Faith Without Needing Explanations -- Daily Inspirations

To one who has faith, no explanation is necessary.
To one without faith, no explanation is possible.
St Thomas Aquinas

For article, click here: Relationship Between Faith and Love.

Is Your Soul for Sale? Holiday Hazards and Daily Inspirations

This morning as I was journaling, I became aware of how I have been struggling with insecurities regarding my worth and value as a person in this material world -- especially during the Holidays. I realized that I have been struggling to find a human way to validate and certify myself as a person of value and purpose -- with fluctuating success.

Three years ago, I sold a business and ended up managing a very special doctor’s practice after an sudden change left the doctor without a group with which to practice. Both have become good news, but both involved massive changes and losses of external life reference points that humans use to identify and validate themselves.

About five years ago-- right after the Holidays -- my wife of eleven years died of cancer -- after two really horrendous and painful years -- more change and loss.

I am still managing this practice, and in August I started writing a blog that has really taken me deeper and deeper inside myself -- more and more self and God intimate.

Change -- the loss of life reference points -- has left me feeling vulnerable and uncertain about who I am and what I am meant to give to others. Change and losses disorient human beings -- especially when there are no clear or pressing problems off of which to “reflect” ourselves.

As I was discussing my awarenesses with a spiritual friend, I remembered movies and stories where persons would sell their soul to Satan in order to obtain certain outcomes that they wanted. I would never do that, but actually I did try to sell my soul -- not to Satan -- but to “Jesus”.

From before I was born, my family was very active in a very fundamentalist church. As a child I was very insecure, timid, never feeling good enough. In my experience, fundamentalist religion teaches that God has to do what you ask -- if you do what you are “supposed” to do. Years later I realize that this message implied -- or stated -- the offer to sell my soul to get what I wanted. Happiness would have been nice, love and acceptance would have been wonderful, but most of all I wanted relief -- to stop feeling so much feeling -- so much pain and fear.

So at eight years old I began to bargain with God to sell my soul -- I got “saved“. I began reading the Bible, praying, and became active in my church -- trying to be good enough to have Jesus purchase my soul -- take everything that was important to me, and give me relief.

I spent a lot of years and effort in this pursuit, and finally gave up about twenty years ago. Depression, and anxiety was ruling my life -- and I could find no peace.

Twenty years ago I discovered and began a spiritual journey through a different set of principles not rules -- spiritual not religious. From these principles and the people who shared similar life issues and challenges, I began to find a different life. I realized that my God is not interested in possessing my soul -- or me. They want my heart -- my love and presence within Their Love and Presence -- intimate closeness, companionship, and friendship. They have no conditions for Their love, care, and kindness. They are a Presence that exceeds all my human thought and understanding -- they can only be experienced -- they cannot be “known“ by my brain.

So what does this have to do with the Holidays?

Is your soul for sell? Are we selling parts of ourselves -- or all of ourselves -- our souls -- to be loved, accepted, cared about -- maybe just to not be abandoned, alone, forgotten? Are we consciously or unconsciously trying to meet someone else’s conditions and expectations, and in the process losing and selling ourselves? For how much would we sell our souls -- the beauty and grace we were created with -- for the hope of a different, seemingly better outcome?

The Holidays are a metaphor -- an experiential symbol -- for all of our lives and loves. If we can begin to find our God’s unconditionally loving and caring Presence, maybe we can begin to take a spiritual stand for our spiritual and personal freedom. Maybe we can begin to give our presence to others, and not remain the “slaves” of others’ obvious and hidden -- dark-- expectations and demands of others.

Progress is Perfection. Let’s start here. Let’s take as much of ourselves as we can off the market -- and give our deepest love and presence to those who can receive us this Holiday.

To those who have hearts that love, let them be loved -- joy pressed down and running over -- coming from our most innermost beings to others.

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Darkened Dangers of the Holidays -- A Need for Daily Inspirations and Spiritual Enlightenment

In my experience, the Holidays are filled with hidden emotional traps and snares which can steal many of the gifts of God’s Presence from the Holidays.

The Christmas Holidays are reportedly the producer of 70-85% of the retail sales of stores and businesses. So success and survival of most retail businesses are ultimately connected to the outcomes of the Holidays. With billions of dollars, millions of jobs, and thousands of businesses at stake, the Holidays produces a glut of the best, and most persuasive advertising genius and effort. To survive and succeed retail businesses must majorly impact the American public’s perceptions at this time of year.

Advertising and marketing have a basic dynamic and goal of influence. First, it creates or exaggerates the perception of some thing or some situation being necessary for happiness and well-being. This message creates an involuntary mental and emotional tension around the object or situation.

Then advertising implies -- tells the involuntary part of our brains -- that the objects or service they offer will relieve the tension. This tension is actually a type of emotional pain experienced in the perceived absence of something or someone, which the brain will actively pursuing a means of relief -- frequently unconsciously.

