Clifford Mikkelson's Blog, page 4
March 13, 2022
Question 181: About Surrendering
Question 181: Does the Gospel of Oneness have the concept of “Surrender?”
Yes, it does. Since we were created in the image and likeness of our Creator Spirit we have an immaculate conception that holds true eternally. However, during our incarnations in the physical realms of creation, we have taken on lesser identities and have forgotten our identities in Spirit. Everything that blocks us from realizing our complete oneness with Spirit is what we need to surrender.
Here is a partial list of what we need to surrender: Fear that comes with a sense of mortality. Prejudice that makes us think that some people are lesser than us. A sense of judgment against others who don’t live up to our standards. The anger that arises for many reasons that all come out of the thoughts that we are entitled to take out our anger on others. The guilt that comes from past failures to measure up to our own standards. The sense of unworthiness that makes us think we can never measure up to the highest standards for the best behavior. The false beliefs that we cling to without examining them thoroughly. All attachments to things of this world that we cannot take with us. All desires for human pleasures that are not essential to our eternal identity. All psychological wounds and scars that we hold onto as grievances that have harmed our human egos. All false sense of identity as mortal, limited human beings. All ego-based will power that seeks to build up a limited human self. All sense of separation from our Creator. The sense that we are special and have the right to control the free will of other souls. The pride that exalts us above others. The death consciousness that weighs us down with the thought that we are limited mortal beings.
That is a long list, so we can see that surrender is not a one-and-done decision. It is a life-long process. We are moving from the unreality of the cosmic delusion that we live in to the reality of eternal Spirit. Once we totally surrender to our oneness with our Creator, Real Life begins.
February 24, 2022
Question 180: About evaluating your progress in realizing the Oneness of life
Question 180: How do we know if we are making progress in realizing our oneness with all life?
The essential question to ask ourselves is how much love have I been showing or giving to others and myself? If we are sure that we have been giving love to everyone we meet, then we are making progress. In order to know this, we need to question our motives and actions.
In giving love it is good to look at our attachments. If I’m not attached I will not expect anything in return. I will not put conditions on my love. I will not expect others to respond in the way I think they should or could. I will not have any strings attached to my love.
I will have ultimate respect for the free will of other people. They make take actions that I don’t like or agree with. I may want to argue with them or oppose them in some way. This will be a test for my sense of oneness. Will I think I am a separate being? Or will I keep my inner peace and look for a higher way to work through disagreements. My own reaction to provocations and the behavior of other people is the key to knowing the state of my progress in realizing the oneness of life.
No one can take away my sense of oneness with all life. I can’t control what other people think, say or do, and if I love them I won’t try to. I will interact with them with my own firm identity as an immortal being of the Infinite Spirit.
We know the Infinite Spirit loves us because It/She/He has given us free will. We have chosen to do so many harmful things with our free will, yet because the Infinite Spirit is unconditional love, we are attracted to return to this true love of our Creator.
“There’s only one thing that cuts through all our realities and that’s love—the bridge between all our differences.” – The L Word
“Because through love, we feel the intensity of our connection to everything and everyone. And at the core, we are all the same. We’re all one.” – Loving Annabelle
“Love is the only force capable of transforming an enemy into a friend.” – Martin Luther King, Jr.
October 28, 2021
Question 179: About Oneness and the Story of Adam and Eve.
Question 179: How does the Gospel of Oneness interpret the story of Adam and Eve and the fall of mankind?
In the metaphorical story of Adam and Eve and the fall of mankind, the tree of the knowledge of relative good and evil was planted in the Garden of Eden. This tree represented the consciousness of separation from the oneness of Spirit. In the metaphor, this tree had to be there because of the free-will choices given to mankind. Would humans choose to stay in the consciousness of oneness with Spirit or would they choose to explore the consciousness of thinking themselves separate from Spirit?
The serpent who deceives them into partaking of the fruit of this tree represents the possibility of Self-deception. Adam and Eve chose Self-deception (as most of us have) and subsequently, we became enmeshed in all the ideas and ramifications of relative good and evil wherein people make up their own ideas of “good” and “evil” and become willing to fight others in defense or enforcement of their notions of good and evil. (Think of all the political, social, and religious ideas of good and evil.)
It is only in this sphere of separation consciousness that relative good and evil can exist, and they cannot exist without each other. Relative good will never be able to eliminate relative evil.
