Betty Butterfield's application of the fourth principle leads her to visiting a Unitarian Universalist church
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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 Principle 4. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Principle 4. Show all posts
Sunday, May 5, 2019
Saturday, May 4, 2019
Betty Butterrield and the fourth principle - free and responsible search for truth and meaning
Betty Butterfield talks about her search for a church where she can feel comfortable. Video lasts about 4 minutes.
Wednesday, March 13, 2019
Today's lesson, number 64 in A Course In Miracles, is "Let me not forget my function."
What is our function? It is simply to remind ourselves that we do not choose to follow any more the path of the ego littered with illusions, idols, and special relationships. We forgive ourselves and others the errors we have made when we have chosen wrongly and forgotten our function of unconditional loving.
It is unconditional love that we bring to the world and the remembrance of our Oneness with God. This is the basis of our Universalist faith.
While the forms of temptation to engage with the things on the path of the ego are multitudinous, the choice we have, to follow the path of the ego or the path of the spirit, is pretty simple in content: God or the Ego?
Unitarian Universalists know based on their faith that their function is to make the awareness of this choice: God or the ego, conscious to the world. UUs covenant together to affirm and promote the free and responsible search for truth and meaning. Encouraging this search is what brings many seekers to Unitarian Univeralism. UUs validate and affirm the deepest sense that there is a better way, and it is our function as UUs to affirm and promote the search to develop it.
Unitarian Univeralists based on their living tradition can join with the students of A Course In Miracles and say, "Let me not forget my function." That function is to forgive false starts, efforts at barking up the wrong tree, mistakes and errors made, and simply reassure people that they can choose again.
This choosing again is what ACIM means by "forgiveness." Forgiveness is the letting go of the things on the path of the ego and our mistakes in choosing these things to make us happy.
Tuesday, February 19, 2019
Osho - Truth is an inside job.
On Tuesdays, UU A Way Of Life ministries blog publishes an article on the teachings of Osho.
Unitarian Univeralists covenant together to affirm and promote seven principles the fourth of which is the free and responsible search for truth and meaning. That's it. That's all the principle tells us. It doesn't tell us where to search.
Many people search on the path of the ego thinking that more facts, more knowledge, more experiences of the external world will provide that truth and meaning. Even in the world of science, we are told that we know more about the natural world until the next quarterly journal comes out.
Osho, the mystic, tells us that "Truth exists in our very self. And it is not so difficult to find, but we have to travel inside to do so. When someone goes inside himself, he finds truth as well as himself, at the deepest core of his life's breath."
In A Course In Miracles we are told that human beings live in denial and denial obsures the light of Love. One of the hardest things to do in life is to learn to live with the truth of ourselves. The truth scares us because we are not what we think we are. We go through life pretending to be one social role after the other. We pretend to be something we think other people want us to be. Our lives unconsciously become a lie.
Osho tells us to cut through the bull shit, cut through the false fascade, cut through the pretense, cut though trying to be something we are not. At the bottom, if we travel far enough, we experience all encompassing Love from which we came and to which we will return.
Unitarian Univeralists covenant together to affirm and promote seven principles the fourth of which is the free and responsible search for truth and meaning. That's it. That's all the principle tells us. It doesn't tell us where to search.
Many people search on the path of the ego thinking that more facts, more knowledge, more experiences of the external world will provide that truth and meaning. Even in the world of science, we are told that we know more about the natural world until the next quarterly journal comes out.
Osho, the mystic, tells us that "Truth exists in our very self. And it is not so difficult to find, but we have to travel inside to do so. When someone goes inside himself, he finds truth as well as himself, at the deepest core of his life's breath."
In A Course In Miracles we are told that human beings live in denial and denial obsures the light of Love. One of the hardest things to do in life is to learn to live with the truth of ourselves. The truth scares us because we are not what we think we are. We go through life pretending to be one social role after the other. We pretend to be something we think other people want us to be. Our lives unconsciously become a lie.
Osho tells us to cut through the bull shit, cut through the false fascade, cut through the pretense, cut though trying to be something we are not. At the bottom, if we travel far enough, we experience all encompassing Love from which we came and to which we will return.
Saturday, February 16, 2019
Seneca - It's not a bad life if you know how to live it.
