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Free To Be!

February 11, 2014 by Dylan Morrison ~ the Prodigal Prophet

Free To Be

Free To Be

Frankly, many of us on the spiritual path are freaked out by the thought of freedom. Something lurking within us associates it with rebellion, the throwing off of authentic authority. We want to be free, yet we don’t. We remain fearful, for all our religio-spiritual talk, that we’re going to be jumped upon from a great height, by either a controlling parental figure or, more scarily, by God, the One above who keeps tabs on all our ‘motivations’ and ‘actions’.

So, we tend to oscillate between two Self perceptions: one tucked safely under authority and one who roams free to answer to no man or divinity. Not surprisingly, neither is true freedom. Please let me explain.

Both settings are the fruit of our fearful, wounded psyche-soul known as ego. Ego cannot truly settle, its restlessness keeping us constantly on the move to avoid condemnation and shame. The trouble is that it’s fuelled by the very obstacles it attempts to keep us clear of. So the answers to freedom don’t lie in the soul-driven sphere, the realm of desire bombardment and certain disappointment.

No, true freedom lies in the dimension of spirit. Now many have a problem with that, for they don’t believe in it or, more accurately, have never had it explained to them. The level of knowledge regarding the main aspects of our being is, I’m afraid, pretty ethereal or non-existent within most faith groups who claim to follow the Nazarene. The psyche-soul is often the hidden driving force behind much religious thought, practice and experience. It’s a bit like being an eternal caterpillar, one who never gets to flutter in the clear blue skies of  destiny. Yes, many of our strenuous efforts and much of our religious drive lie within the operational command of ego, who disguises itself as our angel of light, duty and self-sacrifice being the fruit of its fear-fuelled restlessness.

Contrastingly, when we experience spirit we know it, really know it. It can’t be whipped up by any incantation of our own making. No ritual or level of religious zeal can drag it into our consciousness. Spirit appears when it wishes. That’s why many have called it Lord. Like the wind we aren’t quite sure where it comes from or where it goes to but we do get to feel its mysterious, life-changing effects. Our wah moments in Nature or in meditation, are often manifestations of its willing touch.

So what defines this freedom of Spirit? Well, simply in us having an alternative source on which to draw upon. Awakening to the somewhat shocking realisation that we’re not the incessant demands of our ego, but rather a spark from the Divine Fire is mind-bogglingly liberating. In other words, we can opt out of the ego storms of much of our psychological life, by simply letting go. Taking such a decision tips us into the boundless Ocean of Divine Love, that all consuming sea of Spirit Source, from which we emerged on the day of our space-time birth. As old Larry Norman used to sing, we’re really only visiting this planet, this ego realm of angst-driven storms and floods.

Now, the Nazarene, Yeshua bar Yosef, was a man who knew where he’d come from and where he would return. A man aligned and in tune with Divine Spirit and all its endless possibilities; a man through whom the compassion of Divine Love flowed in its fullness, announcing a new freedom, one that tackled the problem of ego head-on in all its various forms.

‘If then the son may make you free, in reality you shall be free.’

This quote from the Aramaic New Testament, one attributed to the Galilean prophet, is certainly a bold claim.

Yet, how does the son make us free?

Not I believe, by applying the standard formula of salvation, as pushed by many brands of Christianity i.e. freedom from sins, guilt and an eternal hell. No, the freedom of the Nazarene is one to be experienced here and now, in the roller-coaster Journey we optimistically call Life! The freedom gained is a freedom from acquisitive desire, the power plays of ego and a sense of great aloneness, indeed abandonment. As we marinate in the spirituality of Yeshua we discover an inner resonance and realignment beginning to take place, a renewed contact with Spirit Source via the spirit spark portal within. We’re drawn into a new dimension, one filled with experiential meaning and a profound, new, inner peace. We’ve been rebirthed into the Womb of Divine Love, the place where we were meant to be, indeed have been, all along.

This liberation is available to us all as we come into resonance with the Divine Essence, as channelled by Yeshua’s life and words. Of course ego will resist the healing efforts of our new Awareness, by dragging us from time to time, back into the battlefield of our old psyche-soul settings. Yet, something has radically changed. We now have an alternative to the monopoly of ego and its fears. We can switch back into the place of Divine acceptance and desire liberation at will.

For a recovering religious junkie like myself that truly is Good News!

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The Big Picture

February 4, 2014 by Dylan Morrison ~ the Prodigal Prophet

The Big Picture

The Big Picture

Most of us have an eye for detail. We love to poke around the minutiae of life, observing and giving our two cents worth on every issue under the sun. Frankly we tend to stick our nose into all that comes our way, even if it is to dismiss it out of hand in order to maintain a pseudo sense of security and inner peace.

Yes we are daily bombarded by a multitude of ‘issues’ whether relational, social, economic, political, indeed even religious, all demanding our attention. This flood of external and often inner stimuli is a hard one to handle. In our youth we tend to deal with them all, one by one, knocking them each into the ball park without any consequences to our state of equilibrium. The older we get, and especially for those of us who have passed through major life changes, it’s not so easy. Some days the idea of being castaway like Robinson Crusoe sounds very appealing indeed, with only the sea, beach and jungle for company!

