What’s Next?

Posted on May 27, 2017 by

The thought of “what’s next.”

It is hypnotic and like a drug. It compels our every thought and drives us completely from the present moment into the dream of time and space.

As an eternal being, there is not a “what’s next” because all that there is, is in the eternal moment. In the eternal moment there is no desire for “what’s next” because there is no next.

As participants in the temporal, illusory dream it is paramount we know who we are. If we are under the illusion that we are a person, then “what’s next” can be a nightmare. It can have roses and rainbows but it can also have tragedy and heartache.

When we are lost to the illusion of the separate-self, we are living as person in the most primordial, human survival mode. We insist on planning and controlling our surroundings because our most basic desire is for “what’s next” to be wonderful and happy.

Then “what’s next” happens and it is never what we planned. We are molded by a world of disappointment and conditioning. We try our best to manage expectations and inevitably withdraw into the perceived safety of separation. We avoid intimacy and create distance from others.

This “of the world” paradigm is a natural byproduct of the separate-self illusion.

But… when we come to know our true self as not a person but an eternal being, we find freedom from having to control everything. When we pull back from planning the future, based on our conditioning of the past, we find ourselves in the present moment. In this moment we are “being” not controlling.

Something wonderful happens in the present moment. We move from the desperate out-of-control feeling to control the “what’s next” into the bliss of GETTING TO experience “what’s next.”

“What’s next” is now a blessing of life unfolding. We experience the truth of our eternal self GETTING TO enjoy the beauty of time and space. It’s like we are on vacation with no expectations but instead we have the excitement of the divine manifesting in this temporal world.  We are no longer trapped by “what’s next” but free to experience life as the continuous unfolding of “what’s next.”

As the immortal being, extending itself as a physical form in this physical world, every “what’s next” is another opportunity to witness our divine self. Every moment is an eternal moment of seeing the divine in all things.

The divine that is everything arises from nothing to be all things. What a wonderful experience, the life lived of “what’s next.”

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The One

Posted on March 24, 2017 by

As a physical “me” lost in an identity of mind and body, the awareness that I truly am has attached itself to the illusion of a separate-self. The expression of love makes the separate-self illusion possible and necessary. “The one” as only “the one” has no thing to express love towards. Love must be expressed to be love.

Wisdom is the same. Wisdom as “the one” has no expression of wisdom. Wisdom expressed becomes the illusion of separation. In awareness there is only awareness of being aware or being aware of awareness. There are no concepts or objects to focus awareness upon. Even the word focus implies another. This is why awareness, aware of awareness is presence. In and as the presence, there is nothing else, there is no thing, and all is complete as “the one.”

In the illusion, objects appear that are physical or mental or experiences or feelings or emotions… All are bound to objectivity, all are concepts, all are phenomena, all arise from within awareness. Waking up is awareness becoming aware of itself. Waking up is awareness becoming aware of the presence that is all there is as “the one,” the whole. Then wisdom and love are seen as “the one” and the illusion as the natural expression of the whole. Duality and non-duality are concepts in the whole as expressions of “the one.” Love gives birth to itself as another, as an object of love. The child is seen and loved and the child sees and loves. God looks back upon himself. It is natural and necessary.

Still the cycle continues. Love gives birth to itself. Wisdom is expressed and takes the form of illusion. God becomes another to discover himself. In the ebb and flow of the creation, the love expression, awareness sees itself as other and then as itself.

You are an object in the movie, you are a character in a play. In this movie you are subject to the storyline in the play.  You believe you are that character. You see all that is happening to that character. You can observe the thoughts and emotions and sensations of that character.

Now ask yourself, who is the observer. Step back for a moment. Who is watching the play?

Like in this physical reality when you watch a movie you get lost in the characters and story of the movie. Pause and look around. Who is watching the movie?  If you see a person, then ask yourself “who is watching the person?”  As you continue the inquiry, eventually you find the observer, the awareness itself. In that position look about, can you find a person?  No, but you are aware of the presence that is aware. This is the true self. This is awareness being aware. This is the reality before the illusion. This is the source of love and wisdom expressed. Dwell in this place and everything else is seen as it is, God.

The father is awareness itself. The spirit is the presence that is awareness aware of itself. The son is the human expression of this truth looking back into the father through the spirit, waking up to the reality that is…..and all of it is “the one.”

Yay God!

Lance

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Disolving resistance

Posted on February 6, 2017 by

The ego is our resistance to reality. In the subject-object oriented mind, there is a natural conflict when we perceive ourselves as separate or the subject that is sensing, perceiving and thinking in terms of objects. We believe our thoughts are our identity. We believe our sensations and perceptions are our self. But in reality, we are just the one divine extension.  The dream world appears as separate things and when we forget we are dreaming and become the subject of the dream instead of the dreamer, we perceive a separate self.

When we wake up or have a glimpse of oneness, the resistance to that oneness is the ego resisting ultimate reality. The ego is a dreamed illusion. The only way to dissolve the ego, is to dissolve resistance. The only way to dissolve resistance is to remove the good-bad from our minds. The good-bad, or critical thinking, or judgment, is the ego trying to justify resistance.

