Recap of Part 1 – “Dogma” first appears to be at the core of what’s used to define the word “Religious” because it determines what “faith” you follow as in Christian, Buddhist, Muslim, Native American, etc. Dogma much of the time is assumed to be “law” because in the various definitions of it you find “authoritatively laid down “ or “set forth in an authoritative manner” not to mention “considered to be absolutely true” yet if you look at it from the Etymology perspective (aka the root origins of the word) you consistently find “philosophical tenet”. My old yellowing Random House dictionary says it the best for the meaning of tenet, “A belief or theory held as true.” Tenet also appears quite frequently in the various definitions of dogma I found along with “doctrine” and “code”. I originally summed it up as follows, “These (definitions) have used the words “system”, “specific”, “authoritatively laid down”, “prescribed”, “settled or established”, “doctrines….morality and faith”, “principle or belief”. Sounds pretty concrete, yet in the (other) definitions…it is stated more tenuous using “proclaimed as true without proof” and “accepted as authoritative”.” Think about it for a minute and realize that thousands of people have died at the hands of “dogma” because my dogma is better than your dogma because it has been “authoritatively declared” as the “official word of God”. Yet when adding all of the root elements to the various meanings you get that dogma is “A philosophical belief, principle, theory, established opinion, or doctrine held, established, prescribed, and proclaimed to be absolutely true without proof and accepted as authoritatively laid down as by a church relating to matters such as morality and faith.” So many meanings so little time for understanding.

Recap of Part 2 – My initial 30 mins of poking around online for the meaning and root origin of dogma showed me, to my surprise, just how subjective it really is and from there it’s not much of a stretch to say that the various versions of how dogma is used is done to suit the specific needs of each religion. This then forced me to ask the question of who’s doing the thinking when it comes to Religion, you or the dogma. Not only that but from a comment I made in my blog post, “Oprah vs Christianity” about The Believing versus The Feeling that when relating it to dogma the conclusion is if The Dogma is doing the thinking for you, then it’s also doing the feeling for you and now that brings into question of who’s really in control of how you feel about God. This is particularly true when you consider that the veracity of many faiths is not allowed to be questioned. For example I’ve read that the Bible was not allowed to be questioned until the early 1900’s and to some degree many still never really do. As a result of my own personal experience in conjunction with what I’ve witnessed with others, more and more people seem to be concluding that their innate feelings of The Divine are not in alignment with what their traditional dogma has been telling them and the bravest of those are seeking answers outside of their previously established dogmas. This why Part 2 focused on the discussion of why so many are leaving “dogma” and turning to “spirituality”.

The core of Part 2 centered around how The Feeling and The Believing can create conflicts in those that attain a personal relationship with The Divine that slowly begins to conflict with the teachings of The Dogma but the fear of ridicule or even banishment can cause much stress with many either remaining quiet or “adjusting” themselves accordingly in order to fit within the mainstream The Dogma requires (is it any wonder why sheep, shepherd and flock are used?). One of the most commonly cited conflicts in Christianity is how can a loving God have such wrath and vengeance? Or how can a loving Father send his only begotten Son to his death in order to redeem the world of its sins through his blood? Yes, there are many answers to these questions much of the time citing The Dogma as the source of the answer but for many this ends up not being enough in the long run. This is demonstrated by a growing number of seekers looking for something more in response to their questions that their original Dogma just isn’t sufficiently answering (see survey in Part 2). The conflict comes from The Believing being the determinant for The Feeling when in actuality it is not required because The Feeling is innate and requires no dogma for its existence.

Part 3 – For me it again comes down to the emotional connection you make. When you have made an undeniable connection with The All That Is, you will obtain a sense of the Unconditional Love that is within The All That Is, regardless of how you choose to see it. It is from this place that I’m making the distinction between The Believing versus The Feeling. I realized after many years of seeking that The Divine will appear to you in the form you need to see him/her/it. If that is a White Man with a White Robe, White Beard, and White Hair what I like to call “The 4 W’s God” then that is how The Divine will appear to you. If you need to see The Divine as a burning bush; then so be it. If you need to see The Divine as The Great Spirit; then so be it. In other words all that is required is the emotional connection to The Divine and the form it takes is irrelevant because it’s all about THE FEELING!!! Because I no longer adhere to any kind of pre-established dogma, I choose to see The Divine as The Formless Form. It is an essence, an energy that is everywhere at once. It is in All Things, at All Times, in All Places. There is nowhere it is not. I have recently seen The Divine referred to as “The Isness” a version of which I’ve also used in the past.

