5/31/09 Insights from Study All human desire, and human actions which strive to fulfill these desires, are motivated by love. The three motivators are love of self, love of other creations, and love of God. Seen this way, it’s easy to understand that the first two loves can be easily overdone, but the love of God cannot be overdone at all.
5/31/09 Inspirations You are in the deep sea of “Godness”. You are drowning because you insist on breathing through your lungs instead of through your spirit. You’re afraid to trust God to keep you alive, so you flounder and fight against your environs. You know only your body and its wants, so you pay heed only to the body’s way. But immersed in God, you can have peace by breathing Him in through the spirit; forcing everything that’s not God out to make room. Breathe God in deeply — don’t try to fight His overriding presence. Don’t try to survive in a bubble of humanity; you were meant for so much better than that. Poke through that bubble; take a deep breath. Breathe God in; feel the peace of letting go. This is what you were meant for. The world you think you experience is only superficial – God is reality and you crave your return to Him. Open up every fiber you have in your being to saturation by God. Let Him bathe every cell you have in His warmth and peace. Things will look entirely different to you – things will appear as they really are and you will suddenly understand those who have gone before you on this journey. When you see from God’s viewpoint, everything will be clear. But you have to take in that first deep breath of God’s presence, letting it fill your spirit with goodness, and forcing the world’s badness out with finality. Away with it goes your attachment to the body, to the world, to the illusion of life without God. You are home, and breathing is easy.
5/29/09 Reflections Every adversity is an opportunity to glorify God. First we honor Him by persevering and not abandoning hope in Him. Then we honor Him by using the setback to further His agenda.
God doesn’t want bad things to happen to us. It’s the nature of this phase of our lives that evil must exist, but it exists for our eventual good. Our becoming perfect glorifies God, and we cannot become perfect except by wading through this imperfect setting.
To listen to most churches tell it, we are inherently so evil and the devil so powerful that God’s love often cannot overcome our tendencies and so He is forced to banish us from His sight for all eternity, as punishment for not being good enough to win the struggle.
This hogwash has kept millions of human beings from enjoying a right-relationship with God. You cannot hope to get close to this kind of God. This God demands what you can’t give – power over God Himself. This is a false idol, and when churches demand you board this merry-go-round, they are guaranteeing that your path will be more difficult than God wants it to be. We give in to this because we’re used to trusting human words; not communication from God directly.
Religion is the greatest adversity of all; the most insidious, most persistent obstacle to a right-relationship with God. Thankfully, God doesn’t really make marks on your scorecard – He puts what He wants for you into your consciousness and pours the means to get it done into your spirit. You use your free will to respond to God’s presence in you, but that’s icing on the cake for your life in this world. It has nothing to do with the real world, God’s kingdom, that you live in but which fullness is hidden from you as long as you’re subject to the adversity of this imperfect world.
That kingdom is yours because that’s what God created you for. For anyone to tell you God must change His mind about loving you because of what you do or don’t do here gives you a power over God that you know in your very being you don’t have. Why do you believe anything they tell you? Run as fast as you can into the arms of God – you are welcome there no matter what you’ve done, you deserve this personal relationship with the Creator, God will not turn you away, and you will be given the powers God feels are right to share with you. Any religion which teaches of a God any less than this is an obstacle around which God wants to guide you. In adversity He demonstrates how loved and protected you are – use these as opportunities to get closer to Him.
5/29/09 Inspirations I used to wonder what the point is of God creating the world anyway. If He is almighty, what did He need anything for? And certainly He would have no need for the imperfections that characterize this existence.
While it’s true that God needs nothing more than Himself, in His wisdom He has gone beyond that. His creations validate God in a way that pleases Him; our very lives glorify what He is. It’s not necessary that we be perfect, but that we give meaning to the love that fills God up to the point of overflowing. It’s not about what we do for God, but about what He does for us, that makes creation purposeful.
There is no beauty without the sharing of beauty. You could happily roll around in a roomful of shiny gold coins, but if there was no one to show them to and nothing to buy with them, your happiness would be an empty thing. The same demand for purpose applies to God – all His power needs sharing in order for His love to be meaningful. That is why the divinity of created things is a large part of mystical theology. It’s God’s sharing of His divinity that fills our spirits and gives up the spark of purposeful being. It’s God’s relationship to us that gives meaning to life. It’s God’s purpose that puts meaning to our creation and shares with us a purpose pleasing to God. We are His glory, and the more beautiful we are the more glory shines from God in the form of love.
