Showing posts with label third principle. Show all posts
Showing posts with label third principle. Show all posts

Friday, August 18, 2023

Look for the Divine Spark in others.


The miracle is the act of a Son of God who has laid aside all false gods, and calls on his brothers to do likewise. It is an act of faith, because it is the recognition that his brother can do it. It is a call to the Holy Spirit in his mind, a call that is strengthened by joining. Because the miracle worker has heard God’s Voice, he strengthens It in a sick brother by weakening his belief in sickness, which he does not share. The power of one mind can shine into another, because all the lamps of God were lit by the same spark. It is everywhere and it is eternal. T-10.IV.7:1-6


Schucman, Dr. Helen. A Course in Miracles (pp. 347-348). Foundation for Inner Peace. Kindle Edition. 


Peace Pilgrim said that when she met other people she would look for the Divine Spark in them and then focus on that. Together, joining with another, the spark bursts into flame and the miracle is manifest in the world.


In Unitarian Universalism some of us join together to affirm and promote the acceptance of one another and the encouragement to spiritual growth. The acceptance is based on the faith in the Divine Spark in every person we meet, and the nurturance of spiritual growth is in encouraging the awareness of the miracle of Atonement or the understanding that we are all one with our Creator as the Universalists taught us.


To what extent is there an understanding in yourself and in your congregation about the unconditional love of God? Are there practices which manifest this understanding? To what extent is there a sense of purpose that motivates one’s life and work with others to bring about the salvation of humankind from the wiles and snares of the ego world?


Wednesday, August 16, 2023

The third principle series


 One of the motives in moving the posts for UU A Way Of Life back to blogger from substack is so that the brand of UU A Way Of Life can be more visible and accessible.

A new effort will be made to develop a theology both public and private based on the seven principles and the six sources.

The first focus will be on the third principle which is to promote and affirm the acceptance of one another and encouragement to spiritual growth.

Come back for the series of articles on the third principle and share them with friends, family, and others and perhaps use them for small group discussions.


Sunday, March 19, 2023

The power of the sons of God

 


The power of the sons of God are in connection not separation. The third principle of UU is the affirmation and promotion of the acceptance of one another and the encouragement to spiritual growth. This is our function as human beings and what we were born for.

Tuesday, April 27, 2021

Is sharing photos a holy encounter? The third principle of UU


 People want to show me their photos on their smartphones and sometimes Tik Tok videos. I get invited to join Instagram, SnapChat, and other image platforms. The challenge is to turn being an audience for performance, "look at me," into validating mirroring that empowers and contributes to enhanced awareness, well being, resonance, and mutuality. It should be said, “I’ll look at yours if you will look at mine.". What would such an exchange mean for us?


The third principle of Unitarian Universalism is to affirm and promote the acceptance of one another and encouragement to spiritual growth.

Tuesday, January 8, 2019

How can we apply the third principle?


Application of the third principle

Third Principle
Unitarian Universalists covenant together to affirm and promote seven principles, the third of which is acceptance of one another and encouragement to spiritual growth in our congregations.

Application
The principles are beautiful, broad, and general enough that everyone can agree with them. It is easy for UUs to agree with the “what” of the principle, however the challenge is in the “how.” How do we apply the principles in our daily lives? Where does the rubber hit the road?

Know about paths
If we agree to affirm and promote each other’s spiritual growth, how do we do that? What are the paths that we can let each other know about, and when appropriate, encourage each other to take?

Pearsall’s questions
Dr. Paul Pearsall was a psychotherapist who told his colleagues that he didn’t think a psychotherapist could be of much help to his or her clients unless the therapist understood how the client might answer three basic existential questions: Why was I born; What is the purpose of my life; What happens after I die?”

What is your interior spiritual life like?
As a psychotherapist myself I don’t always explicitly ask my clients these questions because they have more immediate and practical issues on their minds they want to discuss, but I am always alert to little clues about the client’s world view. As I get to know people better, I usually get a sense of how they might answer those questions. When we have developed a good therapeutic alliance and it seems appropriate, sometimes I will ask, “What is your interior spiritual life like?”  At first, I was hesitant to ask not wanting to scare people or confuse them, but as I have experimented, I have never received a negative response, The responses have always been positive.

What about your own?
A person can’t ask what is your interior spiritual life like, unless he or she has thought about  it him or herself.

Mine
My interior spiritual life was informed first by my Roman Catholic upbringing, and later in my life I studied the teachings of  Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh who renamed himself Osho, and for the last 30 years I have been a student of A Course In Miracles.

Sharing our stories is a form of encouragement
In applying the third principle in my own life I am curious about your path. What is your interior spiritual life like? To share our stories is to experience encouragement in our journey home together and is where the rubber of the third principle hits the road.


Monday, January 29, 2018

Love or fear? Unitarian Universalism's third principle

The third of seven principles of Unitarian Universalism is to covenant together to affirm and promote acceptance of one another and encouragement to spiritual growth..." To apply this principle UUs need to overcome their fears and connect with the Love of existence.

Fear is what makes hell on earth. It is the fear of scarcity, of attack, of loss of ego.

Love is what makes heaven on earth. Love for ourselves, for our fellow human beings, and for all of existence.

It takes a great deal of self knowledge and self awareness to rise above our fears and to connect with Love which is the undercurrent and ground of infinite existence.

George said to Angela, "It's okay. I love you."

Angela had had an affair just to make George angry so he would leave her.

George didn't get angry. George said to Angela, "I know I haven't been there for you the way I should have. Most of this situation is my fault."

Angela was flabbergasted. She didn't know what to say. She was so taken by surprise. "What do you want to do?"

"I want to be a better partner no matter what happens. You deserve better than the way I have been treating you."

