The guidance is so essential! Without fresh, wholly well meaning input, I would continue to do what I always did. That’s how we are; creatures of habit. The illusion is a self-fulfilling prophecy, we get what we expect to get. Fear and its sisters prudence and due diligence, keep us locked into our habitual ways of being. Indeed, that’s what the illusion is; it’s not that I’m not here, don’t have a body or there is no world - that’s true at the metaphysical level, but at the everyday physical level I am here.
The illusion is thinking I know what things mean, can interpret on my own, can teach myself. Reality is that I only know what I know, what my family, culture and experiences have taught me - a very narrow, tiny bit of stuff I’ve abstracted from all that I might know. And I’m often wrong! My family had it wrong, my culture’s wrong and I’m wrong. I’ve been operating on incorrect premises. Oh, I can get by and do better than get by on what I know, but, like the people who used to think the world was flat, I’m wrong and I’m limiting myself.
The great thing is, if I realize I’m wrong, I can open to getting it right, or at least more right. That’s where the fresh, wholly well meaning input comes in. It helps me undo the illusion. Fresh, ‘cause it’s new to me and not weighted down with my BS, or as Emerson said, “my bloated nothingness,” and wholly well meaning, because it has nothing to prove, and wants only the best for all concerned. This input is what the Course calls the Holy Spirit and what most of us call our souls.
The Course says that when we slipped into the dream/illusion of separation, even though it ended the instant we slipped into it, a little piece of our spiritual reality, a memory of our oneness with God, came with us. This is where our guidance – the fresh, wholly well-meaning input, comes from; the still small voice of our souls. It’s with us always, everybody has one, it represents a fresh, non-earthly way to experience things, and it is wholly well meaning.
Tuning out the distractions of the ego illusion, enable us to hear the song our souls are constantly singing. No struggle, no effort, just a non-doing undoing by letting go and changing the channel from fear and the ego to love and spirit. The ego will struggle, frantically, and its raucous screams will shake us, but it is not who we are. Breath into it, allow it to wash over you; know it is meaningless, only your bloated nothingness slipping out of the way of the divine circuits. If you shift your focus, the raucous shrieks will diminish and the song of your soul will be more audible.
Monday, May 10, 2010
Thursday, May 6, 2010
Effortless efforting
It occurs to me that I might be misrepresenting the fundamental message and intention of the Course with my talk about how well it works in my life, and could work in yours. The Course clearly states that it’s intent is not to make life better here in the world, but to help us wake from the dream of an illusory world, to the reality of eternal peaceful life as spirit; that it’s either the real world of spirit or the dream/illusory world of the ego. That the dream becomes better as we follow the Course, is epiphenomenal – a 25 cent word I don’t get to use very much which means, side effect.
In other words, I don’t do the Course to make the illusion more comfortable, I do the Course to awake and attain the real world of spirit, and as I do that, the illusory ego world becomes more tolerable. Doing the Course undoes the illusion. I don’t attack or challenge the illusion, I just do the Course. Here, again, is that subtle, Zen paradox, about non-doing or effortless doing. It’s amazing and comforting, not so amazing really when you think how really it all comes from a single source, how the Zen ideas, as well as the fundamental core of all faiths, are so similar.
So, I’m resigning as my own teacher, trying, but not too hard, to not struggle and force things to happen in the world. Of course, I’ve got to work, eat, take a crap, stay healthy, be amused, that’s what we do here. But I’m trying to do it all with spirit, with guidance, not taking it so seriously, to feel my reality as spirit in each moment and in each activity. The goal isn’t to cross another item off the to-do list, feel good and avoid pain; the goal is to feel my connection with spirit, to realize my, and your, oneness; to truly, deeply experience the idea that the obstacles ARE the path.
