THE PRICE OF BEING A HUMAN

Beware of running from yourself and your own legitimate suffering, which is the price of being a human being in a limited world.

I hope I will always remember those words, the meaning of those words. "The gift of legitimate suffering" is how the sentence translated itself to my mind because, in fact, everything is a gift to my mind. Legitimate suffering or not, it is a gift if we so choose to believe.

Non-legitimate suffering is ego on parade. As in, ego takes our legitimate suffering, kneads it into the victim's poor, pitiful, put-upon me...unloved, unwanted, unneeded, unappreciated...then finds someone else to take the fall for it...not to mention fix it and/or us.

Non-legitimate suffering, the ego trip, in fact, may be the deeper gift for going there will turn us back to God...bedraggled, humbled but in the end better for it.

If that sounds like it comes from experience, BINGO...it does. Which is precisely why I hope I will always remember the meaning of Beware of running from yourself and your own legitimate suffering, which is the price of being a human being in a limited world.

Thank you.

GOD IS THERE WITHIN...FOR US TO EXPERIENCE

God looks through my eyes, I don't look through his eyes.

As I reread that note that I had written in my "God Calling" so long ago, I remembered how often, before I got that blinding flash of the obvious, I used to shoot pleading prayers. I was forever begging God to let me see my current ugly through his eyes, to recognize it as the gold I had been assured it really was.

The morning when I flashed on that, I knew, and I knew I knew: God, the source, the force, the unseeable, unknowable, untouchable is within me/without me. Present always and all ways to all...me, you, they, them, us, friends, foes, animals...wild and tame, furry and feathered and scaled...flowers and trees, weeds and foods growing in the fields. There. God is there. Here. God is here.

To me, that is the blessing and the curse of the reasoning mind...that which sets humans apart from all other things and beings. The blessing is that it is our reasoning mind that guides us up to those blinding flashes of the obvious, then opens up, allowing us to believe what we are told, that God is revealed through great love and/or great suffering.

The curse is it is our own reasoning mind that tells us suffering is bad and should not...must not...be tolerated. It is that reasoning mind that cannot differentiate between the suffering of love and the suffering of the flu or the fear of fear. "I hurt therefore I'll tell God to fix me...then I'll find something to take for it."

It is we who refuse to accept for fact the miracle of God within us, without us. Not all, of course, but too many of us believe from our eyebrows up, but refuse to use the daily self-discipline required to seek, to seek, to seek deeper within for our healing. It's faster to look outward. Ever searching for the perfect "something" to upgrade our reality or improve our feelings...when all the while that "something" is there within...for us to experience.  

Thank you.

ON EXCHANGING OUR MIND

Just as we have learned that the eye-witness account is the least reliable of all testimony, we are beginning to learn that the literal mindset is one of the least fruitful levels of meaning, according to Fr. Richard Rohr. Which reminds me of the point made by an unknown 14th century monk, in The Cloud of Unknowing, to "be wary of the overly scrupulous."

It's like Thaddeus Golas taught in his Lazy Man's Guide to Enlightenment: We must go beyond reason to love. We must go beyond our literal sense of right and wrong, of black and white really, to find God, love...to be made whole, One.

This is a whole 'nother state of mind. It has a name, and its name is the fourth dimension. It is real, and it exists within us. As Eknath Easwaran puts it, "[W]e have discovered another dimension to life, another realm -- changeless, eternal, beyond cause and effect -- on which the entire physical universe rests."

It is that fourth dimension that allows us to accept the difficulties of life, the errors of our own making, and, more importantly, those that are visited upon us as if gifts of gold when they appear to be dross. We get to exchange our mind.

Those who are stuck in the literal world, the secure world of the reasoning mind, will never experience the peace of being wrongly accused...without any need to respond in kind, to justify, excuse or defend our self in any way. Then, too, they will not think that's a bad thing.

That's why we can't explain it...it does not make reasoning-mind sense. But then neither does God.

Thank you.

Father, thank you for blessing Pope Francis today, for helping him to know your will for him and for giving him the power to carry that out. Amen.

THE TOUGHEST TEST

[The following is a reprint of my blog of September 12, 2009]

Going against the reasoning mind. That is the toughest test...going against what my best thinking tells me...actually, going above my best thinking, deeper. I think it is the toughest because it feels like the riskiest...when, in fact, there is no risk (we find, after we’ve learned the how of it).

As Thaddeus Golas wrote, “We must go beyond reason to love.”