What I have come to realize about the difference between Religious and Spiritual is that you can be Religious and not Spiritual or Religious and Spiritual. There are also those who say they are “Spiritual not Religious” but in essence many are really seeking the Spiritual in lieu of Religious if for no other reason than The Dogma has become insufficient in answering the Call of their Hearts. The difference in all of these is determined by the emotional connection. The very first time I got to experience this was at my second Firewalk 16 yrs ago. A young woman showed up who was a devout Christian. She walked the fire with no incident and claimed it was her faith and love for Jesus that got her through it. I, on the other hand, had gotten an intense blister on my previous Firewalk from which I learned to “Get out of my head and into my Heart” as that was the cause behind how it happened. I was pissed that this “First Timer” who hadn’t done all the things I had done got through it with such ease. I was, of course, in Judgment of her and had to admit it during the Firewalk. What I eventually realized years later was that her emotional connection is what gave her the “Faith of Protection”. Over the past 16 years being involved with energy work, I’ve developed the ability to “sense” people. As a result of that, even though I may have absolutely no reference to The Believing that someone is adhering to, I can sense that The Feeling it produces in them is the same or similar to the one I feel. This then allowed me to see differences in how I was coming to understand The Divine in comparison to those that were following some kind of Religion and from that I eventually realized that difference was based on the emotional connection. Everyone who is intimately connected to their faith has an emotional connection but too often it contains Judgment, many times thanks to both The Dogma and the ensuing ego reactions, which I’ve discovered affects the overall connection. This is why I say that “Judgment is the unwillingness to accept another unconditionally” and why I believe it is one of the core elements of what differentiates Religious versus Spiritual. Any unwillingness to accept another unconditionally is directly related to your unwillingness to see The Divine in another and in turn your Self if for no other reason than “We Are All One”. Once I realized this I vehemently searched and removed any and all Judgments I had. Today I can feel when I’m in Judgment of another and then have to make a choice as to what I will do about it which more often than not involves me looking to where I’m sharing the same energy that my Judgment is projecting onto this person. Once I discover that, the Judgment immediately dissolves and is replaced by Unconditional Love for that person.

Regardless of the ascribed dogma or not, those that have come to understand the Unconditional Love of The Divine then not only see but feel and live that unconditionality as the Oneness in All Things; you no longer see or feel any separation. You know that we are all connected and what you do to another you so do to your Self, what I have come to call “The Golden Rule v2.0”. When you come to understand this you cannot hate another for then you are hating your Self. You cannot bring harm to another because you are bringing harm to your Self. Essentially you see, feel, and live that ALL life is precious and from there you honor and respect the Sanctity and Sovereignty of ALL Life. This then becomes easy to discern because your actions speak louder than your words because they are being supported by your emotional connection to The Divine. It purely becomes a way of Being.

So take a look around you and in the world in general. Where do you see Spirituality in Action? Is it in the acquisition of Wealth and Power via Endless Greed in the Wealthy, Ultra Wealthy, Global Elite or whatever you want to call them? No because absolute power corrupts absolutely and when the Sanctity and Sovereignty of human life is superseded for wealth and power there is no essence of Spirituality there. Is it in someone who will kill another in the name of whatever their god is? Absolutely not because the dogma of these religions has ascended up into the ranks of the ego which then isolates them from the others as the ego loves a good separation due to its “better than” nature. Is it in another who condemns you to hell or won’t talk to you because you don’t follow the path of “the one true god”? Absolutely not because when The Divine is in All Things, at All Times, in All Places there is no where The Divine is not. This is why in Part 2 I quoted Ex. #29 from A Course in Miracles, “God is in everything I see”. This means that The Divine is contained within the totality of the diversity of All Life, a concept that many have a hard time seeing at its extreme levels. The Divine awaits you through the connection of your Heart. If you haven’t done so yet then what are you waiting for?!?! The Christian Dogma says it very succinctly, “Seek and ye shall find; knock and it is answered.” It is there for the taking and all you have to do is open your closed Heart and the wonders of the Unconditional Love of The Divine will greet and embrace you. Let it find you without any others telling you what or how and in that you will completely and fully establish your own personal connection that will be unlike any others because pure and simply it is your connection and that is a wondrous thing indeed!!! I was told many years ago that I have a “Customized Spirituality” and I wouldn’t have it any other way as it allows my Heart to seek this emotional connection to The Divine (aka The Feeling) in any and all ways using whatever tools are at or will be at my disposal. When The Divine is The Infinite then this is a never ending process of unfoldment into and towards The Infinite Unconditional Love of The Divine. Every day brings yet another opportunity for discovery. Now go and find it for your Self!!!

BE THE MIRACLE!

Essentially it is a triple Yin-Yan. Alternate versions are Ying-Yang, Yin-Yang, and less frequently Ying-Yan. Personally I prefer the smallest version Yin-Yan as it is also the simplest. In numerology, the vowels represent the gender of the word so when you remove them from either Yin-Yan or Ying-Yang you cannot tell which word is being referred to (Yn or Yng). The other versions do not contain this distinction and for me lose the purity of the basic symbology of this ancient Oriental symbol.

