Showing posts with label Idols. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Idols. Show all posts

Sunday, July 29, 2018

Has secular noise overwhelmed the silence of sanity?

Unitarian Universalists covenant together to affirm and promote the free and responsible search for truth and meaning. Unfortunately, they focus all too often on the truth with a small t instead of the Truth with a capital T.

Robert Barron says, "The secular establishment always prefers Christians who are vacillating, unsure, divided, and altogether eager to privatize their religion. That's the kind of Christianity the regular culture likes:utterly privatized, hidden away, harmless." p.107, To Light A Fire On The Earth.

In our contemporary culture, postmodernist philosophy teaches that truth is a social construction. Truth, small t, is a social construction, relative, situational, a figment of human beings creations on the path of the ego. However, Truth, capital T is about spiritual laws and this Truth is absolute and not of the making of human beings. One truth is found on the path of wrong-mindedness, and the Truth is found on the path of right mindedness.

In our secular world, no distinction is made between truth and Truth. This distinction requires a level of wisdom and understanding that most modern people don't understand. This lack of understanding generates much anxiety and fear. It is written in A Course In Miracles, "You have every reason to feel afraid as you perceive yourself. This is why you cannot escape from fear until you realize that you did not and could not create yourself." T-3.IV.3:8-9

The spiritual path is not about intelligence, knowledge, creeds, belief systems, etc. Spirituality is not cognitive. In order to ascend on the spiritual path one must "lose one's mind." As St. Paul writes, we have to become "fools" for Christ. True spirituality is a return to child-like innocence wondering at the Oneness of existence.

People on the  path of the ego don't want to hear about the Truth. It scares them. It means they would have to detach from the things that they think will make them happy. This is too much. The young man asks Jesus how to get to the kingdom and Jesus tells him to sell all he has, give the money to the poor, and come follow me, and the young man walks away sad.

People on the path of the ego who worship all kinds of idols don't want to hear about the Truth, they just want the Truth tellers to go away, shut their mouths, and keep their understandings to themselves. Unfortunately, they has happened more and more as the secular noise overwhelms the silence of sanity.


Sunday, March 4, 2018

To vanquish death we must move from the path of the ego to the path of the spirit

Unitarian Universalists covenant together to affirm and promote the free and responsible search for truth and meaning.

Where does this search take us? There are plenty of paths to hell we can go down. Which path will take us to Truth?

We eventually learn that all the paths we go down in this life lead to death. We can't escape it no matter what we do.

All the idols we worship, all the world has to offer, leads to one place. We avoid facing this fact as long as we can. We are encouraged to fight death right up to the end even though death always wins.

So, the Latin expression, "carpe diem," seize the day, becomes the ego's modus operanti. We are encouraged by the ego to enjoy the trip as the boat on which we are riding goes down. The band played on as the Titanic sunk.

What would you do if you knew today was the last day of your life? Will money help you? What would winning the lottery do for you then?

We come to the point when we realize that all the idol worship we engage in in this world does not change our fate. The idols of the ego do not offer us true salvation. There is nothing on the path of the ego which in the last analysis has any lasting value for us, that can help us defeat death.

The dissolution of death comes in the awareness that we are not an ego. What we think of as our self is not real but a social construction. The animating energy of this social construction does not change but continues to exist forever. This animating energy is part of the All, the total package of which we just a minuscule manifestation. This manifestation will change, but it will not die.

We become aware that we are One with our brothers and sisters and that this Oneness is experienced by us during our current manifestation as Love. We come to understand, along with the Beatles, that Love is all we need. We don't need idols. Idols are counterfeit salvation. They lead us down a dark alley to disappointment and futility. No idol is ever enough to satisfy our longing for completeness.

And so the questions that guide the purpose of our lives are not "How do I acquire more money, more power, more fame, more sex, more worldly pride," but rather "What would Love have me do?"

Before we can get to the question, "What would Love have me do?" we must first forgive ourselves and others for our mistaken efforts of worshiping and obeying the idols which seduced us from our authentic path of the spirit. After forgiveness we can move to Love which is on the path of the spirit a whole new ball game.

Sunday, February 18, 2018

What do you put before your love of God?

Unitarian Universalists covenant together to affirm and promote a free and responsible search for truth and meaning, and yet, like most people, they have idols which they place before that search.

It is written in A Course In Miracles, "The slave of idols is a willing slave. For willing he must be to let himself bow down in worship to what has not life, and seek power in the powerless." T-29.IX. 1:1-2

Referring to money, the cliche is "You can't take it with you."

Referring to power, British politician Lord Acton said, "Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely."

Referring to physical beauty we know that beauty fades.

And yet we humans invest such meaning and significance in our idols and we miss the interior divine connection.

It is written further in the same section of ACIM, "Little child, the light is there. You do but dream, and idols are the toys you dream you play with. Who has the need of toys but children? They pretend they rule the world, and give their toys power to move about, and talk and think and feel and speak for them. Yet everything their toys appear to do is in the minds of those who play with them." T-29.IX.4:3-7

The bumper sticker reads, "Those with the most toys when they die, wins."

The bumper sticker is sarcastic. It is meant to be funny but it is sad and depressing. Is this really what our lives are about? Who wants to live in such a world?

Pick your idols carefully. Better yet, give them up. Set them aside. Hospice nurses tell us that no dying person every said that they wished they worked more. They all say they wish they'd spent more time with their family and friends.

Leave the path of the ego and take the path of the spirit. You and the world will be better off for your choosing the later.

Saturday, February 17, 2018

You are okay just the way you are.

What does Unitarian Universalism teach about idols? Francis David, the founder of the Unitarian Church in Transylvania in the 16th century said, "We don't have to think alike to love love alike. Francis David brushed the idols aside and taught that they make no difference, they are not important, hardly worthy of our attention. The important thing is love.

A Course In Miracles teaches that there are many paths to God. The theology is not important. The experience is.

The question is asked in A Course In Miracles, "What is an idol?" The question made me smile and chuckle.

I thought to myself, "An idol is anything that we substitute for God."  We put our idols in front of God all the time because we think our idols will supply what we lack and give us something that will make us happy.

Idols can be money, sex, power, fame, religion, food, gambling, sports, you name it.

I wonder about people who walk around with sports paraphernalia adorning their bodies as if these images enhance their self worth, self esteem, self confidence by not just identifying with a sports team and a player but pretending to be them at some point, an athlete, or a member of the team they idolize.

One of America's favorite reality TV show is even called "American Idol." Whoever is named this year's American Idol will only last for a temporary period until we are on to finding a new idol next season. Idols come and go. They distract us from more substantive questions like why was I born, what is the purpose of my life, what happens to me when I die, what will be my loved one's understanding of what my life was about after I die, what do I think God would want me to do?

The underlying dynamic of idolization is that idols, no matter what they are, divide people from one another; they don't bring people together. Idols set up dynamics of competitiveness, jealousy, envy, exclusion and even animosity, resentment, and attack.

Idols are like the clouds that block the divine rays of God shining on us like the sun. God is always there for us if we would look within, but we look without, looking for love in all the wrong places.

Give up your belief in idols. Turn your attention and focus on the God within and within your brothers and sisters. You are okay just the way you are.
Print Friendly and PDF