Choosing Supportive Thoughts

I was recently asked this question by a dear friend: “Carl can you share your thoughts on choosing thoughts that support ‘us’ and who is that chooser?”

I must admit that my response is somewhat disjointed but I think it does get to the point I am trying to make.  Here is my response and by all means let me know your thoughts.  This is a most important question to any seeker who moves through life “chopping wood and carrying water.”

An obvious response to such a question is to choose thoughts that are upbeat and positive and in a lot of new age thought, with emphasis on the Law of attraction, we are taught to choose only good thoughts and to even make judgments about how things are going by the way we think and feel about them.  The fundamental problem with this idea of “choosing,” this or that, is that we give ourselves over to forces that somehow have control of our life experiences whether they be good or bad as we judge them.  I have often said that “experiencing life from the standpoint of “how you feel” about something is not a realistic nor a good formula for life” simply because life is a “full on” mystery and we have no control over the events that are occurring, the people who cross our paths or circumstances we find ourselves in at any given time.

What we must unlearn is that we can somehow “think” our way to a so called “abundant” life.  Any thought is likely to be against this because we are all taught that thinking is the only way to climb out of any “bad” situation we find ourselves in or the converse of this which is to think our way into maintaining the “good” situation we find ourselves in.  Most New Age teachers go so far as to tell us that they can take us out of any adverse situation by simply following the formula they themselves have experienced even though their unique experience can never be yours or my experience no matter how hard we put our mind (thoughts) to it.

I have struggled with this question for many, many years and always come back to the saying that “we are spiritual beings having a human experience.”  In other words, “WE” are not these bodies (which includes the mind and all its thoughts) so we need not take anything in our experience too seriously because we already are spiritual.  I say we are more than the gods we create in our minds to subject ourselves too. So what thoughts support this?  That really lies at the heart of the question and what we might think supports this likely does not.

At first blush we might look at the words of Paul the apostle who encouraged us to seek after things such as, “…whatever things are true, whatever things are honorable, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report; if there is any virtue, and if there is any praise, think about these things.  These are all things we would identify as “good” things to seek after and think about but there is a subtlety that is very misleading.  All these things require a judgment which is the tool of ego to disassemble anything going on in life, e.g., this is good and this is bad.  The ego always picks a side and puts all the arguments in front of it to divide from those who see “good or bad” in a completely different way.

Right and wrong is the ultimate tool of distraction and ego plays this well.  Can you see this?  It would have been just as effective for Paul to have said “whatever things are not pure, not virtuous, not lovely, etc., and you could not have wound up with a greater mess than we currently have amongst humans in the world.  We are nuts with rightness and wrongness.   So what should we think if “thinking” is the nature of the human and especially what do we think that supports us?

The only answer I have found satisfactory to me is to be contrary to what the mind thinks.  That is when the mind wants to judge, don’t judge.  When the mind wants to declare something good, erase the thought. When the mind wants to uphold a particular view accept the “other” view instead.  Mind wants you to hold to an idea of good or bad; don’t do either.  Another way to say it might be “seek not to be happy but seek to find happiness in those things that, otherwise, make you unhappy.”  If you can get to this type of non-judgment and acceptance of what was once judged good or bad everything begins to “be” okay.  That is, happiness, joy and all the other things we endlessly seek resonate within as a natural condition of our non-judgments.  The mind leads away from happiness; it takes us “too” things that are supposed to make us happy but either don’t, or are very short lived.

Here is an example of a contrary thought that goes against a primary tenet of many of our judgments that says simply; “you deserve to be happy.”  Well, “no you don’t!   No one deserves to be happy. In fact no one deserves a life different from the one they are living.  Do you see that this puts unnecessary requirements on something that is simply our nature when we determine that nothing we can do, say, think or believe can make us happy.  Be happy…period.

