World Religion Day–Remembering the Real Invitation from Religion
Today is World Religion Day. This World Religion day is held on the 3rd Sunday of the month of January. In the Western World this celebration of religion becomes more and more irrelevant in many peoples lives. There are those who go further. The late Christopher Hitchens said of religion that
Organised religion is violent, irrational, intolerant, allied to racism, tribalism, and bigotry, invested in ignorance and hostile to free inquiry, contemptuous of women and coercive towards children.
Professional atheist Richard Dawkins says of religion that it is
the great excuse to evade the need to think” and that God is nothing more than an ”imaginary friend”.
I happen to agree with much of what the late Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins are saying. The God they write about is a God that, if not already dead for many people in the West, is in the process of dying and if I might add my own view, “Thank God for that.” This God who is dead and dying is the God referred to by Jim Marion writing in Putting on the Mind of Christ as the Mythic God. The Mythic God is the God responsible for all those violent, irrational, intolerant actions and is the imaginary friend referred to by Richard Dawkins.
This is the projected God of the human mind that many still long to be rescued by from this vale of tears. This is the God who we are advised sent down his only Son to save we sinners from the setup that happened in some far away place in some far away time. This God has been dying for a long time and has been replaced by the God of rational consciousness. Whether or not the late Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins know it or not this is the level of consciousness from which they take their world view. This is the level of consciousness that the average adult in the Western world now takes as being their primary world view. It is a step up from the old world view of the imaginary friend called the Mythic God.
The highest reaches of religious experience, however, do not stop at the rational level of consciousness. There are at least four more stages of spiritual development above that. It is this rational level of consciousness that in a very real sense is the madness that is destroying the planet. We as individuals and as a collective now need to look to move beyond our worship of the power of the rational and logical linear mind. This rational level of consciousness believes in the power of science, the power of thought and the power of the mind.
Caroline Myss says of this rational level of consciousness that it is how we legitimise our destruction of everything and anything that does not have this rational and reasoning ability. The modern mystic Eckhart Tolle goes so far as to call the rational level of consciousness as it presently manifests in this world as a form of insanity. On this World religion day I invite you to remember that there is a way of knowing beyond the logical linear mind. This is the beginning of a journey into real union with the Divine which is not a projection of the human mind but a revelation of Love at the very heart of existence.
Religion can be seen, and is seen, from different levels of consciousness. All wisdom teachings are the attempt to put into words an experience that is beyond words. The problem has been that there have been those who have claimed to know the experience when all that they know is the words. This is the history of organised religion and its associated conflicts and oppressions. The violence inherent in organised religion arises because those in authority to the imaginary friend only know the words of a written script and not a living experience of the transcendental.
To understand religion one needs at least to have some understanding, even if it is only in an intellectual way, the broad outline of the stages of spiritual development that is part of the spiritual journey. At the heart of all religious teaching is the experience of non-dual consciousness. At the lower levels of consciousness this unity is attained through control and fear. At the higher levels it is not so much an experience as it is a revelation beyond experience. It is a revelation that is directly known.
Logic and the rational mind cannot encompass this experience because logic and the linear mind function within the world of opposites and not in the realm of sacred unity. This sacred unity is what is to be celebrated on World Religion Day and not the religion of the mythic God who is a projected imaginary friend and has been the cause of untold violence throughout history. All in the name of God and all in the name of an imaginary friend.
Real religion is not about scripture as words but the Love and compassion that arises from the direct knowing of who one is.
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STATES OF CONSCIOUSNESS – Video about the various states of consiousness.
BLISSITATIONS – At this site they are committed to making it easier, more enjoyable and more effective with guided meditations, visualizations, affirmations and other goodness to help turn your meditation into Blissitation!
INFINITE BEING – Spiritual metaphysics articles to help spiritual seekers find inspiration, love and creativity through heart-powered consciousness.
Addiction and the Process of Spiritual Awakening
For many people there is a stage of spiritual awakening that moves them through the journey of addiction. This stage of spiritual awakening is also found within cultures and nation states. In Ireland we have a major issue that is like a river of denial running through our national psyche. This is our relationship as a nation to alcohol. It is becoming an increasingly dysfunctional relationship. As a culture in denial we invite the escalating destruction of the physical, mental and spiritual health of the nation and especially the health of our young people. Writing from a national perspective alcohol isn’t something that we are, for the most part able to enjoy, but something we increasingly binge on. In some cultures, like France, alcohol is something you might drink with a meal without the intention of getting to the point of being off your head. One of the archetypical images of the Irish is the man who is the hard drinker and this is becoming more and more the case with women and especially young women.
