Jesus is a sibling, an older one, from whom much can be learned.

The miracle is therefore a sign of love among equals. Equals should not be in awe of one another because awe implies inequality. It is therefore an inappropriate reaction to me. An elder brother is entitled to respect for his greater experience, and obedience for his greater wisdom. He is also entitled to love because he is a brother, and to devotion if he is devoted. It is only my devotion that entitles me to yours. There is nothing about me that you cannot attain. I have nothing that does not come from God. The difference between us now is that I have nothing else. This leaves me in a state which is only potential in you.

A Course in Miracles . Foundation for Inner Peace.T-1.11.3:4-13 

Jesus teaches in A Course In Miracles that He is not to be worshiped and held in awe as God is. Jesus teaches that he is a sibling, older and wiser, but possesses nothing that we don’t possess.

In Alcoholic Anonymous it is suggested in step twelve that we share our spiritual awakening with others. One factor that contributes to the benefits of AA is the fellowship, the joining together in a search for a common goal, salvation.

In Unitarian Universalism, we likewise, join in fellowship to affirm and promote the inherent worth and dignity of every person. This inherent worth and dignity is manifested in the life of Jesus who taught that the way to the kingdom is “to love as I have loved.”

Today, we might reconsider the role of Jesus in our lives. Is Jesus to be worshiped or to be learned from? Jesus teaches in ACIM that worship is reserved for God. He is a sibling, an older sibling, from whom we can benefit from his advanced wisdom and experience.

Revelation is an experience not a teaching

Revelation is intensely personal and cannot be meaningfully translated. That is why any attempt to describe it in words is impossible. Revelation influences only experience. Miracles, on the other hand, induce action. T-1.!!.2:1-4

It is written in the Tao Te Ching “ The Tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao. The Tao that can be named is not the eternal Name.”

Any name of God is an idol and not the real God. When talking about God if you think the talk is true you have mistaken bullshit for reality.

Revelation is an experience; it is not in any book no matter how holy. It is in the heart not in the head.

In Alcoholic Anonymous it is suggested in step eleven that we enhance our conscious contact with God through prayer and meditation. God is not to be found in any book nor any creed not in any doctrine nor in any sermon. God is ineffable and found in Unconditional Love which is found in one’s heart and experience.

In Unitarian Universalism we covenant together to affirm and promote the inherent worth and dignity of every person. It is in this inherent worth and dignity that the experience of revelation is to be found.

Today, enjoy the stillness and tune into the revelation of the Tao if, even only, for a few seconds.

What would love have me do?

 Revelation unites you directly with God. Miracles unite you directly with your brother. Neither emanates from consciousness, but both are experienced there. Consciousness is the state that induces action, though it does not inspire it. You are free to believe what you choose and what you do attests to what you believe. T-1.11.1:5-9

Revelation is the mystical experience of Oneness. When experienced, time stands still. We are outside of our normal unawakened state. With revelation we have awoken to the reality our natural inheritance.

When we shift from the world of the ego to the world of Spirit it is a mind altering experience. When this mind altering experience occurs between ourselves and God it is called “revelation.” When this mind altering experience occurs with our brothers and sisters it is called a “miracle.”

To be consciously aware of this mind altering experience, we rejoice and feel great peace. The mind altering experience does not come from us, but from our Transcendent Source. We didn’t cause it, but we recognize and acknowledge it. It is this recognition and acknowledgement over which we can have conscious control. We can believe whatever we want about it, but what we choose to believe influences how we behave, what we do.

In Alcoholic Anonymous it is suggested, in step eleven, that we improve our conscious contact with God through prayer and meditation. It is practicing this conscious contact that purifies our minds for the reception of revelation and miracles.

In Unitarian Universalism we join together to affirm and promote the free and responsible search for truth and meaning. It is this search that leads us in the direction of revelation and miracles.

Today, it is suggested that we choose the world of Spirit over the world of the ego. This is done simply by asking ourselves consistently, “What would love have me do?”

Stages of spiritual development.

The stages of spiritual development have many names depending on the author of the model being described. While the names may be different the forms and content of the stages are approximately the same. The model that seems most basic is one based on the hierarchy of six human needs outlined by Abraham Maslow: physiological, safety, belongingness, esteem, self actualization, and transcendence.

