Entry 2,297 - Entry 2,306
Entry 2,297 - September 12, 2024
I had this realization that the reason why I’m not attracted to most people is because most people are not allowing the expression of their actual being—unconditional love—but rather are still acting as if they are deeply imprisoned by their ego. To me, the most attractive thing in someone is how much unconditional love they are able to transmit on a daily basis.
Not how supposedly conventionally attractive they are. Not how many followers they have on social media. Not how rich they are. Anyone who is radiating their true Self—unconditional love, unfettered by the illusions of the ego—is extremely hot to me. The world could say their outer appearance is ugly, and I wouldn’t care. For me, I look at the heart. Looks can deceive, but out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth will speak, and eventually, actions follow to represent our words.
Now, I’m not saying looks don’t matter at all when it comes to finding a romantic partner, but rather that I’m first and foremost looking at how much they are identified with their true Self versus their false self (the ego).
There are people I know who have been interested in me, and I’m not sure if I’m not attracted to them because of looks or not, but I know for sure I am not attracted to them at a heart level because they are still very much imprisoned by a lower egoic perspective on life and themselves. I don’t want to play "savior" any longer in my romantic partnerships. That is the biggest turn-off for me—being put in the position of savior while they are always needing to be saved and rarely able to help me when I fall down.
I’ve had multiple relationships like that, and it was exhausting. Anyone who has been with someone who needs so much saving that they can barely support their partner knows what I’m talking about.
People who’ve been in relationships with partners who can’t break free from an intense drug addiction—where one person is constantly making sacrifices to help, while the addicted partner is never able to support them in return—can understand this struggle. One can still have unconditional love for this person, but nowhere does it say one must be in a romantic relationship with someone like that.
I’m at the place in my life where I can have a hint of a multidimensional perspective of people. I can sense their past, present, and future selves faintly enough to determine if it would be a good match or not. People who trauma-bond tend to see others at their best and either ignore or aren’t aware of where they currently are with that person’s trauma in the present moment.
If they could see that it would end up in a trauma bond, then most people wouldn’t enter that relationship and would let it fizzle out before attachments became stronger.
Another thing I look out for is the spiritual ego. For many years, I had a very strong spiritual ego and was completely unaware of it. I saw myself as “better than people” because of my particular path of spirituality at the time. I saw people as “needing my healing” rather than focusing on helping them learn how to heal themselves.
My thought reversal of the ego wasn’t there. Instead, my ego merely hid within my spiritual beliefs. Same meaning, different words—that became my issue. I transferred my spiritual ego from Christianity to Spirituality and strengthened it for a while until I eventually broke free from identifying with many of its insane beliefs.
So now, when I come across a very strong spiritual ego, I am not attracted to that and would not engage. This makes dating really hard because a majority of the population is identified with their ego to such an extent that they see themselves as their ego, not as unconditional love.
They are very protective of their trauma and suffering, and if you try to point out that they are choosing to suffer when they don’t have to, their ego gets extremely triggered. And since they are identified with it so intensely, they do too—in an illusory manner.
No one mentions that the farther along the path of recognizing your oneness with All That Is—how you are a divine spark of unconditional love—the harder it becomes to find romantic partners with that same intensity.
Though I may see their past, present, and future and localize my focus on their true identity as Beingness, as Unconditional Love, it doesn’t change that they have an ego, and they are the ones who choose to identify with it. I cannot force the dis-identification with the ego, nor would I want to if it is against their will. But that also means I don’t want to be in a romantic relationship with them.
Entry 2,298 - September 13, 2024
Chat GPT
Today's religious deep dive:
If anyone was curious, there were many Christians throughout the centuries, even up until now, who didn't take the Dominican position on the Atonement and were still Christians.
"There was a historical theological debate between two significant schools of thought within the Catholic Church regarding the nature of the Atonement, which took place in the 15th century. This debate primarily involved two religious orders: the Dominicans and the Franciscans.
The Two Positions on the Atonement
Dominican Position (Associated with St. Thomas Aquinas):
- Theory of Satisfaction (Penal Substitution): The Dominicans, influenced by St. Thomas Aquinas, emphasized a Satisfaction Theory of the atonement. This theory argues that humanity's sins have offended the justice of God, and thus, a perfect satisfaction (reparation) is necessary to restore the balance. According to this view, Christ, being both fully divine and fully human, provides this satisfaction by suffering and dying on the cross, satisfying divine justice on behalf of humanity. His sacrifice is seen as an infinite value that can atone for the sins of all.
