Thursday, September 30, 2010

Healing and Miracles, 2

[This is written in first person – “I.” It is meant to be read in first person, with the “I” being you, the reader.]

Nothing at all has happened but that I have put myself to sleep, and dreamed a dream in which I am an alien to myself, and but a part of someone else’s dream. The miracle does not awaken me, but merely shows me who the dreamer is. It teaches me there is a choice of dreams while I am still asleep, depending on the purpose of my dreaming. Do I wish for dreams of healing, or for dreams of death? A dream is like a memory in that it pictures what I want shown to me. Since I have caused the dream and can accept another dream as well. But for this change in content, I must realize it was I who dreamed the dreaming I do not like. There is no alien no other. The dream is but an effect I have caused, and I could choose not be cause of this effect.

In fearful dreams, I am the victim. But in forgiving dreams, there is no victim, no one is asked to be afraid and suffer. These are the happy dreams the miracle exchanges for the ones the ego caused. The miracle does not ask my ego to make another dream, but only to see I made the one I would exchange for it. Tho I may cause a dream, I can never give it real effects. The dreamer of a dream is not awake, but does not know he sleeps. He sees illusions of himself as sick or well, depressed or happy, but without a stable cause there can be no effects.

The miracle establishes that I dream a dream, and that its content is not true. This is a crucial step in dealing with illusions. No one is afraid when they perceive they made them up. Fear is held in place because the dreamer did not see that he was author of the dream, and not a figure in the dream. The miracle does nothing but show dreamers that they have done nothing. What they fear is cause without the consequences; and so it never was and we dreamers are free to choose the happy dream.

The world is full of miracles. They stand in shining silence next to every dream of pain and suffering, of sin and guilt. They are the dream’s alternative, the choice to be the dreamer, rather than deny the active role in making up the dream. The body is released because the mind acknowledges ‘this is not done to me, but I am doing this.’ Thus the mind is free to make another choice. Beginning her, salvation will proceed and all the dreaming of the world is undone.

Wednesday, September 29, 2010

Healing and the Miracle

[This is written in first person – “I.” It is meant to be read in first person, with the “I” being you, the reader.]

The miracle does nothing. All it does is to undo. And thus it cancels out the interference to what has been done. It does not add, but merely takes away. And what it takes away is long since gone, but because its kept in memory, appears to have immediate effects. This world was over long ago. The thoughts that made it are no longer in the mind that thought of them and loved them for a little while. The miracle but shows the past is gone, and what is gone has no effects. Remembering a cause can but produce illusions of its presence, not effects.

Remembering is as selective as perception, being its past tense. It is perception of the past as if it were occurring now, and still were there to see. Memory like perception, is a skill made up by ego to take the place of what spirit gave in my creation. And like all things ego made, it can be used to serve another purpose, and to be the means for something else. It can be used to heal and not to hurt, if I allow it to do so.

Nothing employed for healing represents an effort to do anything at all. It is a recognition that I have no needs which require anything be done. Spirit uses memory, not of past events, but of a present state. Ego is so accustomed to believing memory holds only the past, that it is hard for me to realize it can also remember now. Spirit’s use of memory is quite apart from time. It uses memory not to keep the past, but as way to let it go.

Memory holds whatever message it is given, and does what it is given to do. It does not write the message, nor say what it is for. Like the body, it is purposeless in itself. If it seems to serve to cherish ancient hate, and give pictures of injustices and hurts, it is because I asked it to do that. All the strange associations made to keep the past alive, the present dead, are stored within it, waiting my command that they be brought to me to live again. Thus do their effects appear to be increased by time, which took their cause away.

Yet time is another phase of what does nothing. It works hand in hand with all the other attributes with which I seek to keep the truth about myself concealed. Time neither takes away nor restores. Yet the ego says the past has caused the present. No change can be made in the present if its cause is past. If only the past is held in memory, it is a way to hold the past against the now.

It’s best to remember nothing that I taught myself, for I was badly taught. Why keep a useless lesson, when a better one can be learned? When ancient memories of hate appear, remember that their cause is gone, and so it is not possible to remember what made them what they were, or seemed to be. I’m glad that its gone, for this is what I would be pardoned from. Instead I want to see the new effects of cause accepted now, with consequences here and allow them to surprise me with their loveliness. The ancient new ideas they bring will be the happy consequences of a cause spirit has remembered for me.

In gentle laughter does spirit perceive the cause, and looks not to effects. Spirit bids me bring each terrible effect to It that we may look together on its foolish cause and laugh with It for awhile, remembering into eternity, where all is one, there crept a tiny, mad idea, at which I remembered not to laugh. In my forgetting did the thought become a serious idea, and possible of both accomplishment and real effects. Together, we can laugh them both away, and understand that time cannot intrude upon eternity. It is a joke to think that time can come to circumvent eternity, which means there is not time.
A timelessness in which time is made real; a part of spirit that can attack itself; a separate person that is an enemy; a mind within a body, all of which I believe and accept as true, are all forms of double concepts and circularity. I judge effects, but spirit judges their cause. And by Its judgment are effects removed. Perhaps I come in tears, but if I have a little willingness and give it over, I will hear spirit say, ‘behold it is but an idle dream, in which this could occur.’

