Unscientific Theories

Troubling facts we don’t want to face:
a) The Bible is not historically accurate. Jesus did not say and do what the Bible says. The New Testament and denominational Christian religions are based on human agendas.
b) That spiritual feeling can be explained in terms of brain physiology. God is not a definitive part of the perceived experience of oneness.
c) My perception and spiritual outlook are very much based in my early life experience and choices made as an adult. I do have emotional barriers that seem insurmountable.

I woke up this morning as a woman of prayer. I was doing spiritual reading. I became conscious of one of my limiting beliefs. I said, “God, here is a belief for you to correct: I totally believe I am a spiritual failure.” Then, I had these thoughts….

If I was living my life as just a negative ego, things would be getting worse and worse for me regarding health and emotional well being. But in fact, I become healthier physically and emotionally every day. If I am living my life in partnership with some transcended consciousness (Christ, Bodhisattva, Inner Self, Higher Power); then I am healing towards a life of greater and greater love, health and emotional well being. For example, if I am just a negative ego, I would still be a drunk. If I am connected to some power more powerful than my ego, then I am able to have sobriety; which in fact I have.

Then I thought: emotional well being is both an effect of love and a channel for the expansion of love. Love is my higher power; it helps me and flows through me. Several years ago, during a “spiritual” experience, I concluded: Love is the predominant mode of existence. I have read that God is love. I believe love is from God but not as a consciousness I would understand; more as a field of energy which can be tapped into or connected with. I call this type of energy “love.” As a function of God; however, it is very far from what religion says it is. It is not the same as the spiritual feeling of oneness commonly defined as enlightenment. In fact, love is a very constant and everyday aspect. When we live in love, which is a choice, we begin to live more and more in a world that I call the realm of the spirit. I think I define it as spiritual because it is non-negative ego. It could be that spiritual is only a state of being love alone; where we don’t use or honor the ego. In this state, we feel transcended simply due to the absence of something which makes us feel bad: negative ego.

God per se is still beyond the transcended state of love alone.

That is my story for today. I am surely wrong in my hypothesis so don’t take my thoughts as your belief system. Drink some fresh juice, get some exercise and some sleep, clean the house and sit in the sunshine!

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Lent – Desperate in the Desert

An unusual morning. As I awoke, I sensed the lights outside winking out. But somewhere, my brain knew that the tea had already been made. So I got up to see and sure enough, the tea pot was hot. In that short 25 foot trip to the kitchen, I thought, why do I get up at 3:10 to do spiritual study and meditation? Why not sleep? What do I think I am accomplishing?

A few minutes later, a hot cup of tea in my hand and a light emanating from my forehead (!), I sat down at my table. I could hear the power company outside, actually I think they had been working all night, so I assumed it would not be long before the power was back on. Actually, at 3:25, it did come back on. Then, I promptly spilled my tea and had to make another pot.

But I was pondering my question: Why do I bother wanting to know God? One thing I like about ACIM is it\’s approach of encouraging me to seek the Voice for God myself (ref WB 124), don\’t just listen to the text. So that is what I did this morning. My thoughts went like this. I thought about how desperately I want to see Christ\’s face. I want to see it in my brothers and everywhere. This face, for which you could use another name like Atman or Buddha or Tao or Self, represents love and safety; and \”making it.\” Making it? My term, making it, is a two faced coin or a two edged sword. It can be positive: I honestly sought God in response to a call from God. The term can be ego based: I earned or cheated or stole the coveted state of enlightenment.

I saw clearly that what I believe is a choice. If I believe the ego\’s voice, then my spirituality is a search for a cheap thrill, and I should go back to bed. If I believe the Voice for God, then my desire for God and journey to God is with Help; and is a pure and holy result originating with Cause. To listen to the ego is to poison and kill what could be the most tremendous gift and extravagant source of wealth: my deep and incredible faith, sustained for years, and sure belief that the All Powerful is carrying me to Himself.

I get what I choose. If I choose God, I get connection and peace. I am immediately there.

Hence, I prostrate before my faith and my choice and Christ: I give myself completely and totally to the desire for God and unabashedly proclaim my undivided relentless pursuit of Love.

