People can get mind manacled from religion, so the atheists do not
have a corner on the market when it comes to such traps.
Whether atheists, theists or Buddhists, I submit that you all drop the
pretense and lies that you have been grasping onto for entire life and
rebuild your life through a foundation of truth and testing and
regenerate yourselves into a truth based agnostic freethinker.
Accept that all our actions have consequences, and many of our actions
produce consequences that end up destroying peace. Humans must take
responsibility for their actions and stop trying to get a free hall
pass from God.
Sometimes spiritual practitioners forget they are spiritual beings
residing in a physical body living in a physical world and must do
work in both spiritual and physical areas to live a balanced and
healthy life.
I see this a lot with fat theists that think they can eat 5000
calories a day and pray to God to override natural law and make them
skinny...if I only say enough prayers...if I only light enough
candles.
Sick, sick theists. Drop the delusions or you will end up as sick or
sicker than the sick minded atheists.
If humans go against nature...nature will answer the humans. And
nature always has the final say...we ALL bow to nature in the end.
Why would God have to be swayed if it was the right thing to do to
start with?
If God wished to give humans carte blanche and produce all the
pollutants and destroy their environment without limit - then why
would some prayers seal the deal?
Does God need our begging or does God need us to act right in our
actions?
If God needs our begging, then God is not perfect at all. since once
God required anything, God would have expectations and attachments and
not be perfect.
If our actions were right, life on earth would be right..it is that
simple.
Life would not be heaven on earth, but we would live in harmony with
our environment and not destroy it.
God would have to admit it made a mistake and if it took its marching
orders from humans, if it said yes or no depending on how much begging
was involved? God would not care about right or wrong...God would be
ego based and not truth based.
We cannot have it both ways. We cannot have set of rules that nature
runs by but have God override these rules just to please our self
serving, greedy needs.
....My discussion of this topic from an earlier post.
"The Definition of a Miracle is the Suspension of Natural Law"
An acquaintance from a 12 step group sent me "The Golden Key" by Emmet
Fox. I was turned off after reading the first paragraph, but decided
to read the rest. I'm glad I did read it all, as the last sentence of
it is a great reminder of how spiritual laws work.
What turned me off was the senders and the writers blanket guarantee
of "...do exactly what it says, and if you are persistent enough you
will overcome any difficulty" and "...scientific prayer will enable
you, sooner or later, to get yourself, or anyone else, out of any
difficulty on the face of the earth - it is the Golden Key to harmony
and happiness."
There is nothing wrong with prayer and meditating on God or your
Higher Power unless we use it as an "escape vehicle" the same way we
used our addictive distractions to help blind us from the life we have
created.
Why do many of us want to be blinded from life and need distractions
to escape what is?
A lot of it is due to the fact we have created ugly lives for us to
reside in.
I had to completely restructure my life to find peace in it. Many of
the old ways had to be let go off, otherwise nothing would have
changed for me other than for things to keep getting worse. Other
times it might be more of an ADD thing. When I catch myself escaping
life I work to bring my thoughts back to the present moment.
When it comes to prayer and meditation, my meditation is along the
lines of AA's Step 11 ..."praying only for God's / Higher Power's will
and the power to carry it out," more so than asking for specific
demands.
As an addict in numerous additive areas, I have to be wary of
unrealistic "blanket guarantees" and "magic bullets" that give me an
unrealistic sense of entitlement and will give me free reign do as I
wish and think I can violate the 3 branches of laws that govern us
without paying the price.
If I want to meditate on a Higher Power, it is now from my own choice
and not because of being forced to concentrate on something else to
escape from dealing with the problems that living a wrong life has
given me.
Sure, we all make mistakes and emergencies pop up, but if these
emergencies and global disasters in our lives are on a daily and
continuous basis we need to step back and see why we have been blessed
with such a life. Most of the time the answer is that our life is a
direct result of our actions and how we choose to live our life.
Usually this path to living the life we have chosen is a defiant one -
defiant against one or all three of the branches of laws that govern
us.
I find that sometime overly spiritual practitioners neglect the
natural laws that govern our bodies and suffer in this area from lack
of living a balanced life. Karl Marx reminds us that religion is the
opium of the masses. I see many out of balance spiritual practitioners
full of delusional thought when it comes to spiritual practice. The
Bible tells us Jesus in Mark 12:17 to "Give to Caesar the things that
are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's."
This implies we need to seek balance and not live by 'all or none'
standards in most cases.
Some of us forget we are spiritual beings residing in physical bodies
living in physical world and as must work to balance both spiritual
and physical aspects of our live.
As such, we are all governed by the following 3 branches of laws:
1 - Natural or physical laws
2 - Man made laws
3 - Divine or spiritual laws
Now, if your an atheist, you may not think much of divine law, but you
still have to answer to natural and man made laws. And some people say
they can defy man made laws as well as divine laws, but no matter how
defiant the person or addict is - no one escapes natural laws.
