You are the Kingdom Of Heaven

You are the Kingdom of Heaven, but you have let the belief in darkness enter your mind and so you need a new light. The Holy Spirit is the radiance that you must let banish the idea of darkness. His is the glory before which dissociation falls away, and the Kingdom of Heaven breaks through into its own. Before the separation you did not need guidance. You knew as you will know again, but as you do not know now. T-5.II.4: 1 - 5

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

Before we were separated from the non dual Oneness of God, we were not aware of our separateness. Many, at lower levels of consciousness, still do not know that they are separate from the non dual Oneness of God and they think that the shadows they see on the cave walls are real. Every now and then, though, we get an inkling that there must be more to life than just that which we have created. When we act on this inkling, and begin our search for something more, the Holy Spirit enters our heart and the Holy Spirit having come, we can, if we wish, ask for guidance. We can simply ask, “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 is best done in meditation, a going inward, to become one with that from which we emerged at our separation.

Today, we quiet ourselves in silence, slow our breathing, and just watch with amusement the chatter of our monkey mind without judgment. Slowly the chatter diminishes in volume and intensity and peace and well being arises. In these moments we are not just in the kingdom of heaven, we are the Kingdom of Heaven..

The world of the ego or the Call to joy?

The principle of Atonement and the separation began at the same time. When the ego was made, God placed in the mind the Call to joy. This Call is so strong that the ego always dissolves at Its sound. That is why you must choose to hear one of two voices within you. One you made yourself, and that one is not of God. But the other is given you by God, Who asks you only to listen to it. T-5.II.3: 1-6

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

Jesus says in Matthew 7:7 ““Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.” In the Course, Jesus tells us further that God has given us the Holy Spirit which He calls here “The Call to joy.”

Jesus tells us that we have a choice. Do we want to listen to the ego or to Call to joy?

Today, be mindful that there is a choice between the world of the ego or the world of peace and joy. Which will be chosen?

Article Notes - Blaming ‘evil’: a philosophical paradox, unpacked by Elise Springer

 Article Notes - Blaming ‘evil’: a philosophical paradox, unpacked by Elise Springer

https://theconversation.com/blaming-evil-a-philosophical-paradox-unpacked-184289?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Politics%20Weekly%20%20June%209%202022%20-%202316123074&utm_content=Politics%20Weekly%20%20June%209%202022%20-%202316123074+CID_c4b3db6fab40c7edbd5132b6f15ca448&utm_source=campaign_monitor_us&utm_term=Blaming%20evil%20a%20philosophical%20paradox%20unpacked

Days later, at the National Rifle Association’s convention in Texas, CEO Wayne LaPierre acknowledged the Uvalde victims before arguing against gun control legislation. His reasoning pivoted on the concept of evil: “If we as a nation were capable of legislating evil out of the hearts and minds of criminals who commit these heinous acts, we would have done it long ago.”

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First, there’s still some confusion about whether to locate evil out in the world, or within the human heart. 

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The 18th-century German philosopher Immanuel Kant, for example, defines evil as an inner moral failure, which might lurk behind even the most acceptable-looking acts.

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Philosopher Gary Watson helps illuminate this paradox in his essay “Responsibility and the Limits of Evil.” Blame involves attempting to hold people responsible as members of a shared “moral community” – a network of social relations in which people share basic norms and push one another to repair moral expectations after they are violated. Taking responsibility, in Watson’s view, involves a kind of competence, an ability to work with others in community.

Evil, however, implies being beyond redemption, “beyond the pale” of this community. Calling someone evil signals a total lack of hope that they could take up the responsibility being assigned to them. And some people do seem to lack the social bonds, skills and attitudes required for responsibility. Examining the life story of a notorious school shooter, Watson reveals how his potential for belonging to a moral community had been brutally dismantled by chaotic abuse throughout his 

 

If evil implies such a complete absence of the skills and attitudes required for moral responsibility, then calling people evil – while still holding them morally responsible – is paradoxical.

For the complete article click here.

What would love have me do?

The Holy Spirit is the spirit of joy. He is the Call to return with which God blessed the minds of His separated Sons. This is the vocation of the mind. The mind had no calling until the separation, because before that it had only being, and would not have understood the Call to right thinking. The Holy Spirit is God’s Answer to the separation; the means by which the Atonement heals until the whole mind returns to creating. T-5.II.2: 1 - 5

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

When we were separated from the nondual Oneness at our incarnation, God provided us, the separated ones, with the Holy Spirit whose job it is to facilitate the Atonement, the return of our minds to that from which we emerged.

