Showing posts with label heaven. Show all posts
Showing posts with label heaven. Show all posts

Saturday, February 10, 2018

How to get to heaven

Unitarian Universalists like to say that they are not as interested in getting people into heaven as they are getting heaven into people. The expression is cute. UUs chuckle and nod in assent with the sentiment, but if you ask "How do UUs intend to do this?" People tend to stammer and hem and huh.

We love our bodies don't we? And sometimes we are attracted to and love other bodies don't we? But what we think we love is always changing and this love is ephemeral. This love is unsubstantial because the object we think we love is constantly changing and the objects we want to love, we sometimes come to hate and experience great disappointment in and consequent distress.

We slowly come to the awareness that there is much more to us than bodies and maybe it is that aspect of self and personhood that we are attracted to and love. The body is just a container for the good stuff. It is what is inside the container that we really desire and find delightful or distasteful.

We may come to the point where we realize that deep down in the container there is always something delightful even if it is encrusted in objectionable material that has to be excavated and dug through to get to the brilliant diamond within.

We come to realize that there always the brilliant diamond there but our perception was blocked and distracted by so many other things that we couldn't see it and were not consciously aware of it.

At last we come to realize that there is part of us that is a witness that doesn't change but monitors our own changes and those of others and tunes in to their witnesses too that don't change. When our witness joins with the witnesses of others we fall in real Love with them and realize that we are in heaven.

Saturday, August 26, 2017

More unum, less pluribus

Dear Jason:

I am glad you enjoyed the bumper sticker, "Too much pluribus, not enough unum." It made me laugh as well and there is nothing that joins people together in a holy instant of communication like a good laugh, and a song.

We get so hung up on bodies and we get aroused sexually by the fantasy of their interaction that we forget that the joy and the bliss of such togetherness comes from the rapport, the deep communication not from physical friction. And so we might appreciate that heaven would be the joyous rapport without the necessity of bodies, only pure communication and a sense of beloved oneness. It says in A Course In Miracles, "For communication embraces everything, and in the peace it re-establishes, love comes of itself."

When, Jason, you find a friend that you can talk to without any effort or sacrifice, only pure joy and openness, you no doubt, if you are mindful, will be aware of a blessing which we call grace. If we are skilled enough to listen deeply to a person and we look for the divine spark and focus on that we can establish this kind of rapport with any of our brothers and sisters. These skills do take a purity of mind, an intention of generosity of our effort and energy, and the deliberate diminishment, if not elimination, of our fears. These skills are a very tall order, but achievable of development with sincere intention.

Our Unitarian Univeralist covenant calls us to this kind of life in our first, second, and third principles. We promise to affirm and promote the inherent worth and dignity of every person,  to strive towards justice, equity, and compassion in all our human relations, and to accept one another and encourage the spiritual growth of ourselves and those we interact with in our congregations, our work places, our families, our communities, our states, our nation, and the whole wide world.

If you wonder, Jason, if this can be done, we can study and reflect on the lives of Jesus, Buddha, St. Francis, Martin Luther King, Jr. and any number of other enlightened masters and saints who have walked the earth. You may have your own heroes and heroins whom you admire and would like to emulate. We UUs call these people "prophetic women and men" and their lives and witness are the second of six sources of the UU tradition.

If there is one quality which I would encourage you to look for it would be a cosmic consciousness, what we UUs call a respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part. There seems to be a minority of human beings who achieve this level of awareness and I don't know if UUs are any more developed than our fellow citizens, but at least we intellectually acknowledge this value which is far more than most human organizations and individuals do.

Let us work together, Jason, for more unum and to respect and appreciate the pluribus without attacking it as threatening.

We should strive Jason to create heaven right now, right here where we presently find ourselves. We can accomplish this with the establishment of loving communication. I define the atonement as that time in human history when everybody loves everybody all the time. Each time we ask the Holy Spirit to help us with this activity, we decrease the length of time before human kind achieves this state.

Blessings to you and your family,

Uncle David

Friday, August 4, 2017

Our dramas of suffering and sacrifice create our own hell

Unitarian Univeralism covenants to affirm and promote a principle which is the belief in the inherent worth and dignity of every person. This principle is easy to pay lip service to but it is extremely counter theological with the Christian tradition which teachers the inherent defectiveness of every person because of his/her sinful nature.

Andrea was insecure and this is what Greg loved about her. Greg believed that Andrea would love him because he could take care of her and make her feel safe. As Andrea felt more secure and confident, Greg became increasingly anxious and depressed. Greg went to see his doctor who told him he was suffering from depression and gave him antidepressant medication. The medication helped a little bit, but Greg still felt "off" as Andrea seemed to be doing well and didn't need him anymore.

Greg's doctor told him his neurotransmitters were not working properly and were flooded with Serotonin. Whatever the cause, Greg was not feeling much better and decided to see a psychotherapist. The therapist asked Greg after a few meetings if Greg thought that maybe he was suffering from a spiritual problem? Greg responded that he had no idea what the therapist was asking him. What kind of a spiritual problem could it be?

The therapist offered the idea that Greg was dealing with a sense of shame, a sense of innate defectiveness and inadequacy which he tried to overcome by taking care of, what Greg called "love", people so that they would love him back.

Greg acknowledged that this unconscious dynamic may be at play. The therapist then asked Greg where he thought this sense of inadequacy and defectiveness had come from? Greg said he had felt this way since he was a child and his mom and dad divorced when he was three and he missed his father and his mother started drinking and leaving him with a sitter to go out with other men. Greg said that he always wished his mom and dad loved him more and were there for him. He found that by being very good and trying to be helpful seemed to make his mom and dad like him better. Greg said that maybe his whole life was based on a belief that if he was nice to people they would like him so he has striven his whole life to be what his best friend called "being a people pleaser."

The therapist suggested that his whole life has been based on this belief that he is inadequate and defective in some way and that he would be all alone unless he was able to take care of and please other people. The therapist asked if this was the basis of his "love" for Andrea? Now that she was more secure and confident rather than being happy for her, Greg was getting fearful and depressed believing that Andrea wouldn't need him any more and leave him?

Greg started to cry and said, "I'm really messed up, aren't I?"

The therapist said, "Not at all. You are perfect just the way you are, you're just learning that Life wants you to be happy and have a high quality life just because you are alive and part of this wonderful universe."

Greg smiled and said, "Thank you."

The spiritual problem is one of shame which is the innate belief and feeling that we are inadequate and defective in some way. Further we think that it is only a matter or time and circumstances before this supposed fact comes to light and we are found out to be the shameful creatures which we believe we are. As Christians tell us we all our sinners if not for what we have done, at least because of the sin of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden for which Jesus died on the cross to assuage the anger of the Father God who is mad about our disobedience.

This belief in our sinful natures which requires sacrifice and suffering for exoneration and redemption is the Great Lie of the ego. The spiritual fact is that God loves us unconditionally and it is we, humans, who create our own guilt and hell because we have separated ourselves from the unconditional love of God by our willfulness and drama.

If we could overcome and rise above our own drama, we could create heaven on earth. Greg has created his own hell believing that he is unworthy and can only be whole if he sacrifices and suffers, what he calls "love.". Nothing could be further from the Truth and it is Greg's false spiritual belief which has placed him in his own hell. Heaven, however, is within his grasp once he realizes that he is okay and will be okay just the way he is. He is loved by his Creator.
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