CwG Weekly Bulletin #281 - Do we need to change our behaviors?

My dear friends...

I said last week that I've been wondering...

1. What, if anything, could cause the world to expand its ideas about God?

2. What, if anything, could cause human beings to change their understandings about Life?

3. What, if anything, could cause you and I to alter our thoughts about ourselves and about who we are in relationship to each other?

IN SHORT: What, if anything, could cause our species to modify the drivers of our behavior?

This entry in the Weekly Bulletin is the second installment of what I said last week would be...

A Discussion in Four Parts

THIS IS going to be a discussion in four parts, but it will take more than four installments to complete it. I can see that now. Our exploration will be centering round what I have come to call behaviorifics - the causes and birthings of human behavior. I am rolling it out here in the Weekly Bulletin to see, frankly, if it makes any sense. Your comments and reactions as we go along will be happily received,and will help me to know if any of this is making any sense!

The four areas of our exploration will include:

An exploration of why we behave the way we currently do.
An exploration of the question: Is there any need to change our current behaviors?
An exploration of what could cause us to change our behaviors if we wanted to.
An exploration of the role each human being plays in all of the above.

Last week we talked here about What causes behavior. We said that the cause of behavior is thought. All behavior is driven by an idea that we have about something.

All thought is belief. Every idea is a mental construction built upon previous mental constructions which are built upon previous mental constructions...which are built upon even earlier mental constructions, which are built upon our earliest memories of how things are.

We also asked, Where do ideas come from? We then offered the opinion that every idea is the re-application of an older idea. There is no such thing as a New Idea-although there is such a thing as a New Application of an old idea. Human beings, by their inherent nature, are incapable of having New Ideas. That is their eternal hardship, that is their eternal handicap, yet that does not have to be their eternal curse. For while they are not capable of having new ideas, human beings are capable of producing an endless variety of adaptations-twists and turns on, and modifications of-old ideas. And some of these adaptations are so ingenious that these are labeled New Ideas, and hold the very same value.

Finally, last week we discussed When Ideas become Beliefs.

We said that Ideas become knowledge when they cease to expand. Ideas become dogma when they begin to contract. Thoroughly contracted dogma becomes doctrine.
And doctrine becomes belief when the heart contracts to match the smallness of the mind.

This week, I'd like to look at Item 2 on our opening list above: Whether or not we even need to change our behaviors...

The answer, of course, is no. We don't "need" to change anything-or to have any experience at all. We are told in Communion with God that need is an illusion, having nothing to do with Ultimate Reality. Given Who We Really Are, and What Is Really So, it is impossible for us to need anything. (Who We Really Are is God, and What Is Really So is that everything that ever was, is now, and ever will be IS NOW.)

While it is impossible for us to need anything, it is not impossible for us to imagine that there is something we need. And we do this all the time. From the primitive (we imagine that we need "air" to survive) to the sublime (we imagine that we need a particular person's "love" to be happy), we entertain all sorts of thoughts and ideas that are simply not true.

One of our biggest imaginings is that other people have hurt us, and that we need to "get back" at them for this. This idea has spawned unending conflict on our planet-from family feuds to all out war between nations (which are simply larger versions of families).

None of this has to change. We have no "need" to change anything, because none of this has any effect whatsoever on the Being that we Really Are. It does have its effect, however, on our present experience in our physical bodies, if we allow it to. And nearly all of us do.

We do this for a reason.

We allow physical life to affect us the way it affects us so that we can once more announce and declare, express and fulfill, experience and know Who We Really Are. Life is a process of becoming-and yet, we already Are that which we would become. This state of affairs does not allow us to become It again...yet we yearn for that experience. Like players on a football field, we no sooner reach our goal than we turn around and start over again. We start at the other end of the field (where we deliberately place ourselves, I might add), and we try to reach our goal again.

Why do we do this? Because the joy is in the journey, not in remaining at our destination.

