Posts
A single human life is worth more than can ever be measured. It is more valuable than mountains of gold or jewels, or megagallons of oil.
Yet, especially during war, human life is often devalued. Beautiful girls and striking men become mere statistics on a "count of death." Usually, we do not have the courage even to call war what it actually is-- organized mass-murder. A person who is responsible for a war is as morally culpable as a hundred Ted Bundies or Boston Stranglers. Indeed, he is literally a mass-murderer.
Culpability is massively increased when there were viable alternatives to war. Yet again today, we heard yet another announcement of the death of a proud young man. As he bled to death under the hot desert sun, he must have sincerely and bleakly wondered whether his government even cared at all that he had made the utter and ultimate sacrifice for his country. As many as seventy-two percent of soldiers are now against this war. And, as the six generals recently implied, this includes their leaders. As many as eight out of ten Americans might also now be against this bloody and expensive war.
The girls and boys (not truly women and men) are among the very best and brightest that our country has to offer. Now, thousands will never again add a penny to our economy. They will never invent anything new, make any new discoveries, create anything of beauty, wisdom, or lasting social value. They will not create families of Love and communities of peace. They will never love again, in this world, never again laugh, never again play with their children.
Our nation is as sadly and irrevocably impoverished by their many deaths as if we had been savaged by the bloodiest, most ruthless, terrorist. But because they die only a few at a time, it is easy to yawn and ignore the infinite beauty and value of each girl and boy who bled to death on the hot, harsh desert of Iraq. When terrorists kill a few thousand Americans, we are rightfully and righteously outraged, and our ferocity lasts, as it should, for years! But when they are murdered a few at a time by an unfeeling, incompetent, fascist theocracy, we all look the other way. "It's not such a terrible tragedy after all," we manage to lie to ourselves.
I submit that murder is murder, and that this totally wasteful death and murder of our finest young girls and boys is the result of a stupid and incompetent government run by an egomaniac out of control. He cares only about personal power and money, never about human beings. If Iraq has not demonstrated this beyond the shadow of any reasonable doubt, look again at Katrina. Here, in this tragic disaster and utter catastrophe, more than a thousand people-- all Americans-- died of thirst and hunger right smack in the middle of the wealthiest country in the world. Would these fellow human beings-- our sisters and brothers-- have suffered from longterm and repeated neglect if they had been the wealthy oil-executives who are the special friends of the president?
The presidency has been brought into shame by the current pretender. He struts, peacocks, and speaks arrogantly and insensitively of a hideous war of which he is actually proud. He cannot, upon inquiry, manage to think of a single mistake that he has made during his entire administration-- or, his entire life! When challenged on the war, he simply smirks, dismissing all the rivers of blood-- both American and Iraqi-- that he has spilled. But it is not his daughters dying on the desert sands. He brags and boasts of his "Christian" values. But actions speak more loudly than, drown out, mere words. His actions have proved that he values dollars, oil, and power much more than human life.
Being incompetent and inept, he actually boasts of those events and activities that should bring only shame to an honest man. A modern honest person would rather be a street-sweeper than the president, so lowly has he made this formerly honorable and noble profession. He has driven his own office into deep shame and humiliation, and our entire country with it. America used to be the light on a mountain, to guide the world. Now, it is seen as a pool of evil and darkness. Most Europeans view America as the number one threat to worldwide peace and cooperation. Our country, once a leader, is now but a prisoner.
Wednesday, April 19, 2006
Sunday, April 16, 2006
CDs from the High Spirits Radio Program
Dear Friends of the Heart,
We now have available four episodes from the "High Spirits" radioprogram on cd. But, sadly, in order to "break even" economically, we must charge a minimal fee for these, so many of which we have already distributed free.
The cost involved are: 1) price for the cd's; 2) price for the jewel-cases in which we plan to place them; 3) price for special mailer so that they can be shipped without damage; and 4) price of postage.
Unhappily, but inevitably, we are forced by all four of these factors to charge a fee of $9 for the set (four cd's). We are sorry to have to do this, but we are a ministry that is always on the border of running out of funds.:(
We wish for all of you, our dear friends, peace, joy, and interior tranquility and
Love,
shi
Ps: If you feel like it, please call the show. Its numbers are 749-1530, or 877-345-3779. NOTE: You do not have to be listening to the show in order to call in questions of a spiritual, metaphysical, or philosophic nature. Feel free to call between 8 and 9 pm (est) on any Saturday.
All you need is Love.
We now have available four episodes from the "High Spirits" radioprogram on cd. But, sadly, in order to "break even" economically, we must charge a minimal fee for these, so many of which we have already distributed free.
The cost involved are: 1) price for the cd's; 2) price for the jewel-cases in which we plan to place them; 3) price for special mailer so that they can be shipped without damage; and 4) price of postage.
Unhappily, but inevitably, we are forced by all four of these factors to charge a fee of $9 for the set (four cd's). We are sorry to have to do this, but we are a ministry that is always on the border of running out of funds.:(
We wish for all of you, our dear friends, peace, joy, and interior tranquility and
Love,
shi
Ps: If you feel like it, please call the show. Its numbers are 749-1530, or 877-345-3779. NOTE: You do not have to be listening to the show in order to call in questions of a spiritual, metaphysical, or philosophic nature. Feel free to call between 8 and 9 pm (est) on any Saturday.
All you need is Love.
Suggestions for Receiving "High Spirits" over Radio
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Transmission of our radioprogram "High Spirits" flows out from the radiotower in patterns called "lobes." The pattern looks like a distorted ameba, with rather long "pseudopods" that are the lobes. For this reason the fifty-thousand watt clear-channel station wcky (1530 am) can be picked up in Georgia, if you are in a lobe. We received one call from Columbus, Georgia. But if you are not, you can be much closer, and still not receive a clear signal.
Moving just a few feet can sometimes place you in one. People have also told us that they can receive the station on one radio and not another. Sometimes, it comes in through a car-radio, but, even in delicious springtime, that might well be too inconvenient.:) Just some stuff that you might want to try.
You can also "audiostream" on your computer at wcky.com. One lady did this, and called, from New Hampshire. We wish you the best of luck, and happy listening!:)
*******
Transmission of our radioprogram "High Spirits" flows out from the radiotower in patterns called "lobes." The pattern looks like a distorted ameba, with rather long "pseudopods" that are the lobes. For this reason the fifty-thousand watt clear-channel station wcky (1530 am) can be picked up in Georgia, if you are in a lobe. We received one call from Columbus, Georgia. But if you are not, you can be much closer, and still not receive a clear signal.
Moving just a few feet can sometimes place you in one. People have also told us that they can receive the station on one radio and not another. Sometimes, it comes in through a car-radio, but, even in delicious springtime, that might well be too inconvenient.:) Just some stuff that you might want to try.
You can also "audiostream" on your computer at wcky.com. One lady did this, and called, from New Hampshire. We wish you the best of luck, and happy listening!:)
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A Genuine Spiritual Teacher
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If you feel a calling to teach spirituality, you have little choice, for tranquility and satisfaction, but to follow it. There is no doubt that the Spirit uses such altered states as coma to touch the great personal Unconscious, even the soulevel of Mind. But the Spirit will teach you exactly when and precisely what It wants you to know. It does not need you dangerously to enter, or try to enter, a coma state. In fact, you do not need to do anything at all, except open your mind regularly through healing and healthy meditation in moderation. (You might also feel directed to work with your dreams, the only "shortcut" in all spirituality.)
As you are already opting to become a teacher, you should be warned about an obstacle that can block, and completely ruin, all spirituality. This is plain ol' greed. Greed silences the interior Spirit of Love, for it resists It. Take much care always to make sure that you are never overcharging for your services. Always choose a price that even poor people can afford. It is obscene to try to "get rich" by "selling spirituality." Spirituality is not produce, and should never be commercialized.
