Lenten Discoveries..

Roll Down Justice!


What is like to embrace the faith that looms but is not quite realized- maybe it's engaging the imperfect sea glass that got caught up in the dark blue waves....

The Day of the Lord a Dark Day
Amos 5: 18-24 (NRSV)

18 Alas for you who desire the day of the Lord!
    Why do you want the day of the Lord?
It is darkness, not light;
19     as if someone fled from a lion,
    and was met by a bear;
or went into the house and rested a hand against the wall,
    and was bitten by a snake.
20 Is not the day of the Lord darkness, not light,
    and gloom with no brightness in it?
21 I hate, I despise your festivals,
    and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies.
22 Even though you offer me your burnt offerings and grain offerings,
    I will not accept them;
and the offerings of well-being of your fatted animals
    I will not look upon.
23 Take away from me the noise of your songs;
    I will not listen to the melody of your harps.
24 But let justice roll down like waters,

    and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.

Following are some discussion prompts for
use at the Wednesday evening Lenten program
this year at Broadmoor Community Church,
315 Lake Avenue, Colorado Springs, CO, 80906.
(Dates and times will be posted later.)

Here are some preliminary questions:
1.  What are the universal aspects of crucifixion/
Of resurrection?
2.  How does "Roll Down Justice! relate to the 
Easter story?
3.  What is the difference between experience and
belief?
4.  What is the meaning of "I Am" (see the wood
carving above the sanctuary entrance!) in relation
to the Easter story?
5.  How do the lessons of the recently completed 
"White Privilege" series at BCC tell the Easter
story? 
6.  How does the Prodigal Son relate to the Easter story?
  
















Joseph S. Benner

This carefully crafted ebook: "THE TEACHER (Spirituality & Practice)” is formatted for your eReader with a functional and detailed table of contents.
"You, who have heard the Call of The Christ, and have consecrated yourself and your life to the service of Humanity; You who have felt the Divine urge to give to others of the Spiritual blessings you have received; You, who have assumed the position of Teacher and leader to hungering Souls that have come to you to be fed;-- Hear this, My special Message, to you. You, beloved, are my chosen Minster. You I have selected to be an avenue through which I shall pour many blessing into the world.” – An excerpt from "The Teacher”
Joseph Benner (1872–1938) was an American author, Spiritual writer, and Representative of the Brotherhood of Christ who used the pen name "Anonymous." He was the first to introduce the Knowledge and Teachings of the Impersonal Life (also known as the "I AM" Teaching) to the world in his first book, "The Impersonal Life". Benner taught that Christ's proclaiming "I AM" indicated "the true spirit that resides in every human being."

Eckhart Tolle

“When you are aware that you are thinking, that awareness is not part of thinking. 

It is a different dimension of consciousness. It is that awareness that says "I AM” 
― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth

Ramana Maharshi







Purpose
Which came first..?
An exploration for Lent:
it is not crucifixion and resurrection
it is crucifixion/resurrection..
Which came first 
when the illusion of time
dissolves with recognition of
the resurrection experience:
I Am...
~~CC

EXPERIENCE / belief

Known as "higher reasoning"
EXPERIENCE confronts belief..
Belief resides in separation
in life's suffering..and longing..
The separate self seeks a path
among religion's offerings..
Searching for beliefs..which fail to
loosen separation's strong grip..
A balm enfolds with EXPERIENCE
of wholeness..of oneness..of identity
as Awareness (I Am..)
This new recognition brings fear
to the self in separation's prison..
Fearful that its upholding belief
is dissolving in an infinite sea..
This resurrection EXPERIENCE...
~~CC

Mark 16 (NRSV)

The Resurrection of Jesus
16 When the sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices, so that they might go and anoint him. 2 And very early on the first day of the week, when the sun had risen, they went to the tomb. 3 They had been saying to one another, “Who will roll away the stone for us from the entrance to the tomb?” 4 When they looked up, they saw that the stone, which was very large, had already been rolled back. 5 As they entered the tomb, they saw a young man, dressed in a white robe, sitting on the right side; and they were alarmed. 6 But he said to them, “Do not be alarmed; you are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has been raised; he is not here. Look, there is the place they laid him. 7 But go, tell his disciples and Peter that he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him, just as he told you.” 8 So they went out and fled from the tomb, for terror and amazement had seized them; and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.

