All is One (part 2)

When I was a young Catholic boy, I thought God was this great powerful being who lived in heaven and looked down on us.  The reason why He had to be in heaven was because He couldn't stand being around a bunch of sinners.

It sounded logical because the priests kept telling us that we were always  living in sin...and it was almost impossible not to sin.  Even if I had a "bad" thought, I was "sinning".  And if you know teenage boys, I had a lot of bad thoughts.

Unless I found a way to be "unborn", I wasn't going to escape the fact that I was born a sinner and would continue to be a sinner until the day I die.  And if I wanted to see God, I needed a plan.  The trick was to get my confession in just a few moment before I die.  That way, I would only have to act saintly for a minute or two and then, voila, I'm in!

This is my first impression of God.  He is everywhere, but He is separate from me.

About 40 years later I had a different concept of God.  It was right after I lost my second wife.  That experience plunged me into a deep depression.  I needed a different kind of God to get me through it.  I needed a more personal God, a more loving God, a God that I could be one with.  That's when I revised my picture of God.

In this second revision, I am a part of God.  God is everywhere and in everything...including me.

The concept of me being a part of God took me out of my depression and gave me much more.  It transformed me into a much more loving person.  How could I not be?  If I am a part of God, then His nature must also be my nature.  His Love essence must also be my essence.  Except for the fact that He is omnipresent and omnipotent there isn't anything that IS God that is not me...or is it?  This leads us to what happened yesterday...my breakthrough.

This is my most recent concept of God.  He is as much in Me as I am in Him.  He is my Creator; but at the same time I am also creating Him.  We are One...yet we are not One.  Such is the Divine Dichotomy.

The difference between the second and the third revision is not just evolutionary or revolutionary.  It is EPIC.

For example, if I were to pray to God under the second concept of God, it would go something like this...
"God I need guidance.  I lost my job.  I couldn't finish school because of my health.  I have a special need child that needs me to be at home.  Give me sign of what I can do to pull us out of this dilemma."  And then I would wait.

Weeks or even months would go by and I would have to pray again, "God, I really need an answer here.  My savings are running close to empty.  Should I try writing or something to make some money from home?  God, please tell me what to do so I can do it and get on with my life!"  And then I would wait some more.

Weeks later and I would still get no answer.  So then I would start blaming God.  "God, why don't you answer me?  I have You to thank for all my problems.  Why can't You get your fat butt off your throne and do something?  Can't You see I'm waiting for your answer here?"  And then the prayers would get really ugly from here.

Now... if I were operating under my latest concept of God.  The prayer would go something this...
"Thank you God for giving this opportunity to demonstrate my power of creation.  I know what I have to do and it shall be done."  That's it...short and simple.  Because if I KNOW I have the power of God in me to create and change anything I wish...there's no need for supplication.  There is only gratitude.

Incidentally, if you go back to the prayers that were done under the second concept and substitute my name or the word "I" or "me" for every time the word "God" was used, you would see exactly who was the cause of the problem.

All is One

"What you do for your Self, you do for another.  

What you do for another, you do for the Self.  

This is because you and the other are one.  

And this is because...There is naught but You."
from Conversation with God Book 1

God is the macrocosm in which ALL THAT IS and ALL THAT IS NOT exist.  The human Soul is a part of this macrocosm...but at the same time it is also a microcosm of God.  ALL THAT IS and ALL THAT IS NOT exist within the Soul.  God creates you, but you are also creating God.  This is the Divine Dichotomy.

Two Kinds of Gods

The God of Love set you free.  The God of Fear keeps you near.  Whichever God you choose defines the kind of person you are.

The Internal Struggle

Last week I saw a patient with a complaint of depression and the lack of joy in her life.  She felt guilty for having "everything" but enjoyed none of it.  She has done everything that is expected of her and it did bring her a certain amount of success, but she felt like she is trapped all the same.  In the same week I watched the movie Rush (2014) for the second time.  The coincidental timing of the two events caused a surprising insight.

Rush is more than a great racing story.  It is an analogy of the internal human struggle between the mind and the spirit.  The rivalry played out between Nikki Lauda and James Hunt not only mirrors this struggle beautifully, but it amplifies it for the whole world to see.  Lauda is methodical, calculating, and cautious while Hunt is carefree, living in the moment, and impetuous.  They are, in fact, each other's complement.  They inspire one another...pushing each other's limit...to the point of putting their lives on the line.

Their rivalry was more than just an adversarial relationship.  It was also a mutually inspiring one.  Lauda's crash in 76 would not have happened if Hunt didn't infuriate him so much.  On the flip side, Lauda couldn't have had his miraculously come back without Hunt chasing his tail for the championship.  They are in fact each other's soul mate.

The internal struggle between the mind and spirit is no different than this classic rivalry.  It brings to mind the classic image of the Devil standing on the left shoulder and an Angel standing on the right...except that there is no Devil.  It is only us...or more specifically, the two halves of us.

Each of us is being challenged every moment of our lives to make choices that fall somewhere in between these two polar opposites.  We shouldn't feel that we need to be a Lauda all of the time, doing what's only expected of us.  Nor do we need to be a Hunt all the time in order to enjoy life.  Life is an ebb and flow process, an up-and-down cycle, and an in-and-out act of breathing. Each moment of the life is a unique event, never seen before and never to be repeated again.

