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I think, as you know Rev, that the concept of god is whatever a believer believes is god. We recognise god in our own imagination. You say god is not a being, others say he is and yet others think she is not. All are correct within their own belief or faith. TT, probably quite correctly, points out that this is the ego talking, but what are we as humans if not for our ego, or at least our sense of self? We find it easier to worship something we understand, or go for the 'passeth understanding' option and, like an agnostic, agree it is all a mystery.

If you agree with the idea of god being a person's own construct according to their own faith or belief then there is no argument against the considered decision that god does not in fact exist. It would have to be allowed it is at least as likely as that he/she/it does.

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Originally Posted By: Revlgking
GOD, "is just Being, not a Being."

Now one can resent thinking of GOD as Being. Or--and I would say at great cost and sense of well being--one can even refuse to think about living in GOD, and in the Now, at all. But it is logically impossible to lose, or avoid, Being, the infinity of space and the eternity of time, the eternal NOW--anything less than this is not GOD, it is a soma product of the egoic mind (Tolle), the psyche, the ego. One is free to stay on the mind/body level, but, IMO, that would be like a caterpillar choosing not to become a butterfly.

Yes, it is true that there are whole classes of people, like the Amish, who refuse to live in the 21st Century, but they cannot logically say there is no 21st C for those of us who choose to live in it.

6 billion people live in the now without recognizing it and taking that ignorance all the way to the grave without consciously experiencing it.
Tolle himself was near suicide in the now before awakening to the now in experience.
Not everyone of course need dive so low before awakening to it, and usually if one is immersed in the pleasantries of the world of instant gratification, it is rather easy to ignore it in favor of feeding the addictions of the senses and beliefs
Simply hearing about the now or talking about the now does not bring the awareness into the now.
God does not will one to experience the now, nor does God have any investment in humanity living in the now, because from the point of reference of the now, no thing is ever out of place.
A child strangles his mother in the now.
A man commits suicide in the now.
From the now these are all illusions, plays created on a stage, where the eternal soul acts out a story line and goes home when its all over.

Being in the now is to live in spirit, to be in the world but not of the world. This is what frees the mind and body from the illusions of sickness and death, and makes all things possible.

6 billion people live in the now just like you Rev. They can talk about it, imagine it, and all while they go to war, to work, and to the grave....With judgments and attachments to the relative world intact.

It's one thing to talk about the Truth and another to Experience it.

Sin is identifying ignorance as innocence.
Being born again is to take the awareness into the now and to be something other than the body and its attachments to life and even death.

Until such a time as the awakening to the now, God is being as if patiently waiting to connect with the soul should it decide to come around to its true nature to take its rightful position as creator instead of victim to nature.

Such is the nature of things.
Natural law of free will allows for one to make the choice for ignorance or enlightenment.


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IT LOOKS LIKE WE HAVE A TRIA-LOGUE GOING ON HERE; OR, WITH SAM INVOLVED, NOW AND THEN, PERHAPS IT IS A QUADRA-LOGUE?

BY THE WAY, WHAT DO WE CALL IT IF WE GET THIRTEEN?--A TRISKADIKA-LOGUE? IMO, THIS MEANS THAT JESUS AND HIS TWELVE DISCIPLES (STUDENTS) CONSTITUTED A TRISKADIKA-LOGUE.
===================================================
BY WAY OF HISTORIC BACKGROUND:
If my understanding of church history is correct, the first Christians were under the leadership of Matthew, Mark, Luke--the author of The Acts of the Apostles, as well as the Gospel which bear his name--and John, Paul, Peter, James and Jude--the last both brothers of Jesus.

Following the death, "resurrection?" and "ascension?" of Jesus into heaven?--See Acts 1:9-11--it was generally accepted, and prophesied, by all the members of the early churches, that Jesus would return from heaven and restore the kingdom of Israel. It never happened.

What actually happened was the modern Israel, which was founded in 1948. It chose to be a republic, not a theocratic monarchy. I wonder why.

No one predicted, or even guessed, what actually did happen after the first century.

Christians, from the time of the disciples and the Apostle Paul suffered dreadful persecution until the Edict of Milan.

Definition: The Edict of Milan was granted by Emperor Constantine the Great(? The great what.) in the West and Licinius Augustus in the East in 313 granting religious freedom throughout the Roman Empire. In addition, the Edict of Milan ordered the restitution of property confiscated from Christians.

Very interesting!
http://ancienthistory.about.com/od/constantine/g/edictofmilan.htm

Following this, in 325 CE (common era), the spiritual seeds sowed by Jesus in his short ministry, watered by his blood and that of the martyrs (witnesses) took root.

As a result Christianity became an accepted religion within the mighty Roman Empire. This led to the bishops of the Church of Rome, under the leadership of the Pope, to go on to rival power of the power of the Emperor of Rome. [More on this, later.]
===============================================================

Back to the present theme. As I said in my last post, "One is free to stay on the mind/body (psyche/soma) level " and let me add here: We are free to do this for as long as we wish to do so. IMO, this relative freedom of the will is what makes us truly human beings.

BTW, could we agree that there are certain human-like beings--some of whom actually admit to having little, or no, freedom of the Will (note the W)--who are not truly human?
================
As TT puts it: "God is being as if patiently waiting to connect with the soul should it decide to come around to its true nature to take its rightful position as creator instead of victim to nature.

Such is the nature of things.
Natural law of free will allows for one to make the choice for ignorance or enlightenment."

We are not just caterpillars, forced by the power of evolution to become butterflies, unconscious of the process; IMO, we can actually play an active and conscious role in the whole process of becoming more and more humane.
===============================
let the quadra-logue evolve.

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Rev- Any more people than one person makes a conversation or discussion. There does not have to be restriction to 2 only, in fact other views open up other possibilities and the 'other possibilities' are the reason why many of us participate in discussions such as those at this site.

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Originally Posted By: Revlgking


BY WAY OF HISTORIC BACKGROUND:
If my understanding of church history is correct, the first Christians were under the leadership of Matthew, Mark, Luke--the author of The Acts of the Apostles, as well as the Gospel which bear his name--and John, Paul, Peter, James and Jude--the last both brothers of Jesus.
Following the death, "resurrection?" and "ascension?" of Jesus into heaven?--See Acts 1:9-11--it was generally accepted, and prophesied, by all the members of the early churches, that Jesus would return from heaven and restore the kingdom of Israel. It never happened.

According to Acts Jude was the brother of James not Jesus.
6 When they therefore were come together, they asked of him, saying, Lord, wilt thou at this time restore again the kingdom to Israel?

7 And he said unto them, It is not for you to know the times or the seasons, which the Father hath put in his own power.

8 But ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judaea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth.


The above scripture in Acts had nothing to do with Jesus the man coming back to Jerusalem or anywhere else. The description was in regard to enlightenment coming to all places in the world including Jerusalem, Judea, Sumeria and unto the uttermost part of the Earth.
"But ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you"
This was his message not only to his disciples but to everyone, and Jesus was speaking to the enlightenment that would come to his disciples not in the age of Jesus but in a following lifetime after the one shared with Jesus.
But this was not to be the same experience of enlightenment that they shared while being under the tutelage of Jesus, but the Resurrection same as Jesus underwent in that time, sans the crucifixion.

