What map will help us find our way home?

God honored even the miscreations of His children because they had made them. But He also blessed His children with a way of thinking that could raise their perceptions so high they could reach almost back to Him. The Holy Spirit is the Mind of the Atonement. He represents a state of mind close enough to One-mindedness that transfer to it is at last possible. Perception is not knowledge, but it can be transferred to knowledge, or cross over into it. It might even be more helpful here to use the literal meaning of transferred or “carried over,” since the last step is taken by God. T-5.I.6: 1 - 6

A Course in Miracles . Foundation for Inner Peace. Kindle Edition. 

Human beings have separated themselves from the nondual Oneness. They are drops of the ocean which have split themselves off from the whole. They yearn to return to that from which they have come. The Holy Spirit can help us by making us aware of what it is that we desire and helping us up the ladder to the top, and then God, the non dualistic Oneness, takes the last step and welcomes us home.

In Unitarian Universalism we join together to nurture each other’s spiritual intelligence by affirming and promoting our search for truth and meaning. UU draws on six sources to help us navigate the way. There are many maps which depict detours, distractions, and wrong turns but with persistence we can reorient and eventually find our way.

Today, as we consider the various maps to determine our route home, we can ask the Holy Spirit to guide us.

Are you searching for Enlightenment?

But what if that which we have since learned in the past thousand years, even the past fifty years, would actually affect how, for example, a person would directly experience Enlightenment or Awakening? What if we have discovered aspects of human awareness that most definitely determine how humans interpret any and all experiences that they have, and what if these interpretive frameworks, which will determine the different ways we directly experience Enlightenment, not only exist, but actually grow and develop through over a half-dozen well-documented stages during a human’s overall life—and that they continue to develop during a human’s adult years? Awakening or Enlightenment is traditionally taken as being the unity of the individual self with ultimate Reality—what the Sufis call “the Supreme Identity”—resulting in a Wholeness or Nonduality, which, including all of reality, conveys a sense of utter Freedom and total Fullness to the individual. But what if these interpretive frameworks actually govern how individuals see and experience “Wholeness,” and thus directly determine how an individual experiences Enlightenment itself? That would change the nature of the Paths of the Great Liberation profoundly, with, in effect, a different “Liberation” being experienced at each of these different stages of growth and development. But the evidence is already in: those framework stages definitely exist—they have been found in over forty cultures (in every culture checked so far, in fact)—and they definitely alter how one experiences Enlightenment, or any other experience, for that matter. The very ground has shifted under the Great Traditions, and they don’t even know it.

Wilber, Ken. The Religion of Tomorrow (p. 5). Shambhala. Kindle Edition. 

People, increasingly, say these days when asked that they are not religious but spiritual. What do they mean? Are they trying to express some relationship with a Higher Power whatever they conceive that Higher Power to be? And is this relationship going anywhere?

It is the function of the church to nurture and enhance spiritual development but in our post postmodern age they are failing at the job and people no longer find churches and their religions helpful in nurturing their spiritual intelligence. So where do the people turn for this assistance? They often flounder and stagnate. And yet the maps are there. We have the knowledge about spiritual development but it is rarely taught even if it is recognized and acknowledged.

Ken Wilber lays this information out in his book, The Religion of Tomorrow. We will be reading it and studying it. Join us.

Do you seek the ways of the ego or the ways of God?

The Holy Spirit is the Christ Mind which is aware of the knowledge that lies beyond perception. He came into being with the separation as a protection, inspiring the Atonement principle at the same time. Before that there was no need for healing, for no one was comfortless. The Voice of the Holy Spirit is the Call to Atonement, or the restoration of the integrity of the mind. When the Atonement is complete and the whole Sonship is healed there will be no Call to return. But what God creates is eternal. The Holy Spirit will remain with the Sons of God, to bless their creations and keep them in the light of joy. T-5.I.5:1 - 7

A Course in Miracles . Foundation for Inner Peace. Kindle Edition. 

When homo sapiens separated themselves from the nondual Oneness at their incarnation and the ego was born, the Holy Spirit came with us to remind us from whence we came. Some listen, and some don’t, but the Holy Spirit, the Christ Mind is with us until the Atonement occurs, healing comes, and we rejoin the Life Force from which we were separated.

In Unitarian Universalism we join together to affirm and promote the free and responsible search for Truth and meaning which is best done with the assistance of the Holy Spirit which will come if we ask.

Today, ask the Holy Spirit for help to drop the ways of the ego and become more aware of the ways of God.