The Shorter Ending of Mark


[[And all that had been commanded them they told briefly to those around Peter. And afterward Jesus himself sent out through them, from east to west, the sacred and imperishable proclamation of eternal salvation.[b]]]


Rupert Spira







This memory of our ever-present, unlimited nature is referred to variously in the spiritual traditions as awakening, enlightenment, satori, liberation, illumination,
nirvana, resurrection, moksha, bodhi, rigpa, kensho, etc. In all these examples, the same experience is being referred to: the relinquishing of the identication with everything that we previously considered inherent in and essential to our self. It is referred to in the Zen tradition as the Great Death, and is depicted in the Christian religion as the Crucifixion and Resurrection – the dissolution of the limits that thought superimposed upon our self, and the revelation of its eternal, unlimited nature. This awakening to our essential nature of ever-present, unlimited Awareness may or may not have an immediate and dramatic effect on the body and mind. In fact, in many cases, this recognition can take place so quietly that the mind may not even notice it to begin with.
Your Self, Aware Presence, knows no resistance to any appearance and, as such, is happiness itself; like the empty space of a room it cannot be disturbed and is, therefore, peace itself; like this page, it is intimately one with whatever appears on it and is thus love itself; and like water that is not affected by the shape of a wave, it is pure freedom. Causeless joy, imperturbable peace, love that knows no opposite and freedom at the heart of all experience....this is your ever-present nature under all circumstances.

In ignorance I am something; in understanding I am nothing, in love I am everything.

The Prodigal Son..

Rupert: This is the story of the Prodigal Son. The Prodigal Son reaches a place where he can no longer proceed. He is spent. There are no more possibilities within the realm of objects. His search collapses. That is, he spontaneously turns round. This is not a doing. It is the cessation of a doing. It is the cessation of the previous search for happiness in the realm of objects that sometimes spontaneously and effortlessly occurs as a result of despair or understanding.
Everything with which the Prodigal Son previously defined himself came to an end in that moment and he found himself facing the Father. However, it was the Father that came towards him and embraced him, not the other way round. That is, it is Consciousness that withdraws its projection of an apparent entity, not the apparent entity that moves towards or becomes Consciousness. ( for the entire Q & A, see:

http://non-duality.rupertspira.com/read/gods_signature_in_us )


Rupert Spira video...The remedy for the fear of death is very simple
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RlWKBiUt3SA

Rupert Spira article...The True Nature of Experience
http://non-duality.rupertspira.com/read/the_true_nature_of_experience

I Am is the Way, the Truth, and the Life
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cl1uTkXOFqA


Peter Rollins

    









Richard Rohr

Richard Rohr...tag archives: resurrection
https://cac.org/tag/resurrection/

Richard Rohr...The Perennial Tradition Weekly Summary
https://cac.org/perennial-tradition-weekly-summary-2016-11-26/


Poetry Foundation...resurrection
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/search?q=resurrection

William Shakespeare




TO LOVE IS TO DIE 

One cannot know love while under the weight of self-centered opinions, demands, fears, desires, and partialities. One must willingly forfeit this super structure of the exclusive "me;" whose main vision is self-preservation through the manipulation of the outer and inner environment. It is in the deliberate sacrifice of this impulse, that enough space opens up for the flower of love to blossom whose perfume is Grace; which permeates and makes straight the dysfunctions of our life.

-Atreya Thomas

TS Eliot


















WB Yeats

The Resurrection was first performed at the Abbey Theatre on 30 July 1934. Yeats had sketched the play's first scenarios in 1925, and worked on it intermittently for the next nine years. For the author, the work was a kind of study piece for communicating to a general audience his investigations into patterns of historical recurrence. In The Resurrection, Yeats asks how the avatar of a new era can be dramatized as a true anomaly, capable of revitalizing a declining civilization through the power of magic or miracle. The play takes the form of a series of questions and answers between three interlocutors (the Greek, the Hebrew, and the Syrian) as they confront the miracle of the risen Christ. As the play ends, Yeats emphasizes the political implications of miracle, which has the sublime and terrifying power to undo the existing but exhausted order and usher in a new epoch. ~~WB Yeats

