"There is no fear in perfect Love because It knows no sin, and It must look on others as on ItSelf. Here there is only holiness and joining without limit. For what is Heaven but union, direct and perfect, and without the veil of fear upon it? Here we are One, looking with perfect gentleness upon each other and on ourselves. Here all thoughts of any separation between us become impossible." -- A Course in Miracles; Chapter 20, Section III, 10:2-5, 11:3
"We love Him, because He first loved us." -- The Bible; 1 John 4:19
I had a reader e-mail with some great questions. How, the reader wanted to know, do we know what is real and what is not? How do we know that God is? All of us have asked these questions... and if we are honest, we continue to ask them in times of challenge and personal anguish. Even Mother Theresa had her dark nights of the soul.
So let's look at three questions that lead us to the Truth:
1. What is God? Every scripture and every spiritual teacher throughout time agrees on one very important description of God... Allness. What does this mean to me? If God is All in All to me and in my life, then everything I do and everything I say and everything I think about is God... there can be no escaping this Allness or being separate from it, no going unconscious, no fear of what it All means. "And thou shalt love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your mind and with all your soul and with all your strength." All. This means that when times are apparently challenging, the Allness of God includes the opposite. Allness includes all Divine Ideas and their expressions... all ideas in harmony with every other idea. There is no competition in Allness. My judgements about what appears are made up, illusory stories about appearances. But every idea that appears in the Mind of God is self-complete, is ALL. As I rest in this, I do whatever needs to be done in any given situation in harmony with All, as a transparency for this Divine harmony, without resistance or judgment.
2. What does it mean that I am One with God, the image and likeness of God? What does this tell me about my spiritual nature and the Truth of my Being? What does it tell me about the situation in which I find myself now? Oneness with God means that there is no attribute of God that I do not share, and share equally. "Beloved, All that I have is thine." Oneness with God means that there is nothing in me that is not perfect and good and in Divine harmony with everything else, which is also my Self. Oneness with God means eternal love and companionship and sufficiency and ever-new joy. Oneness with God means that I can only ever find my Self in God, and that there can be no other situation. Only the Allness and Oneness of Self, of God, of the One.
3. What is my actual relationship with and to God? What does it mean? What is this Oneness we share with God, and how does it help in this situation? How does this relationship bring healing even when faced with seemingly insurmountable circumstances? If you stop and think about it, how can the Allness and Oneness that I am in God be anything other than self-complete and harmonious? Nothingness is the word that spiritual teachers and scriptures have used to describe all situations that seem to be problematic, insufficient, lacking, or full of fear and loss. How can that which is forever One and Whole be anything other than in Divine Order and Self-Loving? Nothingness is the only word to describe the nightmare stories we believe about ourselves and the world. Just as the stories about who I thought I was as a teenager had no real effect on Who I Am (as a matter of fact, I can now look at them and laugh, knowing it was all made up and ridiculous), in the same way, all stories of fear and loss and lack and limitation (whether of the body or finances or relationships or personal identity in any form) are all make believe, hurtful images that we have made. And that is all they ever are, images with no real substance. Nothing at all.
There is one other thing to remember... we reflect the Allness of God, and our Oneness with God assures that we Love and express that Love as God does. Everything else is the Nothingness of the dream. As A Course in Miracles reminds us, only that Love is real.
"The meaning of the Son of God lies solely in his relationship with his Creator." -- A Course in Miracles; Chapter 20, Section VI, 1:1
Showing posts with label Unanswered Questions. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Unanswered Questions. Show all posts
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
Thursday, July 31, 2008
Full Disclosure
"Covering iniquity will prevent prosperity and the ultimate triumph of any cause. Ignorance of the error to be eradicated oftentimes subjects you to its abuse." -- Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy; Page 446, Lines 30-32
"I will there be Light. Let me behold the Light that reflects God's Will and mine. I will there be Light. Darkness is not my will." -- A Course in Miracles; Workbook 73, 10:2-3, 11:3-4
"And do I want to see what I denied because it is the Truth? This final question, which is indeed the last you need decide, still seems to hold a threat the rest have lost for you. Forget not that the choice of sin or Truth, helplessness or Power, is the choice of whether to attack or heal. For healing comes of Power, and attack of helplessness. And if you choose to see a world without an enemy, in which you are not helpless, the means to see it will be given you." -- A Course in Miracles; Chapter 21, Section VII, 5:14, 6:5, 7:1-2, 9:4
I woke up this morning with a vague sense of dis-ease. And I just sat with it, allowing thoughts to arise and not attaching to any of them. I find it funny that there is not one thing wrong with my life at this point, that everything is flowing and very good from a human perspective, and yet this sense of something missing still arises. A Course in Miracles repeatedly reminds us that this is what the false self is made of... the need to generate more, and it doesn't even matter more of what. This requires the need for something more. The need for something more requires a this and a that. Oneness is not conducive to desire and suffering.