When we say “I don’t like this” or “I want that” we are thinking as a separate self. “This and that” are objects. The first hurdle is to go beyond the good-bad which in the ego resistance, justifies those demands.  When we accept all things (love) then the door opens to see we are all things, or better said, all things aren’t things at all but modalities of the same thing. Our minds are limited to objective thought so the only way to get beyond our thoughts is love. When our minds come to rest in the truth of “no thing”, then we can open up to oneness

Our happiness bubbles up from our true self when we are no longer resisting. Often it happens when the statement “I want this” is momentarily satisfied by getting “this”, whatever “this” is. We think the happiness comes from the object but really it is the peace emerging through our true nature in the place of no resistance.

In truth there is no separate self. Lance doesn’t exist. The ego is the resistance to that truth. The ego insists that Lance exists. The fear if non-existence is the ultimate expression of good-bad. It is the fear of death in the dream state. But it isn’t real. To go from awakening to enlightenment, I have to pass through the door of non-existence. I have to let go of the desire to exist as Lance. This means I have to work through self inquiry to discover where I am clinging to a non-reality, duality, the mind trapped in objectivity.

What remains then is the dream character as the pure expression of the dreamer. All the personality of Lance, formed in the dream state, is the unique expression of the dreamer in this dreamed state. I begin to see thoughts as the objects they are and then the truth that these objects are of the same consciousness as everything else which isn’t another thing but just expressions of the same thing, namely infinite consciousness. In this way I find my true self and live as the perfect expression of that true self.

If I ignore the ego, the resistance to reality, I empower the ego. I have to face it head on and expose it to reality to see it dissolve as the illusion it is. When I feel resistance to non-existence, I am embracing the ego. I am afraid of non-existence. I am afraid of death. When I see the truth of immortality and “being”, I live! I am no longer a separate self. I no longer live in resistance. Happiness and peace are found. They emerge from my true nature. So I have to face my resistance. I have to let infinite consciousness bring grace to the resistance.

The only way to be free of the dream is to embrace the dream completely. This is love, the total acceptance of all things. This means that even the ego is not my enemy. The separate self is not my enemy. Even the separate-self, the ego, are an expression of pure consciousness. I can love it Continue reading →

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Judge not lest you be judged

Posted on February 3, 2017 by

The door to the infinite is infinitely small. The door to higher consciousness is where thinking stops. The pathway to wisdom is before a thought is born. The escape from the dream is found in embracing the dream. All that there is is not something else because all that there is has no other. The ego is not a person but a personality-painted resistance to a perceived non-existence. The ego is not a self but a resistance to the infinite self. The ego is not another but the attempt of a self, lost to a limited perception, to make sense of an illusion of separation that the self agreed to participate in and forget it was participating in it.

There is no other of you to love, only love itself. When we really see that truth, we’ve seen the path, the ego cries out in desperation at the thought of non-existence and our death is imminent. This is why the door to ultimate reality, the path to higher consciousness, the way of enlightenment, is through the perceived separate-self as it embraces its death and the reality that it never existed in the first place.

But then pure reality, ultimate truth, life itself extends into this reality through the personality that the illusory separate-self, the ego resistance, formed in the crucible of life itself. The beauty of the uniqueness of the personality of the perceived separate-self is unfathomable. The perfection of the plan to be lost completely to an illusion of our making is like a brilliant light that makes us shield our eyes. This concentration of uniqueness and individuality empowered by pure consciousness, free of any divisive or critical thought, becomes the very Christ expression that has been the potential of every individuated extension of the whole of humanity. We are saved. We were born again into a dream that is seen as a dream that the dreamer wanted to experience as the dreamer in the dream. It is a lucid dream.

At our first glimpse, we walked and talked as a child. We reached for spiritual things. We dabbled in the gifts that became apparent in our pre-dawn yawning. But as we awoke, we grew up. As we discovered the perfection of it all, we discovered the perfection of love. We stepped out from the shadows of myths into the light of our identity.

Now faith, hope and love remain with love as the source of it all.

It is one thing to say the self doesn’t exist, that it is an illusion, but it is another to say that we are lost to the perception of a separate self in the process of waking up to our infinite self. If it were possible to wish it all away, I’m sure we would. But it seems the pathway brings us face to face with this perceived identity so we can bring it into the light of ultimate reality and watch it dissolve away. What we find is it isn’t a person that is dissolving away, but the resistance to reality that is dissolving away. That person wasn’t a person at all but a projection formed by resistance. The illusion of a separate self is the projection of the divisive thoughts empowered by the insistence of a good-bad paradigm in the mind of a dream character.

In the simplest form the compassionate compromise of the infinite expressed in the limited language of a finite mind looks like this:

Judge not lest you be judged…

Sometimes the dissolving process takes a little agitation when you want quick results….

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The Christ Spirit

Posted on December 9, 2016 by

We all have the “Spirit of Christ” and can wake up to that reality.

The Christ is in us and it is our certain expectation of magnificence and great beauty.

The Christ is all in all.

Did you know all those statements are in the Christian Bible?

