WE ARE ONE IN SPIRIT PODCAST: PART FOUR

 

Why Words Are So Powerful

Today is the fourth segment of my discussion with Minister Steve Brannon. We continue our interview by chatting about how words are used to manifest our reality.
To read more about leaving organized religion and this interview with Steve Brannon, click the links below. Or, you may listen to the interview, "Are You Spiritual.. or Religious?," here: http://bit.ly/JcOKFt
Part 1 -Don’t Rock the Boat Lest You Want to Leave the Church Fellowship
Part 2 - Why Religion is No Longer Working for Most People
Part 3 - Emergent Conversation about Christians Leaving the Church
Part 4 - Why Words Are So Powerful
Steve: I believe a lot of lessons are being set in motion for us on the global scene, just by the economic instability in countries and climate change all around the globe. Mother Earth is crying out to be treated correctly and have good stewards. We’re setting up a number of lessons on that level, but even right now in our country, we are wondering which way we are going to go. Are we going to show love and take care of one another, or are we going to be selfish and see ourselves as separate? Even on the personal level, so many people that I know are having a lot of health things come up, conflicts in relationships, the same lesson is coming over and over again. Are we going to see ourselves as united as one people, one energy; or are we going to continue in separation, which is not working? We won’t be able to get through this life without having a chance at learning that lesson, I don’t believe. Today it’s really coming to a head.
Yvonne: Yes that’s what we’re learning, that we are one in spirit. We are one with each other. We are one with the earth. We are one with the animals. All life is valuable. That is what Spirit is trying to teach us, Oneness.
Steve: I loved the visual I got while reading The Celestine Prophecy. The individuals praying over the plant, watching the plant respond—a beautiful picture of oneness to me.
Yvonne: Mr. Masaru Emoto demonstrated oneness with water. People prayed over or spoke/wrote words and put them on containers of water, and the crystals changed formation.
Steve: Our words are powerful. That’s how we manifest our reality. When our heart and our mind are settled on one thing, we speak it out, we confess it with our mouth. That’s phraseology. Things happen.
Yvonne: The word was with God from the beginning and is God. God spoke and things came into being. We have that same life force in us. Our words have power to manifest our reality. It all starts with a thought or word, and we add our emotion; the next thing we know we have a creation whether it’s what we wanted or not—it may be a negative thing, but we get what we believe we should have. Even if it is condemnation or judgment from others, a loss of job, loss of health or whatever, we’re creating with our words at all times. Words are powerful. We have to be careful what we say
Steve: Every even our thoughts are prayers. The universe immediately starts to line up with what we think about and what we intend, so we better think about our thought life! Yvonne: No wonder the Bible encourages us to guard our hearts diligently for in it is the issues of life. Guard those thoughts. Guard those emotions.
Steve: It encourages us to think on things that are of a good report—anything pure, honest, true, lovely—think on these things.
Yvonne: That’s been one of my favorite verses—especially for the past two weeks. Well, we’ve come to the end of our interview. Is there one thing that you might say to encourage us from our conversation today?
Steve: Leave room for mystery and questioning; don’t get locked down when you find a comfortable place in your belief/faith system. Don’t drive too many tent stakes. Be ready to move on to something new. Never stop growing. If one door gets closed, there’s always another one to open. The Holy Spirit is always teaching and you will always discover new truth.
Yvonne: True, so true. I learn more every day.
Steve: This is the day for it too. We need a lot of guidance. It’s time for us to get still, enter the silence, and come back with the guidance and answers that we need.
Yvonne: Be still and know God.

Technorati Tags: the spoken word,good,know God,Holy Spirit,leave room for mystery,questioning of your faith,enter Silence and a time of stillness

WE ARE CALLED TO BE MYSTICS

     The follow article provides a needful explanation of life as a mystic.

 

Practical Mysticism – The Way of the Future

By: William Meader  

For centuries, mysticism been a major force in our quest to experience God and the spiritual dimension of life. Our yearning to find relationship with the Divine is ancient, and has been an instinctual impulse within us since the dawning hour of humankind. Indeed, this urge is woven into the very fabric of human consciousness. It is a heartfelt desire to establish a deep and abiding union with God’s love, and from this, experience a “peace that passeth understanding.” Yet our relationship with God is an evolving thing, as is everything else in life. Though mysticism has been the emphasis of the past, it is gradually evolving into a new and more enlightened approach to God and our understanding of spiritual living. This new approach has been called many names, but its most succinct and useful title is Practical Mysticism.

Practical Mysticism is not a spiritual approach that denies the validity of mysticism (as we traditionally understand this term). Instead, it is the next stage in its evolution. Mysticism has, historically, emphasized the importance of relating to God’s love. It is based upon the conviction that God is love, and that to find a deep love within oneself is to find divinity. A practical mystic would not refute the truth of this notion. Yet in addition to this view, the practical mystic understands that God is not only a representative of love, but also of mind and intelligence.

This is the essential difference between traditional mysticism and the perspective advocated within Practical Mysticism. To the practical mystic, God is love and mind, and equally so. Both represent sacred attributes of divinity seeking expression through humanity. As our mystical understanding of life matures, we are beginning to understand that the use of the mind (higher mind) is a gate to God. It is a portal into the will and intelligence of divinity, just as the heart is the way to divine love.