The new Jerusalem had nothing to do with any political event in 1948. It hasn't been realized yet by man in this age, tho it has been hinted as coming into realization in this age, which will pave the way for all of humanity to see more clearly the path to greater understanding and freedom, from illusions and suffering of the ego.
The build up of knowledge of the absolute in several teachings of this age is part and parcel to the prophesy of the New Jerusalem.
There are more people on this planet with an awareness of enlightenment and of God in the spiritual sense than in any age known to written history that has been discovered to date.

Originally Posted By: Revlgking

Back to the present theme. As I said in my last post, "One is free to stay on the mind/body (psyche/soma) level " and let me add here: We are free to do this for as long as we wish to do so. IMO, this relative freedom of the will is what makes us truly human beings.

What makes us truly human beings, is the Being part similar to what Tolle eludes to in God Being.
Our truest nature is not in the suffering of the illusions of ignorance that is of the ego and our idealized individual freedom of identification with images and idols of ritual and attachment.
Humanity without wisdom and awareness of our true nature is not humanity. In fact we are not much better than animals in some respect, fighting for survival and at the cost of our enlightenment.
The one thing that sets us apart from the animals is our inherent ability to evolve or devolve thru the choices we make.
Animals do not have the capability to make that choice.
The fact that we can act like animals does not do justice to the ability of the human being. I suppose in some kind of carnival kind of way we could congratulate ourselves for the talent but then if we really knew what we were capable of we would not be wasting time playing small, anymore than we would choose to scramble for pennies if we owned the Bank and the mint that prints the money.
Originally Posted By: Revlgking


BTW, could we agree that there are certain human-like beings--some of whom actually admit to having little, or no, freedom of the Will (note the W)--who are not truly human?
================
As TT puts it: "God is being as if patiently waiting to connect with the soul should it decide to come around to its true nature to take its rightful position as creator instead of victim to nature.

Such is the nature of things.
Natural law of free will allows for one to make the choice for ignorance or enlightenment."

We are not just caterpillars, forced by the power of evolution to become butterflies, unconscious of the process; IMO, we can actually play an active and conscious role in the whole process of becoming more and more humane.

As my teacher used to say.."That would be the only game in town."


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THE WAY TO KNOWLEDGE AND WISDOM
===============================
Quote:
The one who knows NOT, and does not know how ignorant he/she is, is a fool. Do not allow such a person to waste your time.

The one who knows NOT, and KNOWS that he knows not, but is hungry for knowledge, is a student willing to learn; teach that person where to find knowledge and the wise use of it.

The one who knows, but knows NOT that he knows, is probably asleep. Gently awaken that person.

The one who knows and, with deep humility, KNOWS that he knows and is one who knows how to teach. Take the time to be a student.

Wise people are those who, when needed, are willing to play either role.

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Originally Posted By: Revlgking
THE WAY TO KNOWLEDGE AND WISDOM
===============================
Quote:
The one who knows NOT, and does not know how ignorant he/she is, is a fool. Do not allow such a person to waste your time.

The one who knows NOT, and KNOWS that he knows not, but is hungry for knowledge, is a student willing to learn; teach that person where to find knowledge and the wise use of it.

The one who knows, but knows NOT that he knows, is probably asleep. Gently awaken that person.

The one who knows and, with deep humility, KNOWS that he knows and is one who knows how to teach. Take the time to be a student.

Wise people are those who, when needed, are willing to play either role.


The way OF knowledge and wisdom

Knowing when to play the role comes as the surrender to God.
Surrendering to God comes with knowing God and experiencing God.
One who knows God is always the student and always the voice of the Teacher thru surrender.
As a great master once said:
Mt 19:17 And he said unto him, Why callest thou me good? there is none good but one, that is, God: but if thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments.

Mk 10:18 And Jesus said unto him, Why callest thou me good? there is none good but one, that is, God.

Lk 18:19 And Jesus said unto him, Why callest thou me good? none is good, save one, that is, God.


In order to Teach, one does not teach from the knowledge of individual and personality, but by personality stepping aside and allowing omniscience to speak in the moment. This is the only way one can give to the student exactly what the student needs.

Of course there has to be a student. Otherwise no matter what is said, even by God, if the ego is resistant to anything other than what it holds onto in relative truth and choice in personal identity and pride nothing is going to be seen or heard. Which is why the same guy said:

Mt 7:6 Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn again and rend you.


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I forgot to add, the way to knowledge and wisdom is to first have an experience of that which knowledge and wisdom are derived, rather than to act out what you imagine they should be, according to the ego's best interpretation of what is best for the ego.


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This just came to me: If there was only one Jesus of Nazareth it is obvious that he was not overly concerned about catering to his ego-mind (psyche). Otherwise he would have left us a definite record--an auto-bio about who he was and what was going on in his life and time. As I said (revised) in the old thread:

I have been asked many times: If by means of a magical time machine you were transported back in time and as a result of that experience you became convinced that there was no such a person as the Jesus of history, what would this do to your faith?

My response usually is: My focus is on the nature and meaning of the message, not on who was the messenger. Sure I would like to know more about our ancestors who lived in those day, but I suspect that what we call the Golden Rule, and other great love-based messages, is the work of many great people from all over. Perhaps several of them were called Jesus.

BTW, 'Jesus' literally means: "the I-am-ness in each of us is the source of salvation--total health."

Last edited by Revlgking; 10/02/08 10:11 PM.

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BTW, TT, you mentioned above
Quote:
Knowing when to play the role comes as the surrender to God. Surrendering to God comes with knowing God and experiencing God.
For me, this poses two, maybe three, questions: First, how do you surrender to 'God'? Second, how do you experience 'God'? And, third, in what sense is 'God' male, female, or any kind of objective being?

Please, keep it as brief as you can.


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Originally Posted By: Revlgking
First, how do you surrender to 'God'?

The same way as anyone who has surrendered themselves to God. It is the same for anyone as it was for Jesus or any other spiritual master.
It is not a great feat or effort, in fact it is the simplest thing you could do. It takes far more energy to maintain the illusions of life and the ego than it does to settle into the present moment and be One with God.
Originally Posted By: Revlgking

Second, how do you experience 'God'?

As a reflection within all things and as no thing at all.
You could say I experience myself as a reflection of God in thought and activity, and I experience myself in everything and everyone.

Originally Posted By: Revlgking
And, third, in what sense is 'God' male, female, or any kind of objective being?

God is neither male or female, and It is not an objective being.
It is beyond all objectivity created within the relative, but not limited by Self reflection and Self awareness.

Originally Posted By: Revlgking
This just came to me: If there was only one Jesus of Nazareth it is obvious that he was not overly concerned about catering to his ego-mind (psyche). Otherwise he would have left us a definite record--an auto-bio about who he was and what was going on in his life and time. As I said (revised) in the old thread:

I guess this would change your past identification with Jesus as calling himself a "Jew" or being a "Jew," since he was not concerned with labeling himself or defining himself by any title other than that which would be the same for everyone else. "Son of God" an incarnation or reflection of spirit and cousin to the ego even tho deluded and separated by illusion and belief as it was.

