The Theory of the Realms:

(How to view the Universe, Part 2)

The word 'Reality' displayed in glowing script font over radiant golden cosmic light.
The word ‘Reality’ shines brightly amidst glowing cosmic rays.

Welcome back! Last week, I shared my Three-Part view of the Universe: The Great Reality, Inner Reality, and Outer Reality, a so-called “Theory of the Realms”. To recap: I believe that coming to understand these Realms and learning to live harmoniously in them is the ideal way to live. Aligning with Love is how to live in that harmony, with a Higher Reality, ourselves, and the world around us. I went into considerable detail addressing how I believe this Great Reality is beyond our full comprehension. I proposed that even if we think the Universe is only governed by the Laws of Science, we can still extend that orderliness and harmony into our day-to-day lives. We take a great deal on so-called “common faith”, not religious faith, but just that the sun will indeed rise each day, and the like. So then, can’t we extend that to believe there may be something “more” that we simply can’t understand? Could we consider aligning ourselves with that?

I went on to say I think we are all trying to find something greater than ourselves. We want “the good life” or money. Many of us want more noble things, like causes we believe in to be helped. We all want something more. I also recounted how my experience with the shingles illness brought me to a more expansive view of this Great Reality, and my understanding of God. I wrote again of the “Great Flow” of the Universe, and how I believe God was directing me. I sensed God was aligning me, so I could go on to do things like write this blog.

Part 2: The Inner Reality

This one really is easy to grasp. We have an “inner life”. We have thoughts, feelings, desires, opinions, and a personality. I believe this collection makes up your soul. This is you–the you inside. You may be very aware of these parts of yourself. You may have no idea about a lot of them, either because you weren’t taught how to access them, or it is not of deep interest to you. Not everyone wants to probe their psyche! In this blog, I do, and I like to do so, as I think we need to get down to some of the why’s of why we behave as we do.

I already wrote at length about a vital portion of this Inner Life: your Ego, Expectations, and Myths. (Go over to the Archives Page, and scroll down–the links are all there.) https://align-with-love.com/archive/ I also further wrote about Approaches to Life, also accessible on the Archives Page. These Approaches are a very important “stance”, or position to take, as we navigate these Realms. Openness is essential with the Great Reality. Lightness is essential with the Inner Reality. I think we all need to not take ourselves too seriously, hold our many opinions and beliefs with some graciousness, and be willing to hear others. Openness and Lightness actually work with all the Realms, as does Alignment. When I finish laying out these Realms, I will be able to get more into how to practice with them in my “How do I Practice?” segment.

Sometimes, when the UnIverse has not behaved as we thought it should, via our expectations and myths, we can get “angry” at this Great Reality. We reject any notion of God or Higher Power, as we see all the evil around us, and assume He/She is really not doing their job! Starvation and war, mass inequities that are even on your street corner, do seem to fly in the face of any Benevolent Being or Force. So, it make sense we may dismiss religion. Or if we had faith, we let it dissipate out of our lives, due to how we see things not being “fair” or “right”.

Often times, those with a formal religious faith turn away from it due to other followers who behaved very badly! Terrible abuse has been done by religious leaders, mental, physical, and sexual. Along with that, such leaders can sometimes just plain manipulate people’s desire to be “right” with the Almighty, and this takes it’s sad toll. I get it-I was traumatized by well meaning Christians too. They were people who told me, or didn’t make clear to me, how God really is. We are touching a lot on the Outer Reality here too, the world of everything and everyone else. We will delve into that more next time. For now, we are focusing on how we are perceiving things in ourselves, even if the perceptions were taught to us!

To continue, I am taking it on Faith how God “is”, but I think if we are quiet, many of these notions I am putting out here will resonate with you. They resonate because beneath your mind’s thinking and processing, and your feeling’s feeling, I think you may know down deep that there is more to life. You may be saying “nope” in you head, and even in your heart, but down deep, some part of you knows. You just may not have found it yet. You may not have started aligning with that yet. I hope this blog will help you get in touch with that deeper part. “Down there” is a real “you”, what others have called Your True Self. Find that, find that True Self, and really start living and loving from there–that can be powerful. The world is filled with folks who are cut off from this version of themselves—don’t be one of them.

So notice this Inner You. Call it your soul, if that word works. But Inner You works too. How are you feeling? What are you thinking? Does the world seem unfair? Why? What sense of rightness/wrongness are you living by? What makes you angry, or delights you? Why? How did the notions you got of the Great Reality shape your ways of thinking and feeling? Was it Sunday School, or Church? Was it the “Street,” or a horrible home-life? Was it trauma or tragedy? Sit with these questions. You’d be amazed how much of our views of life really came from formative moments as little children that we have never revisited. I am going to save that for next time. For now, just observe that Inner You.

