A new kind of Christianity

This is what is written on the amazon write up about this book:


'What would Christianity look like if we weren't afraid to ask questions'

"Wherever the willingness to rethink has been squelched, wherever that sense of quest has been buried under convention and complacency, the Christian faith in all its forms is in trouble. But even there, something is trying to be born. Even now, right here, among us, inside you, inside me. You may feel it as a curiosity, a desire for better answers than you inherited so far. You may experience it as frustration, knowing that there must be more to faith than you currently know. You may know it as hope, hope that God is seeking humble people whose hearts and lives can be the womb of a better future.... In you, your family, your faith community, and circles of friends, among people of peace and faith everywhere, something is trying to be born."
We are in the midst of a paradigm shift in the church. Not since the Reformation five centuries ago have so many Christians come together to ask whether the church is in sync with their deepest beliefs and commitments. These believers range from evangelicals to mainline Protestants to Catholics, and the person who best represents them is author and pastor Brian McLaren.
In this much anticipated book, McLaren examines 10 questions facing today's church - questions about how to articulate the faith itself, the nature of its authority, who God is, whether we have to understand Jesus through only an ancient Greco-Roman lens, what exactly the good news is that the gospel proclaims, how we understand the church and all its varieties, why we are so preoccupied with sex, how we should think of the future and people from other faiths, and the most intimidating question of all: what do we do next? Here you will find a provocative and enticing introduction to the Christian faith of tomorrow.

https://www.amazon.com/New-Kind-Christianity-Questions-Transforming/dp/B004XXVSNI
   
Here are my thought on this.



I like the title of this book 'a new Type of Christianity'. A honest critique of core beliefs has been lacking in Christianity, since its beginning. To 'question more' concerning what Christianity teaches as truth, has never been encouraged within the institutional church. Maybe this is why the 'spiritual but not religious camp' has been growing in recent years. When trapped in our certainties of belief, we become enslaved in our mental concepts of what reality is. When we believe we have the whole truth, all other perspectives will have to be discarded as false, or something coming from the perceived enemy in another. Perhaps greater truth can be realized when we look more closely, with critical thinking, at what it is, that we have been conditioned to believe.

I am no longer involved with the church and mainstream Christianity.  I went through a process, over the years, of deep inquiry into what it is that I truly believe. This happened over a very long period of time, perhaps 7 years. I became more concerned about truth and reason rather then blind faith in what I was conditioned to believe over a 35 year period. I have always had a good relationship with all Christians that I knew. Half my family are Christians. I had a lot of questions that my local church pastor, or  Christian apologetics  could not answer. I searched long and hard concerning core beliefs in Christianity. I researched the history of Christianity and the church, I studied what other world religions have to say and was pleasantly surprised at what I found.  I admire the Jesus character and his  teaching. However, I can no longer  fit my current view of what God is inside a narrow box of belief anymore. I became obsessed about God and spirituality, all through this process. I have read perhaps over 200 books and listened to hundreds of video's on the subject.  I dared to crack open the door of perception and developed an open mind on other ideas. I dropped my certainties on perceived truth and embraced 'not knowing' as my position to most deep subjects.  The search for truth did something unexpected ..it brought a tremendous sense of freedom in my spirit. The search for truth set me free.  I no longer have fear and guilt brought on by not living up to some unrealistic divine ideal. I accept myself the way I am, a work in progress. I no longer feel any separation at all from an external God who is way out there somewhere. I feel the presence of the divine all around me, most of the time. There is a peace that passes all understanding. Jesus said the Kingdom of heaven is found inside us, not out there somewhere . I have sensed a glimpse of this state of being Jesus talked about.  My method of prayer is more meditative/contemplative, with a lot of silence and being still before the great unknown. Life is a journey of many seasons and I love it .

What is truth?

I started asking deep questions about life at a very early age . When I was in my early preteen years I was asking, who am I?, and why am I here? As a late teen, I was asking what is true?