In the metaphorical story, Adam and Eve, after making their choice to explore the consciousness of separation, try to hide from God (the Spirit of Oneness). To maintain their sense of separation they have to think of God as an external God who is looking for them. The Spirit of Oneness always has an open door for them to come back into Oneness, but they go with their decision to be separate and experience the world of relativity and then lose their position in the Garden of Eden, which represents the peace, joy, and love of Spirit. There is no relative good and evil in the absolute reality of the supreme Spirit of Creation. There is only ever-new joy and bliss in the experiences of Spirit. To choose to love God means to love the Consciousness of the all pervading Spirit of beauty, wisdom, love, joy and all the aspects of absolute goodness.
I’ve learned a lot about good and evil. They are not always what they appear to be. — Charles Van Doren
People like to say that the conflict is between good and evil. The real conflict is between truth and lies.—Don Miguel Ruiz
If I play a villain, I try to find his lightness and his good side. And if I play a hero or a good guy, I’ll try to find his darkness or his flaws. Because I don’t believe in good and evil. I believe in grays. — Joel Kinnaman
“Good and ill have not changed since yesteryear.”
JRR TolkienSeptember 26, 2021
Question 178: In the gospel of oneness how does one deal with compassion overload?
Question 178: In the gospel of oneness how does one deal with compassion overload?
When you know and feel that you are one with all life, plant, animal, and human, and you are aware of all the suffering that goes on, and on, it is natural to sometimes feel despair and pain yourself.
However, the suffering is only a small part of the story. You also become aware of all the love, joy, beauty, wonder and happiness of life. There is an ocean of joy compared to a pond of despair.
Jesus felt his oneness with all life, and he helped as many people as he could. He healed some people, gave lessons on how to live, and rebuked some people for their hypocrisy and living joyless lives of judgment and criticism.
The Creator desires that all life be lifted up to experience ever-new joy, but we have free-will to choose our path. Free will to choose is our Creator’s greatest gift and proof the Creator loves us.
We are living through the drama of physical creation where every form begins, lives or stays for a while, and passes away. Only Spirit remains. To be one with all life means to be one in Spirit. Spirit transcends all the ups and downs of dualistic physical life.
This refines the question. Where do we focus our compassion? Since we have freedom to choose, our compassion goes out to those who are choosing actions that lead to suffering for themselves and others.
We hear mainly about the bad news. The good news is so common that we often take it for granted. When something tragic happens, we pay attention because collectively we want to heal the problems.
Jesus did as much as he could to help people. We also can help anyone and everyone within the range of our consciousness, but we can’t live anyone else’s life for them.
“Only the development of compassion and understanding for others can bring us the tranquility and happiness we all seek.”
– Dalai Lama.
In my view, the best of humanity is in our exercise of empathy and compassion. It’s when we challenge ourselves to walk in the shoes of someone whose pain or plight might seem so different than yours that it’s almost incomprehensible. –Sarah McBride
Our uniqueness, our individuality, and our life experience molds us into fascinating beings. I hope we can embrace that. I pray we may all challenge ourselves to delve into the deepest resources of our hearts to cultivate an atmosphere of understanding, acceptance, tolerance, and compassion. We are all in this life together. –Linda Thompson
Compassion, in which all ethics must take root, can only attain its full breadth and depth if it embraces all living creatures and does not limit itself to mankind. –Albert Schweitzer
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July 26, 2021
Question 177: About Jesus saying “Father forgive them for they know not what they do” and its relevance to the gospel of oneness
Question 177: When Jesus said (at the cross)“Father figure them for they know not what they do,” what didn’t they know and how does that relate to the Gospel of Oneness and our current issues?
Here is what they didn’t know: 1) By killing Jesus they were killing a part of themselves. 2) They were acting out of fear. 3) They didn’t know love and kindness were better options. 4) They didn’t know that killing him would not solve any of their psychological problems. 5) They didn’t know they were killing the body of someone who represented God on earth. 6) They didn’t know that the death of the body does not kill the Spirit. 7) They didn’t know how to follow the golden rule. 8) They didn’t know how much Jesus and God still loved them. 9) They didn’t know about the oneness of all life.
