A question was posed to me today, one which I was not permitted to answer--when I attempted to answer it for myself, I could not. Would the person who is surfacing from the water, a drowning person, perhaps a victim like one of those whom we have watched this past week, perhaps like one of the children, I was asked, wouldn't that person be closer to God than most Americans?

I became angry at this question. I thought of all the chanting for change that the American people are doing at this very moment. And then I thought, who is closer to God?

What kind of question is that? If God knows everything, such as each of our exact locations and circumstances, who could possibly be more close than another? If God knows everything, equally, there is no difference in "closeness" to God....

But, why I am still angry about this, I have no idea...


love, blink

Blink,


Quote:

I became angry at this question. I thought of all the chanting for change that the American people are doing at this very moment. And then I thought, who is closer to God

You are justifiable angry, American people are the best this miserable world has to offer and they just give, give give and give.  The world would be dying without the free help that it receives from this wonderful country of remarkable people.

God is not a respecter of persons and loves all equally but in different ways as each of us are his unique creations

The dying children just like all dying people will be exiting this world into the afterlife and it is in this sense that they are closer to god than the living and healthy.

God knows everything and he is quite capable of handling it.

“Please dont be angry dear Blink, it is a useless emotion”

love

alan

I think the closed person to God,is the person who walks with him every day of his or her life.George

Alan, anger is an emotion I avoid whenever possible. I see now that I personalized this question too much, allowed my good friend, ego, to get involved.

However, I found that when I surrendered to this anger there was more beneath it than I supposed. First, there were the tears I had not yet cried for all of these countless victims. I knew something was blocking my meditations. I think that was it.

Before I knew it I was flying among the stars again. I saw a huge grid-like thing out there. It seemed endless and interconnected. I felt that there was a common center. It was not like a wheel with spokes exactly, because it was so multilayered that you could not see the center connection. But I had a feeling that every single "strand" was directly connected to the center....in fact, the realization was very visual, of how each human being could actually be closer to God than to each other, at least, within this context, which I saw as a kind of ultimate reality, within the darkness in which all the colors stood out.

It was beautiful and a little frightening to see it that way and, perhaps because I was sad, it felt profound, like an entire world dropping away. Like a veil dropping away.

There was nothing personal about it. It was just "what I saw" "out there" when I closed my eyes.

So, now, I wonder, maybe I am correct. Maybe we are all only one step "away" from "God" if we only knew it.

Yes, George, thank you also for your comment. One who walks with God every day, who would that be? Perhaps each of us, if we only knew it.

The fact is, it feels like we can get lost out in those stars. I'm not sure it's true.

love, blink

Blink,

Could what you saw in that  beautiful vision be  the below? ("from thread started by you re:after alan we will all be together again")

From my post in that thread of yours about me.


Quote:

Through unification of all human souls on planet Earth, a new giant life form, holding a much bigger spirit within the souls of humans is going to emerge. 'The ultimate beautiful Mandala of human beings'

Your paragraph in resent post


Quote:

Before I knew it I was flying among the stars again. I saw a huge grid-like thing out there. It seemed endless and interconnected. I felt that there was a common center. It was not like a wheel with spokes exactly, because it was so multilayered that you could not see the center connection. But I had a feeling that every single "strand" was directly connected to the center....in fact, the realization was very visual, of how each human being could actually be closer to God than to each other, at least, within this context, which I saw as a kind of ultimate reality, within the darkness in which all the colors stood out.

It also makes me think of Ezekial of wheels within wheels
Eze 1:16

The appearance of the wheels and their work was like unto a beryl: and they four

had one likeness; and their appearance and their work was as it were a wheel within a wheel. Eze 1:17

When they went, they went in their four directions: they turned not when they went. about

Eze 1:18

As for their rims, they were high and dreadful; and they four had their rims full of eyes round about.


Eze 1:19

And when the living creatures went, the wheels went beside them; and when the living creatures were lifted up from the earth, the wheels were lifted up.

A thought or quote of my own is that you saw the countless beautiful soul facids that makes up that great infinite eternal Being "Diamond" we call God

love

alan

Hi blink  The suffering are the closest to God as they need him more than those that are not suffering,thats what our preist told us at the mental health centre, as we are suffering and God is closer to us than others because we need him more.

Love and God bless      love juditha

If God is immanent and omnipresent how can one being be closer than another? You are God-stuff! The trouble with having an ego is that we can shut this awareness off....and then spend lifetimes trying to regain the awareness.