To be successful in life we have to put some effort in spiritual work
and some effort in physical work for a good balance as well as be
mindful of not violating manmade laws. It is by restructuring my life
to accept and live within all these laws that I have been able to find
much peace...by living within my means.
My prior life was just the opposite. I lived a life that violated all
3 branches of these laws. As I wrote in my earlier post 'Putting Peace
First'..."all our actions have consequences and many of these actions
are producing consequences that rob us of inner peace." If we expect
to escape from the consequences of ALL our actions - that is
delusional thinking.
Desire plays a big part in guiding our actions. If we have a constant
supply of never ending desires that end in the disruption of our peace
what chance have we to find serenity? To find peace I had to rework
my life when it came to excessive desires as well as being mindful of
living within these 3 branches of laws.
There is no one magic bullet in life that will fix all our problems.
Living a good life is composed of many qualities and when we reach for
one thing only with thoughts of disregarding the rest of life's laws
we will be out of balance. To be at peace is a natural ability that is
instilled within us all - you only have to become balanced to be at
peace.
Proportionality and balance used to be taught in ancient Greek
educational curriculum. Unfortunately, these studies have gone the way
of the dinosaurs. The Buddha also reminds of the importance of balance
with the idea of seeking the middle path.
I know we have free choice in life and if I am constantly working
against a Higher Power's laws as well as violating natural laws and
man made laws I cannot ask this Higher Power to constantly keep fixing
my messes I voluntarily make. Well, I guess I could keep asking, but
only a real sick person would keep hitting themselves in the head with
a hammer and then complaining they have a headache?
See:
http://jesusneverexisted.org/jne/forum/index.php?topic=342.0
My wife has a saying, "Pray, but keep rowing the boat."
This is the solution that lead us to peace, via the tools of footwork
and acceptance. We have to work with God / Higher Power and not
against.
If you still don't understand what I am saying I will give you an
example.
A fellow I know is a drug addict, alcoholic, compulsive spender, sex
addict, gambler, rageaholic, overeater and workaholic. He prays to God
get off drugs and alcohol, get rich and lose the fat. His workaholic
tendencies stem from being in love with money too much.
He likes to gamble large sums and lives a so called rich life of
expensive cars, extramarital affairs and other material trinkets.
Money boosts his self esteem and as treasurer for his company he has
doctored the books and has stolen large amounts of money from his
company over the years to help pay for his drug habit, gambling loses
a mistresses and his spending binges.
He refuses to get more than 4 or 5 hours sleep a night and eats junk
foods most of the time, never exercises as he sees this as waste of
time - time that could be used to get more money. When he cannot get
enough money to feed his cravings he take it out on his wife or
girlfriend beating them thinking that will relieve some of his misery.
Money is his real God, yet he thinks that he can pray to another God
to get him off drugs and booze to make him thin and rich without
changing a thing with how he lives his life on his end. He has no
clew about accepting and living within his comfortable means. He never
makes time to go to recovery meetings and his marriage is a mess and
his kids are getting into trouble and drugs just like the dad for lack
of any parental direction.
Eventually his employer finds out he has stolen massive amounts of
money. He loses his house, his cars and his mistress and he goes to
jail. In jail he suffers a heart attack from high blood pressure. His
family decomposes and his wife divorces him. His kids leave home and
end up on the street, addicted to drugs.
All these problems this man suffers were from his free will and by his
refusing to accept the 3 branches of law and his refusal to accept and
live within his comfortable means...they are all consequences to his
actions.
Whenever we steal something we are refusing to accept and live within
our means and this also applies to when we stretch our abilities and
this causes us or others injury. The same way a bodybuilder uses
steroids to further their muscle growth by unnatural methods, the
addict use various drugs, addictions and crutches to allow them to
live a life that would not be attainable by natural (UN-drugged)
methods only.
This is why the 12 and 12 stresses living right size on pages 122-125
as a prerequisite to finding recovery. We can get something, but we
have to give up something in the process ... we have to give up our
old sick life.
The definition of a miracle is: "the suspension of natural law" as
defined by the philosopher David Hume. And, while we can pray for a
miracle now and again, to ask God / Higher Power for a continuos
stream of daily miracles due to the fact that we refuse to live by the
3 branches of laws that governs us is unrealistic.
Can you see how it would be futile to say you can say certain prayer
and be able to eat 5000 calories a day and not get fat when your
caloric balance point is 1600 calories? Yet, may people in Overeaters
Anonymous do it. They ask for a daily suspension of natural law so
they can fulfill their eating desires.
