Jim Palmer's Blog, page 64

The Jesus of history

There was the Jesus of history…

but that was before the Christian religion

constructed an elaborate theological edifice in his name.

They formed religious

orders,

hierarchies,

rituals,

calendars,

creeds,

and

canons,

and the Jesus of history became the Jesus of the Christian religion, which are often two distinctly different and unrelated things.

Some thoughts on “knowing and doing the will of God.”

Some thoughts on “knowing and doing the will of God.”

1. The divine intention for the liberation of all beings and living things is always afoot in the world around you. All creation aches for liberation, and the desire, journey and struggle for freedom is happening everywhere, all the time, and with everyone.

2. You are never separated from the will of God.

One does not need to go searching for or chasing the “will of God,” as if it is some specific and distinct thing out there somewhere to find or do. At the seat of your soul is that intention for liberation and this is so for every human being. Look not further than yourself, look no further than your family, look no further than what appears to you as you walk out your front door, look no further than the next person you interact with, look not further than your next phone call or email exchange, look no further than the next moment. You don’t have to “find and do” God’s will. God’s will is the air you breathe – always happening all around you.

3. God’s will is not something you do, it’s something you are.

The premise of “being like Jesus” in terms of somehow taking on the similar deeds, actions, and behaviors of Jesus’ life is flawed. The only thing Jesus was ever doing was responding to situations as they required out of the truth and awareness of who Jesus was. In other words, God’s will for your life in every moment is to be your Self. When you are seeing with your true Self, listening with your true Self, responding with your true Self, relating with your true Self, speaking from your true Self, creating from your true Self, expressing from your true Self… you are actively participating in that divine intention afoot in the world to liberate all living things and beings.

4. Realize the interrelatedness of all things.

As long as you take yourself to be a person, a body, and a mind, separate from the stream of life, having a will of its own, pursuing its own aims, you are only living on the surface and whatever you do will be short-lived and of little value. Causes and results are infinitely happening in every moment. Everything affects everything. In this universe, when one thing changes, everything changes. Hence the principle, be the change you desire to see in the world. This is a nice thing to quote on your wall, but another thing altogether to take it to heart and live. Your personal liberation contribute to the liberation of all human beings and living things. People dream of transforming the world but they will not do the personal work for their own transformation, which is the only true and sustaining change that happens all around.

5. Fear is not relevant to your standing with or relationship to God.

There is never a moment when you are standing outside of God’s approval, love, and acceptance. Your standing with God is secure, never threatened, never diminished and can never be improved upon on the basis of anything you do or don’t do. In fact, the most important work of liberation you will ever do for yourself and the world is to realize the above. Take to heart the fact that central to the will of God for all creation is the divine intention for YOU to know that you are as God created you – accepted, secure, whole, complete, love, peace, free, good, beautiful.

All there is to do is to awaken from the dream.

There is a YOU, and that YOU was born out of the image, likeness and being of God. That YOU has always been, always is, and always will be in union with God.

That YOU was given a mind and body for the purpose of knowing, experiencing and expressing that union in a human context.

The mind and body is capable of comprehending and functioning in the human context, which is why you received it. But the mind and body takes on a life of its own by creating a whole other identity, unaware of the real YOU and your union with God. This life of separation that your mind and body creates is a dream or illusion. Not all things are as they appear to the mind and body.

Sometimes I half wonder if there is any significance to the fact that in the Book of Genesis when Adam falls into a deep sleep, there is never any mention of him actually waking up!

The way out of this is not trying to fix or solve the dream. IT’S NOT REAL! Trying to fix a dream that isn’t real, only reinforces, legitimizes and feeds the illusion further. There is nothing to fix because there is nothing wrong. All there is to do is to awaken from the dream.

Five Things That Could Be Central To What Your Life Is About…

Five Things That Could Be Central To What Your Life Is About As Opposed To All The Huge And Earth-Shattering Things We Are Told It Should Be:

1. Being a soul friend.

When you connect with another person and become completely open and trusting with that individual, your two souls begin to flow together. Being a soul friend is accepting another as they truly are, holding them in beauty and light. With a soul friend, you are understood as you are, without mask or pretension. This recognition and acceptance provides a space for others to discover and express their real self. There are few things more significant than being a soul friend, cultivating these kinds of relationships, being a space of acceptance and recognition for others, and holding up a mirror for people to see their light.