When the “i” is added to these letters it becomes feminine and when the “a” is added it becomes masculine. Hence this word and its ensuing symbology represent the ultimate dualities of the feminine and masculine principles. This represents the concept of duality so let’s explore that for a moment. Duality in and of itself appears to be a widely used term. Wikipedia says that Duality may refer to philosophy, logic, psychology, mathematics, science, film, music, and electronics . This implies to me that such broad use would indicate it is foundational so let’s explore its definition.

The definition of duality at dictionary.com is “The quality or character of being twofold; dichotomy” (from The American Heritage Dictionary). The other definition relates to mathematics, “a symmetry within a mathematical system such that a theorem remains valid if certain objects, relations, or operations are interchanged, as the interchange of points and lines in a plane in projective geometry”. The other most commonly recited reference is to quantum mechanics in the “wave-particle duality”.

Now let’s relate this back to Yin-Yan being the ultimate expression of the feminine and masculine principles. Male and female represent the ultimate dichotomy (the division into two mutually exclusive, opposed, or contradictory groups) because what appears more mutually exclusive than the female and male bodies? The mathematics application may be more of a stretch for some but for those that study and use energy understand that everybody has within them female and male energies, sort of like the -/+ of electricity which allows it to flow within the body and that these can be exchanged. Thinking is a male oriented energy and emotion is a female oriented energy; the human body contains the capacity for both. It’s the quantum mechanics wave-particle duality that for me gets to the crux of the matter. This was discovered initially with light. One experiment showed that light contained particles such as when someone breaks a beam to open/close a door, trip an alarm, etc. Another experiment demonstrated that light is a wave. What was eventually discovered was that light contained both properties and depending on how you measured it would determine which property would come forth. Therefore light is both wave and particle simultaneously. It is its own dichotomy!!! The same applies to the Yin-Yan principle which is why the two colors are shown slightly intertwined. The black dot on the white side and white dot on the black side represent that one cannot exist without the other as they are just opposites of the same things or as in the wave-particle duality they are their own dichotomy.

This may be hard to see when you only think of the female and male bodies but this symbol represents more than that as it represents the feminine and masculine principles or energies to all things. Without tall there cannot be short. Without dark there cannot be light. Without fat there cannot be skinny. The opposite of one thing must exist in order to even discuss the other. So the dots in the Yin-Yan are there to remind you of this. There is a phrase in the Conversation with God books that states it somewhat eloquently, “In the absence of That Which Is, That Which Is Not, is not.”

Whew!! All of that just to explain my avatar?!? Yes, because it all started with the Yin-Yan plus I so rarely hear anyone talk about it with any real understanding of it. My intention is to assure that you have an understanding of it as close as possible to how I understand it. Many will say it’s Good vs. Evil or Light vs. Dark but it is so much more than that because I have come to see it as a foundational principle in understanding the core of, at the very least, perceived reality. So in actuality, duality only appears mutually exclusive but essentially at the core they are mutually inclusive because true opposites require each other in order to exist. I can only know I’m here because you are there and vice versa. Therefore in order to discuss the concept of space, both here and there must be included in the concept or essentially space, as we know it, cannot exist.

As my awareness continued to expand, so did my grasp of it from which duality moved into triality which by the way is only used in mathematics. The spiritual use of this term is called trinity and again I saw this as a base fundamental for all expressions of life. I’m just going to jump to the end with this; essentially the triality is the duality expressed. Remember that technically I said that true opposites are mutually inclusive. Their extreme purity requires at least the concept of the opposite to be always prevalent. If I’m standing in pitch blackness to the point I cannot see my hand in front of me, I only know that because I have an awareness of “lightness”, even though there is no light currently available. Therefore Life Expressed is an interplay of opposites. Using the symbology of the traditional Yin-Yan, then this would equate to Black, White, and Grey being the combination of the two representing the interplay between these opposite colors.

Once I fully realized this, the traditional Yin-Yan was no longer sufficient as an individual symbol that expressed my understanding of the base elements of perceived reality. My original concept was to just add another “comma” so to speak to the traditional Yin-Yan intertwined “commas”. Many years ago, long before programs like Photo Shop, etc were readily available, I worked with clip art in order to create various symbolic expressions of what I was coming to understand about life, the universe, and everything (an homage to Douglas Adams). I eventually purchased a library of 250,000 images and one day while going through the religious section looking for some symbols, I stumbled across exactly what I was looking for except it had way too much other stuff in it.  I broke it apart and started to assemble my triple Yin-Yan but as creative inspiration would have it I couldn’t just stop at the three “commas”. First I had the white and black dots in their respective traditional places but how should I express that in the grey area? Then it hit me. For the dots in the black and white areas I put the traditional Yin-Yan without the dots, just as black/white “commas” but then in the grey area I put the full blown traditional Yin-Yan symbol.

The final symbology was that although white requires black in order to exist, it can deny that existence or even doesn’t have to know about it, but that doesn’t stop the fact that it’s opposite must still exit. The grey area has the full blown Yin-Yan with the dots because it is the interplay of these polar and apparent mutually exclusive opposites but at the same time is the blending of them and therefore must have an awareness of them on some level. So this in essence then better symbolizes Life Expressed and the variances that ensue because of their extreme variations in this interplay which would be expressed as multitudinous versions or expressions of grey while at the same time never forgetting what drives it all forward in the first place; the mutually inclusive polarities.

