Experience Your Own (Rebellious) Resurrection – Quarantine-Style

These are strange times we live in, the global pandemic, forcing us into a 'quarantined' life and a major economic re-calculation; the unexpected onslaught of authoritarianism – the bizarre betrayal of our standards of fairness and civility by our 'leaders' in what we thought was our solid democracy...and all of it concurrent to the synchronicitous celebration of Spring. Cooped-up like this, it's easy to be overtaken by a rebellious urge, an urge that arises from the underlying sensation that things just aren't the way they're supposed to be. Life is absurd and crazy. Life is harsh and unjust. And this enforced isolation can make us feel that we're living in a personal exile of sorts, separated by the unfair complications of material life from a source of contentment and wholeness that we're naturally heir to – a source from within that we're currently forced to seek (and that we may occasionally be succeeding in finding). 

For me it seems that seeking and finding almost requires my being troubled – experiencing this profound discomfort to force me down the hard path that may eventually lead to inner peace. Then in those liberating moments when I manage to get there – however brief they are – I find a familiar, comfortable knowledge, an understanding when I seem to I know why I'm here. 

That, in a nutshell, is my experience of Gnosis – that rebellious urge to root out and live within Life's greatest solution.

"Get outta that state – outta that state you're in!

             The B 52s, Private Idaho

Simply put, Gnosis (coming from the Greek, for knowledge) is that knowledge – that understanding of transcendent being and belonging-to – that naturally arises from within our hearts. Inspired by the inner longing to reunite with a serene, unifying power that we inherently know to be our benevolent source, Gnosis isn't a product of any science, or even philosophy or religion, really. Instead, Gnosis is a personal discovery based in self-exploration and inner experience, and as such, it's experienced both as a process, and as a state-of-being.

It's natural that Gnosis is the product of that rebelliousness – after all, it is a search that requires rocking the boat a bit (or in this case, being stuck in this shaky little boat), since you have to abandon the definitions and conventions of who you are supposed to be, and what society says is important in order to open to a state of inner completion that really isn't available through any outer norms, religions, or institutions. In all its incarnations throughout human history, Gnosis has been the product of that personal alchemy, likened not only to the Hindu process of samadhi sought through forms of yoga, but also to the spiritual rebellion that led The Buddha to nirvana.

That's also why the search for Gnosis was originally associated with the early growing Christian insurrection. These pre-Christian rebels developed a process, a mythology, and a language of metaphor (including the idea of 'resurrection') that would lead an individual to enlightenment through personal inner experience, completely at odds with all of the prevailing religious institutions of the time – even Christianity itself. 

"Yeshua said: Whoever searches must continue to search until they find. When they find, they will be disturbed; and being disturbed, they will marvel and will reign over All."

The Gospel of Thomas, Logion 2

"The Gnostics," as referred to by academics were specifically those pre-Christian Hebrews and early messianic Christians whose "Messiah" primarily took the form of an inward self-realization of God. Everybody was [and is] a "Christ" in a personal way, or is capable of realizing their very own "Christhood" through an initiation, in which an initiate could dis-identify with the difficulties of their material being by way of an alternative practice of personal ritual, absolute honesty and nonviolence, and unselfish service – which sounds a lot like the things many of us have been forced to realize in our "stay-at-home" surrender, doesn't it?

Of course, in the harsh light of the religious, political, and economic institutions of the day, these alternatives – the social and economic re-alignments, and the realization of a personal divinity – was absolute heresy. The most stubborn sacred cows aren't really sacred at all, they're political and economic. At that time, the Gnostics 'radical' suggestions led to the genocide of these rebellious, peace-loving "heretics."  

The nicest, and probably the most influential of these heretics were called "Essenes" (essence, essential), a "fringe" sect of Hebraism that were happy to let the Establishment Pharisees and Sadducees run the show around the second Temple in old Jerusalem, just before the Christian Era. I suspect that like the segment of citizens we today call "Progressives," Essenes also made up a much greater share of the population than reported, but because they rejected destructive commerciality (including slavery), ritual sacrifice, and phony spiritual authority, it was the guys with the hats and swords who miswrote their history, as usual. Theirs was – and is to this day – the essential rebellion of those seeking Gnosis. 

