Jim Palmer's Blog, page 66

To be released from the illusion…

To be released from the illusion that…

there is something you lack that you must attain,

you are apart or separated from love or wholeness,

you need to be seeking to find or achieve something called enlightenment,

peace and fulfillment is something out there to search for and make happen,

there are conditions you must meet in order to be free

is liberation.

Transformation is not an apology for yourself.

Transformation isn’t about depending on a higher power outside of you, it’s about accessing the divine resources inside of you.

Transformation isn’t about seeking forgiveness for who you are, it’s about bringing full-expression to who you are.

Transformation is not about overcoming yourself, it’s about shedding the story that diminishes your worth, and writing a new one that honors it.

Transformation is not an apology for yourself, it’s staking claim to yourself.

Religion often kills off and shuts down a person’s free self-expression.

I’ve observed how religion often kills off and shuts down a person’s free self-expression. The idea seems to be that what we most deeply think, feel and want to do must be controlled and restrained or we will commit the worst of evils. What I have found instead is that people carry entire worlds of beauty, goodness, love, creativity, brilliance, magic and mystery within them, waiting to be spoken, written, painted, sung, played, inked, performed, sculpted, photographed, choreographed, engineered, programmed, planted, posted, and created. Every religion identifies a creative energy and power as a fundamental aspect of God or the divine. There is no calling more sacred than releasing and expressing those worlds that lie within us, waiting and groaning to be born.

Peace is not something you can attain or lose.

Several months ago one of our cars was struck by another vehicle in a no-fault accident. It put a big dent in the driver’s side door and also bent the frame on the back left. As a result, the back left tire does not sit square on the road and makes the car difficult to drive, practically impossible on a wet road. Because our insurance will not cover the repairs, we have put it off and have not yet fixed it. Meanwhile, our old Durango, which has 110,000 miles on it, broke down yesterday, and is in the shop being repaired. By the time the Durango is finished it will be a little over $800 in total repairs. The whole episode chewed up the entire afternoon from about 1:00 until 7:00. We had to create a Plan B on the fly in order to get the girls picked up, and where they needed to be. Jessica and Cera start school today.

For sure, this whole ordeal was an inconvenience. Making financial ends meet is a monthly challenge for us like I’m sure it is for many of you. We definitely didn’t need an unexpected $800 expense. I had also been planning to get in a good writing session yesterday afternoon as I’m trying to finish my upcoming book by mid-September. That didn’t happen either.

I was reminded of several things through yesterday’s circumstances. First, life is characterized by impermanence. Cars break down. The monies in your checking account fluctuate. The best made plans are subject to change suddenly, unexpectedly and without warning. This can be annoying and frustrating. It is okay to feel and acknowledge that. Sometimes we are disappointed in life and the appropriate thing to do is to own it, acknowledge it, sit with it, and let it be so.

Acceptance applies here as well. It begins with the recognition that what happens in life isn’t “personal.” You or I are not being targeted. Every person’s car breaks down. Every person’s financial situation fluctuates. Everyone’s best made plans can be suddenly disrupted and changed. This is simply the way the world is for e-v-e-r-y-o-n-e. Ideally, you will not have to work this idea out in every individual scenario because you will be sufficiently convinced that your experience is not the exception or some isolated event, but that all of life is characterized by impermanence.

Not only are the annoyances, frustrations and hardships of life not “personal,” neither do they threaten, diminish or disturb the underlying source of your well-being. At the deepest level you are a manifestation of the image, likeness and being of God. At the deepest level, you are one with God. The image, likeness and being of God is the underlying, unchanging, and fundamental essence of who you are. You don’t need something to happen in order to have peace, and there is nothing that can deprive you of peace. You are not separate or separated from peace. Peace is not something you can attain or lose. Peace is who you are at the deepest level. The same applies for well-being, wholeness, freedom, and contentment.