BE THE MIRACLE!!!

Addendum (3-Dec-2009): While browsing for various Yin-Yan images I happened to stumble upon a triple version and found out it is called Yin-Yang Yuan. The basic explanation I found at Sequoia Ministry which referred to it as the Triality Symbol and represents the Feminine, Masculine, and “basically the Void, the Unseen, or the Nothing-There in which the elements of yin and yang play out their constant drama”. This is in essence what I had said but used the word “interplay” instead of Void. Void seems so mysterious and removed from perceived reality making it almost untouchable or out of immediate grasp. From my observations as an energy intuitive, it is everywhere but you have to be able to sense energy first. So for those who haven’t learned how to do this, then it would end up in the realm of the mysterious and appear to be a void as in unexplicable. Sequoia Ministry also says, it “has been used as a Transgender symbol to indicate three sexes.” See the full Sequoia Ministry explanation here. This is also substantiated when doing a search for Yin-Yang Yuan images, the majority of which refer on some level to transgender.

Wikipedia Commons appears to have this image in non traditional colors from 2006. This image is also used in an article titled “The Yin-Yang-Yuan Triality” by Bob Jacobson published on April 28, 2007 at iThou.org. Bob states that he found it on Google images and a fellow member’s inquiry to its meaning prompted him to investigate it further. He lists the source as Wikipedia Commons and the creator as Paradox saying it was inspired by the creator’s transgender identity of which Bob says is not his take on the meaning of this symbol (This may be the origin of its current popular use as a transgender symbol). Bob then goes on with definitions eventually coming to the same conclusion as Sequoia Ministry using basically the same words indicating that both may are using external references as the source of the meaning and not so much from their own internal wisdom. At the end of his response, Bob states he didn’t know anything about “the pretty picture I put on my profile”. Somehow it spoke to him and from there he sought out its meaning when asked to explain it. To me this indicates that the true nature of the Yin-Yang Yuan is inherently at our core as the foundation of perceived reality.

There is also a site called UNITI (United National Initiative Towards Improvement) which uses it’s own version of this symbol of which they put a variation in the grey area. They give a small explanation of what it means but for me it’s more like when I hear others say what the traditional Yin-Yan means which is correct but from my experience there’s so much more to it. They then have their own customized version as their insignia which you can find here.

Yin-Yang Yuan @ Google Images
Yin-Yang Yuan @ Wikipedia Commons

The message was about how everyone could use a hug of some kind and was a nice message.  Originally I figured I would at least send it back to him as he’s going through a tough time and could use a hug, even if it was a cyber-hug.

Because I was busy and doing a quick scroll of it, I didn’t originally notice a photo named the same as the Subject of the email, “Rescuing Hug”, with two newborn infants, one with its arm around the other.  The copy associated with the picture is what entirely turned me around and gave this email a brand new definition.

It said, “This is a picture from an article called “The Rescuing Hug.” The article details the first week of life of a set of twins. Apparently, each were in their respective incubators, and one was not expected to live. A hospital nurse fought against hospital rules and placed the babies in one incubator. When they were placed together the healthier of the two threw an arm over her sister in a endearing embrace. The smaller baby’s heart rate stabilized and her temperature rose to normal.  Let us not forget to embrace those whom we love.”

What an absolutely incredible story!! I had to know more, so I did a search for “Rescuing Hug”.  The first results was to snopes.com which for those of you that aren’t familiar with it is a great place for validating rumors and “Urban Legends”.  I’ve debunked many emails with all sorts of fantastic claims as well as proving them.  Snopes verifies that this is the real deal from a story that was originally published in the Worcester Telegraph & Gazette on November 18, 1995 and reprinted in condensed form in both Reader’s Digest May 1996 (Pgs 155-156) and Life Magazine June 1996 (Pg 18).
(Snopes link. Reprint of RD & Life)

Seeing that this is 14 yrs old, it may be an old picture for some yet I’ve never seen it so I’m sure it will be new for others.  Even if you’ve seen it before, did you ponder this about what is in this picture?  It clearly demonstrates that the Expression of Love is Innate in everyone of us!! These premature newborn infants were born 12 weeks early, their eyes are not open yet, they don’t really have any control of their body and need to be taken care of to survive; yet when the healthier of these two girls is put in with the other she “knows” that not only something is wrong with her twin sister but is “aware” enough to “know” what to do which is offer the only expression of love her premature newborn body can do by giving her a hug.  Not only that but the healing was instantaneous!!

