Function of religion is to awaken the heart

Jason: It seems Dave that you haven't been keeping up with the weekly postings on UU A Way Of Life. Why is that?

David: As P.J. said to me "You seem to be on again, off again when it comes to church" and I agree I am. Joseph Campbell writes "The problem for and the function of religion in this age is to awaken the heart. When the clergy do not or cannot awaken the heart, that tells us that they are unable to interpret the symbols through which they are supposed to enlighten and spiritually nourish their people. When, instead, the clergy talks about ethical and political problems, that constitutes a betrayal of the human race. This substitution of social work, or heavy involvement in regulating the intimate decisions of family life, has nothing to do with the real calling of the clergy to open to their people the dimensions of the meaning of the Death, Resurrection, and Ascension of Jesus. These latter constitute a system of symbols that works perfectly."

My church has become a social club. It reminds me of Rotary and Kiwanis and the Lions and the other social clubs. In some ways I enjoy Rotary meetings better than I do church. I don't go to church to socialize and to be "preached at" about social justice issues. It's all nonsense. I go to church to have my heart opened and my mind enlightened and I don't find it there. I keep looking and I come up short and feel like it has been a waste of time and effort.

Unitarian Universalism seems to lack a spiritual core. It's theology is so individualized it is a cacophony of voices like the Tower of Babel. And so I stop going to church and just reflect and study on my own.

Jason: So you don't find the spiritual nourishment you are looking for in Unitarian Universalism?

David: I have found spiritual nourishment sometimes in listening to podcasts of some of the UU preachers like Marlin Lavanhar, Michael Schuler, and Galen Guengerich. They sometimes present spiritual values and insights that are helpful, but there is no consistent focus on a theology of the Spirit. When the focus is on social change and problems  I can better ideas and strategies from community social service organizations.

Jason: Maybe Unitarian Universalism isn't for you?

David: That could well be, but I keep coming back. What brings me back is the 7 principles which UUs covenant to affirm and promote. I think the 7 principles are very important and align very well with what is in my heart. Unfortunately, I think they usually are interpreted and applied in the ego world and the spiritual meanings of them are missed, overlooked, or not appreciated and understood.

Jason: Can you give an example?

David: There could be thousands of examples. Let's take the first principle of the inherent worth and dignity of every person. This can mean many things to many people. It gets used to advocate for human rights, gay rights, anti-racism, inclusionary practices, etc. This is helpful as far as it goes, but it can also imply a false belief in the ego and the body when we are really spirit and one Self and as it teaches in A Course In Miracles we are part of the Atonement and so if this principle is used for social justice work and social advocacy it sends people spiritually on a wild goose chase because what the principle points at is the idea that we are all the children of God or Life or Spirit and what I do to my brother I really do to myself since we are all extensions of God's Love. The Course teaches that the salvation of the world comes from forgiveness and this type of forgiveness simply requires that I change my mind about who I am and who you are and recognize that we are one and in this change in perception, which is a miracle, we have changed the world.

The course says in Lesson 5, "I am never upset for the reason I think." I haven't found this level of awareness in UU fellowship. UUs tend to be very earnest, judgmental, righteous in their social justice work, and have no awareness that what they are upset about and find outrageous and unacceptable, on the spiritual level, isn't real. And so why are we spending so much time and energy on illusions?

The Course says in the Introducation, "Nothing real can be threatened. Nothing unreal exists. Herein lies the peace of God." Campbell says the function of religion is to open the heart. The course says, "The course does not aim at teaching the meaning of love, for that is beyond what can be taught. It does aim, however, at removing the blocks to the awareness of love's presence, which is your natural inheritance." The social justice focus of so much of UU activity seems to put blocks in the way of my awareness of Love's presence rather than remove them and so I pull away because I feel stymied, sad, and depressed. This is the opposite of what an open heart should feel.

Jason: I am not sure I am following you, Dave.

David: I understand your confusion and feeling perplexed. I am not sure I understand myself either.

Jason: Thanks for the interview.

David: You're welcome. I will try to write more regularly.

Jason: I look forward to your future articles.

David: Okay.

