Before I start I’ll offer a disclaimer of sorts. I use a lot of Christian language and
concepts in this writing. I did not set
out to do this, but found myself drawn to doing so. This is probably because religions have been
a main field exploring the concepts I discuss.
I have no idea if I am a Christian and actually do not think determining
that is at all important. I am sure God
does not care a bit what I call him in my particular brand of human
language. God cares about how well I
connect to and follow (or at least how hard and how consistently I try to
connect to and follow) the deepest and most benevolent parts of me, where God
communicates truth, which is a good description and measure of my amount of
faith.
I’ll start with a couple sentences from a previous post,
which I did not develop much.
I
have no idea if God is anything intelligent or independent from the entirety, but
I do know that viewing God as simply the Entirety turns out to be every bit as
magnificent as any religion’s conception of God. Most importantly, when
viewed as the Entirety the best parts of each religion and even humanism or
various forms of atheism point to the same things. Now I am not expecting to convince many people of this, but
my hope is that if people truly consider these views they might be able to use
them as a framework to see new similarities with others who at first glance seem to believe
very different things.
The basis for all religions
and spirituality is the accurate deep sense that everything and each one
of us is a part of a larger whole, that I call The Entirety. In other words this accurate deep sense is
what each religion has been founded upon.
Unfortunately, each religion often views the larger whole as something
smaller than The Entirety, even while in various ways also proclaiming God is
everything.
Defining the larger whole as
only their own group of people or people who believe or follow that religion is
a great example of what I was discussing in my prior post with our thinking
minds seeing separateness and distinctions and using those to try to gain
selfish advantages for ourselves or our group.
And in doing so suppressing the accurate deep sense upon which the
religion was created. The accurate deep
sense I keep alluding to comes from our deepest selves, which knows we are all
one and part of the same Entirety, and that everyone and everything deserves
respect and care.
If I have not offended anyone
reading enough to get them to stop yet, I guess I’ll go for the jugular. We have to give up the idea of a God that intervenes
in earthly affairs. This idea is a
fabrication of our thinking minds and probably as much as anything else keeps
us from really finding and experiencing God.
It is based upon wanting to gain favor and advantages apart from or more
so than others and thus strengthens the separateness rather than unites us with
our surroundings and thus God. There are
lots of beliefs and actions that do this same thing, but this one is especially
harmful because this misunderstanding regarding our relationship with God keeps
us from the antidote, a correct understanding of our relationship with
God.
Before going further I should make it clear that I am not
saying that God does not transform us personally and through this
transformation change everything about our existence. The clear verdict for thousands of years as
consistently told by those who have been transformed by spiritual experiences,
practices, and their resulting revelations, is that God was always there ready,
waiting, and wanting to be discovered to transform that individual and through
that individual transformation change the world. This really does occur and is what everyone
most deeply want and what I so feebly am trying to share.
So when I say that God does not intervene, I do not mean
that God cannot touch us, transform us, and fulfill our greatest and deepest
wants and needs. Rather I mean that God
does not change our external circumstances or reality. Instead, when we discover what was always
there deep down that connects to everything else we find meaning, strength,
courage, and faith in our external circumstances, which alters our view of them
and infused with the new meaning and strength our challenging circumstances
become opportunities to live out and therefore in the Kingdom of God.
Since something like the above is how spiritual growth and
transformation actually occurs, and wanting and asking God to intervene and
change our external circumstances is almost always a way to avoid the scariest
process that exists - surrendering to our present internal and external reality without knowing if you
will find God is at the bottom of it all.
This is why having or developing faith is the key to success. Love and suffering can move us towards
surrendering to this scary depth, but only faith can complete this most
important journey.
I will hopefully one day spend most of my time discussing how to find God at the bottom of it all, internally and externally, but first I would like to continue smashing
the belief in a god that intervenes in earthly affairs. A god that intervenes in earthly affairs
would be nothing short of completely wicked.
We have a hundred thousands or more underage kids involved in
prostitution in the United
States, let alone the atrocities occurring worldwide. Really think about even one of those children
regularly raped by adults, let alone a hundred thousand. A god that intervenes in my struggles and
allows the atrocities that are common in this world is nothing short of
completely wicked.
Furthermore, if I am praying
for favors or advantages or things to happen in a way that is desirable to me,
rather than for those children repeatedly raped by adults, I do not have a
religion or spirituality or faith worth sharing. To be honest I still do sometimes, but I
normally catch myself and realize I am being a fool or a jerk, mostly a fool.
I remember when this first
occurred to me. I was grouse hunting
with my brother and we had been discussing spiritual things a fair amount. I am a terrible shot so most grouse are safe
around me. I had a 6 month old hunting
dog, Gus, and really wanted to get a bird to get Gus to start to figure out
what we were trying to do. I hit one
that Gus flushed on a shot I make probably only a few times out of a
hundred. So I said to my brother, “I
guess God was looking out for me there” and then immediately realized I hope
there is not a God that intervenes, because that god would be an awful god.
