What does the term "projection" mean?

Unitarian Universalists covenant together to affirm and promote the free and responsible search for truth and meaning. And they're off and running. Where exactly?

The pharisees ask Jesus, "So, rabbi, where's this kingdom of yours that you keep talking about? You know, that mythical place where everybody is supposedly happy. If I could get there, will it make me happy too? I might make the effort to make the trip there if only you would give me directions. Help me out here, pal. What's the way? Enlighten me."


The psychological term for it is "projection." Projection is an "if only" state of mind. If only this happened or that happened, if only he would or she would, if only I could, then, then, then, I would be happy.

The little mantra we repeat over and over and over again to ourselves is "(S)he could if only (s)he would, but (s)he won't because (s)he is holding out on me." And we project our wishes, our resentments, our hopes, and our grievances onto the other person or the situations that we THINK will make us happy.

Even worse, we, then, go looking for evidence that our propositions about the other making us happy are right. Oh, how we want to be right; we are sure we are right; so sure we become mad or sad that our expectations go unfulfilled, sometimes even murderously enraged.

The big mistake, of course, is that external people and things can't make us happy. This idea, we come to understand as we spiritually mature, is utter nonsense, an illusion we create in our desire for our own wish fulfillment.

We need to grow up and take responsibility for our own happiness, not project this responsibility onto others.

People are so silly, ridiculous really. Ask most people what it would take to make them happy and they say silly things like "Winning the lottery," and then they giggle because they know how unlikely and how silly this is. What is frightening is when they say it seriously as if they truly believe this would bring them deep, abiding, authentic happiness.

Jesus says clearly that the kingdom of God is among you. Jesus, when asked by the Pharisees where His kingdom is, says, and I paraphrase, "the kingdom of God is not a place. You can't say look here or look there. The kingdom of which I speak is right here, right now, between you. It is in your midst, but you don't see it because you are constantly looking elsewhere." Luke 17:21.

We are looking for love in all the wrong places.

Stop the projection nonsense. Stop the "if only" game you play with yourself and others. Grow up. Take responsibility for your own happiness. Quit projecting that responsibility onto others. Projection is a main tactic on the path of the ego. It doesn't work. It is disappointing and frustrating. Turn on to the path of the spirit and walk with love: love for yourself and your fellow creatures.

The question is not what can they do for me which they aren't doing, but rather, how do I take care of myself and in the process help them and contribute to the well being of the community?

Is it time to turn off the path of the ego onto the path of the spirit?

Unitarian Universalists, and many other Americans, look at what's happening on the U.S. southern border and are horrified and deeply upset. This is not the first time the world has witnessed such governmental child abuse.

U.S. President, Donald R. Trump, is not the first leader in the world to abuse children. King Herod does it in Palestine at the beginning of the Christian era when he ordered all the male babies under two to be killed.

It is written in the gospel of Matthew, chapter two, verse 16, "When Herod realized that he had been outwitted by the Magi, he was furious, and he gave orders to kill all the boys in Bethlehem and its vicinity who were two years old and under, in accordance with the time he had learned from the Magi."

There are similarities in the personalities of Donald Trump and King Herod. They both are narcissistic, grandiose, paranoid, and brutal bullies.

What should we make of Herod killing babies and Trump separating children from parents at the southern U.S. border?

One of the lessons to be learned is that the path of the ego is littered with death, destruction, and aggrandizement at the expense of others for power. The quest for power, the maintenance of power is an exploitative enterprise which deprives the human community of health and happiness.

When an ego has riches, the other thing to crave is power, domination, subjugation to enhance one's own willfulness.

The will to power is the antidote to Love.

Love does not exploit, it supports. Love does not harm, it nurtures. Love does not bully, it collaborates. Love does not demean, it uplifts. Love does not bully, love respects the dignity of others.

Millions of Americans voted for a narcissistic, grandiose, paranoid, rich, brutal bully. They are getting what they voted for and the children and their families and the human community has been brutalized and are suffering.

It's time to remind ourselves that we are all part of the same human family and turn off the path of the ego onto the path of the spirit and get on the Love train.

It also is time to make changes in our U.S. government at the mid terms so that the abuse can be stopped and respect and collaboration restored.

Are you controlled by fear?

Universalists flourished in a puritanical America with the idea of unconditional Divine love. Why did this idea fade? Why is it no longer preached from every UU pulpit? Why has the message lost its attraction to Americans in the dark days of Trumpism?

"A voice is heard in Ramah, mourning and great weeping, Rachel weeping for her children and refusing to be comforted, because they are no more."(Jeremiah 31:15 NIV). 

It is written in the introduction to A Course In Miracles, "The opposite of love is fear, but what is all-encompassing can have no opposite."

In John's first letter, he writes, "God is love...There is no room in love for fear." 4:18.

The major psychiatric disorder in the United States are anxiety disorders. Psychotropic medications flood the market as well as alcohol and street drugs such as cannabis. The rise of Trumpism in the United States manifests the dark underbelly of racism, mysogony, xenophobia, bullying, suicide, homicide, and deceit.

Politicians campaign for election stoking fear throughout the land which only they can save the population from.

