The Course is a system of mind training is what it really is. Its main objective is to reduce fearful thinking and guilt and to promote forgiveness, kindness, healing and inner peace. It is easy going. Students typically share with me that the course opens them to joyfully experiencing and practicing loving kindness. You might begin with this video introduction, <‘What It Says’>.
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Any level student will be welcome. All of the study materials are free. There is no charge.
From A Course In Miracles, let’s examine the opening statements:
Nothing real can be threatened. Nothing unreal exists. Herein lies the peace of God.
A Course in Miracles makes a distinction between the real and the unreal; between knowledge and perception. Divine “Knowledge” is truth, under one law, the law of Love. “Truth” is unalterable, eternal and unambiguous. Truth might be unrecognized, but it will not be changed. Truth applies to everything that God created, and only what God created is real and true. This is beyond learning because it is beyond time and beyond the limited awareness of processing thoughts, feelings, and perceptions.
Truth has no opposite; no beginning and no end. Truth is real, unchanging and it is the serene peace of faithfulness.
“It is particularly helpful to remember applying it when we read in the news about such fearful things as terrorist attacks. If there is anything that seems frightening to us, we can remember this opening statement and it can remind us again that we need not make illusions of attack and death real in our mind. We can return to the Truth. It is our choice. We need not make the sharp edged children’s toys of belief in separation real in our mind. We can ask the Holy Spirit for a different way to see what seems to be in front of us. The Holy Spirit reminds us that there is only Love or a call for Love. And no matter which it is, the appropriate response is Love.”¹
Program Description Introduction and Principles of Miracles from A Course in Miracles
Fear originates from fractured ego mind-like-experiences. An experience of fear is an experience that reinforces belief in separation. Fear is a sharply occurring illusion. Every fearful experience is useful only to remind us that the peace of God is real truth. So, with practice, fear becomes a signal that a fractured ego mind-like-experience is really a call for help and a need for healing, peaceful faith.
The ego cannot understand the difference between real and unreal. With practice, peaceful faith will remove the habits of fear and fearful thoughts. So, if we practice using the opening statement we’ll understand and remember that only Love is real, no matter what sensations or images appear. Consciously return to the serene peacefulness of faith. Practice reinforces our enthusiasm and motivation for continuing training and studying the Course. …
. 1 “A Course in Miracles” Foundation for A Course in Miracles. Web. 06 May 2016. <facim.org/what-is-acim.aspx> .
Any level student / teacher will be welcome. The training sessions cover all 31 chapters, the Song Of Payer, and the Manual for Teachers. Students will have the reading assignments and online resources before each session. There are no fees or expectations. My main objective is to extend joy and to promote discovering serenity, honesty, openness and comfortable willingness to advance in spiritual growth.
“I am a son of God, well there’s the whole thing in a nutshell.”
Some years ago I had just given a talk on television in Canada when one of the announcers came up to me and said “You know, if one can believe that this universe is in charge of an intelligent and beneficent God, don’t you think he would naturally have provided us with an infallible guide to behavior and to the truth about the universe?” And of course I knew he meant the Bible. I said “No, I think nothing of the kind. Because I think a loving God would not do something to His children that would rot their brains.”
Because if we had an infallible guide we would never think for ourselves, and therefore our minds would become atrophied. It is as if my grandfather left me a million dollars: I’m glad he didn’t.” And we have therefore to begin any discussion of the meaning of the life and teaching of Jesus with a look at this thorny question of “authority.” And especially the authority of Holy Scripture. Because in this country in particular [the USA] there are an enormous number of people who seem to believe that the Bible descended from Heaven with an angel in the year sixteen-hundred and eleven, which was when the so-called King James – or more correctly Authorized – version of the Bible was translated into English.
I had a crazy uncle who believed that every word of the Bible was literally true including the marginal notes. And so whatever date it said in the marginal notes, that the world was created in 4004, B.C., and he believed it as the Word of God. Until one day he was reading – I think – a passage in the book of Proverbs and found a naughty word in the Bible. And from that time on he was through with it. You know, how Protestant can you get?
Now, the question of “authority” needs to be understood, because I am not going to claim any authority in what I say to you, except the authority – such as it is – of history. And that’s a pretty uncertain authority. But from my point of view the four Gospels are I think to be regarded on the whole as historical documents. I’ll even grant the miracles. Because, speaking as one heavily influenced by Buddhism, we’re not very impressed with miracles! The traditions of Asia – Hindu, Buddhist, Taoist and so forth – are full of miraculous stories. And we take them in our stride. We don’t think that they’re any sign of anything in particular except psychic power. And we in the West have by scientific technology accomplished things of a very startling nature. We could blow up the whole planet, and Tibetan magicians have never promised to do anything like that.
And I’m really a little scared of the growing interest in psychic power because that’s what I call “psycho-technics.” And we’ve made such a mess of things with ordinary technics that Heaven only knows what we might do if we got hold of psycho-technics and started raising people from the dead, and prolonging life insufferably, and doing everything we wished.
The whole answer to the story of miracles is simply imagine that you’re God and that you can have anything you want. Well you’d have it for quite a long time. And then after awhile you’d say “This is getting pretty dull because I know in advance everything that’s going to happen.” And so you would wish for a surprise. And you would find yourself this evening in this church as a Human being.
So, I mean, that is the miracle thing. I think miracles are probably possible. That doesn’t bother me. And as a matter of fact when you read the writings of the early fathers of the church – the great theologians like Saint Clement, Gregory of Nissa, Saint John of Damascus, even Thomas Aquinas – they’re not interested in the historicity of the Bible. They take that sort of for granted but forget it. They’re interested in its deeper meaning. And therefore they always interpret all the tales like Jonah and the whale. They don’t bother even to doubt whether Jonah was or wasn’t swallowed by a whale or other big fish. But they see in the story of Jonah and the whale as a prefiguration of the resurrection of Christ. And even when it comes to the Resurrection of Christ they’re not worrying about the chemistry or the physics of a risen body. What they’re interested in is that the idea of the resurrection of the body has something to say about the meaning of the physical body in the eyes of God. That the physical body – in other words – is not something worthless and unspiritual, but something which is an object of the Divine Love.
Now, as a matter of fact, in the text of the Gospel of Saint John the local color, his knowledge of the topography of Jerusalem, and his knowledge of the Jewish calendar is more accurate than that of the other three writers, Matthew, Mark, and Luke. And it seems to me perfectly simple to assume that John recorded the inner teaching which He gave to His disciples and that Matthew, Mark, and Luke record the more exoteric teaching which He gave to people-at-large.
Now, what about them, the authority of these scriptures? We could take this problem in two steps. A lot of people don’t know how we got the Bible at all. We Westerners got the Bible thanks to the Catholic Church. The Catholic Church and members of the church wrote the books of the New Testament. And they took over the books of the Old Testament which even by the time of Christ had not been finally decided upon by the Jews. The Jews did not close the canon of the Old Testament until the year 100 A.D. – or thereabouts – at the Synod of Jamnia. And then they finally decided which were the canonical books of the Hebrew Scriptures and embodied them in the Masoretic Text, the earliest copy of which dates from the tenth century – early in the tenth century A.D.. The books to be included in the New Testament were not finally decided upon until the year three hundred and eighty-two – A.D. again – at the Synod of Rome under Pope Damasus. So it was the church – the Catholic Church – that promulgated the Bible and said “we are giving you these scriptures on our authority and the authority of the informal tradition that has existed among us from the beginning, inspired by the Holy Spirit.”
So you receive historically the Bible on the church’s say-so. And the Catholic Church insists, therefore, that the church collectively, speaking under the presumed guidance of the Holy Spirit, has the authority to interpret the Bible. And you can take that or leave it. Because obviously the authority of the Bible is not first of all based on the Bible itself. I can write a bible and state within that book that it is indeed the Word of God which I have received. And you’re at liberty to believe me or not. Hindus believe that the Vedas are divinely revealed and inspired with just as much fervor as any Christian or any Jew. Muslims believe that the Koran is divinely inspired. And some Buddhists believe that their Sutras are of divine – or rather Buddhic – origin. The Japanese believe that the ancient texts of Shinto are likewise of divine origin. And who is to be judge?