The joy is in becoming, and then, in becoming more and more of what we have become. In other words, growth. Evolution.

God is in the process of evolving. Yet God is already fully and completely evolved. (Believe me, or God could not possibly had devised such a system!) So for God to experience evolving once again God would have to imbue Individuated Aspects of Itself with the ability to forget all of this. In this way, God could experience Itself (through the parts of Itself) doing it all over again.

This is exactly what God has done.

What all of this means is that we have no need-none of us-for anything at all. And all we have to do to experience that is to Know Who We Really Are. Physical Life was created as a means for us to do that, and to experience that in relative terms. (You can't experience yourself as "big" unless you have experienced something that is "small." You can't experience yourself as "fast" unless you have experienced something that is "slow." And you can't experience yourself as "good" unless you have experienced something that is "bad." Therefore, even if you can't find something that is "bad" in your environment, you will call something "bad" just so you can produce a contextual field within which you can experience yourself as "good." We call this particular maneuver...judgment.)

The True Master judges not. He judges no one and nothing. This is because the True Master already knows her Actual Identity, and does not depend on making someone else less than her in order to experience that.

This is why all True Masters have taught: Judge not, and neither condemn.

(More next week as we continue this extraordinary exploration!)

Love and Hugs,

Neale.

To all my dear readers:

I've been doing my review of What God Wants and that is found further in this article if that's what you're interested in most. Please see below.

First I want to share with all of you some very exciting news.

Many of you have been following my articles for several years, my "soap opera," as Neale calls it. Much of what I wrote about in the fall and winter of 2006/2007 was regarding the "love of my life"-Darrin.

Just to catch those of you up that haven't been following the "story" that long, the condensed version is this: I met this man and fell deeply in love with him eight years ago. He became the person I have loved more than any other on the planet in this life...i.e., the love of my life.

Several months into our relationship those many years ago he got too close to my heart and scared me to death. It's hard to explain, but as I'm sure many of you have experienced a deep love that can get a bit overwhelming and scary. This happened and I forced my way out of the relationship.

Several years later, after becoming deeply involved in my spiritual path, I came to understand what had happened inside of me and what a huge mistake I had made. It wasn't really a mistake, because I'm clear that with the awareness I had at the time, I couldn't have done anything different. Often the time we spend working on our "unfinished business" will give us great clarity about things we've done in our past-things we wished we'd done differently.

I reached such a moment about six years ago, and from then on I've done everything I could to repair the relationship with Darrin. For the first several years I had the opportunity to practice everything that I read in Conversations with God about relationship and loving another without condition, requirement, expectation, and neediness.

Darrin was, for a while, a fundamentalist Christian who chose to have nothing to do with me as long as I was involved in CwG. Then he was married to another. Then this thing or another thing got in the way of him being able to step back into a relationship with me. Through all of those years I loved him no matter what. It was my truth and it was in my heart - there was no way I could change the truth of my heart - and trust me, I tried everything. I tried every metaphysical tactic, I tried therapy, I tried talking to friends, I tried everything I could think of to rid myself of this tie to this man who continued to reject me and turn away from me in every way.

What was in my heart didn't make sense, but I stood in my truth-that I loved this man-and what he did in relationship to that had nothing to do with what was true for me. Then in the summer of 2006 he returned to me and the relationship-his marriage had ended, he moved from Texas to Oregon, and we decided to give it a try, but we just couldn't seem to make it work.

Everything worked except that we couldn't get the sexual piece of the relationship back. We'd gotten engaged and figured we'd get the physical stuff worked out, but we just couldn't do it. It just wasn't there. We both struggled very hard with this and we tried everything we knew to make things better. It seemed at this point that all was lost and we parted again.

I'd love to tell you what's happened in the intervening year but the truth is, I don't really know. Darrin went his way and I went mine. We each did more of our work and Darrin had a few girlfriends and I had a few boyfriends. A few days ago he called and said he was going back to Texas. On the spur of the moment I asked if he'd spend a few days with me before he left, to allow us to reach some sort of completion with each other.

