If God is real He is unavoidable… He is everywhere, everything, every natural law, every natural instinct and He able to be known without being known… If God is God you don't need to look for Him… as He is your existence… The way I see it… God is simply a force/energy integrated into the existence of everything… Someday when we leave this limited state of being… at that point we will become enlightened to just how interwoven God was into all our experiences… I have read enough near death experiences which bare witness to this truth… By trying to "find" what is… you manufacture religion/law… Just live… Just love… Just be… Just trust that God is big enough to handle the rest…
Meditation is based on the premise that no one else will ever understand you… so it's entirely up to you to gain that understanding of yourself… Out of understanding self comes the elimination of self consciousness… Deeper understanding creates energy that draws or deflects the people and events that shape our life…
The most unromantic marriages consist of a man without balls or a woman who just does what she's told… My wife and I have been together for 18 years because we are not intimidated one bit by each other… I blame most divorces on lost confidence… I blame the way people let their health go down the tubes on lost confidence… I blame extramarital affairs on lost confidence… We live in a sad world where lots of people lose their confidence at some point in life… There is nothing more attractive than a person full of passion… a person with something putting life into their life… We all struggle… We all compare ourselves with others sometimes… If you want to be amazing in the eyes of others… find something to live for and make sure it is not another human being… If you want to be unattractive then lose all your confidence… have nothing to live for… or make it another human being's responsibility to coddle you… There is nothing more pitiful then a big fucking baby…
The soul is your passion… your fire… your drive… The older I get the more I realize there is nothing worth trading your soul… not a significant other… not a job… not any amount of money… I would lose everything before I'd give up my soul… My soul is my sanity and without my sanity I'd have nothing anyway… So I am willing to lose everything for the sake of my soul… I am not intimidated by the world… the world can fuck off the moment it threatens my freedom… If something is worthwhile you'll never have to trade your soul for it… Our freedom is in our hands, but so often we place that freedom in other people's hands, in our job's hands, in a bank account's hands or in the hands other intimidating elements of life… Some people are so afraid of dying they never truly live…
Freedom… fire… passion… light… beauty… presence all radiate from a soul that's alive… Those who refuse to sell their soul attract people who love to be in their presence… they also attract people envious, jealous, waiting to see their down-fall… wanting to crucify… You cannot be deeply loved without being deeply hated… Rejoice when you are persecuted because it simply means your aliveness hit a nerve in someone… Don't sell your soul to haters…
A low self image brings ego to life when the environment seems to confirm one's own worst fears about them self. Ego is that part of us that fights for a position… Ego is that part of us that feels threatened when our identity is threatened… Ego taints the way we receive the words and expressions of others. A person cannot see the world clearly when their place in it feels threatened… It is unbelievable how many walls are created by us… we interpret them as other's people's walls, but we are actually the ones building the walls… Those walls are constructed by all the ways we react to our own fears… Once the fear is exposed, acknowledged and dealt with the walls go down…
Once I realized it was my own fear that robbed me I stopped fearing others… it was myself that I had to forgive in order to move forward… My fear is what lead me into the arms of manipulators… Now I know if I can address my own fears and the fears of others I can be a force to be reckoned with in the world… There is a difference between protecting people and defending people… One is offensive and one defensive… One throws itself in the path of danger to shield the other… one attacks resists the opposing force… Jesus said resist not evil and to love your enemy… this is an offensive posture… where-as war is a defensive posture… I am learning to be a protector rather then a defender because most of what I do is protect others from the demons within them… the real enemy is inside us and not outside us… If you address the internal enemy the external enemies disappear… There is even a verse in Proverbs that states "When a man's ways please the Lord, even his enemies will be at peace with him"… and so I see it as God takes a offensive position… Jesus was proskomma (1 Pet. 2:8) – “an obstacle in the way which if one strikes his foot against he stumbles or falls”. To be spiritually enlightened is to be the truth that stands in the way of lies… The truth doesn't need to attack… it only needs to exist..
The truth is not passive… it literally throws itself on the track of a speeding locomotive knowing full well that the truth could get him killed… Look how many people in the world are killed because they stood up for the truth… I make people mad sometimes because I speak the truth (not usually on purpose)… I would put everything on the line for the truth… WHY? because one day I woke up, walked out of the institutional church and decided that I would no longer live a lie… Today I refuse to blame the institution that I allowed to manipulate me… I did it… Seriously… even as screwed up in the head as most pastors are… they still meant well… they genuinely believe they are saving people from eternal torture at the hands of an angry God… I can even admire a fool if he means well… My days of throwing rocks through the stain glass windows of the church are "hopefully" over… I can't make any promises though… because every-so-often my anger gets the best of me… Who is the bigger fool… the fool that means well or the fool that listens to the fool who means well? I'd say both are equally responsible… I cannot stop others from preaching foolishness, but I can forgive myself for listening to those fools…
For me the truth leads to freedom… sure the journey to freedom can be difficult… Honestly I believe we were put in this world to find freedom… but true freedom is freedom from self… If I am addressing that part of me that is susceptible the results will be freedom from suffering… Now part of getting there can be anger, but who am I really angry at… What it boils down to is that I am really angry at the part of me that is susceptible… and now I am taking responsibility for that part of me instead of blaming others… so now the only person to forgive is me… and now I am free from bitterness and I'm done blaming others… We all know people who are stuck in the blame stage they are the people who keep reliving the past, who keep telling their story… who keep blaming other people instead of moving forward… I know a few of those people stuck in the past and I usually have to remind them they already told me that story… Maybe truth is subjective, but I believe the most accurate gauge of truth is happiness/contentment. I am usually happy when my ego isn't erupting in a desperate attempt to protect that story it identifies with… I threw that fucking story away a long time ago… that story didn't make sense and it didn't make me happy, so now I am writing a new story…
What is that thing inside us that leaves us feeling like an outcast? What is that thing inside us that never quite measures up? What is that thing inside us that can turn a compliment into an insult and turn a relationship inside out? What is that part of us needing to feel good at something to feel good enough… the part of us that fishes for compliments? What is that thing inside us that never quite heals like a scab we keep picking at and picking at? What is that part of us that puts us on the outside of everything wanting to be on the inside? When is say us I mean us… the older I get the more I realize it’s every one of us… I see this thing inside me as a husband, as a father, as a friend, as an employee, as a child of God… at times I see it tearing at my heart ravaging my life and ravaging other people’s lives.