Ultimately, you are probably gathering that I take the position that no thought is a good thought.  Ego never has a thought that does not contain the motive that I am right and you are wrong and if we were all honest with ourselves we would recognize our own complicity with this greatest of all egoic tools.  This is why I am such an advocate of limiting our thoughts.  I know this doesn’t answer the question but outside of accepting “what is” without any judgment whatsoever, can I come up with thoughts that support us.  In fact, you could say, the less we think about thoughts that support us the more likely we are to get to know “us,” meaning YOU that lies beneath the you that is merely the “thought” of you.

This leads to the second part of the question which is who is the chooser of the thoughts?  This question for me is a bit easier to answer.  My response is:  “The chooser isn’t choosing the thoughts; the chooser is experiencing the thoughts the human is experiencing and is completely unattached to any thought, thought.”  In other words, only humans react to “human thought.”

Ultimately, all I’ve got is “the thoughts that support us are the thoughts not thought.”  Silence is always the ultimate support for in “stillness, god is known” and being face to face with that which YOU are requires no description or definition of any mind based thought.  In fact, no mind could possibly conjure a description that came close to such knowing, even if the mind was working at one hundred percent.  The most thoughtful thought is the thought that contains no judgment and that pretty much negates any thought.  Don’t judge; now there’s a thought!

No Failures in Life

Another great question on my website: www.spiritual-intuition.com by an anonymous individual inquiring about the metaphor of the “mustard seed and the mustard tree.”   Like many things I comment on, my response is likely going to be “off” from what most of us have been told the story represents. Still, I share the question and my answer here and appreciate any thoughts or comments you wish to share:

Here is the question:  After reading your books, the parable of the mustard seed and the tree has come into my awareness in a profound, unexplainable way. I’ve come to “know” that the seed and the tree are the exact same thing. The love that we may have thought of as only a small, insignificant seed is indeed, exactly the same as the magnificent towering tree. I somehow understood this about my mother, my father and others recently. It seems unreasonable, yet that small seed that seemed so small and nearly insignificant, was really a huge unending love to and from them. Somehow, in a mysterious and inexplicable way that love was the same. So beautiful, so expanding, full and gigantic!!! My question or thought as it may be per your suggestions: “The mystery cannot be explained, just enjoy it.” Yes. It is completely unexplainable. Question: Can anyone understand this? Do you?

My response:  Thank you for sharing and thank you for reading the books. I am so honored and grateful.

It is difficult to understand this in an intellectual way and even more difficult to say it without adding to the confusion. It is interesting that most “spiritually seeking” people seem to get the statement that “we are spiritual beings having a human experience” but live as though the very opposite is true.

We, as humans, have been conditioned so thoroughly that we are somehow “less than” and must work our entire lives to be able to “qualify” for some godly dimension that, even still, doesn’t quite get to the highest level and never can. We call ourselves sinners and unworthy when in fact we are greater than any imaginary “being,” somewhere in yonder heavens, that our puny little minds completely make up.

This was, and is, the message of the seed and the tree. We can’t possibly imagine that all that the tree is could possibly reside in a tiny seed and so we surround the simple beauty of the message with the words and formula’s that allow the seed to eventually become the tree. We say such things as nourish and feed the tree, water it, prune it and care for it and it will grow into something it could not be otherwise. The metaphors themselves are indicative of the way we have all been conditioned and this conditioning carries into every aspect of our lives. Right and wrong breed in this environment as well as judgment, dissension and suffering.

And yet in a simple example of “all that is,” e.g., the seed, we get the truth of “all that is.” That is, “the seed itself.” I have often said that “We cannot fail at life” and we really cannot. Whether the seed becomes a tree or lies dormant in the ground it will always contain the vastness of the tree. Our Earth experience is not a school; it is not a training ground for something that lies beyond it. All that “is” already is.

Now, to the question. Do I understand this? All I can say is yes, but only to the limits of what my mind can conceive making the answer no in strictly human or “mind based” terms and that would be the case with anyone claiming to understand. I used to think that I “knew” a lot but now the only thing I know with absolute certainty is that “I am not this body.” I will add that the mind, which, is nothing more than the operating system for this body gets this but is always at work doing what human minds do and that is pull on us relentlessly and convince us that we cannot be greater than something it has created to be the greatest of all. Mind drives us to judge and compare and if it can be successful (it really is successful by the way) it keeps us buried in the noise of argument and rightness and wrongness.

