Category: The Complete Soul

The Challenge of Omnipresence

[Excerpt from: A Spiritual Journey] 

After a talk that I gave, where I spoke of the concept of the omnipresence of God – everywhere present, equally at the same time – I was challenged by an individual who considered the negative thinking of a person as a place where God is not. They reasoned that the only way God could be present in the negative thinking of a person was for God to have the capacity to think negatively.

It is, of course, difficult for many to set aside their anthropomorphic views of God and think instead in terms of law and principle. A person can hold the belief, for example, that 2+2=5. We could argue that the principle of mathematics states that 2+2=4, and this is true everywhere but in the thinking of the person who holds that 2+2=5. Does this person’s false belief actually create a place where 2+2 does not equal 4? No. The principle of mathematics remains applicable everywhere, regardless of the erroneous thinking of any individual. Their mistaken thinking does not create some special vortex where mathematical principles make exceptions and do not apply.

We know there was a time when the public held that the earth was flat. Did this universally accepted belief in any way alter the fact that the earth is and has always been round? Of course it didn’t. Believing it to be so did not make it so; it only made it appear to be so. A flat earth has never existed.

We say thoughts are things. Does this mean that if I hold in my mind the thought that God does not exist, I have created a place where God is not? Things, after all, are objects that occupy their own unique space. A rock is a thing. Are we prepared to say that a rock lying on the ocean floor represents a place where the ocean does not exist? If you pull the rock from the ocean, it is true that you would then have a rock and an ocean. If the ocean were omnipresent, however, it would not be possible to separate the two.

A false belief and the thinking it generates does not represent a place where God is not. The young Jacob’s belief that he had traveled outside of God’s presence while fleeing his brother’s wrath did not make it true. It seemed true to him only because he accepted a false belief passed on by his ancestral authorities. The belief that he could leave the presence of God evoked the same level of fear and uncertainty as if it were true. His dream, however, opened his eyes to what was actually true.

Then Jacob awoke from his sleep and said, “Surely the Lord is in this place; and I did not know it.” And he was afraid, and said, “How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven” (Genesis 28:16-17).

We can probably generate dozens of clever riddles and word games to undermine the truth of the omnipresence of God. To do so, however, places us in a weakened position. The above text states that Jacob was afraid, but the proper word, as indicated in his exclamation, should have been awestruck. He was, in fact, suddenly free of fear, totally empowered to move forward with a level of enthusiasm that had been absent while fleeing the wrath of his brother. Yesterday he had been running from a problem. Today he was running to a new possibility. Aside from his own attitude, nothing in the entire universe had changed. Generations of worshiping a localized God did nothing to confine God to a specific locality. It only affected the way Jacob and his family thought of God.

The truth of omnipresence makes it possible for us to say, wherever I am, God is. Poking logic holes in the idea only makes it possible for us to say, God is everywhere but where I am. With this logic, we can justify our misery and our failures, if this is what we want to do. How much better it is to know the full power of God is behind us always, every moment of every day. The instant we awaken to this truth is the instant we become empowered by it.

In the work of ministry, someone is always raising a question because something they read or heard does not jive with their understanding. Those of us involved in ministry do well to seize such opportunities to think through and clarify our understanding of the implications of the issue in question. In the past, we could simply accept it on faith. Now we need settle for nothing less than understanding faith that makes it possible to explain the spiritual logic behind an otherwise abstract teaching.

Omnipresence is not merely a thing we affirm. It is a potent reality that enables us to awaken from our sleep, to rise from our fears and our feelings of being trapped in a life we do not want and to move forward into the life we do want.

The Body is a Choice

[excerpt from The Complete Soul]

I want to close this chapter by sharing a few thoughts on the idea that we incarnated by choice, that we did so with the full understanding of the limitations and drawbacks involved. By this, I do not mean we knew we would have abusive parents, or that we would suffer some handicap, or that we chose these or other issues for the lessons our soul needed. I realize some people draw comfort, even closure from this idea. Like many in my profession, I once embraced this theory as a way of helping others make sense of difficult experiences. Now I see this as an unnecessary spinoff of the evolutionary model. The idea of the complete soul offers a more spiritually productive, logical, and fulfilling perspective. From this starting point, logic dictates that further incarnations, with whatever experiences they hold, will not make the soul more complete. A full pail, after all, can hold no more water.

