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Friday, September 30, 2022

The Big Picture - What Is Really Going On?

 We are living on a rock with a molten center that whirls around once a day, so that we all travel  24,901 miles every day of our lives. And our earth goes around the sun once a year, so that we travel an additional  584 million miles each year! Yet we do not perceive the rapid movement or feel any G force. Our senses tell us that we are on a very stationary earth. Jesus told us not to judge by appearances, but we tend to anyway.

We are orbiting one of billions of stars in the Milky Way. The Milky Way is one of the billions of known galaxies. The immensity is mind-boggling. Our Creator is way beyond amazing. It brings to mind Psalms 8:

NIV Translation

O LORD, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth! You have set your glory above the heavens. From the lips of children and infants you have ordained praise because of your enemies, to silence the foe and the avenger. what is man that you are mindful of him, the son of man that you care for him?

Message Translation

 God, brilliant Lord, yours is a household name. Nursing infants gurgle choruses about you;  toddlers shout the songs that drown out enemy talk, and silence atheist babble. I look up at your macro-skies, dark and enormous, your handmade sky-jewelry, moon and stars mounted in their settings. Then I look at my micro-self and wonder, Why do you bother with us? Why take a second look our way?

Let us take a moment to be humble, throwing away our hubris.  

Tuesday, September 27, 2022

The Role of Conduct

The aim and purpose of human life is the unitive knowledge of God. Among the indispensable means to that end is right conduct, and by the degree and kind of virtue achieved, the degree of liberating knowledge may be assessed and its quality evaluated. In a word, the tree is known by its fruits; God is not mocked. - 

              "Perennial Philosophy"

It seems to me there are numerous ways that we experience the difference between right conduct and wrong, sometimes very wrong, conduct. If we are paying attention, we can think about the possible outcome of this or that choice of behavior, and thereby choose better and avoid a great deal of pain. We can learn from our successes and our failures. Indeed, we are required to so look, if there is any chance of truly living awake to and in God.

I have often spoken and thought about Jesus' well known words, By their fruits you shall know them. I consider this to be one of the keys to the inner kingdom he spoke of. When we look with clear eye and heart at our personal fruits, we can see where we need to adjust our thinking and our conduct in order to get better fruits. (Get the log out of your eye before trying to get the speck out of your neighbor's) This is essential to a well-lived life, and it is essential to move us to the actual spiritual awakening that is yearning within us.

We are here at this time and place for higher purposes.  It seems that many people don't know this. Human conduct, historically and presently, then falls far into the pit of dark and bad conduct where there is only faint light. But light there is, and those bringing hate and destruction can catch a glimmer and lift themselves up and out of the pit.

To the people of earth, brothers and sisters, now is your time to enter the Light. Be the best you can be. Let your good and kind and loving conduct be an example, a light, to others. 

Saturday, September 24, 2022

Saturday Again

It rolls around once a week, but it seems it comes around ever faster. Time seems to change as we age. A week is a smaller portion of one's life in the so-called golden years than in one's youth. It seems eons ago when I was a little girl, wandering through orange groves, long since uprooted and paved over, dreaming of becoming a fashion designer, Edith Head my heroine. I entered a contest with "My Friend Irma" comic book to design the clothes for an upcoming issue. I entered and won! There it was in print  - This month's fashions by Marlene Eakin of 8313 S. Washington Avenue. Whittier, California. I was so excited.  I soon received letters from service men around the world, not knowing I was only 10 or maybe I was 12. Mother gave me the letters with big swatches cut out - an early form of redacting. I wish I had that comic book, but mother threw out all of my box of comic books one day when I was at school. She said You're too big for comic books. She sold or threw out much of my life. I never had a say.

Life has taken me places that were completely out of my dreams in those days. In fact, they would have seemed extreme, far-fetched, and impossible. Sometimes, even now, as I look back, in some ways many of the paths of my life seem magical or stunning, like how in earth did that happen?

But here I am, somewhere nearer to the end than to the beginning of this particular life, and I'm still in the land of the unexpected and unplanned. The question still stands even to this day. how in earth did that happen?

