LSP54: Why Hatred Is a Free Will Choice - And Why Everyone Needs to Face the Truth About Hatred

 

It's common these days for spiritual leaders of all stripes to speak eloquently and volubly of love's power to heal the world. We're especially keen to talk about the power of love after we've been asked to deal with yet another horrific attack on innocent people, such as the recent gun attack at Stoneman Douglas high school in Florida  or the van attack in Toronto. When our fellow human beings choose to behave like monsters, we're quick to respond by sharing thoughts and prayers on social media, holding candlelight vigils, and making donations on crowd-sourcing sites. This is all well and good. What I don't see is a willingness on the part of influential commentators to ask why the violent perpetrators felt such hatred towards others and why they thought it was okay to act on their hatred. I don't see people asking what hatred is and why we're seeing a resurgence of this beastly human emotion throughout the world.

It's not good enough to sweep these questions under the carpet by proclaiming that hatred is simply a void in a person's head where love should be, as if it's not the hate-filled person's moral responsibility.

Hatred is not a lack of anything. Hatred is a moral choice. And unless a person can demonstrate that his/her biological brain has been catastrophically damaged by a head injury or a psychotic break or a viral attack or mercury poisoning or severe dementia or something else along the lines of an extreme physiological force, that person is responsible for the choice to hate others. 

As with all major meta-choices in life, hatred is a learned behaviour that evolves over time. You don't suddenly wake up one morning and decide to hate everyone whose name starts with a "J" (unless, as mentioned in the paragraph above, you've experienced a traumatic brain injury). Hatred is way of coping with a life you just don't like, a life that doesn't match what you believe you're entitled to. Hatred rewrites your brain's moral code and gives you permission to override the quiet whispering of  your soul's inner voice (that is, your conscience).

Irrefutable proof that hatred is a moral choice is found in the history of slavery among human cultures throughout time, region, and religious tradition. No one of conscience could ever believe that slavery is acceptable to God or the soul. Yet countless millions have persuaded themselves that slavery is a morally acceptable way to take what they think God owes them. Shown here is part of an Egyptian wall painting on display at the British Museum, London, UK. Photo credit JAT 2024.

Here is my working definition of hatred: Hatred is the choice to project your own personal responsibility onto somebody else so you don't have to deal with the consequences of your own thoughts, feelings, or actions. 

Hatred is the choice to blame other people for your own lack of happiness.

Hatred is the choice to blame other people for your own selfishness.

Hatred is the choice to blame other people for your own status addiction.

Hatred is the choice to blame other people for your own lack of self-knowing and self-love.

Hatred is the choice to blame other people for the rage you feel when someone tells you you've made a mistake.

Hatred is the choice to blame other people for the rage you feel when someone tells you you're not special and you're not chosen and you're not "better" than anyone else.

Hatred is the choice to blame other people for the rage you feel when someone tells you you're not perfect and you're never going to be perfect.

Hatred is the choice to blame other people because you don't think you should ever have to deal with your own feelings of shame or guilt.

Hatred is the choice to blame other people when you realize you haven't yet achieved your "rightful" place as a saviour, Messiah, or enlightened teacher of justice and mercy, a place you're so certain you deserve.

Hatred is an inevitable consequence of your own belief that you already know yourself so well that you couldn't possibly fool yourself into believing things about yourself that simply aren't true.

In short, hatred is your brain's way of trying to prove to itself that you're a really nice person who's trying to save others when, in fact, you're a mean, nasty person who's narcissistic and selfish and refuses to take personal responsibility for your own choices and beliefs and attitudes towards others.

Among the narcissistic self-delusions that create no end of human suffering are these:

• a belief that you're incapable of making mistakes because you have all the right education and all the right knowledge
• a belief that you're better than other people because you have the only correct ideological understanding of the universe
• a belief in the superiority of your own mental processes because your logic is obviously impeccable
• a belief that you deserve to feel moral outrage if anyone suggests you should feel shame or guilt about the choices you've made (including religious choices)
• a belief that you're using all your exquisite knowledge and specialness and logic to save other people from their own stupidity (though you probably realize you shouldn't say this part out loud)

Hatred is a terrible force, and it creates indescribable suffering in the world, but it exists only because individual human beings and certain communities allow it to exist.

It exists where individuals and ideological communities refuse to be honest with themselves about what human beings are capable of when they embrace a loving and humble relationship with God and with themselves. 

Of course, the choice to love with humbleness and courage is also a choice. Love and hate are at opposite ends of the free will spectrum. But the great thing about free will is that you can change your mind about the kind of person you want to be. Even if your family, religious community, or social community have encouraged you to be a person who hates, you can always decide you no longer want to be that person. You can decide to learn -- to remember -- how to love.

A particular passage in the New Testament summarizes these thoughts beautifully. The passage I'm thinking of is found in 1 Corinthians 13:1-8a, so it's long been attributed to the apostle Paul. I'm pretty certain, however, that this short and timeless ode to Divine Love was written by Jesus and later stolen by Paul as part of the latter's ongoing efforts to make his teachings seem more closely aligned with those of Jesus.

It goes like this (using the NRSV translation, mostly):

If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have piety, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give away all my possessions, and if I hand over my body so that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.

Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

Love never ends. 

What love looks like: Light, openness, shared space, healing beauty, one well of water that quenches the thirst of all people equally. Shown here is the well in the cloister garden of Westminster Abbey, London, England. Photo credit JAT 2023.

LSP49: Humanity's Search for Meaning in the 2016 U.S. Election

This post has gone through a lot of changes since I wrote it just after the 2016 U.S. elections. Sometimes I edit my posts when I find typos or a lack of clarity. But this post is different. I wrote it about a particular U.S. political leader, a leader who rapidly used his position to become less and less the person I hoped he might be, and more and more the sort of person I can't support. 

As time went on, it became clear that what I originally wrote here no longer applied. I wondered what to do about this post. I thought about deleting the whole thing. But then I decided to use all the changes as a reminder that's it's okay for spiritual people to pay attention to what's going on in the world and to have opinions about political events. In fact, I'd go so far as to say it's essential for spiritual people to notice when leaders are sowing seeds hatred instead of courage. So now this post is a series of thoughts that are in reverse order, starting with my most recent impressions and working backwards to January 2021.

 

In 2021, after I moved into a new home, I discovered this plaster plaque had snapped in half during the moving process. I reminds me of what happens inside the brain of a person who has abandoned his or her own conscience. Angels stop gathering with you. Angels have free will, and although they always love you and forgive you, they aren't obliged to help you if you're voting for world leaders who know only Hatred. Photo credit JAT 2021.

Addendum March 1, 2025:  I wrote this short piece for an online forum. It expresses how I'm feeling about the current U.S. political swamp, so I'm adding it to this post. For context, I'm writing about the disastrous Oval Office meeting that took place between Trump 2.0, Vice-President Vance, and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on February 28, 2025.

So yesterday afternoon, I decided it would be nice to lie down on my sofa and have a bit of a rest after lunch. The sun was peeking out after a long, heavy, winter rain, and I thought, "Yes, it can't hurt to have a nap."

And while I was sleeping, Trump and Vance decided it was a good time to try to wreck the whole world.

I'm tired of hearing Trump say he wants the war in Ukraine to end because "millions of people are dying." If he cared at all about the lives of regular people, he wouldn't have chosen the dogs of hellfire to be his closest advisors.

The lies, the hypocrisy, the projection onto others of all his own venom -- these are the traits of a human being who has given up any semblance of decency, compassion, courage, and self-awareness.

Some commentators have suggested it would have been better if the conversation between Zelenskyy, Trump, and Vance had taken place behind closed doors. I disagree. Bullies, narcissists, and psychopaths adore secrecy, because secrecy allows them to deny they ever violated anyone.