I am powerless over this.

Lent – Intuitive Spirituality

Day 4 of Intuitive Spirituality Experiment

If you are using some sort of book, scripture or other input to guide your meditations and spiritual reflection, then realize that your spirituality is based in a second hand source, not a direct intuitive transmission. I myself spent many years using \”lectio divina\” but that meant that my reflection was always based in what ever text I was using. Many people have a practice of using a mantra or a scriptural phrase/prayer that they continually repeat to themselves (i.e. Jesus Prayer). Thus, it is hoped that the prayer/mantra will be the predominant thought and not what ever their brain comes up with. Yet understand, this means that what is in your head is the mantra, not intuition.

I began an experiment where I dropped all written input and just listened intuitively. Here is what I discovered today:

To practice Intuitive Spirituality, you must be able to:
a) be aware of where your mind is going and be capable of bringing it back to silence.
b) be able to maintain mental silence as the predominant mode of mentality, because intuition is silent.

In order to meet these conditions and have Intuitive Spirituality be at all productive, you need to start with the standard methods for:
a) meditation
b) practice of the presence (mantra)
c) reducing anger, rage, shame, fear to the point where they don’t rule as the predominant mode of thinking.

Love is the predominant mode of existence (I got that from a dream). To have love, love must be all you have. Love is silent.

Theophany

A theophany is a manifestation of God. My Lenten journey through the desert reminds me of a theophany. Well, silence Itself is a theophany.

I was just walking around the crummy chemical plant where I work. It struck me that there was nothing that is not a manifestation of God.

Crap…I must be in love; with everything!

Personal statistics: I have been raw for 10 days. I got up at 2:45 this morning for prayer, then at 4 ran 6 miles in a blustery north wind, 19F. I am on my way to get my lap top out of the clinic, so I will be in communication this weekend.

Lent Pre-startup Review

Lent Pre-Startup Review:

What do I want?
What are my means for getting it?
Who is my Guide?
Who am I listening to?

ACIM: “Think but an instant on this; you can behold the holiness God gave His Son (all of us). And never need you think that there is something else for you to see.”

Love, not just unconditional; but outrageous. To express my love and give it meditation time, I am making a Lenten booklet. I am copying out pieces of the ACIM text as I go through my 40 day journey and illuminating the book with colorings. I may add personal notes, who knows what all.

Fat Tuesday. Mardi Gras. Are you pigging out? It is wiser to consider more carefully before going into the desert, on a journey. Lent is not for penance but for celebration. I am celebrating the greater awareness of Christ Reality coming into focus for us.

In the church, today is “Mardi Gras” or “Fat Tuesday.” The church liturgical year abruptly switches from Ordinary Time to Lent. Today, people are gorging on meat and chocolates and perhaps alcohol. Tomorrow they will straighten up and begin their time of penance. They will walk the stations of the cross, thinking of how Jesus suffered and how they themselves are sinners in need of reconciliation. They will bury the “Alleluia” and not mention it again until the Easter Vigil.

My Lent is not about suffering or sin. It is about going deeper into Christ. The only death is the one of my ego’s thought system. I’ll tell you the secret now: let go of your ego and you will know God. Nothing needs to be done but relinquish every ego thought. OK, so a true and complete surrender requires a Guide. I have Jesus and the Holy Spirit; as Voice and Teacher and Guide. You can call them something else; but their function is what matters. Are you listening to Them?

I ponder my Lenten journey and ask myself: Why be reserved or reticent about Christ? Why not fling your entire self on the Holy Presence? What do you have to lose? Why go on ignoring Power? Why go on pretending you are human when you are really spirit? Let go. Enter the realm of the Spirit. Flow towards the Light. Be light.

There is only one Life and we share it. Doing anything with whole hearted love is as alive as you can get. Because Love is Life, that is what we have together. Magnificence is shared through life. My only real life is Christ. It amazes me how much Christ wants to pour out through me into a world where no one understands (too busy I guess). But there He is now, present as utter Love and completely unknown. Does my desperate and vociferous desire for Christ shock you? May it shock you out of complacency.

