They are superb food for thought. You are NOT who you think you are. You ARE Love, Peace, Acceptance, Forgiveness, and Freedom…

Popular belief is that you, yeah you, SHOULD:

• take care of the homeless
• give $ and time to organizations that help orphans, disaster relief efforts, etc
• intervene in the genocide in Darfur
• make poverty history
• have a beer with your hurting neighbor
• etc, etc, etc…

My question is, “what if you SHOULDN’T do any of those things?”

In fact, I would say that to me it is not a question at all, I SHOULDN’T do any of those things.

But I COULD do one or more of them.

Do you care about one of the issues listed above? How about one not on the list? Do you view others as bad, wrong, heartless, or jaded if they aren’t moved to the same cause that you are?

What should motivate us to “care about something” anyway? any takers?

Technorati Tags: Darfur, benevolence, religion, God, spirituality, Jeffrey Davis

Is it a temporal feeling or sensation experienced on a situational basis?

Is it a state of being?

Is it a part of our very being?

Is it a political ideal?

Is it something else entirely?

This is just a conversation that’s been being shared between some friends and I recently. I’d love to hear your opinion.
Technorati Tags: peace, religion, spirituality, Jeffrey Davis

“What would we think of a human being who satisfied his thirst for revenge, as the church depicts God does, with an eternal hell?”

Never thought about it like that…interesting. What do you think?

Don goes on to relay another question:

“How is eternal, infinite hell a just recompense for finite temporal sins?”

Another great question indeed. Hit Don’s site in the above link for more on the topic.

Did Jesus believe in or teach this?

Don Rogers has a WONDERFUL post about this doctrine at his place.

A sample of what you’ll find there is:

“We should bear a fact in mind. When the doctrine of endless punishment began to be taught in the Christian Church, it was not derived from the Scriptures, but from the heathen converts to Christianity, who accepted Christ, but who brought with them into their new church that doctrine which had for centuries been taught in heathen lands, but which neither Moses nor Christ accepted. And having received the idea from heathen tradition, it was natural that the early Christians should transfer it to the Bible, and seek to find it there.”

It’d be well worth your time to go read the rest at Don’s place.

We were talking about how no one and nothing is separate, but are all part of the whole…but not even separate parts, mind you. Why then are we confined in our separateness?

Why do I have a different physical makeup than you? My physical makeup isn’t really me is it? Can you dissect my body and find “me”? Of course not.

What happens to a person when they cease to rely on the sensory world as reality? Can someone reach this point on their journey? If we are spirit/source/energy/etc, why are we even confined in a body to begin with?

Just some questions I’m pondering today…and i’m sure i will be for a long time coming.

My good friend Hilary asked me to muse on this topic back in a post about the conflict between mind and heart, back in January.

My answer (or at least my thought at the moment) is, “No, there is no such thing”.

What if, instead of trying to figure out “why am I here, what’s my purpose, etc”, we were fully present at all times.? What if we didn’t waste time chasing a feeling of euphoria brought by “doing the right thing”?

What if life were about BEING who we are, the divine life and essence of God, all the time?

Doesn’t that sound much more freeing, fruitful, enjoyable, and purposeful than to spend our lives wondering how to be free, how to bear fruit, how to enjoy life, and what our purpose is?

I think it is often difficult for many of us to disconnect from the religious dogma of “do, do, do” that has been instilled in us from our youth. What’s more, is that “doing” may be a result of “being”, but I do not think it’s most beneficial for the “doing” to be the focus…lest the cycle begin to repeat.

So if there is no destiny, if there are no pivotal choices one must make for our lives to be “on track”, what does life look like?

Photo by Shavy

Technorati Tags: spirituality, destiny, Jeffrey Davis

In several conversations recently, the concept of dualism has arisen–specifically in the context of the “epic struggle” between “GOOD” and “EVIL”.

I had forgotten that I wrote a post about this, Can We Know Good Without Evil?, early in 2007. I was refreshed to go back and peruse the comment thread with a reader named Brent. He had some great insights.

Well here we are, over a year later, and the discussion of that concept (or problem?) has arisen once more.

My friend Jim Palmer, author of Divine Nobodies and Wide Open Spaces, posted about this at his blog just the other day.

I was considering making this next thought into a separate post, and maybe I still will, but here it is nonetheless…

I’ve recently become acquainted with Jim’s neighbor Mike, who resonates primarily with the teachings of Buddhism. Mike was mentioning the other day that we often find ourselves at a roadblock when we get consumed with “maintaining a state”.

He meant that religion tends to foster the dependency on some blissful state, “right” living (again, what is right without wrong?), etc, etc. Instead, what if the goal were to “know God”, and let the circumstances be as they are.

If the result of this “knowing” is a change of lifestyle, decisions, etc, then great, but that would be not the end goal. Neither would it be a problem if one slipped/backslid/messed up/whatever if the focus were not the derailment of “maintaining a state of ______”.

Some how in my mind these two thoughts were related, but I’ve forgotten how.

What do you think?

“When the people of the world all know beauty as beauty, there arises the recognition of ugliness. When they all know the good as good, there arises the recognition of evil.”

Technorati Tags: religion, spirituality, Jeffrey Davis

What do I mean? Well, for example, some people’s end game will be “to get to heaven”. Others’ might be to save people. Yet others still may have an end game entirely different altogether.

So, what’s your end game…and perhaps more importantly, WHY?

Technorati Tags: religion, spirituality, Jeffrey Davis