Juditha I think that thinking suffering makes you closer to God is dangerous. It justifies suffering. Sometimes that line of thought has been used to justify making others suffer. You don't need suffering to make you close to God. God is love. God is...

Lucy,

Remember when you were a little girl and you hurt yourself, were frightened, or felt lost or lonely. It was then that you experienced the need for closeness to your mother or father. So if in the mortal plane suffering brings us closer to our earthly parents, how much more close to we run and ask for Gods closeness when in dire need. I take your point that God is always close, but often we do not feel this. When in need great and small we reach out to God and find him right next to us full of love and hope.

While we often do not walk with God, he always walkes with us. If we approach him for help and take one step towards him, he takes two steps toward us.

alan

It is good to hear from each of you here.

I cannot think that you are wrong in any way, Juditha, for observing that you feel close to God when you suffer. If God exists, and who would I be to say not, then God is certainly great enough to meet the suffering where they are, to meet each of us where we are. That is, by definition, close.

We believe everything in our lives is near or far. But, in our conversations about intention, we know that we increase that upon which we focus, and we decrease that upon which we do not focus.

So the happy people who do not wish to be aware of all that is shared by God, among God, for God....certainly, God would grant the edge of a wish, the wish of a carefree existence with happiness there for the taking.

So, our closeness would be a matter of choice, sometimes chance....but God would exist betwixt, between, wherever a God can exist....and not be unpleasantly "in your face" so that you might grow to dislike this God.

I come to think that God is excrutiatingly polite. God will appear as we like it, to those of us who are interested.

I have read that when we gather like this, God is among us.

I don't see how any body can be closer to god than another.  I see us all as being god.  IMO, the mother Teresa's or Ghandi's of the world are no closer to god than the down and out drunk in the ditch.  I do not believe in separation no matter how many people may think they are better than others.
I have never been patriotic and yet lately I have been getting a bit upset at how everyone is picking on America.  If they are jealous and want a country like America then why don't they make one.  Look at the stuff China is pulling or England or Israel or you name it now-a-days and yet America stays the great Satan.  America does not send it's children out wrapped in bombs and yet I have heard people excuse that behavior in the name of, well, "desperate people do desperate things."  Mothers come on the tv and proclaim proudly that they are raising their kids to be suicide bombers.  If a person gets some disease on the other side of the world then it must be something those evil American scientist invented to wipe them out.  I think if people insist on being victims then they can have what they choose.
So I am not saying that America is without it's problems, goodness knows, I think America could stand to mind it's own business, but other countries are "NO better".

PUL
SHSS :)

Blink,

Your quote

Quote:

I come to think that God is excrutiatingly polite. God will appear as we like it, to those of us who are interested.

How very true, if God were a man or woman he/she would not force himself on we only come to us when he knows he would be a welcome guest.

While Lucy is correct that we are made of God -stuff, we are still just a part of him and we need the whole "ALL" of God in the times of crisis.

Sometimes our subjective self becomes angry when unexplainable things happen, so we need to access the loving glorious peaceful light of God then,to get the  strength to continue in the struggle of life and search for meaning

alan

SHSS


YOU SAID

Quote:

I have never been patriotic and yet lately I have been getting a bit upset at how everyone is picking on America.  If they are jealous and want a country like America then why don't they make one.  Look at the stuff China is pulling or England or Israel or you name it now-a-days and yet America stays the great Satan.  America does not send it's children out wrapped in bombs and yet I have heard people excuse that behavior in the name of, well, "desperate people do desperate things

You should be patriotic very partriotic, America is the most wonderful country in the world. Take it from me who lives in South Africa. If AMERICA closed its heart and stopped giving and helping the world from is loving heart, the whole third world and many other counties would die in abject povety and  disease.

alan

You are from South Africa Alan?  I would never have guessed it.  I think Africa is one of the most beautiful places.   :-*

Hi Lucy      You tell me  that my suffering and me needing God more,means im justifying suffering.
and what do you mean by ego.

