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Thanks to Barbara Baty.
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No one can be insulated from, or remain untouched by, the massive, immense changes that are now occurring on this teeny-weeny, itsy-bitsy nanoplanet. These events, like a literal earthquake, are drawing people together. And no one can predict what will come next. (Many self-styled "prophets" are trying like mad, but none have proved reliable.) We must learn the lesson of simply trusting the universe(Tao) as we board the human rollercoaster? Entire countries are going bankrupt, and others are suffering the effects of global warming. It seems that entire nations can be quite as insane as some human beings, as our own United States has demonstrated during the last eight years. People individually are "losing it," falling into religious madness, and quite desperate for anything that even vaguely resembles an explanation. Increasingly, they are turning to mad references to the Bible, especially to the Revelation, its final book, and these "explanations" create only exacerbating madness. Others run to Nostradamus or Ed Cayce-- both of whom predicted the "end of the world" for the year 1999! Self-styled "experts" are everywhere, of course, and there are plenty of "prophets" just trying to "make a buck" out of the human misery in the world.
Human beings seemed to have sensed some of the changes that now are flowing from the collective Unconscious, bracing themselves, alerting themselves. And this world touches each of us personally and deeply, so the changes are about your life and mine, not about an abstract "world out there."
And no matter how "spiritual" we are, no matter how profound our philosophy, we are touched by this world. No one is immune, no one unaffected. Yes, Virginia, bad things do happen to good people, for karma is an impartial Mindenergy; it occurs not for our punishment, but for our education.
We are the people of Love. Thus, we must take on the incredible task of figuring out how this world of apparent chaos and madness is a reflection of Love. And here is how: Karma turns the entire world into a "school." The purpose of this school is to teach the gentle art of loving. We cannot learn the most profound depths of the most Love, the maximum compassion, until or unless we have suffered. (That is why very young people, who have never suffered, seem so shallow, and sometimes, they
are!)
We are also hear to learn that the entire material world, all around us, is maya, "illusion," or a dream. This is indicated by major financial and political institutions dissolving before our very eyes!
But while the fortresses of materialism and greed are unraveling, spiritual teachings remain powerful elements of our lives. They alone survive every crisis or catastrophe. To figure out this complex world, we must use spiritual thinking, or mystical principles, such as karma.
Karma is a complex "balancing act" in which the whole universe, including your personal Soul, is involved. "Bad" things happen to people in order to break them out of selfcenteredness and selfinvolvement, to educate us in Love. That is why some of the most gentle, wise, kind, and enlightened people of history have suffered, doing "battle" with the "demons" of the lower nature.
Human beings have generated karmic energy, galaxies of it, for many millennia. Some of this karma is being worked out now.
The entire world must learn two major karmic lessons: Greed is the service of fear (the "devil"), and the more that we think that we are "in control," the more quickly things start spinning wildly out of control. We must respond to these lessons by refusing to serve greed, and instead, trying honestly to serve compassion. And we must let go of control and replace it with faith-- trust in the unfolding of the cosmos, without our interference or manipulation. (This is the essence of that wonderful path of mysticism called "Taoism.")
What is happening is a shift in the very paradigm of the world. We are, specifically, shifting away from the old paradigm, which emphasized separation (all separation is illusion, since we are all part of the One, the great collective Unconscious). We are also outgrowing the illusions of domination by force. The world cannot be "controlled" by guns and bombs, but must be regulated by the recognition of the interdependence of Love. All cultures and societies, like all human beings, share interests on this tiny planet, and so, fierce independence will give way to a sense of interdependence, in which no single culture is seen as "superior."
We must work, through healing and sharing, to create a global and, someday, an interplanetary culture based on the equality of all human beings. Every act of Love is an act of healing, and there is no such thing as a "small" act of Love.
This earth is like an organism, which works only as long as the parts cooperate. Each part must yield to the whole; so, to find freedom, we must each work in cooperation with others to serve the greater Whole that is the Love of the cosmos.
So, each act of personal transformation helps to metamorphose the Whole. Each and every act of Love expresses Love for the Whole. So, every positive thought helps to heal the collective, or world-Soul. So, every act of selfhealing is shared with many, many others on an energy-level or Mind-level.
So, your intentions and thoughts become the "raw material" out of which the world is constructed. That is why, in visions of our Lady of Love, such as those of Fatima and Lourdres, she instructs us never to stop "praying." And every thought of Love is a true prayer.