As an individual’s abstract mind is developed (in conjunction with love), s/he begins to realize that God speaks to humanity through lofty and profound ideas. From this, a new understanding of life emerges. It is a recognition that humanity is truly evolving. However, it is not evolution as we typically consider it. Unlike the Darwinian notion that survival of the fittest propels evolutionary change, the practical mystic realizes that humanity evolves through its relationship to progressive ideas and their practical application.

Practical Mysticism states that service to humanity needs to be centered in compassion, while at the same time expressed with wisdom and intelligence. It demands that we learn to establish a deep connection to the soul’s love while simultaneously applying the wisdom of the mind in practical ways. Too often mystics are lovingly compelled, but lack the ability to demonstrate practical skills for living. This must change. Through widespread education in recent years, humanity’s ability to think and reason has increased tremendously. We therefore live in a time when love alone will not suffice. Instead, love must be accompanied by intelligent thought and practical skill in action. This is the mantle of the practical mystic.

When we view the historical underpinnings of religion, we see that mysticism is the ground that gives birth to theology. In its early phases, a religion is largely mystical and only later hardens itself with unnecessary creed and dogma. Yet, even with the destructive introduction of dogma the mystical tendencies of a religion are still held by some of its exponents. In many ways the orientation found in certain branches of Christianity give evidence to this. The belief in cloistered living is one such indication.

Christian mysticism has been governed by the assumption that to find God (in the deepest sense) requires separation from society, and to live a life of contemplative solitude. Though not denying that there is a measure of truth to this, Practical Mysticism doesn’t emphasize this notion. Instead, finding the divine within society is the primary theme. To the practical mystic, divinity is found within the crucible of culture and civilization. And, it is this conviction that motivates the practical mystic in his/her commitment to serve humanity.

The cloistering tendency still found in religion is actually a residual effect of life lived during the Piscean Era. During that great astrological epoch it was believed that rapport with God is deepened by removing oneself from the doings of the world. From this, monastic theology came into being and convents and monasteries provided the needed isolation. Indeed, for the last two thousand years this has been the ordained means for finding God. However, humanity is now in transition, astrologically considered. At this remarkable time in history we find ourselves moving between two great ages—Pisces and the emerging sign of Aquarius. A new order is therefore on the horizon, and with it comes the next step in the evolution of humanity’s mystical relationship to life. Indeed, the notion that God is primarily found in seclusion is gradually coming to an end.

The dawning Age of Aquarius represents the next step in the development of our understanding of God and humanity’s relationship to the divine. This zodiacal sign symbolizes the importance of intelligent and practical approaches to life. Aquarius is known as the sign of service, and is profoundly related to the development of the higher mind. In addition, it encourages us to realize that there is no place where God it not. As such, God is equally present in the hectic circumstances of urban life as in the isolation offered in remote places. A religious monastery, places of science and the arts, or even the ghetto are all gates that lead to the divine. This sign hearkens to the cultivation of lofty thought and the need to find practical methods that support the evolution of culture and the upliftment of civilization. Our future largely depends upon this. The sign of Aquarius is the force that urges us toward Practical Mysticism. Even so, it is we who must rise to the occasion.

One of the perceptual differences between the mystic and the practical mystic has to do with belief about the nature of creation and its relationship to the Creator. Historically, Western theologies have held the view that there is a gulf between God and creation. This is the root assumption in the mind of the Western mystic, and has led to a sense of isolation from God. Indeed, this is why some scholars have referred to Western theologies as religions of exile. Yet, practical mysticism sees this in a different manner. It is not God and creation, but God as creation that the practical mystic holds true. This is the deeper reason why the practical mystic sees God within every facet of civilization. Every societal institution is understood as an aspect of divinity struggling to evolve toward a perfected expression. Spiritual service, therefore, has relevance in all places.

A key distinction between the mystic of old versus the practical mystic has to do with the question of good and evil, right and wrong. Over the centuries, Western theologies have strongly delineated these two things. The view has been that there is good and evil and a choice must be made. The notion of hell and the devil emerge as tools used to define evil and to prompt people (usually through fear) to make a choice in favor of goodness. However, the practical mystic does not see it this way. Instead, there is an understanding that everything in the world is an expression of both darkness and light, of good and evil.

Every human being, life event and social institution hold measures of truth and distortion. Indeed, this is one way (of many) to understand evil. Simply stated, evil is the distortion of truth. We can easily see this when we consider the fact that a vice is often a virtue that has been distorted or misapplied. All things are imperfect and, therefore, have measures of distortion and impurity (evil) in their expression. This is true for the criminal and the saint alike. The simplistic notion that darkness is due to origin sin, as Western theology suggests, is being superseded by a more enlightened understanding of evil. Evil is a dynamic characteristic found in the physics of creation itself, and is naturally a part of the evolution of all things. To the practical mystic, the question is not what is good and what is evil. Rather, it is to see all things as manifestations of both, and to facilitate the transformation of the lesser (evil) on behalf of the greater (goodness).