Tuesday, September 28, 2010

Healing

[This is written in first person – “I.” It is meant to be read in first person, with the “I” being you, the reader.]

Problems are not specific but they take specific forms, and these specific shapes make up the world. And no one understands the nature of their problem. If they did, it would be there no more for them to see. Its very nature is that it is not. And thus, while they perceives it they can not perceive it as it is. But healing is apparent in specific instances, and generalizes to include them all. This is because problems are all really the same, despite their different forms. All learning aims at transfer, which becomes complete with two situations that are seen as one, for only common elements are there. Yet this can only be attained by spirit - one who does not see the differences I see. When I give it over to spirit, the total transfer of learning is made in spite of all the differences I see, and that convinces me they could not have been real.

My healing will extend and be brought to problems I thought were not my own. I will not fear the way I perceive problems. I am wrong, but the spirit within me is right. I will leave the transfer of my learning to the spirit within. My part is merely to apply what spirit has taught me to myself, and It will do the rest. Thus the power of my learning will be proved to me by all the different witnesses it finds. Those closest to me will be first, but thousands stand behind them, and beyond each of them there are a thousand more. Each one may seem to have a problem that is different from the rest. Yet they are solved together. And there common answers shows the questions could not have been separate.

Peace be to me to whom healing is offered. And I will learn that peace is given me when I accept the healing for myself. I need not know its total value to understand that I have benefited from it. What occurred within the instant that love entered without attack will stay forever. My healing will be one of its effects. Yet all the witnesses that I behold will be far less than all there really are. Infinity cannot be understood by merely counting up its separate parts. Spirit thanks me for my healing, for It knows it is a gift of love unto Its children, and therefore, unto It.

Monday, September 27, 2010

Double Concepts, 3

[This is written in first person – “I.” It is meant to be read in first person, with the “I” being you, the reader.]

The only way to heal is to be healed. The miracle extends without my help, but I, acting for myself, and you acting for yourself, am needed that it can begin. Accept the miracle of healing and it will go forth because of what it is. It is its nature to extend itself the instant it is born. And it is born the instant it is offered and received. No one can ask another to be healed. But they can let themselves be healed, and thus offer the other what they have received. Who can bestow upon another what they do not have? And who can share what they deny themselves? Spirit speaks to everyone, but only by hearing It and listening will Its voice extend. I must hear and accept for myself, you must hear and accept for yourself. No one can do it for us.

Health is the witness to health. Only when is has been demonstrated, is it proved and provides a witness that compels belief. No one is healed through double messages. If I, or you, wish only to be healed, I heal. A single purpose makes healing possible. But if I am afraid of healing, it can not come through me. The only thing that is required for a healing is lack of fear. The fearful are not healed and cannot heal. This does not mean that the conflict between the double messages must be gone forever from my mind, or yours, to heal. If it were, there would be no need of healing. But it does mean, if only for an instant – the holy instant, that I love without attack. An instant is sufficient. Miracles wait not on time.

The holy instant is the miracle’s abiding place. From there, each one is born into this world as witness to a state of mind that has transcended conflict, and has reached to peace. It carries comfort from the place of peace into the battleground of our double concept world, demonstrating that war and conflict have no effects. All the hurt that war and conflict have sought to bring, the broken bodies and shattered limbs, the screaming dying, terror, and silent dead, are gently lifted up and comforted.

There is no sadness where a miracle has come to heal. And nothing more than just one instant of my love, and yours, without attack is necessary that all this occur. In that one instant I am healed and in that single instant is all healing done. What could stand apart from me, when I accept the blessing the holy instant brings? Be not afraid of blessing, for the one who blesses me, loves all the world, leaving nothing within it that could be feared. But if I, shrink from blessing, the world will indeed seem fearful, for I withheld peace and comfort leaving it to die.

Thursday, September 23, 2010

Double Concepts 2

But pain drives forgiveness from my mind, fills in the empty spaces and proves the body must be real. It’s loud obscuring shrieks fill the space spirit occupies, making hearing Its still, small voice impossible. Pain compels attention drawing it away from spirit and focusing it upon itself. Pain’s purpose is the same as pleasure’s; they are both means for making the body real, filling the space, and denying our reality as spirit. Despite appearances, what shares a common purpose is the same. Pleasure and pain are equally unreal, because their purpose cannot be achieved. Thus they are means for nothing; for they have a goal without a meaning.

