Friday, October 29, 2010
Thursday, October 28, 2010
Intentions
Having an intention is a way to combine having a goal and not having a goal. An intention is more open, wider and spacious, less narrow and specific and time-bound, more preferential. My intention is to live in a such a way that my life contributes to a world that works for everyone.
We hear two things about intentions: the road to hell is paved with good intentions and, your good intentions are not enough. The second idea antidotes the first. If I have only good intentions and do not act in accord with them, I’m on the road to hell. The intention is merely a framework that I honor with my thoughts, feelings and behavior. Intentions allow me to be gentle with myself and others, more forgiving. If whatever I intended doesn’t get done this minute, no sweat. There will be another minute, and another after that. With intentions I can come from a centered, spiritually connected place, realizing my identity doesn’t depend on what I accomplish, when.
Intentions create less stress and encourage a longer time frame, a greater more compassionate and inclusive vision allowing me and others to bring their full attributes, skills and talents to bear. With preferences, perfection is a process, not a result, and failure is not an option because failure only happens when I say I’ve failed and give up. Preferences enable me to see that there are more ways to skin a cat than I may be aware of in a given moment, and that if I stop, take a break or pause, without judging myself and others a ‘failure,’ new and better ways to proceed will be revealed.
Intentions are life scale, about the purpose and meaning of my entire life, not about what I’m going to do this weekend or with this job or relationship. When I look at this weekend, job or relationship in the context of my intentions, my life’s purpose and meaning, deciding and choosing are richer, more enjoyable, and more effective. Intentions put me in charge, make me responsible and enable me to stop being a victim. They are MY intentions, I set them and I can change them.
Trouble with intentions comes when they’re not mine, when they’re somebody else’s; when I’ve adopted them unconsciously and uncritically and my actual life experience conflicts with them. My parents, church, ethnic group, political party, work organization all have intentions for me. If they’re in line with my own, what life has taught me, and what I’ve come to understand of spirit, metaphysics and reality, all well and good. If other people’s intentions that I’ve internalized are out of alignment with my own deepest intentions and preferences, I experience conflict. To the extent that this conflict remains unconscious and I fail to take responsibility for it, I blame, become angry and hurt myself and others. But if I find myself blaming, being angry and hurting myself and others, take responsibility for that and look inward, I may be able to resolve the conflict.
Where are your own intentions and preferences in conflict with those of your parents, church, ethnic group, political party, and work organization? What can you do to resolve the conflict, and if you’re angry, blaming and hurting yourself and others, what would happen if you paused, took a moment and realized how nice it would be to stop doing that and experience that life does not have to be that way?
We hear two things about intentions: the road to hell is paved with good intentions and, your good intentions are not enough. The second idea antidotes the first. If I have only good intentions and do not act in accord with them, I’m on the road to hell. The intention is merely a framework that I honor with my thoughts, feelings and behavior. Intentions allow me to be gentle with myself and others, more forgiving. If whatever I intended doesn’t get done this minute, no sweat. There will be another minute, and another after that. With intentions I can come from a centered, spiritually connected place, realizing my identity doesn’t depend on what I accomplish, when.
Intentions create less stress and encourage a longer time frame, a greater more compassionate and inclusive vision allowing me and others to bring their full attributes, skills and talents to bear. With preferences, perfection is a process, not a result, and failure is not an option because failure only happens when I say I’ve failed and give up. Preferences enable me to see that there are more ways to skin a cat than I may be aware of in a given moment, and that if I stop, take a break or pause, without judging myself and others a ‘failure,’ new and better ways to proceed will be revealed.
Intentions are life scale, about the purpose and meaning of my entire life, not about what I’m going to do this weekend or with this job or relationship. When I look at this weekend, job or relationship in the context of my intentions, my life’s purpose and meaning, deciding and choosing are richer, more enjoyable, and more effective. Intentions put me in charge, make me responsible and enable me to stop being a victim. They are MY intentions, I set them and I can change them.
