Owned by Others

Ξ January 29th, 2008 | → 2 Comments | ∇ Life |

"So long as you are still worried about what others think of you, you are owned by them."

-CWG3-

Born less than perfect

Ξ January 21st, 2008 | → 4 Comments | ∇ Life |

*The following is taken from Conversations with God, book 1,  by Neale Donald Walsch.

Why am I so ready to always choose the negative (in life)? And then to spank myself (later) for it.

What do you expect? You were told from your earliest days that you’re "bad". You accept that you were born in "sin". Feeling guilty is a learned response.You’ve been told to feel guilty about yourself for things you did before you could even do anything. You have been taught to feel shame for being born less than perfect.

     This alleged state of imperfection in which you are said to have come into this world is what your religionists have the gall to call original sin. And it is original sin- but not yours. It is the first sin to be perpetrated upon you by a world which knows nothing of God if it thinks that God would- or could- create anything imperfect.

      Some of your religions have built up whole theologies around this misconception. And that is what it is, literally: a misconception. For anything I conceive- all that to which I give life- is perfect; a perfect reflection of perfection itself, made in the image and likeness of Me.

      Yet, in order to justify the idea of a punitive God, your religions needed to create something for Me to be angry about. So that even those people who lead exemplary lives somehow need to be saved. If they don’t need to be saved from themselves, then they need to be saved from their own built-in imperfection. So (these religions say) you’d better do something about all of this- and fast- or you’ll go straight to hell.

      This, in the end, may do nothing to mollify a weird, vindictive, angry God, but it does give life to weird , vindictive, angry religions. Thus do religions perpetuate themselves. Thus does power remain concentrated in the hands of the few, rather than experienced through the hands of the many.

     Of course you choose constantly the lesser thought, the smaller idea, the tiniest concept of yourself and your power, to say nothing of Me and Mine. You’ve been taught to.

Hmm…..That’s something to think about.

The Word of God

Ξ January 18th, 2008 | → 7 Comments | ∇ Life |

Is the Bible the only way God speaks to us? Some would say, Yes, others definitely, No. Let’s take a look for ourselves. Who does God not talk to? I think He talks to everyone, all the time! The real question is: Who Listens?

First, let’s exchange the word talk, with the word communicate. It’s much more accurate. The Bible is a good example of this problem of talking or communicating (with God or Him to us). Words are very constrictive. Words have unbelievable limitations. Look at all the controversy over the interpretation of the verses of the Bible. Pick any "important (doctrinal)" verse out of the Bible. You will get a multitude of interpretations for the same verse. How do we know which one is right? How do we know which one God intended? When we really don’t know what the verse means, we go to the masters of the Bible, our teachers, pastors, priests, etc; We allow them to tell us, to interpret for us, what God meant for us to understand. This is a prime example of how words, written words or spoken words are unbelievably limited for communication. For this reason, I don’t think this is the only way God communicates with us. More about the written word. To say that the Bible is inerrant is not to really know it. To say that God protected His word down through the years after it was "given" to the special person who was intended to deliver it, again is not know the actual history of the Bible, of its transcription, of the thousands of copyists (scribes) who attempted to duplicate the scriptures by hand over and over again(As an aside, the Hebrew scribes did a much better job assuring that the scripture was accurate as it was copied over and over again than did the scribe of the post-crucifixion era). It is simply ignorance of history to believe that what we call today the New Testament, is exactly as it was originally written down and transmitted to others. Our New Testament is a collection of documents written  over a minimum of 60-200 years after the crucifixion of Jesus, and is the result of the somewhat dubious endevours of the Council of Nicea to produce a common text for all Christians. These men were operating with time constraints, and under the direct control of Constantine, the "Christian" emperor of the Roman Empire, and defacto leader of the Universal Catholic Church. It goes without saying that he had an agenda in the creation of this New Testament and that his agenda was not always in line with the best rules of manuscript scholarship. He wanted it done quickly and to his satisfaction, which meant having the NT serve as a unifying instrument for his rule of the empire. Therefore, I don’t think we should think of the Bible, the New Testament in particular, as the Christian manual for living which answers ALL questions we may have about our relationship to God.

