How many people read UU A Way Of Life?

 Dave: 

How many people read UU A Way Of Life?

Ben

Dear Ben:

The readership of UU A Way of Life is very low. On a good day maybe 10 or 15 and on a bad day maybe only 5 or 6.

Readership has been higher in the past if the topics were emotionally arousing. If articles and headlines were sensationalized and provocative the clicks and views were much higher sometimes in the hundreds. There was a deliberate editorial decision to write for the serious minded and stop with the sensationalized articles. Since the change in focus the readership has dropped.

If you learn what you teach, I wanted to learn more about the spiritual life and so changed the focus of the writing to the Course In Miracles and its thought system. The thought system of the Course does not lend itself well to the current level of spiritual intelligence in our society. I would guess only about 5 - 10% of the population is attuned in any disciplined way to further developing their spiritual life. Jesus said “Many are called but few are chosen.” I think this is a poor translation of what Jesus actually said. I think what Jesus said is that all are called but few choose to listen.

One of the purposes of the publication of UU A Way Of Life is to facilitate and nurture a learning community that is interested in the development of spiritual intelligence. The first step of spiritual intelligence is even recognizing that spiritual intelligence is a valid concept and that there are levels and that people can grow in spiritual intelligence. This development is what Ken Wilber calls “waking up.”

UU A Way Of Life is geared toward a quality of readers not the quantity. Everyone is welcome, but few are interested in the teaching. If you know people interested in the development of spiritual intelligence and the formation of their interior spiritual life, refer them to the group here.

Keep the faith, moving forward,

David Markham

Teach what you want to learn.

You learn first that having rests on giving, and not on getting. Next you learn that you learn what you teach, and that you want to learn peace. This is the condition for identifying with the Kingdom, since it is the condition of the Kingdom. You have believed that you are without the Kingdom, and have therefore excluded yourself from it in your belief. It is therefore essential to teach you that you must be included, and that the belief that you are not is the only thing that you must exclude. T-6.V.C.6:1-5

A Course in Miracles (pp. 240-241). Foundation for Inner Peace. Kindle Edition. 

So many of the ideas in A Course In Miracles are paradoxical and therefore counter intuitive. One such belief is that if you would have something like love you must give it away to get it. Second is the idea that you learn what you teach. The third idea is that if you want to get to heaven you must get rid of the idea that you are not already there.

In Unitarian Universalism some of us join together to affirm and promote the free and responsible search for truth and meaning. Truth and meaning is often paradoxical, incongruous, and absurd.

Today it is suggested that you attempt to teach what you want to learn.

Are we vigilant in discerning God’s will for us?

Choosing through the Holy Spirit will lead you to the Kingdom. You create by your true being, but what you are you must learn to remember. The way to remember it is inherent in the third step, which brings together the lessons implied in the others, and goes beyond them towards real integration. If you allow yourself to have in your mind only what God put there, you are acknowledging your mind as God created it. Therefore, you are accepting it as it is. Since it is whole, you are teaching peace because you believe in it. The final step will still be taken for you by God, but by the third step the Holy Spirit has prepared you for God. He is getting you ready for the translation of having into being by the very nature of the steps you must take with Him. T-6.V.C.5:1-8

A Course in Miracles (p. 240). Foundation for Inner Peace. Kindle Edition. 

The third step taught by the Holy Spirit is “Be vigilant only for God and His Kingdom.” Jesus said that a good prayer to pray is what we now call the Our Father which in part is “Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy Name. They Kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” What is God’s will for us? Are we vigilant in discerning God’s will or do we rely on our devices, our ego?

In Unitarian Universalism some of us join together to affirm and promote the free and responsible search for truth and meaning. This search is for God’s will for us.

Today it is suggested that as we go about your daily activities, that we be vigilant about discerning and doing what we believe is God’s will for us.

Experience the presence of the unconditional love of God.

As long as you must be vigilant against anything, however, you are not recognizing this mutual exclusiveness, and still believe that you can choose either one. By teaching what to choose, the Holy Spirit will ultimately teach you that you need not choose at all. This will finally liberate your mind from choice, and direct it towards creation within the Kingdom. T-6.V.C.4:8-10

A Course in Miracles (p. 240). Foundation for Inner Peace. Kindle Edition. 

In the section of ACIM on the lessons of the Holy Spirit, the third step “Be vigilant only for God and His Kingdom,” we are told that we really have no choice at all but we have the illusion of a choice between the world of the ego and the Kingdom of God. Since the world of the ego isn’t real but an illusion that we have simply made up, all that is left is the Kingdom of God which always was, is now, and will always be. In the introduction to the Course it is written, “The course does not aim at teaching the meaning of love, for that is beyond what can be taught. It does aim, however, at removing the blocks to the awareness of love’s presence, which is your natural inheritance.” And so, in a sense, we don’t have to choose at all but discard the attachment to the things of the ego and our awareness of love’s presence will emerge.

In Unitarian Universalism some of us join together to affirm and promote the free and responsible search for truth and meaning which is to be found under the veil of the illusions we have created.

Today it is suggested that we look within beneath the ego and experience the presence of unconditional love of God.

UU offers hope of a spiritual journey with no tools to do it with.

 

Unitarian Universalism offers the promise of guidance for a spiritual journey and then devolves into affinity groups which sometimes provide somewhat of a path but not a path based on perennial wisdom. The biggest contribution to this failure is the seminary training which lacks appropriate theological training for UU professional leadership.

Be vigilant only for God and His Kingdom.

The Holy Spirit does not teach you to judge others, because He does not want you to teach error and learn it yourself. He would hardly be consistent if He allowed you to strengthen what you must learn to avoid. In the mind of the thinker, then, He is judgmental, but only in order to unify the mind so it can perceive without judgment. This enables the mind to teach without judgment, and therefore to learn to be without judgment. The undoing is necessary only in your mind, so that you will not project, instead of extend. God Himself has established what you can extend with perfect safety. Therefore, the Holy Spirit’s third lesson is: Be vigilant only for God and His Kingdom. T-6.V.C.2:1-8

A Course in Miracles (p. 239). Foundation for Inner Peace. Kindle Edition. 

We are told to be non judgmental. “Judge not so that you will not be judged.” It is not the person we are judging but the thoughts and behavior. There is right mindedness and wrong mindedness. As we mature we become more discerning of the difference. Right mindedness has to do with the things of God which are of unconditional love while wrong mindedness has to do with the things of the ego which are of separation and division.

In Unitarian Universalism some of us join together to affirm and promote the free and responsible search for truth and meaning. This search ultimately will take us on the path of right mindedness and we learn to eschew wrong mindedness.

Today it is suggested that we continually ask “What would love have me do?” This question is based on the Holy Spirit’s third lesson which is “Be vigilant only for God and His Kingdom.”

UU has lost its way.

 Click to enlarge.

Unitarian Universalism is badly in need of a revival so that it can clarify its vision, its mission, its goals, its processes and bring salvation to human kind.