Mooji

I Am.. video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cl1uTkXOFqA

Sermons/Vespers

Trygve Bundgaard 

https://www.facebook.com/notes/trygve-bundgaard/my-remarks-for-the-rally-for-world-day-of-social-justice-in-colorado-springs/10154451653392689

Barbara Brown Taylor

“If churches saw their mission in the same way, there is no telling what might happen. What if people were invited to come tell what they already know of God instead of to learn what they are supposed to believe? What if they were blessed for what they are doing in the world instead of chastened for not doing more at church? What if church felt more like a way station than a destination? What if the church’s job were to move people out the door instead of trying to keep them in, by convincing them that God needed them more in the world than in the church?” 
― Barbara Brown Taylor, Leaving Church: A Memoir of Faith

White and Black

White and Black

White privilege discovers assumptions

assumptions of racial boundaries

thoughts of separation as embedded belief: 

 deep roots of separation racially reinforced..

Perhaps we need to ply these deeper roots

by asking: in what are these beliefs embedded ..?

Do not the black self and  white self

seeming small and limited and divided 

appear in something..?  What is that..?

With attention to our real experience 

it seems boundaries disappear..

Or we might say these boundaries

seem to float and crucify.. what remains..?

Remaining is resurrection..revelation..

Revelation of the real Self of each and all:

without borders..eternal..transparent..

more simply:  I Am...

The Jesus Story

The Jesus Story

This old story of

crucifixion..resurrection

expresses a Truth

immemorial..universal..

The Truth of: I Am

as Jesus reminded

is an experience born as

mind stumbles and falls..

The mind does search

among life's objects

for that fulfillment..

Failing it wearies

objects are crucified 

 opening a portal

for the Perennial 

Resurrection:  I Am...

"Philosophia Perennis--the phrase was coined by Leibniz; but the thing--the metaphysic that recognizes a divine Reality substantial to the world of things and lives and minds; the psychology that finds in the soul something similar to, or even identical with, divine Reality; the ethic that places man's final end in the knowledge of the immanent and transcendent Ground of all being--the thing is immemorial and universal." Aldous Huxley. (1944). The Perennial Philosophy

From Tom Stella..

ONE WITH GOD 

“When an individual lacks the inner sense of being connected to God or being part of the Tao then a wound exists that the person experiences as gnawing, pervasive, persisting insecurity… A person thus wounded seeks novelty, excitement, power, or prestige to compensate for the lack of joy or inner peace. Chronic anger and depression seem to hide just below the surface of the persona… This wound affects the capacity to both give and receive love. Emotionally, scarcity, rather than abundance prevails, and thus joy and growth are stifled.” 1 
The anger, depression, and emotional scarcity that psychologist Jean Bolan writes about in her book The Tao of Psychology are symptoms of our failure to experience that God is not primarily a being that exists apart from us, but a sacred reality that is the heart of us. Given the frenetic nature of our society it is not surprising that many of us go through our day and even our life without the awareness of our inner-connection to God. 
We don’t have to look far – sometimes no farther than in the mirror – to see the prevalence of the “wound” to which Bolan refers, and the “novelty, excitement, power, or prestige” that issue from it. In referring to “chronic anger and depression” and to emotional scarcity, Bolan is naming a reality that defines our culture; so many of us exhibit the symptoms that are the price we pay for losing touch with our soul. 
We may not have to look far to see the effects of our wounded condition, but neither do we have to look far to find a remedy. Psychoanalyst Carl Jung has said: “Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes.” The Buddha has stated: “Peace comes within. Do not seek it without.” And in the Hebrew Scriptures, Psalm 46 encourages us to “Be still and know that I am God.” In the silent stillness within we can discover the presence of the divine that is often referred to as the True Self, and with this discovery, the wound of our disconnection is healed. 
Psychologist Carl Rogers has said that what is most personal is most universal. Nothing is more personal, more intimate, or closer to the bone of who we are as persons than our spiritual essence. Because this is true we owe it to ourselves and those with whom we live and work to spend some time being quiet, still, and alone, so that our wounded souls can heal and we can come face-to-face with the divinity of our True Self and that of all others. Nothing less than personal fulfillment, interpersonal happiness and, ultimately, international peace depends upon the realization of this inner-union which is the basis for our communion with all people. 