Mysticism has been governed by the belief that love is the only road that leads to God. Yet, we are entering a new and dynamic phase in the evolution of mystical yearning—the era of Practical Mysticism. Gradually we are realizing that God is not just love, but is also mind. Practical mystics understand that the heart and the mind are equally divine, and both must be utilized in service to humanity’s betterment. Such people advocate the importance of bringing spiritual wisdom into practical expression. They seek to build a new civilization where humanity’s oneness is recognized and outer societal structures evidence this recognition. This is done by inwardly aligning with the soul while simultaneously keeping one’s feet planted on the ground. Such is the formula for bringing heaven to earth, and is the mandate of the practical mystic.

© 2007 William Meader

Technorati Tags: mystic,mysticism,emergent conversation,good news,the two agreements,human consciousness,new civilization

Going Through the Open Space to a New Life

 

The Two Agreements is not only about my reinterpretation of the New Testament, or the state of the Emergent Conversation; it is also largely about my own spiritual journey. That is why I have written at length about the “open space”. The open space is a time when your old life is gone (either because it was “taken” or because you consciously shed it), but you have not yet arrived at your new life. This transformative period can be incredibly lonely, painful, and anxiety-ridden; however, it is also an opportunity to challenge old beliefs. The goal is to learn to trust the process. I have gone through several such periods, the longest being the five years when I slowly and agonizingly sloughed off my fundamentalist beliefs and eventually emerged in my new spiritual life.

Without a doubt, the most difficult aspect of an open space is how utterly isolated you feel. When you left your old life, you did not just lose places, things or jobs; you have left people behind as well. Perhaps you have lost your spouse through death or divorce; maybe your friends have stopped calling because they can’t or won’t understand what you are going through. You may have even been separated from your church community. The key to arriving on the other side of the open space is to realize that you are NEVER alone, for you are never disconnected from God. I have often heard in my ministry groups stories of people who, in their darkest hour, felt the presence of an “Unseen Hand”, a force that kept them rooted to their lives. For some, it materialized as love for their children; for others it was a mere whisper, promising better things to come. Then, others saw the new life of someone who “made it through” and got the hope of their own new life. In all cases, it was the life force manifested, and it most likely saved their lives.

It is also imperative for anyone finding himself or herself in an open space to connect with community. Unfortunately, this often easier said than done, especially for those facing mental health challenges. In my interfaith support groups, I have heard hundreds of stories, many from people who were rejected or ignored by their fellow church members. One woman literally ran to her church after an incident in her home had left her fearing for her emotional stability. She was without transportation, and she asked the women in the administrative office if one of them could drive her to a nearby mental health facility. Instead of helping her, the women backed away, as if she was a leper. One even asked if there weren’t services for “people like her”.

I heard another story, from a Deacon at a local church. Twenty years before, his wife had broken her leg. For days, his phone never stopped ringing, with callers offering prayers for a speedy recovery. They showed up at his door, bearing enough food for an army. The reaction was very different, however, when his daughter was hospitalized with a mental health issue. Imagine his sorrow when the phone rang not once; when no one showed up with food for his family.

Open spaces do not only apply to individuals; larger entities and organizations can also face transitional periods that threaten their very existence. An example that immediately comes to mind is the United States, with its uncertain economic future and political divisiveness. Christianity has also been at a stand-still for some time, and arguably, is regressing. People, particularly the young, have been leaving fundamentalist churches in droves. According to Tony Jones, author of The New Christians—Dispatches From the Emergent Frontier, millions of church-goers have left the church, never to return. Many of these folks were raised in the church; but now, disillusioned, they are walking away, not only from the church’s teachings, but, in some cases, belief in God. And, that is indeed a travesty.

Very simply, whether we are talking about an individual, a country, or a religious institution, the questions remain the same: “Now that all hell has broken loose, what are you/we going to do about it?” – for your old life died, gone and never to return. And, something needs to be done. Then, the follow up question is, “How much do you/we love yourself/ourselves?”— for the spiritual lesson is to love one’s self enough “resurrect” a new life. Only a genuine love will do.

The answer is also the same; whether we are talking about a person who is facing an open space in regards to their faith, or the religious organization itself, facing the defection of its flock, we must remember that we are never alone. Christ left the Holy Spirit to guide us across every open space as we grow from one new life into the next.

For those of you in the area, on February 24 and 25 I am speaking at the 2012 MULTICULTURAL ALL IN THE FAMILY SUMMIT, hosted by NAMI Tennessee. For more information, contact Kelly Dorsey at 731-444-0040 or kelly.dorsey@att.net . All are welcome!

Want to become "the possible human?"

In time alone with the Eternal One, the original illusion of separation is left in our wake as truth shines as a light in darkness. In receiving enlightenment from the Holy Spirit, individuals must be meditative, contemplative, prayerful, and enter times of resting in God and opening ourselves to experiencing the Presence. In so doing, we open a conduit allowing for an experience of profound knowing and certitude for spiritual guidance and growth. Thus, we step through “the veil” and boldly step into Grace. And in that delicious Grace we open ourselves to the emergence of “the possible human.”