- This view stresses the justice of God and sees the atonement primarily as an act that satisfies divine justice, emphasizing the punishment and suffering of Christ as necessary for the forgiveness of sins.
Franciscan Position (Associated with Duns Scotus):
- Theory of Incarnational Love (Exemplarism or the Primacy of Love): The Franciscans, following Duns Scotus, presented an alternative view that emphasized the Incarnational Love or Moral Influence theory. They argued that the Incarnation (God becoming human in Jesus Christ) was part of God's original plan, independent of humanity's fall into sin. According to this view, the primary purpose of Christ's incarnation and death was to reveal God's immense love and to inspire a reciprocal love in humanity. The atonement was not primarily about satisfying divine justice through punishment but rather about restoring the relationship between God and humanity through a profound demonstration of divine love.
- This perspective focuses more on God's love and mercy, suggesting that Jesus' life, death, and resurrection were meant to be a perfect example of love and sacrifice that moves people towards repentance and a deeper relationship with God.
The 15th Century Theological Dispute
In the 15th century, the debate over these theories was significant in academic and theological circles. According to historical accounts, there was a form of theological "vote" or decision-making process in which the Dominicans' Satisfaction Theory became more widely accepted in the Catholic Church.
This does not mean there was an actual vote in the sense of a modern democratic election but rather a consensus reached through theological discussion, debate, and the endorsement of influential theologians and church authorities.
Ultimately, the "vote" symbolized the Dominicans' victory in having their understanding of atonement be more prominently represented in Catholic theology. However, both perspectives continued to exist within the broader Christian theological tradition, and aspects of each can still be found in different theological reflections on the nature of Christ's atonement today."
Entry 2,299 - September 13, 2024
Quote from a random person online:
"If you're looking at Hesychasm and links to the Course, read The Cloud of Unknowing and compare it to what is being taught in Lessons 182 and 183 as a prayer/meditation technique. IT'S THE SAME! It's laugh-out-loud, chains-dropping-off, the same.
There's some heavy 14th-century "Churchy" language and imagery in The Cloud of Unknowing that you'd expect coming out of that period, and you have to push through, but it's all there.
It's exactly what the first 180 lessons of A Course in Miracles are trying to prepare you for. There are two clouds in the book: The Cloud of Unknowing and The Cloud of Knowing.
It tells you to take a word that represents your center, but the meaning is unimportant. It's just there as static to replace any idea the ego-mind throws up during meditation.
To push The Cloud of Knowing behind you and under your feet and to knock persistently at The Cloud of Unknowing. Or to take literally everything you think you know, every construct, and suspend it.
A completely empty vessel and blank slate—a perfectly, momentarily still mind—thus presenting no obstacles to discovering (being shown) who you really are at the source. As A Course in Miracles puts it in Lesson 182: Be Still an Instant and Go Home.
Then, again, a few lessons later (Lesson 189), we have the Course's version of the Lord's Prayer:
"Father, we do not know the way to You. But we have called, and You have answered us.
We will not interfere. Salvation's ways are not our own, for they belong to You. And it is unto You we look for them.
Our hands are open to receive Your gifts. We have no thoughts we think apart from You, and cherish no beliefs of what we are, or Who created us.
Yours is the way that we would find and follow. And we ask but that Your Will, which is our own as well, be done in us and in the world, that it become a part of Heaven now.
Amen."
This is all Kenosis, Hesychasm, and what Eastern religions call in Sanskrit Neti Neti.
The Course goes further.
It teaches how, when imposing ideas present themselves in meditation, to quickly and gently respond and bring your focus back to your center or light (which the Course calls akin to God's thought system). Lesson 192 actually says, hold nothing prisoner, bring all rogue ideas back to light—learning how to forgive, meaning looking beyond and using that perspective to let go.
Lessons 181-220 really focus on teaching a technique and addressing the Authority Problem (Lessons 191-195 being about identifying with the Resurrection/Sonship versus the crucifixion/ego), which is what Contemplative/Hesychast Prayer answers—Know Yourself.