His legacy was the result of his being who he was and thru the examples of his total surrender to each moment and situation as he met it.
Sometimes he was gentle and loving, and other times he was loving and cut the head off of the ego. Whatever served to open the eyes of the soul that was ready to evolve he was willing to do. As he said to his disciples, Jn 5:30 I can of mine own self do nothing: as I hear, I judge: and my judgment is just; because I seek not mine own will, but the will of the Father which hath sent me."
and in Luke
51 Suppose ye that I am come to give peace on earth? I tell you, Nay; but rather division:

52 For from henceforth there shall be five in one house divided, three against two, and two against three.

53 The father shall be divided against the son, and the son against the father; the mother against the daughter, and the daughter against the mother; the mother in law against her daughter in law, and the daughter in law against her mother in law.


The latter was the sword he used to separate ego from the Self so that the attachment of Father and son, mother and daughter in relationship that was of ego could be broken, to reveal a greater relationship of ones own Self.
He epitomized the Golden rule which can only be acted upon in total surrender, not from the ego and the intellect in boundaries that are the attachment to ideas of suffering and illusion.

The ego steps into the hole of the suffering friend and sympathizes with the illusion creating two people suffering from the same illusion. The enlightened offer a hand from the outside of the hole to help separate the ego from the suffering soul, and by example offer the greater reality of the Self or of the Spirit.

The golden rule of the ego respects the others illusion and will offer fuel to the fire of suffering if it believes that is what the ego wants.
The enlightened know suffering is an illusion and what the ego wants is temporary at best, a distraction from the underlying beliefs that it will eventually return itself to once the distraction fades from the present experience.
So humanity in its best idea of selfless service is to give what it believes is real even tho the giver believes in suffering as a reality and a truth of relative creation.
Fear as an underlying truth to keep within the boundaries of all thought and experience is not something one should give to others but it is fear that one offers in consoling one in their illusions by helping to fortify its reality and a distraction from it.
This type of rule is not golden nor is it real. Only one who is free of illusion and ego can give something of value to another.
Otherwise the giver is dis-eased and can only offer their illusions as a bandaid to apply to another's illusions.


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TT, when you say
Quote:
The enlightened know suffering is an illusion ...
are you quoting yourself? Or who?

Without any intention of being discourteous, this comment begs so many questions: Are you speaking for yourself? Do you think of yourself as one of "the enlightened" ones?

And, what do you think such a statement means to those of us who would like to be--here, I am inclined to include myself--but who do not feel we are fully enlightened, yet?
What of the partially enlightened?
What of those trapped entirely in their somas and psyches?
Would it make any sense at all to them?

Consider the following scenario:
I live in an area where, I am happy to say, we are all good neighbours to one another.

For example, currently, all of us do a good job keeping our properties neat and tidy. If, for whatever reason, any one of us lost our marbles, stopped keeping our property tidy, became paranoid and developed a violent, insulting personality and threw our garbage on the properties of others, do you think that all the rest of us would say: Not to worry; smile it is just an illusion?

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Originally Posted By: Revlgking
TT, when you say
Quote:
The enlightened know suffering is an illusion ...
are you quoting yourself? Or who?

I'm quoting from the Science and scripture of Yoga, and speaking from my own direct experience.


Originally Posted By: Revlgking

And, what do you think such a statement means to those of us who would like to be--here, I am inclined to include myself--but who do not feel we are fully enlightened, yet?
What of the partially enlightened?
What of those trapped entirely in their somas and psyches?
Would it make any sense at all to them?

As a great master once said, those with the eyes to see and the ears to hear understand.
One would have to be situated only in the Now to understand how illusions are created and perceived by the ego.
Originally Posted By: Revlgking

Consider the following scenario:
I live in an area where, I am happy to say, we are all good neighbours to one another.

For example, currently, all of us do a good job keeping our properties neat and tidy. If, for whatever reason, any one of us lost our marbles, stopped keeping our property tidy, became paranoid and developed a violent, insulting personality and threw our garbage on the properties of others, do you think that all the rest of us would say: Not to worry; smile it is just an illusion?

Nope. Because you all are attached to the order of surface appearances, any disruption would cause you great dissatisfaction, stress and confusion (that'd be suffering or what is also called the experience of hell).

Such was the case 2000 years ago when the followers of Jesus kept hoping that he would clean up their neighborhoods but instead he helped those that were wanting to clean up their understanding of reality.
For those that were attached to their personal neighborhoods there was no comprehension of the message of his teachings.
He spoke of that which was permanent within themselves and how to bring that out so that those things that were temporary would not be placed above the permanent. But they who could not see or understand what he spoke of went back to protecting their neighborhoods and found great distress when it was invaded or someone through garbage on their property.

They died, trying to keep their paragraphs short and using headings to emphasize their main points, wink and without ever understanding what was spoken of regarding the illusions of belief, in the attachments of the ego.


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BTW, O enlightened ones, smile out there: I forgot to mention. My wife and our neighbour talked about this real--not just a hypothetical situation, just yesterday.

There is a young driver in the area who, every now and then, zooms up and down our street and around the near-by corners at a very high speed. They, and I, are very concerned that one of these days he could lose control and cause a serious accident--even kill one of the young children who play in the area. This would cause much real suffering, pain and trouble to himself, his family and to the whole community.

We plan to speak to others in the community about this. We are asking them to keep an eye out and perhaps get a license number. We are not doing this just to be snoopy or to get the driver in trouble, but to see if we can do something to prevent such a tragedy. We are also concerned about helping the driver avoid problems, not just any victims.

Shall I tell people not to worry; that an enlightened one smile has assured me that all tragedies, with all that pain and suffering, are just illusions?

When I hurt--even from the memory of past hurts--I hurt in the NOW. Were I to say otherwise I would be lying. Were I to say that there is nothing I can do to prevent at least some of what causes pain and suffering, which comes my way, I would need to try to delude myself and give in to mental chicanery and sophistic reasoning.

Currently, from a wise health professional, I am receiving much help in dealing with a serious prostate situation. That therapist believes in the basic principle of Tolle and others. She has assured me: somatic conditions are real, not just illusions.

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It is cruel and inhuman to assume that tragedies, pain and suffering are illusions, brought upon the sufferer by their own sin, fate or happenstance-- or due to a crease in the Space-Time continuum or some such unfeeling rubbish. Illness and suffering have many causes, some of which we are unable to change, others which we can foresee and remediate. Some cope through prayer, others offer help and support and others condemn with spiritual superiority. May the latter never need the comfort of others.

Rev-- We too had a guy in the neighbourhood who would spend the weekends hooning around on his motorbike really, really fast. It was both noisy and unsafe. He does it no longer as he killed himself by running into a truck. Whilst we acknowledged the grief of his family and were sorry for the truckdriver we were all relieved that he had not taken someone else with him, and peace and quiet had returned.
Try and stop it in your area. Death in these cicumstances is unnecessary- not illusionary.

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Originally Posted By: Revlgking


Shall I tell people not to worry; that an enlightened one smile has assured me that all tragedies, with all that pain and suffering, are just illusions?

No that would be foolish. You neither understand the concept nor have you been assured. One non understanding person trying to tell another what they don't understand won't create anything more than more misunderstanding.
Originally Posted By: Revlgking

When I hurt--even from the memory of past hurts--I hurt in the NOW.