The pull of the world is relentless, even to those who seem to have climbed above it. “Do I understand?” Not in terms that I could ever express, but in terms that are inexpressible; absolutely!

Thanks again for the question and while my response may seem a bit cryptic, human language is remiss to adequately express such things and do them any justice. At best I can point to things the human mind understands and equate it to something that is otherwise impossible to describe. I can’t describe to you what it is to have something leave the body and retain a full awareness that the body it left, is not what you think the body is or what we really are. I know this is confusing but I don’t know such words nor do I know anyone who does. I can say that that awareness never leaves me regardless of the workings of the mind to convince me otherwise. It is wondrous beyond description. That’s all I’ve got.

I wish everyone could experience such a thing. All my love and best,

Carl

Your Hands

Several days ago I was approached by a woman on my website: www.spiritual-intuition.com with a question that I have tossed around in my ponderings for a long, long time and which I feel is important for anyone who is seeking to become more aware of the otherness we all seem to know exists beyond our three dimensional reality.  I share the question and my answer here:

Question:

“The greatest difference between the power of intention and caring is that while caring attaches us to illusory outcomes we have accepted as important, intention is detached from any conception of caring.”

Your quote. Actually, I am EXTREMELY inspired by this . . . because “caring” doesn’t mean very much in the world of “doing.” I have thought about this tremendously because of what I do for a living and YES! “intention” is really what is the driving force behind “being.” It is interesting in that I work with people every day and caring is . . . nice . . . it is intention that creates all the little miracles. It isn’t belief, it isn’t faith it is intent. My question is: I find that my heart has love for them. I can’t DECIDE what is happening but INTENTION works with the healing. When they leave I send them off with “Courage Mon Brav.”. Does caring have a place where there is intention? Is “caring” unlike “loving” because love has no attachments where by definition “caring” does?

My response:

Cheryl,

Thank you for your question and sharing an example of intention. I love how you say that “it is intention that creates all the little miracles.” How poignant your expression and how interesting your detection of this in your practice.

Your question is one that I ponder quite often because “caring” is such a big part of the landscape of modern living and weaves itself into virtually every aspect of our dealings with other humans. In extreme cases of “caring”, aggressive action is often sanctioned because of it and virtually all forms of right or wrong can be justified under the umbrella of caring or, for that matter, love.

Intention, as you mention, has no focus and yet it does, as well, yet we cannot know what that focus is. We simply know that it is and without the discussion that it is this or that, we sense the power of it when it is working. Many times you might hear people say things like “I’m not sure what that was but I could feel some force or power”, or “I just knew what to do and did it without question or concern.” You experience this in your work. Intention is there and when we give ourselves to this power it becomes apparent that we, too, are the power. It is our essence and we are its.

For me love and caring are completely human, and mind based. We hear a lot these days the admonition to “love unconditionally,” however, if people were completely honest they could see that the propensity to love unconditionally is not possible if for no other reason than they have to say it is. Love and caring show up most powerfully in our own dependence which most of us will never admit. That is, our own need to look to others for any kind of approval. “You don’t care” or “you don’t love me” are examples of the outward expressions of this dependence. Perhaps another way to put this is to say that unconditional love or caring requires no dependence on “me” to notice it. Very hard to do.

The roots of caring and love are formed in the past, whereas, intention is always something that plays out in the present. Broken down, caring is a product of something that does not exist while intention is always at play in “what is” right now and only right now. Intention has no power in the past or in the future. Your example of “miracles happening,” in your own practice, occur while you and you alone are focused on anything but your caring. Miracles, as you are experiencing, don’t wait to happen. They just happen!

On the other hand it is difficult to sustain any action based on something that does not exist in present time and yet we see over and over those who try to do so and they’re “burning out” long before reaching the original objective of their caring. We use words like hope and faith to motivate our caring and watch the collapse of those whose actions seeded great good under the pretense that “caring” in any form could possibly sustain any action long term. Caring has to have the attachment to an idea or outcome that originated sometime long before this moment. It is completely unsustainable and it is always, always, always attached to “conditions.” Intention knows no conditions.

