Daniel Day 23 - Breakthru

Why God?

Do you ask this question?

Earlier today I quoted:

• God is the light in which I see.
• My ego has endless prescriptions for avoiding catastrophic outcomes.

So....I am on a Daniel Fast. My workplace is having big labor issues (I just learned this morning that they are huge). I fantasize about being highly spiritual and above labor/management conflicts. The economy could scare me; fearing a lack of money. I fantasize that I will lose my job or my savings and be poor...but not have to keep working at this difficult place.

God, how do these pieces fit together?

Daniel served in a corrupt foreign oligarchy; but he did not defile himself. He loved and served God, even in such a violent place. Daniel was a peaceful vegan in a world of violent meat eaters. Daniel was given knowledge of the Book of Truth.

I am finding I have knowledge of the Book of Truth. Knowledge of the Book of Truth is a revelation in Mind connectivity: I see the pattern. It is about developing my inner strength and living according to Truth, no matter what the outer world looks like. It hit home just a few minutes ago: Disaster is what my ego does; but I have sought God to be my light, my source. I live hand to mouth just like "Peace Pilgrim." I'm totally reliant on God, not on a savings account. No one on earth is really reliant on anything but SOURCE. I won't lose my job. I'll have to stay here and help this company work through its difficulties by being a peaceful vegan in a meat eater world. My ego worries about economies and makes endless prescriptions for self defense. Allowing God to be my light, I know I just have to do what is put in front of me today; BUT WITH MY WHOLE HEART. God is the light in which I see: just fulfill my purpose of teaching peace. Where is the best place to teach peace but in the middle of a conflict? Who is not in the middle of a conflict?

The person on a spiritual fast is sometimes asked for more; to meet greater challenges. My ego would like to somehow escape responsibility and difficulty and pretend to live on higher spiritual ground. After all, don't spiritual people evolve into teaching masters and not soil themselves with stressful capitalism? Living in the light of God, I know I have to meet and learn to read The Book of Truth; at my utmost in each challenge. I am helping a bunch of selfish meat eaters save their company because I am Daniel and this is where God wants me to work.

At the start of this fast, I listed my intentions. Being granted the Book of Truth was one of them. The Book of Truth is not written in words; but intuition and knowing. Everyday, I can, if mindful, read a little more of the Book.

Daniel Day 23

• God is the light in which I see.
• Be determined to remember.
• The ego has endless prescriptions for avoiding catastrophic outcomes.

It has been on my mind a lot the past few days how busy people are. Few people have time for friendships because they are so busy. If you talk to them, they list off all these obligations that seem mandatory. Some people say "I'm real busy" as a matter of ego bolstering, or (heaven forbid) defense. What do you say when you see their big wall of obligations; knowing it is form not content but it effectively keeps you out? I walk away sad because I can’t reach my friend. Busyness is a type of attack. We don't mention the effect of our own choices and the fact that the content of our lives is something that we choose.

Voluntary simplicity has a lot to do with making time for nothing and learning to be at peace with nothing. My semi-eremitical life is centered on free time. I really don’t know any people in my face-to-face world who are intent on allowing free time. I spend a good deal of the time meditating. My meditation has become peaceful, just sitting with the light and contemplating its presence. I am free from the enlightenment rat race and happy to just be able to sit. In my nothingness, I am viewed or judged as selfish, or as not benefitting society. I just bear the guilt and see others as children of God in the light with me.

People are victims of busyness; probably ignorant of how to break the addiction. Fear abounds if you dare to just drop something. Leaving empty space is impossible for most. Those of us who make that attempt feel guilty for our freedom. People ask me what is going on for me and I have nothing to say. Anything that goes on is spiritual; and can’t be condensed to a sound bite. My outer life is just a store front for my inner life. My exterior life tells me what content I have picked for that day. I am determined to remember God.

In my fear of catastrophic outcomes, I sit tight and open my mind to the idea that God is my source and not this ego world. God is the light in which I see; and I am determined to remember.

The form of my life: I get up at 3 in the morning. I spend until 4:30 in spiritual study and meditation. I ride the exercise bike and lift weights until 5:30. I change clothes, gather my water, and drive the 1.5 miles to work; arriving before 6. I work until 11:30 and then go home for lunch. I work until 3. Then I come home to an evening of solitude: exercise, shower, spiritual study, meditation and make juice for the morning. I go to bed about 8:30. The content of this activity is prayer. I am determined to remember God.