Someone will ask, if our soul did not come for the lessons life has to offer, then why would we go to the trouble of incarnating? I’ve given this question a lot of thought over the years, and I believe the answer is a lot less complicated than the evolving soul model allows. For reasons of our choosing, we came simply because we wanted to be here. Getting here meant we needed a vehicle, a way to bring our soul from the spiritual to the material plane. The most efficient way of doing this is through a body.

Saying the body is the most efficient way of bringing the soul into expression doesn’t mean that our experience of incarnating has been perfect. Stepping into the body vehicle made us susceptible to rough roads and all kinds of foul weather, so much so that the bulk of our attention has gone to the maintenance needs of the body vehicle and its journey, while the soul, in a sense, remains nearly unnoticed in the cargo hold.

A major pitfall of the evolving soul model is that it makes the spiritual experience about the vehicle, its journey, and the belief that we will one day arrive at some special destination on this earthly sojourn. The truth is we have arrived. We’ve been so busy looking for specific conditions on this planet that we have forgotten that earth itself is our destination. We didn’t come to experience life from the cab of this delivery truck, driving endlessly from one place to another, looking for the right location to offload and unpack our cargo. We came here to experience life from our soul, right here and right now, using this body vehicle as our means of being here.

I said earlier that we are here for reasons of our choosing. We may doubt this because, unlike picking last year’s vacation spot, we have no clear memory of making such a decision. This memory is there, however, embedded in those things that truly interest and come most natural to us. These things do not boost our egos, advance our positions, or make us feel powerful. These are the things we quietly and reverently give our time and attention to without pay, persuasion, or recognition.

I see in the process of writing books some useful parallels that may help shed light on our reasons for incarnating. People write books for all kinds of reasons. Some write for sheer entertainment, others for educational purposes. Still others combine education with entertainment. I write because I want to share ideas that I think are important and will be of value to my readers. Sharing these ideas requires a way of doing that and the book is my vehicle of choice. Writing a book is fraught with challenges. It involves embodying inspired ideas in words, sentences, paragraphs, and chapters that create a cohesive presentation one can read on a bus.

In the beginning of this section, I said we incarnated by choice, and that we did so with the full understanding of the limitations and drawbacks involved. I say this in the context similar to that of writing a book. When I made the decision to undertake this project, I knew from previous experience the nature of the challenges involved. Ideas often come in a flash and I can jot them down with relative ease. Including them in the context of a book is another matter. This can take hours, days, weeks, even months to accomplish. I have spent days working on a single paragraph only to delete it later. What comes quite easy on one level, is not so easy to express on another.

If we think of the soul as a set of ideas and the body as the book (our means of literally publishing the soul to the world), then we see the challenges we encounter in this incarnating/publishing process have little if anything to do with the soul itself. The ideas I want to convey through a book are largely unaffected by my struggle to convey them.

It is our associations of soul with body (our body-based self-image) that make our body-oriented challenges feel so personal. We mistakenly associate these challenges with the condition of our soul, but a clear understanding of the difference spares us this unneeded stress. Having great ideas is not the same as having the ability to put them in writing. This is where the work comes in.

If, as I have suggested, you were unfortunate enough to have had the experience of abusive parents, you may have made the mistake of interpreting this situation as something your soul needed to learn from these people. Dysfunctional, abusive people have little or nothing to teach our soul. Assigning them the role of teacher is often an attempt to put a positive spin on destructive behavior we struggle to forgive, a willingness to blame ourselves so we can let them off the hook and move on. Genuine forgiveness, however, has nothing to do with making peace with the actions of another. Forgiveness occurs when we touch our own wholeness and realize that the power and soul integrity we thought they took from us has remained with us all along. They may indeed provide the catalyst that causes us to look deeper into our soul, but what we find is nothing they brought. Nor does their negative influence have the power to detract from our real purpose for incarnating. We did not need their negativity to enrich or advance our soul. If we are giving people and various conditions this kind of power, we ourselves are obscuring our purpose for incarnating. We’re experiencing writer’s block, so to speak, staring blankly out the window, hung up on some writing issue, while our book goes unpublished.

The specific issues we encountered by taking on a body were, in all likelihood, unknown to us. Our soul did not choose them for the growth opportunities they might offer. On the other hand, fully aware of our soul’s completeness, we understood there would indeed be challenges associated with temporarily tethering this vast, nonlocalized essence we call our soul to a vehicle subject to the restrictive laws of time, space, and gravity. We are not here to work our way through the school of soul development, or to pay some karmic debt. We have incarnated for reasons similar to those I have agreed to take on when writing books: I do it because I want to.