It then says that Part Two of the Lessons (221-365) is about walking the Path to Peace (union of wills) using this same technique.
If you're interested in Jung, Jung made a deal with his wife that he’d allow her to focus on one body of work from a Jungian perspective that he was fascinated with.
Basically, so as not to take over everything and to let her have her own work. Emma Jung was also a Jungian psychoanalyst. The Holy Grail Legend came out of Europe when Gnostic and mystic groups were being persecuted.
Jung not only identified with the Early Christian Gnostics and Desert Fathers, but he also knew the original Grail Legend was a Christian allegory for what would be Jungian Shadow Work, with the hero Perceval finding the Grail by balancing his Anima, or internal conflict, to the True Self. In the process, Emma Jung's book gives a breakdown of the Jungian perspective."
Wikipedia: The Cloud of Unknowing
Entry 2,300 - September 13, 2024
Quote from someone on the internet:
"Richard Rohr teaches contemplative prayer (a technique replicated in the Course) and the necessity of embracing non-duality.
Rohr is a Franciscan friar and a lifelong priest in the Catholic Church. He teaches that the Church has led people into a spiritual wilderness for possibly 1,000 years since the East-West Schism.
His mentor, contemplative teacher Fr. Thomas Moore, argued it had been 500 years since the Reformation. That the split enforced a way of looking at things from a dualistic perspective and a dualistic interpretation of the canon.
Not that the message wasn't always there—it was. The canon and Church preserved the message without really understanding what it was.
If you're not from a Catholic background, Rohr advocates for Rev. Cynthia Bourgeault, who is also a teacher of contemplative prayer (same/similar meditative techniques taught in the Course). Only as an Episcopalian and mentor of Thomas Keating, it is known as Centering Prayer.
Bourgeault advocates for the inclusion of the Gospel of Mary into the canon—one which teaches that in reality, like the Course, there is no sin other than what we make 'real' to ourselves!
Contemplatives and their interpretations were preserved within the Church, but it was largely maligned to the point of exclusion. However, the original Desert Fathers post-crucifixion preserved the message.
The Greek Orthodox Church, to a point, preserved it through what they call Hesychasm, derived from the passage where Jesus tells people to go into their private closet and pray in silence and solitude.
Pseudo-Dionysius, an early Christian theologian of the 5th century, wrote a treatise on the rationalization of the non-existence of sin. Taken from the back cover of my copy of Pseudo-Dionysius' work:
"Dionysius discusses the problem of evil and shows that nothing is inherently bad. For existence itself is good (as coming ultimately from the Super-Essence)"
(from the Course: "All things are echoes of the voice of God" — and — "Now we are all one in He who is our Source" — and — "I am sustained by the Love of God/There is only one life, and that I share with God")
"…all things are therefore good in that they exist. Since evil is ultimately non-existent; a totally evil thing would be simply non-existent, and thus the evil in the world, wherever it becomes complete, annihilates itself and that wherein it lodges... Even so, evil is nothing" (there are no dark thoughts) "....and yet it manifests itself in the annihilation of the things it qualifies."
So in reality, outside the false paradigm of duality, there is no sin. Dionysius was used by many of the Church's mystics, such as Meister Eckhart, who taught that an angel tries to unburden a man on death from their worldly ties.
A man might resist and perceive a demon trying to rob him. The only sin for which we might be punished is what we cling to out of error or a false mindset, and [lowercase 's'] self-inflicted coming from ego.
Carl Jung, who advocated discovering one's True Self by introspection, is known to have traveled everywhere with a copy of Dionysius' work and wrote about struggling with the concept of duality and non-duality.
Again, there are parallels in the techniques the Course teaches to Jungian 'Shadow Work,' as this introspection was known—especially in the early Course.
If you're trying to rationalize the Church with the Course, look to these examples. Also, remember that the very nature of atonement was put to a vote in the 15th century, where the Dominicans outvoted the Franciscans—the Dominicans employing a dualistic interpretation.
That Jesus died to pay for our sins. The Franciscans, following Francis of Assisi, argued that this made God sound like a mob boss—wanting to forgive but demanding a price be paid.