When your car breaks down, or you have a financial crisis, or plans are turned upside down, it’s easy to get hijacked by negative thoughts and emotions, and all the drama we create out of it. A good way to deescalate the emotions and drama and return to the present moment is to focus your attention and energy on responding as the situation requires. Yesterday, Heather and I made a plan and just began addressing the things that needed to be addressed, one at a time, as the situation required. It was much less stressful to approach it this way. It was a financial setback, and I can’t get back the time that was involved but this was my spiritual path yesterday. There is nothing more sacred I could have done than what we did. The annoyance, frustration and hardship of it was balanced by being reminded of the way things really are, which is worth its weight in gold.

Your life is your spiritual path. For me that involved:

1. Allowing myself to experience the normal human feelings that come with living in a world characterized by impermanence.

2. Throwing the circumstances against the truth I already know – that difficulties are not personal but universal, and they never threatens my true peace and well-being.

3. Deescalating my emotions and drama by focusing on what the situation requires.

“Now is the day of salvation.”

“Life isn’t going to show up any more opportunistically tomorrow for my growth, transformation, peace and happiness. Sometimes I get lulled into this idea that tomorrow will be a better day for creating the life I want to live.

The Bible says, “Now is the day of salvation.” I take that to mean things like…

Now is the day to let go.

Now is the day to stop hiding and pretending.

Now is the day to make amends.

Now is the day to say what needs said.

Now is the day to do the thing you think you cannot do.

Now is the day for a new relationship with yourself.

Now is the day to walk away.

Now is the day to express what you most deeply feel.

Now is the day to make peace with your past.

Now is the day to take a stand.

Now is the day to start anew.

Now is the day to act on your passion.

Now is the day to break your silence.

Now is the day to ask for help and support.

Now is the day for creating the life you desire.

Now is the day to step out in faith and courage.

Now is the day to vulnerable.

Now is the day for establishing that boundary.

Now is the day to stop saying you can’t.

Now is the day to declare what truly matters to you in life.

Now is the day to stop withholding love.

Now is the day to take back responsibility for your life.

Now is the day to stop making excuses.

Now is the day to stop all of that berating self-talk.

Now is the day to be fully present.

Now is the day to move past what has been holding you back.

Now is the day to be honest with yourself.

Now is the day to think for yourself.

Now is the day to follow your path.

Now is the day to listen to your heart.

Now is the day to live your life.

Today…

the same day as

yesterday;

the same day as

tomorrow;

the only day there is,

and ever will be.”

- Jim Palmer

Jesus never caused anyone to be saved.

Jesus never caused anyone to be saved. It’s not something anyone can do for anyone else. In essence Jesus said, “I have the truth – the tools to end your problem and suffering. Follow me.” And if people had a willing and earnest desire, and listened and applied what they had been given, transformation happened. Jesus came around and basically said, “If you need that bolt loosened, here’s the wrench.” You can’t throw the kitchen sink at a problem and expect it to be fixed. You have to use the right tool to fix a specific problem. The same could be said of the Buddha. He never caused anyone to be enlightened. He had a truth to share that addressed a particular problem, and if someone earnestly applied that truth or tool, their problem was solved.

People want to pit Jesus and the Buddha against each other, or insist that you must choose one or the other. Though there are many similarities between what Jesus and the Buddha taught, they were offering tools to two different problems. Jesus addressed humankind’s relationship to God, and offered truth and tools particularly related to humankind’s perception of separation from God. The Buddha addressed humankind’s relationship to reality, and offered tools to address people’s suffering, which is caused by ignorance of the way things really are.

In any event, we have a tendency to be offered a wrench to solve a problem, and we make a religion out of the wrench and worship it, and fight over who has the best wrench. In other words, we make it about the wrench rather than the problem for which the wrench was offered. Rather than worshiping the wrench, and wasting time and energy arguing over them, simply use it for the problem it was given to solve.

We don’t see the world as it really is.

There is suffering, and I refer to this often. This is not meant to convey a depressing view of the world or our human reality. It’s simply a pragmatic perspective, stating the obvious and dealing with the world as it is. Jesus himself said there will be trouble in this world.

We all experience pleasure in this world. But is it not also plainly obvious that pleasure is fleeting? The pursuit of pleasure never ends because it is ultimately an unquenchable thirst. The same logic applies to our understanding of happiness. In the end, only aging, sickness, and death are certain and unavoidable.