So how are we to approach this phase of our space-time sojourn?

Well may I suggest we leave our analytical, belly button-obsessed powers behind and set our eyes on the Big Picture.

All very well, many will say, but IS there a big picture and if so in what Cosmic art gallery is it hanging?

Well, first let me suggest that it does exist and is somewhat accessible to the honest enquiring heart.

The key of course is to discover the Artist or rather let the Artist discover us!

The world’s great, and not so great, religions and spiritual minds have tried for millennia to tie this Artist down.

I reckon though that the Artist has set the whole canvas up so that only glimpses of their essence can be observed by the curious. A face to face meeting with the Artist seems to be on their terms and indeed on their own terms.

For me I see this Artist in the life, death and claimed resurrection of the Nazarene, Yeshua bar Yosef.  It is in the teaching and actions of this man which channel the Presence of the Artist into the darkness of my lonely psyche-soul. Subjective? Yes indeed, but isn’t all of value ultimately subjective. The Nazarene communicates the unconditional Love of the Artist for his Work, those living, breathing psyche-souls that reflect the glories of  His/Her creative urges. In other words, the Artist is 100% for us, committed to bringing us into an awareness of both His/Her Being and our own spirit Self.

The Big Picture?

Well, I reckon that we are the big picture, set high above the pseudo world of ego etchings. All that has flowed out of Divine Creativity is the big picture, that which truly is. When mystics, both past and present are granted a Divine showing, they are seeing both the Artist and Their work. A momentary exhibition that unveils the mysteries of the Ages , even for a split second. The darkness lifts and the Shekinah Glory bathes the weary soul.

So as we travel the highways and byways of our busy lives, let’s remember to look up. The invitation of our open hearts will be answered in the Artist’s own Time and Way. One thing’s for sure though; our meeting will be perfectly placed on the Big Picture’s Divine canvass.

 

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Lingo & Fundamentalism

January 28, 2014 by Dylan Morrison ~ the Prodigal Prophet

Fsh Bwl

Religious fundamentalism doesn’t acknowledge nor give permission for the stages of spiritual growth that the Divine Love wishes to take us through. 

‘Right belief’ based on doctrinal definitions becomes the base camp where the fundamentalist prefers to remain.

Moving on is the first real step of faith-trust that we are asked to take in the journey of Divine discovery.

Dylan Morrison

Over the last few days I’ve been pondering the role of language in all human life and more particularly the spiritual life! Here are a few thoughts that bubbled up from deep within!

Language and its evolution in our species’ attempt to get beyond the mere animal in all of us. Yet perhaps that’s not entirely true for as we know many animal species have their own primitive, if effective, way of communicating with each other. Our dear dolphin friends may in some respects be a little more together than many of us in the realm of clear-cut vocal connection!

Something within the heart of man wants to touch base with others and all within our Cosmic home. Language with its myriad of defined labels can only take us there in glimpses for what we really crave lies beyond the expression of words and thoughts that accompany them. We are wired for Spirit, that Transcendence which beyond all our futile if well-meaning attempts at trapping its essence by means of linguistic nets.

May I suggest that language and indeed thought lie in the space-time realm of the psyche. They are the stuff of our daily life; means of expressing how we feel in the midst of our illusory human Matrix. In other words they are tools to use as we bump from experience to another in the stuff of life.

As we all know such words are often misread by others. How often have we been misinterpreted by those closest to us, who have their own interpretations for the words we chose to use. Marriage is a great learning curve regarding the nuances that words carry for another. How often has the word ‘sorry’ come to our rescue in such a linguistic and emotional drama? Yes words are great but need an open and flexible heart backing them up if relational harmony is to ensue.

When it comes to the religious and spiritual scheme of things, we tend to be addicted to our words, especially those relating to our psyche’s take on the Divine. God, Father, Mother ( if more rarely), Lord, Spirit, Soul, Grace, Love, Heaven, Hell etc. The list is endless, the Mind, Body, Spirit genre having its own set of hallowed words, mostly taken from Eastern religion and 21st quasi-science. Karma, Energy, Enlightenment, Lightworker, Divine Light, Angels, Auras, Chakras, Meditation, Oneness all attempt, like their religious equivalents, to capture a glimpse of Ultimate Reality and our connection with it.

Now such words are fine as long as we can see their often arbitrary nature and indeed their multitude of meaning for those who use them. I see them as temporary little rope bridges across which we attempt to move on in our Journey into the Mystery of Divine Love. Unfortunately though we seem to have a resident perversity to make gods of our sacred words. We imbue them with a certainty and solidity that they were never meant to have. They morph into the guardians of our perceived truth, little soldiers to call upon when we meet another with a different linguistic take on our Ultimate goal. Words become the creators of division rather than the healers of relational breakdown.

