Previously I attempted to develop the concept of what “God” is, as far as insight and mindfulness is concerned. The historic and religious term “God” can be a major impediment to people’s understanding and willingness to pursue a change in heart, enhanced spirituality, and/or recovery from addiction. “God” sure did nothing for me, especially while I was dealing with my own alcoholism and dysfunctional relationships in my youth. For some, God is simply a name for the human capacity to make positive changes in our own lives. It is not the God of religion that need be sought, it is the God of one’s personal understanding. Nobody in recovery needs the self-righteousness, judgement against those not yet “saved”, and the guilt and shaming of others that all too often gets promoted from within fundamentalist Churches. On the positive side of religious practice, Muslims, Sikhs, Christians, Buddhists, Hindus, Rastafarians, and Jews have all found a “higher power” to guide and direct their paths, as well as pagans, agnostics and atheists. Perhaps you can find a new path, where the promise of a healing change can happen in your own life?
For me, in sobriety, “God” could never be just a man, or a “he” or “him”, but instead “God” is our collective universal life force, and the innate human creative capacity for personal change, healing and evolution, and love of self and other while practicing compassion. God is a state of mind and body that One experiences, after the ego has been laid to rest. God, the same yesterday, today, and forever, eternally Now, eternally Love, eternally unfolding in creative new ways of being and expressing itself. The Infinite Indivisible Invisible, defies all logic, and all human attempts to categorize and control (but oh, how religions, philosophers, and scientists, and the verbally expressive part of me in this post, love to keep trying, don’t we?). We will never find God through a Google search algorithm, or through mindlessly following other people’s opinions as to what the “truth” is. It is a uniquely personal journey, and no one can do this for us but ourselves.
I was not to find my “higher power” through American Christianity, though I certainly devoted many years of both superficial and in depth research into its philosophy and practice. I attended Sunday school for several years, which set the foundation for my inconsistent and unsatisfying relationship with that body of belief. I stopped going to church by the time I was 11 years old, and I would not return to active interest in that religion until 1980, when I had to take Theology at the University of Portland. I became interested in Christianity once again, as an adult, and as a student, as a result of my college education. But I was also quite interested in other religions, as well. My resurgence of interest was to be quashed, when I met the Deering brothers at the University of Portland. There were three of them, and one was an international drug dealer who just happened to be attending college. When I met Mike, my Christian interest waned, as my renewed interest in higher powered drugs re-emerged.I had two more immersions in Christianity, once in 1984, while attending the Lovejoy Hospital Care Unit, to recover from drug addiction and alcoholism, and once again in 1987, when I was baptized at the Hinson Baptist Church. One of my “friends’ at the Care Unit attended Hinson, and so I bought a new suit, and attended church with him on Sundays for a while, until alcoholism became more interesting to me than healing my “sins”. When I first became sober in March of 1987, I started going back to church, not knowing that I had better options for spiritual understanding available. When I was introduced to Jack Boland, an internationally known and loved speaker on recovery issues, I found that I no longer needed to follow that awkward path anymore. It was shortly after hearing Jack speak that I had my first real “conversion” experience.
There are many people of a “religious nature” who speak about being “born again” in Christ, whatever that might mean to them, and to the community of people who support such a possibility. I cannot claim to have had that kind of experience, as I am a four-time dropout from the American Christian faith, and I will not be returning to that style of understanding again. I knew from the earliest of ages that there was something quite amiss with Christian theology, though I returned back to it several times over the course of my life. My own cultural conditioning, immature personal insight, plus not being courageous, resourceful or creative enough to look for “truth” with a different set of eyes, kept me going back to the murky, turbulent spiritual well of American Christianity. Over countless generations many have experienced, and claimed for themselves, enhanced meaning and healing for their lives as a direct result of their Christian faith. Most derive some sort of comfort believing that there is an afterlife, and that they are somehow protected from death because of their belief system However, I was never satisfied with those ideas, so when I drank from Christianity’s well ,my spiritual thirst was never adequately quenched..