The ego shifts us from pain to pleasure, and back to pain. Both are witnesses for the same experience and carry the same message: we are here, within this body, and can be hurt. We can have pleasure, too, but only at the cost of pain. These witnesses are joined by many more. Each one seems different because it has a different name, and seems to answer to a different sound, but they are all the same. Call pleasure pain and it will hurt; call pain pleasure and it will feel good. That’s what S&M is all about. Ego’s witnesses but shift from name to name; one steps forward, the other back, but which is foremost hardly matters.

This body, purposeless within itself, holds all our memories and all our hopes. We use its eyes to see, its ears to hear, and let it tell us what it feels. It does not know. It tells us but the names we gave it to use, when we call forth the witnesses to its reality. We can not choose which among them is real, for which ever we choose is like the rest; we choose this name or that, nothing more. We do not make a witness true because we called him by truth’s name.

God’s witness sees no witnesses against the body. Nor does he listen to the witnesses who speak for its reality. He knows the body is not real; knows we are asleep with God, dreaming we are here; knows nothing could contain what we believe the body contains. For each witness for the body’s reality, he sends a witness to your life in him who knows no death. Each miracle makes no distinctions in the names by which the ego’s witnesses are called. It merely proves that what they represent had no effects.

The miracle is the experience of the holy instant, of grace, of bliss in the midst of fear. The one who brings the miracle perceives all the ego’s witnesses as one; knows there is no order of difficulty in miracles. As fear is witness to death, so the miracle is witness to life. The miracle works and forgives because it stands for what is past forgiveness and is true. How foolish and insane to think a miracle is bound by the laws it came to undo! The ego’s laws have different witnesses, attesting to different sufferings.

To the one who sends forth miracles to bless the world, a tiny stab of pain, a little worldly pleasure, and the throes of death itself are but a single sound; a call for healing, and a plaintive cry for help and to awaken from a world of misery. It is their sameness the miracle proves, for it dissolves the ‘laws’ that call them different and shows them to be powerless.

Let us be witnesses to the miracle, and not the laws of the ego. There is no need to suffer any more. But there is need for us to be healed, to awaken, to hear the still small voice and claim the holy instant. The resurrection of the world awaits our healing and happiness, that we may demonstrate our reality as spirit. Forgiveness and the holy instant will replace the ego’s world, if we will use them and allow them to. What better function could we serve but this; to be healed that we may heal, and suffer not the laws of the ego be applied to us, choosing the miracle and holy instant instead.

Tuesday, September 21, 2010

Double Concepts

Power cannot oppose, for opposition would weaken it, and weakened power is a contradiction in ideas. Weak strength is meaningless. To weaken is to limit and impose an opposite that contradicts the concept. It joins to the idea a something it is not and makes it unintelligible. Who can understand a double concept, such as ‘weakened-power’ or ‘hateful-love’ or ‘living-death?’ Who indeed? I do, you do; that’s the nature of how we think and perceive. We see it all as a matter of degree, of comparison.

Unfortunately, we think of ourselves and each other in these terms, as double thoughts; one half cancelled out by the other and thus we have no meaning and stand for nothing. To realize there is nothing to attack or deny; love or hate; to endow with power or see as weak is the beginning of reality. The picture we have of the world, ourselves and each other has been wholly cancelled out because it is built of contradictions. Since it has no cause, there can be no effects. The picture we cherish is wholly absent and has never existed at all. Let, then, the empty space it occupies be recognized as vacant, and the time devoted to seeing it as wasted.
An empty space perceived as not filled, an interval of time perceived as unused, become silent invitations to the truth/reality to enter. No other welcome or preparation need be made. What we leave vacant, God will fill and with God, truth abides. Un-weakened power, with no opposite, is what God is. For this there are no pictures, no symbols. Nothing points beyond truth, for what can stand for more than everything? Yet true undoing - accepting this truth by accepting that the space is vacant and time is unused, must be kind. And so the first replacement for our picture is another picture of another kind.

As nothingness cannot be pictured, so totality can not be pictured. Reality is ultimately known without a form, un-pictured and unseen. But its memory, for we are there, dreaming we are here, can be felt and experienced. The experience of forgiveness - holding nothing, needing nothing, makes the exchange of pictures possible. From the place of forgiveness, the pictures we have of the world, ourselves and each other are single, not double concepts.

Through forgiveness – true forgiveness, not the ‘bring the guilty bastard in so I can forgive him’ kind, nothing that the eyes have ever seen or the ears ever heard will remain to be perceived. A single Power, without opposites, wholly limitless has come, not to destroy, but to receive Its own. Each of us has had moments of this forgiveness, a bliss out of the blue, flashes of the peace of power that oppose nothing, a single thought, without opposite, including and embodying everything – the holy instant. Those flashes, those instants, are what we want to practice to have more of.