So as I watched this dog and pony show unfold in my own delusional thoughts, I realized that the normal tendency is to cover up what is really going on with activity or with projection... as in, "look what he/she is doing!" So that we can dissociate from our need to be separate and feed our appetite for more. I just got a huge rush as I wrote that sentence. Herein lies the key.
Sometimes the appetite for more shows up as the need to do stuff around the house, fixing, rearranging, redecorating, feng-shui-ing... just so it's more something. Sometimes the appetite shows up as a compulsive need to hear more of other people's stories to try and get what they have, or to try and help them, acting wise as if we know something they don't. Sometimes the appetite shows up as a need to stay within the familiar (more of this, please), so that we are never really outside our comfort zones. I could go on and on here, since the ingenuity of the ego's desire for more is legion. It is especially sneaky in the so-called spiritual arena, where the appetite shows up as the desire to hear other people's stories about spiritual stuff, or to read more, or to try a new person or path. But even the desire to help others is this appetite for more in disguise... wanting to appear to be more spiritual, even to ourselves. This is truly delusional. Since God is All, who is there to be spiritual, or non-spiritual?
A Course in Miracles puts it bluntly: "One illusion cherished and defended against the Truth makes all Truth meaningless, and all illusions real." (A Course in Miracles; Chapter 22, Section II, 4:4) So the question of seeing ourselves with full disclosure becomes imperative for Awakening. Where am I hiding this lust for more that keeps the illusion of a separate self spinning with abandon? In the lust for food, for new experiences, for new people, for new stories? Or the lust for isolation and safety? Or the lust for 'harmless' pleasures like movies and books? This is the last unanswered question: do I want to see? Do I really want to know?
Wanting is not bad... it's a mistake. The mistake is that something more of anything will ever satisfy and complete the ego. The mistake is that this subterfuge keeps you caught in the illusion of a life, a separate material self with a so-called spiritual side. You remain as God created you, not as you imagine yourself. And yet your dream life is lived as you imagine you. As Jeshua ben Joseph put it: "Ye are Sons of God, and yet ye die like men." We choose this illusion of separation and suffering because we want more. It's the wanting that kills us. It's the wanting that perpetuates the illusion of self that lacks something. It's the Seven Deadly Sins played out as my life, and your life, and the lives of everyone who comes into this dream world. Grandiose saga or utter tragedy, a story of earthly love or of darkest revenge, the mechanism and the end result is always the spinning of illusion, and more illusion. More. Always more.
I can Awaken in any given moment, and see myself as God created me: Perfect, Whole, Complete in every way, now and always. All that is necessary is the desire for full disclosure. In the face of discomfort, dis-ease, dis-satisfaction, be ruthlessly honest: do I want to see what I denied because it is the Truth?
"Now must you choose between your Self and an illusion of yourself." -- A Course in Miracles; Chapter 22, Section II, 6:6
"I will there be Light. Let me behold the Light that reflects God's Will and mine. I will there be Light. Darkness is not my will." -- A Course in Miracles; Workbook 73, 10:2-3, 11:3-4
"And do I want to see what I denied because it is the Truth? This final question, which is indeed the last you need decide, still seems to hold a threat the rest have lost for you. Forget not that the choice of sin or Truth, helplessness or Power, is the choice of whether to attack or heal. For healing comes of Power, and attack of helplessness. And if you choose to see a world without an enemy, in which you are not helpless, the means to see it will be given you." -- A Course in Miracles; Chapter 21, Section VII, 5:14, 6:5, 7:1-2, 9:4
I woke up this morning with a vague sense of dis-ease. And I just sat with it, allowing thoughts to arise and not attaching to any of them. I find it funny that there is not one thing wrong with my life at this point, that everything is flowing and very good from a human perspective, and yet this sense of something missing still arises. A Course in Miracles repeatedly reminds us that this is what the false self is made of... the need to generate more, and it doesn't even matter more of what. This requires the need for something more. The need for something more requires a this and a that. Oneness is not conducive to desire and suffering.