(Present day media academics pigeonhole the Essenes as heretics hidden away in the caves of Qumran, near the Dead Sea, where a particularly devoted community of ritual Gnostics made their last stand. In fact, Essenes were less a part of Hebraism and more a spiritual nation of their own, spread out across civilization, and bridging the east to west, and the many disciplines oriented towards enlightenment through inward experience)

Essenes established inns called hospitals, where anyone was welcomed, healed, and fed. They practiced hygiene, strict vegetarianism, and holistic medicine way before any of that was cool. Everyone – man, woman and child – was spiritually equal, possessing the same spark of divinity and spiritual potential for unification with The Divine as anyone else. All that was required was initiation into "the secret teachings" of inward exploration, and the willingness to live a life of compassion and integrity. They were absolutely non-violent, and only participated in commercial and agricultural efforts that benefitted everyone. In short, they lived the ideals of Christianity, before Christianity.

In other online articles I've told a version of the wonderful Gnostic myth of Sophia, the princess of Wisdom, and her descent to earth to elevate humanity through the example of her struggle back up to the light, and her gift of consciousness to mankind through the power of feminine energy. It is the classic myth of metaphor, describing Gnosis in a way that resonates in the heart and mind. Summing up the essential myth of the Gnostic inner journey goes something like this:

Humanity is an expression of a Divine Light imprisoned in a clunky, imperfect plane of existence, surrounded by the beauty of human life and the earthly realm, but victimized by the suffering that is such a big part of it all. Each human contains a spark of the Divine Light within, and enduring Life's painful challenges (pandemic, for example) inspires the desire to reunite that inner spark with the great field of Divine Light, our Source, called the pleroma. It sounds quite a bit like Buddhism, doesn't it? That's because it is, in a way – there are ways, in ritual, action, and practice, that the suffering can be avoided.

The self-realization of the light within requires a more austere approach, a set of principles designed to merge the earthly ego with the eternal self; and a community of shared consciousness – individuals who are cooperatively seeking the same state of happiness, wholeness, and purpose. 

I find the elemental directness of Gnostic myth and scripture very helpful and instructive in these times of quarantine:

"Yeshua said: When you bring forth that within you, then that will save you. If you do not, then that will kill you.

The Gospel of Thomas, Logion 70

This is what attracted people like Joseph Campbell and Carl Jung to Gnosis and Gnosticism, the fact that it pre-dated every form of modern depth psychology with its remarkable synthesis of human experience into an applicable framework, and an alternative process of rebirth, recovery, and "resurrection" – like that which is forced on us at times like these. It's the timeless story of every authentic spirit's journey from a fearful, semi-conscious "death,” to the wholeness of a compassionately conscious “re-birth.” It symbolizes every individuals shared journey to wholeness and happiness, and the hard path we have to discover to lead us out of this darkness. 

"[Mythology inspires] the natural metaphysical impulse to transcend the illusion of separation."

Joseph Campbell

The Gnostics' understanding of Life was finally symbolized not as the iconic early Christian fish logo (submerged in the depths of the divine mystery), but as The Crucifixion Cross, symbolizing the horizontal experience of Life on earth – and the ego-death that's necessary to transcend it by way of the vertical inner knowledge and realization of our true ascendant nature and potential. That's what the cross really means (the Romans actually crucified people on short, X-shaped crosses, to save wood).

So Gnosis begins with an uncomfortability about Life (easy to imagine in the "stay-at-home" mode), and a rebellious dis-ease that moves us to reunite our selves with a wholeness and comfortable being that we're all entitled to. In this way, Gnosis is both a subtractive process – intentionally eliminating the unsupportable expectations and constraints of this style of human life; and it’s an expansive process – bringing us into the consciousness of our limitless potential by merging our damaged, earthly egos with a pure, eternal Love, accessible through our hearts.

