Critical Mass

A word about my Atheistic Tendencies

2011-11-04T16:15:00.001-07:00

I haven't blogged on Critical Mass in a while and that's sad to be sure. My life feels very non-spiritual when I'm going through pregnancy and have a young child, not sure why that is. I was totally unable to read any spiritual books while pregnant. I could not connect with any of the ideas.

I've only just started to pick up things again. However even though I have not done a lot of reading, I have still been able to do a lot of thinking over the last year. If anything I have become more sympathetic to Atheism for the logic involved in it. I feel very proud to be married to an Atheist and a thinker. His rationalizations for why he thinks God does not exist I think are sound and I can understand them. I don't totally agree but it make perfect sense to me. I think it makes more sense to be Atheist first and ask questions than it does to be religious primarily and not question.

I think living with Dan has made me more of an Atheist, and the constant questioning that I pose to him has made him more of an Agnostic, that maybe there's a squeak of a chance that life is not as it seems in black and white. It's a fun balance that we share and we've had lots of good discussions about it. It would take many paragraphs to really explain that and I'm not sure I have time for it right now. The main question that I've posed to Dan however is that isn't it just as wrong to say that you know for sure that god exists as to say that you know that you're sure that he doesn't. To me it's the same error when neither side can hold up the evidence and say here it is. It makes much more sense to be Agnostic.

To sum it up as simply as I can, I'm a totally religious-Atheist. I do not accept any religions as correct and I'm more certain of that than ever. Give me a religion that says simply, "Be a good person, you don't need to do anything else, you will know if you've achieved that by the way others respond to you", and I will subscribe to that.

I do hold open hope that there are spirits on the other side, angels, gods, etc however until I have a personal experience with one, I am not going to go out of my way to worship any. I have mentally asked that if there are those out there that they appear to me and set me straight. So far nothing has happened, however I remain vigilant for such an occurrence. Many people I have read about have had visitations, so if all those people can have visitations and someone who would like to believe asks for one, then certainly that should not be too much trouble. What else have they to do anyway, it's not like they have bodies.

I do believe in miracles and wondrous things that happen. These types of things have happened to me at strange times. People show up in my life just when I really need the most help and I feel that there is something spiritual about them, as if they are angels walking, but maybe they are just good people, very good people.

That is a main tenant of my belief, I do believe. That while you're here on Earth it isn't God that takes care of things, it's other people that help. It's people that show up in the flesh, and people are what matter while we are here. If you pray for help, it's people that show up to help, with their bare hands and good hearts. So far, God hasn't show up personally but if he ever should I stand ready to humbly apologize and follow any directions that he may have. Assuming that I think he seems like a good "person" to follow. Maybe there are many "gods" and some aren't that great, who knows. I will need some references and I'm going to ask a lot of questions regardless.

ACIM clarifications

2011-01-06T18:52:00.000-08:00

I have been back to reading ACIM since I've downloaded it on my Kindle. It's a different format (electronic) and somehow it makes reading the Course seem different. I feel like I'm rediscovering it. One thing I've always liked about the Course is it tries to set straight what is correct in the Bible and what is not. If you believe ACIM, it is actually Jesus getting to say what he really wanted to say word for word and not through a bunch of filters over the years.

I've long wanted to collect passages where ACIM corrects or clarifies what the bible states. Now with the help of the kindle I can bookmark passages and retrieve them easier.

Here is one such passage :

"The Bible repeatedly states that you should praise God. This hardly means that you should tell him how wonderful he is. He has no ego with which to accept such praise, and no perception with which to judge it. "

This is a very interesting statement that I feel would nullify most of mainstream religion if it got out. God has no ego, so he does not understand praise and no perception or judgement against anyone or anything. That is quite opposite what most people are taught. The Bible seems very judgemental with lots of "you should do this and thats". If it is true that God is really a benevolent god, then I think it's further proof that the bible has been irreparably ravaged by human egos and most of it is of very little value.

I will try to collect more of these instances in the ACIM as I find them very enlightening and once you begin to see the whole puzzle put together, there is an entirely different picture waiting than the one that mainstream religion paints.

Belief and non-belief are the same thing

2010-08-23T20:17:00.000-07:00

Over the past 6 months I have had a drastic change in the way I see things and believe things spiritually. I will probably explain this in several different future posts. Basically at this point, I would consider myself an ardent, very sceptical, questioning, believer. All of this began while I was reading about UFO's earlier this year. I became very sceptical about the phenomenon and I saw many parallels to religion and other belief systems. I will also explain this later and in more detail.

