Performing miracles

Do Unitarian Universalists believe in miracles? The answer is no, not in the usual sense of the word. Might they believe in miracle thinking? Yes, because it is an expression of their fourth principle, the free and responsible search for truth and meaning.

Where does truth and meaning lie? It is not on the path of the ego, but rather on the path of the spirit.

Miracles, according to A Course In Miracles, are not magic. Miracles are not supernatural behavior. Miracles, in A Course In Miracles, is a different way of thinking. Miracles are getting off the path of the ego and onto the path of the spirit.

The miracle is getting off the path of the ego and walking on the path of Love. Jesus said that the way to the kingdom is "to love as I have loved." Jesus is talking about miracle thinking. He is not talking about turning water into wine, raising the dead, giving sight to the blind, walking on water, multiplying the loaves and fishes. Jesus is not a circus performer although many people have turned Him into one and totally missed His teaching.

Magicians in Las Vegas put on dazzling shows of slight of hand which give cheap thrills to the ego. They pull rabbits out of a hat, cut pretty women in half, make objects appear and disappear, and suspend objects off the floor. Their acts can be very entertaining.

Miracles are not about entertainment, they are about authentic life. Miracle thinking is eschewing the works of the ego for the life of the Spirit. The miracle is understanding our experience of Life in a whole new way.

With miracle thinking time stands still and we rise above our resentments as we forgive ourselves and others for our ridiculousnesses. We undo and purify our intentions and motives that block our awareness of Love. This shift in consciousness feels like a revelation of a whole new way of experiencing life which is full of peace, Love, and bliss. Some might call it meditation and here we are calling it miracle thinking.

Miracle thinking requires silence, centeredness, mindfulness, forgiveness, and gratitude. We are entering a time here on this blog when we will be describing how a person might shift his/her thinking and start performing and living with more miracles.

Engendering heaven on earth

Unitarian Universalists covenant together to affirm and promote the goal of world community with peace, liberty, and justice for all. The goal of world community with peace, liberty, and justice for all is not to be reached, though, on the path of the ego. The change we are seeking is a spiritual one. Materialists will be continually disappointed until they realize that the heaven they seek and aspire to create is not of the ego world.

We have a choice. We can walk the path of the ego or the path of the spirit.

The path of the ego is a path in hell, and the path of the spirit is a path in heaven.

The path of the ego is the path which society conditions us to walk, and we walk it unconsciously until we hit bottom. Our tolerance for pain is very high. When the pain becomes great enough it dawns on us that there must be a better way, and then we turn from the path of the ego and begin to search. That search takes us on the walk with Love on the path of the spirit.

You might think that the walk with Love on the path of the spirit would be easy, and it is, if we are not continually seduced back onto the path of the ego. This seduction is insidious. Temptation abounds. We forget our decision to walk with Love on the path of the spirit until we become aware, once again, that we have a choice.

We must choose again, and again, and again, and gradually, walking with Love on the path of the spirit, becomes our new habitual way of life. Mindfulness is our tool and when tempted we are now aware of the temptation and ask ourselves, "Is this what I really want?" We know, deeper down, that walking the path of the ego is not what we want and we re-focus on walking with Love and the path of the spirit. We find that walking with Love on the path of the spirit fills us with peace and joy and we realize that we have engendered heaven on earth.

Can I experience your experience?

Unitarian Universalists covenant together to affirm and promote the free and responsible search for truth and meaning. If this takes one on an external journey, it is a wild goose chase, what we, in Boy Scouts, used to call a Snipe hunt. If this becomes an inward journey there is more hope.

Postmodernism teaches us that our thoughts and perceptions are the result of a social construction. Our thoughts would not have meaning outside of context, and context comes from others.

Sometimes we wonder what other people are thinking and we might say, "A penny for your thoughts," and the person might reply, "They're not for sale at any price." Or maybe they are and the person attempts to share some story of what (s)he is thinking about.

The fact of the matter is, even if we don't want to admit it, that our minds are joined. They are joined in many ways by many things, but the easiest thing to see is language. Beyond language are the common understandings that we assume are shared even when meanings and interpretations of the same word can be quite different. On the path of the ego we become indignant and sometimes even arrogant that our way of thinking is "right." The question arises in A Course In Miracles, "Would you rather be right or happy?"

A simple word like "chair" can lead to all kinds of thoughts about various types of chairs and there is a common understanding at a conceptual, if not specific, level. A word like "God" though instigates many thoughts which, on the path of the ego, are rarely shared but, on the path of the spirit, would be highly shared. For God is not a word but an experience and the experience of God is the sign of salvation which we all share.

The question here is not what thoughts and perceptions do we share, but what experiences? We share very few,if any, experiences on the path of the ego, but on the path of the spirit we are all one experience.