But unfortunately, you may have to get a little pent-up first...

"When you make the two into one, when you make the inner like the outer, and the high like the low; when you make the male and the female into a single One…when you have eyes in your eyes, a hand in your hand…and an icon in your icon, then you will enter into the Kingdom."

The Gospel of Thomas, Logion 22

Discover the true Gnosis of the Gnostics, with all its ancient metaphoric mythology, and applications to contemporary spiritual psychology in Gnostic scriptures such as: The Gospel of Thomas, The Gospel of Phillip, The Pistis Sophia, The Gospel of Truth, The Gospel of Mary, and in many fine resources, like: Elaine Pagel's The Gnostic Gospels, Stefan Hoeller’s The Gnostic Jung, and Jung and the Lost Gospels, or in Carl Jung’s Seven Sermons to the Dead, and Answer to Job.

Read about concepts like these and much more in: How to Get to Heaven (Without Really Dying), Wisdom From a Near-Death Survivor  from Llewellyn Worldwide available direct on this page, or online. The first book: How to Survive Life (and Death), A Guide To Happiness In This World and Beyond is available the same ways – but ask for it at your local bookstore!

Is a Cultural "Anti-Christ" Bringing the Real "Rapture?"

"...our greatness lies not so much in being able to remake the world...as in being able to remake ourselves."

Mahatma Gandhi

We're a little like moss on a rock here on earth – a simple colony of life. In the same way that any collective life form experiences stress when the conditions for it's survival begin to change, our world is beginning to experience the very real stress of climate change, species extinction, environmental degradation, income inequality, and the spread of unsustainable lifestyles based on exploiting the planet. For all of us – as well as for each of us – there's a need to adapt. The destruction driven by blind predatory capitalism leads to the weird conflations of "patriotism" and religion, self-defeating delusions we see in the ugly ironic examples of market-based "winners," and "christians" supporting diabolical perverts and criminals because they are leading us to "The End of Days."  

Much of this grows out of a serious flaw in our culture's perception of Darwinism, which is not about "Survival of the Fittest," but actually about Survival of What Adapts in the Most Cooperative Way. What is it that carries us through the tough times, with Love? 

It's an altogether different definition of fitness. It's a spiritual fitness, based in a spiritual context – answering our human problems with the recognition of simple, spiritual answers. It's about real, quality survival.

For example, the biggest, meanest guy may clobber everyone who disagrees with him, take all the food, and force himself on the prettiest women; but his karma (created by ego and fear) and the failure to evolve spiritually in a world of expanding consciousness, will cause his destruction (sex specificity intended) – a genetic dead end. The richest guy may have the most secure, most isolated fortress, the largest vault of canned food, and the most guns and ammo; but his isolation and fearfulness will lead to spiritual atrophy, and the inward collapse of his shrinking world. Those attributes and characteristics that are associated with Power and domination are dying out, as those associated with Ethics and compassion are on the rise. Life on earth is always adapting – the parts that don't adapt, don't last on our biological time-table.

Hard times stress the colony, challenging it, forcing it to change; and now we see the shape that change is taking. It's like breaking up bad pottery, and soaking it until it softens and becomes the clay that forms the basis of real life, in order to start over. People are coming together to re-configure their world on that basis – what's actually real and important in life; inspired by a sudden common awareness of what the management of Earth's abundance actually entails, and what the real consequences of continued unconscious exploitation is leading to.

A new cooperation – an evolution –  is exploding into reality, based on the spiritual unification of humankind, facilitated by the internet, manifested in an expanding sense of a global community, called to action by the impending catastrophe of climate change. The explosion in clean energy, expanding cooperatives, reuse and recycling, uncontested environmentalism; the elections of Obama, of women, of representatives of diverse religion and ethnic backgrounds; and the impetus for universal health care, local food production, the accelerating growth of animal rights awareness, vegan and vegetarianism, social support systems of all kinds – as well as the public momentum to institute these ethical concepts by means of regulation and legislation (a result of the rise of destructive fascism in the world), is the shape of the change.

