Timothy Conway will be a retreat leader at the Awakening Together Satsang Retreat in Santa Barbara from September 12-14, 2014. He will also lead a Satsang at the ‘Soak in the Beauty’ retreat at the same location from September 14-18, 2014. In preparation for the retreat, I am sharing a series of questions answered by Timothy. To read the full series, click here.

And now, here is today’s question:

Q: I feel emptiness, but it feels like a dead, disconnected, nonblissful, meaningless emptiness.

Classic self-enquiry, again, would have one enquire “Who recognizes this emptiness as such?” Alternatively, the individual is invited to explore the precise nature of this dead emptiness—or any bodymind state of suffering or dis-ease (e.g., anger, fear). It is Guest—You are non-separate Host. What are its dynamics? How, precisely, does it manifest for each of the senses and the emotions? How, specifically, is it that the Infinite Being-Awareness-Bliss has packaged ItSelf in such an interesting masquerade? One explores the dead emptiness with that intense curiosity and “lurking suspicion” that it is really an opaque window onto the Divine Reality. So one makes this dead emptiness the object of an informal, ongoing mindfulness or witnessing meditation and, through the clarifying and dissolving power of Awareness, one witnesses it unravel and reveal itself as the Divine temporarily appearing in phenomenal form. As Advaita Vedanta says, whatever is, is Brahman. There’s no other Reality than this. When Awareness focuses on any object/state, it will eventually dissolve it, like sunlight melts a hard solid ice cube into water then into vapor. Awareness ultimately dissolves everything back into pure Aliveness-energy.

It helps here to know that such “dead emptiness” states of feeling hapless, helpless and hopeless are an almost standard crisis (Self-intended!) to render the “me-dream” so intolerable that one ceases to invest or cathect any more energy in “normal” living and instead awakens to Vastness. In other words, when the dream becomes stultifyingly banal or painfully nightmarish, there’s motive to wake up altogether from dreaming. The me-syndrome becomes so “insufferable” that one melts, transcends or simply pulls back from or snaps out of it by resuming one’s real Identity.

Timothy Conway will be a retreat leader at the Awakening Together Retreats held in Santa Barbara, California this September. In preparation for the retreats, this is the second in a series of questions answered by Timothy.

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Q: Why are we here in the first place?

This, along with many other similar “why” questions, can, of course, be “answered”—e.g., “to love and serve and to enjoy the adventure of being the Formless playing the dance of Form.” Yet “why” is more usefully re-directed to How is it that there is an arising sense of self and world at all?

A related “why”-question is “Why did the Divine Self dream up this painful illusory world and self-sense?” This, too, can be therapeutically shifted to “Precisely how is it that I identify with and problematize any painful situations and self-sense?”

Q: “So, ‘how’ come there is suffering?”

One can always point the questioner back to classic Advaitin or Buddhist self-enquiry, “Who or What is aware of ‘suffering’?” The knowing Awareness, after all, must be quite different in kind from its object. This Changeless Principle Right Here recognizes various changing emotional, mental, psychic and physical states like suffering, ennui, loss, desire. The Changeless Awareness is not part of or tied to those changeful aspects of experience. If the person further responds, “well it feels like my suffering is changelessly part of my life,” one can reply, “where is it, then, in deep, dreamless sleep?” as evidence that suffering comes and goes and is not always, changelessly part of one-self.

But it is also therapeutically useful to sometimes speak on a more conventional, psychological level by distinguishing between intensity, pain, and suffering. Basically, any form of physical or emotional pain is a form of intense energy that one does not know how to process psycho-physiologically. There is an ancient, evolutionary programming within different species to perceive and judge certain intense stimuli: “Owww! Painful!” Without this discrimination, most animal species never would have survived, lacking incentive to run away from predators chomping on one’s limbs. So pain is a useful alarm signal. Suffering comes in with neurotically self-obsessing thoughts like “Why is God always doing this to me?” or “I must have lots of really bad karma to have this happen to me.”

One can drop the “suffering” of certain painful situations by letting go inner judgments, resentments, regrets, expectations and the sense of being the hapless target-entity afflicted by cruel outside forces, and instead simply notice pain, along with intelligently making any changes needed (e.g., pulling the hand away from the fire or moving beyond a chronically abusive relationship). This shift from conflicted suffering to fully experiencing pain is well-known to many professionals working in pain-management clinics, where the emergent wisdom has been to teach clients how to meditatively be-the-pain. Studies indicate that many people’s felt-sense of even physical pain actually diminishes considerably, by up to 80%, by focusing upon pain’s raw sensations and not getting entangled in self-obsessing thoughts about the pain and its relation to “me.”