Caring is the strongest cord of ego and virtually unbreakable. It is the justifier of our causes and the power behind judgments of ourselves and others. It is full of conditions and rules. Intention is devoid of description and so just is; it is a force without reckoning of any kind. Intention supersedes loving and caring and I have often used the term “compassion” synonymously with intention. Both are unexplainable. It might be said that intention and compassion are the non-human forms of love and caring but having said that, it is a weak comparison. Neither intention nor compassion carries any meaning in human terms and yet those who know them, “know them.”

In conclusion, and I suppose the real answer to your question, is to say to you, send them away with both your love and your caring. The compassionate work has been done; intention has played out and while they may never know what it was, they will have felt it through your hands. Your hands, Cheryl; hands that have the amazing ability to touch reality and heal the world.

Again thank you so much for this.  All my love,

Carl

The Nature of Spirituality

While working with my Sister in a village in Honduras where she had bought property and had set up a small clinic for the people of that village and surrounding areas I was able to see firsthand that spirituality is not a condition of what we possess or an arbitrary hierarchy of needs as so many of us believe.  There was every form of disease and malnutrition and every single person who came to her clinic would receive a dose of a de-worming medicine just for showing up. Parasites infested everyone because there was no infrastructure anywhere in Honduras that could provide basic needs.  Dirt floors and stick huts packed with mud were common and trips to the river were where the villagers drank, washed clothing, dishes and bathed themselves.

One day we, my sister and I, were talking about the children who always seemed to be hanging around. I observed that they all seemed so happy and asked my sister if she thought these little ones stood a chance of ever having a spiritual awareness. She exclaimed immediately that it was not possible in the least astrip 12 008 they were struggling with so many other issues that to discover their own divine nature would be impossible. I was surprised  by her response and asked, “How do you explain that they all seem so happy?” Her response was just as immediate and similarly direct. “I don’t know,” she said, “it puzzles me too because they have nothing and they have nothing to look forward to!”

I was not satisfied with this answer and pressed her a bit further on the subject of spirituality. She insisted that “basic needs” had to be served before anyone could advance to a more “enlightened” state and that outside the work she was doing to help the little ones in her village few if any had any chance of having anything other than a life of poverty and disease. I remember being saddened by her assessment of those children and pondered the sweetness in their faces and their complete exhilaration with the life they were living. Not once did I ever hear a child complain of their circumstances and everywhere I saw gratitude and acceptance, happiness and joy. In fact, when I was getting ready to leave three of the young children wrote me letters thanking me for coming to visit them and expressing how much they loved having me there with them. What moved me most, however, were their wishes for me. Each of these wonderful children wished for me to have “everything I desired” in life and to be happy.  Without having any concept of how “good” I had things in my life, how abundant and full of the things that are supposed to help us become “actualized,” these children were completely giving of themselves.  What they gave was more than all the riches in the world. They gave their love, their friendship and from the very depths of their souls they spoke to mine.

Their “giving” to me was from the depths of someone deeply spiritual but without, even, the label of “spirituality.” They were divine and it didn’t matter if they knew what that meant or not. Life for them was a treat as was my life when I was with them.  I wept when I read the words of giving and concern for my happiness.

Spiritually speaking these were the great ones. Amidst, the squalor, disease and rampant poverty, as we in the west would define it, I witnessed majesty as I have never seen it. I stood among giants and I trembled before them. I could no longer feel any sorrow for these children as my sorrow for them turned to sorrow for myself. I had become the judge of their existence and what I had seen for them was destroyed by what they already knew about existence. In desolation, they knew more than I ever hoped to. They were humble; I was embarrassed. I was completely undressed by the “gods” of this tiny little village and I have never been the same since. My prayer since that visit has been that the children of this village never discover the labels we put on them and that their simple view of life never gives way to the noise of our, so called, “actualized” descriptions.

