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Everyone knows what Love is, or do they? People tend to confuse Love with all sorts of other things. That is because Love is not an event, not something you do. It is something you are, it is a state of mind, an attitude, a way you live your life. The meaning and purpose of your being.
Love is hard to define because it is not an event. A group of us guys were sitting around the lunch table. The subject of sex came up, and I explained sex was not love. Just as most of the group were trying to make me eat my words, one of them said: “Hey, do you guys love your parents?” Consensus was yes, that they did love their parents. “Do you guys have sex with your parents?” An immediate outcry of disgust was expressed by all present at this suggestion. “Then Love is not sex, it is something greater than sex,” remarked my rescuer.
One of the best descriptions of Love I have come across is the one given by Paul in the 13th chapter of 1st Corinthians in the Bible. It is often called the Love chapter.
“Love is very patient and kind, never jealous or envious, never boastful or proud, never haughty or selfish or rude. Love doesn’t demand its own way. It’s not irritable or touchy. It doesn’t hold grudges and will not notice when others do it wrong. It’s never glad about injustice, but rejoices in truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends”. — Paul.
God is Love. Love is unconditional. Love heals all things. Love is the force that creates, and holds everything together. Love is caring, and compassion. These are some more of the many ways to accurately describe Love. Love is so ubiquitous, and so powerful it resists any simple definition put to it.
But, it is not enough for us to define Love, that does not really help us to enjoy life a whit more. We must find ways to gain access to the power of Love, and allow this power into our daily lives in order to grow strong spiritually.
We know we are created in God’s Love, and we are Loved. Why then does Love seem so distant at times? So hard to find when we are alone, troubled, and seeking answers.
The reason is two-fold. First, we agreed to incarnate into the physical world, a world of dualism. Part love, part fear, for the purpose of learning to love, and second, we have not finished learning yet. Fear is a strong motivator. It is easy to become lost in the teachings of fear. Some of our authority figures (parents, teachers, professors, politicians, etc.) teach us fear, while others teach us love. That is as it should be, our task is learn what is fear, and what is love, opting for love each time we recognize it.
Fear is pervasive, it can be seen most everywhere in our society. Wars, violence, murder, and mayhem can be found in our books and magazines, our video games, our television programs, and reported on the daily news. Hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes, forest fires, mud slides, avalanches, tsunami and other natural disasters seem to be with us on a daily basis. Then there are plane crashes, train crashes, and car crashes, as well as many other accidents. Don’t forget the recession and the suffering it has brought to so many people. It is no wonder many are depressed, have anxiety attacks, feel suicidal, or are mentally disturbed.
Love is also pervasive, but not as apparent. Love is less spectacular than fear, because it is more common. There is more love in this world than fear. For those that kill, there are more that comfort; for those that harm, there are more that heal; for those that destroy, there are more that build; for those that steal, there are more that give; for those that lie, there are more speaking truth; for those that cheat, there are more that are honest; for those that condemn, there are more that uplift, for those that criticize, there are more that encourage; and for those that hate, there are more that love.
You are in a classroom, what you will learn is your decision, no one can do it for you, will you learn to love? Love has the power to heal, love can bring peace into your life, and compassion into your heart. There is nothing to lose, it is a win, win, decision.
© 2009, Lekatt. All rights reserved.
“Death” is the most searched word on this blog. A lot of people are very interested in death. Maybe very afraid of death, or at least the uncertainty of it.
Near death experiences show us death doesn’t exist. We don’t die, we go on living in spirit/energy form. We are eternal.
The knowledge of living after death can actually cause us more fear and uncertainty about what happens after death. So the main question is: “What happens after death.”
What happens after death is directly connected to our thoughts, beliefs, and expectations. This is true in the physical also. We create our own reality in the physical as well as the spiritual.
The spiritual world is much like the physical world, yet different. There are libraries, museums, schools, houses, and great buildings made of crystal. There are parks, lakes, forests, and meadows of flowers. Some activities include painting, music, learning, teaching, creating, and building among many others. There are levels based on spiritual growth. Those with little or no spiritual growth inhabit the lower levels, while those with great spiritual growth are on the upper levels.