Marathon runners, swimmers, cyclers, weight-lifters et al. routinely take on extremely painful situations while training. Their muscles and entire physiology painfully “scream” as these athletes repeatedly go beyond their normal felt-sense of physical and mental limits, stretching into greater excellence. Most persons suddenly placed into this stressful situation of athletic training would complain of being put into hell. But athletes seek out this situation—they know they can “become the pain” and realize it as passionately-intense energy. It’s not just that the body-mind starts releasing endorphins and other natural pain-managing chemistry. No, these aware athletes often feel that they’ve been released into nondual aliveness, pure intensity—no more subject of experience, object of experience or dualistic process of experiencing. Just pure experiencing.

This is, notably, one of the very definitions of Brahman in [the classic nondually-oriented Hindu medieval text] Yoga Vâsishtha.

Likewise, we “become one with” any painful physical or emotional situation upon losing the dualistic sense of subject and object and realizing we are really this Formless Awareness nondually being various forms of intensity. This is Shiva experiencing ItSelf as Shakti, Awareness experiencing ItSelf as the sacred world of intense energy.

www.enlightened-spirituality.org

Timothy Conway will be a retreat leader at both the Awakening Together Satsang Retreat and the ‘Soak in the Beauty’ Retreat this September. Over the next several days I will post questions from seekers along with Timothy’s answers. The first question and answer is posted below.

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Q: I cannot seem to find, know or perceive the Self or Awareness. I get a vague sense of the Self, but I can’t seem to bring it clearly into focus.

An oft-heard complaint. The Self is not an object to be rendered “clearer” or “more focused.” The clarity of focus is in realizing that one’s true nature as Awareness is not any kind of object, thing or entity at all. Awareness need only rest or abide as ItSelf, sheer Isness-Aliveness-Sentience-Intelligence, the basic roomy Capacity for experience. Invisible and imperceptible, Awareness need not go in search of ItSelf or try to make an object out of ItSelf, just as a fingertip is not “designed” to touch itself and will only convolute or dislocate itself in trying to do so. If you want to perceive the Self [objectively], behold the world and all its beautiful beings—Divine Forms of the Formless.

Q: What basic attitude should be maintained?

Just be capacious no-thingness, with a simple, keen curiosity or affectionate amusement over Who/What am I? And what the hell/heaven is going on here? What is the true nature of this arising pain or pleasure, this discomfort or comfort, this confusion or clarity? What is the real nature or underlying reality of this “me”-subject and “my” objects of experience?

In general, one enquires “What is this? What is this particular saliently-arising state (fear, lust, anger, shame, envy, euphoria, pride, numbness, tightness, nervousness, body sensations, thoughts, memories, images, psychic impulses…)? And for Whom does it arise?”

Awareness being the only Reality, when Awareness investigates Its own emanations-productions, It deconstructs them and knows neti, neti, “I’m not this, not this.” The Buddha often put it, “this [whatever aggregate or state] is not mine; this I am not; this is not my self.” [N’etam mama, n’eso ‘ham ‘asmi, na meso atta.] This is Buddhist mindfulness, Hindu witnessing, Christian-Sufi watchfulness. No need to get heavy or obsessive with it. There’s nothing to “do” and nobody to “become.”

Just be, just remain as you are, in the relaxed, “natural state,” lucidly dreaming the life-dream, freely noticing-enjoying the basic fact of Awareness and Its objects. And plainly know that You are both this Formless Awareness and these “Form-full” objects. Thus, you can be fullyengaged while freely unengaged, compassionately involved while transcendentally uninvolved.

www.enlightened-spirituality.org

Question for Liz from a reader:

“I read somewhere in your story, or a blog post, that at some point in your journey with the Course, you experienced heavy ego “rebounding.” I am 1/3 through the workbook. I find there’s strong correlations for me between a day or few days of inner peace, much less ego chatter, etc, followed by very persistent, loud, insistent(!) ego noise and demands. Some mornings after a previous day of consistent meditation are particularly noisy. How did you deal with ego rebounding, and what do you recommend for those periods when my ego’s voice, and its resistance to any of my meditative work, is strong?” – M

Liz’s Answer:

Yes, you have described the ego’s rebounding very well. This is the process. You experience peace or an insight and as soon as you even so much as glance (usually unconsciously) in the ego’s direction it does whatever it needs to do to hold your attention. And it’s usually not something nice! This will go on as long as the ego still seems to have something you want and/or you are afraid of God (True Being).

