Archive for June, 2012
Gone Going – Black Eyed Peas
My meditations today (on my prior post, “Colored Toys“) took me to a fun, reverent, grateful place … so I decided to listen to what I considered “fun” music. I flipped through my iTunes list and clicked on the Monkey Business album, by Black Eyed Peas … it had been a while since I’d last listened, and I always remembered it as being fun. I never thought that I would find real meaning in a song from the band putting out songs like “Pump It”, and “My Humps” (ha!) … but there you go, we find spiritual inspiration in the midst of the unexpected :-).
This song definitely seemed to go hand in hand with my meditations for the day:
Gone Going – Black Eyed Peas
Johnny wanna be a big star
Get on stage and play the guitar
Make a little money, buy a fancy car
Big old house and an alligator
Just to match with them alligator shoes
He’s a rich man so he’s no longer singing the blues
He’s singing songs about material things
And platinum rings and watches that go bling
But, diamonds don’t bling in the dark
He a star now, but he ain’t singing from the heart
Sooner or later he’s just gonna fall apart
Cause his fans can’t relate to his new found art
He ain’t doing what he did from the start
And that’s putting in some feeling and thought
He decided to live his life shallow
Cash in his love for material
[Chorus]
And its gone… gone… going…
Gone… everything gone… give a damn…
Gone be the birds when they don’t want to sing…
Gone people… all awkward with their things… gone.
You see yourself in the mirror
And you feel safe cause it looks familiar
But you afraid to open up your soul
Cause you don’t really know, don’t really know
Who he is, the person that’s deep within
Cause you are content with just being the name-brand man
And you fail to see that its trivial
Insignificant, you addicted to material
I’ve seen your kind before
You’re the type that thinks souls is sold in a store
Packaged up with incense sticks
With them vegetarian meals
To you that’s righteous
You’re fiction like books
You need to go out to life and look
Cause… what happens when they take your material
You already sold your soul and its…
[Chorus]
You say that time is money and money is time
So you got mind in your money and your money on your mind
But what about… that crime that you did to get paid
And what about… that bid, you can’t take it to your brain
What about those shoes you’ll wear today
They’ll do no good on the bridges you burnt along the way
All that money that you got gonna be gone
That gear that you rock gonna be gone
The house up on the hill gonna be gone
The gold purse on your grill gonna be gone
The ice on your wrist gonna be gone
That nice little Miss gonna be gone
That whip that you roll gonna be gone
And what’s worst is your soul’s already gone
——-
Religion4All is an idea: that every human being (no matter their race, religion, sexuality, social status, lifestyle, or any other possible factor) is LOVED by God; just … as … they are.
We all are loved by God, and NO religion or person has a monopoly on it. Every single person on this planet is loved equally by God … SO many are cut off from God because they are told they don’t belong. God loves everyone … we ALL are beautiful creations … we don’t need to cringe when we hear the words “God”, or “religion”, or their judgments … God LOVES us all!
There is no requirement to change in order to be LOVED by God, or to LOVE God. God is LOVE, and LOVE is God … period. There is no one who God loves more than anyone else … there are only those who choose to LOVE more … to love God more, and consequently then to love each other more. In doing so, we grow closer to God … and know God.
By opening our hearts, and minds to God (free of boundaries like religion, or social trends); by LOVING God … we are exactly where we are meant to be. If we maintain that openness, never allowing any person or event to make us close our hearts, we will be guided by God to be who we are meant to be.
In that space of openness we can then live a life of LOVE, and be guided to where we are meant to be … forever in LOVE.
Southern California, Northern California, Mission Viejo, Irvine, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Marin, San Jose, San Juan Capistrano, Santa Ana, Palm Springs, Long Beach
Practical Tantra: Intro to the Rasas and Anuttara – Tasting the Emotions: Working with Desire
Practical Tantra: Intro to the Rasas and Anuttara – Tasting the Emotions: Working with Desire.
Really wonderful advice for getting deep and meaningful experiences out of meditation!!
Modern Day Prophet?
In meditating on my prior post (“Isaiah 35“) I was struck by the fact that Isaiah was a prophet. Many prophesies that he made came true; some for the near future of that time. Others were for the distant future … like John with the book of Revelations.
In today’s world, we generally meet the word “prophet” with skepticism. Most recently, I recall Harold Camping getting HUGE publicity for predicting “the end of the world” as being May 21st of this year. In modern religions, I see SO many false prophets that it truthfully baffles the mind. This is apparent, just like the Bible says … BY THEIR FRUIT! If their fruit is full of hatred, or judgement … guess what? It’s false. If their fruit is just speculation to aggrandize themselves … guess what? It’s false!
When you look in the Bible … did Isaiah ever give an exact date and time?? I will not be the one to limit God … certainly God is capable of showing someone the exact time of some major event. I just don’t see this as being something God has done throughout history.