Christ means anointed or chosen one.  The question is chosen one or anointed for what?  In the Christian religious tradition, the Christ was the awaited Jewish messiah.  In one interpretation of the atonement, the Christ was a sacrifice to an angry god so that the rest of humanity would have a chance to avoid an eternal torment that this “god” would inflict on all humanity.  Under this construct this angry “god” needed to punish imperfection, which is the core of every human.  The believers in this doctrine would call this necessary horrific sacrifice, an act of love.  Of course it comes with strings like having to believe a certain way or be baptized or say a prayer, etc. in order to receive this “act of grace.”

For me that concept just didn’t feel right.  How about you?  Deep down, does the idea of an angry god, which must punish people in a horrific way, make any sense?  Does your innermost voice resonate with the concept of a human sacrifice?  I bet not.  Let me suggest there is another way to see “the Christ.”

Christ is not Jesus’ last name.  It was his designation.  He was the chosen one.  Again, chosen for what?  He was “chosen” to bring revelation and wisdom and understanding.  The bible calls it “the light.” The human race was lost to the illusion, in the dark regarding our true nature.

The lie of our perceived reality is we are separate, especially from God.  Jesus showed us we are an extension of God.  He said things like “I and the Father are one.”  He said we are in him and he is in us and he is in God.  What a wonderful way of saying we are one.  He “prayed” that we would know our oneness like he did.  He challenged the religious Pharisees (separatist) that their religion was not pointing to God.  He challenged us in our understanding while questioning our desire for judgment and division and exclusion.  He told us to love each other as ourselves because we are one.  He said to love God and love each other which are the natural state of an individual that sees they are part of a whole.  When we awaken to our true nature, our oneness, our divine nature, we can’t help but love ourselves and each other.  Jesus was the Christ for this purpose.

Now consider this: The Bible says we all have the spirit of Christ. I believe the “spirit” reference here is a personification of divine wisdom and revelation, the consciousness of God. Then the spirit of Christ would be the revelation and wisdom of the divine consciousness as expressed through the human.  This is what Jesus did and he was considered a perfect human.  A perfect human is one who is awake to the ultimate reality of the divine consciousness.  “I and the father are one.”  This is our purpose, to awaken to our divine nature. When we do, and we express this nature through our human form, we are being the Christ.  We are the chosen ones to bring revelation to lost or light to the darkness.

When we awaken to this divine reality, we can’t help but express love as Jesus did.  When we become aware of the oneness of all things, then all things are God or an expression of God.  God is all things and God is in all things and all things reveal God.  There is nothing outside of God, nothing outside the infinite God-consciousness.  The bible says that all things are in God and he holds all things together.  When we see that, and even better experience that reality, we are experiencing Love.  Love is the acceptance of all things.  God loves himself and when we see we are an extension of him, we love all things because all things are him.  We would never have a thought of rejecting our toe on our foot.  We would never entertain rejecting another human who is just us in another physical form.  This is why Jesus could say “love your enemy”, “love your neighbor as yourself”, “love God and love your neighbor”, “don’t judge or you are brining judgment on yourself.”  Can you see now the beauty of the Jesus revelation or the manifestation of the Christ?

How about a picture or allegory that might help?

Imagine God is dreaming and we are the dream.  His/her consciousness is dreaming this dream.  We are the characters in this dream.  Since the dream is in his/her consciousness, we are that consciousness.  We are the dream of the dreamer.  From that perspective we can see that we are all that there is.  We can see that we can be nothing other than one as the consciousness of God.  Our ego serves the purpose of seeing separation and a physical reality, but it is a tool that allows God to see himself as and through us.  Our true self is the divine consciousness.

OK, maybe all of that is a little too ethereal or philosophical. But maybe it is the key you’ve been looking for.  Maybe this unlocks a door to understanding.  Maybe you have been struggling with the religious images of our traditions and this sets you free to know what you have always known.

Wherever you are in your journey know this:  Jesus said we should follow him.  The greatest form of adoration (worship) is to emulate another.  We can do this by awakening to our divine nature as expressed in his life.  His revelation will set us all free if we are willing to follow him.  Then we can express the Christ Spirit that is in all of us.  We can love others and ourselves as God loves himself.

Yay God!

Lance

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The Great Illusion

Posted on November 23, 2016 by

If we will look, we will see.  If we listen, we will hear…

Deep within us all is the truth of what and who we are.  We are the divine extension into this perceived reality to experience the illusion of separation so we might know our oneness.  We created this illusion so we might discover ourselves.  We “live” within this physical reality so we might remember our divine nature as the creator of this “reality.”  We are actors in a great play waking up to our true self as the actor and not the character we think we are playing.

Check out this short clip:

We are really energy.  Actually all we see is just energy manifesting as something physical. Even science has proven this.  At the subatomic level, we have divided “matter” into smaller and smaller pieces to discover the smallest is energy itself.

In my last post I talked about quantum theory (in a very simplistic way) to show that we are living the quantum experience.  We “appear” as a collection of matter, skin, bones, cells, etc. but in reality we are energy.

Rob Bell in his book “What We Talk About When We Talk About God” tells a story about a man who inherited his father’s boat.  It was an old boat and was no longer seaworthy.  The son replaces the hull of the boat so he can go sailing again.  He sees that the deck and much of the structure is also old and rotting, so he replaces all the old boards with new ones.  He continues this process until the entire boat is actually new material.  None of the original “material” remains.  The boat is entirely new, but it is still his dad’s old boat.