So what advertising and marketing does -- to satisfy their clients -- is to create and intensify people’s perceived “need” for -- dependency on -- certain material objects or situations. Then it attaches the involuntary expectation of relief -- happiness and companionship -- to receiving the material object or outcome.

Essentially what they are creating and amplifying is a conditionalism: there is good and bad, right and wrong. We can control the outcomes of our relationships and the Holidays, if we do the “right” thing. We will be happy only if we meet certain conditions and criteria. Unfortunately, under the scourge of conditionalism, our lives will always become victimized by shame and abandonment -- we will never good enough.

Some try to control this situation by divorcing themselves from materialism and its conditions, only to find that they are no better off that anyone else. Anti-materialism is actually still materialism and conditionalism -- like a T-shirt turned inside out is still a T-shirt. It assumes that if one does the right thing -- avoids materialistic participation in the Holidays -- they will be able to control the outcomes, and be happy, relieved of inner tension -- not abandoned by others and God. Not true! We will end up abandoning ourselves anyway.

We have options -- not choices. Left to my own devices, I cannot change my perceptions, and the outcomes of the Holidays -- no matter how much effort or avoidance I may use. If I want choices, I must start with accepting and experiencing my powerlessness -- my total inability to control the Holidays or my perceptions of them. Anything less, and I am plunging deeper and deeper into the Holiday Abyss.

From this point of realizing and accepting my lack of power and choices, I need to turn to the God of my experience in others. I experience an energy -- a higher Presence when I listen to my God in the voices and experiences of others. This Presence begins to change my “insides” -- the involuntary and voluntary processes of my brain. Instead of intellectually analyzing and reasoning in order to find answers, I begin to intuitively live the solutions.

Then, in my experience, I need to act intuitively with active trustful confidence in my God’s loving and unconditionally Presence. Sometimes it is as simple as breathing consciously. Sometimes it involves asking for and seeking help from others. And many times this faith requires a conscious willingness to feel and experience deeply the humanness of my life experiences -- heart and heart with God.

What occurs this Holidays will, I believe, be my God’s perfect plan for me. The real gifts of the season is the Presence my God is offering in every event and every interaction, in every outcome, and in every perception and reaction I have.

When I experience some form of pain and fear, it will be a reminder of areas of my mind and life where I need to improve my conscious Presence with Them (I experience God as “Mom and Dad“). When I practice the spiritual principles I have described, as daily inspirations and spiritual enlightenment, I have an increasingly intimate Presence with them, and my life -- not just the Holidays -- becomes amazingly more wonderful -- and loving.

Where there is Presence, there is Peace.

And with the angel was a heavenly host of angels praising God and saying, “Glory to God in the Highest -- PEACE ON EARTH AND LOVING KINDNESS TO ALL MEN” (and women).

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True Love Can Be Dangerous Without Daily Inspirations and Spiritual Enlightenment

Conversation:
Person: Hi! What do you did you do for a living?
Other person: I was a CIA secret agent.
Person: Really? So who really shot President Kennedy?
Other person: I would tell you, but I would have to kill you.

I woke up one morning on the cruise – it was still dark – and I started my morning meditation. As I was breathing and “listening” to my God’s Presence, I overheard, in my mind, a conversation between a woman and her romantic partner. The woman had been asked if she could love – really love him. Her response was, “I would love you, but I would have to kill you!”

In this moment, I experienced a startling awareness. As there is “national security”, there is “personal security” – a security that genuine intimacy, interpersonal presence, and loving commitment jeopardizes more than anything else can. And the natural human response to genuine romantic, committed love is fear. And when this “love” exceeds the comfort level of the human brain, the brain will eventually create a resistance which will effectively destroy the other person within the relationship.

Every person, object, and situation in our lives does a combination of two opposite things:
1. First, it or they distract us from ourselves, and lower our consciousness. This is typically experienced as pleasure, relief, attraction, and some form of happiness.
2. Second, it or they make us remember forgotten parts of ourselves – elevate our consciousness – which is most typically scary, painful, and irritating. Our brain is programmed to resist such experiences and relationships, unless they are very distracting.

All relationships do some version of this. So we are unconsciously attracted to primarily distracting relationships, and unconsciously repelled by true intimacy, self disclosure, and “love” – on either side of the relationship. Opposites attract because opposites distract.

Intimacy and self consciousness are instinctively the most terrorifying experiences a human can have. And instinctively, these experiences are avoided by the brain. With increased consciousness the brain reaches neural energy levels above what is perceived as “safe” and acceptable.

Loving someone – really loving someone – is terrorifying. Intimacy literally means “into me see” – they and I will see parts of me that I have hidden from myself and others because of extreme shame – the results of abandonment and rejection.

