Depending on your perspective, the above statement might seem strange, or it might seem glaringly obvious.
But God truly does love you and Osama bin Laden exactly the same. Yes God loves you both exactly equally. Just because you helped an old lady across the street with her groceries doesn’t mean you get extra brownie points in God’s eyes.
The thing about unconditional love is, well, it’s absolutely UNCONDITOINAL. No conditions whatsoever. That doesn’t mean you should go and hang out with Osama – he’d probably stab you or blow you up. But from the perspective of Divine Love, there is no difference between you, him, Hitler, Gandhi, Prince, or anyone else.
Now that might seem a little discouraging from one point of view. You mean your telling me that all the hard work I’ve been doing being “nice” isn’t helping me out? With regards to getting “more” of God’s love, no - your S.O.L. With regards to having a happy fulfilling life, yes – those decisions make a big difference.
The way we choose to live determines our level of consciousness and how our lives unfold. Someone who does ‘evil’ things, will live a very unhappy, dark, twisted existence. Someone who is continually serving and spreading love will have a blessed fulfilling life. But neither of those things has anything to do with God’s love for us.
Now if you like another word instead of “God” that’s fine. You can use Universe, Existence, All That Is, the Infinite, The Creator, whatever you like really.
But what are the real implications of this? That no matter what happens, or what you do, God’s love for you will never change one iota. When I realized this, it was incredibly liberating.
See for a long time I was a perfectionist, and I had to improve constantly because I had some inferiority issues and stuff like that. But when I realized this, it opened up a whole new world for me.
I thought I had to attain enlightenment because that is the way I can best serve and save humanity. If I become enlightened then the whole consciousness of humanity would be raised significantly more than if I just reached unconditional love per se. (By the way, I’m using references to the Hawkins’ Map of Consciousness here).
But upon realizing that God loved me exactly the same no matter what I chose to do – it occurred to me that I really was straining for enlightenment because I didn’t feel like I was good enough yet. I wasn’t good enough for God’s love because I hadn’t fulfilled my high holy purpose yet. And until I got there, I was susceptible to God’s punishment. Maybe not even punishment – because I’ve done a lot of work on releasing that – but even just a little bit of disapproval.
But that’s not the case. See if Existence truly is perfect, that means it’s perfect exactly as it is already. God doesn’t need you or me to save the world – we already had guys like Jesus, Buddha, and Krishna around for that job. That means life is already perfect, and whether or not we reach enlightenment, or unconditional love isn’t so important.
Sure it helps out everyone, and they are certainly noble goals in this human domain, but it’s one of those things that will happen in its due time. I noticed within myself a tendency to continually try to get better and better, strive and strive, to reach unconditional love and enlightenment. But that striving itself paradoxically is probably one of the biggest blocks to the process.
Inherent to that kind of reaching and straining is a sense of feeling unworthy, not good enough, and lacking. I’m actually incredibly grateful for all that time in my life where I lived that way. That kind of “hard work” can help you make big changes in the lower levels of consciousness (if you’re familiar with the Hawkins’ Map of Consciousness I’m referring primarily to levels in the 400s and below).
But when you start moving more into the spiritual domain, that kind of attitude actually begins to hinder you. It’s like a stepping stone. First you might be apathetic about your life, but then you start empowering yourself, and you start taking action and moving forward and higher. But there comes a point where you make the jump from the more material world into the spiritual domain, and that sort of attitude is no longer necessary.
Yes it still can be helpful when dealing with everyday things, mind activity, problem solving, exercise, ect… but it has to be balanced and seen for the limitation that it is when you are working on becoming more loving.
Going back to God now, after my little rant – all that improvement doesn’t matter. Divine Love is such that it is completely impersonal, and universal, it is just lovingness. It doesn’t care whether your name is Bob or Steve or Rebecca or how tall you are or how much you weigh, or if you swore under your breath at the cash register attendant when they were taking forever.
So if you’ve been holding back with some things you wanted to do, but you weren’t sure if they were “spiritual enough”, this is an opportunity to let that go. Ironically, when I let go of these things myself, and just started going with the things that I found most desirable and attractive to me, my growth started to take off and accelerate even faster.
