Ethical behavior - What would love have me do?

In addition to the eightfold, path there are other suggestions for awakening from other religious traditions.

Unitarian Univeralism describes many sources for what it calls its "living tradition" which provide suggestions for awakening.  Rather than use the term "perennial philosophy" for the common ideas from these sources,  Ken Wilbur suggests the term "perennial psychology," because what the sources have in common is not a creed but an experience. The pioneer Unitarian, Francis David, said, "We not think alike to love alike."

Steve Taylor, in his book, The Leap, describe five common themes in the perennial psychology: ethical behavior, purgation or purification, renunciation, service, and meditation. Over the next few days we will take these themes one at a time and describe how they might be exemplified in Unitarian Univeralism.

Ethical behavior is specified in Judaism and Christianity's Ten commandments. It is also specified in three of the precepts of Buddhism's eight fold path: right speech, right action, and right livelihood. Ethical behavior is specified in five of the seven principles of Unitarian Universalism: to affirm and promote justice, equity, and compassion in human relations, to accept one another and encourage spiritual growth, to affirm and promote a free and responsible search for truth and meaning, to exercise the right of conscience and the democratic process, and to respect the interdependent web.

Behaving ethically requires self knowledge and self regulation. Further, ethical behavior requires empathy and positive social interactions. Salvation is not an individual enterprise but one which requires community. Salvation requires a covenant with and between others to engage in only ethical behavior. It is the feedback loops created, sometimes called Karma, that uplift every individual in such relationship.

At UUAWOL Ministries we describe our mission as "to sanctify the world by helping people become holy." Holiness is achieved by simply asking, "What would Love have me do?" an then doing it.  In this action, all ethical behavior is encompassed.

Gradual awakening using the eight fold path of Buddhism

What are the paths and practices of gradual awakening? Most religious traditions have suggestions. Perhaps one of the first to develop in homo sapiens evolutionary history is the 8 fold path of the Buddha. The Buddha's eight fold path is based on his 4 noble truths.

According to the Buddha there are right and wrong ways for a person to live his/her life if (s) is to become happy and holy. We might call the Buddha's eight fold path the eight suggestions.

The eightfold path has sometimes been called the middle way which means the Buddha is not suggesting hedonism or asceticism. So, if you aspire to get yourself together, to get your head screwed on straight, to get your shit together, to become well integrated, here's what you have to do.

Develop right understanding. In Unitarian Universalism this means affirming and promoting the free and responsible search for truth and meaning with the emphasis on "responsible."

Develop right intention. Simply, according to UUAWOL ministries do you want to continue to walk the path of the ego or enter onto the path of the spirit. The choice is clear. It's like coming to a fork in the road. Which road do you intend to take?

Engage in right speech. This means telling the truth and stop bull shitting. Unitarian Univeralists covenant together to affirm and promote the right of conscience and the use of the democratic process. This presumes people are being honest and straight with each other. The opposite of right speech is disinformation and propaganda to achieve one's goals manipulating other people with less than the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

Engage in right action. This is what Unitarian Univeralists covenant to affirm and promote in their second principle which is justice, equity, and compassion in human relations.

Engage in right livelihood. This is what Unitarian Univeralists covenant to affirm and promote in their first principle which is the inherent worth and dignity of every person. Does  one's livelihood make one a better person and contribute to the well being of that person's community and society or detract from it?

Engage in right effort. This involves one's intentions and motivations. In Unitarian Universalism we covenant together to affirm and promote the acceptance of one another and encouragement to spiritual growth of oneself, those with whom one interacts, and the community and society in which one lives. At UUAWOL ministries our mission is to sanctify the world by helping people become holy. All our efforts are based on the love and enthusiasm for carrying out this mission.

Engage in right mindfulness. Socrates said that an unexamined life is not worth living. Following this precept involves examining and reflecting on one's functioning physically, emotionally, behaviorally, socially, spiritually. The fourth step of Alcoholic Anonymous and other twelve step programs ask the member to do a "fearless moral inventory." As a young boy, raised in the Catholic tradition, I was taught to "examine my conscience" regularly and periodically engage in the sacrament of reconciliation (confession) whose goal it is is to reconcile one's intentions, efforts, behavior with the Tao, the Will of God. One of the deficits in the Unitarian Univeralist tradition is that it lacks any explicit principle on forgiveness and reconciliation when one has strayed from the path of the spirit.