Always try to love only your students, and never "love" money. This nightmarish infection has sickened as many as ninety percent of all self-styled "spiritual teachers." It is rabid among so-called
"Christians," and has also drained energy from so many "new age" teachers. An honest teacher with a good heart should probably never charge more than ten or fifteen dollars for her services, classes, or seminars.
So, beware and be honest in selfinventory.
Re the need for a particular "guiding spirit": You have already been touched by the One, who is the one and only Teacher that a spiritual being needs. As long as you are in touch with this Absollute, you do not need particular "spirit guides," "astral helpers," human gurus, or anything along these lines. This is one of the core-meanings of the celebrated "freedom" of the enlightened.
The Spirit does not teach best by intellect, although It can also use that method. It teaches best by challenging you, repeatedly but consistently, to follow and apply the highest Love of which you can
comprehend. The "best" teacher is not the smartest, but the most compassionate. She has both a deep mind and a bottomless heart, both of which are filled repeatedly and continuously with Love.
*******
If you feel a calling to teach spirituality, you have little choice, for tranquility and satisfaction, but to follow it. There is no doubt that the Spirit uses such altered states as coma to touch the great personal Unconscious, even the soulevel of Mind. But the Spirit will teach you exactly when and precisely what It wants you to know. It does not need you dangerously to enter, or try to enter, a coma state. In fact, you do not need to do anything at all, except open your mind regularly through healing and healthy meditation in moderation. (You might also feel directed to work with your dreams, the only "shortcut" in all spirituality.)
As you are already opting to become a teacher, you should be warned about an obstacle that can block, and completely ruin, all spirituality. This is plain ol' greed. Greed silences the interior Spirit of Love, for it resists It. Take much care always to make sure that you are never overcharging for your services. Always choose a price that even poor people can afford. It is obscene to try to "get rich" by "selling spirituality." Spirituality is not produce, and should never be commercialized.
Always try to love only your students, and never "love" money. This nightmarish infection has sickened as many as ninety percent of all self-styled "spiritual teachers." It is rabid among so-called
"Christians," and has also drained energy from so many "new age" teachers. An honest teacher with a good heart should probably never charge more than ten or fifteen dollars for her services, classes, or seminars.
So, beware and be honest in selfinventory.
Re the need for a particular "guiding spirit": You have already been touched by the One, who is the one and only Teacher that a spiritual being needs. As long as you are in touch with this Absollute, you do not need particular "spirit guides," "astral helpers," human gurus, or anything along these lines. This is one of the core-meanings of the celebrated "freedom" of the enlightened.
The Spirit does not teach best by intellect, although It can also use that method. It teaches best by challenging you, repeatedly but consistently, to follow and apply the highest Love of which you can
comprehend. The "best" teacher is not the smartest, but the most compassionate. She has both a deep mind and a bottomless heart, both of which are filled repeatedly and continuously with Love.
*******
Humortherapy
A Little Humortherapy, sent in by Mick Gallagher.
Warning!
If you receive an email entitled "Bedtimes," delete it immediately. Do not open it. Apparently this one is pretty nasty. It will not only erase everything on your hard drive, but it will also delete anything
on disks within 20 feet of your computer. It demagnetizes the stripes on all of your credit cards. It reprograms your atm access code, screws up the tracking on your vcr, and uses subspace field harmonics to scratch any cd's that you attempt to play. It will program your autodial to call only 0898 numbers. This virus will mix antifreeze into your fishtank.
It will cause your toilet to flush while you are showering. It will drink ALL your beer! FOR GOD'S SAKE, ARE YOU LISTENING? It will replace your shampoo with Nair, and your Nair with Rogaine. If the "Bedtimes" message opens in a Windows 95/98 environment, it will leave the toilet seat up and leave your hair dryer plugged in dangerously close to a full bathtub. It will not only remove the
forbidden tags from your mattresses and pillows; it will also refill your skim milk with whole milk.
Warn as many people as you can!
And if you don't send this to five thousand people in twenty seconds, your right leg will spasm and shoot straight out in front of you, sending sparks that will ignite the person nearest you.
Send this warning to everyone! There's a lot of sadness in our world!
Right now, as you read this, seventeen million people are having sex!
And look at you; you're on the computer! Sad. So sad.
*******
Warning!
If you receive an email entitled "Bedtimes," delete it immediately. Do not open it. Apparently this one is pretty nasty. It will not only erase everything on your hard drive, but it will also delete anything
on disks within 20 feet of your computer. It demagnetizes the stripes on all of your credit cards. It reprograms your atm access code, screws up the tracking on your vcr, and uses subspace field harmonics to scratch any cd's that you attempt to play. It will program your autodial to call only 0898 numbers. This virus will mix antifreeze into your fishtank.
It will cause your toilet to flush while you are showering. It will drink ALL your beer! FOR GOD'S SAKE, ARE YOU LISTENING? It will replace your shampoo with Nair, and your Nair with Rogaine. If the "Bedtimes" message opens in a Windows 95/98 environment, it will leave the toilet seat up and leave your hair dryer plugged in dangerously close to a full bathtub. It will not only remove the
forbidden tags from your mattresses and pillows; it will also refill your skim milk with whole milk.
Warn as many people as you can!
And if you don't send this to five thousand people in twenty seconds, your right leg will spasm and shoot straight out in front of you, sending sparks that will ignite the person nearest you.
Send this warning to everyone! There's a lot of sadness in our world!
Right now, as you read this, seventeen million people are having sex!
And look at you; you're on the computer! Sad. So sad.
*******
Monday, April 10, 2006
Reality
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In the mystical Way, the ultimate definition of "Reallity" is "Mind."
Mind is the only real thing in the cosmos. All else is the dream of Mind. The core of Mind is Love, which is why it is the Way of the enlightened and compassionate.
No, we do not "form our own realities" with the conscious mind. This is a very attractive illusion, and many want desperately to believe it. For it implies that they can still control their cosmos. A challenge of mysticism is to give up all control, and to replace this unhealthy desire with faith in the Ultimate or Absolute (Mind). Since It is Love, It will never harm us.
Reality is created Unconsciously by this Ultimate or Absolute (God). But it is altered as the creative force passes through the filter of soul. This adds all the components of our karma. This guarantees that the "dream of reality" will be precisely the one that we need in order to learn our specific lessons.
The idea that the conscious mind can control the world is nothing but wishful thinking. This is a fairy-tale myth. But many metaphysical people cling to it because they mistrust the Mind. They fear It, and live life very nervously, terrified of "negative" thoughts or words.
We can safely think negative thoughts without harming ourselves or anyone else, for the conscious mind is simply not that powerful. Its job is not creation (it cannot create changes in the world), but experience. It is the decision-maker and the karma-maker. That is its whole function.
Jesus said that we cannot change a single hair on our own heads. So, when people start to "blah-blah" about the "infinite power of mind" (meaning the conscious mind), challenge them with this empirical test: Ask them to change the color of a single hair on their own heads. Many will not even try, but if they do, they will not be able to do it.
The world is dreamed into being by much deeper levels of the Unconscious-- the soul and the Spirit. We have no control over these profound levels of Mind. Most people are completely out of touch with these. The Way suggests not only complete "faith in God" (trusting Mind to take care of everything), but also its effortless living. Jesus said that we should become as a "nursing infant." It is absurd to think of a baby trying to manipulate the cosmos. Instead, it simply relaxes completely, and trusts fully, without question.
This total relaxation is to become thought-free. Only if we are free of conscious thoughts can the Power of Spirit act through and within us with fullest freedom (without our interference). This is called the "prayer of silence," or "meditation."
*******
In the mystical Way, the ultimate definition of "Reallity" is "Mind."
Mind is the only real thing in the cosmos. All else is the dream of Mind. The core of Mind is Love, which is why it is the Way of the enlightened and compassionate.
No, we do not "form our own realities" with the conscious mind. This is a very attractive illusion, and many want desperately to believe it. For it implies that they can still control their cosmos. A challenge of mysticism is to give up all control, and to replace this unhealthy desire with faith in the Ultimate or Absolute (Mind). Since It is Love, It will never harm us.
