Showing posts with label Principle 7. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Principle 7. Show all posts

Friday, September 20, 2019

Whatg are you doing today? How about joining the global climate strike?

Re-membering our awareness of the interdependent web

















Matthew tells us in chapter 22: 2-5 that the Kingdom of God is like a wedding feast

The kingdom of heaven is like a king who gave a wedding banquet for his son And sent his servants to summon those who had been invited to the wedding banquet, but they refused to come. 

Again he sent other servants, saying, Tell those who are invited, Behold, I have prepared my banquet; my bullocks and my fat calves are killed, and everything is prepared; come to the wedding feast.
But they were not concerned and paid no attention [they ignored and made light of the summons, treating it with contempt] and they went away--one to his farm, another to his business,

Many were too busy to come. They had better things to do. Their egos interfered with their awareness of the importance of community.

The mature soul comes to appreciate the interdependent web of all existence of which each person is only a tiny part. The mature soul becomes more aware of the multiple generations who have contributed to the nature of the current society in which we live. The mature soul understands the world in a trans-generational way being a witness to the grandchildren and great grandchildren as well as the grandparents and the great grandparents and the great great grandparents.

In my own case, at the age of 73, in my life time I have personally met 6 generations and if I am lucky perhaps I will meet seven. I met my maternal grandmother’s father, and I knew 3 of my 4 grandparents. I was lucky to have been raised by two parents and I am one of five children. My wife and I were blessed with 9 children and now I have 15 grandchildren the oldest of whom are 25 and 21 so I could easily see my great children which my mother has done at age 86.

I knew both my grandmothers who gave birth to my parents with my father being born in 1918 and my mother in 1920. At the time of my parents’ birth in the United States neither one of my grandmothers could vote. The 19th amendment of the constitution gave women the right to vote in the United States in 1920.

The mature soul has the long view, something sadly very much missing in our age of rapid technological change. This long view appreciates community over self. This appreciation recognizes that community takes effort to build and maintain. Some help by organizing, some by providing and doing, some by showing up and attending. But most importantly the soul remembers, re-members. The soul re-members its sense of community which has a transcendent quality which goes beyond the individual sense of self in a mysterious and marvelous way.

It is the recognition of partnership in the interdependent web which gives life meaning and this recognition allows us to leave this world when we die hopeful and not in despair.

Saturday, December 29, 2018

Are you special?


The desire to be special is the work of the ego and the undoing of the soul.
Just be an ordinary self. That is not only good enough, in the last analysis that is all there is.

Rest, in getting in touch with who you really are.
Knowing that, peace and well being abounds.

Unitarian Univeralists, in their covenantal relationship, based on the seven principles, recognize and acknowledge that they are not special but part of the whole as they celebrate their seventh principle which is to affim and promote not only the respect, but the love, for the interdependent web of all existence.


Monday, December 10, 2018

Do you understand the paradoxical law of Tao?

The way to create more crime is to make more laws.
The way to create more proverty is to increase the wealth in the land.
The way to create more envy and jealousy is to create more heroes and celebrities.
The way to create more war is to militarize thinking it will keep people safe.

To have more peace eliminate the laws.
To increase richness get rid of money.
To increase contentment get rid of status.
To increase harmony get rid of weapons.

It is the law of Tao that the ego's positive is a negative.
It is the law of Tao that possession makes one poorer.
It is the law of Tao that the first shall be last and the last shall be first.
It is the law of Tao that attack makes one vulnerable.

Unitarian Univeralists understand the law of Tao because they covenant together to affirm and promote the interdependent web of existence of which they recognize and respect that they are a part.


Tuesday, November 6, 2018

How does fear get managed?

At a threat and even in a desire to dominate we, humans, attack.

Fear is the name of the game. It drives human souls to cruel and destructive things.

Behind anger is always fear even for something as small as the loss of face, a slight to one's ego.

Guns make it easier to kill. The days of a punch in the nose are over. Instead of a bleeding nose, it is a stoped heart that occurs.

On the path of the spirit, there is no desire to dominate and the response to threat is a desire to understand so that methods of management can be devised for the safety and well being of all.

Unitarian Universalists covenant together to affirm and promote justice, equity, and compassion in human relations. UUs are also very aware of the interdependent web of all existence.


Monday, January 15, 2018

UUs are blessed with their appreciation of the interdependent web

Unitarian Universalists covenant together to affirm and promote a respect (which I think should be love) of the interdependent web of all existence which (it would seem to go without saying) we are a part.

