Belief, God, and Paying Attention

How did God become an entity “out there”, living in a place usually referred to as heaven, a creator separate from humanity, keeping a book of wrongs for which all will have to atone for? From a literal perspective, the bible seems to present God as an egotistical old man without much mercy, with vengeance, and an overblown ego who seems to find it recreational to watch his children go through the trials and tribulations of living, and even engages in some manipulation just to keep things interesting. Is this the God believers really wish to live out eternity with in “heavenly reward”? If so, what is it in the human psyche that desires that kind of punishment?

Why create this illusion of separation, and what purpose does it serve to believe in such a distant, harsh God? Is there a benefit? Is it merely a justification for behavior and attitudes that reflect the darker parts of human nature such as hatred, intolerance, and violence? To use God as a justification for war raises the act of killing one another to a level of purpose beyond responsibility of any one individual. After all, if God demands that war be fought in his holy name, then one is doing God’s work, and the responsibility for it therefore belongs to God. That’s convenient.

If we reject the illusion and come to realize we are not separate from God, but rather we are connected to the Divine in our true nature which is Love, now we must accept responsibility for our attitudes and behaviors. Not so convenient.

It seems to me a more challenging perspective to recognize the Divine in one another, each one a creation as a thought of God, and therefore realize our Love and Compassion are meant for ALL, not merely those we deem it convenient or easy. To care for one another in kindness regardless of how disagreeable any individual happens to be is to recognize and honor the Divine in one another.

I have heard the bible used to justify many things from racism to murder to natural disasters to plagues to wars, and so forth. It seems a rather convenient book to mold into individual interpretation based on the situation at hand. It is then creatively interpreted to fit individual circumstances, but rarely is such generous consideration given in the judgment of others.

Isn’t it time to start thinking, to ask tougher questions, and to rework concepts and ideas that have been so easily accepted and handed over to others due to laziness and complacency? Ceasing to question, to challenge oneself and others, to think things through, to really test ideas against the internal barometer of Truth is to cheat ourselves and others, to become comatose, robots, and leave the important thinking to those we deem more qualiied. Learning from others does not mean checking our brain at the door; it means being actively engaged in the learning, discerning Truth, and taking responsibility for what we are accepting as our belief and incorporating into our lives and our Spirit, and identifying the influence our beliefs have on our actions and attitudes toward others, and toward ourselves. Putting our trust and belief in something merely because we have been told to do so or because it is tradition or popular mainstream is just laziness. God’s creation deserves more attention and effort from us than that.

Who do You Love?

I am a fan of old movies. I had forgotten about one in particular that I have always liked, but watched again the other day. It is the 1952 version of Moulin Rouge (nothing at all like the modern version) and stars Jose Ferrer. It is supposedly about the life of the artist Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. I don’t know how much accuracy there is in the movie in regard to the real life of Lautrec, but I remember watching this movie when I was a little girl and wishing I could be his friend.

The movie reveals flashbacks of Lautrec’s life as a youngster when an accident caused him to break both of his legs in a fall (probably at the growth plate) which resulted in his legs ceasing to grow, and disfigured him for the rest of his life. Considered physically undesirable, he resigned himself to a life without love. As an adult he frequently visited the Moulin Rouge where he sketched the dancers and presumably became an alcoholic. He discovers glimpses of love, with no relationship ever working for him mainly because of his own inability to truly let himself receive it, so convinced that no one could ever love him and therefore shutting the door to it.

Other movies that strike me the same way include The Elephant Man with John Hurt, Mask with Eric Stoltz, and The Enchanted Cottage with Dorothy McGuire and Robert Young, also about individuals physically disfigured or unattractive who are trying to make their way in the world, and longing for love denied them. Similarly, the book Autobiography of a Face by Lucy Greely chronicles the torment of a young woman who spends her life longing for love after countless surgeries on her face due to disfiguring cancer as a child. Her longing for love eventually ends in her death. It is ironic that she survived the cancer, only to die because she never found the love she so craved.

Love is something we so desperately want and need, to live in harmony with our true nature, and yet we set up such rigid conditions before we will give it. I suppose some sort of evolutionary argument could be made for that, but my heart feels for those who have seemingly been denied love merely because they don’t fit within the normal criteria required to deserve it.

How are we judging who is worthy of Love and who is not? Since Jesus is the focus of attention this week, consider his hand extended in Love to all people, the blind, the lame, and the lepers, who in their time were deemed throwaways, castoffs, untouchables, the discarded and unlovable. He brought healing and Love to those who were discarded, those who were shunned, hated, banned from society.

