Looking for Love in all the wrong places

Unitarian Universalists covenant together to affirm and promote the free and responsible search for truth and meaning. Where should we search? Where does that search take us? The mystics suggest that we look within, within ourselves and within others. Unfortunately, we waste a lot of time and effort looking for truth and meaning in all the wrong places. We are, after all, on a spiritual quest not a worldly one. The pearls and diamonds of great worth will be found on the path of the spirit not on the path of the ego.

There are times when we are quiet and still that we sense there is something more deep in us and in other people.That something more is the glimmer of the divine. We want it desperately and we search for it usually in all the wrong places.

Johnny Lee's great song "Looking for love in all the wrong places" sums up the problem succinctly in an entertaining way.

That "something more" is not to found on the path of the ego. It is not external to us where all we find is counterfeit. What we find is "fool's gold." What we find may be temporarily pleasurable but then becomes boring once we are satiated. We come to realize that pleasure is not the same thing as joy and while joy is better, joy is not the same thing as bliss and bliss is what we seek and is to be found in the union with the Beloved.

A Course In Miracles teaches that bliss is to be found in the miracle and the miracle is simply a choice to perceive at the level of spirit rather than ego. The level of spirit is Love. We simply ask "What would Love have me do?" "What would Love have me see?" "What is the Loving thing deep in myself and in my brothers and sisters?"

As the Beatles say, "Love is all you need." However, we have to be on the path of spirit to see it within which means we have to turn back from looking for love in all the wrong places.

 

If we are to be happy we must be born again

In our contemporary times, Unitarian Universalists would probably never say that they are born again and yet they covenant together to affirm and promote seven principles the fourth of which is the free and responsible search for truth and meaning. Consciously, intentionally embarking on this search with integrity requires that they become born again and turn from the path of the ego to the path of the spirit.

I could be happy if only you would do what I think you should do and if you don't, you are holding out on me because you could do what I want you to do if only you would but you won't because you don't love me. This is how we create hell.

We assign roles to people and expect them to do certain things and when they don't do them we get angry and attack them and get sad, resentful, full of grievance and recrimination. They, of course, are not doing anything to us, we, in fact, have done it to ourselves.

We are playing the game of "give to get." And then we play, "one or the other." These games litter the path of the ego. From these games great drama is created, emotions aroused, pain and suffering inflicted up to and including death.

We come to a point when we realize we don't want to play these games any more. They aren't worth it to us and we say to ourselves "there must be a better way." This slight glimmer of awareness is called, "The Dawning." It starts to dawn on us that we deserve to be happy and have a high quality life full of peace and bliss.

Recognizing that we are meant to be happy and have a high quality life, we begin to search. We become seekers and it is this turning from the path of the ego to something else that marks the beginning of a new life. It's like we're born again and like babies have to learn how to live in this world as spirits and no longer egos.

UUAWOL weekly report for week of 02/04/18 - 02/10/18

Weekly report from UUAWOL 02/04/18 – 02/10/18

Stats

1.    During the week of 02/04/18 – 02/10/18  UUAWOL received 1995 views up 889 from the previous week.

2.    The heaviest viewing day was Friday, 02/09/18 with 1,005 views.

3.    The average number of views per day was 291 while the average number of views the preceding week was 285.

4.    The weekly statistics manifest extreme swings with only 48 views on Monday, 02/5/18, and 611 on Wednesday, 02/07/18, and 1,005 on Friday, 02/09/18. It is not clear why such wide changes in views occur. One hypothesis is that some posts get posted to social media or other web sites which drive up the views on that day for a particular post.

Highlights

1.    A new column has been introduced which provides material for an online course on the Interior Spiritual Life. It is intended that this course will run 16 weeks.

2.    There was an introduction to a new column on Lent which will begin on Ash Wednesday, 02/14/18.

3.    One of the main concepts of the week was the awareness that a person has a choice that can be made: to continue on the path of the ego or enter onto the path of the spirit. Most people are not aware that they even have a choice until their mid 40s and after.

   

Plans - Short term

1.    Continue with a daily post about the spiritual life.

2.    Continue with posts from the course on the Interior Spiritual Life 101.

3.    Begin a series of reflections on the meaning of Lent.

Plans - long term

1.    Build a model of UU theology

2.    Create a dictionary of UU terms

3.    Further develop an articulation of the values that comprise a good life.

4.    Describe and encourage deliberate practice of an interior spiritual life.

Interior Spiritual Life 101, Week 2, part 4, turning to religion

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Religion and spirituality are not the same thing

The first step on the path of the spirit and the interior spiritual life is the realization that one has a choice. They can continue on the path of the ego or move to the path of the spirit. A person cannot make a choice if the person doesn’t know the person has one. It is awareness of the choice that the interior spiritual life is born.

The choice between the path of the ego and the path of the spirit can lead to investigating what the path of the spirit is all about and where this path might take one. The path of the ego, the world, does not encourage this search and if it does it fills this search with more ego.

Most religion is about the ego. Most religion has rules, and authority figures, and traditions and rituals and these things contribute to comparisons and judgments and exclusionary decisions based on “one or the other.” Anything that divides and excludes is not of the spirit. It is of the ego.

