9/20/18-11/9/18
The hanging and burning of Girolamo Savonarola and his two friends--of which I was one-- happened in the Piazza della Signoria in Florence in 1498.
The Dominican monk who was Savonarola’s closest and most loyal supporter, followed his master to the end; and Fra Silvestro Maruffi – a monk at San Marco who was gifted with visions, also followed Savonarola to the end-- the end being death by hanging and burning together.
1979, Freeport, Maine
"I wonder if we shared a past life together?" I said to John, my flat-mate and lover. I say "lover" but he was my lover only in the physical sense--and barely that-- for I did not really feel anything at all for him in any way. I was almost totally numb with grief and shame at that point in my life.
I had just been fired by my own board of directors from the large multi-funded day care center I had founded and directed for years--and I was in shock. My mind and feelings were as numb as my fingers used to be when, as a child, I played outdoors in winter too long. I would be wearing only wet homemade woolen mittens on my hands. When I would come home finally--no longer able to ignore the pain-- and wailing to my mother, she would run my hands under cold water from the tap; and how it would burn! I would have sworn she was using hot water --but I could see she wasn't. Eventually the water would feel cooler and cooler and then I could stand a little warm water.
Today, in 2018 I am 73 years old, and my Inner Being is just beginning the de-numbing process with me--warming me slowly and gently with Her love. I am numb with pain from many reincarnations in a very dark Earth Plane era. This left-brained, outer-directed era spanning the past 6000 years has been so emotionally and spiritually cold for most people.
However, I will begin this story earlier in this lifetime--the year is 1979 and I was 32 years old. I was in great agony as I recovered from the latest in a series of blows in my life. It was nearing the end of the Hippie era--of which I was a card-carrying-member--since leaving my marriage and my role as a card-carrying-coporate-wife. I had tried my best to pull my life together after that marriage failed in 1974, by going to the polar opposite of society at that time--the Hippie life-style. During this same time I also experienced a devastating failed effort to get into law school, then three failed jobs and a failed "marriage" to a Hippie commune, but...somehow...I still was able to recharge my faith.
In that effort to establish a career in creating Day Care Centers for low income workers, once again, I had apparently failed...and I couldn't understand....Why? I had worked extremely hard--for years-- in every way to make it a success. I thought, in a way, that I had done an excellent job. The 42 children of mostly low income families, enjoyed the freedom of a Montessori education in a beautiful old Federalist House on Main street in Freeport (now inhabited by Banana Republic). My teachers were the highest paid and enjoyed the most vacation time of any day care teachers in the state. I paid myself the same as I paid my teachers even though I normally worked a 70 hour week compared to their 35 hour week--with every 5th week off for them--but none for me. I had aimed for excellence in all of my endeavors, but, apparently I had not done enough (I thought)...or at least had not done it right. I shudder now to think of how hard I was on myself.
But on with the back-story: At the same time as I lost this last job, I also lost our home which was upstairs in the 14 room day care center. And the board said that I had to get out quickly. So I grabbed the first living space opportunity that presented itself--sharing an apartment with a man I barely knew. I had become a bit friendly with him as a neighbor. His marriage had just gone on the rocks and he was stunned by his fate, just as I was with mine We decided to share his large apartment as a a solution to our loneliness, feelings of rejection and financial need.
I had 2 children, a boy aged 4 and a girl aged 7 and he had a boy aged 7 as well. John was very depressed, angry and at loose ends--just as I was. So I thought that perhaps we could, in tandem, each find the end of a string attached to a better future, and pull on it. At the time I was just beginning to explore reincarnation, and it occurred to me that we might be able to make some sense out of why we were together in pain. I assumed it would have a larger meaning than just "convenience." Thus I approached him tentatively, "Do you suppose we had a past life together?" I asked him. He wasn't much interested in metaphysics, but I explained the use of past lives as a way to shine a light of understanding on our present lives and so he agreed to give it a try.
First, I did my own past life regression in private, and later on I did one together with him--and we apparently saw two different lives that we had shared together. However, both had a great impact on each of us. In my recall, I saw him as being Fra Gialarmo Savonarola, a 15th century priest/monk who was rabidly involved in purifying the Catholic church and the populace of Florence. He had two close friends who were both as zealous as he was; I believe I was Fra Silvestro Maruffi, who was the most mystically oriented of the three. I still am very much inward-oriented, which has lead me to many spiritual experiences and visions throughout this life as well.