From the Readers Digest reprint:

“Suddenly, on November 12, Brielle went into critical condition. She began gasping for breath, and her face and stick-thin arms and legs turned bluish-gray. Her heart rate was way up, and she got hiccups, a dangerous sign that her body was under stress. Her parents watched, terrified that she might die….No sooner had the door of the incubator closed then Brielle snuggled up to Kyrie – and calmed right down. Within minutes Brielle’s blood-oxygen readings were the best they had been since she was born. As she dozed, Kyrie wrapped her tiny arm around her smaller sibling.”  The girls ended up going home sooner than expected.

Love can truly heal this quick but the reason that it doesn’t for so many of us is that we’ve learned to put up blocks and resistances to it.  For anyone who has witnessed the growth of a child from the womb, they are just bundles of Joy and Love.  Emotions like Fear, Hate, Prejudice, etc have to be learned.  Because these two had not yet learned these Love Blocking Emotions, the Power of Love was able to demonstrate itself instantaneously.

So the next time someone offers to give you a hug, no matter who they are, accept it with unabated Joy knowing full well that the Expression of Love is Innate in everyone of us and that alone can heal an aching heart, if you just let it.  Also don’t be afraid to truly embrace the person because then your Heart Chakras will be touching allowing the Love to flow more freely!!!

A Life in measured by the amount of Love given and received.  Hugs are one of the best expressions of Love one can give to another and as the song says, “What the world needs now is Love, sweet Love.  It’s the only thing that there’s just too little of”.  It is what will heal the world.

BE THE MIRACLE!!

On Monday December 8, 1941, Theodore Roosevelt spoke these words about the bombing of an American military base on Pearl Harbor in Oahu Hawaii the day before. (Listen to President Roosevelt’s actual speech)

Sound familiar?

Today is the eighth anniversary of what some have referred to as the “New Pearl Harbor” and what has simply become known as 9-11. Both involved surprise attacks killing many Americans that resulted in war with the main difference being that the 2001 event was entirely civilians and the 1941 event was a World War versus a Global War on Terrorism which has mainly been an “American War” with some support from other countries initially but these days it seems like it’s only our war; one that some say is more about American Imperialism than protecting us from terrorists, an enemy that we can’t see or apparently find well enough to finally end a war that’s been going on for most of the past 8 yrs with some saying no real end in sight anytime soon.

Heroics and bravery are somewhat expected of soldiers but what about a business man/woman? Or a janitor, security guard, salesman? Aka civilians. This comment is not meant to detract from soldiers but that it’s part of their job but not really for the average civilian. Men and women of all race, creed, color, social status, and occupation were suddenly required to find within them this heroics and bravery.

This is what I noticed watching all of the coverage of the aftermath. That regardless of who they were, they rose to the challenge of assisting not only a fellow American, but most importantly a fellow Human without any question of who they were, what their social/economic status, etc was. It was Humans helping Humans. I was watching The Collective in Action!!

What followed was a very serious question. If we could drop all of our supposed boundaries that make us different, from which myriad judgments and condemnations result, for one day, just what would it take for that to happen permanently? Would it then take humanity to be on the brink of annihilation in order for this to occur permanently? It almost seemed too much to ask much less consider because that day was a lot of Death, Devastation, Destruction, and Mayhem much less the latter question; but that wouldn’t ever happen right? If you truly look at the world over the last 8 yrs it seems to be a lot worse. Not just this endless GWOT (which BTW is still killing endless civilians, just not “ours”) but economic collapse resulting in job losses, foreclosures, growing loss of individual freedoms; the list seems to get longer and longer as time goes on.

As a result of this, last year I wrote a blog post called “The Spirituality Behind 9-11” where I explored in detail this idea in conjunction with the other “aftermath”; many, many people seeking the reasons for this horrific event by looking to whatever their idea of God was. It essentially was the beginning of a Spiritual Revolution because due to how technology connects us to the entire world, we were not the only ones witnessing this event as it was happening on live television so as The Collective it was a single occurrence that aligned us all via the horror of Death, Devastation and Destruction and now the question is just what are we still doing about that?

I have witnessed an explosion of this Spiritual Revolution over the past 8 yrs and thanks to places like Twitter we can come together and communicate with each other but I still have to ask if it’s enough because there still seems to be so much apathy in the world in conjunction with so much destruction. Is it really someone else’s problem when it’s so rapidly approaching your backyard (literally!) Sure there are people like Kimberly May Jones who is organizing “One Minute for Peace: The 11:11 Global Peace Project” to occur on 11/11/2009 @ 11:11 which should be a very powerful demonstration for and of The Collective. The question still remains as to whether it’s enough to result in a permanent shift. Only time is going to tell the Real Story.

I’m observing that we are at a tipping point and the future of Humanity is at stake which is why I stated in my The Spirituality Behind 9-11 post that “a storm is coming” because if we’re not actually killing each other, we are also killing our way of life via greed and corruption resulting is the slow degradation of what we believe to be freedom. It is only with The Collective standing up and speaking as a whole that things will truly and totally change but from my perspective this requires Personal Responsibility in a world that appears to continue to scream to be “saved” by either their government and/or their religion neither of which is doing a very good job.