In other words, I don’t do the Course to make the illusion more comfortable, I do the Course to awake and attain the real world of spirit, and as I do that, the illusory ego world becomes more tolerable. Doing the Course undoes the illusion. I don’t attack or challenge the illusion, I just do the Course. Here, again, is that subtle, Zen paradox, about non-doing or effortless doing. It’s amazing and comforting, not so amazing really when you think how really it all comes from a single source, how the Zen ideas, as well as the fundamental core of all faiths, are so similar.
So, I’m resigning as my own teacher, trying, but not too hard, to not struggle and force things to happen in the world. Of course, I’ve got to work, eat, take a crap, stay healthy, be amused, that’s what we do here. But I’m trying to do it all with spirit, with guidance, not taking it so seriously, to feel my reality as spirit in each moment and in each activity. The goal isn’t to cross another item off the to-do list, feel good and avoid pain; the goal is to feel my connection with spirit, to realize my, and your, oneness; to truly, deeply experience the idea that the obstacles ARE the path.
Wednesday, May 5, 2010
Resign as your own teacher
The ‘working’ and doing what it takes to allow spirit and our extraordinary, metanormal capacities to shine through, is essentially inner work, self checking and monitoring, a mindfulness, an awareness of what we’re thinking and who we’re thinking with, either ego or spirit. For example, if I’m thinking/feeling alone, overwhelmed, angry, anxious, I’m with ego and need to shift to spirit. The Course and indeed most of Murphy’s material says it’s almost impossible to shift away from ego on my own, help is needed. The Course says pure spiritual help, what it calls the Holy Spirit, is necessary; Murphy’s stuff agrees but suggests that the spiritual help can also come through other people. Either way, the bottom line is, as the Course says, and I love this, I have to resign as my own teacher.
“You have learning handicaps in a very literal sense,” the Course says. “There are areas in your learning skills that are so impaired that you can progress only under constant, clear-cut direction, provided by a Teacher Who [the Holy Spirit] can transcend your limited resources. The learning situation you have placed yourself in [the imagined separation from God/Spirit] is impossible. Poor learners are not good choices as teachers, either for themselves or for anyone else. Your [the ego’s] learning goal has been to not learn. The ego’s rule is, ‘Seek and do not find,’ ‘try to learn but do not succeed.’ Every legitimate teaching aid, every real instruction and every sensible guide to learning [and these are all around us, many in forms we would label ‘bad’ or ‘difficult’] will be misinterpreted. The aim of your teaching is to defeat itself, what can you expect but confusion?”
“But perhaps [no ‘perhaps’ about it!] you do not realize , even yet, that there is something you want to learn, and that you can learn because it is your choice to do so. Resign now as your own teacher. This resignation will not lead to depression. It is merely the result of an honest appraisal of what you have taught yourself, and of the learning outcomes that have resulted. Under the proper learning conditions, which you can neither provide nor understand, you will become an excellent learner and an excellent teacher. Your learning potential, properly understood, is limitless because it will lead you to God. You need offer only undivided attention [thus the mindfulness and self monitoring]. Everything else will be given you. For you really want to lean aright, and nothing can oppose the decision of God’s Son [you, me and every person – we, all of humanity are, in the Course’s context, God’s one son].”
“You have learning handicaps in a very literal sense,” the Course says. “There are areas in your learning skills that are so impaired that you can progress only under constant, clear-cut direction, provided by a Teacher Who [the Holy Spirit] can transcend your limited resources. The learning situation you have placed yourself in [the imagined separation from God/Spirit] is impossible. Poor learners are not good choices as teachers, either for themselves or for anyone else. Your [the ego’s] learning goal has been to not learn. The ego’s rule is, ‘Seek and do not find,’ ‘try to learn but do not succeed.’ Every legitimate teaching aid, every real instruction and every sensible guide to learning [and these are all around us, many in forms we would label ‘bad’ or ‘difficult’] will be misinterpreted. The aim of your teaching is to defeat itself, what can you expect but confusion?”
