The teaching #4: Immerse yourself in nature and pay attention

 

The practice: Take time in nature, pay attention, and listen

 

“Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life? See how the flowers of the field grow.” Jesus of Nazareth

Immersing ourselves in nature is a spiritual discipline that Jesus tells us to do and modern science confirms. Jesus gives us the secret to reducing stress and anxiety; consider creation, the fields, the tress and the birds that live there. I discovered that installing a humming bird feeder outside the window next to my desk helps me relax. Maybe we should be less concerned about style religious rituals and create fresh organic ones that are happening all around us.

“Jesus’ spirituality was immersed in the natural world: Jesus says matter and spirit, divine and human are not enemies, but in fact are two sides of the same coin. They reveal one another and are finally one! Once you grant subjectivity to the natural world, everything changes. Things out there are no longer mere objects with you as the controlling subject, but you now share mutuality with all things.” Richard Rohr

Jesus goes on in this same passage the most westerners have herd “But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.” Jesus I so enjoy how he says, “Tomorrow will worry about itself!” Jesus is not advocating not planning, he is advocating time in nature and pursing plans that have eternal impact. Saying, “Don’t worry,” only makes worry worse, but giving a practice that reduces worry, is of great value. Jesus gives us both. I know that Bob Marley read the words of Jesus often, and I like how he sings about his organic spiritual discipline that Jesus taught, “Rose up this morning, smiled at he rising sun, three little birds where by my door step, singing sweet songs, a melody pure and whole.” The message nature then replies back to all of us is, “That every little thing is gonna be alright.” Yes you child may die of cancer, yes war will go one, yes natural disasters will strike and pain is apart of life, but the grace of the humming bird is also present, the beat of her wings and the beat of your heart, and the breath in your lungs today rises and falls like the sun. Jesus invites us not into tomorrow’s ills, but into the present grace that is always with us and nature whispers our creator’s secrets if we have an ear to hear.

Why did Jesus of Nazareth, and Jim Morrison cross the road?

To break onto the other side… of consciousness.

 

Jesus’s teaching #3: We are one with God our father

Distinct but not separate – “that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me.” Jesus (John 17:21)

 

The practice: meditation on oneness

 

“Consciousness is the state or quality of awareness, or, of being aware” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consciousness

The state of consciousness I want to discuss is Unitive or unity Consciousness. “Unity Consciousness: moving beyond the I-Thou relationship with God to unity, experienced as being one with God.” The human soul yearns for union with its life force and creator. It turns out the creator also yearns to have this union with what has been created. Union with humanity, nature, the cosmos, and the creator is an ultimate reality and can be an awareness to live in. Unitive Consciousness… it is an awareness!

The Apostles Paul’s comments on Unitive Consciousness

“In Him we live, and move, and have our being.” Paul (Acts 17:28)

We are not identical to God but, we have our being in our creator.

Learning to identify with our Higher Self–our soul, not with our lower self: ego, body, appetites, intellect is a large part of unitive consciousness.

 

Links I took ideas from

http://www.spiritualpaths.net/mystical-experience-or-unitive-seeing-by-cynthia-bourgeault/

http://www.cruzetech.com/wudhi/mysticism/dcw/unitive%20and%20dualistic%20consciousness.htm

http://www.spiritualemergence.org.au/#!episodes-of-unitive-consciousness/c1bfz

“A good man brings good things out of the good stored up in him, and an evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in him.”

 

The practice this week is to store up goodness in our hearts if we want goodness to come out of our lives. If we involve ourselves in evil, its because that’s what has been planted, sowed, and stored up. Our actions become a testament to what we have stored up. Lets practice storing goodness this week in following the truth that Jesus presents to us, and this truth is relavent today.Lets investigate our lives, and contemplate how we spend our time and resources, and see what is being brought up. This is following Jesus and learning from him.

Love for Enemies

Mathew 5:43 “You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ 44 But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, 45 that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. 46 If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? 47 And if you greet only your own people, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that? 48 Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.

 

1. The Command to follow, Love for enemies

 

2. Step one of the practice, pray for those who persecute you.   Step one towards transformation.

 

3. Examples and how we receive revelation about the creator through the natural world as teacher. (Rain and sun for all. Free grace of God for all regardless)

 

4. The perfection of our creator is made evident in loving the persecutor, even in the face of the evil they enact.
5. so friends, no one said we would be good at it, but an old adage says practice makes perfect, here’s to practice. Consider what this means in your own life, this is following Jesus!