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

Resolutions – No time for Masks; The “I’s” Have it!

New Years is a time many of us think of as a “renewal.”   This is a time when we can reassess the year just ending and realign ourselves to greater achievement and stronger commitment.  It is a time where we look to the oncoming year with new hope and newly expressed motivation.  This renewal is often short-lived and yet each year we recommit with new energy and determination.  Rarely do we ponder the reason that our resolutions have any staying power.

Perhaps the thing we all need to consider is that each of us is comprised of many masks all representing different aspects of ourselves that are only present when we need a particular characteristic to carry us through a given situation that a given mask represents.  Most of us wear dozens of masks who represent individual “I’s” that appear and disappear throughout the course of our daily and nightly routines.  We are never without them.  The obvious question, at this point, is what has any of this have to do with the making and breaking of our New Year’s resolutions?

Simply, if we do not have a consortium of “I’s” in alignment with a particular resolution we will be in a constant struggle with those “I’s” who are not on board.  Here’s an example:  One of the most tried and true New Year’s resolutions has something to do with improving health, e.g., lose weight, exercise, etc.  Let’s say that we commit to walk one mile each morning at six in the morning.  The “good health” “I” steps forward and fully commits to this simple but extremely useful resolution and we feel the sense of purpose and confidence that, while requiring some effort, will be an extremely valuable opportunity to improve overall health and fitness.  It’s a go starting January 2nd at 6:00 AM.

At 5:45 AM, January 2nd the alarm goes off just as planned and what happens.  While “good health I” is ready to go, “like’s to sleep, I,” who did not agree to any resolution is not ready to crawl out of bed and go for a walk.  Additionally, “well dressed I” is disgruntled that “I don’t have anything proper to wear on this walk.”  “Know it all I” jumps into the fray, as well, and contests that “I do not know enough about the nuances of walking to feel that it’s completely safe to do” and then of course “work I” comes forward with “we really need to catch up on some work and this time would be better served doing that, just this once, of course.”

All the other “I’s” come forward in these few seconds and the battle to overcome them begins.  Perhaps there is enough intensity from the “good health I” to force the others to go along but the conversation amongst them all is intense even though we may not hear anything.  Sounds corny, I know, but we all have this going on inside us and rarely do we ever consider that what one “I” believes is useful and good is anathema to the others and outside our conscious awareness they will attack any goal, plan or resolution that they have not bought into!

Our intentions need to incorporate the desires of all our “I’s” or at least have a majority if we are going to ever be successful pulling off New Year’s resolutions;  or any resolutions, plans or goals for that matter.  Too often we let a single “I” commit to something only to see it fall unglamorously to the wayside underneath the taunts and jeers of all the other “I’s.  All of us recognize that we have masks but few of us” ever try to have them integrated when we take on new things.  In fact, most of us don’t even consider that the “I’s,” that are our makeup, have any bearing on anything we plan to take on and,  quietly let our well-intentioned resolutions slip into the dark and dingy hall of failures without even considering what happened.

Talk to your “I’s”; all of them.  Even the ones we hate to admit exist like the mean, angry or scared ones.  They will tell you what they need and give insight into how to make things we plan work or at least have a better chance of working.  The only other alternative is to have them take apart everything we desire and bury it long before we were given any chance to succeed.

The best resolution is the one that takes the entire cast of “I’s” into the New Year.

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.

How We Create Our Own Reality?

I was recently asked this question and wanted to share my answer which I believe is relevant to any spiritual search. Let me know what you think.

We do create our own experience. When the newborn child you mentioned enters this Earth existence, it is the result of, or creation by, the spiritual being (I call it god) who will occupy that body and grow with it into whatever. What happens for all newborns is that after the initial excitement of the birth the adults in the new baby’s life begin to reprogram the child into seeing things the way they were taught to see. After about ten to fifteen years of this, the child embarks on a life that confirms and reinforces what they were previously conditioned to see, accept and/or believe.
This is why I say we live in an illusion. It does not start out that way but all the experiences, training, etc. that go into making us who we are as “humans” cancels out what, in fact, we truly are and what we were when we first got here. Newborn babies have no egoic identity whatsoever, and therefore everything in and about life is wondrous and incredible to them.

