Answer the Call

We have not even to risk the adventure alone, for the heroes of all time have gone before us. The labyrinth is thoroughly known. We need only to follow the thread of the hero's path. And where you had thought to find an abomination, you shall find a God... And where you had thought to travel outward, you shall come to the center of your own existence. And where you had thought to be alone, you shall be with all the world.

- Joseph Campbell from The Hero With A Thousand Faces

Every great adventure in life begins with a calling...a call to leave the old life behind and venture forth to explore what is possible beyond the horizon of present circumstances. The stories we love most, have this hero's journey motif running through them. We love these stories because they awaken a sense of longing in us to be more, to experience more, and to stretch the limits of our current understanding of life and self.

Initially, we may interpret this call as dissatisfaction, malaise, or discontent for life until we recognize that it is an inner urge to explore the life beyond what we currently think is possible. Of course, this scares us and we are likely to reject these inklings at first. Or, we may categorize these feelings as caprice of the ego and write them off. However, if this urge to leave the comforts of home persists despite our attempts to deny its validity we can know this is the real deal; a mandate of the soul; a divine calling. It is the soul's call to realize more of itself through our human journey.

The Bible has many stories depicting the hero's journey. Moses, Abraham, Noah, Mary, all were called out of their comfort zones to experience more, and to stretch the limits of their current understanding of life and self and to be more. Cinematically, we saw it in Alice in Wonderland, who was prompted to venture down a rabbit hole, Dorothy's discontent lead to a whirlwind that carried her far from her comfortable home in Kansas, Harry Potter was summoned out of an oppressive life so that he could learn of his great powers. Each of these characters displayed disbelief and a reluctance to answer the call at first. In each case, something extraordinary happened to convince them to say "yes" and embark on an uncharted path to an unknown destination. Everything that lied ahead was obscure; the only certainty was the calling. If subtle insight is not our strong suit, we may need a burning bush, or a talking rabbit, or an angel in the night, or a house full of owls carrying letters to convince us to move!

Once we begin something deep in us, now awakened, calls us forward, to follow its lead, despite the dangers, despite the uncertainties. Perhaps we intuit a tacit promise, even in the absence of outer assurances, that we will become more for having taken the journey.

The promise of the spiritual journey is that we will discover more of who we truly are. This motivates us, while it also scares us. We want the boon of knowing the deep truths about ourselves while we fear the dragons that devour our beliefs that keep us small but safe.

As Joseph Campbell noted, we can be encouraged by the many that have gone before us on this treacherous journey of self awareness. The labyrinth is known, and marked, by the thread of intrepid seekers, master teachers, and ordinary heroes who answered a call, faced down their fears and were led to a greater life.

Everyone is called; few choose to listen, and even fewer accept the call. Free will means we can choose. Given the choice, let us choose life over fear. In our community, you do not need to risk the adventure alone. We are with you.

Life after life

Every life story, the "little me" story, is ultimately unsatisfactory. - Eckhart Tolle

I am writing this message on Good Friday, the day that recalls the story of Jesus crucifixion and death. From the mortal mind, it is hard to see any good in this event; rather it appears to be a monumental tragedy! How else could you see it? Jesus, the great messiah, this benevolent wise master of life, at the peak of his powerful ministry betrayed by his closest friends and followers leading to embarrassment, humiliation, degradation, enormous suffering and ultimately death. This great enlightened one among men, who offered immense hope to humanity, embodied unimaginable love, compassion, extraordinary healing prowess, the quintessence of a truly good leader that could lead the world out of darkness....snuffed out!

From the "little me" perspective, that looks at the apparent facts, it is not a satisfying story. It leaves us yearning for an explanation, demanding an answer to make sense of this great loss. From this perspective, Jesus is seen as victim, and the world suffered a great loss that day in Golgotha.

This tendency to view life as tragic or at least unsatisfactory is in every one of us. Every one of us might look at our own lives, and say it is not satisfying; it didn't work out the way it should have; it's not the life we imagined, something failed, something went horribly wrong, it shouldn't have happened.