I have several hypotheses. When I was getting ready to enter this life: 

  • I signed up to complete a lot of karmic loose ends. 
  • I was bored and wanted an odd and interesting life. 
  • I wanted to be constantly challenged and test myself.
  • I wanted to prove I could go through advanced challenges and yet keep my connection to God and not lose my faith.
  • I was stark raving out of my mind at the moment of choice.
Yes, I do believe/know our essence, our soul, gets to give input into our incarnations, with the help and guidance of a wise spirit or oversoul or guide. I do believe/know our essence is eternal and not extinguished by anything, not even the horrid and evil. And I do believe/know we are accountable for what we do and how we face our challenges/lessons. We will be asked to evaluate it all when we leave these earthly bodies. I know that the first question will be, Did you learn to love unconditionally? That seems to be the common curriculum here on earth.

I hope and pray the current valley is the last weird lesson of this life, and that I get to have some peaceful years back in my own home, with all my things organized so that I can create and learn and enjoy awhile with my beloved husband and whoever God sends our way.

Let it be so.

Saturday, September 17, 2022

Dual Citizenship

We live in two worlds. Not everyone is aware of this, and so take the one as the entirety of life.

  • The world of time has a seeming beginning and a seeming end. Stuck in the worldview of time only leads one to think everything goes, this is it, get it now. It tends toward belief in violent gods who destroy life in the end, and who require blood offerings. All in time ends, one way or the other.
  • The worldview of the Eternal Now leads to sensing a flow, a connection with all, a unity, yet a focus in this moment and then this moment on and on. The God of Now is not a destroyer but rather an Eternal ongoingness.  Furthermore, we are in the flow of this eternal ongoingness. We are part of it and its limitless nature, even if we are consciously unaware.

We live in both worlds, at least while on earth, but our lives are quite different if we are unaware of the Eternal Now. Historically, avatars, mystics, accidental mystics and saints are the main inhabitants of this second world. These days, we have access to their writings, to classes on meditation, to spiritual advisors, and if we want to grow spiritually, and are ready, we actually can. There are countless encouragements available.

We may straddle the divide of time and eternity, yet we can do so with open hearts and minds, letting go of the violent time-gods who lay in wait to end our lives and want our sacrifice. We can live in the ongoingness of the Eternal Now. We are safe. Life continues.

Monday, September 12, 2022

State of Mind

 In Perennial Philosophy we read:

The crimes which are everywhere forbidden proceed from states of mind which are everywhere condemned as wrong; and these wrong states of mind are, as a matter of empirical fact, absolutely incompatible with that unitive knowledge of the divine Ground, which, according to the Perennial Philosophy, is the supreme good.

This idea collaborates my thoughts that the violence going on is reflective of the decline in membership in religious groups, and thereby losing the moral teachings and encouragements found there.

Some of the questions that haunts me are:

  • How can we turn this around?
  • How can people be turned away from the "wrong thinking" that leads them and society to sink?
  • How can people be led to care about "unitive knowledge of the divine Ground?"
  • What can each of us do about it?
Let us each pray on this, listen and open ourselves to Guidance. Let us be courageous and filled with hope. 

Open us, Lord, to be courageous and contagious with Love of You and willingness at long last to Know of our Oneness with You, to know and know that we know You are the very Ground of our being. Let us fill the world with a grand Awakening.

Wednesday, September 7, 2022

Shallowing

William James wrote about the shallowing effect. That concept I find to be profound and so applicable to what I observe around me.

People are encouraged to judge by the superficial- skin color, station in life, political affiliation, sexual identity, etc. Sort of tribes are formed around these superficial things, and there is hostility toward those tribes who form around different superficial things. Go to your corners and do battle, at least verbal slings, with the others attached to other shallow thoughts. But never, never do any deep thinking, nor research into various other ideas. They are constantly shallowing.

So we have the climate changer religion, who, with distain, call others deluded deniers. We have hatred of the other political party and attempts to destroy those who dare to think any other way. We have one race demonizing other races.

You who have willingness to deeply dive into all sides of a thing, are brave. You are likely to be either shunned, attacked and/or lied about by the shallow thinkers who want to skim life on the surface. 

Please, please be brave. Think and think some more. Think of unintended consequences. Think about all points of view. Think about history. Think about the future. Read all sides of an issue. Read/watch the other newspaper, the other channel. Realize no one knows all. We only see a tiny bit.