Disagreements

Email to a friend regarding disagreements.  

Your last paragraph has had me wondering if my expressing my own views and what might be considered theology, is offending to your own.  A little of this might be inevitable in any relationship that does a lot of sharing of beliefs/theology, which can probably be beneficial or detrimental depending upon various things, including the open-mindedness of each person, and probably above all the faith in the other person's path even if it seems to conflict or is expressed in different words and ways. 

I personally have great faith in what I know of and intuit regarding your path, and would love to hear more about the underpinnings (beliefs/theology) whenever you care to share them.  It is one of the things that has made our relationship so valuable to me.  When you express your beliefs it often expands my own because since I believe in you and your path I also believe in the things underlying it, and this makes me expand my own underlying beliefs/foundation to incorporate yours in some way, which allows me to be whole/unified with a new segment of people and things, which to me is what it is all about. 

I am happily finding that as far as you are concerned I naturally operate on what Fr Rohr would conceptualize as “both, and” rather than “either, or.”  This essentially means that even though our views (beliefs/theology) often are very different my natural assumption (which I also think is correct) is that both of our views are mostly correct and generally what seems like conflicts or contradictions are just a lack of full understanding (we all only know a little/the more we know the more we know we don’t know/etc), which might be due to not having it be revealed yet or sometimes due to it being beyond human comprehension. 

As far as God being the Greek logos or Word that was made flesh with Jesus, I would also borrow concepts from Fr Rohr and say that the Word may have become flesh with Jesus, but that accurately implies it was around before Jesus and operating the same before Jesus.  Jesus may have been it and demonstrated it perfectly for the rest of us to follow, but he did not create it or change what had always been and always will be the Truth and the Path, and I think he says as much a few times when he talks about the Father doing the work and his claim is that he and the Father are one.  He is simultaneously the Word (aka Father/Holy Spirit) and expressing and demonstrating it. 

All of this is to say that from my standpoint please never shy away from expressing your own beliefs/concepts/theology even, or maybe especially, when they seem to conflict or contradict my own.  I doubt I will believe that they actually do conflict or contradict my own and they will probably push me to expand my own and become more whole and unified with larger parts of The Entirety.  Diversity in all its forms somewhat paradoxically is one of the best paths to connection/unity/wholeness.

Now with all of that said, if the way I express things or the things I express seem to wholly conflict or contradict your own beliefs and perspective such that our relationship seems constricting or suppressing towards your indwelling spirit, I hope that you will let me know, thereby freeing your indwelling spirit from the constriction/suppression.  

Image of God and Forgiveness

The image of God imprinted within us desperately yearns to fulfill its destiny of being a generous, valuable and integrated part of our surroundings. However, throughout life (starting early) in at least most of our human relationships we find that trying to fulfill this destiny often leads to feeling exploited and other negative emotions.

We often respond to this by trying to adopt rules for relationships (sometimes with religious backing) that will make them safe enough that maybe our imprinted image can manifest itself. At the extreme end of this is the appeal of fundamentalism to common folks. However, we find that trying to control things with rules and then the rules themselves are not compatible with the image.

Sometimes we go to the other extreme and think freely giving all of ourselves to relationships irregardless of how we are treated must be the answer and that this offering of ourselves will be enough to transform the relationships into something where our deepest self (God’s image imprint) will be able to be the generous, valuable and integrated part that it knows it is. However, we normally find that we (including the image) are trampled.

Commonly we vacillate between the extremes, thinking the answer must be in balancing them.

If we are dedicated, lucky, and have good mentors/friends we find ways to let go of the scars from past relationships and in the process realize how our image imprint (and our spirit emanating from it) were ignored, disregarded, and trampled upon to produce those scars. This is the process of forgiveness, for as long as the scars are still present we will at least somewhat react from them. Whereas once we go through this process of forgiveness, we realize the process has also taught us how to have relationships that nurture the image and emanating spirit of all involved.

Unfortunately, most are not taught how to go through this process of forgiveness or are unwilling to do so and seem to think forgiveness is a simple decision and done. In actuality it is a decision to start and continue to go through the process of forgiveness but much more than a simple or quick decision in totality. Most tragically, they thus lose out on learning how to have different nurturing relationships and often repeat the same mistakes over and over.

If a genuine reconciliation might occur, the process for the offending party to ready themselves is very similar since any objectionable behavior is just as repulsive to the image imprint of the offending party. Until both are well into their own such processes it is almost always better for each to focus on their own scars and learning from them, rather than rush a premature reconciliation without each having the necessary foundation.  And longing for reconciliation is often the best and sometimes only sufficient motivation for either or both to continue on their own processes.

Sin

Another comment to a FB post

Sin is viewing ourselves as separate from everything else, especially our immediate surroundings, and thinking, feeling and then acting from that perspective, which puts us at odds with our surroundings and trying to maximize our own situation, often at the expense of those people and things around us. While in this mindset we try to make god into something that will justify the path we are on, and that ends up having to be a confrontational god that must be rule based with the assignment of winners and losers, with each getting their “just” rewards and punishments.

This is what we must be born again from or awakened to realizing we are a little bit separate and our own entity, but much more so slightly unique and valuable, hopelessly connected, parts of The Entirety, which is God.

When we think, feel, and act from the perspective of being separate and at odds with our surroundings we put barriers between us and our surroundings. That is why we must “repent” and go through the reconciliation process, which generally includes the things we most resist, like confessing our sins to one another and doing whatever we can to rectify and heal the hurt and harm we have caused while acting from a separateness perspective. However, to the extent we have been saved or born again or have awakened this reconciliation process is actually a joyful process.

Please do not misunderstand and think I am saying I have mastered or do any of this reconciliation process well (or often). And even when I do actually do it fairly well I generally start to do it grudgingly. At the same time at some point I sometimes surrender to it fairly fully for at least a short period of time, and in those fairly short periods of time I experience what all the Saints are trying to share with us, that we normally misconstrue.

Saying that seems to great lack an essential humility, which is one of the pillars of the whole experience, as the saints/transformed always emphasize, and the only way to explain that is by remembering that getting to the experience occurs by surrendering the self, as apart from everything else, and the Majesty belongs completely to The Father/Entirety and not to the slightly unique, valuable and connected part (each of us). This is because each of us is extremely feeble and of almost no significance until we claim our spot as part of greater wholes and ultimately The Greatest Whole or Entirety. Whereas to the extent we do claim our spot we become a part of Something infinitely wonderful and tap into the Power to move proverbial mountains.

Sin is ignoring, suppressing, avoiding our indwelling spirit/Christ within/deepest self/soul/heart (whatever you want to call it) in all the crazy and harmful ways we do that with the worst being when we harm another and make them more reluctant to live from and share their own.

Faith is following our indwelling spirit/Christ within/deepest self/soul/heart that knows what Jesus and all the great spiritual teachers taught is the Truth. As Jesus taught, this starts off like a mustard seed or yeast in size and significance, but if we prioritize it (spend time, effort, resources on it), share it with others and help each other find more of it and live from it, that is the Kingdom. And to the extent we have faith in that Truth and process and build the Kingdom, we have the proverbial Faith that moves mountains and we join God’s Benevolent Eternity, which collectively is The Good News.

I personally have a smidge of that Faith and unfortunately still spend most of my time ignoring, suppressing, and avoiding. Fortunately, even that smidge has been enough to change my life from being about 80% tough/miserable, 15% decent, and 5% good, to about 60% good, 20% tough/miserable, and 20% mountain top, for many years.

Sin, Free Will, Forgiveness, and Reconciliation

I am replying to a FB post about God being furious about free will. 

If God destroyed sin wouldn’t he also be destroying free will in the process, which would in turn make everything meaningless? If that is true (and I think it is) then having sin be something we can choose would be part of God’s plan and not something to destroy or get rid of. If that were true I don’t think God would be furious about it although I do think God would be sad since it separates Him from something He loves, us.

