illusion Archives – Page 18 of 19

March 14, 2016

Cosmic Train

This is the first chapter from my book “On Human Being – Loving and Living Without Purpose.” I apologize for it’s length but hope you enjoy it in any case.

Earth life is a vacation from the cosmic train we all ride on through our infinite existence. It is a unique experience all of us who choose to visit get to enjoy, if we accept that the only reason we are here is to enjoy. It may seem erroneous to consider that we are here to experience three dimensional reality as a vacation or as something we should enjoy when we see so much pain, suffering and sorrow in the world. The reality of existence here on earth is that it is nothing in comparison to our existence in eternity. We are no less infinite on earth than we are in eternity.

While aboard the cosmic train, a few of us have gotten off here at earth and as we pass through the gates of birth, we enter a new kind of awareness that overwhelms everything else we once knew. The old awareness gets tucked away but is always there. We sense that there is more to us, but in the new earthly awareness, it is difficult to hold onto and pull it into this reality. Some do and we see them as mysterious and unique, but never allow that, we too, are just as they are. Earthly awareness is so tactile and sensory. The stimuli we take in through our earthly senses overwhelms us in a sea of experience and richness that is difficult to separate from the reality of who we truly are. So we are driven to find answers in this reality to that mysterious knowing we have about ourselves that is bigger than our means of communication can express. We look for meaning and purpose in terms of what we see and in the expressions we communicate, but even with all of that, we are sometimes left empty. The search continues. The purposes of life are explored and examined but the answers we seek lay hidden.

There really is no purpose in this life other than to experience reality as only humans can. Every aspect of life should be embraced and we should revel in every minute of it regardless of whether we judge the experience good or bad. Our purpose, if there is any purpose, is to live and live abundantly in the richness of sensory experiences our human existence allows. Our existence “is” the meaning of life! Living “it” is its only purpose. However, it is ours to choose how we let the sensory awareness of this life be measured. We can choose to embrace it and enjoy all its ups and downs, or we can be miserable as we slog our way through it to our death, or the entrance back on the cosmic train we disembarked from. We make it what it is and we can blame no one for our experience. Sure, our innate nature has been masked, but it is not unknowable. We live according to our awareness and that is as it should be. That is what we came here for; therefore, every minute of earthly awareness should be basked in for its wonderful and delicious sensory experience.

The search for a greater meaning or purpose to life is in some ways its own problem. It suggests that we cannot be here for any other reason than to embrace and enjoy everything about life. It leads us to question our lives and the experience we have as meaningful in ways that they are not meant to be. It adds seriousness to our existence that drives us to meanings that can only make sense in this reality but do not begin to address our own innate knowing that we are so much more than what we sense in this existence, or than what language will allow us to describe. That is a lot about what this existence is about – coming to grips with the limitations of awareness and communication we otherwise have as gods. There is no way we can describe our divine nature in the languages of humans, but we are not supposed to. Remember we are on vacation and compared to our divine nature, the pace here on earth is slowed down considerably. Our infinite state is a quickened state in which our awareness is of things incomprehensible in this life… earth life is seriously slowed down. In fact, our own human-ness slows us down even more.

For instance, it has been proven scientifically that our bodies, including what we call our physical senses, take in sensory input, several billion bits of information every second, and yet what we are capable of being conscious of is in the range of twenty to thirty bits per second. Something about this experience as humans filters out so much of what goes on that what we are conscious of is infinitesimal to what is really happening. When we consider our divine or spiritual natures, the information we receive is even greater than what we experience on the human level. In fact, our spiritual sensitivity is so finely tuned it is barely detectable and in most scientific circles, it is nonexistent simply because we do not have the three dimensional means to detect it. What is not detectable in this reality is usually left to speculation, theory or is just relegated as non-existent. Even though most of us at one time or another have felt something in ourselves that is more far-reaching than we can articulate, if we cannot define it, or measure it, it cannot be, or so says our science.

Human consciousness or sub consciousness is not the extent of our experience. We have built in conditions and filters that sift through the enormous amount of information, bombarding us every second, which screen out the majority of our experience. This is what I mean when I refer to life as an illusion in my book On Being God. What makes it into our conscious awareness is what we have been conditioned or programmed to know and accept. Most of us have heard that when the Spanish ships appeared on the horizon upon discovering the “New World”, the inhabitants could not see them. There was nothing in their conditioning that could explain what they saw and yet intuitively they saw something. Their programming simply could not identify it and nothing in their experience, other than clouds, could the ships on the horizon be compared to.