Extremists and fundamentalists – religious, financial, racist and militaristic fascists – are dividing themselves off from the majority of peace-loving, compassionate humans, and defining their differences in preparation to be shed from the whole. They actually constitute just a small part of the world's total population. The rise of climate-denying, pro-corporate racism and fascism actually marks the end of their world. It will be a little messy, but it's happening.

 Do everything you can to help it along. If you open your heart, you'll intuitively know what that is. You'll know how to behave, how to shop, how to contribute, how to vote. You already do.

In a manner of speaking, a kind of biblical "Rapture" is actually taking place now amongst those who are awakening to this new consciousness, many of whom are experiencing hard times, and finding themselves and their neighbors falling through the same cracks in the system that allow spiritual evolution to enter. These are fractures in the false world of materialistic consumerism, and a dis-identification with a media that's destructive by corporate design. The Christ Spirit that's returning isn't the bearded redhead in the paintings, it's the spirit of Ethics, Cooperation, Compassion, and Love.

Those who want it all, who think they have it all, who are trying to get as much as they can, and will do anything not to lose it; who want to prevent change and "make things great again" – who suffer the delusion of their superiority and entitlement – who think they can will the truth to be what they want, are fast being "Left Behind" in their spiritual morass, a private hell of their own making. But they won't remain here suffering while the blessed 80% ascend to Heaven – they'll simply become redundant. Their hateful opinions will hold no sway. Their methods of fear-mongering will become ineffective. 

 Your biggest job may be to help those you know and care for, who've been compromised by fear-mongering, to catch up to the change – by generously applying Love and compassion.

Heaven will return on Earth as we stop poisoning it (because we must), restore natural balance, use free energy, distribute the earth's resources equitably, and evolve into our truest "Divine State" of spiritually unifying our global human family. The balance is returning as it must, and if you're part of that change, you needn't worry about the hard times. What truly matters is what each and every one of us keeps in their heart – just be sure it's Love.

"Our present world is conditioned by our present mode of consciousness; only when that consciousness passes from its present dualistic mode...will the new creation appear, which is the external reality of which our world is a mirror."

  Bede Griffiths

Read about this and much more in: How to Get to Heaven (Without Really Dying), Wisdom From a Near-Death Survivor  from Llewellyn Worldwide available direct on this page, or online. The first book: How to Survive Life (and Death), A Guide To Happiness In This World and Beyond is available the same ways – but ask for it it at your local bookstore!

"Trying Out Your Angel Eyes" at The Mindful Word

Image by Alice Popkorn 

"When I imagine inhabiting Heaven, I sometimes consider what it would feel like to be an angel, and how it would be to return to this world to take up the effort to help earthly human beings get to Heaven, too."

This very generous excerpt from 

How to Get to Heaven (Without Really Dying), Wisdom From a Near Death Survivor

is gratefully featured at The Mindful Word.

It's "How to Get to Heaven (Without Really Dying)" Book Launch Time!

March 2018

I'm pleased and grateful to announce the release of my new book, exploring simple spiritual solutions for ourselves and our world (by someone who learned the hard way)

 From Llewellyn Books, it's: 

How to Get to Heaven (Without Really Dying), Wisdom From a Near-Death Survivor

NDE survivors, mystics, swamis, and saints have all described a Heaven of infinite Love, luminous radiance, and complete compassionate connectedness—but I'm here to tell you that you don't have to go to quite so much trouble to locate that Heaven on Earth in your everyday experience of life. It's all around us, and within us, all the time!

Here you'll find reviews from Thomas Moore, Anita Moorjani, Llewellyn Vaughn-Lee, and many others, for a voyage into the Perspective, Presence, and Purpose that can help us realize a kind of paradise, in any world we may happen to live... 

When Your Country Loses Its Soul, Hang On: “The Global Shift" is a Personal Thing

  

Now more than ever before it seems like our country is losing it’s soul—it’s connection to the real life of our world, but that's really nothing new since the materialistic sensibilities of 'modern Western' culture arrived in the Americas. The true story of our country as a political, material entity is pretty awful in many ways when you look at the actual impact we’ve had on the Life of the Earth.

