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ARE YOU RELIGIOUS OR SPIRITUAL? September 27, 2009

Posted by cosmicsandbox in Religious commentary, Spiritual Transformation, The Real Jesus.
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RELIGIOUS OR SPIRITUAL

We hear many people today say, “I am not religious. I am spiritual.” What is the difference? Aren’t religious people spiritual? The spiritual group perceives religion as being a rigid belief system of rules that discourages, if not forbids, acceptance or investigation of other religious faiths. That perception is based on prejudiced statements by the religious establishment down through the ages such as, “The equal tolerance of religions is the same thing as atheism.” Pope Leo XIII, 1885.

Our weary world has been suffering under the crushing weight of religious intolerance for millennia; long before Pope Leo issued his limiting edict. Whenever any ideology is taken literally, it can foster hate and division. Literally following the Law to the letter doesn’t prevent one from verbally assaulting another soul. In fact, that is what Jesus accused the priests of his day of doing. He put the Spirit of the Law above the letter of the Law.

Following the Law religiously is different than experiencing the Spirit of the Law. Spiritually we can feel a heart connection to our fellow man, even if we don’t know him or what his religious or political beliefs are. This is because we are born with inherent empathy, which is our Soul/Spirit. But when we go unconscious or get buried under stress, then it is all too easy to stay in our heads, setting ourselves apart and judging others with different beliefs as being wrong, defective or just plain evil.

If anyone stands up and says, “Wait a minute. This action we’re taking doesn’t make sense from a compassionate, loving perspective.” they are labeled a rebel, a heretic or a subversive. Our self-righteous judgmental minds definitely don’t want to hear things like “Love your enemies. Do good to those who despitefully use you. Turn the other cheek. If one takes your coat, give him your cloak also.” as Jesus taught.

Since we all have a mind, we are all guilty of falling into its divisive clutches and existing in the limited thinking box that separates us from God and each other. But we have also been gifted by our Creator with the Spirit; and It is omnipresent Love residing within our hearts. In fact, all world religions have the same Golden Rule. Where religions have failed is in hiding this magnificent Truth from the masses by teaching exclusivity and separation. They shun unity and cooperation with those of different beliefs.

Our views of religion and the spiritual could expand if we viewed all sacred scripture as poetic love letters written to each individual human soul. Scripture, like poetry, was created using symbols and metaphors to fully express the essence of its meaning. It wasn’t intended to be taken literally. Emotions and deep spiritual truths cannot be dissected and understood by the reasoning mind. They are only experienced in the Soul.

To really appreciate and benefit from religious texts one must embody them as one would take in a work of art. If just read as a linear history or a doctrine of social behavior, the transformational purpose is lost, its power made impotent. To fully experience the Spirit of scripture, one must be willing and able to understand the symbolic and metaphoric meanings of the words and pictures they paint in our mind’s eye.

Read the Song of Solomon in the Old Testament. It is written to be read on many levels of meaning. On one level, it is a poem of the wedding of King Solomon to his bride. On another level, it is about the symbolical marriage of the Creator with us, His creation. It is a lavish description of the intimate and extravagant devotion God has for the beloved, which is you and me.

This indescribable Love is the unconditional love we all long for. We continually seek it from one another, but rarely if ever find it in human form. This is because we were created to receive this deeper love from Spirit first, which enables us to love and accept ourselves. The more we are able to receive the unconditional love of Spirit and “fill our cup”, the more we are able to love and accept others because our “cup is overflowing”. It is a spiritual experience. It is not a religious doctrine.

IS IT ABSOLUTELY TRUE? September 18, 2009

Posted by cosmicsandbox in Cosmic Consciousness, Energy Awareness, Stress Relief.
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We are always taking in information from everywhere, including our own repetitious thoughts, and most of it isn’t even true. If that weren’t bad enough, we act on that information blindly accepting the information as true. Then we process it by judging the information as good or bad, useful or worthless.

Acting on thoughts about information that may or may not be true is the cause of 99% of the suffering in our world. We are fabulous story tellers, and we weave epic stories that would make Hollywood jealous. We have a novel in our heads about who we are, who are parents are and what they did to us, about the world and what it is doing to us, and why or why not we can’t do anything to change it.

If we could stop ourselves for a few moments, jump out of the squirrel cage of our “monkey minds” and ask ourselves one question: “Is it true? Can I absolutely know it is true?” we would be shocked at what our answer would be. That’s because the answer would be “NO.”