“But perhaps [no ‘perhaps’ about it!] you do not realize , even yet, that there is something you want to learn, and that you can learn because it is your choice to do so. Resign now as your own teacher. This resignation will not lead to depression. It is merely the result of an honest appraisal of what you have taught yourself, and of the learning outcomes that have resulted. Under the proper learning conditions, which you can neither provide nor understand, you will become an excellent learner and an excellent teacher. Your learning potential, properly understood, is limitless because it will lead you to God. You need offer only undivided attention [thus the mindfulness and self monitoring]. Everything else will be given you. For you really want to lean aright, and nothing can oppose the decision of God’s Son [you, me and every person – we, all of humanity are, in the Course’s context, God’s one son].”
Tuesday, May 4, 2010
Extraordinary metanormal capacities
For me, the power in the Course doesn’t come from it’s ‘sacredness’ or any other extrinsic thing about it, but from its intrinsic, inherent usefulness – it works! The more I follow it, the better my life gets. That’s why I’m sharing it with you; and that’s why I share other things. I’ve found that thy work for me [and others] and thought it might work for you, too.
I’ve been reading another book that has much the same impact and deals with much of the same content as the Course, Michael Murphy’s, The Future of the Body. Murphy musters vast amounts of evidence from prehistoric times to the present, suggesting that evolution is going on within each and every one of us right now, and moving human beings in the direction of more frequent everyday manifestations of extraordinary metanormal capabilities. In other words, every person alive on the planet now and in the past, is, and has been, a vector for evolution, and can, with discipline, training, faith and commitment, tap into latent inner powers that have seemed supernatural.
Grace, for example. Murphy says that grace, the Buddha nature, Hasidic joy, Hindu moshka, etc, is not a supernatural gift dispensed by a supernatural, external deity for the deserving few, but a natural, ever-present inner reality, equally available to all. Wow!
Imagine, having the ‘blessing’ of grace as a constant reality. How cool, how good! How different our individual lives would be, how much healthier, peaceful, joyous and productive; and society, too.
Grace is one of the extraordinary ‘metanormal’ capacities that evolution is bringing into increasing daily manifestation. Again, we can’t sit back and wait for evolution to do it, but knowing that it’s there for everyone, and then ‘working’ and doing what it takes to allow it to shine through, is quite different and much more empowering than believing that it’s dispensed by some whimsical deity to the faithful few.
In other words, the gift is given, it’s there within each one of us, waiting to be opened. Our purpose is to open it, and the other ‘gifts’, to open it ourselves and help one another open it. Murphy quotes Philip Novak, talking about the Buddha nature as about “not so much on our attaining it, but on our not obstructing its continuous salvific activity…. Far closer to the truth than the notion that grace is absent is that it is always and everywhere present…. We remain blind to the graceful immanence…failing to draw on its power.”
I’ve been reading another book that has much the same impact and deals with much of the same content as the Course, Michael Murphy’s, The Future of the Body. Murphy musters vast amounts of evidence from prehistoric times to the present, suggesting that evolution is going on within each and every one of us right now, and moving human beings in the direction of more frequent everyday manifestations of extraordinary metanormal capabilities. In other words, every person alive on the planet now and in the past, is, and has been, a vector for evolution, and can, with discipline, training, faith and commitment, tap into latent inner powers that have seemed supernatural.
Grace, for example. Murphy says that grace, the Buddha nature, Hasidic joy, Hindu moshka, etc, is not a supernatural gift dispensed by a supernatural, external deity for the deserving few, but a natural, ever-present inner reality, equally available to all. Wow!
Imagine, having the ‘blessing’ of grace as a constant reality. How cool, how good! How different our individual lives would be, how much healthier, peaceful, joyous and productive; and society, too.
Grace is one of the extraordinary ‘metanormal’ capacities that evolution is bringing into increasing daily manifestation. Again, we can’t sit back and wait for evolution to do it, but knowing that it’s there for everyone, and then ‘working’ and doing what it takes to allow it to shine through, is quite different and much more empowering than believing that it’s dispensed by some whimsical deity to the faithful few.