Life will always feel rather lost (in every life you've ever lived) when you're exclusively connected to the world of the material—to the world of ego. In fact in those cases, the more materially-oriented the prevailing cultural attitudes are, the madder and more soulless the mad matter-world appears. The richer certain people get, the crazier and more mindlessly destructive they become. The Earth, in a completely justifiable protest, responds to man's fraudulent assertions to "success" and "control" by recycling life like shedding a skin, unfortunately now starting with the evacuation of the most innocently divine — the record loss of natural species we’re witnessing now. And so it appears more and more that the world loses its soul, because this diverse beauty is its expression of our collective global soul.

In truth everything is Divine, in every direction you look. Everything is incontrovertibly connected at an essential, elemental level—at the level of our shared Divine Ground of Being. When you consider the natural world, and the losses of it we're suffering as a result of our own actions, you feel the loss at that essential level—like part of yourself is being lost; because it is. That is your soul's recognition of your connection to The Divine. Unless you're paving over that awareness with self-importance and material gratification, you can’t help but feel it every day. The global "shift" in conscious awareness that we’re all hoping will save us is simply based in realizing that what never changes is what is really real—and what comes and goes isn't; and with the understanding that we are all the same Life, profoundly and irrevocably interconnected…and it will save us, but perhaps not right on our own schedule.

Thanks to growing population and instantaneous communication, many of us sense our Divine Connectedness arising in every direction we look, and it seems impossible that everyone hasn't become aware of our oneness, our mounting losses, and our increasingly precarious situation; but the sad fact is that they haven't. They can't see the obvious because the delusional ego-forms of the world they perceive dominate their reality. Sadly, there is no mass "shift" that is going to take place for these people—mostly men—that will remove the blinders from their eyes, and reveal the critical truths before it's too late. This ignorance is their karma. Everyone’s karma is to overcome this ignorance.

So, the miraculous shift is something that can only happen for you personally. It only ever has, and only ever will. That's the point of being in this world—for you to realize your divine connection to a deeper reality, regardless, in spite of, and inspired by the madness of the ever-changing material ego-world—a phenomenon the Hindus have long called maya—the play or illusion presented to us by human life on Earth. To think that there will be some chain of events that will inspire an instant change-of-heart for all those men who strive for "success" and control is to enter into the insane delusion that all of this can somehow be controlled. At best, we can only observe it, and respond and contribute to it as well as possible. To have compassion, and to be of service is to inspire the greatest possible “shift” for others. To behave unselfishly, responsibly, and to seek and express forms of Love is the only way to recreate Heaven on this Earth.

When we realize this, and let go of the need to control or fix the world, then we might "gain the world" — that is, we'll become able to move into other worlds of unimaginable beauty and potential, and create them around us. Those who don't get it, will continue to destroy the beauty of every world they inhabit — and we will always witness their madness, hopefully with enough compassion to allow us to make whatever changes we really can. Fortunately, it requires far fewer “enlightened” people to change the balance of the world; but that won’t happen until we reach that threshold of individual understanding and compassionate realization.

That's the true nature of this world—it's a place of great beauty, and great sadness, where the greatest thing we can gain or accomplish is that not-so-simple, extra-dimensional power we experience in our heart that we call Love. Everything else we must become willing to watch change and become willing to lose; and everything we wish to change, we can change, by bringing as much Love as possible to any world we occupy — but only one world at a time, starting with ourselves.

Read about this and much more in: How to Get to Heaven (Without Really Dying), Wisdom From a Near-Death Survivor  from Llewellyn Worldwide available direct on this page, or online. The first book: How to Survive Life (and Death), A Guide To Happiness In This World and Beyond is available the same ways – but ask for it it at your local bookstore!

