The GOOD News: The "Trans-Fall" Era...!

Been waiting for this part..! :)

A funny thing happened on the way to survival ... some humans began to "wake up"...!

Now, the "normal" way that humans have dealt with pain (inner or outer, but predominantly inner), was to either escape it, or to console themselves for it. So, we distract ourselves, or focus on an idyllic afterlife (or a soon-coming utopia).

BUT -- starting around 1000 BC, a small number of folks came to see that there was another, more fulfilling possibility -- that they could heal the discord, rather than to escape from (or manage) the symptoms. They actually discovered that they could *transcend* their egoic sense of separation, and as a result, transcend the suffering!

We see this happening with the Upanishads of ancient India. They declared that our perceived sense of reality (based on our five senses), is not the true reality. That our sense of separation is nothing but an illusion. That everything in the universe is permeated with Brahman, or Spirit ... and that THIS is the ultimate reality.

"Shining, yet hidden, spirit lives in the cavern.
Everything that sways, breathes, opens, closes, lives in Spirit ...
Spirit is everywhere, upon the right, upon the left, above, below, behind, in front.
What is the world but Spirit?"

Of course, this wasn't really *new* - this was just a rediscovery of what the earlier ancestors knew. The sages and mystics have merely discovered a way to reverse the psychological consequences of the Ego Explosion ... they found-again the Spirit-Force, whether they called it Brahman, Maasauu, Wakan-Tanka, Tirawa, Kwoth ...

These sages and mystics realized that who we THINK we are, the ego, is just an impostor ... giving us a false sense of our identity ... we are suffering from a case of mistaken identity!

Around 600 BC, Buddhism and Janism emerged ... Buddhism showing the way to rise above suffering, by releasing craving (the ego is the craver, wanting, wanting, wanting). Janism tells us that we can find liberation through meditation, renunciation, and following a moral lifestyle -- including non-harming of any living being. Taylor writes,

"The adept reaches a state in which, according to one ancient Jain text, 'The Self is free from punishment, without opposites, without me-sense ... free from defects, free from delusion, and fearless'."

In China, around this same time, Taoism emerged ... Lao Tzu and Chuang Tzu were aware that there had been a previous harmonious time ... and that we had fallen from it. That we fell from the "Tao" (the Way), and instead came into the "way of man". We became aware of distinctions, aware of right/wrong, and became proud and selfish.

It's interesting ... if morality (adhering to a code of conduct) was *able* to correct the fallen psyche ... if conformance to a code of right and wrong could enable us to show a greater ability to empathize with others ... if it were able to change us, so that we could overcome our inner pathologies -- then we would've done so by now.

But this is not the case.

Morality has been preached, enforced, and mandated into laws, for millennia.

How's it working for us so far...?

It would seem that all of the mystic teachers taught that we had to be transformed from within ... that we had to "shift" ... that we had to change our inner perspective. External conformity is a band-aid on a cancer ... doesn't work, except to utterly exhaust us.

Enter Jesus.

Jesus' teachings demonstrate the "trans-egoic" state of being. Look deeply at some of his statements: "The Kingdom of heaven is within you." "I am in my Father and my Father is in me." Some stronger statements are made in the gospels that didn't make the final cut ... in the "Oxyrhynchus" sayings of Jesus, Jesus is recorded as saying, "You shall know yourselves that you are in God and God in you. And you are the City of God."

Jesus teaches of an intensity of compassion, that can only come with empathy -- feeling with another ... that comes from transcending the sense of separation from another. Jesus so identified with others, that he said, "as you do to one of the least of these, my brethren, you do to me." And, "he who receives you receives me, and he who receives me receives him who sent me."

And so it was, throughout history ... in every culture, among every tribe and nation, a very small minority of folks discovered that it was possible to transcend the fallen psyche, and to know truth.

Ironically, these mystics arose out of the very religions that opposed, and often, killed them. Judaism gave rise to Hasidism and Kabbalahism; Islam birthed the Sufis; Christianity gave forth to the likes of Meister Eckhart, Julian of Norwich, Hildegard, Thomas a Kempis, Teresa of Avila, John of the Cross, and Jakob Boehme.

While the mystics spoke of God, their concept of God was quite distinct from the religious concept of God .... God was not an anthropomorphic being, distant, up there, somewhere, looking down and controlling the world. Their God was Brahman, Spirit-Force ... the whole universe was impermeated with the radiance of God.