We know it took the shamans of those native people several days to come up with a description they could then convey to the rest of the people. Only then could they identify this new phenomenon and only then could they put this new description into their own language and make it part of their experience. Consider how much is going by us if in every second of life, billions and billions of images, sounds, smells, tastes, touches and any number of sensory inputs we can’t possibly remember get discarded by processes we barely understand. Life goes on around us at light speed but we only sense it at a snail’s pace. And the civilizing of ourselves, as we refer to it, is only slowing it down even more. Think about what is passing us by.

In the early 1990’s, I worked for a telecommunications company whose products helped optimize the available bandwidth of copper phone lines around the world. Cellular technology was in its infancy as was fiber optics, so maximizing the available telephone bandwidth was of major importance because there were only so many copper lines available to an ever increasing population of telephone users. The product we developed was a device that would convert an analog voice signal to a digital signal, remove any extraneous noise such as the static or ambient noise one often heard on a telephone land line, and then packetize the cleaned up digital signal into small packets that would be sent across the line to another device that would assemble the packets, convert the digital signal to an analog signal and, wonder of wonder, a voice was heard speaking just as on any phone call.

What was so unique about this product, for the time, was that in processing calls in such a way and by eliminating all the extraneous noise, we could put sixteen voice conversations across a telephone line that up to that time could only carry one, representing a huge savings to businesses who were paying for multiple lines at great cost as well as a serious improvement to the usage of the available bandwidth. One of the interesting facets of developing this technology was the idea that the extraneous noise in normal telephone conversations carried no useful information and could be removed without any affect to those speaking and those listening. Little did our developers know that the noise did provide one very important piece of information.

All of us who have used the old land line telephones always had a sense that our call was viable because we could hear the noise of the connection during breaks in the conversation. The information carried by the noise was that the call was still connected. Even though the noise adds nothing to the words spoken or heard, it did add to the assurance that in between words spoken and words heard the line was still connected. When we removed that assurance, sure enough, people who used the new technology complained that during the breaks in a conversation, the line went so silent they couldn’t tell if the connection was still intact. The familiar noise of land line conversations was a carrier of information that, like so much in our reality, is taken for granted but missed if it is gone.

We are missing more and more in our reality due to the stripping away of the noise of life that civilization, culture, and upbringing filters out, and the absence of it is causing us to be aware of less but to seek more. In other words, we are starving ourselves of the richness of life in all its forms and replacing it with the illusions of culture and civilization that have been drained of nutrients necessary to the soul. Our aloneness in the world stems not from the isolation we feel from our brothers and sisters. It stems from the filtering of life that has isolated us from our own god-ness and that of everyone else. That is what we seek in life – not human connection, but divine connection. Individually and societally, we are crying out more and more for something to fill our satiated souls, and more and more civilization devises empty stimulation to keep us in control – in check from venturing away from the illusion we know.

The illusion we live, like the processed foods we eat, have been stripped of those things that would enrich and nourish us and replaced with fillers and synthetic nutrients that satisfy temporarily but do not fill us. Our connections to nature have been replaced with television, radio, internet and other civilized forms of media that have been carefully engineered to play to an illusory beat we have all been taken in by. Like the packetizing of small pieces of digitized voice from a telephone call, information is carefully fed to us at a rate not to exceed our ability to pay attention. So much of the information is stripped away that we only get teased with what is really happening and before we have a chance to try to figure out what information has been stripped away, we are hit with another perfectly timed, perfectly sized packet of seriously reduced information.

The illusion is so complete that we, as participators in it, have accepted slogans such as “give them what they want” believing that what we want is what we are being given. Meanwhile, for those who search for greater awareness, getting outside of the illusion is extremely difficult and so they search in vain among the institutions of civilization for the soul nourishment they crave.

What was intended to be a stopping off point, a vacation from other awareness has now become a desperate struggle to somehow survive natural forces that, while once were so much a part of us, have now become the enemy. Our illusion of what this reality is has become so synthesized that we have replaced what was always intended – enjoyment, enrichment, tranquility and nourishment – with a struggle fraught with peril, tragedy and synthetic stimulation. Our cosmic vacation has become so empty, so stressful that we now look for ways to vacation from the vacation! And where do we go? To those places with as little civilization as possible. We go to those places where we can rest, soak up the sun, or be inspired by the beauty of a natural wonder such as a mountain, a river, the ocean or a canyon. We sometimes go to the civilized, manmade attractions but, while fun and stimulating; they often leave us empty and un-refreshed.