Choose what feels right at each precious moment regardless of what is been expected of you.

A wise man gets more use from his enemies than a fool from his friends.  Baltasar Gracian

P.S.  If you want to see a wonderful analogy of Love and Fear, see Warrior (2011).

A Gift Unrecognized

I'm so conditioned to think in a conventional way, that sometime I completely blinded to all the gifts God granted me.  I have asked God for the experience of spirituality...for being able to be who I truly am...for being the source of love to others...and for having the strength to carry light into darkness.  And God delivered.  I just never saw it until now.

I wasn't sure if I had any expectations how those wishes were to come about.  Maybe I thought I'd wake up one day and [Poof!] there it is!  (That's how a movie would have done it, right?)

No!  If you pray for patience, then God will grant you the last place in a line at the bank...on a Friday...during lunch time...when all the tellers are sick... except for the slowest and oldest bank employee...who also has to answer all the phone calls while tending to the customers in line.

I got what I prayed for.  Sam is my gift of patience.

The Authentic-Self and the Created-Self (Part 1)

The differences between the domain of the soul and that of the mind are very similar to the differences found between The Theory of Relativity and Quantum Mechanics.  The Theory of Relativity concerns itself with most of the observable universe:  things like a pebble on a beach, planets and moons, and galaxies.  Conversely, Quantum Mechanics concerns with the subatomic universe, where things are so small that mass is indistinguishable from energy,  and that mass and energy freely transforms from one to the other continuously.

In the world of Relativity all realities are relative...depending on the locations of their observers.  There is no absolute.  Everything exists, moves, and dies relative to something else.  All physical properties (mass, speed, acceleration, etc) are only measurable once a point of observation has been selected.  Before Relativity, a physical property of an object was thought to be absolute.  The idea that a single object could have a limitless number of possible realities depending on where it was being observed was unimaginable.

Quantum Mechanics was born because Relativity could not explain what was happening in the subatomic world.  The subatomic particles were behaving differently depending on who was doing the observing...despite the fact that all the observers were observing in the same location!

What was the core principle that gives us the very definition of reality in one plane of existence was completely nonsensical in another.  Unlike the macroscopic world, the subatomic world has something that the macroscopic world lacks...an element of absoluteness...pure energy...or pure potential.  This pure potential can manifest itself into different realities depending on who is doing the observing.

Similarly, the mind and the spirit appears to live side by side but they are actually on two separate planes of realities.  The mind exists solely in the realm of relativity.  The mind is the primary tool of the created-self (the Ego) in the construction of its reality.  Like the "realities" set forth by the Theory of Relativity, the mind defines everything from its unique point-of-perspective.  The mind concerns only about where it is in relation to everything else.

The soul, on the other hand, exists as an absolute.   It is the who that causes pure creations in those subatomic experiments.  It does not need something else to which it must compare itself.  Its reality is not relative but absolute.  It is the authentic-Self

All souls are ultimately bound to every other souls, stretching all the way back to the moment of the Big Bang.  A person's soul is what links him to everything else in the Universe.  This is the essence of a person's authentic-self, aka his soul.  Because the soul is linked to everything else in the Universe, it is therefore linked to God.  The authentic Self, the soul, is simply...God.

To Synchronize or Not

A series of related events unfolded sequentially and rapidly soon after my last entry.  I would normally refer to such a phenomenon as synchronicity.   A few years ago I might even be prompted to rush out and buy a lottery ticket whenever that happens.  I think I did that 5 times over the last decade.

It would be too costly for me to continue that practice today.  It seems like these synchronous events are occurring every week now.   So the questions on my mind lately are these:  Why are "synchronicities" occurring more often now than before?  Is something about to happen to the world?  Or has the world changed so much in the last few years?

If you have read any of this blog's previous entries, you probably have already guessed the answers to the above questions.  The world has not changed that much in the last few years.  It is me that has changed...and thereby causing the world around me to change.  Specifically my perspective and perception had changed; therefore, my reality changed.

The latest series of synchronicities started with a critical remark made by my mother and ended with me seeing Akira Kurosawa's Roshomon (1950) for the first time.  In between those two events there were many others (all of which had something to do with  perspectives and perceptions).  One of these noted events is my stumbling across a passage from Lonny Jarrett that states, "Every action has one of two consequences: it either perpetuates or dispels ignorance."  It is another way of saying that you may be in this world but you don't have to be of this world.  I can either choose to see things as they are (dispelling ignorance).   Or I can choose to see things through the distorted lens created by my own ego (perpetuating ignorance).

My guess as to why I'm noticing more synchronicities lately is because I have relaxed greatly the defining boundaries of my reality.  I wasn't a rigid person per se, but I think my "reality" was rigid.  It was based rigidly on "scientific facts" and "deductive reasoning".  If it couldn't be measured or quantified, then it doesn't exist.  That is to say, my reality was consistent with that of most people living in a modern, Westernized society.

When the accepted normal expectations of my reality is no longer acceptable, the limits of that reality start to break down.  And when boundaries, walls, and borders break down, it is much easier to see connections and relations between events, between people, between truths and mid-truths, etc.  The end result is that life becomes an endless stream of synchronicities.