Taking Good Friday Within

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This was written for Good Friday, April 22, 2011.

Last week I wrote about Palm Sunday and how we could understand some of the story of Jesus as metaphors for our relationship with Life. I suggested we could receive the Palm Sunday story as a metaphor for the Christ Consciousness (force of life) within us, and we could use it to ask ourselves, "How am I receiving and using the power of Life within me? Am I at war with my world, using my power to try to change and control the outside world to my liking? Or am I using Life to bring myself into harmony and loving acceptance with What Is?"

The story continues: This Friday before Easter is called Good Friday. In the story, it marks the day Jesus was "betrayed" by Judas in the garden and Jesus was condemned and crucified.

We should first note that the "Good" doesn't mean anyone thought it was good to crucify someone. Sometimes the day is called "Black Friday," or "Holy Friday." The word "Good" is a translation from a word that means "pious" or "holy." The day is celebrated in most Christian churches with solemn ceremonies of prayer and meditation.

Jesus was betrayed by Judas. Or, maybe not. There is good evidence that Judas was the closest to Jesus. He was the treasurer of the disciples, and had been with Jesus for his entire ministry. I believe that Jesus offered the task of fulfilling the prophesies to his most beloved apprentice, both of them knowing that Judas would be sacrificing himself among his peers and throughout history.

Inside many of us there are parts like Jesus and Judas. The Christ Consciousness (Life, Love, Perfection, Divinity) is "in this world but not of it." The Judas part must deny and betray that truth of our nature in order for us to fulfill our destiny as humans here. That consciousness must go to sleep and dream it's a human body/mind organism searching for connection with its own Divinity.

Jesus was charged with "crimes" he did not commit. Recognize that in your inner world? Or from your childhood? Our outer and inner judges keep making us wrong for who we are, what we do as who we are, and for not changing who we are to create different behaviors and outcomes. Strange, but true. Jesus didn't answer the charges, because he had deliberately created the entire scenario, knew where it was going, and needed all the players just as they were.

And then Jesus was crucified. The ultimate punishment. And from that place of human pain, humiliation, and physical suffering, he said what I believe is the most powerful teaching of the entire story:

"Father forgive them for they know not what they do."

What an amazing teaching! For me it says, "I know the world is unfolding exactly as it is. I am a part of this play, this drama, on this stage, and I accept my part and the parts of others. I am not a victim and these are not my perpetrators. We are all together here, and nobody is to blame." Wow. The Christ Consciousness within us knows this same truth. How can we embrace our own inner betrayers of our truth and honor this kind of forgiveness within...?

Can you see that you and everyone in your life is doing their best being them, and so forgive yourself and them because there is nothing to forgive? What a powerful teaching!

We can see the symbol of the Crucifixion as an initiation into a higher state of consciousness. We are invited to release our limited identification with our body/mind -- a sort of spiritual annihilation of self into the realization of our true nature. As the denser material of a candle yields to the purifying flame... we are reborn into our own divinity-- right here on planet earth!

It's a pretty good story. And we all can live it.

IN love.

Blessings on Palm Sunday

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This was written on Palm Sunday, April 17, 2011.

Good morning, and blessed Palm Sunday to you.

Yesterday I asked some church going folks around me here at my Mom's what Palm Sunday meant, and the people I asked realized they really didn't know. So I did a bit of reading and thinking about it, and want to offer you this:

Palm Sunday represents the triumphal entry of Jesus into Jerusalem. Up until that time he had discouraged his disciples from talking about his work and miracles, but now he told them (after recently raising Lazarus from the dead) to go and proclaim his power. He told them where to find a donkey, and her colt who had never been ridden. They put their cloaks on the colt and he used that "virgin" animal to ride into the city.

Donkeys represent peace. Warriors who are conquering or celebrating conquests ride into a city on a decorated prancing horse. Jesus rode a donkey draped in humble cloaks. He came as a King, celebrated, not to conquer by force like earthly kinds, but by his love and grace demonstrating the truth of who we are as Spirit, Life, God, Love. His goal was to conquer hearts and minds, not nations.

Of course most everyone misunderstood Jesus' mission, still wanting him to be the powerful kind that would liberate them from the occupation and rule of the Romans at that time. When they saw he wasn't going to use his power to meet their earthly needs, they turned on him, and the result was the trial and ultimate punishment through crucifixion.

If we receive this story as a metaphor for the Christ energy (force of life) within us, we can use it to ask ourselves, "How am I receiving and using the power of Life within me? Am I at war with my world, using my power to try to change and control the outside world to my liking? Or am I using Life to bring myself into harmony and loving acceptance with What Is?"