George told his friends what had happened and they told him, "You crazy, man. Can't believe you are putting up with that ho."

George laughed and said, "There is more to the story."

George opened his heart instead of shutting it down. He was motivated by love not by fear.

And so it goes.................

Monday, September 4, 2017

Ask yourself, "What is the purpose of this relationship?" UUs third principle

Dear Lucy:

Since our discussion about Unitarian Universalism and sex you have asked some good questions about what A Course In Miracles calls "special relationships." At 26 these are very important questions for you to be asking because our society loves to pair people off and there is pressure from family, friends and society at large to find that special someone with whom to settle down and perhaps have children with and make a family. As a species this is evolutionarily desirable because it assures the continuation of our species, homo sapiens. The problems arise when the ego wants to play games and usurp the place of God, the Spirit of Life in our lives. The ego teaches the idea of romantic love and that there is a special someone, a soul mate, who will understand you completely and be there for you always so you will never be misunderstood or lonely again. You are wise enough to understand that this is utter nonsense and impossible and some with a theological perspective might even call it idolatry because it puts love in special relationships in front of  the love of God. The faith in special relationships, as you sense, is, the path to hell on earth.

For most people special relationships are imprisoning and require the individual to give up his/her freedom.  In the twentieth century this was jokingly referred to as the "ole ball and chain" meaning that getting married was a life of possessiveness, restriction, and servile compliance with the desires of another. Rather than being liberating, marriage, committed relationships, were seen as enslavement.

As you seem to sense, true love is freedom and by placing yourself in bondage you separate yourself from freedom and embark on a path of misery and claustrophobia.  The trick of the ego is to tell us that we have to give something to get something and the price of marital bliss is sacrifice. Sacrifice though will never make you happy but leads down a path to resentment, fear, and suffering,

The biggest lie ever told is that sex is the ultimate proof of love. The ego wants us to believe this, but all we have to do is watch pornography and we can tell this is not true. A body sexually aroused is just that and often nothing more. When we realize this, we feel betrayed and disillusioned, and depressed and sometimes suicidal because we are greatly confused about the meaning of life.

To get ourselves better oriented we should look for the divine spark in people and focus on that. Joining in mutual purpose with other human beings is great joy. When we experience this lift in our awareness and consciousness, we feel a grace and a blessing which is very liberating and brings an enhancement of hope, faith, and confidence in the goodness of Life. A good relationship is one that is turned over to the Holy Spirit for use as a schoolroom for salvation and reunion with awareness of being a part of the Godhead. Does this relationship help us become a better person and relate to the world in more beneficial and loving ways? The true test of loving relationships is peace.

Unitarian Universalism teaches all this in a deep reading of its seven principles with the first probably being the most important: the inherent worth and dignity of every person. This principle is not referring to bodies but to spirits, to souls. The best question you can ask yourself as you try to sort out your thoughts and desires about relationships is: "What is the purpose of this relationship?" Unitarian Univeralism says in its third principle that we should be focused on the encouragement of spiritual growth. The more difficult question to answer is "How do we do that?" Many ways, Lucy. Use your talents and abilities in ways you find satisfying and fulfilling and you will grow and the people you are in relationship with will benefit as well.

Love,

Uncle David

Saturday, August 26, 2017

More unum, less pluribus

Dear Jason:

I am glad you enjoyed the bumper sticker, "Too much pluribus, not enough unum." It made me laugh as well and there is nothing that joins people together in a holy instant of communication like a good laugh, and a song.

We get so hung up on bodies and we get aroused sexually by the fantasy of their interaction that we forget that the joy and the bliss of such togetherness comes from the rapport, the deep communication not from physical friction. And so we might appreciate that heaven would be the joyous rapport without the necessity of bodies, only pure communication and a sense of beloved oneness. It says in A Course In Miracles, "For communication embraces everything, and in the peace it re-establishes, love comes of itself."

When, Jason, you find a friend that you can talk to without any effort or sacrifice, only pure joy and openness, you no doubt, if you are mindful, will be aware of a blessing which we call grace. If we are skilled enough to listen deeply to a person and we look for the divine spark and focus on that we can establish this kind of rapport with any of our brothers and sisters. These skills do take a purity of mind, an intention of generosity of our effort and energy, and the deliberate diminishment, if not elimination, of our fears. These skills are a very tall order, but achievable of development with sincere intention.

Our Unitarian Univeralist covenant calls us to this kind of life in our first, second, and third principles. We promise to affirm and promote the inherent worth and dignity of every person,  to strive towards justice, equity, and compassion in all our human relations, and to accept one another and encourage the spiritual growth of ourselves and those we interact with in our congregations, our work places, our families, our communities, our states, our nation, and the whole wide world.

If you wonder, Jason, if this can be done, we can study and reflect on the lives of Jesus, Buddha, St. Francis, Martin Luther King, Jr. and any number of other enlightened masters and saints who have walked the earth. You may have your own heroes and heroins whom you admire and would like to emulate. We UUs call these people "prophetic women and men" and their lives and witness are the second of six sources of the UU tradition.

If there is one quality which I would encourage you to look for it would be a cosmic consciousness, what we UUs call a respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part. There seems to be a minority of human beings who achieve this level of awareness and I don't know if UUs are any more developed than our fellow citizens, but at least we intellectually acknowledge this value which is far more than most human organizations and individuals do.

Let us work together, Jason, for more unum and to respect and appreciate the pluribus without attacking it as threatening.

We should strive Jason to create heaven right now, right here where we presently find ourselves. We can accomplish this with the establishment of loving communication. I define the atonement as that time in human history when everybody loves everybody all the time. Each time we ask the Holy Spirit to help us with this activity, we decrease the length of time before human kind achieves this state.

Blessings to you and your family,

Uncle David
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