You achieve growth by learning to love. Love increases your consciousness which will increase your power of creation. Love is the building force of all things. The more you love the more powerful you become. This is true in both the spiritual and physical. Consider the most powerful men in history and note their great love for others. Jesus, Buddha, Gandhi, and others moved billions of people to love.
There is no need of the judicial in the spirit world. No policemen, lawyers, politicians, judges, or such. Order is kept by the rule of “whatever you do to others will be returned to you.” Unlike the physical, everyone in the spiritual world understands the truth of this precept.
Since there are no physical bodies, there are no sexes, marriage, or babies. Creation of “spiritual babies” or “sparks” is done on the highest level of the spiritual world with much thought and great care.
In the physical world you have many judges in parents, teachers, peers, the law, and government. The only judgments in the spiritual world are you judging yourself. However this will be a true judgment with no facade, no rationalizations, or justifications. This not punishment, it is for teaching, so you can see your mistakes and correct them. The goal being to love one another.
You can never be anyone but yourself, you can not escape your problems and troubles by suicide or hurting yourself. Only you can solve your problems, and learn to love yourself with or without the help of others.
And what is it like beyond this world?
It is very different.
It is much the same
for you take yourself with you.
Those who find the thought
of traveling through eternity with themselves
distasteful
have important work to do.
It is the work of self-love.
You are your best companion
and you accompany yourself always.
That is the only structure I can give you
for the entire universe
is predicated on love
creating itself.
Emmanuel
What about Heaven and Hell, constructs of thought spawned by the dualism of the physical world. The places do exist, but not as places of eternal punishment or eternal worshiping of God.
Believe it or not, there are some people who feel they are so bad they must go to Hell, and so they shall, but not for an eternity. Hell comes equipped with teachers who work with those so down on themselves they feel they belong in Hell. In time those who go there will be taught how to love themselves, which will remove them from hell. There is no eternal torment, fire, or punishment anywhere in the spiritual world.
Those who wish to go to heaven may do so. They find all that they expected to find. Streets of gold, grand churches beyond beautiful. They worship until they become bored then leave. There is no requirement to worship. God is our father not our Ruler. He is our example of a loving, caring, compassionate Being, the whole of it all. We strive to be like Him.
When one enters the spirit world through a near death experience He enters the light and immediately feels loved, cared for, and accepted. That is the real nature of God.
There is no downside to the spirit world, but there are rules and measurements. The rule is whatever you do to others you will receive back. No exceptions. The measurement is love and you are the measurer. You are the one responsible for your spiritual growth, and the one who judges it.
The greater your spiritual growth the more powerful, and bright, you become. You create with your thoughts, both here and there, so be careful what you ask for and mindful of your thoughts.
© 2009, Lekatt. All rights reserved.
t’s hard to find someone that admits they are afraid of death. It’s even harder to find someone admitting they are afraid of life. But worry, anxiety, depression, and suicides are becoming all to common events in our society.
George Lucas, creator of Star Wars, is a spiritual person, he used his spiritual knowledge to create the “Force.” The Jedi knight could not possess any trace of fear. Fear would lead to the dark side. Lucas has Yoda saying: “fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, and hate leads to suffering.” This saying is spiritually correct.
Only a new-born child is free of fear. As we grow up we learn to fear. We learn to fear by “catching” the emotion from our parents and peers, as well as being taught to fear directly in the acculturation process as we reach adulthood.
Fear is the source of all negative emotions. It is not essential for us to fear anything in our universe, fear is a learned behavior. As a learned behavior it can be managed, coped with, and/or discarded.
Great fear can cause one to “freeze” both physically and/or mentally in any emergency situation, and great fear can also lead to mental disturbances.
When I was nine, the soldiers began returning from WWII. Many of them were adversely affected by the war. They couldn’t handle loud noises, and some came back “shell shocked,” a term used, at that time, for a mental disorder caused by the extreme stress and fear of war.
Other returning veterans less affected by the fighting still needed time to merge back into civilian habits. I was walking downtown on my way to a movie, when an car backfired on the street beside me. An ex-serviceman walking in front of me threw himself face down on the concrete sidewalk. I know that had to hurt. He then looked around sheepishly, and got up muttering, “Damn, I did it again.”
