Love Yourself First

“The measure you give is the measure you shall receive.” Jesus

If you love yourself then you are loved. If the whole world loves you but you do not love yourself then you will not know love. If the whole world hates you but you love yourself then you will know love.

It does not matter whether or not God loves you or Jesus loves you or anybody loves you, if YOU do not love yourself then you will not be loved. If you love yourself then you will have the experience of love.

Do we want to love ourselves all the time? No, not really. We might think we want to be loved all the time, we might think we want to be accepted unconditionally no matter what we do, but the reality is we do not, for we use the idea of none acceptance to motivate ourselves to do something. And if we do not ‘do something’ then we will not even take care of ourselves, our bodies and our world. So this loving yourself will sometimes be conditional and sometimes it will be unconditional.

In order for our love to be perfect it must embrace the all, accept all reality. That means we must accept, enjoy and even love conditional love, which is part of the all. There is a time to accept and a time to not accept. There is a time to love and a time to hate. Without both there cannot be embracing of the all.

Impending Doom

I wonder if people who are about to die have some sense of impending doom, some ‘knowingness’ that they are about to die.  Just before my father died of a massive heart attack he called my mother, whom he had not talked to in almost twenty years, to wish her a happy birthday, which was the next day.  Within an hour of that phone call my father was dead.  He also called both of my sisters but failed to call either myself or my brother. 

But I still wonder, did he somehow ‘know’ or sense that he was going to die.  He had had some tests done on his heart only the week before and was to get back the result the following Monday. 

I wonder this because today I am feeling that feeling of impending doom.  I feel I am going to die or something like that.  No, I would have to say that I really feel I am going to die.  Now, I have had this feeling many times before and, of course, I did not die.  But this time seems to feel different; I do not feel any resistance to the idea of my immediate demise.  In the past there was some resistance to the thought of my immediate death, but today I actually feel that I would welcome it.

Maybe this is because I am depressed, which I could make an argument for, or maybe it is because  I am more ‘mature’ than I was before and recognize this ‘sense’ as only a thought.  Yea, maybe I am just experiencing some depression.  I feel ‘trapped’, which, of course, is only a product of my ways of thinking, but I still feel that way.  I am trapped in a sense of I do not know what I want, or if I know what I want I only want it bad enough for a short time to do something about it.  My deeper desires I don’t know how to satisfy or if I have an idea on how to do that I don’t have the stamina or drive to actually work on the ‘how to’ part of it.  Silly me…

So I am probably depressed and would welcome a quick and painful death.  Opps, did I say ‘painful’ death?  I did…maybe because I like drama.

I have found that there is some truth in this “The Secret” stuff that says we manifest what we focus our minds on.  Could I be manifesting my impending doom just by thinking about it?  I don’t know, but because I am a scientist of the spirit, I am writing this down just in case something happens to me today and then you will know that people do ‘sense’ their impending doom. 

And if I am wrong, I will see you tomorrow…and part of me is kind of hoping that I am wrong so I guess I really do not want die that much after all.

 

The Virtue of Laziness

Jesus was lazy and so was the Buddha. Both of them could read and presumable write but neither of them wrote anything down; probably because they were lazy. They were too lazy to be industrious and they did not ‘create’ anything. They just enjoyed talking and that is all they really did. They had no home to support or take care of. They had no bank account. Their possessions were only what they could carry. They were beggars.

It is true that they lived in climates that did not require much in the way of protection from the elements. In my world, America, I find that the elements, including society and its governments, do not allow me to live the way that Jesus or the Buddha lived.

But I am just as lazy.

I have short passions that motivate me to get up off my lazy butt and do something, but it only lasts for a short time. Then the drive falls away.

I love to talk to people, and I think I have something to offer them. But America does not have ‘public market places’ the way they had in Jesus’ or the Buddha’s time. America has become a nation isolated from its self. People here spend all their time at home or at works and very little in public places.

Today, to reach out to people you ‘have to’ write something, and I am really too lazy to write anything, except short little topics like this.

We Buddhas and Christs have found a peace with the world and this peace kills our productivity. Being not productive we have no desire to hurt any one or anything; we have no inner “dis-ease”. With this peace there is no busyness or business in our world. No business, no work. We Buddhas and Christs tend to live off the charity of others; we beg for our food.