Personal statistics: I bought a new printer today. I\’m extremely happy about that.

Joy and Love – My Nerdish Understanding

Here is my thesis (my own personal thought, not from a book): Joy is the Fourier Transform of Love.

Corollary: Joy is the spiritual etheric medium which supports creation.

1. God is Love. But divine Love is not the same as the typical human love. It is an abstract. It is purely a constant Truth, Idea or Thought. Constants are extremely difficult to perceive with human senses precisely because they are constant; but they can be known. God wants us to know Him and wants to communicate with us and wants us to know His Love. He provided a way for us to know Love.

2. The only real things are the things God created. Love is real, being of God. Creation is real being in the medium of joy, a pure transform of Love. Love transformed into joy supports creation. Creation is not the ego world. Creation exists; and we have a way to live in creation through the Holy Spirit.

3. We seem to live in a world. The world is made of energy, vibrating waves forms. Since this energy responds to thought, we can say it is formed, shaped or made by us. Hence I call it the ego world an illusion. The ego world is not creation but our world’s wave forms are still carried by the medium of joy. How to get out of the ego world and into creation is another blog.

4. A Fourier Transform is a mathematical operation that transforms one complex-valued function of a real variable into another. The new function, often called the frequency domain representation of the original function, describes which frequencies are present in the original function. The analogy of the Fourier Transform to the DIVINE Fourier Transform goes like this:

• Love is the complex-valued real function.
• Joy is defined as the new function which exists in the frequency domain because it is a perceivable energy.
• Creation is the frequency domain.
• The Holy Spirit is defined as the functioning operation that transforms.

5. The Fourier Transform is a mathematical operation. The DIVINE Fourier Transform is the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is the operating transformer Who brings Love into the world as joy. Creation does need an operating medium. That medium is defined as joy.

6. Love is a constant, not a harmonic frequency; hence it cannot exist in a frequency domain world without being transformed. The way Love reaches us is via the divine Fourier Transform which changes Love into joy; and joy is something we not only know but is innate to all creation (see corollary).

7. God is Love. His Love is filtered through a divine Fourier Transform so that we can experience it as joy. Love is the all pervasive constant of God; the only thing He is. Joy, though the supporting medium of the frequency domain, is a constant for us. Hence, to know divine Love, seek and experience joy.

Now, by seeking and experiencing joy, I do not mean physical dimension, but inner peace. Inner peace is also the topic of another log blog.

Get it? No, Spirit Flower, we need much more explanation. I agree; but it is time for me to go to bed.

Reflections – Fasting 100 Hours

The hermitage, the fast and the long run are mine today. I have a sense of humility about it because nothing seems to have been accomplished. I existed in worldly uselessness; yet conscious of continuous divine communication. I prayed, but the divine communication was unperceived, seen only by faith and heart.

Running, fasting and solitude are my cross; unexplainable to the uninitiated. These are gifts I carry; vertical aspiration and horizontal expansion. Carrying the cross, I am the tool of Spirit. I seek not crucifixion, nor sacrifice, nor suffering. I carry a cross of joy in Spirit, peace in all directions and love at its heart.

Running, fasting and solitude have emptied me today. If not for the four days of juice, the 17 miles in a hilly frigid park and abstinence from the world; I might be fat, dumb and complacent. Fasting prepared the raw materials. Running threw me over a cliff, where the gentle embrace of solitude became my cushioned fall and endless immersion in light.

The fasting was the furnace. The running was the pounding and shaping by the divine hammer. The solitude was the quenching. I have become a tempered soul under the hand of Divine Love. I was refined from a pile of dirt to fine gold. I was transformed from an iron bar to a tempered steel sword. I was etched with beautiful designs and mysterious symbols. I am lovingly oiled and polished and placed in a sheath worn at My Lord’s waist.

There lies my humility, again I notice. I am carried at the side of Love, never withdrawn for violence, beauty forever hidden. I am an accessory, an accoutrement. His Presence requires my service, but my purpose is hidden away from what I appear to be. My silent unused position is a kind of prostration which I gladly offer.