Because it was all caught on film, individuals can now decide for themselves what they saw, what they learned, and what side of the debate they resonate with. Regardless of what one believed the day before yesterday about these three men, there's no unseeing the real intents that emerged in the Oval Office yesterday.

It's better that we know and keep remembering what we all saw (even though it's triggering for far too many people).

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Addendum posted November 2, 2024: Today, I'm doing something I've never done before. I've decided to delete the entire post I originally wrote on November 11, 2016. I'm deleting it because the election campaign of 2024 has taught me that vehement supporters of Donald Trump are willing to embrace any lies he tells them. These supporters have abandoned their own conscience and their own inner voice. They've decided they shouldn't have to take personal responsibility for their own choices. Many seem happy to follow any conspiracy theory rather than do the hard work of finding meaning through the Soul's courage.

If I leave the original post intact, it will be misused. And those who want to misuse it will get away with it because far-right Trump supporters aren't interested in the moral code taught by Jesus. They're trying to grow a very different kind of religious tree, one rooted in purity, piety, and perfection. They believe the glorification of Trump will bring about some sort of utopian restoration. They believe all their lies and all their violent, misogynistic rhetoric are justified because their goal is so worthy.

They are wrong.

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Addendum posted January 3, 2024: Because of recent changes in how individuals tend to read online posts and use -- or rather, misuse -- posts (by taking bits and pieces out of context and using catchy phrases to support their personal crusades), I want to say right up front, before you get to the paragraphs I wrote in November 2016, that I do not support former President Donald Trump in any way on any topic. Nor am I likely to ever change my mind. He is a coward -- a bullying, narcissistic, selfish coward.

In 2016, I didn't have the evidence to support or condone a flat out, across the board denunciation of the personality and policies of Donald Trump. But since the January 6, 2021 violence on Capitol Hill, Trump has, through his own words and actions, provided abundant proof about the kind of man he really is. Today, I wouldn't vote for him if he were the last person in Christendom.

Following this addendum is the post I originally wrote over seven years ago. You can decide for yourself whether Trump believes he's been elevated to the status of God.

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Addendum posted January 13. 2021: It's been a bit over 4 years since I wrote this post, and, during this time, a lot has changed. The entire world has been dealing with the unexpected travails of the novel coronavirus we call COVID-19. And the United States has again struggled with an election where a man named Donald Trump has forced a debate about the soul.

I'm writing this addendum on the day the U.S. House of Representatives is going to vote on a motion to impeach Trump for inciting insurrection. I hope the vote succeeds.

Over the past four years, Trump has shown with increasing clarity that he has no courage. He doesn't have the courage to listen to his own soul, let alone the souls of millions of Americans who needed a courageous leader during the 2020 pandemic, but instead found themselves saddled with someone who could only think about his own loss of Happiness when he lost the fall election.

On the plus side, people from both the Democratic and Republican parties have been appalled by the barrage of lies spewed by Trump and his closest supporters, lies that directly incited violence on Capitol Hill on January 6, 2021. America has been forced to see the ugly side of rhetoric, personality cults, and dualistic political mongering -- all negative aspects of System 2 when left unchecked by System 1.

It's a lesson we all should have learned from 20th century history, but apparently we needed a refresher. 

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LSP34: Signs and Wonders and Mummified Monks

"Mummified monk in Mongolia 'not dead', say Buddhists." This is the headline on a short article that appeared this week on the BBC news. Other news sites carried similar stories.

To recap, a very well preserved mummified Buddhist monk was discovered in Mongolia last week. The body is seated in the lotus position (a position that assists in entering an intentional meditative state) and the monk appears to have died while in this position. The body (the exact age of which isn't certain) was recovered by police just before it was about to be sold on the black market.

What's extraordinary about this story is not that a mummified body was found in a cold, dry climate (which preserves body tissues quite well), but that an expert, Dr. Barry Kerzin (a Buddhist monk and physician to the Dalai Lama) has gone on record to say it's possible the monk may not be dead at all. He may, according to Dr. Kerzin, be in a rare meditative state called "tukdam."

Dr. Kerzin apparently told the Siberian Times this:

'If the person is able to remain in this state for more than three weeks - which rarely happens - his body gradually shrinks, and in the end all that remains from the person is his hair, nails, and clothes. Usually in this case, people who live next to the monk see a rainbow that glows in the sky for several days. This means that he has found a 'rainbow body'. This is the highest state close to the state of Buddha'.

He added: 'If the meditator can continue to stay in this meditative state, he can become a Buddha. Reaching such a high spiritual level the meditator will also help others, and all the people around will feel a deep sense of joy'.

The Siberian Times article also reports that "over the last 50 years there are said to have been 40 such cases in India involving meditating Tibetan monks.

You can read about a recent example of this on the website of the Benchen Monastery Community.  There, they offer notice of the death of Kyabje Tenga Rinpoche, who "chose to end the state of Tukdam, which is the deep meditative composure that some realized masters enter into after the demise of their physical bodies, after three and half days." The notice also describes the unusual weather conditions that took place on the day of Kyabje Tenga Rinpoche's 2012 death. The unseasonal thunderstorms, followed by rainbows, were not thought to be coincidental or irrelevant, the notice strongly implies.

The point I want to make is this: Although you might like to believe that Buddhism isn't a religion, but is instead an atheistic, secular, humanist spiritual practice, it is not.

Buddhism is, and always has been, a religion. This is especially obvious in Mahayana Buddhism and Vajrayana Buddhism (of which the Dalai Lama's school of Tibetan Buddhism is a part).

Buddha, Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto, Ontario. Photo credit JAT 2017.

ROM text accompanying the Buddha sculpture.

Some readers might have noticed the similarity between the description of Kyabje Tenga Rinpoche's death and the description of Jesus' death (the whole 3-day-thing plus multiple signs and wonders). The similarities aren't surprising, though, because certain themes and symbols -- like the number 3 -- draw our attention and ignite our spiritual curiosity. Our innate attunement to coincidences and universal patterns, along with our heightened awareness during times of intense emotional transition, are all part of our hardwired need for mystery. It's mystery that swirls and swims beneath the bridges of our hearts. Quiet questions wend their way into our creativity, intuition, spirituality, storytelling, and we long to know what's hidden across the next bridge in our lives and our relationships. Signs and wonders from God become beacons to remind us that the bridges between our hearts and God's Heart are ever present.

I've seen many signs and wonders, and I know they pop into our lives far more often than people realize. But inexplicable signs aren't just for religious people; they're for everyone, because all of us are children of God and all of us need reminders that mystery is important to our hearts and souls.

Despite what you may have heard from your leaders, no one religious group has a monopoly on signs and wonders -- neither Christianity nor Buddhism nor any other group. Everyone who lives on Planet Earth is part of the same Creation. There isn't one Creation for Christians and a different Creation for Buddhists. We all come from the same place (God's Heart). We all live under the same roof here on Planet Earth. We all live by the same "house rules" while we're here (which is why the need for morality is universal). And we all return to the same place when we die (claims for apotheosis notwithstanding).

Do I think the mummified monk is still alive and in a deep state of tukdam? No, I do not. I think the poor man is dead. I think he's been dead for a long, long time, and I think we should trust that and let him be dead instead of trying to force the mantle of Buddhahood onto his very shrivelled shoulders. (Did you check out the photo on the BBC?)

Do I think it's possible his physical body -- what remained after his soul and his biology parted ways -- has been miraculously preserved?

I think it's theoretically possible. I really do. I've seen much stranger things than abnormally extended tissue preservation. (And tissue preservation is, after all, simply a matter of knowing your chemistry, physics, and biology really, really well -- a particular talent of God.)

The real question is this: what does this news story tell you about you? What does this story make you think about? Do you want to laugh with contempt and call it all a hoax? Or do you have a small itchy sense of spiritual curiosity in the very back of your head?

If you're just a little bit curious, it's a good sign.