I used to think that because I was a serious spiritual seeker and one who had been graced a deep spiritual awakening that I could handle a relationship with alcohol. As I found out to my cost addiction can enter one’s life at any point. Alcohol is a depressive and it is highly addictive. You need more of the same to get the same results. It isn’t like other drinks. How often would you go out to a restaurant and drink several pints of tap water? It is easy to get into the habit of drinking and the habit of drinking alcohol everyday. In Ireland it is easy because it is such an accepted part of the culture. I used to move in circles of friends and family were one simply did not go out, or stay in, without drinking alcohol for several hours until the late hours. It came to a point in my own life were alcohol and I became a dangerous combination. It started to open up within me dark and dangerous regions of my soul. This was like a form of living D.T’s. I spend some years in denial until I realised I needed help. I thought that others had an alcohol problem but that I didn’t. Alcoholics were people who drank all the time, had difficulty with relationships and couldn’t hold down a job. None of which was true for me.
I did not have any of the above issues except that I had thoughts about drinking alcohol everyday and even on the day I did not drink. I couldn’t wait until it was 5 o’clock when the time came when I could open a bottle of wine that sometimes lead to another and then another. It came to an end, or the process of recovery began, one night when I drank myself sick and threw a whole bundle of sage on the open fire. It was a form of unconscious shamanic initiation. I almost died and could have easily done so. It was the start of a difficult process. At the time I simply couldn’t imagine my life without drinking alcohol. Now I cannot imagine my life as it once was.
Denial is a great thing. One doesn’t have to change. You simply continue on your way. The problem with alcohol, as with most drugs, is their addictive nature. The drug begins to control the life of the individual and not the other way around. I started the process of giving up alcohol in part. It didn’t work for me. In the end it was all or nothing and that is the way it remains. It is one of the best, and probably one of the the most courageous decisions I have ever made and kept. In the process I had to give up some good friends. I had too find new friends who didn’t drink. Now, the closest I come to drinking alcohol is when on very rare occasions I drink non-alcoholic larger which looks like the real larger. It is a bit of fun for me and rather than be in denial I get to pretend. I have no desire to drink pints of non-alcoholic larger because it is not addictive like the real stuff.
It came as a surprise to me to learn that one sign of behind addiction to alcohol is that you tends to think about it. This was even when you weren’t drinking alcohol because you had drunk to excess the night before and were staying off it for a day or two. However, you looked forward to the time when you could begin again. Then there were the occasions to celebrate. One can find any reason to celebrate in order to open a bottle or two. Otherwise one can find any reason to console oneself with a little drink or two or three or more.
Alcohol has its place. It is for those who can simply enjoy one or two glasses and say enough. It has a place in ritual. Some drumming groups I know use wine within a ritual space. The culture that is Ireland for the most part uses alcohol as a suppressant. More and more of our young people are ending up in intensive care wards suffering from alcohol poisoning. Some of these have been close family members. Most of our large supermarkets sell alcohol below cost price so that it becomes affordable to young people. A bottle of own brand vodka is available for the price of a teenager’s pocket money. Many sports are centred around the promotion of leading brands of alcohol and sport has become a world wide kind of addiction together with that other form of addiction called the News.
Anyone who is serious about spiritual awakening will, at some point on their spiritual journey, have to make what are often difficult choices in relation to their lifestyle. I remember a rather flamboyant man I was acquainted with when I lived in London who was continually refused Buddhist ordination. This was because his first love was not the four noble truths of the Buddha but the bar of the Swan with Four Necks. The wonderful writer and teacher Dr. Wayne Dyer writes about the choice he had to make about doing the work he felt called to do and the choice to stop drinking alcohol. In our modern civilised society we have no real rituals of initiation for our young people. We leave them to initiate themselves through difficult periods of transition in their young lives. We leave them to experiment with poisons that damage their bodies, sometimes in the short term, but always in the long term. We licence powerful drugs that are becoming more and more powerful and we as a collective pretend for the most part that this is OK.
One key spiritual awakening practice that every serious seeker is called to do is to test their attachment to certain of their habits. This can be any habit. If you drink alcohol give it up for forty days and nights. This is what the personal development teacher Brian Tracy does every year. This period of forty days is a recognised spiritual period of time over which habits can be changed. Over that period of fourty days and nights one enters the desert of addiction in its many forms. You might choose to give up watching television. You might choose to give up reading magazines and newspapers. You might choose to give up tea or coffee. This will show you how addicted you are to any substance or activity. This can be quite and eye opener for many people.
Collectively speaking of our cultural addiction to alcohol, we in Ireland, choose not to address the seriousness of this issue. We choose to be, for the most part, in denial. We take great pride when, on our nations Saints Day we crowd into the pubs and drink until we can no longer stand. This is the invitation on offer to our young people who have a harder time with this cultural addiction because their bodies and minds are still not fully mature. One aspect of our national psyche is the culture called the Craic. This is were people come together for lots of banter, fun and drinking. We pride ourselves in the fact that last night was full of the Craic and we got a hangover. Personally speaking I find my life is much more full of Craic since that time I gave up my addiction to alcohol.