Monday, September 20, 2010

If/then, again

I was reflecting on the “I want what I want” post and I saw an ‘if/then’ proposition – if I get what I want, then I’ll be happy. So now I’m practicing the presence by affirming I want what I want and it’s OK, even tho it seems there might be negative consequences, I’m affirming that fear is of the limited mind, my bloated nothingness, and if the desire’s there, and has been forever, then perhaps, no, it will be OK, more than OK, will be the next step in my evolution. So I’m letting go of the ‘if/then’ and being happy and OK with spirit now and happy and OK with spirit when I get what I want.

I’m affirming and knowing that my consciousness of spirit within is the source of my supply – god, it feels good to say that and mean it – without laying on any demands – ‘if/then,’ or judgments, or making up a story about being right or wrong. I’m affirming and knowing that my source, the divine presence in whose perfection I (and you) live will manifest through me according to my acceptance of it. If I accept a lot, I will get a lot. If I accept only a little, I will receive only a little. It is done unto me as I believe.

I’m sensing that with all my gifts, faults, strengths and weaknesses – accepting myself just as I am, not needing to be better or fix anything, that I’m here to distribute the qualities of life – love, truth, joy, justice and the American Way, that are my (and your) divine heritage. I (you, too) was born to be the place where God shows up, in me, as me. Leading from God’s wisdom, compassion and grace, having my purpose to be with these first and live and share from the inner place where these qualities nurture and glow, I need not strive, nor seek for approval, nor worry about things going wrong or not working. I (you) need only experience these without pre-conditions, without an ‘if/then,’ and the joy and results flow from the process.

Friday, September 17, 2010

Funk

I’m in one of those betwixed and between places, where some things I really, really want, at an ego level, but think may be bad for me at both ego and spiritual levels, but would go ahead with anyway, trouble or no, and have made a lot of moves to obtain, aren’t happening; and I’m pissed. The laws of cause and effect which I accept, tell me my fear of what I want is getting in the way of getting what I want. I want to indulge, to take a chance, to see if what I want isn’t as bad for me as I fear, but I can’t get it to find out.

I think I’m trying to be too, good, and what I need to be is just human. I mean being human is both/and, being spiritual and physical, and I’ve been, not dissing the physical, but perhaps overemphasizing the spiritual. It’s OK to want what I want even tho it may be ‘bad’ for me, I don’t have to be perfect and maybe if what I want doesn’t work out so well, going there anyway, is still the next step on my human/spiritual path. In other words, perhaps its my ego idea of what spirit wants, and not spirit at all, that’s in the way.

Anyhow, this is also about my need and desire to be right. In fact, that’s what this blog is about, being right. Blogging allows me to think out loud, to reflect and choose and be right. Of course, we all want to be right, that’s an ego thing. But I see it’s also a spiritual thing, because searching for what’s ‘right’ is a spiritual quest, too.

But, being absolutely right, as in making others absolutely wrong, is not a spiritual quest, it is an ego illusion. What I want is for me, something I want to do; it’s not intended to harm anyone else, and will not be, I trust, at anyone else’s expense. What I want is not to practice being right, but to fulfill a deep desire that I tend to think of as ego, but could also be spiritual. I want to have what I want, experience it, not fantasize about it, live in harmony, cooperation, and partnership with all aspects of my Self and others, and relinquish the need and desire to be perfect, ‘good’ or right and the related need and desire to act from a place of having ‘earned’ what I want as a reward for good behavior or from suffering and victim hood or being wronged.

Courage! Just say yes and go for it, forget all the mental/emotional gyrations; let spirit and ego be one and aligned.

Thursday, September 16, 2010

The Blaming Challenge

I am so disappointed and heartbroken by all the whining, blaming and just plain stupidity I hear all around me and on the media. It really hurts! I feel so left out ‘cause I don’t want to whine and blame and act stupid! What’s happened to our spirit? Did the commies take it? No, the Democrats took it. Yeah, let’s blame them and Washington and government itself. Yeah, everything would be fine if we just got ‘government,’ the great Satan, off our backs so we could rely on self interest and dog-eat-dog capitalism.

But could it be we ourselves lost our spirit, not ‘lost’ it, but actually gave it away and refused to take it back? Haven’t any of the whiners and complainers heard of the saying, ‘when things get tough, the tough get going?’ Haven’t any of the whiners and complainers heard about a thing called the self-fulfilling prophecy? Don’t they know that all the whining, blaming and just plain stupidity is creating more of itself? I heard about the self-fulfilling prophecy a zillion years ago, my freshman year of college in Econ 101. The self-fulfilling prophecy was credited with helping to create the great depression, looks like we’re doing that again. And how about Roosevelt’s famous – even tho so many today in their wisdom hate him and want to undo all the horrible commie things he did, “we have nothing to fear, but fear itself” speech?

Surrounded by tales of evil-doers, lack, limitation and betrayal on every side, it’s daunting for me, perhaps you too, to keep the faith. But that is exactly what I (we?) must do lest I fall victim to the collective hysteria. I want and need to continue to believe that every problem has a spiritual solution, no matter what the appearances.