There is another way to see life. The enlightened perspective never comes to those who look at life myopically. As Cervantes said, facts are the enemy of the truth. Jesus called this enlightened perspective, "being born from above," and told the disciple, Peter that human sight does not reveal the reality of who we are. The facts of Jesus death and tomb also temporarily blinded Mary Magdalene from seeing the Christ that could not be contained in the ground.

If we are to see beyond the darkness of tragedy, loss or a life that seems to have gone wrong, we must rely on inner illumination, the "light that enlightens every man (woman) who enters the world." Through the light of spiritual understanding, we can perceive reality beyond appearances, and behold a life that retains possibility, purpose, and promise.

The Easter story proclaims that Jesus resurrected from bodily death. Amongst believers, this is non-controversial and accepted as true, while some question whether this is a factual event. Honestly, it doesn't really matter to my faith. What matters is that I step back from the appearances of life, and recognize the enduring power of love, and the irrepressible life force that is undeniably present in this precious instant that is my life. I can see it in nature, especially in the Spring landscape revival. I can feel its presence like a wave of peace when I accept life on its terms. I make way for love to arise in me when I'm able to suspend judgment of someone or something. In such moments of openhearted clarity, I can fully embrace the notion that nothing can contain Life's onward impulse, nor entomb love's power.

Jesus knew he (and we) would have trials and tribulations, and warned us not to judge by appearances. Superficial appraisal of life situations lead to dissatisfaction because it is outer focused. We cannot satisfy our deep soul needs through outer conditions no matter how "happy" they might appear. It is only in building our inner awareness of Life and Love through sincere spiritual practice that we can hope to endure the trials of life with our faith and "good cheer" intact. As we accumulate a deeper appreciation for life, we will stop looking for the "living among the dead," stop regretting our past or looking to an imagined future for our happiness.

Life situations are part of the changeable landscape of our lives; they are not the eternal Life we have in God. Life cannot be created or destroyed. Therefore, we can release all forms, no matter how precious to us, and still have a life, even an abundant life, as Jesus promised and demonstrated. There's life after divorce. There's life after a major illness. There's life after job loss or bankruptcy. There's life after the death of a loved one. Will it be difficult, or painful? Perhaps. Yet life continues, and offers us new opportunities to express the irrepressible life and love within us. Jesus legacy to us is to remember that we don't need to stay in the tomb. We too can be lifted as Jesus was lifted up, and we too can bear witness to the Christ spirit that lives on through it all!

Happy Easter.

What Was Jesus Thinking?

Did you ever wonder why Jesus willingly entered Jerusalem knowing what awaited him there? I mean after the palms, high fives, and Hosannas celebration, Jerusalem became a nightmare for Jesus. Just what was he thinking?

Now we know according to traditional Christian doctrine, Jesus passed through those gates in acquiescence to a life ending fate; willingly undertaken to save humanity from the consequences of its sinful ways. According to this interpretation, Jesus death is seen as no less than the supreme purpose of his life.

In Unity, we look at the same set of "facts" through a different lens of understanding and come up with a radically different interpretation. We believe that the supreme purpose of Jesus' life was to realize and demonstrate a relationship with God that transformed him at depth. His success in overcoming the world of appearances, as a man who realized complete oneness with God, became a profound legacy for humanity to follow.

So why did Jesus go there? Since Jesus was bent on breaking down the barriers to realizing his oneness with the Divine he would need to face and overcome each and every temptation to believe otherwise. Whatever belief would persuade a person to believe that they exist apart from God, or that the world is against them, or are separated from Life, must be challenged. In other words, Jesus knew that the path to liberation would take him through the gates of ego hell. Our ego bears witness to separation from God, testifies relentlessly to a bottomless pit of needs that can never be satisfied, and a life of lack, suffering, and death. This is the grand illusory world that we face, even though as A Course In Miracles states "we are at home in God dreaming we are in exile."