Don’t critique–I’m sure you do enough of that. For right now, don’t critique your feelings and thoughts, or whether you are seen as smart, or “spiritual”, or “together”. Just watch. Notice. Again, ask yourself where your thoughts/feeling are coming from: your religion, mom and dad, or other care-givers, school, or maybe even friends? I’ll say again, I am NOT a therapist or counselor, so you do want to be careful what you dig into, in this Inner You.

As we look at this Inner Realm, we can see how our mis-perceptions, or lack of perceptions, about the Great Reality influenced us. We can also readily see how we have issues dealing with others in the Last Realm: The Outer Reality.

More to come–

Stay Open. Stay Light.

-Eric, the Wordsmith

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Psalms Project (Continued)

If you are new to this blog, on Friday or Saturday I will post something from my Vault, or one of my other Writing Projects. The Psalms Project is my attempt to take the spirit of the Psalms and re-apply them and write new ones for today. I am NOT trying to replace the amazing Psalms already in the Bible! I am in no way trying to paraphrase or restate each Psalm, but I do pay homage to them and other Bible passages, of course. While often meant as songs in the Hebrew Scriptures, mine are more like meditative essays. I invite you to play along, see what you might identify with or relate to in these. So, here is another Psalm for a Modern Day.

ALONE?

         Quietness. No one around, save my own mind. It feels empty. A void—that should be filled. A void that IS. People can fill it some of the time—but not all of the time.

Selah.

         But you are a God of empty spaces! You are a God of lonely places. A long list of “friends” in the digital world may give an illusion of love, but is gone like a morning mist. Oh Lord, only you can be a True Friend. Even wives and husbands cannot be All.

         You are all, in All, and in the little things we see, if we only have eyes to see.

         Open my eyes! Open me to see that you are here—always here, whether the room is crowded, or the hour is late, and the room is empty.

         Then I am sad, for I forgot the Other World, the true one, where we came from, and where we shall return. That world is here and NOW. Only believe, and breathe in His Presence.

         The quiet is not quiet, nor the void, a void. The space that is nothing is filled with EVERYTHING.

God IS here. In me. In you.

Amen.

-Eric, the Wordsmith

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(The Theory of the Realms-Part 2 drops next week…)

The Theory of the Realms:

(How to view the Universe, Part 1)

The word 'Reality' displayed in glowing script font over radiant golden cosmic light.

In my earlier post: “What’s it all about?” I alluded to a “Theory of the Realms” which I will now propose. Some of it you may like, some of it you will be unsure of, but hear me out. The first will be the hardest for some to buy into, the other two will be easy.

I believe the Universe consists of Three Realms: a Great Reality, an Inner Reality, and an Outer Reality. Everything exists in these three. They co-exist, interact, and we live our whole lives in them. Why does this matter? Because I believe, as we come to understand these Realms, we can learn to live in harmony with them. We can learn to be Aligned in them, and live ultimately as we were meant to be.

We can live in Harmony with these Realms, and have harmony within.

Let’s jump in. What even is reality? The dictionary says: “the quality or state of being real: a real event, entity, or state of affairs,  the totality of real things and events” https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/reality Let me propose what I see as reality, in three parts. First, a Great Reality. I said this one may be harder to grasp, but please play along. There are things in life we can not explain, things that transcend our understanding. There are things we take on “faith”, or assume them to be true, as life has born them out. The sun rises each day, gravity makes things fall, there are seasons, and so forth. I believe that there is something beneath all of these larger happenings.

I know some will stop right there and insist there is “nothing more”. We live, we die, and that is it. Our feelings and thoughts are just neurons and chemicals firing, and everything we see around us happened by larger cosmic forces, that we just haven’t quite figured out yet. There is nothing “more”. All of this may be true, or there is an intelligence of some kind, or some larger, guiding “something” behind it all. As you know, I do come from a Christian perspective, so I have a structured belief about what makes up the Great Reality.

I do not limit that perception to a 7-day creation, or even insist everyone think of “god” as I do. I have already spoken of a “Great Flow” to the Universe, a directed, intentional, continuum of space and time, and beyond. We can not fully understand it, as it is transcendent, and all of that is part the Great Reality. If you still can’t “buy it”, and I don’t need you to, you have to acknowledge you don’t know everything and don’t have all the information about things all the time. Even when I mentioned believing cosmic forces shaped the world we see–those forces came from somewhere! Even if pure science is your “Great Reality”, we can’t fully explain why we feel love for another, why we are moved by a sunset, or a child’s laugh. We work hard to enjoy the “good life” whatever we believe that to be, but beneath it, I think we are trying to find something. We are trying to make connection, even if it is just with ourselves. Maybe we are trying to find peace, or contentment.