We must rid ourselves of fear, which is the source of all wars. In almost every war, this fear is expressed as greed. It is time that we, as a society, stopped serving greed and begin to serve its opposite, compassion.
What can we do in the midst of all the horror and terror that have been fed into the collective Unconscious over millennia of human history? We can begin to counter-balance all this mental garbage by creating the mental treasures of Love.
Every thought of Love is a prayer, and a true act of worship. Let each of us begin, this very day, to flood our lives with thoughts of Love, and these will "sink down" and swamp even the collective Unconscious, as Love overcomes fear. Let us do this relentlessly and ceaselessly, pouring huge quantities of Love inward, to create a galaxy of Love, an ocean of Love. Soon, the weak candle-flicker of fear will go out, quenched by the passion of our Love. Fear is but a drop, in cosmic terms, but Love
is an ocean; fear but a candle, and Love the interior "sun" of purest Light. Fear, in the presence of Love, does not stand a chance!
We exist for each other, and we all exist for the Whole. We have worked for years on selfimprovement, and even selferasement, so that we can help to rescue the world from crisis. So, let us not be metaphysically selfish, using the interior Power to strive to create only personal wealth, as so many have done. Instead, let us submit our interior Power to the services of Love, compassion, planetary renewal, ecological
recovery, and the sisterhood and brotherhood of all beings in the universe.
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Showing posts with label fear and love. Show all posts
Showing posts with label fear and love. Show all posts
Wednesday, December 03, 2008
Tuesday, February 12, 2008
Personal Desire and the Way of Liberation
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Clearly, there is nothing "wrong" with positive thinking.:) It is so much better than negative!:)
Positive thinking can contribute to a happier, more productive life. It can also aid in the bodymind healing process. All in all, it has very much to recommend it.
But a major problem occurs when positive thinking grows into an attempt to control the universe by thinking positive. For those who advocate this are trying to pretend that the conscious mind (a very tiny part of Mind) is God. They are acting to "defend" themselves from the unknown, from a deep place filled with fear. This tiny slice of mind finds and creates much fear, and can never become God! For God is fear's opposite, Love; God dwells at a much deeper part of the Unconscious, a depth so profound that it is shared (collective). So, fear is no way to serve Love!
What is their foundation for this radical assumption that their conscious mind is "God"? It seems to be nothing more than a combination of vague superstition and wishful thinking.
They say, "I know what God wants, because it is precisely and always the same thing that I want." This is where they often make their first big mistake. For simply because the conscious mind might selfishly want a thing or condition does not by any means imply that God wants exactly the same thing! It is possible for us consciously to want one thing or condition, while Lovemind might want something completely different!
Most of these "new-age faddists" want wealth, fame, or some other egobased situation. Many of the more desperate want perfect health. But if the desires of the conscious mind resist the desires of karma, created by the powerful and unconscious Soul, the weak conscious mind does not have a chance of controlling events!
This is where the Taoist perspective of the mystical Way enters the picture. For, in most conditions, we must learn to "flogo," or go with the Flow of events. For often, we cannot change or control them. This forces a stubborn and often unwilling mind to cooperate with the will of God, even though she might not like that will!
Jesus said it best when he taught, in the Sermon on the Mount, that we do not have the power, in the conscious mind, to change the color of a single hair on our own heads. So, when people start to tell you that "they can do absolutely anything" with the "power of mind," challenge them to change the color of a specific hair on their own heads! For, as Jesus said, they will not be able to do it!
The function of the conscious mind was never to be able "magically" to change the world. Many "positive thinkers" suffer from a condition that psychology calls "magical thinking." The normal adult outgrows this by about age six.
Yet some still cling to this mild pathology, well into adulthood, by allowing their "interior child" to make decisions. An example of magical thinking is when a little girl's aunt suddenly grows sick, and even dies, and the little one feels somehow responsible. You can se why this is regarded as an unhealthy condition.
Instead, the only function of the conscious mind is to interact with, and try to understand, the "material" world. We can use the conscious mind to train our behavior, creating karma, or using Love to erase negative karma.
It is mystically true that all the world is only Mind. But this does not imply that the world is our personal conscious mind. Instead, the world is dreamed into being by very deep levels of the Unconscious, including the Soul, and the Coremind (Lovemind or Godmind).
