An online magazine of faith based on a free and responsible search for truth and meaning. The mission of Unitarian Universalism: A Way Of Life ministries is to provide information, teach skills, and clarify values to facilitate the evolutionary development of increasingly higher levels of spiritual development for human beings around the world.
Showing posts with label God's will. Show all posts
Showing posts with label God's will. Show all posts
Friday, December 9, 2022
Our will or God's will?
Thursday, March 12, 2020
New UUAWOL Patreon content available - Discerning God's will
Discerning God's will
The third step of twelve step programs like Alcoholics Anonymous is "made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood him."
This idea of turning our will over to what we believe is God's will for us is easier said than done. How can this be done? Is there a process?
Here is one way that it might work. Take a look and see what you think.
Better yet find a group of people to discuss this with and see how this process of surrender works in their lives.
This content is available for Tier 2 and Tier 3 UUAWOL patrons.
To join the Patreon UUAWOL community click the button in the upper right hand corner of the main UUAWOL blog page
Tuesday, August 13, 2019
God's will or my will?
I like to say that you and God are a dynamic
duo. Bringing your will into alignment with God’s will for you is unbeatable
and unstoppable and you will have a great day no matter what.
Unitarian Universalists covenant together to
affirm and promote the free and responsible search for truth and meaning. That
truth and meaning is best found in discerning God’s will for you and all of
humanity. Universalists believe in the Universal unconditional love of God and
universal salvation. In the meantime, human beings make a lot of mistakes
because they are listening to the ego instead of to God. When we make mistakes,
God laughs lovingly, and waits for us to change our minds and choose again.
From Commetary on A Course In Miracles by David G. Markham Chapter three
Saturday, April 14, 2018
Peace comes from surrendering to the Love of the Divine
Most Unitarian Universalists have control issues. They have been called heretics and rebels because they don't like authority. UUs want to be the boss of themselves and don't like clerical authority of any kind. Consequently, UUs have difficulty finding the peace that is not of this world because they find it difficult to surrender, to give up control.
What is the peace that is not of this world? What is the peace that goes beyond all understanding?
This peace comes from the awareness that nothing real can be threatened and die.
It follows that nothing unreal exists.
This understanding, my friends, is the peace of God which is beyond all understanding and is not of this world, meaning not on the path of the ego.
The basic doctrine of Buddhism is based on the idea of anica or impermanence. The only thing unchanging on the path of the ego is that all things change, and change continually. In physics this is called the law of entropy.
Buddhism teaches that attachment causes suffering because we will lose on the path of the ego whatever we become attached to.
This suffering is the opposite of the peace we seek.
If all things on the path of the ego change and bring us suffering if we become attached to them, where then does peace abide?
Peace abides in the Love of God. This peace is manifested in Loving Kindness which flows from forgiveness and gratitude.
So if you would have peace that is not of this world, forgive yourself and others who cling to the path of the ego, and encourage yourself and others to surrender themselves to the Love of the Divine.
What is the peace that is not of this world? What is the peace that goes beyond all understanding?
This peace comes from the awareness that nothing real can be threatened and die.
It follows that nothing unreal exists.
This understanding, my friends, is the peace of God which is beyond all understanding and is not of this world, meaning not on the path of the ego.
The basic doctrine of Buddhism is based on the idea of anica or impermanence. The only thing unchanging on the path of the ego is that all things change, and change continually. In physics this is called the law of entropy.
Buddhism teaches that attachment causes suffering because we will lose on the path of the ego whatever we become attached to.
This suffering is the opposite of the peace we seek.
If all things on the path of the ego change and bring us suffering if we become attached to them, where then does peace abide?
Peace abides in the Love of God. This peace is manifested in Loving Kindness which flows from forgiveness and gratitude.
So if you would have peace that is not of this world, forgive yourself and others who cling to the path of the ego, and encourage yourself and others to surrender themselves to the Love of the Divine.
Tuesday, April 10, 2018
Have you accepted your mission from God?