At this moment, as I am writing, I find myself wondering if Fra Domenico joined us in this life as well? Could it have been John's wife? Or my friend Miriam Dyak who introduced me to doing Past Life Recalls. But that is irrelevant to this story.
Florence --late 1490's.
We three monks were disgusted with the state of the Catholic Church. It was headed, at that time, by a dissolute Pope called Alexander VI, (1431 to 1503, Rome) He was a corrupt, worldly, and ambitious man whose neglect of the spiritual inheritance of the church contributed to the development of the Protestant Reformation. We made an enemy of him as well as a political enemy of the Medici family--who had been the most powerful family in Florence for several generations. Both of those entities represented all of the worst in humanity--to us. Their vainglorious lust for money, superficial power repulsed us.
However, Savonarola was a powerful man in his own right. He was a charismatic and inspiring preacher and he convinced many of the wealthy populace of Florence to strip their homes and lives of their luxuries and to throw them onto a massive bonfire--the famous "Bonfire of the Vanities," which took place on February 7, 1497. The book Romola, (1862–63) is a historical novel by George Eliot set in the fifteenth century during Savonarola's lifetime. It gives a very good fictional insight into the mood of the times. It is "a deep study of life in the city of Florence from an intellectual, artistic, religious, and social point of view." In the story, Romola is inspired by Savonarola to do service-work for the poor and needy. For a while she loses faith in him, but in the end she adheres to his basic dictates, which are to serve those most in need.
We three clerics were committed to the same sort of service and we enraged Pope Alexander VI by pillaging the churches of gold ornaments and distributing them to the poor. And we openly rebelled against him in many other ways as well. However, for a long time we held the interest and support of the majority of Florence--both poor and rich. However, Savonarola was challenged by a religious opponent to a violent spiritual test. He refused and another cleric offered to take his place. But the damage had been done. The people had lost faith in him. This left the way open for the city fathers to attack Savonarola and us.
On May 23,1498 we were imprisoned and soon after condemned, hung and burned by the church and civil authorities. In my past life recall, back in 1979, the most dramatic image of the lifetime that I experienced was an awareness of myself--my soul-- rising in the air above the Piazza Della Signoria. I could see the flames below consuming my earthly body and those of my two friends as well. And as I rose slowly above the scene my attention was drawn to the tower in the corner of the square atop the Pallazio del Vecchio, as it is known today. I knew there was a person in the top of the tower who loved me very dearly. I left the earth wrapped in the beautiful feeling of love that the person was sending me. That awareness was far more powerful than any awareness of the horrors that had preceded it.
--------------------
So what did I accomplish in that life and how did it relate to this one? When I first recalled the life I knew nothing of Savonarola although I had heard his name. Curious about him, I found my way to the archived stacks in the Bowdoin College library; there I researched him. The main thing I recall about that effort now was finding a very old small, nicely bound biography of him, which I devoured.
The most startling thing about that book occurred when I turned the final page; there I was confronted with an image of Savonarola in profile--my first glimpse of him. I was shocked to see how much it looked like my friend John! The similarity was truly astounding. I had no doubt after that that John was Savonarola in a past life. As I considered both lives back in 1979 I noted the similarities in character also. Both John and Savonarola were charismatic. I recall that he could talk me into anything. I allowed him to do that. He even convinced me once to go out for the evening with him--leaving my sick daughter home alone. She never forgot it and I have never forgotten myself either. Nothing happened to her physically. She was fine when I got home. But I had allowed myself to be convinced that this was acceptable behavior...from a person who was a very poor parent to his own child. He frequently verbally abused and otherwise neglected his own child and his dog. Why should I have listened to him?
Knowing that I had followed him unquestioningly in a past life helped, but it still did not relieve me of the guilt I felt. I was normally a very devoted and conscientious mother. But being a single parent on duty 24/7, while working a 70 hour a week job plus doing further work on four community service boards--two of which I chaired-- was extremely difficult. My devotion to the poor in this life paralleled my devotion in that 15th century life...and then some. But behind that devotion in this lifetime was a deep abiding sense of guilt. I could never do enough to make up for some sin I had, or believed I had, committed, at some time. Therefore, I can understand and forgive myself for the few times I left my children insufficiently cared for. The burden was too great and my need to get away briefly was also very great. Nothing happened to them. But my behavior was definitely "off."
