Cross your fingers. lol

 

Know that the creatures are pure and limpid water,

            Shining within them the attributes of Almighty God.

            Their knowledge, their justice, their kindness

            Are stars of Heaven reflected in flowing water.

            Kings manifest God's Kingship,

            The learned display His knowledge.

            Generations have passes, and we are a new generation-

            The moon is the same, but the water has undergone change...

            All pictured forms are reflections in the river's water-

            When you rub your eyes, you see that all are He!

                                                            --Rumi

        I don't know. How well do we know the Self?      We try and carve out an identity by adolencence, a role and niche we fall into, and then later in life we find out that that our friends are not who we are, our role is not who we are, our body is not who we are, our thoughts are not who we are, and our actions are not who we are. We are all of that, and yet none of that completely defines us, never fully satisfies us.
We go from creating a self, to its eventual dissolution....

Who are we really....we are the universe contemplating itself.
When you lose yourself, you will find the Universal self.
You will find yourself in this awe... 

 

"We are told that if we do not save ourselves, we will go to a place called "Hell," where this guy called "The Devil" lives, and that we will be "damned" forever and ever. Well as ridiculous as this sounds to modern-thinking people, it's almost true.

            The devil is that aspect of ourselves which does not believe we can free ourselves from our limitations, and who wants so much to be right that he will sabotage us at every opportunity. The devil is none other than the aspect of ourselves we must overcome, that insidious fear and self-rejection which tries to convince us that we don't deserve to be happy. The devil symbology also represents that callous, compassionless, angry judge that no one wants to face-and yet each of us does every day of our lives until we rid ourselves of him. It is the sword-bearing critic within each of us, lashing out at every opportunity to destroy our self-esteem.

            If this heartless judge wins out, if we destroy our own feelings of self-worth by knocking ourselves down over and over again, never being able to measure up to our own impossible standards, we will believe that we have failed in every creative attempt we were brave enough to make-and we will stop trying. This is when we are in hell. It is the house of our fear, our self-rejection, and our secret rejection of everyone else. It is the house where no one can "measure up." In this house we are painfully aware of everyone's shortcomings. Feelings of love, of compassion, of support for one another-these things are never found here.

            Hell never exists by itself. Each of us must build such a place for herself. It is built with lack of faith in ourselves, and cemented with our own anger. It is a dam which holds us back from flowing with life, our own river-like essence held back-dammed up-stuck in the mire of self judgment, cold anger, and the need to be right. And for as long as we choose to stay in this dark, lonely place-we are dammed, not damned, mind you-but dammed-just like the body of water trying to flow but meeting with a concrete wall. And just like a river that has been dammed up, our potential-our incredible creative forces-are held back, unused. What are we saving them for?

            Those who have succumbed to their own inner devil, who have created hell for themselves, and who are dammed-need to focus the power of their own anger on that concrete wall and knock it right down. Releasing all the anger will unleash a dam of tears-and the river that is your life will flow freely again as it does in the healthy natural world.

            You will never find a more condemning critic, nor a harsher judge than yourself. For none exists.

            There is no frightening devil with horns who awaits you. You live with him right now. When you love yourself so much, that even the devil within you is received as a vital and challenging link to your own development-you will never again need to retreat into self-rejection.

            Being "dammed" is actually a misnomer. In truth, it refers to being dammed.  And this is a state of stuckness that you choose for yourself. The belief that you have no choice is just another aspect of this jail you build for yourself. If you believed you had a free choice about being there-you would probably move out of that space immediately. The jail of your own self-hatred and fear is of your own making and you are the jailer who holds the keys. Only when you come up with a convincing reason that will change your own mind about yourself-will you allow yourself to be free."

(And the only compelling reason is love.)                       -Maya Sarada Devi  

 

"All over the world, human beings are worshipping a God which they consider to be separate from themselves, somewhere up in the clouds.  For the most part, those who pray and participate in daily or weekly rituals are simply following in the footsteps of their ancestors, going through the motions without having a mystical experience. Christian doctrine teaches us that human beings are made in the image of God. And this is indeed, true, but not in the sense that God is a human-looking being up in the sky with whom we will meet some fateful day. In truth, we are God-not as individuals-but as the whole of all life in and out of form.

            One can say that everything a sculptor creates, she makes in her own image. The sculpture may not be made in the image of the artist's physical body, but nevertheless it is made in her own image, the image of the essence of her being.

            The essence of our being is a shared essence which has manifested in many different physical forms and personalities. We are like music wanting to play-so we create an orchestra-one musician for each instrument needed to have a full musical expression. God is the music and we are the musicians we created before we were we, back when together we knew ourselves simply as I.

            Certainly our human minds cannot begin to grasp the infinite. As physical beings, our awareness is directed at things which seem finite. We experience life as something which begins and finally ends, like the years and the seasons. From a physical point of view, we perceive everything in finite terms. "Nothing goes on forever." It is surprising that the English language even contains the words infinite and forever. These are vague notions, at best. And in the same way, that which we call God is an even vaguer notion, as vague as the awareness of our own true identities.