Pema Chodron says, “When things fall apart and we’re on the verge of we know not what, the test of each of us is to stay on that brink and not concretize.”

Fr. Richard Rohr calls it “holding the tension.”

It’s all about learning to trust the Spirit within. Holding the tension between thinking, which too often is simply worrying, and intuiting...waiting to hear, to know the still, small voice. The resistant mind will usually throw up any number of awful possibles so that waiting cannot possibly be an option.

But it is...and we learn it through practice, through disciplining the mind, through practicing the art of patience.

Thank you.

ON PASSING THE BATON TO GOD

Karma, rightly understood, creates responsible and self-actualized people instead of fear-based people. -- Fr. Richard Rohr's "Daily Meditations," September 20, 2015

I wonder if the breaking of karma isn't just recognizing our own bad behavior (our rues, regrets and remorses aborning) and owning it through love and laughter. We can own the worst part of ourselves as we believe it to be and live in peace with it if we can accept it through love and laughter.

Love and laughter are the great transmuters...it is that which transmutes the worst part of ourselves  into "responsible and self-actualized people." Which takes away any thought that acceptance through love and laughter is to ignore, justify or deny our own bad behavior. Responsible, self-actualized people do the next right thing...make our apologies, then our amends and begin anew to live a turned-over life.

Love and laughter replace fear with humility...the humility of knowing "I am powerless, and I am grateful." That's passing the baton to God.

Thank you.

ON BUILDING THE HOUSE WITHIN

We each must find our own voice. If we are just quoting the words of another...another person, book, bible...we are living by rote. That is not the path to happy, joyous and free; that is the path to self that paves the way to more self...that is the freeway of the ego. (And isn't "freeway" just another oxymoron?)

The paradox, of course, is that we must find our own mentor(s), author(s), speaker(s), mystic(s) to whom we give our self in trust...to lead us quite simply in changing our mind. From her experience, his strength, their hope we fashion our own and grow from ego-based to spiritually based.

Since we all know that truly there is nothing new under the sun, we must accept that unless and until we find our own, we will never realize our father within. We can quote him, we can preach him, we can teach others about him, but we will not gut-bucket know him. And peace in the midst of turmoil (my definition of serenity) will not be ours.

I found my peace when I realized that nothing I say is original to me...I just say it as I have experienced it, and it comes out my own. It is from our own experience that we...and our words...are made new. We have found the rock upon which to build the house of our father who lives within.

Thank you.

THE SPIRIT OF THE LORD WALKING

I am reminded again that the second commandment of Christ Jesus is to love your neighbor as yourself. For whatever reason, I keep thinking "love your enemy as yourself." Which is a fairly high standard, but who's kidding whom...so is loving your neighbor!

I ponder that a lot...love your neighbor as yourself, love your enemy as yourself. I'm taken to the Lord's Prayer in which we beseech God to forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us...isn't that love your enemy?

Then the Sermon on the Mount tells us to agree with our adversary quickly...isn't that love your enemy?

Then there's the real underneath-it-all hook...as yourself. Love your neighbor as you love yourself...my cynical self says my neighbor deserves better than that. But that's either dark humor or false humility, neither of which are keepers.

To really be a loving person is to be a giving person...without thought. Without expectations. As we breathe.

My standard is getting higher as I type...I suspect I'm using the Pope as my yardstick and falling waaay short. Now, there...I do believe Pope Francis is the spirit of the Lord walking. I just consider myself blessed to recognize it. And I am grateful.

Thank you.




But that is my dark humor, and I don't live there anymore 

THE FATHER KNOWS OUR NEEDS

Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies....

There it is. That is the thought we learn to return to every time our eyes see, "Uh-oh, not good, look out, trouble a'coming." That's the promise that tells us God's hand is in that perceived trouble. No matter what it is, what it looks  like, what ego is naming it, God's hand is in it...and it is therefore good.

The lesson is based on our realization that "mine enemies" are all of our own mind...all our inner fears, frets and foibles. Our own picture show, actually.

I suspect I was born anxious. My first great freedom from anxiety was the time, in the midst of a panic attack, I consciously welcomed it "to be present at my table." And nothing happened. So calm came instead.

I've since named my anxiety Angel Straight From Heaven...which is also Ruckus's other name. My reason being, either of them bring me to God faster than anything else possibly could...including sex, drugs and rock 'n roll, all of which worked at one time. It's hard to let go of that which once worked no matter how long or short the time it worked. There. That's our ego's grip...rigid, righteous and right.