P.S. Thank you to the persons-of-soul who made this discussion possible. Without you, we couldn't do this! Amen.

Postscript February 26, 2015:  Please see "Eerie remains of 1,000-year-old mummified monk inside Buddhist statue unveiled by CAT scan," which was posted this week on Canada's National Post news site. Please see also another helpful story story posted this week by the BBC about the elaborate and beautiful Ajanta caves used by the Buddhist community of India’s Maharashtra state until the complex was abandoned in the early 6th century CE. Again, my point is that Buddhism is a religion, not just a simple philosophy or way of life that anyone can -- and should -- incorporate into their spiritual journey. It's up to you to decide whether the religious doctrines of Buddhism are right for you. But please don't pretend there are no doctrines!

LSP24: Fox & Sheldrake's "Angels in the New Millennium": A Response

At the end of Fox and Sheldrake's book about angels -- The Physics of Angels: Exploring the Realm Where Science and Spirit Meet -- the two authors provide a neat and tidy summary of "some of the lessons we have learned." These "lessons" are based on Fox and Sheldrake's modern reinterpretation of the mystical writings of Dionysius the Areopagite, Hildegard of Bingen, and St. Thomas Aquinas. (Please see my last LSP post: Look! Up in the Sky! It's a Bird, It's a Plane, It's . . . Pseudo-Dionysius!)

 

One true thing about angels is that human beings generally see them as beautiful beings with wings. This sculpture graces one of the side chapels in Westminster Abbey, London, UK. Photo credit JAT 2023.

Here is the summary list from pages 193-194 of their book. Fox and Sheldrake's theories about angels are shown in blue. My responses are shown in black. 

"Angels are very numerous; they exist in astronomical numbers. There are many other kinds of consciousness in the cosmos besides human consciousness." Well, yes, angels are very numerous, and angels do exist in all places in the universe, but the way Fox and Sheldrake discuss consciousness is a red herring. To be an independent being is to have consciousness. All beings in the universe have consciousness. All beings in the universe (except for God the Mother and God the Father themselves) are children of God the Mother and God the Father. All beings in the universe are souls. All beings in the universe are angels. In other words, "having consciousness" has the same meaning as "being a child of God" which has the same meaning as "being a soul" which has the same meaning as "being an angel." These four phrases are synonyms for the same thing. So there is only one "kind of consciousness" in the universe. Having said that, I'd like to emphasize the fact that although there's only one kind of consciousness, there are countless different ways of expressing that consciousness. Angels are all equally important to God, but angels are all quite different from each other in the way they express their unique consciousness.

"Angels have been present from the origin of the universe." No. Angels have not been present from the origin of the universe. This is a very old idea that stems from theological claims for the timelessness and immutability (i.e. permanent lack of change) of God. Certain human beings at certain times in history have claimed that God is immutable and unchangeable and outside time and space because this claim has suited certain human agendas and political motives (especially human agendas involving claims for the divine status and authority of assorted human political and religious leaders). The reality is that God the Mother and God the Father are changing all the time, as are we, their children. Part of this reality is the reality that new angels (or souls) are being born all the time. As we speak, new angels are being born somewhere within God the Mother and God the Father's immense heart. Some of these newborn angels may one day choose to incarnate on one of the planets in our universe where some angels (though not all angels) choose to incarnate for purposes of learning, growth, and change. All angels who are currently incarnated on Planet Earth as "animals" (defined here as multicellular, eukaryotic organisms of the kingdom Animalia (also called Metazoa)) are fairly young angels in the grand scheme of things. Being a young angel doesn't mean you're an inferior angel. It means you're an impatient angel who learns better by "doing" than by "hearing."

"They exist in a hierarchical order of nested levels within levels." No. Angels do not exist within hierarchies of spiritual ascent as described by Pseudo-Dionysius (or by Fox and Sheldrake), with some angels being closer to God than others because of their greater wisdom and purity. All such claims are damaging and hurtful. All angels in the universe -- every single one from youngest to oldest, smallest to biggest, intellectually brilliant to intellectually challenged -- are equally close to God and equally cherished by God the Mother and God the Father. GOD DON'T MAKE NO JUNK.

"They are the governing intelligences of nature." No. God the Mother and God the Father are the governing intelligences of nature, with all God's children being helpers and students in this great task. When you think you're hearing the voice of God in the wisdom of an ancient tree or an ancient rock, guess what . . . you're actually hearing the voice of God. (How cool is that?) Fox and Sheldrake, along with many others over the centuries, have tried to insert angels and nature spirits/devas into the reality of "God-as-Nature-and-God-as-Science" to separate you from God. While you may indeed have an experience of an angel while you're sitting quietly beside an ancient tree or ancient rock, the reason the angel is there is because angels -- like you -- want to hear the stories God the Mother and God the Father are telling us through the mediums of tree and water and wind and rock. Some angels, however, don't have to incarnate in order to hear these stories. They simply "visit" for short times. Sometimes humans and/or animals can see or hear or feel the presence of these "visiting angels." (Another important possibility is that you're sensing the presence of your own guardian angel while you're enjoying Nature, but I'll get to that in a minute.)

"They have a special relationship to light, fire, flames, and photons. There are astonishing parallels between Aquinas and Einstein with regard to the nature of angels and of photons: in their locomotion and mode of movement, their agelessness, and their being massless." Okay, this particular point just makes me want to throw up. First off, I want to remind everybody that Einstein was WRONG about non-locality, so to use Einstein (or the Aristotle-adoring-Aquinas) as a reliable authority to discuss the physics of angels is a stupid way to start. To follow up this form of stupidity with the idea that angels are massless -- when physicists have almost no understanding at all about the nature of dark matter, dark energy, gravitational fields, or magnetism, and physicists don't know why only about 5% of the known energy of the universe takes the form of baryonic matter (what we call 3D matter) -- is just . . . just arrogant and simplistic and scientifically implausible. Massless? You really think consciousness is massless? Consciousness is full of mass -- it's just not 3D mass, so physicists don't understand it and have no models at present to explain it. Also, it's wrong to state that angels have "a special relationship to light, fire, flames, and photons" because this denies the equality of angels who have a special relationship to water or to heliospheric energies or to gravitational fields or to the periodic table of elements or to any of the other countless and amazing and breathtaking forms of expression that angelic consciousness takes in God's great Creation. Get over the idea that light=God. Much of God's great Creation thrives within varied forms of "darkness." As far as God is concerned, if an angel is more comfortable in a quiet, private, dark environment (as on the ocean floor), that's a good thing. Divine Love is found in everything -- not just in light, fire, flames, and photons.

"They are musical in nature and work in harmonious relationship with one another." Finally, a point I can agree with! Yes, angels are musical in nature because music is one of God's important languages. But music isn't the only language angels use. Even more surprising, not all angels sing the same songs or even enjoy the same songs. Some angels love country, while others don't resonate with country at all. This is okay with God. Why should all angels like the same music? Why should they all sing the same songs? As long as you share the songs you love, and sing them joyfully from the heart, God is happy.

"The majority are friendly, but not all. Christ has power over the angels."  What the F@#&!  Please see point above: GOD DON'T MAKE NO JUNK. There are no "bad" or "evil" or "fallen" angels. There are no souls in creation who choose NOT to be part of God the Mother and God the Father's wondrous, loving, harmonious, kooky, surprising, courageous family. Fox and Sheldrake are repeating an ancient idea that's often been used to explain why certain people (people who think they deserve to be treated well by God) have ended up in tragic and difficult situations. This is part of the millennia-old tradition of Wisdom literature that says if you obey all of God's "divinely revealed laws," you'll be rewarded with many blessings (e.g. health, long life, wealth, many children, or whatever your particular culture believes is most desirable). Of course, God and your guardian angels don't necessarily agree with your belief in what's most desirable, and when they don't agree with you, you can be sure they'll express their opinion to you. Directly and often. You'll just have to learn to understand what they're saying to you and why.