Mind based thoughts are powerful but spirit based creative powers are much more so. In fact, the suffering of most humans can be tied directly to the struggle between “what” they are (or were when they got here) and what they have been conditioned to be after they arrived. Perhaps one of the best examples of this is that in the United States (true for other western countries as well) over 70% of the working population hate what they do as a career but for most who are unhappy in their career field they were conditioned to go down this path contrary to their nature which craves something else. How sad for us!

You mention the mind being all powerful (rhetorical) but let me be very specific. We are each two individuals. The “mind” created individual and the spiritual being, or what I call god, which dwells within us. Those first few years you mention are so critical in the development of a child’s mind because what we are conditioned to believe initially will mask what we really are for the rest of our lives. Very few will break free of the conditioning they undergo and return back to the “unidentified” being they were when they came here.

Our lives here should not be about finding purpose and meaning but rather about finding who we are. In finding that, and synching the mind to our spiritual nature, life unfolds in a very un-conflicted way. “We”, that is the real “We” we were before we got here, is made manifest and life, our creation, unfolds in a way that reveals that being. There is power in our thoughts but our thoughts, as rational as we like to think they are, are anything but.

From the moment of our birth, we are taught to want and have and possess to the point that when we “get”, we completely identify ourselves to all the things we have gotten. Life becomes, in essence, a continuous pursuit of things the getting of which is what we falsely believe, make us who we are. An example is I can be “me” after I get my college education or when I get this particular job or career or when I get this particular house, etc., etc. We literally identify with “what we are not” and determine that until we get (what we are not) we are not complete. This is craziness.

Until we re-access that divine being that dwells within us we create a reality that is as wild and crazy as the one we live in now.

The beauty of the un-identified newborn baby is that in their creation everything is simply WOW! (Good article on this at: http://cbozeman.wordpress.com/2009/11/22/the-frequency-of-wow/. There are no judgments about anything and the entry into life is incredible in every way. No judgment is the key. With a mind free of judgment or identity everything just simply is. Children “act” without thinking and do so until we, as adults, condition them to judge everything. Life slowly but surely loses its Wow-ness.

Bottom line is that when a newborn comes into this life, its body is occupied with a “god” who has already created the experience of being here for no other reason than just being here. That god is thrilled and everything about the experience is exhilarating until the “human” has been conditioned to judge good and evil and place every life experience from that point on into a good or bad range. Ego identity takes over and from that point life experience becomes confused and challenging. It was never meant to be so.

In a nutshell we create our experience but it is either a mind created experience or a “spiritual being” created experience. Unless the mind experience is in synch with the spiritual experience there will always be conflict. The two typically see things in very different ways and “identify” with reality accordingly. The mind has become powerful but it is not “all powerful”. The mind is finite. The spirit is infinite. We, individually, are the purpose we seek and try to create with the mind. All we have to do is turn off the mind, dis-identify with the things it (the mind) has determined are necessary for its identity and simply enjoy the richness and wonder of this life experience. When we let go of “mind” created identity, the wonder and spectacle of life opens up in a way I cannot possibly explain here. It truly is unexplainable.

The god that you are “created” this experience long before you arrived here on Earth. The mind identity fights against that original purpose. Find the inner self and you will begin to recognize the awesome power of your own creation. Pretty cool!

The Non-Gift of Giving

There is a common misconception about the act of “giving” we all tend to focus on at this time of year; likely because we hear so much about it.  We call it a time of giving and much of the speak is that “when we give we get back.”  Often we are told that our giving returns to us more than what we give. It is almost as if the idea of “getting back” is the purpose of such giving. Nothing could be further from the truth!

The human mind is always, always about finding reason for doing anything, giving, included.  It is the mind’s nature and the birth of ego is born in this idea that reasons must find their way into our existence and upon finding such we are born into an identity that supports the conceptual ideas we form our identity around.  Sometimes the idea that our “getting,” in return for our giving, is used as motivation to spur us to the action of giving. “Look beyond your means for now and you will receive as much or even more than you sacrificed in the “giving.”

In truth, like happiness, giving is our essence.  Remember that WE are Gods. Individually and uniquely, Gods.  It is our very nature at the level of the divine to give.  The Human in us says, “let there be light, so I may see” while the God that we are says, “let there be light so all may see.”  Giving is our inherent nature as the divine beings that we are and the idea that ego can out do that nature by promising to give back what is given is most absurd.  The idea that you must have returned to you what you gave is not giving; it is taking.  Think about it!