If God is “furious” why shouldn’t we also be furious? And anyone who is furious (probably including God) wants retribution, don’t they?

Any transgression (sin) puts distance between us and God because it blocks us from the part of ourselves that experiences God because that part of us knows everyone and everything deserves dignity and to the extent we act contrary to it we move away from being able to experience God. The path back to God then is to realize how we strayed and the pain this caused and then do whatever we might be able to do to correct our wrong and the pain caused.

All the work is ours and as soon as we have reconnected to our spirit by the above process God is always waiting with open arms, and actually He was calling, guiding and rooting for us through the whole process.

When someone else is trying to correct their own wrong against us, we ought to try to follow this same paradigm, rooting for them to succeed and being ready to embrace them to the extent they are successful. Of course most people (including myself most of the time) are looking for a free pass for our past transgression that we call forgiveness but is really just enabling us to not reconcile with our own spirit and God. And we are correct to intuitively reject this because it is simply not how reconciliation and forgiveness occurs, whether that is between a person and God or between people or groups of people.

Generally, our own spirit can tell what the other intends and their sincerity and is quick to act correctly if we let it. At the same time wisdom (learning from our own and other peoples’ experience) cautions that we ought to be cautious and allow reconciliation to proceed slowly, even though we do not like the prolonged uncertainty and time spent where souls meet. If we try to rush it though we often short circuit this reconciliation and forgiveness process and set everyone up to fail.

Continuing

I figured we mostly agreed. And I definitely agree about Him being relentless and ultimately it being Grace. My point that I did not make well was that this Grace is always available with Its hand outstretched to us for the very instant we decide to go through the process of reconciliation. So when I said all the work is ours I meant the decision and process never fail and as soon as we get desperate enough to fully commit to it, we will know union with our Creator.

And even before I saw your reply I was thinking I needed to correct another error of mine. Our Creator’s forgiveness, as ours ideally ought to be, should always be present and require nothing because it is only due to any one of us being in some degree of hell (separated from our spirit that is the only part of us that can experience God) that we act in objectable ways and we are generally blind to this – “forgive them for they know not what they do.” And to the extent we are with our own spirit and communing with God, we know this.

At the same time what I previously said about forgiveness and reconciliation is true for reconciliation, and trying to give ourselves or another a free pass for our misdeeds turns out to be anything but generous because it blocks the very path to experiencing and thus knowing wholeness with our Creator (and fellows).

So we ought to forgive quickly and then be cautious and deliberate about reconciliation, not to punish, but because that is actually the generous/loving path. And we ought to be rooting for them (us) and yearning for them (us) to dig deep enough and be courageous enough to succeed on that path, while also having faith that they (we) can follow that path if they (we) choose.

Unity

A few FB comments added together

We need much less unity than most believe. Most disguise their efforts to protect themselves by tell others (whether that be friends, family, or others in society) how they ought to do things by claiming they are looking for this unity (for country, god, family, business or any number of reasons).

The only unity we need is a very basic common decency that is prioritized above everything else. When we think we need more or demand more unity we inevitably lose the basic common decency in the process.

To elaborate further, unity is an unmistakable fact, which we generally cannot see.  We are each hopelessly inseparable parts of the Greatest Whole and lots of smaller wholes (like marriages, families, friends, community groups including churches, workplaces, etc).

We have a part of us that knows of this unity that people variously call our true self, indwelling spirit, deepest self, soul, part of the Holy Spirit, Christ within, etc.

This unity and the fact we have a part of us that can experience it and thus know it, is the essence of what all great religions where founded. As such the religions teach how to find, experience and live from (collectively integrate) this part of us that can experience and thus know this Unity and a little of the Greatest Whole or Entirety.

However, over time religions end up getting contorted and used by those with power for their own purposes, most commonly without poor intent. This happens in religious groups and something very similar happens, sometimes with slightly different language and concepts in most other groups, whether that be families, workplaces, etc. As mentioned previously this is often done under the guise of unity, but it has the effect of suppressing the part of us that can experience and know actual Unity, which is the floor and basis of everything else.

The most unity that can be demanded without suppressing this part of ourselves is common decency, and ends up being enough if our goal really is what the great religions were founded upon, rather than our own safety and prosperity. Common decency demanded for everyone allows each to find this place within them that knows Unity and act from it, and surprisingly gives no other path.

Knowledge of Good and Evil

Another email to a friend

As far as consciousness, the knowledge of good and evil, original sin and becoming like a child again to enter the Kindgom:

My view is that there are individual and community aspects to the fall or original sin that are both separate and intertwined.  I believe the best basic definition of consciousness is simply awareness, which quickly leads to the ability to see ourselves as separate from everything else and then evaluate ourselves in relation to everything else.  From this we developed the ability to 

1 - be selfish and gain advantages for ourselves at the expense of others (evil), which leads everyone else to want or feel they need to do the same and endless conflict (worldliness).  Or 

2- to look out for the benefit of The Whole more than our own individual or separate interests (good), which of course turns out to be good for us also since we are part of The Whole and leads others to want to reciprocate, which becomes the Kingdom when embraced by a community. 

So the individual aspect of the fall or original sin is that we use our awareness of being separate and thinking to maximizing our own safety and interests.  This starts young, probably around the terrible twos when kids are testing their boundaries to see how advantageously to themselves they can arrange things.  Kids this age also like to be generous, but generally trend towards being spoiled selfish brats if not led in various ways towards looking out for others.  And of course we should not forget that life is full of unavoidable pain and suffering (starting with child birth from the child’s perspective), which everyone tries to avoid.  Basically all I am saying here is that we have an inherent tendency to be selfish to the extent we have not been taught by our community and life to be more concerned about a greater good than our own and we probably never get rid of it completely.*

When this inherent tendency towards selfishness (getting as much as we can and avoiding as much pain as we can) mixes with the same in others we get endless conflicts, including holding emotional currency over others (basically subtle emotional hostage taking and blackmail).  This is the corporate/community part and the trauma/pain/suffering that we as humans needlessly inflict upon one another, which teaches us that we must hide the part of us that wants to be a part of rather than separate because that is the part of us that can and often will be hurt as well as manipulated and exploited for others selfish ends if not hidden.  This is what we must unlearn or let go of and “turn and become like a child again” in order to enter the Kingdom.  I do not think that Jesus meant that is the only thing necessary (because we will still have our inherent selfishness), but that is one component necessary. 

And it is probably the first thing necessary, because it is only after we let go of this pain and the fear it creates, that we are capable of starting to live from our secret place where we know we are united with everything else.  As we start to live from that place (which of course is not supposed to stay hidden) and experience the joy of being found, whole, and connected (at least to an extent) this is the fuel that convinces us to relinquish our separate based motivations and prioritize how we might enrich things beyond us.  And as we do this we experience more joy and faith that further propels us. When we get off track by looking out for ourselves more than others (even if doing generous things for the wrong reasons or recognition) we will quickly know because we will experience the pain of being separated from the place within that connects to everything else and will thus go back to feeling lost, broken, and separate, which is often all the more excruciating after experiencing the opposite.

*There are beneficial functions of looking for advantages and competing with others. 

1 - It pushes people beyond what they would normally think they were capable of and thus would attempt to achieve without the competition, which ends up being good for the community as they achieve more than they otherwise would.   

2 – They look for better ways to do things in order to win, which leads to innovations that can serve humanity and beyond well if used for that purpose. 

3 – In being pushed to dig so deep and find strength beyond what they knew they had during the preparation or competition or after losing, they will often tap into the place we connect to things beyond ourselves, which is the part that connects to God.  In indigenous cultures that do not encourage competition, often various rites of passage serve this function to some extent.

Along these lines I love the saying, “Success is failure turned inside out” and the poem it comes from, which I think is trying to express what I am here with some of the benefits of competition and tough challenges.  In my own words that would be something like, the accumulation and then coalescing of tiny partial successes within what seems like failures is what leads to finding ourselves and success, all at the same time, if we persevere through what seems like failures, but is actually our necessary journey.  This is the process of chiseling away at the things that keep us separated to see glimpses of who we are in God, as we learn from great challenges that push us seemingly beyond ourselves to this source of greater power within us and beyond us.  

