Wednesday, September 30, 2015

The Love Experience

               In my last post I alluded to having a Divine encounter. This encounter has provided me with a new way of perceiving everything. I’m becoming less of an individual, and more of a splash of paint on a Universal canvas. In laymen’s terms, I’m becoming a better person with each passing day, but laymen’s terms don’t accurately describe what I have been feeling and seeing. In this post, I am going to share a moment I had. This moment resulted from the Divine encounter. I won’t share the encounter specifically because I still don’t understand it. Anyway, this post is about Love, so if you want to hear about Love, then this is your place. Before going on, I want to share one of my personal truths: One cannot see God and not see Love, because Love is truly the gateway to any spiritual higher learning. God is Love and Love is God.
            Lately, I have been feeling “called” to be outside. Nothing too crazy. Just imagine the feeling of wanting a cigarette or a glass of water. I’ve had a thirst for being outdoors. Whenever I want a break at work, I step out the backdoor to admire what little greenery is still standing among the garbage and split grey-black asphalt. In the mornings, I walk across the street to the community park to experience the energy of life minutes before sunrise. Often times I meditate, stretch, and write. But, there have been plenty of times when I would simply sit and feel everything around me. While at home, I step outside periodically to soak up whatever is going on in that moment. I bet you’re wondering why I’m driving this “thirst” point so hard. Well, it’s crucial that you understand how I’m thirsting before I tell you what I am thirsting for. Those moments I spend outside are all driven by my desire to recreate an experience. That’s the rational Truth, and it is heavy. One experience was moving enough to create a new hobby. I never particularly liked being outside prior to the experience. I didn’t hate it. I just rarely thought about it, but as you have read; now it feels like a necessity. 
On Monday, I was cruising down a quiet road heading back to work. The weather was decent, so I had my windows down. I like to allow my left arm to hang casually out the window because the wind makes it feel free. Both the passenger window and the driver window are down so the wind can whipped in-and-out as it pleased. Inside, I had a song going, and I may as well have been auditioning for Broadway because I was into it. I can recall driving over some train tracks and turning left onto a semi-windy road. One vehicle was ahead of me on the road, and I remember admiring that the trip was peaceful because I had the roads to myself. Because of this, I looked up and noticed swirling clouds in the sky. They were fluffy to the point of grandeur, and they seemed to reflect every color option between grey and blue. One set of clouds was swirling one direction and another cloud swirled in an opposing direction. This motion allowed me to see the depth of the clouds, but I remember forcing myself to look down. All of this happened in a matter of seconds, but it was one of those moments in your mind that operate outside the laws of time. With my eyes back on the road, I approached a “T-intersection,” in which I was driving along the top of the “T.” As I drove past the perpendicular cars I realized that there were about 5 cars at the stop sign, and that I would not have the roads to myself for long. Once safely beyond the turning cars I glanced up towards the sky again. An air plane drifted across my sight as if it were saying, “hello.” I realized I was never alone. I became aware of the potential that the plane above me could be carrying over a hundred people. I became aware of the people on the road, and the fact that each of these people had lives, stories, and perspectives. I became aware of the swirling clouds once more, and I was hit with a wave of selfless pure Love. It was humbling. I realized how small I am, but also how big I am. I realized we were all here together, and always have been, together. I felt the love of life and the love of human. I felt grateful to be a part of it all, and I was able to appreciate all of Creation at once.
Why wouldn’t I want to re-create that? I want it at all times. I want to tell everyone I know because I want everyone to feel what I felt. But, I didn’t find it in the Bible or church. That part scared me at first. I realized that I didn’t have this experience from any conventional means. There are people everywhere searching for experiences just like this in religions across the globe, so I feel compelled to tell people The Truth. If any God were real, he, she, or them, would not create a system in which they could be so easily undermined by opposition. Basically, the fact that we have the choice to create religions shows the nature of God. What God would create something that has to create dogmas and rules just to get to him/her/them? If you believe that your God is not bigger than your religion than your view may be skewed. The concept of God concludes that God created us. Humans are born with will, so by nature God must be greater than human will, or possess equal amounts of will. In that experience I had, I realized that God truly is all of it and more of it.


I think this is a good place to stop. Next time I will go into detail about what I learned about the nature Love. 