5/29/09 Inspirations Having placed yourself in God’s hands, what could you have to fear? Think of the most horrible thing that could happen – if that is what a loving God has designed for you to have need of, the awfulness of it can only be a delusion. The closer you are to God, the less effect the world has on you. You realize that this isn’t the world God meant for you, and that you are progressing toward recognition of how you really are to live. Seen this way, nothing here matters in the long run, and in the short run you will get through it all better if you are united stubbornly to God.
Love of others is very important, but until you have worked your “self” into position to give all to God and receive all from Him, your goodness to others is insufficient. It’s through your relationship with God that you receive the temperament that makes your relationship with others Godly. Secure with the knowledge of God’s blessing, you have nothing to fear and so are remarkably adept in your service to others. When you can finally set ego aside to follow God’s initiative only, nothing can be failed so all can be tried.
5/23/09 Inspirations Grace seems hard to define. It may mean many things to many people. To a model, for instance, grace might mean poise. To a socialite, grace might be that spark of know-how that makes her the perfect hostess. Grace to a good-hearted child could be defined by his desire to help along another child who isn’t fitting in with the rest. Grace in social situations may imply knowing when to not pursue what’s in your mind to say. Many of us are familiar with “Grace Before Meals”, a prayer of thanks.
To mystics, grace is that gift of God whereby He shares His divine attributes and powers with us. It’s God encouraging us to be Godly in some measure, and us being comfortable knowing that because of the gift of grace we are assured to perceive correctly and act accordingly.
God’s grace goes hand-in-hand with His knowledge which, like grace, is given so that we might discern in a God-like way. These gifts are God’s work from within us – we don’t earn them outright; only live in such a way as to welcome them with humility and obedience. It seems reasonable that the more we use these gifts the more God will infuse them.
What better way to live life is there than to welcome and use God’s gifts of knowledge and grace in ways that please Him? This is a cause for which success is guaranteed by God Himself. When simplified this way, the master plan becomes obvious. To be actively engaged in this most basic yet most awe-inspiring cause, all we have to do is ask. The asking itself is a show of commitment that pleases God.
5/18/09 Insights from Study If I could be successful at teaching one thing it would be that God’s love is universal and His mercy is unilateral. He does not pick and choose who to love – He loves everything He created, and so should we. In order to preserve this relationship even in the face of our sin, He repaired our side of the bargain for us on His own initiative.
Now we are stunned by His forgiveness; we are blindsided by His mercy. We can’t believe we have already been assured of salvation – surely there must be something we must do! And so through human pride and our need to be the most relevant thing in the universe, we make up tasks and goals for ourselves that God has already made totally unnecessary.
The proper response to God’s love and mercy is to want to exhibit these same virtues in our own dealings in the world. It’s not about attaining the reward of heaven; it’s about living thankfully for the forgiveness of our sins that has already guaranteed eternal life. To live thankfully means that out of gratitude we agree with whatever pleases God. What pleases God is that we show universal love and unilateral mercy to others, like God has shown them to us.
It’s that simple. If we do this everything else will fall into place, and all that would be left is a more peaceful existence because the good things increase and the bad things become more bearable. To believe this is impossible is to buy into the same flaw that causes us to strive so achingly for something we already have. This flaw is the mistaken idea that what happens on Earth is dependent on human planning and effort. The successful ascendancy of universal love and mercy does not depend on what works we do – that is but a small miracle in the hands of God – so much as on our desire for what God desires. This is the key, for when we ask from this standpoint, God is sure to give us what we want.
It starts with one person – you. Ask God for what it takes to love and forgive those who have hurt you. You have this power when you ask God for it; He shares divine power because you desire the same thing He does. And if enough individuals live this way more will take notice and want to live this way as well. Soon the groundswell will become irresistible.
This is far from impossible – this is God’s plan and the thing that will be, without fail. What the mystics would like to tell you is that life is a whole lot less stressful if you would start today on this new direction. All you have to do is confront yourself with two statements concerning the next person who does you wrong. 1) “I will love this person even though I hate his sin, because this is how God loves him and me.” 2) “I will forgive this person unconditionally because God already has and He is the better judge.”
Your ego will fight you in this, because this method doesn’t make the same demands of the other person. But ignore your ego and live for your spirit. That’s where God’s power and your inner peace can be found.
5/17/09 Reflections Would you be bored if you had no chores to be accomplished? Sometimes we think we’d like to lounge around all day doing nothing, but deep inside we suspect that we would only last a week or two before inaction would become unpleasant. Even if we could actually imagine the possibilities if we didn’t have our current responsibilities, we still fear what total freedom would mean. The old analogy comes to my mind of the man who feared heaven because standing on a cloud, flapping his wings, and playing on a harp might be entertaining for one hour at most, followed by extreme boredom for the rest of eternity.