"They have a special relationship to human consciousness. We human beings help link the earthly world with cosmic intelligences." This is another idea that's been kicking around for millennia in most major world religions. It's sometimes known by its Judaic name, Tikkun olam. (Tikkun olam   תקון עולם in Hebrew, is a phrase that means "repairing the world" or "healing the world," which suggests humanity's shared responsibility to heal, repair and transform the world). It's also an idea that shows up in some philosophical theories about humanity's relationship to the Dao. Basically, it's a highly anthropocentric idea that says human beings have a special role to play in the great cosmic plan to heal the universe. Of course, this assumes there is a great cosmic plan to heal the universe . . .  So is it at least true that angels have a "special relationship to human consciousness"? Well, yes. But this is only because each angel who incarnates on Planet Earth is sent along with a whole team of guardian angels to guide that one individual, and this team of angels always includes some of the angels who are closest to the incarnated angel when we're Home on the Other Side in non-3D form. So of course it feels as if we have a "special relationship" with our guardian angels! They're some of our closest friends in the universe!

"Angels may have played a special role in the birth of language." I don't even know what to say to this one. Language is intrinsic to consciousness. Language is, in fact, one of the defining characteristics of consciousness. There are many forms of language in God's Creation (as mentioned above). Human beings don't have a monopoly on language on Planet Earth. In fact, some biologists who study animal culture are finally going on record to describe what most of the rest of us have always known: animals have their own "languages" and forms of specific communication with each other -- and also with us! The most important factor in the development of advanced language skills is relationship. Those who aren't exposed to strong relationships of love and empathy and respect in their early years probably won't develop strong language skills during their lives on Earth. In so far as relationships of love and empathy and respect are central to the human ability to connect with God and God's angels, I guess one could say angels played -- and CONTINUE to play -- a role in the development of our language skills.

Okay, skipping ahead here on Fox and Sheldrake's list because even I'm starting to get exhausted . . .

"Their primary role is praise" AND "They are present at holy worship." Well, crap. These two short statements show such a profound lack of understanding about who God is and what Divine Love is that if you want to know my full response to these statements, you're going to have to read all 189 posts on my first four blogs. (Doesn't that sound like fun?)

My short answer to these two statements is this: an angel's job is NOT to offer praise and worship to God (although angels are always hugging Mother Father God and saying thank you to show our appreciation). While it's true that angels ARE present at human services of religious worship, it's only because guardian angels never abandon their charges and never leave their sides for a moment. This means that your guardian angel is with you 24/7 from the time you're conceived until the moment you die and are taken Home by God the Mother and God the Father. This has always been true for every incarnated being on Planet Earth, and this will always be true, because God the Mother and God the Father would never ever contemplate leaving you alone for a second. So Fox and Sheldrake's eschatological idea that "the good angels are coming, the good angels are coming" is hogwash. Our angels have never left us and never will.

Your guardian angels are always with you. This means your angels see every little choice you're making. They see you when you're not being loving; they see you when you're going to church or temple or synagogue and repeating awful things about God; they see you when you're buying into religious myths that insist God favours human beings over all over creatures; and they see you when you're choosing Platonic and Gnostic myths over God's loving and scientific realities.

That's the bad news.  The good news is  . . . your angels forgive you!


For Further Reflection:

It's all about the big picture.

The big picture is the only thing your angels are interested in. The big picture guides the decisions made by your guardian angels. The big picture shapes the events you don't want and didn't ask for. The big picture takes precedence over your human beliefs and prayers.

For angels, the big picture is all about relationships -- knowing God the Mother and God the Father in ways we didn't think possible, and knowing ourselves in ways we didn't think possible. And relationships are the messiest, least logical experiences of our human lives, right? Relationships involve struggle. And confusion. And miscommunication. And healing. And forgiveness. And love. And pain.

Yes, it's painful to be a human being with a Heart. It's painful to know grief. It's painful to wrestle with forgiveness. It's painful to let go of denial and embrace self honesty and personal change. And it's especially painful if you spend your whole life denigrating the Heart and exalting the Mind. Pursuing the Mind's goals (purity, piety, and perfection) at the expense of the Heart's goals  (humbleness, humour, and health) is the worst feeling of all for a human being. That's the whole point as far as your guardian angels are concerned. They want you to have the chance to wrestle with your own free will. They want you to see what it feels like to make really bad choices. It's only when you're faced with the stark reality of your terrible mistakes that you have the chance to dig deep into your own courage, your own love, and your own forgiveness. In doing so, you learn important truths about yourself as a child of God. You learn an eternal lesson about the infinite power of Divine Love to fix the Mind's screw-ups.

So yes, your guardian angels will sometimes let you fall flat on your face. And other times they'll step in to stop you from messing up your whole life. It depends on the situation, though. It depends on the big picture.

If you can manage to remember that you, as a human being, are being asked by your guardian angels to take responsibility for your free will -- to fully "own" your free will and use it wisely -- then some of the questions you have about your life will make more sense.

You don't have to be perfect to know God and be close to God. You just have to try each day to balance your Heart and your Mind to the best of your ability. The effort to do this is always going to be gnarly and unpredictable, so don't give yourself too hard a time.

This is where Divine Humour comes in!

LSP23: Look! Up in the Sky! It's a Bird, It's a Plane, It's . . . Pseudo-Dionysius!

A number of years ago, I picked up a remaindered book called The Physics of Angels: Exploring the Realm Where Science and Spirit Meet by theologian Matthew Fox and biologist Rupert Sheldrake (New York: HarperSanFrancisco, 1996). At first glance, it looked fascinating, but I didn't open the cover until I was writing a term paper about Pseudo-Dionysius for a 2009 church history course.

I returned to Fox and Sheldrake's book yesterday when I discovered it on the list of "Recommended Reading" on Eben Alexander's website (www.ebenalexander.com). My eyebrows shot to the top of my head. Why was The Physics of Angels being touted by a neuroscientist?

I didn't like The Physics of Angels in 2009, and I like it even less now. It's a perfect example of how NOT to approach the study of mysticism.

You probably think it doesn't matter that Pseudo-Dionysius was an early 6th century Neoplatonic Christian mystic and writer who single-handedly invented Western Christianity's early doctrines of "mystical theology" -- and you'd be right if it weren't for the fact that people today are still gobbling up this fake mystic's writings, putting them on a pedestal, and treating them like gospel truth.

Statue of Archangel Michael, late 13th century, Ile-de-France, on display at the Art Gallery of Ontario. Although much has been written over the centuries in Jewish, Christian, and Islamic sources about Michael (said by many to be the first of the seven archangels and the leader of the Hosts of Heaven), the focus on angelic hierarchies in Pseudo-Dionysius's writings should set off your alarm bells. Divine Love isn't based on ladders of ascension or hierarchies of perfection. Divine Love spreads outwards, not upwards. Once you get used to the idea that there's no evil force opposing God in the universe (an evil entity variously named Satan, the Devil, Lucifer, etc.), you quickly see there's no reason for God to have an angelic army led by a sainted archangelic demi-god. Photo credit JAT 2018.

In their book, Fox and Sheldrake look at the writings of three historical Christian mystics -- 6th century Pseudo-Dionysius, 12th century Hildegard of Bingen, and 13th century Thomas of Aquinas -- to discuss who and what angels are in light of modern findings from physics. 

The problem here is that Fox and Sheldrake haven't done their historical homework, so they seem to think it's okay to use the "teachings" of Pseudo-Dionysius as if they're a reliable source.

Since when is a man reliable when he pretends he's a 1st century disciple of Paul, but really he's a 6th century writer who elaborately constructs a "mystical paradigm" about Heaven, and then presents it as "divine revelation" so the side he's taking in a big theological debate will win? (His side was the side that wanted to bring Plato's "truths" into the Christian fold as "Christian truths." His side won.)

