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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?

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Joseph Campbell, 4

So what you have here on the dollar bill is the eagle representing this wonderful image of the way in which the transcendent manifests itself in the world. That’s what the United States is founded on. If you’re going to govern properly, you’ve got to govern from the apex of the triangle, in the sense of the world eye at the top.

Washington outlined all of this in his farewell address. “As a result of our revolution,” he said, “we have disengaged ourselves from involvement in the chaos of Europe,” and he warned that we not engage in foreign alliances. We held to his words until WWI, then canceled the Declaration of Independence and rejoined the British conquest of the planet.

So we are now on one side of the pyramid. We’ve moved from one to two and are now politically and historically, a member of one side of an argument. We do not represent that principle of the eye. And all of our concerns are with economics and politics, not with the voice and sound of reason.

What destroys reason is passion, and the principle passion in politics is greed. That’s what pulls us down and why we’re on one side of the pyramid instead of at the top. We’ve ceased the forward motion begun in the great awakening in 500 BC with Buddha, Pythagoras, Confucius and Lao Tzu when humans began the transition to reason from being governed by animal powers, the planted earth and the course of the planets.

But the Founders were learned men and carried on the tradition of the great awakening. They opposed religious intolerance and rejected the idea of the Fall. For them, as it ought to be for us, all human beings are competent to know the mind of God and there is no revelation special to any people. They used Masonic symbols and other ancient symbols probably available in Thomas Jefferson’s library, to embody their eighteenth century Enlightenment ideals. We haven’t had men of that quality in politics very much. It’s an enormous good fortune for our nation that that cluster of gentlemen had the power and were in a position to influence events at that time.

Joseph Campbell, 3

If you look behind the pyramid, you see a desert. If you look before it, you see plants growing. The desert, the tumult in Europe, wars and wars and wars – we have pulled ourselves out of it and created a state in the name of reason, not in the name of power, and out of that will come the flowerings of the new life. That’s the sense of that part of the pyramid.

Now look at the right side of the dollar bill. Here’s the eagle, the bird of Zeus. The eagle is the downcoming of the god into the field of time. The bird is the incarnation principle of the deity. This is the bald eagle, the American eagle. This is the American counterpart of the eagle of the highest god, Zeus.

He comes down, descending into the world of the pairs of opposites, the field of action. One mode of action is war and the other is peace. So in one of his feet the eagle holds thirteen arrows – that’s the principle of war. In the other he holds a laurel leaf with thirteen leaves, the principle of peaceful conversation. That’s the way the idealists who founded our country would wish us to looking – diplomatic relationships and so forth. But thank God he’s got the arrows in the other foot, in case this doesn’t work.

Now, what does the eagle represent? What is in the radiant sign above his head – thirteen stars arranged in the form of a Star of David. There are nine feathers in the eagle’s tail, the number of the descent of the divine power into the world. When the Angelus rings, it rings nine times.

The Star of David is also known as Solomon’s Seal because he used it to seal monsters and giants and things into jars, the way genies were sealed into jars in the Arabian Nights. Each of the triangles in the star is a Pythagorean tetrakys; a triangle composed of ten points, one in the middle and four to each side, adding up to nine, the primary symbol of Pythagorean philosophy, susceptible of a number of interrelated mythological, cosmological, psychological, and sociological interpretations, one of which is the dot at the apex represents the creative center out of which the universe and all things have come.

The initial sound, the big bang, or the Word as a Christian might say, the pouring of the transcendent energy into and expanding through the field of time, breaking into pairs of opposites as soon as it enters, the one becoming two. With two, there are just three ways they can relate to one another: one is dominant, the other is dominant, the two are in balanced accord. Lao-tzu says out of the Tao, the transcendent comes one, out of one comes two, out of two three, and from the three all things in the four corners of space derive.

The arrangement of the triangles in the Great Seal suggest that from above or below, or from any point of the compass, the creative word might be heard, which is the great thesis of democracy. Democracy assumes that anybody from any quarter can speak, and speak truth, because their mind is not cut off from the truth. All they have to do is clear out their passions and then speak.

Joseph Campbell, 2

The Great Seal of the United States suggests the kind of new myth we need. Its on the dollar bill, a statement of the ideals that brought about the formation of the United States. Look at a dollar bill. There is the Great Seal. Look at the pyramid on the left. This pyramid has four sides, for the four points of the compass. When you’re down on the lower levels of this pyramid, you’re either on one side or the other. But when you get to the top, the points come together, and there the eye of God opens. And to the Founders, it was the god of reason.

This is the first nation in the world that was ever established on the basis of reason instead of warfare. The Founders were eighteenth century deists. It also says, “In God We Trust.” But that is not the god of the Bible. These men did not believe in a Fall. They did not think the mind of man was cut off from God. The mind of man, cleansed of secondary and merely temporal concerns, beholds with the radiance of a cleansed mirror a reflection of the rational mind of God.

Reason puts you in touch with God. Consequently, for these men, there is no special revelation in the Bible or anywhere, and none is needed, because the mind of man cleared of its fallibilities is sufficiently capable of the knowledge of God. All people in the world are thus capable because all people in the world are capable of reason. That is the fundamental principle of democracy. Because everybody’s mind is capable of true knowledge, you don’t have to have a special authority, or a special revelation telling you that this is the way things should be.

All the symbols the Founders used are mythological but arise from a non-biblical mythology that rejects the idea of the Fall in the Garden, and the idea that human beings are cut off from their source, must be redeemed and need a special revelation. For the deist Founders, human beings are not cut off from their source, need not be redeemed and need no special revelation.

Back to the Great Seal. When you count the number of ranges of the pyramid, you find there are thirteen. And when you come to the bottom, there is an inscription in Roman numerals. It is, of course, 1776. Then, when you add one and seven and seven and six, you get twenty-one, which is the age of reason. It was 1776 when the thirteen declared independence. The number thirteen is the number of transformation and rebirth. At the Last Supper there were twelve apostles and one Christ, who was going to die and be reborn. Thirteen is the number of getting out of the field of the bounds of twelve into the transcendent. Similarly, twelve signs of the zodiac and the sun. The Founders were very conscious of the number thirteen as the number of resurrection and rebirth and new life, and the played it up here, in the dollar bill, all the way through.

Of course as a practical matter there were thirteen colonies, and that’s symbolic and not simply a coincidental. That’s why it says, Novus Ordo Seclorum,” a new order of the world, and “Annuit Coeptis,” he has smiled on our accomplishments or activities. “He” being what is represented by the eye – Reason. In Latin you would not say “He” you would say “It.” So the divine power has smiled on our doings; and this new world has been built in the sense of God’s original creation, and the reflection of God’s original creation, through reason, has brought this about.

Joseph Campbell, 1.1

This is a modification of the yesterday’s post, worth reading even if you read it yesterday.

I’ve been reading Joseph Campbell and the Power of Myth with Bill Moyers, Doubleday, 1988. It is so clear and useful, I want to share some of it with you. As with the Course in Miracles, I will be quoting and re-arranging quotes, but the work is all fundamentally, Campbell.

Myth is the “commonality of themes pointing to a constant requirement in the human psyche for centering in terms of deep principles, for having an interior road map of experience,” that gives it meaning and allows us to live day-to-day and know we are part of an ultimate, mysterious Reality that transcends language and art. “Myth is a mask of God, a metaphor for what lies beyond the visible world.”

At its best, myth enables us to be healthy, viable individuals, group members and world citizens. At its worst, it is contradictory and exclusionary. “For example, the ten commandments say, ‘Thou shalt not kill.’ Then the next chapter says, ‘Go into Canaan and kill everybody in it.’ (Here) the myths of participation and love only pertain to the in-group, the out-group is totally other.”

Though the dictionary defines myth as stories about god, with god being a personification of a motivating power or a value system that functions in human life and in the universe – powers in our own bodies and nature, metaphorical spiritual potentialities of human beings, with the same powers animating our lives that animate the world, there are two totally different orders of mythology. One relates us to the natural world, the other is strictly sociological, linking us to a particular society.

