Day: June 21, 2017

Positive and Negative States

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meaning of life

Positive and Negative States

Have you ever wondered why some days we can wake up feeling bright and able to cope with the day and other times, for no obvious external reasons, we can feel ‘down’ or even depressed?

External events can help create positive and negative states and behaviour in us but they are not the only cause. What makes two patients who have been admitted to hospital with kidney failure react in such different ways? One bewails his bad luck and finds fault with everything and everyone whereas the other is thankful that it is not more serious and that he has such a caring family who will support him in the future.

Our outer mind tends to be focussed on the world around us because our physical senses dominate. So it is natural to fall in with the idea that all there is to life is what we can see, hear and touch, and that we are separate from others. When we believe this and rely solely on our own abilities and ideas we can easily feel overwhelmed and vulnerable to negative states.

no man is an island

The reality is, however, that we are all interconnected at the spiritual level. If we are honest with ourselves we know that we need people and rely on others all the time.

 “No man is an island, entire of itself” (John Donne)

This network of interdependence and connectedness involves more people than we are aware of in this world. Emanuel Swedenborg said that all our thoughts and feelings flow into us through unseen spiritual companions. This may sound strange to you if you haven’t thought about it before but it explains how an idea can suddenly pop into our mind. So where is the real ‘me’ in all of this?

We have been given the freedom to choose which thoughts and feelings to identify with and make our own. We are in control of the tuning switch and can choose whether to tune into Radio Heaven or Radio Hell.

The choice is yours – choose to identify with your positive thoughts and feelings today!

http://www.spiritualwisdom.org.uk/meaning-of-life.htm

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The “Spiritual” Origin of Species!

Scientist/theologian Emanuel Swedenborg would blow the doors off of Charles Darwin’s foundational book on evolutionary biology The Origin of Species. Rather than approaching evolution from a materialist or naturalist position, Swedenborg’s model was both theological and scientific.

Everything in nature has order and orientation. That is why life can be classified into coherent genera and species (general and specific categories). That all life is rationally organized into orders with orientation is evidenced by the fact that life evolved towards interconnectedness, interrelatedness and interdependence. The biosphere is organized into a unified ecosystem consisting of profound relationships.

The ecosystem supports each of its species just as each species supports the whole ecosystem. This organic template is continued within each species’ internal bio-structure, where each organ and cell support the bodily system and the bodily system supports each organ and cell. In fact, all organic function is a harmonious orchestration of tasks and utility (division of labor).

Swedenborg would not only challenge the notion of natural selection, but the notion of anything physical as being foundational. He claimed that the special harmonious arrangement and endless complexity in nature was a physical analog or mirror image of a deeper reality—of God’s infinite goodness (the essence of love is to unify through cooperation and reciprocity).

God’s goodness, being infinite, comes in many, many non-material forms—all of which can be classified into real genera and species with order and orientation. Because God is ultimate life, these spiritual forms are living forms of utility seeking realization as outcomes of measurement in time and space. Nothing is created in nature unless it can represent some measurement and quantification of goodness and usefulness. God can lawfully act in the finite world because divine qualities of love can flow into and maintain forms of goodness that are oriented to an eternal plan (God can even flow into and allow evil if it can serve the divine eternal plan—but that is another topic).

According to Swedenborg, the different species of God’s goodness find and create their physical equivalence and analog in the different relationships of nature’s various and orchestrated genera and species. The appearance of the human race in nature was to serve God’s evolutionary purpose of creating a spiritual biosphere (called heaven). When an individual embraces God’s tenets and spiritual values, he or she takes the process of evolution into a non-physical realm by organizing their feelings and ideas into a nobler order (genera and species) and orientation (a heaven-bound life).

After the death of the physical body, individuals find themselves in the spiritual environment and ecosystem that they fashioned—an environment perfectly reflecting all the qualities of their heart and mind (which is one’s spiritual reality)!

If you don’t believe that there can be living organization in a non-material realm, simply contemplate the fact that human understanding is dependent on the real organization, order and orientation of one’s ideas and knowledge—this is non-physical structure and complexity! The human mind and first-person experience (consciousness) certainly is not under the same constraints as physical matter, and human memory is not limited like physical water in a certain size bottle.