Reality is created Unconsciously by this Ultimate or Absolute (God). But it is altered as the creative force passes through the filter of soul. This adds all the components of our karma. This guarantees that the "dream of reality" will be precisely the one that we need in order to learn our specific lessons.
The idea that the conscious mind can control the world is nothing but wishful thinking. This is a fairy-tale myth. But many metaphysical people cling to it because they mistrust the Mind. They fear It, and live life very nervously, terrified of "negative" thoughts or words.
We can safely think negative thoughts without harming ourselves or anyone else, for the conscious mind is simply not that powerful. Its job is not creation (it cannot create changes in the world), but experience. It is the decision-maker and the karma-maker. That is its whole function.
Jesus said that we cannot change a single hair on our own heads. So, when people start to "blah-blah" about the "infinite power of mind" (meaning the conscious mind), challenge them with this empirical test: Ask them to change the color of a single hair on their own heads. Many will not even try, but if they do, they will not be able to do it.
The world is dreamed into being by much deeper levels of the Unconscious-- the soul and the Spirit. We have no control over these profound levels of Mind. Most people are completely out of touch with these. The Way suggests not only complete "faith in God" (trusting Mind to take care of everything), but also its effortless living. Jesus said that we should become as a "nursing infant." It is absurd to think of a baby trying to manipulate the cosmos. Instead, it simply relaxes completely, and trusts fully, without question.
This total relaxation is to become thought-free. Only if we are free of conscious thoughts can the Power of Spirit act through and within us with fullest freedom (without our interference). This is called the "prayer of silence," or "meditation."
*******
Fear
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Human nature is part "lower" and part "higher" nature. The lower is dominated by fear, and is much more powerful and developed than the higher in most people.
Fear and Love are opposites. (Hatred is only a form of fear.) Throughout their karmic history, people have feared more than they have loved. So, fear has proliferated and multiplied, while most souls just do not have the same quantity of Love in their histories.
Since the start of human history, many fears, built into biology, served survival, and so, were helpful. But most fear is harmful or damaging, and of no spiritual value. It is one goal of the mystic (although it might take lifetimes) completely to replace all fear with Love: What she now fears she wants to learn to Love. Love neutralizes and vaporizes fear, while fear blocks the free Flow of Love.
*******
Human nature is part "lower" and part "higher" nature. The lower is dominated by fear, and is much more powerful and developed than the higher in most people.
Fear and Love are opposites. (Hatred is only a form of fear.) Throughout their karmic history, people have feared more than they have loved. So, fear has proliferated and multiplied, while most souls just do not have the same quantity of Love in their histories.
Since the start of human history, many fears, built into biology, served survival, and so, were helpful. But most fear is harmful or damaging, and of no spiritual value. It is one goal of the mystic (although it might take lifetimes) completely to replace all fear with Love: What she now fears she wants to learn to Love. Love neutralizes and vaporizes fear, while fear blocks the free Flow of Love.
*******
Sunday, April 09, 2006
Questions and Angers
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It is a pleasure to be "patient" when important issues, such as understanding and wisdom, are involved and at stake. I will always try to approach any question with unhurried attention and a single focus.:)
You speak in your note of "anger and frustration at The One for being more than I can comprehend..." This is similar to a bee stinging you because he does not understand the human mind. When the bee stings, he dies. He could continue to live if he did not use all this energy to express anger. Anger is energy-draining, and weakens us. In Kung Fu training, it is repeatedly taught that anger weakens you by draining your energy, even though, in the short term, it seems actually to make you stronger. This is because it takes large amounts of energy and expends it within moments. With a little thought, you can see how this drains you in the long run.
The same is true mentally and emotionally. Anger drains us, making us weaker and more vulnerable. Consistent or chronic anger actually weakens the immune-system, for example-- a fact demonstrated by immunology.
You write, "I can stay stuck in my anger or let it go and move on." That is exactly your choice. If you do "let it go," you will have all that extra energy recycled back into your system, to be used and directed as you select. You can use the recycled angerenergy as Lovenergy, kinetic energy (for movement and exercise), emotional energy, dreamenergy, or an abundance of other forces in life.
You write, "I adore the idea of striving to be a being of Love (even in regard to The One)." This is, by far, the supreme challenge of all spirituality. In reaching for this goal, we have set before us ultimate expansion, an endless path, to be a vessel for the Absolute, filled with Her, and, in final fulfillment, to become Her "stainless mirror." There is no more excellent or superb aim for any sentient being.
You write, "That is what I choose to focus my energy upon." This is the most excellent and superb goal of which human beings are capable. And we are capable of this only because of grace, for it is really God within us reaching for a greater vision of Herself, by looking into the stainless mirror of our personal being. This occurs only when our "personal"selves disappear into the One, when we fade as ego into the Infinite, surrendering absolutely everything to Love.
You write, "Beyond that, I will have to let go of the questions for now." No, my friend, you certainly need not simply "let go" of the questions; keep asking them, and we will together seek answers. But you do not want to let them become obstacles to your spiritual growth, your immediate departure upon the spiritual highway. Questions are good and healthy, because they present an active and growing mind. Please just do not allow them to be an "anchor" that pulls you to the bottom. Instead, let them be wings that carry you into the higher skies of Mind.
You write, "As you have pointed out, they are childish and uselessly combative." They can be childish, but "combative" is a word that would not have occurred to me. Now, I can see that they could also be that. It seems that there are questions that might paralyze or petrify you, and questions that will lift you into new areas of wisdom, understanding, and comprehension. Those above the level of human knowledge can be discussed, but not always answered. We can still make "good guesses" re questions to which we might not have absolute answers. That is part of the fun and captivating fascination of spiritual development.
So, keep asking those questions, and never let anyone stop you. Seeking is the first step to finding.
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Divine and Maternal Love
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The great Being of compassion and Love is continuously trying to "shake us awake" from the "nightmare" of every day life. But, unlike an earthly mother, She/He has vowed not to interfere with our freewill lifedesign. So, we are created to awaken as slowly or as quickly as we build into our personal karma. So, divine Love has built into it many factors that mere human Love does not encompass, including some restrictions and limitations. It would be excessively foolish and careless for us to judge divine Love by exactly the same criteria by which we measure human
or maternal Love.
The One also realizes, with crystalline clarity, how much of our suffering is sheerest illusion, and that our only hope for genuine peace and Love is to discover for ourselves what "truth" (Reality) really is.
We behave like arrested and backwards creatures if we allow ourselves to be carried away with our tiny emotions, even human Love, and start demanding what Love "should" and "should not" do, for we are amoebas passing judgment on a Love so vast and so intricate that we cannot even begin to understand Its vastness and immensity. It is not at all accurate or viable to compare this enormous Love to the Love felt by a mother for her child, even though there are precise analogies possible within this framework. (Still others are predictably invalid, however.)
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The Existence of "Evil"
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Outside of mind-created dream-illusion, evil cannot have an absolute existence.
But its relative existence is real. War, child-molestation, cruelty, murder, hurt and harm of all sorts do indeed exist within the holographic world. It is, in fact, the distinction between real mental evil and real mental good that serves as the major guideline of the Enlightenment Tradition. Not that the Tradition needs evil to define good; that is an extreme. But the existence of contraries such as "good and evil" allow us rationally and reasonably to choose the good and reject the evil. So, you are right: One of the more minor reasons for the existence of evil is to push minds towards the good.
Still, the underlying philosophy of the Way is "monism." Stated simply, this is the philosophy that holds that only one Mind actually exists, and that It has no real opposite.
If this is so, and the One Mind is Love, as we mystics hold, we must find out how the hell that evil can possibly serve Love! Happily, this is not quite as absurd as it does appear on first glance. Here is the spiritual chain of events:
We must here go all the way back to the beginning of souls, before bodies or worlds even existed. When individual souls (Mind-units) were emanated (were projected, dreamed) by the One, it was so that they could have fun. For lack of a better term, the cosmos gets "boring" when there is only the One. All that the One has is Mind; He/She, and all the cosmos, are only Mind, and so, filled everyewhere with Mind ("omnipresence"). So, in the Mind, the One begins the great dream.