The biblical tradition is socially oriented mythology. Nature is condemned. In the Bible, eternity withdraws, and nature is corrupt, nature has fallen. In biblical thinking, we live in exile. Nature religions, on the other hand, are not attempts to control nature but to help us put ourselves in accord with it. But if nature is thought of as evil, as it is in the Bible, you don’t put yourself in accord with it, you control it, or try to, and hence the tension, the anxiety, the cutting down of forests, the annihilation of native people, the separation from nature. We have contempt for nature, subjugate and dominate it because the Bible says it is merely something to serve us. We “don’t know how to apply religious ideas to contemporary life. It’s the failure of religion to meet the modern world.”

We need a new myth, one that will identify the individual not with his local, sociological group, but with the planet. A model for that is the United States. Here we see thirteen different little colony nations that decided to act in the mutual interest, without disregarding the individual interests of any one of them.

Joseph Campbell, 1

I’ve been reading Joseph Campbell and the Power of Myth with Bill Moyers, Doubleday, 1988. It is so clear and useful, I want to share some of it with you. As with the Course in Miracles, I will be quoting and re-arranging quotes, but the work is all fundamentally, Campbell.

Myth is the “commonality of themes pointing to a constant requirement in the human psyche for centering in terms of deep principles, an interior road map of experience,” that gives it meaning and allows us to live day-to-day and know we are part of an ultimate, mysterious Reality that transcends language and art. “Myth is a mask of God, a metaphor for what lies beyond the visible world.”

At its best, myth enables us to be healthy, viable individuals, group members and world citizens. At its worst, it is contradictory and exclusionary. “For example, the ten commandments say, ‘Thou shalt not kill.’ Then the next chapter says, ‘Go into Canaan and kill everybody in it.’ The myths of participation and love only pertain to the in-group, the out-group is totally other.”

Though the dictionary defines myth as stories about god, with god being a personification of a motivating power or a value system that functions in human life and in the universe – powers in our own bodies and nature, metaphorical spiritual potentialities of human beings – the same powers that animate our lives animated the world, there are two totally different orders of mythology. One relates us to the natural world, the other is strictly sociological, linking us to a particular society.

The biblical tradition is socially oriented mythology. Nature is condemned. In the Bible, eternity withdraws, and nature is corrupt, nature has fallen. In biblical thinking, we live in exile. Nature religions are not attempts to control nature but to help us put ourselves in accord with it. But if nature is thought of as evil, you don’t put yourself in accord with it, you control it, or try to, and hence the tension, the anxiety, the cutting down of forests, the annihilation of native people, the separation from nature. We have contempt for nature, subjugate and dominate it because the Bible says it is merely something to serve us.

Humor

You can retire to Phoenix, Arizona where
1. You are willing to park 3 blocks away because you found shade.
2. You've experienced condensation on your butt from the hot water in the toilet bowl.
3. You can drive for 4 hours in one direction and never leave town.
4. You have over 100 recipes for Mexican food.
5. You know that "dry heat" is comparable to what hits you in the face when you open your oven door.
6. The 4 seasons are: tolerable, hot, really hot, and ARE YOU KIDDING ME??!!

You can retire to California where
1. You make over $250,000 and you still can't afford to buy a house.
2. The fastest part of your commute is going down your driveway.
3. You know how to eat an artichoke.
4. You drive your rented Mercedes to your neighborhood block party.
5. When someone asks you how far something is, you tell them how long it will take to get there rather than how many miles away it is.
6. The 4 seasons are: Fire, Flood, Mud, and Drought.

You can retire to New York City where
1. You say "the city" and expect everyone to know you mean Manhattan.
2. You can get into a four-hour argument about how to get from Columbus Circle to Battery Park, but can't find Wisconsin on a map.
3. You think Central Park is "nature."
4. You believe that being able to swear at people in their own language makes you multi-lingual.
5. You've worn out a car horn. (end note: if you have a car)
6. You think eye contact is an act of aggression.

You can retire to Buffalo, NY where
1. You only have four spices: salt, pepper, ketchup, and Tabasco.
2. Halloween costumes fit over parkas.
3. You have more than one recipe for deer.
4. Sexy lingerie is anything flannel with less than eight buttons.
5. The four seasons are: winter, still winter, almost winter, and construction.

You can retire to the South where
1. You can rent a movie and buy bait in the same store.
2. "Y'all" is singular and "all y'all" is plural.
3. "He needed killin'" is a valid defense.
4. Everyone has 2 first names: Billy Bob, Jimmy Bob, Mary Sue, Betty Jean, Mary Beth, etc.
5. Everything is either "in yonder," "over yonder" or "out yonder." It's important to know the difference, too.

You can retire to Colorado where
1. You carry your $3,000 mountain bike atop your $500 car.
2. You tell your husband to pick up Granola on his way home and so he stops at the day care center.
3. A pass does not involve a football or dating.
4. The top of your head is bald, but you still have a pony tail.

You can retire to the Midwest where
1. You've never met any celebrities, but the mayor knows your name.
2. Your idea of a traffic jam is ten cars waiting to pass a tractor.
3. You have had to switch from "heat" to "A/C" on the same day.
4. You end sentences with a preposition: "Where's my coat at?"
5. When asked how your trip was to any exotic place, you say, "It was different!"

AND You can retire to Florida where
1. You eat dinner at 3:15 in the afternoon.
2. All purchases include a coupon of some kind -- even houses and cars.
3. Everyone can recommend an excellent dermatologist.
4. Road construction never ends anywhere in the state.
5. Cars in front of you often appear to be driven by no one.

Bridging the Little Gap

[This is written in first person – “I.” It is meant to be read in first person, with the “I” being you, the reader.]

Spirit builds a bridge to Itself across the little gap, but only in the space left clean and vacant by the miracle. The seeds of sickness and the shame of guilt It cannot bridge, for It can not destroy the alien will It did not create. If I let the gap’s effects be gone and won’t clutch them eagerly to keep them for myself; the miracle will brush them all aside, thus making room to bridge the gap and return me to Itself.

As I count the silver miracles and golden dreams of happiness as all the treasures I’ll keep within the storehouse of the world, I awaken to my reality. What is the world except a little gap perceived to tear eternity apart, and break it into days and months and years? And what am I who live within the world except a picture of a child of God, broken into pieces, each concealed within a separate and uncertain bit of clay?

I will not be afraid but let my world be lit by miracles. And where the gap is seen to stand between my siblings and I, I will join them there. And sickness will be without a cause. The dream of healing lies in forgiveness, gently showing we never sinned. Like the sea rushing in to cover and smooth the ship’s wake, the miracle would leave no proof of guilt or bring witness to what never was.

And in my storehouse, will be a welcome for my siblings and God. The door is open so all those who have had enough of starvation, fear and anger may come and feast and no longer cherish illusions, dark dreams and sickness. It will be a feast like nothing the world has known. For here, the more that anyone receives, the more is left for all the rest to share. No one is deprived or can deprive. Here is a feast the spirit lays before its children, to share equally with them. And in their sharing there can be no gap in which abundance falters and grows thin. Here the lean years never enter and time waits not upon this feast, which has no end. For Love has set its table in the gap, the space that seemed to keep my guests apart from me.

Sickness and the Little Gap

[This is written in first person – “I.” It is meant to be read in first person, with the “I” being you, the reader.]

No mind is sick until another mind agrees they are separate. And thus it is their joint decision to be sick. If I withhold agreement and accept the part I play in making sickness real, the other mind cannot project its guilt without my aid in letting it perceive itself as separate and apart from me. Thus is the body not perceived as sick by both our minds from separate points of view. Uniting with another’s mind prevents the cause of sickness and perceived effects. Healing is the effect of minds that join, as sickness comes from minds that separate.

