Showing posts with label Universalism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Universalism. Show all posts

Thursday, December 19, 2019

How low can Donald Trump go? Is Congressman Dingell in hell?







Obviously Donald Trump does not share our Universalist's beliefs about heaven and hell. Donald doesn't know, not even himself, that there is no hell and even Donald will not go to hell.

Tuesday, December 17, 2019

Daily Reflections, Day Twenty one, Universalism is the religion of the miracle.

Day Twenty One
Universalism is the religion of the miracle.



“Miracles transcend the body. They are sudden shifts into invisibility, away from the bodily level. That is why they heal.” ACIM, T-1.1.17:1-3

Our bodies are constantly changing as we age. Our minds constantly change as our desires focus on different idols, thoughts, beliefs, and values. Our social status and prestige change because of various circumstances. 

What we call “life” is constantly changing in the world of the ego. A Course In Miracles teaches us that what is happening in the world of the ego isn’t real. It is an illusion. We are dreaming. We are seeing shadows on Plato’s cave wall.

Miracles have nothing to do with the world of the ego. A miracle is a shift from the world of the ego to the world of the Spirit. We catch a glimpse behind the curtain. We see beyond what Christians call “this veil of tears.”

This shift to the world of unconditional Love from the world of pain, suffering, guilt, fear, resentment, is indeed a miracle.

Today, we should ask ourselves, “What is it that we want to see?”

 We can choose. We have the power to love or to hate, to fear or to surrender, to be guilty or forgive. It is as easy as that, making a choice. Knowing that we have a choice and using our power to choose, is the miracle. The miracle is not anything that we do, but rather a removing of the blocks and obstacles to our awareness of Love’s presence which is our natural inheritance.

The Univeralists have taught this but few understand it. Universalism is a religion of the miracle.


Sunday, December 8, 2019

Universalists believe in Sump'n Claus.

While most of the world believes in Santa Claus who knows if people are naughty or nice and only gives gifts to the nice people and coal to the naughty people, the Universalists believe in Sump'n Claus.

Friday, July 5, 2019

A Course In Miracles and Unitarian Universalism - Sacrifice has no role in a faith based on unconditional love.


Do you believe in sacrifice? Do you think it necessary in order to obtain the things you believe will make you happy?

On the path of the ego, egos would have you believe that sacrifice is not only necessary but even required. And so suffering is necessary and required for happiness. Does this make any sense? Is this just one of life's many paradoxes?

A Course In Miracles offers us another thought system, one in which sacrifice is not only not necessay and required but antithetical to walking on the path of holiness.

The belief in the power of sacrifice is based on a belief in sin. The ultimate sin is our separating ourselves from the Oneness of God with the consequential guilt and fear of punishment. In this insane way of thinking, sacrifice is appeasement of a vengeful God who is angry with our separation and arrogance in thinking that we can be the authors of our own lives.

In this crazy rationale we have created, sacrifice makes sense, but to God it is silly because God always has, and continues to, love us unconditionally as the Universalists have taught us.

Jesus was a universalist and would say to his disciples, "Oh, you of little faith. If you only knew how much your Father in heaven loves you..."

And so as Unitarian Universalists, if we really understand our faith at its deeper levels, we could not believe in sacrifice as a vehicle for the happiness of salvation. The idea that sacrifice is necessary is contradictory to our faith.

We look on our brothers and sisters with love and assure them that no sacrifice is necessary. They always have been loved and always will be loved no matter what.

Check out these two paragraphs from the text of A Course In Miracles:

T-21.III.9. Those who believe in sin must think the Holy Spirit asks for sacrifice, for this is how they think their purpose is accomplished. Brother, the Holy Spirit knows that sacrifice brings nothing. He makes no bargains. And if you seek to limit Him, you will hate Him because you are afraid. The gift that He has given you is more than anything that stands this side of Heaven. The instant for its recognition is at hand. Join your awareness to what has been already joined. The faith you give your brother can accomplish this. For He Who loves the world is seeing it for you, without one spot of sin upon it, and in the innocence that makes the sight of it as beautiful as Heaven.