I say live the life you want, being of service and spreading love, and see where the chips fall. When you die and go to heaven, if you get up there and God says that I was totally off base, oh well. I hear earth lifetimes are like blinks in higher dimensions, so you can always come back and not listen to me the next time.
Cheers!
Jeff
Tuesday, March 3, 2009
Friday, February 27, 2009
Personal and Global Intentions
I’ve always liked the idea of the Law of Attraction. Intuitively it seems like common sense, yet it isn’t always incorporated into everyday life. After working with it over these past few years I noticed that even though it was cool, and sometimes it would “work”. I always felt a little selfish using it. Maybe it’s just me, but manifesting an awesome life is very appealing, but it also seemed limiting in that by focusing on myself, I didn’t have as much available to help others.
Helping others is a very important thing for me. More than just getting “brownie points” with God, it feels like there’s something really deep and profound about it that’s hard to describe. I don’t go volunteering at soup kitchens a lot or anything, but I pray for people a lot and that feels really good.
So an idea I’ve been playing with is to start incorporating a more universal approach to my intentions towards life. Instead of focusing on “getting more stuff for myself” the intention becomes “more stuff for everyone”. Instead of “Jeff abundance” it is “worldwide abundance”. Instead of “Jeff health” it is “worldwide health and healing”. Pretty simple, no?
There’s a couple things I really like about this. First, it really plays of an incredible abundance mentality. Sometimes in the past while working with goals and intentions, there would be this nagging sense of lack. Working with intention this way has really helped me to view life in a more abundant way.
Another thing I really like about these intentions is that it feels really good. It’s almost like working together with everyone else in the world who are intending those things, even if their focus is mainly only in their lives.
One last thing is that it handles the giving and receiving aspects of manifesting. If you’ve studied the Law of Attraction a little, you might have heard that being able to give is an intricate part of receiving. Intending this way helps fulfill both the giving and receiving sides because you’re giving your goodwill and love to everyone else while being open to receiving it yourself.
Don’t get me wrong, I still focus on more specific things related to my life. You can still work with a specific focus, like manifesting $300, while in the background you’re aware of sending support to everyone else who is intending on manifesting financial abundance.
So how does this relate to Love?
When on the path to unconditional love, in my experience, it almost seems EASIER to be intending for the whole world. It’s somehow… more… unconditional. It is just as easy to intend to be loving towards one thing as it is to be loving towards everything. You can also intend for the whole world to be uplifted and joyful through experiencing Love.
“May everyone experience God’s Love.”
Can you imagine what would happen if everyone started intending for everyone else in the world to be happy, healthy, abundant, successful, and full of love?
Ooh, that sounds exciting to me. It might start getting crazy.
That’s all for now.
Much Love,
Jeff
Helping others is a very important thing for me. More than just getting “brownie points” with God, it feels like there’s something really deep and profound about it that’s hard to describe. I don’t go volunteering at soup kitchens a lot or anything, but I pray for people a lot and that feels really good.
So an idea I’ve been playing with is to start incorporating a more universal approach to my intentions towards life. Instead of focusing on “getting more stuff for myself” the intention becomes “more stuff for everyone”. Instead of “Jeff abundance” it is “worldwide abundance”. Instead of “Jeff health” it is “worldwide health and healing”. Pretty simple, no?
There’s a couple things I really like about this. First, it really plays of an incredible abundance mentality. Sometimes in the past while working with goals and intentions, there would be this nagging sense of lack. Working with intention this way has really helped me to view life in a more abundant way.
Another thing I really like about these intentions is that it feels really good. It’s almost like working together with everyone else in the world who are intending those things, even if their focus is mainly only in their lives.
One last thing is that it handles the giving and receiving aspects of manifesting. If you’ve studied the Law of Attraction a little, you might have heard that being able to give is an intricate part of receiving. Intending this way helps fulfill both the giving and receiving sides because you’re giving your goodwill and love to everyone else while being open to receiving it yourself.