The miracle does nothing just because the minds are joined, and cannot separate. Yet in the dreaming has this been reversed, and separate minds are seen as bodies, which are separated and cannot join. Allowing another to be sick, by not feeling our fundamental oneness, abandons them to their dreams because I’m sharing them with them. The others have not seen the cause of sickness where it is, and I have overlooked the gap between us, where the sickness has been bred. We are thus joined in sickness, preserving the little gap unhealed, where sickness abides carefully protected, cherished and upheld by firm belief, lest God should come to bridge the little gap that leads to It. I need to stop fighting Its coming with sickness, dreams and illusions, for it is Its coming that I want above all things that seem to glisten in this dream of living.

The end of dreaming is the end of fear, and love was never in the world of dreams. The gap is little. Yet it holds the seeds of pestilence and every form of ill, because it is a wish to keep apart and not join. Thus it seems to give a cause to sickness which is not its cause. The purpose of the gap is all the cause that sickness has; for it was made to keep us separated, in a body which I see as if it were the cause of pain.

The cause of pain is separation, not the body, which is only its effect. Yet separation is but empty space, enclosing nothing, doing nothing, and as unsubstantial as the empty place between the ripples that a ship makes in passing. And covered just as fast as water rushes in to close the gap, and as the waves in joining, cover it. Where is the gap between the waves when they have joined, and covered up the space which seemed to keep them separate for a little while? Where are the grounds for sickness when the minds have joined to close the little gap between them, where the seeds of sickness seemed to grow?

Practicing Miracles

I get all this intellectually and am able to actually apply it to my life more and more and achieve better and better results: more peace, clarity, less conflict, and greater productivity. The problem is I frequently get stuck: some situation or condition arises and tho I know I don’t have to perceive it as I do and I can ask for help to see it differently, and I do ask for help, my heart and mind are stuck, just going round and round. Eventually, I’ll get the different perception I pray for and the peace and clarity that go with it, but until that happens, I feel awful and experience a lot of stress.

Part of my inability to let go arises from fear, my amygdyla - the primitive lizard part of my brain, gets triggered, adrenalin pours into my system and I get uncomfortably stuck. Deep breathing, going for a walk, meditation and prayer all help with that when it’s happening and as a preventative practice to make me less susceptible to it.

The fear driven need, frequently, the desperate need to be right, often camouflaged as ‘standing up for what’s right’ or ‘doing God’s will,’ also keeps me holding on to perceiving the situation or condition as the world, the unforgiven world, sees and defines it and keeps me from letting go and letting God and the goodness, peace, love and compassion that God is, flow into me and through me, into the situation. After all, if I’m right, if I’m doing what I’m ‘supposed’ to do, ‘should’ do, then I shouldn’t be afraid, right? Except who says what I’m ‘supposed’ to do, or ‘should’ do? The Bible? My parents? My boss? My political party?

The trick is to be mindful and aware, to feel the Presence in everything, no matter what, not take things so seriously, not need to be right, and stay empty – have no feelings, thoughts, beliefs and opinions, at all, but especially none that weigh me down and cause me to blame, judge, exclude, punish or hurt others. As soon as I start blaming, taking things seriously and need to be right, I want to become aware I’m getting stuck and ask to perceive and experience what’s going on as spirit would perceive and experience what’s going on, with love, compassion, joy, peace and inclusiveness. Do you know why angels fly? Because they take themselves so lightly!

Undoing the world

The world is ‘undone’ as the Course talks about undoing, first by being transformed in our minds. Ultimately, for the Course, the world is already ‘undone’ because it is not real – only what God creates is real. But since we are asleep dreaming we are in the world it is real to us, tho the Course says it is an illusion, not created by God. So we come closer to our reality and undo the world, by waking up to our own, and humanity’s, oneness with God, by first transforming our perceptions of the world in our hearts and minds.

We do this as a daily, moment to moment practice, by having the mental and emotional discipline to be aware of our perceptions, thoughts and feelings. We transform the world, not because we ‘saved’ it from anything, but rather because we actively participate in life, demonstrating our belief that God is good and acting from our connection to Its goodness with peace, love, compassion, wholeness and inclusiveness.

Since our experience of a thing is, for us, that thing, when we come from the inside-out, awake and aware that the world can be transformed for us by our own connection to spirit, by thinking, feeling and acting with spirit, the world IS transformed for us! When we control our experience of something, for all intents and purposes, it is the same thing as shaping the thing itself. It is in this way that we ‘undo’ the world.

And have you noticed that when you drop your resistance to unwanted conditions, how they change? That’s because they are free to change, no longer held in place by all the energy we’re pouring into holding them in place. It’s almost magical. It’s an inside-out thing. The connection between consciousness and the so-called material world is one of the last great frontiers of human knowledge and expansion. And you don’t need a Ph.D, a laboratory, or a wagon train to reach that frontier and explore it, you can do it right now, right where you are by waking up, taking responsibility for yourself and knowing there’s much more to Reality than meets the eye.

Healing and Miracles

[This is written in first person – “I.” It is meant to be read in first person, with the “I” being you, the reader.]

Nothing at all has happened but that I have put myself to sleep, and dreamed a dream in which I am an alien to myself, and but a part of someone else’s dream. The miracle does not awaken me, but merely shows me who the dreamer is. It teaches me there is a choice of dreams while I am still asleep, depending on the purpose of my dreaming. Do I wish for dreams of healing, or for dreams of death? A dream is like a memory in that it pictures what I want shown to me. Since I have caused the dream and can accept another dream as well. But for this change in content, I must realize it was I who dreamed the dreaming I do not like. There is no alien no other. The dream is but an effect I have caused, and I could choose not be cause of this effect.

In fearful dreams, I am the victim. But in forgiving dreams, there is no victim, no one is asked to be afraid and suffer. These are the happy dreams the miracle exchanges for the ones the ego caused. The miracle does not ask my ego to make another dream, but only to see I made the one I would exchange for it. Tho I may cause a dream, I can never give it real effects. The dreamer of a dream is not awake, but does not know he sleeps. He sees illusions of himself as sick or well, depressed or happy, but without a stable cause there can be no effects.

The miracle establishes that I dream a dream, and that its content is not true. This is a crucial step in dealing with illusions. No one is afraid when they perceive they made them up. Fear is held in place because the dreamer did not see that he was author of the dream, and not a figure in the dream. The miracle does nothing but show dreamers that they have done nothing. What they fear is cause without the consequences; and so it never was and we dreamers are free to choose the happy dream.

The world is full of miracles. They stand in shining silence next to every dream of pain and suffering, of sin and guilt. They are the dream’s alternative, the choice to be the dreamer, rather than deny the active role in making up the dream. The body is released because the mind acknowledges ‘this is not done to me, but I am doing this.’ Thus the mind is free to make another choice. Beginning her, salvation will proceed and all the dreaming of the world is undone.

Healing and the Miracle

[This is written in first person – “I.” It is meant to be read in first person, with the “I” being you, the reader.]

The miracle does nothing. All it does is to undo. And thus it cancels out the interference to what has been done. It does not add, but merely takes away. And what it takes away is long since gone, but because its kept in memory, appears to have immediate effects. This world was over long ago. The thoughts that made it are no longer in the mind that thought of them and loved them for a little while. The miracle but shows the past is gone, and what is gone has no effects. Remembering a cause can but produce illusions of its presence, not effects.

Remembering is as selective as perception, being its past tense. It is perception of the past as if it were occurring now, and still were there to see. Memory like perception, is a skill made up by ego to take the place of what spirit gave in my creation. And like all things ego made, it can be used to serve another purpose, and to be the means for something else. It can be used to heal and not to hurt, if I allow it to do so.

Nothing employed for healing represents an effort to do anything at all. It is a recognition that I have no needs which require anything be done. Spirit uses memory, not of past events, but of a present state. Ego is so accustomed to believing memory holds only the past, that it is hard for me to realize it can also remember now. Spirit’s use of memory is quite apart from time. It uses memory not to keep the past, but as way to let it go.