And the population votes for walls, white supremacy, sexual assault, privilege of wealth.
The wise person laughs at the fears the ego generates and reassures the fearful and encourages them to lay their hate and fear aside.

The wise person suggests that the fearful lay the illusions of their sufferings aside as the joke of the ego. The wise person knows that the Divine loves all the Divine's creations.

UUs need to return to their roots. A great revival is needed throughout the land and UUs and other people of faith are the yeast in the dough, the salt of the earth.

Jesus is knocking. Will you answer the door?

Unitarian Universalists covenant together to affirm and promote the free and responsible search for truth and meaning. Where does that truth and meaning lie?

Jesus tells us in the book of Revelations, chapter 3, verse 20, "Look at me. I stand at the door. I knock. If you hear me call and open the door, I'll come right in and sit down to supper with you."

But we don't really want to see Jesus. He calls us to leave our egos behind and join Him on the path of the spirit and we don't want to. The ego offers us all kinds of pleasurable and distracting things to amuse us, and Jesus only offers us peace and love.

We are still children who like our ridiculous play things and if there is a threat to take them away from us we cling to them and run away and hide.

What Jesus offers us is there at the door. Can we overcome our fear and answer the knock?

Not yet. Things will have to get worse. We have yet to hit bottom. Then maybe when we are desperate we will look for a better way. Sometimes it takes great suffering for the dawning to occur that the way of Jesus is a better choice if we want to become truly happy.

Answer the door.

What is the one decision which makes all the difference?

Unitarian Universalists are a pretty egotistical bunch. They don't think much of a Higher Power and argue among themselves not only what the Higher Power is like but even if there is a Higher Power at all. Is such a theological position one of arrogance and willfulness or one of humility and willingness? If the function of a church is to facilitate the development and nurturance of saints, the harvest has been meager.

Yes, we have separated ourselves from God. We think we are in charge of our own lives. This idea, of course, is ridiculous. We were born from the Oneness and we will return to the Oneness. In the meantime we feel guilty, unconsciously, of our separation.

This guilt which is better called "shame" is the knowledge that we are not separate from God, and our willfulness will cause problems.

What kind of problems you ask? How about violence, attack, anxiety, depression, compulsive and addictive behaviors, and general all purpose misery? The variations of misery and suffering are as numerable as the stars for every individual is unique and special and his/her suffering is unique and special as well.

And so, we are afraid of more suffering, hurt, and pain, and it our hurt and pain rather than admit our mistake, we insist we are right and project the cause of our suffering onto other people and circumstances. In our misery and pain we come to see ourselves as victims rather than as agents. This defensive strategy for most people is very entrenched and clung to with every fiber of one's being to preserve the ego which has been created.

Of course, all these defensive attempts to protect our egos are bound to crack at some point, perhaps at death when we have no choice but to give up the fight and our stubbornness is overwhelmed. Rather than die peacefully, we die clinging to the last shred of ego we have defended our whole lives, and die in agony.

As is taught in twelve step programs we need to recognize that our lives of the ego are unmanageable and that there is a power greater than ourselves. We then in step three decide to turn our will over to our Higher Power whatever we conceive of that Higher Power to be. This turning over of our will allows us to perform the miracle of changing willfulness into willingness and this decision makes all the difference.

This decision involves the turning from the path of the ego onto the path of the spirit and it makes all the difference.

Do we have an authority problem?

Unitarian Universalists don't like authority. They not only don't like it, they rebel against it every chance they get. In my whole life I have never found such a large group of passive aggressive people. It's in their blood and DNA.

UUs justify their passive aggressivity under their principles of free and responsible searches for truth and meaning, and their love of what they call democratic process, but behind this facade is a fear and hate for authority and their intention to serve themselves and their own desires.

In the great Paul Newman movie, Cool Hand Luke, the primary line, repeated as the warden was beating him, was, "What we have here is a failure to communicate."

In A Course In Miracles, it is stated as clear as day that what we humans have is an "authority problem." It is written referring to symptoms of distress, "I have spoken of different symptoms, and at that level there is almost endless variation, There is, however, only one cause for all the them: the authority problem. This is the "root of all evil."" T-3.VI.7:1-3

Just as Cool hand Luke had a communication problem, we have an authority problem.

We humans think, and we have been told, that we have created ourselves. As 2 years old we say , "No! You're not the boss of me!"

And we insist as adults that God is not the boss of us and even that there is no God only myself to count on.

We can be silly, silly people. "Ridiculous!" as my 13 year old nephew, Caleb, tells me.

Indeed, ridiculousness abounds.

At our death, if not before, we will have to submit to a force far greater than ourselves from which we emerged and unto which we return.

In the meantime, we can continue to entertain our illusions.

Where does greatness lie?

The Universalists know where greatness lies. It is this experience which has inspired the Unitarians. Together they have proclaimed that greatness lies in the interdependent web of all existence. They covenant together to affirm and promote this principle.

It is written in A Course in Miracles in the introduction in the section on clarification of terms in paragraph 2, verse 5, "A universal theology is impossible, but a universal experience is not only possible but necessary."

Has this been your experience, too?

Truth lies beyond illusion. Illusion fragments and Truth unifies.

The whole is greater than the sum of the parts. It is that greatness which is Divine.

Greatness is found on the path of the spirit not on the path of the ego.