 T-21.III.10. Your faith in sacrifice has given it great power in your sight; except you do not realize you cannot see because of it. For sacrifice must be exacted of a body, and by another body. The mind could neither ask it nor receive it of itself. And no more could the body. The intention is in the mind, which tries to use the body to carry out the means for sin in which the mind believes. Thus is the joining of mind and body an inescapable belief of those who value sin. And so is sacrifice invariably a means for limitation, and thus for hate.

A Course in Miracles . Foundation for Inner Peace. p.453


Tuesday, June 11, 2019

Working together we can create the Beloved Community



Working together we can create the Beloved Community. It is a place where we can live together in health and harmony helping each other create a better version of ourselves. It is a place where pain, suffering, and sorrows as well as gladness, achievements, and joys are shared among people who care for one another.

Too often people falsely accuse one another of insults, injuries, and disappointments. Transgressions occur surely and people need to be held accountable to pursue their better selves for their own benefit and for the benefit of their families and communities, and yet holding accountable, and punishing out of vengeance and retribution are two different things.

In the spiritual life, we are aware of the innate goodness of all people and strive to elicit it and call it forth. We make the effort to hold people up and love them. It is not always easy but it can be a great joy.

Peace Pilgrim once said, "I look for the divine spark in everyone and then focus on that." In the Beloved Community people are looking for and acknowledging that divine spark. Fanning the sparks leads to a warming flame and a warming flame grows to fire that fuels a Beloved Community. In Unitarian Universalism we might call it Chalicefire.

Rev. Michelle Yates as said that the future of Universalism will involve ever widening circles of inclusiveness. This will take the bypassing of fear and the embracing of Unconditional Love.

Tuesday, March 19, 2019

Today's lesson, number 70, "My salvation comes from within."


Today's lesson, number 70 in A Course In Miracles, is "My salvation comes from within."

When did your pursuit of external things whether posessions, relationships, self improvement, change in circumstances, bodily heath every make you totally and permanently happy?

The illusions and idols of happiness - making things and experiences are the productions of the ego activities of marketing, advertising, cravings, desires, projections. These things on the path of the ego are not the source of your salvation.

Salvation comes from within and comes from aligning our will with what we believe is God's will for us.

Salvation is not to be found on the path of the ego. Salvation is to be found on the path of God where Unconditional love is found.

Universalists have known this and preached it since the late 1700s in the U.S. The God of punishment by hell fire, and greed of heaven is dying, and the God of Unconditional love, manifested in universal salvation and loving inclusion and joining, is the faith upon which we build our covenant and our lives.

The salvation of the world will be realized when everybody loves everybody all the time.

Take our quiz and see how you do.




Monday, March 18, 2019

Today's lesson - Move past grievances to save the world


Today's lesson, number 69 in A Course In Miracles, is "My grievances hide the light of the world in me."

It is easy for Unitarian Universalists to be self righteous in their social justice concerns and activism. If, in their social justice work, UUs hold on to grievances, and victimhood they misserve themselves and the world rather than ameliorate themselves and the world.

The salvation of the world comes from Unconditional Love not from grievances. The lesson today teaches that to right the wrongs on the path of the ego is to focus on the illusional, the delusional, and we make of idols things that are better recognized, acknowledged, and then risen above.

Martin Luther King, Jr., emulating Jesus, was not only nonviolent but loved his enemies. It is this love which is the light of the world not the triumph over injustice. Triumphing over injustice believed in only leads to new forms of domination, oppression, and subjugation. Changing forms does not change content. Salvation comes from a change in content not form.

The opposite of fear and attack is love, and love has no real opposite being too big to be encompassed in any definition. Unconditional Love is the light of the world which is its salvation. Grievances and victimhood hide this light.

Universalists have known this in America since the late 1700s when they spread the gospel of God's unconditional love and universal salvation. In our contemporary times, Universal salvation has been increasingly understood and accepted, and Universal inclusion, on earth as it is in heaven, has become our goal. This Universal inclusion requires the relinquishment of grievances so the light of Unconditional Love can save the world.


Thursday, March 14, 2019

Today's lesson - What is the purpose of our lives?


Today's lesson, number 65 in A Course In Miracles, is "My only function is the one God gave me."

Paul Pearsall, told psychotherapists that they would not be able to help their client unless they understood how the client would answer three basic existential questions: Why was I born? What is the purpose of my life? What happens when I die?

