{{curiousc}}  I noticed a topic of discussion on your blog about ‘beliefs’.   There are 3 ‘chapters’ between “I Feel” and “I Believe” but, because of the topic being discussed, I’m going ahead and posting this one. 

I Believe
Even faith in nothing is a belief.

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So far I’ve talked about abilities my story started out with. I was born into these abilities. I have the ability to imagine what would enhance the quality of my life, followed by the ability to procure and acquire the tools or means necessary to enhance that life, brought together with the ability to initiate action, the implementation of effort to enhance my life. Along with my sense of Self and my capacity to feel, these parts made up my own immediate Universe. Everything revolved around me.

I was a conglomeration of beliefs woven into a personality. Beliefs about myself, beliefs about the World, beliefs about my relationship with the World. I also found there was a part of me that can best be described as an urge. An urge to expand my field of influence.

An urge to extend myself. To expand awareness of myself past just me. For my Light to shine in somebody else’s world besides my own. To be noticed. To confirm my existence. To socialize.

For many decades my story continued along the same lines as all others. I expressed a sense of my Self. That was full of a lot of hot air, as it turned out. I projected a confidence and an enthusiasm for myself that I genuinely didn’t feel. My Light shows were for the purpose of attracting attention, then enthralling. Lots of time I was only after attention. Negative/positive, it was all attention. Having gotten it, I would move on to attracting more. There always had to be more.

Except when it came to being generous with my self bravado, I didn’t have enough of whatever it took for genuine warmth or generosity. I was too needy for that. Anyone who had what I was after, I’d warm up to. For at least long enough for me to get what ever it was I sought. Sometimes it was only a temporary relief from feeling lonely or insecure. Like a circle of wagons feels more secure then just one.

Lots of us observe this ritual. We seek the company of others because we are dissatisfied with our own. I asked a friend one time if she didn’t enjoy her own company, by what semblance of rational honesty did she imagine anyone else would? She got my point. We can be lonely in a crowd, especially in a crowd of lonely people.

I was sabotaged by my beliefs, by what I had had faith in, which sure wasn’t my self. Symbolically, I was too needy to be a sun. A Sun shines on everything. My Love was too conditional for that. BUT… I could collect satellites. Other worlds that revolved around me.

I would make a great display of enthusiasm and confidence. But my show was just that, a Show. No real warmth but enough light to mesmerize a following.

You see, I needed a following. I couldn’t be recognized as a leader without one. I needed other people who would be dependent upon me to keep them on track and in line. Satellites who needed to be a part of something bigger, to give them an expanded sense of self importance. These satellites fit perfectly with me, for I needed satellites in order to give me my expanded sense of mine.

Negative magnetic fields attract negative poles.

Society’s rocks fit the holes in my head.

Some stories never go beyond this. If the rocks don’t fit, you’re usually pelted with them instead. Fear of being stoned keeps many stories within certain limits. A ‘ring past not’ of experiences and choices that elicit responses of generosity and charity. More commonly known in every culture as taboos, fetishes, superstitions or sins.

A Ring Past Not. A limit we just don’t extend ourselves past.

Where Love is Not extended.

Where Understanding is Not extended.

Where Acceptance is Not extended.

Where Tolerance is Not extended.

Where Forgiveness is Not extended.

Where Mercy is Not extended.

Where Compassion is Not extended.

A ring of conditions ‘a Group’ believes in common. A ring of conditions that keep every individual in the group, in need of the group. In order to make a BIG teepee, I have to assemble lots of sticks, all leaning on each other for their common support.

Many stories never get past this experience of needing group identification. Ostracism, rejection and sometimes extermination, are often consequences of going beyond the limits of cultural taboo. Especially when it comes to thinking and beliefs.

In some stories it has been written that to turn our backs on social acceptance and walk to a different drummer requires Courage. In my story what did it, was Disgust.

I was disgusted with the type of person I had made of myself. I was disgusted by what other people gave meaning to. Most of all, I was disgusted with myself for being so emotionally desperate for acceptance, that I went along with the game. The game of people coming together in hopes of finding someone that has what we think we’re missing. Then we try to take it from them. Like we were all competing over pieces of some big pie. No matter how good I got at it, I never, not once ever, experienced anything close to fulfillment.

