ARE YOU RELIGIOUS OR SPIRITUAL? September 27, 2009
Posted by cosmicsandbox in Religious commentary, Spiritual Transformation, The Real Jesus.Tags: intolerance, Jesus, Letter of Law, Love Enemies, Religion, Spiritual
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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.
WHAT WOULD JESUS DO – Part 2 August 10, 2008
Posted by cosmicsandbox in Religious commentary, Uncategorized.Tags: fundamentalism, hypocrisy, war, women's rights
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Even though Jesus was an extraordinary Master, Rabbi, and Prophet, it is still important to look at his life and his teachings in light of the culture in which he was living. What he said and did was intrinsically linked to what was going on in Palestine in his day.
It is no different today. We just had the priviledge of HBO’s John Adams series which shed so much light on the real men and women who forged this nation out of a colony of Great Britain. Their decisions and political beliefs were forged by the oppressive culture of England in the 17th Century. They suffered under taxation without representation. They had fled an elitist society to find freedom from the burden of a class system determined by birth, which still exists today.
Jesus’ day was similar in many ways to our country in those early days. His people, the Jews, were also unfairly taxed by Rome without representation, and it was an extremely strict class system. The classes couldn’t intermingle at all. If you dined with someone like a tax collector you would lose any of your priveledged status in the community. Everything was based on status and rank of importance.
Just like in our society, keeping up with the Joneses was an obsession for many. People lusted for status and coveted it almost more than friendship. There were no safety nets in their society, so if you had no status and no money, you were a beggar on the streets. These are the people Jesus ran around with and taught his message of the Kindgdom of Heaven.
Rich folk came to him in the dark of night to learn what he was about. They couldn’t risk being seen with him because he had no status and ran around with prostitutes and tax collectors. He even touched lepers!
What we would think of Jesus today? He wouldn’t want to socialize with anyone who was somebody. He would be with the down-in-outers wherever he went. If you spoke against them to him, you probably wouldn’t be accepted into his band of followers. His love and compassion for the poor and un-classed (unclean) was phenomenal. He was the ONLY rabbi teaching and comingling with the outcasts and lower rungs of society.
Christianity today is so completely out of touch with Christ it is ridiculous to call it Christianity. The fundamentalists are more like the Pharisees and high priests or Jesus’ day…the ones he called white sepelchures full of dead men’s bones. They would rather see a person die than break a religious rule. They have convinced themselves that Christ would be a military general and wage war to prevent war. They are just as patriarchal as the fundamentalist Muslims. Women and their civil rights are denegrated and pushed back 100 years in their status as an equal human being. Women are taught only men have rights and they are to be submissive them.
Jesus, on the other hand, elevated women to be equal with the men. In fact, Mary Magdelene was so close to Jesus that he taught her mysteries that he didn’t share with the male diciples. This angered the men and they chose to banish her, smear her reputation as a fellow apostle reducing her to prostitute. The new Christians of the 21st century are doing the same. What would Jesus do if he returned today? Only the few would even know he was here. Everyone else is too busy doing the opposite to even notice.
WHAT WOULD JESUS DO? Part 1 June 25, 2008
Posted by cosmicsandbox in Religious commentary.Tags: catastophe, corruption, dictatorship, elite, Jesus, poor, super hero
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We hear this question bandied about lately. I think it is because we’re at the same place that Israel was in under the Roman rule in the first century before they were crushed by the Romans in 70 A.D. At a subconscious level people now feel a great unease as they did then when Jesus lived.
Imminent catastrophe looms on the horizon as it did then. Governments are mostly corrupt dictatorships pandering to the super rich, while masses grovel in the trenches to eek out a living. Our government is much like Rome was – a miltaristic empire suffering from ED, or Empire Dysfunction as Caroline Casey* has defined it.
Control but no Command* is the rule of the day. No reverence for God or Creation. People are commodities, not valued spiritual beings clothed in flesh. Inequities abound between rich and poor, free and slave. Sounds awfully grim, doesn’t it? Things haven’t changed much in 2000 years. Alas!
Jesus was not a super hero. We are seeing a lot of those movies now, because in our weakness we think that might just be the only salvation for “the huddled masses yearning to be free”. But bigger, stronger attackers can’t be the answer. Jesus came on the scene as a prophet consumed with compassion like Jeremiah in the Old Testament who was also called the “weeping prophet”. Not your typical Super Hero to the rescue.