The Real Rapture: Holiday Protests, Compassionate Consciousness, and Spiritual Evolution

We're a lot like moss on a rock, our humanity here on Earth – a simple, opportunistic colony of life, clinging to something alive that gives us Life. In the same way that any collective life form experiences stress when conditions for it's survival begin to change, our world is changing, and we're experiencing the stress. For all of us looking for solutions, wondering what to do, the answers are in front of us already in the simple intuitive need to adapt consciously – in that rapidly rising awareness that's showing us the way. The simple, clear truth of things.

Our corporate culture has wrongly modeled itself on misconstrued Darwinism. It's not about "Survival of the Fittest," it's about survival of what adapts in the most cooperative way. The triumph of which ideas benefit the most people all the time, without putting the whole at risk. So we really require only the simplest reliable human mechanisms to carry us through these tough times, mechanisms like Love, compassion, and cooperation. Like the shared vision of what's actually possible here on Earth that so many of us, all around the world, can plainly see.

It's an altogether different definition of success. A different definition of "fitness." A success based on the shared success of the human species. A fitness comprised of spiritual consciousness – the very kind that we can feel coalescing around and within us, right now.

The qualities and dogma associated with "Power," "Economics," and "Science" are dangerously anachronistic in the face of what's humanly possible, and what's humanly impossible. We simply can't successfully allow our present systems of commerce, governance, and resource management to continue on their present course, or to continue to deny the physical changes affecting our planet, and expect anything but catastrophe. Our reality is clearly changing.

For example: Aspects of Capitalism work very well to achieve certain goals, but the bottom line is that it's a mechanism that now serves money (and those most interested in it), not humanity or sane governance. Old Science is in denial of New Science, and strongly resembles a Flat Earth Society, of sorts. Our political system is too nearly completely compromised by corrupt capitalists to be effective for the vast majority of people.

All of us, red and blue, know these truths. It's an awareness born of our human spiritual evolution, of our progression. So our institutions of Power are losing their power. They all resemble pyramid schemes, slash and burn, where the earliest in and out thumb their noses at all the rest. Today there are ethical, spiritually conscious barbarians at their gates, and of course – they are us.

Something has happened…is happening. Human Beings are percolating together, re-configuring our world on the basis of what's real and necessary for life. Conscious humans are inspired by an awareness of what managing Earth's abundance actually entails; and understanding what science is really telling them – all with a profound [and beautiful] kind of non-violent presence, that suddenly seems most practical. It's the inheritance of Gandhi's ahimsa. It is a rebirth of the human spirit, the awakenings of Heaven on Earth.

In an irreversible way, a kind of "Rapture" is actually taking place now amongst those awakened to this consciousness in the world. Many people are having hard times, falling through the same cracks in The Wall Street of 'Rome' that allow spiritual evolution to enter; the fractures in the falseness of materialistic consumerism, and science in denial. As patriotic humans, this consciousness inspires a profound dis-identification with the corrupt media, political, scientific, and legal structures that clearly only serve a small, pathologically ego-driven minority.

Lifting us up is a new evolutionary cooperation – a reality based on the spiritual unification of humankind, facilitated by instantaneous global communication. A tsunami of racial and sexual tolerance, and of unity and community. An understanding of our new scientific realities, including the urgent need for clean technology, and free, clean power; the impetus for universal human rights; the reuse and recycling movement, and invigorated environmentalism; local food production; greater animal awareness; social support systems of all kinds – and the public momentum to institute these ethical concepts by means of a truer form of democracy. It is arising everywhere.

And it's all based on a simple spiritual mechanism we haven't seen enough of for a while, humility. The kind that engenders real sanity and responsibility. The Christ Spirit that has returned isn't the iconic bearded redhead with all the answers – it's this spirit of ethics, cooperation, compassion, and humility that is the answer. It's the profoundly practical spirit of Love – for ourselves, each other, and our blessed Mother Earth.