Our bodies are the same.  I don’t know all the statistics but our body’s cells die off and are replaced by new ones.  The urban legend says our bodies are completely new after seven years.  That is a bit of a myth because the cycle is continuous but the concept is sound.  Like the father’s boat, we are new material but still what we think is “us.”  Have you ever thought why we still have scars when our skin is dying off and being replaced by new skin?

I believe we know the answer.  It’s because we created this illusion we call a biological being to experience our divine nature as a physical being.  Our biological “life” is part of the illusion.  Our true self, our eternal self, our divine self is what is sustaining the illusion of this physical “reality.”  We are the energy and consciousness that maintains the appearance of this physical form.  We are creating ourselves new in every moment.  We are re-creating ourselves within this illusion so we might experience creating.  We have scars because we created the illusion of scars.

I like this clip from the movie “The Last Mimzy.”  I think it is very telling.  We are the energy and consciousness that powers the illusion.  If we pay attention we will see the clues.  If we listen to our innermost voice, we will hear the clues.

There have been many that have been “masters” showing us the ultimate reality.  Jesus called it the kingdom of heaven.  Jesus even proved that the illusion was just an illusion by resurrecting his physical form.  He often talked about life and how life is not what we think it is.  He talked about death as an illusion.  He demonstrated that he wasn’t a spirit inhabiting a body but a spirit that “gives life” to a body.  He showed us that we are the energy and consciousness that maintains this illusion.

He also showed us we are one.  In his vernacular, he said he was one with the father and we are one with him and we are one with the father.  The father is the collective consciousness of all of us.  The “father” is all that there is, the great “I AM.”  We are all of the same “stuff” individuated as our individual consciousness but still just an extension of the divine consciousness.  We are here in this physical reality to experience a concept of separation that isn’t real so that we can experience the ultimate reality of oneness.

When we see this truth, everything changes.  Jesus said he was the way and the truth and the life.  In this context, doesn’t that statement mean so much more than what illusory mythologies might suggest?  When we see this truth, know the eternal life (what is sustaining this illusion) and see the way it all works, we are empowered to create or re-create ourselves in every moment.  Can you see it?  This illusory life is re-creation or RECREATION.  Wow!

If you have followed these posts for a while, you are seeing a shift.  Call it an awakening or a remembering.  When I started these posts over three years ago I was “stuck” in a religious framework that I knew deep down wasn’t the answer.  I KNEW that I KNEW the concept of an angry sky-god was not the answer.  I knew that love is what holds it all together and now I am beginning to see more clearly what that really means.  Love is the energy that holds it all together.  Love is the divine essence that is “US” creating this illusion so that we might experience ourselves as divine love.

The illusion is powerful.  It includes what we perceive as opposites.  We have cold and hot, “good and bad”, high and low, happy and sad, big and small, hard and soft….  All of it is the illusion that provides the relativity to experience who we really are.  God wanted to experience him/herself as all of this, as all of us, in an illusion of contrast so that we might see the eternal truth of who we are.  Our divine consciousness speaks through our innermost voice so that we might hear the truth of our divine nature.

Maybe this is a stretch for many, but it is time to wake up.  It is time to remember.  If we look, we will see.  If we listen, we will hear.  The “transition” for me has been exciting, stimulating and frustrating at times.  In future posts, I want to share part of that journey.  I’d like to begin a dialogue of seeing the “flip side.”  I’d like to unpack much of what Jesus said and show the flip side.  He knew the illusion for what it is.  He knew the eternal reality “the kingdom of heaven” for what it is.  I believe he was trying to show us these truths.  Yes, it has taken 2000 years but maybe “the illusion” wasn’t ready to see beyond the illusion.

Will you take the journey with me to see beyond the great illusion?  I think it will be a grand adventure of discovering who we really are.

Yay God!

Lance

 

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Where and when are you?

Posted on October 10, 2016 by

In college I studied Aerospace engineering.  We had upper and lower division classes.  The lower was a prerequisite for the upper.  One of these lower division classes was physics.  I had a professor that was a little difficult to understand since his primary language was not english.  I was in my second semester, enjoying my freedom as a college student and was more interested in how to get by then how to excel.  Back then physics wasn’t that exciting and I think I slept through most of the lectures.  Too bad really, because this was the class that introduced me to quantum theory or quantum mechanics.  Have you heard those terms?

You might ask “what does quantum mechanics have to do with spirituality?”  Since these posts are really about a spiritual journey, I understand your question.  If you’ve read any of these posts, you know I love to talk in pictures.  I love the allegory or metaphor.  I think most of us process in pictures because words never quite capture what it is we see or understand or ponder in our innermost being.

In my last few posts, I’ve tried to paint a picture of how unlimited our spirit our soul is and how our bodies and minds can limit or filter what our soul is trying to tell us or show us.  We are truly unlimited beings.  We are an individuation of the divine infinite.  We are the divine at our core and one with the “all that there is.”  When we can “see” that truth, we can experience what we came here to experience, the divine experience itself.  We are here to discover ourselves in this reality.  God extends himself/herself into this reality as us to experience him/herself.