Miguel Ruiz' Circle of Fire Prayer ends with: "I will respect all creation as a symbol of my love communion with the one who created me." For me this says that when I accept and actively love every person, event, institution, emotion, and thought that appears in my world I am in a loving communion with the Spirit of Life that has created and animates me and my world. The prayer ends, "To the eternal happiness of humanity." The goal is to be happy.

It is up to us to bring those qualities of Spirit (Christ Consciousness) into our own personal life -- love, acceptance, and gratitude for What IS.

I wish you a very special day today. And invite you to ask yourself, "How am I using this power to be the king in my own inner life? Am I charging in on the horse of war, or gently riding the donkey of peace?" As I write that line I hear church bells ringing in the distance.

God Bless Us One and All.

Thoughts on Leaving

I'm thinking about "leaving" tonight. I am packing to leave my beloved Chacala, this little beach village in Mexico where I enjoy my winters. I am leaving. Most of the people I know and relate to are leaving, too, or have already headed back north.

Leaving. We arrive, we stay, we go. I came here in November, and I stayed, and now I'm leaving. Now I get to return to my other paradise, in Santa Rosa, northern California.

My mother is 95. She arrived in life a long time ago, and yesterday she went to the hospital in southern California diagnosed with congestive heart failure. Her heart isn't really failing, it's just tired! She has done a lot. Baked a lot of cookies. Hosted lots of church socials. Raised two fine sons. Wife and mother. She arrived, she stayed, and I don't think she is leaving just yet. My brother is with her, and I'll be there soon.

Her emergency reminds me once again how fragile life is. Her life, my life, your life. Not all of us will get to 95. Our bodies are strong and loyal. We can abuse them, reject them, mistreat them-- and yet they keep showing up to get us through the day. I assume the better we treat our bodies the longer they will serve us. I'm a big fan of healthy eating, exercise, all that stuff. Then we get hit by a bus.

Someday, we will all be leaving. And we will leave the way we lived. If your life is lived afraid about losing stuff, then you will probably die afraid. If you live your life knowing that none of the stuff is really yours, that it's all on loan for a short time (including your life itself)... if you can surrender the illusion you control any of it (bus)... if you live in peace with the changes of life... then perhaps you can leave this world in peace also.

That's my goal: To live my life like I'm dying. To live full out, wide awake, present in my body, IN love and celebration and gratitude ...trusting that it's all perfect, trusting Life itself to do whatever it's going to do. Everyone I've worked with who was diagnosed with death has celebrated life. Okay, then, I'm diagnosing you: You are leaving! Like they say, there's no way to get out of this life alive.

And you can't take it with you. I'm sure it's true. All the stuff belongs to this earthly realm. I'm packing to leave Chacala. I have no expectation I can pack to leave Life. I am sad to leave Chacala, and I am leaving gracefully-- no resistance, no "not fair." It's just time to leave.

My mother is not quite leaving yet. It is getting to be time. I'll see her soon. I send my love to your mother, and all the mothers you are, have been, and will be. The Great Eternal Mother is always with us.

I've been thinking about leaving. I think a lot about Living! Let's LIVE! Every single minute. There is nothing to hold us back but our own silly old agreements. Throw them off like a fur coat on a hot day! Get naked, get crazy, and LIVE!!


Allan

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It's my passion in life to help you break the programming that limits you and live a life that is so fantastically alive and present that you never suffer again -- emotionally, mentally, or physically. Contact me now. (707) 528-1271 or write allan@joydancer.com

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Happy Valentine's Day

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I have written about the true meaning of love the last few weeks. The main focus of my sharing has been to remind us all that we came into this world AS love, AS life, AS the divinity that creates and animates this universe.

Love is our default state. Love and acceptance of what is. We came in that way, then people told us stories and lies and we forgot. They believed they were the source of love for us. They said we had to bargain for love, we had to be good and get it right, to earn this commodity of love, attention, safety, and more.

It wasn't true then and it isn't true now! If you are trying to earn love from someone, or making someone bargain for your love, perhaps today is the day to take a deep breath and stop. Perhaps today is the day to remember who and what you are: Pure Divine Love. And so is everyone else!

Perhaps today, Valentine's Day, the day of love and romance, is a good day to let go of the old dream of fear-based conditional love and dance a new dance-- the dance of acceptance... the dance of Life... dancing in love with itself... in all your relationships.