I think if we are honest, we are trying to find something greater than ourselves.

I get it–you still may not believe there is any Great Reality, but try to pretend there is one, even if it is just the Laws of Science. Whatever you believe, you have encountered people who have strong beliefs about this Great Reality. They may be very determined to have you agree with them, and follow practices “demanded” by that Reality, as they see it.

As I have gotten older, I have come to realize that I don’t “know it all”. Beliefs I was taught as a child about “god”, and how to respond to him/her/them, have been revisited and revamped. I did have a period in my youth where I was unsure about any Higher Force/Purpose/Being. But I sensed “something”. I sensed Something beyond me, that was beyond my comprehension. From that, I re-found my Faith, and yes, I do see this Reality through Christian “glasses”, but not dogmatic and judgemental ones.

When I had a bout with shingles in 2014, I experienced a “dark night of the soul” and felt very abandoned by God, as I perceived Him then. I had shingles in my right eye, and if you are not familiar with it, it is an offshoot of chickenpox, that can flare up in anyone who previously had chickenpox. You get a nasty, blistery rash that can be excruciatingly painful on various areas of the body. In my case, it was my face, around and in my right eye. I had just started dating my wife, so she went on quite a ride with me. Later, I would see her staunch support and loving kindness as God manifesting to me. I lost my vision in my right eye for a time, and was hyper-sensitive to light. I recall sitting in my apartment at midnight, wearing sunglasses and unable to work, and wondering if this would be my life now.

I even went home to my Mom’s for a while, as my childhood home in the woods of the Hudson Valley of New York, USA is a great comfort to me. But I found none there, just emptiness. Usually long walks up there were good for my soul, but the sunlight left me disoriented. Feeling despondent, I noticed one thing: the roads up there had just had their lines repainted. So I followed the fresh white line on the edge, to navigate. (These are country roads, not busy city ones. You can walk them and not worry about getting killed every 10 seconds.)

You may be expecting me to say I heard a Voice, or had some encounter with Jesus, but I did not. There was only a white line to follow. I did ultimately get better, my vision came back fully, and God did meet me, through other people. While I did not “die” in that experience, parts of my being “died”. Parts of how I perceived God died, and in fact I emerged from it with a much wider view of God, and a deeper sense of this Great Reality I am writing about.

I can view it as I just got sick from all the myriad of illnesses on this planet, and got down in the dumps, and got better and felt better. I can let it be just a bunch of happenings. I happened to have just met my future wife. It just happened that the road lines were painted, when I most needed them. Maybe, maybe not. I am not saying that “God” arranged all these circumstances so I could get a deeper Connection, but maybe I was being moved in this “Great Flow” I am talking about. I don’t recall if I started thinking in those terms then, but the experience of that sickness changed me. I know many people had shingles and it was a pain, and they moved on. For me, there was my life before shingles, and my life after it.

I choose to see that God, through this Great Flow, was working in this situation. There was a “flow” to it all: sickness to healing, emptiness to new understanding. I emerged from this time seeing that God with more than just my pure-Christian understanding, and that He was more than just a “He”, or a “she”, or even a “They”. I believe now that God is that Great Reality, showing up sometimes in seeming miracles, and sometimes in just the rising and the setting of the sun. Our whole existence is contained within this Great Reality, and we are a part of it.

I believe now that my shingles experience was for my good. It was horrible. I said there was no dramatic experiences of “God”, but I believe He was expressing Himself to me in subtle ways that I did not see. Bill W., co-founder of Alcoholic Anonymous said he had an experience of white light filling his hospital room after one of his binges with alcohol This lead him to stop drinking and begin his work of helping fellow drunks. I had a “White Line” experience, where I had a Path to follow, and that was all.

I believe I had to have an experience that went beyond obvious Christian expressions so I could do this: write this blog, and not just spout at you Scripture verses, and Christian ideology, but something more. (I am not knocking Bible verses, and any Christian teachings, but not everyone will buy into it.) Jesus himself went to non-Jews and talked with them, and I want to reach you, and help you to Align with Love, no matter what you believe. Aligning with love is for all. I didn’t think of it that way a decade ago, but God was Aligning me with His Love. I had to stay on the “line”, stay aligned with it, or I would get lost on that country road, so long ago.