Last evening and again this morning, I had the grace to see the light in my meditation. I had the grace to just watch it and not demand enlightenment of it.

Learn to be satisfied drinking pure water and you will feel simplicity in your gut; full satisfaction.

Daniel Day 22

• Health is nothing more than united purpose. If the body is brought under the purpose of the mind, it becomes whole because the mind's purpose is one...apart from the mind, the body has no purpose at all.
• The power of wholeness is extension. Do not arrest your thought in this world, and you will open your mind to creation in God.

Maybe more later. I am at peace.

Daniel Day 21 - Vows

• ...the ego's temple thus becomes the temple of the Holy Spirit, where devotion to Him replaces devotion to the ego. In this sense the body does become a temple to God; His Voice abides in it by directing the use to which it is put.

The past week or so, I have had the distinct feeling that my life is not my own. My war against The Church suddenly ended, leaving me wondering what it was all about. I wondered if my anger was a strange sickness suddenly healed, or a demon suddenly cast out. Further, I spent my day Saturday at a nearby monastery (actually, I live just down the street). I have never really liked that place, but yesterday, I was listening happily to talks by the sisters and appreciating the new people I met.

I spent nearly four years of my life in formation with a Benedictine community (different than this one near my house). However, the day before I was to make my vow, I found my life suddenly upended as I was asked to leave. It was strange, but I am sure it was an intervention of the Holy Spirit, for the Spirit's purposes. But suddenly, all that Benedictine teaching was meaningless as I put my life back together out here in the world. I knew I was a monk; having no interest in family life and wanting to spend all my time on contemplative prayer. But, I had no connection to being a Benedictine in my solitary life.

One thing, however, that always fascinated me was Benedict's 12 steps of humility. There is also Guigo's ladder for monks, with 12 rungs. I always saw ways to connect these to the 12 Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous. Just as Benedict saw the entire universe in a single ray of light and a Buddhist might see it in an apple; I see it in 12 steps. 12 steps to where? Conscious contact with a Power Greater Than Myself.

In the monastery, as you approach making your vows, they give you a special piece of paper and you hand write out the vows. I wrote out my intention to remain faithful to the Benedictine vows of obedience, stability and conversatio. As I wrote these out, I felt God standing over my shoulder and I knew He was taking them seriously from that moment. Early in the morning before I was told to leave the monastery, I had an intuition that such a thing could happen. I told God that I would be faithful to the vows whether I carried them out in the monastery or out of it.

I have kept them in a strange way. Obedience is to the Spirit's leading, to shamelessly follow Jesus, even when it seemed away from what I had been taught by authorities. Stability to contemplation, ongoing consistency in silent meditation and the humble worship that implies. Conversatio (conversion of morals) is the ongoing practice of taking my ego thought inventory and offering it to the healing light of Jesus.

On Saturday, as I listened to talks by the sisters, it began to dawn on me that maybe they could help me figure out why God made me a Benedictine. I'm not ever going to be a nun; but for some reason, I went completely through a Benedictine formation program. The Spirit does not waste things. So why this?

I don't know; maybe though I have a way to learn.

Daniel Day 19

• You who are beloved of God are wholly blessed.
• You do not understand this because you who are GOD'S OWN TREASURE do not regard yourself as valuable.

I have to stop, pause and consider the fact: I am beloved of God. The idea is not instinctive to me. The truth is the opposite of everything I thought about myself for many years. I find I am capable of being open to the idea. I am willing to lay down everything else and accept this idea. I am also willing to extend the idea to others; everyone is beloved of God and wholly blessed. What a simple way to live.

Daniel Day 18

• You cannot make yourself unworthy because YOU ARE THE TREASURE OF GOD, and what He values is valuable...because its value lies in God's sharing Himself with it and establishing its value forever.
• Let us glorify Him Whom the world denies.

Yesterday, I made it until lunch time on water only. Then last night, as I was having a bite to eat, I realized that I was having the same old thought, "I didn't eat this morning so I can over-eat now." I recognized the thought. I also realized that had I been playing free cell on the computer at the time I was eating, I would have been powerless over that thought and gone on to obey it: over-eating (even Daniel foods) and then experiencing guilt and feeling shame. If you are trying to quit anything (drinking, drugs, sex, coffee, TV, smoking, etc.), this thinking is how you live your life.