You and I are here because we made the choice to be here.

The Jesus Factor

(excerpt from The Complete Soul)

My views of Jesus have changed over the years. I no longer tie his relevance to whether or not he was the miracle worker, the savior who died for my sins, or even the Wayshower who represents all that I might one day become. Through various periods I have seen him through the eyes of the traditional Christian, and I have felt remorse for his death on the cross for my sins. I have also seen him through the eyes of the metaphysical Christian, known the assurance of embracing him as a type-man, the extraordinary example of the person I may someday become.

Despite such a wide range of experience, I made no significant progress in spiritual understanding until I followed the simple instruction of Jesus himself: to go into my inner room and pray to the Father who is in secret. Drawing near the very fountainhead of my being has yielded the most productive spiritual insights. Why take the word of another when it is possible to know and experience God firsthand?

The Jesus I have come to know through my own study and meditative experience is a man who fully discovered and spoke from his soul, a fact that profoundly distinguishes him from the average person. I’m not suggesting he was different in spiritual capacity. He was different in focus and in self-understanding. We have made him into something beyond the reach of the common people he addressed, and I do not believe he would have approved. “Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone” (Mark 10:18). He demonstrated what it is to be a divinely awakened human and pointed out that the things this revelation enabled him to see and do, others could see and do as well.

My change of attitude has not minimized or diminished in the least the role of Jesus as an extraordinary example of spiritual genius. The insights I now glean from many of his sayings have elevated the way I think of others and myself. These insights have caused me to consider why he seemed to have such faith in the spiritual capacity of the common person.

I have concluded that the completeness he found in himself, he also saw in others. He understood how people were blinding themselves to this inner kingdom, and he set himself to the task of encouraging them to open their spiritual eyes. I think of Jesus as one who gave voice to his soul, a voice that we intuitively recognize as it stirs our hidden depths, giving us the eyes to see and the ears to hear the message of a kindred spirit describing a spiritual geography we ourselves presently inhabit. He did not speak of one day reaching a pool of wholeness, but of today taking up our bed of appearance-inspired thinking and walking. He claimed no monopoly on Truth. The revelation of Truth, by his voice or by any voice that speaks it, is a revelation of what is true now and what has always been true of all people for all time.

The words and acts attributed to Jesus are grains of evidence, fossilized remnants if you will, that bear the characteristics of his original, inwardly oriented message. He spoke the language of the soul, the language spoken by mystics through the ages who have transcended religious boundaries. Jesus, and all mystics, have been grossly misunderstood by religious professionals.

“The unspiritual man does not receive the gifts of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned” (1 Corinthians 2:14).

Because the spiritual dimension defies description, those who come to know it cannot find the language to describe the subjective nature of their experience. They have resorted to parable, metaphor, allegory, and simile. Jesus likens this heavenly kingdom to a grain of mustard seed, leaven, treasure hidden in a field, a net thrown into the sea, a householder who brings out his treasure, and so on. These remnants from Jesus’ life are couched and preserved in a matrix of religious trappings that, in all likelihood, share a closer alliance to the teachings and intentions of the early church than to Jesus. Adding to this confusion, the New Testament presents a diversity of views of who Jesus was and what he represented. None of the New Testament writers wrote with the intention of having their work compiled into a single document. Luke, acknowledging a variety of versions of the story of Jesus, took it upon himself to set the record straight:

“Inasmuch as many have undertaken to compile a narrative of the things which have been accomplished among us, just as they were delivered to us by those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word, it seemed good to me also, having followed all things closely for some time past, to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, that you may know the truth concerning the things of which you have been informed”(Luke 1:1-4).

Ignoring the independent views of each author, the traditional Christian community has drawn from this diversity of sources to create the single composite of the Jesus that has become familiar to most today. There were other views in ancient times. The Gnostic Christian writings, discovered in a cave in Nag Hammadi, Egypt, in 1945, represent a very different view of Jesus. Though this fringe community embraced a theology foreign to the Christian traditionalist, I am in full agreement with their belief that you must first know yourself at the spiritual level before you can understand a man like Jesus. In The Gospel of Thomas, we find this intriguing observation:

Jesus said, “If your leaders say to you, ‘Look, the (Father’s) kingdom is in the sky,’ then the birds of the sky will precede you. If they say to you, ‘It is in the sea,’ then the fish will precede you. Rather, the (Father’s) kingdom is within you and it is outside you. When you know yourselves, then you will be known, and you will understand that you are children of the living Father. But if you do not know yourselves, then you live in poverty, and you are the poverty” (The Gospel of Thomas, #3).

