Sunday, April 27, 2008
Friday, April 11, 2008
Excerpt: We Who Dream
...we demonstrate our freedom to find ourselves, for there is no possibility of our becoming lost. Now these are mere words, little marks on a screen which will find their way onto paper. Some readers will respond favorably, some will not. Those who do are not more found than those who do not. As part of God, we are perfect. It is ego that tells us otherwise. Perfect life could never create imperfection, for that life itself would be imperfect.
"Perfect" is a human concept.
God did not tell Moses, "I am this or that." He said, "I am that I am." We approach truth, "dragging" ego with us. God is. This utter simplicity drives ego to distraction. Ego sees the world as complicated: Clearly, God must be even more so. Since it is done unto us as we believe, God will seem to be the same mass of complexities we find in ourselves.
I think of all the words written--metaphysical, fundamentalist, scientific: All searching for meaning. Someone said the only thing to remember is what we now know as The Golden Rule.
"What is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow creature. That is the whole Law; the rest is commentary." --Rabbi Hillel, first century. [Oxford Companion to the Bible.] Yes, millions of words, written and spoken. This is the search for God, that mysterious Something that whispers to each. The Rule is the key to life, the principle that carries over into the every day world. We hold a door open for someone behind us, let another car merge ahead.
These simple acts are in themselves prayers, as if saying, "I acknowledge your relationship to me. We are one."
On that level, we know we are one. We speak to one another of our soul-desire to share life. Not just physical dream-life, but our whole life--our heritage.
When that level is reached, we see that we were dreaming after all. Our eyes are opened, to see that all our arguments were leaves in the wind.
When we speak of levels, we are describing frames of reference, as borders between states. They "exist" so that we know "where" we are.
It's enough that God is. Everything leads to that one truth. But all our concepts and questions add to the confusion.
Here in these pages, we approach simplicity with ego intact. We must use words to capture that which exists beyond language. Yes, it is enough that God is.
As I sit tapping the keys, I feel that energy, like an old friend...
The Flow: That urge to write (or paint or build, or sing.) You feel it surround you. Listen to your music. Imagine how the singer feels it. In that tiny space before the music begins, there is perfect silence, not a breath from anyone. Finally, she takes that breath, and her clear soprano vibration begins.
And the room is hers.
But you see, all share in it. The audience gives its energy to her, adding to the power of the Flow. Selfhood dances with selfhood. She returns the energy back to the people, and the sharing is complete. Ours is to realize we are one.
People think being one precludes individuality.
If it meant being wholly disconnected from one another, and everything on earth, being unable to communicate, to stagnate in the vacuum of their isolated consciousness, they would be correct. But individuality means we are free. We remain ever connected to our Source, deny it or not. The child is part of the parent.
I feel it...
Remember, the Flow never leaves. The tide pulls away from the shore, yet remains, having never left. But the ocean has a limit. Spirit does not.
I just took a break, watching the candle. I closed my eyes. The image went deep purple. It almost seemed alive.
The image was no less real than the candle. This teaches you to see without making divisions. In this way, you focus less on non-reality. You can now see beyond concept. We assume that because the inner world is without solidity, it must be unreal. None of our "inner" worlds are any less real than the "outer".
If I dream I hit my thumb with a hammer, it doesn't hurt...how could that experience be real if there is no pain?
So tied are we to the physical, so wrapped in solidity, we still forget we are spiritual (non-physical) beings. In such forgetting thrive the nightmares we believe hold us captive. Think of September Eleventh, 2001. Think of those thrust into action: One moment ignoring one another, then suddenly tearing flesh from their fingers, pulling their brothers and sisters from the rubble. Think of the families, declaring to the world their faith. There is a much used, but little understood catch phrase: "Everything happens for a reason."
Or for the good.
All it means is that God remains in His heaven. For all our shouting, screams in the night, we remain forever held in the Everlasting Arms. If this were untrue, how could people still smile and tell the world they know they will see their loved-ones again? How could this be? "For the good" means nothing is ever lost.
We all turn to God, according to our own belief, and say, "Where are you?"