Don’t get me wrong, I still focus on more specific things related to my life. You can still work with a specific focus, like manifesting $300, while in the background you’re aware of sending support to everyone else who is intending on manifesting financial abundance.
So how does this relate to Love?
When on the path to unconditional love, in my experience, it almost seems EASIER to be intending for the whole world. It’s somehow… more… unconditional. It is just as easy to intend to be loving towards one thing as it is to be loving towards everything. You can also intend for the whole world to be uplifted and joyful through experiencing Love.
“May everyone experience God’s Love.”
Can you imagine what would happen if everyone started intending for everyone else in the world to be happy, healthy, abundant, successful, and full of love?
Ooh, that sounds exciting to me. It might start getting crazy.
That’s all for now.
Much Love,
Jeff
Serve in Every Moment
I often wonder about how I can best serve the world. Usually it comes in the form of thinking about how to make more money, then I gently remind myself that the purpose behind all of this is serving and giving. After re-affirming my purpose it occurred to me that we don’t have to do anything super grandiose in order to deliver value and service to the world.
I’ve heard it a hundred times before, but this time seemed to make more sense. I have been waiting for some huge big opportunity – or at least a medium sized one – in order to say to myself, “Alright, now that this has happened I can really get to work.” But that’s not how it seems to work.
If we wait for such an opportunity, we might wait our entire lives, and then what good are we?
So there was the realization that we can deliver value in every moment. Not necessarily by supplying others with helpful information, services, or products. But simply by being loving in every moment.
This world is a field of interlaying layers of consciousness. Before Roger Bannister broke the 4 minute mile, it was said it couldn’t be done. Now it is done frequently, in fact, a 4 minute mile isn’t such hot stuff anymore. When he broke the 4 minute mile he helped to open a path for others to follow on. The same applies for everything in every moment.
When you wash the dishes well, you help to open the doorway for others to wash the dishes well too. When you sit, and simply enjoy sitting, you help to create a path for others to sit and enjoy sitting well too. Sure your sitting well might not be publicized on worldwide news or anything, but consciousness registers everything, and the space for others is created whether they are aware of it or not.
It’s like, to learn how to fix a motorcycle, you could spend a lifetime without any books or anything, just tinkering with the pieces, and eventually you might get it together and working. Or you can use a guide or a book, that someone who has gone before you created.
With everyday actions we don’t have guides and books, but our consciousness doesn’t need them in order to access what is already there. Every time someone is loving, it makes it that much easier and more likely for everyone else on the planet to be more loving. Every time someone is kind, it makes it more likely that everyone else on the planet will be more kind.
Now I can’t prove any of this scientifically, but go within and see what your heart tells you.
Everyone that has walked the path before you makes it that much easier for you to do so. Originally the path towards unconditional love and enlightenment was like a jungle. But there were some great sages of the past who went in there with machetes and cut a swath of Truth in the forest. Now in modern times, the path is well trodden and has been traveled countless times before us. Sure there’s still lots of jungle around, and it can be difficult to see sometimes, but all you need to do is just keep following the path.
And we can do this in every moment. With everything. When you are sitting with your family, sit well and lovingly with your family. Not just for you or them, but for all families sitting together everywhere – that they might in the back of their awareness catch a wiff of something more loving, and choose a kind word instead of a mean one.
And when you travel by plane, travel well and lovingly. So that it helps to create that potential for others traveling by plane, that they don’t have to act like prisoners, gripped by fear in airports.
And when you merely sit with yourself, sit with yourself well and lovingly. So that everyone who is so busy running around and avoiding looking within might be less scared and more open to truth.
And while doing all of these things well and lovingly, you might run into people directly, and they might begin to wonder, “Why does this person seem so content?” And they might begin to enjoy each moment a little more too.
But you don’t have to touch people directly. A hug and a smile both heal, although there is only direct physical contact with one of them.
Thanks for reading,
Jeff
I’ve heard it a hundred times before, but this time seemed to make more sense. I have been waiting for some huge big opportunity – or at least a medium sized one – in order to say to myself, “Alright, now that this has happened I can really get to work.” But that’s not how it seems to work.