If ever there was a time for working from the inside out, for trusting our spiritual guidance and trying new more compassionate, fear-free, non-blaming approaches, this is it. Using these approaches is what I mean by ‘when things get tough, the tough get going.’ Let’s have the courage of our convictions. The current methods of blame, fear and terror haven’t yet made the world a better place, why think they will in the future? The definition of insanity is doing the same things over and over and expecting a different result. Enough, already!

I’m shifting away from the blaming, fear and terror, not because some super-power in the sky says to do so, but because not only do those methods not work, they’re painful to use. I’m shifting to compassionate, fear free, non-blaming approaches, in spite of appearances, again, not because God says to, I mean heaven forbid if we did what God wants us to do – we’re doing so well with the Devil’s ways, although doing God’s will and building a world that works for all Its creation is worthwhile, but because it feels better and we’ve never really given compassionate, fear free, non-blaming approaches a chance, labeling those that have tried them as wimps.

I’m practicing shifting from fear and loathing to blame-free inside out like crazy; I mean, look at all the opportunities I have to practice, appearances are so shitty! I am so grateful, I’m reminded of the saying, ‘be careful of what you ask for, you just might get it!’ It’s not always fun, but it’s the best challenge in town and when things get tough, this tough guy gets going!

Tuesday, September 14, 2010

Paraprosedokian Sentences 2

Paraprosdokian Sentences (what ever the hell that is? Well I'll tell ya)
A paraprosdokian (from Greek, meaning "beyond" and
"expectation") is a figure of speech in which the latter part of a sentence or phrase is
surprising or unexpected in a way that causes the reader or listener to reframe or reinterpret the first part. It is frequently used for humorous or dramatic effect, sometimes producing an anticlimax. For this reason, it is extremely popular among comedians and satirists. Some paraprosdokians not only change the meaning of an early phrase, but also play on the double meaning of a particular word, creating a syllepsis.


Ø Behind every successful man is his woman. Behind the fall of every
successful man is usually another woman.

Ø A clear conscience is usually the sign of a bad memory.

Ø You do not need a parachute to skydive. You only need a
parachute to skydive more than once.

Ø The voices in my head may not be real, but they have some good
ideas!

Ø Always borrow money from a pessimist. He won't expect it back.

Ø A diplomat is someone who can tell you to go to hell in such a way
that you will look forward to the trip.

Ø Hospitality: making your guests feel like they're at home, even if
you wish they were.

Ø Money can't buy happiness, but it sure makes misery easier to live
with.

Ø I discovered I scream the same way whether I'm about to be
devoured by a great white shark or if a piece of seaweed touches my
foot.

Ø Some cause happiness wherever they go. Others whenever they
go.

Ø I used to be indecisive. Now I'm not sure.

Ø I always take life with a grain of salt, plus a slice of lemon, and a
shot of tequila.

Ø When tempted to fight fire with fire, remember that the Fire
Department usually uses water.

Ø You're never too old to learn something stupid.

Ø To be sure of hitting the target, shoot first and call whatever you hit
the target.

Ø Nostalgia isn't what it used to be.

Ø Some people hear voices. Some see invisible people. Others have
no imagination whatsoever.

Ø A bus is a vehicle that runs twice as fast when you are after it as
when you are in it.

Monday, September 13, 2010

Paraprosdokian Sentences 1

Paraprosdokian Sentences (what ever the hell that is? Well I'll tell ya)
A paraprosdokian (from Greek, meaning "beyond" and
"expectation") is a figure of speech in which the latter part of a sentence or phrase is
surprising or unexpected in a way that causes the reader or listener to reframe or reinterpret the first part. It is frequently used for humorous or dramatic effect, sometimes producing an anticlimax. For this reason, it is extremely popular among comedians and satirists. Some paraprosdokians not only change the meaning of an early phrase, but also play on the double meaning of a particular word, creating a syllepsis.


Ø Do not argue with an idiot. He will drag you down to his level and
beat you with experience.

Ø Going to church doesn't make you a Christian any more than
standing in a garage makes you a car.

Ø The last thing I want to do is hurt you. But it's still on the list.

Ø Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear
bright until you hear them speak.

Ø If I agreed with you we'd both be wrong.

Ø We never really grow up, we only learn how to act in public.

Ø War does not determine who is right - only who is left.

Ø Knowledge is knowing a tomato is a fruit; Wisdom is not putting it in
a fruit salad.

Ø The early bird might get the worm, but the second mouse gets the
cheese.

Ø Evening news is where they begin with 'Good evening', and then
proceed to tell you why it isn't.

Ø To steal words from one person is plagiarism. To steal ideas from
many is research.

Ø A bus station is where a bus stops. A train station is where a train
stops. On my desk, I have a work station.