Lazy people tend to be healthier for they do not stress themselves out by working so hard. We just sit around and enjoy what life offers. I will walk or hike ten miles in a day just for the joy of it, but I will not walk a mile to look for work.

We Buddhas and Christs are so lazy we do not create wars. We Buddhas and Christs are so lazy we have a very low impact on the environment. Yet we tend to have a tremendous impact on the human environment. About half of the planets population plays lip service to Buddhas or Christs, but that is about all they do in regard to Buddhas and Christs.

I have too many possessions. I live in a small motor home that I have to maintain and support, and in this day of high fuel prices that takes a lot of work. I have this computer which I use to communicate with people. But it is probably time to get up off my lazy or cowardly ass and go out and talk to people, wherever I can find them. I know I have something to offer, I just find it hard to find people to offer it to.

So in conclusion, lazy people do not hurt anybody and they have a low impact on the environment. How much better would the world be if everybody was at least a little bit lazier?

Unholy Religion

From a web page titled “All Have Sinned” (http://www.santacruzbible.org/findingGod/allHaveSinned.php)

Man is SINFUL and SEPARATED from God, so we cannot know Him personally or experience His love

Romans 3:23 "For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God."

Romans 6:23 "The wages of sin is death" [spiritual separation from God].

Romans 8:6-8 "The mind of sinful man is death, but the mind controlled by the Spirit is life and peace; the sinful mind is hostile to God. It does not submit to God's law, nor can it do so. Those controlled by the sinful nature cannot please God."

A great gulf separates man from God. Man is continually trying to reach God and establish a personal relationship with Him through human efforts, such as living a good life, philosophy, attending church or religion. But he inevitably fails.

I find this as a sick attitude or should I say, following a sick doctrine from a sick individual. The apostle Paul who wrote the above mentioned doctrine admitted that he did not get it (Philippians 3:12) so he was what Jesus called the “blind leading the blind” who “neither enters the kingdom of heaven nor allows others to”. (Matthew 15:14, 23:13)

From a more intelligent perspective, to tell people that they are ‘fallen’ or separate from God or failures or sinners or anything like that is to destroy any faith they might find in themselves to be good and healthy beings.

This doctrine is “of the sick, by the sick, for the sick” and adds nothing to humanity. It does not come from a place of love (God), but instead comes from a place of fear (Satan) and judgment.

This is NOT Jesus’ teachings but the teachings of one who used to identify with those that diabolically opposed Jesus in his time (the Pharisees). Pharisees like Saul of Tarsus (the one called the apostle Paul) wanted to rout out any who would actually follow Jesus’ suggestion and came instead to bring them back to “sound doctrine”. But Paul’s doctrine is not sound or health, at least not today by today’s standards. It might have been better for people then what they had back in his day, but today only the sickest would consider it healthy doctrine.

And yet, it is taught here in an educated society as ‘sound doctrine’. I find that this is possible only because we have a taboo about questioning people’s “faith”, even if that is not faith but faithlessness. The only reason somebody would believe Paul’s faithless doctrine is because they DO NOT have faith in Jesus’ more faithful doctrine or ways of thinking. Where Jesus advocated that people “Be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Matthew 5:48), which means they NOT think of themselves as sinners, Paul encourages people to think of themselves as sinner. These are diabolically opposed positions and any church that follows Paul’s way is following the way of the antichrist, or what we call today Christ-anti; Christianity.

To the Christian mind this is ridiculous because they have been programmed all their lives to see themselves and everybody as sinners. But to a healthy mind this is obvious.

Of course, Jesus came to save the sinners, for they were the ones who are still gullible enough to believe they are sinners. Those of us who are righteous do not need to be saved, for we can see that we were never imperiled.

Atheists

I find that atheist tend to “throw the baby out with the bath water” in that they reject the god concept while missing the underlining REASON for creating the concept of god. The etymology of the title “Holy Bible” shows that it means Health Book; meaning that it was a primitive attempt by primitive people to share what they had learned that was healthy for the mind, body and society. Atheists tend to miss this all together.