When we capture the Divine and lock Him/Her/It into our linguistic straight-jackets we have become religious or spiritual Fundamentalists, mirror reflections of the other whom we oppose in the name of Truth or even more scarily God! The fear that lurks beneath such a metaphysical mindset loves to attach itself to words, like limpets to a shoreline rock, that stands unmoved by the waves of liberal or progressive turbulence. So deep-rooted is this addiction for security that even the Progressive can subtly and unknowingly transform into a Fundamentalist, albeit one with a cuddly, all-embracing veneer.

Many search for hidden meaning in the original language and context of sacred writings. Hebrew, Aramaic, Greek as well as a plethora of Indian languages are all targets of the Fundamentalist. If only we could understand the ‘original meaning’ of Yeshua’s, Paul’s Buddha’s, Mohammed’s words then we will have captured their experience of the Divine. I’m afraid that such attempts, whilst exciting, will ultimately end in frustration and a new form of Fundamentalism.

Why?

Simply because the Divine is to be experienced with a knowing beyond words.

The return to an Awareness of Divine embrace by passes the linguistic centre of our being. It is ‘Spirit’ to ‘spirit’, themselves words with their limitations and own dangers.

So let’s be wary of our word addictions.

Yes, we can gracefully use language to try to describe what we have encountered along the Journey of life, but let’s avoid setting them up as a sacred shrine or temple in which our divinity takes up residence, demanding our rigid devotion. Words that initially channelled Life can become our psycho-spiritual jailer.

Such is the error of all Fundamentalism that will eventually end up in tears and violence to our fellow-man.

 

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Christian Tribes

January 14, 2014 by Dylan Morrison ~ the Prodigal Prophet

Christian Tribes

Christian Tribes

My  previous, wee post about socio-religio tribes has caused a wee bit of a stir among some of my Christian friends. I completely understand where they are coming from, having been a signed up member of their church-based mindset for most of my early adult life.

Simply put, their reservations run something like this:

‘Yes, freedom is a wonderful thing but doesn’t Christ ( The Nazarene) love his church and therefore it’s not a good idea to raise any criticism of its psycho-spiritual effects upon its members.’ 

‘Aren’t we wired for community and, in particular, for the community of God i.e. church.’

‘Isn’t it spiritually dangerous to be an ‘independent’ Christian, for there is safety in numbers.’

‘My church is wonderful and nothing like you describe.’

Let me try to briefly give a reply to each of these reactions, but before that I once again re-iterate that I’d rather write about Divine Love than faith group social dynamics. I have no vendetta against religious groups, their leaders or their members. We are free to choose our path of spiritual discovery; we are all human  and Loved by Divine Love no matter how we perceive these issues. I write for those damaged by their involvement in religious or spiritual groups and those still involved who are pondering their future involvement.  So here goes.

‘Yes, freedom is a wonderful thing but doesn’t Christ ( The Nazarene) love his church and therefore it’s not a good idea to raise any criticism of its psycho-spiritual effects upon its members.’ 

I believe that the church or ecclesia is simply those who follow the spiritual Way of Yeshua the Nazarene; those who through an awakening experience have touched the Transcendent as channeled by the words and life of the Galilean prophet. I do not believed that those who have awakened are any more loved by Divine Love than those who haven’t. All are born from Spirit Source and all will eventually come to a realisation of this, albeit for many, after the transition, known as death.

Yeshua himself spoke freely, using Jewish humour to expose the anomalies of the religious mindset and practices of his day. He spoke out of egoless Love but he did see Judaism as something that needed mollycoddled and left to its own devices.

The concern of the Nazarene was the Divine connection between his listeners and a welcoming God. Where religious or social taboos broke this connection he didn’t hold back in bringing such issues to light.

‘Aren’t we wired for community and, in particular, for the community of God i.e. church.’

For me community is the relational space whereby we share our mutual brokenness and Divine life flow. My community is constantly changing as folk touch my life and move on. I see it more as a river than a reservoir. A running exchange of Life flow rather than an institution that tries to keep the Divine Energy locked in its deep organisational wells. Of course some folk will become close friends, at least for a time. I see these as the Two or Three gathered into Yeshua’s name, a micro-community with a heart open to life and the changes that Spirit breath brings.

‘Isn’t it spiritually dangerous to be an ‘independent’ Christian, for there is safety in numbers.’

Safety from what? I no longer see the spiritual Way of Yeshua as a warfare with its ever-present prospect of being defeated by an external enemy. The only danger to our connection with Divine Love is our fractured psyche-soul or ego that attempts to inject fear and a strong sense of shame and rejection into our inner world. Divine Love is not fearful but confident of its Own Being. As with the Divine, so too with those realigned to its overwhelming Reality. Unfortunately, in my experience, religious groups may be the stage on which our fear driven ego does its thing, as it attempts to impress both God and man. The perceived place of ‘safety’ may in fact be more injurious to our psycho-spiritual health than the outer world of the non-believers.

No Christian, nor indeed any other spiritual adherent is truly independent. We are attached to one another at the level of mutual desire and indeed, if connected to Divine Love, we are automatically connected to others who carry the same Life Flow. We can sense this mutual belonging when we meet a fellow spiritual pilgrim on the Journey through life.

‘My church is wonderful and nothing like you describe.’