You have to understand that while I understood that nothing within our grasp seemed to be able to heal the wounds in our relationship, my heart has always known what was true between us. I always knew I loved this man and that he loved me. I always knew we'd end up together and that our relationship wasn't complete, but I guess on many levels I'd begun to accept that my "knowing" was somewhat off. Maybe it wouldn't work out in this lifetime. Maybe I was just wrong.

Well, Darrin did come back to spend some time with me before he was to move away. Yet, the man that came back to me came healed. He came to me as the man that I had fallen in love with, whole and complete. He came to me with overwhelming love in every way. That was Monday night. In the wee hours of Tuesday morning I turned to him and asked him, "do you know what I want?"

He said, "No, what do you want?"

I said, "I want you to marry me now"

He said, "OK"

Tuesday we were married.

Later when we were talking, he said to me, "Do you know why I said yes?"

"No, why?"

He turned to me and gently said, "Because it's so easy to love you and it's so very right."

As crazy as it may seem, I threw all caution to the wind. The Universe had given me everything I'd always known was possible, and while I felt a little crazy, I also felt that I couldn't do anything else. I pushed aside what other people might think. I had no fear as I stepped into exactly what I'd been creating for a very long time. We both followed our souls and our bliss and made the leap.

There are times when life turns on a dime. It is in such moments that you have choice. You can live large and go for it, or you can let all your mental constructs get in the way. You can think yourself right out of the greatness that's possible. I'll never do that.

Today I sit here, I don't know what my future will bring, I have no idea if I'm moving back to Texas or staying here. I have no idea if I'll be able to keep my job should I move. Everything in my life is changing really fast or it's up in the air, but as I look to my side and I see this man who loves me and who I love with all my heart, I know that everything I've ever wanted is right here, and all the rest will "be as it should" in a way far grander than I can even imagine.

I urge all of you who "know things in your heart" to believe, to understand that while things may look anything like what you know to be possible, your most joyous course is to follow your heart and soul, never give up, and stay true to yourself and your heart. The rewards will be amazing.

Life is an incredible journey that can change in a moment and life lived large is fun and exciting even when the risks are tremendous and it seems a bit scary. Follow your heart, follow love, follow your knowing and never ever give up.

What God Wants

I've been reading away in What God Wants and I continue to be amazed that the ideas and understanding of life and the world we live in examined in this book are fully embraced in my own understandings of the world now.

While it would stand to reason that this is true, being a teacher and a student of this material for many years now, I find I'm still a bit surprised at this. The ideas that were once so new and quite revolutionary in my life today seem to be just plain common sense. A big "duh," if you will.

I love this, because I begin to fully appreciate how complete my own integration of the material has been. While Neale and I may not necessarily agree at the level of ideas about the future, there is never a place where I find disagreement with the information. I find it so "right" and on target.

Where I seem to falter a bit is in my own grasp of the perfection of it all. That is, I'm not sure I'm able to see the perfection in such broad misunderstanding, throughout all time, of God and the nature of life. While I understand that people commit atrocities in the name of God I don't necessarily understand why or how that all plays out in the nature of life itself. Why would we have created it this way unless there is greatness to be had through a massive change in global understanding?

I have no question that all the ills, all the misunderstandings about things, are perfect, but how that all plays out and what it's all about is not within my grasp-and that's okay. If I've learned anything in my life, it's that a part of being human is not knowing everything-until you do. I understand and accept that there are things I don't know, the knowing of which would change everything. And there is perfection in the mystery of it.

I also am satisfied that someday all will be revealed and nothing will again be a mystery. While that isn't a part of my human experience so far, that I'm sure it will be someday, when I return to the Realm of the Absolute.

And I will see YOU here again next week!