The Franciscans argued that the message was not that God suffered for us by proxy through Jesus but that God is personal and suffers with us. That we are not alone. We are not separate.
And that in reality, with the resurrection as a display that nothing has actually happened to the Son or to our divine natures, it is safe to let all our guilt of separation (belief in sin) go.
Even in the Bible, with the renaming of Simon as Peter, we have the parable of not trusting religions interpreted by men (do not trust the yeast of Pharisees and Sadducees), but rather finding personal revelation by identifying with Spirit.
A warning also not to call any one person master or rabbi. The guide is the personal interaction with Spirit, not interpretations of man that are open to misinterpretation.
The Church historically missed these meanings in order to dictate directly from the pulpit, but they still taught the teachings so that someone with ears or eyes to understand (coming from a wakening non-dual perspective) could reinterpret them!"
Entry 2,301 - September 13, 2024
Does anyone else find it rather peculiar that it’s Christians who are always getting “demon-possessed”? Not atheists, not agnostics, but Christians.
The ones in many fundamental Christian theology, who should be the ones with the Holy Spirit, find themselves to be the most susceptible to being overpowered by their own darkness, which they label as an outside entity called a demon.
I think a major reason why that is, is because in most fundamental branches of Christianity, people are encouraged, through fear and retribution, to repress all their darkness as much as possible.
They are encouraged “to give it up to God,” but in concept that’s easy. What ends up happening is that many people think they are surrendering their darkness to God, but rather, they are burying it even deeper into the chasms of their being.
As they repress over and over again throughout the years, this darkness builds and builds. It accumulates so much that it has so much to say—so many moments of trauma, pain, and anguish—that it takes on what seems like a life of its own.
In psychology terms, I would say this is how alter egos grow and become another ego within an ego—a split of some sort, depending on how intense and unconscious they are to it.
Some people consciously choose to create alter egos to advance their careers and utilize them similarly to how people play an instrument. But then there are others who are used by these banished egos, which are perceived by many Christians as “demons” or “evil spirits.”
It would be too much for them to take responsibility for their own repression, and in a way, blame something outside of them for the darkness they harbored willingly. After my divorce from fundamental Christianity, I had to rekindle a healthy relationship with my darkness.
I had to learn to take ownership for the trauma, pain, suffering, and anguish that I forced deep down into myself. I’ve had to learn how to use it and not be used by it. I had to learn how to love it to free it from wreaking unconscious havoc on myself and others. I had to learn how to master it so that it wouldn’t master me.
That’s the difference between many others and Fundamental Christians. Many people are aware of their darkness and take responsibility for it, whereas there are others in religion who want to play the victim and say they were possessed against their will when their darkness rises to the surface.
Entry 2,302 - September 13, 2024
Paul is to Christianity as Joseph Smith is to Mormonism.
Entry 2,303 - September 14, 2024
Really think for a second about how strange this is: humans will kill spiders because we hate how they look or because we're afraid of them hurting us. Meanwhile, we kill them for merely co-existing with us.
The truth is, every spider is unconditional love masquerading as a booty on eight legs. Every time you see one, you're given a new opportunity to see it as it really is—unconditional love.
Entry 2,304 - September 14, 2024
Is it not ironic that people-pleaser Christians end up becoming boundary-setting wizards and witches?
Entry 2,305 - September 14, 2024
One of the major detriments of Christianity is its intense fear over anything related to our shadow self, to the darkness within.
The whole religion, in its most negative aspect, is built on repression and suppression. In its most positive aspect, there are those who are aware enough to surrender it. But in order to surrender it, you have to know it is there—otherwise, what are you surrendering?
You could be unknowingly surrendering part of your truth and think you're doing what's right by remaining guilty, shameful, and unworthy, which are all part of the shadow, not your true Self.
Entry 2,306
"According to Christian teachings, the normal collective state of humanity is one of 'original sin.' Sin is a word that has been greatly misunderstood and misinterpreted.
Literally translated from the ancient Greek in which the New Testament was written, to sin means 'to miss the mark,' as an archer who misses the target. So to sin means to miss the point of human existence. It means to live unskillfully, blindly, and thus to suffer and cause suffering.
Again, the term, stripped of its cultural baggage and misinterpretations, points to the dysfunction inherent in the human condition."
Quote by Eckhart Tolle
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