Trouble with intentions comes when they’re not mine, when they’re somebody else’s; when I’ve adopted them unconsciously and uncritically and my actual life experience conflicts with them. My parents, church, ethnic group, political party, work organization all have intentions for me. If they’re in line with my own, what life has taught me, and what I’ve come to understand of spirit, metaphysics and reality, all well and good. If other people’s intentions that I’ve internalized are out of alignment with my own deepest intentions and preferences, I experience conflict. To the extent that this conflict remains unconscious and I fail to take responsibility for it, I blame, become angry and hurt myself and others. But if I find myself blaming, being angry and hurting myself and others, take responsibility for that and look inward, I may be able to resolve the conflict.
Where are your own intentions and preferences in conflict with those of your parents, church, ethnic group, political party, and work organization? What can you do to resolve the conflict, and if you’re angry, blaming and hurting yourself and others, what would happen if you paused, took a moment and realized how nice it would be to stop doing that and experience that life does not have to be that way?
Wednesday, October 27, 2010
Paradox
The big, metaphysical idea is not to need or have to have an effect in the built manifest world. The idea is to go for a connection with Source first. Let go of the need and have to because they are of the material ego world and instead, connect with the primary reality of being a spiritual being having an earthly experience. Go from the inside-out.
Because the Source is in and through everything and everyone, when I connect with Source, I am connected with everything and everyone, and as I realize this and allow this power to guide me and work through me, the result or effect I seek in the ego world manifests. Provided I am congruent and fully aligned spiritually, mentally, emotionally and physically. It’s a paradox.
If I must have something, or need something, I’m most likely coming from fear and lack, am not aligned and not feeling centered in Source. But if I don’t need something and don’t have to have it, I am not in fear and lack, but feel my connection with Source, and the thing I want manifests. It’s about having a preference, instead of an addiction.
Addicted, the thing or experience, usually something outside myself, rules me. If I have only a preference, I rule the thing or experience; I can take it or leave and be fine whichever way it goes.
This is counter intuitive because the predominant way of being and thinking is: have a clear cut goal – some thing or some experience you really, really want and must have and pursue it vigorously with single minded devotion. Do whatever it takes; focus on it, eat, sleep and dream it; persist; overcome resistance; win because winning is the only thing. This outlook is especially strong in the U.S.A today.
There’s lots that is incorrect and ineffective about this way of being, from lack of awareness of the larger picture and context to unanticipated consequences or side-effects, but let’s cut to the chase. What happens after you win, have your experience, achieve the goal? What happens? What’s next? Remember, the song, “Is That All There Is?”
Having a preference and going for what you want by being centered and aligning with Source works better, has less let down and fewer side effects. Go within and let your connection with the Source of all work for you. Stop struggling, blaming and hating and allow the Source which is love, peace and compassion guide and work through you and experience what happens. You’ll be quite pleased and proud.
Because the Source is in and through everything and everyone, when I connect with Source, I am connected with everything and everyone, and as I realize this and allow this power to guide me and work through me, the result or effect I seek in the ego world manifests. Provided I am congruent and fully aligned spiritually, mentally, emotionally and physically. It’s a paradox.
If I must have something, or need something, I’m most likely coming from fear and lack, am not aligned and not feeling centered in Source. But if I don’t need something and don’t have to have it, I am not in fear and lack, but feel my connection with Source, and the thing I want manifests. It’s about having a preference, instead of an addiction.
Addicted, the thing or experience, usually something outside myself, rules me. If I have only a preference, I rule the thing or experience; I can take it or leave and be fine whichever way it goes.
This is counter intuitive because the predominant way of being and thinking is: have a clear cut goal – some thing or some experience you really, really want and must have and pursue it vigorously with single minded devotion. Do whatever it takes; focus on it, eat, sleep and dream it; persist; overcome resistance; win because winning is the only thing. This outlook is especially strong in the U.S.A today.
There’s lots that is incorrect and ineffective about this way of being, from lack of awareness of the larger picture and context to unanticipated consequences or side-effects, but let’s cut to the chase. What happens after you win, have your experience, achieve the goal? What happens? What’s next? Remember, the song, “Is That All There Is?”
Having a preference and going for what you want by being centered and aligning with Source works better, has less let down and fewer side effects. Go within and let your connection with the Source of all work for you. Stop struggling, blaming and hating and allow the Source which is love, peace and compassion guide and work through you and experience what happens. You’ll be quite pleased and proud.