That's why we must needs come to our God daily to acknowledge and thank him (or her or it, your call). It's good to remember that the less specific we are in our thank you, the more detached we are from our ego. Feel a volcano rumbling in the gut? "Thank you, Father." We've just handed him our selfless trust and belief that we're good to go...volcano may go ahead and erupt, we're purely protected.

It's when we thank him for stopping the rumbling, or removing the volcano, etc., that we lose our protection for we're back relying on our ego's limited wants.

The Father knows our needs, the ego drives our wants. Loose them and let them go.

Thank you.

OUR FREE-FROM-ME PEACE OF MIND

Grant, oh Lord, that I may seek to comfort rather than seek to be comforted, to understand rather than seek to be understood, to love rather than seek to be loved.

The longer I live, the still-more-spiritual-growth I seek, the more I come back to that sentence, to that three-part petition.

It's like the legend of "This, too, shall pass," which is said to fit every good, bad, boring, exciting, thrilling, terrifying situation we shall ever experience in life. Same goes in our spiritual life with that sentence from the Prayer of Saint Francis.

No matter how high, heading toward spiritually arrogant, we feel...or low, going for false humility, for that matter...we will have only three spiritual needs...to seek to comfort (others), to seek to understand (others), to seek to love (others). We'll have a boatload of other wants, but we'll only have those three needs. Remembering always that needs are of God, wants are all me.

According to me, how well we are able to sincerely live those three things will determine our spiritual condition, our free-from-me serenity.

Thank you.

LIFE...THE CIRCLE OF LOVE

I overheard a young man yesterday say that he prayed for twenty things every morning...love, patience, kindness, perseverance, etc.  Doesn't that sound wonderful? That sounds like a God-approved prayer for sure.

The problem is, according to me, praying for those good things every day is denying every day that we already have them. We were born with every good thing within us. Why would God have to be petitioned for them? We're the ones withholding...from our own self.

Our life is all about living that good...the less we live love, the less we know we have love. So we begin to pray for love...in effect, holding love out there...away from us...while praying for the love that we already have. For the patience, kindness, perseverance, etc., that is already ours...we just must use it to realize it.

Of course, the only block to living the love we already have is, that goes against our ego's dictates...as in, it requires us to think of others first, to put others first, to do for others first. Our ego is all about I, me, my, mine...all about self in a word. The only reason ego exists is for self, for its perception of our benefit. Until we make a conscious decision to "loose it and let it go," our reasoning mind will line up with our ego every time.

Our job, ego deflation in depth, is made perfect when we realize that God thinks of us first, puts us first, does for us first. I wonder if that's not the sole miracle of God in action? He can and does put every single person in the universe first. All we must do is plug into that, into God consciousness. It is our detachment into God consciousness, that springs the miracle...we know God has our back so we are free to have another's back, which sets her free, which sets him free, and so on. Ah-ha! That's why it's called the circle of love.

Thank you.

WE ARE ONE'D

From my post of yesterday: Then I was gifted with a blinding flash of the obvious speaking his words in my ear. Just as I was heading for my race-race, run-run downhill slope yet again, I was hit with the truth of that statement...the most spiritual thing you will ever do is slow down.

That exemplifies how God works, according to me. We hear the truth, we agree or disagree with that truth but its seed has been planted. It comes back to us on occasion to be examined yet again...or discarded yet again...but it keeps coming back. We finally come to agree...this is the truth. But what good is it if I can't do it? I slow down, and life goes on just as upside down and backwards as before, and the past I'm regretting stays the past I'm regretting, and OMG, here's another awful. And that's if we're doing it right.

That is the nature of learning the art of self-discipline...getting it wrong, going to God, getting it wrong, going to God.

To garble a quote from the Bible, we never know the hour or day the bridegroom will come. Which I take to mean, we never know when enlightenment will flicker on...and stay on. We never know when, but we do that...when it will happen becomes that it has happened.

The proof that we know is we find ourselves laughing as we tell about the very thing we had been crying over...and feel love in our heart for our very own self. Which love cannot be contained...we feel love for our world, for the world. We feel love because we are loved...in that moment, we are love. We are One'd.

Thank you.

ON NOTICING THE NEEDS OF OTHERS

Patience is simply taking the trouble to notice the needs of those around us. --Eknath Easwaran

Isn't that wonderful? Doesn't that bring you up short when you remember how often you say or think that you have no patience? Which translates to: "Me, first; you, not even in the race."