That line was a “Beam of Light”, a focusing of that Great Flow, of God showing up in ways my brain could not even fathom. His Lightness directed me, and He was partnering with me, and asking me to partner with Him. The line was not a metaphor for some set of perfect practices or beliefs to make God happy! It was simply a means to direct and guide a partially blind person. I still need guidance-every day!

Try it-try believing there is more than just what you can see, touch, and understand. If you are honest, you already do. You have a measure of day-to-day faith that the Universe will continue as it is: the sun will rise, your car will start, or the train will arrive. The dog or cat will be there, the boyfriend/girlfriend/spouse will be there tonight. You already believe things. Try believing there is more behind it. I know this blog is only scratching the surface of all the philosophical and theological aspects of life. Try just considering there is more to this life: A Greater Reality.

Even if we’re just making it all up-it still seems to be better to believe in something. If we can live in some harmony with something beyond ourselves, aligning with that, well, that could be transformative–properly directed. That is why I believe part of that Great Reality is Love, and a love we can, and should, Align ourselves with.

I said this First Reality would be the hardest. Next time I will write about the Inner Reality: Your thoughts and feelings. That, we can all agree exists! At least we can all agree we have them!

-Eric, the Wordsmith

BP21

Psalms Project (Continued)

If you are new to this blog, on Friday or Saturday I will post something from my Vault, or one of my other Writing Projects. The Psalms Project is my attempt to take the spirit of the Psalms and re-apply them and write new ones for today. I am NOT trying to replace the amazing Psalms already in the Bible! I am in no way trying to paraphrase or restate each Psalm, but I do pay homage to them and other Bible passages, of course. I invite you to play along, see what you might identify with or relate to in these. So, here is another Psalm for a Modern Day.

THANKFULNESS

         How great He is! His majesty reaches to the skies. He has brought me through dilemma after dilemma. God whispers in my ear: “I am with you-do not be afraid.” Storms blow, and waves crash–and God says: “Peace, be still.”

         Oh, that my ear would be attuned more and more to hear Your whisper and know that You can always speak to the waves of my life.

Selah.

         Oh Lord, you are so good and gracious–even when we don’t trust as we should. You show yourself mighty when we are weak. May we love you more–more in our actions, and in our thoughts-for you know them all.

         No man can stand against you; no one has power over you or your plans. You are glorious and awesome. No temple, church, or mosque can hold you.

         Let us hear you whispering your Assurance. Let us know that even though the waves may crash, and even if we do drown– we shall be raised up and renewed, and be closer to you, than we thought possible.

         Let us see all difficulties as pathways to you and a means to become more like you—and rejoice, though it be difficult!

Biblical References: Psalm 46, Matt. 8, Romans 5

-Eric, the Wordsmith

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Help for the Obstacles:

A Better Way to “Let Go”

Go fly a kite! (Just kidding). In writing my “How I Practice” post, I realized I wanted to delve deeper into a specific Practice I have that can really help. As I have said over and over, I often mess up with this one too. But if you “give it a whirl” and play along, I think it might change your life.

The Practice is three words:

Release. Receive. Continue.

The first, Release, is to “let go” as so many other people have said. BUT, releasing is more than just “letting go”. It’s a cliche to say “let go”, and I am not knocking the ideal, but I think there is more we can do.

I think there is a better way to practice with letting go.

When my Dad was alive, he used to say “Release” to whoever had something he wanted, which usually was the TV remote. Years later, after he had passed, I re-heard that phrase in his voice, and saw it was a profound concept. I had an epiphany, and it was not Christmas-time. Release is more than just letting go–it is loosening your grip on whatever. This dovetails nicely with the Approach of Lightness. I can hold something tightly, like a pencil, and then you have to pry it out of my hand. Or, I can hold it in my palm out to you, and you can take it. I released it to you. I was still holding it. I didn’t drop it on the ground. I held it lightly. I was OK if you took the pencil.

When I feel myself tense up–I can relax. I can release all the expectations I have for the situation I find myself in. (Or I can release some of them. At least I can try to.) I have not yet gotten into the tagline for this Blog: Intention. Response. Action. Suffice it to say for now, releasing and the components I am going to write about, are the core part of my proposed Responses.

I hope you can see that Releasing is “letting go”, but also giving space for the reality that you can’t always let go easily. But maybe you could loosen your grip. Maybe you could loosen your grip on your opinion, or needing so-and-so to do this and that, or that.

Receive: Receive what is happening to you. Welcome it. I am NOT saying to let yourself be abused, mistreated, or beat up. Extreme violence and physical attack, are not to be received. They have to be escaped from! I am talking about all the little annoyances of life. Examples are numerous: the neighbor who fires up the lawnmower right as you want to take a nap. Or the kid who just seems to push your buttons–all the time. Traffic, lines, and a myriad of other happenings, on and on–can you receive them with some patience? How about some gratitude?