How does this relate to our current issues? It is still pretty much the same ignorance, don’t you think? Many people still think they can hurt other people and animals without hurting themselves. Many people still act out of fear, power, and might, not love. Many people still take out their problems on other people and neglect looking at their own psychological problems. Many people still don’t realize the value of human and animal life. They don’t realize the Spirit is the one expressing life everywhere. Some people deny the Spirit and think the death of a body means the death of the living Spirit within the body. Many people still don’t take the golden rule as the reality that determines the consequences of our actions. Many people still haven’t experienced the soul-stirring love of God or Spirit. Many people would still crucify Jesus or someone like him who was gaining too much influence and threatening the power elites.
Notice I have said “many people” because I have no idea what the percentage of ignorant people really is. I do think that that we have a lot of people who know something about the oneness of life. We are making progress, but we still have a long way to go.
Being ignorant is not so much a shame, as being unwilling to learn.
One should commit no stupidity twice. The variety of choice is, in the end, large enough. –Jean Paul Sartre
June 20, 2021
Question 176: What is the role of joy in the oneness of life?
Cheerfulness is the best medicine, now and forever. Ever-new joy is the nature of the eternal Creative Spirit. As souls we are part of the ever-new joy. If you haven’t experienced this yet, you can deduce it logically. Would you want to exist eternally burdened with stress, worry, boredom, sadness, or anything that would be miserable? No, you would want to be filled with a blissful joy that is forever delightful and ever new because of your endless creativity.
The idea that God is a grumpy and judgmental old man who says he loves everyone but is willing to let most of humanity go to hell in the name of justice or because they don’t believe in the right theology is an idea that has been spread by the false teachers of Christianity and Islam for over 1500 years. If anyone tries to scare you with talk of hell, just walk away. You don’t need that kind of negativity in your life.
Tapping into the ever-new joy of Spirit may not cure someone of a serious ailment, but it is the main part of all healing methods. If you can magnify the ever-new joy of God in your consciousness, it will refresh and invigorate every cell in your body. Just as placebos are effective sometimes because of the power of belief, so believing in the ever-new joy of Spirit will provide healing vibrations. Ever-new joy is stronger than placebos.
Just think of when someone gives you a radiant smile, you smile back because a spark of joy has entered your consciousness. So, when we extend joy to others it is healing for everyone.
A person doesn’t have to believe in God to experience the healing power of joy. It arises spontaneously. No doctrines about God are needed.
Joy can help you overcome the delusions and duality of this world. If you have inner joy coursing through your mind and heart then you will have no room for resentments, or holding grudges, or judging other people. The problems of the world won’t weigh you down because your inner joy is helping to make the world a better place.
Inner joy helps you to extend forgiveness to everyone. It helps you get a perspective on problems of all kinds. Do you ever get mad or upset at the political or religious opinions of other people? That can drag you down into the endless duality of politics and religious differences.
You may not be able to convince anyone else of the rightness of your opinions. However, if you maintain your consciousness of joy and the oneness of life, you will be at peace. No one can steal your inner joy and peace if you have them firmly fixed within your consciousness.
Joy is the echo of God’s life within us.
When you do things from your soul, you feel a river moving in you, a joy.
Joy is what happens to us when we allow ourselves to recognize how good things really are.
The fullness of Joy is to behold God in everything.
April 17, 2021
Question 175: About making Christianity into a beautiful religion
Question 175: How can the Christian religion be made beautiful by the Gospel of Oneness?
To answer this, ,we have to look at the man-made aspects of Christianity, which have distorted and failed on presenting and practicing the teachings of Jesus. To begin with, racism has been intertwined with Christianity. In the North and South America, parts of Europe, and elsewhere where Christianity grew and flourished, the people accepted slavery and racial bias as normal and even condoned by scripture. That kind of slavery is gone, but racism and notions of white supremacy linger on in Christian churches.
Next, notions of Hell paint the picture of an unloving, stupid and even cruel Christian God who would consign people to an eternity of suffering if they did not believe and act in the right way during one short lifetime on earth.
Christian doctrine cannot explain the injustice in the world because it does not accept the idea of reincarnation and the long journey of the soul to come back into the realization of Oneness in Spirit with our Creator. The karmic effects of our actions are often carried over lifetime after lifetime. Life may often seem unfair unless it is perceived from the long view of many incarnations.