“If we are going to argue about this – as to which version of the Truth is the correct one – we will always end up in an argument in which the judge and the advocate are the same person. And you wouldn’t want that if you were brought into a court of law, would you? Because if I say that, “Well, thinking it all over I find that Jesus Christ is the greatest being who ever came onto this Earth,” by what standards do I judge? Why obviously, I judge by the sort of moral standards that have been given to me as somebody brought up in a Christian culture. There is nobody impartial who can decide between all the religions because more or less everybody has been in one way or another influenced by one of them.
So if the church says the Bible is true it finally comes down to you. Are you going to believe the church or aren’t you? If nobody believes the church it will be perfectly plain, won’t it, that the church has no authority. Because the people is always the source of authority. That’s why de Tocqueville said that the people gets what government it deserves. And so you may say “Well, God Himself is the authority!” Well, how are we to show that? That’s your opinion. Well you say “Well, you wait and see. The Day of Judgment is coming, and then you’ll find out who is the authority!” Yes, but at the moment there is no evidence for the Day of Judgment, and it remains until there is evidence simply your opinion that the Day of Judgment is coming. And there is nothing else to go on except the opinion of other people who hold the same view and whose opinions you bought.
So really, I won’t deny anybody’s right to hold these opinions. You may indeed believe that the Bible is literally true and that it was actually dictated by God to Moses and the Prophets and the Apostles. That may be your opinion and you are at liberty to hold it. I don’t agree with you.
I do believe, on the other hand, that there is a sense in which the Bible is divinely inspired. But I mean by “inspiration” something utterly different from dictation, receiving a dictated message from an omniscient authority. I think inspiration comes very seldom in words. In fact almost all the words written down by automatic writing from psychic input that I’ve ever read strike me as a bit thin. When a psychic tries to write of deep mysteries instead of telling you what your sickness is or who your grandmother was, he begins to get superficial. And psychically communicated philosophy is never as interesting as philosophy carefully thought out.
But divine inspiration isn’t that kind of communication. Divine inspiration is, for example, to feel – for reasons that you can’t really understand – that you love people. Divine inspiration is a wisdom which it’s very difficult to put into words. Like mystical experience. That’s divine inspiration. And a person who writes out of that experience could be said to be divinely inspired. Or it might come through dreams. Through archetypal messages from the collective unconscious, through which the Holy Spirit could be said to work. But since inspiration always comes through a Human vehicle it is liable to be distorted by that vehicle. In other words, I’m talking to you through a sound system. And it’s the only one now available. Now if there’s something wrong with this sound system whatever truths I might utter to you will be distorted. My voice will be distorted. And you might mistake the meaning of what I said.
Now so therefore everybody who receives divine inspiration – and I’m using that in a very loose way – you could mean anything you like by “divine” – that’s your option – but anybody who receives it will express it within the limits of what language he knows. And by language here I don’t only mean English, Latin, Greek, Hebrew, or Sanskrit. I mean language in the sense of what sort of terms are available to you; what kind of religion were you brought up with.
Now you see, if you were brought up in the Bible Belt – you came out of Arkansas somewhere – and that’s all the religion you knew, and you had a mystical experience of the type where you suddenly discover that you are one with God, then you’re liable to get up and say “I’m Jesus Christ!” And lots of people do. Well the culture that we live in just can’t allow that. There is only one Jesus Christ. And so if you don’t look like you’re Jesus Christ coming back again – because it said in the scriptures that when He comes back there’ll be no doubt about it: He’ll appear in the Heavens with legions of angels, and you’re not doing that; you’re just old Joe Dokes we knew years ago. Well now you say you’re Jesus Christ. Well, he says that when Jesus Christ said he was God nobody believed him and you don’t believe again. You know you can’t answer that argument. (laughter)
But you see, he says it that way because he is trying to express what happened to him in terms of the religious language which is circumscribed by the Holy Bible. He’s never read the Upanishads. He’s never read the Diamond Sutra. He’s never read The Tibetan Book of the Dead or the I-Ching or the Lao-Tsu, and therefore there is no other way in which he can say this.
But if he had read the Upanishads he would have had no difficulty, and nor would the culture – the society in which he was talking – have any difficulty. Because it says in the Upanishads we are all incarnations of God. Only they don’t mean by the word “God” – in fact they don’t use that word; they use “Brahman” – they don’t mean the same thing that a Hebrew meant by “God.” Because the Brahman is not personal. Brahman is – we would say – supra-personal. Not impersonal, because that is a negation. But I would say supra-personal.
Brahman is not he or she, has no sex. Brahman is not the creator of the world – as something underneath and subject to Brahman – but the actor of the world, the player of all the parts, so that everyone is a mask (which is the meaning of the word “person”) in which the Brahman plays a role. And like an absorbed actor the divine spirit gets so absorbed in playing the role as to become it, and to be bewitched. And this is all part of the game, hereto believing that I am that role. When you were babies you knew who you were. Psychoanalysts refer to that as the oceanic feeling. They don’t really like it, but they admit that it exists. Where the baby cannot distinguish between the world and the way it acts upon the world. It’s all one process. Which is of course the way things are.
But we learn very quickly because we are taught very quickly what is you and what is not-you, what is voluntary, what is involuntary, because you can be punished for the voluntary but not for the involuntary. And so we unlearn what we knew in the beginning. And in the course of life if we are fortunate we discover again what we really are, that each one of us is what would be called in Arabic or Hebrew “a son of God.” And the word “son of” means “of the nature of” as when you call someone a “son of a bitch,” or in Arabic you say “Ibn-kalb” which means “son of a dog,” “Ibn al-Himar”: “son of a donkey.” So, “a son of Belial” means “an evil person.” “Son of God” means “a divine person,” a Human being who has realized union with God.
Now my assumption – and my opinion – is that Jesus of Nazareth was a Human being like Buddha, like Sri Rama Krishna, like Ramana Maharshi, etc., who early in life had a colossal experience of what we call “cosmic consciousness.” Now you don’t have to be any particular kind of religion to get this experience. It can hit anyone anytime, like falling in love. There are obviously a number of you in this building who’ve had it in greater or lesser degree. But it’s found all over the world. And when it hits you, you know it. Sometimes it comes after long practice of meditations and spiritual discipline.
Sometimes it comes for no reason that anybody can determine. We say it’s the “Grace of God,” that there comes this overwhelming conviction that you have mistaken your identity, that what you thought, what I thought was just old Alan Watts – who I know very well is just a big act and a show – but what I thought was, you know, “me!” – was only completely superficial, that I am an expression of an eternal something-or-other: “X,” a name that can’t be named, as the name of God was taboo among the Hebrews; “I am.”; and that I suddenly understand why – exactly why – everything is the way it is. It’s perfectly clear.
Furthermore I no longer feel any boundary between what I do and what happens to me. I feel that everything that’s going on is my doing, just as my breathing is. Is your breathing voluntary or involuntary? Do you do it or does it happen to you? So you can feel it both ways. But you feel everything like breathing. And it isn’t as if you had become a puppet. There is no longer any separate “you.” There is just this great Happening going on. And if you have The Name in your background you will say “This happening is God,” or “the Will of God,” or “the Doing of God.” Or if you don’t have that word in your background you will say with the Chinese “it is the flowing of the Tao.” Or if you’re a Hindu you will say “it is the Maya of Brahman.” “The Maya” means “the magical power,” “the creative illusion,” “the play.”
So you can very well understand how people to whom this happens feel genuinely inspired. Because very often there goes along with it an extremely warm feeling. Because you see the Divine in everybody else’s eyes. When Kabir, a great Hindu Muslim mystic, was a very old man he used to look around at people and say “To whom shall I preach?” Because he saw the Beloved in all eyes, and could see – sometimes I look into people’s eyes, and I can look right down, and I can see that Beloved in the depths of those pools, and yet the expression on the face is saying “What, me?!” Ha ha ha ha, it’s the funniest thing! But there is everybody, in his own peculiar way, playing out an essential part in this colossal cosmic drama. And it’s so strange, but one can even feel it in people you thoroughly dislike.