Any religion that starts with the premise that man is a sinner, and separated from God does not provide a good philosophical starting point for understanding our basic relationship to our planet Earth, to ourselves and each other, and to all of Creation, and also only provides conditional support for the real dignity and intrinsic value of each life form present upon our beautiful home. God did not ever create only one divinely inspired son, who “died for our sins”, and who requires our lifelong allegiance to him, period, The passage “For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, and whosoever believes in him will not perish, but have everlasting life” needs to be spiritually discerned. There is only One creation, of which we are all an intimate part of. Collectively, the world that we live upon is God’s One Creation or “son/daughter”, in which we all share, including all of our animal friends and neighbors. A statement more representing the truth is that because of our misunderstanding about who we are, and what our true relationship is to each other, we kill each other either physically, or spiritually with our ignorance, greed, hatred, and false judgements, and monetize, plunder, and victimize all other life forms upon our entire planet.
The story of the prodigal son is actually also a PARABLE of the story of Jesus of Nazareth, and is, potentially, our own story as well. Those toxic Christians that make him divinely inspired from birth have turned his life into a myth, rather than the story of a real life human leader of the movement towards healing toxic religion and toxic masculinity. We can all reach towards the divinity within us, and that happens through going through the darkness CONSCIOUSLY, while shedding the prison uniforms of the prevailing philosophical, religious, and political powers of the day. The light of unfettered love that shines after leaving the darkness has many names, though it need not be clothed with more verbal contrivances, dogmas, or theories.
It is more than unfortunate that the backward elements of Christianity has created yet another Idol to worship, another ‘golden calf’ to carry around and show off to others, while claiming pseudo-righteousness for themselves. All the while they sacrifice the innocent blood of “non-believers” at their altars of hate and ignorance. There is no acceptable way to have Trump and Christ Consciousness walking hand in hand. One exists at the exclusion of the other, PERIOD. Any group of human beings who continue to align themselves with the abomination of a human being that is named Donald Trump need to make dramatic course changes in the direction of their own lives, and their wayward understanding of themselves and their “religion”.
The truth is that each one of us has a divine seed planted within ourselves, and our dedication to going beyond our own selfishness and self-deceit will sprout that seed, and eventually unveil the One True God. The only “sacrifice” required of us to reveal God’s presence in our lives is to let go of our own, and our cultures’, ignorance towards spiritual matters, find a way to release ourselves from our suffering, and eliminate fear of all others unlike ourselves, which means, in a nutshell, to let go of our ego controls/control dramas. If we want to just remain sheep looking for a shepherd, be prepared to live a limited, ignorant, tribal life. No teacher, minister, saint, guru, or Jesus himself will save us, we must each work out our own “salvation”, whatever that might mean to us as individuals. For those who like to move in herds, the Christian religion, and affiliated churches, provides community support, and some context, for those who need institutionalized guidance Because the Church has become so politicized in recent years, and because of the power of the collective unconscious mind, coupled with divisive group energy dynamics, the development and expression of a “mob mind” mentality can result, and turn a potentially spiritually oriented community into the minions of power figures promoting white supremacy, homophobia, xenophobia, religious persecution, and organized hatred and encourage blatant tribalism, all in the guise of promoting supposed “Christian values”.
The search for God (or truth, higher power, change, healing, awe, wonder, beauty, creativity, etc.) through institutionalized religious teachings can be likened to searching for sunbeams with a flashlight. I have placed the dimmed flashlight of American Christianity permanently back into the drawer, as it tends to obscure the light of truth with its arcane philosophical and mythological filters, and present day spiritual malpractice and politically inspired malfeasance. I will not be using “Christian terms” to define or describe my experience, except where unavoidable. Yes, I now follow new paths of consciousness, having tired of reaching the same dead end to the bumpy, rutted road that organized religion kept taking me on.