Surely spiritual awareness, which I had sought for so many years, is not a property of attainment, acclaim, and fulfilment of so-called basic needs.  Spiritual awareness is our very first aspect; it is the very core of our nature.  How true the New Age statement that “we are spiritual beings having aSamiel human experience”.  There is nothing we must attain in order to achieve spiritual awakening.  In fact, it might be considered an arrogant assumption that we must somehow become something we are not, nor may ever be, in order to achieve higher states of awareness.   One might ask, “What chance do the poor and infirm have of ever reaching higher states of awareness if they must rise above basic needs when such a possibility may never present itself in their lifetimes?”  We all sense a kind of hypocrisy at such a question because we know that some of our greatest spiritual icons came from such circumstances.  Some even went from incredible wealth and royalty to a life of poverty and begging as a way to find the awareness I was convinced must come some other way.

We are spiritual beings.  Our first state of existence is a spiritual one and it is the human-ness of our earthly existence that conditions us to think that the human is not the second state but the first.  The focal point of our existence, the peak of the pyramid, if you will, is our most basic knowing, and poverty and lack are equally able as is wealth and riches, or education and intellect, to drive us from or to that knowing.

Adapted from the book: On Human Being-Loving & Living Without Purpose

Giants in the Land

There were giants in the earth in those days; and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bear children to them, the same became mighty men of renown.   Genesis 6: 4

These words while written thousands of years ago could not be more poignant then , then they are now and while they are somewhat nebulous and cryptic it is believed that they were written just prior to the flood describe in the Old Testament.  It is also believed that they were written during a time when there was great upheaval in the world.

Many believe we are in such a time now and yet the times now would suggest there is a great settling in the earth in that there are more people alive now than at any other age or time and that human existence is now unfettered by the horrific slaughter of humans by other humans.  There continues to be wars and physical conditions that take life from our planet but it is not nearly of the scale and magnitude of the last century.  Those being born into the world are surviving at a rate unprecedented in history and even in just the last few years.  It is as if spectators are gathering for some cosmic event , yet to come, and which can only be viewed on our tiny little planet.  One can only speculate.

Along with this population growth and relative non-destruction of human life we have also seen a disappearance of local and world leaders who are of renown and who actually lead.  They are not to be found in the institutions we once looked to for great and inspiring advocates of human consciousness, moderation and wisdom yet we continue looking to those places as if they might somehow or in someway emerge.

Government, institutions of higher learning, science and religion are besought with treachery and graft.  Instead of laying the groundwork for honesty and integrity they foster sullenness, intellectual superiority, greed, waste and complacency.  Little did the framers of the constitution of the United States ever contemplate that the very institutions they formed would become the house of corruption!

The only quality we look to in the institutions, once thought to be bastions of integrity, is that of “intellect” which has become the father of moral decay.  The intellectual cannot know what we feel.  Ever!  They can only know what they “think” they know.  Where have all the leaders gone?

Surely with the sheer numbers of people increasing the world over there are “great ones” among us, but where?  We cannot look to government or religion or universities for inspired leaders.  These institutions wreak of dishonesty, avarice, pride and condescension.  They are no longer the breeding ground  for people with character and integrity.  All these institutions seem to do anymore is create faithful soldiers who will uphold whatever illusion they have accepted.  We don’t find inspired leaders in industry, entertainment, media, news organizations or any other place we once thought they would be.

We witnessed in the last presidential election “ugliness” unprecedented in U.S. history and it was not just the candidates who ran for various offices.  It was “We the People!”  And after all the vitriol and ugliness of an election process no leaders emerged.  That is not to say there were no victors but we are still a “leaderless” country and the world at large suffers from the same dearth as we here in the United States.  Still we continue to look around for someone who will lead us into new horizons we can only imagine exist.  We have been so conditioned to see life from our particular viewpoint and we select our leaders because they supposedly carry a similar point of view and so complete is our idea of their complicity with our own that we will resort to saying things like, “I know he or she is not the best but he/she is the lesser of two evils.”  Did you get that?  “The lesser of two evils!”   Have we, in lieu of leaders who are not there, settled for evil?