This topic needs a whole book to explain. So I have done just that. I have written a new book entitled Proving God. It is just days away from being available on Amazon.

Posted onMay 12, 2010by

https://thegodguy.wordpress.com/

Posted in god, Inner growth, Life after death, love, metaphysics, psychology, Reality, science, spirituality, unity | Tagged, , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

A daring work that unifies Science and Theology
by challenging many of the world’s current beliefs about both

Proving God

The Church is Both Internal and External

Lastchurch - The Eternal PurposeSelection from True Christian Religion ~ Emanuel Swedenborg

The Church is the Lord’s, and that from the spiritual marriage, which is that of good and truth, the Lord is called the Bridegroom and Husband, and the Church the bride and wife, is well known to Christians from the Word, especially from the following.

John said of the Lord:  He that hath the bride is the bridegroom, but the friend of the bridegroom, who standeth and heareth him, rejoiceth because of the bridegroom’s voice (John 3:29).

Jesus said, The children of the bridechamber cannot mourn so long as the bridegroom is with them (Matt. 9:15; Mark 2:19-20; Luke 5:34-35).

I saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, made ready as a bride adorned for her husband (Rev. 21:2).

The angel said to John:  Come, I will show thee the bride, the wife of the Lamb, and from a mountain he showed him the holy city Jerusalem (Rev. 21:9-10).

The time of the marriage of the Lamb is come, and His wife hath made herself ready. Blessed are they that have been called unto the marriage supper of the Lamb (Rev. 19:7, 9).

I am the root and the offspring of David, the bright and morning Star. And the Spirit and the bride say, Come. And he that is athirst, let him come, and he that willeth, let him take the water of life freely (Rev. 22:16-17).

It is in accordance with Divine order that a new heaven should be formed before a new Church is established on earth, for the Church is both internal and external, and the internal Church makes one with the Church in heaven, thus with heaven itself; and what is internal must be formed before its external, what is external being formed afterwards by means of its internal. This is well known in the world among the clergy. Just so far as this new heaven, which constitutes the internal of the Church with man, increases, does the New Jerusalem, that is, the New Church, descend from it; consequently this cannot take place in a moment, but it takes place to the extent that the falsities of the former Church are set aside. For where falsities have already been implanted what is new cannot enter until the falsities have been rooted out, and this will take place with the clergy, and so with the laity; for the Lord said:  No one puts new wine into old wineskins, else the skins burst and the wine is spilled, but they put new wine into fresh wineskins, and both are preserved (Matt. 9:17; Mark 2:22; Luke 5:37-38).

That these things take place only at the consummation of the age, by which is meant the end of the Church, can be seen from these words of the Lord:  Jesus said, The kingdom of the heavens is like unto a man who sowed good seed in his field; but while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat, and went away; but when the blade sprang up, then appeared the tares also. The servants came and said, Wilt thou that we go and gather them up? But he said, Nay; lest haply while ye gather up the tares, ye root up the wheat with them; let both grow together until the harvest; and in the time of harvest I will say to the reapers, Collect first the tares and bind them in bundles to burn; but gather the wheat into my barn. The harvest is the consummation of the age; as the tares are gathered and burned with fire, so shall it be in the consummation of the age (Matt. 13:24-30, 39-40).

“Wheat” means here the truths and goods of the New Church, and “tares” the falsities and evils of the former Church. … “the consummation of the age” means the end of the Church.

That there is in everything an internal and an external, and that the external depends on the internal as the body does on its soul, every single thing in the world shows when it is properly examined. In man this is manifest:-

As his entire body is from his mind, so in each thing that proceeds from man there is an internal and an external; in his every action there is the mind’s will, and in his every word the mind’s understanding, so also in his every sensation.

In every bird and beast, and even in every insect and worm, there is an internal and an external; and again in every tree, plant, and germ, and even in every stone and every particle of soil.

