Daily Reflections, Day Seventy four, The appreciation in which I can rest.

Day Seventy four

The appreciation in which I can rest.

“Your mind can be possessed by illusions, but spirit is eternally free. If a mind perceives without love, it perceives an empty shell and is unaware of the spirit within. But the Atonement restories spirit to its proper place. The mind that serves spirit is invulnerable.” ACIM.T-1.IV.2:8-11

As Carl Jung taught us, the psyche has a shadow side. Every person has one. Usually the shadow is unconscious and is made up of illusions like a bad dream which we unknowing project onto the world. Usually these projections are what we fear and hate the most.

Holden Caufield, in The Catcher In The Rye, called it the “Big Lie”. The Big Lie is the illusion that the ego would have us believe is real. The Big Lie excludes Unconditional Love and is based on fear and guilt and tells us we live in a world of “one or the other” and we “give to get.” Everything is conditional and is a zero sum game based on scarcity. If a person believes what society has told them, they live in an empty shell and are unaware of the holiness beneath it which is their natural inheritance.

Once a person sees through the game, though, and realizes there must be more, and that there is a better way to live and move through life, they come to understand the Oneness from which we have separated ourselves and see the ground of their being which pervades all of life in a cosmic harmony. Once this enlightenment occurs, the mind, the psyche is invulnerable.

Today, I will reflect on my experience and look behind the curtain of the Big Lie. I will settle into the Ground of Being and let the idols of the ego go. I will realize that the ego hell that I have been taught I am living in is not real. I will appreciate that the Oneness of my being is invulnerable and in this appreciation I will rest in peace and bliss..

Religious literacy - Is ignorance really bliss?

Religious ignorance was also rife after 9/11 in Washington DC, where, I soon learned to my dismay, hardly anyone spoke Arabic or understood the basics of Islam. And so the nation was treated for months to theology by sound bite. 

“Islam is peace,” President Bush stated repeatedly, as if that mantra were all Americans needed to know about the Islamic tradition. 

Meanwhile, the televangelist Jerry Falwell denounced Muhammad as “a terrorist,” and Paul Weyrich and William Lind, prominent voices in American conservatism, called Islam “a religion of war.”3 Who was right? 

Unfortunately, Americans had no way to judge, because, when it comes to understanding the Islamic tradition, most Americans are kindergarteners at best.

Prothero, Stephen. Religious Literacy (p. 3). HarperOne. Kindle Edition.

When religious illiteracy is dangerous is when Americans who are thought to be knowledgable particpants in their government know nothing about world religions and their ignorance is used as a weapon against them by authorities who would manipulate them in cooperating with self serving and dysfunctional policies.

Most Americans know nothing about Islam, wouldn't know a Shite from a Sunni and yet support a trillion dollar war with their tax dollars against middle eastern countries. Is this kind of ignorance a sin?

So many times people say, "If I knew then what I know now, I wouldn't have done it." The questions of course are "Why didn't you know?" "Should you have known?"

Americans have a responsibility as participants in their governmental operations, if by doing nothing more than voting, to know what they are doing. Is ignorance an excuse for consenting and supporting evil?

Consent, to be legitimate, needs to be informed. Consent and informed consent are often two different things. It is easy to manipulate ignorant people into giving consent for things they no nothing about. Who bears the bigger responsibility, the manipulator or the manipulated? This of course is an unfair dichotomy, because they both do.

Virtue Development, Honesty, Part two: To thy own self be true

Part two: To thy own self be true

Peace of mind comes from honesty. It is the dishonest who experience anxiety, anger, depression, and ultimately despair.

It is the wish and intention to deceive that is the root of all evil and leads to conflict and war. The worst war is the conflict within oneself between the false self and the authentic self. The worst dishonesty is self deception where one murders one’s own soul because they have lied so much they forget who they really are.

Where, when, and with whom can you express what you really think, how your really feel, and what you really want? Who knows, if even yourself, what really matters to you?

Knowing what really matters to you, is the source of your faith. People often say one thing for approval or to get along or to manipulate others, when deep in their hearts they know that their presentation is a deception. The problem arises when a person starts to believe their own deceptions.

Shakespeare has written “To thine own self be true.” Socrates said, “An unexamined life is not worth living.” Grandfather said, “Honesty is the best policy,” and Diogenes roamed the earth with his lantern looking for a honest person.

If a person is to cultivate the virtue of honesty, they must begin with themselves. Lying to oneself is the biggest impediment to happiness that exists. Lying to others is bad enough, but lying to oneself is deadly.

Climate justice - Creating our own kingdom of arrogance or being willing to co-create God's kingdom on earth as it is in heaven?

Annihilation is only the very thin tail of warming’s very long bell curve, and there is nothing stopping us from steering clear of it. But what lies between us and extinction is horrifying enough, and we have not yet begun to contemplate what it means to live under those conditions—what it will do to our politics and our culture and our emotional equilibria, our sense of history and our relationship to it, our sense of nature and our relationship to it, that we are living in a world degraded by our own hands, with the horizon of human possibility dramatically dimmed. We may yet see a climate deus ex machina—or, rather, we may yet build one, in the form of carbon capture technology or geoengineering, or in the form of a revolution in the way we generate power, electric or political. But that solution, if it comes at all, will emerge against a bleak horizon, darkened by our emissions as if by glaucoma.