What is truth? This is a question that has been asked by the deepest thinkers throughout history. There has always been a great debate among philosophers and theologians on what is truth.Then, there is this idea of subjective and objective truth ... what the heck is that ?... philosophy jargon. I won't get into all that.  Basically for the average person, it comes down to what we have been conditioned to believe, the supposed truth of science, politics, ideology or religion  and its scriptures (law) and the perception of truth as a result of experience (Life).  My focus in recent years has been, on the truth of personal experience. Perhaps we all have our own window into truth. Maybe truth is not not always absolute and objective, there may be a case for the truth being more personal or subjective. The whole purpose of humanity may be experimental. Are 'we' living 'our' life or is life as 'a greater consciousness' living in these mortal bodies in order to grow and experience life. Maybe real personal truth is found, in real life, in open minded inquiry, looking within and being less judgemental, in loving and being compassionate toward all forms of life. If there is a choice between the letter of Law (literalism) or Love, wouldn't Love be the highest human-divine ideal and truth?

For most of my adult life I followed a path that seemed to demand that I live a life that strived after some divine ideal. I was trying to meet unrealistic goals that I had set for myself in order to meet a certain standard, to satisfy external expectations.

It has been proven over and over again in history that our need for "the safety of certainty in our beliefs" has killed creativity, innovation and the search for truth. The dark ages in Europe was a good example of how an ideology, one warped version of Christianity, based on a certainty of belief was forced on the masses and it restrained all growth in its wake for 1000 years. For over ten centuries all other spiritual and scientific ideas were persecuted, their books burnt and hundreds of thousands of humans were slaughtered and even burned alive for not believing the same way as this orthodox church. We will never search for greater truth as long as we hold absolute certainty in our current perceptions and beliefs. If we do search for truth beyond what we already believe to be true, it will cause a discomfort to such a degree that we may be forced to abandon our former beliefs and assumptions. This is a very painful process and most of us would rather continue to rest in the safety of our certainty (belief system) then search for the mystery of truth which by its very nature is uncertain. However, it is a paradox that its only when we embrace uncertainty that we can then experience truth and freedom.The truth will set us free to explore the mystery of life. As long as we are trapped in our certainties, we are enslaved in our mental concepts of what reality is.

I believe there is a reluctance to accept what others have to say when we feel our view is the only truth. If other views don't fit inside of our data set of belief, then it gets discarded as false or something coming from 'the enemy'. This dualistic thinking of the imagined enemy, in the other, keeps people in their own dark age thinking. To love our neighbor is to hear what our neighbor has to say. When we hear the world, outside of our conceptual box of belief, and listen to their truth, then we may begin to see clearly, the bigger picture. We may realize greater truth when we clean the dirty window of our perception and see others face to face.


Truth is so expansive, isn't it , it cannot be fully grasped at all, we can know " a truth " but not all truth, because it encompasses all of life. The more we seek after truth the more we realize how little we know, we seek but we cannot find. But, when we surrender to the uncertainty of the "truth", because it is so clouded by untruth, we enter into the freedom talked about in the phrase " the truth will set you free. When we surrender to 'not knowing', after all our seeking, searching and grasping, for that which will satisfies our longing, we will find true freedom. When we stop the seeking and accept, not knowing, then we will find life in its fullest. The surrender to "not knowing" fully is perhaps the most liberating experience in life. When the mind is stilled and the seeking is over, we have found true salvation. It frees us up to be still, and silent before the great unknown power behind life, to the greatest mystery of all, that which is called by many names. "Truth" is just one name among many for this mystery.

The real trick to life is not to be in the know, but to be in the mystery- Arjun Walia