Religion declares that we are separate from God -- God is "other". Even unapproachable.

Mysticism declares that God is knowable, intimate, even within our own being. Sufi mystic Dhu al-Nun wrote,

"Their words are the words of God which roll upon their tongues, and their sight is the sight of God which has entered their eyes."

Are we not all God-breathed ... and thus inspired...?

When will we know this, trust this, and live this?

(Next: The "Second Wave" of Awakening! Or: You are HERE!)

Shalom, Dena

Hearing Voices ...

Oooooh, I been a vewy bad bwogger this year...!

I confess that I've been in a post-Christmas-production schlump (does "schlump" have one p, or two...?). I confess that I've been doing a lot of vegging ... attempting to get caught up with my multitude of emails (got it down from 500+ to 200, and then it went up again ... sigh...!). I confess that I've been talking myself INto this schlump/schlumpp ... and I'm hereby choosing to walk myself right out of it...!

So, I want to talk about hearing voices .. not just voices, but the Voice. Remembering now, with a grin on my face, that old email about "how to have fun in Walmart" ... one of the suggestions was to go to Walmart, wait 'til you hear an announcement over the PA system, and then hold your hands over your ears, fall to your knees, and wail, "The voices, the voices, why can't they leave me alone?!?"

Yeah, I so want to do that...!

But I'm not talking about those voices (enlightening though they may be!). I'm talking about the still, small Voice.

Back in my church-going days, I kept hearing about how others were hearing God's Voice ... and I never did. I wondered, were they all pretending, or was I cosmically left out? Was something inherently wrong with me? I mean, some folks are born missing a limb, or an internal organ ... was I born missing my soul...? My conscience? My ability to connect with God...? Or, had I lost it?

Ahhh, the wretched agony of fearing that I was either spiritually defective, or had inadvertently committed the unforgivable sin...!

I tried hard to hear God ... read the Bible incessantly (though I would hear it in the voices of those who claimed that they alone could interpret it for me) ... prayed all manner of prayers, both rote and spontaneous (most sounded like, "OH God! I am a wretched woman and unworthy to hear from you! Please save me from my own depravity!" ... as a (wo)man thinks in her own heart, so IS she ... believing I could not hear from God, how surprising was it that I couldn't ...?).

I had a friend explain it like this (he, who was horrified at my theology,
nevertheless was used by God, profoundly):

"Y'know those 'too-good-to-be-true' thoughts you get ... those thoughts that
blow your mind and feel so good, and make God seem bigger and better than you
imagined... those thoughts that make you feel totally loved and accepted and
led? Do you then think, 'nah, that couldn't be God!'...? Well, I ask you: why *wouldn't* that be God?"

Stopped me in my tracks.

I became more aware, less dismissive, of what I was experiencing within ...

Did you ever have a sudden leap of recognition within you, as you heard or read something? Something that suddenly felt real, meaningful, true ... something that "resonated" (almost as if you'd forgotten something you once knew/experienced on some deeper/higher level of awareness)...?

It changed my experience ... I now realize that God is never *not* talking to me
... I just wasn't tuning in.

Shalom, Dena

"C'mon, Baby ~ Let's do the Shift!"

Here's the problem: we have a skewy view of God, and therefore a skewy view of ourselves, and all of creation as well.

Here's the solution: we need a correction in our view of God, which will result in a corrected view of ourselves, and all of creation as well.

Sounds simple enough, right...?

But paradigm-shifts rarely come easily, or simply ... not because the Truth is complicated, but because of how our minds cling to what we think we know -- with a life-or-death grip. Our brains want to retain status-quo, and our emotions will send out all manner of "danger! - warning!" messages, that are designed to keep us loyal to what we already believe to be truth.

It takes a great deal of courage, a huge amount of trust, and even a sense of daring recklessness to plunge off the cliff of the unknown, before we discover that God will either catch us or else teach us to fly...!

It takes an inordinate level of self-honesty, to look deeply into what we really believe (as opposed to what we think we *should* believe), about God, about ourselves, about life.

If we see God as distant, separate, out-of-reach, unless and until we manage to please Him through right beliefs and correct actions ... if we believe that we must earn His love, if we believe that sickness is inevitable, if we believe that He is angry, wrathful, exacting in His demands, and certain that He will smite us when we err, that He's disgusted and disappointed with us, because we've thwarted His perfect plan, if we believe He's out to teach us hard lessons, and even to punish us because of our choices, then THAT is the sort of God we will experience.