Memory holds whatever message it is given, and does what it is given to do. It does not write the message, nor say what it is for. Like the body, it is purposeless in itself. If it seems to serve to cherish ancient hate, and give pictures of injustices and hurts, it is because I asked it to do that. All the strange associations made to keep the past alive, the present dead, are stored within it, waiting my command that they be brought to me to live again. Thus do their effects appear to be increased by time, which took their cause away.

Yet time is another phase of what does nothing. It works hand in hand with all the other attributes with which I seek to keep the truth about myself concealed. Time neither takes away nor restores. Yet the ego says the past has caused the present. No change can be made in the present if its cause is past. If only the past is held in memory, it is a way to hold the past against the now.

It’s best to remember nothing that I taught myself, for I was badly taught. Why keep a useless lesson, when a better one can be learned? When ancient memories of hate appear, remember that their cause is gone, and so it is not possible to remember what made them what they were, or seemed to be. I’m glad that its gone, for this is what I would be pardoned from. Instead I want to see the new effects of cause accepted now, with consequences here and allow them to surprise me with their loveliness. The ancient new ideas they bring will be the happy consequences of a cause spirit has remembered for me.

In gentle laughter does spirit perceive the cause, and looks not to effects. Spirit bids me bring each terrible effect to It that we may look together on its foolish cause and laugh with It for awhile, remembering into eternity, where all is one, there crept a tiny, mad idea, at which I remembered not to laugh. In my forgetting did the thought become a serious idea, and possible of both accomplishment and real effects. Together, we can laugh them both away, and understand that time cannot intrude upon eternity. It is a joke to think that time can come to circumvent eternity, which means there is not time.
A timelessness in which time is made real; a part of spirit that can attack itself; a separate person that is an enemy; a mind within a body, all of which I believe and accept as true, are all forms of double concepts and circularity. I judge effects, but spirit judges their cause. And by Its judgment are effects removed. Perhaps I come in tears, but if I have a little willingness and give it over, I will hear spirit say, ‘behold it is but an idle dream, in which this could occur.’

Healing

[This is written in first person – “I.” It is meant to be read in first person, with the “I” being you, the reader.]

Problems are not specific but they take specific forms, and these specific shapes make up the world. And no one understands the nature of their problem. If they did, it would be there no more for them to see. Its very nature is that it is not. And thus, while they perceives it they can not perceive it as it is. But healing is apparent in specific instances, and generalizes to include them all. This is because problems are all really the same, despite their different forms. All learning aims at transfer, which becomes complete with two situations that are seen as one, for only common elements are there. Yet this can only be attained by spirit - one who does not see the differences I see. When I give it over to spirit, the total transfer of learning is made in spite of all the differences I see, and that convinces me they could not have been real.

My healing will extend and be brought to problems I thought were not my own. I will not fear the way I perceive problems. I am wrong, but the spirit within me is right. I will leave the transfer of my learning to the spirit within. My part is merely to apply what spirit has taught me to myself, and It will do the rest. Thus the power of my learning will be proved to me by all the different witnesses it finds. Those closest to me will be first, but thousands stand behind them, and beyond each of them there are a thousand more. Each one may seem to have a problem that is different from the rest. Yet they are solved together. And there common answers shows the questions could not have been separate.

Peace be to me to whom healing is offered. And I will learn that peace is given me when I accept the healing for myself. I need not know its total value to understand that I have benefited from it. What occurred within the instant that love entered without attack will stay forever. My healing will be one of its effects. Yet all the witnesses that I behold will be far less than all there really are. Infinity cannot be understood by merely counting up its separate parts. Spirit thanks me for my healing, for It knows it is a gift of love unto Its children, and therefore, unto It.

Double Concepts, 3

[This is written in first person – “I.” It is meant to be read in first person, with the “I” being you, the reader.]

The only way to heal is to be healed. The miracle extends without my help, but I, acting for myself, and you acting for yourself, am needed that it can begin. Accept the miracle of healing and it will go forth because of what it is. It is its nature to extend itself the instant it is born. And it is born the instant it is offered and received. No one can ask another to be healed. But they can let themselves be healed, and thus offer the other what they have received. Who can bestow upon another what they do not have? And who can share what they deny themselves? Spirit speaks to everyone, but only by hearing It and listening will Its voice extend. I must hear and accept for myself, you must hear and accept for yourself. No one can do it for us.

Health is the witness to health. Only when is has been demonstrated, is it proved and provides a witness that compels belief. No one is healed through double messages. If I, or you, wish only to be healed, I heal. A single purpose makes healing possible. But if I am afraid of healing, it can not come through me. The only thing that is required for a healing is lack of fear. The fearful are not healed and cannot heal. This does not mean that the conflict between the double messages must be gone forever from my mind, or yours, to heal. If it were, there would be no need of healing. But it does mean, if only for an instant – the holy instant, that I love without attack. An instant is sufficient. Miracles wait not on time.

The holy instant is the miracle’s abiding place. From there, each one is born into this world as witness to a state of mind that has transcended conflict, and has reached to peace. It carries comfort from the place of peace into the battleground of our double concept world, demonstrating that war and conflict have no effects. All the hurt that war and conflict have sought to bring, the broken bodies and shattered limbs, the screaming dying, terror, and silent dead, are gently lifted up and comforted.

There is no sadness where a miracle has come to heal. And nothing more than just one instant of my love, and yours, without attack is necessary that all this occur. In that one instant I am healed and in that single instant is all healing done. What could stand apart from me, when I accept the blessing the holy instant brings? Be not afraid of blessing, for the one who blesses me, loves all the world, leaving nothing within it that could be feared. But if I, shrink from blessing, the world will indeed seem fearful, for I withheld peace and comfort leaving it to die.

Double Concepts 2

But pain drives forgiveness from my mind, fills in the empty spaces and proves the body must be real. It’s loud obscuring shrieks fill the space spirit occupies, making hearing Its still, small voice impossible. Pain compels attention drawing it away from spirit and focusing it upon itself. Pain’s purpose is the same as pleasure’s; they are both means for making the body real, filling the space, and denying our reality as spirit. Despite appearances, what shares a common purpose is the same. Pleasure and pain are equally unreal, because their purpose cannot be achieved. Thus they are means for nothing; for they have a goal without a meaning.

The ego shifts us from pain to pleasure, and back to pain. Both are witnesses for the same experience and carry the same message: we are here, within this body, and can be hurt. We can have pleasure, too, but only at the cost of pain. These witnesses are joined by many more. Each one seems different because it has a different name, and seems to answer to a different sound, but they are all the same. Call pleasure pain and it will hurt; call pain pleasure and it will feel good. That’s what S&M is all about. Ego’s witnesses but shift from name to name; one steps forward, the other back, but which is foremost hardly matters.

This body, purposeless within itself, holds all our memories and all our hopes. We use its eyes to see, its ears to hear, and let it tell us what it feels. It does not know. It tells us but the names we gave it to use, when we call forth the witnesses to its reality. We can not choose which among them is real, for which ever we choose is like the rest; we choose this name or that, nothing more. We do not make a witness true because we called him by truth’s name.

God’s witness sees no witnesses against the body. Nor does he listen to the witnesses who speak for its reality. He knows the body is not real; knows we are asleep with God, dreaming we are here; knows nothing could contain what we believe the body contains. For each witness for the body’s reality, he sends a witness to your life in him who knows no death. Each miracle makes no distinctions in the names by which the ego’s witnesses are called. It merely proves that what they represent had no effects.

The miracle is the experience of the holy instant, of grace, of bliss in the midst of fear. The one who brings the miracle perceives all the ego’s witnesses as one; knows there is no order of difficulty in miracles. As fear is witness to death, so the miracle is witness to life. The miracle works and forgives because it stands for what is past forgiveness and is true. How foolish and insane to think a miracle is bound by the laws it came to undo! The ego’s laws have different witnesses, attesting to different sufferings.

To the one who sends forth miracles to bless the world, a tiny stab of pain, a little worldly pleasure, and the throes of death itself are but a single sound; a call for healing, and a plaintive cry for help and to awaken from a world of misery. It is their sameness the miracle proves, for it dissolves the ‘laws’ that call them different and shows them to be powerless.