The oldest among us recall fondly the quieter and less hectic times they grew up in and the freedoms they enjoyed then that are so distant now. The youngest of us cannot even conceive of these things they describe. The sterilizing manner of civilization removes the adventure and connectedness to the world whose intention it was all along to enrich us and enliven us from an infinite “other world” reality. Our souls came here for enrichment, not our bodies, and yet it is our bodies that our civilized world caters to. The experience of life has become a race, a competition to find purpose and meaning by indulging the senses in every possible way, such that the soul is lost completely to the gratification of the physical or three dimensional aspect of our lives. We hear the statement that “we are spiritual beings having a physical experience”. Yes, we are having a physical experience, but not to the extent that we completely overshadow our spiritual nature.

In the Old Testament, there is a story of the man Job whom most have heard of in some form or another. The story of Job is the story of a man who has everything this life can offer. He is a man of great wealth, influence and notable character. He is God-fearing and righteous and is blessed with a large family, creature comforts, as we call them and the respect of everyone in his country. Job’s story takes a bizarre twist as Satan convinces God to let him break Job and show God that if he were to lose all the things in life he possesses, that Job would lose his faith and curse God. God allows Satan to literally take everything from Job including his family, wealth, and good fortune. Satan is even allowed to cause great scourges and illness to come upon Job, but Job, while physically broken in every way, never forsakes his faith, nor does he turn against God. Job does, however, question why one as righteous as he, is treated so poorly by the God he worships. He even asks God to take his life and end his misery. Job suffers all that is thrown at him, but never accepts that he is evil or that God is punishing him for some act he has committed. Job does seek for answers to his suffering and requests to speak to God face to face. God grants Job’s request and appears to him as a whirlwind.

It is extremely interesting God’s response to Job and very relevant to our experience here in this life. Instead of speaking in any way to Job about his suffering, God directs Job to look all around and take in all the beauty and wonder he is surrounded by. God covers every aspect of creation and life on this earth and not once addresses Job as a sinful man or in a way Job desires. All manner of creatures are mentioned as well as the wind, rain, water, snow, hail and frost. It can be taken that God rules over everything and is greater than all things but it is as if God is trying to show Job that the things that are naturally here on earth are what is important in life. All of it is here for the good of our souls and yet our so called civilizing or taming of nature is not unlike that of Job questioning God why he is made to suffer.

How is it that we can suppose that the egoic cravings of humans can nourish our starving souls when any of it has no comparison, whatsoever, to the beauty, majesty and abundance of this earth? The treasures of life are not found in the creations of man. They are found in the raw creative beauty of which we are all a part. When we see that eagle soar high above and we gasp for breath as we watch, “we” are every bit as breath-taking and none of it is because we have created our cities, monuments, and wonders. It is because our souls, like the eagles, soar above everything we believe important and look down on something so vast and wonderful. Nothing in our creative imagining comes close to its splendor.

We are the recipients of this splendor. No act or outcome in this life will change the nature of our soul in the eternities. Nothing we do here matters, so all that we need do here is embrace everything that goes on, every experience, every accomplishment, and every aspect of the life we live should be embraced in every possible way as another part of our vacation. None of us should ever feel we are victims of circumstance when we step back on to that cosmic train. We should be refreshed, invigorated, uplifted and alive from a richness of experience we may never know again, and while in infinite terms the experience is a blip on the cosmic screen, every part of this experience should leave us absolutely vibrating. What a gift it is to be here and to experience the incredible highs and lows of humankind. We should relish every moment of it.

Too many can’t wait, like Job of old, to get out of life and back on board the train. Life has not been the pleasure trip it was meant to be, but that is only because in the egoic life we live and try to fit into, we lose sight of why we are here. As God spoke to Job and asked him to identify one thing in his experience that remotely compared to the splendor of this planet and everything on it, Job shrank before Him and could not. The reason is that there is no manmade thing that compares to anything on earth and in infinite terms, nothing on earth including earth itself compares to our lives in eternity.

In the last chapter of Job, the epitaph, Job is restored to his health, position, and stature that he knew before Satan physically broke him. In fact, it was greater than before. The story of Job is a metaphor for us here on earth living life that regardless of our circumstances or how we view our life experience, in the end we are restored to our unique and divine situation. If we learn to see this life, our experience, as God instructed Job to view it, nothing else matters. Nothing we do or accomplish in this life will ever surpass just being a part of life here on earth in whatever form it takes. The cosmic train leaves no one behind regardless of how the earth experience went for them. Like Job, we are all restored back to that infinite reality we all exist in. We won’t be looking back as in infinity, all things blend together into one big whole, and it is wondrous. All of it is wondrous!