But one of the unhealthy aspects of religion is the belief in a personal creator god that rules the universe, for this belief in that leads to wars, torture, murder, terrorism and all kinds of suffering in the person, in society and for the planet itself.

So I feel that the idea is to get people to focus on a healthy DISCUSSION of OUR ways of thinking and our lifestyle choices and away from the superstition of theism.

Unfortunately, theists do not seem healthy enough to look at deep issues like this, so how do we get their attention, or how do we circumvent their unhealthy efforts to reach the youth of the world or those who would be open to it?

I want to raise the level of debate in the world but I am not sure how to do that, short of writing a book about it and going on the speaking trail.

What is Love?

I saw a video on YouTube that asked the question, What is Love, so I thought I would offer my experience of my exploration of that questions.

Religious Sheep

I went to church tonight and was amazed at how dumb the eulogy was. The minister was trying to talk the people into thinking they were dumb animals: sheep. Maybe they really are that dumb...

Self Judgment = God's Judgment

We all judge ourself and we are our harshest critic. Judgment can be good and even fun until we start to believe that it is true. We are the "God" that judges ourselves when we "die" to our busyness.

War and Taxes

Support the War, pay your taxes. If you pay taxes you support war, terrorism, torture and murder. Only the gullible believe that a society based on violence or the threat of violence is necessary.

Emotional Predisposition

Believing happens when people hear some ‘information’ about something that they have an emotional predisposition toward. For instance, if a person has been shunned by Christians and they carry that emotional hurt with them then if there were to hear some ‘information’ challenges the validity of the Christian message they would have that emotional predisposition to want to believe that ‘information’. On the other hand, if a person has been raised to believe that they were sinner and that all sin will eventually get punished then when they hear the story that Jesus died on the cross for our sins they will have the emotional predisposition toward believing that it is true. Both of these examples are of people who are lying to themselves based on their emotional predisposition.

The wise and mature person will recognize that ALL beliefs are a product of emotional predisposition and result in self deception. So they accept the truth that, for instance, they do not know whether or not Jesus ever existed and that they can NEVER really know that.

Emotional healing is the process of recognizing that our emotions are a product of our lack of clarity or honest TO OURSELVES and practicing radical honesty without ourselves which keeps us in the present moment, the here and now. The practice ‘heals’ the habitual emotional reaction that causes us so much pain and suffering. We then begin to relax and stop injuring ourselves with our emotional reactions to the thoughts in our head. RELAXING around our thoughts is the key to healing ourselves emotionally and allowing the truth to do it perfect task.

Failure to Communicate

I see that the root cause of most of humanities problems is a failure to communicate. We do not talk enough with one another, particularly about deep and/or personal things. The problem is not that we do not share our financial wealth; it is that we do not share HOW we got our financial wealth.

By developing and teaching good communication skills, the courage to be honest and most importantly the courageous compassion that it takes to truly listen to one another we can overcome this deficiency. When we recognize that we will not have the courage to be honest unless we have the courage to listen to feedback means that we first develop the skill of NOT beating ourselves up emotionally with our reactions to what people say to us or about us. It is hell to be afraid of ourselves and our reactions to what people say to us.

The Root Cause of Terrorism

The root cause of terrorism is in the very first line of the bible, which comes out of a primitive, unhealthy mind. It says, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” This is a silly construct that comes out of an immature, primitive mind that could not see that there was no beginning and there is no end. But their minds could not handle infinity and eternity so that created the illusion of beginning and end. With beginning then there had to be some ‘first cause’ or creator out there that created this world. If there is a creator then that creator must have had some reason to create the world. Then people can claim that they know the reason for this creation and they can create some laws based on that reason. With the “divine law” they can justify their mean spirited laws saying that if you do not do what “god” wants then we have a right to be mean to you. With ‘laws’ like the Torah, the Koran and the Bible, if you do not obey them then it is ok for us to terrorize you, to torture you and to murder you, for the is the law of the creator.

Therefore you can see that the root cause of terrorism is the primitive, barbaric and sick ideas of beginning and creator.

My Fear of Commitment?