God uses people to do miracles. God uses people to show LOVE to the world. God also uses people to prophesy. Usually these prophecies, though, are more clear in retrospect than they are in the present … we can look back in retrospect and see how what Isaiah said was truly prophecy. At the time though … I’m sure there were many skeptics. There were many skeptics for just about every prophet in the Bible. I would imagine that the same is true for probably every other religion … prophets (often like artists) are only appreciated and validated in retrospect.
I suppose what I really received from this meditation, in terms of how my relationship with God has evolved, is that we as humans limit ourselves in SO many ways. We create walls and boundaries for ourselves that we can never break through! These walls are created through what we choose to believe. We choose to believe that these things are fairy tales from the past … or we choose to believe that we are so flawed that we could never be the vehicle for such an amazing phenomenon as a miracle.
We must allow ourselves to be truly broken down … every wall, and barrier, torn down … dismantled. God is capable of anything. We need to be open to that. It doesn’t mean that we will ever do miracles like Jesus, or any of the other great spiritual leaders of the world … whether we are used to that end or not, we need to be open to it. We need to give God the opportunity to do whatever God wants to do through us … whether through creativity, or prayer, or kindness, or healing, or prophecy, or parenthood, or any other facet that we feel called to.
Try and make it your own … and you will be false. Open it to God, and allow God to work through you … however that may turn out … and you will be accomplishing God’s will.
It is not about you though … it is about being SO open, that God can use you for whatever end God intends.
To be in that state … you must reflect God’s love for you … to yourself. You must let go of EVERY vain aspiration that would cause you to go astray from what God is guiding you to. That does not mean you need to give up your dreams … it means that you must give those dreams to God, and trust that you will be led to where you are supposed to be.
——-
Religion4All is an idea: that every human being (no matter their race, religion, sexuality, social status, lifestyle, or any other possible factor) is LOVED by God; just … as … they are.
We all are loved by God, and NO religion or person has a monopoly on it. Every single person on this planet is loved equally by God … SO many are cut off from God because they are told they don’t belong. God loves everyone … we ALL are beautiful creations … we don’t need to cringe when we hear the words “God”, or “religion”, or their judgments … God LOVES us all!
There is no requirement to change in order to be LOVED by God, or to LOVE God. God is LOVE, and LOVE is God … period. There is no one who God loves more than anyone else … there are only those who choose to LOVE more … to love God more, and consequently then to love each other more. In doing so, we grow closer to God … and know God.
By opening our hearts, and minds to God (free of boundaries like religion, or social trends); by LOVING God … we are exactly where we are meant to be. If we maintain that openness, never allowing any person or event to make us close our hearts, we will be guided by God to be who we are meant to be.
In that space of openness we can then live a life of LOVE, and be guided to where we are meant to be … forever in LOVE.
Southern California, Northern California, Mission Viejo, Irvine, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Marin, San Jose, San Juan Capistrano, Santa Ana, Palm Springs, Long Beach
Enlightenment I Pursue
Going through some old poetry/songs I’ve written and I came across an old favorite:
Enlightenment I Pursue
Religion4All
In the jangled hours of evening
a fog of gathering fears ensue
frightening me toward
enlightenment, yet
beckoning to pursue.
~
I’ve calmed the dappled haze,
good God,
I’m able now
it’s true.
Come clang upon my
temple’s gong,
your blows only fill me
with new song.
These sounds no longer
shivers make
I’ll dance the night
until you wake
or at least until you’ve gone.
~
Happiness
is for the taking
there’s plenty to go
around,
unless you attempt
holding on to it
and then it is never
around.
~
In the jangled hours of evening
a fog of gathering fears ensue
frightening me toward
enlightenment
…
enlightenment
I pursue.
——-
Religion4All is an idea: that every human being (no matter their race, religion, sexuality, social status, lifestyle, or any other possible factor) is LOVED by God; just … as … they are.
We all are loved by God, and NO religion or person has a monopoly on it. Every single person on this planet is loved equally by God … SO many are cut off from God because they are told they don’t belong. God loves everyone … we ALL are beautiful creations … we don’t need to cringe when we hear the words “God”, or “religion”, or their judgments … God LOVES us all!
There is no requirement to change in order to be LOVED by God, or to LOVE God. God is LOVE, and LOVE is God … period. There is no one who God loves more than anyone else … there are only those who choose to LOVE more … to love God more, and consequently then to love each other more. In doing so, we grow closer to God … and know God.
By opening our hearts, and minds to God (free of boundaries like religion, or social trends); by LOVING God … we are exactly where we are meant to be. If we maintain that openness, never allowing any person or event to make us close our hearts, we will be guided by God to be who we are meant to be.
In that space of openness we can then live a life of LOVE, and be guided to where we are meant to be … forever in LOVE.
Southern California, Northern California, Mission Viejo, Irvine, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Marin, San Jose, San Juan Capistrano, Santa Ana, Palm Springs, Long Beach