Before I leave this part of the writing, I just want to acknowledge the absolute majesty, and beauty, of the enlightened Christian movement, where the teachings of the Christian mystics are honored and meditated upon with passion and understanding. There are so many “gospels” or works of the good news of the spiritual foundation for our humanity, and how we might achieve it., It is an absolute requirement to try to follow newer paths of consciousness, as all lessons lead to insight, which in turn leads to an enhanced experience, appreciation, and understanding of our “power greater than ourselves”, which, counter-intuitively, resides at the very core of every being in existence. Meister Eckert, Teilhard de Chardin, and, more recently, Joel Goldsmith, and countless other men and women mystics over the history of our civilization I owe an eternal debt of gratitude to. The truth sought lies at the mystical foundation of our religion, but very few there be that may ever find it, or enter into it. The ignorant, unenlightened Christian cannot see the forest for the trees. It is to this audience that most illusory ideas are promoted, as there is a historic perception that most of humanity is too “coarse” to perceive the reality behind religion, thus the need for the rituals, rites, passing show and movements of thought to capture and hypnotize, until, hopefully, their own desire for truth takes precedence in their lives, and they can open up to the real religion that connects all of life together.
John Lennon and the song “God”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lkybcZ_stAk
Fellow Portlanders of the Baby Boomer generation, remember those late night television commercials in the 1960’s and 1970’s, where Tom Peterson would come on the air, and knock on the inside of the screen of our TV’s, yelling “WAKE UP! WAKE UP!!” ?This is John Lennon’s equivalent in song, without the sales pitch to buy a TV!
A select few in our world grow weary of being tied to the whipping post of cultural and religious ignorance, and break free from those punishing, choking, binding chains. In “waking up”, a certain aloneness ( all-One-ness) is found, a journey towards individual and collective healing. When God as a religious concept finally dies, Reality awakens. Life becomes a profound experience, even if living a simple life.
Fasten the seat belt, though, because when we finally let go of our controlling thoughts, the journey through the Unknown becomes quite the exhilarating ride through the unexpected, unanticipated, unexplored aspects of the human heart and soul! And the real life “sleeping beauty” finally Awakens, which some give the name “LOVE”.
No longer is one on the “outside looking in”, One is on the “inside looking everywhere”. Then, all that we will ever see, unto eternity, is our Self, in its infinitude of forms. We are able to see, if only for brief moments at a time initially, that everyone else, or the “other”, is just our own self, in a special disguise.
How will we see our Self today?
WITH NO LIMITS
“IMAGINE” THAT!
God must be individually experienced, and then the fruits of the experience can be collectively shared with other interested parties (AA meetings, friendship circles, etc.), to create the strongest atmosphere for healing of self and others. Our own intention must start the process, though the healing intentions of others for us, and for themselves, can bring us together into a “healing formation”, where the miracle of the collective/shared mind of a love inspired mankind can really work its wonders. Here we may actually share in the real Master Mind that has attempted to guide the human race since the beginning, since well before our present day diseased world mind took over. The right group of people, sharing love and healing together, creates a palpable energy, and this can characterize some recovery groups, depending on the quality of recovery present, and being expressed, in those groups.
I have already over-shared on the subject of God, and such writing only adds to the confusion around the subject for those who have had only “educational, cultural, or social” experiences around the concept of God, and have had no inner, personal conscious experiences of the shared Truth and Ground of All Being (the “finger-pointing at the moon can never be the moon”). The God of my understanding actually defies (laughs, figuratively, at) all of my vain attempts at providing a rational, understandable explanation, therein lies the mystery and challenge of communication around our understanding of our “higher power”
The feeling of being isolated from others can be dissolved. The compulsion to drink and use to hide from ourselves can be lifted. The desire to bring harm to ourselves and to others can be healed. The feeling of inadequacy and incompleteness can be eradicated. We can know love and forgiveness of ourselves, and others, like we thought would never be possible. We can become a light unto ourselves and others, and that light can sustain us for the rest of our days. We can be at peace, and understand, perhaps for the first time in our life, how to live life on life’s terms. We can finally find what we were looking for our entire life, so please do not give up before the real miracle of our life reveals itself. Finding God means finding our real healthier, saner self, the two just cannot be separated. Therein lies the challenge, and the growth opportunities, of living a spiritual life.
