Practical
Spirituality – On Reclaiming Religion Through Spiritual Direction -- April 24, 2011
Every fear that we have embedded in our
psychological shadows has been used for the last ten years to
dis-empower us. All of the large institutions who get air time on
the TV, Radio, and in the Newspapers, seem to push the same messages:
you can be good if you get all of these material things; you are not
good enough; you are better than some race, class, gender, ethnic
group, or other nation. All of these things reinforce the idea that
we have to gain worth by performing or being better than some other
group. Or there is not enough and we have to fight in order to
survive. These are the popular beliefs at the core of the
socialization process in this nation—unfortunately they are lies.
Every religion that is meaningful and
authentic, and every philosophy, tells us something different. Even
if we look at one of the most abused religions of the day in the U.S.
by politicians and greedy church leaders, Christianity, we will find
that it says that you are the light of the world; you are the city
of God; the Kingdom of Heaven is within you. It doesn't say you must
perform a certain way before you get these things; it is all about
realization. It is about realizing who and what you really are and
as a result of this knowing comes a lifestyle that mirrors one's
identity. Instead of hearing this we hear that people are greedy,
lazy, angry sinners who have to earn their right to be of worth and
to be loved by the divine.
Things have to change in our society.
It is time to reclaim religion. It is time to explore our own
thoughts, ideas, and feelings about ourselves and separate them from
the thoughts, ideas, and feelings transmitted to us by parents,
families and friends at a young age and the media later. When we can
do this, find our own thoughts and beliefs, we can try them in the
fire of logic and awareness and let go of that which doesn't work
while adopting that which is true and real. When this happens you
will find that the thoughts, ideas, and beliefs you arrived at are
aligned with just about every person who was the founder of a
religion. You will find the same beliefs and values buried under the
fears, prejudices, and need to be better that has been piled on
throughout the years by the many of the religious institutions and
political systems that housed the original golden, pearl of wisdom.
This understanding and attainment of
the essence of all religions and philosophy brings you to real
freedom. For real freedom is being able to make your own decisions
and formulate your own ideas from what you see, hear, and recognize,
not from a memory that is drawing on beliefs and values placed deep
in your subconscious before you were even able to protect yourself
from them. This type of awakening takes much courage. One must have
the heart of the spiritual warrior.
I think that all of us on Earth now
have come to Earth at this time period to reclaim our true Selves.
All of us on Earth now are very old, powerful souls, that is why we
have come here at the worst of times to bring our creative selves and
the heaven that dwells within us, into one of the darkest times in
western history. To do this we must break free of the western
collective shadow and awaken as individuals who are not just born of
God and Earth, but who are the hands and extensions of God and of the
Earth; of all things. Not only that, but the Mother of God who
births the creative power, a creative energy, the embodiment of love
into this world and into our lives that is glorious, salvific, and
unquenchable like a burning fire that burns away all of the dross in
order to create purified gold.
At this time, in this very moment, you
are gold. Do not struggle to hard to stop the dross from being
consumed by the fiery circumstances put in place by those leaders who
are totally lost today. Find a way where you can apply the fire
strategically, in your own life, so you can recreate the world around
you, and ultimately the world at large that is beautiful, kind, and
just. As Earth, Wind, and Fire say, “Turn it into something good.
You can choose not to lose find your groove and be a winner. Wake
up! Take a step ahead. Wait up to the brighter side.” Let us take
all of that anger, greed, and negativity and use it as a catalyst to
learn ourselves and teach others how to create a more beautiful world
for all of us. It's time for us to wake up.
We Change the World Like Mothers of God -- May 30, 2011
If nothing more, life in the modern
world is eventful. We are engaged in battles throughout the globe.
On the African Continent, throughout the Middle-East, and in
Latin-America people are openly fighting. This says nothing of all
of the covert wars. Throughout Europe and the rest of the world
battles are taking place politically and spiritually, especially in
the United States, as political insurgents infiltrate liberal
organizations; congressmen and judges are take large donations and
untraceable kick backs from corporate lobbyists; and the ultra rich
send their minions out across the Americas in order to raise support
that would overturn local laws and regulations that promote life,
liberty, the pursuit of happiness, and local autonomy. Large swaths
of wealthy people are working to dismantle the U.S. Government,
hoping to destroy it by cutting all of its monetary resources and
selling off all of our public resources. This treason goes unchecked
as they publicly, openly, discuss their plans while serving as active
members of Congress.
The Christian-Zionists and far right,
Political Christians have joined in using the bible and Christianity
to support their hatred and prejudice for others. The average person
finds his or her self struggling to find a peaceful center the midst
of their harried lives as all of this happens. It becomes more
difficult each day. Sometimes it seems that one can only do this by
ignoring the corporate news media and the newspapers (ninety-eight
percent of which are owned by five corporations). This is difficult
and dangerous because the things that the angry, greedy, and powerful
are trying to take will devastate the lives of our parents, our
children, and ourselves. We find ourselves trapped in a battle for
the soul of humanity and the Soul of the United States. If we
let the extremists win it could mean the end of civilization as we
know it. What can we do? What do we do?