The realization of  truth is really more of a process of learning what is not true. Perhaps the greatest untruth is the idea that we are separate from others and 'God'. The word 'God' is a very loaded word.  My view of  'God' is, more like the source of life, the ground of all being, Tao or universal consciousness. This is a more universal accepted view of what God is. Even atheistic scientists can warm up to the view of a universal intelligence or consciousness that is the matrix behind all that is. How can we be separate from this source of life? What is Life?  We don't have a life, we are life. It is our thoughts that create the illusion of separation. When we see beyond this illusory mind set we find  no separation, at all, and  this allows us to experience unity with God and others. When we allow our egoic mind, the separate self, the false construct self, to control us, we in a sense edge the awareness of God out of our lives. This egoic thinking mind is what causes within ourselves a mere perception of separation. When we see the illusion of the false ego self, it will slowly dissolve, because it has been exposed as false. Our true self, once again, comes to the surface and it becomes so obvious, that this deeper essential self, is who we really are at our core. This essential self, is connected to what has many names, universal Self, universal mind, infinite intelligence, divine intelligence or God Self. When we live from the true essential self also called many names.. the soul,the heart, the center, the essence, the core of our being, there is now no sense of separation from our creator, our source and others. We realize we are all one and we share that oneness with all life. Jesus called this state of awareness, the kingdom of heaven, and he did say it was within us.


I will spend the rest of my earthly life peeling back the many layers of untruth that I have been conditioned to believe. It is this deliverance from illusion that sets us free. I am convinced that  we should all question our core beliefs to see if they can stand the test of truth. It may result in  a loss of certainty but it will open up our door of perception, and we will gain a greater understanding of reality.

Cosmic Intelligence

https://www.scienceandnonduality.com/relationship-with-the-silence/

Relationship with the Silence

• by Paul Mulliner
• in Dialogues, Space
• 0 Comments

by Paul Mulliner



The conventional explanation for the existence of consciousness is that it’s generated somehow by the brain. It’s possible, though, that the brain acts as a window into a field of consciousness which is present everywhere in the universe. Indeed, if we gently hold a focus of attention in the inner core of ourselves, we can quite easily reach an intuitive realization that the conscious awareness we have inside us exists also in the space around us.

It seems that the ‘I am’ awareness, which exists, apparently separately, inside each one of us, is an intrinsic property of all space everywhere and is simultaneously present inside all of us. Cosmic consciousness seems to be a core attribute of all space everywhere and the primary stuff of the universe, and this consciousness isn’t something limited to our human brain or to planet Earth. Our brain is immersed in this spatial consciousness, allowing each one of us a unique window into the cosmic field-awareness.

We can’t think our way to this realization though, because it’s not a concept. Instead, we need to pay attention to the presence of the conscious space inside ourselves. This is easy to do, and requires that we focus our attention inwardly for a few minutes occasionally rather than just exclusively focussing on the world around us.

If we find time every day to let our thinking subside and take a focus of attention inward, we can begin to intuitively realize a connection into the living cosmic intelligence which is generating the universe out of itself.

A spatial cosmic intelligence seems to be the core stuff of the universe and everything visible is a continuously generated expression of it, a real time vibrational altering of itself that allows it to become visible and touchable as trees, flowers and human beings. Cosmic intelligence seems to be making itself visible to itself.

The cosmic intelligence field-organism, which fills all space everywhere, is expressing itself as a visible world by facilitating the continuous dynamic emergence of clusters of quantum-scale resonance vibrations, which we interpret with our senses as the branch of a tree or the shape of a flower. Tuning in to this field helps us to know ourselves as cosmic intelligence expressing itself as a living being, and this can help us both live better and re-consider our notions about dying. Rather than the onset of an abrupt nothingness, we might consider that dying in a meaningful, living universe is a dissolving into an immense intelligence that we suddenly recognize and know – an intelligence that seems very familiar and has always known each one of us, during every moment of our life, as an expression of itself, a cosmic intelligence that helps us know ourselves as expressions of itself who took on a human form for the lifetime of a human being.

Keeping in touch with the living cosmic field-intelligence organism which is our source, by taking a focus of attention inward, is an inner work which helps us be happy, a crucial part of our everyday life in the world.

The living presence of cosmic intelligence always exists within us, waiting for us to reach into it with our attention. As we inwardly focus our attention, the deep silence of this intelligence field tugs us into itself, dissolving our separation from it, helping us into itself. As we reach into the silence with our attention, we become the silence.

During our life, as we tune in to this intelligence, we can begin to feel more at home in the universe and on this planet. Our connection with cosmic intelligence re-awakens an intuitive realization that we are cosmic beings, the continuously generated vibrational expressions of a field of cosmic intelligence. Human beings are allowing cosmic intelligence to consciously realize and know itself within the context of a sentient living being.