Here is what I have been doing, how I have been living: I cheat the present by basing it on past or future gluttony or presumed goodness. It becomes time for contemplation: living according to this thought is not living according to Holy Spirit's thinking. The thought goes very deep into every area of my life. Praying for healing of this thought, for everyone, brings freedom from bondage for us all. Goodness is only in the now. Captivity is to say, "I can be bad now (over-eat) because I am going to be good later." Being good later almost never happens. Even if you are good later, you paid a price in shame no matter what.

Fasting is renouncing the world: worldly programming that it is ok to cheat the present (want some shame-producing-thing of the world) because you can make it up later. Fasting is finding the pearl of great price: Fasting removes the soil from the knowledge of God's presence within (my true heart) and helps me to want that more than any unhappiness. Fasting brings about the return of the prodigal: Fasting lifts our head from the pig food and causes us to want to come home to our Father; and we discover how much he loves us, giving us pure food.

God wants us to be free and stand in His light. All I have to do is step out of the shadow now, not later. "YOU ARE THE TREASURE OF GOD." Let this thought sink in. You will see that the way you treat yourself and others completely changes; especially since "they" (you know, those people you can't stand) are also the treasure of God.

My life is about content, not form. The rules of fasting which I follow are a form. Forms don't matter. Within the form, I find content. Content does matter. It is the only thing that matters. My thoughts bring me to heaven or keep me out. Forms come in many forms: illness, aging, athletics, career, busyness, debt, addiction, religion, etc. They all have content. Spirituality is living in the content not the form. Contemplation is discovering the content.

Fasting is not difficult if you do it right: no suffering involved.

Here is an interesting link: http://worldpeacediet.org/images/WorldPeaceDiet07.pdf

Daniel Day 17 - Water?

From ACIM:

• Let the Love of God shine upon you by your acceptance of me (Jesus).
• When you unite with me (Jesus) you are uniting without the ego...Our union is therefore the way to renounce the ego in you.
• Would you know the Will of God for you? Ask it of me (Jesus) and you will find it...
• Ours is simply the journey back to God who is our home. Whenever fear intrudes...it is because the ego has attempted to join...sensing defeat and angered by it, the ego regards itself as rejected and becomes retaliative.
• Never accord the ego the power to interfere with the journey...reach beyond all attempts of the ego to hold you back...Reach therefore for my (Jesus') hand because you want to transcend the ego.

Three ideas on my mind today: how union with God is very quiet; realizing the deeper depth of surrender to Jesus I desire; how the thought of drinking only water for the morning at work scares me, but it is an ego fear and mirrors our money fears.

Since beginning the Daniel Fast, I reduced my caffeine intake to green tea in the morning. Also, I have been eating only raw food without preservatives, organic as much as possible, no sugar or leaven. These things have helped my emotions (ego) to quiet down. At first, the idea of giving up coffee made me fear being dull. Now, the state of peace in which I currently am, is quiet, wordless, emotionless, dull. My ego really hates residing in peace. When I am in peace, I know I have joined with Jesus because peace is what Jesus gives. It is hard for me to understand that the lack of strong emotion is peace and union with God. I have spent so many years searching for divine ecstasy; when Jesus' peace is simple and quiet.

My ego has spent years accusing Jesus of not loving me because I can't really sense Jesus emotionally. I realize how much of the ego's desires I have yet to release and how much I want Jesus to guide my life. All my fear and hatred and dissatisfaction and doubt stem from the ego, not the Voice of God. I want Jesus to guide my thinking. When Jesus is guiding my thinking, good decisions and peace are the natural course of things. Uniting myself with Jesus means we operate as one; with no discernable difference. This means my ego cannot detect Jesus. The ego is transcended, yet angry because it received no special satisfaction from God. People are continuously defeated by backward thinking which says that true alliance with Christ means a special relationship with God.

I am on a Daniel Fast, which means water and vegetables. For this morning, I wanted to drink only water because it would help me to remember to pray. The idea scares me; but I think it is my ego that is scared. As I drink only water and pray, ego is transcended. My focus is beyond the ego. That is the secret of ACIM "forgiveness;" look beyond what the ego is seeing and saying. Beyond the ego, present in every person, is Christ, the divine presence, God. Boy, do I want to know that.

This morning, we had thunderstorms. I sat at my table, listening. Some rain started quite suddenly and then it stopped extremely suddenly, leaving silence instead. Peace is very silent. The talent to tolerate silence can be cultivated through the spiritual practice of renunciation and simplicity.