Saturday, September 2, 2017

Cosmic consciousness and Unitarian Universalism

Kevin, I know that you were raised as a Christian and have taken your faith seriously for most of your life. However, when you told me that you are starting to question your faith I, for one, reassure you that this is a good thing for many of the things that we are taught by our religion can impede our spiritual development unless we  question some of the teachings that don't seem quite right to us.

You asked me about Jesus' statements in Matthew's gospel where Jesus says "Anyone who loves his father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me; anyone who loves his son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me; and anyone who does not take up his cross and follow Me is not worthy of Me. Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for My sake will find it"10:37 This teaching is rarely understood and preached on because it is so foreign to what our society's norms are and what people want to hear.

The ego wants us to put special relationships ahead of God because the ego teaches that these special relationships are what will make us happy although when we are honest we must admit that these special relationships bring us as much suffering, anxiety, anger, hurt, and destruction as they do joy and peace. The reason these relationships disturb our joy and peace is because our desire for union and completion (belonging) is misplaced. What we unconsciously are really desiring is to become one again with the universe and enjoy the enlightenment of cosmic consciousness. Can special relationships ever give us that?

When we realize that we have been looking for love in all the wrong places we feel foolish and ashamed. We think we should have known better all along. We may also be angry and sad that we have wasted so much time in the drama and enervation of trying to achieve the unachievable. Jesus tries to set us straight, to point us in the right direction, but largely, even by churches that profess to follow His teachings, His teachings are either not understood or ignored as being too difficult to act on.

Unitarian Universalism teaches the unconditional love of the creator and reassures us that the Spirit of Life would never abandon us or condemn us to punishment. UU encourages us to not get people into heaven but heaven into people and asks us to covenant to affirm and promote the inherent worth and dignity of every person not just some people or special people. One of the ways to get heaven into people is to recognize and acknowledge that all people are special in the sense that everyone is unique just like everybody else.:-)) Jesus is calling us to a higher path when He tells us we must detach from special relationships and first and foremost devote ourselves to the Holy, the union of everybody with everybody all the time which is heaven.

Kevin, this calling by Jesus is a call to a miraculous way of living in which we change our perception from the special relationships on the ego plane to the cosmic consciousness of oneness with the Godhead.

As they say in AA, "Let go, and let God." Continue to question authority on the ego plane and seek the guidance of the inner voice of God. The way you can tell the difference is if the ideas give you peace.

Uncle David

6 comments:

  1. I love my family especially my son and daughter and to have to give up my relationships with them in favor of some unseen, untouchable God is too much. I'm sorry.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I don't think you are being asked to give up your family, but rather to re-orient your priorities. Our family relationships are a means to an end cosmically. They are the school room for our spiritual development and the deeper question is what we are learning from them and what we understand their ultimate purpose to be. By all means continue to love your family and son and daughter and use this love in the service of a greater good.

      Delete
  2. In the couples I counsel the often hold a secret resentment which goes, "You used to love me and still could if only you would but you won't because you________." We blame our unhappiness on our partner as if it were in his/her power to make us happy. This assumption is, of course, delusional, because our partner can't make him/her self happy. How could (s)he take responsibility for our happiness. The answer is not to look for happiness in external relationships, but to seek happiness within. Jesus said, I believe, that the kingdom of God is within you.

    ReplyDelete
  3. We love to blame God when love fails us. How could God do this to me? And then we feel guilty because deep down we know that God has nothing to do with the failure of special love relationships. We know that what Jesus says is true and we have to put these special relationships aside if we are to find deep peace. At some point we have to say goodbye to them all when we die if not before and hopefully we will be able to forgive them as we ask them to forgive us and we express thanks for the blessings of the learning which took place from the experience.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Uncle David writes to Kevin, "However, when you told me that you are starting to question your faith I, for one, reassure you that this is a good thing for many of the things that we are taught by our religion can impede our spiritual development unless we question some of the teachings that don't seem quite right to us."

    Rev. Galen Guengerich wrote in his book, God Revised, that when he left his Mennonite community to go to Harvard his family and friends were worried that he would lose his faith. Guengerich said that he didn't lose his faith, he lost theirs, and he began to find his own. Guengerich is the Senior Paster at First Unitarian in NYC.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Lewis:

      I suspect Jesus meant you have to leave your church family sometimes as well and go and follow Him. I know I had to to save my soul.

      Delete

Print Friendly and PDF