One
of the common theological responses to the question of why a God that
intervenes allows such atrocities and suffering and some to suffer so severely
and unfairly is that we cannot know God's ways. Some of this is no doubt
true, but if you really believe this there is no point reading the bible or
doing spiritual practices. The main reason for suffering (our own or others)
is to touch us at a deep level and spur contemplation/meditation/prayer and
then action from that deep level. In fact this is the very process that
integrates us individually and unifies us collectively.
I’ll
discuss how and why that process works to integrate or unify us individually
and collectively later in this writing. When we understand that we will
see how what we call suffering is actually a gift from God when embraced for
its intended purpose and only what we think of as suffering when we try
desperately and always in vain to avoid it.
Very briefly what I mean by integration is allowing our deepest selves
and its deepest drives, desires, and needs to come to the surface and integrate
them into our daily life with the help of our thinking mind and various
guides. As far as I know it is
originally a Carl Jung term and I think my meaning is similar to his. My understanding of most protestant theology
is that it says these deepest drives, desires, and needs are basically the
problem and can never be integrated, and life for its part often seems to
support this. Fortunately, integration
is possible and the process of integration, along with the results, is where
everything we have all been looking for is found.
Another theological response
to why a God that intervenes would allow such atrocities and suffering is that God
takes care of it with the afterlife and this is much longer and more important
than this earthly life, so it more than evens out. Doesn’t it seem suspiciously convenient for
religions and the people at the top of religions to come up with an afterlife
as one of the main solutions to inequality and various types of suffering so
that they do not have to actually do the honorable and often inconvenient and
uncomfortable things to try to address those things here and now? About the only people Jesus was critical of
was the people at the top of religions who focused on rituals and correct
theories of belief, rather than get their hands dirty and serve or work to
correct injustice and inequality.
No one knows if there is an
afterlife or what that afterlife might look like. Rather than guess, I will again focus on what
is knowable and how that is sufficient to fulfill our accurate deep sense that our actions have eternal consequences (and what Jesus said about an
afterlife). Beyond dispute, the past and the actions of
people in the past have created the present and what we do in the present
creates the future. Our loved ones
helped shape us and our world and in this way they very much live on in us and
our world and then beyond us as their actions that shaped us influence our
actions, which in turn influence the actions of others.
A common and accurate
understanding of heaven is being forever united with God and of course the
opposite is true for hell, being permanently separated from God. This understanding, along with how what we
create and how we touch this earthly life in various ways, is actually
sufficient to explain our accurate deep sense that how we live this life has
eternal consequences and most of what Jesus or scriptures say of the
subject. However, this is not the time
to go into a great deal of details.
I would imagine this
conception of an afterlife does not seem glamorous enough, comforting enough,
or maybe meaningful enough to many since each of us are such a small part of
The Entirety, which as we can see here includes eternity in both directions. However, once you EXPERIENCE knowing you are
an important (albeit tiny) part of this Entirety, it is actually what is
indescribably AWEsome and wonderful that we are all trying to find. As St.
Augustine said, “our hearts are restless until they
rest in thee.” Being an extremely tiny
but real and definite part of Something (The Entirety) infinitely amazing and
good is itself infinitely amazing and good, and as such indescribable.
I should probably hold my
tongue and not go further, but I am not good at doing that so I will briefly
continue by noting that I cannot believe people have bought into this Santa
Claus for adults business with God giving heaven (instead of presents) or hell
(instead of coal) based upon if we were good enough.
Examples abound of the people at the top of religions obfuscating
the religion’s core message, often without any intention of doing so. Fr Richard Rohr often talks about how it
gives clergy a job when we stay broken/divided/lost and so there is an
inclination for clergy to keep us that way and emphasize that. In most instances of this I do not think the
clergy have any intent to mislead.
Rather it is another great example of our thinking minds creating power
structures that blind us as we try to stay at the top of the power structure
and avoid vulnerability.
There is no way for the clergy to realize it is happening
unless life and suffering forces them to at some point go through an
integrating process. If they are
successful at integrating the different parts of themselves they then mostly
stop focusing on the problem (being lost/broken/divided) and start focusing on
integrating or unifying because that is the solution we are all looking for
that is wonderful beyond description.
Once you have experienced it there is nothing else worth focusing
on. However, until anyone, including
clergy, find some success integrating themselves and reaching a true communion
with everything else, they are generally fixated on brokenness or how lost or separated we
all are.
Clergy (like everyone) often do not want to go through the
very humbling, difficult and scary process of integration and if they realized
and admitted that is what religion and psychology is really all about they
would also probably realize they often are not as integrated themselves in
certain areas as many they are charged with leading on this process. So again the thinking mind and power
structures it creates comes in to give them an alternative (dogma and theories
of beliefs) which is not really helpful for anyone except it allows them to
keep their position and authority and not have to go through the integration
process.
Unfortunately, it leaves them primarily with only our being
lost or broken to focus on, and the mental gymnastics of a convoluted theology
and dogma to try to rationalize this represents Christ, when the truth is the
symbolic Buddha or symbolic Christ that is fully human and fully divine represents being
completely integrated or whole and thus fully in communion with everything else
at all times.