Life and living are the only reason we are here and all of it is to be enjoyed, but only as you choose. We cannot fail at life! There really are no illusions, only the ones we choose to accept as our condition. We can change everything in our experience here in this life and we should because we get back onboard the cosmic train all too soon.

March 3, 2016

Stream of Life

This is the last chapter in my book: “On Human Being – Loving & Living without Purpose.”

Follow a stream from its highest point, whether it is a spring releasing water from an unknown source or from the snows of winter melting and giving their life giving waters to everything below. As the stream finds its way down from its heights, it passes by or over many obstacles along its way, but it always seems to find a way. Its course often seems impossible, but as it runs into obstacles, it finds the path of least resistance which sometimes means going around obstacles or perhaps it waits patiently to fill a certain low spot that will allow its waters to eventually flow over its would-be obstruction. As we follow the stream, it will sometimes rush in great torrents down steep hillsides or spill over high cliffs into pristine pools below. Sometimes it will meander through large open meadows where beautiful alpine flowers bloom and fill the landscape with color, fragrance and brilliance. Perhaps the stream splits off and fills the meadow with small tributaries that merge back together.

The sounds of the stream also tell us something about its travels in that it will gurgle as it meanders through unobstructed fields and meadows, but it rushes and roars as it surges over cliffs, down steep canyons filled with large boulders and other obstructions. As we continue our journey following the waters, we might see another stream joining ours, increasing its size and power. Still, the waters push forward, twisting and turning as needed to work its way around the landscape as effortlessly as possible. In fact, as we observe this stream, it never occurs to us that the waters are fighting their way downward. It all seems so effortless and easy. Even in those places where the river has cut its way through rocks and cliffs that, when looking at, simply does not look possible.

The stream weaves its way through a tapestry of life introducing us to all manner of trees, shrubs, plant life, and animal and insect life of all kinds. Some of the places the stream takes us are shaded from the sunlight and are cool and dark, even forbidding, while other places are sunlit and brilliant and the shadows cast on the moving water make it look different, even mesmerizing. There are places on its journey where it shoots through cracks in the rock and we see rainbows cast so close, we can touch them or we feel the cool mist on our faces. Everything about this journey is peaceful and calm and the constant rushing of the river soothes us and at times we may even find ourselves talking to the waters as if they could hear. They can! Never do we sense, as we journey alongside the stream, that it struggles to get where it is going. It moves effortlessly, inexorably passing by all the wonders of its long journey to get to its destination which, by the way, does not exist. As it passes by life, it gives life by giving of itself so that all is refreshed, nourished and uplifted. It is a relaxed life that looks for peace wherever it goes, and it goes where it goes simply because that is where it goes. We may find evidence along the way when it changed course or with the help of natural forces it moves out of one bed and into another. Still, it matters not. The stream is not choosing a path to follow. It is simply flowing and as it flows, the path opens up, and with each new opening, new adventure, new beauty and wonder lies before it and it brushes up against all of it, content to take it all in and give back what it can in the form of life giving water. Onward, ever onward, it moves through hills and valleys, forest and fields. Taking in but giving back.

The stream gives life, but is given to life as life is given to it. Its course is never straight nor is it narrow or wide. We cannot map its exact course because a map of the stream’s journey could never account for every detail the stream encounters on its way down the mountain. The stream does not choose this way or that. It simply flows where the grade of the mountain (life) takes it and it embraces and gives back to everything it encounters on its way. Every aspect of the journey is just that – part of the journey. There is no purpose other than to serve as that part of the journey. That incredible moment is as the water passes by all that matters and all is uplifted and better for the experience. No great crossroads or turning points in this encounter or that one. Just life giving of itself for all to marvel at and enjoy. The stream moves on, as do we.

There are no perfect geometric patterns in life as we all would like to believe there is, or as our math and science teachers say. The straight path does not exist except in our imagined lives. There is no straight way to any purpose we consider to be our very own. Life is a stream! We are taught from a very early age that the shortest distance between two points is a straight line, but no part of our life on earth is a straight line. In life, the shortest distance between two points is the one that took you from point A to point B regardless of what distance you traveled or the time it took. Ego looks at life in a finite way, and in so doing, it must find order and structure that was never intended to be there. Our true life is an infinite experience and every twist and turn, the ebbs and flows, as we call them, are never consistent with what our egos expect. This is the cause of suffering in individuals as well as in society. Ego constructs a true and ordered life and even uses sacred writings and ancient wisdom to reason with us that if we follow the prescribed path it reasons is the correct one, life will work out and flow effortlessly to the end.