Are there no persons of “renown” among us?  Surely there must be but where?

In truth they are among us and have been for a while.  Some sense it but others have yet to discover their own renown.  Most are currently beset with the idea that the institution or character of their liking, their persuasion, is the way out and they hope, in vain, that things will turn in their way.  It is an easy way out of looking to themselves as the “giants” they truly are.  Some have discovered their innate integrity but are remiss to step forward with their own awareness that will greatly inspire and lift the rest of us.  Sadly, some have sold themselves already to their cause and its institutional counter part and are lost to their own inner light.  In other words many of the elect have been deceived and have taken their followers with them.

The giants are among us, none the less, and not only must we begin to recognize them but they too must rise up and see us as well.  Perhaps, as you read this, recognize, that you are one of them.  If you are searching for such individuals this alone speaks to your own greatness.  Think about it.  Those who see the light amid the darkness are the ones we are all really looking for and they will never affiliate with an institutional idea or belief.  Institutional leadership has failed in every clime and it is no longer the way back to the light we seek.  In fact, the giants among us will disenfranchise all institutions and beliefs because any affiliations with them would be the equivalent of bringing “sheep to the slaughter.”

The giants will show us a new way which ultimately will break what is.  It is the only way out of our illusory stupor.  Government, religion or any other system as we know it will never function in an enlightened society but “the way” must be forged by new blood, inspiration and intuition.  Those ingredients already permeate the land but for now they are silent.  Many have not recognized that they are part of the pathway to light and that they have but to step out of the darkness.  They indeed will bring enlightenment and hope to a world that struggles.

Careful;  they are not who you might think they are.  We have yet to see them but they are here.  I call to them as do all the inhabitants of the earth!  What we all must do as the groundwork for their emergence is to stop looking to the world’s institutions and current leaders to solve the worlds problems.  The “world” has demonstrated comprehensively that it knows not what it does.  The giants and people of renown will show us all and the showing resides not in the institutions we believe must change.  It resides in the compassion, honor, dignity and integrity they will replace all the old forms with.

Who are these giants; these people of renown?  Look to yourself.  You already know.

What do you do to be enlightened?

I was asked these two questions about enlightnment recently and wanted to share my thoughts with each of you as well. Here is the Question:

Do you think that we can all one day become enlightened? If so, what do we need to do?

My Response:    There is no “day” in some future time that we become enlightened. There is no future at all. Each of us already is enlightened and at various points in our lives we see it. Those who do get a glimpse of it are usually pulled into it by some event, such as the death of a loved one, or something else that causes deep reflection in which no “answer” comes.  Most people who have such an experience can always recount the emotional state they felt in such times but they almost always revert back to the egoic need to explain what is going on.  Most come to some conclusion that their “prayer” was answered or that an Ahhhh Haaa came to them and they understood in a way they hadn’t before.  What gets lost in these conclusions is that in that moment where no answer existed is the only place that enlightenment occurred.

In other words, enlightenment is not some magical, mystical awareness of all the, so called, “Big Questions.”  Enlightenment is the “nothing” that
existed before the “ego” needed an explanation.  It is the sweetness of being in the presence of absolute silence and not needing an explanation
for everything.  In that place there is no fear, love, happiness, sadness or any other emotional state. There is nothing but silence and it is in that
“not knowing” that “all” is known and none of it needs definition.

What do “we” need to do?  “Be still and know that YOU are god.”  In other words, unmask who it is that occupies your body by silencing the mind.  In
this place you will experience the grand mystery of which we are all a part. It’s all you can do. There is no “we” in this unmasking. You’re own
enlightenment will enlighten others.  The “god” that you are is never invisible to the “god” that they are. Something inside us always sees the greater light but it is in the quiet of the mind.  Quiet your mind and discover the “everything” that is contained in the “nothing.”  This is your enlightenment.

This is what you can do.