            In fact, everything does go on forever. Because God goes on forever, and God is the name we give to all that is, the great everything. There is simply nothing which exists that is not God. Therefore, since God is a never-ending event, and God is everything: everything is a never-ending event. Only the forms change. Only the shapes, the colors, and the faces change.

            It is our confusion between form and essence which causes this great identity crisis. If we cut ourselves off from our awareness of the essence of life, then we have cut off our ability to perceive our own essence as well. It is no wonder that we confuse our essence with our forms. If we are a society of beings who believe that we are nothing more than our physical forms, then that event which we call "death" would naturally seem like quite a threat to everything that we have come to know and love-the end of our connection with the world, with our loved ones, with nature, and with God. If we have no sense of our own infinity, then we have no sense of God. And until each of us really understands that she is God, not by herself,--but as a whole with all that exists with her-she will have no understanding of her own identity. So, rest assured that most everyone you meet in the Western World is suffering from a paralyzing identity crisis. This, alone, is reason enough to have compassion for one another."          

                                                                                    --Maya Sarada Devi

Regaining Consciousness in the Western World: Radical Essays on the Human Experience.

   There are no exact "rules" that are given for life only the shared values those rules are based on.
My personal rules are 

       1) Honor the Self--if you are not loving and honoring your own self, how can you extend your compassion towards others.
        2) Keep an open mind-- If you don't keep an open mind, then you are left with dogma, cynicism, and not open to possibilities.
        3) Being vigilant for Truth (Spirit). If you don't look to find the underlying truth, then you are only going by your own personal idosyncricies, and personal opinions. Once you find that truth, you have to be aware that people don't like you provoking their own truths, which means rule 4.
   4) Be inclusive--you can strech other people's boundaries while honoring your own at the same time. This is what it means to communicate our shared humanity, and our souls.

      I believe that it's not bad. There have been scientific studies that show that a womans menstrual cycle is affected by lunar cycles, much as the ocean tides are affected by the pull of the moon's gravity. Whether or not a person's mood and personality, (or the future) are affected to the degree that astrology say it is, the verdicts still up in the air. It's an interesting novelty. I look up to the stars, but I don't base my life on them (as I check my horoscope).

            I'm waiting for someone to grasp my hand, and we'll both jump together.

        My Self.             "I'll see you when I see you!"

            The silence of this Peace would not be disturbed, not by noise, and not by thought...

        I would learn to paint in every style, learn to play every musical instrument, work-out my body to the exact proportions I want, and learn about all the secrets of love. And then when that was all over, I would deepen my meditation practice, to reach a non-descript state of mind, sit down, and the world would quietly vanish from me.  

         Then we would be Conscious. Who knows, maybe there is even a balance in this universe, a way the universe tries to fix itself, informing our consciousness through it's consciousness. Perhaps if your quiet, and you listen to your intuition, you might be able to hear it, informing you through your heart. Listen closely, what do you hear?

    
    

        Old enough to know better...but we're still learning. ;)

              "The issue of authority is really a question of authorship. When you have an authority problem, it is always because you believe you are the author of yourself and project your delusion onto others. You then perceive the situation as one in which others are literally fighting you for your authorship. This is the fundamental error of all those who believe they have usurped the power of God. He is, however, eager to undo it, not to punish his children, but only because he knows that it makes them unhappy. God's creations are given their true Authorship, but you prefer to be anonymous when you choose to separate from your Author. Being uncertain of your true Authorship, you believe that your creation was anonymous. This leaves you in a position where it sounds meaningful to believe that you created yourself. The dispute over authorship has left such uncertainty in your mind that it may even doubt whether you really exist at all.
               Only those who give up all desire to reject can know that their own rejection is impossible. You have not usurped the power of God, but you have lost it. Fortunately, to lose something does not mean that it is gone. It merely means that you do not remember where it is. Its existence does not depend on your ability to identify it, or even to place it. It is possible to look on reality without judgment and merely know that it is there."             --ACIM

 

           Jesus said that all sins were forgivable except for one. There is only one "unforgivable sin." Let us look at this one "unforgivable sin" and see what he means by this.  Jesus says in Matthew (Mt 12:31-32), that "every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven men, but the blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven. Anyone who speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but the blasphemy against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either in this age or in the age to come."  Ouch. Notice that Jesus doesn't say blasphemy against God, or blasphemy against himself, but blasphemy against Spirit and the Holy Spirit.

            This "blasphemy" against the Holy Spirit, or Intuition, can't be forgiven, because it is only through the Holy Spirit or intuition, that sins can be forgiven. If we seek to "blasphemy" or depreciate the powers of our mind, then we won't find the underlying cause or intuition that, we might have been wrong about someone else's sins. Hence we won't be able to forgive and we won't be able to keep from "sinning." A sin in A Course in Miracles is defined as a lack of love, and a correctible error. Once this uncorrectable error becomes noticeable to our intuition (Holy Spirit), it can easily be changed to a correctible error. (See a Course in Miracles Chp19) So there you have it. There are no unforgivable sins. The only "unforgivable sin" is the one that we don't correct, the one we don't allow corrected, and the ones we hold against ourselves.  

