Not of this world

"If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world." John 15-18

Authentic reality, the REAL deal, is not what we see "out there" on the newscape every night on NBC, CNN or your local news station or even in the world's most respected newspapers.  Those are the highlights of what the world's editors think we want to see, want to know about.  It seems that the world has become a nightmare on main street thriller, or worse, a B rated gorey slasher movie.  But, the really important thing to remember, and possibly the hardest is that it's not real, really.  It's the horror channel we've chosen.  Maybe we can choose another channel.

While it feels real and seems real, in the big picture, the cosmic scene, it's just what we have agreed to experience.  In my blog post, "In memory of a slain child," Thaddeus commented in words that just touched my heart so profoundly and even inspired this post, "Forgive us angel for sitting by and allowing this to happen."  

In Luke's gospel, Jesus tells us that "we" are not of this world and that the Kingdom of God is within us.  Modern physicists have come to realize, in scientific terms, that the power of consciousness, directed thinking, can have extremely powerful effects on matter.  We can literally, if we focused hard enough - and can you just imagine if we ALL focused hard enough! - move mountains.  The biggest mountain facing us today is clearly the whole world.  We have before us a monumental opportunity to change our thoughts - one by one, community by community, nation by nation - and choose to focus our thoughts, our dreams, our hopes - not on materialism, not on gaining the power over a competitor, not on filling our lives and our minds with useless junk that doesn't matter really a year from now - but on peace.  Plain and simple peace.  If we still the storms within, perhaps we will still the storms outside ourselves.  

Recently, I was helping out a neighbor who needed to get to a job orientation session in North Portland, a half hour drive away.  He was both excited and nervous about the day ahead.  I knew exactly where we were going and yet as we approached, he grew increasingly anxious, started yelling at me for not knowing the way afterall, scolding my driving, demanding to know why I didn't have a GPS, and was just about to jump out of the car.  I started to feel upset, but decided to remain calm.  I admit that the more anxious he became, the less confident I became in knowing the directions.  I started to doubt myself and literally drove around three blocks three times and was about to go back on the freeway at the person's insistence. Instead, I calmed my mind and said to myself, "no, I know the way," I turned the car around and drove straight to the destination.  The person was delivered to the location 15 minutes early and yet had wanted to be there half an hour early.  He was upset with me.  As I drove on to work, I realized happily that I had stayed calm under pressure, monitored my thoughts, watched my internal reactions to the person's neurotic anxiety and by not being swayed by it was able to get him to the location in plenty of time.

Maybe life is like that.  Today the world is out of control in anxiety. Anxiety over the Middle East had certainly imploded my interior mind with grief - not good.  And yet, I can't help but care, but I had to realize the ultimate reality show, which is a "kingdom" of sublime peace, of love, of real power, is within me.  Maybe we do battle all day long in the world, but need to remember, really challenge ourselves to remember that we are "in the world, but not of the world," we do not need to allow our minds to be controlled by the world's neurosis.  

If we can step out of the madness long enough every day, to focus on what is bright and beautiful, healing and loving, gentle and pure, we will begin to turn this planet around.  This may sound unbelievably idealistic, but I don't know of any alternative.  We don't need more religion, or more piety, or more rules of human behavior.  We need to stop the madness, listen to the music of your loving soul and calm your minds, and remember that whatever is going on around you - whether it's the economy, the wars, Washington, politics, scandals or even the nightly news about a murder, a robbery, whatever - remember, those are the actions of misguided minds who don't know that they are loved and are capable of living a much more masterful life.

I read recently something so simple and yet so thought provoking.  It said our life purpose is to grow in faith and consciousness. Period.  That's it.  But, what a powerful, and empowering thought.  Consciousness calls us to the awareness that the misbehaviors of other people and nations is not WHO we are.  It is who they are, for now, until they wake up also.  We can focus, with faith, our consciousness on WHO we CAN BE.  We can be liberators of our own minds, freedom fighters with the cause of being powerful conscious creators, bringers of real life to each other, mind healers for ourselves with a rippling effect out into the world, of each other. 

Our goals can be focused on ourselves and allow the power and light and energy of our newly focused minds to brighten the space around us, lift others up as a consequence and yet not as a goal.  We  all live by the "prime directive," to quote Star Trek, not to interfere with each other's choices or lives, but we can know that any choices we make, will impact the world around us. Human consciousness is a powerful energy realm that affects the world around us, if only because all thoughts are contagious.

So, if all we can do today is remember that we have a choice of which world we want to live in.  We can live in peace, poised calmly to encounter whatever may come at us, knowing that with consciousness and faith, we will get to our final destination, safely and on time.