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
A World that Works for Everyone
Yesterday, as I have before, I posted about wanting to build a world that works for everyone. I mean this to be understood as a way of being, of living as an individual and member of a society, community, nation and planet, so that I do as little harm or evil as possible and as much good as possible. Living this way is an ideal which I very much want to actualize. It gives me hope and purpose and a sense of optimism. But when it seems things are not changing and we’re not building a world that works for everyone, but are in fact going in the opposite direction and building a world that works for the few and the wealthy, I get very sad, deeply disappointed, depressed and angry.
Joseph Campbell is optimistic about the world. “It’s great just the way it is,” he says. “And you are not gong to fix it up. Nobody has ever made it any better. It is never going to be any better. This is it, so take it or leave it. You are not going to correct and improve it.”
Wow! So doesn’t that lead to a passive attitude in the face of evil?
“You yourself are participating in evil,” he says. “Or you are not alive. Whatever you do is evil for somebody or something. This is one of the ironies of the whole creation.”
And what of the conflict between good and evil, the forces of darkness and of light?
“That is a Zorostrian idea, which has come over into Judaism and Christianity. In other traditions, good and evil are relative to the position in which you are standing. What is good for one, is evil for another. You play your part, not withdrawing from the world when you realize how horrible it is, but seeing that this horror is simply the foreground of a wonder, a mystery. All life is sorrowful is the first Buddhist saying, and so it is. It wouldn’t be life if there were not temporality involved, which is sorrow – loss, loss, loss. You’ve got to say yes to life and see it as magnificent this way.”
Yet it is “joyful just as it is, too. I don’t believe there was anybody such as God who intended it, but this is the way it is. James Joyce has a memorable line: ‘History is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake.’ To awake is not to be afraid, but to recognize that all of this, as it is, is a manifestation of the horrendous [neutral] power [neither good nor evil] that is all creation.”
So, you wouldn’t fight any battles or strive for any ideals? Isn’t that the logical conclusion from accepting everything as it is?
Yes, it’s logical “but not the necessary conclusion. You could say, ‘I will participate in this life, I will join the army” or the peace corps. I will do the best I can. “I will participate in the game. It is a wonderful, wonderful opera – except that it hurts. Affirmation is difficult. We always affirm with conditions. I affirm the world on condition that it gets to be the way my ideals want it to be. But affirming it the way it is – that’s the hard thing.”
Rituals help us with that. “Rituals are group participation in the most hideous act, which is the act of life – namely, killing and eating another living thing. We do it together, and this is the way life is. The hero is the one who comes to participate in life courageously and decently, in the way of nature, not the way of personal rancor, disappointment, or revenge.”
So wanting to build a world that works for everyone is a hero’s journey, fraught with disappointment and joy.
Joseph Campbell is optimistic about the world. “It’s great just the way it is,” he says. “And you are not gong to fix it up. Nobody has ever made it any better. It is never going to be any better. This is it, so take it or leave it. You are not going to correct and improve it.”
Wow! So doesn’t that lead to a passive attitude in the face of evil?
“You yourself are participating in evil,” he says. “Or you are not alive. Whatever you do is evil for somebody or something. This is one of the ironies of the whole creation.”
And what of the conflict between good and evil, the forces of darkness and of light?
“That is a Zorostrian idea, which has come over into Judaism and Christianity. In other traditions, good and evil are relative to the position in which you are standing. What is good for one, is evil for another. You play your part, not withdrawing from the world when you realize how horrible it is, but seeing that this horror is simply the foreground of a wonder, a mystery. All life is sorrowful is the first Buddhist saying, and so it is. It wouldn’t be life if there were not temporality involved, which is sorrow – loss, loss, loss. You’ve got to say yes to life and see it as magnificent this way.”
Yet it is “joyful just as it is, too. I don’t believe there was anybody such as God who intended it, but this is the way it is. James Joyce has a memorable line: ‘History is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake.’ To awake is not to be afraid, but to recognize that all of this, as it is, is a manifestation of the horrendous [neutral] power [neither good nor evil] that is all creation.”