Actually, no you don't.
In order to be in the NOW as referred to by Tolle, would mean there were no preconceived ideas about the experience based on the past or any projections into the future that are from the stored emotional attachments you have with experience. Perfect innocence with absolutely no fear.
By replacing the past impressions with the NOW, any experience would be experienced as if it were new, and the first time.
When we layer past impressions onto experience with fear, judgment drives up the emotional content of experience often creating the idea that pain is even more intense and dramatic than it really is.

Originally Posted By: Revlgking

Were I to say otherwise I would be lying. Were I to say that there is nothing I can do to prevent at least some of what causes pain and suffering, which comes my way, I would need to try to delude myself and give in to mental chicanery and sophistic reasoning.

Were you feeling something and trying to say you weren't would be a false statement, and would have little meaning. Were you to say you could or couldn't prevent suffering would be relative to what you know about reality and your relationship with it as you understand it.
Originally Posted By: Revlgking

Currently, from a wise health professional, I am receiving much help in dealing with a serious prostate situation. That therapist believes in the basic principle of Tolle and others. She has assured me: somatic conditions are real, not just illusions.

They are very real to one who is immersed in the condition of the body and the world. To someone who is immersed in the soul and spirit of the body, the condition is reflective of belief and beliefs change not only the experience but how it is created.

The entire Gospel according to Jesus refers to this illusion of identifying with the limitations of the body.
But you don't believe he really healed anyone or raised the dead so it would be a moot point.

Originally Posted By: Ellis
It is cruel and inhuman to assume that tragedies, pain and suffering are illusions, brought upon the sufferer by their own sin, fate or happenstance-- or due to a crease in the Space-Time continuum or some such unfeeling rubbish.

Any assumption is only an assumption, and is neither cruel or inhuman but just plain ignorance.
Originally Posted By: Ellis

Illness and suffering have many causes, some of which we are unable to change, others which we can foresee and remediate.

All illness and suffering is created by stress. The medical industry knows this much. How it accumulates within the personality is by choice, how far it goes to invade the mechanics of the body is due to how much one piles into belief and into the emotional body.
This carries on in ones life and continues into lives that follow if one does not change their relationship with reality.
Originally Posted By: Ellis

Some cope through prayer, others offer help and support and others condemn with spiritual superiority. May the latter never need the comfort of others.

Simply coping with the beliefs that create stress and sickness, never approaches the cause. Just as most medical doctors cannot predict the nature of individual health based on the environment because everyone deals with it different emotionally, and some don't react to the same stress the same way, the best they can do is treat the symptoms.
Medicine is not an exact science. At best they can created drugs that might temporarily become effective but if one continues to maintain the stress within the body the sickness can return. The average age of a physician is less than the human who has little knowledge of medicine and yet we are willing to give doctors the authority to tell us how to live our lives. The inadequacies of the medical profession are just a reflection of how little man knows about itself.

In just about every case where healing takes place in life threatening disease, doctors have noted that the patient has made a fundamental shift in their way of thinking, and instead of ignoring their reality become more aware of it and how they interact with it. Rather than making illusory assumptions they become more conscious of how they have come to be where they are, and how they can make changes to create a different life and a healthier body.

People still believe if you go outside without warm clothes in the cold you will catch a cold, when it has nothing to do with catching a virus which won't matter if you are dressed warm or not.
This is just a simple example of illusion created from lack of knowledge and misunderstanding of reality.
People also assume when someones body dies their consciousness dies with it, and so they not only mourn their attachment to the person but the loss that the dead person has suffered by dying.

If someone throws garbage on your lawn the only suffering is the attachment to a certain order of things. Life goes on and no one has been physically damaged. One could easily walk out into the yard and pick it up and go one with their life. Instead most pile up the anxiety and in extreme cases allow it to create health problems.
How ridiculous is it to let such a thing cause such a condition?
This is just the tip of the iceberg. The more people have, the more they fear to lose.
One who has nothing has nothing to lose and will not accumulate that stress. Instead they might stress about something completely different.
Each individual creates their own illusive reality within their beliefs, and like a herd of animals people get together to discuss their pain and their fear to make it as real as they can and as dramatic as they can.

Older people who start losing friends begin to make the obituary page a priority read at the breakfast table instead of planning the day. More focus is put on death than on life for people addicted to this way of thinking.

Spiritual science approaches the reality of the everlasting soul and by giving that which is forever the attention, it fundamentally changes the experience of that which is temporary.

People think they have evolved beyond the stone age but superstition has not changed with the attachments that are created by fear and ego since man lived in caves.
That way of thinking, projecting outward from the collective fear of mortality, is the illusion which produces beliefs based in fantasy and ignorance.

Whenever the enlightened approach the ego with the truth the ego fights until the death to protect its illusions. So the enlightened do not try to change anyone with their ego so conditioned to be on the defense.
The best someone can do with the truth is to plant seeds and allow fertile soil to sprout the experience of truth when the conditions are right.

As long as the ego is unwilling to see or hear anything other than what is conditionally protected in the personal box. Truth remains illusive.


I was addicted to the Hokey Pokey, but then I turned myself around!!




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===================================================================
TT. yesterday, in post number #27929, I asked:
Quote:
TT, when you say
"The enlightened know suffering is an illusion ..."

I asked: Are you quoting yourself? Or who?"
You responded:
Quote:
I'm quoting from the Science and scripture of Yoga, and speaking from my own direct experience.

===================================================================
In the NOW, Ellis writes:
Quote:
It is cruel and inhuman to assume that tragedies, pain and suffering are illusions, brought upon the sufferer by their own sin, fate or happenstance-- or due to a crease in the Space-Time continuum or some such unfeeling rubbish.


Thanks Ellis! My common-sense detector--I presume you have one-- tells me that your BS detector--I assume I have one--is doing a good job picking up that there is a fair amount of obscurantist sophistry and illogical, opaque baffle gab out there, much of it bordering on chicanery. And not just among the gurus of spirituality. Some of them are politicians, economists, financial advisers, bankers, educators, clergy--all kinds of "experts".


ABOUT CHRISTIAN SCIENCE (CS)
============================
I once had a licensed practitioner of Christian Science give me a call. He offered to come to visit me in my study and tell me about CS and why we do need medical science at all. Being curious and open-minded about what he had to say I agreed to see him.

He said that he was impressed by a talk that he heard me give, on the radio, on the POWER OF FAITH AS AN AID TO ACHIEVING HEALTH.

As one who has always accepted the human spirit in cooperation with the human mind can be of great help to having a healthy body, I spoke of what I knew, at that point, of the nature and function of faith.

I quoted the medical research--still widely accepted--found in the literature to the effect that medical science now agrees that fifty percent and even more--some say at least 75%--of all diseases are not strictly somatic. Since the 1930's it has been OK for doctors to accept the reality and importance of a psychosomatic approach to disease and health. Real physical disease can be caused by a negative mind set. In my talk I even added the word spirit. I spoke of pneumapsychosomatic--spirit/mind/body--disease. I said: Many people, especially people addicted to alcohol, drugs, nicotine, food and the like will not be made well by medicine (soma theraphy), or psychology (psychotherapy), alone, until they make the conscious choice--a function of the spirit (pneumatherapy): "I want to be well."