2. Participating in the awakening of your children.

Could it be that one of your most significant contributions to this world will be your attentiveness and mindfulness to awakening your children to the reality and beauty of who they are, and helping them learn to operate within in and express it?

3. Being a companion and caregiver to animals.

Have you ever considered that the cat or dog that showed up on your doorstep, or the one you took in, or adopted from an animal shelter, and the care and love you give them, is an extraordinary reason for being here?

4. Breaking the silence.

A lot of suffering happens in the world because people are silent. Maybe you are here because you were meant to speak. What if courageously speaking the truth, being a voice for people who have no voice, not keeping quiet and turning a blind eye to injustice, giving expression to something people are missing is central to who you are in this world?

5. Adding beauty.

Fyodor Dostoyevsky wrote, “The world will be saved by beauty.” And maybe you were meant to bring that salvation by contributing beauty in some form of your own. What if offering the beauty that you naturally create as an artist, musician, photographer, gardener, tattoo artist, writer, etc. is what you were meant to be and do in this world?

How’s your relationship with… yourself?

A common religious pathology is a twisted understanding of “self-denial.” A popular Christian mantra is – “Christianity is not a religion but a relationship.” Though this is meant to say that Christianity is a relationship with God, I wish someone would call for a renewed and transformed relationship with one’s self. People are suffering every day, not because of a deficient relationship with God but because of a dysfunctional relationship with themselves.

Let me ask you, how’s your relationship with… yourself?

Do you practice self-care?

Do you acknowledge and honor your needs and desires?

Are you living a life of authentic and free self-expression?

Consider that your relationship with yourself includes:

your relationship to your thoughts,

your relationship to your feelings,

your relationship to your body,

your relationship to your desires,

your relationship to your needs,

your relationship to your gifts,

your relationship to your past,

your relationship to your boundaries,

your relationship to your choices,

your relationship to your emotional pain,

your relationship to your fears,

your relationship to your dreams,

your relationship to your soul,

your relationship to your spirit,

your relationship to your suffering.

The power and energy of language

People don’t always get the power and energy of language. There is so much negative energy in the air that by simply speaking kind, affirming, loving words, we can totally transform a moment and the reality that another person may be stuck in. This also applies to the language you use with yourself, either verbally or inside your head. Right now, shift your internal and outgoing language! People often assume that it is our beliefs that shape who we are. But the reality is that our language and choices condition us into who we are being in the world. You don’t believe yourself into a new reality, you speak and act into a new reality.

Life – you can run but you can’t hide.

“Do you ever feel like life is a slow and painful process of being torn apart, limb by limb? But then aren’t there also those times when something amazing and beautiful happens in life that you never expected?

Just when life delivers a blow that feels like it will be the end of you, turns out it actually helped unravel a little bit more of who you really are.

One moment a tidal wave of change turns you life upside down into something you hardly recognize, but then strangely provides a clearing for you to create the life you really wanted in the first place.

Sometimes life is a path of self-destruction, a course of sabotaging your relationship with yourself and others… that is, until you finally crack, break, and hit rock-bottom from where your journey of true healing begins.

And just when everything you were so certain of in life, everything you placed your trust, faith and security in comes crashing to the ground, but then one day sifting through the rubble of your life you find a couple pieces to put together in a different way, add a few new pieces and you’re on your way to building something new, filled with possibilities.

And yes, there are those gut-wrenching moments when life strikes you down with a heartache so deep that feels you can never recover from, but then there’s that song, breeze, sunset, hug, or something you catch out of the corner of your eye that mysteriously let’s you know you’re going to be okay… and you laugh even as the tears of heartache fall.

Do you see what I’m getting at here? There is a time for everything – that’s the bad news… that’s the good news.

Life!

Sometimes you mourn, sometimes you dance.

Sometimes it feels like it’s all getting away from you, sometimes it comes together in ways you never imagined were possible.

Sometimes you give your heart, sometimes you withhold it.

Sometimes you search, sometimes you give up.

You hold one, you let go.

Sometimes you’re the one delivering the blow, sometimes you’re the one applying the balm.

Sometimes you break the silence, sometimes you step back and say nothing.

Do you see?

Stretch out a continuum between love and hate, between peace and war, and realize that you will not be spared. Life – you can run but you can’t hide. Sometimes you’re the one instigating it, sometimes it is callously and randomly thrust upon you without your choosing.