I am probably picking on clergy too much with all this. I do not think clergy are any worse (or
better) than any of the rest of us. We all
go through the same thing with our own mental gymnastics trying to avoid the
process of integrating the different parts of ourselves while reconciling this
with The Entirety.
The last objection I will
discuss to a God that does not intervene is that Jesus said, “Ask and you shall
receive.” I do not think Jesus was
talking about asking for material success and again God playing Santa. Rather Jesus was likely talking being united
with God, being comforted by God, feeling like our actions and even our
suffering have meaning, feeling embraced by God, etc. And it turns out that these things quickly
become true when we pray or ask God from the deepest parts of ourselves. Along these lines, Alcoholics Anonymous
suggests its members pray for the knowledge of God’s will for them and the
power to carry that out, and this will always be provided if truly sought.
Since I am defining
integration as the process of allowing our deepest self to rise to the surface
and be part of our consciousness and thus integrated into our daily life, I
ought to try to define our deepest self.
Our deepest self, like many of the things I discuss, cannot be defined
precisely, but by trying to describe it from various angles its meaning can be
conveyed fairly well. Our deepest self
is where our deepest drives, desires, and needs come from. It is not the drives, desires, and needs themselves
but they originate from our deepest self.
It is the part of us that accurately feels connected to things beyond
ourself, whether that is people, nature and animals, a hobby, a vocation,
etc.
Our deepest self is the part
of ourselves that knows each of us (and everyone else) is a valuable and
connected part of everything else, and therefore that the golden rule and other
spiritual teachings are the truth. So it
is the part of us that knows that everyone and everything deserves respect and
care. It is the deep sense where all
religions and spirituality originate.
Being a tiny but valuable and
connected part of The Entirety our deepest drives, desires, and needs
originating from our deepest self all have to do with fulfilling this
destiny. However, when things are going fairly
smoothly (really about anything short of calamity or great suffering) we are
generally like the rich guy Jesus talks about being unlikely to get to heaven
(united with God). The rich guy sees no
reason or usefulness in humbling himself, searching deeply within himself where
he feels vulnerable and needy, or looking out for the less fortunate, except to
keep the less fortunate from getting too riled up against him.
This seems lucky for the rich
man but it is ultimately a lonely journey, even if surrounded by lots of
adoring or friendly people, and in vain or without purpose. So it is an empty existence and really not so
lucky. It almost always takes some level
of suffering to get anyone to go deeper to look for meaning and find reasons
and ways to unite with God. So generally
the rich man (and if you are middle class in the United States you probably
fit into this rich man category) comes up with convoluted theories of beliefs
that they say they subscribe to.
Of course they earnestly
think this is what believing in God means, but in reality it is nothing more
than trying to formulate a good theory of God.
It is not believing in anything.
If they are like me they are trying to perfect the theory and then get
everyone else on board with it and then they think they intend to live it.
The only way to know what I
actually believe is to see what my actions tell me I believe. I can (and do) try all sorts of mental
gymnastics to try to convince myself otherwise but the fact of the matter will
always be that I act based upon my predominant beliefs at any given time. That is a hard thing to admit because my
actions very frequently tell me these predominant beliefs of mine are nothing
to be proud of. Very frequently I am
acting out of fear and trying to avoid feeling vulnerable, needy and possibly
getting hurt.
Generally, it is only when
our conscious suffering becomes greater than our fear that we start to admit
anything and go just as deep as we think we can get away with. So the suffering is what pushes us to
initially dig deeper. Then if we are
lucky and have good guides (spiritual writings, spiritual mentors including
clergy, etc) and lots of courage we realize that it is at these deepest levels
within us that we unite with God, connect with things beyond ourselves, and
thus find our destiny and ever changing fit into The Entirety.
If we start to trust in this
process of going into our deepest drives, desires, and needs and where they
connect with everything else and thus unite with God (The Entirety) we will be
developing faith, which is trusting and knowing the path of our deepest self is
actually the only path forward. Every
other path is simply a detour. If our
faith became complete we would be in complete union with everything else such
that any harm or suffering we experienced would be harm or suffering we were
relieving from other parts of this union.
Ours would be glory because gladly accepting this harm or suffering
transforms it with such meaning as to turn it into glory, which is the meaning
of Christ on the cross.
And in that
Jesus turns the world suffering into glory on the cross whether or not he
physically resurrected. Our insistence
on a physical resurrection is part of our human need to win and has nothing to
do with Jesus being fully united with God and fully showing the Path to
God. I am not suggesting any of us is likely to get there
or that we are even supposed to get there, but that is the end of the Path. Fortunately, we do not have to get there (at
least before death) because the journey, which we all take, is our
destiny.
We’ll move on to discuss the
journey soon, but first I’ll discuss how the suffering of others can have
meaning. Broadly there are probably 2
categories of these. First, the ones we (humans)
do not create like natural disasters and childhood cancer. I am not suggesting these things are not
tragic, but I am suggesting that when the suffering causes people to come
together to assist and comfort each other the suffering can be transformed into
the Power, Love, and Unity we all associate correctly with God. This is why people often say everything
happens for a reason, even about tragic events with great suffering. I do not personally like that saying because
it implies God intervened to make it happen for a reason. However, it is definitely true that until we
are 6 feet under any tragedy and the suffering associated with it has the
potential to be transformed into something much more powerful and positive than
the amount of suffering is negative.