Even though the events of our daily life on planet Earth can seem challenging, regular contact with the cosmic intelligence which is generating all of us in real time out of itself can help us find the resilience and intuitive inspiration to find solutions to the issues we have to deal with.
One conscious, no-boundary spatial cosmic intelligence, which exists prior to thought, is present in all space and is where all seeing and knowing occurs. As we take a focus of attention inward, we become conscious of this cosmic intelligence or, we could say, it becomes conscious of itself within us.

Within each one of us is the whole conscious space in all of us

Loss of illusions

illusion definition: 1. an idea or belief that is not true: 2. something that is not really what it seems to be: 3. an idea or belief that is not true, or something that is not reality

We spend our lifetime learning how to live, but, if we live long enough, we must learn to die gracefully.

Most people don't want to think about aging and dying until they have to. We live in a youth worshiping and death denying culture.

Why do most people fear aging? It is often thought of as a time of deteriorating physical and mental health  and agility, and  a giving up of control and a  loss of freedom.

 Is there a positive side to aging? Aging can be thought of as a process of stripping away all that which is false, all that which is not necessary, to get at what is real. Who are we ..really? Throughout our life we built an unrealistic and unsustainable sense of self. Looking back at our past, if we are already aged,  we were the strong one, the healthy one, the intelligent one. We had the beauty of youth, and the virility of muscle. We had ambition and a drive to succeed.  With aging there is a slow erosion of all that was so important to us, in youth. Many grow distrustful, bitter and cynical as they age. Many people suffer from anxiety and depression as they face up to the fact they are getting old. It can cause a feeling of emptiness or loneliness. Its painful to have to lose the vigor of youth, through the process of aging, we have to give up hundreds of things, and all of our attachments. We have to deal with the lost relationships of  friends and loved ones if they pass before us. The process of aging is a continuous stripping away of everything, until  we get to the final dropping of the the physical body. The trick is  "you must die before you die".

 It all sounds so dismal. But, it need not be a negative process. It comes down to our attitude. If we view aging as a process of dying to the false self and  all that is temporal, in order to find what is the true eternal Self, it becomes a time of spiritual growth. The body gets old but the mind, the spirit and the soul can grow in maturity. What do we lose as we grow old? What is taken away? Our control?  Our freedom?...How much control and freedom did we really have? ...or are we merely losing our long standing programmed Illusions? ..maybe this is a good thing . To become disillusioned means to become free of illusion, it may not be as negative as we may think . It is the gateway to liberation and truth. Its about letting go of the illusions of control, the false and the temporal in life and trusting the flow of life that leads to truth.To simplify, simplify, simplify may be the greatest freedom we could ever experience. Less may be more. Letting go is true freedom. The universe is not against you, it is life sustaining and nurturing.  Aging can be a blessing if you want to grow in awareness of what is real, what is eternal, and what is truth.

With age we lose our illusions and a little bit of skin but we gain a whole new perspective on Life

The clip below dramatizes what I am trying to say:


Life may seem violent at times but it is our greatest teacher.

Learning “Presence”: The Greatest Gift

 

 

Below is an article written by Richard Enos, it is posted on the collective evolution web site.....very interesting

 

 

Learning “Presence”: The Greatest Gift You Could Ever Give Yourself

Published
3 days ago on
August 30, 2018

By
Richard Enos

In my life coaching practice, whenever I am able to help a client to understand presence, the entire conversation takes on a new shape. Suddenly, there is an anchor point to which the conversation can moor itself. A context can be created whereby problems, grievances, obstacles, and negative emotions can be seen as being the product of a mind that has wandered into regrets from the past or fears about the future, far away from the present moment.

Often the coaching conversation itself serves to create presence for a client. A particular problem or concern from the client is heard, and with poignant questions from the coach, the client is able to examine the roots of the ‘problem’ and strip away the illusory ideas and false beliefs that are holding that problem in place. The client’s own realization that the ‘problem’ is not connected to the present moment, along with the emotional relief that comes as a result of that awareness, reinforces the notion that connecting to the present moment–which is actually the only moment we can ever truly connect to–is all that is needed.