He/She dreams the cosmos into being. He/She has already willed that other beings break apart, symbolically but never really, from him/herself. He/She is a joyous, playful puppeteer at this time, but
He/She has willed the Mind into perfect amnesia. He/She has exercised the unlimited Power ("omnipotence") to will those other parts of the One to forget that they are "one with the One."
This is all part of the "game" of the cosmos. It is an interesting, and harmless, way to have fun. In Hindu mysticism, it is called lila ("playing"). For innumerable eons, utterly past imagination, the souls play and love each other as cosmic beings of enormous Power, forgetting that they are the One.
Then the dream of the "material, physical" world begins. These superbeings play, pretend, and dream that they are actually creatures of material structure-- "flesh" is what the ancient mystics called it. This is patterned after animalnature.
They play and love together for countless eons. But some fall so far into the dream, and take the dream so seriously, that they actually forget that they are minds at all-- eternal, limitless minds. (This
Hindu mystics called "being swallowed by the serpent of maya.") They forget also that the world is a dream. Like lower forms of life, they become territorial and fearful. While before, in "paradise," everything that was mine and yours was "ours," now, private property emerges as a major illusion. Then the vicious infection of materialism occurs, as a disease. With it, all forms of avidya (ignorance) appear. This major shift of consciousness, falling into illusion as a trap, is described in the gnostic myth as the Goddess Sophia's falling into matter. It is also allegorized as the "Cain and Abel" story in Genesis.
Once people forget their true nature through ignorance, the chain of karma is forged. (Don't forget that the Great Forgetting was also a part of the will of the One, which never loses control, and which is perfect Love). And it is the chain of unavoidable cause-and-effect, founded upon greed-illusion, which naturally creates every form of karma, representing as "evil."
But this evil is not absolute evil. It is not directly created by perfect Mind, but it is permitted as part of the dream. (This is the theological distinction between the "active" and "permissive" will of God. It is still one will, undivided, but manifests in these two ways.) For all evil is "outside" of God; since God fills, and is, all Reality, anything "outside" of this Lovemind must be its opposite-- unreality or illusion.
So, to make a long story interminable-- all evil results from thousands of years of ignorance, error, and illusion. Even genetic factors are included in "karmogenetics." This all is collectively called karma. (The Greek word for "sin," in the Christian Scriptures, equates "sin" with "error," not with evil. So, sin is error, not evil.) But "deliberate error" is impossible, an oxymoron. Also, only deliberate, voluntary, consciously evil behavior (that designed to harm another) creates karma. Mistakes or errors, no matter how abundant, do not create any karma in one who has a pure heart. The interior Christ always and continuously says to those of pure heart, "All your sins are forgiven." At times, only the One knows the difference between "voluntary" and involuntary. That is why we cannot judge the total value of a person based only on her visible behaviors.
In sum, all evil has a cause-- former illusion-based evil. Evil comes back from previous evil, originally generated by ignorance. That is why mystics are so big on the rejection of ignorance. As we strive to replace ignorance with Love, we gently, gradually, incrementally erase all our old karma, lessening or decreasing that of the whole world. But many have not found this lesson, and the world is still filled to brimming, glutted with destructive karma.
Since this karma can be hideous and nightmarish, how can we manage ever to regard it as "good"? As noted, the mystic has a clear-sighted interior sense of right and wrong, good and evil. For this duality, like evil, is real and genuine in this limited world, although neither has absolute existence.
The purpose of karma is to teach Love. People put themselves through some quite ghastly hells of hate, fear, and other non-Love states in order to learn Love. (The state of believing yourself to be outside of, or without, Love is the essence of "hell.") They create enormous and very convincing hellstates everywhere. One of the best, and strongest, ways to teach the value of Love is to allow a person to fall into the illusion that she is without, completely separate from, Love. Then, when she awakens to the reality that she is Love, that Love immerses and saturates her, that Love is in fact the only Reality ("truth") in the entire cosmos, she is ecstatic. she touches bliss, a characteristic of
the Coremind, Lovemind, or God/Goddess.
*******
It is a pleasure to be "patient" when important issues, such as understanding and wisdom, are involved and at stake. I will always try to approach any question with unhurried attention and a single focus.:)
You speak in your note of "anger and frustration at The One for being more than I can comprehend..." This is similar to a bee stinging you because he does not understand the human mind. When the bee stings, he dies. He could continue to live if he did not use all this energy to express anger. Anger is energy-draining, and weakens us. In Kung Fu training, it is repeatedly taught that anger weakens you by draining your energy, even though, in the short term, it seems actually to make you stronger. This is because it takes large amounts of energy and expends it within moments. With a little thought, you can see how this drains you in the long run.
The same is true mentally and emotionally. Anger drains us, making us weaker and more vulnerable. Consistent or chronic anger actually weakens the immune-system, for example-- a fact demonstrated by immunology.
You write, "I can stay stuck in my anger or let it go and move on." That is exactly your choice. If you do "let it go," you will have all that extra energy recycled back into your system, to be used and directed as you select. You can use the recycled angerenergy as Lovenergy, kinetic energy (for movement and exercise), emotional energy, dreamenergy, or an abundance of other forces in life.
You write, "I adore the idea of striving to be a being of Love (even in regard to The One)." This is, by far, the supreme challenge of all spirituality. In reaching for this goal, we have set before us ultimate expansion, an endless path, to be a vessel for the Absolute, filled with Her, and, in final fulfillment, to become Her "stainless mirror." There is no more excellent or superb aim for any sentient being.
You write, "That is what I choose to focus my energy upon." This is the most excellent and superb goal of which human beings are capable. And we are capable of this only because of grace, for it is really God within us reaching for a greater vision of Herself, by looking into the stainless mirror of our personal being. This occurs only when our "personal"selves disappear into the One, when we fade as ego into the Infinite, surrendering absolutely everything to Love.
You write, "Beyond that, I will have to let go of the questions for now." No, my friend, you certainly need not simply "let go" of the questions; keep asking them, and we will together seek answers. But you do not want to let them become obstacles to your spiritual growth, your immediate departure upon the spiritual highway. Questions are good and healthy, because they present an active and growing mind. Please just do not allow them to be an "anchor" that pulls you to the bottom. Instead, let them be wings that carry you into the higher skies of Mind.
You write, "As you have pointed out, they are childish and uselessly combative." They can be childish, but "combative" is a word that would not have occurred to me. Now, I can see that they could also be that. It seems that there are questions that might paralyze or petrify you, and questions that will lift you into new areas of wisdom, understanding, and comprehension. Those above the level of human knowledge can be discussed, but not always answered. We can still make "good guesses" re questions to which we might not have absolute answers. That is part of the fun and captivating fascination of spiritual development.
So, keep asking those questions, and never let anyone stop you. Seeking is the first step to finding.
*******
Divine and Maternal Love
*******
The great Being of compassion and Love is continuously trying to "shake us awake" from the "nightmare" of every day life. But, unlike an earthly mother, She/He has vowed not to interfere with our freewill lifedesign. So, we are created to awaken as slowly or as quickly as we build into our personal karma. So, divine Love has built into it many factors that mere human Love does not encompass, including some restrictions and limitations. It would be excessively foolish and careless for us to judge divine Love by exactly the same criteria by which we measure human
or maternal Love.
The One also realizes, with crystalline clarity, how much of our suffering is sheerest illusion, and that our only hope for genuine peace and Love is to discover for ourselves what "truth" (Reality) really is.
We behave like arrested and backwards creatures if we allow ourselves to be carried away with our tiny emotions, even human Love, and start demanding what Love "should" and "should not" do, for we are amoebas passing judgment on a Love so vast and so intricate that we cannot even begin to understand Its vastness and immensity. It is not at all accurate or viable to compare this enormous Love to the Love felt by a mother for her child, even though there are precise analogies possible within this framework. (Still others are predictably invalid, however.)