The views of god held by human beings are anthropomorphic projections based on the felt needs at each stage of development. Church and religions exist and thrive to the extent that they help humans satisfy these needs throughout the human life cycle. Each stage of spiritual development subsumes the previous stage into the larger subsequent stage. These stages get repeated for each individual human being as well as for their groups whether they be  family, community, regions, nations, societies, and global. Currently, at a societal level there is a transition from the belongingness stage, stage 3,  what the integral philosophers call ethnocentric, to an esteem stage, stage 4,  where the self worth of all humans is being recognized and acknowledged so that ethnocentric boundaries are crumbling creating fear in people stuck at the belongingness stage, stage 3, of development.

A question that might be asked is “To what extent do churches and religions facilitate spiritual development or impede it?” Churches and religions that have been barriers and obstacles to spiritual growth are dying with attendance and membership dropping significantly in the last few decades of the twentieth and twenty first centuries.

If you go to church and identify with a religion, to what extent and in what ways does your church and religion facilitate your spiritual growth?

Let’s look at the stages of spiritual development outlined above based on Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, and assess the degree to which various cultural beliefs and traditions, and societal institutions facilitate spiritual growth of the members of society.

Spiritual intelligence: Definition

The mission of the church, of religion, is to facilitate the development of spiritual intelligence in its members. What is spiritual intelligence?

Spiritual intelligence is the awareness and workings of the Transcendent Source of all creation. This Transcendent Source goes by many names none of which do the idea of Transcendent Source justice. Some call it “God.” Some call it “Tao.” Some call it “Mother Nature.” Some call it “The Force.” Some call it the “Oneness.” Some call it the “Eternal Nothingness.” Some call it the “Eternal Infinite.” The names we call it vary from culture to culture, from religion to religion, and from one developmental  stage of life to another.

When people would tell John Buehrens, a Unitarian Universalist minister and former President of the Unitarian Universalist Association, that they didn’t believe in God, John reportedly  would ask, “What  god is it that you don’t believe in?”

Giving up the belief in God of our youth is like giving up the belief in Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, and the Tooth Fairy. It comes with a developmental growth in cognitive processing. With this understanding of developmental growth,  the idea of spiritual intelligence comes with the idea of stages of understanding and belief systems. What kind of understanding was present at one stage of growth is outgrown and subsumed within later stages of growth. A good church, a good religion, understands this developmental and evolutionary model and is able to address the needs of its members at their various stages of growth.

What are the stages and where are you presently in the developmental model?

It is not in what we think but how we think that makes the miraculous difference.

The miracle compares what you have made with creation, accepting what is in accord with it as true, and rejecting what is out of accord as false. T-1.1.50

The miracle is the shift in perception from the world of the ego to the world of Spirit or from conditional love to unconditional love. When we shift to unconditional love we realize that what we formerly believed, that we could be happy if only other people and things would change, is false, and that unconditional love is already available to us as our natural inheritance.

In Alcoholics Anonymous it is suggested, in step eleven, that we improve our conscious contact with God through prayer and mediation. When this conscious contact occurs we experience a miracle and realize that what we thought was true in the world of the ego is, in fact, an illusion brought about by our “stinkin thinkin.”

In Unitarian Universalism we join together to affirm and promote the inherent worth and dignity of every person. It is this perception of every person’s inherent worth and dignity which is miraculous. Nothing external to us changed; we changed our minds about what we wanted to perceive and focus on. It is this switch in our intentional perception that is miraculous.

Today it is suggested in this last miracle principle, 50 out of 50, that it is a miracle when we change not what we think but how we think. It is in our thinking that our perceptions occur. We now realize that we are capable of miracles.

Become a miracle worker.

 

The miracle makes no distinction among degrees of misperception. It is a device for perception correction, effective quite apart from either the degree of the direction of the error. This is its true indiscriminateness. T-1.1.49:1-3

The miracle is the shift in perception from the world of the ego to the world of Spirit or the world of conditional love to the world of unconditional love. When the shift of perception occurs from the world of conditional love to unconditional love there is no distinction anymore about the previous misperceptions of conditional love. The perceptions of conditional love no longer make any difference because they were based in illusionary thinking to begin with. Unconditional love is, by definition, indiscriminate.

In Alcoholics Anonymous it is suggested in step nine that we make amends to people we have conditionally loved when it would do no further harm.

In Unitarian Universalism we join together to affirm and promote the inherent worth and dignity of every person. This affirmation and promotion of inherent worth and dignity makes no distinctions and so can be said to be indiscriminate.

Today, it is suggested that we give up our conditional love and replace it with unconditional love. In doing so we become miracle workers.