The second category are those
we do create, like children repeatedly raped by adults. Everything written about the first category
applies here also. Additionally there is
the opportunity for those not directly involved to be roused from their deepest
self that can no longer tolerate knowing this suffering is occurring and join
together with others to demand action be taken to eliminate such
atrocities. It is really a sad
commentary on humans in general that the suffering of these hundred thousand
children repeatedly raped or other atrocities
are not enough yet to make us join together and demand they be stopped. And it is even sadder that we have developed
theologies that allow us to convince ourselves it is not our responsibility to
demand an end to it or otherwise get involved.
I do not know how bad it will
have to get to make us willing to accept the discomfort and inconvenience to demand
significant change but at some point we will.
I cannot say I am sure at that time all the suffering that has been
inflicted and endured will be transformed to a net benefit by the Power, Love,
and Unity unleashed. However, over time
if the process of demanding changes bonds enough people together who continue
to exercise Faith by demanding everyone and everything be treated with the
respect and care they deserve, then all this suffering will be transformed into
the Kingdom of God.
The Kingdom
of God is nothing more
than people bonded together by their commitment to embrace our collective
deepest selves and demand the weakest and most vulnerable and needy be treated
with the same respect and care as anyone else.
And we do that by teaching ways to find, integrate, and then live from
our deepest self.
So now lets talk about the
journey of finding, integrating and living from our deepest self, and we probably
ought to start by remembering some of the things that point us towards our
deepest self. Our deepest self is where
our deepest drives, desires, and needs originate. It is where we accurately feel connected to
things beyond ourselves, and the part of us that knows everyone and everything
is a valuable and connected part of the Entirety and thus deserves respect and
care.
First we’ll look at finding
our deepest self. The easiest way to
find your deepest self is to think about something that is extremely meaningful
to you. The part of yourself feeling
that meaningfulness is your deepest self.
Another way is to focus on whatever you feel most connected to in a
positive way. This could be a child,
spouse, dog, place, etc. The part of you
feeling connected to whatever you choose is your deepest self. To be clear, the feeling of meaningfulness
or connectedness is not your deepest self but the part of yourself feeling
those things is your deepest self.
Once you find the place that
is feeling the meaningfulness and/or connectedness, spend 5 minutes twice a day
in quiet meditation with that place for a month or so. Do not look for answers at this time or do
anything other than do your best at spending time with it. If it makes observations about areas of your
life, you can briefly note them, but do not follow where they lead and let your
mind take over following them. And when
this inevitably still happens do not fight it or give yourself a hard time
about it or worry about it, just gently go back to the part of yourself that
feels the meaningfulness or connectedness.
In the beginning I would
suggest not focusing on your deepest drives, desires, and needs, unless you
have a mentor capable of helping you. This
route often makes us feel very vulnerable and needy. These things have often been so successfully
shamed/shunned/avoided by ourselves and others, that trying to use them to find
and connect to our deepest self before we have learned to trust this part of
ourselves has a good chance of being counterproductive.
Integrating and learning to
live from our deepest selves is obviously a life long process. Virtually all spiritual practices and types
of psychotherapy are at least potentially integrating. I have my own that I discussed previously and
is one of the most direct routes, but you should choose whatever you are
initially most confident with and then if something else seems like a good idea
later, give that a try. For now I will
discuss a few and how to approach them for maximum benefit.
With any of them start with
spending a couple minutes finding your deepest self and asking it to join you
for the integrating exercise. Our goal
with integration is to allow our deepest self to rise to the surface and become
integrated into our consciousness or awareness so that we are then free to
choose how we want to act rather than be coerced by hidden drives and needs we
are not aware of, which is the norm even though few realize that or admit
it.
In order for our deepest self
to enter our awareness or consciousness, our deepest self and thinking minds
must eventually become partners that respect one another and their individual
roles. Over time if successful they will
grow to cherish one another as the remarkable parts they each are. In the beginning though they will need to be
constantly reminded to respect each other and their individual roles.
The deepest self’s role is
primarily to pick parts of the integrating methods that resonate with it and
then work with the thinking mind to help the thinking mind understand and
articulate why it resonates and how to live in a way that is consistent with
what our deepest self is feeling and also fits into and hopefully serves The
Entirety. The thinking minds role is to
interpret and translate what our deepest self knows. Problems normally arise when the thinking
mind tries to go beyond its role of interpreting and translating to figuring
out because normally what it is trying to figure out is how to proceed without
the inherent vulnerability of the deepest self.
The most common integrating
exercise is prayer. As mentioned
previously, praying for knowledge of God’s will for us and the power to carry
that out in whatever words and methods seem best, is the type of prayer that is
often quickly answered if we have the courage or faith to accept and follow
what our deepest self receives as the answer to this type of prayer. The answer often seems inconvenient and
uncomfortable before following it. After
follow it we often realize it was simply our destiny that we have been too
fearful to embrace.