I had been looking for Love in all the wrong places and, looking for Love in all the wrong faces. When what I really needed, was to look in a mirror. I was a negative pole in a negative field, looking to get something positive out of it.

That’s when I decided I didn’t care if I was an accepted member of the negative field anymore, even if it was the most popular group. I decided I’d rather live out in left field by myself and be my own best friend, then be lonely surrounded by negative company. That was my decision.

I really didn’t see it as ‘courageous’ at all. I saw it as being fed up with living a senseless life as a stick in a teepee. Life wasn’t exactly fine as a stick but I had learned to crow about being a strong stick. This fed my sense of self importance so long as I didn’t realize I was just a stick. Big stick, little stick, straight stick, crooked stick, a stick is still a stick.

Once something is known, it cannot be unknown. As realization of my stick status set in, my egotistical bubble popped. After that, I didn’t have any desire to stick around.

As a stick in a teepee, I had no stable foundation for my life. No way to develop any stories beyond the teepee. If you think about it, you’ll realize like I did, that teepees are all single stories. Made up of a single story, that holds all the sticks together. A common belief. The belief that was common in my culture, in my story, was a belief that Love is conditional. When I decided not to believe in this conditional love anymore, I went from being a stick, to being a pillar.

Ever since then my foundation has been secure and solid, simply because I‘m not looking outside my self for what I have refused to give myself. I am at Liberty to think of myself any way I’d like. I chose to give myself the experience of knowing what unconditional love feels like. I chose to learn how to love myself that much. I chose being Self Nurturing, so when it came to extending myself and expressing myself, I’d actually have something to share, to extend to others, without any strings attached. I could give without needing to take anything in return.

I chose to be unafraid to be honest. I decided I wouldn’t manipulate my answers for the purpose of being accepted and/or liked anymore. I’d let chips fall where they may. People who liked me would genuinely like me and those that didn’t…., well…didn’t. I could feel secure and be sure of my relationships because since I was real, they were real, too.

I no longer felt like I needed to be liked, because I had learned to like myself. I became a positive pole that radiated a positive field. It took some time, like the time it would take to change a processing plant from processing jelly to processing peanut butter. But the laws of quantum physics didn’t change. Gradually I met others who shared the same attitude and the same goal. A social group formed.

A group of us who have common beliefs and common goals. Pillars believe in Unconditional Love. It’s what makes a pillar, a pillar. Our common goal is cooperating together in order to create stable foundations and environments for self development. We’d like all our stories to be skyscrapers.

There is no competition among pillars. There is no psychological need for it. We know we’re all winners simply because we share the same Gift of Life. We’re all equal, too, because we don’t rely on any made up conditions for elevating some, at an expense of others, like all conditional groups do.

We cooperate or don’t have anything to do with it at all. Sticks may be smart but pillars are wise. And when it comes to genuinely imagining, acquiring and acting upon what actually enhances Life, success depends not on smarts, but on Wisdom, which is Heart plus smarts.

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Emotion
I feel.
I can ride the waves or be controlled by them.

Feelings are inherent in our nature. No two ways about it. We ALL feel. E-motion, energy in motion. While I acknowledge my expertise when it came to suppressing and repressing my feelings, the one thing I never knew to do, was govern them. By the looks of things, most of us have never heard of being self governing in regards to our emotions, either. Our stories seem to be filled with melodramatic drama queens cast in the tile role of main characters for the most part.

One of the most freeing revelations I had, was in realizing I was in charge of how I felt. My thought patterns created peptides and, those peptides came in many flavors. When my thinking patterns told my hypothalamus to create ’fear’ peptides, then fear peptides were what flooded the cells of my body. I would say: I’m feeling fearful or I‘m feeling insecure.

According to my old habit pattern, I would blame those around me or the World, for why I felt the way I did. I didn’t know nor understand about peptides then. I didn’t realize my insecurities were my own issues. Instead, I tried to make others feel guilty for me having them. ‘You make me mad.’ ‘You hurt my feelings.’ ‘You insulted me.’ ‘Your remarks are offensive.‘ What I was too ignorant to claim responsibility for, I blamed on others.