In other words, the gift is given, it’s there within each one of us, waiting to be opened. Our purpose is to open it, and the other ‘gifts’, to open it ourselves and help one another open it. Murphy quotes Philip Novak, talking about the Buddha nature as about “not so much on our attaining it, but on our not obstructing its continuous salvific activity…. Far closer to the truth than the notion that grace is absent is that it is always and everywhere present…. We remain blind to the graceful immanence…failing to draw on its power.”
Friday, April 30, 2010
Interepretation
From the Course: “Understand that you do not respond to anything directly but to your interpretation of it. Your interpretation thus becomes the justification for the response. That is why analyzing the motives of others is hazardous to you. If you decide that someone is really trying to attack you, you will respond as if he has actually done so,” overlooking the truth; and the truth is that how you see someone else, is how you see yourself. “There is but one interpretation of motivation that makes any sense…. Every loving thought is true. Everything else is an appeal for healing and help, regardless of the form it takes. Can anyone be justified in responding with anger to a brother’s plea for help? No response can be appropriate except the willingness to give it to him, for this and only this is what he is asking for.”
I get this; it resonates, deeply, I aspire to make it live in my life. Then someone cuts me off in traffic, or my wife asks a dumb question, or I hear the news and the Republicans are filibustering, again; or BP, with one of the worst safety records in the industry, is getting away with it again. I think someone’s got to pay, there have got to be consequences, punishment is good, send the Goldman people to solitary; so much for not responding with anger to a brother’s plea for help.
Yet the Course helps me know that when I become aware of how I’m interpreting events, how I’m feeling afraid and like a victim, I have to pause, not continue to justify my anger and ask Spirit’s help to see things differently, not from an angry place, as crimes needing punishment, but from a peaceful place as errors needing correction. It’s not that I let all these things go, it’s that I deal with it from a different place. I take responsibility for my interpretations, recognizing that they’re only interpretations and go from there. The horrible oil spill does need to be dealt with, but it’s best done in a way that is consistent with the Course’s idea, “Can anyone be justified in responding with anger to a brother’s plea for help? No response can be appropriate except the willingness to give it to
him, for this and only this is what he is asking for.”
Doing this is difficult at first, but the more I do it, the easier it becomes. We either make ourselves miserable or we make ourselves strong. The amount of work is the same, Carlos Casteneda said. The great thing is, we don’t have to beg God/Spirit for It’s help, we don’t need to kneel, we don’t need to plead, we simply need to align with the God within and experience our lives transforming, one step at a time. It’s a process, like building muscle - spiritual muscle, it’s cumulative, each time we do it, we do it better.
I get this; it resonates, deeply, I aspire to make it live in my life. Then someone cuts me off in traffic, or my wife asks a dumb question, or I hear the news and the Republicans are filibustering, again; or BP, with one of the worst safety records in the industry, is getting away with it again. I think someone’s got to pay, there have got to be consequences, punishment is good, send the Goldman people to solitary; so much for not responding with anger to a brother’s plea for help.
Yet the Course helps me know that when I become aware of how I’m interpreting events, how I’m feeling afraid and like a victim, I have to pause, not continue to justify my anger and ask Spirit’s help to see things differently, not from an angry place, as crimes needing punishment, but from a peaceful place as errors needing correction. It’s not that I let all these things go, it’s that I deal with it from a different place. I take responsibility for my interpretations, recognizing that they’re only interpretations and go from there. The horrible oil spill does need to be dealt with, but it’s best done in a way that is consistent with the Course’s idea, “Can anyone be justified in responding with anger to a brother’s plea for help? No response can be appropriate except the willingness to give it to
him, for this and only this is what he is asking for.”