Those who rigidly follow their ego’s prescribed course often find themselves in turmoil and needless suffering because they followed the rules and they didn’t get where they were supposed to. Life is full of Monday morning quarterbacks looking back at what went wrong with their plan or what they could have done differently to achieve the pre-planned outcome. We see this second guessing, questioning in every aspect of our lives including religion, academics, and occupations. We might hear someone exclaim, “I followed God’s laws as I have been taught them”, or “I worked hard and did everything I was supposed to, but why was I not protected or spared an outcome I was sure could not happen if I obeyed all the rules.” Unlike the natural flow of the stream which always finds its way, many will push against the natural course of life. They will push against it and question their misfortune. You can almost see them standing in the stream facing upward with clenched fist defying the direction of flow as if challenging it to reverse its direction and go where they command it. All it does, however, is move forward, following its natural course, either moving around you as you fight against it, or sweeping you up in its current. Life does not care about the choices we make. Life, like the river, flows on, embracing everything in its path, and giving back every step of the way. If we could see our lives as a river or stream and simply flow with it, our journey would be so much more pleasant and our expectations would not get mixed up or confused with the twists and turns in life we could not see coming.

The grand part of life we can all enjoy is the pure experience of it. A river has no purpose other than to flow where it will, and it is the same for us. Life flows on whether we resist it or not. Why not enjoy it? Human ego is so busy finding or giving meaning to the process of life and finding justification and cause for everything that happens that we miss much of its inherent beauty. We pass by the works of man or nature and never see them because our focus is on understanding life rather than living it. In trying to understand it or analyze it, we miss it or it passes us by. Every bend in the stream, every change in direction is an opportunity to experience life in a new and incredible way, and particularly from our own unique perspective. Maybe we won’t experience things as others might, but what we do experience is uniquely ours and the only enrichment we need take from any experience is our own to appreciate and fully embrace. “What happens; happens.” Not because we have control over life by the choices we make, but because there are no wrong choices, which is the same as saying there are no choices at all. If we participate in life without the mental anguish of deciding the better of all our various choices then anything we do, any path we follow will be good and right and un-judge-worthy. This type of participation in life removes the resistance we feel as well.

I used to tell my daughter, who would work so hard to get cast in school plays, or achieve academic success only to be disappointed over and over, that life was not fair. I would tell her that she would encounter situations throughout her life that would prove that life was unfair and that she would be mistreated along the way, even though she worked harder and harder to achieve her objectives. How naïve I was and, unfortunately, the message I imparted to her was completely wrong. Not only is life fair, but it is completely honest. Life is truth therefore it cannot be dishonest. The only dishonesty in life is our own dishonesty which culminates deep within the egoic structures of the mind. Our egoic identity is the only thing on this planet that resists the natural flow of life, to the point that what we have come to believe about ourselves and what we are is the only dishonest thing in life. Ego-constructed reality and reality are diametrically opposed to each other and we get caught up in the game of life that convinces us that life is hard and not always just or fair. Ego is always swimming against the current of life, trying to offer another kind of reasoning for the ebb and flow that doesn’t always seem so pleasant. Life is always honest and it always finds the way to bear that out. How hard we sometimes struggle to keep what we know about ourselves from ever seeing the light of day, and so we bring dishonesty to the light of life. Our lies, our dishonesty dims the light of life, and compounds our struggle against the stream that, if we would only let go of everything we hold so tightly to, would all drift out of sight and our lives would freely and effortlessly blend together with the flow of life never to be consumed in worry, doubt or the endless game of making ourselves “other” than ourselves.

Nothing in our three dimensional awareness can account for what is really happening and therein lies the greatest lie we tell ourselves. The more precise and defined we become, the less aware we are; and the more we convince ourselves that we are precise and defined, the more of our true selves we trample under foot, and the greater our lie becomes. The lack of awareness culminates in the denial of the stream of life we all follow. It is to convince ourselves that we can make the stream of life straight and exact according to geometric rules that only hold in a manmade reality. We convince ourselves that within the sterile structure of manmade forms is the answer to who we are if we but push science to find the one simple equation that defines everything we will ever need to know. Only the ego could have created such a lie. Only ego could convince us that straight lines can be found in nature and that a formula can be derived that will be able to predict everything we can expect for the future and give an explanation for everything that has happened in the past. Conscious awareness is a very limited awareness because of its ability to dump so much information so quickly we cannot even sense that it is happening.