So as I watched this dog and pony show unfold in my own delusional thoughts, I realized that the normal tendency is to cover up what is really going on with activity or with projection... as in, "look what he/she is doing!" So that we can dissociate from our need to be separate and feed our appetite for more. I just got a huge rush as I wrote that sentence. Herein lies the key.
Sometimes the appetite for more shows up as the need to do stuff around the house, fixing, rearranging, redecorating, feng-shui-ing... just so it's more something. Sometimes the appetite shows up as a compulsive need to hear more of other people's stories to try and get what they have, or to try and help them, acting wise as if we know something they don't. Sometimes the appetite shows up as a need to stay within the familiar (more of this, please), so that we are never really outside our comfort zones. I could go on and on here, since the ingenuity of the ego's desire for more is legion. It is especially sneaky in the so-called spiritual arena, where the appetite shows up as the desire to hear other people's stories about spiritual stuff, or to read more, or to try a new person or path. But even the desire to help others is this appetite for more in disguise... wanting to appear to be more spiritual, even to ourselves. This is truly delusional. Since God is All, who is there to be spiritual, or non-spiritual?
A Course in Miracles puts it bluntly: "One illusion cherished and defended against the Truth makes all Truth meaningless, and all illusions real." (A Course in Miracles; Chapter 22, Section II, 4:4) So the question of seeing ourselves with full disclosure becomes imperative for Awakening. Where am I hiding this lust for more that keeps the illusion of a separate self spinning with abandon? In the lust for food, for new experiences, for new people, for new stories? Or the lust for isolation and safety? Or the lust for 'harmless' pleasures like movies and books? This is the last unanswered question: do I want to see? Do I really want to know?
Wanting is not bad... it's a mistake. The mistake is that something more of anything will ever satisfy and complete the ego. The mistake is that this subterfuge keeps you caught in the illusion of a life, a separate material self with a so-called spiritual side. You remain as God created you, not as you imagine yourself. And yet your dream life is lived as you imagine you. As Jeshua ben Joseph put it: "Ye are Sons of God, and yet ye die like men." We choose this illusion of separation and suffering because we want more. It's the wanting that kills us. It's the wanting that perpetuates the illusion of self that lacks something. It's the Seven Deadly Sins played out as my life, and your life, and the lives of everyone who comes into this dream world. Grandiose saga or utter tragedy, a story of earthly love or of darkest revenge, the mechanism and the end result is always the spinning of illusion, and more illusion. More. Always more.
I can Awaken in any given moment, and see myself as God created me: Perfect, Whole, Complete in every way, now and always. All that is necessary is the desire for full disclosure. In the face of discomfort, dis-ease, dis-satisfaction, be ruthlessly honest: do I want to see what I denied because it is the Truth?
"Now must you choose between your Self and an illusion of yourself." -- A Course in Miracles; Chapter 22, Section II, 6:6
Friday, February 8, 2008
The Unanswered Question
"Your questions have no answer, being made to still God's Voice, which asks of everyone one question only: "Are you ready yet to help me save the world?" Ask this instead of what the ego is, and you will see a sudden brightness cover up the world the ego made. No miracle is now withheld from anyone. The world is saved from what you thought it was. And what it is is wholly uncondemned and wholly pure." -- A Course in Miracles
"Do I desire a world I rule instead of one that rules me? Do I desire a world where I am powerful instead of helpless? Do I desire a world in which I have no enemies and cannot sin? And do I want to see what I denied because it is the truth?" -- A Course in Miracles
The universal smokescreen of the unanswered question is one we all know very well. Why is the world the way it is? Why me? Why did this happen when I have done everything right? Why did they treat me that way, when I have been so good to them? Or why did I say or do that, when I knew better? Why was I so stupid? Why did I, why did they... blah, blah, blah... the wheel of samsara continues to turn, turn, turn. Questions like these have no answer. They are not real questions, but rather a way of seeing the world. A way of being. When we ask such questions, we are being victims, reactive effects of some other cause. We are being powerless.
A Course in Miracles tells us that there is only one real question in any circumstance: "Is this what I would see? Do I want this?" This is usually immediately and impatiently answered by the ego... of course I don't want this! But there is another question, and one that remains unanswered behind the smokescreen of many seemingly unanswered questions that are not really questions: "Do I want to see what I denied because it is the truth?"