Jesus had obviously made great progress in overcoming the illusions of the ego, yet the grandest illusion of all awaited him in Jerusalem. Most of us could not imagine a more gut wrenching faith-ending scenario, than to be betrayed, abandoned by friends, and turned over to people who would torture, and destroy your body. Was Jesus tempted to back away from this dreadful fate? Yes, we know he doubted his mission in the Garden by his passionate plea to take the cup (of his fate) from him. However, Jesus ultimately knew that a realization of oneness with God would need to stand up to all tests. If love were the greatest power in the universe, it would not fail him even through this horrendous ordeal. It was only in going through the most powerful illusion of separation from life and love, that Jesus could establish for himself (and all of us) that Life and Love are eternal qualities, not circumstance dependent.

Jesus fulfilled his supreme purpose and was transformed by his difficult journey. Stripped of the last vestiges of his ego, he was able to emerge from the tomb of darkness, and bear witness to the Light of truth and his true being.

Perhaps you are facing the prospects of a difficult journey right now in your life. You may feel trepidation as you contemplate the risks of what lies ahead. You may be tempted to back off and take a safer course. I invite you to ask yourself this question before deciding how to proceed: What is my supreme purpose in this life? Once you have answered that question, see how it guides your best course of action.

I have not always walked courageously into risky situations. Sometimes I saved my skin, and lost my soul. During those times when I did muster the courage to face the dragons of uncertainty and fear I was frequently rewarded to find my true self, and authentic self expression.

When we are committed to a journey of transformation, when our desire to know God intimately, as an indwelling presence that never leaves us, we are drawn through the refining fire of circumstances. This can be painful as the narrow gate strips away our cherished but limited beliefs of who we think we are in order to make way for our true self to emerge.

The gates of transformation are wide open for you. Go ahead and enter, trembling if you must, knowing God goes with you. As you enter you may hear the angels sing, Hosanna, blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord.

Awake and Aware

...all mystics-Catholic, Christian, non-Christian, no matter what their theology, no matter what their religion - are unanimous on one thing: that all is well, all is well. Though everything is a mess, all is well. Strange paradox, to be sure. But tragically, most people never get to see that all is well because they are asleep. They are having a nightmare.-- (Anthony Demello, Awareness)

It is said that soon after his enlightenment the Buddha passed a man on the road who was struck by the Buddha's extraordinary radiance and peaceful presence. The man stopped and asked, "My friend, what are you? Are you a celestial being or a god?" "No, "said the Buddha."Well, then, are you some kind of magician or wizard?" Again, the Buddha answered, "No." "Well, my friend, then what are you?" The Buddha replied, "I am awake."

According to Anthony Demello, "Being awake means being aware." Most of the time, we really are not aware, meaning our eyes are not fully open to see what is really going on around us and within us. We have eyes, but we don't see, as Jesus put it. What we see is our conditioned and programmed version of reality colored by imperfect perceptions, prejudices, fears, judgments, concepts, and labels that taint the plain truth of what lies before us and within us.

A concept or label omits something that is precious and unique that is only found in unfiltered reality. The great Indian sage, Krishnamurti recognized the costs of languaging reality when he said, "The day you teach the child the name of the bird, the child will never see that bird again." Before the child has the word for this creature it observes its uniqueness and takes in its variety of color, shape, movements, behavior with open curiosity. Once the child is given the name for this creature, it will readily name the next sighting and cease to observe with the same open perception.

Our awakening to greater God consciousness is a sowing and reaping process; of more of this and less of that. We awaken through acquisition of experience, and by letting go of conditioned mind patterns. This is what Jesus referred to as the need to "become as little children" in order to enter the kingdom. We learn to label in order to comprehend and communicate about our world, and we must abandon those labels if we wish to fully embrace and enjoy our world.