Spiritual Euphoria

An email to a friend

You asked me a great question last night. Which was, what is the benefit of the physical feeling of euphoria that I sometimes experience and think are spiritual experiences?

To some extent I have always felt guilty about the pleasure that is a part of the experience which is reinforced by part of the intuitive knowledge from the experience that I am a lucky bastard and a fuck up.  And I cannot emphasize either of those things enough, that I am lucky beyond belief and a fuck up beyond belief.  Which means the pleasure and really the whole experience is completely a gift from God, pure Grace.  Together those things are as important for me to know at my deepest levels as anything else in life and a big part of the benefit of the experience.

As I have contemplated it more last night and this morning and now gotten to a sustained strongly euphoric state for a couple hours I have explored with the experience what the benefits might be. 

The answer seems to be that the euphoria or ecstasy is a result of manifesting my destiny or realizing my destiny of being at one or in communion with God a.k.a. the Entirety. As such acting from this experience would look like Jesus or St. Francis of Assisi or Mother Teresa, etc. and letting the feelings of this experience over power and heal the scars of trying to live in community with those around me is the solution for my brokenness, separateness, being lost. The crux of the experience is that for that moment and however long it lasts I am not broken or separate or lost, I am one with everything and whole with my creator and found as well as greatly loved by my creator, while simultaneously knowing I am feeble and essentially nothing apart from. 

And all the above is completely reality. It is not a spiritual fantasy and I know that because it aligns with what Jesus and the great saints and mystics have all taught. So my task is to live that reality and much of my guide for that task is to follow that experience by following the feelings of the experience and letting them infuse those areas of my life where I am most broken and acting from that brokenness.  When those feelings infuse those areas and I am thus whole and free to follow them the ecstasy will be present but much much more importantly I will be joyously acting from wholeness with everything else or communion and I will want to be of maximal benefit to whatever I can be since everything else is also part of the same Whole. 

It doesn't have much benefit or maybe any benefit if it doesn't infuse the areas of my life where I am most broken. And when I do go back to the broken areas it is extremely painful to go from such wonderfulness to the intense pain of feeling separated again and broken. It can make it seem like the wholeness was never real to begin with and can lead to despair.  

It also often leads me to want to just enjoy the wholeness and avoid my brokenness but that quickly leads to the wholeness disappearing because it is a spiritual fantasy and if pushed far enough leads to despair (normally) blamed on others for not going along with my unfair unrealistic spiritual fantasy. 

I started writing this the day after my last email but did not get around to finishing it for a couple weeks. 

Before starting let me do a little more "wind-up" that is probably already understood and not necessary, but will make me feel better to have said.  I do not write to try to convince you or anyone of anything.  I am odd and like the intense internal stuff, I think it is because I spent so much of my life rejecting it, suppressing it, and avoiding it because it seemed to make others uncomfortable and thus me unacceptable, if I shared it.  And yet this deep internal stuff was also what I most identified with as being me and thus I was always rejecting, suppressing, and avoiding the deepest (and best) me, which I most identified with as being me.

The image that comes to mind is this deep internal me trying to peek its head out of a cellar and me continually stomping on the cellar door violently trying to just kill that part of me so that I do not have to feel like the thing that is most me is hopelessly defective. And I tried lots of ways to kill it.  Alcohol and drugs were my favorite, but I tried to use therapy and the 12 steps and exercise, and shaming it in myself and others, and starving it with will power and depriving it of things for long periods of time, etc.  And I still use eating and caffeine, mostly to take off the rough edges off life but sometimes for much more than that.

I might be the only one in the world to believe this, but I now believe that deepest part of myself that I was always violently trying to kill is actually who I am in God and God’s image in me all at the same time.  And the only thing that finally got me to try the absolutely desperate “hail mary” of surrendering to it, was a very dark despair on top of the low level despair I had my whole life when not suppressing it. 

As I write I realize that my ecstasy kind of makes sense in this context of switching from being so desperate for so long and trying to kill the most, if not only important part of me, thinking that was the answer, to surrendering to and then really embracing who I am in God, is probably the perfect recipe for spiritual ecstasy.  I’ve actually never been looking for euphoria/ecstasy in the spiritual realm, and I am still somewhat uncomfortable with it.  At the same time it seems like I am supposed to learn from it.   I think I am supposed to learn to let it infuse the areas of me that are the most separate/broken/lost/etc so that I do not have to act in a “worldy” ways, trying to accumulate and use emotional currency to protect myself, which separates me from everything else and is the belly of the beast where I spent most of my life.

That means that I have to live on the faith that what Jesus and all the great spiritual teachers have taught is actually the truth, here and now.  And that is extremely hard to do (have faith), even when I get these regular extremely powerful spiritual experiences that tell me that is true reality.  Then even if I do have that faith, learning to allow this sacred place in me to manifest itself in my daily life takes practice (like everything else in life) and even when I am trying hard and doing everything right in trying to live from it, I often screw up. 

Moving on I am very aware a lot of these things I say and do make me seem off the wall and I may be off the wall, and I am all for skepticism of me if in a inquisitive manner or even a respectful disagreeing and contradicting manner.  I’m not sure if you were being skeptical or inquisitive when asking me about the benefits of the physical feelings, but it is great because it pushes me further into them and at least in the vicinity of who I think I am in God to look for an answer.  So always feel free to go even further, and as such point out where I seem to be wrong or have holes or fallacies in my concepts.  It is fruitful and fulfilling trying to fill in those holes.

That turned into something completely different than I was intending to write about, which is that a part of my last long message made it sound like I thought I was only broken/separate/lost because of my scars from trying to live in community with those around me growing up or since and that is not true at all.  I probably went there first because it is what we had been talking about.  The main reason I am broken/separate/lost is because my first and main priority has always been to protect this deepest part of myself (which I used to think was hopelessly defective and now think is who I am in God).

I believe this is the true meaning of original sin, that as humans our first priority is to protect this deepest place within us rather than live from it.  When we developed consciousness, aka the knowledge of good and evil, we mistakenly thought we had developed a way to keep this deep vulnerable part of us protected and still satisfied.  However, this led us to view ourselves as separate and try to gain advantages over our fellows in order to protect it and then satisfy it, which is the origin and still source of all sin. 

So if what I think is spiritual euphoria that I often experience is going to do me much good, likely it will be by being so delicious (as you said from Brother Lawrence) or in other ways irresistible (from the joy of living it and the pain of burying it) that I will make it a higher priority to live from it rather than protect it.  And over time I will learn through failure and success how to integrate (live and share) it in more and more facets of my daily life with people and things I come in contact with.  

And what you have done for me is genuinely seem inquisitive about all this stuff I try to express verbally or in writing, and again I thank you for that.  It is hard to be motivated to try to express it and share it when doing so mostly irritates most people, and while I am willing to be irritating to some extent to share what I think is of utmost importance, I have no desire to be irritating.  I want to nurturing of this most important path everyone most wants.  At the present time I have not figure out how to do that much though unless the other person is in dire straights. 

Terminology

Since it is probably confusing if I mean different things by different words, as most people would, I am including this post to provide clarification.

I mean the same thing or view the following as synonyms:

Deepest self, image of God imprinted deeply within us, our individual part of the Holy Spirit, Christ within, soul, source within, and sometimes heart or gut.  (If I talk about our indwelling spirit or simply spirit, I generally mean what radiates from any of those previously mentioned synonyms). 

The Entirety (sometimes with the additional of eternity in both ways), the Greatest Whole, the Father, the Source or the Source of All or the Source Beyond, the Body of Christ, or maybe most frequently as simply God.