After long, futile struggle I eventually learned to just accept the rebound. I accepted that it was happening because I still believed on some level that the ego had value and/or was “safer” than Truth. I accepted that I was in a long process of undoing that belief. Accepting the process and where I was in the process did not undo all of my discomfort but it did lessen it considerably.

On those days when the ego was particularly raucous and I couldn’t meditate I just accepted that, too. I made the attempt and tried to just be with the resistance, observing it and letting it go. But if it was too uncomfortable I would just go do something else. Throughout the day I would turn my mind inward to Truth whenever I remembered. And if I couldn’t feel It I would remind myself that it was still there. The sun still shines even if, from my point of view on earth, the clouds seem to obscure it for a time.

And I’ve learned that ego episodes always pass. This was something that I would remember in the midst of them, too.

Kabir, 1440 – 1518,
Mystic poet and saint from India

#1

Are you looking for me?
I am in the next seat.
My shoulder is against yours.
You will not find me in the stupas, not in Indian shrine rooms,
nor in synagogues, nor in cathedrals;
not in masses, nor kirtans,
not in legs winding around your own neck,
nor in eating nothing but vegetables.

When you really look for me, you will see me instantly —
you will find me in the tiniest house of time.

Student, tell me, what is God?
He is the breath inside the breath.

~ Kabir

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#2

Friend, hope for the guest while you are alive.
Jump into experience while you are alive!
Think…and think…while you are alive.
What you call ‘salvation’ belongs to the time before death.

If you don’t break your ropes while you’re alive,
do you think
ghosts will do it after?

The idea that the soul will join with the ecstatic
Just because the body is rotten -
that is all fantasy.
What is found now is found then.
If you find nothing now,
you will simply end up with an apartment in the City of Death.
If you make love with the divine now,
in the next life you will have the face of satisfied desire.

So plunge into the truth,
find out who the Teacher is,
Believe in the Great Sound!

When the guest is being searched for,
it is the intensity of the longing for the Guest that does all the work.
Look at me, and you will see a slave of that intensity.

 ~ Kabir

Adapted from “The Human Gospel of Ramana Maharshi” by John Troy
Told by V. Ganesan, grand-nephew of Ramana Maharshi

Masthan Swami was a staunch Muslim. His parents observed all religious codes, rituals, and disciplines rigorously, and brought him up in the same manner. Even as a child of eight years, he would enter into Samadhi (a state of repose and silence) without knowing what it was. He had the natural ability to be detached from people and things from childhood. This remarkable devotee followed all the Islamic injunctions and was very much devoted to Allah and Prophet Mohammed.

In 1914, Masthan Swami was living in a village forty miles away from Tiruvannamalai and from where Desurammal hailed. Being two of the only people in that village who shared a similar spiritual ―madness, the two became friends. One day she told him, ―Masthan Swami, you must meet my guru. She then brought him to Virupaksha cave to Ramana Maharshi.

After this staunch and devoted follower of Islam came to see Bhagavan at the cave, this is what he recounted: ―Ramana Maharshi was seated like a rock; his unswerving gaze was filled with grace, compassion, and steady wisdom. I stood by his side. After giving me a look, the gate of my Heart opened, and I was also established in that state in the very first encounter. Just one look from Bhagavan and I stood like that for eight hours, absolutely without fatigue, and filled with total absorption and peace.

When he returned to his village, Masthan Swami experienced some conflict within himself. Until then his Master had been Prophet Mohammed. Though Allah was God, and Prophet Mohammed was his guru, here was a living guru, Ramana Maharshi.

“Am I disloyal to my other guru, Mohammed, who is no more?” he wondered.

This was his conflict—he was filled with Bhagavan‘s presence, but as he was brought up in the Islamic tradition he had this feeling, “Am I brushing aside my Master Mohammed because he is no more in the body?” Fortunately he was bold enough to go to Ramana Maharshi and confess, “Bhagavan, this is my problem. Please help me.”

Ramana Maharshi looked at him for sometime because Bhagavan was never interested in the question. Bhagavan was always more interested in the questioner. He looked at Masthan Swami for a full fifteen minutes, showering all his grace and replied, “Do you take this body to be Bhagavan? Do you think the Prophet is dead? Then is Buddha dead? Is Jesus Christ dead? Is Adi Shankara dead? Are they not guiding, hundreds of thousands of people even today? Are they not living in the Heart? A living guru means the one living in one‘s Heart as a guru. A living guru does not mean somebody living in a body at a given historical time, and at a given geographical space. The guru ever lives in your Heart. Heart is Allah, Heart is Mohammad, Heart is Jesus Christ, Heart is Buddha, and Heart is Bhagavan. Live in the Heart as the Heart by diving into the silent Heart.”