Tonight, as I was doing dishes I had these thoughts. Why must we "believe" in God? Why is it so important in various texts that we declare him our Father and think about him and worship him? Why is it so important to other people and groups that we believe in God. If he truly is our father then does our belief in him keep him alive, is it all that makes him real? If no one recognized him as real and everyone lost their belief in him, what would happen? Would he disappear, would we? I think these are all really good questions to ask.

If he truly is our father, would he not love us, belief in him or not? Why would we expect any less of him. If he truly is our father, would he not send us off on our "Earthly" adventure and wish us well? Could we just be joyous that we will have a reunion and see him again someday instead of prostrating ourselves on Earth, being constantly divided up, and at odds with one another over this.

I truly hope he is our father and not just an appendage of our consciousness, it would be nice to continue on as spirits and not be alone but to have celestial family. If this is the case, then I trust that all he requires of us is the same thing he requires of himself, to love. Worship is not love, nor is division. Love is much much simpler than we realize and even more powerful.

Litmus

2010-06-03T00:32:00.000-07:00

People who are concerned with your salvation should just show you this picture and if you laugh, you're going to Hell anyway. They needn't bother.

Like living in a glass prison

2010-06-01T15:15:00.000-07:00

I had a very nice man come to the house preaching the Mormon ideals today (I have had the same type of interactions with Baptists, so I'm not singling out Mormons). With him, I couldn't agree despite the best of his intentions. The first thing that he laid out and hit me with was a fear argument. I despise fear motivating arguments the most, they are in fact very aggressive and deceitful and the people propagating them probably don't even realize it. I will never accept fear as a doctrine on which to base my beliefs. Did someone teach him this to keep him in fear too? If it's all he knows then I truly feel sorry for him because I can imagine what his prison is like, he can't even see the bars from the inside.

He said, "Don't you love your daughter? How would you feel if she were not there in eternity with you? You should get baptized."

Here are some arguments:

1) He is right. I will be alone forever, not in Hell but in some sort of inferior place to a higher heaven. I will miss my daughter terribly for eternity.

2) The church will baptize me anyway in the temple whether I give them permission to or not so my bases are covered.

3) What if in fact you are baptized and do accept the savior but then never attend any church your whole life, are you still saved? Will people still try to get you to go to church or if you just say, Yeah, I've been baptized, will they leave you alone? It is not assumed that church sessions and membership follow baptism. If it's solely the act of baptism that saves you and you accepting a savior, then why not just do that. Is it encouraged and sought by members just to recruit more members ultimately. Someone please enlighten me.

4) If there is a God and he was one who would punish people with this kind of eternal misery because they didn't go "pay" (as in tithings or whatever) to be a member of a church, so they could get baptized to be a member of his club. This is a God I would not want to believe in anyway.

5) If there is an eternity and a God, I've got to believe he is a loving God and the Universe is not static. When I die I will not have missed my last chance. If I have eternity to live and baptism was really that important of a step, then surely there is a baptismal font at the gates of Heaven for last minute takers. God is not a "Gotcha God". He is all merciful right? People have more of a motivation to see you baptized while you're on Earth. After that, it's too late according to them!

I really do not worry about where I will go or where my family will go when we die. It's sad to me that he would use this as a motivator. As if I was some sort of fretting ninny, like Oh My Gosh where is the nearest pool of holy water, I don't want to be alone forever sitting in God's dunce corner!!

Neither did I fret over who my birth mother would be or how much the labor process would suck or who I would spend life on Earth with and so I figure it shall be with my time after death. I can't prove or disprove the existence of God or of an afterlife. The Universe is such an amazing place that I'm sure there are all kinds of surprises in store for us if we do continue on. I am so very hopeful and optimistic about my eternal future that not even an Earth religion can bring me down.

A new type of vision

2010-02-28T14:15:00.000-08:00

This material from Dr. David Hawkins seems to be a good chaser to the last post I wrote about the way we see the world and what affect it has on us as well as others. I found this segment in his book "Healing and Recovery" that my Step mom recently gifted to me.

P52 "We find that we have to let go of criticism "attack" thoughts, critical thoughts, and judgemental thoughts. We have to let go of putting ourselves in the position of being right and making other people wrong because the level of "Right and Wrong" is at the energy level of about 180, which is that of negative thought forms. In other words, it has a deleterious effect of our health and life energy. If we are willing to let go of our illness, then we have to be willing to let go of the attitude that brought about the illness because disease in an expression of one's attitude and habitual way of looking at things." A little later he says this, " To put oneself in the energy field of 540 is to automatically heal oneself. A loving thought then heals, and a negative thought creates illness. Choosing to become a loving person results in the release of endorphins by the brain, which has a profound effect on the body's health and happiness."

