Ξ March 26th, 2008 | → 1 Comments | ∇ Life |
To say that our beliefs are important to life is a huge understatement. Our beliefs are life.They are where it begins and how it sustains itself. The role of human belief is rapidly taking center stage in the new frontiers of quantum biology and physics. If our beliefs hold so much power, and if we live our lives based on what we believe, the obvious question is: Where do our beliefs come from? The answer may surprise you. With few exceptions they originate with what science, history, religion, culture, and family tell us. In other words, the essence of our capabilities and limits may well be based on what other people tell us. That realization leads to the next question we must ask ourselves: What if we’re living our lives shrouded in the false limitations and incorrect assumptions that other people have formed over generations, centuries, and even millenia?
Historically, for example, we have been taught that we are insignificant specks of life passing through a brief moment in time, limited by the "laws" of space, atoms, and DNA. This view suggests that we will have little effect on anything during our stay in this world, and when we’re gone, the universe will never even notice our absence.
While the words of this description may sound a bit harsh, the general idea isn’t so far from what many of us have been conditioned to hold true. It is precisely these beliefs that often leave us feeling small and helpless in the face of life’s greatest challenges.
What if we’re more than this? Could it be that we are very powerful beings in disguise? Could it be that all we need to change things is to make an individual commitment to know who we are in the universe? When we make such a commitment, everything from the way we think of ourselves to the way we love will change. They must, because we are changed in the presence of these deeper understandings.
It all comes back to what we believe.
While it may sound too simple to be true, I’m convinced that’s the way the universe works; precisely in this way.
* "The Spontaneous Healing of Belief, Shattering the Paradigm of False Limits", by Gregg Braden
Ξ March 24th, 2008 | → 3 Comments | ∇ Life |
The realm of the relative in which we live is a world of judgment and condemnation. Others have judged us, and from their judgments, we have judged ourselves. Now, we want God to judge us. HE WILL NOT DO THAT. That is the direct antithesis of "unconditional love", which He gives us. We cannot understand a God who will not act as humans would. Because of this, we are lost. Our theologies are our attempts to find ourselves again.
What is the usual basis of our theologies?
Everything depends on what we perceive to be the purpose of life – and therefore the basis of our theology.
If you believe life exists as a test, a trial, a period of putting you through your paces to see if you are "worthy", your theologies begin to make sense.
If you believe that life exists as an opportunity, a process through which you discover -remember- that you are worthy (and have always been), then your theologies seem insane.
If you believe that God is an ego-filled God who requires attention, adoration, appreciation, and affection- and will kill to get it – your theologies start to hold together.
If you believe that God is without ego or need, but the source of all things, and the seat of all wisdom and love, then your theologies fall apart.
If you believe that God is a vengeful God, jealous in His love and wrathful in His anger, then your theologies are perfect.
If you believe God is a peaceful God, joyous in His love and passionate in His ecstasy, then your theologies are useless.
The purpose of life is not to please God. The purpose of life is to know , and to recreate, Who you are.
In so doing you do please God, and glorify Him as well.
Ξ March 19th, 2008 | → 0 Comments | ∇ Life |
The division of life into past, present, and future is mind-made and ultimately illusory. Past and future are thought forms, mental abstractions. The past can only be remembered Now. What you remember is an event that took place in the Now, and you remember it Now. So the only thing that is real, the only thing there ever is is the Now.
To have your attention in the Now is not a denial of what is needed in your life. It is recognizing what is primary. Then you can deal with what is secondary with great ease. It is not saying, "I’m not dealing with things anymore because there is only the Now". No. Find what is primary first, and make the Now into your friend, not your enemy. Acknowledge it, honor it. When the Now is the foundation and primary focus of your life, then your life unfolds with ease.
When your attention moves into the Now, there is an alertness. It is as if you were waking up from a dream, the dream of thought, the dream of past and future. Such clarity, such simplicity. No room for problem-making. Just this moment as it is.
The moment you enter the Now with your attention, you realize that life is sacred. There is a sacredness to everything you perceive when your are present. The more you live in the Now, the more you sense the simple yet profound joy of Being and the sacredness of all life.
Most people confuse the Now with what happens in the Now, but that’s not what it is. The Now is deeper than what happens in it. It is the space in which it happens. Do not confuse the content of this moment with the Now. The Now is deeper than any content that arises in it.