Awareness of the evolutionary trajectory of humanity provides great hope.

 

Homo sapiens is on an evolutionary trajectory which people at lower levels of cultural maturity are not aware of. We have moved from the pre-traditional to traditional to modernistic to postmodernistic to, now, post postmodernistic, and on to integral levels. 

The evolutionary progress has been uneven and variable from culture to culture until the birth of the internet which made tangible what deChardin called the noosphere. With the global communication we have now human consciousness has been raised significantly and now humanity knows within days things going on in various cultures around the globe which previously took centuries, then decades, then weeks, then days, and now hours to become aware of.

We are living in a truly miraculous time of spiritual awakening and slowly are becoming aware of it. Part of the cultural distress that people are experiencing in this post postmodern age is the forced awareness of our shadow side as human beings. This distress of our shadow side provides motivation for significant positive change.

Keep the faith moving forward,

What is the next best right thing?

His symbolic function makes the Holy Spirit difficult to understand, because symbolism is open to different interpretations. As a man and also one of God’s creations, my right thinking, which came from the Holy Spirit or the Universal Inspiration, taught me first and foremost that this Inspiration is for all. I could not have It myself without knowing this. The word “know” is proper in this context, because the Holy Spirit is so close to knowledge that He calls it forth; or better, allows it to come. I have spoken before of the higher or “true” perception, which is so near to truth that God Himself can flow across the little gap. Knowledge is always ready to flow everywhere, but it cannot oppose. Therefore you can obstruct it, although you can never lose it. T-5.I.4:5 - 11

A Course in Miracles . Foundation for Inner Peace. Kindle Edition. 

Artists call it the “Muse.” Christians call it the “Holy Spirit.” People in Twelve Step programs call it “Higher Power.” In the verses above, it is called “Universal Inspiration.” Psychologists call it “intuition.” So many words for what the Course calls “knowledge” which comes from revelation from God. It is often felt rather than thought or believed, but at its best it is thought and emotions together or more colloquially, “head and heard.” The human activity through which it is experienced is prayer, meditation, and discernment. The question is “What is God’s will?” or as we say, “What would love have me do?”

In Unitarian Universalism we join together to affirm and promote the free and responsible search for truth and meaning. This “search” involves the head and the heart and a lot of listening based on a desire to discern what the loving thing is to do?

Today, take some quiet time and go to the Holy Spirit, the Muse, your Higher Power with a question about what choice you should make, which path you should take, what is the next best right thing?

The Holy Spirit, the Universal Inspirer, is always with us.

I myself said, “If I go I will send you another Comforter and he will abide with you.” T-5.I.4: 4

A Course in Miracles . Foundation for Inner Peace. Kindle Edition. 

Christians are aware of the Trinity: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Here Jesus speaks of the Holy Spirit which He also calls a few lines later, “Universal Inspiration.” Jesus died and left His disciples who had become attached to Him as their Master but He reassured them that He had not abandoned them but would continue to be there for them in the form of Spirit which He calls here “Comforter.” To access this Comforter all we need do is remember Jesus’ sharing of His mastery of the nondual awareness which He manifested.

In Unitarian Universalism this nondual awareness is named “unconditional love.”

Today, it is suggested that we drop our preoccupations with the things of the ego, and ask the comforter to remind us that Jesus told us that the way to the kingdom is to “love as I have loved.” We can ask the Holy Spirit, the Universal Inspirer, “What would love have me do?”

Ask the Holy Spirit, “What would love have me do?”

This is the invitation to the Holy Spirit. I have said already that I can reach up and bring the Holy Spirit down to you, but I can bring Him to you only at your own invitation. The Holy Spirit is in your right mind, as He was in mine. The Bible says, “May the mind be in you that was also in Christ Jesus,” and uses this as a blessing. It is the blessing of miracle-mindedness. It asks that you may think as I thought, joining with me in Christ thinking. T-5.I.3: 1- 6

A Course in Miracles . Foundation for Inner Peace. Kindle Edition. 

When life gives you trouble or a decision to be made, ask the Holy Spirit, “What would love have me do.” That question puts one in the area of “Christ thinking.”

In Unitarian Universalism we join together to affirm and promote the free and responsible search for truth and meaning. A way to implement this search is to ask, “What would love have me do?”

Today, ask yourself as many times as you have to make a moral decision, “What would love have me do?” The listen quietly for the Holy Spirit to move you towards a proper direction.