Unitarian Universalists covenant together to affirm and promote seven principles. This is their mission if choose to accept it. If they do accept their mission is has deep and pervasive implications for their life.
How does a person following a spiritual path spend his/her day?
(S)he starts with God, ends with God, and remembers God several times during the day.
The person following a spiritual path asks him(her) self, whenever there is a choice to be made, "What would Love have me do?" "What is God's will here?"
It is in doing God's will that we align ourselves with the Divine.
As the Blues Brothers said, "We're on a mission from God."
How does a person following a spiritual path spend his/her day?
(S)he starts with God, ends with God, and remembers God several times during the day.
The person following a spiritual path asks him(her) self, whenever there is a choice to be made, "What would Love have me do?" "What is God's will here?"
It is in doing God's will that we align ourselves with the Divine.
As the Blues Brothers said, "We're on a mission from God."
Thursday, April 5, 2018
My will or Thy will makes all the difference
Unitarian Universalists covenant together to affirm and promote the free and responsible search for truth and meaning. Where does this search take them? The search can take them further down the path of the ego or they can turn onto the path of the spirit. Observers have noted that many UUs are confused about which path to take. The problem is that you can't take both. Eventually you have to choose. The denomination, itself, struggles with that decision and its membership dwindles because of it.
The comedian, Flip Wilson, when he performed his comedic character, Geraldine, would have her say in a sassy, sexy way, "What you see is what you get!" This line always got a laugh. It is funny. Part of the humor in the line is that it is true and we all see a little of ourselves in it.
Are you an optimist or a pessimist? Do you love yourself and the world you are living in, or don't you like yourself and the world you are living in? The way you regard yourself and the world you are living in is the lens through which you will perceive and interpret yourself and the world.
The deeper question is "how do you think God sees you and world?" If you think that maybe God sees you and the world different from the way you see yourself and the world, what are these differences?
The path of the ego involves seeing ourselves as sinful and the world as a dangerous place based on the law of scarcity. The path of the spirit involves seeing ourselves as extensions of God's love for the world and the world as a place of abundant Love and peace.
Our experience is not based on external circumstances but on the lens we are using to perceive and interpret the meaning of these circumstances.
We often insist on our own judgment rather than on the judgment of our Higher Power. We want to be the boss and in control for a whole bunch of reasons until we begin to laugh when we realize that we hear God laughing because we have told God our plans and judgments.
In our spiritual development we come to a point where we realize there must be a better way to live our lives and with this dawning realization comes a turning from the path of the ego onto the path of the spirit. This turning initiates the search for that better way and our openness to God's will for us rather than insisting on our own, makes all the difference.
The comedian, Flip Wilson, when he performed his comedic character, Geraldine, would have her say in a sassy, sexy way, "What you see is what you get!" This line always got a laugh. It is funny. Part of the humor in the line is that it is true and we all see a little of ourselves in it.
Are you an optimist or a pessimist? Do you love yourself and the world you are living in, or don't you like yourself and the world you are living in? The way you regard yourself and the world you are living in is the lens through which you will perceive and interpret yourself and the world.
The deeper question is "how do you think God sees you and world?" If you think that maybe God sees you and the world different from the way you see yourself and the world, what are these differences?
The path of the ego involves seeing ourselves as sinful and the world as a dangerous place based on the law of scarcity. The path of the spirit involves seeing ourselves as extensions of God's love for the world and the world as a place of abundant Love and peace.
Our experience is not based on external circumstances but on the lens we are using to perceive and interpret the meaning of these circumstances.
We often insist on our own judgment rather than on the judgment of our Higher Power. We want to be the boss and in control for a whole bunch of reasons until we begin to laugh when we realize that we hear God laughing because we have told God our plans and judgments.
In our spiritual development we come to a point where we realize there must be a better way to live our lives and with this dawning realization comes a turning from the path of the ego onto the path of the spirit. This turning initiates the search for that better way and our openness to God's will for us rather than insisting on our own, makes all the difference.