I once heard an old, wonderfully unkempt attorney say that the most spiritual thing we will ever do is slow down. I make note that he was old and unkempt and an attorney because that was all I could focus on at the time. The fact that he was old and unkempt made him nobody to pay attention to in my self-involved mind, but that he was an attorney gave him some legitimacy. That became my push-pull judgmental ponderings, i.e., street person versus educated person...can he say anything worthwhile for me? 

Then I was gifted with a blinding flash of the obvious speaking his words in my ear. Just as I was heading for my race-race, run-run downhill slope yet again, I was hit with the truth of that statement.

The most spiritual thing I will ever do is slow down for it is in slowing down that I can see, can perceive, the needs of those around me. And there it is. There is the spirituality of patience.

Thank you.

DE-HEADED BY GOD

Blinding flash of the obvious: Atheists call it "whatever;" theists call It "God."

There is a fine line between those two...take, for instance, pain.

There are those who resist the very idea of pain, of suffering ever for any reason. There are hospitals, mental wards, drug and alcohol rehab facilities...churches!...filled with our kind. We will go to any length to avoid the possibility of our own idea of suffering.

Then there are those of us whose sole goal is to seek still more spiritual growth. When we first hear that the path to God is through pain, we resist...mightily. But, having no choice, we find as we go forward that our suffering is self-inflicted...it is the pain of ego-reduction in depth. 

Too often our fear of pain is our imagining the pain of being beheaded by Isis when in fact we are being de-headed by God. The gift of grace through humility is our reward.

Suffering is the ancient law of love; there is no quest without pain, there is no lover who is not also a martyr.  -- Heinrich Suso

Thank you.

THAT WHICH WE NEED MOST IS LOVE

A note I wrote in my "God Calling" in 1972 just gave me a blinding flash of the obvious. I was recovering from a broken romance back then, and I had written, "I sought human love, not God's."

As I read that this morning, I wondered if that might not be the source of all woes...we seek human love, not God's. Not just romantic love, but any other's love in the form of popularity, agreement, assurance from him, her, them that we are acceptable, right, worthy even. Always seeking outside, never believing our own good grows within us...is God, in fact.

The why is fairly obvious...we don't seek the answer in God because God's answer is that we must needs give that which we are seeking. Getting approval is a good feeling...a good temporary feeling. Like all imported good feelings, however, they of themselves demand more, better, deeper, higher...there is no enough.

I'm testing that even as I'm writing...I just rested in my memory of how I felt when I first realized God...and how that expanded and is still expanding and fills me with peace right this very minute. Then I recalled how I felt when I paid the last farthing to the IRS...and I felt GOOD. I smile at the memory, but it doesn't replicate itself, nor does it expand...it's just a pleasant fading memory.

That which we need most we already have...we just have to give it away to realize it.

Thank you.

ON THE WILLINGNESS TO LOVE

I do believe that still more spiritual growth lies very simply in our willingness to expand our capacity to love.

The puny fact is I did not know when I started on this path what "to love" actually meant. I remember how embarrassed I felt...and the freedom I experienced...when I admitted to another that I had always thought love only had to do with boy/girl relations. I was nearing 40 at the time. I wasn't entirely stupid...I knew we all are supposed to love our parents, our siblings, our family, our friends, but in my unformed consciousness, that love was pretty much just a pleasant feeling...till they got on the wrong side of me. Then go along to get along if it was my parents, make 'em pay if it was siblings or friends.

Back in the day, my friend Ellie, may God rest his soul, and I did our own study of love. Erich Fromm had a book popular at the time, a now classic, whose title I don't recall, that we read and analyzed and pondered over together. Joel Goldsmith's "The Gift of Love" we tore apart and put back together again, probably more than once. Yes, we did indeed take ourselves a tish too seriously, but I cherish the memories and the fact that we were both willing to be so vulnerable to each other...maybe because we didn't know any better but for sure we knew that love is the path to God which was our common goal.

Today I'm convinced my capacity to love is directly proportional to my ability...my willingness, actually...to let it be, resist not, accept, meet nasty with nice or at least a sincere smile. All of which I have done...and I can probably count how many times. Which translates to: I'm heading in the right direction, don't stop to count, keep doing.

God loves us sooo much.

Thank you.