Ø How is it one careless match can start a forest fire, but it takes a
whole box to start a campfire?

Ø Some people are like Slinkies ... not really good for anything, but
you can't help smiling when you see one tumble down the stairs.

Ø Dolphins are so smart that within a few weeks of captivity, they can
train people to stand on the very edge of the pool and throw them fish.

Ø I thought I wanted a career, turns out I just wanted pay checks.

Ø A bank is a place that will lend you money, if you can prove that
you don't need it.

Ø Whenever I fill out an application, in the part that says "If an
emergency, notify:" I put "DOCTOR".

Ø I didn't say it was your fault, I said I was blaming you.

Ø I saw a woman wearing a sweat shirt with "Guess" on it...so I said
"Implants?"

Ø Why does someone believe you when you say there are four billion
stars, but check when you say the paint is wet?

Ø Women will never be equal to men until they can walk down the
street with a bald head and a beer gut, and still think they are sexy.

Ø Why do Americans choose from just two people to run for president
and 50 for Miss America ?

Friday, September 10, 2010

Just Stop

Remember that old joke: guy goes to the doctor, says, “It hurts when I do this,” and the doctor says, “Don’t do that”? The spiritual truth is, it is that easy, if we did what the doctor advised, the pain would go away. But we don’t. I’m all the time doing things that don’t work for me and actually hurt me, like eating potato chips, visiting porn sites, and mousing even after I feel pain in my hands. Do you do that, too, do things that don’t work for you and actually hurt you? I think we all do.

Why is an interesting question. If we could figure out why perhaps we wouldn’t do those things so often. Stopping seems almost out of the question tho, too much seeming pain not enough seeming gain to go for the cold turkey approach. But the fact is, we don’t have to know why in order to stop, we can just stop. Needing to know ‘why’ is a game the analytical left brained part of our ego minds play with us. We could just stop, feel better and let the improvement, the good, pain-free experience sustain us.

The Truth about us is, the Course says, as does SOM and indeed the deepest mystical traditions of all faiths, Gnostic Christianity, Sufi Islam, Zen Buddhism and Kabalistic Judaism, that we are perfect, healthy, pain free, spiritual beings right now, one with all that is, dreaming we are having an earthly experience. This truth can not be perceived, but only known, the Course says. That means we can not use everyday, ego consciousness to know who we are, we can only know who we are, actually experience it. The more I do this, know this, the more I know it and actually experience it. In other words, when I follow the doctor’s advice, and stop doing what hurts and instead open myself to the truth, the pain stops and my perfect, God-given reality emerges. The more I stop doing what hurts, the more blessed and pain free I am. Just stop. Each time the opportunity to do something hurtful to myself or another arises, I can know that right there, in that place, in that moment, I can shift from pain to bliss, just stop, and experience the truth about myself and the other.

This is not only true for me, but true for everyone that does it. There is a parallel process for us to follow: faith and practice. Know the Truth of your own and everyone’s reality as spirit; court the divine and practice eliminating anything unlike it in your consciousness. It’s difficult at first but gets easier the more you do it; or at least, that’s how it’s working for me. Knowing the Truth, courting spirit and eliminating the illusion of my little, pain-ridden, earth bound self, is even becoming almost as good as eating potato chips and visiting porn sites!

Thursday, September 9, 2010

Witholding Forgiveness 2

Withholding forgiveness is like drinking poison and hoping the other person will die.

Sailing to the edge of the known world, past consensus reality to discover something greater that our selves, our little, fearful selves and contact our greater Self, the Self that is all of life: human, animal, vegetable and mineral, and then returning, bringing that ‘something’ with you to share with the rest of Life, is what Joseph Campbell called ‘the hero’s journey, and requires letting go, opening to something new, faith and trusting your own experience.

I found that I had to do all these things simultaneously. But, trusting your own experience is a good place to start. Trusting your own experience means, among other things, understanding and learning how your inner power works and using it to have a stronger more meaningful connection with that power Itself, within yourself and outside yourself, in others, and to manifest more of what your vision suggests and less of what diminishes it.

What supports Life is life. What supports Love is love. Means and ends must be congruent. It is a sad and horrible confusion of inner and outer, self and Self, reality and Reality, to think that Life is created through Death. That we have to burn people at the stake to save their souls. The truth seems to be: As above, so below; What goes around comes around. We can not use fear, horror and terror and not be fearful, horrible and terrible. We can not use shock and awe and not be shocking and awful. Life does not come from death but from Life. What goes around comes around.

Its horrible and terrible for me to contemplate this truth, much less believe it, because, as an American, I see that my nation does use shock and awe and then stupidly wonders why other nations find us shocking and awful. But I am also proud to be an American because we have our ideals, our Constitution. I want us, long for us, to be more about our ideals and less about our fears. We didn’t win the Cold War by being more Russian than the Russians, by using their intrusive, totalitarian regime, we won it by sticking to our ideals, by being Americans. So, let’s trust our own experience, let go of our fears and false beliefs and have faith that living up to our ideals will work.

