Exposing the Ego ~ Some Reading Snippets

Yesterday I bloggeth not. It was "running around the countryside doing artsy stuff" Day. Schlepping painted furniture day. On days like that, I wonder why I chose such a medium as furniture and mirrors and lamps ... heavy, ungainly, unwieldy stuff ... why didn't I choose postcards to paint? Or Styrofoam? Or even canvas? I'll stick to blogging about art on my art-blog, however, and get back to ego-exposing here ...

As always, I'm reading my way through a few books at a time, and it's uncanny how they're all saying the same thing ... love that! Confirmations and reinforcements abound! OR, is it just a matter of seeing on the outside what I'm coming to see on the inside...? I do believe, and am experiencing, that we get the world that we expect. If I expect rejection, I get it. If I expect joy, I get it. If I don't like what I've chosen, I get to choose again.

That seems to be one of the most profound messages in life: I AM NOT STUCK -- I CAN CHOOSE AGAIN!

So, here are some snippets that have jumped out at me lately, causing my heart to sing, and my mind to spin:

~ Love is what we're born with -- fear is what we learn ...

~ The spiritual journey is the unlearning of fear, and the return to love...

~ Fear, when expressed, shows up as anger, abuse, disease, pain, greed, addiction, selfishness, obsession, corruption, violence and war ...

~ Love is our essence, for we are made in the image and likeness of God. Love cannot be destroyed, but can be so well-hidden, that we are not aware of it, in ourselves, or in others ...

~ The transformation of the world does not change the world itself ... but changes our perception of it ... then we shall see it as a place of love, gentleness, hope, wonder and joy... and what we see, we receive ...

~ A miracle is a shift in perception ... exchanging our limited/faulty perception for God's omnipotent/true perception ...

~ Fear permeates the world ... free-floating anxiety ... fear of failure, of success, of relationships, of lack of relationships, of dying young, of growing old, of disease, of poverty, of lack, of pain, of numbness, of even joy ... we fear life more than we fear death ...

~ There is no time, no place, no state wherein God is absent ...

~ Every moment of every day, inevery situation, and with every person I encounter, I am offered the radical choice to react with fear (in one of its many manifestations, including to deny fear itself!), or to respond with love ... fear keeps me stuck, love sets me (and the other one) free ...

~ It's universally accepted that infants need love, or they will die from the lack of it ... at what point do humans cease to need love ... at what point are they no longer beloved children of God, desperate for love ...? Never. Why do we go to extreme lengths to rescue abused children, but then go to just as extreme a length to punish the same children, once they grow up and abuse in turn ..? Why would compassion cease to be a response..? Here too, we have a choice to react with fear, or to respond with love ...

- We all need love as much as we need oxygen ...

~ Our collective fear creates a mass-hallucination ... we believe in that which is not real ... only love is real ... the rest is manufactured by our egos, and is not real ...

~ The shift from fear to love is the only miracle ... how that manifests in the material world will be variant ...

~ Love in my mind creates love in my life ... this is Heaven.
Fear in my mind creates fear in my life ... this is hell.

~ My fearful self is an impostor ... it's not real ... and yet it will seem to be real, and will run the show, to the degree that I believe in it, heed it, and thus give it "power." The spiritual journey is my awakening from the pretense to the Real... from pain to peace ...

~ Returning to love isn't the end of the adventure, but the beginning ... awakening from the ego-induced nightmare, into the Spirit-based life. It's a return to who I really am. And thus invite others to do the same. It's why I'm here. It's why you're here.

Shalom, Dena

Waking Up ...

Part of the process of waking up is to see things for what they are. This is crucial ... and then comes the time to say, with Jesus, "forgive them, for they know not what they do."

They don't know what they are doing, because they don't yet know who they ARE.

We are in Him, and He is in us ... until we have come to taste the depths of that truth, we are building our concepts upon a foundation of shifting sand ... Christianity does not teach us the truth of who we are in Him, and who He is in us ... even though the clues and messages are right there, in scripture, under our noses.

The traditions of man (which includes Christianity) nullify the word of God ... which is not the Bible, but the still, small Voice within us, speaking to us ... the kingdom of God/heaven is in our midst -- within us.

As a wo/man thinks in her/his own heart, so is s/he ... we choose what we believe, and thus what we experience ... but, we can repent (choose again), and enter the Abundant Life that has always been here, for us to experience and enjoy, if we have eyes to see beyond the *appearance* of things (judge not, we are told, by appearances).

