Dealing With The Unreality Of My Fear

I’m very glad our elections are over. I’m very glad – whether I’m hearing a conservative or a progressive pundit – that I no longer have to listen to predictions that the sky is falling, our world is ruined and all hope is lost. I’m very glad the fear mongering is over – at least I hope it is for a while.

I do understand fear is a great motivator. I do not understand why those who want to be political leaders purposefully feel they must frighten the crap out of me.

This world I see is not the real world. It is the world of my creation being reflected back at me. It is like looking in a mirror and wanting to blame the mirror for making me view this unsightly mess. That’s not what I want to do. But that is what I do. That’s why I feel sick to my stomach – literally and figuratively – when I’m in one of these fearful episodes.

I understand that fear is the most difficult emotion for me to control while I continue to keep my focus on the fact that I am an already-loved spirit having a human experience. I am not a human, fighting all my fears in my outside-of-me world, in order to “save my eternal soul.” I am not who I think I am. I am already eternal. I am already loved. I am already light.  I am already at peace.  

I do have a sense of knowing this. It’s not an intellectual knowing. It’s an experiential knowing. I cannot explain it – I simply know it.

However, as I listen and watch the purposeful and intended incitement of fear and doubt when discussions are about the elections, about Ebola, about ISIL/ISIS, about the economy, about same-sex marriage, or about voter suppression, it becomes very difficult for me to deal with the unreality of my fear. It is both a fear of the messages as well as of the messengers.

Some have suggested that I not listen to the news at all. But isn’t that like sticking my head into the sand and pretending it isn’t there? For me pretending is not the same as dealing with the unreality of my fear. Walking around my house looking at little yellow “stickies” proclaiming positive affirmations (Fear is the opposite of Faith; Faith is merely Fear that has said its prayers) is not the same as finding my true center and enjoying the peace and serenity of being there.

So – why can’t I go there with more regularity?

I believe it’s because I have gotten so used to my fear it has become a type of addiction. I remember a bumper sticker that proclaimed: “If you are not frightened, you are not paying attention.” If I’m not frightened I’m not aware. If I’m not frightened I’m pretending. If I’m really frightened I’m really alive. That’s the emotional hook. My fear has become this kind of addiction.

Yet, when I do sit and center myself in meditation or with readings from A Course In Miracles (ACIM), I experience the peace, calm and truth that I know I am. Then my monkey mind leaps up and shouts for attention. I acknowledge it and it abates – only to repeat, over and over again. Sometimes I persevere. Sometimes I succumb. Then the literal and figurative sick-to-my-stomach sense of failure overwhelms me.

I wish I could state that each time I go through this cycle of fear it gets easier and of shorter duration. It would be nice, as the author of these messages, if I could present my strength and confidence. As of today, however, I cannot state that. I wish I could, but that’d be a lie. All I can do is share my ugly honest truth today.

Bottomline: I get through these fearful episodes by going through these episodes.

Take heart. This too shall pass.

Although these messages are mostly for me, thanks for listening. As always – feel free to forward this message to your friends, family, and those accompanying you on your spiritual journey.

Don

#2 November 2014

Copyright, 2014

A Thanksgiving Message

Love Is The Way I Walk In Gratitude

Today is Thanksgiving Day in the United States. I could think of no better message than the Lesson on gratitude in A Course In Miracles (ACIM). This Lesson [195] tells me there are two kinds of gratitude. The first is an ego-based thankfulness, which often is simply veiled hostility. When I pray “Thank You, God, for You have blessed me with all this bounty…” am I really implying that those who don’t have the kind of bounty I have are not blessed, or not blessed as fully as I? The second is sincere gratitude for the connectedness of all living things. As Allen Watson says, “Today I am joyful that the gifts I have received belong to everyone. I am grateful for every living thing, every person I meet…. I recognize that if anyone is diminished, I am diminished, and I thank God that ‘…everything has earned the right to love by being loving,’ for all is part of my [True] Self.” [A Workbook Companion, Volume II, Circle Publishing, 2006, p. 63]

From ACIM, A Workbook for Students, Part II, Lesson 195:

“Gratitude is a lesson hard to learn for those who look upon the world amiss. The most that they can do is see themselves as better off than others. And they try to be content because another seems to suffer more than they. How pitiful and deprecating are such thoughts! For who has cause for thanks while others have less cause? And who could suffer less because he sees another suffer more? Your gratitude is due to Him alone Who made all cause of sorrow disappear throughout the world.