This mention of 'spirit'--which CS writers usually write as Spirit (God)--is what really impressed my CS visitor. Using their own literature, including the famous book, SCIENCE AND HEALTH--WITH A KEY TO THE SCRIPTURES, by Mary Baker Eddy, I have made a study of CS. When my visitor finished making the point that ALL conditions, even economic ones, must be treated by spiritual means, only, I said:

"If you really believe what you say you do, why are you wearing glasses? I also notice that you have fillings in your teeth and that you have a lot less hair than I do." He offered no explanation for his lack of faith.

"I agree" I said, "the day may come when we WILL have a spiritually structured body...I am not opposed to this concept. But, meanwhile, commonsense tells me that we have this soma to deal with--to keep as healthy as possible, until death do us part. This means that there are times when somatic therapy seems the commonsense thing to do."

There was a pause. He left me some literature and left without saying another word.

BTW, Ellis, as I read Tolle I have not noticed anything, yet, which defies commonsense. If I do, I will let you know. We can talk about it. Also, I notice when class members question his concepts, or even disagree with them, he does not admonish them and treat them as if they are mental and pneumatological (spiritual) midgets.

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Originally Posted By: Revlgking
as I read Tolle I have not noticed anything, yet, which defies commonsense. If I do, I will let you know. We can talk about it.

That makes perfect sense and confirms everything I have said about your statements of joining Tolle in at-one-ment and in the presence of NOW. Intellect and instruction precedes the experience of the atonement and the NOW. Then it also makes sense if all of your psychological eggs (so to speak) have been placed in one basket you will need to adjust your focus and attention on something that is different from the habit of your beliefs and ideals, in order to find comprehension in understanding and experience.
Originally Posted By: Revlgking


Also, I notice when class members question his concepts, or even disagree with them, he does not admonish them and treat them as if they are mental and pneumatological (spiritual) midgets.


No he wouldn't, but it is not often unusual for the ego to feel as if he has, and by the feelings generated thru judgment and the ego as it protects its illusions and beliefs, feel as if they are being treated as ignorant.

Andrew Cohen has written a lot of the Teacher Student relationship. Similar in its direction are the writings of John Welwood
On Spiritual Authority

John Welwood



The false prophet and the genuine spiritual master both undermine the habitual patterns of self. Yet one does this in a way that creates bondage, while the other does it in a way that promotes liberation. What is this important difference? How does genuine spiritual authority operate? This is not a simple question.

It is impossible to set up an ideal model for what a true spiritual teacher should look like, any more than we could elevate one style of therapy as the model that all others should follow. Carl Rogers, Fritz Perls and Milton Erickson, for instance, achieved therapeutic results in strikingly different ways. Each had a different personality type, style of working, and probably a different type of client with whom he might be most effective. Spiritual teachers also come in many different forms and guises, and it is fruitless to try to spell out exactly how a good guru will behave.
Instead we need a more subtle analysis that looks at what goes on between teacher and student. Two questions are particularly important here: How does spiritual authority operate in the relationship between teacher and student? And what is the source from which a teacher derives that authority?

Relative Spiritual Authority


Spiritual authority is, in part, interrelational; that is, a given teacher has such authority only for those who respond to his or her presence and teachings. A disciple— literally, a "learner" —is one who recognizes that he or she has something important to learn from this particular teacher. Often the choice of a teacher is as unpredictable and mysterious as the attraction to a potential lover. You sense that you have something essential to learn here, something that no one else has ever imparted to you before. And this recognition is what allows the teacher to take on a certain authority for you.
Many people today question the need for spiritual teachers at all, claiming, in the spirit of democracy, that everyone should be their own master. Many traditions do in fact assert that the true teacher is only found within. Yet in the early stages of one’s development one does not know how to find or listen to the inner master, or to distinguish genuine inner guidance from more superficial wishes and preferences. Just as one would turn to an acknowledged master in any field one wanted to pursue in depth, so a person who seeks to overcome the limitations of egocentricity will naturally be drawn to someone who has actually mastered that work. The role of effective teachers is to instruct, encourage and correct the student, as well as to provide an example of what is possible. Effective teachers also try to see what individual students most need at each step of their development, rather than trying to fit the student into a preprogrammed agenda.
Thus spiritual teachers derive a certain relative authority through the actual help they offer their students. This is not unlike the authority that clients grant therapists in their work together. Although I may feel uneasy with the authority clients grant me as a therapist, I am willing to accept it, especially in the early stages of the work. I understand that clients can more readily enter into the process of shedding old patterns if they grant me the authority to guide them. Beyond the conventional authority granted by professional training and certification, or by transference idealizations, the real source of my authority is my focus on clients’ well-being and my capacity to help them find a deeper relationship with themselves. Granting me this authority can be a step toward recognizing their own authority— that they are indeed the authors of their own experience, rather than passive victims of circumstance.
In a parallel, though far more profound way, a genuine spiritual master’s presence may serve as a mirror that reflects back to students qualities of their awakened being: openness, generosity, discernment, humor, gentleness, acceptance, compassion, straightforwardness, strength, and courage.

Absolute Authority


Beyond the relative authority that teachers assume through the help they give their students, true masters also have access to an absolute, unconditional source of authority—awakened being. Since this is a universal source of wisdom that is available to everyone, the genuine spiritual teacher is more than willing to help others find it themselves, if they are ready.
The genuine teacher is one who has realized the essential nature of human consciousness, usually through having practiced a self-knowledge discipline such as meditation for many years. In contrast to false teachers, who often create a condition of dependency in the student by claiming special access to truth, authentic teachers delight in sharing the source of their own realization with the student. This often involves giving students an awareness practice, along with pointing-out instructions that help them directly recognize their own nature. This kind of guidance sharpens students’ perceptions so that they can better discern whether the teacher’s words are true. Without a practice or method that gives them direct knowledge of what is true, students are totally dependent on the teacher to define their reality for them.
The more the students’ discrimination and discernment grow, the more they can recognize and appreciate the teacher’s mastery; just as when we study and practice any art, we come to recognize the skill of an accomplished master much more than we could have before. When the teaching leads to a deeper connection to one’s own being, this appreciation often grows into natural feelings of love, respect and devotion.
Such devotion may look like slavishness to the secular eye. Yet true devotion does not aggrandize the teacher or debase the student. Rather, it is a way of recognizing and honoring wisdom, awareness and truth as higher realities than the egoic realm of confusion, ignorance and self-deception. Devotion is a sign of a shift in allegiance—away from the petty tyrant of egocentricity toward the call of our larger being, whose wisdom the teacher embodies in fully developed form. Yet devotion can have its own kind of dangers, especially in our culture, and can lead to certain pitfalls on the path unless it is grounded in an awareness practice that cuts through self-deception and sharpens the student’s discernment.