I have a Fear of Commitment. No doubt about that, I cannot follow through on just about anything. I have ideas galore but I do not follow though on any of them. Many a time I have what I thought was a good idea, even a great idea, but I have learned to sit with these ideas and watch them gestate to see what happens with them. To date not a one has really survived long enough to even be born, let alone grow to maturity. A couple of years ago I had the idea to write my story, and I did spend the whole summer working on that, but I do no have any desire to edit it and get it published. So I just published the unedited version on my website and let it go at that.

I could say this is a failure to focus my mind, to block out the distractions. Even writing this blog post could be considered a distraction. But then again creating a blog was one of my good ideas. I wanted to share my insight with others, or at least make it available to the world should anybody actually care what my insights are.

This, of course, makes me no different than a million other bloggers or people wanting to share or even vent.

So I am wondering, is it fear of commitment or is it a lack of ability to focus or what? Maybe I am just lazy. Maybe I am not motivated to continue with any of my ideas because I really do not hurt enough or care enough to get me off my lazy and cowardly butt.

I do feel I have a deep commitment in concept but not in form. I am committed to waking people up but I do not have a form I like for that process. I love to confront people. I have to admit that I really do enjoy pissing people off, upsetting them, upsetting their slumber, waking them up. But how to do this consistently is the problem I have.

My latest idea is to walk around town with a video camera and engage people while filming the confrontation. That, I think, might make for interesting video.

I am sure that some people who read that last paragraph would be appalled at the thought of what I proposed of doing, but those are the ones I would say are asleep. Those who are awake would love it.

Anyway, again, I have to watch and see if this idea really manifests or will I just chicken out or get distracted and nothing will come of it. Is it fear or laziness? I do not know.

Judge Me, Please!

I want to improve myself and my ability to help people be healthier and happier. Your comments and criticism are appreciated, either here or at YouTube.

I want to hear people's criticism and judgments. I recognize that they cannot hurt me, only MY REACTIONS to words and thoughts can cause me harm. I have overcome my unhealthy habit of reacting to words and thoughts so now I am open to what others have to share with me. AND, I can show others how to get free from their habitual reactions to words and thoughts.

If you like the ideas I have presented here then please share them with others.

Educating the Heart

The author is Melvin McLeod.

(This article [link with title above] was not WRITTEN by the Dali Lama, but ABOUT him and his talks. I find that in this type of situation the writer sometimes does not convey the true mean or intent of the speaker. Understand the words used and their INTENT is important.)

Here are some quotes from the article that I like and then my comments:

He doesn’t deny the reality of our differences or the inevitability of conflict. What’s important is how we choose to react. (referring to the Dali Lama)

A lot of the Dali Lama article seems to be focused on how people relate to others. There is little to no discussion on how we relate to OURSELVES. Are we being compassionate with OURSELVES? Or are we beating ourselves us with our emotional reactions to what life is offering us? If we do not FIRST have compassion for ourselves then we will not be in any shape to care about and have compassion for others.

“And your empathy can be extended further, eventually towards your enemy. Your enemies may disagree with you, may be harming you, but in another aspect, they are still another human being like you. They also have the right not to suffer and to find happiness. If your empathy can extend out like that, it is unbiased, genuine compassion.”

THIS I fully agree with.

Interestingly, the next paragraph the writer (not the Dali Lama) talks about “the three poisons of passion, aggression, and ignorance.” This shows the ignorance of the writer in that he included passion as a poison. Without passion there can be no com-passion.

“This touches on the very definition of what we mean by compassion,” the Dalai Lama replied. “At the heart of compassion is our response to someone else’s suffering. The first point is their immediate suffering, and at another level is the causes or conditions of the suffering. Maybe it is wiser to develop compassion toward people who are creating the causes of their future suffering. That’s wiser, because compassion can bring preventive measures. Immediate suffering has already happened—we feel a sense of concern, but sometimes nothing can be done. Maybe our efforts should be to prevent these kinds of things in the future.”

This is what I talk about the most, Preventative Compassion, a compassion that confronts the CAUSES of injury BEFORE they happen. Sometimes bringing about crisis is the most compassionate way to wake people up to their habits that are causing the suffering. Confrontation is just bring forth the truth of what is happening so confrontation is a healthy way to wake people up to their unhealthy habits.