I cannot really say what your church is like. All our views are perceptions. Two folk may pick up completely different vibes whilst attending a faith gathering. Acceptance and welcome are a powerful drug, one that often clouds one’s judgement, at least until the social-spiritual cracks begin to appear. Desire transfer is by its very nature taking place at the level of the subconscious, promising relief to our childhood hurts and rejections. It can lead us towards Divine Love or to a dedication to the group identity, a pseudo-replica of true community. If you’re happy in your church, may your happiness continue. Based on my own experience, I reckon all things must pass in order for the new to come. But then again, maybe that’s just me and my unusual, Irish, psycho-spiritual wiring.

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The Tribe

January 7, 2014 by Dylan Morrison ~ the Prodigal Prophet

The Tribe

The Tribe

Throughout human history the tribe has been both the context and safety zone for the individual. Without any choice of our own we are born into a tribe, a collection of families and individuals under a common banner, labelled by some distinctive characteristic that separates us from the other.

In my own case I was born into the somewhat politically and religiously obsessed tribe that goes by the name of ‘The Ulster Protestant’. With its heady mix of a strong work effort and a distrust of the Church of Rome, the Ulster Protestant is a strange wee creature. His or her love for duty and a shrunken world view make for an insular and somewhat claustrophobic life experience.

And yet the members of my old tribe don’t realise it, at least until they escape from the disputed ‘Six Counties’ for a career abroad or indeed a two-week break to the cheap sun-drenched Spanish holiday resorts. Bizarrely though the old defensive and somewhat self-inflated sense of being something special among the sons of men quickly re-establishes itself, once back in the gold-fish and tense dual-tribed space known as Northern Ireland or The North.

The Ulster Protestant is usually a decent but somewhat emotionally frigid creature who takes great security from the wealth and prestige accumulated by having the right contacts within the often hierarchical society based on the God down model and fear of lack. No wonder the Ulster Scots made great frontiersmen in the Old West – Daniel Boone and all that.

When it comes to religion the Ulster Protestant loves his God with a guilt-driven zeal or abandons himself to an earthly vices or strong language and very strong drink. The former half of my old tribe are constantly on a war footing to try to bring the latter half back into their god-fearing, church based fold. When one of the other tribe, the Roman Catholic, Irish Nationalist jumps ship and sees the evangelical Light, the Ulster Protestant jumps for joy, for such a conversion only reinforces the predominant view that God is truly on our side, for God and Ulster and all that.

Many of my old friends have managed to hang in there with the tribe, albeit the Christian Charismatic version, with their bubbly love for all; at least all who believe as they believe. Raise the issue of serious theological doubts and the back door will be opened for one’s ushered escape.

So how weird are our tribes?

They promise much but eventually after years of containment the human psyche-soul screams out for release. At least it can do. If the sedative of tribal acceptance is stronger than our desire to find our Self, then we remain, to be buried and laid into the ground of our forefathers.

The transpersonal crisis that cuts through our psychic equilibrium is often the critical game changer in our identity setting. Such an experience often shows the world view of our tribe to be erroneous or somewhat lacking at best. The painful energy of such an event often projects us into a whole new view of both life and God.

The god of the tribe is left behind as a totem representation of the tribe’s perception of itself and its raison d’être. The god around whom we dance the illusory dance of victory each Sunday morning in somber suits or trendy Charisma.

Living outside a tribe is a somewhat scary experience and yet one where we are not alone. Here in the desert of our Being we find One that draws alongside – One who knows what it is like to be hung out to dry outside the city walls of the Tribe.

So, which tribe do we presently associate with? Which rituals and identity games provide us with a pseudo-sense of security and well-being, the benefits of being on top in the human rankings. If we look carefully we shall see the bars of our prison with its inviting open door. The courage is given. Enough said.

 

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Illumination

December 31, 2013 by Dylan Morrison ~ the Prodigal Prophet

Illumination

Illumination

In these dark, somewhat dismal days of winter our appreciation for the balmy sunlit days of summer knows no bounds. In the darkness we yearn for the light and warmth of Nature’s greatest gift, that burning gaseous globe, aptly known as ‘sun’.

As with our space-time environment so too with our inner world and its accompanying darkness. In the gloomy caverns of our wounded psyche-soul, we seek a Light, one to relieve us of our heaviness of spirit. The trinkets offered by the commercial and social world of man don’t do it for us, leaving us with a yearning for something deeply authentic and pure.

I believe this balm to be the illumination of Divine Love, the Source Light from which the spark of our Being has sprung.

When the Light touches us we know it. A resonance reverberates around our inner Self, one that cries ‘Yes’ to the approaches of Spirit Breath. A knowing enters our unknowing Self, an inspiration that rings true to the very roots of our deepest core. We have touched base with the ‘Other’, that previously hidden Light that energizes us with its own Life and Light.

We cannot receive this illumination by our ego efforts to study and focus on the one known as God. It is a gift, but one that is given freely to those with an open and honest heart. It’s worth is more than all the silver and gold of men, a priceless sense that all is well and shall be well. A transfused trust that a greater Reality and indeed a greater Being lies behind this vale of tears.