Why do I insist on speaking of these truths that we all would prefer to avoid?

We are led through life by our desire for pleasure and happiness. We crave pleasure, material goods, and immortality, all of which are wants that can never be satisfied. As a result, desiring them can only bring suffering.

Why do we do this? Ignorance. We don’t see the world as it really is. We don’t grasp the true nature of things. Our vices, such as greed, envy, hatred and anger, derive from this ignorance. All of this causes suffering.

Jesus said the kingdom of God is here. This confused people because they assumed that God’s kingdom would be the final and complete granting of pleasure and happiness they had been craving. They looked for the improved and perfect circumstances that they associated with this pleasure and happiness.

Instead, Jesus told them to find the kingdom inside themselves. Inside at the deepest level we are one with God. Jesus said, “I am the truth.” What truth is that? That humankind and God are not separated, but one. Which also them means that we are not separated from love, peace, wholeness, freedom and well-being.

The image, likeness and being of God is the underlying, unchanging and fundamental essence or nature of who we are, and all things. At the level of our true being we are at peace, free, whole, and content. There is no need to seek pleasure and happiness for well-being because well-being is who we are. Instead, we can move through the word encountering both pleasure and pain without being attached to either or depending on them as the source of our well-being.

Fear, guilt and shame can be useful on your spiritual journey.

Fear, guilt and shame can be useful on your spiritual journey. When you experience these, follow the trail back to the idea, notion, belief or concept that was the source. When you find it, divest all your belief in it, and let it go. Never return to it. To this as many times as is necessary.

We are responsible for the mess of the world.

The false notion of our original badness is a ball and chain, preventing us from embracing our original goodness. My Inbox is proof of this with emails that say things like this: “At church, I learned that God loves me less because I’m female. Organized Christianity insisted that I am a filthy, stinking, horrible, sinful person deserving of Hell. I’m less than worthless, and knowing so is a godly attribute. Church taught me to despise myself and be afraid of God.”

We all know there’s a denotative and connotative meaning of what is communicated. In too many cases, people are deriving the following connotative meaning from the gospel they hear:

“I am a scumbag. God is perfectly holy. If it were up to God, I’d be condemned to burn in Hell forever. That’s just how bad I am, and how good God is. Thankfully, God is sort or stuck and can’t really send me to Hell now because of what Jesus did. Phew! I’m sure God will never be very fond of a scumbag like me, but at least I’m making it into Heaven when I die. In the meantime, I’m off the hook because when God looks at scumbag me, God doesn’t see scumbag me; he sees Jesus instead. It’s all good. I knew I’d never amount to anything in God’s eyes anyway.”

Contrary to pop-Christian beliefs, there is nothing wrong with the human condition. The story of humankind’s relationship to and with God begins (Book of Genesis) by telling us that we are born out of the image, likeness and being of God. God’s being is the ground of our being. The image and likeness of God is the underlying, unchanging, and fundamental essence of who we are. At the core level of our being we are one with God. Can God be damaged, diminished, or corrupted? Can God be made better or improved upon? Of course not! And so it is also with each of us as sons and daughters of God. Or in the words of Paul in Acts 17, “For in God we live and move and have our being. As some of your own poets have said, ‘We are his offspring.’”

Jesus unmasked the false notion that our humanity separates us from God by demonstrating that the two can be one. This is what Jesus meant when he said, “I am the truth.” It is not necessary to be born again because you were born just fine the first time. You were born out of the image, likeness and being of God. You can’t do any better than that.

It’s unfortunate that John 3:3 was translated in the King James Version with the phrase “born again” – “Jesus replied, ‘Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again.’”

A more accurate rendering would be “born from above.” In other words, your mind and body were given to you for a human experience in order to navigate and function in the phenomenal or created world. But we know we are not our mind and body. Right? Our true Self was born out of the image, likeness and being of God. That Self already exists in and as the Kingdom of God.