*******
The Existence of "Evil"
*******
Outside of mind-created dream-illusion, evil cannot have an absolute existence.
But its relative existence is real. War, child-molestation, cruelty, murder, hurt and harm of all sorts do indeed exist within the holographic world. It is, in fact, the distinction between real mental evil and real mental good that serves as the major guideline of the Enlightenment Tradition. Not that the Tradition needs evil to define good; that is an extreme. But the existence of contraries such as "good and evil" allow us rationally and reasonably to choose the good and reject the evil. So, you are right: One of the more minor reasons for the existence of evil is to push minds towards the good.
Still, the underlying philosophy of the Way is "monism." Stated simply, this is the philosophy that holds that only one Mind actually exists, and that It has no real opposite.
If this is so, and the One Mind is Love, as we mystics hold, we must find out how the hell that evil can possibly serve Love! Happily, this is not quite as absurd as it does appear on first glance. Here is the spiritual chain of events:
We must here go all the way back to the beginning of souls, before bodies or worlds even existed. When individual souls (Mind-units) were emanated (were projected, dreamed) by the One, it was so that they could have fun. For lack of a better term, the cosmos gets "boring" when there is only the One. All that the One has is Mind; He/She, and all the cosmos, are only Mind, and so, filled everyewhere with Mind ("omnipresence"). So, in the Mind, the One begins the great dream.
He/She dreams the cosmos into being. He/She has already willed that other beings break apart, symbolically but never really, from him/herself. He/She is a joyous, playful puppeteer at this time, but
He/She has willed the Mind into perfect amnesia. He/She has exercised the unlimited Power ("omnipotence") to will those other parts of the One to forget that they are "one with the One."
This is all part of the "game" of the cosmos. It is an interesting, and harmless, way to have fun. In Hindu mysticism, it is called lila ("playing"). For innumerable eons, utterly past imagination, the souls play and love each other as cosmic beings of enormous Power, forgetting that they are the One.
Then the dream of the "material, physical" world begins. These superbeings play, pretend, and dream that they are actually creatures of material structure-- "flesh" is what the ancient mystics called it. This is patterned after animalnature.
They play and love together for countless eons. But some fall so far into the dream, and take the dream so seriously, that they actually forget that they are minds at all-- eternal, limitless minds. (This
Hindu mystics called "being swallowed by the serpent of maya.") They forget also that the world is a dream. Like lower forms of life, they become territorial and fearful. While before, in "paradise," everything that was mine and yours was "ours," now, private property emerges as a major illusion. Then the vicious infection of materialism occurs, as a disease. With it, all forms of avidya (ignorance) appear. This major shift of consciousness, falling into illusion as a trap, is described in the gnostic myth as the Goddess Sophia's falling into matter. It is also allegorized as the "Cain and Abel" story in Genesis.
Once people forget their true nature through ignorance, the chain of karma is forged. (Don't forget that the Great Forgetting was also a part of the will of the One, which never loses control, and which is perfect Love). And it is the chain of unavoidable cause-and-effect, founded upon greed-illusion, which naturally creates every form of karma, representing as "evil."
But this evil is not absolute evil. It is not directly created by perfect Mind, but it is permitted as part of the dream. (This is the theological distinction between the "active" and "permissive" will of God. It is still one will, undivided, but manifests in these two ways.) For all evil is "outside" of God; since God fills, and is, all Reality, anything "outside" of this Lovemind must be its opposite-- unreality or illusion.
So, to make a long story interminable-- all evil results from thousands of years of ignorance, error, and illusion. Even genetic factors are included in "karmogenetics." This all is collectively called karma. (The Greek word for "sin," in the Christian Scriptures, equates "sin" with "error," not with evil. So, sin is error, not evil.) But "deliberate error" is impossible, an oxymoron. Also, only deliberate, voluntary, consciously evil behavior (that designed to harm another) creates karma. Mistakes or errors, no matter how abundant, do not create any karma in one who has a pure heart. The interior Christ always and continuously says to those of pure heart, "All your sins are forgiven." At times, only the One knows the difference between "voluntary" and involuntary. That is why we cannot judge the total value of a person based only on her visible behaviors.
In sum, all evil has a cause-- former illusion-based evil. Evil comes back from previous evil, originally generated by ignorance. That is why mystics are so big on the rejection of ignorance. As we strive to replace ignorance with Love, we gently, gradually, incrementally erase all our old karma, lessening or decreasing that of the whole world. But many have not found this lesson, and the world is still filled to brimming, glutted with destructive karma.
Since this karma can be hideous and nightmarish, how can we manage ever to regard it as "good"? As noted, the mystic has a clear-sighted interior sense of right and wrong, good and evil. For this duality, like evil, is real and genuine in this limited world, although neither has absolute existence.
The purpose of karma is to teach Love. People put themselves through some quite ghastly hells of hate, fear, and other non-Love states in order to learn Love. (The state of believing yourself to be outside of, or without, Love is the essence of "hell.") They create enormous and very convincing hellstates everywhere. One of the best, and strongest, ways to teach the value of Love is to allow a person to fall into the illusion that she is without, completely separate from, Love. Then, when she awakens to the reality that she is Love, that Love immerses and saturates her, that Love is in fact the only Reality ("truth") in the entire cosmos, she is ecstatic. she touches bliss, a characteristic of
the Coremind, Lovemind, or God/Goddess.
*******
Visualization, Imagination, and Control
*******
No, imagery is not necessarily the "language" of deeper levels of Mind, such as soul, or, deeper, Spirit. As the name indicates, it can also be the tool of mere imagination, which can be partially or even completely conscious.
Even dreams can be highly influenced by the superficial conscious mind-- although they are more likely to emanate from the preconscious or personal unconscious. A very few arise from as deeply as soulmind, and, with extreme rarity, have been recorded as floating up from the deepest level of all-- Coremind, Lovemind, or Spirit.
Some believe that if they "image" clearly and long enough, they can create anything. If someone tells you this, ask her to produce a ten-carat diamond in her hands simply by imaging it. Guaranteed that she will not be able to do so. She will likely argue that such a "manifestation" would take much time. (If so, offer her however many years that she might need for the experiment.) Or, she might argue even that it could be done, but she personally does not have the power. If so, it is her job, since the burden of proof is upon her, to take you to someone-- anyone-- who can do this. Again, she will fail, for there is no person outside fantasy, imagination, or fairy-tale, who can actually perform this task.
For example, a cult-leader named Sai Baba has conned anumber of desperate people into believing that he can make gold coins appear out of thin air. This is anything but original or even smart, for this exact claim has been made, but never proved, for various gurus and cultists around the world, for centuries. Any one of them can, at any time, come into a lab and forever disperse all doubt; none ever has. (Actually, this is a "magic" trick learned by twelve-year-old beginners in magic.) If Sai Baba could do this, he would not continually humiliate himself by always asking-- and often begging-- for money from deluded followers. (He has also been seriously and repeatedly accused of sexual improprieties with young boys.)
People feel incredibly desperate to believe what they want. And what they want to believe is that they are in control of every element of their lives. Or, if not, someone else is (angels, et's, "masters," etc.)
But the perspective of Taoist mysticism is so much more grown-up. It abandons fairy-tales and wishful thinking and faces the real world in courage. It says, "Recognize that you do not control everything, that your ego is not God. Then, learn to live with it. Learn to dance with the cosmos, and find peace. Those who resist the cosmos as it is always create misery." This the superstitious do by trying to convince themselves of falsehoods ("my personal mind can control everything") or by denying obvious reality.
It is a sweet and very attractive illusion that you can have ("create") whatever you want simply by imaging, visualization, affirmations, or formulas. It requires no work, no change of personality, no struggle with profound and complex worldviews. It is the way of the pre-schooler, and that is why it is so popular on a planet such as earth.