Every Saturday, UU A Way Of Life publishes an article on stoic philosophy.
The last few weeks we have been discussing quotes from Seneca's essay, "On The Shortness Of Life." This week, we note that Seneca tells us that life is long enough; the problem is that we waste much of it.
Unitarian Universalists covenant together to affirm and promote seven principles the fourth of which is the free and responsible search for truth and meaning. This principle reminds me of Socrates saying that the unexamined life is not worth living. In psychology this examining is called "reflective functioning" and is considered one of the important components of emotional intelligence.
Examining one's life and engaging in reflective functioning contributes to one's self knowledge. Do you know what makes you tick? Do you know what and who you are?
We are told in A Course In Miracles that our function is forgiveness: first ourselves and then our brothers and sisters. And what are we to forgive? The misguided notion that we are the illusions that we project onto ourselves and the so called "world."
Bottom line is that what we think we know is mostly bull shit. It is impermanent as Buddha pointed out to us and the cause of our suffering.
Seneca shares with us the idea that it is a not a bad life if we know how to live it. Fact is that most of us are struggling to find our way back to our source. Having found it, life is plenty long enough.
Saturday, February 9, 2019
Growing up and growing old are two different things
UU A Way Of Life publishes an article on stoic philosophy every Saturday.
Seneca makes the point than growing old and growing up are two different things. There are some people who have lived long in chronological time but they have not grown in wisdom and grace.
When it comes to life, do you aspire to quanity or quality?
A life well lived is sufficient for satisfaction and fulfillment no matter how many chronological years it entails.
Unitarian Univeralists covenant together to affirm and promote the free and responsible search for truth and meaning. To what extent has any individual or group of people or church been successful in that search?
Many of the UU churches I have observed have resorted to pettiness, bickering, and schisms of all sorts. One small UU church I have observed over almost 20 years goes through a schism about every five years. The church I currently attend periodically has been through about 6 ministers, counting the interims, in the last 10 years. These churches are over 100 years old so that have grown old, but they have not grown up and whether they will survive to any kind of maturity is highly questionable.
Whether the application of this fourth principle contributes to any kind of constructive maturation raises significant questions about the governance structure which seems to have crippled UU maturation as a denomination and "living tradition."
Seneca's point about the shortness of life whether of individuals, groups, or communities can lead us to constructive reflection on our functioning.
Wednesday, December 5, 2018
What is one of Unitarian Univeralism's great virtues?
Virtue is born in a person's heart.
Virtue influences relationships.
Virtuous relationships influence families.
Virtuous families influence communities.
Virtuous communities influence States.
Virtuous states influence the nation.
Virtuous nations influence the planet.
Virtuous planets infuence the solar system and the whole universe.
Therefore, if a person would sanctify the universe, start with one's own heart.
In the individual heart is the seed of holiness.
Jesus came to humanity at Christmas to plant seeds.
Some good plants have germinated and grown and born good fruit and some toxic.
We, now, are the gardeners who must cultivate, fertilize, irrigate, prune and nurture.
Jesus told us that there would be false prophets and wolves in sheep's clothing.
Jesus said, "By their fruit you will know them."
Unitarian Univeralists covenant together based on seven principles, the fourth of which, is to affirm and promote the free and responsible search for truth and meaning. UUs have defined their mission to discriminate between the truth and the false, and in their desire to find the truth wherever the search may take them, they have manifested great virtue.
Monday, November 26, 2018
Who are these people who laugh themselves into eternity?
Most people somnambulate through life.
Some have awakened.
Those who somnambulate live in fear and will die.
Those who have awakened live in peace and know that death is not real.
Most people walk the path of the ego.
Some people walk the path of the spirit.
Some people will leave the path of the ego and turn onto the path of the spirit.
Most will walk the path of the ego until death.
Those who walk the path of the spirit will live forever.
Unitarian Univeralists are a savvy bunch who have learned that life is about a free and responsible search for truth and meaning. UUs have learned that justice, equity, and compassion will set people free. UUs, respecting the interdependent web of all existence, have risen above fear and merged with the All. Knowing the Ground of their Being, UUs have found peace and bliss. Having found peace and bliss, UUs laugh themselves into eternity.
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