I ask again.

How are we judging others, who are we giving our Love to, who are we withholding it from, and how are we defining the criteria for those we deem worthy to receive it from us? Are we honoring Love, and are we devoting ourselves to it even when it isn’t easy?

Who do you Love?

Merry Christmas

Christmas Thoughts

Facing the traffic and crowds and noise and the usual Christmas insanity, who among us does not moan that we will not do this next year? And yet next year is this year. Lather, rinse, repeat.

There are those who dread the family dinner and those who dread the loneliness of having no one to spend Christmas day with.

There are those who are away fighting wars in foreign countries, wishing nothing more than to hug their children, and then there are those waging wars at home with the very people they want nothing more than to be capable of giving a hug.

There are those who will still be homeless on the street in the richest country in the world and there are those who will wake to golden trees and everything that money could possibly buy, except for a fulfilled heart.

There are those who will be hungry on Christmas Day and there are those who will be stuffing themselves to the point of unconsciousness.

December 25th. Really just another day. But not just another day. A day full of expectations, hopes, connections (or lack thereof), where everything seems somehow magnified, punctuated, bigger, more. A day when you walk out of your house to a sort of silence, deserted streets, an eerie stoppage of life. Stores now closed, businesses gone for the day (until the day after Christmas madness begins), even the stock exchange shut down. Stillness. A silence you can hear.

So maybe our opportunity on Christmas Day is to just stop. Slow down, just be, reflect, allow moments to come and go without pageantry, without force, without expectation, without hurry, without stress. Take a few moments to bless in our hearts those who are hurting, lonely, and who need so much in this broken world. Committing to be an agent of change in some way this year, committing to care, committing to compassion and kindness.

I suppose the same questions asked of one another last year will be asked again this year, because this year is last year and next year is this year. Did everyone get along with each other? Did you make your flight on time? Did dinner turn out okay? Did everyone like what you bought them?

But maybe, just maybe, if we linger in the stillness, in the quiet, in the stopping…we can sense the magic, the magic of the story on which Christmas Day is based, regardless of belief, regardless of affiliation…to just connect in the calmness, in the peace…in a holy moment of Unity with the Universe and with one another … and to know that everything just is, and we just are…Love.

Healing Hearts

What is Consciousness

What does it mean to be conscious? Is it “awakeness?” Something purely neurological? Is it self awareness? Is it a sense of oneself as a separate entity from others, and the sensation of “experiences”? How is memory associated with consciousness, if at all? How much is consciousness dependent on our senses? Do we have to be sensing in order to be conscious? Do we have to be conscious in order to sense? When a person is put under anesthesia for surgery, we refer to him as being rendered unconscious. Is he? What are the requirements for consciousness? Sensation? If sensation is necessary for consciousness to occur, what of those who are missing one or more senses? There is a disorder for every one of our senses. If every single sense was shut off, would we still be conscious?

From an evolutionary perspective, consciousness serves us well, making our survival more likely as we are aware of our environment and are existing in subjective awareness. Is awareness the only requirement for consciousness? How do we know we are conscious? Because we are “awake”?

Is sleeping and waking just a toggling between two different types or levels of consciousness?

How is consciousness related to our definition of life? Is only conscious life worthwhile and valuable? Most of us are horrified by the idea of life without consciousness, fearing the neverending coma, and many have thought through under which conditions they would want their life supported or not given a set of circumstances related to our consciousness.

We go to sleep at night, embracing the shift in consciousness, welcoming it, and with such ease we place our trust in the idea that we will wake to consciousness again in the morning, having just put it away temporarily, but trusting it will be there for us again. It seems our consciousness is pretty important to us, and yet we think nothing of toggling every night, in fact many of us look forward to it.

So anyway, just some random conscious thoughts on consciousness. At least I think they are conscious thoughts. Now I’m not so sure.

Groundhog Day

There was a movie some years back called Groundhog Day starring Bill Murray, who plays a weatherman who has to cover the story of Punksutawny Phil, the groundhog (and his shadow), on February 2, Groundhog Day. In the movie, he discovers that he keeps waking up to the same day over and over again. Every time he goes to sleep and wakes up, he has to repeat the same day again. He begins to wonder if he is doomed to an eternity of watching the same people do the same things every day.

