Should inherent worth and dignity absolve victimization and guilt in Unitarian Universalism?

Unitarian Universalists covenant together to affirm and promote the inherent worth and dignity of every person. Many UUs do not practice or really believe what they preach. If UUs genuinely recognized and acknowledged this principle there would no longer be places in our lives for victims and guilt.

Unfortunately, in their commitment to social justice, many UUs treat certain people like victims and certain others like guilty perpetrators. Often in interactions among themselves, UUs play the role of the victim and attack others as guilty perpetrators assigning guilt to a brother or sister who, otherwise, has supposedly inherent worth and dignity.

There are times in life when we play the victim. Some of us more of the time than others.

Playing the victim is done for two reasons: to gain sympathy and make the perpetrator guilty. It is a social game played enthusiastically in our society and continually reinforced by all kinds of audiences and the media of all sorts.

Playing the victim is a choice which each of us has to make at the most basic of levels. The choice is based on what we believe ourselves to be and what we believe our brothers and sisters to be.

Choosing to be a victim creates a hell for ourselves and all those around us. Ultimately, we are not victims, we our the precious extension of Existence. Our bodies can be battered and attacked, but our spirits are as innocent and clear and luminous as we recognize and acknowledge them to be.

Jesus, even though He was tortured and crucified, refused to be a victim although at one point was tempted. His body was destroyed but His Spirit resurrected and lives on in our world vibrantly to this day.

It is written in A Course In Miracles that our function, our purpose, during our stay on earth in a body is to witness to the fact that we are not victims but luminous beings extensions of Existence's manifestation in the world. We recognize this luminous spirit in ourselves and in our brothers and sisters and rejoice in the goodness of creation.

Once we recognize and acknowledge the goodness of our lives, there is no place any longer for victims and guilt among us.

In case you were wondering - about worrying

Don't let your worries get the best of you; remember, Moses started out as a basket case.

Spiritual practice of the day #24 - Meditation for 5 minutes

"Meditation is a state of no-mind; it is neither at the center of the mind, nor at the circumference. It is simply not of the mind, it is watching the mind from the outside. That is exactly the meaning of the English word, ecstasy – to stand outside. To stand outside of the mind is ecstasy.

That’s what meditation is. Just be a watcher from the outside, no longer a participant, no longer identified with the mind – just as one watches the traffic on the road, sitting silently by the side under a tree: who passes is not the concern. One simply watches whatsoever is happening, with no like, no dislike, no justification, no condemnation, with no prejudice at all. When one can watch the mind without condemning it, without appreciating it, without saying “This is good” and “That is bad,” when one can watch it in deep silence, that is meditation.

A miracle happens with meditation – and it happens only with meditation: the mind disappears. Slowly, slowly, it goes farther and farther away. Slowly, slowly, you hear only the sounds coming from a distance. And suddenly a moment comes when there is no mind. It has faded out, it has withered away.

When the mind is not there and you are left alone without it, a fragrance is released. You have come home, you are fulfilled. The one-thousand-petaled lotus of your being has opened. You have offered your fragrance to existence; that is prayer. That is the only gift we can give to existence, and that is the only gift which can be accepted by existence."

Osho. First in the Morning: 365 Uplifting Moments to Start the Day Consciously, Osho Media International, p 30

Editor's note - Meditation is the most important spiritual practice and perhaps the most difficult because there is nothing to distract the mind. The part of us that watches the mind is called "the witness." Can you just observe your own functioning nonjudgmentally?

Start with 5 minutes a day of just sitting quietly and watch the "monkey mind" spin without judgment. Gradually increase the time until the "monkey mind" diminishes in intensity and you experience peace. Osho says that this is when authentic prayer occurs. Meditation comes first so the individual becomes centered and then genuine prayer arises.

Prophetic voices and events - Margaret Fuller, Unitarian feminist in early 1800s

Question of the day

Should justice be based on vengeance, and eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, or should justice be based on abundance, if people aren't happy and have high quality lives, then something has gone wrong?

Heaven on earth

It has been said that Unitarian Universalists don't believe in people getting into heaven, UUs believe in getting heaven into people. Heaven is not "up there." Heaven, as Jesus told us 2,000 years ago is within you and among you. It is interesting that while Unitarian Universalism is no longer considered a "Christian" religion, it's principles more closely embody the teachings of Jesus than the churches of "cultural Christianity" do.

We all deserve to be happy. We all deserve to have a high quality life. If this does not seem to be so, something has gone wrong. What has gone wrong is not external to you, but internal to you intrinsic to who you understand yourself and your brothers and sisters to be.

When you truly believe that you and your brothers and sisters are extensions of the creator, all part of the Oneness, the light fills up your life which involves a feeling of bliss. Bliss is not pleasure, not happiness, not joy. Bliss is the feeling of flow, the melting away of the ego and consciousness of the cosmic.

The alarm bells should sound a loud warning when you begin to think of yourself or feel yourself to be a victim. No extension of God is a victim. Such a thing is impossible. Victimization is the work of the ego and blames others as persecutors. This is the great game, what Holden Caufield in Catch In The Rye called "the Big Lie."

No human being is inherently a victim but a being with inherent worth and dignity. It is this worth and dignity with which we need to be in touch and appreciate as precious.

Salvation, the At-One-Ment, heaven on earth is when everybody loves everybody all the time. When we know that we extensions of the divine and join with others to magnify this awareness, we hasten the time of creating heaven on earth.

Prophetic voices and events - Women's march on 01/20/18 in New York City

There is great hope and inspiration in seeing American women rise up in America to advocate for women's rights and dignity in the face of the mysogony of Trumpism.

Unitarian Universalists covenant together to affirm and promote justice, equity, and compassion in human relations.