Spirituality - The Thing Itself, Religions the Various Brands

The spirituality I spoke of yesterday and always speak of is a momentary experience of profound peace, a release of struggle, and a deep sense of grace and blessing; a realization that I have nothing to prove, that God loves me, unconditionally, that I need do nothing to earn that love and grace and that if I just stop thinking and trying, everything will turn out fine. It’s getting my bloated nothingness out of the way of the divine circuits. It’s realizing that spirit is all there is, it is me and I am it, and my bloated nothingness is just that – no thing, an illusion created by the ego.

Spirit is my default. It is always there, the still small voice, I can hear any time, all the time. It is my choice to identify with It, hear It and act on Its guidance or believe that I am the ego’s bloated nothingness. I practice being spiritual by being mindful and aware of my choices and the purpose they serve. When I am aware of choosing ego, I simply choose again, without blame or recrimination, guilt or fear. The ego blames, instills guilt and frightens. Spirituality is not behavioral, though it can be reflected in behavior. It is primarily mental and emotional. It is my mindfulness of my choices and the purposes they serve and then choosing to reinforce or choose again.
All humans partake of this Spirituality. It is who all of us are. It is everyone’s default. The concepts of spirituality and religion are different. Spirituality is the thing itself; religions are the various brands. Spirituality and religion can overlap, but more often, religion is the ego’s tool, focused more on the body, rules and rituals and less on the heart and mind. Some churches talk more about the devil, than about God, Michael Beckwith said. Spirituality is inclusive, forgiving and all about grace. In most religions one must accept and obey the rules to earn grace and forgiveness. There is no grace and forgiveness for non-believers, who are damned. Spirit knows nothing of damnation and rules, it only shines forth on everyone and everything in love.

It is this spirituality, not any particular religious dogma, that I want to bring to our political discourse; and indeed, to all discourse. This spirituality may be found in religions, but one has to dig for it and then usually, struggle to actualize it. The same kind of struggle is involved in connecting spirituality and politics. We almost can’t get there from here. Our bloated nothingness obscures nearly totally. It is only possible to experience the spiritual reality and oneness in everyone and everything by surrendering our ego reality and letting our bloated nothingness go. Once mindful of our inherent, natural spiritual default we can experience it more fully.

American Dream

Saturday morning, I attended the Protect the Dream meeting. I went to the meeting because I’m looking for a way to integrate my spiritual insights and political action. I don’t know what I expected – which is good, having no expectations leaves one open to making the most of whatever happens – but I was kind of disappointed, more in myself than the others present.

I think I was looking for help in exploring and actualizing my non-dualistic, non-either/or, non-traditional and more spiritual way of thinking about politics. Instead, I got pulled into the traditional, win-lose, either/or, non-spiritual way of thinking. I was not clear enough, nor strong enough to express my ideas, nor enable others to understand them so that we could all work together to operationalize them.

The pull of the gross, visible failures of the Democratic Party and the so-called Democratic President, along with the horrible abuses of power and their attendant threats to American Democracy by the Republicans, hooked my fear and loathing [as it usually does] and I succumbed to the ego view of things and was unable to stay centered in spirit.

But it was good practice though! I need to be able to go into the fire, like Meshak, Shadrak, and Abendego, and emerge unscathed. People don’t know who those three guys were anymore. They’re the protagonists in an Old Testament story.

I want to protect the American dream, and do something, but in addition to not being able to express and operationalize my ideas, none of what was discussed – making phone calls, demonstrating, sending emails, handing out flyers in the neighborhood or on street corners, attending house parties – clicked for me. I know that if I were to do any and all of these things centered in spirit, they would click for me. But at this point, however, I’m still looking to do something else; some new combination of these things that actualizes my non-dualistic, non-either/or, non-traditional and more spiritual way of thinking about politics.

