Potential

Speaking of the God seed, as I state I my book, "that seed is always there no matter how despicable that person appears on the surface." All people have the choice at all times to act according to that infinite, eternal loving force. That force is part of each of us. For me it requires some effort and discipline to stay connected to that force, since I was not raised to even know of its presence and the culture does not support it. "However that may be — and let the man who soaks his evolutionary terms with purpose pause and reflect — it is certain that in a person the ought goes beyond the is, the vision of the potential makes the present actual unsatisfying and insufficient."(Rufus Jones) I strive to stay connected to that force and become all I can be.

God Seed

When I get internally silent and look inside myself, using meditation, I find a very fallible and finite human being but also an infinite or eternal being that is connected to the wonderful, loving force I call God.. When I make that connection, which I do daily, I realize that it makes no difference the names I use for that force, only that I feel and act on the love. I have a number of human traits like anger, jealousy and ego that both interfere with that love and, like a particle of dust in a ray of sunlight, make it possible to feel that love more intensely. My intent is to feel and act on that "God seed", as I call it, in everything I do. "The central fact that concerns us here is that He [Christ] is the revealing organ of a new and higher order of life."(Rufus Jones)

Meditation

During periods of prayer and meditation, at first only in my sacred time in the night and now all day, I encounter the loving force or power I call God. During my meditation I find that I can become one with that power and use it in my day to day life. I have not yet determined the limits to the effects of that contact, but I am working on it! "A mystical touch is a deep, intimate contact-union-experience of God in one of His attributes such as power, light, goodness, beauty, or joy."(Thomas Dubay, S. M) The most readily observed effect is in my physical healing which often puzzles Drs., a source of personal amusement and frustration. A less obvious effect of that contact is a deeply fulfilling life. "Immersion in God entails a being filled with Him, a divine inflowing. Biblical men knew well enough that this self-communication of God is the sole destiny of men." (Thomas Dubay, S. M.)

Becoming

I wrote yesterday of my own tendency to hold myself back and the fact that I see the same tendency in others. I do everything I can to prevent that sort of attitude in myself and attempt to empower others to become "all they can be" - themselves. Most people, including myself, are much more than they think they are. I love mankind and want to see them become that. "It [evolution to higher levels] is not now the result of an escalator coming up from below. It depends on us, and persons like us, whether we go on to further goals or not. The possibilities are in us, there is no compulsion. We can sag down to the level of animal life, or we can climb an inward Jacob’s Ladder and become rightly fashioned by spirits, kindled by a flame from above..... We have the possibility of becoming superbiological.(Rufus Jones)

Self Realization

For the last several years, decades in some cases, I have made a strong effort to not hold myself back due to the limitations placed on myself by my own beliefs. I look around me and notice others limiting themselves and try to escape from my own beliefs. For example, I wrote my book because of the great value I have found through the force of love - but part of me says "you have a lot of nerve promoting your own story". Another example is my disability. I struggle to escape from my own beliefs which I form in response to what I am told by neurologists. I was told that I would never get better and probably continue to worsen. I chose not to listen and, with several setbacks, have gotten quite a bit better and, in many ways, not gotten worse. All of this time I have a negative internal voice, which tends to hold me back. "To become a person one must both affirm and deny himself. One involves the other." (Rufus Jones)

Thoughts

This morning during socializing after an hour of silent worship a group of us were talking about our wish that actions were being taken that were more kind and loving toward each other and the earth. I made the comment that people do not hurt other people unless they have been hurt. Political and cultural decisions are being made out of hurt and fear rather than love and spirituality - unfortunate, or is it. The current trend seems like the natural sequence of events, but I am wary of long term consequences. I am clear that I do not know. "Some course of action which seems so clearly to be leading to disaster may contain a twist of fate which lifts it to success. That accident whose cause was so apparent may have had an inner meaning we cannot see. That sudden death which we think could have been so easily avoided with greater consciousness may not have been the tragedy it appears. The man who died may have been needed elsewhere. We simply do not know. Scientists discover and theologians affirm; but faced with the mystery of life and death we know almost nothing. We can learn from the experts, but our experience may not fit their theories and it is our experience and our experience alone that we should trust."(Claremont deCastillejo)