When I talk of Jesus (as opposed to Christ) I am generally referring to Jesus as a human.  I generally only do this when agreeing with him that the path he taught to follow (not know or believe, but follow) is a path to all the above. 

Sometimes I chose which synonyms to use in order to go along with what I think is nearest to how most other people view things and sometimes I do the opposite to challenge people to think of things differently.  Please remember though that no human language can accurately or precisely describe most of these things.  The best we can hope to do is awaken a tiny sliver of our deep inherent image of God.  It is only by experiencing this image of God within and through it everything beyond us, that we know anything of the subject.  

Paradoxes

Another FB comment to a post about how the narrow way Jesus talks about does not mean being closed minded or not contemplating things broadly.  This comment rambles at times and I apologize for that.

AA also refers to the Path as the Broad Highway, and it is one of countless paradoxes that both are absolutely true, which can only be comprehended by what people variously refer to as Christ within, the indwelling Spirit, the Holy Spirit, the true self, the soul, etc, and I refer to mainly as our deepest self or more recently our own image of God within. This is the part of us that knows we are a small but real part of The Entirety, including Eternity in both directions (aka God). It is the part of us that knows we are all part of this same Entirety, which is God, and thus everything deserves respect and care. Our greatest desires all revolve around allowing this part of ourselves to live out its destiny of being a connected and valuable (even if extremely tiny) part of this Greatest Whole.

However, this part of us feels very vulnerable and like it must be protected at all costs because life is rough/traumatic/painful/scary and it has often been hurt and when it is hurt too badly and will not show its self at all we are permanently separated from Everything Else, which is accurately described as hell. Thus generally if we are trying to live a religious/spiritual/righteous life we spend most of our time trying to make things safe such that we might be able to live from this sacred part of us, but it can never be perfectly safe and thus even many of those really trying very hard to live religious/spiritual/righteous lives end up spending most of their life trying to make things safe to bring out this most important part and our truest identity, rather than actually living from it in this messy dangerous world. For the religiously inclined this most commonly takes the form of trying to convince others of theological theories of beliefs (name of religion/doctrine/dogma/creeds/etc) because if they got everyone else to agree on one it would be safe to live from this part of us.

Normally, the only thing that makes us actually find and maybe start living from this deepest part of ourselves is if we are in so much pain and have tried everything else we can think of as a solution. Then we might truly live a Hail Mary pass and as is attributed to Joseph Campbell, “find our treasure in the cave we have most feared to go.” This is why the least are first RIGHT NOW in the Kingdom if they enter that cave and have good mentors and fellowship with others who have found it necessary to also enter this cave and find the Treasure we are all most seeking. This is also why It is the narrow way because It is found in the last place we want to look and the place the world and even most religious people truly trying to be helpful most steer us away from. And if we do not find good mentors and fellowship with others who have decided (again normally from desperation) to enter that cave and live from the Treasure they find, it is normally impossible for us to do it even if we try courageously and desperately.

We also have to get a big enough taste of this Treasure along with having good mentors for a while and then becoming good mentors and friends with others trying to live from the Treasure, to make the very real suffering of this Entirety we find ourselves in sustainable and then eventually the glue that binds us with glory to the Entirety. When we know from living from this Treasure that any suffering we are willing to endure to be in solidarity with The Entirety turns to glory when we do it for this purpose and with this understanding. It is actually the obvious and natural result of truly living in communion, and of course the ultimate Glory of God is the ultimate symbol of this - Christ on the Cross.

We also have to get a big enough taste of this Treasure to make our own suffering and vulnerability of living from this deepest part of ourselves turn to glory as we start to understand that everyone’s truest identity is not as an individual but as a valuable, somewhat unique and tiny part of The Entirety, and the only reason they hurt us or anyone else is they are separated from this deepest part of themselves (in hell) and acting from the pain this separation causes, because they do not know to enter the cave through the pain, and thus have to do something else with the pain, which they invariably inflict on others. This does not mean we have to accept it or tolerate it, but it is the way to not take it personally. And if we do not take it personally it does not hurt us at our deepest levels and prevent us from living from this sacred place within us, which is all that really matters.

After we find our Treasure and fellowship where we can start to learn to live from It (which is the Kingdom of God right here and now on earth) we will start to learn how to live from It outside our fellowship and in this way attract new people interested in this Treasure, which is everyone’s greatest desire. We will actually learn that there are countless ways to live from this sacred place and encourage others to find their own and live from It, which is aptly referred to as the Broad Highway.

We just have to want to find and live from our own and be willing to experience what we think will be our own suffering and the suffering of being in solidarity or communion with Everything Else. Then if we actually do want this and decide to do it, we will learn that it is actually glory (rather than suffering) we experience to the extent we are all in for The Entirety. And if we even get there a little bit we will forever know That is what everything is about and if we continue to decide to pursue It by finding friends and mentors that have seen a little of It and want to help themselves find more by spending time exploring It with others we will succeed. If we cannot find the right types of friends and mentors or we are not willing to possibly suffer to benefit things beyond us our chances are not good.

It is kind of another paradox that we only really suffer when we are trying to avoid our own suffering, but we are human, which means we are almost always a mixed bag and have multiple motives and expectations for things like reciprocity. It is hard to sort through these things and get better at following our deepest sacred place towards true giving without personal motives or attached expectations, and it is almost impossible without friends and mentors aiming for similar things.

And what you are suggesting, as far as questioning our theological (and I would say other) assumptions, that is a great way in my experience to find this deepest place within us because it turns out that all of our thinking and feelings originate from that place. It is not only our deepest place, it is our most ancient place and thus evolutionarily where thoughts and feelings developed from and still where they come from or originate. Tracing the thoughts and feelings back to it in meditation and with supportive friends and mentors is how transformation actually occurs. In fact it seems to be only at this place where thinking and feelings both originate and thus can mingle, that all insights and thus transformations occurs.

Anyone willing to contemplate all that would almost certainly be following your advice to go outside their own theological box. However, believe it or not I would not suggest contemplating all of it to most people. I would suggest just contemplating anything that might resonate deep within them and see where that leads.

A week later after I had met with my friend.  As I was saying on the boat, part of this comment above has been bugging me since a day or so after I posted it. So I am going to try to rectify that now.

Basically the part that has been bugging me is the language of the last (or least) will be first, and the problem primarily stems from the fact that language is always insufficient to accurately express spiritual truths. However, short of being in another’s presence where we can subtlety convey more, we are stuck with language as our method of conveying.

The part that bugs me I’ll try to explain using my wife and I as examples even though we are not perfect examples of the concept. I am a pharmacist and twice got caught taking drugs from the pharmacy I worked at to fuel my drug addiction, the first time a lot drugs and the second not very many because my wife found out quickly and honorably turned me in.

My wife then continued to support and love me through all of it, including me often being unbearable as I desperately searched for a solution other than alcohol and drugs to help me not feel internally tortured, as I had most of my life when not under the influence of alcohol or drugs.

After a decade of this desperate searching enough things came together or maybe one or two big things changed (it is hard to say) to allow me to experience peace and a sense of well-being much of the time, and this has been fairly consistent and sustainable for many years.

Now I still often overeat, I use caffeine to pick me up, and I am hot tub dependant, but I get along fairly well and fairly happily with increasing amounts of feeling extremely good, which always correlates in some way with how much I feel I am able to live in communion with everything else. Another way to say what it correlates with is how consistently I am walking with the Spirit or how well I am integrating the Spirit into my daily life. Or how well I am integrating or living from Christ within, if I define Christ within as the deepest part of myself that knows that everything Jesus taught is accurate. And I am not saying that is your definition of Christ within, but my interaction with you has led me to that definition and allowed me to warm up to Christianity in general a bit more. And since my goal is to warm to everything beyond myself and to live more in communion with everything else, that is a big gift and I thank you.