If we wait for such an opportunity, we might wait our entire lives, and then what good are we?
So there was the realization that we can deliver value in every moment. Not necessarily by supplying others with helpful information, services, or products. But simply by being loving in every moment.
This world is a field of interlaying layers of consciousness. Before Roger Bannister broke the 4 minute mile, it was said it couldn’t be done. Now it is done frequently, in fact, a 4 minute mile isn’t such hot stuff anymore. When he broke the 4 minute mile he helped to open a path for others to follow on. The same applies for everything in every moment.
When you wash the dishes well, you help to open the doorway for others to wash the dishes well too. When you sit, and simply enjoy sitting, you help to create a path for others to sit and enjoy sitting well too. Sure your sitting well might not be publicized on worldwide news or anything, but consciousness registers everything, and the space for others is created whether they are aware of it or not.
It’s like, to learn how to fix a motorcycle, you could spend a lifetime without any books or anything, just tinkering with the pieces, and eventually you might get it together and working. Or you can use a guide or a book, that someone who has gone before you created.
With everyday actions we don’t have guides and books, but our consciousness doesn’t need them in order to access what is already there. Every time someone is loving, it makes it that much easier and more likely for everyone else on the planet to be more loving. Every time someone is kind, it makes it more likely that everyone else on the planet will be more kind.
Now I can’t prove any of this scientifically, but go within and see what your heart tells you.
Everyone that has walked the path before you makes it that much easier for you to do so. Originally the path towards unconditional love and enlightenment was like a jungle. But there were some great sages of the past who went in there with machetes and cut a swath of Truth in the forest. Now in modern times, the path is well trodden and has been traveled countless times before us. Sure there’s still lots of jungle around, and it can be difficult to see sometimes, but all you need to do is just keep following the path.
And we can do this in every moment. With everything. When you are sitting with your family, sit well and lovingly with your family. Not just for you or them, but for all families sitting together everywhere – that they might in the back of their awareness catch a wiff of something more loving, and choose a kind word instead of a mean one.
And when you travel by plane, travel well and lovingly. So that it helps to create that potential for others traveling by plane, that they don’t have to act like prisoners, gripped by fear in airports.
And when you merely sit with yourself, sit with yourself well and lovingly. So that everyone who is so busy running around and avoiding looking within might be less scared and more open to truth.
And while doing all of these things well and lovingly, you might run into people directly, and they might begin to wonder, “Why does this person seem so content?” And they might begin to enjoy each moment a little more too.
But you don’t have to touch people directly. A hug and a smile both heal, although there is only direct physical contact with one of them.
Thanks for reading,
Jeff
Gratitude
Sometimes life can get pretty tough. Things don’t always seem to work out the way we want them to, and even though we persevere as best we can, it doesn’t always make it any easier.
Something to help keep in mind during those rough times is gratitude. Sure it’s one thing to say that while you’re all happy and enjoying life, and it’s completely another to say it when you’re in the throes of struggle. Maybe this won’t be your “go to” thing during a crisis, but perhaps expanding our understanding of all the things we have to be grateful for, prior to when the dookie hits the fan will help.
To help with this, let’s take a quick little historical journey through time.
The earth has been here for a bit, a million years or maybe more, my math isn’t that good *wink*. Of those millions of years, humans have been on this planet for only a few thousand. Of those few thousand mankind has only really become relatively civilized in a fraction of those. Of that fraction, there was a big stretch were something as simple as getting a little sick could be fatal.
Since the advent of antibiotics and modern medicine, even the lowest class of citizens in America survives things that would have meant certain death just a short time ago. Modern medicine has a bad rap these days, and it certaintly has its shortcomings, but if it weren’t for modern medicine I wouldn’t be alive today, and neither would many members of my family. So as much as I love preventative medicine and other modalities, modern medicine is pretty rockin’.
So we basically survive things that would have decimated populations only a few hundred years ago. Even the lowest level of poverty in America provides people with at least some relief. And if you have a little drive and dedication you can really make things happen no matter what strata of society you’re in.