We turn as one, hearing as one, the still small voice. Many do not recognize the voice, but some do. Increasingly, more begin to understand. Ours is not to pick every event apart to find the spiritual truth behind it. Ours is to shed light. Let us all in our own way, take spirituality out of theory, and embrace its reality; let us "become" who and what we have always been. People still believe less in what they cannot reach out and touch, and more in what they can grasp with their physical hands, even though they are created of the very thing they deny. Look at the world we make. The light we speak of is the respiration of infinite love: God. Who walked the earth, knowing his Father lived in his heart...who so taught the world...
The Christ.
That spirit is alive in all of us. Let us not nod, "That is very good", but be filled with that reality which has always thrived within.
We must go beyond theory...
Pull our injured minds out of our own devastation. No longer deny that which heals us. For the love, power, peace of God will always be. We have not seen the whole picture, but let us see past shadows dancing on the walls of our ego-driven nightmare. Here we discuss strength, power, and violence. In violence there is weakness and fear; in strength there is courage, and in power there is unity.
The Divine spark.
Father, you are the courage of our convictions, the song and the singer. You are the call to action, and the action itself. You are our deepest heart. We will never again turn from you, but live eternally in your heaven. Amen.
We are heaven.
"Perfect" is a human concept.
God did not tell Moses, "I am this or that." He said, "I am that I am." We approach truth, "dragging" ego with us. God is. This utter simplicity drives ego to distraction. Ego sees the world as complicated: Clearly, God must be even more so. Since it is done unto us as we believe, God will seem to be the same mass of complexities we find in ourselves.
I think of all the words written--metaphysical, fundamentalist, scientific: All searching for meaning. Someone said the only thing to remember is what we now know as The Golden Rule.
"What is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow creature. That is the whole Law; the rest is commentary." --Rabbi Hillel, first century. [Oxford Companion to the Bible.] Yes, millions of words, written and spoken. This is the search for God, that mysterious Something that whispers to each. The Rule is the key to life, the principle that carries over into the every day world. We hold a door open for someone behind us, let another car merge ahead.
These simple acts are in themselves prayers, as if saying, "I acknowledge your relationship to me. We are one."
On that level, we know we are one. We speak to one another of our soul-desire to share life. Not just physical dream-life, but our whole life--our heritage.
When that level is reached, we see that we were dreaming after all. Our eyes are opened, to see that all our arguments were leaves in the wind.
When we speak of levels, we are describing frames of reference, as borders between states. They "exist" so that we know "where" we are.
It's enough that God is. Everything leads to that one truth. But all our concepts and questions add to the confusion.
Here in these pages, we approach simplicity with ego intact. We must use words to capture that which exists beyond language. Yes, it is enough that God is.
As I sit tapping the keys, I feel that energy, like an old friend...
The Flow: That urge to write (or paint or build, or sing.) You feel it surround you. Listen to your music. Imagine how the singer feels it. In that tiny space before the music begins, there is perfect silence, not a breath from anyone. Finally, she takes that breath, and her clear soprano vibration begins.
And the room is hers.
But you see, all share in it. The audience gives its energy to her, adding to the power of the Flow. Selfhood dances with selfhood. She returns the energy back to the people, and the sharing is complete. Ours is to realize we are one.
People think being one precludes individuality.
If it meant being wholly disconnected from one another, and everything on earth, being unable to communicate, to stagnate in the vacuum of their isolated consciousness, they would be correct. But individuality means we are free. We remain ever connected to our Source, deny it or not. The child is part of the parent.
I feel it...
Remember, the Flow never leaves. The tide pulls away from the shore, yet remains, having never left. But the ocean has a limit. Spirit does not.
I just took a break, watching the candle. I closed my eyes. The image went deep purple. It almost seemed alive.
The image was no less real than the candle. This teaches you to see without making divisions. In this way, you focus less on non-reality. You can now see beyond concept. We assume that because the inner world is without solidity, it must be unreal. None of our "inner" worlds are any less real than the "outer".
If I dream I hit my thumb with a hammer, it doesn't hurt...how could that experience be real if there is no pain?
So tied are we to the physical, so wrapped in solidity, we still forget we are spiritual (non-physical) beings. In such forgetting thrive the nightmares we believe hold us captive. Think of September Eleventh, 2001. Think of those thrust into action: One moment ignoring one another, then suddenly tearing flesh from their fingers, pulling their brothers and sisters from the rubble. Think of the families, declaring to the world their faith. There is a much used, but little understood catch phrase: "Everything happens for a reason."
Or for the good.