Dr. Hawkins goes on for a few more pages, but that is the gist of it. The numbers above (180 & 540) come from a calibrated Scale of Consciousness that he has determined and is outlined in his first book "Power Vs Force". It is well worth the read and the Scale of Consciousness really explains a lot about human society and it basically describes how you see the world based on where you fall on the scale.

Monitoring your thoughts and catching the judgemental ones, I find to be really really difficult. Besides fighting human fear impulses, fighting the need to judge is probably the most difficult thing to overcome. We judge everything. It probably was a very useful evolutionary tool to keep us out of harms way. The ability to judge a situation might have kept us from getting eaten by a mammoth but it seems that the human mind is rampant with it today, especially when it is applied to how we see others. I catch myself all the time in judgemental thoughts that usually just appear and only later can I forgive them and myself and let them go, after I recognize that I was actually judging. Sometimes it's just subconscious because we are so used to doing it.

There is a great book called "My Stroke of Insight : A Brain Scientists Personal Journey by Jill Bolte Taylor. She was a Harvard trained Neuroscientist that had a stroke one day and recorded her entire journey and reflected back on her ordeal to explain what she learned about herself. One of her discoveries was that before her stroke she was very judgemental and critical and left brained. The stroke basically wiped her brain clean of its old patterns and she had to go through rigorous therapy over a period of eight years. What she discovered was that she had the unique opportunity to re-set her brain, to think differently and see the world differently. She talks about being responsible for the things we think because it sets neural pathways over time that become ingrained in our physiology. She says it's very important that we be responsible for our thoughts, maintain awareness, and take action to stop negative patterns. We are what we eat, why aren't we also what we think?

Lastly, it is important not to be judgemental of others but also not to be judgemental of ourselves. Edgar Cayce, the great seer, said that it is important not to condemn self and that it was just as harmful and deleterious to think negatively of yourself as it was to think so of others. Constantly having negative thoughts towards ones self I would imagine produce even more dramatic and faster negative physical symptoms than having them about others.

Could this be the answer:

My favorite part about the Course In Miracles is that it harps away at Forgiveness. It basically says forgiveness is the answer to most of the problems that we encounter and that the world is starving for forgiveness. If you can learn to forgive others for ignorance and also forgive yourself then you can cancel out many errors in judgement. If you do it enough, and practice it like a meditation or a mantra for your life it really becomes a new vision of the world, a much more kinder gentler vision. ACIM basically says forgiveness is a miracle. P4 Miracle principle #21 says, " Miracles are natural signs of forgiveness. Through miracles, you accept God's forgiveness by extending it to others".

ACIM goes on to say on P47, " You have no idea of the tremendous release and deep peace that comes from meeting yourself and your brothers totally without judgement. When you recognize what you are and what your brothers are, you will realize that judging them in any way is without meaning. In fact, their meaning is lost to you precisely because you are judging them. You do not need judgement to organize your life, and you certainly do not need it to organize yourself. In the presence of knowledge all judgement is automatically suspended, and this is the process that enables recognition to replace perception."

A new vision:

In the Gospel of Thomas, the disciples asked Jesus , "When will the kingdom come?" He replies,

"It will not come by watching for it. It will not be said, 'Look, here!' or 'Look, there!' Rather, the Father's kingdom is spread out upon the earth, and people don't see it.

Heaven on Earth is already here but people do not see it. Do they choose not to see it that way? To me this quote is about seeing the world a different way. Not looking to some future tense for a promised Heaven in the sky but seeing one in this very moment by looking at the world with new eyes and a kinder heart, forgiving yourself and others.

Idols and the Anti-Christ, no spinning heads here

2010-02-25T14:03:00.000-08:00

The things we worship here on Earth turn to dust. All of them. A Course In Miracles calls these things "Idols". We seek them out everywhere, thousands upon thousands, until we find the last one, death. ACIM claims it's an empty vicious cycle that can be stopped when you know what is real in the world and what is not. Idols are things made up by everyone in their minds to substitute for reality.

ACIM says p619. : What is an idol? Do you think you know? For idols are unrecognized as such, and never seen for what they really are. That is the only power they have. Their purpose is obscure, and they are feared and worshiped, both, because you do not know what they are for, and why they have been made. An idol is an image of your brother that you would value more than what he is. Idols are made that he may be replaced, no matter what their form. And it is this that never is perceived and recognized. Be it a body or a thing, a place, a situation or circumstance, an object owned or wanted, or a right demanded or achieved, it is the same.

