http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FWEhqST0Dyk
if you have never tasted sugar, you can not understand what it tastes like.
If you have not tasted nothingness, you can not understand it.
Osho
These are personal notes and links regarding the dissolution of one's Self-Image --i.e. one's ego. The path is non-duality. Life itself has brought me here. These notes are reminders of my direction, and my lack of direction. They are to strengthen my focus on what ACIM calls "the real world" i.e. "that which does not change." While these notes are written for me, if you find them helpful, you may feel at home to read any of them.
Are Prayers Answered ?
Are Prayers Answered ?
Many have pondered over this question, but few have come to some certain conclusions. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a Theologian in Hitler's Germany was an exception. In his Letters and Papers from Prison, he wrote that “God would have us know that we must live as men who manage our lives without him.” This was because God did not answer his fervent prayers for peace, and he died in prison.
Of course his response is typical of Christian Apology: when evidence does not support the theory, make up a reason for it so the doctrines are safe. After all, to question doctrine was considered treason, and at various times Christians were put to death for it, or worse, excommunicated.
Myself, coming from a Judaic-Christian upbringing, I am still often caught by my earliest teachings, for example, by habit, I still think of God as a male figure. I now know this is idiotic, but I have to think twice to remember that "God" is "The Force of the Universes" or "The Infinite." In these cases, there continues to be the dualistic error as well: the idea that I am here and God is out there. So it would be better the say "All that I am aware of and not aware of" instead of the word "God."
I also realize that it is impossible to know where I end, and God begins. This means that I am an Atheist because I do not believe God is "outside of me" and it means that I am a Theist, because God does live inside me. Nevertheless, we're stuck in a dualistic world, with dualistic language, so communication without dualistic concepts is impossible.
Many have pondered over this question, but few have come to some certain conclusions. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a Theologian in Hitler's Germany was an exception. In his Letters and Papers from Prison, he wrote that “God would have us know that we must live as men who manage our lives without him.” This was because God did not answer his fervent prayers for peace, and he died in prison.
Of course his response is typical of Christian Apology: when evidence does not support the theory, make up a reason for it so the doctrines are safe. After all, to question doctrine was considered treason, and at various times Christians were put to death for it, or worse, excommunicated.
Myself, coming from a Judaic-Christian upbringing, I am still often caught by my earliest teachings, for example, by habit, I still think of God as a male figure. I now know this is idiotic, but I have to think twice to remember that "God" is "The Force of the Universes" or "The Infinite." In these cases, there continues to be the dualistic error as well: the idea that I am here and God is out there. So it would be better the say "All that I am aware of and not aware of" instead of the word "God."
I also realize that it is impossible to know where I end, and God begins. This means that I am an Atheist because I do not believe God is "outside of me" and it means that I am a Theist, because God does live inside me. Nevertheless, we're stuck in a dualistic world, with dualistic language, so communication without dualistic concepts is impossible.
So the question "does God answer prayer" is first based on many assumptions we take for granted. We assume we are here, and God is out there. We assume that we are a body and that our eyes see, our ears hear, our fingers touch. These ideas we take for granted as truths yet they can not be proven. We assume we are powerless, and God is all powerful, that we are faulty and God is perfect.
Our prayers of requests are mostly about things we believe are on this earth: our personal body, our personal situation, our personal relationships; our friends; our acquaintances, our country, and maybe others.
Our prayers of thanks to God are also about things we believe are here on this earth, things about our person, our personal situation, our friends, etc.
Our prayers of requests are mostly about things we believe are on this earth: our personal body, our personal situation, our personal relationships; our friends; our acquaintances, our country, and maybe others.
Our prayers of thanks to God are also about things we believe are here on this earth, things about our person, our personal situation, our friends, etc.
If we are imagining all this, as we dream at night, then supplicating (or thanking) our God for "stuff", is also is imaginary. We imagine our needs, we imagine our wants, we make our requests with fervency etc. and sometimes we get what we want, sometimes we get something else, and at other times we don't get a response.
When we get what we want, we feel wonderful. When we don't, we feel bad.
Of course the mind wants to see that it is right, and wants to see itself as "the special one" it believes itself to be, so even in it's seeing the results of prayer, it looks through a "crooked glass."
For example, if we prayed for peace in the neighbourhood and a white cat walked across the road in front of us, we would think that God has answered our prayer and sent us a good omen.
When we get what we want, we feel wonderful. When we don't, we feel bad.
Of course the mind wants to see that it is right, and wants to see itself as "the special one" it believes itself to be, so even in it's seeing the results of prayer, it looks through a "crooked glass."