There is no such thing as a safe level of alcohol consumption
Writing in the Guardian Profesor David Nutt advises that the idea that drinking small amounts of alcohol will do you no harm is a myth. The myth of a safe level of drinking is a powerful claim. It is one that many health professionals appear to believe in and that the alcohol industry uses to defend its strategy of making the drug readily available at low prices. However, the claim is wrong and the supporting evidence flawed. There is no safe dose of alcohol for these reasons:
• Alcohol is a toxin that kills cells such as microorganisms, which is why we use it to preserve food and sterilise skin, needles etc. Alcohol kills humans too. A dose only four times as high as the amount that would make blood levels exceed drink-driving limits in the UK can kill. The toxicity of alcohol is worsened because in order for it to be cleared from the body it has to be metabolised to acetaldehyde, an even more toxic substance. Any food or drink contaminated with the amount of acetaldehyde that a unit of alcohol produces would be immediately banned as having an unacceptable health risk.
• Although most people do not become addicted to alcohol on their first drink, a small proportion do. As a clinical psychiatrist who has worked with alcoholics for more than 30 years, I have seen many people who have experienced a strong liking of alcohol from their very first exposure and then gone on to become addicted to it. We cannot at present predict who these people will be, so any exposure to alcohol runs the risk of producing addiction in some users.
• The supposed cardiovascular benefits of a low level of alcohol intake in some middle-aged mencannot be taken as proof that alcohol is beneficial. To do that one would need a randomised trial where part of this group drink no alcohol, others drink in small amounts and others more heavily. Until this experiment has been done we don’t have proof that alcohol has health benefits. A recent example of where an epidemiological association was found not to be true when tested properly was hormone replacement therapy. Population observations suggested that HRT was beneficial for post-menopausal women, but when controlled trials were conducted it was found to cause more harm than good.
For all other diseases associated with alcohol there is no evidence of any benefit of low alcohol intake – the risks of accidents, cancer, ulcers etc rise inexorably with intake. Hopefully these observations will help bring some honesty to the debate about alcohol, which kills up to 40,000 people a year in the UK and over 2.25 million worldwide in the latest 2011 WHO report. We must not allow apologists for this toxic industry to pull the wool over our eyes with their myth of a safe alcohol dose, however appealing it might be to all us so-called “safe” drinkers. Remember these words of a man whose great family wealth and influence was built on illegal alcohol:
“The great enemy of the truth, is very often not the lie – deliberate, contrived and dishonest – but the myth – persistent, persuasive and unrealistic. Belief in myths allows the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought.” John F Kennedy
This video askes great questions about our relationship to medicatating against our pain and the need to have more and more drugs to ease the pain of our distance from the revealation available from spiritual awakening.
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NEW DIMENSIONS – Over the years, a wealth of practical knowledge and perennial wisdom has accumulated in the audio archives of New Dimensions, a virtual treasure trove of timeless wisdom.
THE NEXT STAGES IN HUMAN EVOLUTION – We are now entering the twenty-first century and the third millennium. A perceptible feeling hangs in the air that the world is rapidly approaching one of history’s decisive seismic shifts. Changes are looming ahead o
THE ENTHEOS ACADEMY – Online teaching that integrates everything you might have wanted to study: from old school philosophy and spirituality to modern day positive psychology, nutrition, creativity, conscious business and general self-development–all the
Self Empowerment through Disempowerment
I have over the last six months developed this website in order to promote the essential energy of self empowerment and the call to realise the fullest potential within this invitation that is cal
led being human. Over that period of time I have developed the skills that I felt were needed in the pursuit of this goal and poured into this endeavour time, money, effort and love. This effort has been slow and deliberate but was moving in the way I had planned and had worked for. I was ranking on page one of the Google search engine for key words and phrases that is my market niche. The numbers of visitors to this website were climbing exponentially. I felt encouraged. I felt that over time I could, and would develop a website that would invite self empowerment and promote the highest of human potential through an understanding of the clear stages of spiritual development.
I have a piece of software that tells me how my website ranks in Google. Yesterday I checked these ranking to find that, rather than be featured on page one of Google for those keywords and phrases, that I now ranked around the 900+ mark and that for other keywords was not even in the top 1,000. I felt this to be a major set back and I find myself at a loss as to now know what to do. The experience is not one of self empowerment but is more one of loss of faith. I have applied the teachings of many leading internet marketers. I have applied a key strength that many in the internet marketing area do not have. This is the ability to write interesting content and content that I love to write. I find myself at a kind of threshold place. I think this is funny to some extent because it is the place I write about and even invite others to cross into. This is a place of not knowing.
Over the last six months I have been clear about where I was going. I had a real sense of self empowerment. This way of self empowerment involved a set of regular marketing practise with the focus on ranking for page one of Google related to keywords within my market sector. I had learned how to do that within a six month period(not an easy thing to do). Yet now I find that I can be moved from page one to page 100 overnight. In a very real way my key business strategy for this website has failed. Google rankings it appears are very fickle things.
