In earlier posts (Spirituality Vs. Religion 1 – 5) I talked about how Emperor Constantine assembled the Economical Councils to highly edit the Christian religious texts that would be acceptable for the bible and expunged teaching that didn’t fit the orthodox Christian views of the time – this included expunging the teaching of Jesus on reincarnation and human purpose on Earth. If we can for a minute assume that the spirit level of existence is the true self with life the simulation, then a different perspective arises. So, from this presupposition, let’s reiterate about our true self. We are spiritual beings, having an emotional experience in a human body. And that body is set within a simulation that has specific physical laws and parameters so we can experiment with various kinds of relationship scenarios in linear time. The presupposed root purpose: to learn how to control emotions and to elevate the collective consciousness. This all presupposition of course – only one real way to find out about the simulation, and few of us are ready to do that. Curiously, many spiritual practices throughout the ages and around the world even today work with this presupposition. Shamanic traditions call life the dream state with the soul at the spirit level being the reality. Whether that is correct or not is not the point. If we presuppose that life on Earth is a school to learn, then it seems most of us are sleeping during the class. Even if you do not accept this presupposition, then you are still missing the greatest opportunity to experience a life you want versus a life of simple resignation to a system of control. At the spirit level LOVE is everything. We would all like that to be the case on Earth, but ‘things get in the way.’ That thing is the ego. While the ego serves a function to help us work through life, it has come to dominate us our thinking almost completely.
“Love and belonging are essential to the human experience.” (pick any spiritual guru of your choice)
Everyone craves love. Our whole life revolves around getting it or trying to get it. So many people, when it is denied or unrecognized in their lives, become to one degree or another, hateful, mean, and vengeful. Think of the efforts so many people go to in order to be liked and accepted by others. Now consider the range of interactions we experience in daily life around people as we try to fit in with so many contradictions of behavior, and we wonder why strife and stress seem so common. Being our authentic selves, allowing others to be their authentic selves, and everyone accepting everyone else as their authentic selves, seems more like a way to live than pretending to be someone in order to ‘fit in.’ And doing it with love and compassion, which is a central desire in our authentic selves until it is conditioned away, is a core of living well together. We don’t need to be saints, and it would be a boring existence if we all were, it merely needs love, compassion, kindness, and acceptance for others life choices. We long for connection, so why can’t we seem to do that?
One of the central psychological barriers is Shame. This is, “basically the fear of being unlovable – it’s the total opposite of owning our story and feeling worthy. Shame is the intensely painful feeling or experience of believing that we are flawed and therefore unworthy of love and belonging…it lurks in all our familiar places, including [but not limited to] appearance and body image, family, parenting, money and work, health addiction, sex, aging, and religion”. Brene Brown, Shame, Authenticity, and Belonging Research Psychologist – The Gifts of Imperfection 2010.
When I look at Facebook or for that matter any magazine, much of what I see is just reinforcement of how imperfect we all are and what we must do to avoid that. It’s the advertising problem again. You will be liked and loved if you buy this product or that new thing, because everyone else has it and you must be a loser if you do not. The base message is that you are a loser and do not ‘fit it.’ It is a destructive cycle that erodes our self-esteem (whatever remains after our childhood conditioning) and teaches us to hate ourselves for a multitude of reasons. In a desperate attempt to feel connection to people around us. I was reading a paper about how high school kids often base their popularity and self-esteem on how many likes or friends they have on Facebook or twitter. I thought high school sucked when I was that age, but today is worse with the social media conditioning kids even more with shame.
Self-Love is about loving yourself for the authentic you that you truly are. The you that you would be if you weren’t so preoccupied about needing the right friends or the right job or being acceptable. It doesn’t mean the right to be an A-hole, but it does allow you to be the authentic you, and if that is a little quirky, go with it. It is getting past worrying about what other people think about you. It is about accepting everyone as who they are and being kind, considerate, and mindful of your thoughts and actions. We have all been deliberately conditioned to feel that we are not good enough. It doesn’t matter what your occupation or what you do in life, you must believe that you have worth. “Believe you are the person your dog thinks you are.” Even my cat, in her own mysterious way, thinks I’m a great person. Despite what people who ardently disagree with me might say, I believe I have something positive to offer. Everyone of us has something to offer that is of value in helping us become even better people and working towards a better society and a sustainable world. Shame keeps you in the rut, self-love lifts you out of it. When you truly love yourself, you will find that you can love everyone else, even the most abject of A-holes. This is the main message that all the great spiritual guru’s through history and today emphasize.
TBC…….
0 Comments