Tuesday, February 20, 2018
The right decision in the end
Unitarian Universalists covenant together to affirm and promote a free and responsible search for truth and meaning. UU encourages the search but offers little guidance, other than its naming six sources for its "living tradition", in where to look. Like Moses and the Israelites, UUs have wound up wandering in the wilderness for 57 years since its merger in 1961. If UU is to thrive it must clarify its spiritual mission and provide more useful guidance for the spiritual journey.
When I was a child, about the age of 10, it dawned on me that "It's not a bad life if you know how to live it." Where this aphorism came from, I have no idea. I don't remember anybody telling me this. I just seemed to understand this from my intuitive mind. The aphorism arose from my "inner well." It seemed a right understanding then and it still does at age 72 all these years later.
Now, after all these years, I have a better understanding of what this aphorism means. According to A Course In Miracles, I can live my life on the path of the ego or the path of the spirit. I have tried, since age 14, to live according to the path of the spirit, and have learned how to do this reflecting on my experience.
Experience has been a great teacher. Socrates said, "An unexamined life is not worth living." I have tried to live an examined life. To live an examined life, the person has to admit that (s)he doesn't know. Knowing that you don't know is the first step on the path of the spirit. Knowing that you don't know, and that other people don't either, leads one to no longer trust the path of the ego to provide the satisfaction and fulfillment of the good life.
Throughout my life I have been well aware that bull shit abounds. Bull shit is abundant and we live our lives sinking deeper and deeper into it until we, sometimes desperately, become aware that there must be a better way. With this awareness, what I call, "the dawning," we initiate a search. We become a seeker for what that better way might be. I call this initiation of the search, "the turning." "The turning" is the turn from the path of the ego to the path of the spirit.
"The turning" is easier and ultimately must involve our asking our "Higher Power" for guidance. There are many formula's human beings have created for this requesting. One of my favorites is "What would Love have me do?" or more simply, "What is the loving thing?"
In the Christian prayer, the Our Father, we say in part, "...Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven." Bringing my will into alignment with what I think is God's will brings peace and joy and the "good life" which I have been seeking.
Sometimes my ego objects to my doing God's will. Doing God's will can fill me with fear sometimes and yet I have found that to move ahead in faith, in spite of the ego's objections, has always been the right decision in the end.
When I was a child, about the age of 10, it dawned on me that "It's not a bad life if you know how to live it." Where this aphorism came from, I have no idea. I don't remember anybody telling me this. I just seemed to understand this from my intuitive mind. The aphorism arose from my "inner well." It seemed a right understanding then and it still does at age 72 all these years later.
Now, after all these years, I have a better understanding of what this aphorism means. According to A Course In Miracles, I can live my life on the path of the ego or the path of the spirit. I have tried, since age 14, to live according to the path of the spirit, and have learned how to do this reflecting on my experience.
Experience has been a great teacher. Socrates said, "An unexamined life is not worth living." I have tried to live an examined life. To live an examined life, the person has to admit that (s)he doesn't know. Knowing that you don't know is the first step on the path of the spirit. Knowing that you don't know, and that other people don't either, leads one to no longer trust the path of the ego to provide the satisfaction and fulfillment of the good life.
Throughout my life I have been well aware that bull shit abounds. Bull shit is abundant and we live our lives sinking deeper and deeper into it until we, sometimes desperately, become aware that there must be a better way. With this awareness, what I call, "the dawning," we initiate a search. We become a seeker for what that better way might be. I call this initiation of the search, "the turning." "The turning" is the turn from the path of the ego to the path of the spirit.
"The turning" is easier and ultimately must involve our asking our "Higher Power" for guidance. There are many formula's human beings have created for this requesting. One of my favorites is "What would Love have me do?" or more simply, "What is the loving thing?"
In the Christian prayer, the Our Father, we say in part, "...Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven." Bringing my will into alignment with what I think is God's will brings peace and joy and the "good life" which I have been seeking.
Sometimes my ego objects to my doing God's will. Doing God's will can fill me with fear sometimes and yet I have found that to move ahead in faith, in spite of the ego's objections, has always been the right decision in the end.