Surrender and Submission


To appreciate the potential value of commitment to a spiritual teacher and teaching, it is essential to distinguish between mindful surrender, which is an opening to a deeper dimension of truth, and mindless submission, which is a deadening flight from freedom.
The notion of surrender is widely misunderstood in our culture. It often conjures up images of "come out with your hands up"—waving a white flag, admitting defeat, being humiliated. For many people today, the idea of surrender implies giving up one’s intelligence or individuality and adopting a weak, dependent, submissive position. True surrender, however, is never an enslavement, but rather a step toward the discovery of real power. It is the act of yielding to a larger intelligence, without trying to control the outcome.
True surrender is not blind. It requires real discrimination—the capacity to recognize the necessity of completely opening oneself and letting go. Surrender does not have a finite object; one does not give oneself to something limited and bounded. If one does, then it is most likely submission—to the teacher’s personality, or the "Cause."
Submission is a handing over of power to a person one idealizes, based on the hope of gaining something in return. One seeks approval from an idealized other in order to feel good about oneself. This is a symptom of weakness rather than strength—"I give myself to my guru because he is so great and I am so small." The more one depends on another for validation, the more one is likely to act in ways that compromise one’s integrity. And the more one’s integrity becomes compromised, the less one trusts oneself, which increases one’s dependency on the leader.
Critics of gurus see all involvements with spiritual masters in this light, failing to distinguish between submission as a developmentally regressive retreat from maturity, and genuine surrender, which is a progressive step beyond egocentricity toward a fuller connection with being. They fail to distinguish between the giving of surrender, which brings increase—of love, intelligence, wisdom—and the giving of submission, which results in decrease and loss.
With a genuine spiritual master, surrendering means presenting oneself in a completely honest, naked way, without trying to hold anything back or maintain any facade. How rarely we let anyone see us as we are, without hiding behind a mask of some kind. Being in the presence of a true master is a rare opportunity to let down all our pretenses, to unmask and reveal all of what we are, our egocentric failings as well as our strengths. This is quite different from submissively trying to be "good" or "devoted," to please someone in order to feel worthy.
Submission has a narcissistic quality, in that followers seek to bask in the reflected glory of their leader as a way to inflate their self-importance. The authentic teacher-student relationship leads beyond narcissism by showing students how to devote themselves to a greater power that lies within, yet beyond themselves.
The acid test is not how well the students please the master, but how fully they meet and respond to life’s challenges. Through becoming more responsive, transparent, and open with their teacher, they learn to approach all people and situations in the same way. In this way, genuine surrender helps one open toward all beings, instead of enslaving one to the parochial perspectives of an in-group.

In Search of a Genuine Master


How then does one recognize a master one can trust? Certainly no single teacher or teaching could be expected to appeal to all people, any more than any single psychotherapist or school of therapy could be effective for all potential clients. The ultimate criterion for judging teachers is whether they guide their students toward a more authentic, transparent quality of human presence and being-in-the-world.
Genuine teachers encourage self-respect as the basis for self-transcendence. And they are willing to reveal the source of their authority and wisdom to their students, so that the student’s path is based on experiential realization rather than on ideology or belief. They also recognize ambiguity and paradox, rather than insisting on absolute certitude in the One and Only Truth. They do not give their disciples any privileged status above the uninitiated. They do not manipulate the emotions of their students, but appeal to their innate intelligence. Instead of promoting herd behavior, they recognize the importance of solitude and inner inquiry. And their own realization is based not just on dramatic revelations, but on extensive testing and practice.
A teacher’s embodiment of love, truth and living presence is a much more reliable gauge than whether his or her lifestyle, appearance or personal quirks fit our image of what a spiritual person should look like. The annals of all spiritual traditions include examples of masters whose behavior and lifestyle challenges the prevailing conventions.
Great teachers also have their share of human foibles. Often they are effective precisely because they are so human, because they are so deeply in touch with the nature of the human sickness in themselves. The Buddhist sage Vimalakirti, to whom many bodhisattvas came for teachings, was always sick in bed, and when asked about this, said, "I am sick because all beings are sick." If the spiritual path is about transforming our core sickness and neurosis, then we can hardly expect spiritual teachers and communities to manifest in a totally pure, spotless way. Yet Americans are often quite naive in their expectations of teachers, as the Zen teacher Philip Kapleau points out:
"In the West a roshi is expected to [have] flawless conduct ... But this idealistic view can blind one to the merits of a teacher ... A Japanese long experienced in Zen once told me, ‘My roshi does have character flaws, yet of the teachers I have had he is the only one who has taught me real Zen and I am exceedingly grateful to him.’ "
Undoubtedly the most important guideline in evaluating a teacher is the effect he or she has upon us. In replying to a question about whether a master should be "a man of self-control who lives a righteous life," the Vedanta teacher Nisagardatta Maharaj replied:
"Such you will find many of —and no use to you. A guru can show the way back home to your Self. What has this to do with the character or temperament of the person he appears to be? ... The only way you can judge is by the change in yourself when you are in his company ... If you understand yourself with more than usual clarity and depth, it means you have met with the right man."
The Buddha responded in a similar vein when approached by a group of villagers, the Kalamas, who had been visited by various monks expounding their different doctrines. They asked the Buddha, "Venerable sir, there is doubt, there is uncertainty in us concerning them. Which of these reverend monks spoke the truth and which falsehood?" To which the Buddha replied:
"It is proper for you to doubt, to be uncertain ... Do not go upon what has been acquired by repeated hearing, nor upon tradition; nor upon rumor; nor upon what is in a scripture; nor upon surmise; nor upon specious reasoning; nor upon a bias toward a notion that has been pondered over; nor upon another’s seeming ability; nor upon the consideration, ‘The monk is our teacher.’ Kalamas, when you yourselves know, ‘These things are good, these things are not blamable; undertaken and observed, these things lead to benefit and happiness.’ "
The Buddha specifically advised the Kalamas that they could recognize a worthy teaching by how much it helped them reduce the afflictions of attachment, aversion, and delusion.
In sum, the question of spiritual authority is a subtle and difficult matter that permits no easy answers or hasty conclusions. True and false teachers represent but two ends of a broader spectrum of more or less spiritually mature human beings. Some teachers may have some genuine realization, but have not fully integrated it, so that their teaching remains incomplete. Some start out with good intentions, but are not ripe enough to avoid leading their followers astray. Others may be quite wise, but lacking in the skillful means necessary to communicate their wisdom in a way that truly helps their students.
To discount all spiritual teachers because of the acts of charlatans and false prophets is as unprofitable as refusing to handle money because there are counterfeit bills in circulation. As Nevitt Sanford stressed in the classic study, The Authoritarian Personality, the abuse of authority is hardly any reason to reject authority where it is useful and legitimate. In the present age of cultural upheaval, declining morality, family instability, and global chaos, the world’s great spiritual masters may be humanity’s most precious assets. Glossing over important distinctions between true and false teachers, and how the student’s relationship with them differs, only contributes to the confusion of our age, and retards the growth and transformation that are required for humanity to survive and prosper in the times to come.

John Welwood, Ph.D. is a psychotherapist in San Francisco, associate editor of the Journal of Transpersonal Psychology, and author of six books, including Journey of the Heart, Love and Awakening and Ordinary Magic. Material in this article will appear in his forthcoming book, Toward a Psychology of Awakening: Buddhism, Psychotherapy, and the Path of Personal and Spiritual Transformation. © John Welwood, 1999.