“The basis of compassion for others is compassion for oneself,” he said. “If you don’t have the natural wish to be freed from your own suffering, you won’t be able to empathize with others’ experience of suffering. Therefore, the basis is compassion for oneself.”

YES, absolutely. My point exactly.

I wrote about Dynamic Compassion yesterday in my blog. You can read it below and may see some differences between my perspective, which I would call a more holistic perspective, and the Buddhist’s perspective.

Dynamic Compassion

Dynamic Compassion is a compassion that goes beyond just respect, service and care. Compassion is the willingness to suffer with others. Dynamic compassion is the underlying cause of change or growth that comes from that willingness to suffer with others.

Dynamic compassion is a willingness to engage the world or a situation that is unhealthy, possibly making that situation temporarily more dynamic (dis-eased) so as to bring about a change towards a healthier situation.

I remember a situation from my childhood where my mother demonstrated Dynamic Compassion with my older sister that probably saved her life and gave me a great example of love, which was a deep and profound experience in my life. I was about five or six at the time and all three of us, my older sister, myself and my younger sister, had the measles. My younger sister and I got over the measles in the normal amount of time but my older sister did not. My mother was worried about this because she had heard that measles, if they last too long, can do permanent damage or even kill. So my mother called the doctor who told her to induce the spots on the skin to eruption. To do this he said she should draw a hot bath that was just less than scalding and put my sister in it. He said this would be very uncomfortable for my sister but that my mother would have to hold her in the water until the spots erupted. can still remember how my sister screamed and cursed my mother for doing this. My mother had tears in her eyes but also knew that if she did not do this then my sister could die. My sister, still a child, could not understand this.

The spots erupted and my sister got better. But I can see that my sister always seem to hold that experience against my mother and still does not have much of a relationship with her.

But, I can see that this act was an example of Dynamic Compassion, loving when those you are serving cannot understand how you are loving them. This is unconditional love for it was not conditional upon a return of appreciation or love.

Dynamic Compassion is much more than Ahimsa, the Buddhist and Hindu doctrine expressing belief in the sacredness of all living creatures and urging the avoidance of harm and violence. Dynamic Compassion goes beyond the equanimity of non-aggression and injury of others to the active involvement in the lives of others. Ahimsa implies an avoidance of involvement in another’s life while Dynamic Compassion implies confronting and embracing involvement in another’s life. Ahimsa is a good start but it does not go far enough. In the spectrum of consciousness Ahimsa only goes half way to equanimity while Dynamic Compassion pushes us toward the extreme positive of love.

Dynamic Compassion means confronting the ills of our society. Non injury is non involvement while confronting is engaging the causes of injury BEFORE they happen or at the root of their source. Compassion by itself may mean being a “Mother Theresa” type person who comforts the wounds of those who have been injured. Dynamic Compassion means confronting the cause of injury so as to protect against future injuries.

Often those who are being harmed are also the ones doing the harm. Many injuries people experience are self-inflicted yet they blame others for their own behavior. For instance, “verbal or emotional abuse” is harm that we have learned to cause ourselves. Dynamic Compassion confronts the source of the injury by confronting the person who is abusing themselves emotionally.

Dynamic Compassion would also motivate one to confront the BELIEF that words are the source of our suffering. For it is this belief that keeps people trapped in the cycle of abuse and violence. Confronting deeply held beliefs in society is not popular but it is loving and deeply compassionate.

Fear of Self

Today I am struck by how people are so afraid of themselves. Everywhere I go I see people afraid. At first they seem afraid of me if they know anything about me, and sometimes even if they do not know anything about me.

I see this as a “problem” within society but here in lies the rub; maybe this ‘problem’ is only in MY mind. When I speak about this ‘problem’ with other people they only run from the discussion, so I speak about it more saying that people’s running from discussions is a symptom of the ‘problem’. The more I speak about it the more people seem to be afraid of me.

On the other hand, I recognize that I have had this same ‘problem’ myself and I found a solution to that problem: meditation or practicing relaxing around words, thoughts and ideas. I have found that what I make important I create tension around, so to relax I let go of making anything important. In order to share my insights with people I have to make them important, which creates tension or fear.

This is all a vicious cycle or a Catch-22 type situation.

I suppose that I just have to play with the dilemma; talk about it and then let it go.