Now moving on to why I set my wife and I up as examples, I was internally tortured and in biblical terms probably possessed or something like the least or last, and I really should have ended up in jail and probably never made it anywhere good. However, through tons of Grace from all sorts of places I have at least for a while made it to a really nice place. And my journey or experience through all the darkness does really make me more useful now to some people than my wife, and while she might disagree I think made my connection to the Spirit/deepest self/Christ within forged through the darkness more expansive and maybe more intense.

However, to go beyond this and say that I am somehow ahead in the Kingdom is crazy and I do not believe it even a little. Maybe none of this was necessary though because anyone who really understands the Kingdom understands there is no first or last or anything like that There.

Meister Eckhart over 700 years ago wrote that “to get at the core of God at his greatest, one must first get into the core of himself at his least.”

Dr Carl Jung observed, “one of the main functions of formalized religion is to protect people against a direct experience of God.”

Fr Richard Rohr, dedicates a whole book (Falling Upward) to what he calls, A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life, in which he discusses that we have to first have a religion with rules to follow for the first half of life, which I would term the faith of our fathers because it is our male ancestors that developed that religion. The spirituality for the second half of life is to mature to the point in Faith that we realize the rules or laws were never the point. The point is always living consistently with what out deepest and most benevolent self knows is true, which is always consistent with the core or essence of any of the great religions.

And Jesus and the Buddha agree completely on this. Jesus of course says it is not about the law or rules, but about what underlies our actions and the Buddha says that all his suggested practices and even beliefs are a path to enlightenment, but once enlightenment is attained they are not necessary.

How this ties in with my initial discussion of least and first is that we who think we have found some sort of new wholeness and freedom through the Spirit (2nd half) want everyone else to need and want this 2nd half spirituality like we have needed it and now want it. Those in the 1st half are often busy fighting about the rules/laws (doctrine/dogma/denominations/name of religion).

Some of this has just occurred to me today and I am not sure I am settled upon it as definitely being right, but I think those of us who think we have found some sort of new wholeness and freedom through the Spirit need to try to share that with those who are desperate enough to maybe be willing to go near where Meister Eckhart discussed, which is of course the path Jesus took when he hung out with and mainly taught the desperate.

Maybe we should just encourage those in the 1st half and fighting about the rules to try to follow their own rules and we should be TRULY VERY GRATEFUL for the lives they try to live and if they are living fairly benevolent lives we should leave them alone and just be and express gratitude towards them for those fairly benevolent lives. Then if or when their own rules might not be working well for them and they might think they need something more we will always be more than willing to share more of the wholeness and freedom of the 2nd half. Even here though we should try to share what they are looking for and the amount they are looking for. We should be honest about our own lives and experience, but not assume it has to be the same for them.

A Testament of Devotion by Thomas R Kelly

A FB comment re a book someone had recommended.  

A Testament of Devotion by Thomas R Kelly is a great book. Among the best examples of someone's articulation of what finding and following the Spirit looks like in contemporary society. More and more I am realizing just how fortunate I have been to have my main spiritual fellowship be 12 step groups. Extremely fortunate because there are a lot of desperate cases that require finding some life saving connection to the Spirit in order to survive and the desperation often leads to dramatic and lasting connections. Being extremely desperate myself and searching high and low and everywhere else, including listening to 100s of the most successful in various 12 step fellowships over the last 50 years tell their stories of finding and following the Spirit (mostly thru recorded audio), I have learned how almost anything can be a path to or away from this Spirit. No matter how often I see or hear it though hearing someone articulate in their own words their own experience of finding and following is one of the most powerful and encouraging things for my own finding and following and then hopefully helping others to do the same.

Who Wants It (The Gospel)

Another FB comment.

It seems to depend upon your audience. If you are around the “rich” aka fairly comfortable people, then this would definitely be true because knowing God more fully means knowing our interest, desires, and efforts should be upon helping and serving others, especially the weak and marginalized but also helping anyone interested in knowing this God of giving.

However, if your audience is the weak and marginalized then your following and clientele is likely to react in the opposite manner. I think that is why Jesus tended to hang out with the latter, who just might be willing to get to know this God.

Unfortunately, we tend to want to pick our audience from the “rich” and popular so we can be popular with those desirable people, and it seems to us like they are the ones we would need to influence to really change things. We do not seem to really believe the gospel is strong enough to make the weak and marginalized the first and most influential in the Kingdom. Of course it is and when those weak and marginalized find it, they can often be so much more useful to the Kingdom because of their experience toiling in the depths and finding God from there.

So I am talking about much more than trying to ease the burden and suffering of the weak and marginalized. I am talking about knowing their destiny (after knowing and experiencing the gospel) is to be the leaders and backbone of the Kingdom, and our job (if we have experienced this gospel) is to share it with them in a way that is meaningful and understandable to them.

It is our job (if we think we have experienced and know something of this gospel) to figure out a way to make it understandable and meaningful to anyone interested and especially the weak and marginalized, since they are often the most ready and willing to hear it and have the greatest potential to propagate it. Generally, this is not done by reciting creeds or scripture or similar things. It is done by discussing how this God and gospel seems to transform us at our depths, with specific details of how that seemed to occur within us, and then maybe relating that to being the fulfillment of some scripture and possible for anyone.

The Cost and Reward

A Facebook (FB) comment on a friend’s post regarding something like confessing our sins to one another and not having anything to lose in doing so. 

Allow me to start as a contrarian. It is one of my favorite roles, and I hope helpful for getting past jargon that is too easily unconsciously discarded.

I’m wondering if we are from the same planet. My experience is that the world we live in is often cruel and traumatic, specifically because it often overtly or subtly exploits our brokenness (aka vulnerabilities, weaknesses, insecurities). Being cool or popular when we are growing up is often by hiding our own vulnerabilities and shaming those of others or at least implying we will if needed to keep our status, including by preventing others from exposing our own. Similar, slightly more sophisticated models of the same basic dynamics happen in almost all personal relationships as well as all organizations.

Your comment seemed to imply that we hide our brokenness to look good and I guess I am saying that a bit also. However, I think we do it much more out of fear of being hurt than it being that important to us to be popular. We focus on the popularity or looking good because even that is a way to hide our vulnerabilities and the best protection to keep the world from knowing our vulnerabilities.

My overall point of course is that we have very good reasons to hide our brokenness. Acknowledging that first while also sharing how much better and more enjoyable it is to share all of ourselves, exactly as we are, is what I am trying to add.

I have experience with both extremes. I am not exaggerating when I say I did not have any friends growing up. I went home for lunch everyday k-12, because having this drawn into focus at lunch was way too painful. I cannot pinpoint any reason I was unable to have friends other than I was unwilling to be vulnerable or to even subtly exploit others vulnerabilities to keep them at a safe distance from this core of mine that seemed to need protection at all costs.

On the other extreme, when I decided to start my second blog and use my real name and disclose my past and current issues, I had an extremely intense spiritual experience. For a few hours I had a sustained euphoria greater than I think is pharmaceutically possible. Unfortunately, I would know because during an ugly time in my life a long time ago I used so many opiates a few times that I absolutely could not stay awake without also taking a bunch of amphetamines. Anyway, this spiritual experience was much more intense.

To related it to those not so screwed up to almost kill themselves with drugs, the mildest it was for a few hours was like the height of a really good orgasm and then it radiated up from there many times. I could actually control how intense it was by what I purposely focused on and after a few hours I was exhausted and decided to move on. At the same time I could recapture a decent amount of it for a week or so whenever I wanted, and I can get to a milder form that is still very intense euphoria ever since.

That was probably about 15 years in the making though. Somewhere in the first year of recovery from alcoholism and more briefly drug addiction, I received the clearest feedback I have ever received from God. In desperation I was asking what God expected of me. I was entirely sure I was not going to be able to meet it, but I wanted to know because I was tired of failing and would give it a try. The answer came back quickly and clearly and was “accept yourself exactly as you are.” My first reaction was, wow, maybe I can do that. Then I thought about it a little longer and realized how hard it would be. For a decade and a half though I have been trying with various amounts of success.