Since when is the man who first coined the word "hierarchy" a reliable source for those who want to feel God's non-hierarchical love in their everyday lives?

Pseudo-Dionysius has a lot to say about angels because he has a lot to say about why human beings should obey their bishops, commanders, and rulers. He understands that if you're using religion to control the populace (a familiar tactic in so many human cultures), it's very helpful if you can "reveal" lots of impenetrable gobbledygook about celestial spheres. Then you can wave it about and tell people that if they want to get closer to God, they should submit to the same hierarchical structure of obedience to human leaders on Earth as angels joyfully abide by in Heaven. As above, so below -- but with a tyrannical twist. 

The methods of Pseudo-Dionysius are both devious and brilliant. And for centuries, his invented stories about angels have made it really difficult for regular people to trust that Heaven is a place where they'll be welcome.

In our culture, we don't take scientific concepts from the 6th century and give them special status just because they're old. Instead, we take historical scientific concepts and carefully reexamine them in light of newer findings. We acquire new data, compare it to older data, ask new questions, and ask whether the older questions were the best questions possible. We don't just take a writer's word for it because he uses lofty words and images. We should approach historical theological claims with the same rigour we apply to historical scientific claims.

Mystics of the past have changed the course of history, but this doesn't mean they were right -- or even very nice. When a person makes super-claims for himself and his side in a theological debate, we should think twice about his motives. And we should ask who was benefiting most from his "revelations": himself or God.

No one who has actually felt the loving presence of God or God's angels could treat God and God's angels the way Pseudo-Dionysius did.

That's why I think he was a fraud.


For Further Reflection:

Everybody who believes in Heaven is incredibly curious about it. We want to know what it looks like, what it feels like, what it sounds like. We want to know what happens when we get to Heaven. We want to know who we'll see and how we'll be received when we arrive. What will happen to us in the future? What do angels look like and how do they behave? We want to know pretty much everything. And this is perfectly normal for all human beings.

But our abundant curiosity about Heaven makes us vulnerable to spiritual and religious charlatans.

By all means, feel free to explore the personal narratives of those who've had near death experiences, or those who've had visions of Heaven and angelic beings. Many reported experiences are legitimate and life-altering, obviously so for the individuals who've found themselves coming face-to-face with God in the most unexpected ways, and sometimes equally so for the people around these individuals.

Bear in mind, though, that every single human description of Heaven and heavenly beings is only a partial picture of the Truth. The human brain can know quite a few things about Heaven, but we can't know everything because our brains have limits. Even mystics such as myself, who voluntarily connect with God's presence each day, have limits.

This is normal and healthy, and there's no way around these built-in limitations, so don't try. And don't listen to spiritual gurus who tell you that God has revealed to them everything you'll ever need to know about Heaven -- and MORE!!! God sometimes does speak directly to certain individuals, but when this happens, the words and images and feelings are highly specific, highly end-user-directed. In other words, the way God communicates with you isn't exactly the same way God communicates with your neighbour. And Divine communications aren't usually about Truth with a capital "T" -- they're almost always about relationships. So what one person sees and feels about Heaven isn't going to be exactly the same as what his/her neighbour sees and feels, with a small number of exceptions, as follows.

This is a list of things about Heaven that every human being can relate to, even though during our human lives we can't always believe we'll one day feel so loved:

1. Every single soul who incarnates on Planet Earth will return to the place we call Heaven when the physical body dies. No exceptions, not even for tyrants, pedophiles, and the unshriven.

2. When you return Home to Heaven, you will (as you've heard so often) be reunited with your loved ones, and they'll be crying because they're so happy to see you.

3. You'll feel wrapped in a blanket of Peace and Divine Love that's so warm and blissful it's a bit beyond words. You'll feel safe, happy, sad, proud, and confused all at the same time. But mostly you'll feel loved.

4. You'll feel grateful for all the experiences you had as a human being (even the painful ones).

5. You'll spend some time healing and learning from your experiences, and, when you're ready, you'll help others do the same.

6. You'll understand God's wisdom in ways you never thought possible, and your Heart will feel as if it's going to burst with the wonder of God's Divine Love and Forgiveness.

7. You'll probably decide you don't want to incarnate again, but if you think another incarnation might be right for you, you'll talk it over with your angelic family for many, many years, and then you'll reincarnate several centuries in the future. Physical incarnation is a difficult process for all persons-of-soul, so there are no exceptions to the "wait-and-see" guidelines for future incarnations. God only lets you incarnate if there's something you can't learn through any other angelic learning process.

That's about it.

The rest is all gravy.

LSP12: Not Your Usual Valentine Song: Why We're Here on Planet Earth

Okay.  o if God is so loving and we, as souls, are so loving, and everything in the universe is so galldarned loving, then why the heck are any of us here?

Why not just jump to the good part -- Heaven, that is -- and skip all this crazy, frustrating, painful, human stuff?

Every major world religion (past and present) has tried to answer this question. In fact, there wouldn't be any religions without this question. Faith* asks the question with an open heart. Religion's job has always been not to answer the question but to control the answer, to control the theory which decides what other people can observe.

This is not to say that religious people don't have faith or can't have faith. Many have great faith in a loving God. But many more have no faith in themselves or each other because they've been taught by their religious leaders to believe in their own inherent sinfulness or karmic imperfection. (Take your pick -- both boil down to a belief in Materialist laws of cause and effect.)

What if all these religions are wrong? What if there is no inherent sinfulness and no karmic imperfection? What if the goal is not to escape our sinfulness through grace or to escape the cycle of rebirth through sheer willpower? What if the goal for human beings has nothing whatsoever to do with saving ourselves so we can get to Heaven or to a state of Nirvana?**

What if we're here on Planet Earth for an entirely different reason? A simple reason. A loving reason. Say . . . so we can experience a number of complicated things about God's Heart that some of us just can't seem to understand without "walking a mile in God's shoes."

Maybe we're here as human beings because, as souls, we're so determined and so loving and so trusting and so courageous that nothing -- not even the sure knowledge of our temporary suffering and anguish and loneliness -- can stop us from wanting (as souls) to know more about who God the Mother and God the Father really are as people.

This clock, made of ivory, gilded copper, brass, and enamel, is called "The Twelve States of the Soul," and was made by German clockmaker  Johan Georg Gusderman of Kaemten in about 1680. It's part of the Kenneth Thomson collection at the Art Gallery of Ontario. Photo credit JAT 2018.

From what I've just said, you'd have to conclude that if we want to know (as souls) what it feels like to walk a mile in suffering and anguish and loneliness, then this must mean . . . hmmm, now here's a thought you won't be hearing in church anytime soon . . . this must mean that once upon a time (long, long ago and far, far away) there was no Divine Love and existence was a real bitch until God the Mother and God the Father found redemption in each other.

As the song says, it takes two.

Happy Valentine's Day, everyone.


*(I define faith as a relationship with God that endures in the absence of sacred texts.)

**(Please bear in mind that I'm simplifying on purpose.)


For Further Reflection:

People love to know about their human ancestry. For reasons we can't describe, we're endlessly fascinated by our family trees and family histories. These days, it's popular to add a DNA analysis to the confusing piles of unnamed photos and undated letters we find in old trunks in the basement. Sharing historical information has recently become a way of bringing people closer, but it hasn't always been this way.

It used to be, in centuries past, that families lived in the same small region for many generations, so you didn't have to go much further than the local graveyard or the local parish register to learn more about your ancestors. You could also go to the pub or the sewing circle, where you could hear every nasty rumour about everybody's ancestors right back to the time of Adam. Heaven help you if you came from the clan or caste despised by your community for some ancient crime. There was no escaping the power of genealogy to build lives and also ruin them, depending on who your ancestors were. Forgiveness for bloodlines was almost unheard of.

