One Size Fits All

http://www2.blogger.com/layout?blogID=28146313

The shoe that fits one person pinches another; there is no recipe for living that suits all cases.

Jung, Carl, 1875-1961, Swiss Psychiatrist

What is necessary for life on earth? What is the one thing that without which there could be no life? The answer is, contrast. There could be no life without contrast. There could be no physicality without non-physicality. Being could not exist without the belief in non-being. One of the primary purposes of this journey is to experience contrast. We find who we are by seeing who we are not. We find where we are by understanding where we are not. Every contrast that we experience is a way for the soul to stretch itself and grow in knowledge of itself.

It is the same as a play, a movie, or even a novel. Ideally, in a play or a movie the actors, directors, writers, designers, as well as the audience are affected by contrast of the work or the characters to their own lives. We vicariously experience our fears, our possibilities, or our dreams, reflected in the lives and experiences that are depicted. The play or book allows us to walk, for a brief time, in shoes of others.

Incarnating into all races, religions, nations and economic levels enriches each soul as a story enriches the writer, the actor and the reader or viewer. There are as many individual roles to play – shoes to walk in as there are souls on the planet. Each one teaches us something unique. This is why no two individuals are the same. It is why our world contains such diversity. We will throughout our many incarnations, all have played as many parts is takes for each soul to realized that there is only One, and that is what we are a part of. That One is called by many names, but its essence is Love. Ultimately we learn that love does not distinguish, it does not discriminate or differentiate as it is said in the Bible, 1 John 4:7 (King James Version) “Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God.”

We live our lives here on earth through our mythology, through archetypes. For us to have a hero, there must be a villain. To have a victor, we must have a victim. For one soul to experience itself as strong, it must play against another soul who experiences itself as weak. To believe in good, we must encounter what is believed to be evil. We experience every variation on a theme.

Each grouping that separates us has something that is unique to it, some experience that is uniquely shared only by those within that group, just as each person has qualities that make that person different from any other. Through the experience of many incarnations and many different perspectives the soul comes to understand that there are three hundred and sixty different angles of perception but regardless of the view from whichever angle you are in, there is still only one truth and that truth is understood only when you combine the perceptions of every possible angle. We learn that we must incorporate not eliminate.

Each nation, each tribe, each ethnic, religious, and racial group has, through the recorded history of the world, and even before our recorded history had its day in the sun. This is the way life works. Everything exists in cycles, a nation, or a group of people may be the ruling group for hundreds of centuries.

The goal is not for us to lose our differences. The goal is for us to accept and celebrate our differences. I cannot be me if you are not you. If we are the same, then I am not different and if I am not different then I am not I. If you and I are the same in every respect, then how can I be an individual? Many of us are repulsed by the idea of losing our identity. Our fear of death, even if we believe that we do not die, but become a part of God, is just that; merging into the identity of God and losing the identity of self.

We fear loss of individuality, yet, we hate and fear those who, being different are the very ones defining our uniqueness. We have chosen the earth as our schoolhouse because of our desire to feel that we are God. We seek to experience being the creator of our own lives. And so, we constantly create. We create children, works of art, technological advances, tools, ideas and so on.

The Source created us to experience itself as Loving and being Love and receiving Love. And through its creations, it experiences being – and grows richer. Through each experience that we have, the whole experiences itself. God created every species in the universe so as to experience every aspect of itself as a whole and as an individual. This experience is a Divine Gift, wherever we are in the picture.

Besides being influenced by the intent of the soul family, each soul is influenced by the aspect of experience through which it has chosen to incarnate. There are those who choose in this life to learn to master the material world through the lower senses, their journey is to be of the world. Others choose to be master over their lower senses and to rise above the material world, to be in it but no longer of it. Whatever area of crisis we choose to work through, material, emotional, mental, religious, or a varied mixture of each our goal is to learn about the meaning of Love in all of its faces.

Whichever mixture of challenges we choose will color the soul and its experiences here. It will color the way that each of us perceives our lives and also the experiences that we magnetize to us. The families through which we choose to enter will influence us by, imprinting on our lives and our vision the essence of the challenges we have chosen to grow through in this life and those carried over from those lives we consider as past.

Each particular mix, just like a recipe, will add a distinct flavor, a distinct aura to each individual. It makes our lives what they are in contrast to the lives of those around us. In addition to this is the joint experience that we choose to enter through race, religion, gender, sexual orientation, and national origin. Each of these elements will color our lives, but in a particular way that is unique to each us as it all combines with the particular soul qualities. Therefore even though we may contain the same ingredients as someone else, somehow when it mixes with all that we carried with us into this life, we still come out unique.