Still other vets seemed untouched by the action of war. Down the street from me lived a former Ranger that us kids loved to play ball with. He was a veteran of Guadalcanal and other fierce battles of the war. My mother didn’t want us kids to play with him for fear he might hurt us. However, he never was anything but fun for us kids. He played ball, and hide and seek with us. He was so strong, Once I saw him grab a rain spout and swing himself upon the roof of his house, run across it and jump to the ground on the other side. He was not reluctant to talk about the war either. Among other wounds, He had been shot through the mouth, in one cheek and out the other. He laughed saying, “If I had kept my mouth open I wouldn’t have lost my teeth.” He seemed totally unaffected by the war, remaining warm and loving, I hated it when he moved to a better neighborhood. As I got older I learned he was a deeply spiritual person.
Fear does not keep you safe. Knowledge of the world keeps your safe. You don’t stick your hand into a fire because you know you will get burned. Spiders, snakes, demons, and other “scary” things lose their frightfulness when understood. You can lessen and alleviate many fears by simply reading, learning, and understanding them.
Now, there are times when one feels jittery, anxious, and fearful, where there appears to be no recognizable cause for the emotion. For lack of a better name, I call this “free-floating fear.” I know there is a reason for everything, but the “reason” for these f-f fears may be buried in the past, come from multiple sources, or just impossible to determine. It is these f-f fears and their concomitant affect upon us that cause most of the trouble in the world.
These fears cause us to be afraid of strangers, authority, the future, our own ability, and a host of other things that keep us from enjoying life as well as we could. We are held back by these free-floating fears not knowing we are capable of defeating them, and worthy of having the desirable things in life others are enjoying everyday.
If you are one that sometimes feel anxious, jittery, inadequate, unworthy, unsuccessful, unintelligent, with no self-confidence, and/or don’t like yourself very much, then you may be troubled with free-floating fear.
Since the cause of this fear can’t be precisely determined, the remedy has to be broad to cover many possibilities. A shotgun approach. That means something that will address all kinds of fear, and that something is affirmations. With affirmations you will be replacing negative thoughts with positive ones through daily practice.
I have seen many people helped by doing affirmations on a regular basis. If you decide to try affirmations you can find them here.
I hope you do try them. They have been helping people overcome fear ever since they were invented.
Dr Emile Coue (1857 – 1926), was a French pharmacist who at the beginning of the last century opened a free clinic. He offered his clients an affirmation (or as he called it back then a “conscious autosuggestion”) in conjunction with their medical treatment.
Coue believed that dysfunctional thinking patterns could worsen an illness. The Coue method offered a very specific ritual as part of his mind/body belief. His clients were to repeat 20 times in the morning and 20 times in the evening the following affirmation:
“Every day in every way, I am getting better and better”
You could use this affirmation also, or in conjunction with the ones provided on this site. I wish you the best of everything.
© 2009, Lekatt. All rights reserved.
The old saw “What you don’t know, can’t hurt you” is wrong. What you don’t know can hurt you.
We are all raised in a specific culture, and in a certain part of that specific culture. I was raised in the United States in a fundamental Christian culture. Because of my early training I came to believe as true what I was taught. This is the same for everyone no matter what culture they grow up in.
I was taught the Bible was the living word of God. I was told belief not works was the way to heaven, and if I didn’t believe Jesus was God, that He died for my sins, I would go to hell. I would be burned forever in a lake of fire full of devils and demons. That scared me beyond belief. I was never sure I was properly “saved”, so I would answer the call to the altar frequently trying to lessen my fear of God, and hell.
Much later in life, after I started to read, and learn about the world I lived in, I discovered the value of knowledge.
Reading Bible history I discovered what I was taught as the living word of God was really a Biblical interpretation by Martin Luther during the reformation. An interpretation not held by many Christians.
The more I read the more discoveries I made. I used religion as an example, but science is not any better. Many things found in science books are only theories and not reality. History differs from country to country. Also the teachings of public schools and colleges are subject to change with time.
The purpose of this article is to get you to read outside your comfort zone. If you are religious, read science, and vice versa. Read the history of religion and science, don’t be reluctant to learn.
New knowledge will not change who you are, or what you believe in, only you can change yourself. So don’t be afraid to read material you disagree with, it will help you gain insight into the beliefs of others, and help you better understand your own beliefs.
© 2009 – 2019, Lekatt. All rights reserved.
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