Engage in right concentration. Right concentration is an awareness and focus on one's interior spiritual life. Many religious traditions emphasize meditation, the cultivation of inner awareness leading to cosmic consciousness. In Unitarian Univeralism we covenant together to affirm and promote a respect and a love for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part. This is an experience not an intellectual, cognitive activity.

A devotee does not follow these suggestions one at a time but rather takes them as a whole because of the overlap and dynamic interaction of these practices. At UUAWOL ministries we believe that the eight fold path provides a very helpful strategy to achieve awakening and enhanced holiness leading to the sanctification of the world.

Ready to let go of your baggage?

Some people, not many, realize that they are asleep. They sense that there is more to their life that their day to day experience on the path of the ego. Often there is a vague "dis-ease". This is a sense of depression, anxiety, fatigue, pessimism, and sometimes, negativity.

It dawns on these people that there must be a better way. This is what, at UUAWOL ministries, we call "the dawning." The dawning then initiates a searching, an impulse for self-transformation. Sometimes these people are called "seekers," and Steve Taylor, in his book The Leap, writes that he prefers the word "awakeners."

It is written in A Course In Miracles, "The ego is nothing more than a part of your belief about yourself. Your other life has continued without interruption, and has been and always will be totally unaffected by your attempts to dissociate it." T-4.VI.1:6-7

The awakener becomes aware of his/her other life and is attracted to it. In the introduction to A Course In Miracles it is written, "The course does not aim at teaching the meaning of love, for that is beyond what can be taught. It does aim, however, at removing the blocks to the awareness of love's presence, which is you natural inheritance. The opposite of love is fear, but what is all-encompassing can have no opposite."

The mission of UUAWOL ministries is to sanctify the world by helping people become holy. UUAWOL ministries activities are focused, in part, on helping people remove the blocks and obstacles to their awareness of love's presence by facilitating covenantal relationships to affirm and promote the seven principles.

The first step in awakening is to recognize that there is something more than what the path of the ego has to offer. Osho says that the first step in a spiritual life is rebellion. What Osho means by rebellion is a rejection of what the path of the ego has to offer. This rebellion is what the Buddhists call the giving up of attachment. This frees a person up to become aware of richer experiences and a cosmic life.

The awakener learns how to travel lightly. (S)he gives up his/her baggage.

Are UUs seven principles like a symphony?

Steve Taylor writes in his book, The Leap, "...that the mystics of Judaism, Islam, Christianity, Buddhism, and Hinduism have much more in common with each other than they do with the mainstream followers of their religions. (A Christian monk I'm friendly with once told me that he felt much more comfortable talking to Buddhist monks than he did talking to born-again Christians.) Mystics from all traditions have the common aim of cultivating wakefulness, while the common aim of all mainstream religions is to offer consolation and psychological support. To use the medical analogy, while mystics try to heal themselves (that is, to transcend sleep), conventionally religious people simply try to manage the symptoms." p.41

The aim of UUAWOL ministries is to help people to become holy to sanctify the world. This purpose is not the same as providing opportunities for social connection, entertainment, and interesting community service. Spiritually oriented Unitarian Universalists aren't as interested in book discussions and coffee hour conversations as they are engaging in facilitated opportunities for awakening and spiritual nourishing.

These facilitated opportunities occur in covenantal relationships to affirm and promote the seven principles by offering experiences of deepening empathy, awareness, and resonance with what A Course In Miracles calls the At-one-ment, and what we call at UUAWOL ministries cosmic consciousness. This experience of the Oneness is described in all mystical traditions. In Christianity it is called "Christ consciousness."

The seven principles are not simply a list of rules like the Ten Commandments. The seven principles are maps for right relationship with existence of which we each are a part. The seven principles, to be helpful for awakening, must be taken as a whole and not individually. The seven principles are like a symphony which facilitate harmony when played together to induce a glorious musical experience.

UUAWOL invites you into the ministry which is based in a covenant to affirm and promote these seven principles in one's life, and in one's relationships with all of existence, so that the world can be sanctified.