Thus I saw clearly that both John and Savonarola were charismatic. And I allowed myself to be vulnerable to outside influences and to ignore my own intuitive guidance. However, neither John nor Savonarola was able to be convincing enough to keep all of their followers in thrall. Savonarola's ideology was too extreme. He burned a large pile books, gaming tables, fine dresses, works of poets and works of art that he deemed "impure." I am sure his own fanatical Puritanism was driven by feelings of guilt underneath.
It has just occurred to me, as I was writing, that the clue might be in the other past life that John and I saw together. He was lying on our bed and I sat beside it. I walked him through a guided meditation designed to put him into a deep meditative state--deeply relaxed and turned inward. And I accompanied him in this relaxation process. The process involves leaving the Earth and going into one's vaster self and then coming back to Earth in another time and place. As he did the latter, we both found ourselves looking down from a high vantage point--upon the same horrific scene--a field of battle. Below us was a dark landscape of twisted and burned trees; hundreds of men--soldiers--were hacking away at each other with swords and other weapons. Men lay dying by the score and the spiritual atmosphere was one of the most awful I have encountered in a recall. I doubt if it was any worse than any other hand-to-hand combat battle.
However, both John and I knew that our soul-choice to be observing it from a high vantage point was deliberate and enlightening. We both came away from the recall feeling that we wanted to know--at the very least--once and for all that war is hell and is a solution to nothing. We knew neither side would win...no matter who had the last man standing. As we died we knew that the use of force was "off;" and we wanted to help end the world paradigm that allowed that its use was acceptable.
That paradigm, unfortunately, continues today--starting in families that use comparison between siblings to try and force the children to "be better;" to school where children are forced to attend and are ruthlessly compared to each other in order to force improvement; to business competition; to political competition; to legal competition; to forcing oneself to work harder; or to lose more weight or to do anything one thinks one SHOULD do. The ubiquitous use of force against others and self is way, way "off."
-----------------
Thus I can now see clearly that the lesson for me is about THE USE OF FORCE and how I don't want to use it any more. Nor will I allow myself to be a victim of force. Despite our lofty aims, Savonarola and I were trying forcefully to change other people's mind's and lives. We tried to convince them with powerful rhetoric and pious adjurations. That is not the best way, I am learning in this life. What I am learning now is to ALLOW EVERYTHING.
God "allows" everything. The translation of the Bible from Greek to English twisted the meaning of the word we call "forgiveness." But the original word was closer to "allowing." And it has led to great confusion among Christians and Jews who take the Bible as their guide. Many people ask how could a loving God allow this or that seeming evil. They believe that God forgives sinners, but they don't understand that God literally "Allows Everything."
Freedom is God's inalienable gift. God lives through each of us and made us free to believe and to create anything we desire. That applies to all of us. However, God also created "The Law of Attraction." That law is immutable and even handed. It basically tells us that "what goes around will come around." Unkindness out...unkindness back. We are all One Being and we cannot get away with being unkind to others without experiencing being the recipient of the same. If we diminish others, we will be diminished. If we uplift others, we will be uplifted.
The word "sin" in the ancient Greek meant "missing the mark." It was an archery term. God never punishes us for missing the mark..nor are we meant to punish each other or ourselves. God allows "missing the mark" and we are meant to as well. Truly! However, we are given infinite intelligence to call on to know why bad things are happening to us. Bad things happen when we are not in alignment with our Inner Being who knows what is true. God is Truth. We are One with God. We are one with Truth and when we swerve away from Truth, it begins to hurt. It hurts others and it hurts us. That hurting is NOT meant to be denied or tolerated. It is meant to be a signpost pointing the way back towards truth and alignment with our Divine Center. Hurting is not meant to be "sucked up" so we can soldier-on in the same old wrong direction. Hurting means to stop and feel and change a belief that has been leading us astray. When we start to feel better, we can know that we are headed in the right direction.