ACIM goes on to say that the penalty for creating idols is, "not looking within for certainty and quiet calm that liberates you from the world, and lets you stand apart, in quiet and in peace." p619

According to ACIM, idols are the Anti-Christ, a substitute for seeing your brother as yourself. There are millions of ways to do it, and the world as we know it has found probably all of them by now. The Christ is not a person and so you do not have to believe in anyone or worship anything, worshiping is another form of idolization. Instead, it is an inner journey, it has to do with you, your vision of the world. It is a way of looking at the world, a kind of vision that sees (chooses to see) kindness everywhere it looks, love, beauty, peace. It rejects notions of hate and intolerance even though they are there; no faith is put in those visions.

New blog title

2010-02-22T15:26:00.000-08:00

Explanation for my new blog title :

Critical mass is a sociodynamic term to describe the existence of sufficient momentum in a social system such that the momentum becomes self-sustaining and fuels further growth. -WIKI

I like it.

Something I am convinced of...

2010-02-22T15:17:00.000-08:00

Everything happens in its own time. Wherever you are, whatever your situation is, is the exact experience you need to be having. There are times when things shift and change but you can not make changes happen any sooner than they are meant to.

I really believe that it only looks like we are in control of our major life situations, where as in reality, there are major shifts in fields of potentiality that need to happen for change. If you have ever had that feeling that you are up against a brick wall and then suddenly things change and you feel a "flow" or a freedom to move or grow or change directions again, this is what I'm talking about. I have experienced it many times and what it eventually teaches you is that you can not force things, sometimes you just have to wait for the potential to exist first and then change becomes easy, like water flowing over a fall.

Choke out the weeds of fear with love

2010-02-22T14:53:00.000-08:00

From A Course In Miracles - p32

"It has already been said that you believe you cannot control fear because you yourself made it, and your belief in it seems to render it out of your control. Yet any attempt to resolve the error through attempting the mastery of fear is useless. In fact, it asserts the power of fear by the very assumption that it need be mastered. The true resolution rests entirely on mastery through love. In the interim, however, the sense of conflict is inevitable, since you have placed yourself in a position where you believe in the power of what does not exist."

A lot of human behavior is fear based. How would it feel different every day to live in a positive calm state, even a neutral state, rather than a state of fear?

One of the best book titles ever is "Only Love Is Real" by Dr. Brian Weiss. It's a great read as well. The title reminds me of the quote above and the book is about love transcending time.

If there is a non-material state that exists after this one, the only thing that I am aware of that we can take with us is love and the memories that we stored regarding love in our soul. Fear and hate do not exist outside of the body. Fear and hate need a body to survive, a host. I do hope that love is eternal and transcendent.

What the Course says about love in the introduction is very powerful as well:

"The Course does not aim at teaching the meaning of love, for that is beyond what can be taught. It does aim, however, at removing the blocks to the awareness of love's presence, which is your natural inheritance. The opposite of love is fear, but what is all-encompassing can have no opposite".

Who put the You in God

2009-11-16T21:04:00.000-08:00

Every time you read the word God somewhere, replace it in your mind by saying "Myself". You will feel much better and have less anxiety about it that way. Go ahead, try it. You can thank me later.

Alchemy blog dos

2009-11-16T17:11:00.000-08:00

The book that Hauck wrote on the Emerald Tablet actually begins by telling us the story of Balinas who was born in the year 16 C.E. in Cappadocia (now Turkey). He found the Emerald Tablet and it changed his life. He became famous in Turkey for his healing powers and lived in the temple of Asclepius. He traveled all over the world meeting with many religious groups including the Essenes and Gnostics.

Balinas felt that religious groups were slowly forgetting and losing touch with the higher powers of themselves and he wanted to help them reestablish their link. Also he was worried that religions were becoming too materialistic . On page 8 of Hauck's book, he says of Balinas, "To set an example for others, he never entered a temple or church without uttering the prayer in which he said : Grant, Oh gods, that I may have little and feel the need of nothing." This notion has a huge resonating impact with me because one of my main reasons for not going to church is to avoid the "church" itself. Beautiful buildings, Popes decked out in gold and ornate clothing, or any signs of outward riches or bodily worship have nothing to do with spirit or God and I have always deeply felt this.