But ... is it true? Is that who God really is, or is that a god created in our own image, a god who looks/acts/thinks like we do, a god we've projected out of our worst fears, out of our extreme distrust, out of the traditions of man which continue to nullify the word of God...?

Could it be true that God wants us to know Him, as He is, and wants us to discover how He views us, His offspring, we who are made in His exact likeness...?

I see that God is love. Nowhere are we told that God is wrath, or God is anger, or God is punishment, or God is justice. God IS love, and all that comes out of Him is therefore a manifestation of that love (just for fun, and perhaps enlightenment, go read 1 Corinthians, verses 4-7, and replace every instance of "love" with "God" ... for this passage is describing the very nature of God ... let your perspective be challenged and changed, to align with His reality).

I see that God is Light, and in Him is no darkness at all. The darkness that we see is a projection of our own egoic/carnal thinking ... it originates in our own minds, and not in the nature of God.

God has made us in His own image and likeness ... like begets like. We are His offspring. We are His beloved children. When He looks at us, He sees Himself ... He sees the completion of Christ.

If we see ourselves as less than that, in any way, then I suggest, no, I declare, that we must have our minds renewed, so that we see as God sees, and think as God thinks. This is our inheritance.

God saw everything that He had made (everything! that includes you, and me, and everyone), and behold it was "very good." Good means (in Hebrew) "perfect, complete, undamaged, uninterrupted, incorruptible."

You and I and everyone are "perfect, complete, undamaged, uninterrupted, incorruptible."

Selah (pause and reflect on that).

THAT is our true nature. Anything else we think, anything else we believe, anything else we experience, is illegitimate, and comes out of the darkness of our own egoic thinking.

The Law of Life says that "each seed reproduces after its own kind." We are made of God-seed ... that is who we really are. And we are not to judge by appearances, but by righteous judgment (right thinking -- God's thinking). We are not to lean to our own (limited/egoic) understanding, but to acknowledge HIS ways as our own.

(this stuff was always there -- right in scripture -- but we've allowed the traditions of man, the "stories we tell ourselves", the human-taught propaganda, to nullify what we read, to nullify the word of God whispered into our very hearts!)

Enough of THAT...!

We are created by God ... we are God-stuff, we have His very Spirit, His very nature, His very life -- and we can learn to *expect* that ONLY that which flows out from God to appear and manifest in our own lives!

We learned the erroneous stuff -- we can certainly learn the Truth stuff! We can UNlearn, and RElearn ... unless, of course, you really *like* the way the old stuff is working for you ...! We do always have that choice ... and we see that the broad road that leads to destruction is the far more popular route ... while the narrow way, the road less-traveled, which leads to LIFE, is, thus far, less populated. Many are called, but few are the ones who choose it.

[Note: this has nothing to do with our "eternal destiny" after we die ... scripture isn't focused on what happens to us after we die -- that outcome is assured -- we come from God and we return to God. Scripture is concerned with how we live this here-and-now life ... this life matters. How we experience God, how we thus live, how we thus influence those around us, how we treat all of creation - matters.]

So, back to disease ... yesterday we explored how disease is illegitimate. It isn't real, except that we make it real (we are co-creators - our thoughts and beliefs have creative powers -- we need to learn this, to know this, and to use this ... otherwise, it's using us). Our collective consciousness (human thinking en-mass), is the manifestation of our hearts which believe that we are inherently unworthy ... that we have massively disappointed God ... that disease and suffering are a direct consequence (& punishment) for having failed God. We do not see ourselves in the beauty of God's creation (in fact, we're taught that all of creation is now deeply flawed and corrupt). We believe that we have, at the core, a "sin nature". This, we believe, and are taught, results in a separation from God... our Source. But sin IS the thought of wrongly believing ourselves separated from God...! Sin has always been "wrong thinking", not (as has been our hyper-focus), wrong-doing.

We have much-maligned the nature of God! Such a god as religion has created has NEVER existed! Only in our twisted egoic-minds, minds which do not know or experience God, could such a distorted image of God be created, believed, and perpetuated...!

And our thoughts of disease come out of that distorted view of God.

As the false thinking is healed, a new vision of God, a new vision of ourselves, a new vision of life itself, will emerge ... for Truth is there, obscured by our insistence in believing the lies.