May we all have these flashes of illumination in the new year approaching. May they initiate us into a new sense of Self, our fellow-man and most importantly of all our Divine Lover.

 

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Neutered Saviour

December 17, 2013 by Dylan Morrison ~ the Prodigal Prophet

Neutered Saviour

Neutered Saviour

Human culture has a great way of disposing of one of its greatest threats.

Not content to execute the Nazarene prophet at the drop of a religio-politico hat, the world of men has come up with a double-barrelled tactic post his claimed resurrection.

Simply put, culture either makes him into a transcendent Other, One who fits easily into the  tempting, but ultimately unsatisfying, world of religion, or alternatively, covers him with such pseudo-sickly sweetness that nothing really changes in the power structures of mankind.

Let’s face it, human culture loves religion. It uses it for all sorts of endeavours all of which keep things ticking along as they’ve always been. The Nazarene has become a Lord of all earthly lords, one of us, if only a little bit more benign. Taking his place at the top of our heavenly-earthly power structures he is a threat to no man. Just an occasional nod of the head and the continuance of sacred hoop jumping seems to satisfy him. Religion has adopted the Nazarene as its figurehead and in so doing has made him an idol, one easily controlled  to which the devout masses will bow down and continue to sleep walk their way through life.

The other tactic of human society is to embalm the Nazarene in a treacle of sickly sweet sentimentality. Forgotten for much of the year he is allowed out at Christmas and Easter by our largely secularised society and looked upon with pity, before being smothered in the insincerity of a world only to willing to emasculate both him and his message. The poor, unfortunate victim who was just too good to be true for this cut throat world of frenzied skewed desire and its violent undercurrent. We sit him in the corner of our consciousness for the hallowed few weeks, occasionally turning our heads to gaze at naivety in the flesh. Like some sort of rapidly declining grandfather, we momentarily sent him our flashes of sympathy as we prepare for the next round of ego battles. ‘Too innocent for this world,’ we patronisingly conclude with our quickly forgotten flicker of admiration and pseudo-affection.

Thankfully, the risen Nazarene doesn’t play our religious or sentimental cultural games. Echoing through time and reverberating in the Silence of our inner Being, they expose us to the Darkness of the human condition and awaken us to radical but ultimately worthwhile solution that leads to Divine realignment and contentment. No the Nazarene isn’t neutered by a long shot. Let’s go within and encounter him in all his wild freedom.

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BOLTS FROM THE BLUE

December 11, 2013 by Dylan Morrison ~ the Prodigal Prophet

Bolts From The Blue

Bolts From The Blue

Some good news folks!

JUST PUBLISHED!

‘BOLTS FROM THE BLUE’

My new collection of inspirational thoughts on the psycho-spiritual life.

Please feel free to have a wee look and share with those who might find it helpful.

x Dylan

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Now also on Kindle and Kobo!

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The Gift

December 10, 2013 by Dylan Morrison ~ the Prodigal Prophet

The Gift

Continue Reading »

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The Flow

December 3, 2013 by Dylan Morrison ~ the Prodigal Prophet

The Flow

The Flow

For many people life is just one big long struggle. If that’s true then is it the way it was meant to be? Is such a struggle inevitable, even for those who claim to have contact with the Divine Source, the Creator of the whole human show? Are all our ups and downs self-generated or part of the Divine blueprint for our lives. In other words, is all vanity of vanities as the supposedly wise writer of Ecclesiastes claimed.

Well yes and no.

There are certainly levels of frustration experienced within our space-time existence. Yet are they necessary to the extent that we usually experience them? I believe not.

For many of our difficulties arise from our psychological attachments to things, people, and, dare I say it, beliefs. Let me explain.

The psyche-soul, our somewhat dysfunctional interface with the temporal world of form, is a very insecure little beast. Having believed itself to be detached from Divine Source and its Unconditional Love it isn’t a happy bunny. It’s an anxiety junkie that needs a regular fix of pseudo-security, a sense that it is not alone.

To the rescue come along the apparent life savers of material goods, social position, group identity and every so often, ideological belief. The immediate effect is pretty potent as a new sense of safety surrounds us from the nakedness of our internal being. The only trouble though is that in return, such attachments demand our loyalty; once welcomed into our psyche-soul they set up camp for good.

All growth is change and unsurprisingly attachments are not great fans of change. They have taken up a subliminally controlling stake in our sense of well-being and when the issue of letting them go is raised, they fight back with all the fury of a lover spurned. Only when we attempt to move on from our dependency on them do our attachments reveal themselves for what they really are. They are not after all our friends and allies but our masters, those who pull our psychic strings.

The Nazarene talked often of death and dying as a prerequisite to life. Like the Buddha before Him, Yeshua bar Yosef told it like it was. To enter the Queendom of God, that quality of life that we were destined to enjoy, a death was first required, namely the death of our psychological attachments. For the rich young ruler it was his  store of cash. For the bed ridden man at the pool of  Bethesda it was his paralysis. For the Scribes and Pharisees it was their religious expertise and its accompanying power plays. For Mary it was Yeshua Himself.