Look at the solar system and you must be immediately aware of what makes this world different. All of the colors made by the different bodies in our galaxy are joined together in our one planet. There is the blue planet, the yellow sun, the red planet, the orange planet, and then there is the earth, the planet where all shades of all colors stand brilliantly side by side, not poured into a bucket to form some single shade of mud, but together forming one planet that stands out among all the others not for its size, or its shape, but for the beauty of its uniqueness. If you were a soul floating through the galaxy passing all of the objects orbiting the sun you would have to say, “I want to go there”. It is alive with diversity. And with all of its color, and all of its diversity it still is one planet. One planet that is special because one size does not fit all.

The Value Of Man

Top Stories

"And He sat down opposite the treasury, and began observing how the multitude were putting money into the treasury; and many rich people were putting in large sums. And a poor widow came and put in two small copper coins, which amount to a cent. And calling His disciples to Him, He said to them, 'Truly I say to you, this poor widow put in more than all the contributors to the treasury; for they all put in out of their surplus, but she, out of her poverty, put in all she owned, all she had to live on.'" (Mark 12:41-44)

In the transitory material world, the value of a man or woman is based upon how much he has amassed. Yet, in the Spiritual World, the value of a man is based upon how much of what he has amassed, he has given to those in need. We are all here to contribute what we have, and who we are. What is expected of us is dependent upon the level of evolution of our souls. A young soul is here to contribute to building of material structure. Young souls translate the spiritual concepts into material form. They immerse themselves in the material world, without them, and all of their apparent superficiality there would be no material world from which the spiritual may emerge. All life is symbolic. A caterpillar represents the soul. The cocoon symbolically represents the material world and the ego. The young soul dissolves into ‘both’ while here on the earth. Remember the cocoon is hard, and it is dark. The caterpillar is lost to itself inside of the cocoon, however, for a time in the beginning it is also safe.

Without knowing why, the young soul is drawn to the material world so opposite from its spiritual origin. Just as the caterpillar is compelled to leave the world of the familiar to create and enter the cocoon. They build the ego structure. The young soul learns to depend upon the material world and all that it has to offer. It learns to be greedy, lustful, and all of those non-spiritual drives that form the walls of the ego structure. Once the young soul has mastered the material world, the ego has no more to learn and so it has no more to give to the soul. The cocoon is complete. Now the soul, once enclosed by the ego must consume the knowledge of the ego and transform the material back into the spiritual and the ego back into the soul. At which point, it becomes a butterfly free of the world. As the young soul begins to find it is no longer nourished by the world as it had once been, it seeks that which is higher than the world. On this part of the journey the soul seeks spiritual nourishment, and still guided by the ego, it seeks this in the world that it knows, the world outside of the self. Thus, it sees God outside of itself. It only does what it knows to do. It recreates spirit in form. It worships God in the image of man, a superman – but still with the feelings and emotions of man, of a father creator. It has not yet seen the world for what it is, but it knows that it needs something more than it sees, or at least above the world that it sees. In order, to reach the God that is above the world it creates religion as a stairway up to that God.

As the process continues, the soul becomes immersed in emotional situations desperately seeking fulfillment of the need to merge, to fully feel at one with something that it does not yet understand. Severed from the ability to identify and merge with the things of the world, it now hungers to identify as one with another. Through the pain and suffering of this part of the journey the soul matures. It begins to find that nothing and no one can satisfy its ‘hunger’ or its ‘emptiness’. Nothing outside of itself can reach into the emptiness within itself and fill the growing void. Again the soul seeks God, but now it can no longer be a God that ‘communicates’ from without nor ‘dictates rules’ from without nor ‘has a home’ without. It must find God within - hear the voice from within and become filled from within. Now the soul finds itself betrayed by the world, betrayed by its things unable to find another soul who can fulfill its expectations and nonetheless, forsaken by its religion. Then, certain of God, certain that what it needs can be found, the mature soul begins to change the direction of its quest from without to within.