That aspect of Christian tradition that considers the individual born in sin and in need of salvation does not place a high premium on self-knowledge. Excluding emphasis on knowing one’s self has led to a level of spiritual poverty unnoticed by those who measure spiritual success by denominational standards rather than by the presence of personal enlightenment. Embracing the view of Jesus transmitted by authority through the centuries requires no degree of self-knowledge. It requires only a profession of faith in the validity of the transmission.

We will not be able to prove definitively who Jesus was or know how he thought of himself. What we can do through an examination of the historical record is observe the centuries-long struggle to hammer out a singular view of Jesus from a multitude of interpretations and know from this that we are not actually seeing the man. We can take from this collective homogenizing effort the cue that allows us to venture beyond the realm of enshrined opinion, beyond the Jesus forced into the service of the professional theologian, and discover the Jesus who strikes that sympathetic chord of our soul.

Our quest for spiritual authenticity provides the heat that separates the slag of orthodoxy and tradition from the precious metal of truth, as relevant today as it was in the day of Jesus. We are left with the task of discerning between the voices of authority and that live wire of Truth that electrifies and enlightens the mystic. “My sheep hear my voice …” (John 10:27) is, for me, a kind of knowing wink to those who recognize this language of the soul.

The pure voice of Jesus that I hear rising through the theological mix of the Gospels, the New Testament as a whole and views shared by the unorthodox, is a voice that resonates with my very core. I do not find a Jesus compelling me to follow him on his path, but one that points out that I have my own. I hear him telling me that for this I was born, for this I have come into the world, to bear witness to the truth of my being, to walk the path that is mine alone and no one else’s.

In the same way New Thought has challenged the traditional views held about Jesus, it is appropriate that we question and challenge views considered integral to New Thought logic today. I assume that Jesus encouraged his listeners to do little more than follow him in shedding the dogmatic beliefs of religious orthodoxy. I believe he encouraged people to discover for themselves the truth of their spiritual nature, which provides the strongest, most profound catalyst for change at the fundamental level of one’s being.

Freedom in Letting Go

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“Unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a seed; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.” John 12:24

The Easter season is a time when we witness firsthand the miracle of new life. Fruit trees leaf out and blossom. The grass turns from brown to green. Flowers spring up everywhere. It is easy to relate to Jesus’ metaphor of the kernel of wheat transforming into a fruit-bearing plant.

In our hope for new life emerging in our own experience, we may not be quick to grasp the significance of the kernel first having to fall to the ground and dying. Jesus is pointing out that something must die before the new life emerges. In a larger context, his own crucifixion is an illustration of this point. The human was released and the divine emerged.

The kernel of wheat comes in many forms, often as some perceived outcome we anticipate. Letting go would, for us, indicate failure. In her book, Lessons in Truth, Emilie Cady made this wise observation:

Do not fear failure, but call failure good; for it really is. Did not Jesus stand an utter failure, to all appearances, when he stood dumb before Pilate, all his cherished principles come to naught, unwilling to deliver himself, or to demonstrate over the agonizing circumstances of his position?

What we see as failure may simply be the need to let go of the lesser so the greater can emerge. While we associate falling and dying with a failed ending, we need to remind ourselves that the end of the kernel is the beginning of the new, fruit-bearing plant.

If you are going through a time of uncertain change, take time to consider all the new life emerging around you. This is the Spring of your life. The old kernels are dying so new growth can come forth. There is no failure in God, and you are in God.

The Message of Easter

“Unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a seed; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.” John 12:24

Easter, which focuses on the death and resurrection of Jesus, is considered the most important element of the Christian faith. Humankind was condemned to suffering and death at that moment Adam and Eve were expelled from the Garden of Eden. Jesus, it is believed, gave his life for those willing to accept and profess this ultimate sacrifice as their only hope for eternal life.

The above passage from John, written approximately twenty years after the death of Jesus, was undoubtedly intended by the author as a literary device intended to foreshadow the coming crucifixion. And yet it is so much more than this. The life of the fruit-bearing plant emerges from the death of the seed. The potential within the seed cannot be unleashed unless the shackles of the seed-self are broken. Only then can the seed submit to the transforming process of becoming something much greater than an individual kernel. One seed cannot fall to the ground, die, and be transformed for another. Each seed must engage in its own death and emergence as something more than it is at present.