Another popular integrating
method is reading scripture or other spiritual writings. Generally, these writings originated from
someone else’s deepest self and they often resonate strongly with our own. When something does resonate with our deepest
self, we can do one of two productive things.
The first is to try to just be with our deepest self and the truth being
recognized by our deepest self for a few minutes.
The other if we want to go
deeper is our thinking mind can ask our deepest self what truth is being evoked
and work with our deepest self to try to articulate it. Our deepest self will let us know when we
have accurately articulated it. If we
want to go still further our thinking mind can ask our deepest self how we can
apply the truth to an area of our life. Again,
after asking our thinking mind should only be interpreting and translating what
our deepest mind is trying to convey and when our thinking minds get it right
our deepest self will let us know by relaxing because it knows at that point it
has been understood and will no longer need to be suppressed in that area of
our life.
It is always best to be
sharing the insights we think we are getting with a trusted friend or mentor
and often this is indispensable. This
should not be anyone whose life will be thrown into turmoil if yours falls
apart. I am not saying your life will
fall apart but if the person is someone very close to you, like a spouse or
close relative, it will inhibit your ability to search without
reservations. If you make the unwise decision
to go it alone, test any insights you think you may be getting by asking if
they help you fit into a greater (than yourself) whole and in some way serve
that greater whole.
The 12 steps of Alcoholics
Anonymous is a collection of spiritual practices that are specifically designed
for integration and probably do as well as anything and better than most of
consistently producing great results. If
you are really desperate and might be willing to go to such lengths I highly
recommend the 12 steps. However, even
most people who know they are desperate are unwilling to diligently do the 12
steps, and it is better to be honest and start with what we are actually
willing to do. Often doing what we are
initially willing to do is enough to move us towards more willingness for more
rigorous practices later.
One of my favorite methods of
integration is to spend a few minutes finding and then spending a little time
with my deepest self. Then I will think
of one or more activities I know that I will be doing later in the day, and see
what wisdom my deepest self would like to teach me about how best to do that
activity. As always my thinking mind
will help by interpreting and translating the wisdom from my deepest self. Unfortunately, my thinking mind generally
tries to figure out a way to do the activity without my deepest self being
involved, but with time learns to respect and eventually cherish the wisdom
from my deepest self.
Those are some of the more
popular and more effective religious or spiritual practices. However, it does not have to be something we
think of as religious or spiritual that helps us to integrate our deepest
self. Music, art, and dance are all
powerful and tried and true methods to evoke and spend time with our deepest
self and thus bring it to the surface and start to live from it.
Hunting, fishing, bird
watching, or any number of activities out in nature can powerfully evoke our
deepest self and its connection to everything else. Recently, I am a river nut, meaning rivers
are the most spiritual place on earth for me at the moment. When I am paddling or cruising a river in a
canoe or on a Sea-doo, I sometimes (not always) get downright intensely
euphoric as my deepest self comes close to the surface and joins my
surroundings. I realize I am a tiny but
definite, connected and valuable part of The Entirety, which is infinitely
amazing. And even being that tiny part
is near infinitely amazing.
I get that way sometimes when
I write. When it happens when I am
writing it always worries me that it is because I am getting arrogant or full
of myself and a few times that has been the case. Most of the time though it has nothing to do
with me as a separate being. What is
causing my euphoria is basking in and however inadequately trying to share the
AWEsomeness of the Thing and Its Ways that I am a tiny part of and at that
moment getting to experience.
I get that way with sex
sometimes or even more often with just laying up against my wife of 17 years,
and I used to wish with everything I had that she would not touch me in bed and
felt violated if she did, even though she had never treated me poorly. In fact I do not think anyone ever treated me
inappropriately or badly physically, and years of therapy trying to become more
comfortable with intimacy had been mostly unsuccessful.
I get that way with music
sometimes. I get that way when another
human being and I are sharing deeply with each other trying to discern the Ways
of our Creator and how to align ourselves with Those Ways.
And I am one who was painfully
alone and unhappy most of my life until I discovered alcohol. I had a few pretty good years with alcohol
and then became even more unhappy and hopeless.
This was followed by about 10 years of mostly successful but tough
recovery before stumbling upon some really good solutions. Most of the last 5 years I have felt like one
of the luckier people on earth, but of course still have some ups and
downs. But enough about me for now.
Getting back to integrating
methods, sex and human contact, both physical contact and emotional/spiritual
contact, are ways to integrate. Another
one, which I struggle with greatly, is eating, but it holds great promise and
historically might be a leading way.
After all that is one of the reasons people say grace, before ingesting
another part of The Entirety. Types of
breathing meditation are similar to ingesting food in that we are inhaling a
life creating and sustaining substance that is another part of The
Entirety.
I am not going to go into
much detail in this writing on connecting with our deepest self through our
deepest drives, desires and needs, but will in the future. For now I’ll discuss the contours a
little. As I keep going back to, our
deepest self knows we are a tiny but important part of it all and an important
part of lots of other greater wholes (short of The Entirety), like our family
and when we get older our friends, workplace, faith community, etc. So our deepest drives, desires, and needs all
have to do with being a connected and valuable part of greater wholes and
ultimately, The Entirety.