Today's lesson refers to the second of Dr. Pearsall's existential questions: What is the purpose of my life? A Course In Miracles provides us with an answer to this question. In today's lesson, ACIM tells us that "my only function is the one God gave me."

In the great Christian prayer that Jesus taught us, it is said, in part, "...Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven." Our function is to bring our will into alignment with what we understand as God's will for us.

Aligning our will with God's will, what they call in Alcoholics Anonymous, "turning it over" or "surrender" is what is entailed in salvation. It is written in ACIM's 65th lesson, "The full acceptance of salvation as your only function necessarily entails two phases; the recognition of salvation as your function, and the relinquishment of all other goals you have invented for yourself."

On the path of the ego we invent many goals for ourselves, delusionally thinking that should we achieve those goals, we will be happy. However, whatever brief sense of happiness we might think we experience is very temporary because when we experience what psychologists call "hedonic adaptation" we only desire and crave more. The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence, according to the ego, until we get over there and then we usually experience disenchantment and disillusionment.

Our only true function is the acceptance of salvation in turning from the path of the ego onto the path of the Spirit or turning from the world of conditional love to the world of unconditional love.

Univeralism since the late 1700s in the U.S. has preached a gospel of Unconditional Love. Would that we as Universalists could recognize, acknowledge, accept, and extend it to ourselves, and to others throughout all of humanity. This recognition, acknowledgement, acceptance, and extension is the function that God has asked us to fulfill if we would achieve a state of peace and bliss. Unitatiran Universalists seek this in their covenant to affirm and promote their seven principles which simply are vehicles for enhancing an awareness of people's holiness and the sanctity of God's world.


Tuesday, March 12, 2019

At Church on Sunday, 03/10/19, Reclaming Lent, Rev. Lane Campbell

As a Roamin Catholic Unitarian Universalist I was delighted this past Sunday, 03/10/19, to listen to the sermon by Rev. Lane Campbell at First Universalist Of Rochester, NY talk about "Reclaiming Lent."


As a student of A Course In Miracles as well as a Roamin Catholic Unitarian Univeralist, I understand Lent as a time of the year when we focus even more intently on shifting our perception from the path of the ego to the path of the Spirit. I think of this shift from the world of the ego to the world of the spirit as a shift from conditional love of the world  to unconditional love of the Divine.

Rev. Lane talks about reclaiming our spiritual roots of Universalism and this reclamation is a remembrance and celebration of the Universal love of the covenant which fascilitates an awareness of the holiness of human kind. Universal salvation is not something that requires waiting to achieve at death, but is something that is available to us here, right now, if we embrace the Divine spark in each of us which acknowledges the inherent worth and dignity of every person.

This embracing of the Divine Spark in every person requires the giving up of our attachments to what A Course In Miracles calls "special relationships" which are based on the principles of "give to get" and "one or the other" and manifest Unconditional love for the World of the Divine.

Lent is not so much a time of deprivation and giving up as a shift from the world of the ego to the world of the Divine and in this shift we find our salvation and heavenly peace.

To watch Rev. Lane Campbell's whole sermon click here.

Thursday, March 7, 2019

Are Unitarian Universalists, with their covenant, the ones we have been waiting for?


We all have a decision to make. Will we continue down the path of the ego with its illusions and idols or turn onto the path of the Spirit with its Unconditional Love?

Universalists have chosen the path of Unconditional Love for  over 250 years in America.

The modern day covenant of Unitarian Univeralists which affirms and promotes 7 principles begins with the first principle, "the inherent worth and dignity of every person." Bringing this principle into application is the change we seek as we practice Univeralism in the coming decades.

Tuesday, September 25, 2018

No matter what games are being played, people are loved.

Today, it seems with cable news, that everybody is a victim of something. On the path of the ego, victimization is the way of the game. Being a victim and accusing others of being persecutors is a  media tactic based on the games of "Let's feel sorry," and "Get the bad guy." These are very popular games that keep people emotionally aroused which recruits and retains viewers, and media companies convert these views into advertising dollars. The meta game is "Let's sell stuff."