Christian doctrine also misrepresents Jesus. It says that Jesus is the only son of God and that he died for everyone’s sins past, present, and future. It doesn’t recognize that Jesus was a man who realized his oneness with Spirit and came to show and teach people a way to raise their consciousness by concentrating on their own eternal connection with God, so they could save themselves by their own Self-realization. This makes Jesus a universal person who taught a universal way to approach our Creator. A person does not need to accept Jesus as the only savior or teacher for mankind. Salvation will come to all who make the sufficient effort to realize their oneness with Spirit. If they don’t reach the ultimate goal of ascension into the spiritual realm in this lifetime, they can continue to learn about what it takes.
To summarize, here are the changes that need to be made in Christianity: 1) completely get rid of racism, 2) abolish the notion of an everlasting hell and that God would consign part of itself to eternal punishment, 3) Accept and understand the cycles of reincarnation, 4) Accept that Jesus set an example that we all can follow—realizing that we are all one with our Creator
If the majority of Christians made these changes in attitude and doctrine, then Christianity could become a beautiful religion.
February 18, 2021
Question 174: About monotheism or polytheism being better for approaching the Oneness of Life.
Question 174: Is monotheism or polytheism better for realizing the oneness of all life?
One might think that monotheism, the belief in one God, would be more conducive for developing the belief in the oneness of all life, but let us consider the evidence. The three major monotheistic religions, Judaism, Islam, and Christianity all have an “us” and “them” attitude. Islam has little tolerance for the beliefs of other religion. It calls non-believers infidels and worse and says they will end up in hell. In countries where Islam is in the minority, the leaders may proclaim tolerance for all beliefs, but in Muslim majority countries that have sharia, they do not preach the oneness in diversity.
In Judaism they had the concept of being the chosen people of God. This put them above all other people groups. They also believed in a Messiah that would come mainly to save their tribe. In oneness all beings are equal parts of the Divine Whole. No one, no matter how highly they are presently evolved, are more valuable and important than anyone else in the eyes of oneness. Even if someone has a special role to play in our earthly dramas, he or she is not superior in the view of oneness.
In Christianity, though Jesus is not to blame for how it developed, there is a widespread belief that Christians are special because they are definitely going to heaven if they accept Jesus as their savior while those people who do not accept Jesus are most likely going to hell.
To sum up, in the monotheistic religions one must be in the right religion and believe in the right God. So, monotheism has not preached or acted like we are all part of the same eternal reality of one Creator God. Rather, they preach that we are separate from God and may never realize our oneness with God, depending on how we live one short or long life on earth.
What about Polytheistic religions? Hinduism is the main example of a polytheistic religion with over, some say, 300 million gods and goddesses. However, when you looker deeper into Hindu beliefs you see that many of its saints and sages taught that there is only one supreme Creator who may be seen as impersonal and personal at the same time. All of the lesser deities are seen as identities within the vast consciousness of the Creator. All the angels, devas, and demigods are players in the drama of creation, but they are not the Supreme Consciousness.
Jews and Christians are known as people of the Book. Muslims are also the people of one book. However, the Hindus are people of the Library because they have so many Vedic holy books.
In conclusion, polytheism is better for understanding and developing the ethos of the oneness of all life. It has a tolerance for all kinds of theological beliefs, and it sees the oneness in the diversity of life. This does not mean that all polytheists are tolerant. Some think their chosen or favorite deities are the best.
Both Buddhism and Taoism have concepts of different deities, yet they speak of the unity of life.
The Gospel of Oneness moves past the monotheism/polytheism debate and goes directly to our connection to the source of all Life. We do not have many doctrines, basically it is about developing our personal relationship with our Creator and following the Golden Rule by respecting all people, all life, as equal parts of our Creator. The Gospel of Oneness says that God is the One Spirit in and behind Creation.
— Margot Adler
“For the natural polytheist who finds her gods in the rivers and mountains, in the deep-rooted giants looming above the canopy and in the tiny creatures that move beneath them, ecology gives us a glimpse into a kind of living anatomy of the divine, a theology of physical as well as spiritual life. – Alison Leigh Lilly, “Anatomy of a God”
― John Halstead, Godless Paganism: Voices of Non-Theistic Pagans
“Know, child, that the One God—He is so vast that He cannot be moved, else the Universe falls. Nor can He answer, for the very act of opening His Mouth is Movement, indeed the greatest Act of all, for it is the Word. And this is precisely why He has made an infinity of lesser gods, creating them in His own image, so that we can do the lesser things on His behalf. We are His hands and arms and feet and mouths. We are His answers to your prayers, enacted along the great Framework of Being.”