The words that I remember from my childhood still are true.
That there's none so blind as those that will not see and those who lack the courage and say its dangerous to try.
Well they just don't know that love eternal will not be denied
-Justin Hayward-(The Moody Blues)


The truth needs no defense. If anyone remembers that there is Eternal Truth or not is irrelevant; fortunately, truth is not democratic.
Once, everyone was convinced that the earth was flat and the sun rotated around it, but no change in the orbit of our daystar ever occurred because of mankind's beliefs. Nor did our spherical globe contract to a plane to align with ignorant humans.
Similarly, for more that two thousand years, most of our race have believed that the Absolute One was a myth or inaccessible to all but a fortunate few who were monks or nuns - those who have renounced everything of the world in order to devote their entire lives to the realization of the Eternal.
In the absence of knowledge of the effortless path of growth of consciousness, any strange belief about the difficulty of growth of consciousness has been taken for the truth. But the Truth has never changed. It has remained crystalline, pure, forever isolated from the strange mutations of space and time, patiently waiting for the forgetful children to remember. And as soon as even one remembers, the Truth is there, Wholly and completely, in all its radiant Glory, for the Truth also permeates every particle of the created worlds, the Truth is everywhere, always.

The enlightened have undying Love for humanity. Like good parents, they have saved the best present for last. Our race has matured greatly in the last five thousand years.
This is not to say there is not still a great deal of work to do; there obviously is. This is not to say that we have yet healed the Earth's problems, created by human ignorance and greed; we obviously have a long war ahead.
But the fact is that more and more people today are dedicating themselves to love and the healing of humanity; once a certain threshold is passed, once there are sufficient members of fully enlightened people walking the Earth, the entire planet and the entire human race are going to experience a phase transition of consciousness.
Those who wish to continue to destroy will no longer be able to do so; those who wish to create in expanding immortality will receive unlimited support from the infinite One. Every desire of theirs will be fulfilled, from the slightest to the greatest.
Those who have learned to align their hearts with one-pointed faith will find that there are no limits to their eager, numinous minds. There are no restrictions of time or space that do not bow to the will of the fully realized human.
Like good parents the enlightened have saved the highest teaching for this moment in the evolution of the Human race.
There have been other experiments of releasing the teaching of enlightenment throughout the unending centuries of human dominion of the earth, but the most important time is NOW. Now we stand at the beginning of full enlightenment and immortality for the whole human race.

The enlightened seek those who wish to align themselves fully with this endeavor, they seek those who have the root desire to become part of the solution and cease to be part of the problem. This process of alignment can be as quick as a soul desires; there are no limits to the rate of acceleration of consciousness available to the human. The only choice is how quickly this will occur.
The curriculum was set long ago, human free will consists only of how quickly one chooses to learn it.
Learn it quickly and enjoy the endless fruits of love, joy, perfect health and immortality; learn it slowly and flirt with fear, illness, misery and death. Choice is everyone's personal pathway, toward the standing path.

The pathway to culturing Eternal Freedom in every moment of Now is not difficult or hard to follow. Indeed, it is present everywhere at each and every moment of created time. Built into the fabric of Creation are certain Ascending pathways; these 108 primary channels are found throughout the structure of all of existence, inside every cell, inside every nervous system, throughout every planet, every sun, every galaxy, every particle from the smallest to the largest of Creation.
These 108 channels lead one directly to the experience of the Absolute; when one has opened ones heart to innocence and ones mind to one-pointedness, the infinite light of the One floods through the human soul, bringing completion to the otherwise endless dance of the Ego, bringing fulfillment to every Human's age old quest for perfection. The dawn of complete enlightenment is inevitable once one innocently treads down even a single Ascending pathway.

Once one has discovered an effective method to know Truth and is systematically opening to the 108 passageways, there are certain additional processes which can accelerate growth. There are certain foods that assist ascension, there are others that hinder it; there are certain behavior patterns that further growth, and there are others that retard it; there are certain exercises that speed development of consciousness, there are others that slow it down.
The fundamental principal is this: the earth is not world of unlimited choices. Rather the earth is a world of unlimited choices, but not all choices available lead to enlightenment.
In fact, reviewing the rather pathetic condition of modern humanity, we have to conclude that most choices lead to suffering and death.
If someone wishes, therefore, to think, It matters not what I do; I can do anything I please, this of course is that someone's choice. But the end result of such thinking is sickness and death, That is precisely the philosophy that has killed every one of our ancestors; do you really want it to be yours?

The wisdom of enlightenment offers another way. Adopt a useful series of boundaries to gain unbounded freedom.
This might sound contradictory: How can boundaries lead to the Unbounded? Even a moments reflection reveals that there is no other way. Perfect invincibility is born from perfect harmlessness. Invulnerability comes from mastering the art of non-violence.
That this flies in the face of traditional thinking and belief is a good sign of the Truth of these words. Rather, it can be such a sign, if one has the necessary humility to analyze honestly the nature of Creation. With perfect fluidity of Grace and utter economy of effort, the Universe continues along the path of least resistance.
Water is ultimately soft, and yet its persistence wears away mountains.
There are no limits to the expanding glory of the human mind, but the way to attain this Reality is through adopting a useful series of limitations, to culture life to realize the Eternal Freedom of perfect Union with the will of God.

What must one give up to realize God? Absolutely nothing. What must one be willing to give up to realize God?
Absolutely everything.
It is the attachments that cripple the growth of consciousness. Where your treasure lies, there will be your heart also. If you are more attached to your home or your family or your job or your status than to the Absolute One, you will have your home and your family and your job and your status until death comes knocking on your door and you will not have the Absolute One, in knowledge, experience and in the nature of your being as you move in and out of the manifest creations of life and death.
If, on the other hand, you seek first the Absolute One, you will have your home and your family and your job and your status, but you will have them all fully for the first time in your life. Instead of a life of compromise, you will have a life dedicated to the healing of humanity -- which is always and forever based in the healing of your own soul.
Those who wish to oppose you in this transformation -- and for the present, at least, we have to assume that there will be those that try to oppose you -- will find that their words and actions have less and less of an impact on you as you become more and more filled with the pure joy of alignment with the One.

"Our recent experience is that as we become more successful, as we teach more people to align with their true hearts desire to realize the Eternal One, the violence of the frustrated ego in others that do not so desire to structure full enlightenment screams more loudly."

"The absurd and bizarre stories about the teaching of enlightenment and spirituality and the enlightened increase in volume and ferocity as we accomplish our task to heal the Earth."


This was predicted and understandable; if it is inevitable or not remains to be seen. The enlightened and the teachers of enlightenment continue, one-pointedly, marching to the goal; those who wish to join them in the noblest of tasks will do so with joy and harmony; those that do not will go their own way, cursing them perhaps as they walk out the door.

"How dare they offer to help them break attachments and be free? How dare they offer an alternative to their painful and short lives!!"

Someone learned a statistic from an MD, a Dr, Joel Wallach: the average life expectancy of an MD in the U.S. is 58 years. The average life expectancy of an aspirant of enlightenment in Perpetual Conscious awareness of the ONE is more than six times that. The average life expectancy of an enlightened individual in Unity is incalculable in modern standards.

The ego worships allopathic medicine as God. This is true because modern medicine will kill you if you practice it religiously.
The Ego fears and hates enlightenment because it will kill the Ego if you practice it correctly.