So, let’s suppose then that Jesus had such an experience. But you see, Jesus has a limitation that he doesn’t know of any religion other than those of the immediate Near-East. He might know something about Egyptian religion, a little bit maybe about Greek religion, but mostly about Hebrew. There is no evidence whatsoever that he knew anything about India or China. And we – people who think that, you know, Jesus was God assume that he must have known because he would have been omniscient. No! Saint Paul makes it perfectly clear in the Epistle to the Phillipians that Jesus renounced his divine powers so as to be Man. “Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus, who being in the form of God thought not equality with God a thing to be hung onto, but humbled himself and made himself of no reputation and was found in fashion as a man and became obedient to death.” Theologians call that “kenosis,” which means “self-emptying.”
So obviously an omnipotent and omniscient man would not really be a man. So even if you take the very orthodox Catholic doctrine of the nature of Christ, that he was both true God and true Man, you must say that for true God to be united with true Man, true God has to make a voluntary renunciation – for the time-being – of omniscience and omnipotence… and omnipresence for that matter. Now therefore if Jesus were to come right out and say “I am the son of God” that’s like saying “I’m the boss’s son,” or “I AM the boss,” and everybody immediately says that is blasphemy. That is subversion. That is trying to introduce Democracy into the Kingdom of Heaven. That is –– you are a usurper of the throne. No man has seen God.
Now, Jesus in his exoteric teaching – as recorded in the Synoptic Gospels – was pretty cagey about this. He didn’t come right out there and say “I and the Father are one.” Instead he identified himself with the Messiah described in the second part of the prophet Isaiah, “the suffering servant who was despised and rejected by men.” And this man is the non-political Messiah, in other words. It was convenient to make that identification even though it would get him into trouble.
But to his elect disciples as recorded in Saint John, he came right out “Before Abraham was, I am.” “I am the way, the truth, and the life.” “I am the resurrection and the life.” “I am the living bread that comes down from Heaven.” “I and the Father are one, and he who has seen me has seen the Father.” And there can be no mistaking that language.
So the Jews found out and they put him to death – or had him put to death – for blasphemy. This is no cause for any special antagonism toward the Jews. We would do exactly the same thing. It’s always done. It happened to one of the great Sufi mystics in Persia who had the same experience. Now, what happened? The Apostles didn’t quite get the point. They were awed by the miracles of Jesus. They worshipped him as people do worship gurus, and as you know to what lengths that can go if you’ve been around guru-land. And so the Christians said “Okay, okay: Jesus of Nazareth was the son of God but let it stop right there! Nobody else.” So what happened was that Jesus was pedestalized. He was put in a position that was safely upstairs so that his troublesome experience of cosmic consciousness would not come and cause other people to be a nuisance. And those who have had this experience and expressed it during those times when the church had political power were almost invariably persecuted. Giordano Bruno was burnt at the stake. John Scotus Eriugena was excommunicated. Meister Eckhardt’s theses were condemned. And so on, and so on. A few mystics got away with it because they used cautious language.
But you see what happens. If you pedestalize Jesus you strangle the Gospel at birth. And it has been the tradition in both the Catholic Church and in Protestantism to pass off what I will call an emasculated Gospel. Gospel means “good news,” and I cannot for the life of me think what is the good news about the Gospel as ordinarily handed down. Because, look here – here is the revelation of God in Christ, in Jesus, and we are supposed to follow his life and example without having the unique advantage of being the boss’s son. Now, the tradition – both Catholic and Protestant Fundamentalist – represents Jesus to us as a freak! Born of a virgin, knowing he is the son of God, having the power of miracles, knowing that basically it’s impossible to kill him, that he’s going to rise again in the end. And we are asked to take up our cross and follow him when we don’t know that about ourselves at all! So what happens is this: we are delivered, therefore, a Gospel which is in fact an impossible religion. It’s impossible to follow the Way of Christ. Alright. Many a Christian has admitted it. “I am a miserable sinner. I fall far short of the example of Christ.” But do you realize the more you say that the better you are? Because what happened was that Christianity institutionalized guilt as a virtue. (enthusiastic applause) You see, you can never come up to it. Never.
And therefore you will always be aware of your shortcomings, and so the more shortcomings you feel the more – in other words – you are aware of the vast abyss between Christ and yourself.
[Audience member] “You are just setting up straw men and knocking them down!” You will have your opportunity to speak during the question period, madam. So, you go to confession…. (laughter and applause) … and if you’ve got a nice dear understanding confessor he won’t get angry with-at you. He’ll say, “My child, you know you’ve sinned very grievously but you must realize that the love of God and of Our Lord is infinite and that naturally you are forgiven. As a token of thanks-giving say three ‘Hail Mary’s.” And you know, you’ve committed a murder and robbed a bank and fornicated around and so on, but the priest is perfectly patient and quiet. Well you feel awful! “I have done that to the love of God? I have wounded Jesus, grieved the Holy Spirit,” and so on. But you know in the back of your mind that you’re going to do it all over again. You won’t be able to help yourself. You’ll try. But there’s always a greater and greater sense of guilt.
Now, the lady objected that I was putting up a straw man and knocking it down. This is the Christianity of most people. Now there is a much more subtle Christianity of the theologians, the mystics, and the philosophers. But it’s not what gets preached from the pulpit, grant you. But the message of Billy Graham is approximately what I’ve given you, and of all – what I will call – fundamentalist forms of Catholicism and Protestantism.
What would the real Gospel be? The real Good News is not simply that Jesus of Nazareth was THE son of God, but that he was a powerful son of God who came to open everybody’s eyes to the fact that you are too. Now this is perfectly plain. If you will go to the tenth chapter of Saint John, verse 30, there is the passage where Jesus says “I and the Father are one.” And this is – there are some people who aren’t intimate disciples around, and they are horrified! And they immediately pick up stones to stone him. He says “Many good works I have shown you from the Father, and for which of these do you stone me?” And they said, “For a good work we stone you not, but for blasphemy, because you being a man make yourself God.” And he replied “Isn’t it written in your law ‘I have said you are gods’?” (He’s quoting the 82nd Psalm.) “Isn’t it written in your law ‘I have said you are gods’? If God called them those to whom he gave his word ‘gods’ – and you can’t deny the scriptures – how can you say I blaspheme because I said I am a son of God?” Well there’s the whole thing in a nutshell.
Of course if you read the King James Bible that descended with the angel you will see in italics in front of these words “son of God,” “The son of God” – “…because I said I am The son of God.” And most people think the italics are for emphasis. They’re not. The italics indicate words interpolated by the translators. You will not find that in the Greek. The Greek says “a son of God.” So it seems to me here perfectly plain that Jesus has got it in the back of his mind that this isn’t something peculiar to himself.
So when he says “I am the way. No man comes to the Father but by ME,” this “I am,” this “me” is the divine in us which in Hebrew would be called the “Ruach Adonai.” This – a great deal is made of this by the esoteric Jews, Kabbalists and the Hasidim. The Ruach is the breath that God breathed into the nostrils of Adam. It is differing from the soul. The individual soul in Hebrew is called “Nephesh.” And so we translate the “Ruach” into the Greek “pneuma” into “psyche” [see´kay] or “psyche” [sy´kee]. The spirit – and you ask the theologian what’s the difference between the soul and the spirit and he won’t be able to tell you – but it’s very clear in Saint Paul’s writings.
So the point is that the Ruach is the divine in the creature by virtue of which we are sons of, or of the nature of God: manifestations of the divine. This discovery is the Gospel. That is, the Good News. But this has been perpetually repressed throughout the history of Western religion because all Western religions have taken the form of celestial monarchies, and therefore have discouraged Democracy in the Kingdom of Heaven. Until, as a consequence of the teachings of the German and Flemish mystics in the Fifteenth Century there began to be such movements as the Anabaptists, the Brothers of the Free Spirit, and the Levelers, and the Quakers. A spiritual movement which came to this country and founded a republic and not a monarchy.