Seriously explain what you mean.

love and God bless love juditha

JUDITHA NEVER MEANT SHE  CONDONED SUFFERING SHE WAS MAKING A POINT THAT THOSE WHO ARE SUFFERING ARE CLOSER TO GOD BECAUSE THEY DESPERATLY NEED HIM THAT BIT MORE I AGREE WITH JUDITHA YOU ARE WRONG LUCY  DEANNA

To recognize the "God-place" in each other requires that we try to see our similarities rather than our differences. The ego is simply the part of us which enjoys setting boundaries, making distinctions, attempting to make permanent what it perceives as "good" and actively attempting to detour around if not destroy what it perceives as "bad," in my opinion. The ego lives in the future or the past, but never in the present, and it is always making comparisons. So, there is nothing inherently "evil" about it. It has a job, and it does it.

very good consensus of the ego Blink. It's not bad and you said it perfectly (have u read ACIM?)

it says basically the same you said.

Juditha, and Deanna, we all continue to support you here. Lucy seems a little worried that you might suffer unduly...I see her as a nurturing person, and I see the twins as wanting to be of service to life, it's just hard right now so we try to help.

the ego, Lucy can explain herself what her perceptions are, we are just jumping in, but the ego, at least mine, is somewhat like looking through a funnel at times, I just get this tiny view of others. I wish we could all meet sometime, we could see so much more, we would probably end up having a massive party...

Lucy wrote on May 21^st, 2008 at 10:43pm:

If God is immanent and omnipresent how can one being be closer than another? You are God-stuff! The trouble with having an ego is that we can shut this awareness off....and then spend lifetimes trying to regain the awareness. Juditha I think that thinking suffering makes you closer to God is dangerous. It justifies suffering. Sometimes that line of thought has been used to justify making others suffer. You don't need suffering to make you close to God. God is love. God is...

I could not possibly agree more with Lucy on this.  Glorifying suffering in any form is a very, very dangerous thing to do.  Juditha, I do not know you, but I wish you could see how dangerous this is to anyone's stability.  If you identify yourself with suffering then you will surely suffer.  I hope you will see this in a loving way instead of a judgment.  There is nothing holy about making yourself suffer.

PUL
SHSS :-*

Juditha and your other self deanna,

Both of yo are correct God is love and rushes to help us when we are in need, lost and in sorrow. "Lucy is wrong"!! God is not just some mathematical principle, but a person in his own right indeed the "ORIGINAL PERSON"

Juditha I know and feel you are a lovely person full of overflowing love for others.


The whole forum can feel your loving nature and we all send you love back

Love

alan

There doesn't have to be a "wrong" or "right" here....?

Can we see Lucy's statement as caring and her intention as positive? It is possible for us to discuss, agree and disagree with each others' ideas without making each other "right" and "wrong" -- and we can support each other this way as well.

I think I was the first person to suggest on this thread that Juditha was not "wrong" in some way. Perhaps by saying that in those words I might have slanted this conversation in a particular direction.

I think that what Lucy was doing was trying to empower Juditha, as a sister would. As a family, we can notice that, and try to understand her statement a little better. I think that's why Juditha was asking for clarification.

love, blink

Blink and Lucy,

If I came across as unkind in some way I am sorry and accept your valuable contributions, none of us are all knowing, especially me. Juditha is easily hurt and we should respect that.

alan

We are family. thats the way I feel. I don't even have to post here, Blink says it for me, so I can go off and have fun  :)

but I see both viewpoints, in that suffering, I seen myself suffering all through my miserable life when I couldn't find love anywhere, that wasn't a trade off, this for that, thus no unconditional love was around. I think that's where Juditha is at...experiencing that lack of love and learning through it, the way I did.

at the same time I knew a man who identified with his suffering and then it made him somehow special, for this reason he would not let go of suffering, and so in a way, it was a statement of pick up your cross and drag it.  you'd get a reward for that somehow. it's not the truth.

With Juditha, if I can speak for her, and surely I cannot, she needs to make a connection with Love, with PUL, with God, so she measures god's presence in each human being.

it is the ego which does the measuring. In truth, with true perception operating versus false perception, all of us are as close to God, as we can get to one another.

This entails as Blink is suggesting, and as this forum's premise must be, that there is no wrong, there is no right, all just is happening right now, and we do it together, so we don't have to come back and do it all over.
the task masters have to get it together with the bleeding hearts. I guess I'm a bleeding heart type.

love, alysia

Alysia and Blink,


Quote:

This entails as Blink is suggesting, and as this forum's premise must be, that there is no wrong, there is no right, all just is happening right now, and we do it together, so we don't have to come back and do it all over. the task masters have to get it together with the bleeding hearts. I guess I'm a bleeding heart type. love, alysia

Yes as far as the forum goes, we must try for unity and consensus to become a force of good to be reckoned with.