Tom Stella, NCC 
Corporate Chaplain 
tomstella37@gmail.com

NPV

NPV

Narrative Point of View

that is..

He repeated the paramount knowing

of the perspective of the narrator

in each literary excursion..

Is there an individual speaking

with a limited view or

an omniscient viewer 

able to enter any and all

  limited individual minds..

This literary prescription

finds confirmation in

the old Perennial Tradition

which features understanding

of our Awareness and the

prodigal separate self..

His NPV finger pointed 

in these two directions

but I wonder:

did he glimpse the

eternity which shines

when the two views

simultaneously abide..

Indeed, I know he did...!

(This is preparatory for the Memorial for 

Dr. Jesse Gatlin, literary teacher extraordinary,

on Monday, January 30th, 2017..)

AwarenesSpeaks!

AwarenesSpeaks!             (formerly Stretch)

January 23rd, 2017, Myron Stratton Home, 3:00 to 5:00 PM

Facilitated by Charlie Coon (charlesrcoon@gmail.com, 
polarityinplay.blogspot.com).



All that is or could ever be known is experience, and all experience is known in the form of mind. Therefore, to know the nature or ultimate reality of anything that is known, it is first necessary to know the nature of mind. Whether the mind perceives a world outside of itself, as is believed under the prevailing materialist paradigm, or projects the world within itself, as is understood in the ‘consciousness only’ approach that is shared by nearly all the great religious and spiritual traditions, everything that is experienced is experienced through the medium of mind. Thus, the first imperative of any mind that wishes to know the nature of reality must be to investigate the reality of itself. Everything the mind knows or experiences is a reflection of its own nature, just as everything will appear orange to one wearing a pair of orange-tinted glasses. Having become accustomed to the orange glasses, orange will become the new norm and, as a result, the wearer will imagine that the orange colour he sees is an inherent property of consensus reality and not simply the limitations of the medium through which he perceives. In the same way, the mind’s knowledge of anything is only as good as its knowledge of itself. Until the mind knows its own essential nature, it cannot be sure that anything it knows or experiences is absolutely true rather than simply a reflection of its own limitations. Thus, the ultimate question that mind can ask is, ‘What is the nature of mind?’ or ‘Who am I?’ and the ultimate knowledge it can attain is the answer to that question.  ~~Rupert Spira

We will view and discuss this video:

https://www.scienceandnonduality.com/the-nature-of-consciousness-rupert-spira-2/

Fear and Desire

What (George) Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What (Aldous) Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one. Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egotism. Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us. Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance. Orwell feared we would become a captive culture. Huxley feared we would become a trivial culture, preoccupied with some equivalent of the feelies, the orgy porgy, and the centrifugal bumple-puppy. As Huxley remarked in Brave New World Revisited, the civil libertarians and rationalists who are ever on the alert to oppose tyranny “failed to take into account man’s almost infinite appetite for distractions.” In 1984, Orwell added, people are controlled by inflicting pain. In Brave New World, they are controlled by inflicting pleasure. In short, Orwell feared that our fear will ruin us. Huxley feared that our desire will ruin us.

Neil Postman, foreword to Amusing Ourselves to Death (1985).

The statement above comes from an essay written by James Oroc, "Living in Dangerous Times,"

which appears on the Reality Sandwich blog.  Essay appears here:

http://realitysandwich.com/321306/living-in-dangerous-times/?utm_source=MASTER+LIST&utm_campaign=6e2553e404-Reality_Sandwich_7_31_A_B_Split_7_30_2015&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_321db437f5-6e2553e404-312903013&mc_cid=6e2553e404&mc_eid=d300c72d78

Photos..Personal

Andy and family..Las Vegas, December, 2017

The Unnoticed Difference

The Unnoticed Difference

A racial or privilege of identity

where difference is unnoticed

results in a sameness

in our blue-pilled culture..

Some plead for an awareness

of these differences overlooked

both small ones and elephantine..

Yet in these endeavors 

something else escapes notice:

our strong belief in separation

a belief born early.. never shaken..