And how could you say that a republic is the best form of government if you think that the Universe is a monarchy? Obviously, if God is top on a monarchy, monarchy is the best form of government. But you see, ever so many citizens of this republic think they ought to believe that the Universe is a monarchy, and therefore they are always at odds with the republic.
It is from, principally, white racist Christians that we have the threat of Fascism in this country. Because you see, they have a religion which is militant, which is not the religion of Jesus – which was the realization of divine son-ship – but the religion ABOUT Jesus which pedestalizes him and which says “Only this man – of all the sons of woman – is divine, and you had better recognize it.” And so it speaks of itself as The Church Militant, the onward Christian soldiers marching as to war. Utterly exclusive. Convinced, in advance of examining the doctrines of any other religion that it is the top religion. And so it becomes a freak religion, just as it has made a freak of Jesus, an unnatural man. It claims uniqueness, not realizing that what it does teach would be far more credible if it were truly “Catholic” – that is to say: restated again, the truths which have been known from time immemorial, which have appeared in all the great cultures of the world.
But even very liberal Protestants still want to say, somehow – so as, I suppose to keep the mission effort going or to pay off the mortgage – “Yes, these other religions are very good. God has no doubt revealed himself through Buddha and Lao-Tsu. But…!”
Now, obviously, it is a matter of temperament. You could be loyal to Jesus just as you’re loyal to your own country, but you are not serving your country if you think that it’s necessarily the best of all possible countries. That is doing a disservice to your country. It is refusing to be critical where criticism is proper. So of religion. Every religion should be self-critical. Otherwise it soon degenerates into a self-righteous hypocrisy. If then we can see this, that Jesus speaks not from the situation of a historical deus-ex-machina [god from the machine] – a kind of a weird, extraordinary event – but he is a voice which joins with other voices that have said in every place and time “Wake up, Man. Wake up and realize who you are.”
Now I don’t think, you see, until churches get with that that they’re going to have very much relevance. You see, popular Protestantism and popular Catholicism will tell you nothing about mystical religion. The message of the preacher, fifty-two Sundays a year, is “Dear people, be good.” We’ve heard it ad-nausea-um! Or: “Believe in this.” He may occasionally give us a sermon on what happens after death or the nature of God, but basically the sermon is “Be good.” But how? As Saint Paul said, “To will is present with me, but how to do that which is good I find not; for the good that I would I do not, and the evil that I would not, that I do.” How are we going to be changed?
Obviously, there cannot be a vitality of religion without vital religious experience. And that’s something much more than emoting over singing “Onward Christian Soldiers.” But you see what happens in our ecclesiastical goings-on is that we run a talking shop. We pray. We tell God what to do, or give advice as if He didn’t know. We read the scriptures, and remember: talking of the Bible Jesus said “You search the scriptures daily, for in them you think you have life.” Saint Paul made some rather funny references about the spirit which giveth life and the letter which kills. I think the Bible should be ceremoniously and reverently burned every Easter. We need it no more because the Spirit is with us. It’s a dangerous book. And to worship it is of course a far more dangerous idolatry than bowing down to images of wood and stone. Because you can –– nobody’s senses can confuse a wooden image with God, but you can very easily confuse a set of ideas with God, because concepts are more rarefied and abstract.
So with this endless talking in church we can preach, but by-and-large preaching does nothing but excite a sense of anxiety and guilt. And you can’t love out of that. No scolding, no rational demonstration of the right way to behave is going to inspire people with love. Something else must happen. But we will say “What are you going to do about it?” Do about it? You have no faith? Be quiet. Even Quakers aren’t quiet.
They sit in meeting and think. At least some of them do. But supposing we get really quiet; we don’t think; be absolutely silent through-and-through? We say “Well, you’ll just fall into a blank.” Oh? Ever tried?
I feel then, you see, that it’s enormously important that churches stop being talking shops, they become centers of contemplation. What is contemplation? “Con-temp-lum” – It’s what you do in the temple. You don’t come to the temple to chatter, but to be still and know that “I am God.” And this is why, if the Christian religion – if the Gospel of Christ – is to mean anything at all instead of just being one of the forgotten religions along with Osiris and Mithra we must see Christ as the Great Mystic. In the proper sense of the word “mystic,” not someone who has all sorts of magical powers and understands spirits and so on. A mystic – strictly speaking – is one who realizes union with God, by whatever name. This seems to me the crux and message of the Gospel, summed up in the prayer of Jesus which Saint John records as he speaks over his disciples praying that “they may be one even as you, Father, and I are one.” That they may be all one. All realize this divine son-ship, all oneness, basic identity with the eternal energy of the universe and the love that moves the Sun and other stars.
The Course is a system of mind training is what it really is. Its main objective is to reduce fearful thinking and guilt and to promote forgiveness, kindness, healing and inner peace. It is easy going. Students typically share with me that the course opens them to joyfully experiencing and practicing loving kindness. You might begin with this video introduction, <‘What It Says’>.
Anyone may join weekly meetings.
7-8:15 pm (USA Eastern times) Saturdays… My email, eric.samsung.email@gmail.com
Any level student will be welcome. There is no charge. From A Course In Miracles, let’s examine the opening statements:
Nothing real can be threatened. Nothing unreal exists. Herein lies the peace of God.
A Course in Miracles makes a distinction between the real and the unreal; between knowledge and perception. Divine “Knowledge” is truth, under one law, the law of Love. “Truth” is unalterable, eternal and unambiguous. Truth might be unrecognized, but it will not be changed. Truth applies to everything that God created, and only what God created is real and true. This is beyond learning because it is beyond time and beyond the limited awareness of processing thoughts, feelings, and perceptions.
Truth has no opposite; no beginning and no end. Truth is real, unchanging and it is the serene peace of faithfulness.
“It is particularly helpful to remember applying it when we read in the news about such fearful things as terrorist attacks. If there is anything that seems frightening to us, we can remember this opening statement and it can remind us again that we need not make illusions of attack and death real in our mind. We can return to the Truth. It is our choice. We need not make the sharp edged children’s toys of belief in separation real in our mind. We can ask the Holy Spirit for a different way to see what seems to be in front of us. The Holy Spirit reminds us that there is only Love or a call for Love. And no matter which it is, the appropriate response is Love.”
Fear originates from fractured ego mind-like-experiences. An experience of fear is an experience that reinforces belief in separation. Fear is a sharply occurring illusion. Every fearful experience is useful only to remind us that the peace of God is real truth. So, with practice, fear becomes a signal that a fractured ego mind-like-experience is really a call for help and a need for healing, peaceful faith.
The ego cannot understand the difference between real and unreal. With practice, peaceful faith will remove the habits of fear and fearful thoughts. So, if we practice using the opening statement we’ll understand and remember that only Love is real, no matter what sensations or images appear. Consciously return to the serene peacefulness of faith. Practice reinforces our enthusiasm and motivation for continuing training and studying the Course. . “A Course in Miracles” Foundation for A Course in Miracles. <facim.org/what-is-acim.aspx> .My main objective is to extend joy and to promote discovering serenity, honesty, openness and comfortable willingness to advance in spiritual growth.
“Authentic wisdom is the ability to monitor yourself at all times to determine your relative state of weakness or strength, and to shift out of those thoughts that weaken you.” Wayne Dyer, 10 Secrets for Success and Inner Peace
I was reflecting on authenticity and that as I am out and about or busy with my work that the love that I seek is not really Love… but that it is a state of consciousness in my mind and that it really is based on body sensations and notions, however subtle, that are not true and wholesome like the ideal of love. True love does not come and go and it cannot be found in the world and as I stayed with this, with the stillness, I knew love cannot be found one moment and then lost in another. This presence with Love is timeless, without objects and it might be characterized, although there are no properties in the stillness, I’m saying it is a Self-knowing, Self-recognizing peaceful and serene consciousness of I know this awareness.. a consciousness I recall the experience of as like I’d been in a deep sleep and it is refreshing like a deep object-less sleep.
John Wheeler demonstrated “the universe is a self-referential ‘strange loop’ in which physics gives rise to observers, then rise to information, which in turn gives rise to physics.” What we find here is something quite similar. We’ll discover that mirror relationships create a strange loop as well. An observation changes the perceiving when we focus upon the lessons, changes the information, changes the relationship, changes the information, changes the evolution, changes the observers, changes the physics.
