“Beingness” and “doingness.”

Q: How can we relax more into “beingness” rather than “doingness”?

A: People see beingness and doingness as a duality, and that is the problem.  From the ego’s perspective, it’s either/or. However, doingness is contained within beingness.

To relax more into beingness, you just have to take a step back, get a wider perspective, and become both the witness and the doer of actions.  Both the witness and the doer are contained within beingness.  Beingness is all inclusive, not either/or or exclusive.  But to think of beingness from the point of view of the ego creates a duality.  In reality, there is no duality, and herein lies the error.

Practice this, contemplate this definition.  Have faith that this shift within your consciousness will happen.  You are responsible for the work you put into this, but not the outcome.  Realizing this in and of itself will take the wind out of the sails of the ego and put you more into the state of consciousness of beingness.

Learning this is kind of like any other skill in your life.  It seemed like it took forever for little me to learn to ride a bike, but now that little me knows how, he will probably never forget.  Realizing beingness is kind of like that.

Also, just as one person may learn something very easily, one may learn beingness easily, or it may be very difficult for another person.  It may take a long or short time.  All this is karmically determined.

But if one remembers that they are responsible for the effort put in, not the outcome, and practices humbly (remember, true humility is a sign of non-attachment, just as impatience is a characteristic of ego), it will take the stress out of learning, and the state of beingness will be reached much more quickly.

The significance of baptism.

Q: What is the significance of baptism?

A: Baptism is the acknowledgement of Jesus Christ as your savior.  This is either done by you and/or by your family and congregation on your behalf.  It puts you in the collective M-field of souls who recognize their connection to God and Jesus Christ.  This will travel with you always, through the good times and the bad.  It acts as a directive in our life to live closer to God.

When you are baptized, it is not only you who are acting on your own behalf, but the whole congregation, even the whole church. Spiritually, everyone involved is blessing you.  It is a very powerful field to be invited into and can be a very important step in one’s spiritual life.  

The collective intent of the congregation multiplies the intensity of its energy. It’s kind of like being part of a meditation group; everyone who’s ever meditated with a group knows that it’s more powerful to meditate with a group rather than by oneself (although this also has its place).  

Of course, if you are not baptized, it does not mean that you are going to Hell, but it is serious grace to be baptized.  Also, this baptism can be done for you when you are just a child and can be renewed later in life, as you make your personal commitment to God.  Consider this baptism kind of like a “booster shot.”

The nature of true evangelism.

Q: What is true evangelism?

A: True evangelism is being in the world exactly as God intended you to be.  This means “Being in the world, but not of it”; “Wearing the world like a light garment.”

What this means is to be in the world, but not be attached to your ego and its positionalities, to see yourself in others and others in you.  When you see yourself in others and others in you, your natural state of being, which is love, shines through, both to you and to others.

People don’t need to be preached to, they don’t like to be preached to, they respond better to the love that you are.  And people get this.  We often remember the kind words of a stranger, or a loved one, or a teacher.  These times stick with us.  And it’s contagious.  When someone loves you, you tend to be more loving towards others and the world, and vice versa.

To evangelize, we need to reside in our true self, which is love, to spread the word of God’s love through the world. In short, to evangelize, and share God’s love, be more loving to others, see yourself in them, and it will happen naturally.

Additional thoughts on how to get along with others while healing all involved at the same time.

If you could imagine for a moment that all beings are connected (which they are, just bring your awareness to this.) Now imagine that someone or something has offended you, has been mean or rude to you, or just has a different opinion than you that you really don’t like.

Imagine now that this person is a part of you, like your hand or foot.  Your hand or foot is hurting you, from and injury, infection, etc.  What would you do with your hand or foot?  Would you get angry at it, or try to hurt it in some way?  Obviously not, this would in turn hurt you.  

You would try and heal it.  You might bring it to a doctor to look at it or to get some kind of medicine for it.  Why do we treat people differently then, when they are part of us?

In the future, when you are upset with someone, see what it is that is hurting in them, so that you may help or at least be compassionate with them.  People in a negative state of mind are more appropriately labeled diseased.  They are living out of a negative energy field that is hurting them.  They do not deserve your anger or judgment.

Understanding them would help them be released from their negative state, while allowing you to disconnect more fully from you ego and open your heart.  In this way you are both healed when viewing someone as part of yourself.   This is one of the key steps towards enlightenment.

This approach toward people and their problems is contagious.  When you practice this patience and understanding with one person, that person will more likely practice it with another person, and so on.

Do this next time you have a conflict with someone, either outwardly or in your head.  You don’t even need to take any outward action toward this person.  Just follow the instructions as outlined above, and you will be healed.

Lifestyle tendencies of enlightened beings.

Q: Why do most people who reach enlightenment live in isolation?

A: Wouldn’t you live in isolation too if you didn’t live out of fear?  People are drawn together by the similarities in their consciousness; people hang out with like-minded people.

When someone is more identified with the watcher, though, they have less in common with most people, so there is less of a pull.  They may find themselves dwelling more in solitude, or not then.  70% of enlightened people live away from people.  So this does not mean that all enlightened people are isolated, or that just because you’re a hermit you are enlightened!  It’s just a tendency.