There is a positive side to this experience. This is the one aspect that I focus on while I absorb the full consequences of what this experience is and what it means for me. This is the fact that I have only really begun to market this material via this website. What if I had been doing this for longer? Now at least I am made more fully aware of the real effort involved and I now have other choices. I don’t have my material well being dependant on this work otherwise metaphorically speaking the well would have run dry overnight. This has happened to other businesses on the Internet. If you fall out of the rankings sometimes you never get back. In the parlance of internet marketing world one receives what is called the Google slap but one does not have the right of reply.
So here I am at a threshold place. I was focused on a program of self empowerment that I felt would establish for me overtime a market. Now I am further back than I was when I started. When I started I had skills to learn. I felt a sense of real self empowerment Now I have learned those skills and I have applied the strengths I have to an endeavour that I love and now find I am very literally moving backward. This is in a very real sense the manifestation of a recurring dream. I have been, for a number of years, having a dream where I am in a car. When I start the car and move into gear the car goes backward. I hadn’t had that dream for a while until New Year’s Eve night. I woke up that New Year’s morning feeling slightly disturbed. This car represents my drive for success. Yesterday on the computer screen was, and is, the manifestation of a major backward drive. Here on this computer screen is now being demonstrated the unity of the inner with the outer. Except that this is not quite the result I had intended.
The question then becomes,
What to do, or even, what not to do?
In a very real sense I have done all the things that technically speaking are required to rank well in the search engines. There isn’t much more that I could do except do more of the same. However, what I am doing, or have been doing can be negated overnight and become a manifestation in reverse. This creates within me what I sometimes write about. This is a crisis of faith. Then I ask myself how I can then have any authority to write and promote an invitation to self empowerment that takes one to a place of disempowerment. How can I write about following the words of Joseph Campbell when he invites “Follow your Bliss?” This might sound despairing. I hope it isn’t. It is a reflection on an experience. Each day I pray a favourite prayer. It is the prayer of St. Francis of Assisi and in this prayer he asks
Where there is despair let me so hope
My unconscious mind and my dream life has been saying to me for some years now that I am driving in reverse. I have never quite understood how to shift gears and move forward from that dream image. Athough now at the time of writing there are more and more images appearing in my dreams where I am in full control of the car and driving to high mountain places were I return to tell of the view. Maybe this is a necessary state of my personal and spiritual development that I am required to move through. Like most everyone else,however, I would prefer to ignore and avoid such a movement. I thought I knew where I was going. I though I knew what I was doing. I thought I was doing it for the highest intention. I was doing it from a sense of it being the best of what I have been blessed to offer. In many ways what I offered was what was being offered through me. Now I am unclear how to move forward.
The Paradox of Self Empowerment through Disempowerment
In some sense this experience of moving backward is closer to the way my unconscious mind sees my direction. My unconscious mind, for whatever reason, sees my drive as being in reverse while my conscious mind sees it as moving forward. In a very real sense there is division. However, it seems that even now, the outer is coming into alignment with the inner. The universe seems to be telling me that I am driving in the wrong direction. Now at least there is an alignment with the inner and the outer. Both are now moving backwards. The car in the dream and the key to the successful development of this website are now being driven in a reverse direction. In a very real sense I can no longer ignore this image and I have to stop and step into a period of practicing what it is I share in this website. I cannot now go back to driving the life force in the way I have been doing. So today this is where I am at. I feel like a disempowered writer writing about the journey of empowerment. It seems that the Universe wants me to use my energy in other directions except that I am not quiet sure what other way I might do this. The To Te Ching says in such situations
The wise man waits.
This has never been the advice that I find at all easy. I think that what I may simply do is to take a step back but make it a conscious set back and hold off on developing this website beyond were it presently is. I am considering simply leaving it at this point and spending time simply trusting this division within me to work itself out with some kind of magic. This will be a kind of getting out of my own way. This is no easy thing to do. I have poured much of my soul into this endeavour but now I am stopped at a crossroads. I know I won’t move back but I don’t know any longer how I might move forward. Maybe it is simply a process of stopping. So at this point the place to be is at the crossroads and maybe there will be a sign about how to move forward.
On a closing note my wife Bee in her infinite wisdom says to me
Tony, how big a sign do you need?
When I typed this above line it turned out to read
Tony, how big a sing do you need?
For those who know me singing is a passion. People throughout 2011 have told me constantly that I have a wonderful voice and should be using it. Maybe this is the way forward.
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TIME OUT FOR TRUTH – This spiritual wisdom podcast and website explores the great truths of the ages, and authors like Vernon Howard, J. Krishnmamurti, Gurdjieff and Anthony de Mello.
FREE Healing Meditations, Affirmations, Inspirational Broadcasts and Downloads
SOUL PROGRESS – Wonderful articles on spiritual life and spiritual living including the most sought after goals for individuals walking the spiritual path
Finding Meaning and Purpose from Core Values
Where Next – Edward Fredrick Brewtnall
One of the goals I have set myself for this coming New Year is to align myself with core values that I am willing to express in the world. Over the next year I have committed to choosing and connecting with seven values that will form a kind of heart house with seven rooms. The work of opening these rooms will be the work of the second half of my life. I am at the moment clear about only one core value that I will embrace as a personal and spiritual development practice. The core value I am certain of at this stage of my personal and spiritual development is the value of sacred unity. It is the unity of opposites that takes place when the inner work of reconciliation has been done. This is unity of body, mind and spirit.