The real extremists, ironically called conservative, and the self-entitled religious, financial, and militaristic radicals, are dividing themselves off from the whole. Those who suffer the delusion of superiority and entitlement, who think they can will the world (even the weather) to be what they want, are being "Left Behind" in a spiritual morass – drunk on piety, greed, and destructive self-will. They don't have to stay back while the blessed ascend to Heaven, they are living in a fearful hell already. That's why they're grasping, arming-up; why they're consolidating. They actually constitute a very small part of the world's total population. They, too can be "saved," through what I like to call Compassionate Consciousness– the realization that we all share, and are responsibly for adding to, the Consciousness of the Planet Earth.

All the scary storms and politics and economics we're witnessing are actually bringing us together, cementing the understanding of our changing world, connecting us to each other in the most important ways. They're terrible times, yes, but they're breaking through the stupor of fearful apartness that so many people experience in their lives. They bring us to our true purpose, which is to love and help one another; and to appropriately manage the changing resources of the Earth, which are still and always boundless. In this way, Life is getting better, as it's getting worse!

In each of our lives, we've all experienced a little Heaven at one time or another. That's because Heaven is here. Heaven is here already, has always been here, and has always been meant to be here, right now.

The personal role we can all play is to reject willful ego, and recognize it in one another as the single most destructive disease of humanity – a spiritual disease that threatens to kill Mother Earth as we know her (…and would you, red or blue, allow someone to kill your mother?).

The balance is returning – as it will and must, and if you intuitively want to be part of it, what really matters is showing up for the change (like supporting the protesters), and embracing it! Personally become part of the solution. What's important is what each and every one of us keeps in their heart, as long as it's the intention and power of Compassionate Consciousness.

"For so [humanity] moves towards the infinity of the Truth by the ex-perience of its variety; so [consciousness] helps to build, change, destroy what [has been] built, and prepares a new construction, in a word, to progress, grow, enlarge in self-knowledge and world-knowledge, and their works."

Sri Aurobindo, The Human Cycle

(This is a special holiday blog, revisited and updated)

Read about this and much more in: How to Get to Heaven (Without Really Dying), Wisdom From a Near-Death Survivor  from Llewellyn Worldwide available direct on this page or online. The first book: How to Survive Life (and Death), A Guide To Happiness In This World and Beyond is available the same ways – but ask for it it at your local bookstore!

Stick With the Love Group – "The Secret" To How It Saves Worlds

If you know me, you know I'm a pretty regular guy. I like baseball, and westerns, and swordfight movies. A big thick seitan steak, hot off the grill. Why, I even spit, occasionally. So why is it that, like some romantic schoolgirl, I always want to talk about Love? Well, it's because of what happened in here (he says, pointing to his heart).

In all of my very varied experiences, even to Hell and back, you might say, I have never, in all of my life, known a force to be even a fraction as powerful as Love. It's absolute. It's all-encompassing. Not only is it:  a) the purposeful power that animates every experience, interest, and expression of value in our lives;  b) the eternal, trans-dimensional quantum field of creation and communication; but it's even  c) the clearest, simplest solution to every misdirected ill and injury ever perpetrated on our planet (and beyond). Not bad, eh?

Think of your life (think of anyones life), and you'll find there isn't an episode of deep significance that wasn't created in the search to express Love – or in the struggle caused by a lack of it. Its presence, or absence is what drives, and has driven, every great accomplishment, and every sad passage in the roller coaster history of humanity. It's the truth of our lives – our families and friendships, art and culture, successful careers, unimaginable feats – all inspired by the search, or scarcity, of Love.

So what does that mean to us, really? It means you can quit overlooking the simple fact that Love is the foundation of everything. You can honestly acknowledge that solid bond in your heart, that unshakeable understanding that everything you do is really a means to find it, express it, experience it. Every encounter is an opportunity to engage, and depend on that energy. You can just start living that way.

"The love that you share is the only thing you need to know. It is the green place from which all good things grow and spread into every part of your life. That is where God lives and constantly cares for you, so that all your worries may disappear."