When going with the flow becomes a way of life. Miracle Principle #5

The fifth principle of miracles reads “Miracles are habits, and should be involuntary. They should not be under conscious control. Consciously selected miracles can be misguided.”

The shift in perception from the world of the ego to the world of the spirit requires thought training, but with practice, functioning in the world of spirit seems to come naturally and becomes a way of life. One’s consciousness is raised to the point of enlightenment. One no longer operates in the world of the ego, and one’s awareness of living in the spirit occurs involuntarily. It simply has become a way of living.

To live in the realm of unconditional love for oneself, other human beings, and the world requires awareness and forgiveness. Forgiveness begins with the awareness that drama, ego nonsense is an illusion. Life at this level of the ego is not real. We need not live on the ego plane because we can change our minds. How often have we said to ourselves, “There must be a better way?” As it says in the introduction to the Course: “Nothing real can be threatened. Nothing unreal exists. Herein lies the peace of God.”

We often do not apprehend this spiritual dimension until we are in crisis and suffering mightily. At the time of our greatest distress and desperation, we intuitively realize that there must be more if only we can get past the terrible circumstances that we feel so victimized by. At such times, people sometimes cry out, “How can God be doing this to me, to them?” The answer, of course, is that God is not doing this at all. In our anger and suffering we project blame for the situation onto whoever we can find even remotely relevant to the situation and when no scapegoat is available, we readily blame and attack whatever our understanding is of God. Eventually this attack on our understanding of God fills us with guilt and fear or retaliation and we enter into despair. None of this high drama is real. It is conjured up in our tortured minds to rationalize the suffering we are afflicted with.

This game of attack and defend, blame and protect, fear and accusation, is the work of the ego. Watching others play this game is titillating and exciting. We find it emotionally arousing and it distracts us from our own inner turmoil. In the media business they say “If it bleeds, it leads.” It perversely makes us feel better to learn that other people have things worse than we do because we can congratulate ourselves that while we may be bad, we are not as bad as that. This is the world of the ego where drama and gossip and judgmentalism reign. A lot of people spend a lot of their lives in this realm often with great pain and suffering as well as sadistic enjoyment of other’s misfortune.

Just as the fifth principle tells us that “Miracles are habits and should be involuntary” so too drama and gossip and judgmentalism are habits. The shift to the miracle thinking of unconditional love takes effort and practice and as one becomes more skilled, miracle thinking becomes involuntary and becomes a way of life. Once this occurs, to specifically apply our unconditional love under our conscious control can be misguided, because at this point in our development it is Spirit working through us, and not our ego that is in control of the process. One has set one’s ego aside and is living in a flow state one with the spirit. At this point it is not “respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part” as stated in the seventh principle of Unitarian Universalism, but rather “enjoyment of the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part.” As it says in the introduction to the Course, “Herein lies the peace of God.” I would say, “Herein lies the joy of God.”

When miracles are habits and are involuntary” we are living in great joy and peace. This peace and joy is what A Course In Miracles promises us as does our Unitarian Universalist faith when we come to the point of practicing our faith daily, hourly, minute to minute. It simply becomes a way of life.

 Questions:

When have you felt at great peace, at one with the universe?

How do you set the nonsense aside in your life and become aware of Love’s presence?

What helps you become nonjudgmental and just accepting that “it is what it is?”

As my friend, Al, says, “When life gives you white water, get out your surf board and take up surfing.” When have you “surfed” over troubled waters, and become aware of God’s Love and Peace?

Can existential concerns contribute to depression?

If you are depressed, some people might suggest you see your doctor and try anti-depressants, but you might not be able to medicate your ennui away. It may be a spiritual crisis of sorts which you are experiencing without even knowing it. The three major questions which we all have to struggle with in life are: Why was I born? What is the purpose of my life? What happens to me when I die? It seems, at the current time, based on your question, that you are struggling with the second question, "What is the purpose of my life?"

Many people answer this question in many ways such as: to make money, to find love, to have as much fun as possible, to get high, to obtain power and control over others, to go shopping and consume material objects. None of these pursuits are very satisfying and fulfilling in the long run but they all are enticing in their short term thrills.