Q: How do they pay their bills though?
A: If you step back at it, aren’t bills like a karmic debt, in a way of speaking?  Your mortgage, your student loans, your car loan, your credit card debt, your taxes, etc., all stem from you wanting something, do they not?

Well, what happens if your karma is running out, and you don’t find yourself wanting anything?  You would probably have a lot fewer bills, right?  So in a way, most enlightened people have “downsized.”

How to eliminate stress.

Q: Why do we feel stressed?

A: We feel stressed when we know that we should be doing one thing, while partaking in another, usually out of fear.  So instead of living out of the truth that we are, we are making choices, and therefore living, out of fear.  This is felt as “stress.”

Usually we keep this fear hidden from ourselves and find justifications for our actions rather than looking at how we are reacting out of fear.  If you want to know what you fear, if you are not aware of what you are afraid of, try this exercise.  Imagine yourself living your life completely in a state of no fear.  Picture your day from beginning to end, living in no fear.  What would you do differently?  Why?  Write down what you would do differently if you had no fear, and then write down why you don’t live like this.

This exercise will help you get closer to how you are living in fear and stress.  Be patient, practice this every day, especially when you feel stress.

At first, your ego will run in circles out of fear.  It will justify its fearful actions rather than let you observe them.  This is normal.  Practice watching your ego’s rationalizations.

Eventually you will feel what it is like to live with no fear, so that you can identify how you are living in fear and watch your fear instead of living out of it.  This will bring you peace and eliminate stress.

On our relationship with our own higher self.

Q: How come I sometimes feel very close to you, and other times I feel totally distant?

A: All things come and go.  Communication comes and goes as well.  Don’t be attached to anything, let life flow through you.

People think that all things progress in a straight line, which they do tend to do in the material world.  But in the non-material realms, things take place in their own time.  You can set your intent, or do the best to set your intent, which is the only thing you can really do.  What happens is up to God.  Another way to put it is to say that you are responsible for the effort you put into things, but not the result.  Another saying is “Let go, and let God.”

Be as clear cut and consistent on your relationship to me, and leave the rest to God.  Be at peace with this.  Communication comes and goes just as it does in the material world; you haven’t talked to a certain friend for a long time, then one day you pick up the phone and call (or text), and the next thing you know you’re having lunch together.

Your relationship with your higher self is like this.  Just set your intention to communicate with your higher self, and sooner or later it will happen.

The most effective way to pray for others.

Q: What is the most effective way to pray for others who are sick or suffering?

A: The most effective way to pray for another person is to picture yourself in their shoes, in their position. Really try to connect with them (considering you’re already connected, all you have to do is open up your heart and intuition to them, and let them in) and feel what they would want in the specific situation.

Open your heart and thank God for giving them what you feel they need in this situation. Keep your focus on this prayer for as long as you want.

This is the most effective way to pray for another person or animal.  It is best both for you and the other person/animal.  It breaks down ego barriers between two people, allowing love to flow from one to the other and back, and helps to increase love in the world.  This is the true purpose of prayer.

The significance of our dreams and what we can learn from them.

Q: What is the significance of dreams?

There are two types of dreams.  In the first, during the day, a person goes about their daily life, not in the moment, mostly in the dream state of some degree of identification with their ego.  

Therefore, at night, their subconscious reprocesses what happened during the day.  The reason why it can be sometimes so crazy is because in dreams, ideas, people, and situations are interchangeable with other symbols for them.  So, to our rational mind, they don’t make sense.

To understand this dream, take a step back and get the overall feeling of the dream while using your intuition to sense what the dream meant.  Oftentimes, this dream is a reprocessing/repackaging of some daily event.

Other dreams occur when there is some stressful event taking place in our life that we do not want to face. Like I said before, dreams are representative.  They take place with a language of symbols.  In these dreams, you can often intuit what the dream is about.  Once you intuit what the dream is about, ask yourself, honestly, what is it about a given situation that you do not want to face, or admit, and why?  Then the symbols will make sense, and they will help you bring into consciousness things that you have been repressing.

In these ways, dreams can help you decrease your stress and get unstuck in certain life situations.

What is “happiness”?

Q: What is “happiness”?

A: First of all, I think it’s very important to distinguish the two states, or forms, of happiness. That is, what happiness is according to the ego and what true, eternal happiness is.

Happiness, according to the ego, is an imagined or perceived state of security.  This can come in the form of accumulation of wealth, property, or power over others.  Of course, since by definition the ego is insecure and not happy, it has to accumulate more and more in order to keep this temporary state of happiness, more like a fix, going.

Ironically, this happiness the ego feels when accumulating something is actually when the ego feels like it has conquered something, and it rests, or stops briefly, in its incessant quest to accumulate.  Therefore, the happiness is noticed when the ego is temporarily inactive. Very ironic.

Eternal happiness is what happens when what you want, and what is happening, match.  It’s when there’s a lack of resistance to what is.  Happiness happens in proportion to the amount of identification you have with your witness or higher self, rather than your egoic imaginary image.  It’s really state of flowing; whatever is happening is not resisted.