                                             Anne 

Do you believe in guardian angels, the spirits of your ancestors, or the Sweet Hereafter? Do you believe that by holding the focus of a dream in your heart, you can bring it into reality in your life? It doesn't matter, really, whether you believe those things or not, they're still real. If you need proof, if you want science, then you could consider the first law of thermodynamics – that energy is never lost, it only changes form. That's the energy of your ancestors' spirits, or the energy you put into making your dreams come true (hint: they're the same energy). Love is the source and channel of that creative focus; and the bridge between life and "death."

You can actually talk to your angels and ancestors – extra-dimensionally – but only if you've engaged them via the field of Love. Only if you believe in, and utilize the technology of the heart, that gives us access to that deep channel of communication, flowing through everything. Love provides the pathway to the light, like opening a gate, or like tuning it in, station-to-station. Carefully, too, Love can open the channel into the darkness, where curative mysteries lay suppressed – in which case, it is essential to be thoroughly grounded in Love, and use it as a kind of secure platform, or as a shield.

You can bring whatever you wish for, whatever you imagine, into being through Love – but not in the material way that usually leaps into mind. (There's a secret to "The Secret") You're not necessarily going to receive the obvious spoils of a material life (though they may come too), because you're not writing the story of your external life, you're forming the foundations of your inner life. You won't make a treasure appear by just thinking about it. Your most magical manifestations may not even be in a form you recognize, at first; you will have to get your material expectations out of the way. Listen to this lesson about how to use Love to get what you wish for from Krishna in The Bhagavad Gita, 7:21:

"When a person is devoted to something with complete faith, I unify [their] faith in that. Then, when [their] faith is completely unified, [they] gain the object of [their] devotion. In this way, every desire is fulfilled by me. Those whose understanding is small attain only transient satisfaction…"

Some people love the idea of something they want, then close their eyes, ball their fists, and try to will it into being – then resign themselves to disappointment when nothing comes of it. But that's not being devoted with Love. The real secret often lies in what a person already has. Love doesn't give them what they try to will into being, it has already given them the object of their deepest devotion. "The box you've been sitting on for so long actually contains your greatest treasure." Love is always providing purpose, and a deeper sanity and clarity, that empowers us to choose our path to fulfillment, in every moment. 

"None of the means employed...has a sixteenth part of the value of loving-kindness. Loving-kindness, which is freedom of the heart, absorbs them all; it glows, it shines, it blazes forth."

                                            The Buddha

And there is the solution to all the troubles of the world! The sanity and clarity that engaging the field of Love gives us, 'hidden' in plain sight, just beneath the layer of self-delusion that seems to be our deepest human [de]fault. In that clear light of Love's sanity, the insane elements of our destructive tendencies are revealed. With great wisdom and directness, Love segregates the 'evils' of willful ego, guiding each and every one of us to the proper actions we may take in our personal, and collective, lives.

For examples of the kind of boundaries Love can set, consider this: It is destructively insane to allow corporate interests to murder the most modestly powerful creatures of the world, pollinators like bees and butterflies; the base of the oceans food-chain, like krill and plankton. Love empowers you, personally, to refuse to allow it.

It is destructively insane to poison the atmosphere by burning fossil fuels, when the solution is already viable and attainable. Love empowers you to support that solution, and reject the archaic (and criminal) motivations of a relatively small number of corporate profiteers.

It is insanity to continue to embrace the ignorance that limits our greatest potential – the recognition of our spiritual connection, and responsibility to our planet, and all of our fellow creatures. Love provides us the means to realize our sacred agreement – the dependence we share, and the real contributions we can make to the divine dynamic of this world, and any world we will ever inhabit.

So, when you want to make your dreams come true; or, when times get tough (and they will…), stick with the Love group – those with whom you may share the path of Love – for direction, protection, and your real life's purpose. 

"The deepest wisdom and power that Love can give you, lies in the energy you hold in your heart, and how you project it into your world." 

                                    Anne

Read about concepts like these and much more in: How to Get to Heaven (Without Really Dying), Wisdom From a Near-Death Survivor  from Llewellyn Worldwide available direct on this page, or online. The first book: How to Survive Life (and Death), A Guide To Happiness In This World and Beyond is available the same ways – but ask for it at your local bookstore!