The seed represents our self-image and the perception of the world we have created as existing apart from God. Using this seed metaphor, we look at the Easter story as the death of the human self and the emergence of the divine. We are not to merely witness or proclaim as a cornerstone of faith this seemingly miraculous event. We are to engage in the very process itself. Not even a Jesus can eradicate the shackles of the self-image of another. Every person must take up his or her own cross, so to speak, and commit to this transformation.

We are looking for freedom from this earthly bondage. Because we cannot find it here, we have projected the achievement of ultimate freedom into the afterlife. From the Christian perspective, the condition is that we accept Jesus’ death as our only means to this glorious end. True salvation, however, is found neither in the act of another nor in a profession of faith that such an act is true. We must actually die to the seed-self that restricts us so that our fruit-bearing soul may emerge.

The seed is not punished for remaining a seed. It is simply being shown that the seed life it clings to can never deliver the freedom it longs for. The cost of one’s spiritual freedom cannot be paid by another. Each must submit to their own soul-searching process of falling to the ground and dying to their seed-self. And we’re not talking about the great reward in the afterlife. The seed and the plant inhabit the same world, but they experience it quite differently. So it is with us. We do not find our spiritual fulfillment elsewhere. We experience it to the degree that we become willing to let go of our body-based identity and come to know ourselves as the boundless soul that we are in truth.

The message of Easter is an invitation to reconsider what it is we are waiting for. Pluck one seed from a handful and drop it to the ground. Each kernel that remains in the hand witnesses and marvels at the transformation undergone by their fellow seed. They discuss it for generations and it becomes so far removed from their understanding of their seed-based reality that they come to believe that particular seed was something different from themselves. It was obviously a highly evolved, specially chosen seed that had become worthy of being selected.

Not so. The relevance and power of the accomplishment of one is found in the truth that it is just like the others. The difference is not in ability. The difference is in the power of choice based on a broader understanding of what a seed actually is.

The invitation of Easter stands for all. We can struggle within the confines of the self-image and hope that a savior passes by. We can bide our time and anticipate salvation in the afterlife, doing our best in the meantime to stay on the straight and narrow. Or, we can embrace the message of Easter as our story, our opportunity to rethink our presence here as something much more than a seed cursed with the unquenchable desire to bear much fruit. We can engage in our own Easter process in a way that fulfills our deepest longing for the truth that actually sets us free.

The Fullness of Emptiness

Many who teach the philosophy of nonduality encourage the practice of self-inquiry. This involves the process of letting go of all roles connected with title, gender, the act of spiritual seeking, long-held spiritual perceptions, concerns around age, all ambition, goals and intentions, personal history, marital and parental status, education, place in family, regrets of the past, anticipation of the future, today’s to-do list … everything. The idea is to bring your awareness to that part of you–the I–that requires no effort to sustain, that very essence that you are. For those who struggle with meditation, this practice may provide a more concrete approach to reaching a profound point of stillness.

In letting go of all these things, you are emptying the vessel that is the self-image. Jesus referenced such a practice when he said,

And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or wife or children or fields for my sake will receive a hundred times as much and will inherit eternal life (Matthew 19:29).

To leave these things does not necessarily mean we are to literally divest ourselves of them. In the safety of our own quiet time, we let everything go so we may experience that part that needs no propping up, that needs no further achievement of anything to make us more than we already are in truth. Jesus’ phrase, “for my sake,” is not a personal reference to himself. It is, rather, a way of saying, for the sake of the truth I am teaching. Spend periods mentally and emotionally letting go of all these pursuits and relationships and delve down into the very core of your being, that part of you that needs none of them to simply be. Here you find your complete soul.

The self-image has tricked us into believing that we are not enough, that something more needs to be added to become whole. We need to find our other half, or make enough money to gain power and control, or get that degree to prove to the world that we are capable of handling anything that comes our way, at least in our chosen field.

I was thinking about all of this as my wife and I undertook the project of stripping old wax from the kitchen floor. Over the years, as the floor appeared to need something more to make it look better, layer after layer of wax was applied. As we stripped the floor to its original condition, we were totally amazed how good the floor looked. We had considered replacing it only to discover that removing all those layers of wax was what was really needed.