When we have a list of things that we "want," we work hard to cultivate a personal will. (To "will" is to "want.") This is the opposite path of the Enlightenment Tradition, which encourages strongly the lessening and decrease of personal wants. We, as students of the mystical Way, want to reduce our personal desires to as close to zero as possible, so that we might discern, and actively pursue, the will of God (Love). This simplification of the mind requires selflessness, but it is the only Way to enlightenment.
*******
Clearly, there is nothing "wrong" with positive thinking.:) It is so much better than negative!:)
Positive thinking can contribute to a happier, more productive life. It can also aid in the bodymind healing process. All in all, it has very much to recommend it.
But a major problem occurs when positive thinking grows into an attempt to control the universe by thinking positive. For those who advocate this are trying to pretend that the conscious mind (a very tiny part of Mind) is God. They are acting to "defend" themselves from the unknown, from a deep place filled with fear. This tiny slice of mind finds and creates much fear, and can never become God! For God is fear's opposite, Love; God dwells at a much deeper part of the Unconscious, a depth so profound that it is shared (collective). So, fear is no way to serve Love!
What is their foundation for this radical assumption that their conscious mind is "God"? It seems to be nothing more than a combination of vague superstition and wishful thinking.
They say, "I know what God wants, because it is precisely and always the same thing that I want." This is where they often make their first big mistake. For simply because the conscious mind might selfishly want a thing or condition does not by any means imply that God wants exactly the same thing! It is possible for us consciously to want one thing or condition, while Lovemind might want something completely different!
Most of these "new-age faddists" want wealth, fame, or some other egobased situation. Many of the more desperate want perfect health. But if the desires of the conscious mind resist the desires of karma, created by the powerful and unconscious Soul, the weak conscious mind does not have a chance of controlling events!
This is where the Taoist perspective of the mystical Way enters the picture. For, in most conditions, we must learn to "flogo," or go with the Flow of events. For often, we cannot change or control them. This forces a stubborn and often unwilling mind to cooperate with the will of God, even though she might not like that will!
Jesus said it best when he taught, in the Sermon on the Mount, that we do not have the power, in the conscious mind, to change the color of a single hair on our own heads. So, when people start to tell you that "they can do absolutely anything" with the "power of mind," challenge them to change the color of a specific hair on their own heads! For, as Jesus said, they will not be able to do it!
The function of the conscious mind was never to be able "magically" to change the world. Many "positive thinkers" suffer from a condition that psychology calls "magical thinking." The normal adult outgrows this by about age six.
Yet some still cling to this mild pathology, well into adulthood, by allowing their "interior child" to make decisions. An example of magical thinking is when a little girl's aunt suddenly grows sick, and even dies, and the little one feels somehow responsible. You can se why this is regarded as an unhealthy condition.
Instead, the only function of the conscious mind is to interact with, and try to understand, the "material" world. We can use the conscious mind to train our behavior, creating karma, or using Love to erase negative karma.
It is mystically true that all the world is only Mind. But this does not imply that the world is our personal conscious mind. Instead, the world is dreamed into being by very deep levels of the Unconscious, including the Soul, and the Coremind (Lovemind or Godmind).
When we have a list of things that we "want," we work hard to cultivate a personal will. (To "will" is to "want.") This is the opposite path of the Enlightenment Tradition, which encourages strongly the lessening and decrease of personal wants. We, as students of the mystical Way, want to reduce our personal desires to as close to zero as possible, so that we might discern, and actively pursue, the will of God (Love). This simplification of the mind requires selflessness, but it is the only Way to enlightenment.
*******
Thursday, January 24, 2008
Refreshing Love and Burdensome Religion
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Jesus said, "My yoke is easy, and My burden light." So, he offered comfort and refreshment to people who, trying to do what is right, suffered under crushing and unnecessary religious burdens. There are many similar people in our time. They want sincerely to "serve God," but believe that the only way to do this is by, and through, organized religion. This is simply not so. Jesus, for example, did not "belong" to any modern church, for they had not yet come into existence. So, beware ignorant liars who claim that only their church has the "truth"!
The traditionalists of nearly two thousand years ago loaded down the people with time-consuming and energy-draining burdens of hundreds, or even thousands, of laws. For many forms of Judaism, precisely like many forms of Christianity and Islam, are "legalistic" faiths.
That is, they lay down the "laws of God," which can number in the thousands. And anyone who does not obey each and every one is judged as inadequate, or even evil.
Jesus effectively replaced the huge burden and complexity of all these laws with a single law. This one law was not religious, but spiritual.