“It is insane to offer thanks because of suffering. But it is equally insane to fail in gratitude to One Who offers you the certain means whereby all pain is healed, and suffering replaced with laughter and with happiness. Nor could the even partly sane refuse to take the steps which He directs, and follow in the way He sets before them, to escape a prison that they thought contained no door to the deliverance they now perceive.

“Your brother is your ‘enemy’ because you see in him the rival for your peace; a plunderer who takes his joy from you, and leaves you nothing but a black despair so bitter and relentless that there is no hope remaining. Now is vengeance all there is to wish for. Now can you but try to bring him down to lie in death with you, as useless as yourself; as little left within his grasping fingers as in yours.

“You do not offer God your gratitude because your brother is more slave than you, nor could you sanely be enraged if he seems freer. Love makes no comparisons. And gratitude can only be sincere if it be joined to love. We offer thanks to God our Father that in us all things will find their freedom. It will never be that some are loosed while others still are bound. For who can bargain in the name of love?

“Therefore give thanks, but in sincerity. And let your gratitude make room for all who will escape with you; the sick, the weak, the needy and afraid, and those who mourn a seeming loss or feel apparent pain, who suffer cold or hunger, or who walk the way of hatred and the path of death. All these go with you. Let us not compare ourselves with them, for thus we split them off from our awareness of the unity we share with them, as they must share with us.

“We thank our Father for one thing alone; that we are separate from no living thing, and therefore one with Him. And we rejoice that no exceptions ever can be made which would reduce our wholeness, nor impair or change our function to complete the One Who is Himself completion. We give thanks for every living thing, for otherwise we offer thanks for nothing, and we fail to recognize the gifts of God to us.

Then let our brothers lean their tired heads against our shoulders as they rest a while. We offer thanks for them. For if we can direct them to the peace that we would find, the way is opening at last to us. An ancient door is swinging free again; a long forgotten Word re-echoes in our memory, and gathers clarity, as we are willing once again to hear.

“Walk, then, in gratitude the way of love. For hatred is forgotten when we lay comparisons aside. What more remains as obstacles to peace? The fear of God is now undone at last, and we forgive without comparing. Thus we cannot choose to overlook some things, and yet retain some other things still locked away as ‘sins.’ When your forgiveness is complete you will have total gratitude, for you will see that everything has earned the right to love by being loving, even as your Self.

“Today we learn to think of gratitude in place of anger, malice and revenge. We have been given everything. If we refuse to recognize it, we are not entitled therefore to our bitterness, and to a self-perception which regards us in a place of merciless pursuit, where we are badgered ceaselessly, and pushed about without a thought or care for us or for our future. Gratitude becomes the single thought we substitute for these insane perceptions. God has cared for us, and calls us Son. Can there be more than this?

“Our gratitude will pave the way to Him, and shorten our learning time by more than you could ever dream of. Gratitude goes hand in hand with love, and where one is the other must be found. For gratitude is but an aspect of the Love, which is the Source of all creation. God gives thanks to you, His Son, for being what you are: His Own completion and the Source of love, along with Him. Your gratitude to Him is one with His to you. For love can walk no road except the way of gratitude, and thus we go who walk the way to God.”  [The Workbook for Students, Lesson 195]

Happy Thanksgiving!

Don

#5 November, 2013

Copyright, 2013

The Reality of Shared Illusions? No Way!

I received the following excellent question from a subscriber: I have talked to friends who study A Course In Miracles (ACIM). They use the phrase “Shared Illusions.” I also hear the phrase “Race Consciousness” in some New Thought groups. Are these the same thing? If so, I don’t think I understand what these mean. Can you explain?

Race Consciousness has nothing to do with race (Black, Hispanic, Asian, Caucasian, Native American, etc.) It is “race” as in human race. Race Consciousness is a term that is the same as ACIM’s use of the phrase “Shared Illusions.” These perceptions are not evidence of reality. They are merely shared by everyone or among groups. Many have been taught for generations or since history began.

For example, it is no surprise that someone growing up in an environment of fear will be fear based. Someone growing up in an environment of criticism will be critical. Someone growing up in an environment of bigotry will be a bigot. That’s how we are taught to perceive. Since it carries parental and grand-parental authority, it is absorbed as truth. You, then will teach this to your children and grandchildren. On and on.

These kinds of thought processes are the influence of our ego thought-systems. We live with the consequences of our thought-system – mostly the consequence of fear-based thinking. Over thousands and thousands of generations, some common fears are taught. Spiders are dangerous. Snakes are dangerous. Fear for your life.  There is not enough, so get yours before someone else does (Implied: You will be left with nothing). People who look different are dangerous. Different foods are scary – be cautious. People who pray differently are inferior, scary and association with them will tempt you to backslide in your beliefs. It’s safer to stick with what is familiar.