Moving on, I believe that one of the most common forms of communication that God uses with us is feelings. I believe that feeling is the language of the soul. If someone wants our opinion on a matter, what do they say to us? Generally, they will say, "How do you feel about ______". If you wish to express your own opinion on a subject you will say, "I feel ___________". If you want to know what’s true for you about something, look to how you’re feeling about it. It is true that feelings are sometimes difficult to discover and even more difficult to acknowledge. Yet, hidden in our deepest feelings are our highest truth. The trick is to get to those deepest feelings.

I believe God also communicates with us through thought. Thought and feelings are not the same, although they can occur at the same time. Sometimes, images or pictures come to our minds which give us a clear idea about something. Many times, thoughts are more effective than words for communication.

Perhaps the best tool of communication that God uses is experience. It has been said to be the grand communicator. Experience allows you to personally know something. That is why I believe it is God’s best tool of communication.

Yet, there are some things we cannot experience. So when feelings, and thoughts, and experience all fail, God uses words. Words are really the least effective communicator. They are most often open to misinterpretation, and therefore, most often misunderstood. Why is that? Words are signs, symbols, if spoken, noises that stand for feelings, thoughts, and experience. Ever read a good book in which you had all three of those things happen to you? Of course you have. That’s the point. However, words are not truth. They are not the real thing. Words may help us understand something. Experience allows us to know.

Here is the real irony: We have placed so much importance of the Word of God, and so little on the experience of God.

In fact, we place so little value on experience that when what we experience of God differs from what we’ve heard or been taught, through the word, about God, we automatically discard the experience and own the words, when it should be just the other way around. Our experience  and our  feelings about a thing represent what we factually and intuitively know about that thing. Words can only seek to symbolize what we know, and can often confuse what you know.

The challenge is one of discernment. The difficulty is knowing the difference between messages from God  and data from other sources. Discrimination is a simple matter of the application  of a basic rule:

God’s is always our Highest Thought, our Clearest Word, our Grandest Feeling. 

The Highest Thought is always that thought which contains JOY.

The Clearest Words are those words which contain TRUTH.

The Grandest Feeling is that feeling which we call LOVE.

Anything less is from another source. 

*many ideas and thoughts taken from CWG1

Fear and Guilt-Love and Awareness

Ξ January 16th, 2008 | → 2 Comments | ∇ Life |

FEAR and GUILT are the only enemies of humankind.

LOVE and AWARENESS are your true friends.

Don’t confuse GUILT and AWARENESS

GUILT is the feeling that separates us from God, and keeps us stuck in who we are NOT. It kills any chance that you could love another.

AWARENESS is the feeling that lets us know when something does not serve our goal of learning who we really are.

FEAR paralyzes. It paralyzes your relationship with God. It only allows you to NOT love yourself (and God at the same time). Be cautious, not fearful.

LOVE is God, God is LOVE.

A Change…..

Ξ January 8th, 2008 | → 5 Comments | ∇ Life |

In case you didn’t notice, I’ve changed the name of my blog. In Search of Life implies that I somehow lost or never had in the first place, LIFE. I now see that that is not the case. LIFE is a unified expression of the only thing there is: LIFE ITSELF; which I believe may also be called GOD. GOD is LIFE is GOD….etc: GOD is the essence we call LIFE. He/She/It is in everything, is everything; therefore is LIFE. Our constant yearning for union with GOD (the Search for Life) is the outward, worldly expression of the innermost knowing of our soul: that we are one with all things and with life itself; with GOD itself; and we seek always to experience that, the union with Life/God. That’s what we’re doing day to day, hour to hour, moment to moment. We are doing this through the living of our lives and the expression of the life within us and all the celebrations of that life, that bring joy.

Whenever we do something unexpectedly magnanimous, whenever we rise to an occasion, love more than we thought possible, we feel JOY! This is what we’re looking for , this is what we’re seeking always, because JOY is LOVE is LIFE is GOD, and we sense this at the deepest level of our being.

I was searching for LIFE; that is GOD, and GOD was right on top of me. I hadn’t, until now, realized that. If one doesn’t come to realize this, one’s search will be in vain. The search might never end.

Sooner or later all of us will find the fullest measure of what we are looking for; only by looking in the mirror.  LIFE is GOD. I am LIFE. GOD, therefore,  is in me. My search for GOD is over. My search to understand MYSELF, who I really am, has just begun. I invite you to look into the mirror. What reflection do you see?

In the Image of God…..Can He be Trusted?

Ξ January 6th, 2008 | → 6 Comments | ∇ Life |

Perhaps no statement has been more misunderstood than this:

"We are created in the image of God."