A few facts relating to the silk-worm, the bee, and dust, will suffice to make this clear. The internal of the silk-worm is that whereby its external is moved to weave its cocoon, and afterward to fly forth as a butterfly. The internal of the bee is that whereby its external is moved to suck honey from flowers, and to build its cells in wonderful forms. The internal of a particle of soil whereby its external is moved, is its endeavor to fecundate seed; it exhales from its little bosom something which introduces itself into the inmosts of the seed, and produces this effect; and this internal follows the growth of the seed even to new seed.

The same takes place in things of an opposite character, in which there is also an internal and an external; as in the spider, whose internal, whereby its external is moved, is the ability and consequent inclination to construct an ingenious web, at the center of which it lies in wait for the flies that fly into it, which it eats. It is the same with every noxious worm, every serpent, and every beast of the forest; as also with every impious, cunning, and treacherous man.

(True Christian Religion 783 – 785)
June 15, 2017

Practising awareness of the Divine

Spiritual Questions & Answers

Discovering inner health and transformation

Now that sounds unbearably pompous or over pious. But in fact it it is the name that the early Fathers of the Christian (yes there were also early Desert mothers too)  church gave to their meditation or prayer life.

The most well known was Anthony the Great, who moved to the desert in 270–271 and became known as both the father and founder of desert monasticism. The desert monastic communities that grew out of the informal gathering of hermit monks became the model for Christian Monasticism. The eastern monastic tradition at Mount Athos and the western Rule of St Benedict both were strongly influenced by the traditions that began in the desert. All of the monastic revivals of the Middle Ages looked to the desert for inspiration and guidance. Much of Eastern Christian spirituality, including the Hesychast movement, had its roots in the practices of the Desert Fathers. Even religious renewals such as the German evangelicals and Pietists in Pennsylvania, the Devotio Moderna movement, and the Methodist Revival in England are seen by modern scholars as being influenced by the Desert Fathers.

What was the attraction and how did such a spirituality survive so long and be seen as a valuable source by so many religious movements and bodies?

Well put simply the early fathers learned to sit in silence and create a space in the heart for the Holy Spirit, or God or whatever you believe in, to find a home in. When I used to commute from Kinston upon Thames to Waterloo and back each day on crowded and often smelly commuter trains I was able to use this simple technique to shut out the noise and rattle and crush and just begin to exist quietly in the eternal now of the spirit.

The Buddhists also do similar inner space creation. The way to empty the mind of the million and one thoughts that shout for our attention is to have a simple word or phrase we can silently murmur and use as a shield from the world.

I must be one of the worlds most impatient people yet I found after a few days I could alight from my train in a calm and tranquil state usually, not always but very often. Co-workers in the mornings noticed and the people I lived with certainly did too. I was calmer less argumentative and much nicer to be around.

Even now when my religious affiliation( as opposed to belief) is virtual non exist ant I still practice the awareness of the divine (or whatever). For such a small effort the result brings such great benefit. There are a few books and I know of some classes, but frankly if you can read and have patience to try, that is all you need. What word of phrase do I use? Well I took mine from the latin mass of Maundy Thursday because I liked the Taize hymn of the same name.

Ubi Caritas…or in it’s full name Ubi caritas et amor, Deus ibi est.

But any phrase that is attractive and spirit centred works just as well. Come Holy Spirit, Jesus Love, I know a Quaker Lady who uses the words ‘Bright Crystal’. What works works.

I hope that anyone who feels anxious or uncertain or wants to reach out to the Divine might consider this ancient yet modern method.

I’ll just close by giving the translation of that hymn as I think is is so beautiful.

Copyright 2012 Edmund Preston.

Where charity and love are, God is there.
Christ’s love has gathered us into one.
Let us rejoice and be pleased in Him.
Let us fear, and let us love the living God.
And may we love each other with a sincere heart.
Where charity and love are, God is there.
As we are gathered into one body,
Beware, lest we be divided in mind.
Let evil impulses stop, let controversy cease,
And may Christ our God be in our midst.
Where charity and love are, God is there.
And may we with the saints also,
See Thy face in glory, O Christ our God:
The joy that is immense and good,
Unto the ages through infinite ages. Amen.

 

http://www.spiritualquestions.org.uk/

Posted on 23rd August 2012Author editor18Categories Mystical experience, PoetryTags , , , , , , , , , ,  Leave a comment