As we meander or tumble through life, we tend to miss the incredible sights along the way as they are happening, but we know they were there because we think back upon them. Sometimes we look forward to the horizon out yonder and think that when we get there, things will be so much better, or all our questions will be answered. We easily look forward and backward because those are the places we can most freely and successfully lie about. In the conversation we have with ourselves, we can reminisce how much better things were “back then” or how much better they will be in some future “when”. Now, the present moment we exist in right now, is an honest moment that is pure and untainted by any thought for yesterday or tomorrow until our egoic reaction to it poisons it with untruth. Facing the present is our most daunting challenge because of its purity. In our un-pure state, we have difficulty facing the purity of present reality because being present forces us to look at ourselves without the ideological masks that we have created to shield us from the glare of present reality. Being present strips us clean of all the false definition we use to demonstrate ourselves to the world. It is a scary place for the ego. In fact, it is a place the ego cannot exist in because ego is anything but honest. Ego needs identity. That is why it always reminds us and everyone else of its past accomplishments or projected future achievements. These are its cover; a safe haven from something that cannot be explained in its terms, its language.

The stream of life is infinite. The egoic life is finite. The two cannot co-exist. They cancel each other out. Either we are in the flow and completely truthful or we are in illusion and living a lie. The stream of life is enjoined with the world and nothing is missed along the way. The largest of egos and the highest degrees of knowledge and education cannot describe what the stream knows. Its world is the whole world and it is one with it. It knows the terrain, the hills, valley and rocks along the way and is never fooled by images condensed and printed on a map that the ego provides. It feels everything and reaches out to everything, as it gives to life, its “own” life. Consciousness cuts away so much of life while ego tries so hard to convince us that what we are conscious of is the real nuts and bolts of life. It works hard to convince us that its view of the world “is” the world. Its view is always looking backward or forward, but never does it acknowledge the present with its billions and billions of pieces of information discernible right now to a quiet non-egoic soul.

We are in the stream of life whether the egoic self believes it or not, and the stream always moves ahead, even if we fight against the current. Our experience is an unfolding. The more we flow with life, the more a part of us life becomes. Every aspect of the terrain we pass through is our guide, our map and our journey becomes an infinite stream of intuition and awareness that consciousness no longer blots out. Our intuition and our wonderful bodies are sensory instruments available to all of us to navigate and enjoy our life experience here on planet earth. We step off the cosmic train for a short time and we can enjoy the experience or fight against it. We choose. The ego created world is calculated and sterile and does everything it can to reduce the stimulation we all are equipped to comprehend. Granted, the comprehension is not in the language of ego, which has also been stripped away of the greater part of knowing. Our intuitive abilities need to be at the forefront of our awareness, not in the background as they often are. Tune them in and turn on the truth of real life. Real existence! Destiny is unknown, therefore, non-existent.

The possibilities available to us along our journey through life are endless. Ego wants to see and plan for the end. It seeks a goal, an end that, when reached, is somehow a utopic conclusion to a well-planned life strategy. I was speaking with a friend one evening who was looking for a catalyst of perhaps thought or an individual such as Buddha or Jesus, who by their words and deeds could change the hearts and minds of people to live in peace. He shared his thoughts about how the so-called age of enlightenment some 500 years earlier, which was ushered in by such great minds as Newton, Descartes, Pascal and others, had failed to provide the predicted “know how” to change a dark world into an enlightened one. The age of enlightenment was supposed to find “mind made” solutions to all the ills of human existence, including war, poverty, education, government, and every other aspect of life. My friend recognized the failure of the intellectual mind or so-called “enlightened mind” to accomplish anything other than to increase suffering and the carnage of war on a greater, more massive scale. While he lamented this failure of enlightened minds to solve complex world issues, he asked me, “If the age of enlightenment is not the answer, what is the catalyst, event or individual that brings about changes the enlightenment sought but could not produce?”

My answer was not what he wanted to hear. I told him that to look, in any way, to an outward cause, to an individual, or event would never bring about the changes in human existence he sought. The only change or catalyst he could ever affect was his own. I told him that we, as humans, are all a part of the stream of life, but that we each are our own stream as well. Individually, we affect the larger stream, but with human reasoning, we will likely never see it. When we become our own catalyst, our change, we become the larger stream and it becomes us and our outlook on the conditions of the world we wish were different becomes part of a compassionate whole. When such a change takes place in us individually, everything else changes as well. My friend listened thoughtfully, but was unable to see it. His mind was convinced that something big and extraordinary was needed to alter things in the world as we know it. My response to him was that an individual transformation to higher awareness is big and extraordinary, but he would not accept that as an answer. “There must be something,” he mused. I could not help him.