For example, if we prayed for peace in the neighbourhood and a white cat walked across the road in front of us, we would think that God has answered our prayer and sent us a good omen.
If we don't get what we want, we can rationalize that God is too busy with the bigger problems of the world, or that he has gotten very old and falls asleep at the job, or that he is limited by the very laws that govern our experience, or that we are not good enough, or we asked for something bad for us, or that we didn't use the right formula in our prayers etc.
At times in your life, you may change your religion, in the belief that the new doctrines or the new incantations will bring you more success. You might go back to the source religions and become a fundamental Jew, Christian, or Muslim. We see this phenomenon happening today as people try harder to connect with this idea of a God outside of themselves.
I propose instead that you rethink the idea of you, the idea of God, and the idea that the two are separate. ACIM says there is only one problem, and one solution. The problem is that you think you are separate from God. The solution is that you are not.
ACIM also says that this world was made by us to hide from God and His wrath. It says that we experienced tremendous guilt when we separated from Him, became fearful, and created this imagined universe as a projection from our mind.
Certainly the world seems like it is based on murder and death. All life seems to exist by eating other life. To live, creatures must kill. Men too live this way. While we don't often kill our our tribe members, we do kill other animals, or other tribes.
The problem is that we believe we are separate from God: the All. The solution is, that we are not. Given this, does The All answer prayer?
Given that we are One with god, prayer makes no sense. Does God talk to Himself? We often do, so if He is anthropomorphic then so does He. <smile> But I think not. We simply come to realize that prayer without duality doesn't mean anything.
The beautiful pamphlet called the "Ladder of Prayer" which was dictated to Helen Schucman after ACIM was dictated, discusses this subject. AT the bottom of the ladder, we can not help but pray from littleness, asking for things. As we develop up the ladder, we realize that the world is an illusion and reflects our thoughts. More and more we want to change our thoughts. Our prayers become more silent and less driven by "wants" but rather attraction for Truth. We come to realize that the world will never give us what we really want, and further that we are simply using it to hide from Truth.
"Prayer becomes a song of joy that the creation sings to the Father, and the Father sings to to Son."
"You first forgive, then pray, and you are healed. Your prayer has risen up and called to God, Who hears and answers. You have understood that you forgive and pray but for yourself. And in this understanding you are healed. In prayer you have united with your source, and understood that you have never left. This level cannot be attained until there is no hatred in your heart, and no desire to attack the Son of God." IV.4
ACIM also says that this world was made by us to hide from God and His wrath. It says that we experienced tremendous guilt when we separated from Him, became fearful, and created this imagined universe as a projection from our mind.
Certainly the world seems like it is based on murder and death. All life seems to exist by eating other life. To live, creatures must kill. Men too live this way. While we don't often kill our our tribe members, we do kill other animals, or other tribes.
The problem is that we believe we are separate from God: the All. The solution is, that we are not. Given this, does The All answer prayer?
Given that we are One with god, prayer makes no sense. Does God talk to Himself? We often do, so if He is anthropomorphic then so does He. <smile> But I think not. We simply come to realize that prayer without duality doesn't mean anything.
The beautiful pamphlet called the "Ladder of Prayer" which was dictated to Helen Schucman after ACIM was dictated, discusses this subject. AT the bottom of the ladder, we can not help but pray from littleness, asking for things. As we develop up the ladder, we realize that the world is an illusion and reflects our thoughts. More and more we want to change our thoughts. Our prayers become more silent and less driven by "wants" but rather attraction for Truth. We come to realize that the world will never give us what we really want, and further that we are simply using it to hide from Truth.
"Prayer becomes a song of joy that the creation sings to the Father, and the Father sings to to Son."
"You first forgive, then pray, and you are healed. Your prayer has risen up and called to God, Who hears and answers. You have understood that you forgive and pray but for yourself. And in this understanding you are healed. In prayer you have united with your source, and understood that you have never left. This level cannot be attained until there is no hatred in your heart, and no desire to attack the Son of God." IV.4
"Let the dead bury the dead"
A wonderful quote by Jesus...
We're all dead, this is a dream... He is saying to our Mind..."Wake up"
This world is a dream.
My Kingdom is Not of This World
ACIM WORKBOOK PART I LESSON 132.
I loose the world from all I thought it was.
W-132.1. What keeps the world in chains but your beliefs? 2 And what can save the world except your Self? 3 Belief is powerful indeed. 4 The thoughts you hold are mighty, and illusions are as strong in their effects as is the truth. 5 A madman thinks the world he sees is real, and does not doubt it. 6 Nor can he be swayed by questioning his thoughts' effects. 7 It is but when their source is raised to question that the hope of freedom comes to him at last.
