Are you coming along with us on the path of the spirit?

Unitarian Universalists covenant together to affirm and promote seven principles of life. UUs tend to be a smart, intelligent group of people. They have risen above creeds and orthodoxies and are what is called "free thinkers." The problem might be that they think too much. The goal is not more knowledge, but a common experience of godliness. Everyone, deep down, wants this experience, but they don't know it or if they know it don't know how to get it.

Can people know too much? How many angels can dance on the head of a pin? What lie will the President, Donald Trump, tell today? Will the congress people, who have received campaign contributions from the NRA, ever pass some sensible gun control legislation? Should we be bothered by these questions when we are not aware of our own being? How much does having answers to these questions make a difference to the quality of our lives and the life of the planet?

This topic irritates a lot of people because they know deep down that they have no idea what makes them tick and here they are trying to run the world.

The point is is that there are two different worlds: the world of the ego and the world of the spirit. In which world are you spending most of your time and energy and effort?

If you are walking the path of the ego you might want to change course and get on the path of the spirit. The path of the spirit manages fear with forgiveness, resentments with love, and knowledge with innocence. You know what I mean?

If you do that's great. If not, that's okay too. This blog is not for everyone. It is intended for the serious seeker. Thank you for coming along with us.

If you would experience godliness, eschew obfuscation

Unitarian Universalists covenant together to affirm and promote the acceptance of one another and encouragement to spiritual growth. UUs have taken a step in the right direction to declare their religion a creedless religion.

One of the founders of Unitarianism, Francis David, said that we need not think alike to love alike. This is a profound insight that leads to an egoless spiritual path which most humans are not ready for.

The path of the ego is an easier sell. People are so caught up in the ego that they feel self righteous when they adhere to a creed. This bolsters the ego and creates a dynamic of us and them, better and worse, right and wrong, good and bad, blessed and cursed, smart and dumb, special and not special.

Unitarian Universalism has attempted to take the next step in the evolution of the spiritual life of humanity and declared that creeds are ridiculous, that God's love is unconditional, and that the bane of human existence is the idea that some are special and favored while others are to be demonized and excluded.

Osho says, "You become so much obsessed with the word 'love' that you forget that love is an experience, not a word. You become so obsessed with the word 'God' that you forget that God is an experience, not a word. The word 'God' is not God, and the word 'fire' is not fire, and the word 'love'is not love either." p.13, "Ah, this!"

It is written in A Course In Miracles in the Clarification of Terms in the introduction, paragraph 2, verse 5 "A universal theology is impossible, but a universal experience is not only possible but necessary."

Set aside your creeds, your theologies, your orthodoxy. To experience godliness you must empty your mind and heart of nonsense.

Nonsense works well for the religions of the ego. Nonsense does not work well on the path of the spirit. The spiritual life requires an emptying, a purification, a not knowing attitude which gives birth to a genuine humility.

As the bumper sticker says, "Don't believe everything you think." A new bumper sticker would read, "Eschew nonsense and come to godliness."

Are you a caterpillar living into a butterfly?

Unitarian Universalists have seven principles which they covenant together to affirm and promote. The first principle is the inherent worth and dignity of every person. This first principles involves the recognition and acknowledgement of piece of the Divine within every human being.

The third principle is the acceptance and encouragement to spiritual growth of one another.

The fourth principle is the free and responsible search for truth and meaning.

It seems apparent that the engagement with the third principle requires some success with the fourth. A person can't give what the person doesn't have. Encouragement presumes that the person doing the encouraging has some experience with what they are encouraging.

In the Unitarian Universalist church there are plenty of caterpillars. Are there any butterflies? If there are butterflies among us are they encouraging us caterpillars to be patient and continue to eat and digest our leaves because butterflydoom is going to come if we are patient and persistent.

Is the caterpillar aware that it is going to become a butterfly? Are you aware that you can become a buddha?

Some people have this awareness that within them is a piece of the Divine. Others have no idea. Nobody has ever told them to look within. If the person did look within and was confused, perplexed, bored, frightened, they stopped. They didn't stick with it. To pursue the truth of the Divine within takes courage, persistence, and faith.

It helps to have someone further along the path of the spirit to encourage others to come along. Most people will not listen because they don't believe the encourager has anything of value to impart. Jesus says in Matthew 13:4-9:

4 As he scattered the seed, some of it fell on the road, and birds ate it. 

5 Some fell in the gravel; it sprouted quickly but didn't put down roots, 

6 so when the sun came up it withered just as quickly. 