Do you ever feel like you are repeatedly being presented with a life lesson over and over again, each time with a slightly different twist to it, only to discover that somehow you are missing it every single time? I wonder why it is that some life lessons seem so easy to learn, and others give us such fits every single time. Sometimes we are presented with something that happens one time, and we learn the lesson, never to repeat the mistake again and feel wiser for the experience. And then there are times when it seems like even though something presents itself to us repeatedly, we never seem to learn the lesson for the next time around.

Becoming more mindful and aware would seem to be good strategies for approaching life lessons. It is also important to acknowledge the emotion that results in reactivity and keeps us stuck in repeating the same behavior patterns over and over. Our past contributes to our reactivity in our present. Recognizing where our tender spots are located, and addressing the emotion that underlies a situation are part of becoming more aware. The trouble is that we attempt to view a situation from the perspective of emotion and we end up out of balance, making decisions solely from subjectivity rather than from a balanced perspective of both the objective and subjective. Our fears and emotions color our judgment and create perceptions of situations that lead to a certain reaction, often times repeatedly. We also carry the same fears and emotions into other situations and find ourselves reacting in similar ways to a variety of scenarios.

The definition of insanity? Repeating the same thing over and over, and expecting a different result each time.

Perhaps the diagnosis should be labeled Groundhog Day Disorder (GDD).

Absolute Truth

Whether individuals articulate spirituality in words or something practiced such as meditation, art, music, poetry, writing, or even in everday tasks of living and working, I have yet to meet anyone who has not contemplated God, religion, spirituality, the afterlife, and some sort of connection to eternity. Even the most devoted atheist at some point had to contemplate God in order to reject the existence of God. Interesting too how in these contemplations it inevitably becomes necessary to convince as many people as possible to follow the one and only Truth. Is that because there is safety in numbers? Maybe if enough people believe the same thing, it will actually be the Truth? For some it transcends faith to what they call knowledge, knowledge of the Truth. Oh to be so certain of the one and only Truth as to deny that it even requires faith. It is THE Truth, they say. It does not require belief.

So where does faith end and knowledge begin? I speculate and I contemplate and I listen closely to my inuition. Beyond that, I have no knowledge of absolute Truth. Even the most scientific of discoveries aren’t immune from modification.

Is there One Absolute Truth?

We like to believe that when we die we will come into knowledge of the Truth. But how do we even know that much? We base this assumption on what our conscious awareness is right now, in this life, in this existence. We assume that when we transition out of our physical existence, we will be aware of the Truth. Really, though, we have no idea what our existence, if any, will be like once we have made that transition. How do we even know there is an Absolute Truth? And how do we know that we will exist on a level of consciousness that makes us aware of what that Truth is? Actually, we don’t. We rely on faith. We rely on intuition. We rely on our sense of what feels right to us. What feels right to one person isn’t necessarily what feels right to another person.

The Truth for one is found in Christianity, for another Islam, for another Judaism, for another Buddhism, for another Hinduism, for another Atheism, for another Spirituality expressed personally and individually, and on and on and on. If there is only one Truth, why so many divergent viewpoints, and within each one of them, even more divergence? One look around the world and we can see that even those who are in the same Truth in faith tradition hate each other.

So what is it about pursuit of Truth that brings to violence, hatred and intolerance? Is the anxiety so overwhelming about what is to come in the hereafter that if everyone doesn’t assimilate in that One Truth, they must be killed in order to alleviate the anxiety? Or is it the craving of control and the anxiety of knowing there is no way to control what is inevitable? Everyone will die at some point, and there will be “something” that happens as a result. Whether that something is heaven, hell, reincarnation, nothingness, or something entirely outside our realm of conscious capacity to understand while here in physical form….the transition means something will happen. It is not impossible to overcome the fear of death. But is it entirely possible to eliminate the anxiety of not knowing what that “something” is? Of having no control over it? Of having no concrete evidence to suggest to us what IT is? And faith traditions aren’t the sole source of afterlife speculation. So-called scientists aren’t immune from the speculation.

In concluding the mental elaborations for today (which are really all moot anyway, right Dan?), I am reminded of the television series, The X-Files. The slogan said, “The Truth is Out There.” I ponder this now and immediately my intuition kicks in and counters it with, “The Truth is In Here.”

Let’s Talk About Sex

Take one look around at our society today and you might think we are obsessed with sex.

No, really?

Pornography, advertising, television, sporting events; sex is everywhere, right?