Only one problem: It does not work. As long as you are insulated from real life, you can convince yourself of illusion. But when life hands you a lemon-- or a hand-grenade, then you are forced to leave behind pretty fairy-tales and come to grips with detachment, trust in the Flow, and real wisdom.
*******
No, imagery is not necessarily the "language" of deeper levels of Mind, such as soul, or, deeper, Spirit. As the name indicates, it can also be the tool of mere imagination, which can be partially or even completely conscious.
Even dreams can be highly influenced by the superficial conscious mind-- although they are more likely to emanate from the preconscious or personal unconscious. A very few arise from as deeply as soulmind, and, with extreme rarity, have been recorded as floating up from the deepest level of all-- Coremind, Lovemind, or Spirit.
Some believe that if they "image" clearly and long enough, they can create anything. If someone tells you this, ask her to produce a ten-carat diamond in her hands simply by imaging it. Guaranteed that she will not be able to do so. She will likely argue that such a "manifestation" would take much time. (If so, offer her however many years that she might need for the experiment.) Or, she might argue even that it could be done, but she personally does not have the power. If so, it is her job, since the burden of proof is upon her, to take you to someone-- anyone-- who can do this. Again, she will fail, for there is no person outside fantasy, imagination, or fairy-tale, who can actually perform this task.
For example, a cult-leader named Sai Baba has conned anumber of desperate people into believing that he can make gold coins appear out of thin air. This is anything but original or even smart, for this exact claim has been made, but never proved, for various gurus and cultists around the world, for centuries. Any one of them can, at any time, come into a lab and forever disperse all doubt; none ever has. (Actually, this is a "magic" trick learned by twelve-year-old beginners in magic.) If Sai Baba could do this, he would not continually humiliate himself by always asking-- and often begging-- for money from deluded followers. (He has also been seriously and repeatedly accused of sexual improprieties with young boys.)
People feel incredibly desperate to believe what they want. And what they want to believe is that they are in control of every element of their lives. Or, if not, someone else is (angels, et's, "masters," etc.)
But the perspective of Taoist mysticism is so much more grown-up. It abandons fairy-tales and wishful thinking and faces the real world in courage. It says, "Recognize that you do not control everything, that your ego is not God. Then, learn to live with it. Learn to dance with the cosmos, and find peace. Those who resist the cosmos as it is always create misery." This the superstitious do by trying to convince themselves of falsehoods ("my personal mind can control everything") or by denying obvious reality.
It is a sweet and very attractive illusion that you can have ("create") whatever you want simply by imaging, visualization, affirmations, or formulas. It requires no work, no change of personality, no struggle with profound and complex worldviews. It is the way of the pre-schooler, and that is why it is so popular on a planet such as earth.
Only one problem: It does not work. As long as you are insulated from real life, you can convince yourself of illusion. But when life hands you a lemon-- or a hand-grenade, then you are forced to leave behind pretty fairy-tales and come to grips with detachment, trust in the Flow, and real wisdom.
*******
Thoughts
Thoughts
*******
I am delighted that you have shared the sharings between me and [your wife Donna (pseudonym).]. From my side, you are always welcome to these sharings, so that, when I write to her, I also write to you.
Your letter was anything but simple. It contained many parts and subparts, so this response must also be a little complex. I apologize for this in advance. A few syllables simply will not suffice to explore all the mysteries suggested by, and in, your fascinating letter. But here goes:
You start with an important, even crucial, inquiry: How does it serve The One for us to wake up? To answer this, we must remember that the One is Love. It enhances and enriches the expression of theOne, as Her many vessels, whenever a person finds enlightenment. The One finds endless delight-- bliss or ecstasy-- in expressing Love through the many parts of her Mind. The more that beings become enlightened, the greater is Her sense of fulfillment, peace, and tranquility. She touches ecstasy and total contentment by loving through us, and the more that we are enlightened, the more, and the more fully, can She love through us. When She takes over a mind, that by no means "ends the game," for the game is infinite. That only begins the most enjoyable and fascinating part of the game. It has just begun! To see the "end of the game" is simple myopia, a pitiably finite and limited view.
It is also myopic to say that awakening does not serve the One at all. For, indeed, it does. All masters of all traditions disagree that "awakening does not serve the One" [Mind]. They all-- Jesus, the Buddha, Lao Tzu, Patanjali, Al Hallaj, Solomon, and all the rest, stand united in voicing the reality (truth) that awakening is a viable Way to serve the Mind of Love.
How spiritually dull to conclude "game over." That is absurd microvision, since the "game" cannot be exhausted by all the resources of such a tiny planet, in such a nanoscopic lifetime, as earthlife. The "game over" response is that of a shortsighted and ignorant perspective. It is true that the Mind does not want us to run the whole course and end the game of life, but there is no possibility that this can occur on a dustmote of a planet such as earth in the mere eyeblink of a human life. Someone [in the quotation in your letter] has way overestimated the potential of human consciousness.
Also, "What good does it do The One to watch us suffer and personally flop around like this.[?]" It does the Mind no good at all, but it is not the Infinite who is growing because of our experience; it is we who are growing. I do not know who wrote the stuff quoted in your letter, but it seems to blend pure cynicism with ignorance in a harmful and countergrowth fashion.
Your letter continues with a quoted question: "Why are we allowed to demand anything from The One?" We are not supposed to demand anything at all from the Lovemind. Our only appropriate response is to yield or surrender, not to demand.
The next question quoted is this: "Do we have that much influence on The One?" We do indeed influence the Lovemind, in much the same way that a newborn influences its mother, or a beloved creature her beloved companion. Our goal is not mere "influence," but a deep Love-relationship. We love; and Lovemind is influenced by Love, not by our possession of any "personal power," or not due to any weakness on Her/His part.
"A: It is told that at some point we collectively decided that we demanded our "freewill." What is this "it is told..."? Is this writer discussing mythology, legend, scripture? This is totally unclear. At any rate, he has it all wrong: We did not "demand" free will; it was a gift of grace. God, in His/Her abundant compassion, decided to give us free will as a matter of Love or generosity. God's alternative was to create a cosmos of puppets, robots, or "programmed" creatures. Freedom is an odd thing, in that it is a very rare "all or nothing" proposition. If you are "partly free," you are not free at all.
The next quotation says, "We are born without any knowledge of the truth." No way. We are born, and created, with a full understanding of all truth deep within the Mind. For the soul exists deeply within the Mind, and the Spirit exists deeply within the soul. Those who find an adequate spiritual path start to recover and reclaim these memories from the deep Unconscious. (The "higher Self" is soul, and the "highest" Self is Spirit.) So, if we go deeply enough into the Mind, we find that we are not intellectually naked, but that we contain an amazing and varied knowledge, wisdom, and understanding.
"No manual to help us." Actually, we do have several "manuals" or "maps" in the form of the records of hundreds of enlightened mystics since the beginning of recorded history. Some of these have evolved into "scripture," and some have not. But, besides the wealth of the Scriptures of Christianity, very rich in mysticism, we also have the Sutras of Buddhism and Hinduism, the writings of many sages from native American, Taoist, and other traditions. We have entire libraries of guidebooks or "manuals"!
The next quotation says, "Our truth is exactly what we make up in our own minds." This is a disastrous error. It is called, in philosophy, the "personal relativity of truth." It is a major error in both philosophy and spirituality. It implies that truth is an insubstantial, vague, and relative concept. Mystics often call God "Reality" or "Truth." This denies fully, rejects, the simplism and shallowness that each "makes up" her "truth" as she goes along. All mystics reject this unsophisticated notion. Truth is nuclear, core, to all spiritual exploration. So, truth=reality=God=Love=Mind.
"Q: It almost looks like The One can't be hurt by anything we do here at all. Can this be the case?
A: We just might be The One's, or someones giant science experiment. Hey, Mom look what I made. Wow, are these life forms on Earth ever fun to watch. I set up just a few ground rules and it's off to the races. They can do whatever they want but are in reality just reawakening to the fact that they are just me rediscovering myself."