However, in the grand order of thing no!! How do we explain despots like Hitler or Stalin. Ok people I know the forum has debated this in topic painful detail in the past so I am not suggesting we  revisit this topic again. Of course, I am not prescribing what you people want to discuss and as I said in another thread a topic must take on its own life.

Love

alan

yea, but you are asking the question why is there seeming to be evil versus good? and I wonder why the other thread didn't answer it?

I asked this question over and over for about 10 years, while I read everything I could about the holocaust Alan. I could even see my head shaved with the people. Elie Weisel, I think that's his name, a survivor, just set my mind at ease as I laid the last book down, He simply said as to the why and how some questions do not get answered. however, his last words hit me hard. he said "never again."

this to mean the human capacity  to make a decision not to repeat errors. not to take on the sins of the parents. In the end, there is just this choice to make between right and wrong as we decide what and must decide based on prevailing awareness whats wrong, what's right by where we focus our attention.

I just see that fear cannot abide where love has come to live. love is good, fear has no substance or reality. fear is not bad, it just doesn't have a basis like love does.

that doesn't explain the past, but since the past is gone we can look forward now and let that be, knowing there's some of us chanting never again.

My concept of the ego is not greatly different from what others have written here. It is something we humans have a difficult time defining.I might try to summarise it from this angle: when we were created, the ego as the part of conciousness that was created to deal with physical reality. But the ego took itself a little too seriously, and began to think of itself as the whole shabang. We lost contact with spirit. And we've been trying to get back to Spirit ever since. Or at least some of us have!

We have invented so many alternate explanations to how things work that it is hard to choose one. How would things work if we were more in touch with Spirit?

Abraham-Hicks makes a point of saying that what was intended (when the world was invented) was that we would create with our minds and our bodies would enjoy our creations. But what we try to do is create with our bodies.

I am currently in great arguments with myself about how it might work. Abrham-Hicks is in contrast ...or so it seems to me...to what I am reading in a book by Rick Pitino. For those of you who don't follow sports, Rick Pitino is a basketball coach with a fantastic record. he also writes books. He is incredibly good at motivating his players. And he believes in hard work.

This to me contrasts with the ideas that we create reality in our minds. When I read, Abraham-Hicks, I believe A-H. When I read Rick P. I believe Rick P. Which way does it really work????? Maybe Rick P. uses hard work as a form of affirmations. Maybe you have to work as hard at affirmnations as a Pitino basketball player works at his game in order to get results. Maybe hard work makes us trancend ego.

So if I look at the idea that the ones who are suffering are closer to God because they need him more, and I say , that bothers me, because I think that sounds dangerous, what do I mean by that?

because if someone believes that they are closer to God when they are suffering, and if they want to be closer to God, then they may put themselves in places where they will then suffer, thinking that they are making themselves closer to God. They may create needless suffering.

Woldn't it be a lot simpler just to want to be closer to God?

Another aspect of the dangerous ness occurs because some folks think that inflicting suffering on others purifies the others. I had a work friend once. Wena. She grew up in the Phillippines. That is a tropical country. She once told me they had poinsettas as hedges. HEDGES. Like we have Firebush and and if you wait long enough Rhododendrum. That's tropical. And she told me that when they went to school, they had to wear long-sleeve blouses. And the schools were not air-conditioned then. She said, when they complained about this, the nuns told them that suffering was good for them.

That is dangerous thinking.

I don't like hogging the conversation. Feedback?

Isn't it just better to try to love God with all your heart, all your strength, all your might, kinda like those Loiuisville guys play ball now?

and I guess one more thing I think is that we all need God desperately; each one of us desperately needs God....

ps alysia both Pitino and Wiesel have been associated with Boston University, though not in the same capacity! small world...

Hi Lucy For a start ,you know nothing about my life and i dont put myself delibratly inline for suffering and suffering is caused by other human beings and i'm close to god even when i'm not suffering and i dont inflict suffering on others either,that sports fellow your reading thats just his version of how he handles life,i dont look for suffering i try to get away from it.

Anyway Jesus suffered and died on the cross for us and thats why God gave his only begotten son ,so are you saying God got it wrong with his son because God glorified suffering, which God does not,nobody in there right mind glorifys suffering,i have never had an ego about God ,i love him no matter whether i,m suffering or not.