So I first invite you to read The Spirituality Behind 9-11 and again ask you, What level of Death, Devastation, Destruction, and Mayhem will it take for us to permanently drop our boundaries of Separation and live as The Collective?…and then ponder if it really has to happen at this level or can we come together before it gets to that point. Free Will is a God given Gift so we all must make the same choice and it’s as simple as that. A Course in Miracles teaches that your life is the result of your choices and if you don’t like the results to keep on choosing until you do.

The Choice is ours to make.

BE THE MIRACLE!!!

If you have read Part 1 and found it to be thought provoking, get ready to get your mental socks blown off!! There is a high probability with this post that you’re going to be shaking your head in disbelief and saying “No way is this true!“, which by the way is a common reaction when people’s beliefs are being seriously challenged. This is why the previous post delved into the various areas that I have come to realize are involved in Truth Seeking.

The next level of Truth is just below your current level of Truth and upon your initial arrival there it’s going to be confusing and sometimes hard to accept.

During the ensuing days after 9/11 the one thing that a lot of Americans did was to reinforce their Patriotism by displaying the flag and saying “God Bless America”. From my perspective, the blessings of God are bestowed upon you continually without fail, 24/7, whether you are asking for it or not. Why? God so loves his children that not loving them is never a consideration.

As a parent, when your child does something wrong, do you stop loving them? You may not agree with what they are doing and even attempt to circumvent it, but ceasing the act of love is not a consideration. Being made in the image of God, then it follows that God does this on an even more expansive level.

I tried to convey to some that the fact that the presence of God is in your life with or without the asking. In other words you cannot not have the presence of God in your life that it is actually impossible to disconnect from God. Hence there is never a reason to ask for Blessings that have continually flowed into your life without ever having to ask for them. All I got in response to this was the “deer in the headlights” look because the big question that resulted from all of this was “How God could let this happen?”

Let’s go back to the parent analogy.

God created this playground called Earth in which his children are allowed to play freely, as in the use of their Free Will. As any parent would do, there are times when intervention is required (aka Divine Intervention) and times when it’s best to let them work it out. How many times do parents tell their children incessantly to not do certain things, but they thought they knew better or even could get away with it? When these scenarios become excessively chronic, the loving and wise parent needs to let the child learn the lessons the hard way as in Tough Love. Sometimes this involves getting hurt mentally, emotionally, or physically, and in the most extreme cases all of these. Some of Life’s Lessons just end up being learned the hard way. Most everyone can attest to it at least once.

This is going to result in the response that in this analogy God let those people die. Before I address this issue I need to preface it with some other information.

The reason that I continually discuss The Believing versus The Feeling in some of my previous posts is because I have come to understand that The Believing currently is what is establishing The Feeling but most importantly it is the main driver of what separates us. I stated in “Religious versus Spiritual Part 2” that “God is The Infinite, a concept our tiny minds can’t grasp because everything around us is finite. If dogma says that God is This and Only This or That and Only That, does this not limit the Unlimited?” If your Believing refuses to accept anything outside of it, then the result is that you are limiting the unlimited feeling of The Divine.

If that is okay with you, then let it be so. In contrast to that are the constant comments I hear or read about how so many people are looking for more. Which one are you?

When you are constantly seeking more and more ways to understand The Divine the result is more and more revelations which are feelings of The Divine. This is why I’m asking you to suspend your disbelief because that may well be what’s limiting the presence of The Unlimited in your life. Many people have a hard time stepping outside the boundaries of their Believing of God because of the fear of the affect it will have on their Feeling of God; something they cherish and hold as sacred. What I’m saying to you is to give it a chance for there is nothing to lose and everything to gain. I am consistently awed and humbled by the continuing expansion of the presence of the Divine in my life to the point that my eyes will overflow with unabated and overwhelming Joy!!!

The concept I will now present to you has to do with The Perfection of The Divine. I first learned about this 10 years ago and it totally changed the way I look at it. There’s a bit more to it than what I am about to state, but the crux of it is that God is incapable of creating anything less than God. That pure and simply is an impossibility. A molecule in the body of God has the exact same capacity to create unlimited Universes as the entire body of God. There are many places this train of thought will lead you (assuming you are willing to accept it) but for now I’m going to associate it with the previous playground example.

The answer to the question of God allowing those people to die in the sense of letting his children work out their issues on their own is “Yes”. How can that be? If God cannot create anything less than itself and God is an Infinite Being, then to create you as a finite being is less than that and hence an impossibility. Therefore God does not view death in the same way you as you do. You view it from the place of Finite where God views it from the place of Infinite. God sees that you just changed from your Finite form to your Infinite form and the only thing you left behind was your finite physical body. In doing so God sees that all you did was leave the playground and returned home.

I’m not done yet, it gets even crazier than this!!!

In The Spirituality Behind 9-11 Part 1 I said, “…no part of the Spirit is Unconscious as in unaware”. When you add this into the mix, this then begs the question, who made the decision to die? Was it God allowing the ultimate form of Tough Love or some part of the Unseen Consciousness that you are not aware of? The answer is “Yes”.

