Wednesday, September 28, 2011

Life as a Learning Laboratory

Keep in mind that our ‘oneness’ is not a physical fact, but a metaphysical fact, arising from a shared essence and purpose. Everyone, even the T party, wants to escape the ego illusion and awaken to our spiritual reality. Yet everyone, including MoveOn types, fears loosing their sense of individuality – hopes, dreams and values - that comes from believing we are egos; separated from one another, even ourselves and God. Everyone fears the all-encompassing, ego denying, unconditional love of spirit. So, we are ambivalent, caught in a cosmic approach/avoidance conflict fearing sin and its consequences, but clinging to it because we fear the loss of our unique specialness in spirit’s all-encompassing, unconditional love more.

The thing we know, deep within, that our still small voice constantly proclaims, is that God loves us, unconditionally no matter what. No matter what we do or say. No matter what we believe. No matter what crimes and sins we commit – which is not to suggest it’s OK to sin and commit crimes. This love, which we can barely understand or express in the ego’s illusion, is the correction for the ego’s illusion. Were our decision makers able to choose this love, which is wholly present and available within everyone right now, the illusion of guilt and innocence, sin and blessing, of choice itself, would disappear! We would still be here in the world, but everything would be different, reflecting the love we chose to identify with.

Whenever I am tempted to blame anyone for anything, to see someone as enemy or savior, it is because I have allowed my decision maker to identify with the ego, not spirit, and thereby made sin real. The decision maker’s choice to identify with the ego is the original sin. But it is not ‘sin’ because it never happened, it is all part of the ego’s illusion of separation from spirit. Making sin real comes from my decision to identify with sin [ideas leave not their source], not from an inherent evil or sinfulness; and from my fear of God’s love and the loss of my special, separated ego self.

If the ego world is a learning laboratory, in which I can experiment with and develop the skills I need to awaken from the ego illusion [and I think that’s a wonderful way to look at it] and choose to identify with my Self, then whatever happens, whether judged ‘good’ or ‘bad’ in ego terms, is an opportunity to learn, practice and grow spiritual muscle. I can do this all day long by taking responsibility for what happens in my life and my interpretations of what happens, and by paying attention to my own consciousness, how my mind works, and how I let the ego manipulate me, while not looking for excuses to blame and shift responsibility outside myself. Blaming is not a sin, but a mistake that will not bring me what I want.

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