FIND THE FUNNY AND BE AT PEACE

 [The following is a reprint of my blog of February 20, 2012.]

Every man has his own courage, but is betrayed because he seeks in himself the courage of other persons. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

I remember many years ago when I was learning who I am that I would pretend to be someone I considered to be brave when I felt I needed to stand up for myself. It sometimes worked, as in, I got what I felt I needed, but it never worked in my feeling particularly good about myself. In fact, it worked exactly opposite of the way I wanted…I wanted to become as brave as the person I was imitating, but I always had a niggling feeling underneath that I had lost what little bravery I had…that I should have been able to speak from my own guts. Which painful feeling gave me the gift of coming to believe that God has my back.

I speak for myself today. I rarely find it necessary to “stand up for myself.” I know this is the result of no longer living in my attack mind…my thoughts may go on the attack, but I can pull them back by a simple “Thank you.”

If that fails, I just find the funny in the whole situation. There is always funny…and it is usually me, thinking I’m right.

Thank you.

GOD IS IN UNKNOWING

Blinding flash of the obvious: The realization  of God is in unknowing.

That realization brings a certain peace. We are freed from feeling the need to know all there is to know about God. We recognize that the main reason we felt that never-satisfied compulsion was simply to prove God to our ego.

The paradox, of course, is between the comfort of realizing that God is in unknowing, that we shall never ever know God completely, and the spiritual need to continue seeking...to know God more completely.

Seek we must for God is our driver, our giver, our doer of all things in his name. We rest in that gut-bucket belief even as we search deeper within...for there lies our comfort.

Thank you.

NOT MINE, THINE

In being a decent, no-frills person without malice or contempt, in general, for anyone, the mistake we often make is in trying to be patient, loving and kind to those who are not being patient, loving or kind to us.

It is in the trying that we act from our intellect not from our heart, and the other is free to translate that however it fits her...which is rarely good. Which justifies our pitching the whole attempt and reacting in kind to our interpretation of his interpretation...oh my.

We must needs be patient, loving and kind in our thoughts toward any and all those who are an irritant to our ego. Since we're not being beat with a broom, or worse, we know it is our ego that is active here. So, it is not him, it is not her, it is not them. "It is I, saith the Lord."

The fact is we must needs be patient, loving and kind in our thoughts toward all others, and we must needs begin the discipline before we get irritated and agitated...as in now. Now is the appropriate time.

Here's my exercise: I think of someone who is wrong, according to me, and putting that on me. I then thank God for thinking for me, for finding loving thoughts for her, for showing me how to ponder with kindness him being less than loving to me. I try to understand her point of view, not justify mine.

This is a long-time exercise; it is called discipline, but since I still am not enchanted with that word, exercise will do. At any rate, the great and glorious news is...it works. The better news is I say that from experience...hard won experience for which I give all credit to God and the surrender of my unworking will. 

I don't go around talking this a lot because it is off-putting to some, and they want to debate it. I know it works for me so I don't debate. I just accept that it is not my message to carry, it is just my seed to plant. 

Thank you.

ON LEARNING THE ART OF DETACHMENT

I was reading this morning about detachment...letting go of things in order to get free. The examples of things used that we hold to were houses, cars, books, antiques and the like.  All of which, according to me, boil down to security. I believe what we must needs let go of is our attachment to our own ego's dictates. Being named a liar by a liar! Being called ugly by a frog!! Resentment aborning...attachment personified.

An example of attachment is being called anything and resisting...even (especially?) the good stuff.  Being called spiritual is a trap if ever there was one. Calling another spiritual is another trip-up. Yet being identified as spiritual is hard to hate, who's kidding whom? And when we recognize another as living by spiritual principles, we automatically identify him as spiritual.

The trap is that being known as spiritual appeals to the ego. It inflates our ego, elevates our self identity, and since we weren't the originator, we get a feel-good freebie. Which leaves us torn, feeling phony, because those of us seeking still more spiritual growth know ourselves now. We know right well we're not that spiritual. We hear our thoughts. We condemn ourselves for our thoughts! But our feel-good freebie is really hard to detach from.

Our identifying another as spiritual is even trickier. We make that identification, and sooner or later we need to shoot the other's pretentions down. The problem being, we are unaware of what really got our back up. We label her spiritual, than at some point become convinced she thinks she's closer to God than we are, and...BINGO...she's such a phony.

I wonder if spiritual life isn't simply learning the art of detachment...from everything our mind can conceive of. As has been said of God, if you can conceive of him, that ain't him.