Those who find what they are looking for, find the secret of good mental health, sobriety, and the secret of a successfully lived life. Happiness, joy, and freedom become our life’s most enduring companions on the journey of sobriety. Difficulties, sorrows, heart breaks, deaths, depressions, anxieties, and even relapses may still arise, but we now have healthier tools for dealing with the adversity of life. We no longer hide from life, but instead remain engaged with it. We ride Life’s occasional Tsunami waves, rather than be drowned by them. We learn that it was not Life’s loads that broke us, but instead it was the unconscious and unskilled ways that we carried them. Now we have the developed spiritual skills to successfully manage Life’s unavoidable burdens, while creating the conditions for new opportunities in life and for prosperity in its many forms, including enhancing our relationships to each other!
I did not cause or create this disease known as the human condition, I cannot control this disease, and I cannot cure this disease. I have had many, many years of sobriety, but I have also had three major relapses over the past 34 years, as well. I can continue to treat myself consciously and with love for this disease, and show the benefits of recovery from this disease to those who still suffer, and have interest in their own recovery process. Relapse is part of recovery. The point remains to lift ourselves up in recovery, even though we might have descended the ladder into the hell of addictions yet again. If we fall seven times, we lift ourselves up eight times.
If you still are emotionally disturbed, depressed, mentally ill, addicted to drugs, alcohol, or other self-destructive activities, you are not without choices. We all have the internal power to change, we only need to learn how to consciously access that power which is greater than our addictions and bad habits, and express its infinite healing potential. For me, the choice became between living a “divinely (love and healing) inspired life”, or leading a self-destructive life. For those that continue to drink alcohol and use drugs to your own detriment, and the detriment of others, what are your choices?
I continue to have contact with mentally disturbed individuals, practicing alcoholics and/or drug addicts, as well as the family and friend “enablers” that consciously or unconsciously continue to support them in their dysfunction. Enablers are not bad people, we just do not know what to say, or how to say it, to those who continue to abuse their chemical of choice. We might be hesitant to give feedback, for fear of being rejected and/or seen as being overly judgmental, or we may have become fatalistic in our appraisal of the situation, and given up hope. For some of us, we have remained silent in the face of direct threats against the continuing health and safety of our beloved family members or friends, and our own emotional well-being while attempting to remain an active part of the diseased family structure.
To those who continue to enable bad/self-destructive behavior of others, just remember that even though you did not cause the disease, you cannot control the disease, and you cannot cure the disease, by your remaining silent on the sidelines, you remain part of the denial system of the practicing addict/alcoholic, Toxic man, Toxic Christian, and/or Toxic capitalist. At some point, it WILL BECOME NECESSARY to confront the diseased human being, and speak your truth. Then you will need to set your boundaries, and hold fast to them. Becoming a “black belt Alanon” may be your only hope for maintaining safe boundaries, should the diseased family member or acquaintance hold too firmly to their point of view. This can include eschewing all conversations and/or physical connection with the offending family member unless they become willing to make necessary changes in course, and MAKING SURE THAT THEY KNOW EXACTLY WHY YOU ARE KEEPING AWAY FROM THEM, or reducing your exposure to them.
Your own mental health and personal safety become most important, for without that, you remain a powerless part of the social and family problem of mental illness and addiction/alcoholism. There are many, many toxic human beings in our culture, the extremely ill people and addicts and alcoholics who have found the way to use their disease to control their family, their friends, their employers, and all of the people in their lives like they were marionettes on a string. We must not remain a functioning part of their diseased control dramas, lest we lose control over our own destiny, and sanity.