I feel ‘called’ to share this view, feel, if we could ever express it clearly it would resonate with the vast majority of Americans. I think people are ready; they get that we desperately need something new, partisan, either/or, win-lose business as usual has gotten us where we are; and if we always do [think and feel] what we always did, we’ll always get what we always got.

At every level and in every way the system is broken, just about beyond repair. Einstein said, ‘You can’t solve the problem at the level of thinking that created it in the first place.’ We need a message grounded in connection with our reality as spiritual beings, of renewal, optimism, cooperation, inclusivity. No more fear, loathing, hate, blame and partisanship. The so-called ‘two party’ system with its primaries, the political/economic system itself with districts drawn by partisans and the Supreme Court equating money and speech, and the legal fiction that corporations are people, is not working for the vast majority of Americans.

But how to get this majority to wake up, understand they’re being destroyed, slowly, secretly, and not so slowly or secretly now, like Thorndike’s frog; that their very hopes and ideals subverted, taken from them and used to kill their hopes and ideals? What’s the message that will express that, that will mobilize them? Both parties mouth the same platitudes and motherhoods. Will a new party be better? Perhaps. But it too, would need thinking different from the kind that created the problem in the first place.

We desperately need something new, a message grounded in connection with our reality as spiritual beings, of renewal, optimism, cooperation, and inclusivity. Partisan, either/or, win-lose business as usual has gotten us where we are; and if we always do [think and feel] what we always did, we’ll always get what we always got.

Don't 'Should' On Yourself!

One of my favorite bits of Life and Business Coaching advice is, ‘don’t should on yourself!’

I think it’s my favorite and I like saying it because I need to follow my own advice; I ‘should’ on myself all the time. ‘Should’ implies I could be doing better, or ‘should’ be doing something else, or am missing the mark, etc. It says I’m not doing the best I can and am somehow a failure.

‘Should’ is judgmental, blameful and guilt inducing. It suggests some ‘objective’ standard outside my inner, spiritual wisdom that is superior to my inner wisdom. ‘Should’ is the ego distracting me from my reality as spirit. When I ‘should’ on myself, I’m letting appearances, conditions and opinions – fragments of the ego’s illusion of the world, drag me from my spiritual perfection.

When with spirit, I know, feel and experience the reflection of divine order in everyone and everything. I know life is a learning laboratory in which everyone and everything that happens, even the most horrible, disgusting things, especially the most horrible and disgusting things, hold the potential to awaken me to my reality as spirit, if I choose to experience them with spirit and not the ego. It’s the ego that labels things ‘horrible’ and ‘disgusting’, not spirit.
Spirit blames nothing and no one, punishes nothing and no one but rather enables us to use whatever we experience to know It better and experience Its presence, first, in ourselves, then in everyone and everything.

When I ‘should’ on myself, I deny spirit’s reality, choosing the ego instead. I deny that each person and every event is an opportunity to learn and awaken. I deny that there is an alternative to my ego’s way of experiencing the world, and arrogantly project my small amount of wisdom as the Truth.

Spirit is the Truth, the reality, ego is the lie, the illusion. Every person, even Eric Cantor and the Koch brothers, share the same need to awaken to their reality as spirit, and have the same opportunities to do so. We are all one in this essential. Shouldn’t we try to actualize it?

The New School Year

The ideal of providing a free, quality education for every child, regardless of how extreme the need (emotional, physical, academic, linguistic, etc) while helping the brightest students reach their potential, can be very frustrating for even the most dedicated and talented teachers and can seem impossible to achieve. “We take ‘em all, and do the best we can,” Randy Hoover, a teacher writing in the Monitor, says, quoting a colleague. “It’s easy to feel overwhelmed at the outset of a new school year,” Hoover goes on to say, “when each new meeting with counselors, specialists, and parents presents another set of needs to be met.

“So over the 20 years, I’ve been teaching middle school, it’s been helpful to shift my perspective to a spiritual view that illuminates what’s really going on – to see not a troubled child struggling with behavior or learning issues, but rather a child of a perfect, loving God, reflecting His spiritual qualities of goodness, intelligence, and harmony. Where the human mind tends to focus on limitation and fear, [this] view liberates and lifts us to recognize our spiritual nature.