These words were recounted to me by Viswanatha Swami. I could not grasp them immediately, so I requested Viswanatha Swami, “Please explain it so that I can understand.” He said, “The guru is timeless. To talk of the guru in time, you bring in death, birth, living, all this. There is no outer guru and inner guru. There is the guru principle, which is the Heart of every one of us.”

I said, “Swami, how do you say this?”

He replied, “A devotee once came from Lahore. Tiruvannamalai and Lahore are more than one thousand miles apart. In the 1920s and 1930s, travel was almost impossible in India. He could stay for a month or so. But when he was to leave he wept before Bhagavan, ‘How can I leave you and go, Bhagavan?’

“Bhagavan asked, ‘Where are you going? Can you go away from Bhagavan? Bhagavan is always with you. Bhagavan is in you. In fact you yourself are Bhagavan.’

“It is the same state of I am in each of us; the living Master is always in the Heart as still awareness. This awareness that is in you and you in it, in me and in every one of us, that is Arunachala Ramana, God, Self, Heart, Jesus, Buddha . . . We can give it any name or no name. Love makes no claim of its own.”

Last week a friend and I rented a movie which received some really good reviews, but I was disappointed.  I thought the story and dialogue between the characters was poor, and it seemed like many of the actors were just regurgitating memorized material.  I wasn’t believing that what was happening was real at all.  During some parts of the movie, my attention was diverted and I began thinking about other things going on in my life.  I really didn’t care about the characters or what was going to happen to them.  On the other hand, when I watch a well-made film that I like, I forget the actors are acting and I find myself believing the story.  I’m laughing and/or crying, even though in the back of my mind I know it’s not real.  I’m not thinking about anything besides the film.  I’m drawn to the screen and caught up in the drama.  I judge the characters’ choices and actions, and decide which are good and which are bad.  I also formulate an opinion of how the story will or should end.

After this movie I watched was over, I began thinking about spiritual awakening.  We hear again and again that if we want to wake up, we need to go within and detach from the outside world.  Perhaps, awakening eventually happens when life becomes like a bad movie.  In other words, when we aren’t drawn to what’s happening on the screen or out in the world, and instead focus within on the One Self.  Does that mean if we’re not awake yet, that the movie or the outside world is too engrossing right now?  Maybe we just need to relax, enjoy the film and not try to rush anything, because it’ll end when it’s supposed to end and not any sooner or later.

Regardless, I’ve decided to just see where this movie I’m immersed in takes me, and not be too concerned about it.  After all, I really don’t have a choice, do I?

An article by Regina Dawn Akers

Contemplation is the art of going beyond the mind’s understanding to another understanding, understanding that clearly transcends the mind. Some call it realization.

If one is identified with the mind, wisdom-realization may have the feeling of coming from beyond “me.” One may give credit for the wisdom to Holy Spirit, Jesus, Buddha or some other symbol of transcendent wisdom. If one is not identified with the mind, wisdom-realization feels like home, like Self.

When I was first guided to write “The Holy Spirit’s Interpretation of the New Testament” (NTI), I was given instructions about how to do it. One very important instruction was:

“In order to understand the symbol, one must accept the Love of Christ. One prepares himself to accept that Love by recognizing he does not understand the symbol, and then he asks for understanding. By opening up to receive understanding without judgment, he opens up to accept the Love of Christ. With that Love comes Christ’s knowledge, for they are the same and inseparable. Then the meaning that is beyond the words is understood as a Light that shines for all who look to see.”

There are two main points about receiving in this paragraph:

1 – In order to receive wisdom, I have to realize I don’t understand.

2 – In order to receive wisdom, I have to be willing not to judge what I receive.

These were important instructions to move me completely beyond my ego, including my spiritual ego, so that I could receive spontaneous enlightened clarity without blocking it with what I think I already know and without blocking it with what I think it should be.

Whenever we contemplate anything, we receive the most if we are willing to be completely open and non-judgmental. If I think wisdom should sound like A Course in Miracles or Mooji or Thich Nhat Hahn or anything else, I block wisdom somewhat. If I think it should tell me something specific like “You are awareness,” I block it somewhat. If I think it should use certain words or shouldn’t use certain words or should be poetic, I block it somewhat. Anything I think I know gets in the way of completely open spontaneous receiving.