Let us be witnesses to the miracle, and not the laws of the ego. There is no need to suffer any more. But there is need for us to be healed, to awaken, to hear the still small voice and claim the holy instant. The resurrection of the world awaits our healing and happiness, that we may demonstrate our reality as spirit. Forgiveness and the holy instant will replace the ego’s world, if we will use them and allow them to. What better function could we serve but this; to be healed that we may heal, and suffer not the laws of the ego be applied to us, choosing the miracle and holy instant instead.

Double Concepts

Power cannot oppose, for opposition would weaken it, and weakened power is a contradiction in ideas. Weak strength is meaningless. To weaken is to limit and impose an opposite that contradicts the concept. It joins to the idea a something it is not and makes it unintelligible. Who can understand a double concept, such as ‘weakened-power’ or ‘hateful-love’ or ‘living-death?’ Who indeed? I do, you do; that’s the nature of how we think and perceive. We see it all as a matter of degree, of comparison.

Unfortunately, we think of ourselves and each other in these terms, as double thoughts; one half cancelled out by the other and thus we have no meaning and stand for nothing. To realize there is nothing to attack or deny; love or hate; to endow with power or see as weak is the beginning of reality. The picture we have of the world, ourselves and each other has been wholly cancelled out because it is built of contradictions. Since it has no cause, there can be no effects. The picture we cherish is wholly absent and has never existed at all. Let, then, the empty space it occupies be recognized as vacant, and the time devoted to seeing it as wasted.
An empty space perceived as not filled, an interval of time perceived as unused, become silent invitations to the truth/reality to enter. No other welcome or preparation need be made. What we leave vacant, God will fill and with God, truth abides. Un-weakened power, with no opposite, is what God is. For this there are no pictures, no symbols. Nothing points beyond truth, for what can stand for more than everything? Yet true undoing - accepting this truth by accepting that the space is vacant and time is unused, must be kind. And so the first replacement for our picture is another picture of another kind.

As nothingness cannot be pictured, so totality can not be pictured. Reality is ultimately known without a form, un-pictured and unseen. But its memory, for we are there, dreaming we are here, can be felt and experienced. The experience of forgiveness - holding nothing, needing nothing, makes the exchange of pictures possible. From the place of forgiveness, the pictures we have of the world, ourselves and each other are single, not double concepts.

Through forgiveness – true forgiveness, not the ‘bring the guilty bastard in so I can forgive him’ kind, nothing that the eyes have ever seen or the ears ever heard will remain to be perceived. A single Power, without opposites, wholly limitless has come, not to destroy, but to receive Its own. Each of us has had moments of this forgiveness, a bliss out of the blue, flashes of the peace of power that oppose nothing, a single thought, without opposite, including and embodying everything – the holy instant. Those flashes, those instants, are what we want to practice to have more of.

If/then, again

I was reflecting on the “I want what I want” post and I saw an ‘if/then’ proposition – if I get what I want, then I’ll be happy. So now I’m practicing the presence by affirming I want what I want and it’s OK, even tho it seems there might be negative consequences, I’m affirming that fear is of the limited mind, my bloated nothingness, and if the desire’s there, and has been forever, then perhaps, no, it will be OK, more than OK, will be the next step in my evolution. So I’m letting go of the ‘if/then’ and being happy and OK with spirit now and happy and OK with spirit when I get what I want.

I’m affirming and knowing that my consciousness of spirit within is the source of my supply – god, it feels good to say that and mean it – without laying on any demands – ‘if/then,’ or judgments, or making up a story about being right or wrong. I’m affirming and knowing that my source, the divine presence in whose perfection I (and you) live will manifest through me according to my acceptance of it. If I accept a lot, I will get a lot. If I accept only a little, I will receive only a little. It is done unto me as I believe.

I’m sensing that with all my gifts, faults, strengths and weaknesses – accepting myself just as I am, not needing to be better or fix anything, that I’m here to distribute the qualities of life – love, truth, joy, justice and the American Way, that are my (and your) divine heritage. I (you, too) was born to be the place where God shows up, in me, as me. Leading from God’s wisdom, compassion and grace, having my purpose to be with these first and live and share from the inner place where these qualities nurture and glow, I need not strive, nor seek for approval, nor worry about things going wrong or not working. I (you) need only experience these without pre-conditions, without an ‘if/then,’ and the joy and results flow from the process.

Funk

I’m in one of those betwixed and between places, where some things I really, really want, at an ego level, but think may be bad for me at both ego and spiritual levels, but would go ahead with anyway, trouble or no, and have made a lot of moves to obtain, aren’t happening; and I’m pissed. The laws of cause and effect which I accept, tell me my fear of what I want is getting in the way of getting what I want. I want to indulge, to take a chance, to see if what I want isn’t as bad for me as I fear, but I can’t get it to find out.

I think I’m trying to be too, good, and what I need to be is just human. I mean being human is both/and, being spiritual and physical, and I’ve been, not dissing the physical, but perhaps overemphasizing the spiritual. It’s OK to want what I want even tho it may be ‘bad’ for me, I don’t have to be perfect and maybe if what I want doesn’t work out so well, going there anyway, is still the next step on my human/spiritual path. In other words, perhaps its my ego idea of what spirit wants, and not spirit at all, that’s in the way.

Anyhow, this is also about my need and desire to be right. In fact, that’s what this blog is about, being right. Blogging allows me to think out loud, to reflect and choose and be right. Of course, we all want to be right, that’s an ego thing. But I see it’s also a spiritual thing, because searching for what’s ‘right’ is a spiritual quest, too.

But, being absolutely right, as in making others absolutely wrong, is not a spiritual quest, it is an ego illusion. What I want is for me, something I want to do; it’s not intended to harm anyone else, and will not be, I trust, at anyone else’s expense. What I want is not to practice being right, but to fulfill a deep desire that I tend to think of as ego, but could also be spiritual. I want to have what I want, experience it, not fantasize about it, live in harmony, cooperation, and partnership with all aspects of my Self and others, and relinquish the need and desire to be perfect, ‘good’ or right and the related need and desire to act from a place of having ‘earned’ what I want as a reward for good behavior or from suffering and victim hood or being wronged.

Courage! Just say yes and go for it, forget all the mental/emotional gyrations; let spirit and ego be one and aligned.

The Blaming Challenge

I am so disappointed and heartbroken by all the whining, blaming and just plain stupidity I hear all around me and on the media. It really hurts! I feel so left out ‘cause I don’t want to whine and blame and act stupid! What’s happened to our spirit? Did the commies take it? No, the Democrats took it. Yeah, let’s blame them and Washington and government itself. Yeah, everything would be fine if we just got ‘government,’ the great Satan, off our backs so we could rely on self interest and dog-eat-dog capitalism.

But could it be we ourselves lost our spirit, not ‘lost’ it, but actually gave it away and refused to take it back? Haven’t any of the whiners and complainers heard of the saying, ‘when things get tough, the tough get going?’ Haven’t any of the whiners and complainers heard about a thing called the self-fulfilling prophecy? Don’t they know that all the whining, blaming and just plain stupidity is creating more of itself? I heard about the self-fulfilling prophecy a zillion years ago, my freshman year of college in Econ 101. The self-fulfilling prophecy was credited with helping to create the great depression, looks like we’re doing that again. And how about Roosevelt’s famous – even tho so many today in their wisdom hate him and want to undo all the horrible commie things he did, “we have nothing to fear, but fear itself” speech?

Surrounded by tales of evil-doers, lack, limitation and betrayal on every side, it’s daunting for me, perhaps you too, to keep the faith. But that is exactly what I (we?) must do lest I fall victim to the collective hysteria. I want and need to continue to believe that every problem has a spiritual solution, no matter what the appearances.

If ever there was a time for working from the inside out, for trusting our spiritual guidance and trying new more compassionate, fear-free, non-blaming approaches, this is it. Using these approaches is what I mean by ‘when things get tough, the tough get going.’ Let’s have the courage of our convictions. The current methods of blame, fear and terror haven’t yet made the world a better place, why think they will in the future? The definition of insanity is doing the same things over and over and expecting a different result. Enough, already!