Leave ridiculousness behind and move to the Divine

Unitarian Universalists covenant together to affirm and promote the free and responsible search for truth and meaning. How much of this search is ridiculous?

If it's true that what you think you see is what you get, how does this affect others?

If your perception is biased,what is the impact this has on your relationships?

No person is an island. Homo sapiens are social creatures and our "reality" is a social construction. Our biases not only impact our own perception, but are contagious and somtimes toxic.

What we think we see not only affects our own well being but the well being of others as well, especially those with whom we interact in more immediate and intimate ways.

Grandma said, "Birds of a feather flock together." What kind of birds do you flock with?

Is it true that you can tell a person by his/her friends or is this just another form of bias?

The path of the ego is littered with ridiculous people doing ridiculous things, and these ridiculous people doing ridiculous things leads to us being and acting ridiculous ourselves.

The path of the spirit is quite different. On the path of the spirit we leave ridiculous things behind and move on to Love and peace which comes from forgiveness and connecting with the Divine within ourselves and within others

Giving up our biases

Unitarian Universalists covenant together to affirm and promote the free and responsible search for truth and meaning. If we turn off the path of the ego onto the path of the spirit, this search entails becoming aware of and giving up our biases.

Let's admit it. We are biased. When we look at things, we see what we think we are going to see not what is really there. Most people think it is the other way around, that the things we see trigger our thoughts, but it is more accurate to say that our thoughts influence what we see.

Tough thing to admit. Our egos rarely allow us to become aware of and acknowledge our biases. As the bumper sticker says, "Don't believe everything you think." We could tweak it to say, "Don't believe everything you see."

Turning from the path of the ego onto the path of the spirit involves giving up our thoughts, our biases, our assumptions, our prejudices.

Becoming human

Unitarian Universalists covenant together to affirm and promote the inherent dignity and worth of every person. The mystics tell us that most people are sleep walking through life based on their instincts and conditioning. In this sleep walking, there is little dignity and worth for they have not yet realized their potential.

The hallmark of worth and dignity is freedom. Freedom is an inside job not just the eradication of external constraints. True freedom is making choices about our experience. This freedom requires self knowledge and awareness, something most people haven't achieved. If UUs are serious about their first covenantal principle, they would provide more assistance in facilitating the nurturing and cultivating of an interior spiritual life. It is this interior spiritual life which makes us truly human and manifests our true worth and dignity.

The thoughts we have bring either peace or war; either love or fear. Which do you want? Can you tell the difference?

It is taught in A Course In Miracles, in the workbook in lesson 16, that "I have no neutral thoughts." We either walk on the path of the ego or the path of the spirit. Upon the dawning, we must decide which path we want to proceed on. One path takes us to war and fear, and the other to peace and love.

The tolerance for pain in human beings is very high and sometimes, it's not until they hit bottom, that they realize there is a better way. They realize that their thoughts are not an external factor over which they have no control. They come to realize that they can control their thoughts and this control means they have a choice.

This choice over one's thoughts is the beginning of freedom, the beginning of liberation. It is the first step away from being merely an animal to becoming human.

The dawning - "I need help."

Unitarian Universalists covenant together to affirm and promote the inherent worth and dignity of every person. Notice that the principle reads, "inherent" and not "apparent" or "ostensible" or "assumed." The worth and dignity of every person is qualified.

I was talking with a 12 year old 7th grader yesterday who is having trouble in school with his grades and his teachers as well as with his fellow students. His biggest complaint was, what he called, "ridiculous people." I agreed with him that most people are, indeed, "ridiculous." We both laughed about this observation and then I said, "Given that most people are 'ridiculous', how do you think you can best manage this fact in your life?" This began a very interesting discussion based on the presumption that superficially most people are "ridiculous" and yet, deeper down, they all have inherent worth and dignity. How do you get past the "ridiculousness" to something more precious?

We think in images we call thoughts. We make these up. Our thoughts are not real.

The bumper sticker says, "Perception is reality." Most people seem to believe that what they think is real, and they "see" it when they look. They are not "seeing" they are projecting and displacing. What they think they are seeing is an "illusion."

And so when we think things, and see things, we need to remind ourselves that what we are thinking and seeing isn't real but rather perceptions and experiences we have made.

Off we go, "half cocked" as they say, "making shit up" to fit our preconceived notions and preferences.

My favorite bumper sticker says, "Reality is when it happens to you."

Dr. Freud called the checking of our beliefs and perceptions with our experience, "reality testing." We come to learn that life is not the way we thought it was and is, at the bottom, quite different.

We come to the point where we realize that "there must be a better way." As they say in Alcoholics Anonymous and other twelve step programs with step one, "We have come to realize that our lives are unmanageable."

And so the moral of the story is "Don't believe everything you think."