The self-image is layers of accumulated buildup of things we’ve added, often to compensate for feelings of inadequacy. This is not to say that everything we have achieved or acquired is our attempt to fill some empty space. A loving relationship, for example, is a good thing as long as we’re not trying to use another person to make us feel whole. The best relationship is not two half-people trying to make a whole. It’s two whole people coming together to share from their strengths. Likewise, the best relationship you can have with your work is one where you are giving to it as much as it is giving to you. Those who work only for a paycheck or benefits are not usually interested in giving more than they have to.

I’m sure most of us have been in both kinds of situations. You may be in one now. In all cases, the practice of self-inquiry will provide some enlightening benefits. You and I are not lacking power, peace or the inspiration to engage life at an exciting level. The weight of the baggage we carry has no value, as it provides the illusion that this weight is actually a signal that something more needs to be added. In truth, much needs to be released. Nothing is needed to compensate for the wholeness of the soul, for the soul needs no compensation. Think of this kind of releasing as self-denial, or self-image denial. Denial is not the art of pretending a thing does not exist; it is a letting go of all those pieces of baggage that blur our spiritual vision.

Spend quality time stripping yourself down to your original “floor” and you’ll quickly see that you already have what you’ve been trying to get from people, places, and things. When Jesus said that by letting go you will gain a hundred times as much, he was pointing to the fact that your world will look like a very different place when you are free of this taskmaster that is your self-image. You will never acquire what it is telling you that you need for happiness. Nor do you need to. But you will never know this for sure until you free yourself from the task of trying to fill this bottomless pit and make a conscious connection with the truth of your present, spiritual completeness.

Issue With the Self-Image

Question: If the self-image is the problem that you say it is, why is it so difficult to get rid of? Why isn’t the soul more assertive?

I have pointed out that I prefer to use the term self-image over ego because it encompasses more than we’ve been programmed to think. I think we could all agree that an inflated ego is a spiritual hindrance worthy of letting go. Few would agree that a shining self-image is as much a hindrance to the soul as the inflated ego. The reason for this is that everybody loves the shining self-image, the effervescent personality. Couple this with an attractive body and a pretty face and you have a winning combination, a magnet for success.

The self-image, in whatever form it comes, is our interpretation of a version of the self we think the world wants to see. It may be totally free of the characteristics we associate with an aggressive ego. It may be sweet, completely docile and give the impression that it thinks only of others. What the world cannot see is that this type self-image can be just as hungry for the approval of others as can the flamboyant egotist. Sweet or brash, neither self-image rests in the soul. Both are seeking compensation for the feeling that something essential is missing. They just go about it in different ways.

It is probably a mistake to set out to “get rid” of the self-image. We will more likely end up exchanging one version for another. The self-improvement industry is loaded with techniques designed to boost the self-image into a more polished look. It has, for example, become wildly popular to teach self-love as a healthy place to begin. Granted, loving your created self feels better than loathing it, but it does not free you of the need to continually try to escape it. Self-love, you hope, will somehow manifest as better conditions that will make you a happier person. Women in particular are targeted with this type of propaganda, encouraged to roar shamelessly to somehow prove their worth. It looks like an inside-out approach, but it’s really not. It’s just more noise from the inadequate self-image.

The ability to discern the difference between the soul and the self-image is critical to moving the I to its proper spiritual foundation. If you’re trying to change yourself to a more spiritual version, you are probably acting amiss. Your soul resides at the purest, easiest most natural level of your being. You don’t create it. You don’t enhance it. You find it. Until you find it, your value system will be grounded in this surface self forever in need of something more to make it feel okay.

If you were abused as a child or as a spouse, you may struggle with issues of worthiness. Trying to build worthiness into your self-image takes you away from the very source of power and self-worth that has always been yours. The soul is in no need of improvement or reinventing. The more you open your mind to its presence, the more you experience a natural shift in values. You will spend less time propping up an eternally inadequate self-image and more time practicing what it really means to let your genuine light shine.

Making Sense of the Senses

Question: When you talk about the senses-based self-image, it sounds as if you are saying the five senses pose the greatest obstacle to our spiritual growth. Would you mind elaborating on this?

This question touches on a very important point that is well worth further exploration. I have said on several occasions that there are no natural barriers to our spiritual growth. This will include the senses-based self-image or, using the terminology of nonduality, the body mind. Regardless of how spiritually incompatible the self-image becomes, it does not alter the condition of the soul. It does, however, alter the condition of our experience. So what does this mean?