All it means is that God remains in His heaven. For all our shouting, screams in the night, we remain forever held in the Everlasting Arms. If this were untrue, how could people still smile and tell the world they know they will see their loved-ones again? How could this be? "For the good" means nothing is ever lost.
We all turn to God, according to our own belief, and say, "Where are you?"
We turn as one, hearing as one, the still small voice. Many do not recognize the voice, but some do. Increasingly, more begin to understand. Ours is not to pick every event apart to find the spiritual truth behind it. Ours is to shed light. Let us all in our own way, take spirituality out of theory, and embrace its reality; let us "become" who and what we have always been. People still believe less in what they cannot reach out and touch, and more in what they can grasp with their physical hands, even though they are created of the very thing they deny. Look at the world we make. The light we speak of is the respiration of infinite love: God. Who walked the earth, knowing his Father lived in his heart...who so taught the world...
The Christ.
That spirit is alive in all of us. Let us not nod, "That is very good", but be filled with that reality which has always thrived within.
We must go beyond theory...
Pull our injured minds out of our own devastation. No longer deny that which heals us. For the love, power, peace of God will always be. We have not seen the whole picture, but let us see past shadows dancing on the walls of our ego-driven nightmare. Here we discuss strength, power, and violence. In violence there is weakness and fear; in strength there is courage, and in power there is unity.
The Divine spark.
Father, you are the courage of our convictions, the song and the singer. You are the call to action, and the action itself. You are our deepest heart. We will never again turn from you, but live eternally in your heaven. Amen.
We are heaven.
Thursday, April 10, 2008
We Who Dream
"Father, we stand to erase all differences, so that we are clear to receive your light. We stand and declare your reality, hands raised to the sky. Nightmares may storm the gates of our united hearts, but still we stand. We who dream shout no more for the pull of that which returns to dust, but dwell here with you, forever. Amen." --We Who Dream.
What if we had a Father? Some of us do not like the word, "Father", so use whatever word you like. What if "God" were not a separate being from us, from "His" creation, but is all-in-all, complete and perfect, within Itself. What if we are one Self, part of God...one with God?
As I write this, I am in prayer. I sense no divine anger, no petulant cosmic disturbance, no raging demand that I prostrate myself. I never have felt any of this, in all my 51 years. Would you like to know what I sense, what I have sensed all my life?
Love without opposite, joy without opposite, peace without opposite. I do not believe in an angry godhead, a system of conditions wherein we must make the cut in order that God love us, and accept us. This is a simple mis-interpretation based on fear of the unknown. It is insane.
Whatever God actually is, "He" creates by imparting "Himself" in and through "His" creations. We are not separate from God. God is right here, where we are.
In our creation we became confused, and fear came into our mind. It was only an instant, and was gone, because God knows it was not real. We suddenly felt apart from Him, but this is impossible. It is not God's will that we be anything but one with Him forever. The mad thought of fear we had became the world we think we exist in as separate beings we call "people". What we experience now is the replaying of that instant of fear. Everything we see and do and think is in the past...except love. The love is real.
This is the teaching of A Course In Miracles. "Loving thoughts are the world's only reality." We never left home, nor could we. It is as if we are a sleeping child, with the parent right beside us as we dream of a crazy world where everything is apart from every other thing, and nothing remains the same no matter how hard we try to make it so. The parent knows we are safe in bed, at home. But we are convinced that our dream is real.
There is one teaching, and all teachings teach it. Rabbi Hillel, in the first century, put it this way:
"What is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow creature.
That is the whole Law. The rest is commentary."
Let us treat one another as we would like to be treated. This is because the "other" is us. I look out from two balls in my skull, giving me the impression that I am inside my own head, and watch a whole world go about its business, as if I had nothing to do with its existence. But there is no "outside". And every day I go to work, and I prove to myself the teaching actually works. The world I see is a reflection of my state of mind, just as a mirror reflects whatever is placed before it. Except in our case, we are forming what we see.
We dream of chaos and call it balance. Hot and cold, up and down, happiness and sorrow, joy and despair. This chaos is the seat of ego's calamity. Ego is that part of our mind we made to function in the dream. It thinks it is a real self, autonomous, wholly physical, independent. We are that child, dreaming of scattered bits like some crazy puzzle, each piece a clue to the whole picture. I want to awaken.
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