I’m shifting away from the blaming, fear and terror, not because some super-power in the sky says to do so, but because not only do those methods not work, they’re painful to use. I’m shifting to compassionate, fear free, non-blaming approaches, in spite of appearances, again, not because God says to, I mean heaven forbid if we did what God wants us to do – we’re doing so well with the Devil’s ways, although doing God’s will and building a world that works for all Its creation is worthwhile, but because it feels better and we’ve never really given compassionate, fear free, non-blaming approaches a chance, labeling those that have tried them as wimps.

I’m practicing shifting from fear and loathing to blame-free inside out like crazy; I mean, look at all the opportunities I have to practice, appearances are so shitty! I am so grateful, I’m reminded of the saying, ‘be careful of what you ask for, you just might get it!’ It’s not always fun, but it’s the best challenge in town and when things get tough, this tough guy gets going!

Paraprosdokian Sentences 2

Paraprosdokian Sentences (what ever the hell that is? Well I'll tell ya)
A paraprosdokian (from Greek, meaning "beyond" and
"expectation") is a figure of speech in which the latter part of a sentence or phrase is
surprising or unexpected in a way that causes the reader or listener to reframe or reinterpret the first part. It is frequently used for humorous or dramatic effect, sometimes producing an anticlimax. For this reason, it is extremely popular among comedians and satirists. Some paraprosdokians not only change the meaning of an early phrase, but also play on the double meaning of a particular word, creating a syllepsis.


Ø Behind every successful man is his woman. Behind the fall of every
successful man is usually another woman.

Ø A clear conscience is usually the sign of a bad memory.

Ø You do not need a parachute to skydive. You only need a
parachute to skydive more than once.

Ø The voices in my head may not be real, but they have some good
ideas!

Ø Always borrow money from a pessimist. He won't expect it back.

Ø A diplomat is someone who can tell you to go to hell in such a way
that you will look forward to the trip.

Ø Hospitality: making your guests feel like they're at home, even if
you wish they were.

Ø Money can't buy happiness, but it sure makes misery easier to live
with.

Ø I discovered I scream the same way whether I'm about to be
devoured by a great white shark or if a piece of seaweed touches my
foot.

Ø Some cause happiness wherever they go. Others whenever they
go.

Ø I used to be indecisive. Now I'm not sure.

Ø I always take life with a grain of salt, plus a slice of lemon, and a
shot of tequila.

Ø When tempted to fight fire with fire, remember that the Fire
Department usually uses water.

Ø You're never too old to learn something stupid.

Ø To be sure of hitting the target, shoot first and call whatever you hit
the target.

Ø Nostalgia isn't what it used to be.

Ø Some people hear voices. Some see invisible people. Others have
no imagination whatsoever.

Ø A bus is a vehicle that runs twice as fast when you are after it as
when you are in it.

Paraprosdokian Sentences 1

Paraprosdokian Sentences (what ever the hell that is? Well I'll tell ya)
A paraprosdokian (from Greek, meaning "beyond" and
"expectation") is a figure of speech in which the latter part of a sentence or phrase is
surprising or unexpected in a way that causes the reader or listener to reframe or reinterpret the first part. It is frequently used for humorous or dramatic effect, sometimes producing an anticlimax. For this reason, it is extremely popular among comedians and satirists. Some paraprosdokians not only change the meaning of an early phrase, but also play on the double meaning of a particular word, creating a syllepsis.


Ø Do not argue with an idiot. He will drag you down to his level and
beat you with experience.

Ø Going to church doesn't make you a Christian any more than
standing in a garage makes you a car.

Ø The last thing I want to do is hurt you. But it's still on the list.

Ø Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear
bright until you hear them speak.

Ø If I agreed with you we'd both be wrong.

Ø We never really grow up, we only learn how to act in public.

Ø War does not determine who is right - only who is left.

Ø Knowledge is knowing a tomato is a fruit; Wisdom is not putting it in
a fruit salad.

Ø The early bird might get the worm, but the second mouse gets the
cheese.

Ø Evening news is where they begin with 'Good evening', and then
proceed to tell you why it isn't.

Ø To steal words from one person is plagiarism. To steal ideas from
many is research.

Ø A bus station is where a bus stops. A train station is where a train
stops. On my desk, I have a work station.

Ø How is it one careless match can start a forest fire, but it takes a
whole box to start a campfire?

Ø Some people are like Slinkies ... not really good for anything, but
you can't help smiling when you see one tumble down the stairs.

Ø Dolphins are so smart that within a few weeks of captivity, they can
train people to stand on the very edge of the pool and throw them fish.

Ø I thought I wanted a career, turns out I just wanted pay checks.

Ø A bank is a place that will lend you money, if you can prove that
you don't need it.

Ø Whenever I fill out an application, in the part that says "If an
emergency, notify:" I put "DOCTOR".

Ø I didn't say it was your fault, I said I was blaming you.

Ø I saw a woman wearing a sweat shirt with "Guess" on it...so I said
"Implants?"

Ø Why does someone believe you when you say there are four billion
stars, but check when you say the paint is wet?

Ø Women will never be equal to men until they can walk down the
street with a bald head and a beer gut, and still think they are sexy.

Ø Why do Americans choose from just two people to run for president
and 50 for Miss America ?

Just Stop

Remember that old joke: guy goes to the doctor, says, “It hurts when I do this,” and the doctor says, “Don’t do that”? The spiritual truth is, it is that easy, if we did what the doctor advised, the pain would go away. But we don’t. I’m all the time doing things that don’t work for me and actually hurt me, like eating potato chips, visiting porn sites, and mousing even after I feel pain in my hands. Do you do that, too, do things that don’t work for you and actually hurt you? I think we all do.

Why is an interesting question. If we could figure out why perhaps we wouldn’t do those things so often. Stopping seems almost out of the question tho, too much seeming pain not enough seeming gain to go for the cold turkey approach. But the fact is, we don’t have to know why in order to stop, we can just stop. Needing to know ‘why’ is a game the analytical left brained part of our ego minds play with us. We could just stop, feel better and let the improvement, the good, pain-free experience sustain us.

The Truth about us is, the Course says, as does SOM and indeed the deepest mystical traditions of all faiths, Gnostic Christianity, Sufi Islam, Zen Buddhism and Kabalistic Judaism, that we are perfect, healthy, pain free, spiritual beings right now, one with all that is, dreaming we are having an earthly experience. This truth can not be perceived, but only known, the Course says. That means we can not use everyday, ego consciousness to know who we are, we can only know who we are, actually experience it. The more I do this, know this, the more I know it and actually experience it. In other words, when I follow the doctor’s advice, and stop doing what hurts and instead open myself to the truth, the pain stops and my perfect, God-given reality emerges. The more I stop doing what hurts, the more blessed and pain free I am. Just stop. Each time the opportunity to do something hurtful to myself or another arises, I can know that right there, in that place, in that moment, I can shift from pain to bliss, just stop, and experience the truth about myself and the other.

This is not only true for me, but true for everyone that does it. There is a parallel process for us to follow: faith and practice. Know the Truth of your own and everyone’s reality as spirit; court the divine and practice eliminating anything unlike it in your consciousness. It’s difficult at first but gets easier the more you do it; or at least, that’s how it’s working for me. Knowing the Truth, courting spirit and eliminating the illusion of my little, pain-ridden, earth bound self, is even becoming almost as good as eating potato chips and visiting porn sites!

Witholding Forgiveness 2

Withholding forgiveness is like drinking poison and hoping the other person will die.

Sailing to the edge of the known world, past consensus reality to discover something greater that our selves, our little, fearful selves and contact our greater Self, the Self that is all of life: human, animal, vegetable and mineral, and then returning, bringing that ‘something’ with you to share with the rest of Life, is what Joseph Campbell called ‘the hero’s journey, and requires letting go, opening to something new, faith and trusting your own experience.