So the current world intellectual paradigm is very off, for it fears and mistrusts the emotions and the feelings from the body that tell us we are hurting. The Old Male paradigm says "just ignore it," suck it up, sacrifice your body. NO! We must relearn to pay attention to both our emotional and our physical feelings. They are intelligent and very important messages from our Inner Being. Simple discomfort is an early message that one is wandering away from alignment. And if we persist in that direction, the pain will grow. And if we turn and find a better direction, the pain will lessen. We are meant to be happy and to feel good...nay... to be blissed out!
That is what I have come to learn in this lifetime, and although I am sharing what I am learning through books and internet connections I am having to learn to desist from giving advice to others who have not asked me for it. Even if they ask I must check within, with my Inner Being and deeper feelings to see if it feels "off" or "on" to give that advice. Many people , over my lifetime, have suggested that I become a minister or preacher or teacher of metaphysical truth. My family tree is full of ministers--including an aunt--but I never did pursue that very much. I did teach classes in spirituality and intuition in the 90's. But I feel very cautious about doing that these days.
Everyone has their own Inner Being who knows what is best for them. Sometimes our Inner Being will allow that we are not listening to Her/Him and so they allow the information they want us to receive to be "looped out" through another person we respect. But it still comes from our Inner Being.
So whether we have felt like a victim or a perpetrator in our life--and I have been both--we are each still the creator of our own reality. A belief in powerlessness is as "off" as a belief in power over others. Victims allow hurtful events as much as perpetrators do. Their belief in their own powerlessness attracts perpetrators. They both hold an end of the same stick--the stick of power.
Thus, the place I am learning to go is WITHIN--to my Inner Being, to my Source-Self. There I can learn Truth, or be led to it. And the Truth is that in this lifetime I am learning to see everyone as God. Others all have the same inner resources as I have. And they have an Inner Being who is much more capable of giving them the truth they need than I do, although I am willing to be a cooperative component ...IF my Inner Being wants that. However, I am relying on Divine Guidance more and more as to my role in that. And I am ever increasingly "Allowing Everything " to my Inner Being. This choice is leading me more and more into the light.
“The gloom of the world is but a shadow; behind it, yet within our reach, is joy. Take joy.” ― Girolamo Savonarola
"SIDEKICK TO SAVONAROLA"
“The gloom of the world is but a shadow; behind it, yet within our reach, is joy. Take joy.”
― Girolamo SavonarolaThe hanging and burning of Girolamo Savonarola and his two friends--of which I was one-- happened in the Piazza della Signoria in Florence in 1498.
The Dominican monk who was Savonarola’s closest and most loyal supporter, followed his master to the end; and Fra Silvestro Maruffi – a monk at San Marco who was gifted with visions, also followed Savonarola to the end-- the end being death by hanging and burning together.
1979, Freeport, Maine
"I wonder if we shared a past life together?" I said to John, my flat-mate and lover. I say "lover" but he was my lover only in the physical sense--and barely that-- for I did not really feel anything at all for him in any way. I was almost totally numb with grief and shame at that point in my life.
I had just been fired by my own board of directors from the large multi-funded day care center I had founded and directed for years--and I was in shock. My mind and feelings were as numb as my fingers used to be when, as a child, I played outdoors in winter too long. I would be wearing only wet homemade woolen mittens on my hands. When I would come home finally--no longer able to ignore the pain-- and wailing to my mother, she would run my hands under cold water from the tap; and how it would burn! I would have sworn she was using hot water --but I could see she wasn't. Eventually the water would feel cooler and cooler and then I could stand a little warm water.
Today, in 2018 I am 73 years old, and my Inner Being is just beginning the de-numbing process with me--warming me slowly and gently with Her love. I am numb with pain from many reincarnations in a very dark Earth Plane era. This left-brained, outer-directed era spanning the past 6000 years has been so emotionally and spiritually cold for most people.
However, I will begin this story earlier in this lifetime--the year is 1979 and I was 32 years old. I was in great agony as I recovered from the latest in a series of blows in my life. It was nearing the end of the Hippie era--of which I was a card-carrying-member--since leaving my marriage and my role as a card-carrying-coporate-wife. I had tried my best to pull my life together after that marriage failed in 1974, by going to the polar opposite of society at that time--the Hippie life-style. During this same time I also experienced a devastating failed effort to get into law school, then three failed jobs and a failed "marriage" to a Hippie commune, but...somehow...I still was able to recharge my faith.