Surrendering To The Moment

When working by ourselves, the Zen koan, ‘What, in this present moment, is lacking?’ can be helpful to ponder. Indeed, it is impossible to truly be in the present moment and actually object to something that is present–all things of that moment are accepted and taken as part of the perfection of that moment. To feel the harmony of all things that make up that moment is to be one with the moment. A sense of peace is an inevitable consequence.

The motto of spiritual teacher Ram Dass is one of my favorites: Be Here Now. A phrase so simple it belies its own profundity. Ram Dass emphasizes that presence is surrendering power and control over then moment, and detaching ourselves from any ‘preferred’ present state and simply aligning with the present state that is.

The most exquisite paradox… as soon as you give it all up, you can have it all. As long as you want power, you can’t have it. The minute you don’t want power, you’ll have more than you ever dreamed possible.

If we are able to follow the imperative to be here now every hour of every day, we would no longer experience guilt, suffering, regret, judgment, grievance, or any other negative emotion.

Rising And Falling

Alas, learning to be present is not usually a one-shot deal, although a few people, including some who have had near-death experiences, have had a sudden and significant shift into presence that imbues their daily experience.

For most of us, learning about presence is a gradual experience that comes and goes like waves rising and falling on the shore. To even be seeking presence in our lives, many of us need that first, seemingly random magical experience, often in natural surroundings, in which we intuit a tremendous connectedness and oneness with everything around us, and feel a great sense of peace, well-being, and compassion for all things.

When the feeling fades, sometimes after many hours of bliss, we seek a reunion with this experience for the rest of our lives. This becomes an incentive to forge ahead on our spiritual journey, where we search for how we can reunite with this experience, and hopefully more permanently.

Awareness Beyond Thinking

Eckhart Tolle, one of the pre-eminent speakers on the subject of presence, explains it this way:

Presence is the arising of a dimension of consciousness from where you can become aware that there is a voice in the head. That awareness is beyond thinking. It’s a space of consciousness where you can be the observer of your own mind—the awareness behind the thought processes.

For human beings to discover this dimension is extraordinarily important. It is in fact, as I see it, the next step in the evolution of humanity.

Tolle discusses practices where you simply sit silently and pay attention to the next thought that comes to you, and then the next. With focus, it becomes possible to notice that we are not really thinking most of our thoughts–often they are thinking us. The realization that we are more than our thoughts creates in us a more authentic identity, one that frees us from many of the addictive thought patterns we otherwise consider an unavoidable part of who we are:

When you no longer look to the mind to provide you with your sense of identity — because your sense of identity now comes now from a deeper place — that’s the shift that changes everything, dramatically. It is the most important thing that can happen in your lifetime.
As Presence arises you’ll find in many areas of your life enormous improvements. One is that the voice in the head that before created such anguish and unhappiness no longer has that power over you.

This is a bit of a different way to arrive at presence: recognize that we have an egoic ‘mind’ that can only reside in the past or the future, and see that who we actually are transcends the thought patterns of that egoic mind. Essentially, when we catch ourselves in states of distress and anxiety, we can remember that we are in this state because we give credence to the thoughts we are thinking as representative of who we are. Moving away from these thoughts and our habit of identifying with them opens the gates of presence.

Developing A Trigger Into Presence

Like most, I still get caught up often in distraction and judgment and feel the negative emotions that come with it. Sometimes I have enough awareness to ask myself the rhetorical question, “Did you forget that everything, in this moment, is perfect?” Because I deeply believe this to be true, this reminder often has the power to snap me quickly out of a state of negative emotion and more fully into presence and the acceptance of the moment.

We each have to develop our own triggers that help us to re-enter presence. But these triggers cannot be mere words, they must be deeply held beliefs which, through your own critical thought and experimentation, you hold to be true.

When we look at this critical thought and experimentation as the foundation of the journey of evolution that spans our lifetimes, we no longer have to be in any ‘rush’ to find presence. Indeed, when we stop rushing to find presence and experience inner peace, that’s when we find it.