Wallace-Wells, David. The Uninhabitable Earth (p. 34). Crown/Archetype. Kindle Edition.

The fundamental sin of human beings is pride, arrogance, the thought that we don't need God and know better than God and can live our lives happily without God.

We have separated ourselves from the Oneness of God and established our own kingdom based on our ego desires and activities and where has it gotten us? In a fine pickle having destroyed our eco-system that supports our lives here.

Recognizing what we have done to our planetary home, we know have understand its implications for our biology, our psychology, our sociology, and spirituality. What is the mythic story we will create to explain ourselves to ourselves that will work for human kind?

Such a story could revolve around a plot line about God being pissed and out to punish and take revenge on God's thankless, arrogant creatures. While this story may have a kernal of truth to it, it misses the point that God is not out to punish us, but to call us to be co-creators with God of a harmonious collaboration that creates heaven on earth rather than hell. Are we willing to give up our pride and arrogance? Will we continue to be willful or will we become willing to accept God's kingdom rather than creating our own?

Daily Relections, Day Seventy three, The thing I have forgotten: holiness.

Day Seventy three

The thing I have forgotten: holiness

“Holiness can never be really hidden in darkness, but you can deceive yourself about it. The deception makes you fearful because you realize in your heart that it is a deception, and you exert enormous efforts to establish its reality.” ACIM.T-1.IV.2:1-2

The mission of the UU A Way Of Life blog is to sanctify the world by helping people become aware of their holiness, but the carrying out of this mission engenders fear in people who have a stake in maintaining the world of the ego.

Holiness is innate and we pay lip service, some of us, to the principle that every person has inherent worth and dignity, but judgment is a major part of the activities of the days of most of us. We become upset, angry, resentful, and harbor grievances in many of our interactions and overlook or dismiss the divine spark of holiness that is always hidden in everyone. We look for ways to justify our judgment so we can diminish our fear of our wrongdoing in justifications and rationalizations.

What we fear the most in ourselves we project onto others. Because we have kept the holiness hidden within ourselves, we have difficulty seeing it in others. It takes enormous energy and conscious effort to maintain and uplift the lies of the ego and its false promises of happiness.

Today, I will pay attention to my fears and come to an understanding of where they come from. Once I get past these fears, I will recognize and acknowledge Love which is my natural inheritance that I have forgotten. I will give thanks for the peace and joy that ascends into my awareness which I experience.

Daily Reflections, Day Seventy two, Telling secrets is a path to liberation.

Day Seventy two

Telling our secrets is a path to liberation

“The escape from darkness involves two statges: First, the recognition that darkness cannot hide. This step usually entails fear. Second, the recognition that there is nothing you want to hide even if you could. This step brings escape from fear. When you have become willing to hide nothing, you will not only be willing to enter into communion but will also understand peace and joy.” ACIM.T-1.IV.1:1-5

So much of our perceptions and feelings are shame based. We live in great fear that what we believe is our innate defectiveness and inadequacy will be discovered. We learned as children that we must behave properly so that people will approve of us and not punish or reject us.

As we mature, we realize that this false facade, this fake self, takes great effort and stress to maintain. At times anxiety and depression overtake us, and we “break down,” and find ourselves doing things we would not do, and not doing things that we think we should do. Freud called this behavior, “acting out.” Our symptomatic and dysfunctional behavior is generated by unconscious thoughts and feelings that we are not consciously aware of. This leads to confusion and distress.

To look into the unconscious is scary and is often avoided, but when we become curious about what makes us tick and are willing to examine our lives, we begin to realize that there really is nothing we want to hide any longer and we decide to live our lives in more transparent and open hearted ways. It is in exploring the unconscious that we come to realize that there was nothing to fear to begin with and a great peace and joy ascend into our consciousness.

Today, I will identify a few of my secrets and identify someone I can tell them to. This unburdening will provide a liberation and relief that generates peace and joy that the risk of disclosure comes to be seen as very worthwhile. I will come to understand that telling my secrets is the path to liberation.

Religious literacy - Names of scriptures of major world religions.

It begins with a paradox I had been wrestling with for some time when my Austrian colleague helped to clarify it for me. That paradox is this: Americans are both deeply religious and profoundly ignorant about religion. They are Protestants who can’t name the four Gospels, Catholics who can’t name the seven sacraments, and Jews who can’t name the five books of Moses. Atheists may be as rare in America as Jesus-loving politicians are in Europe, but here faith is almost entirely devoid of content. One of the most religious countries on earth is also a nation of religious illiterates.1

Prothero, Stephen. Religious Literacy (p. 1). HarperOne. Kindle Edition.

What are the harms done in our society because of religious illiteracy? What are the harms done to Unitarian Universalists due to their religious illiteracy?

Unitarian Univeralists covenant together to affirm and promote seven principles the third of which is acceptance of one another and encouragement to spiritual growth in our congregations. How is this to be accomplished from a place of ignorance? It would seem that a basic course in faith development for UUs would be an overview course in world religions and how these religions have shared cultures and society and how cultures and society have shaped them.

It seems that most Americans which includes UUs can’t name the major scriptures of the major religions. Go ahead and give it a try. What are the major scriptures of  the world’s biggest religions: Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism, Islam, Hinduism, Taoism, and here in the U.S. Mormonism? Answers are in the comments. Let us know who you did on the quiz.