Here is a radical approach:

step away from the differences

and find the Presence which

contains all differences..

Know that each of us

although molded in difference 

the moldings are not

apart from but made of

the  Presence...

Downtown

Downtown

It collected the downtown dust

or should I say petro-dust..

A cottonwood misplaced there

in concrete and pavement..

The tree fronted a house

whose elegance in faded past

was boarded and fenced in black:

an urban scene of doubtful attraction..

But then a simultaneous viewing

awareness and dusty details

awakening a mind polish

and a dissolving of layered

accumulations..

Let me learn here

that there is no thing

regardless of surface dust

which does not shine

in seeing revolution...

Permanence

Thought for the day....... "If you suffer, it is not because things are impermanent. It is because you believe things are permanent." Thich Nhat Hanh

Stem Cells

Stem Cells

These cells mimic our birth

birth from source before death of forgetting

forges the separation which we seem to know

as our self and the world out there..

Our lives are consumed in a search 

for the happiness of our source remembered..

These undifferentiated cells from birth remains

jog memories of our source and 

a search now ending...

What are Stem Cells?

Stem cells are undifferentiated cells that can transform into specialized cells such as heart, neurons, liver, lung, skin and so on, and can also divide to produce more stem cells.

In a child or young adult, these stem cells are in large supply, acting as a built-in repair system.

They are often summoned to the site of damage or inflammation to repair and restore normal function.

But as we age, our supply of stem cells begins to diminish as much as 100- to 10,000-fold in different tissues and organs.

In addition, stem cells undergo genetic mutations, which reduce their quality and effectiveness at renovating and repairing your body.

A useful analogy is to imagine your stem cells as a team of repairmen in your newly constructed mansion.

When the mansion is new and the repairmen are young, they can fix everything perfectly. But as the repairman age and reduce in number, your mansion eventually goes into disrepair and eventually crumbles.

But what if you could restore and rejuvenate your stem cell population?

In Conclusion

As humans, we've just come to accept the notion that we are going to die.

However, the keys to our longevity and health may lie in our source code.

In the next two decades, stem cells are going to change medicine forever, extend life, and potentially save your life.

We truly live during the most exciting time ever in human history.

These are excerpts from Peter Diamandis blog...

Emerson's Polarity

Our own Polarity

We are seeking what we own
known as Polarity..
In simplest sense
it is this:
Self / self..
Our Self is Awareness
impersonal and infinite
which most see as veiled
darkening our luminosity..
Small self we seem
small self and world..
We respond to the question:
Who am I?
with small replies
limitations and roles
unstable undulations  
searching in darkness
looking in desperation
 to smooth and soothe..
Direct recognition awaits:
Self dissolving self to reveal
Our own Polarity...
~~CC

POLARITY, or action and reaction, we meet in every part of nature; in darkness and light; in heat and cold; in the ebb and flow of waters; in male and female; in the inspiration and expiration of plants and animals; in the equation of quantity and quality in the fluids of the animal body; in the systole and diastole of the heart; in the undulations of fluids, and of sound; in the centrifugal and centripetal gravity; in electricity, galvanism, and chemical affinity. Superinduce magnetism at one end of a needle; the opposite magnetism takes place at the other end. If the south attracts, the north repels. To empty here, you must condense there. An inevitable dualism bisects nature, so that each thing is a half, and suggests another thing to make it whole; as, spirit, matter; man, woman; odd, even; subjective, objective; in, out; upper, under; motion, rest; yea, nay.

Whilst the world is thus dual, so is every one of its parts. The entire system of things gets represented in every particle. There is somewhat that resembles the ebb and flow of the sea, day and night, man and woman, in a single needle of the pine, in a kernel of corn, in each individual of every animal tribe. The reaction, so grand in the elements, is repeated within these small boundaries. For example, in the animal kingdom the physiologist has observed that no creatures are favorites, but a certain compensation balances every gift and every defect. A surplusage given to one part is paid out of a reduction from another part of the same creature. If the head and neck are enlarged, the trunk and extremities are cut short.   ~~~Ralph Waldo Emerson (Compensation)

See the entire essay at:
http://transcendentalism-legacy.tamu.edu/authors/emerson/essays/compensation.html