This is a crude and shallow representation of what the cosmos is all about. It is also quite childish and unwise. The great masters have implied that we are more analogous to the "children" of the One than to a "science experiment." What good mother would ever view her children as a "science project"? This writer is cynical because of ignorance, and ignorant because of the absence of Love. This "spiritual" writer does not even mention Love. And Love is spirituality. And as for affecting the Lovemind, yes, we can affect Her/Him, but it is only because She/He wills it to be so, for Love's sake. God is affected deeply by your every tear.
"Q: Could The One be bored out here in the middle of nowhere?
A: The One is thinking, "I'll play a vast and complicated game!" We may just be little parts of The One playing. This thing called "all of life" might just be The One."
This comment is true insofar as it goes. But it does not go very deeply. It makes magnificent, illimitable Mind into a bored adolescent on a sunday afternoon. Actually, Mind is stunningly exciting, thrillingly sensuous, mindbogglingly smart, and is also so many things that we cannot even imagine. Most importantlly, it is a bottomless pool of sheer Love, which never, in its billions of billions of forms and powerlevels, gets boring! This writer has a very superficial, even dull, view of the depths and passions of the Mind.
"Q: Could there be other "The One's" in our universe?
A: Maybe ours is just now at Creator Milky Way High School level."
The form of the question is silly and counter-logical, for the "One" is called that precisely because it is internal unity, unified with all. A "second One" is an oxymoron, impossible, and self-contradictory. The other part of this [the "answer"] is unclear and obscure.
"Q: Why has consciousness on the human level taken so long to develop on planet Earth?
A: Life forms have been here for millions of years, most of the time in dinosaur-like bodies. It's interesting to note that human consciousness has only been around for a cosmic "blink of an eye". What happened all of the sudden, why the giant leap? Maybe we got genetically engineered by some advanced alien life form? Why would they help us? What could be in it for them?"
This answer is inaccurate and a bit absurd. Life has been on earth, not for millions, but billions, of years. And life did not express long, or much, in "dinosaur-like bodies." Much longer, life expressed as unicellular or primitive polycellular forms of various kinds. It is true that human consciousness is a relative new-comer to the scene. It is also probable that our earth was indeed a colony of higher beings, extraterrestrials of enormous wisdom. But it is neanderthalic to assume that these elevated beings are "trying to get something" personal out of life. They simply create life-forms for the sheer joy and fulfillment of creativity. (These beings are the elohim of Genesis.)
"Q: It seems that sometimes we are saved by "a guide" of some type. We sometimes escape disaster by the skin of our teeth. It seems like we get help. Is there such a thing as a "spirit guide" or personal angel?
A: Why would The One make this so? What's the point of "saving us"? If the laws of the universe are at work, shouldn't karma just play out? There should never be a reason to get a "spirit guide saving". The law is the law. Doesn't The One have control of all of this stuff? (I have personally been saved three times in my life and there is no other explanation then I got help, none!) Why didn't the 7 year old kid playing on the beach during a tidal wave get help?"
Obviously, the Mind can "save" a person from death or tragedy whenever It chooses. Sometimes, very exciting events are dreamed up by the Mind; but without changes, these would lead to death. If death at a certain time is not within your karmic pattern, you cannot be allowed to die at that time. Here is the principle: When it is your karmic time to leave the earth, nothing can or will prevent it. But until it is your appointed time, nothing can or must be allowed to kill you. We do not need "spirit guides" or ""guardian angels" to explain this function of Mind, but, if we find these concepts useful, there is certainly nothing "wrong" with seeing Mind in this way. So, contrary to the skeptical perspective of this writer, "God" often does have reasons to "save," or alter the dream of, a person. But, if it is within the karmic pattern (the kid and the tidal wave) God will not intervene at that time.
"Q: Then there's the predestination issue. Can anything we experience here be an accident?
A: No. There can't be any accidents. The universal is in perfect balance. Everything happens for a reason, a lesson. Yes, this is a giant school."
Most of your life is not predestined. You are not predestined in the microevents of your life. The decision to eat a peanut instead of a strawberry is not carved in cosmic granite as a cosmic law. It is the result of free-will choices, as are ninety-plus percent of the decisions of your life. But that which is karmic, like that which is genetic, is predestined. So, there are certain karmic lessons that you must learn, and certain cosmic and karmic teachers that you must meet.
***
Yes, a part of this mind is still very human. This part of the mind-nature was even stronger, much stronger, when young and still very confused. Wisdom does not blossom overnight; and it is normal and natural for a person to get angry at the Incomprehensible.
You know, I just want the whole thing to fit. I want not to be confused about reality? I hate left hanging.
***
"Reality" (truth) is what the spiritual path is all about. Mystics have discovered that Reality is Mind, and Mind Reality. And all that is truly real within the galaxy of Mind is Love. So, again, God=Love=Mind=Reality=Truth.
But, aren't you the least bite worried that The One might get mad at YOU since you are trying your hardest to end His game?
***
That game is infinite and bottomless, and even when everyone is fully enlightened, that game will only change, never end. It is endless and limitless, without boundaries. If we worry about the game's final state or nature, that is like an ant worried about an event in the most distant galaxy-- a waste of time. We are here to play as well as we can. We are here to surrender to Love, to turn our minds over to Love. Love can never be threatened by anyone who wants to give her life to Love. Love is thus made only stronger. To think that the Lovemind is ever threatened or disturbed by anything that we do (except rejecting Love) is to think as a clown, without a clue.
*******
*******
I am delighted that you have shared the sharings between me and [your wife Donna (pseudonym).]. From my side, you are always welcome to these sharings, so that, when I write to her, I also write to you.
Your letter was anything but simple. It contained many parts and subparts, so this response must also be a little complex. I apologize for this in advance. A few syllables simply will not suffice to explore all the mysteries suggested by, and in, your fascinating letter. But here goes:
You start with an important, even crucial, inquiry: How does it serve The One for us to wake up? To answer this, we must remember that the One is Love. It enhances and enriches the expression of theOne, as Her many vessels, whenever a person finds enlightenment. The One finds endless delight-- bliss or ecstasy-- in expressing Love through the many parts of her Mind. The more that beings become enlightened, the greater is Her sense of fulfillment, peace, and tranquility. She touches ecstasy and total contentment by loving through us, and the more that we are enlightened, the more, and the more fully, can She love through us. When She takes over a mind, that by no means "ends the game," for the game is infinite. That only begins the most enjoyable and fascinating part of the game. It has just begun! To see the "end of the game" is simple myopia, a pitiably finite and limited view.
It is also myopic to say that awakening does not serve the One at all. For, indeed, it does. All masters of all traditions disagree that "awakening does not serve the One" [Mind]. They all-- Jesus, the Buddha, Lao Tzu, Patanjali, Al Hallaj, Solomon, and all the rest, stand united in voicing the reality (truth) that awakening is a viable Way to serve the Mind of Love.
How spiritually dull to conclude "game over." That is absurd microvision, since the "game" cannot be exhausted by all the resources of such a tiny planet, in such a nanoscopic lifetime, as earthlife. The "game over" response is that of a shortsighted and ignorant perspective. It is true that the Mind does not want us to run the whole course and end the game of life, but there is no possibility that this can occur on a dustmote of a planet such as earth in the mere eyeblink of a human life. Someone [in the quotation in your letter] has way overestimated the potential of human consciousness.
Also, "What good does it do The One to watch us suffer and personally flop around like this.[?]" It does the Mind no good at all, but it is not the Infinite who is growing because of our experience; it is we who are growing. I do not know who wrote the stuff quoted in your letter, but it seems to blend pure cynicism with ignorance in a harmful and countergrowth fashion.
Your letter continues with a quoted question: "Why are we allowed to demand anything from The One?" We are not supposed to demand anything at all from the Lovemind. Our only appropriate response is to yield or surrender, not to demand.