            This idea of the Holy Spirit easily offended by words, and name-calling is absurd. The idea of Jesus easily offended and who doesn't offer forgiveness goes against his own teachings. Jesus admonished that we "should pray for our enemies"(Luke 6:27-36) and that everyone was our "neighbor." Jesus said, "I come not to judge the world" and kept an adulterous woman from being stoned to death.  Jesus told his disciples to first look inward, and remove the "the beam in thine own eye" (Luke 6:41-42), before they saw "sins" in another. Jesus did not hold back forgiveness for anyone wanting it, not even when he was being crucified. One of the criminals who was crucified with Jesus asked, "Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom. Jesus answered him, " I tell you the truth today, you will be with me in paradise."(Luke 2342-43)

            Those who believe that only God and Jesus (or his disciples) can forgive sins are using the same argument that the religious leaders of Jesus' time used. When Jesus healed a paralytic,

            "some of the teachers of the law said to themselves, "This fellow is blaspheming!" Knowing their thoughts, Jesus said, "Why do you entertain evil thoughts in your hearts? Which is easier: to say, "Your sins are forgiven," or to say, Get up and walk'? But so that you many know that the Son of Man [humanity] has authority on earth to forgive sins..."Then he said to the paralytic, "Get up, and take your mat and go home." When the crowd say this, they were filled with awe: and they praised God, who had given such authority to men (Matthew (9:3-8).

            The story of the risen Christ also tells how he told his disciples that they had the power to forgive sins, "If you forgive anyone his sins, they are forgiven; if you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven."(John 20:23)[i] This "not forgiven" is that their sins would remain unforgiven in the minds of his followers, not in "heaven." 

            Jesus was forceful with the religious leaders of his time, but that's because he didn't share the illusions that they had about their authority. And they had put themselves in a position of power, who were misleading the people and were citing scriptures (law) that they didn't fully understand. 

            These scriptures (Luke 12:49) and when Jesus said "I come with a sword" (the sword of truth) are taken out of context. There he is also referred to as saying "I did not come to bring peace." Jesus' arrival and presence in the community didn't bring peace, but his message was peace. He is also referred to by Paul as the "Prince of Peace" He knew that his message spreading would bring divisions in households (Luke 12:52-53).

            Unfortunately these scriptures are taken out of context, and are not interpreted in light of Jesus' overall message.  They have been used to justify un-Christian behavior, which is supposed to be geared towards unconditional love, and used to perpetuate animosity and violence towards others. 

            Jesus' parables are likewise misinterpreted to show how God is unforgiving, shows favoritism, and only selects a certain group (such as in inter-tribal myths and stories, The Old Testament). The "hell-fire," concept is conceived and emphasized by the erroneous "Book of Revelations" that has made its way into the New Testament and Christianity.(See David Hawkin's The Eye of the I: from which nothing is hidden.)

            Jesus came to fulfill the law by reinterpreting it. Unfortunately, in Christianity today, it is much easier to see Jesus as the only son of God, (rather than seeing the Sonship as One) than as a profound mystic who was ahead of his time.

            Although it is true that "all scripture is inspired by God and beneficial," how we interpret scripture isn't always beneficial. It also leaves us with the question of what is scripture (dharma) and what isn't.

            What were the greatest commandments or guidelines that Jesus instructed us to live by? "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind." You must love God [not your fixed ideas of God, Spirit, Reality] and with your whole being, body, mind, and soul, because this is the only way to love reality fully.

            The second greatest commandment is that you should "love your neighbor as yourself."(Matthew 22:39) If we don't love ourselves, how can we love our neighbor? We have to extend our being, and see the other person as a part of who we are, our shared identity as Spirit. Jesus concludes by saying, "All of the law and the prophets hang on these two commandments."(Matthew 22:40)

            If Christianity has any chance of surviving, it has to change; it has to evolve, towards a better future, one with a better understanding. We shouldn't be as concerned with "Christian love" as we should be with unconditional love. Christianity has to incorporate the understanding of the mystics and the transpersonal qualities (love, faith, kindness, devotion, open-mindedness, spiritual discernment) that is at the heart of the original message. Sincere people who want to understand the true meaning of Christianity are invited to check out A Course in Miracles published by the Foundation of Inner Peace. 

            Let us not forget the warning of Jesus when he says "A house divided against itself (which in this case we can refer to as humanity) cannot stand."     --rl

            "Heaven and earth shall pass away" means that they will not continue to exist as separate states. My word, which is the resurrection and the life, shall not pass away because life is eternal. You are the work of God, and His work is wholly lovable and wholly loving. This is how a man must think of himself in his heart, because this is what he is.

                                                            -A Course in Miracles

---

[i] [i] Holy Bible: New International Version

"Picture yourself in a boat on the river,
With tangerine trees and marmalade skies"

Life flows, whether we are in the flow(Tao) or not. We are all flowing down life's river, whether we want to struggle against the current or not!