Unfortunately, I soon realized that I would have to share everything about me with at least a few others to start to accomplish this. I did not really do it though until I was absolutely sure I was not going to make it any other way, and even then I did it in very small pieces at first. After a while I got good at it and probably even relied on it too much with a few close friends. When I say I might have done too much I mean I did a little too much sharing of my objectionable parts and not quite enough feeling the pain they cause me and others and having that pain motivate me to find better ways.

Starting the second blog though was when for at least that moment I had decided to lay it all out there for anyone to see with the hope that it might help others find the fairly consistent peace and well-being I have gotten to experience for several years now. I was not looking for the euphoric spiritual experiences, as they are almost too intense, they feel selfish if I stay in them long, and they are totally exhausting. Fortunately, I can choose how intense they are and other than when I simply want to see how strong it can get I keep them mostly toned down.

It has become very clear that what precipitates them and their intensity is how fully I am willing to share myself with and try to benefit The Entirety, which includes Eternity in both directions, aka God.

Indwelling Spirit

Another Facebook (FB) comment on a friend's post about our purpose being enjoying and living from our indwelling spirit.  

This is no doubt true, but how does one discover this indwelling spirit, especially when most of our society, including much of any flavor of organized religion is built upon suppressing it, and until you get a taste of it and recognize what you have tasted you do not really have any comprehension of what it actually is you are looking for?

I think my first decade or so of searching desperately for it in recovery from addictions (because life sucked drunk or high and dry and clean or mostly even before I ever used alcohol) I kept missing it because it was not what I thought it would be. Thus, I kept discarding the tiny glimpses I would experience, which turned out to be the path to more and eventually it becoming a strong and consistent source of peace, pleasure, and guidance.

Most of the early glimpses came from surrendering and sharing with another in an honest, deep, and thus vulnerable way, such that I found scripture to be true – “when two or more gather in my name.”

Another good example of a big glimpse that seemed suspicious revolved around emptiness. I often hear people talk of a vast emptiness inside and that used to painfully be my baseline. What I later found was that rather than emptiness it was actually a vast open space within me from which to embrace everything outside me. It had felt like emptiness because I was too scared to connect from a deep level with things beyond myself (or myself for that matter).

I should go on with many more examples but I do not have the gumption at the moment. My purpose with sharing though is to share a little of what experiencing the indwelling spirit looks like because we need to help each other recognize it in our own words and experiences so that it may grow individually and collectively from the small mustard seed into something sturdy enough to support ourselves and others.

If as you say (and I agree), our entire life’s calling is to discover and follow (I would say integrate) our indwelling spirit, then our most important conversation is how to do that, including what it looks like when it is happening.

The Purpose of Religion or Spirituality

Believe it or not this was originally a comment to someone else's Facebook (FB) post. (I'd be a fun FB friend to have wouldn't I.)  

The purpose of any religion or spirituality is to awaken us to Truth or Ultimate Reality. This is mainly that we are all part of a Larger Whole, that includes Everything. As such the most accurate (although not necessarily the most helpful) conception of God is simply that God is The Entirety, including eternity in both directions. And I actually do not think this conception of God is inconsistent with any of the great religions or at least not any more inconsistent with them than they are with themselves.

The big bang theory tells us that it all started from a single point, God if you like or The Entirety as I prefer, and has been expanding and manifesting Itself in countless ways since. This and nearer to our time frame, evolution – that we evolved from single cell organism here on earth, tells us that each individual cell in our body shares this same lineage and is thus connected to everything in the past, present, and as it continues to unfold, the future. All this is behind the mysticism (defined as the experience of God or The Entirety) that started and propagated the early spread of all the great religions.

As such the religions aim or purpose is to guide us in experiencing this oneness and thus getting along with others and our surroundings since Ultimate Reality is that we are hopelessly connected to everything else and we cannot be truly fulfilled, peaceful, and happy individually or collectively unless we are embracing our Collective Identity and working to enhance It. Among countless things this includes fair competition with the loser still given dignity and the ability for fulfilling/useful pursuits, as well as more traditional religious pursuits of looking out for the least fortunate and giving them a fulfilling/useful place in society, etc.

After a while though religions generally morph into something completely different than what they were founded upon or what a religion's purpose actually is. This normally occurs slowly over time and mostly without awareness from the people making the detrimental changes.  Some of those subtle changes that gain momentum and at some point become the predominant activity of the religion include:

Basically, the people who have prestigious/important/powerful positions in the religion are blinded by thinking they deserve the position. Yet they also know they are lost/broken/separate and focus on that and are desperately searching for the solution and fixated on that. And if they are lost/broken/separate in their prestigious/important/powerful positions the sheep must be even more so.

They think they are the successful ones and nearest to God with their prestigious/important/powerful positions and thus think they ought to share how they succeeded to get there as the answer. They do not realize these powerful positions are things that block them from God (like the rich man) and therefore their ideas often point in the wrong direction and are self serving even when they are very well intentioned.

This leads them to shift towards a personal approach to religion so they can focus on their own connection to God without having to be burdened by humanity’s problems, other than prescribing actions for others to take. This shift to a personal approach and in some way saving souls in a way removed from becoming one or whole with our surroundings is the fallacy at the heart of how religion becomes “worldy” and guides people in the wrong direction. What we need to be born again from is our selfishness/separateness; and what we need to be saved from is our selfishness/separateness, both in order to unite with God/Ultimate Reality/The Entirety. 

Spiritual/Religious teachers/leaders have to meet people and society where it is at because they need community and in order to possibly reach them and often being out numbered they are pulled more towards the worldly society than vice versa.

Spiritual/Religious teachers/leaders are put on a pedestal that separates them from others and even more so than with most people the leaders and the flock each want to impress the other, which pushes each to become more lost and separate as they try to hide their brokenness/incompleteness from each other. 

The powerful in society outside religion have various ways of marginalizing, suppressing, and squashing anything too threatening, and any authentic religion will be exactly that.

We cannot make people “have life or live” which means to act from our source within as led by The Source of All, and whether on a local small church scale or ruling a country scale, if you have to motivate, convince, and coerce people to do things reliably in accordance with what leaders desire, decide, and decree you are going to have to rely on something beyond true religion and move to various forms of worldliness.)

It ends up turning the religion into something focused on helping individuals focus on saving themselves, which is a selfish pursuit and the opposite direction of how to actually be saved. Being saved means being reunited with God/The Entirety by becoming whole with our surroundings and living from the parts of us that know we are always hopelessly united with everything else. 

These things and many more boil down to 3 broad reasons religions morph from their true purpose. 

1 – The leaders do not want to actually practice the challenging, uncomfortable, humbling parts of the religion.

2 – The leaders and the flock do not trust the individual members to be able and willing to successfully practice the challenging, uncomfortable, humbling parts of the religion, and make it out the other side transformed.

3 – People who know from experiencing the source within that knows the Source of All, are generally only interested in living from that source and helping others to find and live from it.  As such they are not very helpful to those trying to run a country or even a church. 

Before moving on to look at how we live from those parts of us, let me reiterate what I mentioned in the beginning. What I am saying here is actually consistent with the essential founding tenets of all the great religions and not a contradiction of them. As such, many of their principles and methods for uniting or being saved or awakened or enlightened are completely viable.

At an individual level we have feelings and thinking that guide us in our interactions with each other and the world around us, and then we have whatever it is inside us that is doing the feeling and thinking. Whatever it is that seems to be doing the feeling and thinking seems to be what we individually most identify with as being who we are. I like to refer to it as our deepest self or soul*, and it is the part of us that knows we are a tiny part of everything else and a larger part of lots of smaller wholes or communities, like our family, workplace, friends, etc. All useful religious/spiritual principles and methods are centered around experiencing and living from that part of ourselves.