On the other hand, we live in this parallel society where we try very hard to hide our sexuality, deny its existence, and hope in some way to ignore that we live in a body and have a heart, mind and soul that desire the fulfillment of our sexual nature. We have even convinced ourselves that our sexuality is something that opposes our Spirituality and have gone so far as to develop faith traditions that demand celibacy of its leaders. And how’s THAT working for us?

All we really accomplish in trying to repress the physical dimension of Being is create an environment for ourselves where our sexuality is manifested somewhere else, and that somewhere else often seems to take the Love, the intimacy, and the Spirituality out, replacing it with a fast-food menu of body parts. Individuals become obsessed with the parts, their sizes, their dimensions, fitting them together, etc. Some even go so far as to surgically alter themselves in the hope of being more desirable.

Sexual union with another person is not merely the joining together of physical parts. It is a joining on all dimensions of Being, Merging, Sharing, Giving and Receiving. And yet the expression of sexuality seems to take on forms that would suggest its distillation down to merely the physical, as if there is no time or patience or joy in all that foreplay and intimacy and afterplay, or even Love. Merging with another, when that relationship is focused on a higher purpose and deeper meaning, is a way to join with another person in all aspects of Life and Living, being completely Unified and living as One. The sexual union is a beautiful physical manifestation of that merging of souls, minds, hearts, bodies and Lives.

For all the obsession with sex, how many people do you know who are really comfortable talking about it, or expressing themselves as sexual beings? Repression and embarrassment are more acceptable and comfortable, at least for public viewing, and so the stuff of fantasy is kept in the dark and hidden under the covers until it finds its way out and manifests in ways that may not be entirely satisfying or very healthy.

Sexuality and sensuality are expressed everywhere from art to architecture to poetry to a good meal to a breath of fresh air or even the way a road is built. We have an opportunity to express this part of ourselves in creative, Spiritual, Loving ways…merged on all dimensions of Being (physical, emotional, mental and Spiritual). But instead, we put sex in a box, much like we do Love, and define it in very narrow and confining terms.

Look at ancient architecture, art forms, writings, even the Bible, and see the fire of passion, of sexuality, of sensuality. The connection of sexuality with sensuality with Spirituality with emotion is just so clearly evident, and also seems to have been sacrificed in our modern society, individuals preferring instead to stay on the surface and let sexuality manifest at surface.

Sexual union is sacred and erotic, and provides an avenue for Spiritual ecstasy. But look at what is prevalent at the surface for our senses today. Grossly disproportionate young women, anorexic everywhere except their breasts which have been surgically altered to be more pleasing to the opposite sex. Super Bowl Sunday, virtually a national holiday in the U.S., where the brief exposure of a singer’s breast during halftime made national news for weeks afterward in shock and horror, and yet the same sporting event grossly distorts sexuality year after year without complaint or comment. Pornographic images of women (and men) in plentiful supply in magazines, on the Internet, and just about everywhere. The examples are endless of surface sexuality resulting from this odd mix of repression and obsession that has developed in our modern society.

When religion is tied to sexuality, trouble is rarely far behind. With sexuality taken out of the discussion altogether, strict rules being written that use guilt and sin as fear inducers, and hoping it will go away by pretending it doesn’t exist and refusing to acknowledge it or embrace it for the beautiful gift that it is, the sexual nature seeks other avenues for expression. Every time we focus on sex as purely physical (either by sweeping it under the rug altogether or expressing it in purely physical form at surface) all we really accomplish is the creation of more avenues of dark expression.

When experienced on a deeper level sexuality is a way to come back to ourselves in Truth. In being merged in all dimensions at one time in sensation, in Love, in vitality, in ecstasy, in just Being…existing as we are without the illusions and trappings and masks and costumes and repression and obsession, and just surrendered to self and to other, we have an opportunity for a deeper experience of sexuality through intimacy rather than surface entertainment and distancing; an opportunity to express ourselves freely in our own sexuality, whatever that may entail in creativity of expression, and allow others the freedom to do the same without judgment and self righteousness.

We have an opportunity to be Lovers on a deeper level in all things we do every day from the way we view a sunrise, to the way we express our talents and gifts to the world, to the intimacy we share, to the way we enjoy a meal with friends, to experiencing a Sunday drive on a long road, to eating a snow cone on a freezing day in January, to swinging on a swing in the park with freedom and joyful abandon, to expressing ourselves through our entire Being in sexual liberty with someone we Love. These are the deeper experiences that take individuals beyond surface, beyond the entertainment, beyond the quick thrill.

These are the experiences of just…Being.

Wishing You Peace