When you step into the Now, you step out of the content of your mind. The incessant stream of thinking slows down. Thoughts don’t absorb all your attention anymore, don’t draw you in totally. Gaps arise in between thoughts – spaciousness, stillness. You begin to realize how much vaster and deeper you are than your thoughts.
"The Stillness Speaks", by Eckhart Tolle
Ξ March 14th, 2008 | → 2 Comments | ∇ Life |
This question is often asked in the traditional religious settiing. "What does God need (want) from us? We are told by those "in the know" a whole litany of things which are required of us as "servants of the High God" to please Him and "meet His needs". Now I could tell you that those folks, in my opinion, are wrong. God wants/needs nothing from us. But why would you have cause to believe me. Who am I to say that. I could tell you that there is a book written by a prominent, best-selling author on the subject of God, who has a chapter in his book called "What God Wants (needs). The whole chapter is blank. But you still might not believe that author. So, I decided to quote from an "unquestionable source" to many folks, the New Testament. We find in Acts 17: 24-25 the following:
God that made the world and all things therein, seeing that he is Lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in temples made with hands;
25 Neither is worshipped with men’s hands, as though he needed any thing, seeing he giveth to all life, and breath, and all things;
KJV
*Thanks to Andrew
I have given my readers a couple of days to think about the Five Fallacies About Life. In that time, I have discovered that there may be some confusion about the post. The list was constructed by the author to show the misconceptions, illusions, or error in thinking which the majority of human beings have about life. The list is not the author’s position or belief. With that in mind, it is time to present the next list. This list presents the common misconceptions or illusions about God, often found within institutionalized religion. This is not an indictment against one particular religion, but an engaging comment about man’s religions in general. I realize that this is going to raise some eyebrows. Some will disagree with some of the items in the list. Some will disagree with the entire list. But, if you take time to analyze the items, to think about them for a while, you may find that you agree. After I listing the five fallacies, I will present a discussion about them. Here now is the Five Fallacies About God:
1. You believe that God needs something.
2. You believe that God can fail to get what He needs.
3. You believe that God has separated you from Him because you have not given Him what He needs.
4. You believe that God still needs what He needs so badly that God now requires you, from your separated position, to give it to Him.
5. You believe that God will destroy you if you do not meet His requirements.
The author believes that these misconceptions about God often result in crisis, violence, killing, and war between people because we human beings tend to think it is appropriate for us to act with each other in the same way we believe God acts with us. Many of us believe that crisis, violence, killing, and war is acceptable in order to meet God’s requirements. Many believe that they are helping God meet His needs. Therefore, crisis, violence, etc; can be a part of God’s Will.
From the earliest days of "civilization" we have described the worst human experiences and disasters- even man-made acts of terror – as "the Will of God". Perhaps it was our effort to understand the bad things that happened to us that we came to believe in the existence of God in the first place – and to believe in a God that does bad things. Myths about the primitive "natural forces" became oft-told tales about these "spirits" (gods) and these turned into beliefs. That is, they became true for people. It is not too great of a leap that when myth turns into truth, it becomes organized religion. Most people in the world today believe in a greater power than themselves, and most humans continue to believe that there is something they must do to placate the source of that power. Today, there are thousands of religions, some honoring a plurality of gods, some worshiping a single god.
Can there be five misconceptions about God among the people of the world? Can these fallacies affect the way man deals with each other? I believe the answer to both questions is YES. Your comments are welcomed.
* "The New Revelations"
According to a best selling author*, there are Five Fallacies About Life that create crisis, violence, killing and war. The five are:
1. Human beings are separate from each other.
2. There is not enough of what human beings need to be happy.
3. To get the stuff of which there is not enough of, human beings must compete with each other.
4. Some human beings are better than other human beings.
5. It is appropriate for human beings to resolve severe differences created by all the other fallacies by killing each other.
I would like to know what you think of these five fallacies about life. Please give me your comments. I will follow this post with the Five Fallacies About God.