Within, consciousness is fractal-holographic to the exact same awareness and health and state of mind in our every fiber as the mind is aligned. It is as though the past is healed when we heal an emotional wound in the present. THIS IS TRUE: When a pattern occurs in the present and it is healed, the pattern is healed throughout the past… everywhere.
David Bohm’s interpretation of quantum mechanics, overall worldview, and Special Relativity use what he referred to as the holomovement. Holomovement is “undivided wholeness” in process of becoming by “universal flux” not static oneness. By dynamic wholeness-in-motion, everything moves with an interconnectedness as though separared in space and time and yet is always every thing connected with everything else. Bohm expanded his ideas in his book, Wholeness and the Implicate Order, 1980. He included this in Special Relativity afterwards in 1981.
In this note (post), I include a course for you in holo-mirror, holo-movement. This is VERY POWERFUL work as this video demonstrates:
At 13:41 Gregg presents a graphic with a list of the seven mirrors:
1. Mirror of the Moment
2. Mirror of that which is Judged
3. Mirror of that which is Lost/Given Away/Taken Away
4. Mirror of Most Forgotten Love
5. Mirror of Father/Mother
6. Mirror of Your Quest into Darkness
7. Mirror of Self Perception
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— everyone is a mirror —
every important person is an important mirror
— this always applies —
every important person is an important mirror
— everyone is a mirror —
seven mirror patterns
The First Mirror is my presence in the now moment… what we reflect by others in the present… what we radiate in the moment.
The Second Mirror is only very subtlety different but it reflects back to us that which we judge. It is what we have been wounded by and have an emotional charge on. It can be something we have done in the past that we have not forgiven. It is good to discern however that when we condemn another with an emotional charge we are most likely judging ourselves. This mirror is more difficult to understand as most people find it difficult to see the deeply wounded emotions within. We often think we have forgiven people and situations, when in fact they weaved subtlety into the very fabric of our being.
The Third Mirror reflects back to us something we have lost, given away or had taken away. When we see something we love in another it is often something we have lost, given away or that has been stolen within our personal lives. Every relationship is a relationship with the self and often we try to reclaim what we lost, gave away or had taken away as a child. All of which can be reclaimed within self. When we give away our power to another person, we suffer a form of soul loss, without realizing we send out a subtle frequency that others can feel, if they are experiencing the same energy loss, you will attract the same pattern of behavior back to you.
The Fourth Mirror reflects back to us our most forgotten love. This could be a way of life, or a lost or unfinished relationship. Often it is a past life where a wrong conclusion from a prior experience was made. These will recreate themselves over and over and over again until the conclusion is registered in the soul as wisdom. This is the most difficult to come to terms with as we all have made these sort of choices in our life, to leave someone, a place or much loved home, the pain of such a decision will imprint upon the soul or body hologram, once the lesson has been recognized you no longer attract these circumstances to you.
The Fifth Mirror reflects back Father/Mother. It is frequently stated that we marry our father or mother. We may display both healthy and unhealthy patterns we learned as a child. Our father and mother are often like Gods to us and so we will often reflect aspects of our relationship with them onto our partners. We often choose our partners based on our relationship with our parents.
The Sixth Mirror reflects back to us the Quest for Darkness or what is often referred to as a dark night of the soul. This is where we meet our greatest challenges, our greatest fears, and have been gathering the tools from life to confront and deal with. The most important thing to remember is that our soul is giving us the opportunity to grow and evolve, this will help us remove the vibration of victim. If we see these as opportunities for spiritual growth and from a perspective of soul advancement, they do not have to be feared; it is just passing through our life, asking us to seek answers from within rather than relying on others for answers.
The Seventh Mirror reflects back to us our self-perception. Others will perceive and treat us according to how we perceive and treat ourselves. If we are under a low self-esteem and do not accept our wisdom and beauty, others will not acknowledge them. If we are angry, bitter and unloving to others, they in turn will often react in the same way towards us. If we find another perception of ourselves, we alter the world. Maybe it is time to be kind, loving and compassionate with ourselves and others.
Combine mirror work with asking yourself… “Am I playing a role?” If you can recognize that you or the other is playing a role as Victim, Rescuer, or Persecutor, you will be able to accomplish far easier use of the mirror lessons.
This Essene work is tremendously powerful but very subtle.
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Pay close attention to the training.
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The ancient Essene had a very sophisticated understanding of interpersonal human relationships and the role of emotion in those relationships. It’s the role of emotion that we have carefully sifted out of our Western experience up until very recently. Now, as we go back into these texts, we see that it is emotion that proves the power and, when coupled with logic, true magic and miracles occur.
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Qualities that we see in the people around us are directly related to our own traits that attract the mirroring others.
This is my third year beginning at WordPress. To tell you in one sentence what I’ve learned in these past two years at WordPress, I’ll put it this way:
All of creation is to comprehend together that reality is the experience of expanding kindness.
There is no other need for time. We are not humans, planets and stars blowing on a solar wind. We are mind. We are with all that is when we are with being in God’s will. True mind is in His love. This is what is important.
The truth is in our kindness.
I’ve known no greater kindness than contemplating a sense of love with Almighty God.
I’ll share with you a kindness today is that I am worthy of love. You are the worth of my love. My challenge today is to understand that. I pray that God will expand in me today, absolute awareness; His love of you in Him.
I was wondering what I’d most love to share as a kickoff into my third year here. I settled on one of my favorite subjects. I’ve always wanted Einstein to be fun at least and maybe even easy-peezy to understand. So, here is my conclusion for today’s contribution. I hope that this is easy as 15 minutes of your time and as wonderful as a visit with your friend may be.
Enjoy:
Einstein’s Relativity: Time Dilation
Einstein: “Any person moving at a constant velocity will observe the same laws of physics that a stationary person observes.”
Since the speed of light is part of the laws of physics, Einstein postulated that all observers will measure the same speed of light regardless of their state of motion. But speed is just a measure of distance moved in a given time and in order to agree on the speed of light different observers might have to disagree about distance and time.
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… In 1915 Albert Einstein formulated the theory of general relativity which fundamentally changed our understanding of gravity. He explained gravity as the manifestation of the curvature of space and time. Einstein’s theory predicts that the flow of time is altered by mass. This effect, known as “gravitational time dilation”, causes time to be slowed down near a massive object. It affects everything and everybody; in fact, people working on the ground floor will age slower than their colleagues a floor above, by about 10 nanoseconds in one year. This tiny effect has actually been confirmed in many experiments with very precise clocks. Now, a team of researchers from the University of Vienna, Harvard University and the University of Queensland have discovered that the slowing down of time can explain another perplexing phenomenon: the transition from quantum behavior to our classical, everyday world.
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The first thing that I felt when I sat back today to begin here was that I’ve missed you all for most of this year while I was working over at my Facebook page. I don’t use WordPress the same way that I’d begun here. This is now a place for pages that I want to feature and not a place where I post a daily update.
I connected with more than 1500 friends at Facebook during this past year and my work consumes most of my online time. I hope you will drop on by my FB page if you’d like… really.
Leo Tolstoy wrote a story, The Three Hermits. His friend Nicholas Roerich summarized the tale:
On an island there lived three old hermits. They were so simple that the only prayer they used was: “We are three; Thou art Three have mercy on us!”
Great miracles were manifested during this naive prayer.
A local bishop came to hear about the three hermits and their prayer, and he decided to visit them to teach them the canonical invocations. He arrived on the island, told the hermits that their heavenly petition was undignified, and taught them many of the customary prayers. The bishop then left on a boat. He saw, following the ship, a radiant light. As it approached, he discerned the three hermits, who were holding hands and running upon the waves in an effort to overtake the vessel.
“We have forgotten the prayers you taught us,” they cried as they reached the bishop, “and have hastened to ask you to repeat them.”
The awed bishop shook his head.
“Dear ones,” he replied humbly, “continue to live with your old prayer!”
How did Thanksgiving come about?