“’God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.’ As children of God, all students have unlimited potential to express intelligence, despite psychological or medical theories that might predict otherwise. Children are perceptive about how they are viewed and treated and tend to respond accordingly. Taking a spiritual view of them, I’ve seen many struggling students flourish in class. And I’ve seen negative effects when I haven’t held to that pure view.

“Mary Baker Eddy, who founded the Monitor wrote: ‘Let the perfect model be present in your thoughts instead of its demoralized opposite. This spiritualization of thought lets in the light, and brings the divine Mind…into your consciousness.’ School reform efforts have put the spotlight on teachers; studies show they are the single greatest factor in how much a child learns. Remembering that the Latin verb ‘to educate’ means ‘to bring out’ (not to pour in) this knowledge can lessen the burden a teacher may feel. Our seeing students in their spiritual light helps children recognize and draw out their innate, God-given abilities. This perspective brings great promise for the new school year.”

Journalistic Objectivity

I was talking with a young woman journalist, probably in her late 20’s, Friday morning, who believes a professional journalist must be objective and not express her own fact based point of view (POV). I agree with this in theory, but naturally do not see it as a dichotomy, an either/or - either objectivity or POV; but as a continuum, a both/and, with POV at one end and Objectivity at the other. Seen this way it is possible for pro journalists to be both objective and have a fact based POV, not an opinion, which they may be ethically and duty bound to express.

Pro journalists have an ethical obligation to use their positions in the public interest, for the good of the whole. Objectivity is a means to this end, not an end in itself. It is not in the public interest nor does it fulfill journalists’ ethical responsibility if they submerge their fact-based POVs, giving their allegiance instead to a mistaken concept of objectivity that gives equal weight to all sides, no matter what, even when the facts, not their opinions, tell journalists one side is incorrect.

Is it ethical and ‘objective’ to watch someone walking down the street about to step into a hole and hurt himself, to submerge one’s POV, keep silent and allow the person to fall into the hole? If a pro journalist’s fact based POV is to see the Nation heading for a hole, and journalists have an ethical obligation to use their positions in the public interest and for the good of all, is it ethical or ‘objective’ to submerge their POV and say nothing?

Submerging one’s fact based POV and not pointing out the obvious dangers, lies, hypocrisies and fear-mongering that one sees clearly in the name of so-called ‘objectivity’ is a cop-out. Submerging one’s fact based POV and not pointing out the obvious dangers, lies, hypocrisies and fear-mongering in the name of a so-called ‘objectivity’ that sees only two sides to every situation – which by the way is the dichotomy, the continuum sees many sides - is worse than a cop-out for it perpetuates a dysfunctional view of reality itself. Submerging one’s POV and believing that there are only two sides to ‘objectivity’, not only perpetuates the status quo, which clearly isn’t working and clearly is not in the best interests of society as a whole, it actually makes the status quo more negative.

Objectivity and ethics for journalists in today’s world, especially in the current American political and economic situation, would be presenting the ‘facts’ from all sides, not just the ‘official’ two sides, then having the courage to use their fact based POVs, not their opinions or ideologies, to warn us about the hole we are heading for. This is having both a strong, fact based POV and being objective. It is about fulfilling the journalists’ ethical requirement to serve the public interest by using the continuum, not the dichotomy.

I realize journalists work for big corporations and conglomerates that give hypocritical lip service to the dichotomous ‘objectivity’ while masking their own definite POVs and supporting their advertisers’ and sponsors’ POVs – which mostly support the status quo, and that it might cost journalists their jobs to be both objective in the both/and, continuum sense described here and share their fact based POVs. But let’s not kid ourselves, doing that would produce real and true ‘objectivity’, not the BS that passes for objectivity now. It would take courage for journalists to share both their fact based POV and shift to real true objectivity, but it might make a real difference to society, and constitute using their positions ethically and in the public interest.