However, the families we grow
up in and the various other greater wholes we are a part of are generally so
corrupted by the power structures created by our thinking minds as discussed in
a previous post, that there is no route to being a connected and valuable part
of that greater whole without our deepest self feeling exploited. This is because the power structures created
by our thinking minds are kept in place by shaming, teasing, shunning, etc, our
deepest selves. That is generally how
the hierarchy is maintained and people at the lower rungs are kept in check,
and any of us by ourselves is generally too weak to stop it. This is where the wise saying that we must
speak truth to power comes from.
Sometimes when someone does speak this truth to power they are crushed
and sometimes others rally around the truth and fundamental change
happens.
I am convinced that this is what Jesus was talking about when he said we must be born again and not of this
world. Being of this world in this sense
is being aligned or resigned to the power structures that rule this world. Being born again is being aligned with our
deepest self that knows everyone and everything deserves respect and care aka
the one law that Jesus said everything boiled down to. Having faith means to live, to the best of
our ability, in alignment with This Path laid down by Jesus and known by our
deepest self. Having faith has nothing
to do with what theory of God we tell ourselves we subscribe to. Now it is also true that we do not know
another’s struggles and they might be acting with great faith and their actions
still might not be that great because of the tremendous struggle. At the same time if faith is not changing the
way I live to be more integrated and compassionate and looking out for the
least and the weakest, then it is not faith.
Since our world is generally
still run by these power structures that are held together by shaming and
shunning our deepest selves, we should not attempt to find and integrate our
deepest self through our deepest drives, desires, and needs until we have a
faith community, mentors, and guides that are strong enough to help us withstand
possible push back from the power structures.
Unfortunately, most faith communities are also heavily influences by the
same power structures and we have to choose our mentors and close friends
wisely.
Our deepest self and faith in its path is like
Jesus’ mustard seed or yeast where it starts out tiny and hardly noticeable,
but if nurtured will grow to something huge that greatly permeates its surroundings. And when people form groups or communities committed
to respecting everyone and everything you have the Kingdom of God, which is no
longer ruled by the power structures held together by shaming and shunning the
weakest, neediest, and most vulnerable.
Unfortunately, these
communities are often either later corrupted by the power structures or they
are too soft and overrun by other groups built upon the power structures. Again this is not the time to go into
details, but the solution to being soft is that even the Kingdom of God
must embrace struggles and suffering within individuals and between people and
groups. Traditionally groups of people
who have formed that respect everyone and everything and look out for the
neediest, weakest, and most vulnerable admirably focus so much on reducing
suffering that they lose sight of the value of that suffering in transforming
us individually and as groups. Put
another way they tend to believe that only love is necessary for transformation
and if people are shown love and given a chance to have a viable path forward
choosing love that they will do that.
This might be occasionally true but most of the time it takes suffering
to at least near the point of hopelessness and the option of love to actually
choose love and the path of the deepest self.
I am certainly
not saying here that we should seek to suffer or seek misery or try to suffer.
What I am saying is that life has a lot of suffering to it and facing that
while looking for strength beyond ourselves is generally how we find and unite
with our deepest parts and through our deepest parts, others and God. So when we seek to alleviate suffering, our
own or others’, we need to keep this in mind and not short circuit the divine
process by preventing or reducing the suffering in unsustainable ways, ways
that deny the reality of the situation.
Our attempts to avoid the inherent suffering or discomfort of reality causes
much of the avoidable suffering in life, and just postpones the inevitable
inherent suffering.
And remember
when embraced and used to unite with others and/or God, the suffering turns
into glory and is not really suffering at all.
The struggles and suffering are the fuel that drives individual
transformation and the fuel that brings people together and holds them together
for Godly pursuits, which is nothing short of glory.
Part of this embracing
suffering and struggles is also embracing consistent fair and transparent
competition. Competition is only bad
when the playing field is rigged to begin with or the loser is treated poorly
or not given the opportunity to improve and continue to compete at a still fair
competition. Unfortunately, the power
structures’ worldly ways generally consist of using the victory to rig any
future competition in the victors favor.
We have to remember that struggles and suffering are often what bring us
together with each other and God to begin with, as well as being the fuel that can
keep us connected to both, and competition is often a part of this process. Thinking we can or should get rid of
struggles, suffering, and competition is a fairly tale and simply not reality. Fortunately, if we ever get pushed far enough
to choose embracing reality and the suffering inherent in it we find the glory
unleashed makes a comfortable and boring life without these struggles and
suffering seem like not really living at all.
I will confess here that I
have wasted most of my life thus far trying to find a way to avoid the inherent
and inevitable suffering in life and only after being left with no other viable
option have I “chosen” to directly face some of it. At this point I have generally found that the
fear and avoidance of the suffering was itself most of the suffering because
once I directly faced it, I was united with power beyond my beliefs. What I thought was going to be suffering
turned out to be simply a bridge to wholeness, freedom, meaning, and
fulfillment. This has happened in really
profound ways to me at least 10 times and hundreds of times in smaller ways and
yet the crazy thing is I still often avoid it.