* "The New Revelations", Neale Donald Walsch
Ξ March 7th, 2008 | → 7 Comments | ∇ Life |
The problem facing the world today is a spiritual problem. Our ideas about spirituality (our belief systems) are killing us. We keep trying to solve the world’s problem as if it were a political problem, or an economic problem, or even a military problem, and it is none of these. It is a spiritual problem. And it’s the one problem human beings don’t seem to know how to solve.
Each of us feels (believes) that our spiritual "way" is the only "way". Witness the large number of sacred scriptures to be found today. The basic message of them all is, for the most part, the same. What is different is how we as humans interpret them. There is nothing "wrong" with having different interpretations. What is "wrong" is separating ourselves over these differences, making each other "wrong" because of these differences, and killing each other as a result of these differences. You may be saying right now that "I don’t do that with my beliefs". Not true. This is exactly what we are all doing now and as far back as "civilization" goes. We cannot agree even within a particular group of believers, much less between groups, about what a particular book says and what it means, and we use these disagreements as justification for all sorts of terrible behaviors, including the slaughter of other human beings.
There are many sacred scriptures. We act as if there is only one correct one. Not only is ours the correct one, but there is only one way to interpret the correct scripture: OUR WAY. This spiritual arrogance is what has caused our greatest sorrows. We have suffered more – and caused others to suffer more – over our ideas about God than anything else in the human experience. We have turned the source of the greatest joy into the source of our greatest pain.
This is because there is one thing for which human beings seem willing to give up everything: peace, love, health, harmony, happiness, safety, security and even, no, especially sanity. BEING RIGHT! We’re even willing to give up life itself. Isn’t that the way it should be? You have to "stand up" for what’s right. And the WORD OF GOD is what’s right! Which God are we talking about here: Adonai, Allah, Elohim, God, Hari, Jehovah, Krishna, Rama, Vishnu, etc;
The one that we believe in. That one! …………..My point exactly.
So, if we’re looking for a cause of all of our self-destructive behaviors, look no farther than our beliefs. All behaviors are sponsored by beliefs. You cannot effect long-term change in behavior without addressing the beliefs that underlie them. Those societies that are now causing, and that have historically caused, the most upheaval in the world are those societies that have focused on beliefs. Most of us try to change things by focusing on behaviors. We keep thinking we can make things better by doing something. We’re trying to figure out what we can do. The focus is on doing something, rather than on believing something.
If we want to change our behaviors, maybe it’s time we changed some of our beliefs.
"The New Revelations"
Ξ March 6th, 2008 | → 7 Comments | ∇ Life |
Separation Theology is a theology that insists that we are separate from God. We are "over here" and God is "over there". It’s a doctrine that tells us that God separated Himself from us quite early in man’s history because we made some "wrong" choices. Those "wrong" choices forced Him to become separated from His creation. The separation was the punishment for our sins of choosing wrongly. It is now our job to somehow get back into fellowship with God by "doing" the right things. However, "getting back into fellowship" is possible only if God will allow it. God will only do this IF we obey God’s commands, follow God’s laws, and submit to God’s will. When it comes down to it, we must "do" what God wants to be restored to fellowship.
Unfortunately, Separation Theology leads to other "ologies". It produces Separation Cosmology (a way of looking at all life on this planet that includes separation as its basic principle). This in turn produces Separation Sociology (a way of socializing that requires us to act as separate beings always serving our own best and separate interests). This in turn has produced a Separation Pathology (pathological behavior that produces suffering, conflict, violence, and death by our own hands).
What is the answer to this downward spiral of mankind toward oblivion? We must put in place a different theology. We must replace Separation Theology with Unity Theology. Sounds complicated, doesn’t it; change the system that has been in place for thousands of years. Maybe it’s not as complicated as it seems. Maybe it’s the system God had in mind all along. Maybe it was humans who got it all wrong when it comes to our relationship to God. Throughout our present "manmade" theologies, all over the world, we see God "over there" and humans "over here", separated by by emptiness in the middle. Not all, but many religions have as their foundation this separation.
Unity Theology is not something new. It is thousands of years old. Only when Separation Theology is replaced by a Unity Theology will our Separation Pathology be healed. We must understand that all of life is ONE. Oneness is not a characteristic of life…..life is a characteristic of Oneness. Life is the expression of Oneness Itself. Life and God are One.
When we understand this, we see God in everyone and everything (just as many sacred scriptures say), including ourselves. All of life is divine, created by God. When we treat all of life that way, we will change everything.