Life is supremely simple, but people tend to make it complicated. A life of compromise leads to death, quickly, painfully.
A life dedicated to Truth leads to Eternal Freedom.


I was addicted to the Hokey Pokey, but then I turned myself around!!




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THE POWER OF NOW, IN SUMMARY
On the front page, just before the contents of his book, The Power of NOW--a Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment,first published in 1999, Eckhart Tolle has this astounding statement all by itself:

You are here to enable the divine
purpose of the universe to unfold.
This is how important you are.

================================
Everybody: Comments anyone! What does this mean to you and what questions come to mind (psyche)? Or should that be spirit (pneuma)?

One of the first questions that comes to my psyche/pneuma is: Who gets to decide what the purpose is?


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Originally Posted By: Revlgking


The first question that come to my psyche/pneuma is: Do each of us decide what the purpose is?


No. Purpose is already established. We only need awaken to it.


----------------OVERVIEW:COSMIC PERSPECTIVE--------------------

Where does one begin to define the tradition of enlightenment?

For those who have been involved in the last 2000 years and have taught with the information left by one of their brothers, they hold that the original teachings of Jesus were not a belief
system at all, but rather a mechanical series of techniques to transform human life into a constant perception and knowing of the perfection of divinity within every human heart.

What is the source or goal of human life? The mind in the waking state is filled with opposing thoughts.

Is the perfection of life to be found after death? Is Heaven a far-off state, one to be attained by living a “good” life, or is it something that is at hand -- a reality that can be attained here and now, an ascended reality that is possible to be achieved in the present?

Is it possible to live an ideal, Heavenly life in this world? Is it possible to live every moment in an upward-directed, ascending mode, in which every thought, word and deed is filled with bliss and love and life?
Can individual life become ideal? Can it be completely healed of the pain of past loss and faulty belief?

Logically, it is impossible to heal individual life if the world is not healed. No one is isolated from the rest of humanity; all are woven together in a tapestry of energy and synergy in which the lives and actions of one reflect in all others. If one person suffers, all suffer -- at least to some extent.

Recognizing this, the ancients formulated a lofty ideal, perhaps best expressed as the Boddhisattva pledge in Buddhism -- “I will not leave this world until all are enlightened.” Such commitment is enshrined in these words. Such love.
But are they practical?
Is it even possible to heal the Earth? If everyone in the entire world must be healed for our individual lives to be ideal, how could it ever happen? Is this not clearly an impossible task for any one being to accomplish? And yet if we desire the impossible, do we desire alone?

Many of our greatest throughout history have spoken of a New World, a coming time in which all the problems of life have been
solved or Ascended, in which all of humanity unites in seeking the highest and best for everyone.

Lofty visions? Surely, but are they also practical? Can they be attained? Or were our spiritual leaders and visionaries speaking only to inspire us to be better?
Do we any longer have a choice? Perhaps it seemed that we did before our modern times, perhaps in previous ages we could delegate some few of us to focus on healing everyone through religion or mysticism or science, but no longer. Even a cursory look at the state of the world leads to the inescapable conclusion that we no longer have a choice. Heal the world we must, else it and we fail to survive.

We as a species have created an imbalance on Earth that could in the space of a few days or hours result in the end of our race or the end of our world or both. Is there hope for us? Do we have allies in this healing process? Do the Laws of Nature favor our healing or our elimination? Let’s look at the
nature of the world and see if there is any hope.

The world is always changing. The Universe is in a constant state of flux. It may have periods of greater or lesser stability, or areas where change seems slight or rare, but these are only temporary realities.
The mightiest mountains are worn down to foothills; the oceans rise up and turn into dry land; even the continents slip around on the Earth’s molten core like ice on a hot tin stove.
One day the Sun itself will die; eventually this galaxy will be extinct, filled with the hollow memories of burned out stars.
The dinosaurs ruled the Earth for a great many more million years than the present human race is supposed to have existed, but where are they now? Life is change.
Our world is changing, and ever more rapidly. There are those who take this as evidence that this is not an ideal world, it was not created by perfection or it is not maintained in perfection. This conclusion seems rock solid. But is it? Is this not saying that there is a part of space or time where the Infinite Perfection of the Absolute ONE is not found? If that is so, then the Infinite is not Omnipresent, or is opposed
by a nearly Omnipotent destructive power that seeks to undermine the intent of Infinity. Or perhaps it is all truly random, there is no underlying order; all thought of Absolute harmony is a myth, created by hopeful people with little common sense.

This kind of thinking denies both logic and experience, as will become clear as we proceed with this short composition. There is another way to view this world; there is another way to view all of life.
Change appears to be either constructive or destructive. There seem to be two great natural forces at work in our Universe -- evolution and devolution. But on closer examination, every motion of devolution is not without purpose, for it opens the pathway for more and greater evolution. It is only when the bud is destroyed that the flower can emerge. It is only when the child dies that the adult is born.
The combined working of these two infinitely opposed forces is all-powerful in the relative cosmos, and is certainly brilliantly and wise. Some have considered it mindless, but even a cursory look at the magnificent complexity of any aspect of our Universe makes such a conclusion seem extremely naive. A
thousand billion galaxies each with an average of two hundred billion stars? Fifty trillion cells in every human body all working together in perfect harmony? Such wisdom there is in Nature, such brilliance.

Natural laws certainly seem all-powerful and all-knowing from our human perspective, do they not?
So, if there are Omnipotent and Omniscient forces at work in our Universe, why do they so often handle our lives in such a destructive manner? Aren’t we often crushed by oppressive weights beyond our ability to control? Which of us has not from time to time thought our lives are about as important to the
higher powers of Nature as are the insects on our windshields?

The universal forces don’t seem to have much regard for the little human lives on our planet, do they?

Appearance is a wonderful magician, an extraordinary deceiver, capable of convincing our hearts and minds of the strangest lies. How often do we choose our clothes, houses, jobs by the most superficial standards? And our friends and mates as well. Is this bad? Not necessarily. Compromising integrity
doesn’t make a whole lot of difference if there is no absolute standard.

If we have never seen the Sun, choosing between which star we wish to guide us is not so important. This doesn’t mean we might not believe it important and fight with all our might to defend the supremacy of our individually chosen star.
We might go to war defending the importance of Sirius, the brightest; we might say that any who refuse to follow the sure council of Polaris, the steadiest, are doomed to hell and Infinite torture; we might create entire philosophies on the wondrous counsel offered by the most glorious constellation, Orion -- but what happens to our beliefs and philosophies based on starlight when the Sun rises?
The point is that if we attempt to apply the standards of sensual perception in an attempt to understand our position and role in the Universe, we will necessarily fall far short of learning anything of much importance.

How to align our understanding with the Cosmic and Universal Forces instead of with the gross material world reported to us by our senses is the whole purpose of inner growth.
Cosmic Intelligence is one name for that Force which pushes our individual lives and our world toward perfection. It is the Source of the harmony between the opposing natural laws that causes all of life to progress, in spite of the appearances on the surface.
According to the enlightened/awakened, our only responsibility
here on Earth is to make sure that we are not working against Cosmic Intelligence, either consciously or unconsciously
.


I was addicted to the Hokey Pokey, but then I turned myself around!!




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