W-132.2. Yet is salvation easily achieved, for anyone is free to change his mind, and all his thoughts change with it. 2 Now the source of thought has shifted, for to change your mind means
you have changed the source of all ideas you think or ever thought or yet will think. 3 You free the past from what you thought before. 4 You free the future from all ancient thoughts of seeking what you do not want to find.
W-132.3. The present now remains the only time. 2 Here in the present is the world set free. 3 For as you let the past be lifted and release the future from your ancient fears, you find escape and give it to the world. 4 You have enslaved the world with all your fears, your doubts and miseries, your pain and tears; and all your sorrows press on it, and keep the world a prisoner to your beliefs. 5 Death strikes it everywhere because you hold the bitter thoughts of death within your mind.
W-132.4. The world is nothing in itself. 2 Your mind must give it meaning. 3 And what you behold upon it are your wishes, acted out so you can look on them and think them real. 4 Perhaps you think
you did not make the world, but came unwillingly to what was made already, hardly waiting for your thoughts to give it meaning. 5 Yet in truth you found exactly what you looked for when you
came.
W-132.5. There is no world apart from what you wish, and herein lies your ultimate release. 2 Change but your mind on what you want to see, and all the world must change accordingly. 3 Ideas
leave not their source. 4 This central theme is often stated in the text, and must be borne in mind if you would understand the lesson for today. 5 It is not pride which tells you that you made the world you see, and that it changes as you change your mind.
W-132.6. But it is pride that argues you have come into a world quite separate from yourself, impervious to what you think, and quite apart from what you chance to think it is. 2 There is no world! 3 This is the central thought the course attempts to teach. 4 Not everyone is ready to accept it, and each one must go as far as he can let himself be led along the road to truth. 5 He will return
and go still farther, or perhaps step back a while and then return again.
W-132.7. But healing is the gift of those who are prepared to learn there is no world, and can accept the lesson now. 2 Their readiness will bring the lesson to them in some form which they can understand and recognize. 3 Some see it suddenly on point of death, and rise to teach it. 4 Others
find it in experience that is not of this world, which shows them that the world does not exist because what they behold must be the truth, and yet it clearly contradicts the world.
W-132.8. And some will find it in this course, and in the exercises that we do today. 2 Today's idea is true because the world does not exist. 3 And if it is indeed your own imagining, then you can loose it from all things you ever thought it was by merely changing all the thoughts that gave it these
appearances. 4 The sick are healed as you let go all thoughts of sickness, and the dead arise when you let thoughts of life replace all thoughts you ever held of death.
W-132.9. A lesson earlier repeated once must now be stressed again, for it contains the firm foundation for today's idea. 2 You are as God created you. 3 There is no place where you can suffer, and no time that can bring change to your eternal state. 4 How can a world of time and place exist, if you remain as God created you?
W-132.10. What is the lesson for today except another way of saying that to know your Self is the salvation of the world? 2 To free the world from every kind of pain is but to change your mind about yourself. 3 There is no world apart from your ideas because ideas leave not their source, and you maintain the world within your mind in thought.
W-132.11. Yet if you are as God created you, you cannot think apart from Him, nor make what does not share His timelessness and Love. 2 Are these inherent in the world you see? 3 Does it create like Him? 4 Unless it does, it is not real, and cannot be at all. 5 If you are real the world you
see is false, for God's creation is unlike the world in every way. 6 And as it was His Thought by which you were created, so it is your thoughts which made it and must set it free, that you may know the Thoughts you share with God.
W-132.12. Release the world! 2 Your real creations wait for this release to give you fatherhood, not of illusions, but as God in truth. 3 God shares His Fatherhood with you who are His Son, for He makes no distinctions in what is Himself and what is still Himself. 4 What He creates is not apart
from Him, and nowhere does the Father end, the Son begin as something separate from Him.
W-132.13. There is no world because it is a thought apart from God, and made to separate the Father and the Son, and break away a part of God Himself and thus destroy His Wholeness. 2 Can a world which comes from this idea be real? 3 Can it be anywhere? 4 Deny illusions, but accept the truth. 5 Deny you are a shadow briefly laid upon a dying world. 6. Release your mind, and you will look upon a world released.
W-132.14. Today our purpose is to free the world from all the idle thoughts we ever held about it, and about all living things we see upon it. 2 They can not be there. 3 No more can we. 4 For we are in the home our Father set for us, along with them. 5 And we who are as He created us would loose the world this day from every one of our illusions, that we may be free.
W-132.15. Begin the fifteen-minute periods in which we practice twice today with this:
2 I who remain as God created me would loose the world from all I thought it was. 3 For I am real because the world is not, and I would know my own reality.