The majority of us look for the same thing. We look to our gods, our leaders, our parents, someone, anyone or anything that will reverse the way things are in a massive and dramatic way. We are conditioned to be this way. Heaven forbid we allow ourselves control of our own lives. That is how it was in the so-called enlightenment, when highly sophisticated and educated men determined that they could figure out anything intellectually. It continues to be a myth in the present day, yet the stream flows onward, ever onward and as long as we look for the utopic conclusion, the life strategy or catalyst that changes in a massive way those things we have determined must change we swim against the current of life. Life is, at that point, a struggle and we will never win against it. Despite our struggle and good intentions, we will be washed away in the inexorable flow of life that always moves forward.

Everyone is eventually swept away in the current of life. Some hang on until the very end while others stop resisting and glimpse the beauty and splendor that is always there if we simply let ourselves get caught up in the flow. The stream of life simply is! So too is life. Life is about being in the flow, not having or fighting for or against it. Regardless of the things we determine to be important, or the causes we choose, we struggle against or go with the stream of life but it always flows onward to an infinite destination we will never know. But we need not know because such knowing will not add one thing to the incredible beauty, abundance and wonder of our existence. We need only breathe life as it breathes us and go where it takes us. There is no end in infinity! The stream of life is eternal life; so are you!

November 2, 2014

Saviorism – Who saves you…and from what??

One of our greatest faith base deceptions and one that we all buy into in some form as humans is the mythology that something or someone is going to save us from whatever form of adversity we may face in our current experience. Throughout the ages humans have sought for outside sources to rescue us, or at least, to make fair what seems to be unfair in our existence. Judgment day and Karma are forms of this “making fair” scenario and most of our common mythological stories are that they may save us from forces we believe are rooted in the idea of saviorism. This idea rings in every aspect of our existence including our governments, local and national leaders, religious leaders, corporate leaders, etc.

No greater deception exists in human experience then the idea that we can and will be saved by some benevolent force that possesses power greater than our own. In fact, in our government and religious institutions we willingly hand over our own power to individuals who are unable to control anything and in so doing squander our own innate ability to express our own individuality. Did you get that? We give our own power away – literally!

Regardless of our own individual politics, all government is seen as bad or good from the collective standpoint. Some faction sees the current leaders as their saviors while another faction sees it as doom and the cause of social problems whatever they may be. Both claim their own political saviorism as the way out of whatever dilemma they choose to embrace and blame the other as the cause for their existing problems. It is a vicious cycle which we, collectively, will never get out of because regardless of your political view no one can save us.

It is a timeless condition of the human experience. “Somebody save me!” Religious institutions reflect the same kind of outward looking as well. Jews continue to look for another king David who will rise up and put down all the enemies of Israel and save them from a world that is set upon their destruction. At no time in history has any religious group looked more forward to a savior. Christians, too, look to the returning Jesus so save them and the world from those who do not believe in him, as their personal savior.” The great saving device of this returning God is his swift and righteous judgment, righting all the wrongs Christians the world over have suffered.

For Muslims, Allah, will vindicate the faithful and restore the birthright they, too, believe was taken from them. Hindu’s and Buddhists will cycle around in different forms until they have satisfied the requirements of God whose rules they subject themselves too. Their savior is time; endless time.

Religious institutions the world over whether they be large collective movements, small and localized, mystical, dogmatic, new age or old age all look to some force out there to equalize and make right what they collectively perceive as unfair or wrong. All that is asked of the individual is to believe that the unique collective perspective will be right. In other words, suffer now with patience and hope and ultimately you will be vindicated. There is no difference whether the collective institution is secular or religious. They all cry, “We are right and they are wrong.” People go to their graves with this kind of hope, believing everything they were taught was wrong will be righted!

Human history is littered with fallen saviors who came with the power of words and ideas but failed to provide any long-term solution to the plight of people or nations. In fact, history is nothing more than an endless parade of one thing not working but being overcome supposedly by something better only to fail and repeat over and over again. Winston Churchill referred to history as “just one damned thing after another.” How true.

If we can learn anything from history it is that we cannot learn from history! What we should gather from history is that nothing, no one, can or will save us. No president, political party, nation, religion, individual, philosophy or ideal can save us. We cannot be saved because there is nothing to be saved from!