Sometimes when contemplating, the flow of wisdom begins on its own, spontaneously. Sometimes the flow of wisdom begins as I focus on an inquiry. For example, as I write this, today’s Awakening Together daily quote is:

“Who cares if you’re enlightened forever? Can you just get it in this moment, now?” ~ Byron Katie

If I am contemplating that quote, I might ask myself, “Am I over concerned with enlightenment? Has that become an obstacle for me? In what way is that an obstacle?” And then I use looking, not thinking or analysis, to see what the answers to these questions are. As I see through looking, wisdom that is perfect for me on this day arises.

Or I might ask myself, “What is ‘it’ when she says, ‘Can you just get it in this moment, now?’” And then I remain open. I don’t use thinking to try to figure it out. I just stay with the question, open, waiting for an answer to come. If my mind starts to think, I ask the question again. I wait in the stillness of the open question.

Sometimes when wisdom begins to flow, it isn’t immediately brilliant to me. The first few words that appear may seem uninteresting or unorganized. I remember I’ve promised not to judge what comes, and I start writing whatever comes. This seems to open the flow more, and soon I have perfect wisdom for me now.

When we sit down to contemplate, it is best if we have no expectations about what we will realize or receive through contemplation. The mind needs to be totally open. Our expectations limit us.

For example, maybe for the last 2 or 3 days I’ve had insights about my attachment to the body as “me”. That doesn’t mean that the theme of realization today will continue on that track. It may switch tracks entirely today. I don’t want to block today’s gift of grace with an expectation of what that gift is supposed to be.

Or maybe the theme of grace is repeating itself again and again. Maybe the mind sees this repetition as monotonous. Maybe the mind thinks that if “I am doing this right, the realization should be completely new and deeply profound each day.” But what does the mind know? Is it the wisdom teacher? Is it grace?

It is best to let go of all expectations and be open to whatever comes without judgment.

Another block to receiving wisdom through contemplation is thinking I understand or thinking I already know. For example, if my practice is contemplating a quote, like the quotes from “The Seven Steps to Awakening” or the Awakening Together Daily Quote, I may sometimes come across a quote that is easy to understand. Maybe the quote is short, simple and clear. “I get it,” mind says.

Well … that doesn’t mean there isn’t more to be gained through contemplation. Joseph Benner had realization after realization, resulting in a book called “The Impersonal Life,” through contemplating one short quote continually. The quote: “Be still and know that I am God.” (Psalm 46:10)

Consider this story on contemplation by William Samuel, written in his book “The Awareness of Self- Discovery”:

“Once, in China, I was given a simple verse to read and then to give my interpretation. I was ready to give an answer immediately but was informed that I had twenty-eight days to think about it. ‘Why so long?’ asked, I, with the usual impatience of a Westerner.

“’Because nothing has been read once until it has been read twelve times,’ was my answer. ‘Read and reread.’

“I did. Twelve times twelve to make twelve readings … and I heard a melody I could not have heard otherwise. Since then I have known why it is that certain lines in the Bible (or any other book) that have been read countless times will one day, upon just one more reading, suddenly take on a grand new significance.

“So reader, with a very gentle touch, read and re-read. If you are earnest, and act with the earnestness you are, one day when you least expect it, you will hear and feel your Heart within complete [the] words without.”

Sometimes we may be asked or guided to contemplate a quote we do not like. Maybe it uses words or symbols we do not like. Maybe we don’t have any mental understanding at all and we feel frustrated about that lack of understanding. Maybe we don’t like the source of the quote; maybe we have judgments against the person who spoke or wrote the quote or maybe we have judgments against the scripture or spiritual path the quote comes from. Any judgments we have about the material we are contemplating can get in the way of receiving wisdom. If we have any judgments about the material, we serve our self best by being willing to look at our judgments and let them go.

Contemplation is not an activity of the mind. Contemplation is a doorway to transcend mind. One may need to be patient or one may need to be willing to accept something that comes fast and unexpectedly. One may need to be willing to write in a voice that seems very different and unfamiliar, or one may need to be willing to receive clear ideas through an easy thought stream that sounds very much like “me”, or one may need to be willing to accept what is realized spontaneously with no words or thoughts at all. Maybe your clarity will come through picture-images in your mind’s eye or through a dream as you sleep.