The real reason you are here on this earth, in this life, is to bring yourself and others to salvation. What that means is to give up the illusions of the ego and find the Love and Peace of God. The Love and Peace of God brings great joy. When you find a better way to live your life and get your life on a better track you become the Light of the world bringing God's Love and Grace first to yourself and then to everyone on your path. You do this through forgiveness. First, you must forgive yourself, because until you have purified your own spirit, you have little to share with anyone else. Then you forgive others and accept them in Love as yourself. This is hard to do at first, but gets easier as you overcome your fears and realize this is the will of God for you and you make it your own. You and God are a dynamic duo and working together you can move mountains.

The purpose of your life and the purpose of the lives of all of us is to become a teacher of God and bring about the healing of the world. We do this in millions of ways in a million places with millions of people all over the world. Give up the illusions and misperceptions of the ego and listen instead for the Voice of God which speaks to you and everyone all through the day.

The antidote to the depression is to look on the world in a different way. Love is there; we just have to overcome the obstacles and barriers to the awareness of its presence. As you become more aware you will notice you experience more peace and less anxiety and depression.

Questions:

Why was I born? 

How will I meet my fate? 

What is my life for?

Describe a time in your life when you were in a flow state and afterwards observed to yourself, "I was born to do this."

God is the Love in which I forgive

Lesson 46 in A Course In Miracles begins with a Universalist message if there ever was one. It begins, "God does not forgive because He has never condemned. And there must be condemnation for forgiveness to be necessary."

If God is unconditional love how could such a God condemn the people He/She has created?

A Course In Miracles turns the misinterpreted Christian message that Jesus died for our sins upside down. Would God, the Father, Abba, want to see his son suffer?

It is human projection onto God borne out of the guilt of separation from God that leads humans to believe that God must be angry with them. This illusion has created most of the problems in the world and given rise to dysfunctional beliefs that cause great suffering and misunderstanding.

It was the Universalists who challenged what Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh called Crossianity, the belief that Jesus submitted himself to torture and death to appease an angry God and spare us from God's wrath and condemnation. This insane belief has lead to what Walter Wink has called the theology of redemptive violence which has caused great harm in human relations.

Lesson 46 in A Course In Miracles teaches that God is the Love in which I forgive myself for the illusions I believe about my own condemnation by God, and for the anger and condemnation I exercise in my thoughts and relations with others.

Questions:

If God would not have you condemn others as He does not condemn you, who should you forgive so that you can save the world from this insanity?

How can you change your mind about those you would attack because of your fear and come to love them instead?

How can our church of Unitarian Universalism help people to relate to each other soul to soul rather than as objects of judgment?

Lesson one - The mystical life as a love story

"The Tao that can be told of is not the Absolute Tao."

Tao Te Ching

"Revelation is intensely personal and cannot be meaningfully translated. That is why any attempt to describe it in words is impossible. Revelation induces only experience."

A Course In Miracles, T-1.II.2:1-3

The Bagwah Shree Rajnesh latter called Osho said in his talks on the Tao Te Ching on June 11, 1975,

" If you don't know how to be silent, it becomes heavy. ....You can talk, and you can create a screen of words around you so that your real situation cannot be known by others. You clothe yourself through words."

All the scriptures from various faith traditions, from the religions of the world can do is point you to the experience of God, the experience of God which A Course In Miracles calls revelation. As Bhagwan says, these scriptures awaken a curiosity, a thirst, a search for a spiritual experience which is clouded over by our daily lives in the ego dream of separation from God from whence we have come.

"Revelation is literally unspeakable because it is an experience of unspeakable love."
T-1.II.3:7

Unitarian Universalism is a very young religion and has no mystical tradition of its own other than what it draws from its six sources to which I now add a seventh, A Course In Miracles. ACIM is a manual for returning to  a relationship with God here on earth. Properly understood and practiced it brings joy and peace to its practitioners and to those in relationship with them.