It is: Thou shalt love.
This guides every possible behavior in the cosmos, and gives a matrix and framework to life by giving our lives meaning: We can not only speak about "God" on earth, but can actually manifest God through every act of Love, "great" or "small." (Actually, there is never a "small" act of Love, since each arises from, and is interpenetrated by, the divine Essence or God.)
Does the Way of Love live at peace with religion, or does It replace religion? It can do both, or either. If your church is openminded and tolerant enough to "allow" you (without hassling you) to live by the Way of Love, and fully to embrace It, you can easily stay in your faith.
But if it is so strongly, unbendingly uncompromising that it says, "Our church or mysticism," then you are faced with a serious choice-- perhaps the most serious of this life!
For many people, discovering that God is Love, have been forced to abandon the faith of their childhood. This is not always necessary, for being a person of the Enlightenment Tradition can make you the most excellent Catholic, Buddhist, Baptist, or Methodist. But, especially in some of the smaller denominations, or cults, they are incompatible with the Way.
And they often know it.
Why? The answer can be as simple as a group is "Jehovist." That is, it insists that the false god of the Hebrew Scriptures ("Old Testament") is the Lord of Love of Jesus. This illogical conclusion, not supported by textual or historical data, confuses everything in the religion, and tries to force you into worshipping a false god. To worship this false god is, further, to betray Love.
This archaic god of the past is nearly four thousand years old. "He" is always male, and violates all the premises of Love with repeated genocide, murder, war, and favoritism. He promotes a legalistic religion, instead of true, Lovebased spirituality. Unlike the Lord of Love, this parochial and primitive god has a "chosen people." He seems at times never to have heard of Love and forgiveness, the twin nuclei of Jesus' message. In fact, the "loyal people of Jehovah," the defenders and professional teachers of religion, conspired in the murder of Jesus.
If nothing else even existed, this one blazing fact would set Jesus and Jehovah at opposite ends of the spiritual spectrum. Jehovah is a god of fear, Jesus the Lord of Love-- one of Her many forms!
*******
Jesus said, "My yoke is easy, and My burden light." So, he offered comfort and refreshment to people who, trying to do what is right, suffered under crushing and unnecessary religious burdens. There are many similar people in our time. They want sincerely to "serve God," but believe that the only way to do this is by, and through, organized religion. This is simply not so. Jesus, for example, did not "belong" to any modern church, for they had not yet come into existence. So, beware ignorant liars who claim that only their church has the "truth"!
The traditionalists of nearly two thousand years ago loaded down the people with time-consuming and energy-draining burdens of hundreds, or even thousands, of laws. For many forms of Judaism, precisely like many forms of Christianity and Islam, are "legalistic" faiths.
That is, they lay down the "laws of God," which can number in the thousands. And anyone who does not obey each and every one is judged as inadequate, or even evil.
Jesus effectively replaced the huge burden and complexity of all these laws with a single law. This one law was not religious, but spiritual.
It is: Thou shalt love.
This guides every possible behavior in the cosmos, and gives a matrix and framework to life by giving our lives meaning: We can not only speak about "God" on earth, but can actually manifest God through every act of Love, "great" or "small." (Actually, there is never a "small" act of Love, since each arises from, and is interpenetrated by, the divine Essence or God.)
Does the Way of Love live at peace with religion, or does It replace religion? It can do both, or either. If your church is openminded and tolerant enough to "allow" you (without hassling you) to live by the Way of Love, and fully to embrace It, you can easily stay in your faith.
But if it is so strongly, unbendingly uncompromising that it says, "Our church or mysticism," then you are faced with a serious choice-- perhaps the most serious of this life!
For many people, discovering that God is Love, have been forced to abandon the faith of their childhood. This is not always necessary, for being a person of the Enlightenment Tradition can make you the most excellent Catholic, Buddhist, Baptist, or Methodist. But, especially in some of the smaller denominations, or cults, they are incompatible with the Way.
And they often know it.
Why? The answer can be as simple as a group is "Jehovist." That is, it insists that the false god of the Hebrew Scriptures ("Old Testament") is the Lord of Love of Jesus. This illogical conclusion, not supported by textual or historical data, confuses everything in the religion, and tries to force you into worshipping a false god. To worship this false god is, further, to betray Love.