Suffering is not dangerous towards God,God sends love to those who suffer in the world and i,m well in touch with spirit even at my lowest times and around my good times.So as far as i'm concerned God is there at your most lowest times in your life,if you cant find him when your at a low,then thats sad.Suffering is nothing to do with ego or glory.
Its only people like Hitler and other evil dictators and leaders what see suffering as ego and glorification.

Love  and God bless    love Juditha

Juditha

I have no doubt that you are close to God. I have never doubted that. The question was, are those who are suffering closer to God? And I do not believe that is true. We do not need suffering to be close to God.

You are right. I do not know anything about your life. And you do not know anything about mine. You assume your personal suffering is greater than mine. I do not know that that is true. It may be true, but I have no way of knowing or measuring that. So there is no need to argue about that.

Many people have suffered in the history of earth.That guy, Rick Pitino, also has sorrow. He and his wife had a baby that was sick from the start. The baby had to stay in the hospital. For months, the mom spent all her time getting up and making a long drive to the hospital, spending the day with the baby, then returning home late, only to repeat the process the next day. Seven days a week. After about six months the baby got better. The doc told him his wife needed a little vacation. So they headed out (OK to a basketball game! but he is a coach) only to be stopped by a state trooper saying to call the hospital. The baby had suddenly died. How sad! And then it also turns out that one of his brother-in-laws worked for Cantor Fitzgerald in Sept of 2001 and was in the World Trade Center when the plane hit. So he too knows suffering.

I read something once; it has probably been stated many times and places. I read it in Pat Rodegast. It was that if we could stand in the Light, anything could be healed. Anything! The question is, how does one stand in the Light? I don't know any place to go where there is a waterfall of Light that I can stand in, and that is what I want. Just plug my umbilical cord into the Light! So how does one get to stand in the Light? So I took an answer fromanother source, a tape of a channeled entity who called herself Aurora. Aurora said that in order to "get" some of this stuff, first you have to do it in your imagination. So in my imagination, I stood in the Light. And it felt nice just to do that, so I kept trying. Now, I'm not good at focusing my attention, but every now and then I do manage to focus it just a little. And I found that when I do, things change. Things get better. But it is hard to focus. It takes a lot of work. But when it works, it works!

I don't think that my way of standing in the Light is necessarily for anyone but me. We each have to find our own unique way of standing in the Light. What is yours?

Hi Lucy i am not assuming that my suffering is more than yours,we all at times suffer in life ,none of us can go through life without a certain amount of suffering,your thoughts of God through your suffering is how you get through it and my thoughts of God through my suffering is how i get through it,so that makes us both unique in our own way as have our own way of dealing with life.

We are both spirits with a body and we are both on this earth to learn things but in a different way to each other and thats what makes us both human.So even if we dont agree with each other to much on this,we are both part of God and his love,and he gave us both freewill to say what we both think about it.

Love and God bless love juditha

Lucy said: Now, I'm not good at focusing my attention, but every now and then I do manage to focus it just a little. And I found that when I do, things change. Things get better. But it is hard to focus. It takes a lot of work. But when it works, it works!

I don't think that my way of standing in the Light is necessarily for anyone but me. We each have to find our own unique way of standing in the Light. What is yours?
____


thanks for directing the thread here Lucy, Aurora I believe would fit right in here with the rest of us as she mentions the imagination. recently had a meditation where I saw if I could not for some reason imagine something, for sure I was not in the right space to pull that into being.
I knew, or had a clue years ago, I had 'picture it' before it actually happened.

this standing in the light reminds me of an exercise spirit led me to do once back in 2001 I believe. I was just beginning to do conscious retrievals while participating here on the board. I knew they were real, that we all could learn to do them, so maybe this post is sort of what you asked me for awhile back, as well some others.

Even though I had done a real spontaneous retrieval and was the reason for coming here to join the others, still, the ones I now practiced in 2001 seemed like mere imagination practices, even if they sort of took on their own life; still I needed something more to continue on this course.

Since I was not a meditator and still don't meditate in the usual sense of sitting down and saying I am now going to do a meditation. more or less meditation creeps up on me these days.

but back then I got this sense I should do this exercise we labeled NEW. Both Robert Bruce on another forum, and Bruce Moen had a version of this energy gathering exercise which were similar.