Much of this reality we think is “all that there is” is a shadow of all that there is.  In many instances we actually create an illusion based on our circumstance to make sense of the shadows.  This illusion can become very distorted to include mythologies and superstitions, like a religion that worships an angry sky-god.  We made that up because we wanted to have a sense of control of our lives.  If we worshiped the fictional angry sky-god, we could manipulate our circumstance to receive blessings for sacrifices.  In that delusional perspective, we lost sight of who we really are.  We lost sight of where we are.  We lost sight of when we are.  I think quantum theory is a shadow that points to a greater truth and is a clue we left for ourselves to discover ourselves.

We think we are here:

you-are-here_2We are “physically” located in our bodily form on this tiny little planet, but we are way bigger than that.  You could say our bodies and minds are an extension of our spirit or a manifestation of our spirit.  I’ve also heard it said that our bodies are enveloped by our spirit.  Our spirit is not bound by time and space just like we know God is not bound by time and space.  Our spirit is working through and in and as one with our physical self to experience the divine reality from this physical perspective.  Still we shouldn’t feel limited our powerless as this physical extension.  Our spirit speaks in all time and space.  In the Christian bible the voice of God is described as the sound of rushing waters.  Well, of course.  We are so often tuned to one time, in one place.  Hearing all time and space from a limited perspective will sound like a cacophony of sound.

So back to the quantum thing.  Here is a video that explains the quantum two slit experiment.  It was meant for kids but I spent money to sleep through a physics class that taught me the theory and I didn’t’ really understand it until I saw this video.

Here is a still picture of the experiment:

double-slits-particles

OK, now for the metaphor…

We are like this board and the slits and the light.  The light could be our spirit.  The slits are our physical self.  The board is our mind.  Or how about the light is divine wisdom and the slits are our self-imposed limitations and the board is our perception.

When we live in the illusion of separation, we limit ourselves.  When we agree we are the wretched creatures we were taught to believe in, we limit ourselves.  When we live in the paradigm of good-bad and curses and blessings and sacrifices and rewards, we are limiting ourselves.  When we think that this body is all that there is, we limit ourselves.  When we limit ourselves we only see one bar of light, we don’t see the spectrum of light.

One of the most interesting, and really mysterious aspects of quantum theory, is the influence of the observer.  If you watched the video, you discovered that an observer changes the nature of the experiment.  Likewise, when we observe this physical reality with pre-conceived notions about this reality, we influence the outcome of our experience.

It’s like asking a question and limiting the options.  You might ask (or pray) for something and limit the possible responses, like a multiple choice test.  You think it must be A, B, C or D but really the answer is Z.  How does this happen?  How do we become the limiting observer?  Religion, dogmas, doctrines, traditions and more.  We trust more in what we are told to believe than what our innermost being is telling us.  We have changed the outcome of the experiment.

So how do we break free of this limited perspective?  We let go of our paradigms and rigid expectations.  We open our minds to see beyond what we have been told we are allowed to believe.  We don’t have multiple choice answers, but trust in the spectrum of responses.  We let go of judgment.  We stop categorizing things as good and bad.  We stop putting people into prejudice boxes.  We start loving unconditionally.  We accept all things and all people.  We forgive our enemies to discover that our enemy is ourself in another form.  We love our neighbors because in loving them we are loving ourselves in another form.  We see our oneness.  We see our divine nature.  We see our unlimited potential to create our lives as we were intended.  We take ownership and never blame.  We jettison the idea of victims and villains.  We see all of us as the one great soul.  We are all individuations of the one God who is here as us to experience the oneness of our individuations.

Jesus taught us this.  He told us explicitly to not judge, not divide, not categorize, stop with our sacrifices to a mythological angry sky-god.  He showed us what it looks like to be free to know ourselves and operate as our divine self without limits.  He saw all the bars.  He operated from all the colors of the rainbow and look at what he accomplished in such a short time.

One of the amazing things about quantum theory is the idea that even the math shows us that these particles are in multiple places at the same time or at the same place in different times.  In the same way we are not bound by time and space.  OK, that is a stretch for most of us, but when you see your divine origin and connection, you are no longer bound by time and space.  You can trust that your spirit, your soul, God is experiencing him/herself exactly as he/she needs to in your perceived reality.  Every moment is a divine moment waiting to happen with all the possible outcomes just a thought away.  As we wake up to that truth, we are “free of time and space” to experience the present moment, which is also an infinite moment.  Past and future are time and space perceptions.  God is in the present moment because the present moment contains all moments from the eternal perspective.

It’s time to open our aperture.  It is time to expand our thinking to include all that we thought we weren’t allowed to include.  It is time to discover the ultimate truth that all things are in God and God is in all things and he/she is LOVE.  Seeing unconditional love, experiencing unconditional love, living as unconditional love is the unlimited self you were always intended to be.  No more limits.  Freedom from judgment.  Love is here and now in this ever-present moment and that is where and when you are.

Yay God!

Lance

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All we need is a little stretching

Posted on October 7, 2016 by

Let me begin with another excerpt from “The Gospel According to Jesus” by Paul Ferrini.  I love his stuff.  The book is written as if Jesus is speaking.  Some might call it a “channeled work.”  Channeled or not, it is revelation, it is truth, it is powerful and it is beautiful.  Deep inside it will resonate with you.