The entire notion of soul evolution has grown out of a mediocre human experience. Because it feels as if something essential to our happiness and well-being is missing, we assume something more needs to be added. At first we try to compensate for this feeling of lack with accomplishments and possessions. Over time, we begin to notice that new acquisitions only temporarily mask this feeling that something is missing. This leads some to the conclusion that conditions of lack can only be eliminated by renouncing the senses and the personal ambition they generate. Others find it counter-intuitive to assume we stepped into this plane only to discover that our most spiritually elevated act is to renounce it. These may seek the more moderate balance between their material and spiritual needs by treating material challenges as lessons, opportunities to identify and rectify issues that originate at the soul level. Earth, from this perspective, becomes a school for the soul.

From the standpoint of the complete soul, we start with a different premise. Our earthly incarnation is a choice rather than a condition into which we were thrust, either against our will or as a means to the end of further soul development. If we accept that freedom of choice plays a significant role, then it isn’t a stretch to assume we took on a body simply for the earthly experience itself. Did we have clear knowledge of the many unforeseen issues we’ve encountered in this body? This would be like saying we chose the road trip and that unexpected engine failure.

Making the choice to have an overall experience is not the same as saying our soul chose specific negative events. This kind of rationale sends us on an endless tail-chasing quest trying to make spiritual sense of every unanticipated situation.

To the original question of whether the senses pose an obstacle to the spiritual experience, we need to first see the senses for what they are, and for what they are not. The body and its five senses provide the interface that allows us to interact with our environment. Without it, our soul could not enjoy a cup of coffee, communicate with our loved ones or pet our purring cat. Because the senses allow us to communicate and interact with our material environment, we obviously want them to operate at their full capacity. Our problem is not with the senses themselves, but with our interpretation of the information they provide. The self-image treats this ever-changing collection of information as reality. When our affairs are running smoothly, we are happy. When things go awry, we panic. Because of this, throughout any given day our state of mind can fluctuate as dramatically as the stock market. If our chart ends on a low point, we had a bad day. If it ends on a high, we had a good day.

Anchored in the self-image, we tie our quality of life to the condition of external affairs, an action that forces us to place a high premium on keeping our affairs positive. From this point of view we assume the highest use of mental and spiritual principles is to influence the course of our affairs. If we think positive, things will go our way. If we invoke affirmative prayer, God will provide.

The critical point that this outside-in approach misses is that it equates our state of affairs with our state of being, our quality of life. Our motive for spiritual inquiry, then, is prompted by the need to solve the problems generated by the restricted views of the self-image. Solving material problems, by any means, does not accomplish the balancing shift in awareness from the self-image to the soul. As soon as a given problem is solved, the spiritual inquiry ceases and the self-image returns to business as usual. Our so-called spiritual journey, then, becomes little more than an exercise in shoring up the many weaknesses of the self-image.

Your soul is 100% maintenance free. It has no need for food, shelter, transportation or money. In contrast, the body and the self-image we have constructed around it take the bulk of our attention. We become so entangled in addressing these needs that our universe centers on the body while the soul is pushed to the back burner. A practical teaching is measured by its ability to resolve body-based issues.

Consider this simple example of meeting a friend for lunch. To make this happen, you factor in things like weather, what you’ll wear, how you’ll get to the restaurant, the time the entire event will take, where you will sit when you get there, what you will eat, and so on. Even if everything goes as planned, the amount of body-oriented thought you put into this relatively simple outing is impressive. Your maintenance-free soul, on the other hand, requires no attention whatsoever. You can orchestrate this entire event, and a thousand just like it, without devoting a single thought to your soul. Has your lack of attention harmed the soul? Has your failure to acknowledge all those soul-enhancing opportunities for growth caused some sort of spiritual setback? No. The only thing that suffers from neglecting the soul is your quality of experience.

What do we mean by experience? Suppose you are sitting at your computer reading this post and some of the ideas inspire you to think of yourself and your life a bit differently. Suddenly you get an email from the friend with whom you had lunch. They are very upset over a comment you made in passing. Though your physical position remains the same (you are still sitting at your computer), in the matter of a few seconds, the quality of your life has changed. You have moved from inspired contemplation to the negative fallout from an unfortunate misunderstanding. Because you are deeply troubled by your friend’s email, the quality of your experience is instantly diminished.

Most of us will measure the quality of our experience by the external events that prompted the email. We’ll repeat the entire scene, reliving the details trying to figure out how our friend could have so misunderstood us. To calm this subjective storm, we decide we must talk with our friend and resolve the misunderstanding. We call with apologies and an explanation of why the conversation went as it did. In other words, we take objective steps to resolve a subjective disturbance.