What a strange reflection today. It is nonsensical, meaningless puffs of fantasy, musings of a spiritual drunk, the ravings of a mystical fool.

Christ the life of my soul.
My life hidden in Christ.
Christ lives, not I.

50th Anniversary Prayer

It has taken a year of study of A Course in Miracles (supplemented by a previous 25 years study of Christianity, Buddhism, Hinduism, and New Age); but I finally got my mind around the idea – I am/we are an idea of love in the Mind of Love (God). God is Love and God only can create love. So that is all any human can be: an idea of love. Everything else is an illusion. Extending love depends not on what charitable acts I do; or which person is standing in front of me. Extending love depends on what I am thinking. Any resentful thoughts ruin love and project hate instead of love. How to let go of all resentments is learned.

Take a look at this from A Course in Miracles (15.VI.4 and 5):

\”4 You do not find it difficult to believe that when another calls on God for love, your call remains as strong. Nor do you think that when God answers him, your hope of answer is diminished. On the contrary, you are more inclined to regard his success as witness to the possibility of yours. That is because you recognize, however dimly, that God is an idea, and so your faith in Him is strengthened by sharing. What you find difficult to accept is the fact that, like your Father, you are an idea. And like Him, you can give yourself completely, wholly without loss and only with gain. Herein lies peace, for here there is no conflict.

5 In the world of scarcity, love has no meaning and peace is impossible. For gain and loss are both accepted, and so no one is aware that perfect love is in him. In the holy instant you recognize the idea of love in you, and unite this idea with the Mind that thought it, and could not relinquish it. By holding it within itself, there is no loss. The holy instant thus becomes a lesson in how to hold all of your brothers in your mind, experiencing not loss but completion. From this it follows you can only give. And this is love, for this alone is natural under the laws of God. …\”

Prayer:
Jesus, for my 50th birthday, I would like to give myself completely. I am perfectly capable of recognizing the idea of love every where in the world, and of dedicating my life to increasing my performance in extending the conscious awareness of love as my only consciousness. May I be exclusively committed to love. Please help me. Upon my \”blowing out the candle\” may they say, \”She gave herself completely to love.\”

Since I plan to keep my candle burning for another 70 years, I should get to see the consciousness of divine love growing in the consciousness of the general population during that time. Significantly, everyone will know: love doesn\’t die, it just learns to give up its illusions.

[…love is all there is, love is all there is….I love you yeah yeah yeah…]

I just realized, I am still idealistic after 50 years of life here in an ego world. Isn\’t that fantastic! After 50 years, I am not cynically hardened, emotionally vindictive or hopeless! I have faith! Celebrate! This is a joyful moment! I still think I will remember God in this lifetime. I still think I will give up all my ego judgments and learn to love everyone. I still think I will realize that a consciousness of love is all I need and all I will want.

Today I ran 21 miles. I started out under a full moon and finished in bright sunshine. The three big black puppies mauled me. Instead of hating them, I thought, \”those dogs are love.\”

What is a Miracle?

This morning, as I laid on a guerney awaiting arm surgery, I had a few pages of the Course in Miracles text to ponder (ch 13.VIII) \”From Perception to Knowledge.\”

First, my lesson for today is: \”I do not know what anything is\” (#25). The reason is because my perception is based totally on ego goals, which are meaningless. The lesson is a start on giving up the goals I have established for everything. I mean everything. If I look honestly at the things in my life and my little plans, I see they are all for my interests. But, if we are one with God, we have no personal interests. All my ego\’s goals have nothing to do with my best interests because I am not an ego. I am light; we all are. So as I looked around at the I.V., the hospital equipment, my body, I was practicing the lesson: I do not know what this arm is for.

Then I was doing my lectio divina (spiritual reading) on the ACIM Text:

• Every miracle you offer to the Son of God is but the true perception of one aspect of the whole.
• When you have seen your brothers as yourself you will be released to knowledge [of the real world]…

Now, the text is about 690 pages and I have read it 4 times. But here clearly, I finally have a definition of what it means to participate in a miracle. My job is to perceive beyond the world I see to the knowledge of what my brothers really are, use a different kind of vision, Christ vision.