Contemplation itself cannot be taught. It is something one realizes from within and through experience. However, it may be helpful to read how some contemplation masters describe contemplation. You can read a few of those pointers under “How do I contemplate?” at this link.

Finding the Living God of Love, Light, Truth, Beauty, Goodness, Kindness, Fullness and Bliss!

In sharing spiritual awareness with so many wonderful people over the last 35+ years since my own lucky, Grace-filled gift of suddenly one day realizing in my 16th year that we are literally made out of God’s Love and Light and Peace and Joy (an entirely unexpected event that instantly changed my life forever), I have time and time again noticed that a remarkably large segment of our population has a very negative sense of this powerful little word “God.”

In my many talks and classes over the last 25 years I have actually had some people ask me (usually in private) if it would be possible for me not to use this three-letter G-word, because “I really don’t like it,” or “it gives me the creeps.”

Early on, I realized that far, far too many people have beenreligiously abused in the name of “God,” and my use of the word God, interspersed with frequent reference to Spirit, Awareness, the Absolute, Divine Reality, Brahman, Tao, Buddha-nature, the Self, and so forth, is a red flag for these abused people. Indeed, the apparently innocuous word “God” actually triggers stress and emotional pain for them—in severe cases, a full-blown syndrome of PTSD or Post-Traumatic-Stress-Disorder.

This brings up the entire issue of communication itself: what we mean by a word is not necessarily what other people think or feel it means when they hear it.

The plain fact is that, in the name of “God,” multitudes of people have been disturbed, frightened and in more serious ways abused by well-meaning—let alone really abusive—parents, grandparents, older siblings, aunts, uncles, teachers, ministers, priests, nuns, televangelists, rabbis, mullahs, et al.

It can start innocently enough: a little child’s goldfish dies and s/he is told, “God took your little fish up to heaven.” When another pet or a grandparent or friend dies and the child is similarly told, “God ended their life here and took them away to be with Him up there in heaven,” the child begins to get the disturbing impression that “God” is the invisible bogeyman who suddenly and arbitrarily cheats us out of the precious company of our beloved kin and friends.

When terrible things happen locally or on the world-stage, a child eventually hears from religious-minded persons that this is “God’s will.” In the impressionable minds of young persons, “God’s will” usually soon takes on the quality of being an unpredictable, frightening, fickle force, a big “Somebody” or “Something” that feels adversarial, oppositional and destructive, rather than being Someone infinitely near and dear. With such conditioning, it’s not evident that God and I are teammates on the same side. On some level, the youngster sooner or later begins to think: “God’s interests and my interests are not aligned.”

It gets much more complicated and perverse: at a certain age, the young person in our western monotheistic culture starts hearing and being psychologically conditioned by the notion that God is watching you, meticulously and obsessively examining everything you do and think, “writing down black marks in His big heavenly book concerning your sins and demerits.” For this “God” is quite intent on eventually judging you to be a good person or a bad person, a person destined (even predestined!!) to go either to heaven or to hell after you die and pass into your “eternal reward.”

Some 20-30 million Americans alone have evidently bought into—and, alas, are now subjecting their hapless children to—the really barbaric and quite aberrant “rapture theology” of rightwing, rigid forms of evangelical Christianity. Based on that horrible mistake appended to the New Testament—the dementedly dualistic, even diabolical Book of Revelation or Apocalypse—rapture theology holds that our evidently not-so-“loving” but all-knowing, almighty, and quite vindictive Lord has created every soul already knowing that likely well over 80% or even 90% of them (for various reasons foreseen by God) won’t exclusively accept Jesus the Christ “as their personal Lord and Savior” in the prescribed way. And therefore all these souls not partisan enough to join in God’s exclusivist game are going to be damned to eternal hell.

No wonder that so many people reject their religious upbringing and God—and everything having to do with religion—and, from their felt-sense of emptiness, “act out” their deep disappointment, rage and/or ennui through sex, drugs and rock’n’roll partying. Or even worse forms of acting out.

I recall one night, as a little Catholic boy of about 9 years old, running downstairs from my bedroom into the arms of my loving parents who were watching TV in the family room. I was sobbing and crying, because there, in the darkness of my bedroom, rather than peacefully, contentedly falling asleep, I had been filled with horrific agitation, angst and fear over the not so unlikely prospect that one day I might commit a bad sin or two (or three, four or more!) and thereby be banished from God and heaven and all loved ones to burn in hell, forever and ever…. This thought was excruciating! Lying and squirming in my darkened bedroom, racked with emotional pain, I could tolerate only so much before in desperation I finally went running to my dear parents for some kind of relief. I don’t remember particularly what they said, but I think my caring mother responded to the effect that, if I had good intentions and tried my best, even if I failed, God and the saints (led by good ol’ all-forgiving Mother Mary) would still love me, save me from hell, and help me come into heaven. Whatever my mom and dad said, it sufficed to alleviate the existential fear so that I never had that overwhelming type of hellish “hell-dread” again.