Sunday, September 27, 2015

The Bible Glitch

            The Bible is without a doubt the most important book in the world. Be that as it may, it is also the severely flawed. Now before anyone gets upset, hear me out. I was raised a Southern Baptist. My family went to church twice on Sundays, once on Wednesdays, and sometimes on Fridays. I still read the Bible regularly. In fact, I write this essay out of Love for this sacred document. However, for the sake of Human salvation, it must be critiqued.
            What is the Bible? Simply put, it is the written testimony of Human interaction with God. This testimony is all from the Human perspective, but if we are still living why does The Bible end? Did God stop talking? Did we stop listening?  Or, perhaps we stopped writing. To a bible thumper this is trivial, but to an intellectual this flaw is freedom.
            If you do not believe The Bible has power in America then you are delusional. We want a Christian president. We want to defund Planned Parenthood. We get up in arms every day about something to do with The Bible. Think about the ongoing reaction to gay marriage. How many of our social issues are in fact biblical issues? The bible also permeates our law. Consider marriage laws and drug laws, or how about scientific practices and research? If you are American, The Bible has an effect on your life. Now think about our country. Think about our soldiers dying to defend this book. Think about the extremist that hate this book and kill because of that hate.  As you think about our country ask yourself if things are working. If the Bible is failing us, then God is failing us. But this isn’t the truth. God didn’t stop talking, and we didn’t stop listening either. Plenty of artists experience God and display it in their work every day. The Bible is living because we are living. It’s our testimony, and it always has been. We didn’t stop listening, we just stopped paying attention.
            There was a time when I wished I could have stopped trying to pay attention. I’ve spent my entire life looking for God. I stumbled from Christianity to Eastern Philosophy, and then to Mysticism. I studied Numerology, Astrology, Astral Projection, Alchemy, and healing. No matter where I looked, I could not find God. I knew I was missing something, but I had no idea what it was. I started out in a phase I think more people go through than care to admit: The Illuminati YouTube phase. If I can be frank, I witnessed my world crumble while looking for God. I joined the Air Force to be an Airman by day, and by night I was a hermit mystic walking down the dark road to enlightenment. The physical world rarely got anything genuine from me. I was an extreme introvert, and any emotion I did display burst out in passionate waves. I chased the secrets of God with so much zeal that I ignored my family and my wife at the time. Since I rarely called anyone from my family, they never called me. I hardly remained in touch with my high school friends and I didn’t bother to make genuine bonds in the military if I could help it. I have always been on the hunt. This year, I finally found what I was looking for.
            Between September 24th and 25th something amazing happened. On that Thursday, I felt strangely empowered. My mind was sharper and I began to understand principles that I had studied but never understood. By the next day, I felt like I had come through a gateway, 100% myself, and 100% spirit. I had finally understood a morsel of what I was desperately searching for and it feels amazing. That morning I wrote a poem about the experience, that I believe are the most powerful words I have ever written. I have seen a sliver of The Truth, and now my life has direction and purpose.
            Since my spiritual birthday, my life has been improving at a rapid rate. I called my ex-wife and apologized that I never gave her the opportunity to know me. I knew that I had wounded her heart with all the nights I spent in my journals or in my mind, while she hung out by herself away from her family. As we talked, we both became emotional and I felt something unlock in my chest. I knew her heart had been healed. Consequently, our relationship is healthier so we can be better co-parents. For me, this is a miracle. A lot of hatred has been extinguished, and all parties can move on. I had another miracle as well. I have a lot of siblings, but because I was adopted, I was raised with only one of my biological siblings. One would think we would be inseparable, but we have been fighting my entire adult life. Things got so bad that we stopped talking to each other. On Saturday morning, this changed. It was around 4:30AM when I sent her a text asking her if she was awake. She responded by saying she was just thinking about me, and that she misses me. I called her immediately. Two and half hours later, after tears and laughter, we were not only cordial, we were closer than we had ever been. I have had more experiences with others, but for the sake of their privacy I won’t say what happened.

            Realizing this flaw ended up being the key for my freedom, which is my salvation. Think hard about what you do and why do it. Think hard about the direction the human race is going, and try to think about what got us here. The Word is living and can be read if you want to see it. 

Monday, September 7, 2015

Truth and Delusion

            I choose to be alone most of the time. I’m struggling with this inner-calling telling me that I’m destined for great things. My ambition feels like an inbred religion, and I’m drunk off its faith. I hardly see anything outside of my personal goals. My son is living with his mother for now, and no matter how I sell it, fatherhood is far easier when done on an Ipad. In short, I have more time to focus completely on myself. That is exactly what I am doing, but it’s driven me to solitude.
            When I came back to Virginia from California, one of the first things I did was turn my son’s room into my personal writing space. It sounds selfish, but I wanted to be near him in my most intimate moments, which happen when I write. This is where I am now, completely retreated into this black back room, where I can be close to my son and fulfill my ambitions.
            These aspirations feel so genuine, that at times they feel like reality. In my heart and mind I am already a successful author. I’m living in my dream home, and my son attends a private school where he plays an instrument and speaks Latin. I donate to charities and movements. I write plays for the local high school, and I’m the face of the new black progressive movement. Did I mention that I’m a dreamer? Well yesterday, while journaling, I realized that I was suffering from delusion. Fantasies have occupied more time in my mind than I’d like to admit, and to combat this, I have moments of complete truth. I am completely objective with myself and tell it like it is. Yesterday, I did this and this is what I came up with. 
            
Fantasizing aside, I’m doing all right for myself. I earn enough money to sustain a small family and we all eat when we want to. I work hard enough to stand out at work, and I am a student. I have to give myself credit, and I need to be more grateful. All of this could be much worse, so I need to be grateful for what I do have. The most chilling conclusion I came to was mind-altering. I accepted that I certainly am delusional, and this delusion is an offspring of my confidence. All of this is truth, but I also accepted that confidence is conducive to success--this too is truth. I began to see a pattern. 

The truth is ubiquitous.
The truth is I’m crazy.
The truth is I’m lazy.
“Underachiever,”
If not a believer,
In the “end.”
            
The truth is, a confident person must carry a level of delusion. That doesn’t make the delusion any less dangerous, but self-made success does require confidence. The truth is, I am afraid I'm doing it all wrong. I should be racing to finish my BA and deciding on where to go to graduate school. I should be looking to settle into my profession and focusing on leading my family. I should just be a man. I should fall in-line, and fully conform. But, I am afraid of that too. I'm afraid of settling into mortgage debt, and "vacations when we can." I'm afraid of living out my days in the reality I see. My fear of remaining who and where I am now, created a desire for change, which subsequently created the confidence that I have thus far labeled delusion. Here is the kicker, fear of the confidence caused me to label it delusion, so fear worked as both a positive and negative force; both creative and destructive. 

Fear led me to awareness of the delusion
And in my search for truth
I found confusion.

So which am I? The confident dreamer walking his relative road to success, or the delusional hipster that needs to grow up? Both have the potential to be, and are some levels of, truth. The Truth is Ubiquitous.
Like a pilot in the cosmos,
I navigate you.
Grateful to be a part of your existence
I drift through you,
With a spirit of persistence,
I have the potential to “do,”
By navigating you,
I can find the moment in truth
Where all of my dreams have come true.