I am not a very political person. I am
finding it necessary, however, to become more political. There are
things happening that are unacceptable. All of these drawbacks to
pre-democracy, or Democracy for the Few are being pushed with
such great force that it is almost impossible to suppress the
onslaught. There is one thing that can suppress it, however. It is
called inner healing. You may ask what I mean by inner
healing. You might say, “With all of this injustice going on we
need to be out in the streets!” I would say that we do need to be
more active and maybe even in the streets, but we also need to be
working on becoming healthy and learning how to spread that health to
other people.
We have leaders in high places in this
country whose whole careers are built on collusion and fear. They
use any idea, any prejudice, any fear common to the human being in
order to get what they want. They convince people to trade their
freedom for safety or better yet, to trade other people's freedom
for safety through use of the media that the employers own. The
healthy individual, however, knows that she will never be completely
safe. She knows that complete safety is not life affirming. Being
completely safe is like being dead. There is no thrill. There is no
excitement. There in no joy of life—that for which most people
live, only a gnawing fear. When one is healthy one realizes that
every day on this Earth with one's family and friends is one full of
grace and wonder, and that one needs to live each day, each moment as
such.
Those who are healthy are not afraid of
dying because they know that it is nature of humanity to die. He
knows that one day he will pass away and works to promote love,
peace, and health into the troubling world in which he was born so
that he may leave the world better than when he arrived. Healthy
people create healthy communities and teach their children to dream
great dreams that recreate the world. The healthy learn to dance in
ways the mimics the dance of creation as they, through their
lifestyles, dance new thoughts, ideas and ways of being into life.
She uses her creative power to birth
love and fairness into the world. She works in the arena of social
justice sometimes, or in many venues, but the quality of her work,
because she is healthy, surpasses many of her peers. It is not time
to be afraid, or to fight back out of anger or fear. It is time to
use that energy, the energy of the fear and the energy from that
anger to do the inner work that will give us the power to withstand
the onslaughts of the unjust.
It is time to raise children in a way
that doesn't make them look for self esteem based on what they have,
or how they look, or what kind of car they drive, or the type of
house in which they live. Then, from a still center in the midst of
the storm, we can work, and they can work, to be the agents if
correction in the world. Meister Eckardt, the Great 13th
Century German mystic once said that we were all “Mothers of God.”
As we birth the divine power, the embodiment of love, into this dark
and scary world, we will be Mothers of God again, and the light will
prevail against the darkness.
What It Takes To Be Free -- August 2011 (Posted November)
September is coming. My life will be
changing greatly in September as I seek employment and have less time
to do the things which I love like writing, studying, meditating, and
passing on words of inspiration. Yet again, I feel that things are
happening as they should.
Today we are engaged in a great battle.
I hate to sound old fashion or like Star Wars, but we are fighting
against forces of evil now. We are fighting against forces of
darkness, mean spiritedness, and the biocidal individuals who want to
destroy everything aligned with nature and growth and make it into a
cold machine with people serving as cogs and commodities.
All of the vehicles for the healing of
the society have been taken over. They have been invaded and
inhabited by the destructive hypocrites who seek to destroy the body
of the Earth. The very institutions created to improve the lot of
humanity and to maintain a healthy society are being used to destroy
it and take us backward to a new dark age with a fascist government
and religious structure in charge. The light still shines, however.
As long as we hold the light in our hearts and remain immune to the
viral disease we will win. We will turn this movement toward
darkness around and create a new, kinder, more beautiful world. What
is the virus?
The virus is the need to be better. It
is the need to be the best individual, or part of the best religion,
or race, or group. It is the need to hold a position at the top of
some empire or the other—to be a big fish in a small pond or a
larger one. It is the need to prove that we have worth and dignity
by conquering instead of seeing and understanding that we already
have worth and dignity as a gift of our creator. This seeing—this
understanding is the cure for the epidemic in which we find
ourselves. To stop performing to be the best human being, and to
begin living as a group of people who are all unique in their own
ways like pieces of an elaborate puzzle that make up the beauty and
wonder of God will cleanse us from the narrow thinking that is the
fertile ground for this sickness.
When we realize this “we realize,”
as Briane Swimme, the Cosmologist said, “that the only sin, if
there is one, is not developing one's wisdom, one's unique beauty,”
and one's ability to connect, I add. Because without these things,
the universe will never be complete, and we will never truly see the
face of God. Let us get rid of the poison of misperception in our
own souls and then fight the good fight that will free us from the
virus of fear, selfishness, and mental manipulation. Throw out all
lies, all propaganda, all foolishness no matter how well it is
spinned and seek the truth in love and in justice and we will all be
free. We will indeed be free.
Dr. John W. Gilmore (Om Prakash) Is a
Writer, Massage Therapist and Body Worker and Wellness Consultant.
He has a B.A. in Psychology, a M. Dive., and a D. Min. in Creation
Spirituality from Wisdom University. For more writings like this one
please visit our websites at: www.dswellness.com
and www.NextStepCaoching.4t.com
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