In that effort to establish a career in creating Day Care Centers for low income workers, once again, I had apparently failed...and I couldn't understand....Why? I had worked extremely hard--for years-- in every way to make it a success. I thought, in a way, that I had done an excellent job. The 42 children of mostly low income families, enjoyed the freedom of a Montessori education in a beautiful old Federalist House on Main street in Freeport (now inhabited by Banana Republic). My teachers were the highest paid and enjoyed the most vacation time of any day care teachers in the state. I paid myself the same as I paid my teachers even though I normally worked a 70 hour week compared to their 35 hour week--with every 5th week off for them--but none for me. I had aimed for excellence in all of my endeavors, but, apparently I had not done enough (I thought)...or at least had not done it right. I shudder now to think of how hard I was on myself.
But on with the back-story: At the same time as I lost this last job, I also lost our home which was upstairs in the 14 room day care center. And the board said that I had to get out quickly. So I grabbed the first living space opportunity that presented itself--sharing an apartment with a man I barely knew. I had become a bit friendly with him as a neighbor. His marriage had just gone on the rocks and he was stunned by his fate, just as I was with mine We decided to share his large apartment as a a solution to our loneliness, feelings of rejection and financial need.
I had 2 children, a boy aged 4 and a girl aged 7 and he had a boy aged 7 as well. John was very depressed, angry and at loose ends--just as I was. So I thought that perhaps we could, in tandem, each find the end of a string attached to a better future, and pull on it. At the time I was just beginning to explore reincarnation, and it occurred to me that we might be able to make some sense out of why we were together in pain. I assumed it would have a larger meaning than just "convenience." Thus I approached him tentatively, "Do you suppose we had a past life together?" I asked him. He wasn't much interested in metaphysics, but I explained the use of past lives as a way to shine a light of understanding on our present lives and so he agreed to give it a try.
First, I did my own past life regression in private, and later on I did one together with him--and we apparently saw two different lives that we had shared together. However, both had a great impact on each of us. In my recall, I saw him as being Fra Gialarmo Savonarola, a 15th century priest/monk who was rabidly involved in purifying the Catholic church and the populace of Florence. He had two close friends who were both as zealous as he was; I believe I was Fra Silvestro Maruffi, who was the most mystically oriented of the three. I still am very much inward-oriented, which has lead me to many spiritual experiences and visions throughout this life as well.
At this moment, as I am writing, I find myself wondering if Fra Domenico joined us in this life as well? Could it have been John's wife? Or my friend Miriam Dyak who introduced me to doing Past Life Recalls. But that is irrelevant to this story.
Florence --late 1490's.
We three monks were disgusted with the state of the Catholic Church. It was headed, at that time, by a dissolute Pope called Alexander VI, (1431 to 1503, Rome) He was a corrupt, worldly, and ambitious man whose neglect of the spiritual inheritance of the church contributed to the development of the Protestant Reformation. We made an enemy of him as well as a political enemy of the Medici family--who had been the most powerful family in Florence for several generations. Both of those entities represented all of the worst in humanity--to us. Their vainglorious lust for money, superficial power repulsed us.
However, Savonarola was a powerful man in his own right. He was a charismatic and inspiring preacher and he convinced many of the wealthy populace of Florence to strip their homes and lives of their luxuries and to throw them onto a massive bonfire--the famous "Bonfire of the Vanities," which took place on February 7, 1497. The book Romola, (1862–63) is a historical novel by George Eliot set in the fifteenth century during Savonarola's lifetime. It gives a very good fictional insight into the mood of the times. It is "a deep study of life in the city of Florence from an intellectual, artistic, religious, and social point of view." In the story, Romola is inspired by Savonarola to do service-work for the poor and needy. For a while she loses faith in him, but in the end she adheres to his basic dictates, which are to serve those most in need.
We three clerics were committed to the same sort of service and we enraged Pope Alexander VI by pillaging the churches of gold ornaments and distributing them to the poor. And we openly rebelled against him in many other ways as well. However, for a long time we held the interest and support of the majority of Florence--both poor and rich. However, Savonarola was challenged by a religious opponent to a violent spiritual test. He refused and another cleric offered to take his place. But the damage had been done. The people had lost faith in him. This left the way open for the city fathers to attack Savonarola and us.