It is written in A Course In Miracles, "If you react as if you are persecuted, you are teaching persecution. This is not a lesson a Son of God should want to teach if he is to realize his own salvation. Rather, teach your own perfect immunity, which is the truth in you, and realize that it cannot be assailed." T-6.I.6:2-4

The spiritually wise person turns the media off or uses it very carefully. The spiritually wise person turns within and becomes aware that (s)he is loved by existence. We are only victims and persecutors on the path of the ego. On the path of the spirit we are loved unconditionally. Universalists have know this and taught it for millennia but their message has been drowned out by egotists.

In our contemporary times, the spiritually wise person rises above the games being played on the path of the ego. They, first of all, love themselves and protect themselves from the toxic games our society plays, and secondly extends themselves in a loving way to their brothers and sisters reassuring them that no matter what games they mistakenly play they are loved.


Tuesday, June 26, 2018

Are you controlled by fear?

Universalists flourished in a puritanical America with the idea of unconditional Divine love. Why did this idea fade? Why is it no longer preached from every UU pulpit? Why has the message lost its attraction to Americans in the dark days of Trumpism?

"A voice is heard in Ramah, mourning and great weepingRachel weeping for her children and refusing to be comforted, because they are no more."(Jeremiah 31:15 NIV). 

It is written in the introduction to A Course In Miracles, "The opposite of love is fear, but what is all-encompassing can have no opposite."

In John's first letter, he writes, "God is love...There is no room in love for fear." 4:18.

The major psychiatric disorder in the United States are anxiety disorders. Psychotropic medications flood the market as well as alcohol and street drugs such as cannabis. The rise of Trumpism in the United States manifests the dark underbelly of racism, mysogony, xenophobia, bullying, suicide, homicide, and deceit.

Politicians campaign for election stoking fear throughout the land which only they can save the population from.

And the population votes for walls, white supremacy, sexual assault, privilege of wealth.
The wise person laughs at the fears the ego generates and reassures the fearful and encourages them to lay their hate and fear aside.

The wise person suggests that the fearful lay the illusions of their sufferings aside as the joke of the ego. The wise person knows that the Divine loves all the Divine's creations.

UUs need to return to their roots. A great revival is needed throughout the land and UUs and other people of faith are the yeast in the dough, the salt of the earth.


Tuesday, June 5, 2018

Have you forgotten that you are loved?

The Universalists knew that they were loved, not condemned. They shared their message with the world and it spread in the early days like wild fire and then burned out. Few people believe it any more and when it is proclaimed, people sniff and turn back to their distractions.

They are afraid to look within. Afraid of what might lurk there. Franklin Delano Roosevelt said, famously, "The greatest fear is fearing fear itself." And we are a nation on anti-anxiety, and anti-depressant drugs, and our kids and fellow human beings are killing themselves suicidally and with inadvertent overdoses in the hundreds of thousands.

The spirirtual impoversishment in the United States is apparent, depicted daily with a psychopathic, criminal government which the people have elected. As we rip children from the arms of their parents under the guise of national policy to keep America safe, we have lost our way, and it is time for the Universalists to step forward again and start another fire of awareness to remind people of the love that is within and there is no need to fear.

Some people think that achieving enlightenment takes a lot of work over a long period of time. Osho says this is nonsense as does A Course In Miracles. The truth is that you are already enlightened, you just aren't aware of it. You have forgotten.

You can remember your enlightened consciousness in an instant. A Course In Miracles even calls it the "Holy Instant," moments when we merge into the Oneness and experience cosmic consciousness. Psychologists call it "flow." It is an orgasmic experience of bliss.

The orgasmic experience of bliss is not just physical, not just mechanical, it is all encompassing of body, mind, emotions, and spirit. It requires a huge letting go, a letting go of the ego. For some people this is easier than others. Avoidant and anxious types have great difficulty. Secure types find it much easier.

Realizing that Godliness is already a part of us is the antidote for fear and it is, in this realization, that we remember our natural inheritance which is enlightenment or Love with a capital L.




Saturday, May 12, 2018

Revelation and miracles




Unitarian Universalists aren't big on mysticism. They tend to be too rational and intellectual and caught up in their heads to encourage too much turning inward to their hearts. "The movement" as they like to refer to their religion is more about focusing on the path of the ego than the path of the spirit. This, though, has not always been the case, especially when one comes to understand the earlier Universalist roots.