Because we are spiritual beings in a physical universe, we have the innate capacity to witness our reality in a present, aware state of mind. We are in the world but not of it when our awareness of life takes precedence over our reactions to life. When I can remain aware of the part of me that observes my life experiences, I remain connected to the part of me that is spacious, changeless, and invulnerable. Then whether I gain (or lose) the whole world, I do not lose my soul sense. I am not carried away by victory or upended by defeat. I am able to stay centered in the big picture, able to recognize the interconnectedness of life, and awake to infinite possibilities. In this aware state, I am more likely to meet life situations with curiosity, resourcefulness, and creativity. I am more likely to conclude that despite all appearances, all is well.

Sow What?

Every man's world picture is and always remains a construct of his mind and cannot be proved to have any other existence.

Erwin Schrodinger, Quantum Physicist

On this first day of spring, I have been enjoying the warm sun while lounging in the backyard (somebody has to work this way), musing about this message.

These weekly messages, like all the greenery around me, start with a seed of an idea. I have frequently started writing willy-nilly; hoping that out of the flood of disjointed thoughts and feelings, a nugget of inspirational clarity will drop out and show me the course to pursue. This sometimes works, but more often these days, I open my mind and heart like a sail and wait patiently for the winds of inspiration to set a course and get me moving.

As every writer and sailor knows, there are times when you are "dead in the water" and you must sit waiting patiently for something to fill your sails. The winds always return, thank God. But the mind can begin to haunt when "too much time" has elapsed with no progress to show for it. All too frequently when this happens I'll begin to run an old inner tape about inadequacy, "who do I think I am trying to write when I can't even begin", or even more horrifically, "I'm empty!” Then I need to do some quick self-therapy or my sails will remain limp for a very long time.

That therapy comes from our innate capacity to choose how we construct our world with whatever is before us. Our surface mind tells us that we see the world as it is, and the quality of our experience is dependent on the quality of our circumstances. You may recognize this perspective. It's the victim mentality, the world determines my experience. Yet wisdom teaches us that we are not victims of the world we see, we are victims of the way we see the world. Quantum science corroborates asserting that there is no objective reality out there, apart from our perception of it. Shakespeare recognized it too when he said, Nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so. Jesus said Do not judge by appearances but judge by righteous judgment.

You and I have a whole committee (of thoughts) in our heads who willingly and forcefully chime in with a host of preprogrammed opinions about what any particular situation says about us, or other people, or the way the world is, etc. None of these opinions are based on Truth, all based upon past conditioning, almost always fear based perceptions that bear witness to a world of suffering, limitation, and I'll never be good enough.

Like the dandelions in my yard, they all started as seeds and if allowed to remain embedded in the soil of my consciousness, will flower into full-blown neuroses, or worse. The way we can deal with these errant seed thoughts is not identify with them. It takes awareness, to recognize that I'm thinking poorly about myself, and an even deeper awareness to notice that I am not my thoughts! I have thoughts, but my true self, the I of me, the one who observes the thoughts, is not those thoughts. If I do not attach my sense of self to those thoughts, I remain free, I remain creative. I am able to construct my world in the best possible light. This is what Jesus referred to as righteous judgment.

What we sow, we reap. It's a law of life that will not be mocked. We can however be conscious in our planting practices this spring, sowing and nurturing only the most nourishing thoughts that reflect our God given nature. No, it won't always be easy. But the difficulty will be well worth the effort when we're enjoying the sweet fruit at harvest.

Building Your Trust Fund

I once saw a cartoon entitled, "mastery" that showed a man standing in the middle of a one-way street, cars whizzing past him, while he pointed in the direction that the traffic was moving. A bystander provided the caption that read, "He even controls the flow of the traffic!"

The enlightened ones are the ones who point in the direction that life moves, and in the absence of resistance discover ease and grace in the way things are. The rest of us make a stand against the flow of life, argue for what should be happening, and are run over or run through by the isness of life that we oppose.

We may know better but we resist this wisdom. We find it hard to go with the flow and trust in this world. No matter how many admonitions and parables exhorting the value of the path of least resistance, never mind the track marks evidencing the consequences of standing against the flow, somehow our faith fails to assure us that the universe will operate without our control.