Questions are good, so question everything ... Truth can withstand all manner of scrutiny ... and if a thing should fall, due to scrutiny, good. If it falls, it wasn't truth, and this is good to know.

Remember, always remember ... the Spirit IS leading us into all truth ... and the truth sets us free.

Shalom, Dena

"What About Evil? What About Injustice?"

I'm having a similar conversation
elsewhere ... I was asked, "what about evil, what about injustice?"

Here's what I shared, for what it's worth:


(disclaimer: this is what I've come to believe, at this point in my own journey
... not claiming that this is "all truth", or that any of us can grasp "all truth" while in a limited form of humanity...)


I believe that God made all things, and sustains all things ... that God is IN all things (& all humans as well). I believe that in Him we live and move and have our being ... I believe that He is the only Source of life ... apart from Him there is no life at all... but nothing and no one is apart from Him ... indeed, everything and everyone is a part *of* Him.

Given that, all is GOOD. It's our perception that would tell us otherwise, because we eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and we think we can tell what's good, and what's "evil" by our own perception. But we discern and judge with a faulty, limited, temporal perspective ... we do not yet see how ALL things work together for good, as we're transformed into the likeness of Christ. We perceive from our ego, rather than from the Mind of Christ (the intersection of Spirit and spirit within us).

We discern on a conscious level, but truth is often found on a subconscious level ... which is why we can *know* a think is true "in our hearts," even while our minds are protesting.

So, yes, we humans do perceive things to be "evil" and we judge things to be "unjust" ... and certainly harm seems to be done. We can indeed harm relationships, but we cannot really harm another ... though we can perceive to harm, and to be harmed.

Once we realize that we are not our bodies, but that we *have* bodies ... that we're really our spirits (& we're having a human experience), and that what we see is not what *is* (& even quantum physics proves this to us), that there is no death (it's merely the horizon of our perspective, but life is, by it's very essence, eternal), then we can lose the perception of evil and fear.

God has often met us where we are, and given us the level of truth that we could/can handle ... Jesus told His disciples that He had MUCH more to show them, but they couldn't bear it then (and can we now bear it?).

God shows us in the OT that He is the One who created evil (calamity) ... for we cannot experience goodness without the context of evil. We cannot know hot without cold, light without darkness, joy without sorrow ... they're really just the same thing, on a continuum.

So, too, we cannot experience Oneness without the illusion of separation ... which is what I believe this human life is all about -- to experience "separation" from God (though He does not experience separation from us), so that we can experience returning to Him. All things come from Him, and all things return to Him, for He is all there is.

So, I see, in the absolute sense, that there is no real evil, just the temporal perception of it.

BUT - we are called to experience what is "not us" in this life, so that we can know who we really are. So, when we experience harm, and even harming another, we can know that it's not really who we are ... and we can choose to respond differently.

If I see that someone is experiencing what appears to be evil, or injustice, I can choose to do something to ease their suffering ... the first thing I would do would be to intervene in some way ... but I would ultimately want to invite them to go deeper, to come to know God in an authentic way, and to come to see who they really are as well, in Him, of Him.

I'm invited to do unto others as I would want them to do for me -- to love others as I do myself. I can meet them where they are, feel whatever they're feeling, be with them, and help them to start to see the illusion that's really causing the pain.

It's not what happens to us that hurts us, as much as what we *think* about what happens to us that hurts us...

Maybe if I share a story, it will help to illustrate what I'm talking about.

A woman was at a workshop, being confronted with these very notions ... that all is good, that even death is good, and that no one dies before they choose to (on some level ... though they can be consciously as surprised as anyone else when they die). She was enraged by this, due to what she'd experienced. When she married, many years previously, she could not conceive ... and so they adopted a little boy, Bobby. Shortly after the adoption, as is often the case, they conceived a baby, and raised these two boys together. Bobby was always told he was adopted, in ways he could comprehend. But when he started school, he was tormented by the other children, who said, "Bobby's so ugly his own mother gave him away -- Bobby's mother didn't want him!" He was hurt and furious, and his adopted mom couldn't console him ... his adopted mom told him that when he was 18, she would help him to find his birth mother. For years he reminded her of this ... and gave her agony, through acts of rebellion, acting out his pain-of-rejection in a myriad of ways. She loved him through it, and even took his lashing out, as he reminded her, over and over, that he would find his "real" mother when he was 18. On the day he turned 18, he took off on a motorcycle, and died in a tragic accident.