But I’m asking you to keep the faith. You’ve heard it said, “Everything will be okay in the end. If it’s not okay, it’s not the end.” But what I’m telling you is that everything is okay right now! Everything is truly okay in this moment, and in the next moment, and in the next. You’re saying, “Not sure what definition of ‘okay’ you’re using here!!”

All I can tell you is that in every moment of your life everything is okay in a way that only you can discover and know for yourself. I’m just asking you to have a little faith that okay is always there for you to find. In the living and dying, loving and hating, laughing and crying, dancing and mourning, tearing and mending, brokenness and building… it will be there. Sometimes you’ll have to fight for it or be still enough to hear it or feel it but it will be there. Like a light breeze across your face, something will mysteriously whisper that you are loved, and tell you the story of how goodness and beauty prevail.”

- Ecclesiastes 3:1-8, Religion-Free Bible

4 things you may not need to be worrying about as your spiritual growth and evolution continues

4 things you may not need to be worrying about as your spiritual growth and evolution continues:

1. Figuring “it” out

Reframe what it’s about going forward. There is no “it” to figure out. There is only love, peace, beauty, goodness, life, wholeness and freedom that is present inside you and IS you. Get acquainted with this… experience this… see, hear, taste, touch, feel this in everything and everyone… give expression to this. Relax, quit striving, be alive… be present… notice.

2. Defining your beliefs

Don’t be a slave to reductionism. It’s mainly a Western cultural phenomenon to insist on packaging up the infinite and unknowable into a system of intellectual ideas, propositions, concepts and beliefs. It’s a bonus if you can reduce it into a short creed or fit on the back of a church pamphlet. Look, if your previous way of approaching the divine had worked, you would not be where you are now. There’s likely a lot for you to unlearn, and the need to define your beliefs may be one of them.

3. Fitting into a label

People feel naked without a label. It’s just easier to have one. We often depend on our labels for a sense of identity and belonging. We all like the idea of belonging to a community or tribe and these are often attached to a label. Consider cultivating a sense of satisfaction and belonging by identifying with all of life and humankind as a whole. There may be no need to classify yourself with any more specificity than that. When someone asks me if I am a “Christian,” I will sometimes say something like, “Actually what I am is a human. And I identify with the humanity I see in Jesus, and the way he threw his lot in with all of humankind. I want to be more human the way Jesus was, and I want to inspire that kind of humanity all around me. I want to see God in myself and in every human being the way Jesus did, and I want to live in the reality that every person is my brother or my sister. I can’t imagine anything more divine than that.” My point is, it’s not necessary to identify or define yourself by a label.

4. Being wrong

God is not something to be “right” or “wrong” about. God is not a math test. Your true Self is as God created – secure, complete, whole, at peace, free, and fully aware of the truth. All that’s left is you giving birth to that Self in the context of human life, human living, and human being. You will never get there in fear, you can only get there in love. There is no fear in love. If you have fear, it’s an illusion you’ve created and has nothing to do with God and your journey here on earth. It’s one of the few rules of knowing God – Fear and God never go together. You will not lay hold of all God wants for you and IS you by carrying the fear of “being wrong” or “messing up.” When a child is learning to walk and they fall, are they “wrong” or “messing up”? You are 100% secure in God, and nothing ever has, ever is, or ever will threaten that.

God does not cause suffering.

Suffering is NOT God’s way of preparing us for anything, in this life or otherwise. God does not cause suffering. The cause of suffering is spiritual ignorance. We do not see things as they truly are, and we have imprisoned ourselves inside a web of falsehoods. Our way of seeking peace, freedom, wholeness and happiness in fundamentally flawed because we are trying to work it out in the framework of a world that is characterized by impermanence, and can never be the source of our lasting well-being. People are often drawn to the idea of Heaven because they view it a reality of perfect circumstances. This would make sense if our problem was actually our circumstances. But it’s not. This is why Jesus could say, “The Kingdom of God has come.” Nothing about the way things currently are is an obstruction to the Kingdom of God being fully present right now.

There will always naturally be pain in the human context. If you trip and fall on the pavement while you are running, you will feel physical pain. If someone you love dies, you will feel emotional pain. There’s nothing wrong with this and it does not prevent us from experiencing the Kingdom of God, and knowing peace, freedom, well-being and wholeness. In fact, these very things are the underlying, unchanging and fundamental essence of who we are, born out of the image, likeness and being of God.