If you’re having a hard time with this, at first so did I. This is something that you sort of have to take a teaspoon at a time and let it settle in.

One of the things I’ve heard over and over is that “No Soul leaves this world without choosing to do so.” At first that sounds fine. You come here, do your dance, and then it’s time to go. It was another matter altogether when I started taking that idea “to the streets” observing how it works. Watching people whose lives have basically come to an end in one form or another and then hanging on in a conscious or even semi-unconscious state for a long time makes you question that. What about being brutally murdered? What about incidents where the death is sudden for whatever reason which is then followed by irrefutable evidence that their Spirit is still hanging around?

Where’s the choice in that? Why did it take so long especially if suffering is involved? Why not just leave and move on? Why would someone chose to leave in such a brutal way? How could someone make the choice and then “hang around”? As simple as the statement may seem, its application into everyday life can result in limited understanding no matter how much you accept that “No part of the Spirit is unaware”.

Although I’ve come to understand some aspects of this, there’s always the individuals “Journey of a Soul” and that then becomes between them and the “Forces Beyond”.

Taking this to the events of 9-11, these people all chose on some level to be there and return home or die as we prefer to call it here in this place called Earth. This has to be then followed by “WHY?!?” In this case I cannot say I have the complete answer because of the amount of people in a single incident there is easily multiple reasons for the choice individually. In order to even begin to understand the individual level you’d have to go through extensive interviews of the affects it had and continues to have on the ones this affected. Each one is a unique experience in itself and is determined by their individual “Journey of a Soul”.

As far as the level of The Collective is concerned; I stated at the end of Part 1 that there is a storm coming and I was NOT kidding. I’ve been saying it a lot for almost a year but thought it had to do a situation with my previous employer. Many of the things that I thought would happen there have not occurred. This forced me to re-evaluate this feeling eventually realizing that I was being too narrow-minded in my focus and have since come to realize the Big Picture of this statement with the finalities of it in the last several days.

There’s a storm coming and its affect will be on the entirety of Humanity; we are on the cusp of a Major Evolution. The affects that 9-11 had on The Collective was just the beginning of preparing for this. This initial reaction of forcing us to ask “Why?” and the ensuing resulting quests for “Who Am I and What Am I Doing Here?” is the gift they all offered to The Collective for without it so many would have never even thought about it.

I cannot say if the storm will happen all at once or gradually over a period of time but what I can say is that it will put you in the place of asking these questions and more, and the answers will determine the direction we as The Collective will take.

All things with The Spirit involve Choice and so shall this. We will be given the choice to Evolve or De-Evolve. Sounds like a simple choice, right? Maybe not when the answers involve letting go of deeply and long held beliefs of Who You Really Are which may currently be vehemently and voraciously guarded and protected, you will find yourself at many crossroads many of which will be infused with Fear because the redefining of The Self can be frightening for many.

This is why I ask this question in Part 1 and will leave you with it again; What amount of Death, Devastation, Destruction and Mayhem will it take for you to entirely drop your boundaries of Separation and see and live as The Collective? Look around you and within yourself, WE have got lots of work to do!!! The results will be The Birth of The Collective Humanity and life here will never be the same….or not, then it will be more of the same as is Death, Devastation, Destruction, and Mayhem where Choice is limited or even worse predetermined as this is what De-Evolution entails.

The Choice is as much yours to make as it ours.

BE THE MIRACLE!

If you are not a Seeker of Truth, then your time here will be limited….or will it? In other words, why did you come here in the first place? Perhaps forces outside of you have guided you here as one of the next steps in your evolution. I’m saying this because of one VERY important fact; THERE ARE NO COINICIDENCES!!! Look at it this way, a coincidence is a co-incident as in a shared incident, so then who is sharing the incident with you? A better way of looking at it is a co-created incident and then again, who co-created it with you?

Going back to the theme of the Spirituality behind 9/11, if The Collective in that single incident turned to The Divine (or whatever you choose to call it) for answers to “How could this happen?”, how would you know that it responded? My response to that question would be the yearning for more which may in turn start as the feeling of emptiness in your life’s direction. Who are you? Where are you going? What’s life about anyway? That in turn would then put you into the energy of seeking for answers. So again I ask you “Are you a seeker of Truth?”

Do I have all the answers? Humility dictates that I respond with “No” and the reason for that is as soon as I think I have a handle on it all, it’s only a matter of time before it expands again. This is an evolving process that never ceases, so to say that I have all the answers is a fallacy because if that was the case then the evolution would cease because there would be nothing more to learn. To date, that has not happened and I don’t ever expect it to happen? Why? It’s a thing called “Root Assumptions” meaning that I am living in what appears to be a Finite Universe. I see and experience beginnings, middles, and ends yet I’m seeking to understand my connection to The Infinite which has no beginnings, middles or ends, hence so do my discoveries.