If we comprehend that our nature at the very core of our existence is “the giver” then no part of our existence looks for reasons why there must be a “payback” for our giving.  Remember the new Testament story of the old woman who gave her last penny to charity?  Jesus pointed to her and told those who had given of their abundance that she alone had given the most.  Why would He make such a statement?

We don’t know much about the old woman and her circumstances but we can assume that her ego was screaming at her to keep the penny as she herself was in as great a need for assistance as those she chose to give to.  What kept her from holding on to her last penny and giving all that she had?  She had found and accepted her true nature.  She gave without expectation because the “giver” was unmasked and could not be hidden by the “show” of giving only in quantity.  Those who gave more in quantity, still masked in an identity of receiving for their gifts, gave nothing of their true nature.  Theirs was only a gift; with the expected return.  Hers was a blessing; an act of godliness that reflected her connection to the divine within.  Hers was an act of power!

The act of giving is never about getting something in return.  All that we are, at our core essence, is never wanting or expecting anything in return.  The act of truly giving is a natural act.  It is an act of God and you are God!  Giving resonates in all of us because we have this essence already. Most of us have been taught to give of our abundance but this kind of giving only mitigates the egoic awareness that something else (inside) is the giver of all.

Do you want to know what you “get” when you give?  You get to be who you are.  In other words, you get to stop thinking about acts of giving and just “be” the giver that you inherently are. You get to shed egoic ideas of “who am I” and simply be “who you are” without any conversation at all telling you otherwise.  When we give we engage our inherent nature and that frees us from the egoic nature that is heavy and burdened.

What we feel when we are in service to others is the lightness that comes from being “who, or what we really are.”  The weight of mind created identity leaves for a short time and we feel this lightness and it feels so good we talk about it in egoic terms without really understanding what has happened.  We should all ask what is it about these acts of giving and service that makes us feel so light and happy?  The answer will almost always come back to something like, I got to shed “my stuff” and just be in this wonderfully natural state that was surprisingly without any thought.

If we must have a reason to give then let the reason be because it frees us from our “stuff” and lets us be, if only for a short space of time, the divine giver that we already are. Don’t attach reasons to the giving. Just give and the giving will engage an inherent nature that already is YOU.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!!

Carl

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.

Breaking Down the Barriers to Spirit – A Way to Live for 2012

Instead of asking you to reflect on the year just ended and create resolutions for the new year just beginning I would like to share a pattern for life that will put you on a path of breaking down the barriers we all have when trying to access our spiritual natures. These are not resolutions rather they are a guide for living everyday, regardless of year, that never requires renewal or reflection. They are a guide for living in such a way that we are always open to our own divinity.

Accessing our spiritual or divine nature is difficult in light of the control ego has on us. Ego is opposed to anything beneficial to others and to ourselves. A Course in Miracles says, “The ego wishes no one well. Yet, its survival depends on your belief that you are exempt from its evil intentions.” 

How do we penetrate egoic devices that keep us from accessing the good within? Here is a list of characteristics that will not only penetrate our ego natures but help form a barrier that will prevent ego from having any influence in our lives, whatsoever.

  1. Never point the finger; never and at no one: Pointing the finger steers us outward away from who we are. It is an easy thing to do to look away from ourselves while focusing on others. In fact, all of us need to always be singularly focused on our inner selves, where no inclination, whatsoever, exists to point away toward someone or something else. Pointing in any direction, even towards ourselves, is a good way to distance ourselves from that being who dwells within.
  2. Ceasing to judge anything: Our judgment blinds us to reality. It skews our perceptions to finite criteria which limits infinite possibility. Gods have no limitations of any kind. They are bound to nothing, even so called physical laws. Judgment is the glue that holds us to the idea of impossibility. We like saying “nothing is impossible”, but our judgments convince us otherwise. When we cease to judge anything, the doorway to everything opens up to us.
  3. Give up holding onto the past: Our history is the “school” of our judgments. We learn well our definitions of life in the school of past experience. Those definitions not only become the criteria for judging others, but also for judging ourselves. Judgments are confining to our senses and to our essence as gods. When we give up holding onto the past, newness and freshness strikes us in ways we cannot imagine.
  4. Speaking kindly: Humans are said to be hardwired for communication. The ego, which is uniquely human, is programmed to defend itself. No ego ever wants to be perceived as “less than” its preconditioned criteria. While other egos may not reciprocate, always speak kindly of others. We can never know where anyone is coming from. No one knows your history nor do you know theirs. Speaking kindly allows everyone some ease and safety. It is an opening of your heart and theirs.
  5. Expressions of love soften the ego, speak them often: The only thing “hard” about humans is the ego. It is the shell we all have that supposedly protects us from the onslaught of other egos crucial judgments. Ego is a defensive mechanism built up over time. It is the past brought forward into the present. It is the preparer of future defensive engagements. It is strong against the devices of other egos. It is defenseless against love and kindness. Speaking kindly and expressions of love break down egoic defenses and opens the door to the soul where our defensive walls give way to our divine nature. Expressions of love are gods speaking to others and to us. Nothing can stand against such expressions, especially our own egos.
  6. Love everything: This is difficult because we are never programmed to do so. We are programmed to judge and place our affections on those things we have been taught to see as good. Finding a way to see beauty in everything is a way to open our minds to what our hearts already know. There is beauty and wonder in everything. It is all worthy of our love. Everyone, everything!