Jesus said, “The Kingdom of God has come.” People looked around and couldn’t find it because they were expecting it in the form of the phenomenal world, because that’s all that the mind and body knows and can relate to. Jesus responded by saying that the kingdom of God is within you. It’s that Self that was born from above that knows and accesses the reality of God’s kingdom. Jesus was trying to get Nicodemus to see that there was no way no how he was ever going to find the Kingdom of God the way he was looking for it or expecting it.

This is essentially the explanation Jesus gives in verses 5 and 6: “I tell you the solemn truth, unless one is born of water and Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. What is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the Spirit is spirit.”

John 3:3 has nothing to do with “Christian salvation.” Jesus’ discussion with Nicodemus is about the issue of “entering the Kingdom.”

Jesus unmasked the false notion that our humanity separates us from God by demonstrating that the two can be one. Neither does the human condition separate us from the Kingdom of God, which Jesus said is here and now.

So, why do we pollute, murder, rape, torture, traffic children to exploit, and starve for political and ideological gain? Spiritual ignorance. We go into the world and scrap and claw to find meaning, identity, peace, happiness and fulfillment, and there is no end to what one will do to get it, including hurting others. Why do we do this? Because we falsely believe we are separated from God, separated from each other, separated from peace, separated from wholeness, separated from freedom, separated from well-being, separated from meaning, separated from….

The world is as it first appeared in the Garden. Nothing has changed. All the other stuff we have added through our spiritual ignorance – taking things to be a way they really aren’t. There will always be pain in this world. This is natural. You hit your finger with a hammer and it produces physical pain. A loved one dies and you feel emotional pain. But suffering is something we unnecessarily create and impose on life out of our spiritual ignorance. This is why Jesus said, “If the eyes are good, the whole body is good.” In other words, to see things as they truly are is to be free. This is what creation is groaning for – that you and I will see the truth, which sets all living things free.

People see the only following options in terms of an answer to the suffering of the world:

A. It’s the human condition and nothing can be done about it

B. God will rapture us out of it

C. Heaven is waiting and we will escape this mess entirely

D. Satan is to blame

E. The world is inherently evil and must go up in flames

All of the above lets us off the hook and fails to recognize the the real issue.

The inconvenient truth we don’t like is:

We are responsible for the mess of the world. There is nothing or no one to blame except ourselves and our spiritual ignorance. We don’t have to be doing this. We are free to choose differently.

Through the misuse of our mind and body, which is a vehicle for knowing and expressing our true Self, we instead create a false identity, born out of spiritual ignorance. In this way, we fall short and miss the mark of who we are, which is a denial of who we are and the way things truly are. This denial distorts and corrupts our understanding of all things, and the truth becomes hidden inside a web of lies.

Jesus confronted and exposed that web of lies, and for this he was crucified. You can kill the mind and body, but the true Self – our underlying, unchanging, and fundamental being that is one with God – is never threatened.

And yet for this, we have twisted the life and teachings of Jesus into another web of lies far worse than the one he originally dismantled.

Jesus’ primary message was NOT, “Try harder; the kingdom of God is here.”

The language of transformation often works against us. We sometimes speak of “spiritual growth.” The idea of “growth” implies that spirituality is a process of stages in which we make improvements or progress toward becoming something more or different than what we are right now. Consider the possibility that you were born out of the image, likeness and being of God. The image, likeness and being of God is the underlying, unchanging, and fundamental essence of who you are. The truth is that there is nothing wrong with you the way you are. You cannot be improved upon, and there is never any diminishment of who you are. There is nothing more secure than your true Self and it is never threatened.

Do you suppose that if you choose eggs over oatmeal for breakfast this morning that it will cause the sun to shop shining? Ridiculous, right? The two things are entirely unrelated. It’s the same with your true Self – it is undisturbed and unaffected by anything outside of it, including whatever you do or don’t do.

Jesus’ primary message was NOT, “Try harder; the kingdom of God is here.” Nor was it, “You have a lot of growing to do before you can ever expect to experience God’s kingdom.” Instead, Jesus said, “Repent, for the kingdom of God is here.” The word “repent” (metanoia) means to change your mind or to see things in a way you have never seen them before.

Transformation is not a growth process of improvement and advancement that happens in stages. Transformation is stopping right now and seeing things as they really are… seeing yourself as you really are.