To be in alignment with this core value means that it is the focus of how you express the energy of sacred unity. This seeking of alignment begins with the awareness of intention. It is the alignment of the will in service to the core values that you wish to express within you, or at higher levels of spiritual development, have expressed through you. When you are committed to your core value/s then these become your North star. These core values become what guides your actions in the world. This is not to say that the core values you hold at one stage of your personal and spiritual development will be the same values that you hold during other stages of your personal and spiritual development. However, there is value, and I would suggest even immense value, in bringing into alignment your heart/body/mind with what you feel to be your core value/s.
I dialogue with the core values that I seek to integrate within myself through the writing of this personal development and beyond blog. In writing this personal and spiritual development blog my quest is for integrity. There are times I fall short of that integrity but that is sometimes because the opposition within me is too deep or too conflicted. Then the process of integration takes longer and needs time, kindness and patience. One reason I place sacred unity as my core value is because I love it. I love it as an idea and I love it as a personal and spiritual experience. As an idea it encompasses the highest ideas of religious and spiritual thought. It is also a core value that is fairly easy to measure. The more joy I feel, the more creative I feel, the more excitement I feel, the more unity I feel within. The more conflicted, discordant my experience is then the further away I feel from this sacred unity.
The great thing about my core value of sacred unity is that it is a win/win process. I win when I am in alignment. I win when I am out of alignment because the signals of non-alignment allow me to learn how I am not following my core values. Unity needs the opposites within me as the opposites within me are alchemised into unity. This is the process of alchemy that leads to what is called the sacred marriage. One of the symbols that I dearly love, and which is part of my Irish heritage, is the symbol of the Celtic Cross. For this writer and storyteller, this is a personal symbol of sacred unity. The Celtic Cross is a combination of a circle and an equidistant cross. The equidistant cross is the symbol of the masculine. The circle that has no beginning or end represents the feminine dynamic of time and eternity. In the symbol of the Celtic Cross two polar opposites come together in sacred union. It is that union of the masculine and feminine that I hold sacred, creating a sanctuary in my heart. This is the central room in my heart house.
The Mystic Marriage of St Catherine – John William Waterhouse
This core value of sacred unity is allied with the highest spiritual development stage available to a human being living on this planet of duality called Earth. This is that stage of spiritual development called non-duality. Non-duality is where the opposites are reconciled into Oneness. Here is what Jim Marion writes in his book Putting on the Mind of Christ- The Inner Work of Christian Spirituality about this stage of spiritual development.
At the non-dual level, all the polar opposites disappear for they are now all seen as compliments that forever make wholes. This includes the polarities of negative and positive; at this level the seem as making one. Any judgement, therefore, that what people see as positive is better than what people judge as negative must also be left behind. The world is now perceived directly with no concepts, judgements, reasonings or intellectualising in the way. It is the final letting go.
For many people at lower levels of spiritual development this non-judgement appears absolutely unattractive. This is because this non-dual state has not been known as one’s own experience, which is also a paradox because it is an experience, not that one has, but an experience that one is.
So how does one come into alignment with one’s values? The first step, as I have said before, is to begin with clear intention. Find a value that attracts you and that you would be willing to make central to your personal and spiritual development. Work with this core value for a while. Imagine it to be a garment that you might wear. Imagine that when you wear it integrates all that you are. If it is to be your core value then you have to begin to give it value by spending time with the energetic that expresses this core value. Use your imagination and create an image of this value. Choose a symbol that represents that core value and wear it or place it somewhere in your day to day environment where you will see it. When you act contrarily to this chosen core value pay attention. Do not beat yourself up if you cannot be in alignment but at least wake up to the fact that there is within you disunity within you.
You might find a prayer, a blessings or affirmation that speaks to you and that connects to the core value that you wish to be an expression off in your personal and spiritual development. Again, spend time with that prayer, blessing or affirmation before you decide to commit to that practice. In a very real sense it isn’t so much the actual prayer, blessing or affirmation that is important so much as the regular commitment you make to inner revelation of that core value. One final thing to remember. Your real value is priceless. It cannot be measured because it arises from that which is immeasurable. A key aspect of personal and spiritual development is living from a core value that is integral to who you are. It is a kind of spiritual fingerprint that you came into the world to express as an aspect of infinite creation.
At the end of each day you can reflect on how you lived the core values that you have chosen to be in alignment with. One word of warning. Be careful what values you do choose. Some make it more difficult to live the wild and precious life than others. Try to commit to making your core value a universal value rather than a value that is more self-centred.
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BLISSITATIONS – At this site they are committed to making it easier, more enjoyable and more effective with guided meditations, visualizations, affirmations and other goodness to help turn your meditation into Blissitation!