She looked at the workshop leader, and said, "Tell me, what sort of 'good' is that? What sort of God would allow my son to miss out on what he wanted most? How did my son choose his death?!?"

The workshop leader closed his eyes, and prayed, "I need help here God, give me the words for this woman..."

Out of him the words spilled ... "Your son Bobby got what he wanted that day ... he didn't know it consciously, but his birth mother had died, and so he went to meet her, to be with her, because his job here on earth was done. It was his time, and he got what he most wanted. He's worked to bring you to this workshop, so that you could know this, so that you could know he's happy, that he's so grateful to you for all you did in loving him through those tough years, preparing him for the reunion with his birth mother. He's waiting for you, and wants to introduce his two mothers to each other. He wants you to be able to live in peace and joy until then."

The woman's expression changed from rage and pain, to utter joy and peace, with tears streaming down.

Our perspective changes our experience.

If we change our thinking, we can change our world, and then invite others to do the same...

(and that's where I am right now, awaiting further revelation...)

Shalom, Dena

Questioning Tradition...

Tradition is an incredibly powerful tool. In fact, Jesus said it was so powerful that it could make the Word of God have no effect in your life (Mk 7:9-13). This neutralizing effect happens when tradition becomes as much a part of our belief system as the Word of God. Tradition is the product of the ideas and perceptions that
have been repeated so frequently that they become accepted as reality. Once this happens, they are as important to us as the Bible itself. Tradition is not something about which we are passive. It is something we attempt to guard, maintain, and defend. It is a part of who wee are. We understand ourselves through our traditions; therefore, we fight to preserve them.

Tradition becomes a part of our emotional fabric through a simple mental process. Once we accept a certain opinion, the mind begins to seek equilibrium. In other words, if you believe it to be true, the mind seeks to prove it is true. In fact, if you do not determine something to be false and you continually expose yourself
to the idea or behavior, it will, in time, be determined to be acceptable and factual. This is the subtlety of deceit.

This isn't something that happens on a mere emotional level. Your mind works 'til your beliefs and your sense of reality are well balanced. There is a set of nerves at the base of the skull called the Reticular Activating System. Once we accept something or pass a judgment, activity in this area of the brain affects our reasoning process. A neurological process begins in our brain to establish it
as fact. It alters our ability to perceive. It literally causes us to see it as we believe it to be. I call this process 'selective reasoning.'

If you believe something to be true, your mind will seek to prove it true.

In selective reasoning we stop seeing things as they are and seek to prove what we have already chosen to believe. It is like looking at a word and thinking it says 'horse.' You read the sentence over and over again, and finally realize that it says 'house.' You could've sworn that it said h-o-r-s-e. Why were you so sure, yet so wrong? Your mind had already determined what it was seeing.

Our traditions begin the moment we insist that we see. The moment a new paradigm is established, we have begun to form a new tradition. It is at that moment that we become blind to anything other than our point of view. Once it is accepted as truth, we begin a process of unquestioned repetition until we can't conceive of any other
point of view.

The Pharisees heard the message of God's love and forgiveness, yet they insisted their doctrine was right. Because they clung to their point of view, they could never see what the Scriptures really said. Thus, they not only rejected the truth, the also crucified the One who brought the truth. "Some Pharisees who were with Him
heard Him say this and asked, 'What? Are we blind too?' Jesus said, 'If you were blind, you would not be guilty of sin; but now that you claim you can see, your guilt remains'" (Jn 9:40-41). Insisting that we see is the road to blindness and tradition. Once something is accepted as fact, it is acted upon without thought or
question.

All that we must do to see is to honestly "consider other possibilities". The Word of God holds so many possibilities to which we have already closed our mind. Therefore it is impossible to see them. We are so consumed with defending our position that we, like the Pharisees, crucify those who bring the truth that will
set us free. We must relieve ourselves of the need to prove we are right. Why do we place so much of our self-worth on being right? What I currently see about any subject may be right or wrong. It may have nuggets of truth as well as nuggets of error. Being right or wrong changes neither who I am in Jesus, nor my position before those with whom I interact. We place far too much emphasis on the need to be right, and too little emphasis on the need to serve and build up.

(From "Satan Unmasked")


If interested, here's more on the Reticular Activating System, and
how we see, or don't see, truth: http://www.sourcetext.com/sourcebook/essays/scotoma.html

And a short video description: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o5vyLyFo77M

Shalom, Dena