roger

Ken, I believe it can help to inspire and empower others to share our spiritual experiences, so I'll tell you one of mine. I'm not saying this to be arrogant or egocentric, but because I believe you're honestly interested in hearing about it. I've had a few spiritual experiences I would consider "amazing", but the most would definitely be when I tried to kill myself. I was in extreme emotional and spiritual pain. I felt utterly hopeless, and I wanted relief, and committing suicide was the only way out that I could see. Looking back on it, it was selfish of me to do this, and it would have devastated my entire family, especially my mom. I was 18 years old, and my family was on vacation. I had recently dropped out of high school because of severe emotional problems. Btw it had nothing to do with drugs, although nearly everyone believed it did. We were staying in a condominium, on the fourth floor. The way I attempted suicide was by jumping off of the balcony. Before I jumped, I asked God to give me another chance. I lost consciousness immediately after I threw myself over the rail. The next thing I remember was standing in the elevator, going back up to the room. I felt no pain and was totally at peace. When I made it to the condo, I crashed down on the bed in the room my mom was in. She said I was as white as a sheet of paper. She didn't know what I had done, but knew I was hurt and called the ambulance. When I laid down on the bed, I began to feel intense pain all over my body. I had broken my hip, some ribs, collapsed my lung, and lacerated my liver. A few years later, my mom asked God if an angel had helped me. She told Him that she wanted Him to make the answer clear to her, and that she knew He could find a way to reveal it to her. She then heard a voice inside her head tell her to look up Psalm 91. She had no idea what it said. She read it and there is a verse that says, "He shall give His angels charge over you, lest you dash your foot against a stone." This is the same verse the devil supposedly quoted to Jesus when he tempted him to jump off of the tabernacle. I just want everyone reading this to know that I'm not sharing this with you out of pride, but simply because it's an interesting story and Ken inquired about our spiritual experiences.

The lie: ATTACK is freedom, strength, and power. LOVE is bondage, weakness, and powerlessness. The real truth: LOVE is freedom, strength, and power. ATTACK is bondage, weakness, and powerlessness. Your beliefs create your experience. The above is a very, very, VERY powerful and helpful belief. It can change your life for good quickly and without effort on your part.

If you're having trouble with your willingness to come from your integrity or to consistently make loving choices, try seeing EVERY choice you make as having supreme importance. I thought of this today when I was tempted to complain about an employee at a restaurant I went to. I realized that everything I do MATTERS, and so I decided not to complain.

People ask, if everything is part of a plan, or if "all is as it should be," then what about free-will. Doesn't that take away our free-will? One way to look at it is that our WILL determines our CHOICE, but choice DOES NOT determine our will. Everyone is always "choicelessly" doing their own will, which happens to be the will of God/Tao/love/All That Is, however you wanna put it. We have free-will, but we DO NOT have "choice". Btw, I got the idea that we don't have choice from ACIM, where it says that the concept of choice is "not of God," and that while choice is an illusion, it nevertheless has meaning and value IN THIS WORLD.

I had a HUGE insight just now and I feel very certain that it's true. I can't really explain how I know that, but I know that it applies to me, and I believe it applies to everyone. It's that it's never a person's behavior that hurts or offends us, it's always that we think they don't love us. My brother-in-law once said to my sister, "What am I chopped liver?" It wasn't her behavior that offended him, it's that he thought he was "chopped liver" to her. We get hurt because we think the person fails to love us, not in their behavior, but in their HEARTS. Some of you may agree that the Universe is conscious, that it's actually alive. Well, The Universe speaks to a man named Mike Dooley, and in one of his "Notes from the Universe" books, the Universe says: "There is no one in your life who hasn't always loved you, they're just learning how to show it." And God said to Neale Donald Walsch, "You don't love more or less, you just love." We don't love to different degrees, we just love, absolutely and fully. In a literal, absolute sense, everyone loves everyone maximally, equally, and unconditionally, they're just not fully conscious of that love. I just want to say one more thing about this because I think it's very important, and it certainly fully applies to the idea of taking offense or getting hurt. I think it's always something about ourselves that we're really hurt about. It's never really the other person's apparent lack of love, but always that we either think they're right not to love us, we think we're unlovable, or we otherwise feel guilty and ashamed. The above example is very significant. It's wasn't that my brother-in-law got hurt because he thought my sister saw him as chopped liver, it's that he thought he IS chopped liver. If someone insults you or attacks you, and you get hurt, it's always because of some fault you find with yourself. ACIM says, "This point is so important that it cannot be overemphasized. You never hate a brother for his sins, but always for your own." And those sins are only illusion.

Cat, I definitely stand a lot of room for improvement. I'm still somewhat out of control of my emotions. I'm not grounded much of the time. Thanks for asking, and what about yourself? Is it more of just a concept you believe in, or have you integrated it into spiritual perception and experience? MH, I have a suggestion for you that could possibly utterly empower you to think in this higher way, but it might require some deep reflection on your part......you will have to open your mind to what I'm saying. Neale Donald Walsch healed a woman on one of his retreats profoundly. He did this by helping her to see the "perfection" of a tragedy her son had been through. He didn't just TELL her "it was perfect"....he helped her to see HOW it was perfect. If he had just told her it was perfect, it would have undoubtedly offended her. You see, the truth is that love is all there is, everyone loves everyone and no one ever does anything unloving. Emmanuel (a channeled, non-physical entity) said once, "You are here to ask only one question, 'What is the nature of love where love seems not to be?'" When someone mistreats or hurts you, it can seem difficult to see what they did as perfect and loving. Why? Because we don't SEE the love, because it doesn't SEEM loving and perfect. BUT, if you DID see the love, you would be healed. The technique I'm suggesting is that you use this as an INSIGHT that can help you to have FAITH in the love where love only seems not to be. Because you know that IF you could see that love, you would feel better, because you have that INSIGHT, you are empowered to have faith. I hope this helps.