Labels:
discernment,
God's will,
path of ego,
path of spirit,
Principle 4 Seeking Truth,
Spiritual path
Friday, December 1, 2017
Whose will? Mine or thine?
Unitarian Universalists covenant together to affirm and promote the free and responsible search for truth and meaning. Where does this search take them? For what are they seeking? The perennial philosophy teaches that truth and meaning are not to be found in things external but rather in things internal. If we are to search within what will we find but illusions, drama, misery, suffering, and temporary happiness?
The Buddha taught us the truth of impermanence. The Buddha taught us that suffering comes from attachment. Detachment and non attachment is an emptying of one's illusions and clinging. It is a letting go and a purification of one's ego to make room for the divine. We are told that we can't have both. Ultimately, we have to choose between the ego and the divine. UUs have few mystics in their midst except their appreciation of the transcendentalists and yet, it seems, Unitarian Universalism has eschewed the mystical root of spirituality to its detriment.
The moment you are empty of yourself, you are full of God. Both cannot exist together, remember. Remember again and again: both cannot exist together: it is either you or God. And it is the foolish person who chooses himself. Choose God: disappear as an ego. Forget yourself as an entity separate from existence, and in that very disappearance you are reborn. It is a very paradoxical state: the moment you are empty of yourself you become full, and full for the first time, overflowingly full, inexhaustibly full. The ego is just a shadow, it has no substance. It is a dream, not a reality. Drop the shadow so that you can attain the substance. Drop the false so that the real can be attained. All that I teach here is how to be empty of yourself so that you can be full of God. And the fullness is fulfillment.
Osho. First in the Morning: 365 Uplifting Moments to Start the Day Consciously, p.3
It is written in A Course In Miracles: "Now must you choose between yourself and an illusion of yourself. Not both, but one. There is no point in trying to avoid this one decision. It must be made. Faith and belief can fall to either side, but reason tells you misery lies only on one side and joy on the other." T-22.II.6:6-10
Basically it comes down to God's will or your own. Only the foolish would choose their own when they could enjoy the whole cosmos.
The Buddha taught us the truth of impermanence. The Buddha taught us that suffering comes from attachment. Detachment and non attachment is an emptying of one's illusions and clinging. It is a letting go and a purification of one's ego to make room for the divine. We are told that we can't have both. Ultimately, we have to choose between the ego and the divine. UUs have few mystics in their midst except their appreciation of the transcendentalists and yet, it seems, Unitarian Universalism has eschewed the mystical root of spirituality to its detriment.
The moment you are empty of yourself, you are full of God. Both cannot exist together, remember. Remember again and again: both cannot exist together: it is either you or God. And it is the foolish person who chooses himself. Choose God: disappear as an ego. Forget yourself as an entity separate from existence, and in that very disappearance you are reborn. It is a very paradoxical state: the moment you are empty of yourself you become full, and full for the first time, overflowingly full, inexhaustibly full. The ego is just a shadow, it has no substance. It is a dream, not a reality. Drop the shadow so that you can attain the substance. Drop the false so that the real can be attained. All that I teach here is how to be empty of yourself so that you can be full of God. And the fullness is fulfillment.
Osho. First in the Morning: 365 Uplifting Moments to Start the Day Consciously, p.3
It is written in A Course In Miracles: "Now must you choose between yourself and an illusion of yourself. Not both, but one. There is no point in trying to avoid this one decision. It must be made. Faith and belief can fall to either side, but reason tells you misery lies only on one side and joy on the other." T-22.II.6:6-10
Basically it comes down to God's will or your own. Only the foolish would choose their own when they could enjoy the whole cosmos.
Wednesday, November 29, 2017
We could not survive alone. We need one another.