This archaic god of the past is nearly four thousand years old. "He" is always male, and violates all the premises of Love with repeated genocide, murder, war, and favoritism. He promotes a legalistic religion, instead of true, Lovebased spirituality. Unlike the Lord of Love, this parochial and primitive god has a "chosen people." He seems at times never to have heard of Love and forgiveness, the twin nuclei of Jesus' message. In fact, the "loyal people of Jehovah," the defenders and professional teachers of religion, conspired in the murder of Jesus.
If nothing else even existed, this one blazing fact would set Jesus and Jehovah at opposite ends of the spiritual spectrum. Jehovah is a god of fear, Jesus the Lord of Love-- one of Her many forms!
*******
Sunday, July 22, 2007
Renouncing Fear
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When Jesus used the phrase, "Get thee behind me, Satan!" he was not insulting his disciple, whom he loved. (I think that this was Peter, trying to comfort him by denying his personal prophecy of a very troubled future.)
Instead, he was referring, in a dramatic way, to the lower nature. This is the fear-nature. It resists Love, and is its conceptual opposite. That is why, "Fear and Love cannot coexist. For Love, when it is made complete, casts fear outside." (1 Jn. 4:18)
The future described by Jesus was dark and scary to the lower human nature. It tended to trigger fear. So, it was this fear that was being reprimanded by Jesus.
Since he knew that God was Love, the only "satan" was the opposite of Love, or fear. Since Jesus was "true man" as well as "true God," his human nature (side) was capable of fear-reactions. The "devil" of fear could affect this weaker, lower nature.
In an almost exorcistic way, he cast this fear from him! Knowing that this account would be recounted in the future, he wanted to make it a dramatic, even unforgettable, one.
This is the best example of how we should all learn to deal with fear. Fears can spoil or ruin our lives in several significant ways. When we encounter them in ourselves, in our heartminds, we dare not respond with complacency or apathy. Jesus taught us to respond with alarm! We must identify the fear, and then, immediately reject, renounce, and eject it! Only this ridding of fear leaves "room" for Love to fill the heartmind, since both cannot exist in the same heartmind at the same time.
Fear and Love exist in inverse proportions within us. That is, our entire heartmind is one hundred percent capacity. So, if there is seventy percent fear, for example, there can be only thirty percent Love. If there is forty percent fear, there can be sixty percent Love. Fifty percent fear allows for only fifty percent Love.
Anyway, our elevated and noble goal is fear, zero, and Love, one hundred percent. Can any truly human being ever reach and realize this ideal? Perhaps not; but that does not matter anyway. For it is the reaching for this fine goal that transforms us, every minute of every day.
*******
When Jesus used the phrase, "Get thee behind me, Satan!" he was not insulting his disciple, whom he loved. (I think that this was Peter, trying to comfort him by denying his personal prophecy of a very troubled future.)
Instead, he was referring, in a dramatic way, to the lower nature. This is the fear-nature. It resists Love, and is its conceptual opposite. That is why, "Fear and Love cannot coexist. For Love, when it is made complete, casts fear outside." (1 Jn. 4:18)
The future described by Jesus was dark and scary to the lower human nature. It tended to trigger fear. So, it was this fear that was being reprimanded by Jesus.
Since he knew that God was Love, the only "satan" was the opposite of Love, or fear. Since Jesus was "true man" as well as "true God," his human nature (side) was capable of fear-reactions. The "devil" of fear could affect this weaker, lower nature.
In an almost exorcistic way, he cast this fear from him! Knowing that this account would be recounted in the future, he wanted to make it a dramatic, even unforgettable, one.
This is the best example of how we should all learn to deal with fear. Fears can spoil or ruin our lives in several significant ways. When we encounter them in ourselves, in our heartminds, we dare not respond with complacency or apathy. Jesus taught us to respond with alarm! We must identify the fear, and then, immediately reject, renounce, and eject it! Only this ridding of fear leaves "room" for Love to fill the heartmind, since both cannot exist in the same heartmind at the same time.
Fear and Love exist in inverse proportions within us. That is, our entire heartmind is one hundred percent capacity. So, if there is seventy percent fear, for example, there can be only thirty percent Love. If there is forty percent fear, there can be sixty percent Love. Fifty percent fear allows for only fifty percent Love.
Anyway, our elevated and noble goal is fear, zero, and Love, one hundred percent. Can any truly human being ever reach and realize this ideal? Perhaps not; but that does not matter anyway. For it is the reaching for this fine goal that transforms us, every minute of every day.
*******
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