The early Universalists understood and taught that we are all one and that "God" loves God's creation unconditionally. Since this early insight, the faith has lost its moorings and has become more focused on egoistic concerns much to its detriment. 

Currently, UUs eschew discussions or thoughts about revelation and miracles which robs it of its spiritual potential.

Revelation is about our experience of the Oneness, the nondual cosmic consciousness, the ground of our being, which some call God, others call Life, others call Love. Revelation cannot be described fully. It can’t be named and put into words. All the great religions teach the idea that God is unnamable.

The little boy, in Sunday school, was doodling while the teacher was explaining the lesson. The teacher irritated moved through the classroom to the boy’s desk, looked down at him and asked, “What are you doing?” The young boy looked at her sweetly and said, “I’m drawing a picture of God.” The teacher said, “Jordan, nobody knows what God looks like.” He said, “Well, you will when I’m done.”

People who tell you they know what God is, or what God is like, of what God wants are deluded or manipulative and running a scam. God is an experience not a person and some people can tune in and others don’t know it’s possible, have never tried, or have chosen not to. Most people can’t be bothered. They have other things on their minds that they are pursuing and it’s not until things are not going well for them that they wonder if there is a better way. It is written in A Course Of Miracles, in the text, Chapter 2, Section III, part 3, verses 5-10, Tolerance for pain may be high, but it is not without limit. 6 Eventually everyone begins to recognize, however dimly, that there must be a better way. 7 As this recognition becomes more firmly established, it becomes a turning point. 8 This ultimately reawakens spiritual vision, simultaneously weakening the investment in physical sight. 9 The alternating investment in the two levels of perception is usually experienced as conflict, which can become very acute. 10 But the outcome is as certain as God.”

When the pain becomes high enough it dawns on the person that there must be a better way and this precipitates the turning to a search for what that better way might be. This search takes the person inevitably to miracle thinking and behavior. Remember, “revelation” is an experience, and “miracles” are thinking and behavior. Revelation is the experience of Love and this experience contributes to thinking on a different wave length and behaving on a different path. The person has left the path of the ego and is now traveling on the path of the spirit. Instead of asking, “What is best for me?” the person asks, “What would love have me do?”






Friday, May 4, 2018

When will we learn that we can't do it all by ourselves?

As Unitarian Universalists we believe in universal salvation. We have inherited the faith that God loves us unconditionally. Based on this foundational belief, we know that God has not created a meaningless world.

When my two children were killed by a drunk driver I knew that God did not do this to me. I knew that it was a three time drunk driver that killed my kids. I knew this because, as a student of A Course In Miracles, I had practiced lesson 14 in the workbook which is entitled, "God did not create a meaningless world."

It is written in this lesson, "What God did not create does not exist. And everything that does exist exists as He created it. The world you see has nothing to do with reality. It is of your own making, and it does not exist."

The idea that the path of the ego is strewn with a repertory of horrors and the path of the spirit is comprised of peace and Love instills in us instant objection and resistance. How can this be when the things on the path of the ego seem so real? We have not looked behind the curtain, beyond what Christians call the "vale of tears."

We forget that we have separated ourselves from God and in this separation we make up our own drama, pain, and suffering. The misuse of alcohol and the act of driving killed my kids. Witnesses said that the driver was very upset as he emerged from his truck and saw the wreckage and cried out in an agitated state, "Why do these things always happen to me?!"

Indeed, in a sober state, this is a good question to reflect upon. Today, it is raised for consideration. Why do these things always happen to us? Because we have created and live in a meaningless world as we walk the path of the ego. At some point, it dawns on us that there is a better way.

It is written in the introduction to A Course In Miracles, "This is a course in miracles. It is a required course. Only the time you take it is voluntary. Free will does not mean that you can establish the curriculum. It means only that you can elect what you want to take at a given time."

The dawning that there must be a better way is a significant step onto the path of the spirit in which we search for the world that God has created for us and we give up our own insistence and stubbornness in thinking we can do it all ourselves.

Thursday, March 8, 2018

UUs believe in the God of second chances

We all make mistakes. In many theological models, mistakes are called sins, but the word "sin" is laden with judgment, condemnation, guilt, punishment, shame, and fear.