The first place that people turn in their search is to religion, either the religion of their family of origin or another religion. At first, religion may seem to offer some guideposts along the path of the spirit but then religion seems to become full of conflict, disagreement, judgment, and animosity which requires a “give to get” and a “one or another” mentality which the seeker intuitively senses is not conducive to a genuine spirituality because it does not create peace but dissension and distress.

Some people are spiritual but not religious and some people are religious but not spiritual and rarely a person can be found who is both religious and spiritual but true spirituality is based on non-duality, oneness, while religion is about comparison, judgment, and exclusion.

Jesus tells us to be aware of false prophets, of wolves dressed in sheep’s clothing. Religions are full of false prophets dressed in clerical trappings and credentials. As in Jesus’ day, the Pharisees abound.

The seeker usually comes to the awareness that the path of the spirit rarely but occasionally takes one through religious territory. The simple litmus test is, "is it loving?" If it is not loving, it is not of the spirit. The spiritual seeker comes to realize that the health of their interior spiritual life may require them to move on. The question then becomes where else to turn?

Acceptance of one another and encouragement to spiritual growth is a miracle

Unitarian Universalists covenant together to affirm and promote the acceptance of one another and encouragement to spiritual growth in our congregations (and in the world).

When we look deep into the soul of another what do we see? Don't look at their body for the body is but a container for what lies within. And when we look at the contents within the container the outer layers may be moldy and contaminated in some ways but beneath this there is a light, a divine spark like a brilliant diamond twinkling in the darkness. It is this brilliant diamond, this divine spark, like the proverbial needle in a haystack that we seek.

When the divine light within us joins with the divine spark in the other a light manifests which illuminates the world and Love has been found and a peace descends like no other.

These can be rare moments that seem serendipity until we know what we are looking for and seeking. With intention and the request of help from the Holy Spirit these moments can occur more regularly. It is taught in A Course In Miracles that awareness of this Love is our natural inheritance. It is written in principle 6 of the 50 principles of miracles, "Miracles are natural. When they do not occur something has gone wrong."

If we are to experience miracles we must choose the path of the spirit and leave the path of the ego. The path of the ego does not lead to Love. On the path of the ego we believe in "give to get" and "one or the other." These beliefs on the path of the ego take us to hell. On the path of the spirit we believe "what's mine is thine," and "one for all and all for one." The path of the spirit takes us to the peace and bliss of heaven.

Once we become aware that we have a choice about how we can live our lives, we can exercise our power in embarking on the path of the spirit which means we must leave the path of the ego behind. This is a courageous choice empowered by faith because we fear the loss of the conditioning with which we have grown accustomed. Jesus tells us we can be in the world but not off the world and in this awareness the miracle occurs.

Interior Spiritual Life, Week one, part 3, The dawning

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The dawning of the interior spiritual life

We are still in the first week of our 16 week course on the Interior Spiritual Life 101. 

This first week we have been covering the introduction to the course and the housekeeping and now at the end of the first week we turn to the question, “How do people come to realize that they have a choice between the path of the ego and the path of the spirit?” 

This question doesn’t arise for most people until mid life unless they have been subjected to some trauma and dysfunction earlier in their lives. 

I remember at age 10 reassuring myself in my unhappiness, “This can be a good life if you know how to live it.” This is not an observation that most 10 year olds would make. Usually, it is not until middle age that a person in his/her distress observes “There must be a better way.”

In the Substance Abuse counseling field, it is widely recognized and acknowledged that people are not ready to question their behavior and lifestyles until they “hit bottom.”

In A Course In Miracles it is written, “Tolerance for pain may be high, but it is not without limit. Eventually everyone begins to recognize, however dimly, that there must be a better way. As this recognition becomes firmly established, it becomes a turning point. This ultimately reawakens spiritual vision, simultaneously weakening the investment in physical sight. The alternating investment in the two levels of perception is usually experienced as conflict, which can become very acute.” T-2.111.3:5-9

It is in this dawning awareness that there is a better way that the interior spiritual life is born. Unfortunately, in our contemporary culture, we don’t have a vocabulary to name this experience and growing awareness other than to psychologize it. Often the person presents with complaints of depression, anxiety, substance abuse, infidelity, various compulsions such as gambling, shopping, hoarding, workaholism, video and social media addictions, relationship conflicts, etc. The person realizes that the path of the ego is working for them any longer.

Sometimes if the individual has a faith tradition in which they have participated there is a tendency to return to the religious practices  and membership of one’s youth even though there is an increased ambivalence about the “faith” required for membership in such groups. These individuals come to distinguish and discriminate between religion and spirituality as being two separate things. Some religious people are not spiritual, and some spiritual people are not religious. Some people can be both religious and spiritual, but increasingly, in our contemporary culture, this is becoming increasingly rare.

This awareness that there must be a better way and the desire for an interior spiritual life initiates a search. The individual has become a “seeker” even though it is not clear what, exactly, he/she is seeking. In what direction do seekers typically go? We will explore this question next.

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.