Bruce has the 3 breath exercise, and draw imaginary up from beneath, like through the feet, circle this light out the top of the head a certain amount of times. the breath, I see as this light also.

I encourage any to investigate this exercise and try it as the first time I tried it, I had another retrieval take place in the night which I did not doubt was real as I did not fall asleep, but simply exited my body before I had a chance to fall asleep, I accredit the retrieval and a peek at the future directly to doing the "standing in the light" exercise we call NEW. that stands for new energy ways. (or waves)

it occurred to me either by guide input (my first thought) or possibly accredit the thought I should imagine sitting on top of the world. out in space.

this was naturally a bit difficult to imagine. nonetheless, feeling agreeable to experiment, I imagined floating out, to, ah, yes, the top of the world for a bird's eye view. feeling a bit small, I had to imagine myself as larger. I thought I heard someone say, now, we want you to hug the world. what did you say? hug the world? do I have to?  :D  it was funny. you should have been there. maybe you have.
just try seemed the voice to say. so I did but still I could only reach around part of the world with my whatever, rubber band arms... ::)  they just wanted me to get a feeling of PUL for the world and it's inhabitants. once that was accomplished, I did feel shall we say, more friendlier towards the world in general.  I think the exercise, standing in the light is similar effect to NEW.

the point being we self empower ourselves to stand in the light so each individual can get beyond their suffering. but it seems we get self empowered to rise above suffering by aiding another to get beyond suffering..we sort of climb on each other's shoulders in that sense, to get a higher view.

retrievals in this sense is alleviating the suffering in the world..it's just that it's working behind the scenes, quietly, effortlessly, the movement gathers momentum, one by one.

thanks again Lucy, being here all these years, I've gained from you, however I just can't put that into details for you right now, just that you're my friend.

love, alysia

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The Admin

My own take is that we are closer to God when we follow his way of love; love of others and love of God.  The converse would be true - that we drift further away from God when we act out of hate toward others or God.  Suffering tends to be a sign that our earth life is out of balance.  Some suffering is brought on by natural disasters, and energies out of our control.  However, much suffering is brought about by our interactions with our fellow human beings in the world.

I, for one, do not believe that suffering makes us holy or follow God's path.  I believe that our lives may be full of love, richness and abundance, if we keep these concepts in our minds and hearts.  When people arrange their thinking around axioms such as "money is the root of all evil," is it any wonder that poverty is seen as being a state of nobility?  When one hears expressions such as "the suffering of a saint," our subliminal mind picks up on this and says that somehow we must do without material things, and suffer to be closer to God.

Rubbish.  We are our thoughts, and our thoughts tend to create our real life situation in the physical world.  Follow the path of love, of caring for others, acting not out of the desire to merely pleasure oneself, but out of compassion.  Can we act this way, and avoid suffering?  Can we still find abundance in life in terms of wealth, and surroundings?  Of course we can.  Abundance in all forms can be seen as our birthright, founded in scripture.  

We are closer to God when, without thought of our ego or secondary gain, we act with compassion, kindness, thankfulness, and love for each other.  This is truly a state of grace.

Matthew

Yes, perhaps this is the password to God, for each of us:

Love :)

Knock and the door will be opened to you.

Thank you!

well said Doc

DocM wrote on May 28^th, 2008 at 12:51am:

My own take is that we are closer to God when we follow his way of love; love of others and love of God.  The converse would be true - that we drift further away from God when we act out of hate toward others or God.  Suffering tends to be a sign that our earth life is out of balance.  Some suffering is brought on by natural disasters, and energies out of our control.  However, much suffering is brought about by our interactions with our fellow human beings in the world. I, for one, do not believe that suffering makes us holy or follow God's path.  I believe that our lives may be full of love, richness and abundance, if we keep these concepts in our minds and hearts.  When people arrange their thinking around axioms such as "money is the root of all evil," is it any wonder that poverty is seen as being a state of nobility?  When one hears expressions such as "the suffering of a saint," our subliminal mind picks up on this and says that somehow we must do without material things, and suffer to be closer to God. Rubbish.  We are our thoughts, and our thoughts tend to create our real life situation in the physical world.  Follow the path of love, of caring for others, acting not out of the desire to merely pleasure oneself, but out of compassion.  Can we act this way, and avoid suffering?  Can we still find abundance in life in terms of wealth, and surroundings?  Of course we can.  Abundance in all forms can be seen as our birthright, founded in scripture.   We are closer to God when, without thought of our ego or secondary gain, we act with compassion, kindness, thankfulness, and love for each other.  This is truly a state of grace. Matthew

 I basically agree with all or most of the above.  At the same time, i've noted a trend or tendency that those who would grow a lot spiritually in this life, oft set up really difficult life challenges and periods of deep suffering before incarnating.   Not always the case of course, but a trend.  This is also mentioned in a few sources that i trust more than not (or resonate strongly with).