Existentially, human beings, unconsciously, feel guilty for having separated themselves from God. We are told in religious texts that human beings have sinned and triggered the wrath of God who will punish them sometimes eternally in a hell. These myths are projections of the human mind which is making God in the ego's own mistaken image.

The Universalists tell us that their God loves us unconditionally and would never consign God's creations to hell. The Universalists prefer the word "mistake" to "sin." We are told that in the story of the adulterous woman, Jesus, tells the woman and go and don't make the same mistake again. Unfortunately, the Aramaic word gets translated in English as "sin" when the meaning of the Aramaic is actually "mistake." There is a big difference in the meaning of the word "sin" and "mistake" in English.

It is written in A Course Of Miracles "In every difficulty, all distress, and perplexity Christ calls to you and gently says, "My brother, choose again."

It is written in ACIM a little further on, "The images you make cannot prevail against what God Himself would have you be. Be never fearful of temptation, then, but see it as it is; another chance to choose again, and let Christ's strength prevail in every circumstance and every place you raise an image of yourself before. For what appears to hide the face of Christ is powerless before His majesty, and disappears before His holy sight."

The true God is a God of second chances, and third chances, and fourth chances, whatever number it takes until God's human creation gets it right.

The only question is "how quick will we learn?"

Tuesday, February 27, 2018

Forgiveness means pursuing a better way

Unitarian Universalists, in their living tradition, have missed the boat, because they have failed to understand and teach the importance of forgiveness.

Perhaps, because of their root in Universalism which believed in God's unconditional love, the idea of forgiveness does not fit with their theology.

The Universalists didn't understand that it's not God's forgiveness we humans seek, for a God of unconditional love knows nothing of forgiveness, but it is our own human forgiveness that is necessary, first for ourselves for our stupidity and ignorance, and then for one another because there is plenty of human stupidity and ignorance to go around.

Can you forgive " a little bit?" Are there degrees of forgiveness? Some people say, "Forgive but don't forget" and this means forgiveness is not complete. It is not freely given. We say we forgive but we hold on to some resentment, some sense of grievance, some little fear that we can be hurt and attacked again.

True forgiveness is a complete letting go and a shift, a re-routing, from the path of the ego to the path of the spirit. On the path of the spirit there is no attack, no resentment, no grievance, no guilt, no fear. On the path of the spirit is only peace and bliss.

On the path of the ego shit happens. Even more, mega shit happens. And like Jesus, as He was being crucified on the cross, we think, "Forgive them for they know not what they do." And with this awareness comes what M. Scott Peck, the author of Road Less Traveled, calls a "therapeutic depression."

When Buddha achieved enlightenment, so the story goes, he was able to leave the earth plane for nirvana, but he decided to say on the earth plane a while longer so he could help other human beings reach enlightenment as well. Because of his decision, the Buddha was nicknamed, "The compassionate Buddha."

When we forgive we want to help others leave the path of the ego and embark on the path of the spirit with us. It is this awareness that there is a better way that Jesus and his apostles called "the good news."

During this Lenten season, as all through the year, we are prompted to remember which path we tread. The most important step we take in shifting from the path of the ego to the path of the spirit is forgiveness because we become aware that we ourselves, along with our brothers and sisters, have been treading the wrong path and in this journey we have created hell when we could, with a shift in awareness and a better decision, walk the right path of peace and bliss.

Forgiveness is the first step on the road less taken and it can make all the difference.

Monday, February 19, 2018

The path to peace

The Universalist side of Unitarian Universalism believes in the unconditional love of God. The Universalists believe as they pray the Our Father that "thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven." That faith is not in "my will" but in "Thy will."

In leading the spiritual life there are some practices that guide us on the path of the spirit.

The first practice is one of intention. When you wake up in the morning simply ask yourself what kind of a day do you wish to have. Will it be one of love, compassion, forgiveness and peace or a day of anger, judgment, attack, and rancor?

If you decide for a day of love, compassion, forgiveness, and peace ask for the help of the Spirit so that you do not make decisions yourself based on the ego but rather ask the Spirit what would Love have me do?

This action, at first, will fill you with fear especially if the response is not what your ego expected and desired. However, trust the Spirit, and continue in faith that Love is the most powerful path of all. This is the path to peace.