While we do not want to discount the input of the senses, we want to remember that the identity and the perceptions we have built using the information they provide is but a thin atmospheric region surrounding the soul. The condition of the soul does not fluctuate with passing phenomena. Yes, we want to take responsible action toward the improvement of our conditions, and the starting place of all such action is the same.

When Jesus advised to seek first the kingdom and all other things would be added, he wasn’t suggesting that we turn to the great provider in the sky to solve the mental and emotional storms sparked by external conditions. He was pointing to a shift in awareness back to our center of power.

The soul remains eternally unperturbed. When the senses report chaos, we take note, but we remember the issue is occurring at the level of our physical interface. The quality of experience we seek remains within our reach, for it is our very essence. Nothing has the power to diminish or block the expression of the soul. Consciously connecting with your center of power provides you with a fresh interpretation of the information the senses report. We don’t want to shoot the messenger. We want to take into account the information the senses provide and utilize it from the strength of our soul.

See Rev. Doug’s Palm Sunday Talk on Youtube: View From the Threshold

View From the Threshold

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Click here for video: View From the Threshold

When Jesus entered Jerusalem for the last time, the Gospel account tells us that he rode the colt of a donkey and was greeted by crowds who threw their cloaks and palm branches on the ground before him. This is known as the Triumphal Entry and is commemorated on Palm Sunday.

Many interpretations are put forward concerning the significance of the crowd’s gesture. If we look at the three main elements of this story, we can form an interpretation that has significance to our own spiritual understanding. The three elements are earth, cloaks/palm branches, and Jesus. We have the earthly (road) and the divine (Jesus), and we have a point in between (cloaks and palms). While we might think of the cloaks and palms as a dividing point between two worlds, let’s think of them instead as a connecting point.

Let’s explore this idea with a simple illustration. Imagine opening the front door of your home and standing on the threshold. You can turn one way and face the inside then turn the other way and face the great outdoors. When you’re facing the interior, you are turned toward your personal habitation. When you face the outdoors, you are turned toward the habitation of many. You are gazing into the universal. You are, in this sense, the cloak and palm that stands between the two worlds of the personal and the universal.

Our tendency is to close ourselves inside the personal house of our self-image and view the world only from that perspective. We peer out our windows and get some sense of that world, but most of what we think we know about it we glean from the opinions of others. When we step outside our home, we see something very interesting. Ours is not the only house on the block. Ours is not the only block in town. Our town is not the only town in the state, and so on up to the very galaxy we inhabit and claim as our own. In other words, there is a vast world that begins right outside our door. We are the connecting point between the personal and the universal.

If you are going through a challenge, remember that you are looking only inside your house. You can turn and see that life is much greater than this defined space you call yourself.

Why Half?

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The perspective we hold has much to do with the way we approach the challenges in life. A way to get in touch with our perspective is to ask: Do I see this glass as half full or do I see it as half empty? In other words, am I approaching this issue from the standpoint of lack or from the standpoint of possibility? Let’s further challenge ourselves by asking, Why half? Why do we have to assume the glass is either half full or half empty? Why can’t we start with the assumption that the glass is already full?

We do not start with a full glass because, by all appearances, something in our situation is missing. The glass appears to be anything but full. From this point of view, we only have two options. Either we don the mantle of optimism and approach the issue as an opportunity to fill the glass, or we fall into the pessimism of resignation, accepting it as a sign of failure. The first perspective is a call to roll up our sleeves and get to work. The second is giving in to this failed cause.

What about this third option of seeing the glass as full? Isn’t this unrealistic, wishful thinking? The Psalmist apparently didn’t think so. In one of the most oft quoted biblical passages, he penned this powerful affirmation:

You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; You have anointed my head with oil; My cup overflows (Psalms 23:5).

The power of this passage is found in the fact that it is framed in present tense. He doesn’t say, You will eventually prepare a table, or You will anoint my head in the future, or you will one day fill my cup. He treats these things as if they are done now. The glass is full.

What does this mean? It means that the resolution you seek is now present. Because this is true, you may stop struggling to find it. This resolution may look entirely different from the one you are expecting. But why should this matter? The willingness to release your preconceived notions of both success and failure opens your mind to an entirely new set of possibilities. Rather than spend your time contemplating the half-full or half-empty question, you declare your glass is not only full but overflowing. Move through your day with this attitude and see what peace it brings.