Thinking an idea

I’ve come to view using quotes, and perhaps even writing in general, as being more valuable in simply stimulating the reader’s own thinking than in disseminating precise truths, if those even exist. 

If everything in the Universe is just based on beliefs, there is little value in convincing others of one's own current belief, but always value in stimulating thought and observation, since these are what leads us towards higher states and freedom. 

Desires, ideas, and the World

What I see reflects a process in my mind, which starts with my idea of what I want. From there, the mind makes up an image of the thing the mind desires, judges valuable, and therefore seeks to find. These images are then projected outward, looked upon, esteemed as real and guarded as one's own.

ACIM, Lesson 325

Window or mirror?

"I feel that it is healthier to look out at the world through a window than through a mirror. Otherwise, all you see is yourself and whatever is behind you." —Bill Withers, singer-songwriter

Undoubtedly it makes for a simpler and perhaps happier life to be all extroverted. But, unless you're mentally hopelessly myopic, I think that introspection is necessary for mental/spiritual development.
It is thought by many great thinkers that we see the world not so much as it is, as much as how *we* are. So if the world is not to our liking, the first thing we need to change is ourselves.

The soul of the Warrior?

I've been wondering for a while about how when you meet or see a warrior type person, somebody who believes war is necessary, and participates in it with gusto, often this person seems like a good person, a very likeable person. And he often is.

I think as spiritual people, most of whom are pacifists, we must learn to not see warriors as enemies, or as anything opposed to us or our ideals. Because that's the whole point: nothing is opposed to anything, it's an illusion.

I've come to see warriors as immature rather than "bad". And not even immature as humans, most of them keep their predilections to their old age. But "immature" in the development of a spirit. And not even very immature, because to be able to see the whole universe in peaceful terms despite all the seeming evidence this illusory world gives against it, is only something which comes to us very near the end of our long, long journey from the beginning of this Universe to our final release.

By condemning the warriors, we are not doing anything to help the world, we are just adding to the conflict, the conflict which is only in our mind, and which can only be removed by us taking it down bit by bit from inside, personally.

No longer our enemy

"No longer is the world our enemy, for we have chosen that we be its Friend." 
- ACIM

I repeat this, because it more and more seems a central teaching to me. The whole solution, in one sentence.

Over 25 years ago, looong before I found non-dualism and A Course In Miracles, I wrote a book, which was an odd sort of philosophical fiction. A certain market failure from a very green writer, but it contained many interesting bits, because it was written purely on intuition, almost, not long after my biggest spiritual breakthrough up til then. (I had no idea what had happened for many years, but I've come to believe that I had a split-second perception of Oneness, of Source itself. It was so short because I was a long way from being ready for that, and Fear closed it but quick.)

A character in my manuscript was writing a book himself, and the main character in his book had as his stated goal: "to be friends with everybody in the Universe".

That's obviously impossible on a practical level, but on a spiritual level, for oneself and god, it's eminently possible, and in fact it's salvation. All conflict is inside you, and it all can be resolved inside you. Not all at once, but you can get there, and you gain eternity in the end.

Selfportrait with shining heart

It was only after the fact that I realized that I held the camera so the reflected flash appears just where some people say the Energy Heart is, just centered in the chest.

(Click for big pic)

... But I have indeed felt surges of moving towards enlightenment recently. It's great. The "period of confusion" as J calls the period where you start to see Source, but still believe in the Universe, has been excessively acute and long for me, I'm looking forward to getting through it. Not necessarily Enlightenment all at once, but at least get to a point where life is less like a meat-grinder.     :-)

Open minds, but guarded

The trouble with having an open mind, of course, is that people will insist on coming along and trying to put things in it.  -- Terry Pratchett

Don't let his humorous books fool you, Terry Pratchett is an awfully smart man.

"Project One"

I got a perception today which I’ve had a couple times before in the recent couple of years:
That the current sacrifices to my social and my artistic life are trivial, that I’m working on a ginormeous project which takes unprecedented levels of effort and concentration. But which will be worth it many times over.
A project of "undoing the barriers to love".

The difference is seeing it not as “life improvement” or therapy, or seeking or whatnot, but in a strange way prosaically as “a project”. Although it can only be seen as such a thing (a limited thing, relatively) from a superhuman perspective, from a Higher Mind perspective. (Which of course is why I only realize it occasionally.)

I’m not even sure what scale we are talking about here. A half-lifetime project? A ten-lifetimes project? A project which started pretty much with Time itself? I guess that doesn’t really matter to me the human, and for the Higher mind it’s well under control.