Showing posts with label Walking with Love. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Walking with Love. Show all posts

Sunday, March 18, 2018

Gentleness is a milestone on the path of the spirit

Unitarian Universalists covenant together to affirm and promote justice, equity, and compassion in human relations. In this principle, the most important part of the triad affirmed and promoted is compassion because without compassion justice and equity cannot exist and with compassion justice and equity become not only possible but probable.

Compassion requires gentleness.

Another milestone on the walk of Love on the path of the spirit is gentleness. The metaphors of "warrior" and "war" are dropped. They no longer seem appropriate and helpful to one with a nonjudgmental attitude whose life is now based on the faith and trust in Divine Love.

The opposite of gentleness is attack and harm. The desire to harm another is not part of the journey on the path of the spirit. When the Roman soldiers came to arrest Jesus, Jesus told Peter to put away his sword. In Matthew 26: 51 it is written "At this, one of Jesus’ companions drew his sword and struck the servant of the high priest, cutting off his ear. 52“Put your sword back in itplace, Jesus said to him. “For all who draw the sword will die by the sword. 53Are you not aware that I can call on My Father, and He will at once put at my disposal more than twelve legions of angels?

Gentleness, then, becomes an important milestone on the walk with Love on the path of the spirit for it is a very quality of experience which manifests Love itself. The Dali Lama tells us simply that the path of the spirit is one of kindness. Kindness and harm are opposites.

The measure of a person's life when the person takes stock of his/her life is kindness and a quality of kindness is gentleness.

Tuesday, March 13, 2018

The peace that is timeless on the Walk of Love

The Universalists have taught that God loves us unconditionally. Most people don't know this. This lack of awareness is a shame. However, sooner or later all of humankind will come to know what the Universalists already know. It's only a matter of time, awareness, and choosing.

Univeralists are called to preach the good news that human beings have a choice. They can choose now or later but ultimately we all have to choose whether we continue down the path of the ego or whether we embark on the path of the spirit.

We are all here to learn the walk of Love.

For some it takes a long time how to learn the walk of Love. For others the time is quicker. It is our destiny to learn the walk of Love. In ultimately fulfilling our destiny we have no choice. This is the basis of our faith. But we can choose when we want to learn it.

Some resist learning the walk of Love. There are other things which distract them. Many detours are taken. In arrogance and desire, idols are identified and worshiped. These false starts and mistakes create a hurt that leads to anguish and despair. The tolerance for pain by human beings can be very high.

However, when the pain becomes great enough, it starts to dawn on the person that there must be a better way. This dawning leads to a turning from the path of the ego for a search on the path of the spirit. This search creates a a teaching-learning situation in which the person simultaneously becomes both a teacher and a student for we learn what we teach and we teach what we want to learn.

This teaching-learning dynamic was created by the Divine at the moment of our separation and were it not to have occurred we could not, would not have survived in this life on earth. From the moment of our birth we began learning and with our cries began teaching others how to interact with us. The teaching-learning dynamic is a basic building block of life. We constantly teach, whether we are conscious of it or not, what we are to others and what others are to us.

On the path of the ego we "give to get" and behave based on the belief of "you or me," "us or them," which comes from fears instigated by our beliefs in scarcity.

After "the dawning," "the turning," and "the search," we come to realize there is a better way and we enter into the "walk of love" where we learn that "giving is receiving" and "one for all and all for one." The walk of love brings peace and bliss that is timeless.

Sunday, March 11, 2018

Interior Spiritual Life 101 - Week four - "Walking with Love."


Week four

As we have been described the interior spiritual life begins with “the dawning” which leads to “the turning” which initiates “the search.” Where does the search take people?

Often the searching takes people back to the religion of their family of origin and onto “new age” ideas and self help.

Sometimes, if the symptoms are severe enough they will seek psychotherapy. Often psychotherapy is not sought until the seeker has exhausted the exploration of obtaining meaning from romantic relationships and/or friendships.

Sometimes the seeker will jump wholeheartedly into some avocational interest or get involved in becoming a diehard fan of a sports team or athletic figure or entertainment celebrity.

Sometimes, the seeker takes solace in chemicals such as alcohol or cannabis or some sort of compulsive activity like gambling, pornography, or video gaming.

All of these worldly activities and solutions provide only temporary respite to the deeper hunger and spiritual longing.

Sooner or later the seeker will become intrigued with a mystical path. The mystical path involves the eschewing of the ego and the involvement with cosmic consciousness.

There is no one mystical path that is best. There are hundreds if not thousands which have been taken over the centuries. Asceticism, meditation, tantra, yoga, fasting, repetitive praying, whirling, chanting, singing, snake handling, baptisms of all sorts, altar calls, hallucinogenic drugs, scripture study, and alms giving all have been tried.

What all these methods come down to in the last analysis is a change of heart and mind. Jesus tells us very simply that the way to the kingdom is to “love as I have loved.”

The mystical path is the answer to the question, “What would Love have me do, think, say, believe?

The search takes us, ultimately, to Love. It says in the introduction to A Course in Miracles, “The course does not aim at teaching the meaning of love, for that is beyond what can be taught. It does aim, however, at removing the blocks to the awareness of love’s presence, which is your natural inheritance. The opposite of love is fear, but what is all-encompassing can have no opposite.”

The mystical path takes us on a journey of miracles, a miracle meaning, simply, a change of heart and mind. The change is from the path of the ego to the path of the spirit. The ego will die but the spirit lasts forever.

This stage of spiritual development is called “walking with Love.”

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