More and more of us are awakening to see that we've long believed in lies... it no longer works, and we are no longer willing to believe and participate in the collective insanity that has ensued. This awakening is contagious ... for the Truth lies within each one of us, no matter how repressed, no matter how dormant, no matter how forgotten ... things we say, things we do, ways in which we live in awakened-freedom, can spark that slumbering Truth within others, and they, too, will wake up. Truth, Life, the Way, is hibernating in each human heart ... longing for the kiss of true love to arouse them from slumber. The dragon standing guard is a mere illusion ... the threats and curses are mere fluff-concepts, vapors of nothingness ... shadows that are absorbed by the Light. There is no battle, there is no war, there is no struggle ... there is only the awakening to what IS.

And when we know what IS, when we live in what IS, when the Truth of God is our own experienced and spirit-known truth, then the manifestations of God's very nature, truth, wholeness, perfection, completion, fullness, joy, love, balance, peace, goodness, kindness ... & yes, even health ... will be the inevitable and inescapable result.

We ARE made in God's exact image and likeness.

Ponder that.

Believe that.

Trust that.

Manifest that.

Shalom, Dena


P.S. I just put together the slides and commentary from the Presence Zone meeting -- an expose of transformation, in pictures ... if you've already emailed me, saying you'd like a copy, you'll get it -- if you would like to receive it, feel free to let me know, via email: brehmites @ aol . com (remove spaces first). It's pretty cool, if I do say so myself, and I do! ;)

A Message for Me Today ... Also for You?

I love how God is always speaking. Always. I get the visual impression of Him continuously broadcasting ... within me and all around me. The question is: am I tuning in? Am I receiving what He's revealing? Or am I listening instead to the many egoic "stories I'm telling myself" - those traditions of man that nullify the word of God...?

For, indeed, those traditions can be external, or internal - or both.

Am I believing and heeding the many "lies" I've been told (by myself or others), or am I hearing the Voice within, which is seeking to renew my mind ... to replace those lies with Truth? And, when I am first exposed to Truth, am I aware of the all-too-human tendency to consider that truth to be heresy/blasphemy, because of how it clashes with what I think I *know* about truth...? Am I aware of how my very own ego will launch an all-out assault against anything "new", anything it perceives to be a threat to it's own view from the throne of my mind? Am I aware of how the ego masquerades as "me", and will enlist me to defend myself even against the Voice of God within me..? That it will warn me to not trust my own heart, my own feelings, my own thoughts, my own experiences (the very things through which God most often communicates)...?

Am I aware of how my own worst enemy is within me, disguised as me...? "We have met the enemy and he is us." Am I aware that when I join the many who overly-personify and project the enemy as a being outside of me, that I then deny what the enemy is (my own ego/carnal nature), and thus enable it to continue it's invisible and undetected dominion within me..?

Am I aware that dethroning the enemy/ego does not require a battle (a wholly egoic notion in itself!), but that it merely requires awareness ... that in the Light of awareness, the darkness of it fades into no-thingness..? If I insist upon shadow-boxing with my own ego, it will "win", for it's goal is to keep me so distractedly & busily deluded that I cannot see it for what it is.

It's the manifestation of my own fears, writ large. As well, the collective fears of humanity around me ... both contemporarily and historically, ganging up on me, reciting an endless litany of fear, shame and anxiety (which feels so familiar that I mistake it for "truth") ... luring me to swallow-whole the liturgy of propaganda, and to bow down to worship this idol of oppression. And if I do so, I cooperate with my own blindness...!

Instead - I shine the Light of Truth upon it, and it all is instantly, and without a murmur of resistance, absorbed the Light. There is no battle. There is no struggle. There is no striving. There is only seeing anew, from a higher/deeper perspective of the One within me ... and I see that all is well, that all has always been well. That I can live in the state of open trust ... knowing that all things (including the *gift* of my ego) work together for my good ... for universal good.

(Hmmm... I had no idea that I was going to write all of that ... I set out to only write a short intro for a couple of messages I'd received in my in-box ... what a delight to find that within me!)

Here are those messages, which reflect what I was saying above. I believe that these are messages for me, for today -- are they for you as well...?