Human culture has taught us to think about family history in some pretty strange ways that have nothing to do with learning how to love your God or yourself or your neighbour. We don't like to acknowledge it, but, over time, all of our most dysfunctional beliefs about families and family history have mutated into religious doctrines. We do this -- we drag our flawed theories about family into the history of our relationship with God -- because so many of us like the idea of having power over the people closest to us.

In order to get the family power we want, we take our understanding of God the Mother and God the Father and we beat the crap out of it. We take God's image and cut out all the parts that might interfere with our own authority. We then take the parts that are left (such as God's immeasurably vast talents) and rearrange them into a new portrait of the Divine that "proves" such religious theories as the human right to be right; human exceptionalism; human hierarchies of salvation; and monism (the quest to dissolve all humans into a single soup of Oneness).

We then use these theories to justify our treatment of God, our families, our communities, and our planet.

Your angels, however, are having none of it.

The story you've been told about God is in all likelihood one of the many cut-and-paste jobs that exist in today's religious and spiritual circles. (In some circles, God's image has been cut into such tiny pieces that nothing meaningful is left.) It's up to you, then, (with the help of your angels) to find the courage to open your eyes and ears and heart to God so you can rebuild a healthy, mature, loving image of your Divine Parents.

Deep within your core self, in the places of yearning you so rarely listen to except when your dreams overtake you, you're absolutely desperate to know more about your angelic history and more about your Mother and Father's personal journey of redemption, hope, healing, and faith.

Don't be surprised if your journey forward on the Spiral Path sometimes feels like a journey backwards.

There's an important angelic reason for this.

LSP11: Some Great Films about Humbleness

If Family Feud asked, "What's the hardest thing you've ever done?" what do you think the answers would be?

From the friends and family you know, you'd get answers such as these: "Finished school."  "Said no to my cheating boyfriend."  "Admitted I have a drinking problem."  "Lost 77 pounds."  "Beat cancer."

From the angels you know (but can't see), you'd get these answers: "Struggled to know who he really is. Kept trying to learn how to trust herself. Learned how to recognize his strengths and also his absences-of-strength. Admitted she made a mistake."

Show me . . . Learned about Humbleness!

The humbleness of the soul is something very, very different from the religious humility taught over the centuries by sages and saints. Humbleness is the sweet spot that major world religions don't teach you to find because humbleness is a very dangerous thing. Humbleness is one of the tumblers on the lock that allows you to be in full relationship with God as a human being. Unlock the mystery of humbleness and your journey on the spiral path speeds up from a slow crawl to a brisk walk.

Humbleness is a difficult concept to convey because it's not a single "value" or "emotion." It's more like a rich tapestry. It's about knowing yourself. It's about liking yourself. It's about knowing your neighbour. It's about liking your neighbour. It's about acceptance. And courage. And honesty -- lots and lots of honesty. It's about doing the right thing even when it's harder to do the right thing than the wrong thing. And it's about heart. There's no humbleness without the heart.

Since it's hard to put into words, I've compiled a list of some films that do a great job of showing you what I mean by humbleness. This isn't a complete list, by any means. But these are some films that strike me as being especially honest about what it means to know yourself -- what it means to be earnestly you!

First, some films based on characters who already know themselves, who already know their strengths and absences-of-strengths and use their knowledge of themselves to help others (even though they aren't perfect and don't know everything):

• Legally Blonde
• Babe
• Crocodile Dundee
• High Noon
• Blindness
• Shrek
• Heaven Can Wait/Down to Earth
• The Sound of Music
• The Miracle Worker (the Anne Sullivan character)
• Blast from the Past

Next, a list of films where the characters don't know themselves at the beginning, and have to struggle against confusion, fear, and loneliness to find humbleness and redemption (that is, they have to open up their hearts to acceptance and honesty about themselves and others):

• The Wizard of Oz
• A Christmas Carol
• The Bridge on the River Kwai
• The Miracle Worker (the Helen Keller character)
• Beauty and the Beast
• The Count of Monte Cristo (the 2002 version)
• How the Grinch Stole Christmas (the 1966 animated version)
• Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer (the stop-motion animated version)
• Groundhog Day (my all-time favourite)

Great works of science fiction and fantasy have a way of getting under the skin of the brain-soul nexus. I'm sure you can think of many examples of speculative fiction that examine the theme of redemption in compelling ways. Pictured here is "Regina 2049," digital print by Jamie MacDonald.

Most of the people I know can relate a lot better to the second set of films than the first. My own journey felt a helluva lot like Groundhog Day at first. And I've known quite a few people who've trapped themselves in the starring role of Ebenezer Scrooge and don't know how to get themselves out of a lifetime of selfishness.

The trick is to trust that you can get out as long as you have the right help.

Learning about Humbleness isn't something you can do on your own. You need feedback from other people, and you need to have the chance to offer others feedback, too.

Instead of a Family Feud, it's a family partnership where we lift each other up instead of beating each other down. Doesn't that sound like a family you'd like to be part of?


For Further Reflection:

If the theories you have about God, Creation, the soul, and the afterlife can be said to be the roots of the spiritual tree you're growing, then Humbleness is the sturdy trunk.

As you would expect, Humbleness starts out small in your life, like the trunk of a new seedling. But if you protect the vulnerable roots and the distinctive leaves struggling to open themselves to the light of Peace, the trunk will continue to grow stronger each year.

In the analogy of the spiritual tree, most people would guess that the trunk of the tree is made of Divine Love. This isn't a bad guess, because, after all, everyone draws nourishment and strength from Divine Love. But in this analogy, Divine Love is the mysterious underground energy that originates in the two hub trees -- the Tree of Life and the Tree of Moral Knowledge -- and that flows back and forth among the trees of spiritual growth to sustain them.

Humbleness, on the other hand, is a complex tapestry of emotions that allows you to use your soul talents wisely and for the benefit of others.

What are soul talents? They're the aspects of yourself that allow you to not only think with your Mind and feel with your Heart as a soul, but allow you to act in Creation with free will. Your talent aspects are kind of like your soul hands and your soul feet and your soul voice. They allow you to make things and move things and speak things. Your talent aspects allow you to take ideas and feelings and turn them into beautiful, lasting creations.

Every soul -- including you -- has a unique combination of soul talents. When you incarnate as a human being, you bring some of these soul talents with you. (They're hardwired into your DNA.) Your soul talents start to manifest quite early in life, but if you fail to develop your Humbleness (that is, your emotional maturity) in tandem with your talents, you'll grow up to be a boastful, envious, narcissistic, selfish adult who has lots of talent but no awareness at all of how to use these talents wisely.

In other words, you'll grow up in state of metaphorical blindness -- blindness to the true potential of your talents, blindness to the talents of others, and blindness to the talents of God.

There's a reason that Jesus son of Joseph spoke so often of the need to open your eyes and your ears and your heart (e.g. Mark 8: 14-21). He was talking about Humbleness, about learning to know God through seeing and hearing and feeling God's creations without being envious of God's many talents.

You'd be surprised how many people are envious of God's many talents and how many people try to steal from God because they don't want to go through the trouble of learning to use their own talents with maturity.

Your angels know what your soul talents are and what your soul talents aren't.

And you don't get to pick, no matter how badly you want to be a famous superstar.

LSP8: It's the Roots, Not the Fruits, That Matter

The key to finding your reconnection to God is to understand how your brain-soul nexus actually works. 

I'm not a big believer in the idea that you can get closer to God by following a lot of fixed rules or rituals. On the other hand, I know that getting closer to God isn't a free-for-all where you can take any path you want and expect to get where you want to go. In fact, despite all the talk from spiritual teachers (including myself) about journeys and pathways, what matters most is not where your feet and hands go, but whether you can grow eyes and ears on your feet and hands.

This is another way of saying that the brain-soul nexus is a strange yet beautiful synthesis of Heart and Mind, Body and Talent, eyes that can hear, ears that can see, and pathways that travel long distances without your ever leaving home.