Here’s a politically correct version:
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Why is Thanksgiving the fourth Thursday of November?
The first Thanksgiving Day celebration was a three-day feast held during the fall in 1621. It happened between September 21 and November 11. As you may know Pilgrims were joined by the local Wampanoag tribe, including their leader, Chief Massasoit.
Various communities celebrated a day of thanksgiving afterwards as they deemed fit. However, in October of 1777 all 13 colonies celebrated a day of Thanksgiving.
The first national day of Thanksgiving was in 1789. President George Washington proclaimed Thursday, November 26, 1789 to be “a day of public thanksgiving and prayer.”
In wasn’t until October 3, 1863, that President Abraham Lincoln called for and issued a Thanksgiving Proclamation. It declared the last Thursday in November was to be a national day of “thanksgiving and praise.”
Afterwards, presidents honored the tradition and annually issued their own Thanksgiving Proclamation until in 1939, President Franklin D. Roosevelt did not.
Since the day would fall on November 30th that month, retailers strongly complained to President Roosevelt that 24 shopping days before Christmas would be too short for profits that they counted upon.
Since most people did Christmas shopping after Thanksgiving, the extra week of shopping seemed essential for the economy.
So the Thanksgiving Proclamation of August 31, 1939 declared the date of Thanksgiving to be Thursday, November 23, the second-to-last Thursday of the month.
The change caused unforeseen confusion — dates had previously been established for school schedules, football games, special events, entertainment, and family vacations.
During the following year, many governors could not agree with the decision to change the date and refused to follow it. The country became split on which Thanksgiving to observe. The nation went into a bit of a panic and there was great debate.
In 1940, 32 states and the District of Columbia observed the Thanksgiving on November 21. 16 states chose November 28th. The conflict finally came to the Congress. On December 26, 1941, Congress passed into law that Thanksgiving would be henceforth the fourth Thursday of November.
On the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month of 1918 there was an armistice; a temporary cessation of hostilities in the First World War was declared between the Allied nations and Germany.
On June 4, 1926, Congress passed a resolution that a “recurring anniversary of [November 11, 1918] should be commemorated with thanksgiving and prayer and exercises designed to perpetuate peace through good will and mutual understanding between nations.”
Beginning in 1927, November 11 became known as Armistice Day.
In 1938, Armistice Day became a legal federal holiday in the United States.
In 1954, the 83rd Congress amended the 1938 act that made Armistice Day a federal holiday, replacing the word “Armistice” with “Veterans.” From then on, November 11 became a day to honor American veterans of all wars.
In 1968, Congress passed a Uniform Holidays Bill which created three-day weekends for federal employees — and to encourage tourism and travel — by celebrating four national holidays (Washington’s Birthday, Memorial Day, Veterans Day and Columbus Day) on Mondays. At that point, Veterans Day was made the fourth Monday in October. President Gerald Ford signed a law returning the observation of Veterans Day to November 11th beginning in 1978.
Britain, France, Australia and Canada also commemorate the veterans of World Wars I and II on or near November 11th. Canada has Remembrance Day, Britain has Remembrance Sunday (the second Sunday of November). In many countries in Europe, it is common to observe two minutes of silence at 11 a.m. every November 11.
In the United States, an official wreath-laying ceremony is held each Veterans Day at the Tomb of the Unknowns in Arlington National Cemetery. Parades and various other celebrations are held in the states.
I want to say thank you to all American Veterans past, present, and future. I believe we should thank you every day of the year for your service.
Eric
NOTE: I believe inpeaceful dialog, not war to solve national and international difference — however, the images of this film are how our veterans live during war situations and we owe them a deep respect and to honor them.
“Kindness in words creates confidence.
Kindness in thinking creates profoundness.
Kindness in giving creates love.” ~ Lao Tzu
A guide to personal freedom … disengaging from the matrix.
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Awareness
Step 1 Awakening free will and personal freedom
I’ll borrow from Transcendentalist, Ralph Waldo Emerson. If you have time to ponder this, you may agree: “For non-conformity, the world whips you with its displeasure.” It may seem as “clapped into jail by his own consciousness.” Personal fulfillment requires disengaging from society and embracing physical and intellectual solitude … “Society everywhere is in conspiracy against the manhood of every one of its members,” Emerson argues. Let us not cease making progress. There is a way to accept what is and be free.
Step 2
Being Loving Kindness
Loving-kindness meditation practice is mindfully practicing kindness for positive growth; practicing systematically developing qualities of loving-acceptance. Loving-kindness acts as a form of self-psychotherapy, a way of healing the troubled mind to free it from its pain and confusion. Loving-kindness has the immediate benefit of sweetening patterns of mind.
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Step 3
Unconditional Love
Now, join Harold W. Becker as he hosts this hour long powerful presentation of inspiration and insight on how to become aware of, embrace and experience unconditional love throughout your life.
Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EDMR)
The Department of Veterans Affairs and the Department of Defense issued clinical practice guidelines that recommend EDMR for the treatment of PTSD. Perhaps, the rapid eye movement allows the patient less opportunity to consciously react to the distress that they are reviewing. The brain’s information processing system naturally moves toward mental health. Positive controlled outcome studies demonstrate that >80% of single-trauma victims no longer have post-traumatic stress after only three 90-minute sessions. Reportedly, Kaiser Permanente, found that 100% of the single-trauma victims and 77% of multiple trauma victims no longer suffer with PTSD after only six 50-minute sessions. EMDR Institute, Inc. reported that 77% of combat veterans were free of PTSD in 12 sessions.
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Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EDMR) 20/20 Report
. Francine Shapiro is the originator and developer of EMDR.
In 1987, she made the chance observation that moving her eyes from side to side appeared to reduce the disturbance of negative thoughts and memories. This experience led her to examine this phenomenon more systematically. Working with approximately 70 volunteers, she developed standardized procedures to maximize therapeutic outcomes, conducted additional research and a published randomized controlled study with trauma victims. After further research and elaboration of the methodology, she published a textbook in 1995 detailing the eight phases of this form of psychotherapy. EMDR is now recommended as an effective treatment for trauma in numerous international practice guidelines, including those of the American Psychiatric Association and the Department of Defense.
Dr. Shapiro is a Senior Research Fellow Emeritus at the Mental Research Institute in Palo Alto, California, Executive Director of the EMDR Institute in Watsonville, CA, and founder and President Emeritus of the EMDR Humanitarian Assistance Programs, a non-profit organization that coordinates disaster response and low fee training worldwide. see also: https://www.emdr.com/
Epigenetics is a foundational Frontier Science for Positive Human Evolution.
The Biology of Belief is a groundbreaking work in the field of new biology. Theories of evolution and genetics have long taught that genetic mutation is entirely beyond our control. However, genetics has been gradually discovering that we may establish that some self-directed biological transformations occur.
Scientific evidence clearly is demonstrating that emotions effect health, job performance, relationships and much more. You are what you feel and think.
Author Dr. Bruce H. Lipton is a former medical school professor and research scientist. His experiments, and those of other leading-edge scientists, have examined in great detail the mechanisms by which cells receive and process information. The implications of this research radically change our understanding of life. It shows that genes and DNA do not control our biology; that instead DNA is controlled by signals from outside the cell, including the energetic feeling messages emanating from our positive and negative thoughts. Dr. Liptons’s profoundly hopeful synthesis of the latest and best research in cell biology and quantum physics is being hailed as a major breakthrough, showing that our bodies can be changed as we retrain our thinking.
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Program Description Through the research of Dr Lipton and other leading-edge scientists, stunning new discoveries have been made about the interaction between your mind and body and the processes by which cells receive information. It shows that genes and DNA do not control our biology, that instead DNA is controlled by signals from outside the cell, including the energetic messages emanating from our thoughts. Using simple language, illustrations, humor, and everyday examples, he demonstrates how the new science of Epigenetics is revolutionizing our understanding of the link between mind and matter and the profound effects it has on our personal lives and the collective life of our species. This paperback edition of The Biology of Belief fully updates and revises the material from the bestselling original edition, and adds material in the light of the seismic effect the book has had.
