To whom, to what do you belong?

Unitarian Univeralists covenant together to affirm and promote the inherent worth and dignity of every person, but what is this "person" which has worth and dignity? The perennial wisdom teaches that this "person" is an illusion, is, in modern terminology, a "social construction."

Have you ever had the faint glimmer of awareness that maybe the ego is not the Self? In A Course In Miracles it is written, "The world you seem to live in is not home to you. And somewhere in your mind you know that this is true." W-182.1:1-2

We have the sense that there has to be more to life. We yearn for that something more. We yearn for Love and to go back home. It is written in ACIM: "Belief that there is another way of perceiving is the loftiest idea of which ego thinking is capable. That is because it contains a hint of recognition that the ego is not the Self." T-4.11.4:10-11

It requires quiet, silence, to remove the blocks and obstacles to our awareness of Love's presence which is our natural inheritance. Looking inward we come to "know" that Existence is of that which we are made and to which we belong. We come to appreciate that our separate self, our separate ego, is not really real. It is a social construction with which we have identified and become attached. The loss of our ego self fills us with fear, even terror. When, in our witness, we gain and regain some perspective, we are reassured when we realize with a laugh that our egos are bull shit, nonsense, illusions, figments of our imaginations, that deep down, we are part of something much more precious. We decide to pack it in and go home. We have had enough. When enough is enough, that's enough. Time to return from whence we came and to acknowledge to whom or to what we belong.

Third week of advent - Tuesday

As we near the solstice, we are enveloped in more quiet darkness of the winter. There is a reason that Christmas, the birth of Jesus, which supposedly actually happened in the spring, is celebrated at the dead of winter during the week of the winter solstice. It is because the quiet and silence is necessary to tune into our remembrance of the divine.

Osho has said,

"Existence speaks in everyone’s heart, but we are so occupied in our heads that we never listen to that still, small voice within. There is so much clamoring, so much unnecessary noise – we have made the head a marketplace. The heart goes on calling and we remain deaf to it. Existence is not far away, it is very close. All that is needed is the art of making the mind a little silent, a little less noisy, a little more peaceful, relaxed.

As the mind settles into relaxation, suddenly you start hearing a divine music within you. Existence has started playing on the instrument of your heart, on the harp of your heart, and that music is transforming. Once heard, it is never forgotten. Once heard, life is never the same again. Once heard, you have become part of immortal existence; you are no longer a mortal."

Osho. First in the Morning: 365 Uplifting Moments to Start the Day Consciously, pp.11-12 Osho Media International. Kindle Edition.

In case you were wondering.........

Questions of the day

It is written in A Course In Miracles:

“No one is strong who has an enemy,
and no one can attack unless he thinks he has.”
ACIM T-23.Intro.1:5

So the question for the day is: Do you have any enemies? People or things?

Love is all there is. Right?

There are a couple of things very unique about Unitarian Univeralism. The first is the idea that there is only one Love. The second is that that Love is universal and unconditional. UUs like most people don't really believe these two things, the founding ideas of their faith. Like everyone else, UUs like to argue that there are different kinds of Love, and that Unconditional Love is discriminating.

Can you forgive someone a little bit? Can you forgive someone for this but not that? Can you really forgive but not forget? Forgiveness which is compromised is not forgiveness at all for it hides deep resentment and fears.

With forgiveness it is all or nothing. This is a difficult teaching, too much for most people. Only the very spiritually mature can forgive wholeheartedly and mean it.

With forgiveness there is no half-assed way to do it genuinely. Either we move on in Love and peace or we are held back by fears and resentments.

Fears are the crux of the problem with forgiveness. We find it difficult to eliminate them because we are pre-occupied with bodies and not with souls. Our bodies can be hurt for sure, but never our souls without our acquiescence and permission.

Deep down we are invincible and there is nothing to fear. We are loved by the Force of the Universe unconditionally. When we realize this, nothing can ever hurt us again. Fears are eliminated by Love. In the last analysis, Love is all there is.

Third week of advent - Monday

The Christmas story is rich. There is more of the story not said than is told. An intriguing part of the story is when Joseph finds out that his fiancee is pregnant with someone else's child. At the time, under Jewish law, this was a capital offense. Joseph could have had Mary executed.

It seems that Joseph is a good guy. He didn't want Mary killed. Did he love her in spite of her infidelity? His plan, it tells us in Matthew's gospel, was just to quietly divorce her. This would make Mary an unwed mother in those days even more suspect and reviled than in our contemporary age.

Joseph, decides, the story tells us based on a dream, that he will stick with Mary and this bastard child. What factored into the decision other than the intervention of the Holy Spirit we are not told. For Joseph, it as a package deal. He was taking on a pregnant teenage wife and her child. What a guy!

Joseph has no idea what he is getting in to. He will have to make an arduous journey to another town to pay his taxes, and then this baby will be born in a barn and he will have to scramble to attend to the needs of his wife and this child, and then he will have to flee to a foreign land and stay there as a refugee for 2 years. It is quite a mess.

Isn't that just how life goes? One damn thing after another? Sometimes it seems like it never stops.

Joseph, though, is a real man. He rises to the occasion. He does what he feels called to do in spite of the difficulties.

The Christmas story focuses on the birth of Jesus and the supporting roles of Mary and Joseph are marginalized and downplayed. But where would Jesus be without the two of them? Jesus would be nowhere without Mary, and Mary would be dead were it not for Joseph. Perhaps Joseph is the true hero of the story even though he seems a bit player behind the scenes.

There always is a back story to the main stories we tell about our lives. In this Christmas story, the back story is about true love of a man and a woman who entered into what A Course In Miracles calls a "Holy Relationship" distinguished from a "special relationship."

At this time of advent, we can reflect not only on the birth of a divine light into the world, but also on a love story between that child's parents. It is a story of true love of shared purpose to discern and do God's will. Were Joseph and Mary happy? I am guessing they were and it makes me happy to think about what they must of had together and what they achieved. Considering their love story is a magnificent joy during this season. It fills us with tenderness, peace, and comfort.

In case you were wondering.......