We have to bet it all on black, so to speak; to resolve to renounce means not congruent with the ends we seek. If we are about Life, we resolve to use only Life affirming means. If we are about human rights and democracy, we resolve to renounce strategies, policies, and tactics that deny human rights and are undemocratic. This will not be easy, because it is inner work, about taking responsibility for our own and our communities’ thoughts and actions and for being in integrity and living up to our highest and best.

If we are Christians, we want to choose love and compassion – the heart of Jesus’ teaching, not only for other Christians but for all God’s creation, the entire earth – land, sea, animal, vegetable and mineral. But doing the inner work and following Jesus’ teaching is too demanding, too difficult and we have grown lazy and complacent, would rather blame others and look for ‘solutions’ outside of ourselves.

For me, I’m stuck at the point of thinking: ‘Bring the guilty bastards in so I can forgive them!’ As I rely on my small mind, my earthly ego mind, I think I know what needs to be done and become quite angry and upset when almost no one else sees it the way I do. I’m like, ‘lead, follow, or get out of the way!’

But that’s not working for me, never really worked for me, though I’m fairly ‘successful’ as the world defines success. But I know if anything is going to change for the better, I have to change, first. I have to trust that if I get my bloated nothingness out of the way, set an intention to realize my connection with all that is, then think, feel, live and act from that place of connection, I will know what to do; and what I do will not only be good for me, because if its only good for me, its not good enough, but for all of Life. It will build not only a world that works for everyone, but for every thing, as well.

Wednesday, September 8, 2010

Whitholding Forgiveness

Withholding forgiveness is like drinking poison and hoping the other person will die. Wow! How cool! How thought provoking and how so very true. I know it, I feel it, when I feel hurt, victimized, wounded to the depths of my soul, wronged, not understood or appreciated, that’s pain enough. But to compound it by seeking vengeance and punishment of the ‘evil’ doer and not letting go of my pain until such vengeance is exacted, is just as painful to me as the initial ‘wrong’, if not more so. That’s ‘eye for an eye’ thinking, primitive and something I pride myself on evolving past. It’s outside-in thinking, instead of inside-out. It makes me a powerless victim instead of a potent actor.

I ‘know,’ intellectually, that each time I feel victimized, wounded or offended, I am literally giving my inner power away to a seemingly real outside cause. It is, in fact, using that inner power to make that outside cause appear real. I know in my sane, calmer moments that whatever seems to be going on ‘out there’ is a pigment of my imagination. Oh, there may be something really, physically going on, but what does it mean? Who gives it meaning, me, Glenn Beck, the Miami Herald, my synagogue or church, my spouse, parents or family, History or Economics? Who makes it offensive and threatening to me? Who decides that that event victimizes me? Isn’t that my choice? It’s up to me to decide what something means. I can take all those sources into consideration, but bottom line, I perceive, I interpret, I assign meaning and live with the consequences.

So it’s all me, there’s no one to ‘blame’ but me. Yeah, but things are happening, people do do bad things, there are evil doers and there is an outer reality, a reality greater than me or my interpretation.

Up to a point, what’s ‘out there’ is consensus reality, a reality agreed upon by our culture, not ‘true’ reality. Remember when consensus reality held that the earth was flat and if you sail to far, you’ll fall off? For 3,000 years, that ‘reality’ kept people from sailing ‘too far’ whatever that was, out of sight of land, and discovering an even greater reality. What used to be evil, using telescopes, conducting autopsies, accepting strangers and people different from us, is, for most civilized people, no longer considered evil.

I said there’s no one to blame but me. Why ‘blame’ anybody? Doesn’t blaming suggest some fixed perspective, some absolute, unchanging perspective and understanding like the earth is flat? Of course there are things that we don’t want done like rape, murder, theft, but we don’t want them done, that’s the point.

The point is not to ‘blame,’ the point is to not have those things done. Is blaming and punishing the best way to do that? Do blaming and punishing restore the rape, murder or robbery victims? The trick is for you and I and our society to figure out how to get what we want and stop what we don’t want without misusing our inner power. We do so much blaming and punishing, feel like wounded victims so often, that if this way of being, of seeing the world and using our inner power worked wouldn’t we have a better society?

What if we, you and I, I, really took responsibility for myself, for my judgments, perceptions and interpretations, stopped feeling like a wounded victim needing to blame and punish and instead used my inner power, the same inner power you have and the so-called ‘evil doer’ has, to see things differently, to stop thinking the world is flat, and find some other way, a better way, a way of using our inner power responsibly to build a round world, more in line with our hopes and aspirations? What would happen then? Would we be sailing to far out, would we fall off? All the greatest guides we’ve ever had, Jesus, Buddha, Gandhi and Martin Luther King say not. Their lives and writings say, sail on, take responsibility and have the courage to stop blaming, being victim and victimizer, and discover a new and better world.