I found that I had to do all these things simultaneously. But, trusting your own experience is a good place to start. Trusting your own experience means, among other things, understanding and learning how your inner power works and using it to have a stronger more meaningful connection with that power Itself, within yourself and outside yourself, in others, and to manifest more of what your vision suggests and less of what diminishes it.

What supports Life is life. What supports Love is love. Means and ends must be congruent. It is a sad and horrible confusion of inner and outer, self and Self, reality and Reality, to think that Life is created through Death. That we have to burn people at the stake to save their souls. The truth seems to be: As above, so below; What goes around comes around. We can not use fear, horror and terror and not be fearful, horrible and terrible. We can not use shock and awe and not be shocking and awful. Life does not come from death but from Life. What goes around comes around.

Its horrible and terrible for me to contemplate this truth, much less believe it, because, as an American, I see that my nation does use shock and awe and then stupidly wonders why other nations find us shocking and awful. But I am also proud to be an American because we have our ideals, our Constitution. I want us, long for us, to be more about our ideals and less about our fears. We didn’t win the Cold War by being more Russian than the Russians, by using their intrusive, totalitarian regime, we won it by sticking to our ideals, by being Americans. So, let’s trust our own experience, let go of our fears and false beliefs and have faith that living up to our ideals will work.

We have to bet it all on black, so to speak; to resolve to renounce means not congruent with the ends we seek. If we are about Life, we resolve to use only Life affirming means. If we are about human rights and democracy, we resolve to renounce strategies, policies, and tactics that deny human rights and are undemocratic. This will not be easy, because it is inner work, about taking responsibility for our own and our communities’ thoughts and actions and for being in integrity and living up to our highest and best.

If we are Christians, we want to choose love and compassion – the heart of Jesus’ teaching, not only for other Christians but for all God’s creation, the entire earth – land, sea, animal, vegetable and mineral. But doing the inner work and following Jesus’ teaching is too demanding, too difficult and we have grown lazy and complacent, would rather blame others and look for ‘solutions’ outside of ourselves.

For me, I’m stuck at the point of thinking: ‘Bring the guilty bastards in so I can forgive them!’ As I rely on my small mind, my earthly ego mind, I think I know what needs to be done and become quite angry and upset when almost no one else sees it the way I do. I’m like, ‘lead, follow, or get out of the way!’

But that’s not working for me, never really worked for me, though I’m fairly ‘successful’ as the world defines success. But I know if anything is going to change for the better, I have to change, first. I have to trust that if I get my bloated nothingness out of the way, set an intention to realize my connection with all that is, then think, feel, live and act from that place of connection, I will know what to do; and what I do will not only be good for me, because if its only good for me, its not good enough, but for all of Life. It will build not only a world that works for everyone, but for every thing, as well.

Witholding Forgiveness

Withholding forgiveness is like drinking poison and hoping the other person will die. Wow! How cool! How thought provoking and how so very true. I know it, I feel it, when I feel hurt, victimized, wounded to the depths of my soul, wronged, not understood or appreciated, that’s pain enough. But to compound it by seeking vengeance and punishment of the ‘evil’ doer and not letting go of my pain until such vengeance is exacted, is just as painful to me as the initial ‘wrong’, if not more so. That’s ‘eye for an eye’ thinking, primitive and something I pride myself on evolving past. It’s outside-in thinking, instead of inside-out. It makes me a powerless victim instead of a potent actor.

I ‘know,’ intellectually, that each time I feel victimized, wounded or offended, I am literally giving my inner power away to a seemingly real outside cause. It is, in fact, using that inner power to make that outside cause appear real. I know in my sane, calmer moments that whatever seems to be going on ‘out there’ is a pigment of my imagination. Oh, there may be something really, physically going on, but what does it mean? Who gives it meaning, me, Glenn Beck, the Miami Herald, my synagogue or church, my spouse, parents or family, History or Economics? Who makes it offensive and threatening to me? Who decides that that event victimizes me? Isn’t that my choice? It’s up to me to decide what something means. I can take all those sources into consideration, but bottom line, I perceive, I interpret, I assign meaning and live with the consequences.

So it’s all me, there’s no one to ‘blame’ but me. Yeah, but things are happening, people do do bad things, there are evil doers and there is an outer reality, a reality greater than me or my interpretation.

Up to a point, what’s ‘out there’ is consensus reality, a reality agreed upon by our culture, not ‘true’ reality. Remember when consensus reality held that the earth was flat and if you sail to far, you’ll fall off? For 3,000 years, that ‘reality’ kept people from sailing ‘too far’ whatever that was, out of sight of land, and discovering an even greater reality. What used to be evil, using telescopes, conducting autopsies, accepting strangers and people different from us, is, for most civilized people, no longer considered evil.

I said there’s no one to blame but me. Why ‘blame’ anybody? Doesn’t blaming suggest some fixed perspective, some absolute, unchanging perspective and understanding like the earth is flat? Of course there are things that we don’t want done like rape, murder, theft, but we don’t want them done, that’s the point.

The point is not to ‘blame,’ the point is to not have those things done. Is blaming and punishing the best way to do that? Do blaming and punishing restore the rape, murder or robbery victims? The trick is for you and I and our society to figure out how to get what we want and stop what we don’t want without misusing our inner power. We do so much blaming and punishing, feel like wounded victims so often, that if this way of being, of seeing the world and using our inner power worked wouldn’t we have a better society?

What if we, you and I, I, really took responsibility for myself, for my judgments, perceptions and interpretations, stopped feeling like a wounded victim needing to blame and punish and instead used my inner power, the same inner power you have and the so-called ‘evil doer’ has, to see things differently, to stop thinking the world is flat, and find some other way, a better way, a way of using our inner power responsibly to build a round world, more in line with our hopes and aspirations? What would happen then? Would we be sailing to far out, would we fall off? All the greatest guides we’ve ever had, Jesus, Buddha, Gandhi and Martin Luther King say not. Their lives and writings say, sail on, take responsibility and have the courage to stop blaming, being victim and victimizer, and discover a new and better world.

Withholding forgiveness is like drinking poison and hoping the other person will die.

Voter Anger

We are not punished for our mistakes, but by them. We are not punished for our mistakes, but by them.

This is so true for me! I find I am angriest with others and more prone to blame and want to punish, when I’m angry or disappointed with myself. When I’ve fucked up and done something dumb and stupid, something I knew better than to do, something I should not have done, I look around for something or someone else to blame: it’s my boss’ fault; I’m too, busy, there’s not enough time; my spouse didn’t do what s/he was supposed to do. Anything but pause, reflect and take responsibility.

When I take responsibility, I take control, and with control I might see what I did as a mistake, not a sin, then do what’s necessary to avoid making that same mistake twice. But if I’m a victim of the situation or others, with no control, and what I did was a sin, not a mistake, and a sin must be punished, sometimes severely, then what went wrong and didn’t work, will happen again, and again, and again.

We are not punished for our mistakes, but by them. Means there’s no sin involved, but only a mistake; and that mistake can be seen as feedback, as neutral, non-judgmental information that I can use to correct the mistake. ‘Punishment’ is really not the best word, but it works to get attention. From the ego’s perspective it feels like punishment, not feedback. But if I can shift to spirit’s perspective, I can see it as a learning experience, an opportunity to learn to take responsibility and stop blaming.

Catching myself being angry with others and more prone to blame and want to punish, when I’m angry or disappointed with myself, is part of the learning. If I don’t become aware of what’s going on inside me and resolve to take responsibility for it and change it, my behavior becomes more and more irrational, harmful and destructive, until the mistake does become a sin, and I really screw up so badly that it’s clear there’s no one to blame but me.
I see this anger at self, blaming of others and failure to take responsibility spiraling into the irrational, harmful and destructive behavior now manifesting in the so-called ‘voter anger’ the media keep talking about. Which BTW is another of the so-call main stream media’s self fulfilling prophecies; the more they talk about it, the realer it gets.