There are more extreme things, like a bad medical diagnosis, of course. How can you receive it? I am not saying to jump for joy if you have cancer-but what can you receive in it? How can your response to such a diagnosis help others? With any serious illness-what work can you do on yourself? What can it teach you? Recall what I said in my Openness post:

What is the Universe bringing to me, teaching me, or giving me?

Receive that answer, even if you don’t like it. Walk with it. Live in it. It may “suck”, and if it’s a terminal illness, yours or a loved one, it will not be fun. But I believe we must find Alignment in even these terrible things. God is there to be found, seemingly hidden in these tragedies, but He/She is there. I promise–I truly believe that.

Continue: Keep going. Yes, keep going. Don’t stay fixated on whatever. Maybe you did not word that conversation as well as you could. Maybe you were just “off” in you soul in that interaction, and it just wasn’t the best version of you at that moment. Release it, receive whatever you may need to learn from it, and move on. As an OCD ruminating person, I HAVE to stop myself. I have to trust that I did my best, and if someone was truly hurt by what I said or did, they will let me know. (My wife frequently lets me know when I did not say something well.)

Don’t stay stuck! Maybe you are not sure how something was perceived by someone. Then ask. Yes, it will feel scary, but sometimes continuing looks like getting feedback. Be careful, of course. Sometimes I feel like I am sure someone is unhappy or upset, as my frequent Narrative is I am usually messing up somehow. But, that is NOT always true! I’d like to think that when you sincerely try to do the things I wrote about, like Openness and Lightness, people sense that, and will give you grace. So try an honest request for feedback. As Peter Scazzero says in his Emotionally Healthy Spirituality work: “How did you experience me?” is a great question to ask. A little kindness, politeness and humility–go a loooong way, especially in our polarized American culture.

There may have been a terrible mistake made, like a broken marriage, or some misdeed that cost a life. There may have been something you can NOT undo. Even if you apologize, you have altered someone’s life forever. You must make your amends, and leave the rest in God’s care. You have to move on, in the proper time, and in the proper way. But you must move on–the Great Flow of God’s love and presence compels you too. God will take care to heal the other people, too. Trust.

I conclude with a Christian analogy, that is one of Jesus’s more unusual stories:

43 “When the unclean spirit has gone out of a person, it passes through waterless places seeking rest, but finds none. 44 Then it says, ‘I will return to my house from which I came.’ And when it comes, it finds the house empty, swept, and put in order. 45 Then it goes and brings with it seven other spirits more evil than itself, and they enter and dwell there, and the last state of that person is worse than the first.… (Matthew’s Gospel: Chapter 12:43-45)

There are many more scholarly interpretations of this, but I think there is a lesson here. When we let go of our own “unclean spirits”, and do not put anything else in it’s place, we have a hard time filling that void. Anyone in addiction recovery knows they can not just stop the drink/drug/compulsion and expect to get well. Meetings are needed, counseling, and deep soul work, or they will be back to their old behaviors!

So it is with letting go. I believe you must release, and receive, and continue. There must be more than just “letting go”. As I have already written, (See my Archives page on the Blog Menubar), I have to frequently release my ego, expectations, and myths! I have to receive Openness, Lightness, and Alignment. While I have spoke of them as Approaches, there is a component of them that can not be “done”, but only received. (I said we would get mystical here sometimes.) For each person reading this, you will have your own way of hearing this and incorporating it into your being. Sit with it. Let it soak in.

I find this Practice of Releasing, Receiving and Continuing to be a lifeline on many days. I can notice my agitation and unsettledness and start loosening my grip. I can hold lightly to that metaphorical pencil I mentioned. Then I can receive what is being brought to me, even if I do not like it, which is often. Following that, I can continue, a little lighter, a little more relaxed, and a little more Aligned with Love. I can be a little more like God, and be in His/Her Image.

Don’t we all want some more peace and poise? Try this Practice. If you are religious/spiritual, you already kind-of know it, but perhaps this fresh take will propel you onward in your growth. I hope so. New to anything spiritual, or mental-wellness? This can still help you! Try it. Breath, and loosen you grip. Receive the situation or person–you don’t have to be 100% OK with whatever, but you can continue with some sanity in your soul, more Aligned with the Divine.

Until next time, blessings! Happy Eastertide if you celebrate, and Happy Spring. May God fill your heart with peace and presence.

Be Open. Be Light.

-Eric, the Wordsmith

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