Doing this is difficult at first, but the more I do it, the easier it becomes. We either make ourselves miserable or we make ourselves strong. The amount of work is the same, Carlos Casteneda said. The great thing is, we don’t have to beg God/Spirit for It’s help, we don’t need to kneel, we don’t need to plead, we simply need to align with the God within and experience our lives transforming, one step at a time. It’s a process, like building muscle - spiritual muscle, it’s cumulative, each time we do it, we do it better.
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
Is the universe friendly?
Einstein said something similar when he said the most important question we can ask is, “Is the universe a friendly place?” The answer is, it is as we see it; we create our own heaven or hell. “Your life is not a problem to be solved, but a gift to be opened,” Wayne Muller wrote. The idea is not just that what we experience is up to us, but that God is for us, the universe IS a friendly place and our lives ARE a gift to be opened, when we step away from the ego and our habitual way of being and identify with the still small voice within that speaks for our spiritual reality.
“As ordinary people in a difficult world we are asked to take the common place activities that occur to us hour by hour, and to discover the spiritual [power] inherent in them” - Harry Moody.
We are this beautiful gift but must become aware of it in order to use it wisely, not to do so would be to dishonor God. As we open ourselves to our spiritual reality, and take on more of the powers inherent in and around us, we release any ideas of lack and limitation and realize that the only limits are those we set. The clearer we are about our relationship with Spirit, the more confident we will feel about our lives, because our life experiences are a reflection of our consciousness.
“As ordinary people in a difficult world we are asked to take the common place activities that occur to us hour by hour, and to discover the spiritual [power] inherent in them” - Harry Moody.
We are this beautiful gift but must become aware of it in order to use it wisely, not to do so would be to dishonor God. As we open ourselves to our spiritual reality, and take on more of the powers inherent in and around us, we release any ideas of lack and limitation and realize that the only limits are those we set. The clearer we are about our relationship with Spirit, the more confident we will feel about our lives, because our life experiences are a reflection of our consciousness.
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
Host to God
“Would you be hostage to the ego or host to God?” No brainer, right? Except for the fear; the fear that God’s not really there; that even if It really is there, we’re not a part of It; we’re such terrible sinners, that God doesn’t love us and we’re totally unlovable because of all our wicked, nasty thoughts and deeds. That’s the ego talking. There’s only, either the ego or Spirit. If we’re feeling fear and guilt, we’re with the ego. Spirit holds no fear and guilt, so as part of Spirit, neither do we. Stop thinking with the ego and ask for Spirit’s help to shift to It.
“Only you can deprive yourself of anything. Do not oppose this realization, for it is truly the beginning of the dawn of light. Remember also that the denial of this simple fact takes many forms, and these you must learn to recognize and to oppose steadfastly, without exception. This is a crucial step in the reawakening [undoing]. The beginning phases of this reversal are often quite painful.”
Einstein said something similar when he said the most important question we can ask is, “Is the universe a friendly place?” The answer is, it is as we see it; we create our own heaven or hell. “Your life is not a problem to be solved, but a gift to be opened,” Wayne Muller wrote. The idea is not just that what we experience is up to us, but that God is for us, the universe IS a friendly place and our lives ARE a gift to be opened, when we step away from the ego and our habitual way of being and identify with the still small voice within that speaks for our spiritual reality.
“Only you can deprive yourself of anything. Do not oppose this realization, for it is truly the beginning of the dawn of light. Remember also that the denial of this simple fact takes many forms, and these you must learn to recognize and to oppose steadfastly, without exception. This is a crucial step in the reawakening [undoing]. The beginning phases of this reversal are often quite painful.”
Einstein said something similar when he said the most important question we can ask is, “Is the universe a friendly place?” The answer is, it is as we see it; we create our own heaven or hell. “Your life is not a problem to be solved, but a gift to be opened,” Wayne Muller wrote. The idea is not just that what we experience is up to us, but that God is for us, the universe IS a friendly place and our lives ARE a gift to be opened, when we step away from the ego and our habitual way of being and identify with the still small voice within that speaks for our spiritual reality.
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