Part of my own critical thought and experimentation has been enriched by regular and ongoing digestion of great writings and oral presentations on the matter, from traditions such as Zen Buddhism, and from spiritual teachers like Ram Dass, Eckhart Tolle, Dr. David Hawkins, Deepak Chopra, Wayne Dyer, and a great list of others.

You will find that all great thinkers on the matter of presence are saying almost the same things using different words, and you will recognize the words not as truth themselves but as pointers to the truth. From there you gradually hone your own truth, which could be put into a phrase like I do, or could just be an inner knowing that, when remembered, allows you to move into presence at your leisure.

 Source:

https://www.collective-evolution.com/2018/08/30/learning-presence-the-greatest-gift-you-could-ever-give-yourself/

Wasp Nests

I had three separate wasp nests under the siding and soffits of our house. There was two types , the common yellow jacket and the mud dabber. They would build a huge nest before summer was finished . Something needed to be done.  I profess to love 'Life' and I do believe that in its very essence, all life is 'one'. But what is 'one', ( pun intended) to do when you know you have an infestation being built into your house exterior. I know a person who does not believe in killing mice ( he's a Buddhist wantabe) and his house is infested with these creatures. He has mouse dropping all through out his house and it doesn't seem to bother him. I don't share his love for mice.

Where is the balance??? I wish I could flick a switch and get rid of the wasps without killing one of them. But, the option to do nothing, and let the problem grow, from past experience, I concluded, was not the best choice. The best I could do is destroy the nest early, before they multiply, and by sealing off all holes in my house, I will prevent them from coming back.

To kill or not kill them was the choice.  I bought a can of hornet and wasp spray and got rid of them. I feel somewhat bad about it but relieved that I may have alleviated a greater hazard to human life.  It was the lesser of two evils in my thinking. Life decisions are not always black and white . There are gray areas of our human existence here on this planet, and getting rid of some creatures that produce a threat to our families is one of them.

Was it the right thing to do, destroying the wasp nests....maybe or maybe not?

There are a lot of issues in life that I say  'I don't know' about these days . I believe 'I don't know' is the best position to take on most of life's tough questions. To say 'I know'  closes us off from further truth. It is also somewhat arrogant.  So, if you ask me,  was it right to kill these wasps?...........my answer is .........I don't know for sure.


   

Solitude and social interaction...the balance.

 

Jim Carrey woke up to reality and he is influencing many people all over the world .Some thought he was losing his mind, when he moved past the thinking mind, toward his deeper sense of self, in reality he just woke up to understand the truth about life.

I was at a social gathering last night with about 30 people . Its great to see old friends again and learn about what has been happening in their lives. I talked to about half of these people, mostly the men, with good conversation . The problem is about 4:00 am, I woke thinking about these conversations and began rehashing them in my mind. I have learned to watch thoughts in meditation and get them under control. For a couple of hours I kept thinking about all that was said in these earlier conversations . Finally I drifted off to sleep again. I woke a few hours later not feeling very well rested, and very groggy.

I am beginning to believe that Solitude is very addictive as Jim Carrey mentions in the above quote. When you spend most of your time in the quiet, alone you do get addicted to the peace and calm. People all let off a field of energy. I could visualize each individual conversation I had earlier, as being like a small vortex of energy. Most of the talking was very positive but it is still energy in thought form. 

I read somewhere that monks who live in remote areas in total solitude have a problem processing all the extra info and energy when they occasionally venture into the busyness of a city. One monk said it takes him a week of meditation to get back to a settled state in his inner being, after being in the city.  

So, I understand why Carrey states that being around people drains your energy and I do understand the dangers of solitude.  But, what is a person to do ...solitude is a gateway into inner stillness. Inner stillness is the path to heaven on earth. The secret I believe, is balance. We need human contact in order to avoid insanity, and to experience and share love and compassion for others, but too much contact will also have its negative effects.  So my conclusion on this matter is we probably need to keep a balance of solitude and human interaction. Too much or too little of either is not healthy.