We are all reluctant to admit that because: 1. We love to be right all the time; and 2. We can’t justify our feelings if they are based on a falsehood. If someone treats us badly in our opinion, we can think they don’t love us or they want to hurt us. Unless we come right out and tell them how we feel and ask them why they acted a certain way, we just believing our own very subjective thoughts. We ignore the fact that we’re the only ones that can make ourselves feel anything by the stories we tell ourselves.

Once I acknowledge that maybe the story I’m telling myself isn’t true, I open a whole new paradigm of possibilities as to what may be the truth in the situation. Many times we find out that someone’s behavior towards us had nothing at all to do with us. It’s possible they weren’t feeling good or they had just had some bad news. Unless we ask the person how they are feeling or what they are thinking, we can only assume. We when do that we make “an ass out of you and me”.

“To thine own self be true.” and “Know thyself.” are famous quotes. We TRULY can only know ourselves, which takes most of us a lifetime! So asking ourselves if something is true or not as we go along judging everything in our lives, can be a life saving and life changing tool. It literally changes the whole dynamic between people.

When we assume we know what another is thinking or believing, we react to them based on our beliefs. We project onto them the feeling of anger or hurt, which then elicits a negative response from them. This is turn fuels our belief that they have something against us; and on and on it escalates. We can see this happening on an individual level and community or world level. We aren’t asking the right questions and few, if any, are listening for any answers!

In fact, we rarely actually listen to ourselves let alone others. I personally believe this is the reason for all the conflict in the world. We’re rarely in silence. Wisdom always speaks in whispers. We can’t hear ourselves think. We’re acting on automatic pilot at warp speed. It becomes easy to make snap judgments about others and ourselves. We don’t stop to feel the effects of these judgments. Too time consuming, we think. So we stuff them into our backs or necks or digestive tracks.

Wouldn’t it be easier and healthier to catch the toxic process at the beginning when something happens that we don’t like or that makes us unhappy? Couldn’t we stop and ask, “Is it true?” Then wait long enough to hear the answer. If it isn’t true, keep questioning it until a satisfying more truthful answer surfaces. The answer is waiting within each of us. Ask and it will answer, but we must be still to hear it’s whisper. The truth will set us free, but we must have the courage to ask for it and the time to receive it.

SPIRIT OF THE GODDESS September 10, 2009

Posted by cosmicsandbox in Quantum Shifts, Spiritual Sensuality, Spiritual Transformation.
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The other night I was watching America’s Got Talent. Barbara Padilla was the last contestant to perform. I think that most people were in awe as she sang “Ave Maria” from a pedestal aglow with white light in a gown that flowed around her to the floor.

(cut and paste this into your browser to see her performance 9/8/09)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p6sUaRagfDA#watch-main-area

Please watch the video of her performance through to the end as well as the judges’ comments. Notice Sharon Osborne’s comment at the end as she bows to her as a cancer survivor herself and as a woman. Piers said people would remember where they were and what they were doing on the night they heard her sing, (almost as we knew where we were on 9/11/01). It really was quite extraordinary. I felt so strongly that the essence of the Sacred Feminine, or the true personification of the Goddess was and is personified in Barara’s spirit and her voice.

She is not a virgin Mary, a holier than thou religioius saint, an evangelist for an ultruistic cause or any of that. She is a living breathing, sensuous, beautiful example of a complete woman. Her manifestation of the sacred side of femininity is actually able to bring spiritual and physical healing to others, because she is coming from the fullness of her heart.

I am always “beating the drum” about the need in the world for the return of the Sacred Feminine to offset the destructive, warrior nature of the patriarchial world we’ve endured for millenia. People generally misunderstand what I mean by that, and have flashbacks to the women’s liberation movement. That movement helped women come out of servitude, but it turned many men and women against women’s rights because it too had a warrior nature.

But now we have been blessed to experience a world performance of what the restoration of the Sacred Feminine looks like in 2009. Men and women alike acknowledge the rise of a transcendent awe and love that fills them in the presence of this beautiful energy.

Barbara inpires all of us to know that the Spirit she manifests is in each and every one of us. If each of us could go through our day with this open hearted feeling of love and compassion that we feel when hearing and seeing Barbara then world peace would not be far behind.