It doesn’t take much of an imagination to comprehend the fears one must be exposed to growing up in a fear-filled environment. Think of a TEA-Party household: The federal government is out to get us, guns are our safety, and the United Nations wants to control us. Don’t believe what you read. There’s a conspiracy to destroy our way of life. Or think of a few fears taught by religious fundamentalists: Satan is always lurking about you trying to steal your soul and, if you really believe in Jesus, angels will be there to fight the devil to protect you. Believing the Scriptures literally allows the Bible to be your personal shield against all the swords of evil that will trip you up. Scary, fear-filled thoughts.

All of these kinds of learned ways to view the world, repeated over generations and generations, can by summed up as “Shared Illusions” or “Race Consciousness.” These common fears among us provide a false sense of legitimacy to their validity. We say to ourselves, “Since so many others think as I do, it must be the Truth – the correct way to look at reality.”

Let me give you an example from the book review [Pacific Standard magazine Vol. 6, No. 1, Jan-Feb 2013, p.68] of The Republican Brain: The Science of Why They Deny Science – and Reality, by Chris Mooney, Wiley Publishing.

The author found “…that Republicans and Democrats are fundamentally different in the way they think about the world. Republicans … show lower tolerance for ambiguity and uncertainty, which makes them defensive about their beliefs and highly resistant to persuasion. Conservative Republicans score low on a personality trait called ‘openness to experience,’ which encompasses curiosity and intellectual flexibility.

“All of these processes contribute to what’s called ‘motivational reasoning,’ which is not reasoning at all, in the classical sense. The theory, derived from modern neuroscience, holds that we often process information automatically and emotionally, without reflection or even awareness. These hidden emotional priorities cause us to misinterpret or dismiss evidence – even technical, scientific evidence… [like] global warming is not related to human activity and is not a threat; abortion causes breast cancer and mental disorders; homosexuality is a choice that can be reversed. The list goes on….” The President can say over and over again that his proposals for restricting the sale of assault weapons doesn’t restrict the 2^nd Amendment. Conservatives will react, “ Don’t bother me with facts. I fear the government and so I simply don’t believe you.” These are shared illusions.

The Course in Miracles deals with this early on in the Workbook for Students. In Lesson 12 is the following: “You think that what upsets you is a frightening world, or a sad world, or a violent world, or an insane world. All these attributes are given it by you. [WB: 1; 2-4] … It is [your attributes] you see. It is this that is meaningless in truth. [WB: 5: 1-6]

From ACIM’s Lesson 14: “What God did not create does not exist. And everything that does exist exists as He created it. The world you see has nothing to do with reality. It is of your own making, and it does not exist…. This is your personal repertory of horrors at which you are looking. These things are part of the world you see. Some of them are shared illusions, and others are part of your personal hell. It does not matter. What God did not create can only be in your own mind apart from His. Therefore, it has no meaning.” [WB: 1: 2-5; 6: 1-6]

I give attributes to the world because I love drama. I love my “story.” I think it helps me understand the world, but it’s really defining the world so I can interpret, react, or respond consistent with my self-image. In short, I am my “story. Since ACIM is a course in mind-training, [Txt: 1: VII, 4,1] I have tried to begin training my mind by changing my “story” – changing it to one that highlights my spiritual growth. It’s still ego-thinking, but I believe it helps me be more open to the whispers of the Holy Spirit rather than simply listening to the illusions of my “story.”

Although these messages are mostly for me, thanks for listening. As always – feel free to forward this message to your friends, family, and those accompanying you on your spiritual journey.

Don

#3 January, 2013

Copyright, 2013

A Spiritual Perspective For 2013

I was exchanging holiday wishes with a good friend and subscriber earlier this week. We discussed the rancor of 2012 politics and our hopes for for 2013.  I commented on her New Year’s greeting card she had sent earlier. In it she had written “… I can’t quite remember my early programming, but is fear and greed the result of our original sin?” During our conversation, she mentioned how it seemed to her that human history seemed to operate in cycles. It seemed to her that humankind would take 3 steps forward only to retreat 2 steps, followed by another 2 steps forward and then 3 steps backward – ending up maybe 400 years later with much newer technology but back in the same place culturally, politically, and spiritually.