Thank you.

GRACE...THE ALWAYS AND ALL WAYS ANSWER

I'll know I'm half way to Heaven when I am seeking first the kingdom of Heaven, and the words, "and all these things shall be added unto you" do not come to my mind. No longer exist in my consciousness...not to mention, I no longer resent that they were said in the first place.

The words "And all these things shall be added unto you" are my divine booby trap...probably because they don't enter my mind until I'm feeling a want that I call a need. Then "seek ye first the kingdom of Heaven" springs to mind and very faint, almost hidden but hanging on for its life, comes "and you'll get your want."

We must prove truth if it is to be true in our lives. "True" meaning alive, vibrant. Working, in a word.

I can say, "He goes before me to make the crooked placed straight," till my face falls off, those are just so many words until I prove them.

That's always been my trouble with affirmations. If it is true that I am healthy, wealthy and wise, loved and lovable, cute as a button, etc., I won't need to keep repeating the words...I'll be showing it, and you'll be telling me!

The great comfort to me is that I do know unto breathing that spiritual principles can and will solve all my problems. Proving that comes in living a turned-over-to-God life...i.e., making my mistakes, then my apologies and/or amends, or doing it right the first time and feeling the grace of that from my toenails up!

There it is. Feeling the grace is all these things added unto me. For grace is of God, and the grace of God is All.

Thank you.

KNOWING AND SHOWING

[The following is a reprint of my blog of February 26,  2012.]

Years ago, in a spiritual setting, I heard, "I know it, and I show it." More and more lately I have been saying, "If you know it, you must show it...else you don't know it."

Blinding flash of the obvious: If you know it unto realization, it shows itself...you have no control over it.

Thank you.

NOT TO GET BUT TO GIVE

Your reward will be sure. It will be perfect success, but My success. -- "God Calling," September 9

There. That sentence is an excellent example of why, if we're looking to grow spiritually, we must read not from our reasoning mind but from our heart, our Soul.

I've been reading "God Calling" since 1971, but for many years my reading was strictly from my head. I for sure didn't get that sentence, and I didn't get it for years. I entered a whole new world when I realized its importance is not in the first two parts of the sentence, but in the last three words: "...but My success."

Reading from our ego-victory head, we see "reward" and "perfect success," and we're an instantaneous believer! Or we want to be.

It is only through ego deflation in depth that we finally come to accept that My success may never be a want on our bucket list. Because My success is not about me, not about my wants, not about me getting. No. What it's all about is me surrendering...not resisting...loving kindness of self for others.

What My success is all about is us living from a giving consciousness. Seek not, want not...we already have. Give thanks...and put it to use.

Thank you.

AN AUTHENTIC INNER WORLD

You can take the measure of a human by the character of that one's friends. That's a paraphrase and I have no idea who first said it. And doesn't it sound stilted once it's been all politically corrected? I like "You can take the measure of a man by the character of his friends."

I've noticed that the newly corrected way to write about God, when God is referred to as "Him," is to stick "[sic]" after "Him." Talk about interrupting the thought in order to not be wrong by today's standards...next we'll be referring to Mother Mary as "It."

According to me, this is an excellent example of changing the outer without ever considering a change to our own inner. Just this morning, Fr. Richard Rohr wrote "...if the inner world is authentic, an individual's political, economic, and service attitudes will always change organically from the inside out."

There's the secret to peace...to a life of peace, love and joy: An inner world that is authentic.

One way to get there is a willingness to be thought wrong...more to the point, the willingness to BE wrong, knowing that God can and will use us to set our wrong right. Life is not a popularity contest. If our sole goal is and has been to know God aright, we won't have to fret about whether this is right or that is wrong...we're not suddenly going to pull a mean, down and dirty on someone...either on an innocent someone or by responding in kind to a nasty other. No. We are now living toward a fourth dimension consciousness...hitting it, falling back, moving forward, falling. That is our life today...moving inward...toward an authentic inner world.

This way is not the way to win popularity contests. But it's not a way to walk over others to get ours, either. To me and those I follow, this is the way of ego deflation in depth...by living from an authentic inner world.

Thank you.

EACH AND EVERY TIME

I wonder... does everybody have a personal nemesis? A secret fear, say, that in reality may well be utterly insignificant? Fear, however, knows naught of reality. Fear is its own god.