A miracle is NOT that I cured your illness, but that I gave you the gift of seeing you as the light that you really are. I stopped to ponder what I was reading, to chew on it and swallow it, making it a part of my being, allowing it to wash me and heal me; to shut my eyes and fall into the embrace of Love which surrounds us and fills the entire world. The world I see with human eyes is an illusion. We really are the Knowledge of God, forever light, forever one with God. We are in Him. We are Him. To use the Christ vision, which waits quietly in all of us, we need to give up all our ego goals and value Christ above all. All our judgement must be discontinued.

I felt the subtle joy of Love teaching me and responding to my call for help. Healing is the healing of my judgmental perception. Jesus says to be content with this. As I do the healing process, I pass it on to my brothers.

Surgery went well. The hotel has plenty of coffee and popcorn.

Vacation Wednesday – Two Hands

I have been reading a book called “The Doctrine of Awakening” by Julius Evola. I was reading it instead of meditating on the ACIM Text, because its theories seemed compatible to ACIM and perhaps helpful in understanding. This morning, I read a chapter on mental discipline. As I read it, I was dreaming of writing an essay on how an alcoholic could stay away from the first drink and how any craving for chocolate or potato chips could be overcome.

Somehow, this mental thought train was brought to a halt. I thought, I need to question my motives. I said, “Jesus, I need to question my motives. You offer awakening through ACIM. I admit my normal consciousness disgusts me. I hate myself so I want to awaken. Jesus, can awakening be found on such a premise? It is my ego that hates and my ego that seeks enlightenment.”

I laid aside the Evola book and glanced at the ACIM Text: “You may wonder why it is so crucial that you look upon your hatred and realize its full extent.”

And also: “…without the ego, you would find within yourself something you fear even more… Under the ego’s dark foundation is the memory of God, and it is of this that you are really afraid… For still deeper than the ego’s foundation, and much stronger than it will ever be, is your intense and burning love of God, and His for you. This is what you really want to hide.”

Do I read Doctrine of Awakening as an unconscious distraction because I am afraid of Redemption, remembering the love of God? Finding the burning love of God is not in the Doctrine. It is in ACIM. I had a revelation at this point. On the one hand, I seek to escape self disgust. On the other, I seek the elevated disposition I see in the enlightened ones. Both of these hands are ego and neither will work to achieve a genuine state of being. The Doctrine of Awakening seeks a state of being “not an I.” ACIM seeks the memory of God, which includes “not an I.” But the state of “not an I” is different. The Doctrine has self discipline and an individually existent inner power which achieves the state of “not an I.” The Doctrine is not spiritually associated. The inner power is intangible (not of this world) but it is individually associated. Not everyone has it. ACIM includes mental discipline. ACIM seeks the memory of God through the leading of the Holy Spirit, a universally available Helper. The ACIM state of “not an I” means that the separation is healed, the Son of God is unified. We, as one Son of God, have leapt into Heaven and are awake in the Love of God. ACIM is equally for everyone, but maybe not everyone chooses it at the same time.

I have to make a decision, a stand. Is my intention to remember God or not? If so, the Doctrine of Awakening is a waste of time for me. I want to follow a spiritual path to remember God. I want to uncover my “intense and burning love for God and His for me.” This is a fundamental decision. It excludes me from many paths that work for others, but are not what I want. I may see another person who appears to be enlightened, but I decide not to follow them because I have decided on finding the memory of God through a particular path. My primary interest is the love of God, not enlightenment per say.

I have at this point uncovered one of my ego’s secrets. I, as an ego, pursue enlightenment for my ego. Jesus, may I pursue the altruistic motive: unification and healing of the Son of God. If I stop my ego’s motives and follow the Holy Spirit for altruistic motives, I become “not an I” but universal Self. There is no I other than ego. Either I am unified as Self (one with God), or I am an ego separate from God.

Jesus, I haven’t yet remembered or found my love for God, but I admit I am an ego. Please help me. I do obey ego thoughts which will lead me away from God. I do not have any thoughts which lead to God, except as I hear the Voice of God calling and I decide to read a spiritual text. Jesus, please help me.