In this way of understanding your relationship with God, the metaphor of a garden is easiest to understand.You take seeds of knowledge and truth, you plant them this way and that in the little patch of Creation that belongs to you and you alone (your 3D body and brain), and you make choices about which plants to nourish and which plants to discard from your own garden. Eventually, your choices grow from tentative saplings into sturdy trees that control the environment of your garden. This is the years-long process we call "growing up."

The trees you grow in your inner garden depend on your fixed assumptions about life. Everybody has their own set of fixed assumptions. We aren't always consciously aware that we have these fixed assumptions. But we all have them. Our human brains couldn't function otherwise. 

   In your inner garden, you have more control than you realize over the kind of tree you're growing. But as in any beautiful garden, it takes time and hard work and commitment to keep your garden healthy. Don't listen to any spiritual teachers who promise instant fixes. A pine tree worth remembering doesn't grow from a pine cone overnight. Photo credit JAT.

 

From your sets of fixed assumptions grow related thoughts, beliefs, and actions. So these sets look a lot like a tree. The roots of the tree are your fixed starting assumptions, the beliefs you simply won't budge on. The trunk and all the branches grow outward from the unchanging roots. Mostly what you see when you look at the tree are the upward-reaching branches with their bounty of leaves and blossoms and fruits. But without the roots, there would be no branches, no fruits. The root is what matters. To know what kind of tree you're growing, you have to look at the roots.

The metaphor of the tree doesn't apply just to individuals. It also applies to major belief systems, major ideologies. Every religion and every spiritual tradition on Planet Earth is like a tree. Each religion has its own particular set of roots--the core beliefs it won't budge on. From each set of roots, a distinctive tree grows. The tree grown from Pauline Christian roots is not the same as the tree grown from Mahayana Buddhist roots or the tree grown from Native Canadian Algonkian beliefs. These are different trees. They're NOT, as so many people would like to believe today, different branches of the same tree. They are different trees. They're different because they have vastly different roots, vastly differently starting assumptions.

Albert Einstein really hit the nail on the head when he said, "It is the theory which decides what we can observe." This is such an important statement--such an important truth--that it's on my short list of fixed starting assumptions, the beliefs I won't budge on. Einstein's brilliant observation is one of the roots of the tree I'm trying to describe here.

I see in most of the world's religions some lovely leaves and branches (for example, customs related to community healing and life passages) but in trying to reverse-engineer the process of reconnecting to God, I've looked only at the roots of major religious traditions. What I've seen is that major theories about God have been holding people back in their attempts to know God. It's the theories which have decided what they can observe.

All major world religions start with the assumption that your brain and soul are NOT intimately intertwined with each other in a GOOD way. So people spend their whole lives trying to escape from either their "bad" bodies or their "bad" souls or both.

This is exhausting and frustrating and leads to intense disillusionment, and it's no wonder that many people simply give up on the idea of a loving God.   

The honest truth is that if you insist on trying to find God by climbing trees that are covered in the horrible thorns of distrust in God, you're going to get stabbed and cut and covered in painful scars.

Would it surprise you to know that you have the seeds for a strong and vital connection with God--the seeds for a tree of completeness and wellness--right inside your own biology?

It's there because God is a lot smarter than you've been led to believe.


Addendum September 5, 2018: On August 29, 2018, the Pew Research Center (an American think-tank that carries out public polling and analysis on a wide variety of contemporary topics, including religion) published a new analysis that examines religious beliefs and behaviours. The Religious Typology: A New Way to Categorize Americans by Religion finds seven major religious categories from highly religious to non-religious. What distinguishes the seven groups from each other is their root beliefs--their fixed starting assumptions about God, sacred texts, and the afterlife, as well as morality and spiritual practices. The Pew analysis also reveals the links between these root beliefs and such cultural and social choices as political affiliation. For the record, I would place myself in Pew's "Diversely Devout" category.


For Further Reflection:

Once upon a time, a man and woman lived in a wondrous state of completeness and wellness in a garden created on Planet Earth by God. They knew God, and God knew them. The man and the woman were humble before God, because they knew they were children of God, not incarnations of Source itself. But at the same time, the man and the woman were loved by God and trusted by God. In fact, they were loved by God and trusted by God so much that God asked them to help in the great task of caring for all the life that grew and flourished in the garden.

Something about the way in which God had shaped the bodies of the man and the woman gave these children of God a unique skill, a skill not fully granted to any other creature on Planet Earth. It allowed them to see the fruits of two very special trees that grew in the middle of the garden. One was a tree that bore the fruit of life. The other was a tree that grew the fruit of moral knowledge. Each tree had the potential to show the man and the woman one half of God's face, but only half.

After a time, the man and the woman began to notice the fruit of the tree of moral knowledge was easier to pick and easier to eat than the fruit of the tree of life. The tree of knowledge took less time to cultivate. Its fruit came more often and hung lower to the ground. It showed them many hidden things about how to use and manipulate the tools of Creation. With such knowledge and such tools, they didn't need to bother with the slow-flowering tree of life, which gave them useless things, such as tears and love and music. The man and the woman, drunk on fermented knowledge, felt powerful, like gods themselves.

In their impatience, lured by the promise of godhood through knowledge alone, the man and the woman failed to see that, beneath the garden soil, the two trees were intimately joined together through a network of roots and symbiotic spores and energy flowing back and forth along quiet, enduring pathways that wove together all of Creation. The two trees depended on each other, and, in turn, all the other trees of the garden depended on these two for help in staying strong and true no matter the winds that came their way. In this way, even the smallest of trees, anchored by the blessing of life and the blessing of moral knowledge, was able to give shelter to the creatures of earth and air and water.

The man and the woman, certain they had used their unique skill correctly, and unwilling to accept that a network of roots and symbiotic spores could be more important to the health of the garden than their own clever hands and feet, lost their ability to feel the sense of completeness and wellness that had once sustained them. Then they lost their ability to see the garden, though it still existed everywhere around them. And finally they lost their ability to see the face of God.

The unique skill of all human beings remained with them, though, and no one could escape from its double-edged truth as both blessing and curse.

Free will, it is called.

Its story lies at the root of everything we call religion and spirituality.

LSP6: Why God?

Why God? Why a personal God instead of a transcendent cloud of Oneness from which all of us come and to which all of us return? 

Quite simply, knowing God makes you a better person.

We human beings are funny creatures. When we sit down long enough to notice what we're really thinking and feeling, all sorts of strange emotions bubble up inside us. We want more than anything to feel we belong and to feel we have a purpose in life. We want to feel safe--emotionally and physically safe--and when we're not, we feel frightened and anxious. We long to be surrounded by beauty and peace and kindness and honesty, and when we're forced to deal with selfishness and betrayal and corruption, we're devastated.We want to know others and we want to be known--really, really known and accepted for who we are deep inside. We desperately crave love and trust. We desperately need other people.

Is it wrong for us to feel this way? Are we to blame for our own suffering because we're too attached to certain people and ideals and creature comforts? Are we suffering because of the weight of our emotions and attachments? Or is it possible we're suffering because we haven't been paying enough attention to what we really want and need?

God's love is Beauty. Don't reject it. Rejoice in it! Photo credit JAT 2018.

For a long time now, human beings in all places and in all religious traditions have been trying to answer the problem of suffering by following one of two major paths. (Yes, more paths!) The first major path is the path of spiritual ascent that leads to holiness and perfection (in technical terms, "anagogism"). The second major path is the path of self-dissolution and blurring of boundaries for the purpose of rejoining the cloud of Oneness (called "apophasis"). Both of these paths are paths of abandonment--abandonment of yourself and abandonment of God. Neither path (not even when they're combined, as they often are, in a one-two punch) will help you become a better person--the person you want to be deep in your Heart.