Even relatively poor people can have access to things kings didn’t have – the toilet, TV, modern medicine (I know the system is messed up, but if you get stabbed or something they’ll treat you), and transportation.
I don’t know about you, but if I had to choose between being a king in the past, or even relatively poor today in America… I’d choose this day and age. What if I was a king and my appendix decided to rupture? Not so much fun then.
We have access to all of these brilliant things, and even though there’s all this craziness going on in the world right now, I, at least, feel hopeful. Technologically we are moving forward at light speed, and it keeps getting faster. There’s a lot of social and financial turmoil, but it seems to me that this is just a sign that we have to shift to integrity and value versus making money as the bottom line. Who knows, maybe I’m just delusional.
With regards to global matters, it seems like the everyone is getting the message, “Get your act together, or it’s game over.” I see that as a good thing. No more rose-colored glasses, or turning a blind eye to non-integrous behaviors. Let’s take some responsibility.
And in a morbidly comforting sort of way, even if we as a species annihilate ourselves via nuclear war, at least we won’t be around to complain about how tragic it is. Besides, the planets will keep on spinning without us – no need to worry.
Something to help keep in mind during those rough times is gratitude. Sure it’s one thing to say that while you’re all happy and enjoying life, and it’s completely another to say it when you’re in the throes of struggle. Maybe this won’t be your “go to” thing during a crisis, but perhaps expanding our understanding of all the things we have to be grateful for, prior to when the dookie hits the fan will help.
To help with this, let’s take a quick little historical journey through time.
The earth has been here for a bit, a million years or maybe more, my math isn’t that good *wink*. Of those millions of years, humans have been on this planet for only a few thousand. Of those few thousand mankind has only really become relatively civilized in a fraction of those. Of that fraction, there was a big stretch were something as simple as getting a little sick could be fatal.
Since the advent of antibiotics and modern medicine, even the lowest class of citizens in America survives things that would have meant certain death just a short time ago. Modern medicine has a bad rap these days, and it certaintly has its shortcomings, but if it weren’t for modern medicine I wouldn’t be alive today, and neither would many members of my family. So as much as I love preventative medicine and other modalities, modern medicine is pretty rockin’.
So we basically survive things that would have decimated populations only a few hundred years ago. Even the lowest level of poverty in America provides people with at least some relief. And if you have a little drive and dedication you can really make things happen no matter what strata of society you’re in.
Even relatively poor people can have access to things kings didn’t have – the toilet, TV, modern medicine (I know the system is messed up, but if you get stabbed or something they’ll treat you), and transportation.
I don’t know about you, but if I had to choose between being a king in the past, or even relatively poor today in America… I’d choose this day and age. What if I was a king and my appendix decided to rupture? Not so much fun then.
We have access to all of these brilliant things, and even though there’s all this craziness going on in the world right now, I, at least, feel hopeful. Technologically we are moving forward at light speed, and it keeps getting faster. There’s a lot of social and financial turmoil, but it seems to me that this is just a sign that we have to shift to integrity and value versus making money as the bottom line. Who knows, maybe I’m just delusional.
With regards to global matters, it seems like the everyone is getting the message, “Get your act together, or it’s game over.” I see that as a good thing. No more rose-colored glasses, or turning a blind eye to non-integrous behaviors. Let’s take some responsibility.
And in a morbidly comforting sort of way, even if we as a species annihilate ourselves via nuclear war, at least we won’t be around to complain about how tragic it is. Besides, the planets will keep on spinning without us – no need to worry.
Welcome!
Welcome to the Grow For Life blog. This blog is all about making growth a lifestyle, a way of being in the world.
We will discuss topics such as spirituality, truth, love, forgiveness, manifestation, healing, health and all sorts of goodies :)
Thanks for being aboard, I really appreciate the support.
Jeff
We will discuss topics such as spirituality, truth, love, forgiveness, manifestation, healing, health and all sorts of goodies :)
Thanks for being aboard, I really appreciate the support.
Jeff
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