"I have come that you may have life, and have it more abundantly"…..
* from an article by Neale Donald Walsch-
Ξ March 4th, 2008 | → 4 Comments | ∇ Life |
Just as God is not limited in terms of power, so God is not limited in terms of size. God is, as noted, ubiquitous. God is everywhere. That means there is no place that God is not. No place. This idea is theologically revolutionary. It announces God’s ever-present reality in, and as part of, all things.
Including you.
Many people believe that God is everywhere, but do not believe that God resides inside of them. They may say this out of humility, but actually it is the height of arrogance to imagine that God exists everywhere in the Universe except in you.
That would make your body, mind, and soul pretty exclusive real estate.
If we accept, on the other hand, what even traditional religions say: that God is the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end, the All-in-All, then we must necessarily conclude that God exists in us.
This is a big conclusion, because if it is accurate (and it is), we come upon a most intriguing and significant inquiry: Where in us does God exist? In our little finger? In our big toe? In our brain? In our heart? In our soul? (Do we even have a soul?) (Yes.)
The answer: if God really is the All-in-All, the Alpha and the Omega, then there can be nowhere in us that God is not. In fact, there is nowhere in anything that God is not. God is everywhere, and is made manifest in everything.
If God is everywhere in you, if there is nowhere in you that God is not , then God is you.
And everything else.
Once you understand this, you cannot imagine that life is about "you" ever again. It is about everything and everyone. You will see that you and God are in partnership in creating the life that you live. You are not the sole (soul) power behind the process of creating your life as many of the people writing and lecturing about the "power of attraction” would have you believe. It’s a mutual partnership. Once you understand this, you will see and bring God into the process of personal creation of your life; not that He wasn’t there in the first place.
There is nothing you have to "do", "be", or "have" in order to be happy; not in the sense of "needing" anything, or requiring anything, in order to survive.
Living in this truth makes it extremely difficult to get "caught up" in the minor daily "dramas" of life that seem to center around ourselves, as it is currently lived by most people on the earth. This truth provides a fresh perspective on the really major tragedies and turmoil of our species. We are in it all TOGETHER….
* adapted from "Happier than God", NDW
Ξ March 4th, 2008 | → 4 Comments | ∇ Life |
While perusing my favorite blogs, I often encounter discussions of hell. From the traditional religious side, the argument favoring hell always involves the idea that God doesn’t want you in hell, but because of "free will", you "choose" to be there. This particular line of thought disturbs me greatly. I have decided, with the help of a brand new book offering, "Happier than God", to present a post which, hopefully, will answer some of the impedimenta which this idea of hell manifests in human beings. At the same time, I hope to answer the question which titles this post, "Where is God".
I think that most of the people who read this and other similar blogs would agree with the statement, "God is ubiquitous", omnipresent. God is everywhere. This is not necessarily related just to the enormity of God’s love, but because of the enormity of God itself/herself/himself. God is so big that there is no place that God is not. This is a stunning truth about life that many people do not fully understand – and that so many religions do not help people fully understand. If religion helped with the understanding of this truth, our problem(s) with understanding God would diminish greatly. Many people think that God is limited in some ways. They may not say it, but their lives, the belief system they follow express that very idea. They believe that there are some places that God is not. The idea that hell is a place of separation from God for eternity expresses this belief. Yet the Old Testament writer (David?) says if I go down to Sheol, you are there. Of course, that’s another post for discussion all together. These same people believe there are some things that God cannot control (your "free" will). Both of these ideas are inaccurate.
Let’s look at the matter of control. You couldn’t lift your your little finger if God didn’t want you to. Therefore, everything that you are doing – indeed, everything that has happened on the earth – lies inside, not outside the Will of God.
There are those who say that this or that is "not God’s Will." Yet if something were not God’s Will, how could it happen?
There are those who say that God allows it to happen . Yet if God allows it, would that not then make it God’s WiIl? Can a thing that God permits be said to be a thing that God does not wish to permit? Yet if God wishes to, does God not will to? What is the difference between God’s wish and God’s will?
Everything is God’s Will, and that is proven by the fact that it is happening. This must be true….unless we truly are the Children of a Lesser God. (to be continued)
Stumble it!