We laugh at this, but it really does underscore what we all suspect but nevertheless have trouble relating to – that reality is foreign to us because what we think of reality is only what our human faculties can extract from the total. If we had the mind of God we would see things quite differently; that is – properly. Eternal heaven is not about clouds, angel wings, and harps. It’s about pure and total joy, which is not calculable to the human intellect and is never boring.
But back to Earthly life – though we cannot reason it out fully we can observe it; we just can’t observe it from the standpoint of reality, as God can. How we observe life may not matter as much in the eternal scheme of things, but it certainly does matter in the short-term. We work because if we didn’t, our dependents, including ourselves, would suffer. But because our perception isn’t perfect, we don’t usually take God’s care into account – we end up over-estimating our own importance. Therefore, if we are the master of the ship, then the further and faster it goes and the more useful load we can pile onto it, the better we feel about the charter. We amass wealth not to provide what our dependents need, but to demonstrate our own value. Like everything else humans are in charge of, we overdo it, become used to overdoing it, and are in fear of not overdoing it enough. No wonder we lose perspective; no wonder we have no time for the important things of life.
We are stuck in this cycle because we’ve built up a society that demands more “things” than we need, and these things require lots of work to afford. If we lived in a different society we may not require all those “things” to feel fulfilled, but we would also not have to put so much into our work and would have more time and energy for family, friends, and God.
I think that as long as we are exiled from the perfect joy of reality, God has given us work; not as a burden but as the satisfaction of being occupied and useful. Done the way God intended it, work is another blessing bringing inner peace and sense of right-relationship with God. It’s part and parcel of the way God intended us to be fruitful in simplicity – acquiring enough and being satisfied with that. Simplicity is not poverty – poverty is a result of politics, not God. Simplicity is God’s desire; mindless amassing of riches in order to overcome simplicity is an aberration of God’s gift of honest work.
5/16/09 Insights from Prayer Lord, my life is good and for that I thank You from everything that is in my heart. Yet, for the very reason of my being blessed, I’m so willing to give something back that when You refuse my help it feels like rejection. I do understand that Your methods are better for us all than what I could come up with, and I’m happy to accept Your decision with inner peace. But deep down I still feel old and sick and isolated, which in turn convinces me that what I am able to do in Your name will not have widespread effectiveness. It may be merely human weakness, but knowing despair is a common failing doesn’t help it go away.
In my prayer I ask You to give me the words that will touch someone’s soul, so that seeing a bit of themselves in what I experience, they will seek a first-hand relationship with You for themselves. These are souls who will knock and have the door opened for them; who will ask for the very things You wish to give. I hope with all my heart that You have made this so.
Dear God, one of the most satisfying virtues is to be satisfied with what You provide. You keep reminding me of this every time I come up with an idea that You must refuse. I should be dismissive of what constitutes despair in my life – real despair in this matter would be knowing I’ve deliberately pushed You away to make room for something else to take Your place. Thank You, Lord, for the knowledge that there’s nowhere else to go and no need to go elsewhere anyway.
5/10/09 Insights from Study Far from being an anomaly, mysticism as a method of Divine communication is the normal state of creation. In mysticism we gain knowledge and grace not through the senses but through the infusion of the Divine Mind into the spirit. This is how communication must be done after death, when there is no body to host the senses. It was the way we were created to receive God’s words, before sin and the need to rely on materialistic senses that resulted from this sin. And intuition infused from God is the natural language He speaks to His creatures other than us, for they never had the free will to sin and distance themselves from God as we have done.
To get back to our first language is a principle of devotional mysticism, and to do it we bypass the senses to bring ourselves to the spiritual state where the language of contemplation still reigns. We can communicate directly with God in our original language when we direct our thoughts away from our bodies, our senses, our “world beyond Eden”. It’s unnatural to worldly selves, but to our inner selves it’s as warm and familiar as returning to a quiet, peaceful house at the end of a hectic day of negative emotion.
In our pride we’ve relegated our first language to the junk heap of stuff we don’t need because human ambition is to be self-sufficient. In our self-regard it’s we who must be heard; not God. And we must be heard in our own way; not God’s.
But for those of us who perceive that what we have around us is not reality, it makes sense to speak with Reality in the language Reality speaks. We go somewhere quiet, distance our minds from the world, nestle our selves into the inner place where God dwells, and silently wait for Him to affect us. We are home at last – with our Father, listening to His familiar voice. We can’t say how it happens – that understanding is one of the many things we have lost – but we are content in God’s desire to speak to us in the pure way for which He created us. This we can do only when we think to begin our journey back to Him, for until we start on this road we haven’t understood we have somewhere to go. We should be ever thankful for this opportunity, for even though it’s available to all, few will pick up on the journey and listen to the Guide.