The is the place where we can simply BE with the Source of all being, and as I alluded to at the very beginning every cell in our body shares the lineage of evolution from the same spot and even further back from the Big Bang with even non-living things. And if we are able to get to the quiet/silence/felt emptiness beyond our feeling and thinking we will learn this because we will experience it. It is aptly called a spiritual experience, awakening, enlightenment, being saved, being born again, etc.

Unfortunately, it is really hard to get past our feelings and thinking to this place. Our feelings are often telling us that we cannot be part of everything else because it is too scary and dangerous and the fact of the matter is that it is scary and dangerous. Our thinking is generally trying to figure out a way to 1- preferably make it safe enough to be with and then live from this part of us, or 2- if our feelings and thinking have (mostly) unconsciously concluded that is not possible, then to eek out the best (mostly) separate existence we can.

These patterns of feelings and thinking and the combination get very ingrained and operate on autopilot most of the time with the objective of protecting this place within that we most identify with being us. And all useful religious/spiritual practices try to take us out of this autopilot and move us deeper to awaken the source of it all within us that will then experience and know it is part of the Ultimate Source. Most of us though need an extra push from calamity or love or normally both to actually move beyond being focused on protecting our source that connects to the Ultimate Source to being focused on being with our source and trying to live from it.

If we get this extra push and experience an awakening, we still generally need a great deal of faith and a supportive community of some sort in order to not attempt to put our internal source back in a bunker. Just as importantly we need a humility born of knowing we are such a tiny part of It All, and thus the glory we will know and feel when we are united with our source that experiences and knows The Source is the Glory of The Father, of which we now realize we are a part.

When our priority is to protect our deepest self/source of being from the vulnerability of being a small part of everything else and our thinking and feeling are unconsciously used for this purpose, our thinking and feeling become our jailer.  Crucially though, we need to realize even these unconscious thoughts and feelings originate from our source, which has been hurt by life and is trying to avoid more hurt.  To the extent we realize this we will then know that the path to our source of being/image of God is actually through the hurt that is propagating the thinking and feeling that is trying to protect us.  And when we realize this, experiencing that hurt becomes a profound and cherished experience because it is coming home again and embracing who and what we most deeply are, rather than running from or trying to change ourself to something acceptable, which is rejecting ourself and God at the same time (saying what God made is unacceptable).

*Calling it our deep and personal inherent image of God or Christ within would also be accurate, or even as many use heart or gut in this regard.  

Protecting or Living from our Image of God

Here is another email to a friend.

I thought I’d try to pull together a lot of the things I have said, while adding some new things to try to pull all of it together.

I’ll start off observing that it seems almost everyone who believes their life has been turned around by a spiritual experience of almost any type or religion asserts afterward that God was always there from the beginning even if they had not discovered, known or experienced Him previously.  And it normally takes some sort of calamity or great challenge to get us to dig deep enough or seemingly beyond ourselves and uncover God and who we are in God.  As such the rich man is often spared the calamity and challenges sufficient to find and unite with God (heaven). 

From this I would ask, what is it that we find when seemingly pushed beyond ourselves in calamity/great challenges that most refer to as God?  And my answer is the very image of God bestowed in us at our core from which we were created, which is the part of us that knows, connects to, and experiences God.  Essentially, this image of God bestowed in us is the intuitive knowledge that while we in some ways have a separate identity as a person, absolutely nothing has an entirely separate identity.  Everything is defined by its relationship to everything else and the Whole or Entirety.

The next question, might be why does it normally takes calamity/great challenges/sometimes great love to push us seemingly beyond ourselves sufficiently to try to live from this bestowed image?  Why isn’t that our default even in good times?  My answer here is that when evolution gave us awareness and thinking and thus the ability to view ourselves as separate we mostly used this awareness and thinking to focus on gaining advantages, including protecting ourselves and especially this deep core  of ours that knows we are all interdependent and thus vulnerable and incomplete/insufficient separately by ourselves. 

So our main priority became gaining advantages while hiding vulnerabilities or weaknesses, and thus the world is probably run by peoples’ insecurities as much as anything else.  Another angle is that our existence includes a lot of unavoidable discomfort and pain of many varieties culminating in everyone we love as well as ourselves dying.  The purpose of this suffering and discomfort (or at least opportunity from it, but I think purpose of it) is to push us to come together to help and comfort one another and look for solutions.  However, more commonly people do everything they can to avoid and delay the inevitable suffering which compounds it as well as pushes it off on others who in turn push back in reaction and try to unload some of their own. 

It is only when we need something beyond ourselves, that we cannot get by subtle to overt manipulation/coercion or when we can no longer avoid or delay inevitable suffering, that we sometimes are pushed to our deep core where we encounter the image of God, often with the help of a friend we believe in to not use our vulnerability for present or future manipulation/coercion.  At this point sometimes we get enough of a taste of the image/Christ within/source that we are driven to change our main motivations to living from this image rather than protecting it.  (Protecting it does not sound like a bad idea and in theory it is not, but in practice when protection is prioritized we end up mostly suppressing this part of our self by hiding it.)

Living from the image of God bestowed in us is the gospel and very LIFE Jesus suggested we all follow him towards, in claiming our destiny of uniting with the Father, who He is one with and we are called to join.  Individually and collectively embracing our inevitable suffering from our internal and external reality/circumstances is embracing this LIFE and the Entirety from which all things come.  This sounds like a terrible idea and solution and I must be crazy to suggest it, but is paradoxically the way to what we are all looking for most – a meaningfulness, wholeness, generosity and oneness that not only is divine but also feels divine.  And it is what we most celebrate and honor, whether that be a soldier’s sacrifice or a mother’s or Jesus’.*

Over and over and over again we know at our deepest levels where we honor and give reverence from that giving of one’s self for a greater good without coercion is the only thing worth honoring or revering.  When doing so comes with such meaning and glory that it is also a privilege and honor to do it that is the very process and definition of being resurrected into a new creation in Christ (or the image of God).  It is the way of the cross or taking up our cross and following Him, which contrary to popular conception has nothing to do with sacrifice except to dig deep enough and be honest enough to become this new creation in Christ that rejoices in and can see no way other than such giving and service.  Now I am not saying many or maybe any of us ever completely get there, but I am saying that our focus needs to be on becoming that new creation and acting from it if we have any hope of sustainably moving in a positive direction.

If that is the case though, why don’t we more readily do it or at least do it consistently when we are down and out?  I am mostly going to leave this question for another time.  For now I will just say that even most places we are supposed to look will push us in mostly the wrong direction as they try to share their own solutions that are mostly delay and avoidance tactics for inevitable suffering and as they (often or normally without intention) try to fit us into what they need rather than what we need because they themselves do not know much of this LIFE Jesus came to share that we all most yearn for.  And when we are down and out and desperately looking for solutions we have very little discernment on which solutions to invest the initially small capacity we have to try something. 

Weakness, vulnerability, and as the 12 steps suggest powerlessness and unmanageability seem to be our problem and moving into those things seems to be the wrong direction.  However, we need to move into them to find that they are the result of trying to avoid inevitable suffering/discomfort and protect/hide our image of God deep within.  Once we realize this and hopefully get at least a faint glimpse of what LIFE might be if we did not have to avoid and hide we can get to work on finding out.

In order to find out we first need to remove the things that block us from our image of God within, and it will be good to recall that this image is the knowledge that while we are in some ways a separate entity even more so we are a part of everything else.  As such any time we act in a mostly selfish way that benefits us at the expense of others we are acting against this image of God/Ultimate Reality that knows we are hopelessly united with everything else.  So we need to confess our sins to one another and do whatever we possibly can to make up for them.  Until we do so we will likely be blocked from knowing much of our image because it will always be in some way telling us we need to reconcile our past, present, and future with it, and as long as we are unwilling to do that we are unwilling to know it and thus God, which can be described as wholeness within one self and with everything else. 