If you could conjure up Jesus and ask him what he would do in 2008, he would probably weep like Jermiah. Most religious leaders of the world would condemn him as they did then, because he would tell them the same thing he did the leaders in Jerusalem: “Love your enemies, feed the poor, love God with all your heart and your neigbor as yourself.” Wow! Not a very popular or politically correct message. And I might add…impossible to do in one’s own strength.
The rich and powerful would certainly disdain him. He proclaimed, “Sell all you have a give to the poor. You can’t serve two masters – God and Money.”
Jesus’ demographics was the disinfranchised who had no money to spend on stuff. They were not anyone’s “target market”. No one polled them ever. They had no say in anything. Can you imagine setting a career path to minister and teach this group? Yet that’s what Jesus did. More in Part 2
*Caroline Casey – visionaryactivism.com *See previous post on Control or Command
HALLOWEEN – THE ULTIMATE COSTUME PARTY October 29, 2009
Posted by cosmicsandbox in Cosmic Consciousness, Energy Awareness, Religious commentary.Tags: Celts, death and dying, ghosts, good death, Halloween, persecution, Religion, spirits, witches
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Halloween is an offshoot of an ancient Celtic celebration called Samhein, meaning “summer”. Celebrated on October 31st, it marked the end of summer and the beginning of winter on November 1st which was also their New Year. The Celts populated most of Britain, Scotland, Ireland, France, Spain and Asia Minor around 800 B.C. They believed that on October 31st the veil that separated the living from the dead was the thinnest; and therefore, communication with the ancestors was easiest. Spirits crossed over the veil throughout the year, but it was much easier for them to materialize and move matter during the period of Samhein.
After Christianity spread all over Europe, Samhein was changed to All Hallows Eve. November 1st became All Hallows Day and later renamed All Saints Day. Hallows Eve eventually became Halloween.
It has only been since the 19th century that people stopped believing that deceased souls could continue to communicate with souls living on the physical plane. Everyone, up until that time, whether Christian or pagan, was immersed in the sacred and the mystical aspects of nature and the cosmos. They believed everyone was an eternal soul that followed nature’s pattern in the universal ‘birth, death, re-birth’ cycle of creation. They knew that nothing really ‘died” in the sense that it ceases to exist. It just changes form. Science has proven this to be true. However, instead of naming this essence ‘life’ or ‘soul/spirit’ they call it “energy”.
No matter how pervasive scientific theory has become, the sacred, mystical beliefs and practices haven’t died, but are still very much alive. They just change form like water that can become ice and steam. So whether one is living life from the ‘Outside’ in a physical costume on loan from the Cosmic Costume Store, or they’re living souly from the ‘Inside’ without the costume, they are still a living soul.
Prior to the Age of Reason most everyone believed communication with the other dimensions was possible and mostly beneficial. For example, experiences with angelic beings were common. Encounters with nature spirits filled mythologies and fairy tales that we enjoy today. However, after science became the ultimate authority, anything not measurable in a laboratory was considered unreal or unreasonable. This included anything mystical, spiritual or sacred. The established church reigned over the mystical and science ruled everything else.
Unfortunately, the established church at the time decided to demonize any unsanctioned interaction between the living and the dead, even to the point of killing anyone suspected of those ‘unholy practices’. Pagans of all types including herbalists were prosecuted. These judgments prevail today, but souls still come out to play on Halloween. You just can’t keep a good ghost down!
Humanity has known for thousands of years that light and dark, good and evil exist side by side. But since the scientific model took over we separated and judged what we couldn’t see with our eyes and measure or understand. Light was all good and dark was all bad. This view keeps us locked into an ‘either/or’ world of separation and division. These worlds don’t have longevity; but rather, they self-destruct because of the constant conflict that mind set generates. In reality it is a both/and universe, in which the light plays off the dark and vice versa. You can’t see the light without the dark. For example: no one can see a white dot on a white board! Simply put, without the play of opposites there would be no world.
How does all this relate to Halloween? It is a celebration of the dark and non-physical as being an integral part of the light and visible world. It is meant to teach the living how precious life in a physical costume is. Certainly, it is not always a bed of roses. Nevertheless, it is a fantastic ride, a grand ball worthy of our passion to dance till we drop.
As we too approach this winter season of dying, let’s open our minds and eyes to see beyond the veil to imagine what it might be like to not have a costume to play and dance on this physical plane. Listen for the music from the other side to appreciate every single dance step at this our ultimate costume party.