I remain well acquainted with anonymity, which is one of the supporting spiritual principles for AA. My headlights shine brightly for my own “vehicle of consciousness” on my own new path of consciousness, yet they provide little illumination for others on their own unique path. This is as it should be, as “no teacher can effect the salvation of others, as we each must work it out for ourselves”. Yet, we must be willing to share our experience, strength, and hope, so that others might benefit from our journey.
We are all as sick as the secrets that we keep from each other, and from ourselves.
Choose wisely, oh mankind, the secrets that we keep,
For by our choices, we all may awaken, or just stay asleep.
The Master
The Master, if, or when, it comes, will reveal itself in its own unique, inimitable fashion and form. For some, it takes a lifetime of searching and seeking (some say many lifetimes, though who could know about such things?). Those who have resigned themselves to lives of superficial living, drinking alcohol excessively, using intoxicating drugs regularly, flitting from short-term relationship to short-term relationship for sexual purposes, or other forms of reckless behavior will not have the depth of desire to begin the search, though, ultimately, the pain that arises from these lifestyles may motivate the individual to finally begin the search, after the collapse of their life.
For some, it takes such a life, immersed in desperation and suffering, to develop the earnest desire to find the real way out of the multitudes of forms of human insanity. In this case, the suffering person may truly be blessed beyond their own comprehension, not knowing how such pain actually guides the soul in a truer, more straightforward direction towards the goal. There are also those who are happy with the church of their family, its social functions, and the doctrines and rituals of the organization, and they will not usually have the motivation to seek further, and dig deeper, into the essence of that what is real, true, and eternal. But, from time to time there are those even within an organized religion who realize that they have deeper spiritual needs than even the church can satisfy, and thus begins another pilgrims’ search for the all abiding truth. They develop true spiritual discernment, and even the worn out holy books of thousands of years ago take on a new life, and vitality, as they become able to see through the “trees” of words, to the true “forests” of spiritual wisdom and knowledge that the vast majority of their peers fail to perceive.
The search for the truth of life, the truth of being, will take the sincere seeker along narrower and narrower paths of discovery, and inquiry, as time goes on. By necessity, there must be a certain amount of purification that must first occur within the mind of any seeker, because if the mind carries too much hubris, and is prone to excessive delusion, the contact with the Truth, if it occurs, will be the generating force for yet another layer of fantasy within the seekers’ mind (case in point-Joseph Smith, though there are many other famous masters of illusion who have wrought their religious and spiritual havoc upon human consciousness over the ages.). If the seeker has truly become fed up with the fantasies of the human mind, and is willing to have them healed by a touch of the Spirit, then all such psychosis is much less likely to visit the mind, but there are no guarantees.. The closer that one gets to the truth, the easier it should become to discern the distortions of truth from those who have touched, and personally experienced, the essence of that which is sought. But, the best truth that exists is the actual truth that has unfolded within the secret, interior dimensions of ones being. The educational experience, though it is seen as a necessary adjunct to the search (especially at the seeker’s initial stages of spiritual unfolding) must have its influence reduced, and ultimately eliminated, if one is to finally achieve unity with the goal. There is a time and a place for teachers and teachings, but they must be transcended if one is to achieve the fullness of spiritual potential.
When contact is finally made, the seeker may not be able to contain, or embrace the totality of the essence of the teaching, or insight, given. The message(s)/insight(s) will be shocking, and should rock the seeker to the core, as Truth is completely foreign to the human mind. No amount of education or training can prepare the individual for what is to be experienced. As is said, the “finger pointing at the moon can never be the moon”. Most people confuse the description of the event with the actual inner experience of it, and thus delude themselves into believing that they have already experienced the truth, when, in fact, all that they have experienced is strong emotions wrapped around some personal or social experience. When the truth hits the center of one’s being, it sets in motion a series of inner events that eventuates in the seeker having a totally different outlook on life, on the universe, and on their self. But, because we are human, and still retain the power of free will and choice, the message may be rejected (at least temporarily), and we may try to cling to our old, worn out way of reasoning, feeling, and relating to our lives, to each other, and to Truth. On the one hand, we may have said to our self, and, perhaps to others, that we are fed up with our lives, and with the way the world is experienced by us, and we will do anything to bring about a change in our life’s situation. But, when the inner pathway to our transcendence is finally revealed, we balk at its implementation, finally comprehending how dramatically that we must change to be aligned with the path of Truth, and Righteousness. We may not be really ready to “die to ourselves” and truly be “reborn” of the Spirit. If we can humble ourselves enough, we can continue the journey. But, those who recoil, as if burned by a hot flame, spend many more years, if not the rest of their lives, avoiding making the final adjustments to become aligned with their Life’s True Message.