I also felt that Balinas was an inspiring individual in that he spoke bluntly at times to wake people up out of their comfortable lives and impart wisdom. Found on page 11 in Hauck's book, "Balinas attacked people's laziness and overindulgence, pleading with them to share their possessions with those in need by saying, "What else, then, have we to do but shut ourselves up at home, like birds to be fattened for use, and indulge our appetites in darkness till we burst with fat?". This might have just as well been my wake up call, stop sitting around don't forget who you are (or aren't as the case may be)! That statement continues to echo in my mind and speaks directly to me.

Balinas also urged Romans to stop watching sporting events where cruelty reigned ( on opening day alone of the "Games" 9,000 -power animals- such as lions, tigers, and panthers were slaughtered for human entertainment). Instead he encouraged them to raise their consciousness level and participate in the Universe directly and not vicariously, by witnessing creation moment by moment. He claimed nothing could be more exciting than that (as you can imagine, it didn't go over well). It kind of reminds me of the saying, "Don't do drugs, be high on life". Balinas stated that he could never harm another creature because who was he to judge the life worth of "any potential vehicle of light" (a very Buddhist statement, to come many years later).

Balinas also spoke out boldly against and without fear of Roman Emperors like Nero and he was also called to influence others such as Emperor Titus. He did not just sit around and meditate and reflect but boldly went out into the world to share his great knowledge. To someone who has always been too shy to speak her opinion and has even lied about being religious just to avoid a confrontation, this sets a new idea for me of what I would like my life to be like hence forth.

Balinas had many amazing experiences that I would encourage anyone to read about. I am glad he took his thoughts to the streets, in doing so he shared his life and knowledge with us. Many others such as Jesus and Buddha did the same thing, possibly endangering their lives and with the worry that their teachings would be misunderstood but they were spiritual worriers that risked everything to teach us anyway. They risked persecution and being misunderstood, and they were but they did it for love of people. Lastly it is important to note that by living what you teach and not compromising you are become the living incarnation of your ideal.

I realize I have talked very little in this post about the actual teachings on the Tablet or Alchemy, so I will save that post for next time.

Alchemy blog- Uno

2009-11-08T12:54:00.000-08:00

Thinking that I might have several more alchemy related blog entries, I think I will just refer to this as the first one.

As part of my all spiritual all-the-time line up of books, I'm reading a book called "The Emerald Tablet" by Dennis William Hauck. It is an information packed wild read about the Emerald Tablet, which contained alchemical teachings. Hauck makes the case that Alchemy, at times in history, was purposely used to be entirely symbolic of the actual spiritual teachings that it professed.

What some considered the pseudo-science of Alchemy was actually a cover for a type of living spiritual art that aimed at transforming the base metal of "Lead' in a person's soul to a higher consciousness represented by the precious metal Gold. The teachings in the Tablet were being cleverly disguised from the dominant (book burning, head loping) churches of the time. The introduction takes you on a fascinating ride throughout history following the Tablet from Ancient Egypt at its inception through the hands of various owners and discoverers. The book also discuses how the teachings in the Tablet influenced every major religion and modern day society. Also what I really love about alchemy is that is brought science and spirituality together in a unique combination that might not be found in the world again.

The Tablet's true author is unknown but some think it was written by Hermes Trismegistis ( also known as the father of The Hermetic Tradition). On Wiki you can read all of the various translations of the Tablet. If you really want to read an in-depth discourse on who wrote the Emerald Tablet itself and where it came from, this web site has lots of info. Also, here is an incredibly interesting interview with the author of this book Dennis Hauck. I wish I had more time to detail it all because it is very interesting stuff. However I will do the best I can to summarize parts of the material.

The Tablet was said to have been infused in all levels of Egyptian culture. It is one of the oldest recorded teachings in the world. It is the spiritual analogy to what Latin root words are to our language. The Tablet's teachings pop up in all religions a plenty (Buddhism, Hinduism, Gnosticism, Judaism, Islam, and Christianity) but with new packaging added by the subsequent religions. The Emerald Tablet could also be thought of as the Divine Cook Book. Existing on many levels in order to speak to many different kinds of peoples, it provides a recipe that if followed diligently, eventually leads back to the One Mind, which everything came from.

People who used Alchemy in their lives felt that they were connected with their work and that the greater their character became the better result they would have in any kind of experiment with alchemy. This is a similar concept to the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, specifically the observer effect. This effect in quantum mechanics states that the observer of the experiment determines and can alter the results simply by observing the experiment. Also alchemists believed they must be pure in order to produce meaningful results in life and tried to conquer their egos, ordinary lusts, and need for worldly possessions. Alchemists lived their lives like a chemistry lab experiment, going through the phases one would go through in a laboratory to produce a pure element, except they were working on their character and soul at the same time with the same processes. The steps they went through were calcination, dissolution, fermentation, distillation, and coagulation. All the steps are symbolic and have very in depth meaning. Hauck does a good job of describing what they mean and even providing modern day pop-culture examples to show us how this process still exists in everyday life. This book is full of the most magnificent symbology that you will ever come across.