Conversely, quite a few sources seem to indicate that spiritually immature souls, tend to set up easier life plans, especially in the material and/or relationship sense and tend to be about "surface" stuff.  Immature Souls like to skate in their lives until they reach a certain point and get serious about their spiritual growth, and once that happens they start to choose to balance more difficult aspects of their karma which often translates to more deeply challenging life plans.  

 But yeah i agree, suffering for the sake of suffering itself, shouldn't be glorified.  And as you say, sometimes suffering is an indication of imbalance on some or many levels and a call to change self. Like many things in life, it's not a black and white issue.

 As far as poverty, money, and all that, i agree it's the motivation and focus that matters, not the money itself.  But i can't help but be reminded of a certain teacher's words that, "It is oft easier for a camel to fit through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of Heaven".

 Probably cause so many people who desire wealth, desire it for self and materialism more than anything else, and not primarily for helping others and the world.  And even someone who starts off with good intentions and who gains much in the material sense, lot's of times if asked to give it up for a higher cause...well that whole attachment thing comes into play, again similar to some experiences noted with the above teacher who came across such folks who on some level were inspired and wanted to follow but were overly attached to the things of the world.  

 I believe to fully reemerge with Source, you have to be ready to completely give up any and/or all attachments to what's outside of you, especially if any of it is blocking you in some way to begin with.  That doesn't necessarily mean you have to go and commit to a vow of poverty or get divorced or anything like that, but to lose the attachment to that and not be concerned with it or worried that something should change.  All the meanwhile, using that wealth or relationship or what not, for positive, more universal purposes.

I so much relate to the "nonattachment" idea that you are promoting here, Justin. I think people can misinterpret this as "hating" the world, because we have heard that word used in Christianity. But I don't see how we can "hate" and "love" at the same time. So, I think it is okay to love the world, in the sense of having concern for the world, and appreciating the world, for the gifts that it offers. And, at the same time, we can remain conscious enough not to cling to any particular circumstances.

We can see the wisdom in this by looking at people who seem to naturally "fit" into any circumstances. Looking at it from a Christian perspective, as I see it, I think of how Jesus was said to have encouraged his disciples to eat whatever was given them when they entered the houses of strangers who hosted them. In other words, participate in the "culture" of any family who would welcome them. He was criticized for eating and drinking with all sorts of people. And yet, he was capable of secluding himself and depriving himself from "civilization" for long periods of time.

So, I think it is useful to be able to participate and interact in all sorts of settings. As well as to let them go when appropriate. I think that is true freedom, and allows a person to enjoy the benefits of having been born human, with all that comes along with being human.

This must mean different things to different people. For example, some people might consider two bowls of rice, rather than one, to be riches.

While others must have their cake, and eat it too.

:)

 I agree Blink. Bout the naturally fitting people, i guess that depends on the motivation, intent, and deeper desires involved.  

Some people go with the flow, accommodate, etc. not so much because they are constantly thinking of the higher good of others and of life in general, but because they want or need to be liked, to have positive attention, are afraid of friction or disagreement, etc.  Or because they are weak willed and it's easier to be tossed around by the ocean, than by mastering the ocean within self.

 So it's like anything in life, it's the deeper intents, motivations, behind the form and behind the actions which signify whether it's "spiritual" or not, and ultimately self decides when and where to correct though there seem to be Elder beings who make things clearer for us at different points.  

 But yeah, generally it's better to be flexible and flowing, but like you said sometimes there are times to not conform, or to seclude, etc.   The dude you mentioned, also refused to "do" several culturally important things sometimes because he disagreed with them, and gasp even when he was in the temple of God.    He wasn't just Water and Air (which are innately more flowing and flexible in nature), but also Fire and Earth too.  

 Definitely it's a lot about nonattachment, and attachment to one overriding ideal and reality.  Yup, material riches is quite a relative thing.