STATES OF CONSCIOUSNESS – Video about the various states of consiousness.
SPIRITUALITY IN HIGHER EDUCATION – The study shows student life is enhanced if students engage in “inner work” through activities such as meditation or self-reflection
How to Find Inner Peace – Living from Core Values
I love to write about how to find inner peace. This is a peace that proceeds from within to without. One of my favourite prayers about how one might find inner peace is the universal prayer of Saint Francis of Assisi that reads
Lord, make me an instrument of Thy peace;
where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
and where there is sadness, joy.O Divine Master,
grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console;
to be understood, as to understand;
to be loved, as to love;
for it is in giving that we receive,
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.
All the words of the opening line of this universal prayer are important but for this writer and storyteller the last two words go especially together. The peace that is referred to in this universal prayer as “thy peace.” This is not a peace that is simply the absence of conflict wherein there is still a tension that has the potential to become less than peaceful. “Thy Peace” is the peace that passeth understanding. This means that it is a peace that is beyond the opposite of peace as opposed to that which is not peace. Moving beyond this tension of opposites is how to find inner peace in a lasting and fulfilling way. This is the kind of understanding of peace that the logical mind cannot acquire. The logical mind understands the difference between peace and non-peace. The logical mind, does not, and cannot comprehend the idea of a peace that is beyond duality or beyond opposites. This peace that is beyond duality is what St. Francis calls ”
Thy Peace
This peace is true peace of mind because within it there is no opposition and thus no tension. It is a peace that has been attained by harmonising the opposites within oneself. It is the harmonising of the forces of the unconscious with the consciousness of the ego. To be made an instrument of they peace is a great invitation and maybe one of the greatest invitations. To attain to such a state of grace is a great blessing. I love the invitation from the modern day writer Deepak Chopra in his book How to Know God – The Soul’s Journey into the Mystery of Mysteries where you are invited to become a saint. Toward the end of this book, that covers the various stages of spiritual development, there is a section called Manual for Saints. In this section Deepak Chopra writes,
Set your intentions high. Aim to be a saint and a miracle worker. Why not? The same laws of nature operate for everyone. If you know that the goal of inner growth is to acquire mastery, then ask for that mastery as soon as possible. Once you ask, don’t strain to work wonders, but don’t deny them to yourself, either. The beginning of mastery is vision; see the miracles around you and that will make it easier for greater miracles to grow.
Paradoxically speaking there is as much arrogance (if that is the right word?) in refusing to become an instrument of thy peace as there is in asking to become such an instrument. Many ,if not most people, will not see any value in making such a request. The question here is, which then leads to the quest, is are you going to live the values that you love and to make these values manifest in this world of form for the highest good of all? When you spend time with your core values and align these with your actions then you do not become so engaged with judging others. Your focus, is not on what others do or do not do, but on how you follow the intention to be integral and true to the way that life and love expresses through you.
The core values that are spoken about here are universal values. I am not referring to the limited values that might attach to the idea of family values, American values or the values of the culture that you live in. At one time slave owning was considered a cultural value. Female circumcision is considered to be a value in some cultures. This invitation to alignment with your core values will take you into your deep interiority. These are what this writer calls your true Desiderata. These are your true hearts desires.
Are you cultivating that deep interiority of your true Desiderata – your list of deep heart core desires? Or are your desires simply those driven by the marketplace that never last and are cultivated from a never ending sense of enough? These limited time space values are values that will not take you into a peace that passeth understanding which is the real inner peace and true peace of mind. Political and business leaders talk a lot about adding value. The real value that is added to you is a paradox. It is not so much added as is revealed. The more deeply you align with the interior values of the heart the more expansive you reveal yourself to be. This alignment is how to find inner peace. The beginning, as with all beginnings, is intention. Do you intend, and are you intending, to be true to thine own self and value the expression of life that you are created to be?
You cannot add value to yourself because you are essentially beyond value. What you can do, and what most everyone is doing, is hiding that value that you already are and substituting it for something other. This substitute is called the ego. This is the separate sense of self that is added to in order to make something of itself of value. What is the universal value or values that you would live and be remembered for.? In choosing to commit to this, or these universal values, you then align yourself with the Universe the flows through you. You align yourself with the creative force of life. This alignment with universal values is part of that stage of personal and spiritual development referred to as the stage of vision/logic in the map of consciousness outlined by Jim Marion in his book Putting on the Mind of Christ.
At lower levels of consciousness the value system that is subscribed to tends not to be universal, but as we see in places were there is conflict, is focused on tribal loyalty or on the larger tribe called the nation state. Alignment with universal values begins at a stage of personal and spiritual development were one’s awareness begins to be focused more on the connection to the experience of Oneness rather than on the limitation of a sense of separateness we call the ego. Alignment with core values means that you have a sense of what is to be revealed from core of human existence. This core is not simply a belief but arises from a direct revelation of your essential Self. This universe is not a collection of separate forms. It is essentially a sacred unity. The separate forms (you and I) are simply an expression of this unity. Lao Tzu said this beautifully when he said.