Many great figures have spent their lives trying to discern the messages in the Tablet, here are a few examples. Isaac Newton dedicated much of his life to studying Alchemy and in fact studied alchemy longer than the comparatively small portion of physics he is known for. He did his own translation of the Emerald Tablet in 1680. Newtons "Hypothesis of Light" and his theories on Gravity (actions at a distance, even through a vacuum) might have been influenced by Alchemy.

The Tablet had a lot of influence on the famous psychiatrist Carl Jung, who also studied Alchemy. His theory of "The Collective Unconscious" is the same as what the Tablet calls the "One Mind" that is available to everyone. Carl Jung studied Gnosticism and its connections with the Tablet and felt like they were a bridge between spiritual wisdom handed down starting with the Egyptians and a new future of mind sciences. He had one of the largest collections of rare alchemical and Taoist books in the world.

Carl Jung had this to say about his studies:
[Alchemy] represented the historical link with Gnosticism, and . . . a continuity therefore existed between past and present. Grounded in the natural philosophy of the Middle Ages, alchemy formed the bridge on the one hand into the past, to Gnosticism, and on the other into the future, to the modern psychology of the unconscious" Memories, Dreams, Reflections of C.G. Jung, ed. by Aniela Jaffe, transl. by R. and C. Winston (Vintage, 1963) p.192-193 Jung also wrote an amazing must-read treatise on his work called, "Psychology and Alchemy" and gave lectures all over the world about his findings. I have always been interested in Carl Jung, he is like an old friend to me as I have sat up many late nights reading through his work. He is one historic figure I wish that I could have known. I love that he loved alchemy. - you have reached the end of post uno

Stop it, you are freaking me out

2009-10-12T21:47:00.000-07:00

I am reading a book called "The Way of Divine Love" by Sister Josefa Menendez. I'm only about 10 pages into the intro so far but it's freaking me out. It talks about the "victims" that Jesus chooses to suffer with him for the eternal pain he feels because he is rejected by sinners and to help with the promise to cancel out their sins. These chosen, but also highly willing victims for Jesus, endure the suffering to compensate for thousands or millions of sinning souls who are in darkness.

As if that wasn't motivation enough to sleep in on Sunday lest you be victimized, apparently the Devil is told to have at these victims and God allows them to suffer more punishment from the Devil than he would a normal person. This is just to prove that they will never succumb to the Devil no matter what they suffer.

I'm only 10 pages in like I said but I think they are implying it ends by the victims outer shell being stripped away and the tenderized meaty bits being ingested by Jesus forever and ever, ah men. Also, according to this book, I am so going to hell for that comment.

I think I will continue reading out of curiosity and with an open mind. I would have to say though that at least the introduction to the book is a little heavy on the hell fire and damnation cow bell.

Sage advice

2009-10-02T16:02:00.000-07:00

Some sage advice I recived from Dad :

I like the simplicity.... If you need complexity, you can go to church or read about the Pleiadeans.

Do not go gentle, even tonight

2009-10-02T15:53:00.000-07:00

DO NOT GO GENTLE INTO THAT GOOD NIGHT

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

-Dylan Thomas

Some analysts of this poem feel that it is about fighting for your life when you are near death. Some people with cancer have taken it on as their mantra to cling to life at all costs. I say it is also a cheer for the human race, young and old alike. You have to fight for your life while you are still very much alive. Don't let the TV take you. Don't sit passively by and let the light of your contribution to this world be diminished. Act or speak out passionately about whatever it is you believe in. Rage against the dying of the light and do not go gentle, even tonight.

Why I think Jesus should neither be feared nor worshiped

2009-09-27T14:14:00.001-07:00

Jesus, as a person, was asking us just to walk with him a while and see the world as he does, through his filter. I do believe Jesus was a real person, every bit as real as the Buddha or Krishna ( speaker in the Bhagavad-gita). His teachings are full of inspiration and something that humans should all strive for and what could be wrong with that. I do not know if he is the son of God but if he is, that's great too.

