is why, although it has been carefully hidden by the orthodox Christian Church, the Christian Scriptures teach universal salvation-- that everyone will be "saved" or enlightened, again, through grace.
Some Souls do hang around the earthplane, especially for up to three or four days after their death. After that, more than 97% of all Souls move into the afterlife universe. I have visited this cosmos (I've died twice) and describe it in great detail in my novel Luminous Ecstasies and Passions, also available on the website. But CAUTION: This book celebrates honorable sensuality, and does not see sensuality as evil, but as the gift of God and nature.
Yes, our loved ones do miss us very much when they make the Transition. Their Love does not weaken, but becomes much stronger. While we are unable to look in on their lives, they are able to check on ours from time to time,although they are prohibited from violating our privacy. But they are so happy, with so many bright new Loves and other areas to explore that, within a few days, earthlife begins to seem like the dream that it was. They never lose their Love for us, but twenty years of earthtime can be just five minutes in their universe, so they know that we will be with them again in no time.
If you lost a lover to death, and remarried, and all three of you die, when you get into the afterlife plane, you will have to come together as reasonable adults and set up a plan of action. There is no traditional marriage in the afterlife plane, even as Jesus said. But there are many, many monogamous couples, as most people prefer this pattern. Still,complexities do arise. Many relationships must be ironed out, emphasizing maximum justice and Love for all involved. A person who reacted with jealousy or possessiveness would be severely humiliated in the afterlife world. Since, in that civilization, everyone is vowed to serve Love, including fairness, conflict-resolution reaches new heights.
Usually what will happen is that you would settle to live with one of the men, and the other man would find a suitable companion from thousands of willing, happy candidates. Everyone in the Homeworld (what they call their cosmos) has all her wishes fulfilled. This leads to happiness and total fulfillment,and that, in turn, makes Love and justice so much easier!:)
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