Thus, the sage keeps himself in no-action (wu-wei),
He teaches his wisdom without words.
The Ten Thousand Things rise and fall.
Tao “creates” everything without possessing,
Accomplishes with no claim,
Thus, no adherence, no vanish.
This invitation to come into alignment with universal forces invite integrity, healing and miracle and is not simply a cerebral exercise. It is practical engagement with such universal practices such as mediation, prayer and contemplation. This are universal practices that, not so much add value, but reveal the value of who you truly are. If your values are those that align you with the idea of the tribe, the nation State then this alignment will create opposition within you became you are aligned with an aspect of separateness. There is nothing wrong with having a pride in your belonging to a tribe, or nation State. This, however, is not universality and cannot lead to the living of universal values and the deep peace that is inherent within such a practice.
As always, practice kindness to yourself. Wherever you are is an opportunity to expand but remember that expansion into deeper universal values and stages of spiritual and personal development tends to involve resistance and tension. When you move beyond the tribe, your family or your religious group then you might be accused of disloyalty. When you move beyond the limited idea of the nation state then you might be accused of being less than patriotic. This is part of the the growth involved in personal and spiritual development. This is part of the reflatory process that is moved from the deep hearts core. This is the real value that you are and who you are intended to be.
Core values, as invited by this writer and storyteller, are universal values. They invite the arising within you of the integrity of Oneness. It is this Oneness that allows you the knowing of your true value and your true values. This is the list of your true hearts desiring – your true Desiderata. Let me finish with a Celtic blessing of peace that I use on occasion and sing on occasion.
Deep peace of the running wave to you.
Deep peace of the flowing air to you.
Deep peace of the quiet earth to you.
Deep peace of the shining stars to you.
Deep peace of the infinite peace to you.
This is a beautiful blessing that is written by one who has lived from an alignment with the universal value of peace. This is one who knows directly the real value of peace as being the connection to the infinite peace that you are and which you are here to reveal and share with others as the core of your very being and your being here.
10 Ways to Find Inner Peace
Finally here is a video that I love and which inspires me each time I am graced to watch it. Simply double click on the graphic below and enjoy the images, the inspiration and the feelings of empowerment. If you were to practice the Ten things YOU can to to create peace and are committed to this practice then you WILL get the blessing from above.
OTHER GREAT CONTENT
Here is some other material that will further your personal and spiritual development and your understanding of the various stages of spiritual development.
inner peace
PHILOSOPHERS NOTES – The ultimate personal growth tool. Giving you more wisdom in less time. The essential teachings of 100 optimal living books condensed into convenient 6-page PDFs and 20-minute MP3s.
STATES OF CONSCIOUSNESS – Video about the various states of consiousness.
BLISSITATIONS – At this site they are committed to making it easier, more enjoyable and more effective with guided meditations, visualizations, affirmations and other goodness to help turn your meditation into Blissitation!
Attain Peace of Mind and Live from True Intelligence
Do you ever wish that you can attain peace of mind? Have you ever considered that you are a normal person with personal development (and maybe beyond) aspirations. What if you were to really take a look at the world of normal people. You might find that from a more detached view you would see that normal people are, not to mince words, kind of crazy. The modern mystic Eckhart Tolle writing in the Power of Now says of the human being
the human being is insane.
The Buddha who was one of the guides to the undoing this absence of peace of mind called this insanity suffering and outlined the path to the cessation of suffering. Suffering means different things for different people. To the man who cannot feed his children because of drought there is intense suffering. For the man who is attached himself to the idea of success and failure there is a different kind of suffering. It was interesting for me to read in The Compassionate Intention of Illness by Tony Humphreys and Helen Ruddle that one of the causes of heart failure is considered to be the addiction to success. Uncertainty is increasing dramatically in recent times. There is the constant invitation to fill our minds with the threat of terrorism. There is the worry of losing our employment and if we are sensitive we are also concerned about the future of our children within this uncertain day to day living. We all want peace but there doesn’t seem to be that much of it about.
Beatrice – Rosetti
There is, however, a way to attain inner peace if you are committed to such attainment. This is learning how to attain inner peace of mind beyond that monkey mind that is filled with restless thoughts and to follow what the poet Max Ehrmann writing in the inspirational poem Desiderata referred to as as the ability to
Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune. But do not distress yourself with imaginings. Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.
In a very real way you do not choose your thoughts. Anyone who has meditated, even once, will tell you that thoughts simply come and go. There is experienced, for the most part, simply internal noise. If you pay attention to the thoughts in your mind you will find that your mind is like a badly tuned radio and that there is little peace of mind. You will find that you have what is termed in Buddhism as a monkey mind. This means that you are not the master of your mind but that you have a kind of a monkey on a chain that simply jerks you around. What tends to happen is that the mind is often filled with worries anxieties, goals, things to do. Most normal people are enslaved by their thoughts.