Practice these things everyday if you can. You will feel your heart soften toward everything going on in your experience. You will also notice doors opening to you that were once closed and you will be filled more and more with the wide-eyed wonder you had as a child. Each day, less and less will escape your view.

Enjoy your new awareness, enjoy the new year but most of all enjoy yourself right now this very moment.  You are god. All my best,

Carl.

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

Honesty – Do You Tell the Truth or Does the Truth Tell You?

From the moment of our birth onward over the span of our human sojourn, we are conditioned to be other than what we truly are. Nowhere is this more prevalent than in our general understanding and subsequent expression of honesty.

We are all liars. In fact, we are so good at lying, many of us will take offense at such an accusation, but perhaps more importantly, we have become so good at it we don’t even know it. Our conditioned nature has us convinced that our little withholdings and untruths are necessary to negotiate the collective human condition. We even come up with metaphors to express this conditioning even though we will not acknowledge the pervasive nature of our lies. We say things like half truths or little white lies to soften the blow, so to speak, so that our fragile egos do not have to face the fact that we are indeed liars. Collectively, we have come up with terms such as spin and techniques have been developed to divert the collective attention away from the truth.

We even accept that certain groups such as lawyers or politicians are dishonest and that is just the way it is. We will support individuals representing a political view, but overlook that they fall into a faction we know (and accept) as dishonest. We will even defend them to the point of anger or rage if they are attacked by another individual who is supported by a faction representing an opposing political view. Individually and collectively we have become defenders of our dishonesty.

Egoically, we have even gone so far as to determine that no individual ego, whether child or adult, should ever be told where they have missed the mark or fallen away from a particular guideline, without following up with where they have done well. Well, we don’t want to hurt any feelings now, do we? We are so concerned about preservation of feelings (ego), that we cannot speak the truth, or as we might say, the whole truth. It is interesting that we have books titled Radical Honesty, proposing that what was once simple honesty has become so elusive that telling any truth has now become radical. In other words, we have conditioned ourselves into the proverbial corner, that honesty is no longer the best policy, rather it has become the exception to the rule, both individually and collectively.

 Perhaps in no other aspect of the human experience will it be more apparent how difficult it will be to alter this current conditioning. We have completely given way to the idea that feelings should not be hurt. We must conduct our lives in such a way that only the softest of blows are ever exacted against our own and other egos. The loss or damage of self-esteem is untenable in any circumstance. In other words, tell the truth if you can, lie if you must, but always spare the ego – always!

Gateway to Inner Knowing

If we can learn to listen to our inner talk, we can begin to notice the deceptions playing out in our minds. If we listen carefully, we can catch ourselves every time we tell a lie and hopefully, in time, catch it before we express it outwardly. In so doing, our dishonesty can become a window into the nature of our conditioning. It can become the way back to a life of integrity and truth. It is through that same window that we can begin to see once again our divine self. The who of our existence rather than the what the ego creates. Once found, we see life as it was before our conditioning took over our awareness.

Who you are always comprehends honestly. Finding who you are is the way out of the darkness of a life that is cloaked in a false illusion and untruth. In fact, it is the only way to have a life that is fully aware of something beyond our limited and egoic view of it.

It is seeing without eyes, hearing without ears. It is a life only a god could know.