The letting go of such attachments is extremely painful but ultimately the greatest break for freedom that we can experience in this maze of psychological props. For on the other side of our screaming ego lies a Self, one designed to live free and secure in the River of Divine Love. Once we have passed through these mini Dark Nights Of The Soul, we discover life in all its fullness and flow.

A new buoyancy floods into the inner tanks of our being, lifting and carrying us through this inherent but ultimately unreal vale of tears. A new ease begins to oil the joints of our existence as we travel through life free of its glittering attachments, and their sure-fire promises of psychological protection.

As we journey through life Divine Love will bring us face to face with each of our secret attachments. One by one we have the opportunity to let go and find a new spiritual surge flood our being. In doing so we shall ditch many of our frustrations and self-created sufferings.

 

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Kick Back

November 13, 2013 by Dylan Morrison ~ the Prodigal Prophet

Kick Back

Kick Back

Just when we think we ‘ve learned the secret of the Spirit directed life we suddenly fall flat on our face.

Why?

Well, ego, our fragmented psyche-soul, still has a few tricks up its sleeve. Content for us to temporarily sail along in a state of euphoric bliss, it eventually calls time on our spiritual rush.

But if we can now hear the Divine Voice and follow its leading, why the ego-sabotage?

Simply put, ego still has a range of potential allies in its armoury.

The multifarious range of body sensations that hit us, seemingly at will.

We can be in a state of Divine alignment when a dodgy stomach or a twinge in our back knocks us for six. Ego to the rescue, confidently informing us of its expertise in looking after us.

The result?

We seem to automatically take ego up on its offer of defence and depression. No longer feeling like Sons and Daughters of Divine Source, those born to fill the dimensions of eternity, we lapse into self-pity and the arms of our ego doctor.

So what of Spirit, our Divine aid along the Way?

Thankfully She’s still there, filling every fibre of our psycho-spiritual being. Yet She waits for that is what She does. Waits for us to tire of our ego friend and listen once more to Her take on things.

The wait can take minutes, hours or days. In some folk it takes years. But eventually we find a glimmer of hope hit the darkness of our body consciousness as we realise that All is truly Well. We have been spun a yarn by the quack ego.

Such is the learning curve for all of us bodied spirits grounded in this space-time illusion.

Hypochondriacs like myself, take note.

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Exhaustion

October 29, 2013 by Dylan Morrison ~ the Prodigal Prophet

Exhaustion

Exhaustion

We all get exhausted from time to time.

It’s the body’s way of telling us that something’s up; the early warning system that all is not well in our psycho-spiritual world.

Guilt and shame lead us to exhaustion, hoping that it will be the death of us.

Yet, exhaustion can be a door to an awakening, a whole new look at what we’re about and where we’re going. Please let me explain.

Lurking behind exhaustion there often lies a dysfunctional relationship, one into which we’re pouring huge amounts of our psychic and physical energy. A Black-Hole of sorts, that will never be satisfied.

The result of such a flow of personal energy is  a lack of Self-Awareness. We’ve decreased our Self in order to enhance the other. Disguised as devoted love, this promotion of the other to the detriment of our own psycho-spiritual well-being is a one way trip to a personal hell, one fired with confusion and despair.

Thankfully, Divine Love has other plans for us. Created as an energy spark of the Fire of Spirit, we have a most precious pedigree. WE are not slaves, either to our condemning ego nor the misperceptions of others. In the midst of mess we can hold our head high once we realise the Womb from which we sprang. We have divine blood running through the veins of our Being. We are only here because of Divine source, with our own scripted Divine Purpose.

Of course many of us, get waylaid at times, swamped by the sea of human demands that press for our attention, often in the guise of loving our neighbour. I’m afraid that those of us of a religious or spiritual bent are often the easiest targets for such misconceived interpretations of what it is to love. Egged on by the gurus of Self-sacrifice, often in an attempt to match the Love of the Nazarene, we take up our self-imposed cross, becoming door mats for our spouse, children or the psychic vampires drawn to our inner pol of life blood.

No, we’ve got it all wrong. We can only truly love others when we love our Self, recognising the priority that our Creator Source places on us his psycho-spiritual work of art. Exhausting ourselves in the frenzy of loving others is no love, but rather a form of Self-punishment and rejection.

Time perhaps to rediscover the sacred space within, where two become One. From this place of Union, this inner knowing that we matter,we set out once more to touch humanity, not as a Self-less slave but as a fellow traveller in the Divine Flow.

The energy for love comes from Love. It’s first-love is the one called You. Get this right and our physical, psychological and spiritual exhaustion will be a thing of the past.

Release the blocked energy of your Divine purpose today and show your Self some respect. Others will thank you for it.

PS. If you’ve enjoyed this post you might like to pop over and have a quick look at my  author page, containing details of my wee books ~ amzn.to/NCDf3k

x Dylan

 

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Not A Tame Lion

October 22, 2013 by Dylan Morrison ~ the Prodigal Prophet

Not A Tame Lion

Not A Tame Lion

CS Lewis’ Narnia Tales have been read the world over by generations of children and parents alike.

Why?