A consciousness guide; “The” Spiritual Handbook! – Book Review

I am one of twenty bloggers participating in the virtual book tour for Yvonne Perry’s latest book, Shifting into Purer Consciousness ~ Integrating Spiritual Transformation with the Human Experience. Today, I am sharing the review that I wrote. You may learn more about Yvonne and her book at http://shiftingintopurerconsciousness.com

Title: Shifting into Purer Consciousness ~ Integrating Spiritual Transformation with the Human Experience

Author: Yvonne Perry

ISBN-13: 978-0-9825722-9-0

Publisher: Write On!, May 2012

###

Yesterday, the tour stopped at Janet Riehl’s Riehl Life blog. Tomorrow the tour will be at Doreen Pendgracs’ blog- Wizard of Words  and I invite you to visit that site to learn more about the spiritual transition we are currently in. See the full tour schedule at http://dld.bz/byrF7 .

Here is my review:

Yvonne’s words float through the mind like a summer’s breeze easing their way into the fabric of the soul. She is eloquent, bold and shares a compelling glimpse into her own spiritual journey that shows us how her journey can become a map for our own. While “Shifting into Purer Consciousness,“ is a gentle excursion into greater spiritual awareness it is an equally powerful handbook that teaches in specific ways how each of us can approach our own spiritual journey.

I was taken by the numerous exercises and affirmations Yvonne shares that are impactful, deep and compelling.  The book will lead you on a journey of self discovery that makes the essence of every single moment in life significant and essential. Yvonne is not only a guide but a friend who shows us the way to venture into our own “Human Experience” and even in those moments of fear and timidity she effectively shows us how to be unafraid.  There is boldness in her words that, “where all paths are honored and merged, I see no reason why one must follow a strict regime of “getting it right” (indicative of a patriarchal system). It is our intention that counts.”

Intention does count and this wonderful book shows us so many ways to discover our own unique spirituality and find “Intention and Purpose” in every facet of life. If nothing else this book will make you look at yourself in a new and reverent way and it will most certainly “shift your consciousness.”

Carl Bozeman

Author of the Bestselling Book: On Being God – Beyond Your Life’s Purpose

www.spiritual-intuition.com

You Are Not Your Body

Jesus, dying on the cross was not about giving his life as a demonstration of power nor was it to save us from our so called sins. It was a demonstration that He was not his body or mind or anything else we all tend to identify ourselves with.

His closest disciples did not understand this either. This is why Peter came to his defense in the garden of Gethsemane and cut off the ear of the Roman soldier who was trying to apprehend Jesus. Peter wanted to defend the  “man” He thought Jesus was, not who Jesus actually was. Peter, and so many others then and now, could not see who Jesus was outside the “man” he thought him to be. He only saw the “man” and thought the “man” was endowed with special powers and that he must defend Jesus, as “the man” Peter “thought” him to be.

Jesus was never able to convince anyone that He was not his body; that He was not the “object” others had created him to be. His whole ministry was a demonstration of his own awareness that he was completely unidentified with anything in the world. His crucifixion was a profound and vivid example of that. Death did not matter to him. Not because we “rise again,” but because what WE truly are never dies! Who we are never dies and Jesus imparted that message one last time by allowing himself to be killed as a demonstration that he would continue on just as each of us will continue on.

We will never “fail” in this life because this life is not anywhere near what we are in eternity. Detach from the body, discover who resides within and nothing in human experience will ever be able to take from you anything that actually does matter.

A View on Compassion

Recently I was asked a question by someone visiting my website. Here is the question and what follows is my response. While the response is a bit lengthy I believe there is some important information for those who ask the same questions. I’d love to hear your response.