It is a principle in systems theory that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. We, humans, have learned much about the nature of the world by breaking things down into their component parts. Our logic and rationality is linear and reductionistic and this approach has contributed to great scientific understandings of the phenomenal world. And yet, with this linear and reductionistic approach, some of us understand that something is missing. Newtonian physics, looking at the world like a mechanism of a clock, doesn't quite cut it. This perception is missing something. So we put the things we have deconstructed back together again looking for the whole and the quality that the parts, individually, are missing.

What gives us peace and satisfaction is wholeness, oneness, the still place where there are no boundaries, no limits, no discrete parts that are less than the whole. We long for the whole, for the Oneness from which we came and to which we return.

Humans complicate things. We break existence down into parts. We separate things and in doing so we create illusions that are not real. We are only seeing a part of the whole, the proverbial "tip of the iceberg." Don't be fooled by perceptions. They are not what they seem to us to be. We are missing the whole picture which we consciously or unconsciously crave.

UUs explicitly state in their covenantal principles their appreciation of the interdependent web of all existence, some of us would call, God's creation. In this principle, UUs name their longing and their place in the world. We are so blessed in our recognition and our acknowledgement and our gratitude.

Thursday, January 4, 2018

Can we get over our tiny selves to gain the whole world?

Unitarian Universalists covenant together to affirm and promote the respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part. It is more than respect that is required. It is Love for the interdependent web and the awareness that the interdependent web is not separate from us but IS us.

Systems thinking helps us understand that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. With our Aristotelian logic and reductionist scientific method we gain power over phenomena by reducing the whole to its component parts and at the same time that linear, reductionist thinking enhances our understanding it also leaves us not seeing the forest for the trees.

When we talk about the Christ we are talking about the Oneness of humanity. The bumper sticker says, "You are unique like everyone else." We are separate but part of the whole. We are drops in the ocean. It is from the Oneness that we have appeared to manifest the divinity on this earth plane. Most of us, in a daze, think that the earth plane is all there is and is "reality." Some of us have seen behind the veil and know that there is more, another dimension, which we intuitively sense, but can't clearly see.

We sometimes experience revelation. It is written in A Course In Miracles, "Revelation induces complete but temporary suspension of doubt and fear. It reflects the original form of communication between God and His creations, involving the extremely personal sense of creation sometimes sought in physical relationships." T-1.II.1:1-2 This sense of Oneness is sometimes referred to as a mystical experience. In our contemporary times, with more psychological sophistication, we call this experience "flow."

This revelatory experience is possible with our surrendering to the Holy Spirit which links our desire to be special and separate with the truth which is that special and separate is an illusion because we are so much more if only we could get over our tiny self and become aware of the glorious Oneness of which we are a part.

Sunday, December 31, 2017

UUs need to do more than just "respect" the interdependent web, we need to come to love it.

Unitarian Universalists covenant together to affirm and promote a respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part. This principle needs to go farther, beyond "respect" to love. We need to love existence not only because we are a part but because Existence created us and the whole shabang. However, our fear of loss of the ego keeps us stuck.

The opposite of love is not hate, the opposite of love is fear.

What is the basis for most of our fears? It is the loss of our specialness, our ego.

Do you see your brothers and sisters as special or do you see them as part of the divine like everyone else?

If you give up the idea of specialness and look at the divine, what Peace Pilgrim called the divine spark, you will see yourself and the world in a whole new way which will bring you great peace because your looking at the divine instead of the specialness eliminates conflict.

Specialness is the basis of the lives we have chosen to live up until now not knowing any better. But now we know there is another way and we have to choose. We can take our time. There is no rush. The ego should not just be stripped away, it should be voluntarily shed like a snake sheds its skin. It is like being born again into a new reality which we always intuited was just below the surface but we couldn't see it clearly because of all the blocks and obstacles we placed in front of our awareness of Love's presence.

Love is still there, as it always has been, but our fears have kept us from being aware of it. It takes a lot of effort, energy, and stress to invest in and maintain specialness, and once past our fear we can let all that drama go and relax into Love's presence. Happy New Year!

Saturday, August 16, 2014

The Forest Man of Majuli Island - Respect and protection of the interdependent web in application


It has been said that the single most powerful thing one can do to combat climate change and promote peace is to plant a tree. Jadev Payeng has been doing just that since the 1970's on the once-barren sandbar on the banks of the Brahmaputra River in Assam, India. Over 40 years later, the forest he's planted is now larger than New York City's Central Park and is home to several thousand varieties of trees as well as an amazing diversity of wildlife, including rhino, elephants, and even tigers. - See more at: http://www.karmatube.org/videos.php?id=5309#sthash.6irHl142.dpuf


A film by Will McMaster.
Video from KarmaTube
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