It is important to note here that when trying to amend the harm we have caused others we are not trying to balance what we did and what we think the other person did and then amend any harm we did above what they might have done.  We are trying to amend any harm we did irregardless of harm the other person did.  However, the other person’s willingness to join us in trying to each honor our deep inherent images of God will likely go a long way in determining what type of relationship, if any, our newfound wisdom percolating from this image wants to pursue with them moving forward. 

Additionally, when traumatic things happen to us (which starts from birth from the child’s perspective) we often react by hiding our image of God to protect it, which is most hurt by such things, from our self and everyone else.  This of course makes us feel separate and lonely since it is only at this image level that we can connect to anything beyond ourselves or actually even with what we most feel to be our self.  Here we need to find ways to forgive, which actually means to heal from the trauma, while learning from the wound how to wisely engage in current and future relationships.  The wisdom from our image as we heal will guide us on those relationships and hopefully we will have the courage to follow whatever the guidance is.  Often it will come down to how comfortable we are that the other person has the courage, commitment and wisdom to try to follow their own image even if their success is sporadic.  

I have previously discussed my own method for healing from trauma at the end of the following blog post:

http://wfplus.blogspot.com/2015/05/framework-for-everything.html

However, there are lots of therapy methods (which are beyond the scope of this writing) or often an understanding spiritual friend, without an agenda other than having the highest honor of someone sharing their greatest pain while attempting to let it go, can provide much of what we need in this regard.  

To the extent we are successful removing the things that block us from our image of God deep within (aka Christ within), we will feel a wholeness and oneness that is too good for words.  It is a perfect peace from true communion.  The closest I can get to personally describing my experience of it in a way many people could relate to is that it is similar to having the height of ecstasy of a great orgasm combined with the immediate afterglow (where you feel at one with the other person and at perfect peace) all at the same time.  

Fortunately, that is generally fleeting (within a few minutes to a few days) unless we learn how to live from our image of God within or as I first heard from you, abide in Christ.  Until recently I was under the misconception (which might be a common misconception) that getting to the unblocked communion was most of the spiritual quest and things would easily flow from there, making living from that communion straight forward and easy.  Now it seems the next phase is every bit as challenging to navigate well, although it is much different in that it is greatly enjoyable about 80% of the time instead of about 5-10% of the time.  

To differentiate getting to the image of God within (Christ within) and abiding in Christ, I would say that normally getting there mainly happens in what we might consider classical spiritual exercises, as discussed above on getting unblocked, and abiding in Christ mainly happens in daily activities of life, but often keeps the classical spiritual exercises also.  

So why if we have gotten unblocked is it still hard to live from this new creation we are becoming or abide in Christ?  I think the main reason is that even daily activities seem and sometimes are dangerous or potentially harmful to this image of God within that needs to manifest its destiny of being a valuable and connected part of greater wholes.  We thus still want to focus on protecting it rather than living from it.  Yet when we actually do prioritize protecting it we end up mainly hiding, suppressing, or otherwise avoiding it.  Just as harmfully when we are busy avoiding our own we normally have to do at least subtle things to avoid the same in others, and when you add all that up we end up with the wordly state of affairs we have.  **

Thus, the lesson seems to be that as Jesus said, we cannot serve two masters.  We cannot prioritize both protecting our deepest self that is our image of God and live from it at the same time.  We have to prioritize one or the other and whichever we prioritize is our marker for how well we are abiding in Christ.  At the same time it is unrealistic and detrimental to think we will be all one way or the other or doing some protection is a huge setback or even wrong.  It might actually be wisdom if it is part of the grand plan to live from it in a more important area or it might be a small setback we can realize and learn from.  

It is true that any communion, as discussed above, will change us to some extent, but much of what I call our visceral beliefs (beliefs underlying feelings) and emotional programming (how our feelings/emotions guide our behavior and even thinking) based upon us being separate and needing to protect, instead of being one, as a part of the body of Christ, will still be present and it will take time and concerted effort to allow the new creation into all areas of our life.  And to some extent this is very fortunate because it would not be fair to all our existing relationships to completely change in a day.  

Bill B., a mentor’s mentor, described something similar to what I am trying to say this way.  If you were dropped off in the middle of rural China and no one spoke English, you would be very hard press to communicate with the people who only spoke Chinese.  You could do a little though with gestures and before too long you would pick up small parts of the language.  After months you might get pretty good at the language, but you would probably think (and feel) in English still.  At some point though if you were there long enough you would even think (and feel) in Chinese.  Our visceral beliefs, emotional programming, and patterns of thought from them, are like that in how they originate and propel protecting or living from our image.  Where the visceral beliefs and our thinking are based upon a separateness paradigm when trying to protect and a more accurate unity with everything else when living from. 

I think part of the reason I like describing or thinking of living from my image, as abiding in Christ at the moment, is because it seems to remind me to slow down some and not forget to rest in Christ or my image along with acting from it.  What seems to be becoming clearer recently is that only my image can teach me how to abide or live in it and from it.  So when I discussed with you that I was having a hard time staying grounded/connected while trying to act from my source that knows The Source of everything, I think what was mainly happening was I would get started in a fairly ideal way, but then forget to take the time to rest in my image also as I was trying to live from it.  And without this resting in it, and continually or at least frequently receiving further guidance as I was in the middle of an activity I would go back to prioritizing protecting and slowly squeeze off my grounding or connection.  

  

This is somewhat on topic and somewhat off topic, but since it is something I am thinking of and something we discussed I’ll include it here.  Our consumeristic and capitalistic economy is built on the back of and as an enabler of our tendency to focus on protecting rather than living from our image.  What I mean by this is that our capitalistic and consumeristic economy is built on giving people things to use to suppress, avoid and thus hide from the inevitable pain and discomfort in life, which keeps their image hidden and them separated (and we are weak separately) and lonely needing more consumption.  

Actually, we could accurately say the same thing about much of religion and its personal approach to salvation which seems safer and keeps us separated and away from the real solution.  

Neither is the actual problem though.  The problem is our tendency to prioritize protecting our image rather than living from it.  Both merely exploit the problem rather than be a helpful solution.  

If you are not interested or too busy with more important things I do hope you will not feel compelled to respond.  At the same time I am always interested in your thoughts even if they seem to conflict or contradict my own.  My guess is if we explore our seemingly different beliefs/perspectives they will be mostly consistent with some conflicts.  However, even if we find they do greatly conflict or contradict each other at their roots, I would guess that we will each move a little closer to the Truth as we explore the possible conflicts.  I obviously wrote this with more Christ and Christian language than I often use so that, if we want, we might be able to more easily see where our differences are and if they seem fundamental.  I was still completely faithful to my beliefs/perspectives at this moment.  

* I am not saying anything new here when I say that our troubles are caused by our attempts to avoid inherent pain/discomfort/suffering, but we all seem to need to be constantly reminded, most of all me.  The jumping off place for Buddhism are the noble truths regarding this inherent suffering.  In Christianity, this jumping off place is the way of the cross or taking up our cross, which is essentially accepting the pain, discomfort, and vulnerability inherent in the LIFE He came to share with us.  And of course neither religion stops there and both say if we jump and follow where it leads we will find ourselves a new creation that is exactly what we have been looking for and beyond our wildest dreams all at the same time. 

Unfortunately, being human comes with the capacity and tendency to twist almost anything into a way to avoid life’s inherent pain, and we have frequently turned all religions into ways to avoid this inherent pain, which is exactly opposite their actual purpose and stated purpose.  Instead of jumping and allowing God and the process (religion) to transform the pain, we try to use the religion as another way to avoid this inherent pain, which just postpones it, lets it build, and pushes it off onto others.

**A lot of how we try to protect it is to try to get those we interact with to all agree on a framework for life (religion/denomination/family or workplace dynamics/etc), such that living from our image would have predictable results/consequences.  Unfortunately when focused on making it safe in this manner we generally never come to full agreement and thus never get to living from our image/Christ within/soul/etc.  Furthermore, even if we did come to a full agreement we might have lost God in the process because we would then have removed the necessity of faith with our predictable results/consequences.