Somehow the human mind, the ego has convinced us that we all need something outside of us to make us whole and complete. To protect us and make our lowliness or lack in the world a cause for equalization by some force that has power beyond our own. We are conditioned throughout our lives to accept some form of saviorism. It is as if the ego is hiding from some great unknown crime for which it must pay by accepting an outside force to resolve. It seems that the reality we all accept on some level is that guilt unworthiness, evil, etc. is the state of human awareness. It is not always aimed at our individual selves. These characteristics are often aimed at those who are not like us. Thus the collective finger-pointing for our own collective ills.

Saviorism is dependency. It stems from the fear we are taught throughout our lives that we are to be perfect even though no one can describe perfection without their own unique judgment of it. We convince ourselves that no one can be perfect and that being the case the idea of needing saving is automatically formed. The idea is so pervasive it inserts itself into every aspect of our lives. It lies at the root of the karmic idea that “what goes around comes around.” “Sooner or later you will get yours” even if we have to wait a long time for it to happen. God, e.g. savior will make it right in the end.

Our saviors, consequently, take on many forms. They are people, places and things. Even pills and plants save us. For instance, we look for a pill to slim us down or prevent us from overeating. Heaven forbid we simply take control of our own lives and stop eating or start eating in ways that are healthier! Instead, someone will create a pill that lets us eat anything we want and as much as we want without becoming overweight. Perhaps the pill will come along that will motivate me to work out so I can get that body I have always dreamed of! Perhaps our savior is this new job I’ve been expecting that will launch both a new career direction and greater prosperity.

I have a friend who is partially disabled who lamented constantly that he could not be whole until his government disability was approved. Now that his disability has come through, which was more than he anticipated; he now complains that he cannot live on the amount provided even though he does nothing to manage the money he does receive.

Can you see the subtlety of it? My friend was saved from a story he created and now he has created a new story that the amount of disability is not enough. He is now looking for a new savior to rescue him from this latest unfairness. After that a new unfairness will lurk into his awareness and he will turn to yet another savior. “If I can just win the lottery it would save me from my financial burdens.” I hold to my religious beliefs accepting fully my struggles, my faith will cause God to look favorably upon me and vindicate my lowliness.

We all do this. The greatest saviors we look to are governments and religions because they attempt to right all the wrongs on a much larger scale but the nature of saviorism permeates every aspect of life and it affects every one of us regardless of our situation or circumstances. The most subtle are our most benign daily wants and desires, particularly our relationships. How many times have we heard someone proclaim, “Oh I can’t live without him or her?” Or “I just won’t be able to go on if they break up with me,” etc. As if life without someone could save us from life altogether!

So many of our individual stories and dramas are played out because of the insidious control our minds play that we must have something or someone in place that will make everything better. This is saviorism! It even finds its way into new age thought that tells us that we can have anything we want if we put our focus and attention onto something even though the original premise is I can be saved from the lack I now have in my life by thinking about and working toward whatever it is I lack.

“Ask, and it will be given” is a common idea in our collective thought and yet at its core is that whatever it is you ask for will only come from some outside source to whom we are all beholden. That is saviorism. In fact, the subtle implication is that all you need to do is ask and something greater than you will provide it. This thing, whatever you call it, is the kind giver of that which you do not have. It will save you from what you do not have presently.

The only way out of this condition is to accept full responsibility for everything in your life. You create your existence and you, therefore, are your own savior should a savior ever be required, which when you take control of everything in your experience will never happen! There is nothing to be saved from in the responsible life. Taking responsibility for life is recognizing that nothing in human experience is personal to you even though it may seem to be.

We create our own experience and exist only as humans for a short while that will never be anything more than the experience. When we take this kind of control over our lives we see that everything that happens is unique and wonderful even if the collective world comes to our rescue and tells us “it’s not right or good.” It is said that “we must be the change we see in the world.” In other words, until we decide that nothing outside our own unique existence can or need save us this idea of saviorism will haunt us for the entirety of our lives. It never matters what the world thinks of us or how we view ourselves in it. Nothing that happens needs outside forces to square our experience with anyone else’s or with collective thoughts and intentions.

You are the hero of your life. I am the hero of my own. There is nothing that will save you simply because you are the hero, the savior and when we all remove our judgments of the experience we each individually enjoy something unique and special that no other can or will. That is the beauty of discovering the divine within us. It knows that this experience is nothing in infinity and is only to be enjoyed as only Gods can. It also knows that there is nothing in infinity from which we can or need be saved. We literally have it all. We literally are ALL!

Adapted from the book “On Human Being – Loving & Living Without Purpose”

July 4, 2013

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.

January 26, 2013

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.

January 20, 2013

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!

June 24, 2012

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

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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

April 15, 2012

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.

January 8, 2012

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.

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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.

August 14, 2011January 1, 2021

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