Looking back, I would level a charge of ‘Guilty’ over anyone’s head, that didn’t respond to me, in the way I needed them to respond. What were they Guilty of? Failing to respond the way I needed them to respond. My needs, my emotional needs, were what mattered.

Did I get these needs met? If yes, then everything was fine, regardless of what it took from another. If no, then everything wasn’t fine and the person who failed to meet my needs was vilified.

Thanks to my learned attitude of conditional Love, I was emotionally needy all the time. I never really was sure of all the conditions, either. I tried to learn the ‘rules’ but they changed depending on who I talked to. The one thing that never changed was not being nurturing in what ever we believed about ourselves.

I looked deeper. Not being nurturing in my own beliefs, I looked to other people to save me from myself. To make up for what I dictated I lacked.

I was proficient in the use of coercion, extortion, manipulation and force, in order to satisfy my emotional needs. As you can guess, my relationships were always battlegrounds. I’d battle to see to it that my needs were met, while others would battle for their needs being met.

My relationships were relationships of competition. I was an emotional leech and my life consisted of socializing with other leeches. We would compete over the title of who sucked the most.

Then I realized my feelings were much like the light that shines from the Moon. The Moon had no inherent radiance of its own. It merely reflected the light of the Sun. So too, were my feelings a reflection of what I believed. If my thoughts were dark, then so were my feelings.

Wonder of all wonders, I realized it would work the same way in reverse. If my thoughts were positive, then so would be my feelings. All it took to change one into the other, was a change in perspective.

I found that perspective. I don’t really know how I did it. It just came to me one day. Always embraces all ways. On the level of ‘quantum’, there was no such thing as rejection. It’s power, was it’s inclusiveness. On that level, the Universe was all inclusive, all embracing. There was no such thing as anyone who’d ever lived that had been a ‘not chosen’. The notion was scientifically and philosophically impossible. If it exists or had ever existed, it was found Acceptable to the Universe and, called Existence.

Christ! It hit me. Love and Life extended itself for the sheer Joy of the experience. Positive experience, negative experience, it’s all experience. Every moment is a Present. A Gift.

A full life had nothing to do with length and everything to do with experiences embraced in it. I realized if I didn’t spend so much time in my imagination, living in the past, nursing old wounds, then maybe I wouldn’t be so clueless as to my future. I discovered knowing where I am had a great deal to do with understanding where I might be heading.

I had never known Unconditional Love before. All I had experienced was the lack of it. This is what made me feel needy all the time. With love upon condition, I was never sure if I had fulfilled all conditions. In speaking with others, they had never imagined Unconditional Love, either. We were all perplexed by the same issues. Issues I add, that were immediately resolved and healed, through the activity of our imaginations. We imagined Unconditional Love and found ourselves experiencing what it felt like. From then on, it wasn’t a matter of faith or belief anymore. It was a matter of knowing.

It’s only the lack of it, that we had all felt, that had motivated us to barter with ourselves. Genuine Love was exactly what none of us had ever felt. And have never stopped feeling, since we chose it as the foundation for the kind of relationship we have with ourselves. I can’t give what I don’t have. And I never will have it, if I don’t imagine giving it to myself, first.

I discovered the security of having, was much more pleasant then the insecurity of getting.

The hardest time for me, was when I was first starting to change how I thought and, subsequently felt, about myself. In realizing my emotions were my emotions, I also recognized other people’s feelings, were other people’s feelings. I was not responsible for ’other people’s feelings‘, just as they were not responsible for mine. I knew then, I didn’t have a prayer of a chance of governing anyone else’s hypothalamus. Learning how to govern my own was enough of a challenge for me.

It was with great Joy that I realized my immune system had just become empowered to nullify the ‘negative’ effects of name calling and guilt trips.

I couldn’t be blamed or made to feel guilty. Actually, I could be blamed. Just not made to feel guilty. That was another insight. I didn’t have to give the power of Truth, to what other people said or claimed to believe.

Imagine some sort of astronaut landing in the 11th century. I doubt the astronaut would believe the world was flat, even if the whole world was telling them otherwise.