Where exactly I had picked up such a disturbing notion of a wrathfully judging God and eternal hell in the first place, I don’t know. Perhaps it was from something on TV (e.g., one of those fire-and-brimstone preachers) that I might have heard while playing with my toy cars and trucks within earshot. Maybe it was something I heard in church or at school, though I was very fortunate to have been raised by the decidedly progressive Paulist priests in Westwood (West Los Angeles), and by the unexpectedly liberal Daughters of Mary and Joseph Catholic nuns who taught us at St. Paul the Apostle school right next-door to the church of the same name. Most of these nuns were recent arrivals from Ireland and one might expect them to be of the conservative type who beat disobedient children over the knuckles with their big wooden rulers. No—if anything, my buddies and I were much tougher on those darling nuns than they were on us, creating chronic disciplinary problems with our relentless joking, teasing and horsing around.

The bottom line for me is that I was very fortunate to be around people who lived their religion and spirituality in a relatively healthy manner. I don’t recall being subject to any “serial abuse” in the name of religion.

But listening to or reading about so many people over the decades who have experienced significant and even severe forms of religious abuse, threatened with eternal damnation by a judging, petty, punitive “God-the-father” critical parent run amok, I can easily see why many persons would like never ever to hear the word “God” again. A dear friend of mine, deeply spiritual in her own way, when reading through most of the books and articles in her collection has actually blackened out the word “God” with her marking-pen wherever she finds it. She just doesn’t like to see a word that, to her psyche from childhood, is a signifier loaded with pain.

Given that the term “God” can be so negatively-loaded for numerous people, at one point 20 years ago I briefly wondered if it might not be better to drop it altogether from my vocabulary. But in the next instant I realized that this would be a silly thing to do, forGod as a word and a notion is simply too widespread in our society and, for the majority of our population, still has an overall positive connotation and meaningful content.

Instead, over the years, as part of the multi-faceted “ministry” I’ve been graced and privileged to enjoy, in my conversations and classes I have opted to help heal participants of any negative connotations or content around this potent term God.

While in undergraduate study of psychology at UCSC and UCLA and then in graduate school at CIIS in San Francisco, I realized long ago how powerful the subconscious mind can be—and how easily the subconscious can be rendered full of “glitches” due to “bad programming.”

It is obvious that many, many people have been conditioned and programmed by an unwholesome, petty, threatening, punitive—in short, toxic notion of “God.” This unholy, bullying image of “God” sits in people’s subconscious mind, literally haunting anddisturbing them. Even atheists and agnostics who have long agoconsciously rejected and renounced the idea of God can still be affected subconsciously by an insidiously subtle, inner “God-program” deep within their psyche.

A disturbing, unsafe sense of God (or whatever you regard as the Source or Power behind our life and the manifestation of this universe) will almost invariably lead to feeling that our cosmic situation is disturbed and unsafe, and that we can’t trust the Source of the universe. How can we have faith in a Divine Being who, our subconscious mind intimates to us, is not faithful to our best interests and eternal well-being?

All such “bad religious programming” characterizing our deepest-rooted impression about the nature of God or the Universal Power or Fate is enervating. It is guaranteed to render us restless, fearful, unhappy, imbalanced human beings. We will feel “at odds” with life, the cosmos and its Source at the most basic level of our being.

Hence, we do well to investigate—through an inner psychological inventory—any unhealed, unwholesome, unholy notions of “God” floating around in our conscious, pre-conscious, or subconscious minds.

Furthermore, having uncovered such pseudo-God notions masquerading as the Real God within our hearts, we can inwardly, meditatively invoke the actual Infinite Divine Being (Absolute Spirit-Love-Light-Truth-Beauty-Goodness-Kindness-Fullness) to purely affirm this God-Self within every aspect of our being. In other words, we can let the Real God, the God before/beyond our dysfunctional human notions and projections about “God,” spontaneously blossom forth within our body-mind-soul-consciousness. We can let God, the authentic living God, be fully and truly God in us.