Fortunately, I do not have to get very uncomfortable before I remember
this is the answer today.
The solution to the power
structures infiltrating the community is that the community should not have any
power to wield or covet. The community
should be based upon helping people integrate and follow their own path and helping
the weakest, neediest, and most vulnerable.
It should not have any power to demand or influence things other than encourage
people to humbly speak truth to the power structures, like governments, and to
shine a light on suffering, injustice, and inequality. Again, even this speaking truth to power
should generally be done unofficially by its members, and not by the group or
officially by the group. Essentially the
only function of the group is to support the individuals integrating their
deepest self. The individuals are then
free to follow and express their deepest selves as they are moved by their
indwelling spirit (aka deepest self) which is a part of the Holy Spirit.
As I briefly alluded to
earlier, most people (including myself) want to come up with the perfect
conception of God and convince or force everyone to agree with it before they
invest themselves deeply in living it because this is the only way it would be
completely safe living it. However, without
realizing it what this is really doing is trying to remove the necessity of
having faith. Faith is the courage to
live from our deepest selves and beliefs even when that might be uncomfortable,
inconvenient and even dangerous. Faith
is choosing to act on our more favorable and benevolent beliefs rather than
primarily to protect our own safety or prevent our own vulnerability. That is why faith is essential because it is
only with faith that we have the courage to act upon our more favorable beliefs
which come from our deepest self.
This is the faith that moves
proverbial mountains as it speaks and proves truth to our worldly power
structures and encourages and supports the blossoming of the same in others,
which collectively becomes the Kingdom
of God, irregardless of
the religion or philosophy guiding that faith.
It may seem desirable to come up with the perfect conception of God and convince
or force everyone to agree with it because we would then not have to be
vulnerable when trying to live in accordance with this conception, but this would
remove our motivation to dig deep within ourselves to where we find our
connections to The Entirety, which is what we all most seek. So if we came up with this perfect conception
of God and forced everyone to agree with it we would actually have done away
with God and meaning in the process and rendered faith moot. The only one served by formulating the
perfect conception of God would be the one doing the formulation, in order for them to not have to integrate.
I have talked a little bit about ways to start to integrate our deepest self
into our consciousness and daily life with things like spending time with the
part of us that:
feels connected to things
beyond ourselves,
feels positive meaningful
things
is moved by spiritual texts,
is moved by art, music, dance
Now I want to move on to
discuss what causes our objectionable activities (whether feelings, thoughts,
or actions) and how best to address them.
Our objectionable activities are most commonly from our deepest
self being convinced it is not possible to be a valuable and connected part of
the greater wholes it finds itself in. I
have discussed that this is because the greater wholes we find ourselves in are
greatly influenced by our worldly power structures created by our thinking
minds to allow those with power and influence to keep it without being
vulnerable or subject to the discomfort and uncertainty of connecting deeply
with The Entirety and treating everyone and everything with the respect and
care they deserve. And what keeps the
power structures in place is generally isolating, shaming and shunning the
deepest selves or parts of those at the lower rungs, if they question the
validity of the power structure.
So our deepest selves have good reasons to believe they
cannot be the connected and valuable parts of greater wholes. When our deepest selves become convinced of
this we do a variety of things. We might
get pissed off and decide we are going to be more important than others and
work hard at doing that. We might try to
turn into something we are not in order to try to become an important part of a
greater whole. We might feel and act the
victim who is preoccupied with why we cannot be an important part of a greater
whole. We probably do a combination of
all of these things and more. And it is
in doing these things as an alternative to our destiny of truly being an important
part of The Entirety, that we stumble upon many of our bad habits of feelings,
thoughts and actions in pursuit of these consolations of being better than or
victims or something different than we are.
We also stumble upon many of our bad habits of feelings,
thoughts, and actions trying to suppress our deepest self or at least distract
ourselves from our deepest self that is unsatisfied with anything less that its
destiny of being an important part of greater wholes and The Entirety. We do this with trying to achieve worldly
success in the power structures created by our thinking minds. We do this with food, exercise, alcohol, tobacco,
drugs, etc. We do this by striving for a
fancy car or dress or whatever that we think is going to make us feel
better. We do this by searching for a
mate to complete us or creating a child that will need us.
We even commonly do it with psychotherapy and
religions/spirituality because we view our deepest drives, desires, and needs
as defective or monstrous and therefore the problem. I viewed my deepest self as an unquenchable
beast for most of my life (and still do sometimes) because when trying to
follow it and fit into greater wholes there was no doubt that these deep
drives, desires, and needs made me vulnerable and unacceptable to the greater
whole I was trying to become an important part of. Then after suppressing and avoiding it most
of the time and having no experience or practice living from it, when it did come out it often seemed like an unquenchable beast, which makes me think of the saying, "success is failure turned inside out."
Even when I was on the right course it seemed wrong. The only reasons I continued were because I had good mentors that stirred an inkling of faith from deep down within me, and I did not think I had any other even remotely viable options. Fortunately and to my continual amazement I am finding that learning to live from my deepest self is like almost everything else in life, it takes a lot of practice, hard work, and persevering when I fail in order to get any good at it. I generally find it fairly easy these days to spend time with the deepest parts of myself that I can locate in meditation and various other ways, but finding ways to successfully integrate those parts of myself into my daily life with the world is really hard. It is hard to have the faith and courage to even somewhat exposed those parts of myself and it is hard determine what actions would fulfill them even when I find the faith and courage.