So, you wouldn’t fight any battles or strive for any ideals? Isn’t that the logical conclusion from accepting everything as it is?
Yes, it’s logical “but not the necessary conclusion. You could say, ‘I will participate in this life, I will join the army” or the peace corps. I will do the best I can. “I will participate in the game. It is a wonderful, wonderful opera – except that it hurts. Affirmation is difficult. We always affirm with conditions. I affirm the world on condition that it gets to be the way my ideals want it to be. But affirming it the way it is – that’s the hard thing.”
Rituals help us with that. “Rituals are group participation in the most hideous act, which is the act of life – namely, killing and eating another living thing. We do it together, and this is the way life is. The hero is the one who comes to participate in life courageously and decently, in the way of nature, not the way of personal rancor, disappointment, or revenge.”
So wanting to build a world that works for everyone is a hero’s journey, fraught with disappointment and joy.
Monday, October 25, 2010
Seeming Evil
I keep on thinking that at some point, I’m going to have to, be forced to, do something I don’t really want to do or believe in. As the situation deteriorates, I’ll have to get a gun and some Krugerands and some survival food. But then I think, what good will that do? It might buy my wife and I some time, a few weeks or daze, but then what? When the amo, gold and food are gone, then what? Where will the drinkable water come from, and the toilet paper?
Our society is incredibly fragile and our ability to survive outside it is practically nill. Think about it: everything comes in by truck. When the trucks stop running, it’s over. And electricity, what would we do without electricity? How many candles have you got? And matches.
This kind of thinking scares me and makes me humble and very grateful for what we’ve got, messed up, destructive, heedless and dangerous as it is. Sure we can do better than we’re doing, but we can’t throw the baby out with the bathwater. We’ve got to transition from where we are to where we want to be – transition. Husband, conserve, love and protect and transition as rapidly as we can without making things worse.
It’s easier and more effective to do this if we come from a heart-centered, mindful and holistic place, from inside-out. When I’m thinking at some point, I’m going to have to, be forced to, do something I don’t really want to do or believe in, I’m not thinking from that place. I’m thinking with the ego mind, the carnal mind, the place of fear and doubt. While human reasoning and political decisions by individuals, communities and nations have value and are important, it’s what’s in our hearts that counts.
I find that when I come from a heart-centered, mindful and holistic place, from inside-out, acting in tune with my guidance and surrendering to the mystery, I get better results. Giving it over, letting go of the fear and ego’s shrieking, is the first step. Do I really have to do something? Perhaps. Is getting a gun and Krugerands the thing to do? Probably not. What should I do then? Well, I can’t know as long as I’m fearful and listening to the ego. If I let go of that, allow myself to be guided, accept the mystery of being a spiritual being having an earthly experience, I will know.
Pressures of the world frighten and seem to divide us into separate individuals, communities, religions, political parties, nations. But if we really are spiritual beings having earthly experiences, the seeming divisions are not the truth about us, but merely seeming divisions. “At all times and under all circumstances, overcome evil with good. Clad in the panoply of Love, human hatred cannot reach you. The cement of a higher humanity will unite all interests in one divinity.” Mary Baker Eddy wrote.
I would add that we do not “overcome” evil, we do not buy guns and vote to take the country back, that this is fearful ego thinking and only serves as a self-fulfilling prophecy to make the evil seem real. We perceive the evil, realizing that if we are perceiving evil we are perceiving with our ego minds, give it over and ask to see things differently in the light of spiritual holistic reality. Doing this will in fact, allow us to see things differently and act from that place; not throwing the baby out with the bathwater, but transitioning from a world that works for a few, sometimes, to a world that works for everyone, most of the time.
Our society is incredibly fragile and our ability to survive outside it is practically nill. Think about it: everything comes in by truck. When the trucks stop running, it’s over. And electricity, what would we do without electricity? How many candles have you got? And matches.
This kind of thinking scares me and makes me humble and very grateful for what we’ve got, messed up, destructive, heedless and dangerous as it is. Sure we can do better than we’re doing, but we can’t throw the baby out with the bathwater. We’ve got to transition from where we are to where we want to be – transition. Husband, conserve, love and protect and transition as rapidly as we can without making things worse.