* * * * * * * * *

When I first began conducting these healing visualizations and “energetic attunements” concerning the idea and image or intuitive impression of God, I heard many testimonials on how this was so very helpful to people. Therefore, I began to include this type of healing session more and more with new and old groups of students.

Here, finally, I have written up this “God-clearing” exercise as something to explore whenever you wish to turn to it for inner Divine healing.

This exercise, I find, is very helpful for people not only of a devotional religious temperament but also for those who are involved in “nondual” or “mystical” spirituality and the path of formless, imageless self-inquiry into the real nature of the transpersonal Self. Such self-inquiry will not proceed very deeply if somewhere in the subconscious mind there is a lurking sense of arival power contaminating our being with toxic energy. To paraphrase and “heal” the old Biblical commandment: “I am the Lord your God-Self; you need not have any other ‘strange gods’ within you.”

Some of you may wish to record onto tape/CD a meditatively-soothing, reading of the following visualization, so that you can subsequently listen to it while in a more meditative state with eyes closed and body fully relaxed. Alternatively, you can have a gentle companion read this aloud to you from the computer screen while you sit nearby in a relaxed, inwardly focused state. And then you can both trade places—you read the text while your companion meditatively listens. (At some point in the not so distant future, I’ll try to upload a streaming-audio recording of the text for this exercise, so that you can listen to it by yourself as a guided healing meditation while sitting quietly and receptively.)

I call this experiential process: letting God be fully, truly God in your heart. Try it—you’ll like it!

* * * * * * * * * *

Meditation Exercise:
Healing Our Model of God

Letting God be fully, truly God in your heart

[Note: italicized words can be read with somewhat greater emphasis. Ellipses (…) indicate pauses for contemplative silence.]

* * * * * * * *

Alright. As we’re gathered here together, we can allow ourselves to become naturally and fully relaxed….

We can easily maintain a gentle, inward focus as, with each breath, rising and falling, breathing in and out, we allow ourselves tounwind and relax and open up more and more.

There’s no need to grasp or hold onto anything. We’re simplyallowing the breathing to happen and feeling the wonderful and interesting sensations and energies that arise and pass away, moment by moment… It’s so very easy to relax and let go and open up fully and completely….

Now: let us check to see or feel if there are any old, unneeded images or tensions in any part of us around the idea of “God.” When we hear the word “God,” is there any feeling of discomfort in any part of the heart or mind or body?…

If anything unpleasant arises, let us fully feel the sensation or the energy and then utterly let it go. Just like letting go the string on a helium balloon, we just let go any threatening images or toxic notions of God that might be cluttering our being, and they just fly away and disappear….

Completely letting go, we find ourselves feeling wonderfully clear and clean and fresh and new…. So much more present and vitaland alive….

Now: right here within our heart, emptied out of the old, unneeded images or feelings about the Divine One, we can allow the REAL GOD, the LIVING GOD of healing Love … and beautifully luminous Light… and clarifying Truth… and enchanting Beauty… and blissful Sweetness… and dazzling Goodness…—we can allow this glorious Divine One to affirm this Divine Love, Light and Truth, this Divine Beauty, Sweetness, and Goodness fully within us…. It feels so good to have this God of healing Love in us and around us.

Right now and right here we fully feel the wonderfully dear anddelightful Presence of the True God gently yet powerfully filling our heart to overflowing with all wonderful qualities and virtues… so that now we feel tremendously well and happy, majesticallypeaceful and content, and perfectly nurtured and loved. We feel filled up with so much power to love and serve and be helpful andcreative… God is expressing through us such a wonderful power, a blessed power that fills us up ever more completely so that we can receive and give so, so much…

Again: we can check to see if any aspect of our being, any part of our heart or corner of our mind is disturbed by any old falsemessages or unnecessary feelings about the human-projected “God”-idea lurking inside us….

And, again, we can this very instant allow the REAL GOD to powerfully and completely dissolve any such false notions about the Divine One, the Source or Power behind our life and world, so thathere and now the true God of pure, Self-shining Spirit and delightfully Divine Presence and Fullness and Goodness washes through and fills our being with only God….

…

“All is well, and all shall be well…” The true God of astonishingly beautiful LOVE and gloriously gorgeous LIGHT is radiantly shiningwithin every cell and fiber of our being, filling our body and mindand heart with so much wonderful healing and empoweringenergy….

…

Alright. You may slowly open your eyes …

… and see the One True God, Infinite, Vast and Formless,beautifully manifesting as everyone you see and meet!

© Copyright 2006 by Timothy Conway
www.Enlightened-Spirituality.org