On May 23,1498 we were imprisoned and soon after condemned, hung and burned by the church and civil authorities. In my past life recall, back in 1979, the most dramatic image of the lifetime that I experienced was an awareness of myself--my soul-- rising in the air above the Piazza Della Signoria. I could see the flames below consuming my earthly body and those of my two friends as well. And as I rose slowly above the scene my attention was drawn to the tower in the corner of the square atop the Pallazio del Vecchio, as it is known today. I knew there was a person in the top of the tower who loved me very dearly. I left the earth wrapped in the beautiful feeling of love that the person was sending me. That awareness was far more powerful than any awareness of the horrors that had preceded it.
--------------------
So what did I accomplish in that life and how did it relate to this one? When I first recalled the life I knew nothing of Savonarola although I had heard his name. Curious about him, I found my way to the archived stacks in the Bowdoin College library; there I researched him. The main thing I recall about that effort now was finding a very old small, nicely bound biography of him, which I devoured.
The most startling thing about that book occurred when I turned the final page; there I was confronted with an image of Savonarola in profile--my first glimpse of him. I was shocked to see how much it looked like my friend John! The similarity was truly astounding. I had no doubt after that that John was Savonarola in a past life. As I considered both lives back in 1979 I noted the similarities in character also. Both John and Savonarola were charismatic. I recall that he could talk me into anything. I allowed him to do that. He even convinced me once to go out for the evening with him--leaving my sick daughter home alone. She never forgot it and I have never forgotten myself either. Nothing happened to her physically. She was fine when I got home. But I had allowed myself to be convinced that this was acceptable behavior...from a person who was a very poor parent to his own child. He frequently verbally abused and otherwise neglected his own child and his dog. Why should I have listened to him?
Knowing that I had followed him unquestioningly in a past life helped, but it still did not relieve me of the guilt I felt. I was normally a very devoted and conscientious mother. But being a single parent on duty 24/7, while working a 70 hour a week job plus doing further work on four community service boards--two of which I chaired-- was extremely difficult. My devotion to the poor in this life paralleled my devotion in that 15th century life...and then some. But behind that devotion in this lifetime was a deep abiding sense of guilt. I could never do enough to make up for some sin I had, or believed I had, committed, at some time. Therefore, I can understand and forgive myself for the few times I left my children insufficiently cared for. The burden was too great and my need to get away briefly was also very great. Nothing happened to them. But my behavior was definitely "off."
Thus I saw clearly that both John and Savonarola were charismatic. And I allowed myself to be vulnerable to outside influences and to ignore my own intuitive guidance. However, neither John nor Savonarola was able to be convincing enough to keep all of their followers in thrall. Savonarola's ideology was too extreme. He burned a large pile books, gaming tables, fine dresses, works of poets and works of art that he deemed "impure." I am sure his own fanatical Puritanism was driven by feelings of guilt underneath.
It has just occurred to me, as I was writing, that the clue might be in the other past life that John and I saw together. He was lying on our bed and I sat beside it. I walked him through a guided meditation designed to put him into a deep meditative state--deeply relaxed and turned inward. And I accompanied him in this relaxation process. The process involves leaving the Earth and going into one's vaster self and then coming back to Earth in another time and place. As he did the latter, we both found ourselves looking down from a high vantage point--upon the same horrific scene--a field of battle. Below us was a dark landscape of twisted and burned trees; hundreds of men--soldiers--were hacking away at each other with swords and other weapons. Men lay dying by the score and the spiritual atmosphere was one of the most awful I have encountered in a recall. I doubt if it was any worse than any other hand-to-hand combat battle.
However, both John and I knew that our soul-choice to be observing it from a high vantage point was deliberate and enlightening. We both came away from the recall feeling that we wanted to know--at the very least--once and for all that war is hell and is a solution to nothing. We knew neither side would win...no matter who had the last man standing. As we died we knew that the use of force was "off;" and we wanted to help end the world paradigm that allowed that its use was acceptable.
That paradigm, unfortunately, continues today--starting in families that use comparison between siblings to try and force the children to "be better;" to school where children are forced to attend and are ruthlessly compared to each other in order to force improvement; to business competition; to political competition; to legal competition; to forcing oneself to work harder; or to lose more weight or to do anything one thinks one SHOULD do. The ubiquitous use of force against others and self is way, way "off."