From now on many of the articles on UU A Way Of Life will reference A Course In Miracles and readers are invited to study ACIM and contribute to the discussions here that will occur in the comment sections of the articles. Articles may be appearing a little more often than just on Mondays, but the Monday articles will be the main articles that set the focus for the study for the week.

The focus this week is on the mystical life as a love story.

Questions for the week:

1. Have you experienced revelation in your life and if so, what has that been like for you, how has it affected how you have functioned, and what, if anything, have you done with that experience?

2. What factors or circumstances if any have contributed to this experience of revelation? Have you been able to re-create the experience again?

3. Bhagwan says that silence, which allows one to go within, is an important factor in facilitating the experience of revelation, but there are other spiritual practices such as the whirling dervishes in the Sufi tradition which are used to achieve a flow state of revelation. Others say that drugs such as LSD is a short cut while others dismiss this as just a pharmaceutical alteration of brain chemistry and not a genuine mystical experience. What do you think?

4. Unitarian Universalism seems to be more focused on social justice values than facilitating revelatory experiences with one's Higher Power. Is this why UU has remained a small, marginalized religion without much influence in the increasing consciousness of humanity? Would the development of a mystical tradition give Unitarian Universalism a more solid core and foundation for its work in transforming the world?

Please leave your comments.

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The Curious Case of Open-Source Religion

By John Maguire

For this essay I will explore the rationale for an offshoot of the Open-Source paradigm known as Open-Source Religion. I will also refer to it loosely and interchangeably as Open-Source Philosophy.

Open-Source Religion can be summed up as the individualized practice of mixing various religious teachings with a diversity of non-religious ideas and beliefs to form a coherent spiritual framework for oneself. A person is free to be as creative as they so choose in this process, as long as their beliefs do not violate the golden rule: do no harm. For example, if you believe that a three-eyed race of telepaths from the Sirius star-system seeded the earth with intelligence, and at the same time believe in the philosophical teachings of both Jesus and Buddha, then more power to you. Theoretically your conclusions can be grounded in nothing more than pure intuition, but I believe decisions are best arrived at through critically-minded research and employing the scientific method. The danger in relying strictly on intuition is that you may end up adopting some type of intellectually-bankrupt and exploitative alternative such as Scientology. The choice however is yours.

In contrast to Open-Source, traditional, proprietary religious practice insists on rigidity, standardization, and the collective deferment of authority to an elite priesthood. Open-Source Religion integrates horizontally and promotes integrity by stressing thoughtful analysis; Closed-System Religion integrates vertically and promotes a lack of integrity by propagating dogmatic adherence. 

The bureaucratized and hierarchical Religions of the present day eat away at the social fabric and sunder the inherent interconnectedness of humanity. I’m not saying there are no good people trapped within these systems, or that localized religious institutions cannot serve as community-touchstones; there are, and they can. But the reality is that mainstream religious ideology operates by and large as a rationale for war, genocide, poverty, and general divisiveness in the world. For all practical purposes, MSR single-handedly embedded the imagined threat of an external other into popular consciousness; a satanic boogey-man that we must unite against no matter the cost. We have seen this mentality play out in the twentieth-century during WWII and Vietnam respectively during which the American public was easily frightened into blind acquiescence, and brainwashed American soldiers proudly mailed back the bones of dehumanized enemies to their families and wore their victims’ body parts as trophies. We see this continuing today in the contrived War on Terror, as we condone and commit war-crime after war-crime, all in the name of chasing our own shadow. On top of this, MSR(main stream religion) also perpetuates the cultural epidemic of sadomasochistic addiction to self-hatred. The self-loathing person can never self-actualize, and the writhing emptiness within can only be satiated by self-destructive behavior such as mindless consumerism, or the demented urge to exert power and control over others.

Moving beyond these stark issues, I see value in discussing OSR because I feel that all human beings, on a very deep level, require a self-inspired, logical, and optimistic philosophical framework for life that helps them transcend their familiar five-sense reality. To quote Logicist author David Jack, “I believe that everybody, in a sense, has a God. We [all] have something that we believe in as supreme.” I agree wholeheartedly, and believe this concept extends to all people, even agnostics and atheists. Guiding principles are in essence a Religion; just as Religion in essence is a set of guiding principles. Therefore, whether we admit it or not, we are all religious creatures at heart. In that respect, we all have a stake in the development of the OSR paradigm. 

