I have spent most of my life contemplating the experience of reality. I have been confounded by the phenomenon of two people witnessing the same event simultaneously and having different experiences. How is it that we can be presented with the same information, and then translate it with such wide variance?
I have had a variety of experiences in my life. And it took a lifetime for those events to unfold, sometimes with one event contradicting another along the way.
Nowhere is this more apparent than in the rift between science and faith. Why is there such a chasm between the two? So much so, that both schools of thought would convert the other to their interpretation, in the hope of creating a better world for us all as a result.
Dogma in any system discourages or prohibits alternative interpretation. One says that there is no room for singular, non-repeatable events. The other makes no room for interpreting evidence.
People obviously survived and thrived without the benefit of our modern libraries of knowledge. Adherance to the one does not preclude the other. The existence of one kind of knowledge does not negate the other, nor relegate another to a relic status in a modern world.
I believe that the mutual respect for and engagement with one another is necessary for the progress beyond our modern intellectual impasse of esoteric versus concrete experience.
Dogma is not a substitute for living your life.
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Every event in our lives is part of our awakening, and depending on how we choose to react, reject, or assimilate them into our lives, our paths are the richer for them.
One needn’t cling to an old doctrine if a new one speaks to you. Even if an event’s arrival appears by random chance, if you are ready to embrace it at that time, why not? This is where you are in your life, right now. Your experience is uniquely your own.
Some present a one-time offer of a Get-Out-of-Life free card, where others embrace seemingly endless cycles of rebirth and renewal. Others suggest that merely existing is profound enough, and consciousness is its own reward.
I have explored all of these mindsets in my time.
There is a great disparity just in existence here. It is possible for the base and banal, the elevated and miraculous to exist simultaneously.When one perceives that the intersection of our many concurrent lives and paths is the only reality, rather than one among many possibilities, life appears to unfold around us in a struggle of hunger, cold, and desperation, and that we are an outgrowth of that conflict.
Even though we occupy the same time and space together, we cannot share the same experience of this world. How then is it possible to expect people to have the same experience of spirit? To embrace one faith, religion, or dogma is to deny the breadth of experience that is our birthright, and our treasure as humanity.
And to cast off another as lost, as outside of our tribe, while we lay claim to our place among the awakened is the same fear-based mindset that created the world of disparity we live in today.
It diminishes our spirit to lament that which Is.
What is the purpose of being here if not to find our peace in Presence, to experience “This”? To apply our growth toward expansion of our humanity not only individually, but as a single soul consciousness taking our place in the spectrum of life, and to claim our holiness.
In this light, progress is compounded, our mutual growth assured, our collective consciousness inevitably linked to our expansion of our own light. Nothing is wasted, there is no pointless existence, no failure to launch. With each choosing we enrich our garden, or turn its fruits back into the soil to be revisited.
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The Scepter of dogma can build walls, and the Mace of intolerance can knock them down, laying waste and rewriting history. But the tree they are carved from is forever reborn within its seeds, and writing its own history slowly and quietly.
Wonder serves us. Tolerance and Compassion serve us as we embrace a fruitful path toward enlightenment.
It is compassion that rebuilds, that pervades, and is the undercurrent in the ground we walk upon. And in the hand that wields it. Compassion is the greatest force on earth, and we are its keepers. Despite our disappointments, failings, and injuries, we continue to grow beyond our shell into a larger reality, where we are welcomed, and awaited.
Where we live the waking dream that elevates us to that which will be.
When we are right in the middle of the play we can become lost in the script, waiting for the hero to arrive, unable to see the plot through to its final curtain. The adherence to the script is seen as its own reward, rather than the ability to adapt, to improvise toward a broader vision. To use our minds, and our hearts to grow into our time and place. We can become free of the past, and live in the present, where all of our love, patience, and compassion is most needed.
Forget the past, dismiss the end, and live. Become the author of your life, not just another actor. This is what you came here to do. This is what we are awaiting from you.
Bless us with the gift of your presence.