Open Yale Courses (English) – Open Yale Courses provides lectures and other materials from selected Yale College courses to the public free of charge via the internet.
MIT Writing and Humanistic Studies – The MIT Program in Writing and Humanistic Studies gives students the opportunity to learn the techniques, forms, and traditions of several kinds of writing, from basic expository prose to more advanced forms of non-fictional prose, fiction and poetry, science writing, scientific and technical communication and digital media.
Merriam-Webster Online – In this digital age, your ability to communicate with written English is paramount skill. And M-W.com is the perfect resource to improve your English now.
National Novel Writing Month – Valuing enthusiasm and perseverance over painstaking craft, NaNoWriMo is a novel-writing program for everyone who has thought fleetingly about writing a novel but has been scared away by the time and effort involved.
Lifewriting – A complete text of the 9-week writing class a professor taught for years at UCLA.
The practice of living consciously is the first pillar of self-esteem.
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Look at the area where your life is working least satisfactorily. Self-esteem may increase in direct correlation to professionalism. That is, your ability to represent yourself appropriately, perform on the job and be a person with whom others can relate, is an indication of success in whatever you choose to do.
Upon honest self-examination, notice that you tend to be more conscious in some areas of our life than in others. According to Nathaniel Brandon, author of The Six Pillars of Self-Esteem, “What determines the level of self-esteem is what the individual does.”
Branden continues by saying: “A ‘practice’ implies a discipline of acting in a certain way over and over again—consistently. It is not action by fits and starts, or even an appropriate response to a crisis. Rather, it is a way of operating day by day, in big issues and small, a way of behaving that is also a way of being.”
For improving self, try using a sentence stem like “Living consciously to me means…” and create 6-10 completions of that sentence.
The most widely accepted definition is that ofNathaniel Branden, who defines healthy self-esteem as “the disposition to experience oneself as competent to cope with life’s challenges and being worthy of happiness.” (1994) This definition implies not only being worthy of respect, but also as having the basic skills and competencies required to be successful in life. Studies show that people with low self-esteem have more poorly defined self-concepts (Baumeister, 1993). Also, we must like, respect, and love ourselves before we can maintain loving kindness for others or respect for property.
1. The Practice of Living Consciously 2. The Practice of Self-Acceptance 3. The Practice of Self-Responsibility 4. The Practice of Self-Assertiveness 5. The Practice of Living Purposefully 6. The Practice of Personal Integrity
Part of our separation from nature is that we thought nature is something “over there” and where we live is not nature. We’ve got to rethink everything that we do in cities.
What are memes? Why do we Internet? What is enlightenment? Is honesty relevant to evolution? What is openness really? Is willingness available like a virus of sorts to alter our genes and expand our awareness? What is learning? Is there divine knowledge en-coded into every atom?
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EVOLUTION: THE MIND’S BIG BANG
NOVA – Discovery/Science/History (documentary)
NOTE:
A meme acts as a unit for carrying cultural ideas, symbols, or practices that can be transmitted from one mind to another through writing, speech, gestures, rituals, or other imitable phenomena with a mimicked theme. Supporters of the concept regard memes as cultural analogues to genes in that they self-replicate, mutate, and respond to selective pressures.
Memes:
Graham, Gordon (2002),
Genes: a philosophical inquiry, New York: Routledge, p. 196,
ISBN 0-415-25257-1
Albert Einstein had a powerful internal motivation to explain how the universe and the quantum particles of our physical objects form. He wasn’t able to put this into mathematical expression. However, his contributions still amaze us. This post came together because although I didn’t want to take much time at first with it — when I received a comment and more interest than I’d expected, I decided to put more work into it. I do things like this sometimes with posts… it isn’t word-pressing of the normal sort but these articles really are mostly for me and those closest to me — I share here for reasons additional to public blogging.
I think (speculate) that Einstein “knew” that equations that he presented were from a greater consciousness than he alone; the inside workings of his fascination with reality that this inner vision, uniquely his to share, was from the source of his nature, to become a science for all of us in our shared reality. Perception then was as important to him as it is becoming in this modern age of exploring an inner shift and a great awakening. What sense we have in three dimensional reality is as difficult for us to understand as was a grand-unified theory for Einstein to explain.
I believe we are to pick up where Einstein left of — us all, together, coming to agreement that the outer reality is a mirror of sorts that, established here, in space-time as in a sense limiting us to the outer five senses while internally we have perhaps many softer, greater sixth senses.
I do my best to advance my own progress with these posts, while at the same time, making progress to advance understanding of our space-time universe. So, here I keep coming back to my initial inspirations with Einstein. While he is not the only scientist that I admire as deeply, his work is where I can be safely with this challenge to balance my inner knowing to what we perceive in our shared universe.
1905 was Albert Einstein’s year. While working as a patent clerk in Bern, Switzerland, Einstein submitted a supplement to his special theory of relativity of earlier that year. In it he derived the most famous equation of all time; E=MC²; energy is equal to mass multiplied by the speed of light squared.
The equation showed that mass and energy were related and that one could, in theory, be transformed into the other. But because the speed of light squared is such a huge number, it meant that even a small amount of mass could potentially be converted into a huge amount of energy.
Einstein – Birth Of God’s Equation (E=MC²)
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Beginning in early disillusionment with religion, and developing an intense fascination with geometry, Einstein’s “theory of knowledge” moved him past the foundations of Newtonian physics to a development of his own theories of relativity, and later to opposition of some assumptions of quantum theory.
Einstein’s great original contribution to quantum theory (1905) was just the recognition of how physical phenomena like the photo-effect may depend directly on individual quantum effects. He demonstrated step-by-step the conclusion that any radiation process involves the emission or absorption of individual light quanta or “photons” with energy and momentum (it was of great interest for me to review how human vision works).
E = hf and P = hs
h is Planck’s constant, while f and s are the number of vibrations per unit time and the number of waves per unit length
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In 1909, Albert Einstein became associate professor of theoretical physics at Zurich, in 1911 professor of theoretical physics at the German University in Prague and then returned to the Institute of Technology in Zurich the following year. In 1914, he was appointed director of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Physics in Berlin. He became a German citizen in the same year. In 1916 he published his theory of general relativity.
“When I was a fairly precocious young man I became thoroughly impressed with the futility of hopes and striving that chase most men restlessly through life. Moreover, I soon discovered the cruelty of that chase, which in those years was much more carefully covered up by hypocrisy and glittering words than is the case today. . . . As the first way out there was religion, which is implanted into every child by way of the traditional education machine. Thus I came, though the child of entirely irreligious (Jewish) parents, to a deep religiousness, which, however, reached an abrupt end at the age of twelve.”
Albert Einstein built up his theory of gravity, general relativity, through a series of ‘thought experiments’ and mathematical proofs. In 1915 he showed that gravity is caused by objects with mass such as planets and stars warping space-time. For example, the Earth is caught in the curve in space-time caused by the Sun, and the Moon is caught in a warp created by the Earth.
Similarly light is bent when it passes massive objects like galaxies (it was of great interest for me to review how our human brain works to assemble an inner awareness of the outer physical universe that we can perceive by this both to limit our perceptions and also allow altering these internally — thus the benefits of changing how I perceive reality by seeking internally the humility of staying with my inner sense of confusions and upsets became essential to me).
General relativity
Einstein’s theory has important astrophysical implications. For example, it implies the existence of black holes—regions of space in which space and time are distorted in such a way that nothing, not even light, can escape—as an end-state for massive stars.
There is ample evidence that the intense radiation emitted by certain kinds of astronomical objects is due to black holes; for example, micro-quasars and active galactic nuclei result from the presence of stellar black holes and black holes of a much more massive type, respectively.
The bending of light by gravity can lead to the phenomenon of gravitational lensing, in which multiple images of the same distant astronomical object are visible in the sky.
General relativity also predicts the existence of gravitational waves, which have since been observed indirectly; a direct measurement is the aim of projects such as LIGO and NASA/ESA Laser Interferometer Space Antenna and various pulsar timing arrays. In addition, general relativity is the basis of current cosmological models of a consistently expanding universe.
Einstein received the 1921 Nobel Prize in Physics for his discovery of the law of the photoelectric effect and his work in the field of theoretical physics.