Comments: I just continue to have a problem with people who take other’s lives and rape etc. I find that difficult to be ok with and that it is the god within at work you have to be kidding me. How can we offer love to human life forms who are capable of this???? We must still believe that there are many who are not Intuitive enough to realize who they are or from where they came… so walk a destructive physical life. How can we be ok with this and offer love to these people??? Please explain to me…

My Response:

Vicki,

Thanks for sharing your thoughts. You ask, perhaps, the most complex questions that can be asked for any human living in this existence. There is no easy answer mainly because our egos get so attached to what they have determined to be right or wrong in the world. You must think of yourself (we all must) as two individuals. One that is human and one that is divine (God). The human is everything physical that you experience including your thoughts, dreams, aspirations, etc. The divine is the observer of the experience the human is having. The divine does not interfere with the human experience because, after all, the divine came here specifically to have the human (that YOU are) experience. It did not come here to change anything. I know this sounds a bit bizarre, but the essence of our human existence is to experience the wondrous-ness of being humans and to interfere (as gods could) would be to alter the reality of that experience.

After having established this, I will try to answer your questions. Let me be perfectly clear that “the god within” as you mentioned could be okay with rape, murder and all the other forms of violence we experience in the world. Gods, as I mention in my Book “On Being God-Beyond Your Life’s Purpose” do not encroach upon the experience of other gods. They have no need or inclination to do so simply because they possess all the power to create whatever they want. Having said that, however, as for this human experience the “divine” in us has also agreed not to interfere in the “human” condition as part of the overall “human” experience. It is the “human” condition that commits the acts of violence and control on other humans. It is the human condition that tries to stop it and it is the human condition that decides if it is “ok” or “not ok” to “offer love” to those who commit such acts. Nothing that is going on in the physical sense is “because” of gods. It is all because of humans.

As a human, you can decide whether to “offer love” to those who perpetrate such things on other humans or not. As gods the question of “love” doesn’t even come into question. What comes into question for the divine in you is compassion. Now, the world has misunderstood
the meaning of compassion. The world (egos) thinks of compassion as a higher form of love which it is not. Compassion has nothing to do with love. The only words we have in our human language (English) to adequately describe compassion is “acceptance of  everything” (careful not to confuse acceptance with apathy). Gods “accept” what is because they know that in the grand spectrum none of what goes on here “as humans” has any significance in the “eternal” spectrum.

What has happened in this “human” experience is that the “ego”, both individual and collective, has attempted to “out do” what is divine in us and in so doing has gotten out of control, to say the least! In other words, those who commit such horrible things no longer know
what they are doing. They are, for the most part, cut off from the divine nature within and have been largely taken over by the egoic nature that always looks outward for satisfaction and satisfaction often takes on vengeful and inconsiderate forms. Vicki, “they know not what they do.”

Here is why I say that we try in every way to love such individuals. To be angry, vengeful and unforgiving of those who have lost their way is to put yourself in the same kind of mind-set as they are. In other words, the ego in you is saying “why should ‘I’ be this or that” when they have done “this or that,” which “I,” for whatever reason, believe is wrong. Do you see this? You cannot fight against that which you despise or don’t accept (these are egoic responses) and not have it running wild in your experience. Love is a verb. It is one of the only things that can “actively” alter the egoic nature of the human experience, be it, individually or collectively simply because “love” alters YOU – not them. If you are holding on to your feelings of disapproval, anger and indignation, you are being as “disconnected” from the divine in you as any of those you judge to have hurt you or others. Your path is as “destructive” as theirs; not to say that you harm or hurt others but destructive to your own spiritual well-being. Why would you do that to yourself, Vicki?

In the end, Vicki, you choose (as a human) how you can view this experience. However, in the infinite scheme of things, none of what happens here matters. You will proceed into eternity as the God that you are and you will not judge anything that happened here or anywhere else, because everything to our innately divine nature is wonderful. As gods we don’t “see” with eyes that judge. We only see that everything is “good.” That is the “compassionate” nature the god who dwells within you. Find the divine in you and you will experience this knowing. Question every one of your judgments for they are of the ego. This is how you can tell whether or not you are connected to the divine within you.

Long answer to your question, Vicki. I hope you will contemplate what I have said. As I state on my website, “my purpose is to help get you out of your mind”. When you discover that YOU are not your body, your mind or your ego you will be at the point of discovering “WHO” you really are. It will amaze you how that will change your life. I wish you all the best in your spiritual endeavors.

Blessings,

Carl