I myself was baptized, raised, and confirmed as a Roman-Catholic. In time I got over the trauma of it. I studied hard, I meditated, and in the process discovered a holistic philosophy that helps me stay balanced, focused, and answer that all important question: What is life all about? You can do the same if you are courageous enough to ditch your psychological baggage, leave your ego at the door, and move forward with integrity and an open-heart. I will likely take time in a future video to outline my own personal belief system for those who are interested.

I ask that you take a brief moment to reflect, and to not misinterpret what I’m saying. Just because I insist on the need for a religious philosophy grounded in Open-Source, does not mean that we should ignore reality and engage in magical thinking; nor should we pretend all is well and wear disingenuous Prozac smiles on our faces. In the words of philosophical giant Ervin Laszlo, “We should apprehend this remarkable world with our heart as well as with our intellect… [we must adopt] a vision that is imaginative but not imaginary.” 

Obviously the world, and the human race, is in turmoil. That is not a valid excuse to indulge in narrow-minded cynicism. If you find yourself unable to muster up a sense of optimism and elevate your thinking beyond your own ego-driven existence, it is my opinion that you are ignorant of certain fundamental truths. Something is logically amiss in your approach to problem-solving. Put plainly, you are lacking in awareness, and that is a byproduct of both conditioning and intellectual laziness. To change this, you must make the choice to engage in honest interdisciplinary research. By integrating up-to-date findings from a broad spectrum of scientific and metaphysical fields of study, you would arrive at some very liberating and encouraging conclusions. For example, systems theory, non-linear thermodynamics, shamanism, quantum physics, astral-theology, entheogenic pharmacology, and naturalistic philosophy are all critically important subjects. Yet how many of us know even the slightest bit about them, let alone how to organize them into a coherent framework? This epitomizes the challenge at hand; a challenge that nobody can undertake for you. 

Almost all classical belief systems are irreconcilably flawed, as has been historically demonstrated by the countless contradictions and inaccuracies they have given rise to. Consequently, none of them deserve our full allegiance. To borrow a quote from Ayn Rand, “Contradictions do not exist. Whenever you think you are facing a contradiction, check your premises. You will find that one of them is wrong.” In my opinion these belief systems had their chance, and failed to deliver. Open-Source sense making is the future starting now.

We already exist in an era of Open-Source Religion. All we have to do is come to terms with it. The truth is that everyone, even those who consider themselves strict orthodox, selectively constructs their own constellation of beliefs. If this was not true, supposedly strict adherents of the Christian Bible for example would all be stoning their disobedient children to death, and condemning themselves and others to hell for wearing clothing made of two different fabrics. So obviously people everywhere are already engaged in Open-Source spiritual sense-making. But they are too proud, too ignorant, or too afraid to take off their masks and jump ship from their sinking institutions.

I sincerely believe the materialistic, Newtonian paradigms of the past centuries are coming to an end. Compartmentalization is going out of fashion. We need to regain our sanity by reclaiming the lost wisdom of our indigenous forerunners. I think the incomparable Joe Bageant put it best when he said, “There is a spiritual side of man…a moral side. I’m not a Christian, but it’s there, and it’s there for us to share as a people, together.”

 Editor's note: 

John Maguire was born in 1985 and raised in Upstate New York. He attained his undergraduate degree in History Education from the State University of Brockport in 2007. Disillusioned, he successfully dropped out of graduate school in 2009 to pursue a happier and more authentic life. Slowly at first, he initiated a program of autodidactic learning and self-exploration that has been ongoing since. Believing truth and authenticity are the only things worth pursuing, most of his days revolve around such aims. When necessary, he pays for the ego-driven demands of life by way of substitute teaching and coaching poker. He currently lives in North Carolina with his ever-patient girlfriend Nikohl."

John can be reached at foks0904@gmail.com

I met John and Niki when they both worked as book sellers at Lift Bridge Book Shop in Brockport, NY