There are some truly wonderful words, quotes, stories, parables, lessons already learned that explain our fear away. They bring hope to our hearts, peace to our minds...temporarily. And there it is, the quiet word...temporarily.

That explains, to me at any rate, the admonition that we go to God for God and that is all. All the self-help books in the world, including the Bible, the Torah, the Koran, et al., are temporary aids if we're using them for other than to know God aright.

If we go to the Bible looking for a quote to hang onto in case of an anxiety attack, we can certainly find it. But we'd better keep that Bible handy because we will have to use it...and repeatedly. Unfortunately, people who walk around with Bibles too often cause others anxiety, and that's never a good thing.

It is in going to God for God and that is all that lifts us into a new consciousness...to know God aright is to be lifted out of reasoning mind fears, freaks and phobias. Which is good news, spiritually. We now get to live with the need to be of help to others.

However, our reasoning mind, ever looking out for self, analyzes the good news and balks for it is apparent if that's the good news, the rest of the story is not about us. It is about coming face-to-face with us...with our own self, each and every time. And the only help we will have to give is...acceptance. Each and every time.

Then, there and again we will be forced to go back to God for God and that is all...each and every time.

Thank you.

KNOWING...THEN DOING

Knowing and doing...two separate matters entirely wrapped within and without each other.

We must know before we can do, but too often we learn and stop there as if in the knowing we've got all we need. We may have all we want, but for sure we don't have all we need.

More and more I'm convinced that we learn in order to know and then we have to detach from that which we've learned. Check out the spiritual lessons..."Judge not lest ye be judged," for instance. We learn it but if we just know it to lecture it, not actually living it from our thoughts out, we wind up usually just judging others for their judging! Justifying ourselves as "discerning."

We must detach from the letter of the law in order to obey the law. The fact is, of course, that we cannot do it. We cannot forgive on our unaided want to; we cannot judge not, resist not, love our enemies all on our own. We must learn unto acceptance that that is our desired path. Then we go to a force beyond our self to walk us on that path... in order that we may obey those laws of God.

We all run to our God, screaming "Uncle," when our pants are on fire...self-lit every time.

Aren't we glad God does not judge, does forgive, doesn't resist us and the errors of our ways?

Thank you.

ON BEING EXCUSED WITH LOVE

"What is that to you?"

That may well be, as a practical matter, the most important question Jesus ever uttered, according to me. "As a practical matter" being the golden key. For it brings my judging mind back to the source of all my woes...me.

Walking Ruckus this morning, my mind was flying free...early morning, lovely breeze, fall in the air, beautiful memories of football games and sock hops that never were. There it is...that explains why I landed on the thought of my friend and how I need to set her straight.

This is a friend of mine who wants to be hip, slick and cool. Being a friend of mine, she is in her seventies, grey-haired, and long, long past hip, slick and cool. On reflection, when we were eligible to be called hip, slick and cool, that was a pejorative!

So I'm mentally thinking of various ways and means to let her know she's being foolish. Just as an aside, when I have to mentally arrange ways to set another straight, I'm heading down that passive-aggressive road whose only goal is plausible lie-ability for me: "No, I'm not talking about you...why do you ask?"

The good news is, I asked myself, "What is that to me?" Why ever do I care if she wants to appear to be hip, slick and cool...that's just a feeling, and it beats ugly, out-of-it, and mean, a feeling I can go to at any time with no effort.

It came to me again that personal judgments...mine at any rate...can most often be traced back to dissatisfaction with my own self. I remembered just two or three years ago when a young friend of mine told me that I was...yes!...hip, slick and cool. We know who all got that message...friends, foes and strangers on street corners is all. Fortunately, I came to feel embarrassed by my own behavior and shut up.

According to my pop-culture bible,  "Lazy Man's Guide to Enlightenment," what we see is always ourselves. That's why Jesus's question is so important to me. "What is that to me?" is the quick route to seeing myself in whatever I'm judging at the moment. Thank you, Jesus, that I can let my friend feel as hip, slick and cool as she wants to with no input from me.

I read this and questioned myself, "When will I ever learn to not judge others?"

The God of my understanding loves me so much that he whispered in my ear, "Never, beloved. That's my tool for turning you within...to me."

I love when he excuses me with such care and comfort.

Thank you.

ON HEADING IN THE RIGHT DIRECTION

"It is not having everything in life go smoothly that shows forth good spiritual condition. It is when things go wrong, and I go smoothly that shows forth good spiritual condition." -- This is my note to me that I wrote in "God Calling" as I started my care and feeding of the IRS in 1985.