7 Some fell in the weeds; as it came up, it was strangled by the weeds. 

8 Some fell on good earth, and produced a harvest beyond his wildest dreams. 

9 "Are you listening to this? Really listening?" 

Nah, they weren't really listening. Jesus sounds kind of frustrated. As Kurt Vonnegut was fond of saying, "And so it goes...."

Maybe, you, reader, are listening. So try it. Look within and stick with it. Do it for 5 minutes for two weeks and see what happens. Nothing? Quit. Something? Stick with it. You, too, can become a butterfly.

What's going on in your house?

Seeking truth and meaning

Spiritual reading, Ah, This! - How to approach a Master

Osho says in his book, "Ah, this!", "You know how to approach a teacher, you know how to approach a book, you know how to approach dead information, but you don't know how to approach a Master. It is a totally different way of communing. It is not communication, it is communion - because the Master is not a proof but an evidence. He is not an argument for God, he is a witness for God. He does not possess great knowledge about God, he knows. He is not knowledgeable, he simply knows." p.12

In reading this, I have realized my mistake. I go to church and listen to sermons and hope to commune with a Master, and many times I have just left. I can't sit through it. It is agony. I can't bear it.

I look around and some people seem to be listening with rapt attention, and some people seem to be just looking like they are paying attention politely, and some are staring off apparently daydreaming and a few brave ones are asleep.

I, myself, can do none of these things. I was hoping to commune, but there is no communing to be done here, today. So I leave demoralized and wonder why these preachers don't seem to understand this great faith that they are representatives of? You can tell they have never tasted of the ecstatic joy of the Divine. They are simply playing a role to entertain, and perhaps inform, and yam on about the things of the ego to fill up 20 minutes as painlessly as possible.

A person can't share what she doesn't have, can't give something she doesn't possess.

Jesus says in Matthew 7:14, "How narrow the gate and constricted the road that leads to life. There are few who find it."

The UU preachers, themselves, have not searched and found truth and meaning, our fourth principle, and so what do they have to share, to give to others. What is the basis for any communing? Forget the communication, let's consider communing. They, unfortunately, with all their seminary training, their M.Div's and Ph.D.s have not found Life. If anything, their theological training have prevented them from finding Life. Their academic endeavors have been a distraction and a counterfeit attempt to find truth and meaning in their books, and lessons, and scriptures, and religious practices.

Stephen Gaskin said one time that the ultimately the only thing we have to share with another human being is our own state of being.

Are there Masters in the UU tradition? Emerson perhaps?

Enjoy your existence such as it is

Unitarian Universalists know that God loves them unconditionally. This understanding is the foundation of their Universalist faith. What they may not know, even though they convenant together to affirm and promote the free and responsible search for truth and meaning, is that the search is inward not outward. The search referred to in the seven principles is not on the path of the ego but on the path of the spirit. To embark on the path of the spirit requires a dawning that there is a better way to live life than on the path of the ego, and then, a turning onto the path of the spirit.

The biggest mistake we human beings make is to think that we have separated ourselves from God, the font of our being, the Force which animates the universe.

Oh, we are arrogant, and proud, and blind, and ignorant, but deep down we know better. We are part of the Divine, but we forget when we get caught up in our pursuits on the path of the ego.

On the path of the ego we believe that all kinds of nonsense and ridiculousness will make us happy. Be become frustrated, angry, sad, and then scared when they don't. We wonder what's gone wrong in our lives and we run off to our doctors who give us drugs to numb the pain. We stop searching thinking that the drugs will fix the problem.

So, how is that working for you?

At the deepest level, we only have one choice to make: Love or fear. Which would you rather have?

If we choose Love, we have to move off the path of the ego onto the path of the spirit, and many of us are not ready to make that turn. We want things to be better but we cling to the familiar. We rather dance with the devil we know than the devil we don't know.

Steven Wright said one time, "A lot of people are afraid of heights. Not me. I'm afraid of widths." And there are those who are agoraphobic, they are afraid of wide open spaces.

There is always something to be afraid of. The news scares us, our relationships scare us, our fear of scarcity scares us. God knows we love to be afraid because it keeps us from looking within where our biggest fear is the supposed wrath of God because of our willful separation from Him/Her.

We are being silly because God loves us unconditionally. We are part of God and God is part of us.

Relax. Chill. Enjoy your existence such as it is.