I want to be a child again… not just any child, but a child who is free… a child who loves his life because he loves who he is… A child in a world where I don’t have to compete for a place… a world without a prize because I am that prize… I’m just tired inside… but not the kind of tired that sleep cures… I want to nail down this monster inside me, so my battle will finally be over… so that I could finally rest.
This is the classic ego vs. spirit battle we ALL suffer from… Ego can only wreck havoc on our life when we refuse to understand its make-up… The people who befriend this monster become beautiful to others because they "get" the battle others face… Who knew such a magnificent and intricate world existed inside us? The world inside us goes on creating our circumstances whether or not we realize it… I'd say diving deep into our inner world is the only way to truly change our outer world… otherwise change is only a mask we temporarily wear to hide the pain we feel…
Jesus did not come to start a new religion called Christianity… Mankind always has to slap a brand name on spiritual movements in an attempt to monopolize them… Same thing happened with Buddha… next thing you know people are bowing to statues and deifying one when all should be deified… Jesus came to introduce people to freedom… the Gospel… the good news… Freedom from religion… Never regret… Everything that you've been through has a purpose… Everything we've been through is attempting to free us… We hold on… we get dragged… and at some point we let go… and that is beautiful. The law was always a school master to lead us to Christ… We held on and felt the death of our freedom… until the day we let go of the letter. Galatians 2:19-21 Funny how it all makes sense one day. It is beautiful when you find out Buddha taught the same things as Jesus… so many great spiritual teachers taught the same painful lessons about holding on… Musicians write music about it… Artist paint paintings of it… writers write about it… One day you "wake up" and begin seeing the Gospel everywhere… The words of God live inside us… they are merely waiting to be unveiled by our story… it is life's purpose and it is beautiful… we miss it sometimes because of our judgment. Some believe they have already arrived so they stop looking… others fail to love themselves enough to believe the truth lies within them… If we are here… parts of us still need to be liberated from the mental construct of self… Our bodies are rafts that our soul rides to freedom… The physical realm is created by the illusion of separation… one day we will realize there is no separation. We are God's expression… He lives in our pain and in our freedom which expresses His glory… We are souls awaiting freedom… waiting to be rejoined to the one… thousands of near death experiences vividly testify of this…
A state of mind is a place… it could either be a prison or the doorway leading to the kingdom of heaven within you… What we hold on to often becomes our prison… I have seen more lives ravaged by holding on then I have letting go… I have seen the things that people hold transform into their chains… into their prison… Travel deep within… find that which you hold… find those chains… and the way they confine you… see the way they create anxiety, bitterness, judgment, blindness… Find your chains and you will find what prevents you from living in this present moment. Only you can free your soul… Let it go…
Destructive behavior is the result of not accepting yourself, trying to "be a somebody" or trying to fix something in life that is not broken… At the heart of this lesson is trying to be God because you fail to see you are in fact already divine… Look around you and see the people whose live's have been ravaged… this lesson surrounds us in the pain, sickness and suffering of others… If you go into the slums you will see people who insisted on holding on… people who were dragged and wounded until they could hold on no more… Once you realize you are already in fact a somebody… it becomes easier to let go of the dreams that haunt you… the illusions that make you miserable… the "success" that sickens you when you fail obtain it…
This is the tree of the knowledge of good and evil… Our minds were opened to all the possibilities and we no longer felt good enough… Then came Nimrod, the tower of Babel and consumerism… A world that was once especially designed for us was transformed into a place designed by the pursuit of power and greed… an economy that depends upon creating discontentment in us… in a world where the number of people medicating for depression and anxiety is growing… where more people die from prescription drugs then illegal drugs… a world that desperately needs to wake up…
Life is boring for me in a good sort of way… I now accept myself… I don't need to be a hero or a victim anymore. Even the fact that someday I will die is less threatening… I swear humans are the only species needing to constantly have something going wrong or something to fix in order to be happy… Life is now a stream and my body is a raft my soul rides down the river… no more fighting… no more arguing with the current… in acceptance I have found freedom like never before…