Voters have to take responsibility for their choices. The choices were a mistake, but rather than reflect and take responsibility, they blame and attack. After eight grueling years of Republican excess and control of all three branches, voters realized their mistake and gave Democrats a chance. The Democrats have had less than two years to correct the mistakes of the previous eight, not an easy chore, especially when the Republicans have done pretty much nothing to help and lot’s to obstruct. Yet the voters are ‘angry’ with the ‘system’ and are irrationally thinking of again turning the Nation over to the very people and ideas that have brought us to the current state of affairs.

What might happen if the voters stopped being ‘angry,’ blaming and irrational, stopped thinking of themselves as victims of Washington – I mean it is Washington, after all, not Moscow, tho the way some people talk, you’d think it was Moscow - took responsibility for their earlier mistaken choices and thought carefully about what to do now? Would they give Obama and the Democrats a few more seconds to undo what Bush and the Republicans had eight years to do? Would they cease being manipulated by fear, loathing and hatred and shift to a place that values cooperation, compromise and the radical idea that whatever party one’s in, we’re all Americans? What would happen if we demanded more of our politicians and absolutely shunned those that pandered to our fear, loathing and hatred? Perhaps we’d be Americans [not, God forbid, French, as we are now] and our country would be the United States of America again.

Gratitude

I’ve been going through a rough patch physically, but have been OK emotionally. I’m grateful. In fact, looking from the place of not being dragged down by the ‘suffering’ or not suffering when my normal way of thinking about my situation would have required suffering, has been, is, an expansive experience. I see I’m not as small as I thought I was, or, I’m more than I thought I was, able to not be made a victim, able to see things differently, even to find some benefit in the difficulty, to make lemons into lemonade. So, I’m grateful for what I’m going through.
As Barbara Leger in today’s SOM says, “Gratitude can totally turn around moments of fear or distress by allowing us to shift attention from what isn’t working to what is. In every circumstance, there is something to be grateful for, and when we find it, our gazes shift and we are lifted up.
“Gratitude is the grease in tight spots, the hope in the darkness and the grace of Spirit guiding us to see more of the whole picture. Looking for the good allows us to see and appreciate the gifts tucked inside the challenge. Praising the good raises our energy to a higher, more positive vibration, which attracts more of the same. Like attracts like. Our bodies notice, our cells are happier, and we see the world through softer eyes, and amazingly, see more to appreciate.”
That’s been the case for me in my current situation. I didn’t create the situation to prove Barbara Leger right. [But perhaps, maybe I did.] Her reading this morning happened to be on gratitude and it helped me reflect on what’s been going on with me. Just a coincidence, one of those happy accidents, or was it?

Humor?

The economy is so bad that I got a pre-declined credit card in the mail.

I ordered a burger at McDonald's, and the kid behind the counter asked, "Can you afford fries with that?"

CEO's are now playing miniature golf.

If the bank returns your check marked "Insufficient Funds," you have to call them and ask if they mean you or them .

Hot Wheels and Matchbox stocks are trading higher than GM.

McDonald's is selling the 1/4 'ouncer'.

Parents in Beverly Hills and Malibu are firing their nannies and learning their children's names.

A truckload of Americans was caught sneaking into Mexico .

Dick Cheney took his stockbroker hunting.

Motel Six won't leave the light on anymore.

The Mafia is laying off judges.

Exxon-Mobil laid off 25 Congressmen.

Congress says they are looking into the Bernard Madoff scandal. Oh Great!! The guy who made $50 Billion disappear is being investigated by the people who made $1.5 Trillion disappear !

And, finally...

I was so depressed last night thinking about the economy, wars, jobs, my savings, Social Security, retirement funds, and our bleak future, that I called the Suicide Lifeline and was connected to a call center in Pakistan. When I told them I was suicidal, they got all excited, and asked if I could drive a truck.

Off for a week, hooray!

My wife and I will be away for the next week. I probably won't resume blogging until 8/30. Meanwhile, please see my two novels being serialized on WritingRaw.com under fiction and let me know what you think. Thanks!

Spiritual Reality and NDEs

Saturday morning I read a review of a book on NDE – near death experiences, called, Evidence of the Afterlife: The Science of Near-Death Experiences, by Jeffrey Long, M.D. I’m not so interested in life after death, but rather life in life. To me the bliss and wonders of the so called ‘life to come’ – the reunion with dead loved ones, the lack of pain & suffering, and the 72 virgins if you’re a male heterosexual, or perhaps if you’re a lesbian as well – are all available right now. We don’t have to wait ‘till we die to experience our bliss, connection with God and our reality as spiritual beings having an earthly experience.

What was interesting to me in Dr. Long’s book is that he found evidence that supports life in life, our primary reality as spiritual beings. Dr. Long’s study is the most recent and exhaustive of perhaps hundreds of books on NDEs. His research extended over ten years and included interviews with more than 1,300 people, 95% of whom said their NDE was definitely real. That pretty much dovetails with previous findings. What’s important to the idea that we’re primarily spiritual beings having earthly experiences is the fact that many of that 95% considered their NDE the only real thing that ever happened to them!

In other words, the experience of bliss, ease, light, safety, peace, contentment and connection with Spirit that are the hallmark of NDEs, were considered the only real experiences that ever happened to them. In other words, their connection with God and all that goes with that was the only real thing that ever happened to them – that we are spirit first, then human. After a failed suicide one person reported, “I could only see my life through that Being’s (God’s) love…I saw the love was in me, too, not just from the Being shining down on me, it was in me as part of myself.”

Why do NDEs bring out these experiences of our reality as spirit and oneness with God and each other? Because, near death our bloated nothingness, our ego is gone, out of the way. Without our bloated nothingness and the illusion that we’re separate from God, we’re not separated. Our natural reality as spiritual beings having an earthly experience shines through. The cool thing is, you don’t to have to have an NDE to experience this. You can experience your reality as a spiritual being and your constant connection to God by getting your bloated nothingness out of the way now through things like meditation, prayer and openness and intuition. So why wait? Start practicing the presence and getting out of the way now.

Building Spiritual Muscle, Part 2

Building spiritual muscle also involves discerning then overcoming illusions. What are illusions? My bloated nothingness is an illusion – the belief that I have to have things a certain way, is an illusion. How do I know its an illusion? Because when I have things other than my way, I’m fine and often better. Having things my way – sorry Burger King – is a habit, habits enslave and keep us in a rut, small and bound to the ego, and the only difference between a rut and a grave is the length and the depth. So discerning and overcoming illusions, and unfortunately almost everything we experience is an illusion except our experiences of oneness with God – love, forgiveness, joy, creativity, gratitude, is an important part of building spiritual muscle.

“How does one overcome illusions?” the Course asks. “Surely not by force or anger, nor by opposing them in any way. Merely by letting reason tell you that they contradict reality.” The ‘reality’ referred to here is our reality as spiritual beings having an earthly experience. The ‘reason’ referred to is the still small voice deep within, our umbilical connection to God. Illusions “go against what must be true. The opposition comes from them, and not reality. Reality opposes nothing.” See Byron Katie’s ‘loving what is’. “What merely is needs no defense, and offers none. Only illusions need defense because they are weak. And how can it be difficult to walk the way of truth when only weakness interferes? You are the strong one in this seeming conflict. And you need no defense. Everything that needs defense you do not want, for anything that needs defense will weaken you.

I, the ‘you’ referred to here, is me in my spiritual reality as the Son of God, and remember, the Course says all human beings are the Sons of God. “Who can attack the Son of God and not attack his Father? How can God’s Son be weak and frail and easily destroyed unless his Father is? Do you not see that every sin and condemnation you perceive and justify is an attack upon your Father? You do not see this because you think the Father and the Son are separate. If you were one with God (which you are) and recognized this oneness, you would know His power is yours.”

The great illusion which we are building our spiritual muscle to overcome is the belief that we are separate from God and separate from each other, when in reality, we are not separate but connected to God and each other. We are all the Sons of God, connected to our Source and each other, spiritual beings having an earthly experience.