What helps you become a better person is your faith and trust in the "rightness" of needing powerful emotions such as love and safety and deep acceptance in all your relationships. Families (and communities) that embrace the "rightness" of love and safety and deep acceptance are families that are healthy and happy (within the limits of our temporary human lives). Families that focus on achieving holiness and perfection (anagogism), or on beating all emotional needs out of you because emotions aren't "logical" (apophasis) are . . . well, I think you know where I'm going with this.

Knowing God the Mother and God the Father as the people they are means you have a constant source of inspiration in your life for how to be the person you want to be. A person who is patient. And kind. And grounded. And forgiving. And full of empathy for all life (not just caring about the people you know). And courageous. And balanced. And willing to do the right thing. In short, you become once again a person who's in full relationship with all of life, including all the reaches of Creation you'll never see for yourself with your own human eyes.

It all boils down to relationships. Everything that really matters in our lives depends on relationships.  We're hardwired this way. We want and need Divine Love because Divine Love is the ultimate expression of two or more consciousnesses building a relationship of beauty and truth and learning together.

There's no force I've encountered that's anything like the feeling of unconditional love flooding into your heart and mind and bones and gut. This love--which begins within the Hearts of God the Mother and God the Father and within the infinite love they share for each other--this love . . . it's gravity. It's sanity. It's safety. It's trust. It's truth--but not one single truth. It's the truth of everything. It's the truth of you and the truth of me and the truth of all of us. Countless truths, all equally valid, all founded in the reality that we are not One Truth but instead are One Big Family.

All that we most cherish, all that we view as the best expression of ourselves and our communities, depends on our having the courage to love and trust. Forgiveness and transformation and emotional healing all depend on the love and the trust. Once you allow your own heart to be open to these wondrous emotions, you won't be able to stop yourself from letting the rest of it pour in, too.

You won't be able to stop yourself from feeling the gravity of God's love.


For Further Reflection:

Have you ever paid attention to how you feel--how you really feel--when you're treated by your human family if you're just a robot who performs needed tasks? Or a person who's valued for the status you can bring to your family but not for the unique emotions that make you you? Or an invisible slave who's only important in so far as you worship and obey your hierarchical leaders? Do you enjoy being treated in these ways? Do you like being told repeatedly you're unworthy of love? Or does it feel wrong to you in every way?

Being loved by your family is a deep, rich, ongoing set of observations and conversations and memories between people who aren't carbon copies of each other yet who value each other despite their differences. This applies as much to your relationship with God as to your human family.

To seek the path of holiness and perfection is to make the claim that God is only willing to love those who meet a strict and narrow standard of what it means to be beautiful in God's eyes. Such a claim has nothing to do with the way God loves you.

To seek the path of Oneness, where all beings are said to merge into a single Intelligence or Source, is to make the claim that God isn't capable of seeing you and loving you as a unique individual. Furthermore, claims for apophatic Oneness implicitly suggest that you're somehow already a spark of God -- not a child of God, but an actual piece of God's core essence. Have you given any thought to the narcissism involved in such a claim? Have you thought about how it feels from God's perspective when you work your ass off on spiritual practices that claim to give you a godhood that was never yours to begin with?

The human Mind is easily tricked into assuming that God only sees beauty in things that are perfectly perfect.

Fortunately, the Heart that's able to love the imperfectly perfect is a Heart that knows God.

A God who loves you despite the fact that you're very normal and very human and very not God is so much easier to trust.

LSP3: An Angel Feast

"An angel feast." This is what I wrote at the top of page 100 in Proof of Heaven. (I'm always making notes as I read, which is why I buy books rather than borrowing them from the library or studying them in digital format.)

Dr. Alexander's story about visiting Heaven isn't just about himself. It's also about his family and friends, all of whom were changed by his unique journey. You could say, in a way, that Dr. Alexander was a pilgrim who took an unexpected trip to a land few visit during their human lifetimes. When he returned, he brought with him Divine seeds that were sort of like pilgrimage souvenirs. These seeds of knowledge and truth became freely available to others to plant within their own Hearts if they so chose.

So in Proof of Heaven, page 100 describes events that were unfolding for Dr. Alexander's family and friends. They had spent five frightening days at the hospital as they tried to care for him and each other. Everyone's nerves were frayed, and three people (first Phyllis, then Sylvia and Peggy) decided to go back to Dr. Alexander's family home for a rest. At this point, Sylvia discovered that someone had left the freezer door open in the basement, and food had started to thaw. A puddle of melt water had already formed on the floor.

This puddle on the floor was the angels' invitation to a feast.

Faced with this new problem, the three women at the house had to choose between one of two paths that constantly confront us.

The first path (the usual, heavily travelled path) is to fall into patterns of blame and shame: "Who left the freezer door open? It's all your fault! What a waste of money! We don't have time to go to the grocery store to replace all this food! This is so unfair! Why is all this happening to us? God doesn't care about us. If God cared, he wouldn't have let this happen when we're so weary and full of despair! Doesn't he know we can't take this kind of stress? Why is he letting us suffer this way? It's not fair!"

Don't try to carry the weight of the heavens on your shoulders. That's God's job! This covered cup, showing Heracles supporting the heavenly sphere, was made in about 1630--1640, probably in Germany. It's on display as part of the Kenneth Thomson collection at the Art Gallery of Ontario. Photo credit JAT 2018.

The second path (the less common and more poorly understood path) is to see the potential for healing: "We're all heartsick and worried. It's all right for us to feel this way. It's normal!  But the truth is, we can't do this alone. We all need each other. We need to be together. We need to look after each other. And we need to look after ourselves. There's no point pretending we're superheroes who can go for five days without a rest. Let's stop for a short rest. We'll cook the food that's already thawed, and we'll invite our family to be together, and we'll even go to the store and buy some fresh bread because we all need a good meal and a chance to recharge our batteries together! We trust God to look after Eben while we're here. This is the right thing to do!"

As we know from the book, Dr. Alexander's loved ones chose the second path.

Being in daily relationship with God means learning how to think as an angel does (that is, as a person-of-soul, a term I often use for angels). It doesn't mean acting the right way according to a traditional set of Divine Laws (orthopraxy), and it doesn't mean having right faith in a traditional set of Divine Doctrines (orthodoxy). Being in daily relationship with God means you're willing to look for the invitations from God that are all around you every day. It means you're willing to see the blessing in a puddle of water on the floor.

A puddle on the floor that brings a heartbroken family together has more meaning to God and God's angels than all the "blame and shame" words written by history's many prophets.

Here is what I've learned as I've walked the Spiral Path: When all you see around you is lemons, ask for help in seeing the hidden lemonade your angels can see (even when it seems impossible that such lemonade could exist). It's always there. Always.


For Further Reflection:

Think about all the religious and spiritual traditions you've learned about so far in your life. If you could boil down each set of teachings to its essential image of God, would you find examples of Path #1 (where difficult situations are seen as punishments from God or the Universe) or would you find examples of Path #2 (where trials and tribulations are seen as opportunities for change, growth, and learning)?

Most spiritual seekers have no idea that it's the image of God they have in their heads that has the greatest effect on the direction of their path.

The second greatest factor is the image people have in their heads of themselves (that is, how they view the essence of their own core self, which is the soul).

If you have a negative image of God and a negative image of yourself, you'll always see the worst in every situation, and you'll spend a heck of a lot of time on Path #1.

If you have a negative image of God and a positive image of yourself, or a positive image of God and a negative image of yourself, you're again going to have a heck of a time.

It's only when you have a positive image of both God and your own soul that you'll be able to learn how to find Path #2 in your life, and, more importantly, how to stay consistently on the path where lemons become lemonade.

Though you may assume that all major world religions and all popular spiritual teachings already profess a positive image of both God and the soul, you'll find after careful reflection that few of them do.

This is why so many people in so many places have had such a difficult time reconnecting with God.

They're looking for God in all the wrong places.