Tuesday, March 5, 2024

The miracle, unconditional love, is a matter of faith.

 


According to the teaching of A Course In Miracles, a miracle is a shift in perception and apprehension from the world of the ego, conditional love, to the world of Spirit, unconditional love. When we perceive and apprehend things from the world of Spirit, unconditional love, we may not always see any observable effects, but the perception and apprehension from the world of the Spirit effects the perceiver and apprehender even when there appears to be no changes in the external world of the ego. 

Faith is the belief in the unseen and the unprovable. We intuitively know even when there is no external confirmation. For example, Unitarian Universalists covenant together to affirm and promote the inherent worth and dignity of every person. The inherent worth and dignity is based on faith not always on external perceptions of behavior, attitudes, beliefs, and values that a person appears to manifest.

This faith is a matter of choice about what to put our minds on. Would we come from a place of unconditional love or conditional love? It is up to each one of us to decide when we become aware that we have a choice.

Sunday, March 3, 2024

Self awareness is a key component of spiritual intelligence.

 


After a person is born the person is socialized and conditioned first by the family and secondly by the society into which they are born. The ego tells the person that their thoughts, feelings, values, and practices are their own when in fact these thoughts, feelings, values, and practices are borrowed from others. 

It is not until a person can see through this conditioning that they start to have a mind of their own, are able to stand on their own two feet, and take clear and definite stands on what they actually do know, feel, value, and make decisions to do.

If a person is asked, "What makes you tick?" most people can't tell you. They are sleeping. They say what they think the questioner wants to hear or what the conventional norms and attitudes of the society say is the right thing belief, feeling, value, and practice.

Osho tells us that he wants people to understand their own functioning and think for themselves not based on their conditioning. This self awareness, and self responsibility is a major component of spiritual intelligence. To what extent does a person understand their own functioning and take responsibility for it? Low, medium, high?

Saturday, March 2, 2024

Glossary of Unitarian Universalism - Non dual Oneness



Non dual Oneness - People are socialized and conditioned by the society they are born into to perceive and understand various concepts, events, and phenomena. This process is born out of dividing and separating phenomena into parts. This strategy of breaking systems into their component parts has given human beings great power to control and manipulate those systems. This power to manipulate component parts overlooks the fact that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. The drive to organize component parts in systems to greater complexity is the basis for a spirituality based on a recognition of an evolutionary dynamic up to and including what Eastern religions call “enlightenment,” and Christianity calls “salvation.” The recognition that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts is the basis for the joke in which the Buddhist monk asks the hot dog vendor, “Make me one with everything.” Forms change while the energy which contributes to the making of those forms is eternal. This recognition that forms change while energy continues is the basis of the recognition of mystics that there is no death only change. Persons are drops of the ocean and while the drops separate themselves from the whole they also at some point are reabsorbed back into the ocean from which they came. This ocean of Transcendent Energy is what is called the “non dual Oneness.” In Unitarian Universalism people covenant together to respect the interdependent web of all existence of which they are a part. In this respecting of the interdependent web, UUs recognize and acknowledge that they are, as are all things, part of the non dual Oneness.


Friday, August 25, 2023

The universal nature of which I am a manifestation?


I said before that of yourself you can do nothing, but you are not of yourself. If you were, what you have made would be true, and you could never escape. It is because you did not make yourself that you need be troubled over nothing. Your gods are nothing, because your Father did not create them. You cannot make creators who are unlike your Creator, any more than He could have created a Son who was unlike Him. If creation is sharing, it cannot create what is unlike itself. It can share only what it is. Depression is isolation, and so it could not have been created. T-10.V.5:1-8


Schucman, Dr. Helen. A Course in Miracles (pp. 349-350). Foundation for Inner Peace. Kindle Edition. 


We are not the author of our own existence. We had to come from somewhere, to have been made from something. We are an extension of our Transcendent Source and what we have made, thinking it is ourselves, is but a fabrication of the ego. Being an extension of our Transcendent Source we have security, peace, and bliss. If we believe we are simply the object of our own ego creation, we will be depressed.


In Unitarian Universalism some of us join together to affirm and promote the inherent worth and dignity of every person which comes from our Transcendent Source and is not of our own making.


The question we all struggle with consciously or unconsciously is “What makes me tick?” Am I merely the consequence of social construction or deep down is there a universal nature of which I am a part? To what extent am I aware of the universal nature of which I am a manifestation?


Wednesday, August 23, 2023

How are our souls doing?