It’s easier and more effective to do this if we come from a heart-centered, mindful and holistic place, from inside-out. When I’m thinking at some point, I’m going to have to, be forced to, do something I don’t really want to do or believe in, I’m not thinking from that place. I’m thinking with the ego mind, the carnal mind, the place of fear and doubt. While human reasoning and political decisions by individuals, communities and nations have value and are important, it’s what’s in our hearts that counts.
I find that when I come from a heart-centered, mindful and holistic place, from inside-out, acting in tune with my guidance and surrendering to the mystery, I get better results. Giving it over, letting go of the fear and ego’s shrieking, is the first step. Do I really have to do something? Perhaps. Is getting a gun and Krugerands the thing to do? Probably not. What should I do then? Well, I can’t know as long as I’m fearful and listening to the ego. If I let go of that, allow myself to be guided, accept the mystery of being a spiritual being having an earthly experience, I will know.
Pressures of the world frighten and seem to divide us into separate individuals, communities, religions, political parties, nations. But if we really are spiritual beings having earthly experiences, the seeming divisions are not the truth about us, but merely seeming divisions. “At all times and under all circumstances, overcome evil with good. Clad in the panoply of Love, human hatred cannot reach you. The cement of a higher humanity will unite all interests in one divinity.” Mary Baker Eddy wrote.
I would add that we do not “overcome” evil, we do not buy guns and vote to take the country back, that this is fearful ego thinking and only serves as a self-fulfilling prophecy to make the evil seem real. We perceive the evil, realizing that if we are perceiving evil we are perceiving with our ego minds, give it over and ask to see things differently in the light of spiritual holistic reality. Doing this will in fact, allow us to see things differently and act from that place; not throwing the baby out with the bathwater, but transitioning from a world that works for a few, sometimes, to a world that works for everyone, most of the time.
Friday, October 22, 2010
Inside Out
If you always do what you always did, you’ll always get what you always got. In other words, if I’m unhappy and I want things to be different, I have to be different. Until I adopt a fresh perspective and change my behavior and my thinking, nothing will change. It’s inner work first; from the inside-out. I can blame others: democrats, republicans, jews, born-agains, the media, the tea party, the immigrants, the horrible communist gov’t in Washington all I want until my heart’s content – if blame can really make one’s heart content, or I can take responsibility, look in the mirror and as Pogo said 40 years ago, “We have met the enemy and it is us.”
Come on friends, enough already! We have the power, right now, you and I and the person next to you; its always been there within us. We can make things different and fulfill the ideals Joseph Campbell was talking about. But we’ve got to face our fears, claim our power and take responsibility, and that’s difficult. Difficult, but not impossible. In fact as we begin to do that - face our fears, claim our power and take responsibility, not only do we feel better, but the results are instantaneous.
It isn’t a matter of some people being better than others. Rather it requires a willingness to think and act in new terms, to point to spirit’s abundant love and care for each and every one of us, sinners and righteous, black and white, gay and straight, dem and rep. Jesus said God makes the rain fall on the just and the unjust alike. “The true theory of the universe,” Mary Baker Eddy said, “including humanity, is not in material history, but in spiritual development. Inspired thought relinquishes a material, sensual and mortal theory of the universe, and adopts the spiritual and immortal.”
Awareness of our reality as spiritual beings first, having an earthly experience, can help us overcome the fear that keeps us locked into always doing what we always do, and always getting what we always got. Matter can never truly define anyone, because it is blind to spiritual and essential qualities such as honesty, compassion, brotherhood, wisdom, joy and love. These and qualities like them, define our true power. They are the true substance of our being and they enable us to transcend material limitations. No one can be cut off from the light of spirit, it shines 24/7, everywhere and on everyone. Access the light that you are, that everyone is, and the darkness disappears. When you put on a light in a dark room, the darkness does not resist, it simply disappears.
If I’m unhappy and I want things to be different, I have to be different. If I always do what I always did, I’ll always get what I always got.