In Unitarian Universalism we covenant together to affirm and promote the free and responsible search for truth and meaning which is a search for our wholeness, our holiness. Our search is greatly accelerated when we turn to the Holy Spirit for help. We know we are on the right track when we experience peace and joy, the Holy Spirit’s gifts.

Today, when we are making decisions, remember to ask the Holy Spirit for guidance by asking “What would Love have me do?”

How can the spiritual intelligence of human beings be improved?

But what these new modern and postmodern discoveries have found, for example, is that the stages of meditation themselves will actually be interpreted and experienced quite differently depending on the stage of development of the individual doing the meditating—and this has been happening all along; it’s just that none of the Great Traditions were aware of it.

Wilber, Ken. The Religion of Tomorrow (pp. 7-8). Shambhala. Kindle Edition. 

Ken Wilber makes the distinction between “waking up” and “growing up.” Waking up has to do with the levels of consciousness while growing up has to do with the level of worldview. The mystic elements of the world religions have been aware of the levels of consciousness, but the levels of worldview have only been described in the last 100 years as developmental psychology made the discoveries about the stages of cognitive, affective, social, and physical growth. Some theorists such as Charles M. Johnston adds cultural maturity as well.

It is unfortunate that most people are not aware of these levels of development and thus have no map to guide their growth and so they are adrift. These levels of development can be described in various ways. A simple model is egocentric, ethnocentric, worldcentric, integral, post integral. Egocentric is all about me. Ethnocentric is all about us. Worldcentric is all about everybody. Integral takes all these worldviews into account in an integrated way, and post integral moves on to a nondual appreciation of the interdependent web of all existence. People can oscillate somewhat between these levels of worldview but at any given time they have a center of gravity, a predominant stance, which governs their perceptions and interpretations of their experience.

The predominant stance of our society in the US currently is ethnocentric. Most people in our society  are polarized by race, political indeology, religion, social class, sex, and age. The “us/them” dynamic motivates most of our relationships and interactions. This observation denotes a relatively low level of spiritual intelligence, SQ. This low level of SQ in the face of the most technological power humanity has ever had at its disposal creates huge conflict, distress, and harm.

The question before us is how can we facilitate the rise in the SQ of the populations of the world? It is the thing that will save us as a species and improve the quality of life for all things on our planet.

What would love have me do? Choose it.

Your will is still in you because God placed it in your mind, and although you can keep it asleep you cannot obliterate it. God Himself keeps your will alive by transmitting it from His Mind to yours as long as there is time. The miracle itself is a reflection of this union of Will between Father and Son. T-5.II.1: 5 - 7

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

Jesus taught His disciples to pray the prayer we now call the “Our Father” which in part is “...Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” When we bring our will into alignment with God’s will there is great peace and joy. The Course calls this a “miracle” because the separation has been overcome and union has been experienced. The Integral philosophers call this “waking up.” Waking up means that we experience the union of our will with God’s will and our consciousness has been raised to a nondual level.

In Unitarian Universalism, we join together to affirm and promote the free and responsible search for truth and meaning and this search will eventually takes us to uniting our will with the will of God, our Higher Power.

Today, we can ask ourselves many times during the day, “What would Love have me do?” and then choose it.

All there is is the eternal now.

This alteration of the time sequence should be quite familiar, because it is very similar to the shift in the perception of time that the miracle introduces. The Holy Spirit is the motivation for miracle-mindedness; the decision to heal the separation by letting it go. T-5.II.1:3 - 4

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

As a person “wakes up” and experiences higher states of consciousness, they become aware that there is no time and space. In our everyday world of the ego, we sometimes say “Time stood still” or “where did the time go?” In the non dualistic Oneness there is no time and space and we experience this when we enter into the state of what the Course calls “miracle-mindedness.”

In Unitarian Universalism we join together to affirm and promote the interdependent web of all existence where there is no time and space because we become aware of the interconnectedness of everything when we realize there is nothing but the One of which everything is a part.

Today, when we practice mindfulness we can just be present and recognize that the past is gone and the future is not here yet and all there is is the eternal Now.