The good news is that you can be free to attain peace of mind. This is not necessarily the absence of through but means that the coming and going of thoughts are simply allowed to be the coming and going of thoughts and in simply witnessing this coming and going the mind of its own accord begins to become calm. You begin to attain peace of mind not by trying to attain peace of mind but by using your witness consciousness to simply witness what is moving through the mind. Over time you will then become master of your own mind. You will find a magic that you might never have considered possible. This is the magic of being able to choose when to think and when not to think. Thinking is simply a habit but it is a habit that is driving the human race insane.
Calmness of mind is the most powerful of experiences. It brings inner peace and it impacts the collective mind of humanity. Out of this calmness there arises a stillness. This is the stillness that speaks but not in words. It gives you the ability to access true intelligence. Here are some of the powers connected to this wonderful sense of inner peace.
Attain Peace of Mind Through Stillness
True intelligence operates silently. Stillness is where creativity and solutions to
problems are foundDo you need more knowledge? Is more information going to save the world, or
faster computers, more scientific or intellectual analysis? Is it not wisdom that
humanity needs most at this time?But what is wisdom and where is it to be found? Wisdom comes with the ability to
be still. Just look and just listen. No more is needed. Being still, looking, and
listening activates the non-conceptual intelligence within you. Let stillness direct
your words and actions.
From Stillness Speaks
Stillness SpeaksStillness Speaks by Eckhart Tolle
You can attain inner peace provided the proper training is undertaken. This training for inner peace of mind frees the monkey on a chain kind of mind from the compulsion of incessant thinking is True control the mind is not just the ability to concentrate on one thought and disregard other thoughts. It is the ability to cleanse the mind completely and make it silent. This silence brings peace, contentment, happiness and bliss. The first real step is to take some begin some form of meditation and make the commitment to work with the chosen practice for at least a three month period. There are any number of meditation practices available. It is preferable that you do this practice in a group to begin with because it is so much easier to remain motivated because the monkey does not want to give up its power to jerk the chain of your habitual thought processes.
Peace of mind is something we all seem to want, and want more of. There are so very few of us get to attain this peace of mind, and when we do it tends to be fleeting. Here are some suggestions as to how you might, not so much get peace of mind, but reveal that underlying sense of peace that arises from the stillness that speaks.
How to Attain Peace of Mind
- Give yourself time to be. This means that you simply spend time doing nothing other than witnessing the content of your mind without trying to change it.
- For some period each day give up the need to achieve something.
- When you choose to practice sitting still notice how you will resist. Your ego will fight you doing this practice. It wants to retain control and keep you distracted.
- Keep your focus on breathing in and out. Do not change your breathing but allow it to come and go. It too will become still.
To attain peace of mind and maintain peace of mind is a choice. That isn’t to say that it is an easy choice. The reality is that you are working against a collective mind called humanity that spends most of its time in distraction with the outer world. You are not separate from this collective and you have to work against this collective inertia that does not really want to do the work of changing the inner environment that then will be reflected in your outer world. If you do choose to make the commitment to attain peace of mind then expect resistance. When this experience of resistance arises then practice a meditation called the Meditation of Loving Kindness. Be kind to yourself. Learn to trust the stillness within that speaks from the heart. Remember inner peace is not something that you get but is more a state of mind that you reveal beyond the noise and chatter of your everyday thinking.
Finding that dimension (the dimension of no thought) frees you and the world from the suffering you inflict on
yourself and others when the mind-made “little me” is all you know and runs your
life. Love, joy, creative expansion, and lasting inner peace cannot come into your
life except through that unconditioned dimension of consciousness.If you can recognize, even occasionally, the thoughts that go through your mind as
just thoughts, if you can witness your own mental-emotional reactive patterns as
they happen, then that dimension is already emerging in you as the awareness in
which thoughts and emotions happen — the timeless inner space in which the
content of your life unfolds.
Attaining peace of mind begins with intention. That intention is then aligned with the will that will then manifests in action. Without the will to peace of mind and a committment, which is a daily commitment, then there is merely the normal mind which will then be mirrorred in the outer world. In choosing to attain peace of mind you are not only gracing your own life but the life of this collective called humanity. This is truly a win/win situation. Practice deep self interest and attain peace of mind and bless yourself and each and everyone of us.
OTHER GREAT CONTENT
Here is some other material that will further your personal and spiritual development and your understanding of the various stages of spiritual development.
inner peace
THE ENTHEOS ACADEMY – Online teaching that integrates everything you might have wanted to study: from old school philosophy and spirituality to modern day positive psychology, nutrition, creativity, conscious business and general self-development–all the
SOUL PROGRESS – Wonderful articles on spiritual life and spiritual living including the most sought after goals for individuals walking the spiritual path
PRINCIPLES OF SPIRITUAL EVOLUTION – Spiritual evolution is about growth of being, an ever brightening of the godspark that is your consciousness. Knowledge is the crucial cornerstone of this process, but a cornerstone alone provides no shelter. Unaccompa