Preposterous

Preposterous is a word we use when a thing is perceived as outrageous, ridiculous, absurd, off the wall and perhaps even crazy. For example, at one time, not so long ago, it would have seemed preposterous that a black man could be President of the United States, or that a Hollywood ‘B’ actor could be President. Now it doesn’t seem so preposterous that Michelle Bachman or Rick Perry might be President. It scares the hell out of me, but it no longer seems preposterous.

Jesse Jennings says preposterous originally meant incorrectly sequenced, or reversed, like the cart before the horse or the tail wagging the dog. Boy, is that true in the cases of Bachman and Perry, especially if you consider voting patterns in the US over the last few decades. Most people, people that would not put the cart before the horse, have dropped out of the political system in disgust and don’t vote. Only approximately 45% of those eligible to vote, eligible, vote. That leaves the field, especially the primary field, to the extremists, so we get the tail, and a dirty nasty tail it is, wagging the dog.

If we want things to be different, if we want people to vote and have an inclusive, compassionate democracy that represents most Americans, not just the extremists and the establishment of wealth and power, we have to think about American democracy differently, and understand the original meaning of preposterous. We need to face the fact that we’ve got things reversed with the cart before the horse and the tail wagging the dog. We’ve got to see that we’ve got the order of the creative process wrong, going from the outside in, instead of the inside out.

The true meaning of preposterous is: be, do, have, not do, have, be, the order we do things in now. The conventional view is that things happen and then we think about them, rather than thoughts generate things. This view also says that if we do something, then we can have something and be something different. For example: I do – I work hard, then I have money and I can be happy. That’s the preposterous way of thinking, the out of order way of thinking. The correct order is: be happy first, then do something from there and have work or something that makes you happy. Be, do, have, instead of do, have, be.

So in politics we need to be the best Americans we can be, living up to our ideals, not blaming, demonizing and attacking; do - get involved in the system and vote from that place; and we will have the inclusive, compassionate democracy that represents most Americans, not just the extremists and the establishment of wealth and power, that we want.

Problems As Opportunities

So I was demonizing my T Party/Republican brothers and sisters yesterday. I was deep in ego and that’s what I do, and you do, too, when we’re deep in ego – criticize, blame and demonize. Being less in ego at the moment, I want to point out that probably at least half of what my T Party/Republican brothers and sisters propose, maybe more, highlight a problem/opportunity that needs addressing. I strongly disagree with the way my T Party/Republican brothers and sisters want to address the problems, but I agree that the problems do need to be addressed.

There are many things that we Americans could be doing better. I want us to address these from a centered, charge-neutral place, as one family, as Americans all, without all the demonizing, rancor, fear and all that needs to be done is get rid of Obama, loathing that has become the hallmark of the way my T Party/Republican brothers and sisters see the world.

I want us to engage spirit in our problem/opportunity approach, sharing the idea that strength is brought forth in solving problems; and a latent force is evolved that we would not otherwise be aware of. Metaphysicians would say that the answer to every question is already within us, because we are within spirit and spirit is the invisible whole enfolding everyone and everything.

Jesse Jennings highlights this idea, quoting Emma Curtis Hopkins (1849-1925), called the teacher of teachers because the founders of the three major New Thought schools were her students, saying, “Every problem has a way of coming out just right.”

Something coming out “just right” Jesse says means we’ve grown, connected with spirit and taken responsibility for how we’ve used the power It has placed within and around us. “Just right,” means we’ve uncovered the ego belief that caused us to label the situation as a “problem” in the first place, “evolving past the rush to label and lament a situation, choosing instead to regard it as a transit opportunity from one state of being [ego] to the next [spirit]. We can take ‘just right’ to mean better off than ever.’”

So, every problem has a way of coming out just right, if we grow, connect with spirit and take responsibility for how we use the power spirit has placed within and around us.