Sickness and death seemed to enter the mind of God’s Son against His Will. The “attack on God” made His Son think he was Fatherless, and out of his depression he made the god of depression. This was his alternative to joy, because he would not accept the fact that, although he was a creator, he had been created. Yet the Son is helpless without the Father, Who alone is his Help. T-10.V.4:1-4


Schucman, Dr. Helen. A Course in Miracles (p. 349). Foundation for Inner Peace. Kindle Edition. 


So we think we are the authors of our own life. We all know where babies come from. We are usually joyous at the birth of a body. But what about the soul that is incarnated in that body whose manifestation grows as experience in the body is obtained? This soul can become more aware or depressed. There is a difference between growing old and growing up. All bodies grow old but not all souls grow up. The ego focuses mainly on bodies and is threatened by the soul because as the soul becomes more aware, the ego diminishes and is eliminated.


In Unitarian Universalism some of us join together to affirm and promote the inherent worth and dignity of every person. Inherent worth and dignity comes from the soul not the body.


What condition is your condition in? When we say we need to “get into shape” we usually are referring to the condition of our body. What shape is our soul in? To what extent do we explore the awareness of our Higher self as distinguished from our ego selves? What is that part of us that can observe our cognitive, affective, psychological, social, physical, and spiritual functioning? Are we living examined lives? If so, how is our soul doing?


Tuesday, August 22, 2023

Moving our attention from the things of the ego to the peace of God.


Allegiance to the denial of God is the ego’s religion. The god of sickness obviously demands the denial of health, because health is in direct opposition to its own survival. But consider what this means to you. Unless you are sick you cannot keep the gods you made, for only in sickness could you possibly want them. Blasphemy, then, is self-destructive, not God-destructive. It means that you are willing not to know yourself in order to be sick. This is the offering your god demands because, having made him out of your insanity, he is an insane idea. He has many forms, but although he may seem to be many different things he is but one idea;–the denial of God. T-10.V.3:1-8


Schucman, Dr. Helen. A Course in Miracles (p. 349). Foundation for Inner Peace. Kindle Edition. 


The ego has a stake in denying the non dual Oneness of God for becoming aware of the non dual awareness of God of which we are a part the ego would no longer exist. The ego has a big incentive in continuing to seduce us with the things it offers enticing us with the hope that those things will make us happy. Not only do the things the ego offers us fail to make us happy, but they keep us from realizing the one thing that will: giving up the things of the ego and becoming one with the non dual Oneness, our Transcendent Source.


In Unitarian Universalism some of us join together to affirm and promote the free and responsible search for truth and meaning and this search takes us inward in search of the peace of God not outward in search of happiness offered by the things of the ego.


This search occurs in meditation and mindfulness. We can take time every day to withdraw our attention from the things of the ego and focus it on the peace of God. This can occur for a prolonged period of time or momentarily several times per day.


Monday, August 21, 2023

To what extent do you see the Divine Spark in others?


Do not forget, however, that to deny God will inevitably result in projection, and you will believe that others and not yourself have done this to you. You must receive the message you give because it is the message you want. You may believe that you judge your brothers by the messages they give you, but you have judged them by the message you give to them. Do not attribute your denial of joy to them, or you cannot see the spark in them that would bring joy to you. It is the denial of the spark that brings depression, for whenever you see your brothers without it, you are denying God. T-10.V.2:1-5


Schucman, Dr. Helen. A Course in Miracles (p. 349). Foundation for Inner Peace. Kindle Edition. 


When we deny God we project our fears onto others in a multitude of forms. The failure to see the Divine Spark in others leaves us depressed and forsaken. If we would experience love we have to share it.


In Unitarian Universalism some of us join together to affirm and promote the inherent worth and dignity of every person by seeing the Divine Spark in each person we interact with and think of. This perception of the Divine Spark in each person gives rise to peace and bliss.


The practice of Unitarian Universalism involves searching for the goodness in each person we meet. In Alcoholic Anonymous they say, “Take the best and leave the rest.” When we find the goodness it is good to acknowledge it, celebrate it, and express gratitude for the golden nugget we have found.


The seventh skill of spiritual intelligence according to Cindy Wigglesworth is the awareness of the worldview of others. This skill involves developing curiosity about the beliefs, values, opinions, practices, history, and traditions of those who come from cultures different from our own. The practice of the platinum rule is “Do unto others as they would have you do unto them.” To what extent do you know about and understand the religious beliefs of other faith traditions?


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