Spirituality and religion are not necessarily the same thing. Religion is the outer form; spirituality is the inner content. Religion is the husk; spirituality is the seed. Religion is a set of beliefs; spirituality is a continuum of experience.

You can be spiritual and not attend church or temple. You can find your spirituality in intimate sharing with others, in communion with nature, in being of service. Spiritual experience is simply that which relaxes the mind and uplifts the heart. Meditating, walking in the woods or by the ocean, holding an infant, or looking into a lover’s eyes – these are all spiritual experiences. When there is love and acceptance in your heart, your spiritual nature is manifest and you can see the spiritual nature of other people.

To be spiritual is to see yourself and others without judgment, to see not just with the eyes, but with the heart. To be spiritual is to accept and appreciate “what is,” instead of finding fault with it and seeking something else.

A spiritual person sees beauty everywhere, even in suffering. Wherever hearts are touched by the poignancy of life, there is beauty. Whenever people learn their life lessons and let the past fall away, beauty is present. There is beauty in the rain and clouds, and beauty in the sun. There is beauty in aloneness and in intimacy, in laughter and in tears. Wherever you turn, beauty awaits you.

In my last post I talked about how our spirit or soul is unlimited.  Our bodies and minds can limit our soul expression in this temporal and spacial realm.  It’s like in your dreams when you can’t move very fast or you try to call out and nothing comes out but a whimper.  Our unlimited, divine self can be trying to express our true self through this limited perspective we think is a separate self.  I believe we can experience the unlimited nature of our divine self when we are free to let our divine self express itself.  People like Jesus did this and look at what happened.  Many have “tapped into” their unlimited expression to create amazing things.  For the soul, a whimper here is still so powerful it produces “Grapes of Wrath” or a Hayden concerto.  A soul moving at the speed of thought through the slow motion of our limited self, is an olympic speed skater.  Now imagine if we saw ourselves as unlimited.  What would we create.

For all of us, our souls created opportunities for us to wake up to our true self.  We are gifted and talented in many ways by design.  Through these talents, we are already wired to have an unlimited expression.  Jesus was wired for forgiveness.  He had the gift of no judgment.  He saw clearly the illusion of mankind to create villains and victims.  He knew deep inside we were enamored with concepts like sin and the superstitions of religion and the mythologies of an angry God.  In His unlimited expression, He created a metaphysical wave of eternal forgiveness that still impacts us all today.  He set us free from the power of religious-projected fear to embrace love manifest.  One man as His unlimited truth and He knew it.  He said things like “I am the way the truth and the life.”  He had zero doubt about who He was as a divine expression of the power that holds all things together in love.

What is our gift or talent that is the outlet of our divine expression?  What has our soul created in our physical reality that could be used to “tap into” the unlimited creative power that holds all things together in love?

We all know the answer.  Really we do.  If we think about the things we enjoy, the gifts we have, the peace that we experience when we are doing the things we love, we know what our conduit is.  We know the pipe that was designed as the passageway of eternal love into our reality through our unique self.  Sometimes it just needs some stretching to be ready for the ultimate expression.

Have you ever tried to blow up on of those thin balloons like they use to make the balloon animals?  You know the ones.  If you just start blowing, you will have one really bad headache pretty soon.

Girl blowing up a pink balloon.

Girl blowing up a pink balloon.

If you stretch it, then it is much easier.  If a child wants to blow one up, we all know we should blow it up first, let the air out, and then let them have a try.  It is much easier once it has been blown up previously.

What is stretching in the physical/spiritual/metaphysical sense?  Sometimes it is seeing it done before.  This is why Jesus was such an impactful man of wisdom and expression.  Sometimes we just have to give it a try.  Many great composers had a few “not so great” compositions prior to their masterpieces.  Sometimes we have to get rid of some junk.  Our illusion of separation is a huge pile of junk that we have carried around as a human race for millennia.  And in every case we have to get rid of any form of judgment.

Judgment is the great inhibitor.  Judgment is the mud that slows us down, the clamp on our throats, the water on the fire.  Like the quote from Ferrini’s book:

To be spiritual is to see yourself and others without judgment, to see not just with the eyes, but with the heart. To be spiritual is to accept and appreciate “what is,” instead of finding fault with it and seeking something else.

We have to be free of judgment of any kind.  The key to letting it go is unconditional love.  The bright light that opens our eyes to unconditional love is our oneness.  The open door to freedom from judgment is the divine forgiveness like Jesus showed us.  When we see God is love and He is us and we are connected to all people….and they are just us in another form….then how can we judge another who is just another expression of love like we are?  Jesus said His truth would set us free and we would be free indeed.  The truth is our oneness with each other and our divine nature.  We are an extension of God in this reality to experience God from the perspective of this reality.

When we get that truth, we are really stretched.  The balloon has no resistance.  The mud isn’t mud but the groomed track of an olympic sprinter.  Our squeaks and moans and whimpers become the booming voice as the sound of rushing waters.  We see our unlimited self.  We have no grounds for offense.  We have no judgment whatsoever.  We can then experience our unlimited divine expression through our pre-sent (present) gift.

