Learning and Unlearning

*******

One person simply cannot do "spiritual" (interior) work for another. As
in eating physical food, so each must "eat" her own personal "spiritual"
food.

I can give you some "spiritual food." One series of "meals" that is
highly recommended is a book called Journey to the Center of the Soul:
Mysticism Made Simple. It outlines the basics of the Way, for both
beginners and more advanced students. A companion book is Falling in
Love with Yourself: Love and the Inner Beloved. If you wish to see
either or both books, just say the word. Please send your snailmail
address, so that we can send the book(s). But if you need this "food"
right away, these books can be read and/or downloaded, free of charge,
from the website loveministries.org

Anything that has been learned can be unlearned. For many, the very
first steps on the Way of Love are "unlearning" harmful, destructive,
antiagapic (counter to Love) images of God. So, it is highly recommended
that you begin to "consume healthy spiritual food." Along with this, be
sure to avoid religious "garbage" wrapped up in pretty paper.
*******

Death and Learning

*******

When a person "dies in her sins," as all people must leave this world in a state of imperfection, she picks up right where she left off. This is why a desperate suicide is such a futile effort. You cannot "run" from or "escape" your imperfections by dying. If you fail a "test" on earth, God (Love) does what any good teacher does: She gives the same test again. So, the next time that you come to earth, the next time your Soul is sent here from the Homeworld ("heaven"), you will again meet the same Souls as you knew previously, and you will have to work out precisely the same problems. If, for example, you hate another, with seething and relentless hatred, that person might be your spouse. (Love can as easily, and more positively, bind you to a Soulmate, and that is much more pleasant.)

All people, from one perspective, "die in their sins." But, from the view of grace, all our sins are forgiven. So, from the view of God (Love), we do not die "in our sins," but in a forgiven state of purity.

But this is not "earned" purity, but purity bestowed by grace. If, although living in grace, we continue to hold fear or its twin, hatred, in our heart, then we must pick up and return to "school," at exactly the "exam" that we failed before.
*******

Learning, Intellect, and Love

Learning, Intellect, and Love
*******

God (Love) does not command us to "understand" everything. She/He does not even direct us to understand everything about Christianity! Most people are quite limited, and cannot understand, or even read, all the complexities involved, for example, in Scriptural studies. To know them all, in fact, you would have to read tens of thousands of books.

God is Love, not intellect. So, God commands us to love, and not to become "walking encyclopedias." It is not what you know, or what you believe, that moves you into "salvation." It is the Love (grace) of God, acting in and through your heart.

Ministers, in order to minister effectively, do have to learn a great deal. And there is so very much to learn! But whether you are studying early history, ancient manuscripts, the books of the Bible, or various explanations of spirituality and religion, this "study" is all worthless if you do not add compassion, empathy, goodness, and kindness-- all Lovexpressions-- to your life.

A person who loves once is a thousand times as "valuable" to God, and a thousand times more enlightened, than anyone who knows a billion facts.
*******

Bearing Your Cross: Suffering and Wisdom

Bearing Your Cross: Suffering and Wisdom
*******

Every person on earth comes to this place in order to take various tests, exams-- to test her mental, emotional, and spiritual strengths. More often than not, a real "test" involves something challenging or even "scary"-- something the fear-filled ego would rather avoid altogether.

In very early Christianity, the "Cross" of Jesus became the universal archetype (symbol) of all suffering. For the "passion" (suffering) of Jesus became a model of how to handle all pain and suffering. We are to turn it over to God (Love), relax into the "pain" with the confidence that the Holy Spirit of Love can lesson our pain. Meditation, for example, might not get rid of all pain all the time; but several studies have shown that it can lessen pain-- physical or mental-- by up to eighty
percent.

Going into even deeper meditation, as Jesus did, can eradicate even more pain, as the human mind begins actual mergence, melding, or fusion with the Mind of the One, deep in the Unconscious.

I know hundreds of [people, some with a fair degree of intimacy. Every one of them is facing some challenge-- usually a major one-- in this life. Souls do not come to earth for "vacation." (There are higher universes for that.) Earth is not a play-world (although many do exist). Earth is a "school-world," and no one is really here to have fun! Souls come to earth to learn, and only to learn. So, we have opportunities to learn from every minute of every day, and from friends, family, enemies, and strangers. They are all the "teachers" of the person on the Way.

That is one reason why the cosmos often looks "hard" or "unfeeling" or even "uncaring" to us. For it simply does not matter that we enjoy our lives here. All that matters is that we are learning; but, still, one of the things that we learn is how to have more fun! We are blessed, in fact, to find bliss!:)

Each must "bear her Cross," that is, take her tests and exams. We are asked to do so with patience and understanding, not kicking and screaming like toddlers. How a person faces suffering is a faithful barometer of her spiritual wisdom, indicating even her spiritual "age" (maturity).
*******