Thanks MH. I will try to keep my loving thoughts, and let go of my fear thoughts. ACIM says, "Give up what you don't want, and keep what you do. How simple is the obvious!" Peace.

Ultimately. What I believe is that everything is happening perfectly, exactly as it's supposed to. As Steve said, it's an opportunity to learn and grow. Lack of love and attack are only illusions. The thing is that people aren't fully CONSCIOUS of their true motives, which in actual truth, are always loving. An interesting quote by Descartes is, "The heart has its reasons which reason knows nothing of." In reality, man is ethically perfect.

Purpose precedes will. Love precedes purpose. Love is First Cause. The illusion is that BELIEF determines your will, and therefore your choices. The reality is that will precedes belief, it doesn't follow it. You believe what you WANT to believe. Therefore you're FREE, you're not imprisoned by your beliefs. You believe what you need to believe to fulfill your purpose. This is my opinion but I acknowledge I could be mistaken.

the one problem: fear the one solution: love the practical application: to "remember" that fear is only an ILLUSION and that you ALREADY HAVE and ARE the love you need

My mom once astral projected into outer space and two spirits joined her. I haven't talked that much about it with her but she seems to believe it really happened. I've never astral projected but I've induced lucid dreams and I think it's similar.

I find your observations interesting and very important, Cat. It seems to me that you're inquiring into the fundamental issue of, "What, exactly, is the way?" In my opinion, self-acceptance is how we heal. The real point, the bottom line, is to feel good about yourself and to know that you're a beautiful, worthy, and perfect child of Love Itself.

Cat, you mentioned something in another thread about how one can know certain things. The opinion I gave is that we ALREADY KNOW in our hearts, we just have to be honest enough with ourselves to see that. I believe there's no magic formula for self-knowledge.....you just gotta have the guts to admit the truth to yourself.

For anyone who wants to easily increase awareness and become more deeply aware of unconscious and superconscious data, I recommend the following VERY powerful affirmation: I am aware. Try it!

I say follow the path that gives YOU, personally, the most joy. Anything else might be self-sacrifice (a bad kind of self-sacrifice).

Well, God says in one of Neale Donald Walsch's books that we can be aware, we can be aware that we're aware, we can be aware that we're aware that we're aware, and we can be aware that we're aware that we're aware that we're aware. The final level is what he calls the "unobserved observer." I think one could just repeat "I am aware," and as you said, move to the next level.......or, you could repeat, "I am aware that I am aware," "I am aware that I am aware that I am aware," and so on. I've tried this and in my experience it works well.

......forgiveness.....humility......admitting you're wrong. These three things take very, very great courage. Let me put it this way......most people think that "attacking" other people requires COURAGE. Ha! What a sick pathetic joke! Attack is for cowards........forgiveness is for the gloriously courageous.

Cat, My opinion is that you already know in your HEART. It goes back to honesty. Do you honestly want to do what's right? Deep within, in our hearts, we already know. We need to be utterly honest with ourselves.

Cat, I think it depends on your intention. Do you HONESTLY WANT to be aware? We will manifest our true desire, always. When you repeat the affirmation, you have to mean it. I agree you can repeat this affirmation all day long, but unless you're sincere, it might only end up hurting you.

Thanks man. Btw what should I call you? Marblehead?

For me it would. lol

Becomethepath, that's a very interesting observation, and one that I've thought a lot about. I feel that the conflict comes in when we look to FORM, when we try to come up with a concept. In my mind, it's just LOVE, Tao, Self.....there's not some complex reason or difficult answer. Just love.

Thank you, Flolfolil. You're right. Sometimes it takes another person to help us to see our errors clearly.

There is a lot of discussion about the connection of the right and left brain in the psychological world, and how they function together. Many meditation programs are designed to bring the two into harmony. In my opinion, the right and left parts of our brain are actually already ONE. They therefore function in perfect harmony, whether this is APPARENT or not. Every part of you is ONE with every other part of you. Your mind, body, and soul are one. You are ONE LOVE, ONE ENERGY, ONE LIFE FORCE. Therefore how could "disharmony" be REAL? The problem I see with all the talk about "integrating" right brain and left brain, or otherwise different parts of the self, is that it just creates an ILLUSION that we're not ALREADY unified. It's like talking about how to "become" one with God. We ALREADY ARE one with God.

I just want to share an interesting view on the purpose of evil and suffering, that I didn't come up with myself, but that I learned from a non-physical source. Basically, the Universe is a place where ALL POSSIBILITIES exist. Every variety of evil as well as all "good" things exist in the Universe. Why? So we can have TOTAL SPIRITUAL EXPERIENCE. Without anger, we couldn't experience forgiveness. Without sickness, there would be no such thing as healing. Without the illusion of separation, there would be no journey back to oneness. Without the crucifixion of Jesus, there would be no resurrection. Without ALL MANNER of "negative" things, we couldn't have TOTAL SPIRITUAL EXPERIENCE. Negative things make certain KINDS of positive things possible.