There is much more to be said later about this truth, but for now, I want us to consider two important factors:
1. Ultimately, the quality of our lives – our perceptions and reactions within this human experience – will ultimately be determined by our capacity to love deeply and intimately. We may maintain a level of delusion that life is good because we live with massive dosages of distraction, but ultimately, we will find ourselves confronted with the emerging awareness that something is very wrong inside – something important is really missing in our lives.
2. Intimacy and deep love are not possible merely by making mental decisions to do so. The part of our brain that makes decisions has no real authority in this area. The “secret agent” inside our brains has been given an overriding authority over the operation of our brains’ perceptions and reactions. We are powerless to love deeply and intimately.

Therefore, the quality of our life is directly proportionate to our ability to love deeply. And we must have a higher means for this to be possible. We can only love as deeply as we are connected intimately to our higher Presence – God as we experience Him and Her.

This truth makes it so important to find daily inspirations, and to experience the spiritual enlightenment of God’s higher Presence in the precious moments of our lives. Only God’s higher Presence allows us to have the spiritual security – serenity – to love and be loved deeply, and not harm others – and ourselves -- in the process.

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Finding Rest Through Daily Inspirations and Spiritual Enlightenment

Kathy and I have just gotten back from an eight-day cruise in the East Caribbean. It was really strange to be completely away from the normal constant alertness and responsibility of managing and running a hospital physician’s practice – 24/7.

As we experienced this trip, I journalled everyday, took over a thousand pictures, attended spiritual support groups on the boat, meditated, and generally attempted to remain as conscious as possible to the messages and Presence that were presented within each days events and circumstances.

I would like to share, over the next series of articles, my experience, strength and hope from our trip. Daily inspirations are everywhere – and challenging. There is the loving support and assurance that God is ever Present, but also, the human challenge of becoming increasingly conscious, as we grow more and more aware.

To me, it sometimes feels like someone turned the volume way up to a level of blaring blasts, or turned the lights up till I am blinded by more light than my eyes can process.

I really don’t know any other way to live – and I have to accept that many others have found ways of effectively “living” without this form of consciousness. To these people, I will seem odd, almost like “I see dead people” (which I don’t). I would encourage those who read what I write to take what seems to fit and help, and basically ignore the rest. If you need the rest later, it will probably reappear.

“Come unto me, all ye who labor and are heavy laden,

and I will give you REST.”

Jesus

I have watched others live their lives – seemingly relaxed, unstressed, seemingly unaware of the questions and feelings that I experience on a regular basis. When I speak about my struggles to control outcomes, my feelings and reactions no matter the outcome, and my need to accept what is as perfect and the actual plan of my God, I observe others eyes glazing over, faces going quietly sympathetic – or irritated – and a space becoming conscious and clear between myself and their conscious experience of me.

However, with the higher Presence of my God, I experience a connection of experiences which seems strange -- especially considering that religious theology describes God in such terms that there is no way They have ever experienced the pain and fear of being truly human. I experience Their conscious acceptance and unconditional love as Someone who has experienced human consciousness – fear and pain – just like myself.

In the safety of their loving hearts, I find myself “coming unto them” – coming deeply and intimately into their loving, caring Presence. I experience that they have no conditions for their love, I am always welcomed and invited – and they would prefer and really enjoy if I never left their Presence -- ever.

On the cruise, I found this quiet, loving place in my meditations and journalling. But actually I felt it stronger when I was just setting in a room of people, listening gently to their voices, and experiencing my God’s quiet Presence in the wordless hum and rhythm of their speaking and responding. As I breathed deeply, I experienced an energy, a Presence, a Power beyond myself, without rules or conditions – eagerly waiting for me to feel Their love and companionship – to quietly enjoy each other’s conscious presence.

I am someone who tends to “labor” – to resist what is, try to control outcomes, tries to satisfy the needs and wants of others – and myself. And I fail – and have failed – miserably. My life and others’ lives cannot be controlled. And even when “things” go as I wish, I am still miserably consumed with “laboring” to control the next “thing” or outcome.

No amount of effort and work will ever really make us happy – or give us rest.

The more I have labored, the more “heavy laden” I have become. I increasingly carry the responsibilities and blame for all that occurs, may occur, should have occurred, is about to occur. It is really more than I can bear – and I become lost in the agony of endless struggling to control the uncontrollable – I fall and fail – ultimately – every time. I am crushed and abandoned – by my own conditions and control – the perceptions and reactions of my mind.

Rest. A quiet word – four simple letters – uncomplicated – not intellectual – rest!

In my struggle to control the uncontrollable – to find happiness and love by my own efforts and decisions – I become judged by my own mind, and condemned to restless irritability and discontentedness – I become damned to an abyss of massive overwhelming loneliness – abandonment and rejection.

My God’s higher Presence reverses this diseased process, and in their unconditionally loving hearts and “arms”, I find a “Rest”. I am strangely at home, quietly and steadily loved, and the material world fades more and more into the vapor that it really is.

“Come unto Them and They will give you Rest.” We’ll leave the light on for you.

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