Saturday, January 27, 2018

Love is not something you do, it is something you are.

The Universalists got it right. The Universalists believed and taught that God loves God's creation unconditionally. How could it be otherwise? The Universalists called their brothers and sisters to love one another and the world likewise.

It is written in A Course In Miracles, "You do not know the peace of power that opposes nothing. Yet no other kind can be at all. Give welcome to the power beyond forgiveness, and beyond the world of symbols and limitations. He would merely be, and so He merely is." T-27.III.7:6-9

Wow!

And Osho says that Love is total, not perfect, total. By "total" Osho says he means wholeheartedly, no holding back of anything.

Unfortunately,  on the path of the ego, we think we love but it is conditional. We will love if..........., and we come to realize that this conditional love is not Love at all. True love is unconditional. We love because we want to love. Our love is not opposed by anything. This unconditional love is what ACIM calls the peace of power that opposes nothing and which Osho calls "total."

So, on the path of the spirit we don't hold back, we have no reservations, we love totally and in doing so we become Love.

This teaching of the Universalists is needed in our world today. UUs can engage in a missionary mission to share their faith and vision. The Universalist understanding is a light in the darkness, a light that needs to spread and grow. We, Universalists, have our mission and our vision and we can engage in joyful work to hasten the achievement of the At-one-ment.

Tuesday, January 16, 2018

Forgiveness is necessary on the path of the spirit.

The Universalists got it right. God loves us unconditionally. The Universalists preached this message to the world and it has been drowned out. It is rarely heard any more. It has been drowned out by the idolization of the individual, and the meme of personal responsibility. In our materialistic, capitalistic society, there is no room for mercy, for compassion, for forgiveness because it is bad for business. We justify our greed, our exclusionary practices, our subjugation and oppression as "just doing business." The Universalist message is drowned out in cacophony of our "me too," and "me only" culture.

As a society we operate on the basis or "me," "mine," and "ours." We want to make America great again, an America build economically on genocide and slavery. Genocide and slavery are our roots, the deepest and sturdiest roots of the tree of American democracy, and we act surprised when a Trump gets elected and forget that his vision of America and his values have millions of supporters many of whom control vast resources of wealth.

Rev. Dr. William Barber, II, has observed that America is in a moral crisis. The moral dysfunction runs very deep in our history and in our souls. We either choose to forgive or continue to condemn erroneously justifying our condemnation as God's will and intention. The Universalist message has been dwindling and what will help our nation rectify the sinful path it is on is the recognition and acknowledgement of the Universalist insight. That recognition and acknowledgement begins with the naming of our errors and forgiving ourselves and others and sharing the grace of God's Unconditional Love.

It is written in A Course In Miracles, "Forgiveness is the world's equivalent of Heaven's justice." T-26.IV.1:1

That's an awesome idea. If God is Unconditional Love, forgiveness shouldn't even be necessary for what would there be to forgive? What difference would sin make on such a path?

If God is Unconditional Love there would be no judgment, no punishment, no hell. Judgment, punishment, and hell is the creation of the path of the ego. We humans, in separating ourselves from God's Oneness, have created our own hell. The ego loves the hell we have created because it involves drama which keeps us from being aware of the choice we could make to leave the path of the ego and embark on the path of the spirit.

If Heaven, the At-one-ment, Salvation is when everybody loves everybody all the time because this loving everyone all the time is an extension of God's Unconditional Love, then forgiveness of our own and our brother's egotistical beliefs, intentions, and behaviors is the correction required by the path of the spirit to move humanity closer to God's intentions for us on earth as it is in heaven.

UUs need to proselytize. We need to act as missionaries in our own country and around the world teaching and spreading our good news. In many places it will not be welcome. Jesus told His disciples not to waste their time in such places but to move on to places where the good news would be more welcome or at least listened to.

Standing on the side of love requires more than just standing. Solidarity can be a wonderful thing. Just standing though will get you no where. We must move - move out in greater and greater circles of love. We must teach, minister, share, nurture, uplift the idea that everyone is loved, not just loved, but loved unconditionally. That is their birthright, and when they are not loved something has gone wrong, terribly wrong. Recognizing this fact and acting on it is Heaven's justice.
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