In Debtors Anonymous we have the debtors that refuse to live within
their financial budgets, they keep on knowingly debting, writing bad
checks, stealing and are always praying for quick money fixes to the
gods without changing anything on their end of the bargain. It is the
same with all the other branches of 12 step programs whether AA, NA,
GA, CLA or any of the "S" programs.
Ignorance is universal in nature.
It seems that many of us get stuck with looking for hope of change
someplace else other than within us. All change is ultimately internal
in nature, but we have hopes that someone else will do it for us as a
quick fix, rather than we doing it ourselves.
We can get stuck with feeling that any good change in our lives will
come from the outside -- as a gift from a Higher Power and without
much effort from ones own self to change. Some us get more miracles
handed to us than others, but to be in a position to continually have
to pray for miracles is a signpost for me I am not living life right
and not working a good recovery program on my end.
If the forwarded mail I received said "pray for the *willingness* to
change" - then this is something I would agree with.
The addict dying in jail that I mentioned above would get better
results if he prayed for the right thing...the willingness to accept
and live within his comfortable means, the willingness to stop being a
workaholic and accept natural and man made laws and the willingness to
take that first step in the opposite direction he has been heading in
all his life. Yes, if he prayed for the right thing he might get an
answer.
The last sentence of The Golden Key says: "You want to get out of
your difficulty----that is sufficient. You do your half and God will
never fail to do His."
Well, this is the key for me, but we must make some effort or change
in conjunction to our prayers. If we are praying with one breath and
violating those prayers with actions that will void such prayers we
are spinning our wheels and getting nowhere. It would be nice if we
received a blanket guarantee that if we thought about spiritual
matters full time that would be enough to fix us but it doesn't seem
work out that way.
It takes action as well as thinking to do it. You see this a lot in
the news nowadays. Certain so called religious persons talking about
God with one breath and killing others with the next breath.
The serenity prayer tells us we have 2 paths - change or acceptance.
Whenever our own actions are involved, these actions have the
possibility of change in them. If what we pray about is out of our
area of action, that is a different story, then we are powerless and
must release it. But, many of such "out of reach" areas might seem so
on the surface, yet our actions still have a definite effect on these
seemingly powerless areas of change if we contemplate on them.
Just as the Buddhist follow the Eightfold Path of "right" actions,
addicts and spiritual practitioners must follow the same path of
"right" prayer and actions. But, to pray for a suspension of natural,
manmade and divine laws day in and day out is not practical way of
working a recovery program. With my own 12 step practice and various
other religious and philosophical views I don't ask for miracles too
much from a higher Power anymore. If I did this would presuppose that
I knew better than the Higher Power with what is good for me.
Instead I turn it all over as step 11 says ... praying only for
knowledge of a Higher Powers will and the power to carry it out. I
also apply the serenity prayer and change what I can and work to
accept the rest. If you are an atheist or agnostic you might adopt the
Taoist view of "going with the flow"
Here is an old Taoist story to illustrates this.
"...an old Chinese farmer lost his best stallion one day and his
neighbor came around to express his regrets, but the farmer just said,
"Who knows what is good and what is bad." The next day the stallion
returned bringing with him 3 wild mares. The neighbor rushed back to
celebrate with the farmer, but the old farmer simply said, "Who knows
what is good and what is bad." The following day, the farmer's son
fell from one of the wild mares while trying to break her in and broke
his arm and inured his leg. The neighbor came by to check on the son
and give his condolences, but the old farmer just said, "Who knows
what is good and what is bad." The next day the army came to the farm
to conscript the farmer's son for the war, but found him invalid and
left him with his father. The neighbor thought to himself, "Who knows
what is good and what is bad."
I hope you can make use of this tool of evaluating the 3 branches of
laws that govern us in your recovery travels to help you see things
clearly.
Spiritual tools are very important to living a peaceful life as well
as an addiction recovery tool, but when someone offers you a tool,
spiritual or otherwise, that claims will allow you to violate natural,
man made and divine laws with a blanket guarantee for immunity you
should be cautious.
As I mentioned above, the last line of the Golden Key offers good
advice: "You want to get out of your difficulty----that is
sufficient. You do your half and your Higher Power will never fail to
do His." Prayer to God / Higher Power for the willingness to change
while doing the footwork to change your life in a positive
direction ... and whatever the result accept it gratefully as Higher
Powers will as the serenity prayer mentions.
Below is the forwarded mail I received.
(...) writes:
Read the Golden Key several times. DO exactly what it says, and if
you are persistent enough you will overcome any difficulty.
THE GOLDEN KEY by Emmet Fox
Scientific prayer will enable you, sooner or later, to get yourself,
or
anyone else, out of any difficulty on the face of the earth. It is
the
Golden Key to harmony and happiness.