I am just a Seeker of Truth, nothing more, nothing less. So all I’m doing here is sharing with you what I’ve learned so far.

As a Seeker of Truth you must be prepared that when presented with Truth that is outside of the current belief structure you have aligned yourself to, that it will be extremely easy to pass it off as entirely untrue at which time your Seeking will at least be disengaged if not halted completely. I know this to be true because it has happened to me countless times. I react to something I read or learn about with “No f***ing way!!!” only to eventually discover some time later, the potential possibilities that lie in this newly discovered Truth.

I’ve also witnessed people who seek truth to a point and then their deeply held beliefs become a barrier to further expansion at which time their growth ceases. This is the risk that all Truth Seekers must be willing to take on. I can tell you from my personal experience that there is more to this reality that you live in than you could ever have imagined and the only thing that is currently stopping you from experiencing it are deeply held beliefs that say “This cannot be!”. If you remove this from your vocabulary then be prepared to uncover entirely new ways of perceiving existence which WILL eventually lead you to learning to see the Oneness in All Things.

The most important lesson to learn about this is that Truth is a choice. Truth is actually contained in the Soul but too often is impeded by deeply held and protected personal beliefs. This can then create the challenge of choosing Truth a difficult one when deeply held beliefs are directing your actions. When seeking it on the deepest of levels it becomes the most extreme use of Free Will but in turn frees your mind to perceive The Divine in ways that were previously believed to be unimaginable.

I mentioned in the Spirituality behind 9/11 Part 1 about the ego. On one hand it is your greatest tool for the discovery and unfolding of your Soul’s overall purpose because without it there is no purpose yet on the other hand it is your biggest obstruction to change. This is evidenced by the phrase, “The Truth will set you free.” Nothing will obstruct that Truth more than the ego because the closer you come to the Absoluteness of Truth, the more the ego will dissipate which in turn threatens its existence. If you were to become this Absoluteness of Truth in its entirety, the ego would be obliterated. Fortunately for the ego that will not occur as long as you remain in this corporeal body living in this physical reality. Because you and the ego are intimately connected to the point where you believe it is you and it believes that you are it, it will actually fight for its right to survive and do whatever it can to impede your quest for Truth. Over time I will go into this more and more, but for now, one of its main purposes is as “The Great Focuser” with beliefs being its primary tool for accomplishing this task.

This brief discussion of the ego is starting to get deeper than it needs to be so I’m going to leave it at this for now. I bring it up here in order to allow you to understand that as much as you seek the truth will be as much as you resist it. At first that will not seem like the case especially if you’ve been asking a lot of questions already and that is because at the onset the ego will not feel threatened. As more and more Truth becomes ingrained into your Beingness your thoughts will begin to separate and at that point the ego will become exposed and at that point it will become, “Let the games begin!”

I know this is confusing so here is an example of this. I define Judgment as “The Unwillingness to Accept Another Unconditionally”. So let’s say you take on this idea and you do your absolute best to not judge others and it seems to be working. Then one day your walking down the street and you see an absolute stranger and you hear very clearly in your mind, “Look at that fat pig!”. You are aghast at this thought. How could you be taking on the idea of not judging others and this just comes out of nowhere? This is the indication that your ego thoughts are separating from your other thoughts. What you will find is that not only does this happen more often than you will ever admit to anyone, but that you will also find yourself getting caught in mental traps that you “buy” into over and over. These are the games of the ego. There’s a lot more to this and will be addressed at another time if for no other reason than I’m now into my third page and it’s time to wrap this up.

In regard to all of this, the most important thing to remember is that the ego is essentially powerless and is the root of an essence that everyone contains called “The Nothing and Nobody”. Now you may react to this stating that this is not you, that you are somebody etc. This “Nothing and Nobody” cleverly manifests itself in a wide variety of ways. For some it’s very obvious because they belittle themselves having no real confidence in themselves. In others it manifests in the exact opposite as it should in this world of Duality and all points in between. So it’s there whether you see it or not, whether you acknowledge it or not, whether you like it or not. Essentially it’s part of what I call “The Blueprint for the Human Soul”.

Although the ego is essentially powerless, it at the same time is the Master of Illusion and knows everyone of your weaknesses and will use them in order to maintain “The Power of Its Powerlessness”. This is why I originally said it was your biggest inhibitor to Truth. The deeper you delve into Truth the more it will challenge you because its acceptance will always require you to let go of your beliefs which you use to define who you think (believe) yourself to be which then puts you into the very scary place of redefining yourself. The most important thing to remember is that it’s just going to be a newer and bigger you. To this day I’m still me but the difference from 15+ years ago is that I have a lot less emotional garbage which has resulted in a much wider view of Who I Am and the world I live in knowing full well that this view will most certainly change again. It’s been a wonderful adventure that I’ve had to at times literally kick, cry, and scream my way through and I wouldn’t trade it for anything but more of it!!!

BE THE MIRACLE!