Be vigilant now, because it's easy to get lost in the maze of words. As ACIM puts it, we can never have what we are not willing to BE. We are always experiencing exactly what we are being. Not what we are pretending to be, as in the identities of the ego. It's not about being a nice person or being right. It's the core of it. Who are you being when you ask a question? And as we know, there are always and forever only two choices in this world, no matter how many there appear to be. And only one of them is true. Thank God.
We are always either being One with God, being our True Self... or we are being an illusory, victimized, limited fiction within the dream. This decision is seemingly complicated in the world by all of our unanswered questions. Why would we not want to know the Truth? Why, indeed.
In order to answer what ACIM calls the last unanswered question, "Do I want to see what I denied because it is the truth?" we have to see that the world itself is meaningless. We give it all the meaning it has for us. We are the dreamer. And regardless of what we decide to do and no matter how we shift roles, it remains a world of illusions. It will never give us what we want. Because, "Elusive happiness, or happiness in changing form that shifts with time and place, is an illusion that has no meaning. Happiness must be constant, because it is attained by giving up the wish for the inconstant. Joy cannot be perceived except through constant vision."
We come here to dream awhile, always with the false hope that yet another dream will satisfy the endless desires that arise out of the dream itself. It never ends. Nothing will ever fill or satisfy our imagined lacks and empty places. And yet, within this very dream, another Voice calls us. Do you want to know the Truth? Are you willing to be ruthlessly honest with yourself? Are you ready yet to help Me save the world? The last unanswered question: "Do I want to see what I denied because it is the truth?" is the call to freedom and sanity and peace. And what more could we ever want?
"The constancy of happiness has no exceptions; no change of any kind. It is unshakable as is the Love of God for His creation." -- A Course in Miracles
"Do I desire a world I rule instead of one that rules me? Do I desire a world where I am powerful instead of helpless? Do I desire a world in which I have no enemies and cannot sin? And do I want to see what I denied because it is the truth?" -- A Course in Miracles
The universal smokescreen of the unanswered question is one we all know very well. Why is the world the way it is? Why me? Why did this happen when I have done everything right? Why did they treat me that way, when I have been so good to them? Or why did I say or do that, when I knew better? Why was I so stupid? Why did I, why did they... blah, blah, blah... the wheel of samsara continues to turn, turn, turn. Questions like these have no answer. They are not real questions, but rather a way of seeing the world. A way of being. When we ask such questions, we are being victims, reactive effects of some other cause. We are being powerless.
A Course in Miracles tells us that there is only one real question in any circumstance: "Is this what I would see? Do I want this?" This is usually immediately and impatiently answered by the ego... of course I don't want this! But there is another question, and one that remains unanswered behind the smokescreen of many seemingly unanswered questions that are not really questions: "Do I want to see what I denied because it is the truth?"
Be vigilant now, because it's easy to get lost in the maze of words. As ACIM puts it, we can never have what we are not willing to BE. We are always experiencing exactly what we are being. Not what we are pretending to be, as in the identities of the ego. It's not about being a nice person or being right. It's the core of it. Who are you being when you ask a question? And as we know, there are always and forever only two choices in this world, no matter how many there appear to be. And only one of them is true. Thank God.
We are always either being One with God, being our True Self... or we are being an illusory, victimized, limited fiction within the dream. This decision is seemingly complicated in the world by all of our unanswered questions. Why would we not want to know the Truth? Why, indeed.
In order to answer what ACIM calls the last unanswered question, "Do I want to see what I denied because it is the truth?" we have to see that the world itself is meaningless. We give it all the meaning it has for us. We are the dreamer. And regardless of what we decide to do and no matter how we shift roles, it remains a world of illusions. It will never give us what we want. Because, "Elusive happiness, or happiness in changing form that shifts with time and place, is an illusion that has no meaning. Happiness must be constant, because it is attained by giving up the wish for the inconstant. Joy cannot be perceived except through constant vision."
We come here to dream awhile, always with the false hope that yet another dream will satisfy the endless desires that arise out of the dream itself. It never ends. Nothing will ever fill or satisfy our imagined lacks and empty places. And yet, within this very dream, another Voice calls us. Do you want to know the Truth? Are you willing to be ruthlessly honest with yourself? Are you ready yet to help Me save the world? The last unanswered question: "Do I want to see what I denied because it is the truth?" is the call to freedom and sanity and peace. And what more could we ever want?
"The constancy of happiness has no exceptions; no change of any kind. It is unshakable as is the Love of God for His creation." -- A Course in Miracles
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