When one finally accepts the path of Truth, and is willing to relinquish their hold upon the world of the ego, then they are in the neighborhood of the real One. More than once, certain members of our human race have had “mountain top” experiences, where true insight has been gained into understanding life, love, and both the ephemeral, and eternal, natures or aspects of reality, or That One. That One becomes the source for all future understanding and engagement with the world.
That One sees beyond the limitations of the isolated, suffering self, and could see the unity of all creation, and how all systems of thought tend to separate us from each other, rather than unite.
That One saw how the limits of love shared was typically tribal in nature, and rarely extended beyond the imaginary boundaries of their perceived communities.
That One saw how organized religion had become a tool for the political powers of the day, and no longer existed to serve the needs of the spirit, but instead to follow the dictates of those male power figures who inaccurately, and sometimes falsely, interpret the scriptures to control people, and arrange selfish outcomes.
That One saw how the rich and powerful within the religion used its truth to dominate and control others.
That One saw these religious power figures actually monetize their brethren, to see how their “flock” could bring them wealth through their superstitious tithing, or offerings to their “God”.
That One saw that the poorest in spirit occupied the most fertile ground for healing, yet all too often were the most separated from any benefits of their religion.
That One saw how the religious powers of the day were corrupt, potentially beyond repair.
That One saw that all sense of religion needed to be “born again”.
That One came down from the mountain top to bring the good news to the people, that they did not need their religion anymore to keep them philosophically imprisoned.
That One then advised the world:
If their “religion” does not allow for them to love another as them-self, then discard those dark aspects of their religion, honor the underlying spirit of love, and affirm the dignity and value of the human being through the healed human heart (which is the source of all true religion).
That just might mean removing the log from our own eyes (even if the log is our very own religion), before attempting to remove the splinter from another (yes, this is the inventory step).
It means stop monetizing humanity for business purposes.
It also means separating the Church from the State.
It means taking personal inventory, and when wrong, promptly admit it.
It means lying, cheating, stealing, destroying, murder, greed, selfishness, destroying the animal and plant kingdom and the like are antithetical to the spirit of love which has created this universe, therefore they are unacceptable patterns of behavior only reserved for those who have chosen to stay asleep..
You know who That One is, because That One lives today, and it is not just the Jesus of two thousand years past. That One has existed since the beginnings of the illusion of self, and other, and the illusions created by competing philosophies. That One is the sacred group of our awakening humanity that has the voice for God, for Truth, for Love, and Life, bubbling up inside of their hearts, just waiting to be listened to, and obeyed. And That One understands all to well the difficulties in bringing Truth and Love to the masses, because in the masses is where corruption of thought gets institutionalized and normalized, instead opting to bring it to humanity one person at a time.
When there is a love sized hole in our hearts and lives, there is only one way to fill that hole that will bring lasting peace.
Lost (by David Wagoner)
Stand still. The trees ahead and bushes beside you
Are not lost. Wherever you are is called Here
And you must treat it as a powerful stranger
Must ask permission to know it and be known
The forest breathes. Listen. It answers
I have made this place around you
If you leave it you may come back again, saying Here.
No two trees are the same to Raven
No two branches are the same to Wren
If what a tree or a bush does is lost on you
You are surely lost. Stand still. The forest knows
Where you are. You must let it