Einstein’s Theory Of Relativity
A really rare documentary about Einstein’s Theory of Relativity that changed our perception of reality and the workings of the Universe.
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Time Since Einstein
Albert Einstein shattered previous ideas about time, but left many pivotal questions unanswered: Does time have a beginning? An end? Why does it move in only one direction? Is it real, or something our minds impose on reality? Journalist John Hockenberry leads a distinguished panel, including renowned physicist Sir Roger Penrose and prominent philosopher David Albert, as they explore the nature of time.
I updated this post because the original video was deleted from Youtube. I added some additional video after replacing the missing video. Since I had posted this, I opened an account at Facebook.
This is so nicely stated and for me at least, right on. I am not familiar with the ritual just this way — this is a visualization though that is powerful and guided by Holy Spirit in my experience the same as you describe.”
Take a look with me at how to reduce anger… anger that would interfere with enjoying life. I believe we can eliminate much of it. One problem with anger is it builds up. It can hide out and hit you when least convenient… and most dangerous. Sometimes, anger is left over from past lessons in life; from lessons that we’ve not completed. Until we can let that anger go — letting go of that futile regret from the past — dropping it like it is too hot or too heavy along with it’s troubles that you don’t need or want… it is too dangerous to react.
STOP … pause… let this lesson sink in.
We mustn’t fail to realize when we’re making life out as though it is in service to our misery. Who will be accountable for the havoc and harmful attitudes, for the burn-out and self-delusion game of blame and shame, guilt, bitterness and resentment?
Let’s put this into perspective real quick.
For simplicity sake… let it go whenever possible… view the signs and the symptoms of anger as stimulating your foresight that there are some hurdles ahead… challenges and hurdles yet just ahead that you’ll want to overcome with patience and your good character.
Sensation, emotion, feeling, and thoughts are reactions to perception, to belief and to conditioning associated with fear, insecurity, worry, sadness, frustration, etc… any of which may trigger, by way of failing to accept circumstance, situation or conditions, contracted agreements, commitments, and so forth. The pressures of carrying on with anger may generally dim the light of higher awareness.
Accept what is. Find or return to a simple relaxed comfortable presence if possible, as soon as possible. Living in the now is the wisdom way. Peace and serenity is necessary if you want to fully resolve stressing and trying urgency… those trying problems that just can’t wait can usually wait for you to collect yourself together so you can give it your best.
Meantime, in between, mightn’t you consider this: work on unloading some stored up anger… we all have some… try it — it works for anyone that can read and follow directions.
First, its important to acknowledge that we all need to delve into problems like unresolved anger — already knowing that identifying and working on solutions is going to be our best bet. Here’s how to do it:
The solution always will involve making a change; and in the case of unresolved anger that change is going to come about with knowing how the story is infecting us with living in the past — how the past is being perceived — revisiting the anger story.
I always say a prayer first — asking God to unblock me from my frustrations and from my negative emotions (being specific if I can). I next focus on something or someone that I absolutely love like my son or my dog. After I have a feeling of positive energy, I begin to state my problem and work out a comprehensive solution. A solution is unlikely until finding a peaceful presence in self. .
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The remainder of this particular post is helpful mainly for delving into unresolved anger — when able and ready to move on. This isn’t the last word on dealing with anger. I do want to start off to focus on anger that we can purge and that is from whatever can be finished with; getting it out of the way will make room for positive emotions. If you use the techniques from this post, you can probably resolve a lot of resentment problems and thus free up more energy for happier living. I’ll post another time to cover the daily trials of living with toxic spiritually sick persons. That is a bit more involved but this material helps there too.
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Unresolved Anger
Read the question, the answer, and also watch the videos.
source: Ask Deepak (Deepak Chopra) and Deepak Youtube videos
Question: I’m curious about what advice you could share with me about dealing with anger. I recently turned 30, I am single, no babies and live in Arizona.
I live a little life, but I am overcome with huge anger. It started after a devastating break up about 5 years ago. For an entire year after that break up I COMPLETELY shut down. I was not the same person anymore. I became very depressed, suicidal and isolated.
Although I somehow got through that period and I now have a new love, a wonderful love in my life, why am I still so angry?
There are many triggers that set me off; from someone cutting me off while driving to something non-significant like not finding a pen when I need one. I punch the wall, throw a tantrum; scream. I never was this type of person. Never. Not even as a child.
Now as I am getting a little older, I DO NOT want to spend the rest of my days this way. So many others around the world are suffering from starvation, disease, abuse; so many are in far worse circumstances than myself. So what’s my problem?
Why is it so hard for me to deal with my anger? I get plenty of sleep, I exercise, I eat right. Unfortunately, with no health insurance, I cannot speak with a mental health professional.
Answer: You need to address the underlying belief holding your old anger in place. You are holding on to the belief that you were wronged by the break-up, that you were victimized by his unfair behavior and that you did not deserve to be treated that way.
So now even though the ending of that relationship has allowed you to find a loving relationship, you are still held in the old anger because you insist on the story of the old relationship in terms of injustice, instead of seeing it as a positive step toward a lasting love.
It is your self-image as a victim that feels justified in holding on to this anger. Unfortunately, you are only hurting yourself.
Make a long list of all the positive things that have happened to you since the break-up that would not have occurred if you two were still together. List all the ways you have become stronger and have grown inside since then. You certainly deserve all these good things that have happened to you and the ways you have matured.
Perhaps your story that the break-up was a bad thing is not completely true. If it was what needed to happen for both of you to move ahead in your lives, then it’s pointless to blame anyone or hold onto anger and resentment. Admit to yourself that you really don’t know whether the break-up was right and wrong in the context of your whole life. So, maybe you’ll discover that the story of him being the bad guy and you as the good guy who was wrongly victimized isn’t really helping you.
Create a new story based on the actual positive events that have happened lately to replace the old story. You don’t have to pretend that everything that happened was for the best, you only need to allow that your ego doesn’t really know what is right or justice in this case.
From there you can recognize that your higher self or cosmic intelligence has still led you forward in life.
Learning to trust this loving force of evolution can be your new story.
When you start to see your life this way, your belief in the old you as a weak victim lashing out at injustice will fade away. You will let go of the anger and start to appreciate the love and beauty around you.
~ Love, Deepak
Program Description
Above, video one is what you need to learn about in order to be able to work on anger. Video two is the solution. No matter how big the challenge, spiritual teacher Deepak Chopra says, a four-step process can help you solve the problem at hand. Learn how the STOP method can help you overcome any obstacle. In summary: Any time you have a problem you are in contracted awareness (habitual anxieties — instinctual — egoism — fearful) and that influences 1) perceptions, 2) expectations, 3) assumptions, 4) beliefs, 5) moods and feelings. Contracted awareness brings about problems.
Any time you have a problem, question and evaluate all of those five areas.
How do you shift away from the anger or hurt and to a healthy level of awareness?
Go to your feelings and remember to STOP!
S T O P. Stop to evaluate, Transform your mood, Observe the sensations in your body and images in your mind and Proceed with kindness and compassion.
As you move into a higher level of awareness, solutions will start to emerge.
Here is a much longer lesson given by Deepak shortly after his new book “Spiritual Solutions” hit the marketplace — if you have time.
Program Description
The most fundamental fact of existence is not the universe nor even space, time or gravity, but that we are aware of the universe, Deepak Chopra, author (Spiritual Solutions, 2012 and The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success, 1994 and others) and co-author of over 60 books on spirituality and mind-body connections, told a National Press Club luncheon audience April 4, 2012.
___ ___ ___ ___ Letting go of resentments — grudges and painful bitterness felt as a result of a real or imagined wrong — means making self available to a higher expanded awareness of compassion, kindness and peace. Even if not a believer in God, the spiritual essence of these benefits is available.
Thanks for learning with me. There is lots more to discover — so, come back often.
Eric
There is no other need for time. We are not humans, planets and stars blowing on a solar wind. We are mind. We are with all that is when we are with being in God’s will. True mind is in His love. This is what is important. 
Eric
Eric
the Hunt for Truth 