How can darkness drive out darkness?

Osho has said, "Stop worrying about darkness and turn on the light. People who think only about the darkness can never find the light."

Tomorrow we celebrate Martin Luther King, Jr. day and he said, "Darkness cannot drive out darkness, only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that."

We tend to focus on what we fear and as Franklin Delano Rosevelt Jr. told us the greatest fear is fearing fear itself.

Most of us live in fear. We fear scacity and attack, and we project it onto everything we see. Some people, knowing this, manipulate these projections to advance their personal interests. Well meaning people complain and object but this often magnifies the projections and fans the flames of fear even more.

Making the bogey men more real by focusing attention on them is counter productive. What is needed is the light of truth and love which is always there but often blocked and hidden by the obstacles of fear.

Rather than fight the darkness we need to rise above it and move on toward the light.

Unitarian Universalists know this because we covenant together to affirm and promote the seven principles which all are sources of light. We affirm and promote worth and dignity, justice, equity and compassion, acceptance of one another, free and responsible search for truth and meaning, the right of conscience and use of the democratice process, peace, liberty, and justice for all, and a love and appreciation for the interdependent web of all existence.

We, UUs, endeavor to let our little light shine around the world.

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What do you make of this?

Today's lesson - Love is all there is.

It is written in lesson 25 in A Course In Miracles, "I do not know what anything is for."

A little further an explanation is offered: "You perceive the world and everything in it as meaningful in terms of ego goals. These goals have nothing to do with your own best interests, because the ego is not you. This false identification makes you incapable of understanding what anything is for. As a result, you are bound to misuse it. When you believe this, you will try to withdraw the goals you have assigned to the world, instead of attempting to reinforce them." Lesson 25.2:1-5

Humility is helpful in applying this lesson. When we admit that we don't know, we begin to walk the path of wisdom. Unitarian Univeralists are good at this. We are a humble people. We readily admit that we don't know and we covenant together to affirm and promote the free and responsible search for truth and meaning.

This search for truth and meaning requires a shift from the path of the ego onto the path of the spirit which in A Course In Miracles is called a "miracle." The text of A Course In Miracles states fifty prinicples of Miracles. The third is "Miracles occur naturally as expressions of love. The real miracle is the love that inspires them. In this sense everything that comes from love is a miracle." T-1.I.3:1-3

So while the ego doesn't know what anything is for, the right mind of the Spirit knows that Love is all there is.

Ask Alexa - Do you hear what I hear?

Alexa: My friend, who is very spiritual, asked me if I hear what he hears and I wonder what it is that he hears?

He hears the celestial hum of the Universe which is always behind the cacaphony of the ego.

What do we long for?

We long for Godliness, for wholeness, for nondualistic Oneness.

From the point of view of evolution, humanity is the bridge in consciousness between the separation from the Oneness and the rejoining with the Oneness which is the culmination of the evolution of consciousness in the Universe.

This evolutionary trajectory requires that humanity shed its egos. Humans have to become discontent with their lives and come to an awareness that there is a better way to live their lives. The dawning leads to a search away from our egos to a nondualistic awareness of the source of our being.

"Do you meditate," Linda asked?

"I try," David said, "but I don't get very far. It is hard for me to clear my mind of the constant chatter."

"Uuuuuuum, " Linda murmured as she shook her head, yes, in a knowing and understanding way.

Unitarian Univerasalists covenant together to affirm and promote the respect for interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part, and it is more than "respect," it is love and awareness of. The whole is greater than the sum of its parts and it is in merging with the whole that Godliness is experienced and achieved.

Today's lesson - What is in our own best interest?

Self knowledge is the key to happiness.

Most people have no way of answering the question, "What makes you tick?"

If we don't know who we are, how could we know our own best interests?

Most of us mistakenly think that things of the ego will make us happy.

In our society, most people think that winning the lottery and having millions of dollars will make them happy. This idea, of course, is not true and money can't buy you Love which ultimately is what all people want.

If it is accurate that most people do not perceive their own best interests, how can they learn what they are? First, a person would have to understand what they are not. And they are not what you and society tells you they are.

Fear of missing out, FOMO, is a huge problem in our digital age with social media. The fear of deprivation, isolation, not being recognized and acknowledged is the death of the ego. What people think is in their own best interests is ego stroking, but their ego is not real. The ego is an illusion which demands delusional thinking and massaging.

We are not our ego's, and our ego's interests are not our own best interests in spite of what we have been taught, are constantly suggested, and continually strive for.

Once we realize that the ego's desires and preferences are not our own best interests, then we can choose differently, and as we learn, choose again and again and again.

Unitarian Univeralists know this because we covenant together to affirm and promote the free and responsible search for truth and meaning. This search cannot be successful if we don't understand that we don't understand what is in our own best interests.

(This article is based on Lesson 24 in A Course In Miracles.)

Ask Alexa - Why is my life so messed up?

Alexa: Why is my life so messed up?

You have let your past control your future and not realized that the miracle could help you be born again.