I encourage everyone to stretch, really get stretched.  You may start small.  You don’t want to pull a hamstring.  But keep stretching.  Keep searching.  Go deep within.  Discover your gifts and talents.  Let your divine self find the perfect expression in this reality as YOU.

Yay God!

Lance

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Stuck in the mud?

Posted on October 5, 2016 by

Have you ever had a dream in which you needed to run from some or run to something and it was like you were in slow motion?  No matter how hard you tried, you couldn’t move fast.  Actually the harder you tried to move fast the more resistance there was to movement.  It can feel like you’re surrounded by water or your legs feel heavy or you’re stuck in the mud.

stuck-in-the-mudIt can be very frustrating.  Then you wake up and realize it was just a dream.  Maybe you get up and move around to remind yourself that you can move, you’re not stuck in the mud.  You tell yourself “it was just a dream”, you shake off the cobwebs and see the sunlight shining through the window.  The fog lifts and you start feeling better.

OK, how about a dream when you are trying to say something or yell and nothing comes out.  Have you tried to wake yourself up or wake up the person next to you by yelling at them so they will wake you up.  Have you called our for help and nothing comes out or you just moan or squeak.

speachlessYou are literally speechless or without the ability to speak.  The harder you try the more choked up you are.  Sometimes you can press through, concentrate really hard and the moan becomes a word.  Then the word becomes a phrase.  Then your sleeping body cries out.  You wake yourself up from your dream by making noises in your sleep.  Sometimes you wake up the person next to you.  I know you have experienced that scenario.

The psychologist and dream interpreters have a myriad of reasons this happens.  They will suggest “suppressed this” and “lack of control feelings” or “not being heard” or “no power in your stressful situation.”  I’m sure all that applies on some level, but what if it is more, way more.  What if we are having a metaphysical experience?

One of the definitions of metaphysical is “transcending physical matter or the laws of nature.”  What if our dreams are showing us something quite profound, something that transcends our physical experience?

Think of it this way:  Our soul, our spirit, our divine self is not limited by time and space.  Our soul is experiencing all that there is in a moment that is infinite and instantaneous.  OK, that is some pretty deep thinking, but let me suggest that our true self isn’t limited like our physical self.  What if our soul is trying to do something or say something and our physical perception is limiting what can be said or done?  What if the infinite, unlimited reality is constricted by the temporal and special reality…there I go again with the mind benders.  What if all that there is, is trying to express itself through us and we are the mud and the speechless?

Still it is a wonderful thing.  When our soul tries to move very fast, our physical self is moving in slow motion but it can still be an Olympic sprinter like Michael Johnson.  When God speaks and His words come through our moaning physical self, it is Shakespeare.  When our soul has a song and it comes through our stuck-in-the-mud expression, it sounds like Beethoven.  So even in our dream-like state, our muttering and squeaking and thrashing and 1000 pound legs and confused minds, we can express phenomenal beauty and majesty and grace.

Now imagine how much better it could be if we could really express who we really are.

It is said that when God speaks it is like the sound of rushing waters.

voice-of-rushing-watersWhy?  When God speaks He is speaking in all time and in all space.  His utterances are filled with all the utterances of all the moments rolled into one.  Our soul is an individuation of Him, so when our soul speaks it is the utterance of God.  If we could open our aperture just a little, imagine what might come through.  If we could find our voice, stop living in our dream state, and speak with the divine voice, just imagine what we might create.  Imagine what we might accomplish.  Bach is just a squeak.  Hemingway is just a moan.  Mikhail Baryshnikov is what it looks like for God to be stuck in the mud in our limited physical self.  Just imagine what we could do if we were who we are without limits.  Imagine if we could speed up this physical expression up to be the frequency of the divine.

It is possible.  Others have done it.  Jesus did it.  Jesus lived as an unlimited expression of the divine.  He operated without limits.  His gift, his aperture, was forgiveness, no judgment.  Through his unlimited expression of forgiveness, he healed, he saved, he made whole.

Bach’s was music.  Micheal Johnson was physical perfection.  Shakespeare was an expression of the human condition.  What is yours?  What is your unlimited expression?

We don’t have to be stuck in the mud, speechless or in slow motion.  We are one with the divine and it is speaking with the voice of the rushing waters.  If we are willing, we can hear, we can express, we can be unlimited.

 

So it is time to get unstuck.  It is time to find your voice.  It is time to find your true self and your true expression.  Let’s not be stuck in the mud anymore.

Yay God!