I Knew I didn’t have any power over another’s feelings. None. From my new perspective, to claim that I did, would be both arrogant and presumptuous. And my actions intended on keeping another person limited in their own self realization, by falsely claiming power over them.

It was then I began to discover how many ideas I had believed in, that required other people believing likewise, in order for me to feel sure of, myself. I began to recognize my own self doubt and where it was coming from. It was coming from my Self. It was coming from believing in ideas so flimsy, that I was dependent upon others for support.

Those like me would gather together like sticks in a teepee, leaning on each other, as our only means of support. We’d all be upright citizens together. United we’d stand and divided, we’d fall. As you can imagine, every single one of us was very controlling. One wrong move by any one of us, could upset the whole bunch.

Now many of us may argue about the subject of Truth. Arguing over which Truth is true. I don’t argue. I simply state that the Truth is True. If whatever we choose to believe is True, we are sure is True, then it provides a foundation of knowing so secure, that we don’t need anyone else’s agreement for support. For the substance of Truth, is True. It stands on Its own.

I learned the lesson about the silk purse and the sow’s ear. Both appeared soft but only one had genuine substance of silk. That’s pretty much the same as it was with me and the previous identity I expressed to the world.

The reason I was an empty vessel, was because my life had so little genuine me in it.

From the Understanding I was quickly assimilating, I realized I’d feel like a complete hypocrite if I continued cursing the world for mirroring my own rejection and self betrayal.

I was the one that rejected me first.

And I betrayed my own self interest by doubting in my self.

I made these kinds of decisions when I believed in conditional love. I don’t abide love upon condition in my life anymore.

 I didn’t like the self image of bartering for love and affection.

Baptism – Transfiguration – Contemplation

These next three stages of life occur repeatedly. I compare the process to that of a blacksmith, creating a sword. If the metal is too soft, is will be useless in cutting through anything. If too brittle, it will shatter under the weight of the first blow.

The metal is tempered. Cast into the fire, hammered, then quenched, repeatedly.

Imagine our Personalities like fuses and the Gifts of Spirit, currents. We steadily increase the size of our fuse, so it won’t blow as the current is turned up. If I hooked up my toaster to a high voltage transmission line, it would literally fry my toaster. Then it’d be of no use to anyone except the scrap metal collector.

It has been esoterically called ‘the Rod of Initiation’. It’s this rod that if supposedly spared, spoils the child. Not one that leave welts. The Rod of Initiation doesn’t leave welts. Nor bruises. Nor any hard feelings.

Baptism

It is when we begin our quest for God. It is our first expression of our desire to change our 3d ways. This quest for God and Truth begins as we begin searching for what is true for ‘me’. This is usually the end result of many long frustrating searches for God and Truth externally.

It starts as the moment of making a conscious choice of walking as a Child of God and nurturing our inner connection to our Christ Self. By putting this thought in motion, we start to alter and shift the vibrations as to allow more of the Light of God to filter in, past our barriers and blockages and, fill our Hearts with a Knowingness of One Mind, of One Source, of One Whole Truth. This Truth is the water of Life in which we immerse ourselves in for our spiritual baptism.

Once we have had a glimpse of our own Divinity, a natural process follows and we are filled with such a sense of Gratitude, that we naturally feel prompted to bow in Reverence to the Almighty Giver Of Life.

When we start to seek within our Hearts, through awareness we come to find ourselves looking straight into the face of God. God the Companion. God the Friend. God the Lover. As we come to deepen our connection, we learn the Love that’s always been there, as the sustenance of our Life. The Reverence of God deepens our Love of Self, for what Reverence Is, is a profound Respect mingled with Love and Awe.

We learn that we are Divine and all the beings around us are Divine and equal, all beings above us, all beings below us. We come to understand that we are all just merely reflections /expressions of God. Simply faces…facets.

The 4^th ray, representing the quality of Purity as expressed through the Initiations. The desire to continually purify our connection to Self, to God. It’s also the quality of Resurrection and Hope, expressing itself as Clarity. It’s color is White, it’s jewel the Diamond and, represents the Universal Law of Vibration.