Shape Shifting to Glory

“Be renewed with new thoughts of abundance and prosperity.”
~Romans 5:1-3

“Where we invest our energy is a result of choice. No one outside of us forces us to invest our energy in any particular emotion, thought, or act. The energy investment choices we make are either conscious or unconscious. Either way, where we direct the energy of our thoughts and emotions gives rise to our experiences.”
~Michael Bernard Beckwith


Today's Affirmation

I always find what I expect to find.

Today's Meditation

Dear God,

Help me remain awake and aware of the choices I make everyday.
I intend that my thoughts and actions are perfectly aligned with Love.
I know that everything is working together for good, right now.
I choose to relax into your peaceful presence.
Dance yourself into expression, through me.
Amen!

Aaaaaaand:

"This day is a messenger of God, and this day brings into my experience God's grace, God's law, God's life, God's presence, and God's power. I choose this day whom I will serve. My heart, my soul, my mind is filled with the conscious realization of the presence of God. I surrender myself unto God. I listen for the still, small Voice - that It may guide, lead and direct." You are then knowing the Truth, you are choosing, and you are sowing to the Spirit: Throughout the day you have brief two minute, three minute, five minute reminders: "This day is a messenger of God, for this day is bringing the presence and the power of God into my experience. This day is revealing God's glory. The heavens declare the glory of God, the earth showeth forth His handiwork. God's grace is being revealed in my experience every moment of every day."
(Joel Goldsmith)

May this day manifest God's Presence, in a plethora of jubilant and awe-inspiring ways...!

Shalom, Dena

Renewal of the Mind ...

I have discovered the joy of finding God's truth in a myriad of places ... no longer do I think in terms of "safe" and "unsafe" resources. I see that all truth is God's truth, and that He has lavishly spread His truth all over creation, so that His beloved creatures may find it, and thus know Him. I see that it's not dependent upon being in the right "club", or having the right "doctrines" ... but about knowing the One who is nearer than breath, closer than hands and feet, and who draws all men to Himself. I see Truth as a Person to know (Christ), rather than a concept to possess and defend ... and so I welcome Truth in whatever guise it may find me, or me it.

A friend of mine shared this with me today -- it spoke to me, and so I share here:

"Much of the suffering you have to endure comes, of course, from
outside yourself. And yet, the suffering inflicted on you for which you are not directly responsible is, all the same, partly your responsibility. Why? Because you have not learned how to make yourself immune to it. If you are so vulnerable, it is because the negative elements sent you by the outside world strike a chord in you. And it may even be that the harm is magnified because of the impurities and darkness you harbour. If you tried to foster purity and light within yourself, not only would the evil be neutralized but the good you receive would become greater, too. Why, yes, if you are unable to really feel the good that comes to you every day from the visible and invisible worlds, it means that all sorts of opaque matter in you are blocking it. You see, then, how repelling evil, as well as attracting and preserving the good, all depend on you."

To this I respond:

Beautiful!

Another way of saying, "the lies you willingly (even if unconsciously) embrace within you become like your own false 'truth', and thus block you from receiving and experiencing the real Truth that comes to you."

But we can have our minds renewed (we participate in the process ... we don't just wait for it to hit us, LOL!). We can have the lies we believe replaced with Truth, and that Truth really WILL set us free!

We do not need to believe all that we think -- we can question what we think, "is that true? can I be absolutely certain that it's true?"

When we believe that we already possess all truth, we're not open to receiving more of the truth that God has for us ... Jesus said this to His disciples, "I have much more to show you, but you cannot bear it... but the Spirit will come who will lead you into all truth."

(When did we replace that with "a collection of books will be written which shall contain all truth"...? When did we replace Relationship with rules-to-follow..?)

Do we really trust the Spirit, within us, to lead us into all truth? Or do we instead trust external influences? I have learned to trust the God I experience within, more than the God that others tell me about. Even the Scriptures are filled with accounts of people having experiential encounters with the Living God. I am thus inspired to experience my own encounters with the Living God. I do not believe that I'm intended to have vicarious encounters with a mere historical god.

I pray, which aligns me with this Living God ... He challenges and alters my perspective. We can change our perspective, which entirely changes our experience.

And so, regarding suffering: it's not the things that happen to us that harm us, but what we THINK about what happens to us that harms us ...!

I thank You, God ... that you are renewing our minds... show us how we may be resisting You ... thank You that You do lead us into all truth. Help us to become aware of Your Presence within us ... enable us to trust You, within, more than the influences of man, without.

Shalom, Dena