Religion has taught that we were created in the "image and likeness of God". Some have suggested that our physical bodies look like God (although certainly He can adopt whatever physical form He chooses for a particular purpose). Nothing could be farther from the truth (even though our culture and our minds have taught us to "picture" God..the old man with a long white beard). It does mean, however, that our essence is the same. We are composed of the same "stuff". We ARE the "same stuff"! With all the same properties and abilities-including, dare I say it, the ability to create.

We are the same as God?! If we knew who we are-that we are the most magnificent, the most remarkable, the most splendid being God has ever created, because…. we are created "in His image".

Now, why don’t we believe that last statement? It is because most of us, at one time or other, believed a great lie about God. We were taught this lie by some of the most trusted people we knew: the church and our parents. I am not saying this was done maliciously, although it certainly could have been, but we were told this lie just the same. First, the church told us a truth about God. God cannot be trusted. God’s love cannot be depended upon. WHAT?! The church said those things? Maybe not in so many words, but listen…We were told that God’s love and acceptance of us was conditional; that the ultimate outcome is thus in doubt. It all depends on what we do. God will retreat and withdraw from us depending on whether we perform properly. If we can’t depend on God, on whom can we depend? Surely not mere mortals. So, the first thing we do when we pledge our highest love to another and say "I love you"is…..we worry whether or not we will hear it back. Even if we do hear it back, we worry that someday we might lose it. All because of the implication that God himself may withdraw His love if we don’t perform correctly. So all action becomes a reaction-defense against loss-even as we seek to defend ourselves against the loss of God.

Even our parents taught us this very thing. Again, it might not have been maliciously done, but done just the same. The very one or ones who love you most; why would they lie to us? Have they not told you that you are too much of this, and not enough of that? Have they not scolded you in your moments of greatest exuberance?And did many of them not encourage you to set aside some of your wildest imaginings because "it’s just not practical". (Don’t be too hard on them. They’re only doing what they’ve been taught by their parents and the church; and so on and so on.)

These are the messages we’ve received. Maybe they don’t qualify as messages from God, but surely messages from the gods of our own universe. 

It was our parents who taught us that love is conditional-we felt their conditions many times-and that is the experience, along with those of the church, that we take into our relationship with God. From these experiences, we draw conclusions about God. "God is a loving God, but if you break His commandments, He will punish you with eternal banishment and everlasting damnation". Have we not experienced the banishment (however temporary) by our parents? Did we not know the pain of their damnation about something "terrible" that we did? Then, how could it be any different with God? We try to establish what God’s love must be like based on what we see of love in the world. We have forgotten. We don’t remember. 

We have projected the role of "parent" onto God and thus have come up with a God who judges and rewards or punishes, based on how good He feels about what we’ve been up to. This is a simplistic view of God, based, dare I say it, on our mythology. It has nothing to do with who God is. Having created an entire thought system about God based on human experience rather than spiritual truths, we then create an entire reality around love. It is a fear-based reality, rooted in the idea of a fearful, vengeful God. To deny this fear-based reality would disrupt our entire theology, not to speak of our life. Therefore, we cannot accept it, because the idea of a God who is not to be feared, who will not judge, and who has no cause to punish is simply too, too magnificent to be embraced within even our grandest notion of who and what God is.

This fear-based love reality dominates our experience of love; indeed, actually creates it. For not only do we see ourselves receiving love that is conditional, we also watch ourselves giving it in the same way. Deep in our heart we know this is not what love really is. This is not really who God is.

Every human thought, word, or deed is based in one of these emotions: LOVE or FEAR. We have no choice about this, because there is nothing else from which to choose. But we have free choice about which of these to select.

What kind of God do you select? What do you choose: LOVE or FEAR?

* Ideas taken from CWG1 

Wise Sayings

Ξ January 6th, 2008 | → 0 Comments | ∇ Life |

 

At the critical juncture in all human relationships, there is but one relevant question:

"What would love do now?"

 

Life is not a process of discovery. It is a process of creation.

 

 

 

Wanted: An End to Dogmatic Religion

Ξ January 2nd, 2008 | → 1 Comments | ∇ Life |

I found this very astute observation in one of Steve Jones articles:

"Dogmatism convolutes the mission of Christ. Why did Jesus walk among sinners and preach his message? Was it to make men theologically astute? Did Jesus come chiefly to give us right metaphysics, to present dogmas to the mind? "

To read the entire article, click here