For most of us, part of reclaiming our deepest self and its
true destiny is to realize the good reasons it knows it could not be the
important part of greater wholes and The Entirety. This is necessary because it is only after
realizing these reasonable or good reasons that we can start to trust our
deepest self. If we think it is
unacceptable and nuts, which most of us do and our worldly power structures
have hammered into us, we are not going to be able to see the value in
connecting to it and learning from it.
Part of the solution here is reviewing formative events in
our lives to refine them to what is accurate, by accepting the truth and then
letting the rest go. Most of the time
the truth is something less ideal than we would like to believe about ourself
or the world and this keeps us from learning this crucial wisdom from our
deepest self. This in turn makes us have
very black and white thinking and reactions to anything similar in life because
our thinking minds mainly deal in black and white or dualistic thinking and we
are cut off from our deepest self to help if we cannot accept the truth some
prior experience was trying to teach us.
Only our deepest self and thinking minds working together can arrive at
the wisdom necessary to be confident and comfortable with nuance and being
engaged in and acting in the moment.
When we develop ways to be the connected and valuable
parts of greater wholes and The Entirety that we truly are, our objectionable
activities will automatically leave. So most of the solution is simply making it a priority to spend time
with our deepest selves and follow its guidance. We will need to cultivate new relationships
and associations that allow us to be important parts of them in ways consistent
with and fulfilling to our deepest self, and our deepest self will need some
oversight from our thinking minds and mentors to make sure we are always being
fair and normally being generous to others.
Believe it or not, what I am suggesting here as far as
finding, integrating, and following our deepest selves is the gospel or good
news. The good news is that the path to
what we all most want, uniting with God, The Entirety, and living in communion
is to embrace our deepest self, which we most identify with as being us. If we have the faith or courage to do this
and follow what it asks of us we will be fulfilling our destiny while serving
The Entirety, and no one will ever owe us anything for our service. Why would
anyone owe us for letting us fulfill our destiny and live our greatest desire? Rather we will be lucky when we find an area
in need of our service that helps us to connect and fulfill that sacred place
in us.
As I have tried to articulate
following our deepest selves will have common threads, such as serving or being
generous to things beyond us and treating everyone with the same level of
respect and care. At the same time it
will be different for each of us and we each get to choose what deeply moves us
most strongly.
When Einstein observed, “We
can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created
them,” he was likely observing that our problems are created at the level of
our thinking mind as it slices and dices and tries to gain advantages and views
things as a zero sum game. Our problems
must be solved at the deeper level that knows we are all part of the same thing
and it's not a zero sum game and things that benefit others truly benefit
ourselves. Einstein also said in a
variety of ways that imagination and inspiration are more important than
knowledge, and what he seemed to mean was that there was a non thinking part of
us that accurately knew things even if those things had not yet been proven in
a way our thinking minds could comprehend.
I, of course think he is
talking about some of the same things I am, that we have an intuitive part of
us that knows a bigger reality than our thinking mind can, and it is only when
our thinking mind and this intuitive part of us work together as revered
partners that transformations occur.
As I have
discussed in the past and in this writing, even if all of these things are
completely right, mentally knowing that will not help us unless it motivates us
to allow the vulnerability and possibility of suffering that finding,
connecting to and integrating our deepest self involves. We have good reasons to believe this is not
possible and that our deepest selves are unacceptable to our worldly groups,
but it is even more true and proven over and over throughout history and in our
current lives that those we admire the most and want to emulate have had the
courage to follow their own sacred places and show us the Path is viable and
glorious.
We are not
asked to personally be great, we are simply asked to stand with others and
proclaim what is clearly and obviously right.
To stop with all the personal mental gymnastics to justify or
rationalize what is obviously wrong in our own activities. To stop with all the convoluted theology and
dogmas to justify and rationalize societal activities that are obviously
wrong. To stop with the excesses of
capitalism that allow the powerful to greatly stack the deck in their own favor
and inhibit rather than support true competition. And this standing together cannot be done as
an all encompassing organization, whether that be a religion or political party or whatever,
because the organization would simply come up with its own convoluted
rationales for keeping the powerful in place.
The standing together has to simply be as human beings unwilling to go
along with things that are obviously wrong. This standing together could be done by something like creating an organization against human trafficking, but this organization would be for integrating people to follow or express their integrated self. The organization to follow integrated selves would not have anything to say on how the integration should occur.
Finally, I want to make it clear that you do not
need to think each part of this is correct to try a specific part of it. I would imagine some of the things I observe
are unsettling and therefore I feel the need to give a broad overview and
observe how it all fits together. At the
same time each of us has to dig deep within ourselves and determine what will
be the most true for us at this moment. I
hope my discussions and suggestions spur your own revelations that you choose
to follow and share. After all following and sharing our own revelations or insights would be an accurate description of integrating.