I believe my friend is correct in the observation of cycles. Here in America, we have gone through quite a few cycles of 3 steps forward only to retreat 2 steps. For example, We have had what historians call “The Three Great Awakenings.” The first was in the mid 18^th Century, the second in the early half of the 19^th Century, and the third in the last half of the same century (1850-1900). The Third Great Awakening also spawned the era of the Social Gospel, which covered the period from 1890 to the outbreak of World War II.  

Each of these was precipitated by economic/cultural upheavals and associated alterations to our perceived cultural/social/moral values. Each “Awakening” was a step back to recapture perceived “lost” values but each also contained the seeds of further growth. For instance, during the 3^rd Awakening there was an enormous movement to recapture personal (almost Victorian) piety, which gave rise to Holiness, Pentecostal and other similar congregations. These, in turn, were very fundamentalist – interpreting the Bible very literally and being rather judgmental in terms of all those that didn’t quite agree with their positions. On the other hand, this emphasis on personal piety gave rise to a strong sense of social activism within the organizational structure of religious institutions – within congregations and denominations themselves. From this came the Social Gospel Movement and its focus on suffrage movements, unionization, the Salvation Army, progressive political positions, as well as humanist philosophies such as the Theosophical Society, to promote care for the health and housing of the poor, needy, and downtrodden.

I do believe there are cycles that societies go through, where there are elements of progressive change as well as elements of severe resistance to that change. In short, there are steps forward and simultaneous pressures to try to step backward.

Since the late 1980s and into the early 1990s, many with a spiritual (not religious) focus have noted that we are moving into another significant social/moral/spiritual Era. Some have attributed this to the Mayan Calendar Cycle. Regardless, we are currently witnessing some pretty significant social and cultural upheavals: The progressive political movement in the USA (with its focus on accepting the growing  diversity of our citizens as well as wanting to modify the growing disparity of wealth) and the Arab Spring movements. This progressive movements is coupled closely with the resistance to these trends – the TEA Party, the Religious Right, fear of immigrants, the perceived battle between “socialism” and “capitalism,” the desire for more personal piety in sexual behavior enforced by laws prohibiting contraception for unmarried women, the stark distinction between voiced social criticism and perceived unpatriotic behavior.

As I stated in my Christmas greeting, I do believe we are moving into another Era – one encompassing the beginnings of an Age of Cooperation rather than Competition, Inclusion rather than Exclusion, Acceptance and Tolerance rather than Self-Righteous Arrogance, the Power of Love rather than the Love of Power. If history holds true as a guide, the old values of competition, power, accumulation of wealth, and very strict adherence to rigid religious dogma will not simply “slip away quietly into the night.”

My friend has asked a very good question for the beginning of the year. “[Within the cycles of history] … Is fear and greed the result of our original sin?”

My short answer: Yes and No. Let me explain.

If I define sin (original or otherwise) as something I have done that violates one of God’s Law(s) and therefore I will be punished – then the answer is “No.” If I define sin as an error (as does A Course in Miracles), in which I have mistakenly come to believe that the reality of this physical world truly exists and I am truly a separate-from-everyone-else biological human being, then the answer is “Yes.” If I perceive I am a physically separate entity in human form, then all other errors of my perception follow from this: Separation, Duality, Lack or Greed, a dog-eat-dog mentality (protect-defend-attack-retaliate). When I think about it, all of these perceptions can be boiled down to FEAR – the opposite of Faith. 

I leave you with several uplifting thoughts as this New Year begins. Hopefully, these might help each of you maintain a perspective about the events that are currently occurring:

• ·      The powerful experience of inspiration that many of us feel at the beginning of a new year is the recognition that we really can do something that we hadn't believed possible before—that we are capable of breaking through to higher ground and reaching previously unimaginable levels of our own potential. Indeed, the uplifting experience of inspiration that we feel in those moments is the thrilling sense that anything is possible. That feeling of inspiration is a taste of spiritual freedom, because within it we experience liberation from any habitual sense of limitation. —Andrew Cohen. NOTE: You can read the full context for this quote in Andrew's new blog post, "When the New Year Doesn't End"  <http://click.enlightennext-mail.org/?qs=8cd9bef9ba57d83c0c54f2a4101cd01d8f5206cf5988eaa831ff8b37a28cb395>

• ·      One of my favorite sayings.  “Strive for control over your experience of the events and people of your life – not control over the events or people themselves.”

Although these messages are mostly for me, thanks for listening. As always – feel free to forward this message to your friends, family, and those accompanying you on your spiritual journey.

Don

#1 January, 2013

Copyright, 2013