May I humbly suggest that the iconic figure of Aslan, the great Lion is the great draw for adult and child alike. Lions are like that. Majestic, strong, yet unpredictable they fascinate us as long as we’re not to close to them for we may inadvertently become lunch.

Aslan, has come from the Great Emperor beyond the seas, the Transcendent Other from who all the worlds of  space-time have flowed. He bridges heaven and Earth, revealing the Divine desire for communion and realignment. Intimate, yet brutally honest with those who serve him, Aslan is an icon that draws us toward the Mystery of Divine Love. And yet he is not a tame Lion, good yes, but not tame.

Isn’t it strange then that Lewis’ Great Lion has been adopted by evangelical Christianity as a symbol of Yeshua, bar Yosef, the Nazarene prophet-teacher, known in common religious parlance as ‘The Christ’. Forgive me, but I sense a great irony lurking around this adoption of the Lion to push the standard evangelical message.

Why?

Well, I reckon that evangelical Christianity and its many offshoots are actually very safe. Please let me explain.

The obsession of much of our evangelical take on the life of the Nazarene, is certainty. Countless books have been written to shore up the historicity of the Galilean holy man. poor old Josephus, the ancient Jewish historian has been quoted to death by Christian apologists over the centuries.

Evangelicals are certain that Yeshua’s death and resurrection can be formulated as a substitutionary atonement for sin, that dysfunction of human sin that has separated us now and possibly for ever from Divine Love.

Aslan converts are certain that everything can be seen in black and white; one either surrenders their life to the evangelical Christ or remains a dupe of the Devil, the antithesis of all that Christ stands for.

Certainty has subtly become the god of the evangelical rather than the person of the Nazarene. He has been cleaned up, shaken down and repackaged by Modern scientific reasoning. There is no room for Mystery in our simplistic presentation of the Christ.

The Great Lion has been shaved of his unpredictability, caged and put on show in Sunday morning auditoriums all around the world. No longer allowed to roar, the Lion has to express itself through the texts of Holy Writings, carefully explained by those who have no great taste for his Lionish ways.

Yes the domestication of the Great Aslan has well and truly taken place. The Nazarene has been well and truly put in his sacred place, only allowed to give an occasional nod of approval to our religious rituals and practices.

May I be allowed to interpret such a shocking captivity in terms that the great Lewis penned. We, his followers, have tied the Great Lion down on our own Stone Table of interpretation, producing the knife of our sacrificial violence before dispatching him into the coffin of our belief.

Thank God for the Deeper Magic! The shocking but liberation Truth that Divine Love in all its manifestations cannot lie buried under the weight of  orthodox or heretical theology.

Today, the Great Lion is shaking his mane and doing his thing.

The ascended Yeshua isn’t tame but he is good.

Best dive into the Mystery and try to keep up.

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Why Churches Explode!

October 15, 2013 by Dylan Morrison ~ the Prodigal Prophet

Why Churches Explode

Why Churches Explode

Let’s face it. Churches are intense groups of folk who claim to have found God and certain that He/She dwells among them. It’s a heady basis for any gathering of people, no matter how saintly. Traditions of millennia have tempered the inter-personal dynamic of many, with a smiling nod of the head or the traditional hand-shake at the door being the only expected behavior of many attendees.

Yet for some church is a lot more; a hot-house of belief where a sense of family is encouraged with all the dangers that entails. When God is seen as the Big Daddy, the leadership, Big Brothers or Sisters, and the majority of folk, children of God at various stages of spiritual growth, then we inadvertently sow the seeds of trouble further down the line.

Over time the family connection takes over from the Divine connection within, subtly becoming the defining stage for our place in the world. Our fellow members become more important to us than those previously in relationship with us. We take our cue from our standing within the family, and especially how we are viewed by the established leadership.

Of course, such psycho-spiritual tweaks aren’t part of the public persona, where freedom in Christ or the Spirit is the name of the game, but they are there nonetheless. The longer we’ve been around a family church the more we play the game, secure in our position in the God rankings, particularly if our particular ‘ministry’ is valued by those who can discern such things.

The pressure within such faith groups is pretty intense with a high level of commitment expected by those around us. Indeed an introductory ‘commitment’ course, of weekly lectures is often a necessary prerequisite for those wishing to join. ‘Better to know what you’re getting into before committing’ goes the standard line. And yet, the high level of commitment required is itself a subliminal carrot that draws us into the tight-knit group. In the depths of our being we want to belong to a group that knows where its going, especially if that destination is the Divine Will itself.

As relational rivalry emerges within the family it is quickly interpreted by those in leadership as the challenge to love as Jesus loved. Indeed it is often seen as the reason we gather in intensity in the first place; the human community where our ‘rough edges’ are removed as we surrender our own desires and will to the greater good of the family. In practice this defusion device works for a while as we knuckle down to carrying our personal cross within the confines of the greater group identity.

Yet, eventually the bubbling undercurrent of ‘not being happy’, once more rises to the top where it will be swiftly dealt with by a sometimes coldly efficient leadership. The usual tactic of choice is to reflect the claustrophobic community concerns of the member back onto the member himself. Having looked for a safe and sincere forum where issues can be raised, the troublesome saint is often disillusioned at the response given viz. a subtle placement of blame upon his own character.

