3 Reminders to Advance the Soul

When I first started to expand my thoughts

Reminders to advance the soul, Shasa, January 22, 2013

Somewhere it is writ that life is not about the number of breaths we take but those that take our breath away. ^1

Well, how often do we allow for that to happen? Why is normal, proper, respectable so overrated? What are we afraid of?

How about I allow everyone to live their life on their terms as they also do? ^2

When can we all agree that our basic needs are met and that we don't have to be afraid? Afraid of being alone. Afraid of not having enough to be happy. Afraid that our actions, inactions and thoughts will win us hell-fire in the hereafter. Afraid that we don't amount to much. Afraid of not being heard. Afraid of being heard by the wrong people. Afraid of being loved, or hated.

Enough! There's nothing to fear but fear itself. Just as we lived in the darkness, we can learn to live in the sun. ^3

It is only on Earth that we have forgotten that all beings have the power to heal themselves. ^4 And that we have the right to enjoy life. That the divine plan is just that. That the powerful play goes on and we may contribute a verse. ^5

Only love can conquer. Although faith is also an abused word, in its true sense it is a powerful thing. For it can move mountains and pull down mighty oak trees. ^6 Faith not in a maker as a being above and beyond life, but rather faith in His Divine Plan that somewhere in all this madness, there is still a right working towards Light. Faith that however many tribulations we face, and how seemingly bleak the situation is, it is man's destiny to triumph over inconscience, inertia, darkness and fear.

Man! Man! Man! Why don't we choose our highest right instead of our darkest wrong? ^7 Why do we forget so easily to look at life through our innocent eyes? The ones we came into this world with!

Shock and inaction and loss of faith are NOT the proper responses to evil. For it comes in many guises and we must respond to in on many different fronts.

It is most inimical to a liberated way of living and has to be fought at the personal level. Fear, ignorance and inaction form the conditions for the manifestation of evil. Fear and ignorance can be helped by a responsible and vigilant environment. One whose people can accept the inherent goodness in all, who do not get carried away with their mass fear and impose over-harsh and non corrective punishment.

For does not he who stumbles, stumble as a caution to those that follow and as a reminder that those who went ahead sought not to remove the stone? ^8 This externalization of a source of evil was a damned thing to do, for it breeds fear and renders identification with and responsibility for the sinner impossible.

What do you know about the sum of a body's life? ^9 Ours is not to judge and die, ours is but to live, not ponder why. ^10

As the role of preventive maintenance dictates, we must root out fear and ignorance in the possible sinner just as we must inaction from ourselves as individuals and as a society.

We must respect the paths our souls chose before this journey was undertaken, and allow the creator to express diversity in all its forms.

But we must not forget that a movement is accomplished in six stages and the seventh brings return. The seven is the number of the young light. It forms when darkness is increased by one. ^11

A wise woman once told me it was better to follow a dead saint than a living one ^12. In turn, I wish to say, do not subscribe to an idea that can easily be used to control and subjugate man. Instead, believe in something that liberates and elevates you.

The creator / creatrix chose a life for us devoid of proof, not to punish us for following the wrong idea, rather to see how we could develop them, apply them and evolve from them. So is it better I follow a right rule and devolve, or follow a rule that's not in vogue (avant-garde) and progress?

As the Principals of Organized Crime would have you believe, this life is transient and eternal damnation lies for those who don't believe what they are told to.

Instead, wouldn't a progressive learning over many lifetimes with a goal of divinity / perfection / bliss be a healthier idea to follow? A world where mistakes are allowed if they are not repeated with brash arrogance.

"Be quiet, follow my rules and you will be rewarded with material wealth forever". How can a true cosmic intelligence ever conceive a limited idea like that?

Are there no greater things a man can aspire for? Knowledge, freedom, creativity, communion and bliss!

So remember, if God is omnipresent, he must be in all of us. If Satan would not bow to Adam for he sensed his lowest low, remember that God's argument was that he could not see or fathom that latent divine spark in man.

Uncover the crud, cling not to the weeds at river's bottom and delight, for it only wishes to lift us free. ^13

Footnotes:
1 - George Carlin
2 - Richard Bach in the book Illusions
3 - Reminiscent of the second line of my first poem
4 - Prot in the movie K-PAX
5 - Walt Whitman in the poem O Me! O Life! (being quoted in Dead Poets Society)
6 - the song "faith can move a mountain"
7 - Richard Bach in the book Curious Lives (preface)
8 - Kahlil Gibran in the book The Prophet
9 - Sara Brady in the movie Inherit the wind
10 - inspired by Tennyson's poem Charge of the Light Brigade
11 - Syd Barrett, the song Chapter 24 (Pink Floyd's Piper at the Gates of Dawn)
12 - My sister
13 - Richard Bach in the book Illusions (preface parable)