The next question quoted is this: "Do we have that much influence on The One?" We do indeed influence the Lovemind, in much the same way that a newborn influences its mother, or a beloved creature her beloved companion. Our goal is not mere "influence," but a deep Love-relationship. We love; and Lovemind is influenced by Love, not by our possession of any "personal power," or not due to any weakness on Her/His part.
"A: It is told that at some point we collectively decided that we demanded our "freewill." What is this "it is told..."? Is this writer discussing mythology, legend, scripture? This is totally unclear. At any rate, he has it all wrong: We did not "demand" free will; it was a gift of grace. God, in His/Her abundant compassion, decided to give us free will as a matter of Love or generosity. God's alternative was to create a cosmos of puppets, robots, or "programmed" creatures. Freedom is an odd thing, in that it is a very rare "all or nothing" proposition. If you are "partly free," you are not free at all.
The next quotation says, "We are born without any knowledge of the truth." No way. We are born, and created, with a full understanding of all truth deep within the Mind. For the soul exists deeply within the Mind, and the Spirit exists deeply within the soul. Those who find an adequate spiritual path start to recover and reclaim these memories from the deep Unconscious. (The "higher Self" is soul, and the "highest" Self is Spirit.) So, if we go deeply enough into the Mind, we find that we are not intellectually naked, but that we contain an amazing and varied knowledge, wisdom, and understanding.
"No manual to help us." Actually, we do have several "manuals" or "maps" in the form of the records of hundreds of enlightened mystics since the beginning of recorded history. Some of these have evolved into "scripture," and some have not. But, besides the wealth of the Scriptures of Christianity, very rich in mysticism, we also have the Sutras of Buddhism and Hinduism, the writings of many sages from native American, Taoist, and other traditions. We have entire libraries of guidebooks or "manuals"!
The next quotation says, "Our truth is exactly what we make up in our own minds." This is a disastrous error. It is called, in philosophy, the "personal relativity of truth." It is a major error in both philosophy and spirituality. It implies that truth is an insubstantial, vague, and relative concept. Mystics often call God "Reality" or "Truth." This denies fully, rejects, the simplism and shallowness that each "makes up" her "truth" as she goes along. All mystics reject this unsophisticated notion. Truth is nuclear, core, to all spiritual exploration. So, truth=reality=God=Love=Mind.
"Q: It almost looks like The One can't be hurt by anything we do here at all. Can this be the case?
A: We just might be The One's, or someones giant science experiment. Hey, Mom look what I made. Wow, are these life forms on Earth ever fun to watch. I set up just a few ground rules and it's off to the races. They can do whatever they want but are in reality just reawakening to the fact that they are just me rediscovering myself."
This is a crude and shallow representation of what the cosmos is all about. It is also quite childish and unwise. The great masters have implied that we are more analogous to the "children" of the One than to a "science experiment." What good mother would ever view her children as a "science project"? This writer is cynical because of ignorance, and ignorant because of the absence of Love. This "spiritual" writer does not even mention Love. And Love is spirituality. And as for affecting the Lovemind, yes, we can affect Her/Him, but it is only because She/He wills it to be so, for Love's sake. God is affected deeply by your every tear.
"Q: Could The One be bored out here in the middle of nowhere?
A: The One is thinking, "I'll play a vast and complicated game!" We may just be little parts of The One playing. This thing called "all of life" might just be The One."
This comment is true insofar as it goes. But it does not go very deeply. It makes magnificent, illimitable Mind into a bored adolescent on a sunday afternoon. Actually, Mind is stunningly exciting, thrillingly sensuous, mindbogglingly smart, and is also so many things that we cannot even imagine. Most importantlly, it is a bottomless pool of sheer Love, which never, in its billions of billions of forms and powerlevels, gets boring! This writer has a very superficial, even dull, view of the depths and passions of the Mind.
"Q: Could there be other "The One's" in our universe?
A: Maybe ours is just now at Creator Milky Way High School level."
The form of the question is silly and counter-logical, for the "One" is called that precisely because it is internal unity, unified with all. A "second One" is an oxymoron, impossible, and self-contradictory. The other part of this [the "answer"] is unclear and obscure.
"Q: Why has consciousness on the human level taken so long to develop on planet Earth?
A: Life forms have been here for millions of years, most of the time in dinosaur-like bodies. It's interesting to note that human consciousness has only been around for a cosmic "blink of an eye". What happened all of the sudden, why the giant leap? Maybe we got genetically engineered by some advanced alien life form? Why would they help us? What could be in it for them?"
This answer is inaccurate and a bit absurd. Life has been on earth, not for millions, but billions, of years. And life did not express long, or much, in "dinosaur-like bodies." Much longer, life expressed as unicellular or primitive polycellular forms of various kinds. It is true that human consciousness is a relative new-comer to the scene. It is also probable that our earth was indeed a colony of higher beings, extraterrestrials of enormous wisdom. But it is neanderthalic to assume that these elevated beings are "trying to get something" personal out of life. They simply create life-forms for the sheer joy and fulfillment of creativity. (These beings are the elohim of Genesis.)
"Q: It seems that sometimes we are saved by "a guide" of some type. We sometimes escape disaster by the skin of our teeth. It seems like we get help. Is there such a thing as a "spirit guide" or personal angel?
A: Why would The One make this so? What's the point of "saving us"? If the laws of the universe are at work, shouldn't karma just play out? There should never be a reason to get a "spirit guide saving". The law is the law. Doesn't The One have control of all of this stuff? (I have personally been saved three times in my life and there is no other explanation then I got help, none!) Why didn't the 7 year old kid playing on the beach during a tidal wave get help?"
Obviously, the Mind can "save" a person from death or tragedy whenever It chooses. Sometimes, very exciting events are dreamed up by the Mind; but without changes, these would lead to death. If death at a certain time is not within your karmic pattern, you cannot be allowed to die at that time. Here is the principle: When it is your karmic time to leave the earth, nothing can or will prevent it. But until it is your appointed time, nothing can or must be allowed to kill you. We do not need "spirit guides" or ""guardian angels" to explain this function of Mind, but, if we find these concepts useful, there is certainly nothing "wrong" with seeing Mind in this way. So, contrary to the skeptical perspective of this writer, "God" often does have reasons to "save," or alter the dream of, a person. But, if it is within the karmic pattern (the kid and the tidal wave) God will not intervene at that time.
"Q: Then there's the predestination issue. Can anything we experience here be an accident?
A: No. There can't be any accidents. The universal is in perfect balance. Everything happens for a reason, a lesson. Yes, this is a giant school."
Most of your life is not predestined. You are not predestined in the microevents of your life. The decision to eat a peanut instead of a strawberry is not carved in cosmic granite as a cosmic law. It is the result of free-will choices, as are ninety-plus percent of the decisions of your life. But that which is karmic, like that which is genetic, is predestined. So, there are certain karmic lessons that you must learn, and certain cosmic and karmic teachers that you must meet.
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Yes, a part of this mind is still very human. This part of the mind-nature was even stronger, much stronger, when young and still very confused. Wisdom does not blossom overnight; and it is normal and natural for a person to get angry at the Incomprehensible.
You know, I just want the whole thing to fit. I want not to be confused about reality? I hate left hanging.
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"Reality" (truth) is what the spiritual path is all about. Mystics have discovered that Reality is Mind, and Mind Reality. And all that is truly real within the galaxy of Mind is Love. So, again, God=Love=Mind=Reality=Truth.
But, aren't you the least bite worried that The One might get mad at YOU since you are trying your hardest to end His game?
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That game is infinite and bottomless, and even when everyone is fully enlightened, that game will only change, never end. It is endless and limitless, without boundaries. If we worry about the game's final state or nature, that is like an ant worried about an event in the most distant galaxy-- a waste of time. We are here to play as well as we can. We are here to surrender to Love, to turn our minds over to Love. Love can never be threatened by anyone who wants to give her life to Love. Love is thus made only stronger. To think that the Lovemind is ever threatened or disturbed by anything that we do (except rejecting Love) is to think as a clown, without a clue.
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