Lance

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Staying Connected to Love…

Posted on October 3, 2016 by

In the last few posts (and many more) I’ve talked about “experiencing” what we know conceptually.  In our innermost being, our true self, we are the divine and have the wisdom of the divine.  This wisdom or divine knowing, bubbles up from deep within.  Then we experience what we “know” to “know what we know.”  It is the divine awareness that comes from a divine experience of divine knowledge.  OK, said more simply, we hear God’s heart (which is our own) and we experience in our physical reality what we hear.  It is like confirmation.  When we are living in tune with our true self (some might call this walking in the spirit) we have these gut feelings and then something happens when the gut feeling becomes an experience, often a physical or metaphysical encounter with the divine in our temporal form.  OK, ok, I know it still sounds really deep.  How about an example…

We know that God is love and as His extension in this reality, we are love.  Really, when we aren’t responding to the illusion of guilt or shame or condemnation or hurts or pain or offenses…and so on, we are at peace and we sense this love deep within us.  Then something happens, an exchange with a loved one, a gathering of like minds, a group of people with a common goal, a child is born, a marriage, a sunset, a walk in the woods…  When we have these moments we often feel this love and the connection to something much bigger than our perceived limited self.  This is the divine encounter of experiencing a divine concept.  Sometimes these moments are very intense and leave a lasting imprint on our being.

When we are “waking up” and receiving more and more “revelation” of these divine truths, we are confirmed in what we “know.”  This process is our walk.  This process is our purpose.  We are waking up to who we are, God in this human form experiencing God.  It is a wonderful life when we see our purpose and rest in our awakening.

For me it often happens this way:  I have concepts I am contemplating in my mind.  They take form and eventually become words (like these posts).  Then I see the same thoughts written down or hear them from another or experience them in a song, a movie (like the last posts) or something else.  The divine confirmation transforms what I know into something I know that I know.  It is very powerful.

So regarding love within, I read this just last night and it was very impactful and confirming.  I want to share this short excerpt from Paul Ferrini’s book “The Gospel According to Jesus.”  I think you will “LOVE” it.

the-gospel-according-to-jesus

All human beings betray themselves in the search for love and acceptance. They internalize the feedback they receive from others and develop their self image based on it.

In other words, your opinion of yourself is not based on what you know and find out about you, but on what other people tell you. The “you” that you know is a creation of other people’s beliefs and judgments which you accept as true about yourself. Even your so-called “personality” is a set of behavior patterns you adopted to accommodate the needs and expectations of the significant others in your life.

Where then is the “real you” in the equation of self and other? The real you is the unknown factor, the essence that has been heavily clothed in the judgments and interpretations which you have accepted about yourself.

This is true for everyone, not just for you. People relate to each another not as authentic, self-realized beings, but as personae, masks, roles, identities. Often, people have more than one mask that they wear, depending on whom they are with and what is expected of them.

The True Self gets lost and forgotten among all these disguises. And its great gift of authenticity is not seen or acknowledged.

The True Self is not bound by the limitations, judgments and interpretations that the persona lives with. Indeed, it can be said that Self and persona live in different worlds. The world of Self is bright and self-fulfilling. The world of persona is dark and needy,  seeking light and fulfillment outside itself.

The Self says “I am.” The persona says “I am this” or “I am that.” The Self lives and expresses unconditionally. The persona lives and expresses conditionally. Self is motivated by love and says “I can.” Persona lives in fear and says “I can’t.” Persona complains, apologizes and makes excuses. Self accepts, integrates and gives its gift.

You are Self, but believe yourself to be your persona. As long as you operate as persona, you have experiences that confirm your beliefs about yourself and others. When you realize that all personae are just masks you and others have agreed to wear, you learn to see behind the masks.

When that happens, you glimpse the radiance of the Self within you and within others. You see a bright being, eminently worthy and capable of love, dynamically creative, generous and self-fulfilling. That is your inmost nature. And that is the inmost nature of all beings.

When you accept your True Self, your arguments with others cease. For you no longer do battle with their personae. You see the light behind the mask. Your light and their light are all that matter.

When you contact the truth about you, you recognize that a great deal that you have come to accept about you is false. You are not better or worse than others. You are not stupid or brilliant, handsome, or ugly. Those are just judgments someone made that you accepted. None of them is true.

When you know the truth about you, you understand that you are not just a body, although you need to accept your body and take care of it. You are not just your thoughts and feelings, although you need to be aware of them and see how they are creating the drama of your life. You are not the roles that you are playing – husband or wife, mother or father, son or daughter, employee or boss, secretary  or plumber – although you need to make peace with whatever role you choose to play. You are not anything external. You are not anything that can be defined by something or someone else.

The purpose of your journey here is to discover your True Self and leave the persona behind. You are here to find out that the Source of love lies within your own consciousness. You do not have to seek love outside of yourself. Indeed, the very act of seeking love in the world will prevent you from recognizing it within yourself.

You can’t see the light in others until you see it in yourself. Once you see it in yourself, there is no one in whom you do not see the light. It does not matter if they see it or not. You know it’s there. And it is the light you address when you speak to them.

The world of personae is a chaotic and reactive world. It is fueled by fear and judgment. It is real only because you and others believe in it and define yourselves by the conditions you find there. But those conditions are not ultimate reality. They are simply a collective drama of your making. Yes, the drama has its own rules, its costumes, its inter-relationships and its plan of action. But none of this matters when you take your costume off and step off the stage. Mind you, the play will go on. It does not depend on you alone. But when you know it’s just a play, you can choose to participate in it or not. If you participate, you will do so remembering who you are, understanding the part that you play without being attached to it.

Suffering ends when your attachment to all conditions dissolves. Then, you rest in the Self, the embodiment of love, the Source of creation itself.

Yay God!

Lance

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