That with which we identify is that which divides us. It is easy to say, “We are all one,” but we are separate from everything if we identify with anything. “Who we are” is unimportant; “what we are” doesn’t care. It has no identity. Find the “what” that lies beneath the “you” (identity). That is the place of oneness; it is the ultimate beauty!
YOU the CREATOR- The Unchangeable Change
What we like to call change, for most of us, is really an adding of layers to the onion rather than removing them. We tell ourselves “let me do this, accomplish that or go here instead of where I am, and everything will be better.” It won’t; please get that!
Most of us are full of layers that are little more than avoidance of real-life experiences we find ourselves in. We believe that we can change our circumstances simply by running from them and that, somehow, will unravel us but really it just winds us up even tighter.
What you don’t experience fully becomes the nature of your experience even when you think you have changed. What you don’t take care of now becomes a layer; a full-length overcoat that is heavy and burdensome!
Get good with where you are; be honest with it and never let yourself be fooled into believing you are not its creator. You can run from creation, but you can never run from yourself, e.g., “the Creator.” Live where you are because “where you are” is the only place life exists.
Carl
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
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