― Vera Nazarian, Cobweb Forest
“We can name this river, here and now—but we cannot name the water itself. We can name our gods and we can name ourselves, but we cannot name the essence of sacred identity that flows through both, that connects us and sanctifies us.” – Alison Leigh Lilly, “Naming the Water: Human and Deity Identity from an Earth-Centered Perspective”
― John Halstead, Godless Paganism: Voices of Non-Theistic Pagans
February 7, 2021
Question 173: About conspiracy theories
Question 173: What does the Gospel of Oneness say about the conspiracy theories that say the devil and his minions are trying to enslave humanity through liberalism, socialism, communism, mind control, vaccinations, the money system, drugs of all kinds and many other nefarious ways?
The people who believe in and act upon these conspiracy theories are caught up in an epic drama. They believe they must act to save themselves and the world from a horrible future of total enslavement to the hidden elite who are always behind the scenes pulling the strings and manipulating almost everyone to take the paths that lead to enslavement.
Not all the so-called manipulators are hidden of course. Some people will call out names such as Bill Gates, George Soros, Rupert Murdoch and other wealthy people who fund certain activities. They also call out the Chinese Communist party, the North Korean Government, and other totalitarian governments.
However, it is the hidden elite: The Devil and his nefarious underlings, which include people on earth who have sold out to the Devil, who are the real enemy according to the religiously oriented people.
So, they believe they have a righteous cause. Something they can always fight against and know that “God” is on their side. These battles are endless of course because relative evil will always be around in contrast to relative good,
The problem comes when people are so caught up in the outer battles, the “Jihads,” the “Crusades” to use religious terms, that they neglect the only real challenge we all face: How to know and master our own selves, our minds, our emotions, our bodies and our identities.
People can be staunch crusaders against something like communism or crusaders for something like justice for all, and yet after a lifetime of service in their cause they may have never truly delved into their own psychology, never knew their deeper selves, never connected with the mind of Oneness and Cosmic Consciousness
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“Proven conspiracies very often involve a banality and institutional disorganization that is conspicuously missing from the average conspiracy theory, in which countless numbers of conspirators from multiple organizations are able to march in evil lockstep ad infinitum.”
― Chris Fleming, Modern Conspiracy: The Importance of Being Paranoid
“The Holocaust happened because of the constructed belief in one untrue conspiracy theory, and the denial of its genocide afterward came from the creation and propagation of another.”
― Stewart Stafford
January 7, 2021
Question 172: About Religion, gender, ethnicity, nationality, and race having reality in the Mind of Oneness
Question 172: Do religion, gender, nationality, ethnicity, race have any reality in the in the Mind of Oneness?
In the world of relativity they seem to have a reality. In fact, they are the reality that we live in. We are divided into nations, races, religions, ethnic groups and of course by gender. Our local, national, and international laws take into account all these factors, and our daily lives revolve around these realities.
Diversity of expression is what the creation is all about. However, it is all a play in which we create our dramas. If any of us get caught up in our personal dramas and the epic dramas of our time and then think that they are the final and most important dramas of all times, then we are sadly mistaken, and our ego identities are in control.
There is always a balance between playing our roles in society and staying aware that we are eternal creative souls who are temporarily exploring life in the realms of physical form. We know that a human life of even one hundred years is a very short time compared to the age of our earth and universe.
So, to answer this question, all of our dramas about the way we identify ourselves in this world have a temporary reality in which we learn about the creation and the relationships between eternal souls. We learn about love, truth, beauty, joy, courage, harmony, integrity, as well as physics, chemistry, biology, mathematics, and all the sciences, art and music. We also learn about the dark side of living in physical forms that have certain needs of food and security. We learn about fear, anger, and vengeance. We learn all about the emotional part of life that is connected to all of our dramas.
All of our diverse expressions are within the mind of Oneness, and yet, because this universal Mind is pure unconditional love and wisdom, it is bringing every soul back to the realization of its eternal oneness with the Creative Spirit beyond all the forms of creation.
The eternal drama of creation goes on and on forever. We have the option to rise above the dramas of creation anytime we are ready for that profound realization.
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Peace will come to the hearts of men when they realize their oneness with the universe. It is everywhere. –Black Elk
