Oneness and the Ego

Both Jesus and Buddha took time away from teaching to meditate alone.  There was no fixed amount of time set aside, but various sources suggested a couple of days out of the week, or a week out of a month, or 2 to 3 months out of a year.

This back-and-forth alternation between socialization and isolation is part of the rhythm of life.  When you are among others, you practice selflessness or Oneness.  When you are alone, you practice selfishness or Separateness.  When there is interaction with people, you put aside your ego.  When you are by yourself, you indulge it.  You cannot be only in the state of Oneness, because you cannot experience Oneness without experiencing Separateness.

The ego is not inherently "bad".  It needs to be nurtured just as anything else in life.  Your ego only gets you into trouble when you let it control you.

A Course in Miracles - Day 13

A meaningless world engenders fear.

This lesson is another form of the previous lesson.  When we perceive that the world has no meaning, we quickly give it meaning...from our perspective.  Like the ancient Greeks, we create Apollo to explain movements of the sun and Poseidon to explain the sea.  None of our meanings are real, but we believe them to be real.

Rain, Rain, Go Away

A huge thunderstorm kept Houston wet and in the dark the whole day today.  Earlier today I tried to make small talk with my mom about the weather.  "It's quite a storm we're having," I said.
"The forecast on the news last night for today was 80% chance rain," she answered.
"Well, it's 100% now," I said.
"No, the forecast says 80%," she said.
"But it's raining right now!"
"Because the forecast for today was 80%!"
And so it went...

This story is not about how stubborn my mother is (although she can be very stubborn).  It's about how ridiculous I was before.  During my teenage years, I used to think if something is written in a book, it must be true.  I would believe a book over actually seeing what is in the book for myself.  I was a blind man reading about colors and thinking that I know what colors were.

Stop watching the weather forecast.  Go outside instead.

The Highest Law

In the Dutch city of Makkinga, there are no traffic signs...not a single one.  It is called "controlled chaos".  Yet it is much safer than many of its European counterparts.  The drivers in this city can no longer use traffic signs as an excuse for their bad driving.  They voluntarily slow down and actually pay attention to their driving.  They are more considerate toward older drivers.  As for getting angry when someone cuts into their lanes?  Guess what?  There are no lanes in Makkinga.  One of the project's co-founders, Hans Mondermansaid, said, "The greater the number of prescriptions, the more people's sense of personal responsibility dwindles."

The world we inhabit are full of laws and traditions.  However, in reality, there are no laws.  The laws we read in law books and the traditions that our parents and grandparents have followed are all illusions.  The only laws that exists are the ones I write for myself or the ones you write for yourself.  The only laws that I ever follow are the ones I deem worthy.  Most of the time my laws would coincide with society laws.  Sometimes I would find myself in situations in which society laws have not been written or society laws are wrong, then I have to rely on my own laws.

When I live under my own laws, I take responsibility for my own action.  I can no longer shirk my responsibility under the cover of society laws.  I define "society law" very loosely to mean anything that has been dictated to me or suggested to me.  Any motivation that didn't come from within me would qualify as a "society law".  Every action I take under my own laws is an act of real intent.  Every action I take under society laws is an act of obligation.  One is done under full awareness while the other is performed half-asleep.

Live your own laws.

A Course in Miracles - Day 12

I am upset because I see a meaningless world.

The world is meaningless until I assign meanings to it.  If this world upsets me, it is because my projections of the world is upsetting me.  If this world is a fearful world, a dangerous world, a hostile world, a sad world, a wicked world, or a crazy world; it is so because I have designated so.

Eagle or Chicken - Your Choice

A man found an eagle's nest and put it in a nest of a barnyard hen.  The eaglet hatched with the brood of chicks and grew up with them.

All his life the eagle did what the barnyard chicks did, thinking he was a barnyard chicken.  He scratched the earth for worms and insects.  He clucked and cackled. And he would thrash his wings and fly a few feet into the air.

Years passed and the eagle grew very old.  One day he saw a magnificent bird above him in the cloudless sky.  It glided in graceful majesty among the powerful wind currents, with scarcely a beat of its strong golden wings.

The old eagle looked up in awe.  "Who's that?" he asked.

"That's the eagle, the king of the birds," said his neighbor.  "He belongs to the sky.  We belong to the earth - we're chickens."  So the eagle lived and died a chicken, for that's what he thought he was.

from Awareness by Anthony de Mello

The Christ in All of Us

Last night I woke to the sound of Sam coughing at 3 am and could not go back to sleep.  I suddenly felt I was finally ready to watch The Passion of the Christ, a movie that was released in 2004.  For 7 years I wanted to watch Mel Gibson's vision of Christ's final day but was put off by his explicit graphic style.  But like everything else in life, there is a time and place for everything.

As the movie unfolded it occurred to me that we all have a piece of Christ in our souls.  The desire to reach out and help another, or even to sacrifice our own lives for another, is a basic nature of the soul.  And to deny this basic nature is to deprive our soul of a fundamental need.  To ignore this basic nature is to go against the Divine intention.  In this sense it is a sin, because we are going against our Godly nature.

The second thing I realized last night is that not only each of us has a unique path to reach God (or Enlightenment, or Oneness, or Transcendence), but the arrival time of such a state is also unique for each one of us.  Its arrival cannot be accelerated before its time...such is the way of our perfect universe.

A Course in Miracles - Day 11

My meaningless thoughts are showing me a meaningless world.

This lesson reiterates the idea that the world does not determine what I perceive.  It is my thoughts that determine what I see in the world.  Therefore I create my own reality. To see the world clearly I first must control my own thoughts.

A Course in Miracles - Day 10

My thoughts do not mean anything.

To be more precise, my thoughts about things of this world do not mean anything.  This lesson goes back to all the previous lessons, which tried to free my mind from the constructs built by this world.

This lesson recalls a recent lesson I learned from Sam, who loves to take all his toys (4 boxes full) and dumps them all over the bed right before bedtime.  It takes him 10 seconds to create something that would take me at least 20 minutes to sort and put away.  I would get mad because in my mind he is deliberately doing it to irritate me and to waste my time.  But in his mind he is surrounding himself with all the treasures of his world before retiring.

I must look without judgment.  I must see with a child's eye, as if I'm seeing these things for the first time in my life.  And when I do, I no longer will have preconceived ideas of what I am seeing.  My mind will be uncluttered of meaningless thoughts about this world...leaving it cleared to hear God's will.