-----------------
Thus I can now see clearly that the lesson for me is about THE USE OF FORCE and how I don't want to use it any more. Nor will I allow myself to be a victim of force. Despite our lofty aims, Savonarola and I were trying forcefully to change other people's mind's and lives. We tried to convince them with powerful rhetoric and pious adjurations. That is not the best way, I am learning in this life. What I am learning now is to ALLOW EVERYTHING.
God "allows" everything. The translation of the Bible from Greek to English twisted the meaning of the word we call "forgiveness." But the original word was closer to "allowing." And it has led to great confusion among Christians and Jews who take the Bible as their guide. Many people ask how could a loving God allow this or that seeming evil. They believe that God forgives sinners, but they don't understand that God literally "Allows Everything."
Freedom is God's inalienable gift. God lives through each of us and made us free to believe and to create anything we desire. That applies to all of us. However, God also created "The Law of Attraction." That law is immutable and even handed. It basically tells us that "what goes around will come around." Unkindness out...unkindness back. We are all One Being and we cannot get away with being unkind to others without experiencing being the recipient of the same. If we diminish others, we will be diminished. If we uplift others, we will be uplifted.
The word "sin" in the ancient Greek meant "missing the mark." It was an archery term. God never punishes us for missing the mark..nor are we meant to punish each other or ourselves. God allows "missing the mark" and we are meant to as well. Truly! However, we are given infinite intelligence to call on to know why bad things are happening to us. Bad things happen when we are not in alignment with our Inner Being who knows what is true. God is Truth. We are One with God. We are one with Truth and when we swerve away from Truth, it begins to hurt. It hurts others and it hurts us. That hurting is NOT meant to be denied or tolerated. It is meant to be a signpost pointing the way back towards truth and alignment with our Divine Center. Hurting is not meant to be "sucked up" so we can soldier-on in the same old wrong direction. Hurting means to stop and feel and change a belief that has been leading us astray. When we start to feel better, we can know that we are headed in the right direction.
So the current world intellectual paradigm is very off, for it fears and mistrusts the emotions and the feelings from the body that tell us we are hurting. The Old Male paradigm says "just ignore it," suck it up, sacrifice your body. NO! We must relearn to pay attention to both our emotional and our physical feelings. They are intelligent and very important messages from our Inner Being. Simple discomfort is an early message that one is wandering away from alignment. And if we persist in that direction, the pain will grow. And if we turn and find a better direction, the pain will lessen. We are meant to be happy and to feel good...nay... to be blissed out!
That is what I have come to learn in this lifetime, and although I am sharing what I am learning through books and internet connections I am having to learn to desist from giving advice to others who have not asked me for it. Even if they ask I must check within, with my Inner Being and deeper feelings to see if it feels "off" or "on" to give that advice. Many people , over my lifetime, have suggested that I become a minister or preacher or teacher of metaphysical truth. My family tree is full of ministers--including an aunt--but I never did pursue that very much. I did teach classes in spirituality and intuition in the 90's. But I feel very cautious about doing that these days.
Everyone has their own Inner Being who knows what is best for them. Sometimes our Inner Being will allow that we are not listening to Her/Him and so they allow the information they want us to receive to be "looped out" through another person we respect. But it still comes from our Inner Being.
So whether we have felt like a victim or a perpetrator in our life--and I have been both--we are each still the creator of our own reality. A belief in powerlessness is as "off" as a belief in power over others. Victims allow hurtful events as much as perpetrators do. Their belief in their own powerlessness attracts perpetrators. They both hold an end of the same stick--the stick of power.
Thus, the place I am learning to go is WITHIN--to my Inner Being, to my Source-Self. There I can learn Truth, or be led to it. And the Truth is that in this lifetime I am learning to see everyone as God. Others all have the same inner resources as I have. And they have an Inner Being who is much more capable of giving them the truth they need than I do, although I am willing to be a cooperative component ...IF my Inner Being wants that. However, I am relying on Divine Guidance more and more as to my role in that. And I am ever increasingly "Allowing Everything " to my Inner Being. This choice is leading me more and more into the light.
“The gloom of the world is but a shadow; behind it, yet within our reach, is joy. Take joy.” ― Girolamo Savonarola
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