I believe you can still study and love the teachings of someone who got sucked into a religious dogma with out being religious. It does not have to be one or the other although some make you think you have to choose but notice, they usually do it with fear or guilt as a motivator. For me, this thought provided me with freedom to study and learn teachings from many sources, keeping the good and useful bits but not getting caught up in the religious scaffolding.

I do personally believe Jesus and maybe others in conjunction wrote the Course in Miracles, a book that I frequent. It was written to set the record straight about his time here and what we perceived wrong. When I read the ACIM, I really try hard to imagine anyone else writing it. I think that it's still possible that someone else did write it but list would be really short. Its concepts are far beyond things that most people have available to them. I'm not all that into Christian symbolism as a mantra to live by but I find the ideas put forth in ACIM difficult to ignore.

In ACIM, Jesus tells us why we should not worship him. ACIM p. 7 Revelation, Time and Miracles :

"Awe should be reserved for revelation, to which it is perfectly and correctly applicable. It is not appropriate for miracles because a state of awe is worshipful, implying that one of a lesser order stands before his Creator. You are a perfect creation, and should experience awe only in the Presence of the Creator of perfection. The miracle is therefore a sign of love among equals. Equals should not be in awe of one another because awe implies inequality. It is therefore an inappropriate reaction to me. An elder brother is entitled to respect for his greater experience, and obedience for his greater wisdom. He is also entitled to love because he is a brother, and to devotion if he is devoted. It is only my devotion that entitles me to yours. There is nothing about me that you cannot attain. I have nothing that does not come from God. The difference between us now is that I have nothing else. This leaves me in a state which is only potential in you."

Does this sound like a guy (or person) who is beating you over the head with eternity or damnation or a guy that came here so that we would worship him? It sounds like to me that he is trying to lift us up out of the slums of where we sometimes exist with each other to a higher place, where we can see more clearly our relationship with and to all things. He is letting you know that if you worship him you set yourself apart but if you strive to be like him in action then he has nothing that you can not achieve or that does not belong to you.

It is a beautiful message of encouragement that everyone can live in a better world based on their actions. You get back what you put in and at some level it is a closed system. Being worthy is not something that should be granted through a ceremony or a Hail Mary but something that is only earned, through a devotion to doing right by others.

I have also studied a lot about Edgar Cayce, deemed "The Sleeping Prophet". One of his statements that always sticks with me as good advice to live by is, "Know Thy Ideal". It is akin to the notion that if you think good things, good things will come. Cayce encouraged everyone to explore their life and know their ideal and when your ideal is set, your life becomes automatically pulled towards what you have set as that ideal. I am constantly reminded that if you don't know your ideal then you will just aimlessly wander, which can be educational too for a while I suppose. However I do think it takes some mental searching and effort to discover your ideal and then set your life on that course so that you can act. Mostly people probably don't know that they don't know what their ideal is.

I am thankful that the teaching of Jesus are available as are many others to help us form our ideals. I see him simply as an "older brother" that has gone before to help bring light to the world and all the other if's and's or but's were added later by people seeking to control people in some respect or other. I promise I will post other things on this blog than my thoughts about Jesus but I thought this needed to be said.

What is in that "Tenth of an Inch", you will decide.

2009-09-24T14:32:00.000-07:00

There is a Zen saying that says, "Heaven and Hell are but a tenth of an inch apart". I believe the Earth fills that space between the tenth of an inch and our individual perception of our situation on Earth tells us which way to lean. Obviously great beauty is available to us on Earth and unthinkable hellish manifestations are here as well. There is no point in studying or fearing Heaven or Hell when both are available in the here and now, here on Earth.

Perception is a huge personal responsibility. Perception can also influence others to see the world as you do, for better or worse. If you saw the world and thought it was good and held up that mirror for others to look into, would they not have a better chance of seeing it that way then if you held up a poster advertising space for rent in hell? Your perception of the world ultimately determines the way you will act towards it and what you will receive back.

I believe that religions and spiritual teachings from all over the world have many shards of light in their teachings and should not be discounted. However I think that some things that are taught by people in these organizations are wrong (ie. infused with fear and material things as their focus) and that is the main reason I choose not to participate in organized religions and other spiritual practices. Anytime fear is allowed to enter a thought system, it is headed in the wrong direction. It is very difficult for humans to avoid fear as it is a very powerful motivator and can be deeply present at subconscious levels.