Whereas, there will always naturally be the experience of pain in the human context, suffering is different. Suffering is the mental anguish we impose upon life as a result of our spiritual ignorance. For example, when a loved one dies we experience loss and grief. This is normal. But because we don’t see things as they truly are, namely that we see the world through the lie of separation, the loss of a loved one takes on a degree of finality and separation that severely traumatizes us.

That underlying essence of who you are was given a mind and body for a human experience. Your mind and body is the way it is because it has been influenced and conditioned by a lifetime of experiences, conditions, experiences, people, and choices. Spiritual ignorance is the cause of suffering, but the issues we have in our mind and body must be addressed as the situation requires.

For example, spiritual enlightenment or transformation isn’t going to magically solve things like eating and self-harm disorders, clinical depression, mental disorders, substance addictions, etc. In other words, “becoming more spiritual” isn’t going to magically solve these. Why? Because it’s not a “spiritual problem;” it’s a mind and body problem. The only spiritual problem we have is thinking we have one. In other words, we don’t see things as they truly are. Whereas it might be the case that awakening to truth has a positive impact on many different areas of our lives, we still must address issues of the mind and body as the situation requires. For example, I don’t believe the axiom “A family that prays together stays together.” The divorce rate among Christians is higher than the national average. I think a better axiom might be: “A family that is determined to do their personal work in addressing their own pathologies and dysfunctional patterns, and who are together committed to learning and practicing healthy relationships with each other… has a real shot at staying together.” Likewise, reading the Bible isn’t going to solve clinical depression, bipolar disorder, etc., but the proper mental health services and medications can help in managing it.

Just like the world around us, our mind and body is characterized by impermanence. If we are attached to life circumstances, things, or even the condition of our mind and body, as our source of peace, happiness, wholeness, freedom and well-being, we are going to suffer. Those things can never be that for us. So, in addition to seeing things as they truly are, which addresses the issue of our suffering, we must also live life skillfully and relate to the mind and body as the situation requires.

The ego-mind is king, which means you are the peasant, the subject of his rule.

Imagine being in a throne room. In the center of the room is an elevated and majestic throne on which sits the king. Across the room there you are, looking at the king on his throne. This is your life.

That You looking across the room is the You that is incomprehensible. Surely you realize by now that the underlying, unchanging and fundamental essence of who you are is beyond the comprehension of the mind. That You has awareness; it sees, perceives, and knows things intuitively. But that You can be located. It’s not something one can point to and say, “There it is.” It is more than that.

That You looks across the room, and sees the king upon his throne. Who is the king? Your ego-mind. The ego-mind is king, which means you are the peasant, the subject of his rule.

The king, your ego-mind, is in charge. He calls all the shots. He says do this, don’t do that, and you comply and obey. He is an oppressor. Why do you do allow this? Why do you permit the king to be a tyrant, constantly ordering you around and incessantly telling you what you must do? It’s because the king offers protection from perceived threats. The king says he loves you and offers protection. You practically think of him as God. All tyrants are like this. They rule with an iron fist but insist it is for your own good and protection.

But then the day comes when You, the peasant, rises up and revolts! You’ve seen through lies and deception and you will stand for it no longer. A great struggle ensues and you dethrone the king, your ego-mind. The king fights back; he will not be denied his throne. He is continually denied and begins to kick and scream. Like a baby, he throws temper-tantrum, upon temper-tantrum, upon temper-tantrum to reclaim his throne, but to no avail.

Eventually the ego-mind accepts that it is futile to have the throne, and he goes and gets a real job, which is all the cognitive reasoning and mind stuff relative to human existence that he should have been doing all along in the first place.

Eventually the discovery is made that this ego-mind was never anything but a concept to begin with and was never real. Where did it come from? Think of it as a number of elements that coalesce or fuse together into a concept of a self. You have a body, sensory perception, preferences, and desires – all these ingredients are stirred together, thrown in the oven, and come out as a concept of self. But this concept is not real. It is true that you have those ingredients, but the concept it cooked up in your head about you are is not real.

You have a mind and it has a purpose. It is the part of you that does the cognitive functioning. It’s a necessary part of normal human living. However, it should not get a vote on things outside this realm. But for most people, it’s the king on the throne calling the shots.