And so the scene is set for another departure, one that usually takes place through the ecclesiastical back door cleverly hidden by the somewhat patronising religious spin placed on it by the hierarchy of the group. ‘God has called Fred and Diane to a new work……’.

When rivalry within a religious family gets to the level of contagion, the group, like many blood-line families often explode and fragment. The number of such splits, especially within the Protestant stream of Christianity is endemic which is often covered up with the lame argument that God loves variety. Indeed He/She does, but not the psycho-spiritual shrapnel of broken lives that lie across the battlefield of religious disagreement.

My observations and experiences suggest to me that it all can’t be blamed on human nature, for such faith groups claim that they consist of ‘new creatures in Christ’. It would appear that the newly inherited Christ nature, loves to fight among Itself. Either this or the fact that we are not as ‘born again’ as we first thought.

May I humbly suggest that it is our mindset regarding faith or spiritual community that is at fault. Let me throw a grenade of sorts into the established model of church. There is only one ‘church’ and that is all who have been welcomed back into relationship and alignment by the generosity of Divine Love. In other words, church or ecclesia, those gathered for a common purpose is the totality of mankind. Some of us realise it and some don’t but all are there, at least in the eyes of a supremely benign and inclusive God.

So do I need to join a church if I follow Yeshua. My suggestion, contrary to much religious teaching is no. You are already in the group that God loves, the community of the redeemed who walk the face of the Earth. All belong to Divine Love and all belong to us. As you dive into the mass of heaving humanity you will join the Christ, the One who submerged Himself in the images of Divine Source. If it was good enough for Him it’s surely good enough for us.

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Angry Birds

October 9, 2013 by Dylan Morrison ~ the Prodigal Prophet

Angry Birds

Angry Birds

Let me start by making two bold assertions.

1) Many of us on the spiritual Journey are, at times, sanctified, little versions of Angry Birds.

2) Anger is a valid and extremely useful emotion for all who seek to walk in Love.

I’d better explain.

Anger is a primeval facility wired within our central nervous system whereby we regain our inner space once it has been crossed by an unwelcome other. It is the alarm bell and emergency response to a psycho-spiritual incursion all rolled into one.

Without anger there’s nothing to stop another soul from encroaching upon our inner holy of holies without repercussions. It’s our first line of defense in letting another know that we’re not happy bunnies, those willing to lie down and let an intruder take something precious that belongs to us.

Anger is designed to be a short, sharp defensive measure, a self-regulating one that ought to get the message across without permanent or lasting emotional damage. Once our other gets the message a more satisfactory re-establishment of boundaries may be negotiated.

So how come we religio-spiritual types are often little, Angry Birds?

Well, I believe that below the beatific smiles of our public, spiritual persona there lies trapped emotions and energies, one of which is often anger. Such energies require expression and release. They need to complete the journey plotted out for them by our internal powers of recovery. If they can’t be freed from the cellar of our lower unconscious they’ll manifest in other more demanding ways viz depression and physical illness, particularly muscular, tendon or nerve related pain.

Anger is one of our normal human emotions often frozen by the adoption of our spiritual stance subsequent to a conversion or enlightenment experience. In such a dramatic change of Self perception we often get a glimpse of the real us, that spirit spark placed within by Divine Love. Such a radical change of perception can keep us going for a while along the newly travelled spiritual path but eventually our inner world of the lower unconscious will need examination and airing. Thankfully Spirit Breath gives us time to settle into our new way of life before the Divine Spring-cleaning begins in earnest.

Much of our trapped anger was cut short and frozen in childhood or infancy. A slap across the thighs in the isle of a supermarket by our frustrated and indeed angry mother may have shocked us into a state of emotional paralysis. Years later, this cut short anger, lies dormant in the freezer of our  inner self.

Other frozen angers have their origin within the religious or spiritual life. In the intense cauldron of faith or spiritual communities many lines are regularly crossed. In some cases this in done intentionally, as in abusive groups, in others it is as a result of a false interpretation of the family of God. In religious or spiritual mindsets, where our oneness is overemphasized, to the detriment of our unique sense of Self, many inter-personal infringements can occur that automatically trigger our psychological defense mechanisms.

Our conscious mind, not wanting to appear disruptive or even more unacceptable, unloving, shuts down the outward expression of our psychic response force. Locked away and repressed in the lower unconscious, misinterpreted as a sin of the flesh, our far from dead anger begins to find an alternative route of expression and escape. The intense energy has to go somewhere and often does.

By definition most faith or spiritual mindsets rule out a valid and controlled channel for the resolution of psychic or indeed physical boundary incidents. The holy writings of many groups suggest practical ways to address such issues but in practice the pressure to conform and be a loving member who doesn’t rock the boat, takes psychic precedence.

In other words I’m suggesting that we spiritual types may be a lot angrier than we realise; we’re good at smothering our inner vexation by appearing to detach from our animal hard-wiring and going into freeze mode.

In my next post I’ll look at how leaving a faith or spiritually community can open our personal can of angry worms.

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