Finding less and less value in what it posses, it begins to give. The more that it gives, the better it feels. Without knowing it, the soul has begun the process of turning form into spirit - material into spiritual - and as it does this it finds itself nourished and ‘made full’ in a way that it could never have imagined. The mature soul begins to see beauty, miracles and perfection in the spirit of the world and the spirit of each living spirit on it. And so it releases its attachment to having, and to holding and finds its only joy in giving and sharing. Miraculously, the love, respect, self-worth and value that the soul has spent lifetimes seeking in the world are found in an ever-flowing Source – the God Self within. Diamonds are hidden within coal. The greatest joy in the world is hidden within our fear. Why do we not give more? It is because we fear not having enough.

Once I had a job where I worked very hard. I did my job and my manager’s job. When it came time for the end of the year review, the person in charge of giving out the raises gave me a $2000.00 a year raise and gave him a $5000.00 a year raise. When I complained, he told me that although looking at the amounts it seemed that his raise was greater than mine, if I looked at the percentage increase in his income compared to the percentage increase in my income I would see that my work had been given much greater value. At first, I thought it was a really good line. However later I realized that it was true in everything. In the marketplace, money is money, and one hundred dollars does not buy as much as one-thousand. Render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s. However, when it comes to giving, the value lies not in the face value of the gift, but in how much of what you have to give, you want to give to a person - or to the world.

We live with God within us: we are of God. When we give, to whomever we give, we are expressing how much we care - how much of ourselves have merged with our Spirit and how much of ourselves are yet with the world. That amount has no figure on it, there is no great sum that shows how giving and loving a person is, there is only a great percentage of what we have. If a person has only a penny and selflessly gives that penny, it becomes a mustard seed and grows not only in the works it performs but in the heart and soul of the person who gave it. If a person has a million dollars and gives one thousand to others, the gift will supply its market value and little more. It has little spiritual energy, and it will end up taking more from the giver than it gives. When you give all that you can to those in need, you will be given more than you can contain in love and self-worth.

Contrary to all of your fears, what you give is returned to you ten-fold because you gave beyond what your ‘worldly self’ could release, and you placed your God before the world. No one ever needs to know what you did, nor does anyone need to praise what you did, because the praise flows from within and the gift grows nurtured by Spirit as do you. Here is a true story:
A sobbing little girl stood near a small church from which she had been turned away because it was "too crowded."

"I can't go to Sunday School," she sobbed to the pastor as he walked by.

Seeing her shabby, unkempt appearance, the pastor guessed the reason and, taking her by the hand, took her inside and found a place for her in the Sunday school class.

The child was so happy that they found room for her, and she went to bed that night thinking of the children who have no place to worship Jesus.



Some two years later, this child lay dead in one of the poor tenement buildings. Her parents called for the kindhearted pastor who had befriended their daughter to handle the final arrangements.

As her poor little body was being moved, a worn and crumpled red purse was found which seemed to have been rummaged from some trash dump.

Inside was found 57 cents and a note, scribbled in childish handwriting, which read: "This is to help build the little church bigger so more children can go to Sunday School." For two years she had saved for this offering of love.

When the pastor tearfully read that note, he knew instantly what he would do. Carrying this note and the cracked, red pocketbook to the pulpit, he told the story of her unselfish love and devotion.

He challenged his deacons to get busy and raise enough money for the larger building.

But the story does not end there...

A newspaper learned of the story and published. It was read by a wealthy realtor who offered them a parcel of land worth many thousands.

When told that the church could not pay so much, he offered to sell it to the little church for 57 cents.

Church members made large donations. Checks came from far and wide. Within five years the little girl's gift had increased to $250,000.00-a huge sum for that time (near the turn of the century). Her unselfish love had paid large dividends.

When you are in the city of Philadelphia, look up Temple Baptist Church, with a seating capacity of 3,300.

And be sure to visit Temple University, where thousands of students are educated.

Have a look, too, at the Good Samaritan Hospital and at a Sunday School building which houses hundreds of beautiful children, built so that no child in the area will ever need to be left outside during Sunday school time.

In one of the rooms of this building may be seen the picture of the sweet face of the little girl whose 57 cents, so sacrificially saved, made such remarkable history. Alongside of it is a portrait of her kind pastor, Dr. Russel H. Conwell, author of the book, "Acres of Diamonds".

As a soul matures, it finds that all that it clings to and becomes addicted to, in the world, only makes it emptier and hungrier. The emptiness and hunger is only satisfied by letting go, and giving. This turns matter into spirit. It turns what is transitory into what is permanent. The soul learns that only by emptying can it become filled, only by giving can it receive. Then happiness is replaced by joy and the journey to find self-esteem and self-worth finally ends.