Let's dance together in joy with Life. We are, after all, Joydancers! (.com)

~ Allan

Make sure to sign up for my newsletter, if you haven't already: http://joydancer.com/Newsletter/

Want to read more about love, real love, love for "The New Relationship?" Go here:

The New Relationship ~ Five Agreements to Make Love Come True

You can order CD's of my Five Agreements here

A Question (and Answer) about Conscious Relationship

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A reader of my "The New Relationship ~ Five Agreements to Make Love Come True," recently asked me, "If I'm in a place where I love and accept everyone equally, why would I choose one particular person to be in relationship with?"

A great question. It is our spiritual self that sees the absolute divine perfection in all of creation, including ourselves and our beloveds, and accepts it all exactly as it is. That recognition of the Divinity of all Creation is what offers us the ultimate happiness.

Our human self, however, as a unique expression of that divinity, will have preferences and likes and dislikes. Accepting ourselves means accepting those human truths about us.

So, two human selves may be especially attracted and feel juicy about each other, while still accepting and loving all of creation. From this place of awareness, their relationship will be based on the juicy connection AND their awareness and conscious agreements about the compatibility of their lifestyles and dreams. They will discuss their dreams of money, finances, spirituality, or religion, sex, diet, travel, leisure, geography, work, recreation, entertainment, and all the ways people live their daily lives. There could be lots of juice and no compatibility and that really won't work for very long.

I believe in order to have a "successful" romantic partnership we must be aware and awake and willing to risk the outcome, so we can make conscious agreements about the relationship. In the old dream fear ruled. In this new dream, love and acceptance rule.

Take your pick.

You can read a summary of The New Relationship ~ Five Agreements to Make Love Come True right here.

You can order CD's of the agreements here.

Sign up for my newsletter, The Joydancer Weekly Word here.

Love is our Nature, not a Commodity

Love is a grand and wonderful thing. It has been exalted, suffered, and written and sung about since the beginning of time.

The meaning of Love and the expression of romantic relationship has evolved and grown with changing needs, religions, and economic conditions. It is a great challenge for individuals and cultures to change traditions and morals to keep pace with the evolution of the human dream. I can think of no area of our western society more in need of change than this, and at the same time more resistant to that change. There is probably no emotion more misunderstood, distorted, and confused than "Love."

From the experiences of childhood most of us agreed that others were the source of love, and that you had to bargain for that love. Love became a commodity that lived outside of us, we needed it to survive, and we had to be good and get it right in order to assure our share of the precious commodity.

I believe we came into this world through Love, as Love, being Love. We were the manifestation of Life itself. You came here knowing no fear, judgment, no conditions, an had no expectations. You simply WERE. In order to gain the acceptance of parents, teachers, playmates, and religious leaders, we learned to deny our truth and accept theirs. The first truth we had to deny was the truth that we were and ARE Love.

As we moved into adult "love" relationships, if we carry with us the agreement that love is a commodity outside of us that we have to bargain for, we will always live in fear of failing and losing the love we have captured. This is not fun (you may have noticed).

It is my hope, inspiration, and intent,

to always know my nature as love and life itself, 

and share that love in all my relationships.

I do not bargain for love,

and I do not require others to bargain for my love.

What about you?

    Allan

I adapted the above thoughts from my Five Agreements to Make Love Come True -- there is a lot more there to read. Changing these agreements will be a major focus of our week together in Chacala during my Valentine's Week Relationship Retreat. Please join me, and change your life!

If you like what you read here, make sure to subscribe to my newsletter.

Domestication: Downloading the Dream

Who Were You When You Were Born?

You were born into this world as a "bundle of joy." Your mind was free of stories, and you were happy - without even knowing what happiness was. You had no opinions, no fears, no expectations, and no judgments. There was no distorting light in your channels of perception. You had no words yet for colors, sounds, objects, or Mom's bad hair day. You had no concept of good and bad or right and wrong.

You simply existed, in a sea of stimulations and events that you experienced directly, just as they were. Your mind had no experience with naming, categorizing, or separating any of this incoming light. You were simply present, in each moment, without self-awareness. You did not even know you had been given a name or gender identity.

You were actually like a little Toltec master or guru, present in each and every moment, living in the bliss of love and acceptance. If you could have talked and described your experience, spiritual seekers would have come from miles around to sit at your feet and learn from you.

In those first few months of your life, you lived in the bliss of the oneness that gurus teach and to which spiritual seekers aspire. Because you had not yet learned the fears and judgments of the adult world, your nature was openness and love. Your innocence was like that of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden.

~ An excerpt from The Everything Toltec Wisdom Book, by Allan Hardman

Interested in what happened to all of us along the way, and how you can reclaim your innocence and joy? Learn about Domestication and Dreaming - read Allan's article, "The Perfect Dream."