Unitarian Universalism can be a godless religion. It welcomes atheists, agnostics, humanists, secularists as long as they agree to covenant to affirm and promote UUs seven principles. All of the seven principles are important and perhaps one of the most interesting and the one least understood is the third principle which is "acceptance of one another and encouragement to spiritual growth..." This principle along with the first which is the belief in "the inherent worth and dignity of every person" have no meaning were we not to assume the communal nature of our well being. No person is an island. Homo sapiens could not survive were the members of the species not interdependent on one another for physical, social, emotional, and spiritual development.
The atonement, at-one-ment, is when everybody loves everybody all the time. When you love your brother and sister, their spirit not their body, then Love joins you bringing comfort and peace and joy. These relationships are called "holy", "holy relationships," in A Course In Miracles. ACIM describes "Holy relationships" as God's will. It is stated in ACIM,
"If you attack whom God would heal and hate the one He loves, then you and your creator have a different will. Yet if you are His Will, what you must then believe is that you are not yourself. You can indeed believe this, and you do. And you have faith in this and see much evidence on its behalf. And where, you wonder, does your strange uneasiness, you sense of being disconnected, and your haunting fear of lack of meaning in yourself arise? It is as though you wandered in without a plan of any kind except to wander off, for only that seems certain." T-22.1.1:2-7
One of the slogans in AA, Alcoholics Anonymous, is "You are as sick as your secrets." Our biggest secret, which often is unconscious, is that we care nothing for God's will and just want to be left alone to do our own thing. Even worse, we try to hid from people, and God, what we are doing and what our intentions are because we are ashamed of the secrets we keep and what they will think of us, and do, should they find out. Because of the secrets we keep, we see our brothers and sisters as a threat to our safety and so we lie to them, manipulate them, attack them, and say we hate them. We hate them because of our fears of being found out. This fear of being found out robs us of our peace and joy.
Honesty is the best policy. We should strive for authenticity, genuineness, and sincerity. This striving is manifested in our discerning and attempting to do God's will for us. In the great Christian prayer, the "Our Father," we pray "Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven." When we bring our will into alignment with what believe is God's will for us we experience great peace and joy, and this peace and joy we want to extend to our brothers and sisters. We can say sincerely and with deep genuineness, "Pax vobiscum."
This desire and ability to extend the joy and peace we have achieved through aligning our wills with what we believe is God's will for us is an important indicator of advanced spiritual development.
The atonement, at-one-ment, is when everybody loves everybody all the time. When you love your brother and sister, their spirit not their body, then Love joins you bringing comfort and peace and joy. These relationships are called "holy", "holy relationships," in A Course In Miracles. ACIM describes "Holy relationships" as God's will. It is stated in ACIM,
"If you attack whom God would heal and hate the one He loves, then you and your creator have a different will. Yet if you are His Will, what you must then believe is that you are not yourself. You can indeed believe this, and you do. And you have faith in this and see much evidence on its behalf. And where, you wonder, does your strange uneasiness, you sense of being disconnected, and your haunting fear of lack of meaning in yourself arise? It is as though you wandered in without a plan of any kind except to wander off, for only that seems certain." T-22.1.1:2-7
One of the slogans in AA, Alcoholics Anonymous, is "You are as sick as your secrets." Our biggest secret, which often is unconscious, is that we care nothing for God's will and just want to be left alone to do our own thing. Even worse, we try to hid from people, and God, what we are doing and what our intentions are because we are ashamed of the secrets we keep and what they will think of us, and do, should they find out. Because of the secrets we keep, we see our brothers and sisters as a threat to our safety and so we lie to them, manipulate them, attack them, and say we hate them. We hate them because of our fears of being found out. This fear of being found out robs us of our peace and joy.
Honesty is the best policy. We should strive for authenticity, genuineness, and sincerity. This striving is manifested in our discerning and attempting to do God's will for us. In the great Christian prayer, the "Our Father," we pray "Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven." When we bring our will into alignment with what believe is God's will for us we experience great peace and joy, and this peace and joy we want to extend to our brothers and sisters. We can say sincerely and with deep genuineness, "Pax vobiscum."
This desire and ability to extend the joy and peace we have achieved through aligning our wills with what we believe is God's will for us is an important indicator of advanced spiritual development.
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