To those who have no acquaintance with the mightiest power in
existence,
this may appear to be a rash claim, but it needs only a fair trial to
prove
that, without a shadow of doubt, it is a just one. You need take no
one's
word for it, and you should not. Simple try it for yourself, and see.
God is omnipotent, and man and woman is God's image and likeness,
and has dominion over all things. This is the inspired teaching, and
it
is intended to be taken literally, at its face value. Man/Woman means
everyone, so the ability to draw on this power is not the special
prerogative of the Mystic or the Saint, as is so often supposed, or
even
of the highly-trained practitioner. Whoever you are, wherever you may
be, The Golden Key to harmony is in your hand now. This is because in
scientific prayer it is God who works, and not you, and so your
particular limitations or weaknesses are of no account in the process.
You are only the channel through which the Divine action takes place,
and
your treatment will be just the getting of yourself out of the way.
Beginners often get startling results at the first time of trying, for
all
that is absolutely essential is to have an open mind, and sufficient
faith
to try the experiment. Apart form that, you may hold any views on
religion, or none.
As for the actual method of working, like all fundamental things, it
is simplicity itself. All that you have to do is this:
STOP THINKING ABOUT THE DIFFICULTY, WHATEVER
IT IS, AND THINK ABOUT GOD INSTEAD. This is the complete
rule, and if only you will do this, the trouble, whatever it is, will
presently disappear. It makes no difference what kind of trouble it
is. It
may be a big thing or a little thing; it may concern health, finance,
a law
suit, a quarrel, an accident, or anything else conceivable; but
whatever
it is, just stop thinking about tit, and think of God instead----that
is
all you have to do.
The thing could not be simpler, could it? God could scarcely have
made it simpler, and yet it never fails to work when given a fair
trial. Do not try to form a picture of God, which is, of course,
impossible.
work by rehearsing anything or everything that you know about
God. God is wisdom, Truth, inconceivable Love. God is present
everywhere; has infinite power; knows everything; and so on.
It matters not how well you may think you understand these things;
go over them repeatedly.
But you must stop thinking of the trouble, whatever it is. The
rule is to think about God, and if you are thinking about your
difficulty you are not thinking about God. To be continually
glancing over your shoulder, as it were, in order to see how
matters are progressing, is fatal, because that is thinking of the
trouble, and you must think of God, and of nothing else. Your
object is to drive the thoughts of the difficulty right out of your
consciousness, for a few moments at least, substituting for it
the thought of God. This is the crux of the whole thing. If you
can become so absorbed in this consideration of the spiritual
world that you really forget for a while all about the trouble
concerning which you began to pray, you will presently find that
you are safely and comfortably out of your difficulty---that your
demonstration is made.
In order to "Golden Key" a troublesome person or a difficult
situation, think, "Now I am going to 'Golden Key' John, or
Mary, or that threatened danger"; then proceed to drive all
thoughts of John, or Mary, or the danger right out of your mind,
replacing it by the thought of God.
By working in this way about a person, you are not seeking to
influence her/his conduct in any way, except that you prevent her
from injuring or annoying you, and you do her nothing but good.
Thereafter she is certain to be in some degree a better, wiser,
and more spiritual person, just because you have "Golden
Keyed" her. A pending lawsuit or other difficulty would probably
fade out harmlessly without coming to a crisis, a justice being
done to all parties concerned.
If you find you can do this very quickly, you may repeat
the operation several times a day with intervals in between.
Be sure, however, each time you have done it, that you drop
all thought of the matter until the next time. This is important.
We have said that the Golden Key is simple, and so it is,
but, of course, it is not always easy to turn. If you are very
frightened or worried it may be difficult, at first, to get your
thoughts away from material things. But by constantly repeating
some statement of absolute Truth that appeals to you, such as
THERE IS NO POWER BUT GOD, or, I AM THE CHILD
OF GOD, FILLED AND SURROUNDED BY THE PERFECT
PEACE OF GOD, or, GOD IS LOVE, or, GOD IS GUIDING
ME NOW, or perhaps best and simplest of all, just GOD IS
WITH ME------however mechanical or dead it may seem at
first ------ you will soon find that the treatment has begun to
"take," and that your mind is clearing. Do not struggle violently;
be quiet but insistent. Each time that you find your attention
wandering, just switch it straight back to God.
Do not try to think out in advance what the solution of your
difficulty will probably turn out to be. This is technically called
"outlining" and will only delay the demonstration. Leave the
question of ways and means strictly to God. You want to
get out of your difficulty----that is sufficient. You do your
half and God will never fail to do His.
End of quote
Also see "Peace Tools For Atheist, Agnostics and Believers:"
http://jesusneverexisted.org/jne/forum/index.php?topic=4.0
Take Care,
V (Male)
Agnostic Freethinker
Practical Philosopher
AA#2