In love and light,
the new married lady...
Marion Black, Executive Director
marion@cwg.org/cell: 541-301-0365

What of fairness for McCain?

I hate this. I really hate this. I think we all do.

I mean, there was a 6.3 earthquake today near Elko, Nevada. Now THAT'S "news." But this?

Jill Hazelbaker, a spokesperson for the presidential campaign of Sen.John McCain, has it right when she says, in a statement released by the campaign today.."Americans are sick and tired of this kind of gutter politics."
I am speaking, of course, about the story last night from the New York Times alluding to the possibility of an inappropriate relationship at one time between Sen. McCain (R-Ariz) and a professional lobbyist on Capitol Hill, Vicki Iseman.
The Associated Press reports today that "The New York Times quoted anonymous aides as saying they had urged McCain and lobbyist Vicki Iseman to stay away from each other prior to his failed presidential campaign in 2000. In its own follow-up story, The Washington Post quoted longtime aide John Weaver, who split with McCain last year, as saying he met with lobbyist Iseman and urged her to stay away from McCain."

The AP report continues, "Weaver told the Times he arranged the meeting after 'a discussion among the campaign leadership' about Iseman."
So here we go again. We just can't leave it alone. We insist on holding our political figures to a higher standard than few of us could ever hope to meet. And this is not to say that the veiled suggestions about McCain are true. This is to say that the fact that even the thought that they may be true is enough to make the New York Times is sad. I find myself wanting to ask: Why should this be "news"? Who decides these things?

And if we are going to make this kind of thing "news" in a campaign for president of the United States, can we at least be fair?

The suggestion here in the stories by the Times and, later, the Post, is that Senator McCain took actions (the writing of letters, it seems) on behalf of a firm (it owned television stations) that had hired the female lobbyist in question to pursue its interests on Capitol Hill. The implication is that McCain wrote those letters because of his friendship with the lobbyist.

Yet the Associate Press report today says that "Robert Bennett, a Washington attorney representing McCain, said McCain's staff provided the Times with 'approximately 12 instances where Senator McCain took positions adverse to this lobbyist's clients and her public relations firm's clients,' but none of the examples were included in the paper's story."

(Boldface mine.)

This is what I mean by fairness. Why did the Times not report, in fairness, that while McCain apparently did write letters favorable to a client of Ms. Iseman, he also often took positions unfavorable to her clients? Why not also point that out? Would that take the "shine" off the story just a little, do you think? Would that make us all stop and think, so what's the problem?

For his part, McCain said in a news conference today that he and Ms. Iseman are friends, and have never been partnered romantically.
And here is the entire statement released by the McCain campaign today through Hazelbaker:

"It is a shame that The New York Times has lowered its standards to engage in a hit-and-run smear campaign. John McCain has a 24-year record of serving our country with honor and integrity. He has never violated the public trust, never done favors for special interests or lobbyists, and he will not allow a smear campaign to distract from the issues at stake in this election.

"Americans are sick and tired of this kind of gutter politics, and there is nothing in this story to suggest that John McCain has ever violated the principles that have guided his career."

I don't know whether John McCain had a dalliance with a female lobbyist years ago or not. I am betting not...but I admit I could be wrong. Yet there is a larger question here. Dare I even ask it?

So what????

If this kind of thing was made "news" in the coverage of an election for president of France, everyone would be laughing. Not at the candidate...at the pressfor making such a hullabaloo about nothing.

There's much more to say about this, which we will continue to discuss tomorrow. But for now I must ask again...if we ARE going to make a Major Big Deal out of this in our provincial, sexually uptight, prudish country, can we at least be fair to the man? Can we at least be accurate and complete in reporting that McCain took positions in opposition to the interests of Ms. Iseman's clients on several occasions? Can we at least bring some balance to this "news"?

from the blog of Thursday February 21, 2008Category: The News and The New Spirituality

What of fairness for McCain?

from the blog of Thursday February 21, 2008
Category: The News and The New Spirituality