4 Then merely rest, alert but with no strain, and let your mind in quietness be changed so that the world is freed, along with you.
W-132.16. You need not realize that healing comes to many brothers far across the world, as well as to the ones you see nearby, as you send out these thoughts to bless the world. 2 But you will sense your own release, although you may not fully understand as yet that you could never be released lone.
W-132.17. Throughout the day, increase the freedom sent through your ideas to all the world, and say whenever you are tempted to deny the power of your simple change of mind:
2 I loose the world from all I thought it was, and choose my own
reality instead
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What is Forgiveness
ACIM Workbook, PART II
1. What Is Forgiveness?
W-pII.1.1. Forgiveness recognizes what you thought your brother did to you has not occurred. 2 It does not pardon sins and make them real. 3 It sees there was no sin. 4 And in that view are all your sins forgiven. 5 What is sin, except a false idea about God's Son? 6 Forgiveness merely sees its falsity, and therefore lets it go. 7 What then is free to take its place is now the Will of God.
W-pII.1.2. An unforgiving thought is one which makes a judgement that it will not raise to doubt, although it is not true. 2 The mind is closed, and will not be released. 3 The thought protects projection, tightening its chains, so that distortions are more veiled and more obscure; less easily accessible to doubt, and further kept from reason. 4 What can come between a fixed projection and the aim that it has chosen as its wanted goal?
W-pII.1.3. An unforgiving thought does many things. 2 In frantic action it pursues its goal, twisting and overturning what it sees as interfering with its chosen path. 3 Distortion is its purpose, and the means by which it would accomplish it as well. 4 It sets about its furious attempts to smash reality, without concern for anything that would appear to pose a contradiction to its point of view.
W-pII.1.4. Forgiveness, on the other hand, is still, and quietly does nothing. 2 It offends no aspect of reality, nor seeks to twist it to appearances it likes. 3 It merely looks, and waits, and judges not. 4He who would not forgive must judge, for he must justify his failure to forgive. 5 But he who would
forgive himself must learn to welcome truth exactly as it is.
W-pII.1.5. Do nothing, then, and let forgiveness show you what to do through Him Who is your Guide, your Savior and Protector, strong in hope, and certain of your ultimate success. 2 He has
forgiven you already, for such is His function, given Him by God. 3 Now must you share His function, and forgive whom He has saved, whose sinlessness He sees, and whom He honours as the
Son of God
What is Forgiveness
ACIM Workbook, PART II
1. What Is Forgiveness?
W-pII.1.1. Forgiveness recognizes what you thought your brother did to you has not occurred. 2 It does not pardon sins and make them real. 3 It sees there was no sin. 4 And in that view are all your sins forgiven. 5 What is sin, except a false idea about God's Son? 6 Forgiveness merely sees its falsity, and therefore lets it go. 7 What then is free to take its place is now the Will of God.
W-pII.1.2. An unforgiving thought is one which makes a judgement that it will not raise to doubt, although it is not true. 2 The mind is closed, and will not be released. 3 The thought protects projection, tightening its chains, so that distortions are more veiled and more obscure; less easily accessible to doubt, and further kept from reason. 4 What can come between a fixed projection and the aim that it has chosen as its wanted goal?
W-pII.1.3. An unforgiving thought does many things. 2 In frantic action it pursues its goal, twisting and overturning what it sees as interfering with its chosen path. 3 Distortion is its purpose, and the means by which it would accomplish it as well. 4 It sets about its furious attempts to smash reality, without concern for anything that would appear to pose a contradiction to its point of view.
W-pII.1.3. An unforgiving thought does many things. 2 In frantic action it pursues its goal, twisting and overturning what it sees as interfering with its chosen path. 3 Distortion is its purpose, and the means by which it would accomplish it as well. 4 It sets about its furious attempts to smash reality, without concern for anything that would appear to pose a contradiction to its point of view.
W-pII.1.4. Forgiveness, on the other hand, is still, and quietly does nothing. 2 It offends no aspect of reality, nor seeks to twist it to appearances it likes. 3 It merely looks, and waits, and judges not. 4He who would not forgive must judge, for he must justify his failure to forgive. 5 But he who would
forgive himself must learn to welcome truth exactly as it is.
W-pII.1.5. Do nothing, then, and let forgiveness show you what to do through Him Who is your Guide, your Savior and Protector, strong in hope, and certain of your ultimate success. 2 He has
forgiven you already, for such is His function, given Him by God. 3 Now must you share His function, and forgive whom He has saved, whose sinlessness He sees, and whom He honours as the
Son of God
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