Withholding forgiveness is like drinking poison and hoping the other person will die.

Tuesday, September 7, 2010

Voter Anger

We are not punished for our mistakes, but by them. We are not punished for our mistakes, but by them.

This is so true for me! I find I am angriest with others and more prone to blame and want to punish, when I’m angry or disappointed with myself. When I’ve fucked up and done something dumb and stupid, something I knew better than to do, something I should not have done, I look around for something or someone else to blame: it’s my boss’ fault; I’m too, busy, there’s not enough time; my spouse didn’t do what s/he was supposed to do. Anything but pause, reflect and take responsibility.

When I take responsibility, I take control, and with control I might see what I did as a mistake, not a sin, then do what’s necessary to avoid making that same mistake twice. But if I’m a victim of the situation or others, with no control, and what I did was a sin, not a mistake, and a sin must be punished, sometimes severely, then what went wrong and didn’t work, will happen again, and again, and again.

We are not punished for our mistakes, but by them. Means there’s no sin involved, but only a mistake; and that mistake can be seen as feedback, as neutral, non-judgmental information that I can use to correct the mistake. ‘Punishment’ is really not the best word, but it works to get attention. From the ego’s perspective it feels like punishment, not feedback. But if I can shift to spirit’s perspective, I can see it as a learning experience, an opportunity to learn to take responsibility and stop blaming.

Catching myself being angry with others and more prone to blame and want to punish, when I’m angry or disappointed with myself, is part of the learning. If I don’t become aware of what’s going on inside me and resolve to take responsibility for it and change it, my behavior becomes more and more irrational, harmful and destructive, until the mistake does become a sin, and I really screw up so badly that it’s clear there’s no one to blame but me.
I see this anger at self, blaming of others and failure to take responsibility spiraling into the irrational, harmful and destructive behavior now manifesting in the so-called ‘voter anger’ the media keep talking about. Which BTW is another of the so-call main stream media’s self fulfilling prophecies; the more they talk about it, the realer it gets.

Voters have to take responsibility for their choices. The choices were a mistake, but rather than reflect and take responsibility, they blame and attack. After eight grueling years of Republican excess and control of all three branches, voters realized their mistake and gave Democrats a chance. The Democrats have had less than two years to correct the mistakes of the previous eight, not an easy chore, especially when the Republicans have done pretty much nothing to help and lot’s to obstruct. Yet the voters are ‘angry’ with the ‘system’ and are irrationally thinking of again turning the Nation over to the very people and ideas that have brought us to the current state of affairs.

What might happen if the voters stopped being ‘angry,’ blaming and irrational, stopped thinking of themselves as victims of Washington – I mean it is Washington, after all, not Moscow, tho the way some people talk, you’d think it was Moscow - took responsibility for their earlier mistaken choices and thought carefully about what to do now? Would they give Obama and the Democrats a few more seconds to undo what Bush and the Republicans had eight years to do? Would they cease being manipulated by fear, loathing and hatred and shift to a place that values cooperation, compromise and the radical idea that whatever party one’s in, we’re all Americans? What would happen if we demanded more of our politicians and absolutely shunned those that pandered to our fear, loathing and hatred? Perhaps we’d be Americans [not, God forbid, French, as we are now] and our country would be the United States of America again.

Friday, September 3, 2010

Gratitude

I’ve been going through a rough patch physically, but have been OK emotionally. I’m grateful. In fact, looking from the place of not being dragged down by the ‘suffering’ or not suffering when my normal way of thinking about my situation would have required suffering, has been, is, an expansive experience. I see I’m not as small as I thought I was, or, I’m more than I thought I was, able to not be made a victim, able to see things differently, even to find some benefit in the difficulty, to make lemons into lemonade. So, I’m grateful for what I’m going through.
As Barbara Leger in today’s SOM says, “Gratitude can totally turn around moments of fear or distress by allowing us to shift attention from what isn’t working to what is. In every circumstance, there is something to be grateful for, and when we find it, our gazes shift and we are lifted up.
“Gratitude is the grease in tight spots, the hope in the darkness and the grace of Spirit guiding us to see more of the whole picture. Looking for the good allows us to see and appreciate the gifts tucked inside the challenge. Praising the good raises our energy to a higher, more positive vibration, which attracts more of the same. Like attracts like. Our bodies notice, our cells are happier, and we see the world through softer eyes, and amazingly, see more to appreciate.”
That’s been the case for me in my current situation. I didn’t create the situation to prove Barbara Leger right. [But perhaps, maybe I did.] Her reading this morning happened to be on gratitude and it helped me reflect on what’s been going on with me. Just a coincidence, one of those happy accidents, or was it?