We ask God for what we want, then ask others for what we need. And that's what keeps us heading in the wrong direction. The way forward is to thank God for what we have, exactly as it is, and to ask others for help in realizing this is the right direction.

Thank you.

OUR TRASH IS GOD'S GOLD...STAND ON IT

It is for me to realize rainbows and roses within me... the outside is nada to me... it is God's territory, and my eyes cannot behold Its truth...what looks like trash to me is gold to God.

When we find ourselves again in that place where we are feeling unloved, unwanted, unneeded, unappreciated, we need to know we're back in self-centered control. We're loving our feelings of victimhood more than God, family, friend...poor, pitiful, put-upon me is running (ruining!) our life.

We return to our realization that rainbows and roses are within us now. It is our responsibility to wallow in the rose petals, dance under the rainbows, and shout our thanks that our ogre, the ego, is actually bringing us to still more spiritual growth.

There. That's the rightful use of ego. It can say to us anything it wants to, that will not make it true. Since we know not to fight it, we hug it and kiss it and let it go. And give our grateful thanks that the garbage we are seeing is God's gold...thus for our benefit.

Stand on it.

Thank you. 

INNER CHANGES OUTER...GO THERE FIRST

It is our inner changes that change our outer...the inner change of desiring peace for another person for instance. Released from the self-centered objective for our own peace of mind, we now seek to be a source of peace for others...particularly for the Gertrudes and Herkimers who are such a pain to our egocentric mind.

It is when we meet those who irritate us (just because) that we learn to quickly turn our attention away from our pique, to turn toward God... not, not, not toward loving thoughts for the other. That just keeps us tied to a self-determined objective. We must needs turn our thoughts toward God so that there is no separation, no separate thoughts about the other, about our pique, about us. There is only God in our thoughts, our heart, our soul.

Just getting over a peeve doesn't empty the ego-victory reasoning mind; it is, however, a necessary step in getting over our own self. Our goal is to have a non-resisting mind, a contented mind, freed from wants and don'ts. Both will come...laugh and welcome them.

Love, laugh and welcome...piques, put-downs, happy meals, any and all things. If we will follow the directions we are given to cease fighting any and all things, that is the natural course to follow.

We choose to believe that there is nothing that will come to us that cannot be welcomed just as it is. For God is our buffer, our protector...our own Self.

Thank you.

SEEK TO BE LOVING, TO GIVE LOVE

Blinding flash of the obvious: To want to be loved is the ego state...there is no God there. To seek to be loving is of God...there is no ego there.

Everybody wants to be loved...everybody including dogs, cats, plants and animals of the field, I reckon. But in seeking still more spiritual growth, we must needs look deeper. To want to be loved is basically, "I want to be popular, I want to get love." There. That's what precludes God...the want to get.

We know it's all about "me" when we're wanting to get...God and the things of God are all about giving. To want to be loved is all about getting, to seek to be loving is all about giving.

The life-lesson, the lesson that takes a lifetime to learn, is that giving love is not easy, is painful, in fact, for it requires us to let go of our ego-victory wants. We imagine that it feels as if we're stripping the very skin off our bones, thus our reasoning mind will convince us this can't be God's will. So we stop and go back to our way, trying to get love. And find again that is unsatisfactory. It fills no inner need...has all the sum and substance of "Queen for a Day." Momentary fun, faded memories...The End. Then back to that feeling of something is missing, and we're again trying to get love.

It is in the hard work of giving love that we find we must learn how to go against our own wants...and there it is. There's the conundrum. We are constitutionally incapable of doing that on our unaided will...a self-determined objective may be a great idea, but until we take that great idea to a force beyond our self, we will fail...and call it a bad idea. Simply because we can't pull it off. "God must not want us to do this," we rationalize when God knows naught of it, it's our self-determined objective.

Hey! Maybe that's why bad things happen to good people...turns them from doing good surface deeds that'll garner the approval of others and forces them to throw in the trying towel. We need to quit trying to get. We need...uh-oh...to feel utterly and necessarily hopeless...to know nothing about nothing and know we know nothing about nothing. And strongly suspect even our dog doesn't like us.

There. That is salvation on a cross, under a Bodhi tree, in a church basement. Our will must be cracked open so that we no longer are trying to get love. We finally know we are love, seeking now to give it away.

God is so good to us.

Thank you.