Jesus had a lot to worry about in his time, and yet he preached, "Do not worry." I doubt Jesus had a healthy pension, or even a stocked pantry, and we know he had some serious enemies. He had some very good reasons to worry, but he did not worry. How was he able to respond to the lack of outer assurances with confidence, ease and grace? Answer: He had a big Trust fund. He truly knew the source of his well-being, and found true security in the invisible and very real Spirit of life within him. He was identified with an indwelling Father, who knew his needs before he asked and whose pleasure it was to fulfill them.

Jesus was not in denial about the difficulties of life and we know he had his preferences (remember the Gethsemane cup moment) but he could see beyond the appearances, and trusted more in the Greater Good than his personal will. He could see beyond a fallow field, to a harvest; beyond evil ways to ignorance; beyond death to life eternal.

You and I have the same indwelling Father to rely upon. Jesus did not have a bigger God than we do. He had a bigger faith, a bigger trust fund. The potential for us to live in trust is equal to Jesus. We can begin in small ways to release the opposition in us, to relax and let go in small things. As we let go of the wheel and discover how a
GPS (God Positioning System) works (independent of us) in the minor excursions through life, we will begin to build trust for the major journeys.

As every farmer knows, the real magic in the field is beyond his control. He can plant the seed, but the earth bestows. There is a Life force that conspires for our good; that knows what makes us grow, thrive and prosper. The more we can trust it to work through our lives the more we will witness the ease and grace of life flowing through us. This is the path of mastery.

Opening to the Path

During these difficult economic times, many people are going through experiences leaving them feeling sad, angry, depressed and fearful. What is the relationship between the events and a person's experience? Our ordinary human perceptions would say that the events caused our experience wouldn't we? It seems relational, logical, and symbiotic. We don't allow for any intervening process. But the fact is that we never directly experience the world around us. All we ever know are the contents of consciousness, the thoughts, feelings, perceptions and sensations that appear in our mind.

It is so easy to turn outer events and circumstances into stories with meaning for us, that then takes the place of the "facts." So what can we do when life gets really hard, and there is no ready fix in sight. How can we manage our inner world so that we are not victims of an awful story.

Our forgetful self, the part of us that feels cut off from God, tells stories that bear witness to lack, personal limitations, that we are alone, and isolated in our own private hell, facing the challenges of life that seem insurmountable. In this story, we are victims of the world. Events and others are seen as against us. Life is a battleground. We feel like strangers in a strange land.

Wisdom calls us to re-examine in a moment of awareness, the stories we have been telling; calls us to reconcile what has been for Truth . It is more than getting the facts straight to decide if a story is worth repeating. It is the context in which we remember the story, the macro perspective that can give transcendent purpose to the events in our lives. When the story we tell is life affirming, rife with hope, meaning, possibility and connection, its re-telling can liberate us from our suffering.

This story was alive and well at the time of Jesus' ministry. He would frequently remind the people that there was another viewpoint worth considering. Repeatedly Jesus said, "You have heard it said ___(conventional wisdom of the time) but I say to you___(The greater truth) He invited the forgetful people of his time, which is equally applicable to us today, to see from an enlightened perspective.

Jesus modeled the dual nature of being as he fully embraced his humanity, and fully expressed his Spirit. That is our slogan at Unity Center of Davis, embracing the human, expressing the Spirit. It encapsulates for us the parallel purpose as described by every spiritual master; being in the world, present to our physicality, human needs, honoring our embodiment, people, circumstances and conditions, while always seeking to realize, experience, and express the Greater I, that I am (we are). It is the path of being fully human and fully divine, walking in partnership, in which the human stuff is a vehicle through which the Divine is expressed.

As a master teacher of Life Jesus was aware of the human condition and was compassionate to those who suffered. His ministry emanated from both his human eyesight and his spiritual vision. He had a personal transformative relationship with God. He awakened to discover an indwelling God, that good is everywhere present, that the Spirit of the living God indwells everybody, and there is a power in us that overcomes anything. The only truthful story going on is that Spirit is seeking to reveal itself; that our souls are here to heal and grow. Every other story is just a human interpretation of a sacred event.