Come on friends, enough already! We have the power, right now, you and I and the person next to you; its always been there within us. We can make things different and fulfill the ideals Joseph Campbell was talking about. But we’ve got to face our fears, claim our power and take responsibility, and that’s difficult. Difficult, but not impossible. In fact as we begin to do that - face our fears, claim our power and take responsibility, not only do we feel better, but the results are instantaneous.
It isn’t a matter of some people being better than others. Rather it requires a willingness to think and act in new terms, to point to spirit’s abundant love and care for each and every one of us, sinners and righteous, black and white, gay and straight, dem and rep. Jesus said God makes the rain fall on the just and the unjust alike. “The true theory of the universe,” Mary Baker Eddy said, “including humanity, is not in material history, but in spiritual development. Inspired thought relinquishes a material, sensual and mortal theory of the universe, and adopts the spiritual and immortal.”
Awareness of our reality as spiritual beings first, having an earthly experience, can help us overcome the fear that keeps us locked into always doing what we always do, and always getting what we always got. Matter can never truly define anyone, because it is blind to spiritual and essential qualities such as honesty, compassion, brotherhood, wisdom, joy and love. These and qualities like them, define our true power. They are the true substance of our being and they enable us to transcend material limitations. No one can be cut off from the light of spirit, it shines 24/7, everywhere and on everyone. Access the light that you are, that everyone is, and the darkness disappears. When you put on a light in a dark room, the darkness does not resist, it simply disappears.
If I’m unhappy and I want things to be different, I have to be different. If I always do what I always did, I’ll always get what I always got.
Thursday, October 21, 2010
Joseph Campbell, 5
The fact that most of the Founders were Masons and would have studied ancient Egyptian lore explains many of the symbols on the dollar bill. In Egypt, the pyramid represents the primordial hillock. After the annual flood of the Nile begins to sink down, the first hillock is symbolic of the reborn world. That is what the pyramid on this seal represents.
The pyramid also showed the Founders that one has to distinguish between reason and thinking.
Reason is one kind of thinking. But thinking things out isn’t necessarily reason as the Founders understood it. The mouse that bumps its nose and figures out there’s another way to go, is figuring things out the way we figure things out. But that’s not reason. Reason has to do with finding the ground of being and the fundamental structuring of order of the universe. When these men talked about the eye of God being reason, they were saying that the ground of our being as a society, culture and people derives from the fundamental character of the universe.
The pyramid myth, with its suggestion that if you’re going to govern correctly, you’ve got to govern from the apex, from the eye, can still inform us today. It can contrast the current state of political ‘discourse’ with our nation’s ideals as envisioned by the Founders. It offers a venerable alternative of compassionate cooperation, inclusion and connectivity. Individually, most of us are now, politically and historically, on one side of the pyramid, one side of the argument, not representing the principle of the eye.
In fact we’ve fallen so near the pyramid’s base that we even distrust and mock those who attempt to pull us up toward reason. We need to get to the top, the eye, individually and collectively. It’s there in our history, our roots, and has been a part of human civilization for thousands of years. We don’t have to invent it, we just have to awaken to it, claim it, and live it.
The pyramid also showed the Founders that one has to distinguish between reason and thinking.
Reason is one kind of thinking. But thinking things out isn’t necessarily reason as the Founders understood it. The mouse that bumps its nose and figures out there’s another way to go, is figuring things out the way we figure things out. But that’s not reason. Reason has to do with finding the ground of being and the fundamental structuring of order of the universe. When these men talked about the eye of God being reason, they were saying that the ground of our being as a society, culture and people derives from the fundamental character of the universe.
The pyramid myth, with its suggestion that if you’re going to govern correctly, you’ve got to govern from the apex, from the eye, can still inform us today. It can contrast the current state of political ‘discourse’ with our nation’s ideals as envisioned by the Founders. It offers a venerable alternative of compassionate cooperation, inclusion and connectivity. Individually, most of us are now, politically and historically, on one side of the pyramid, one side of the argument, not representing the principle of the eye.
In fact we’ve fallen so near the pyramid’s base that we even distrust and mock those who attempt to pull us up toward reason. We need to get to the top, the eye, individually and collectively. It’s there in our history, our roots, and has been a part of human civilization for thousands of years. We don’t have to invent it, we just have to awaken to it, claim it, and live it.
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