As an example, Salvation, Atonement, Judgement Day are sometimes ideas that are taught as things that will occur at some future date, allowing fear and dread of damnation to slip in. I believe the only thing we have available to us ever in this life is the present moment. If we live for any ideas such as what our future will be like (imagining those who will get into Heaven-judging them or imagining if we will get in Heaven- judging ourselves) we are ignoring a valuable opportunity to make what we will of our present situation. It is clear that we can either live in a hellish state here or one of bliss and joy right now depending on how we see and how we act. If we are to be judged by how we saw and treated others at some future date, then our bases would be covered by living that way now, so why wait? Living for something in the future, some ultimate cosmic judgement date, only produces fear. Fear induced kindness (subconscious or not) to others or simply for the sake of saving your soul seems extremely damaging to the self and who would want to accept such fear motivated kindness from someone anyway?

Perception, are we just dreaming it anyway?

ACIM has many poetic moments that refer to us as being in a dream state (which the Native Americans and Aboriginal people also thought). Sometimes we dream that we are being crucified by others through their sins, their judgement on us, or their hate for us, etc.. This is why sin is not really possible on a higher level, because the dreamer is always safe at home (Heaven or in a spirit state or what you will) and the dreamer is never truly injured (in an eternal state) by what others seem to "do" to him. However while you are dreaming it seems all too real until you wake up. In this dream it is your responsibility to wake up and make the right choice, to take it all back once you realize where the error lies. It is all very metaphorical and allegorical. I find the opening statement, "The world is full of miracles", a very encouraging line because who couldn't use more miracles?

ACIM: p. 595 The Undoing Of Fear

"This 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. They are the glad effects of taking back the consequences of sickness to its cause. The body is released because the mind acknowledges "this is not done to me, but I am doing this." And thus the mind is free to make another choice instead. Beginning here, salvation will proceed to change the course of every step in the descent to separation, until all the steps have been retraced, the ladder gone, and all the dreaming of the world undone.

Why sin is a perception

2009-09-18T14:16:00.000-07:00

It takes a body to sin. If you only perceive people as bodies then you will only see them as capable of sin. This will cause you to live in fear of the sin that you see everywhere in everyone. If you believe that people are more than just their bodies then you will be able to look past any perceived sin to find out what the real source of their behavior is and what would be an appropriate response, if any. Yes, I do believe in pure concentrated evil and I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about smaller things we judge others for on a daily basis. In this journal entry I am trying to be mindful of this concept and find ways to apply it in my life.

A Course In Miracles (ACIM) says in Ch 22, p476 :

"Let not the form of his mistakes keep you from him whose holiness is yours. Let not the vision of his holiness, the sight of which would show you your forgiveness, be kept from you by what the body's eyes can see. Let your awareness of your brother not be blocked by your perception of his sins and of his body. What is there in him that you would attack except what you associate with his body, which you believe can sin? Beyond his errors is his holiness and your salvation. You gave him not his holiness, but tried to see your sins in him to save yourself. And yet, his holiness is your forgiveness. Can you be saved by making sinful the one whose holiness is your salvation?"

I particularly like the part where it says, "You gave him not his holiness, but tried to see your sins in him to save yourself.". Psychologists might call that projection. It happens without your conscious knowledge and takes dedication and awareness and persistence to be able to catch it in the moment it is happening. Everyone is or has been guilty of it, the pot calling the kettle black. This is a major recurring theme in ACIM, the idea of crucifying your brother in the hopes of saving yourself. It is an image and a concept that fascinates me.

That is how I believe you are saved today, in the here and now, through the kindness and understanding of others. Perhaps if there is anything we could possibly need to be saved from, it is ourselves. I do believe we can take responsibility for saving ourselves based upon how we treat others and not wait on someone else to magically grant us salvation without us having to put forth any effort. Aren't things more valuable when they are earned instead of granted anyway?

To begin at the beginning, if there is such a thing

2009-09-18T13:11:00.000-07:00

I wanted to start this blog a while ago due to thoughts rolling around in my head but they weren't done cooking yet. I'm still not sure they are done but something wanted to come out, hopefully not in an Alien movie kind of way.

I wanted to use this blog to talk about Spiritual things that I am interested in. I'm finding it is important to do the things we are afraid of in life and that sinking into a comforting routine and becoming sedimentary (yes I said sedimentary, collecting layers of dust or rock) is akin to a living death. Your heart still beats and you function routinely but no one is actually home in your wayward vessel.

I study A Course In Miracles, various works by Jean Klein, Dr. David Hawkins, Byron Katie, Edgar Cayce and many more. I also am interested in many other topics, including Native American Teachings and East Indian spiritual works. What you will find here are quotes and thoughts about things that particularly spoke to me. This is more of a reflection journal for me.

I make no attempt to convince anyone of anything, not one iota.