Exposing the Ego ~ Some Reading Snippets

[Deb]

Yesterday I bloggeth not. It was "running around the countryside doing artsy stuff" Day. Schlepping painted furniture day. On days like that, I wonder why I chose such a medium as furniture and mirrors and lamps ... heavy, ungainly, unwieldy stuff ... why didn't I choose postcards to paint? Or Styrofoam? Or even canvas? I'll stick to blogging about art on my art-blog, however, and get back to ego-exposing here ...

As always, I'm reading my way through a few books at a time, and it's uncanny how they're all saying the same thing ... love that! Confirmations and reinforcements abound! OR, is it just a matter of seeing on the outside what I'm coming to see on the inside...? I do believe, and am experiencing, that we get the world that we expect. If I expect rejection, I get it. If I expect joy, I get it. If I don't like what I've chosen, I get to choose again.

That seems to be one of the most profound messages in life: I AM NOT STUCK -- I CAN CHOOSE AGAIN!

So, here are some snippets that have jumped out at me lately, causing my heart to sing, and my mind to spin:

~ Love is what we're born with -- fear is what we learn ...

~ The spiritual journey is the unlearning of fear, and the return to love...

~ Fear, when expressed, shows up as anger, abuse, disease, pain, greed, addiction, selfishness, obsession, corruption, violence and war ...

~ Love is our essence, for we are made in the image and likeness of God. Love cannot be destroyed, but can be so well-hidden, that we are not aware of it, in ourselves, or in others ...

~ The transformation of the world does not change the world itself ... but changes our perception of it ... then we shall see it as a place of love, gentleness, hope, wonder and joy... and what we see, we receive ...

~ A miracle is a shift in perception ... exchanging our limited/faulty perception for God's omnipotent/true perception ...

~ Fear permeates the world ... free-floating anxiety ... fear of failure, of success, of relationships, of lack of relationships, of dying young, of growing old, of disease, of poverty, of lack, of pain, of numbness, of even joy ... we fear life more than we fear death ...

~ There is no time, no place, no state wherein God is absent ...

~ Every moment of every day, inevery situation, and with every person I encounter, I am offered the radical choice to react with fear (in one of its many manifestations, including to deny fear itself!), or to respond with love ... fear keeps me stuck, love sets me (and the other one) free ...

~ It's universally accepted that infants need love, or they will die from the lack of it ... at what point do humans cease to need love ... at what point are they no longer beloved children of God, desperate for love ...? Never. Why do we go to extreme lengths to rescue abused children, but then go to just as extreme a length to punish the same children, once they grow up and abuse in turn ..? Why would compassion cease to be a response..? Here too, we have a choice to react with fear, or to respond with love ...

- We all need love as much as we need oxygen ...

~ Our collective fear creates a mass-hallucination ... we believe in that which is not real ... only love is real ... the rest is manufactured by our egos, and is not real ...

~ The shift from fear to love is the only miracle ... how that manifests in the material world will be variant ...

~ Love in my mind creates love in my life ... this is Heaven.
Fear in my mind creates fear in my life ... this is hell.

~ My fearful self is an impostor ... it's not real ... and yet it will seem to be real, and will run the show, to the degree that I believe in it, heed it, and thus give it "power." The spiritual journey is my awakening from the pretense to the Real... from pain to peace ...

~ Returning to love isn't the end of the adventure, but the beginning ... awakening from the ego-induced nightmare, into the Spirit-based life. It's a return to who I really am. And thus invite others to do the same. It's why I'm here. It's why you're here.

Shalom, Dena