Wounded Healer prayer (audio)

paintings by Gilbert Williams

I offer a short prayer for transformation, and I get real about my longing for unity and intimacy.

Get real and give it to God (audio)

A spiritual talk and transformation experience, recorded in the park (20 minutes):

Short quotes and notes on life and spirituality 1

Growing in spirituality means having a deeper realization of your need for God.


People believe in and trust in human love, but not in God’s love, even though God created humans, and He is the Originator and Author of love, and His love is infinitely greater than any human’s love.


People don’t like to feel painful feelings. They use materialism as an escape from unpleasant feelings. They don’t admit that they feel disconnected from God and are materialistic: relying on job, money, house, family, people for comfort and security.


We say the world is a mess. God says yes, it’s a mess, but it’s a perfect mess.


You must let yourself feel the pain of God’s judgments (or the consequences of your actions) in order for it to work as a deterrent for future wrong actions. If you numb your pain, you won’t learn or grow from your mistakes. If the pain is not a result of wrong action or personal weakness, then the suffering is a test from God for the growth of your soul. Either way, suffering is a beneficial test from God. But if we numb the pain, repress it, or escape into material pleasures, we will lose the opportunity for human depth, relationship, love, connection, compassion, as well as spiritual growth, love, unity, closeness to God, love for God, feeling God’s love, healing, mercy, and compassion.


There is nothing but God-goo surrounding you.


You can’t be attached to the teaching work, your understanding of the process of spiritual growth, your understanding of anything, the work of helping people, your accomplishments, your knowledge, any person, your thoughts or feelings. Just cling to God—attach to Him only. Then you will know selfless love. No one can generate or produce selfless love, obviously. We must untangle from our attachments first, otherwise it will always be selfish love. To the extent we are detached from this world is the extent to which we can love others.


Your spirituality is different from your worthiness. Not everyone is spiritual, but everyone is worthy.


I want someone who is made happy by my presence, and whose presence makes me happy.


People use religion for ego power and ego security. It breeds guilt and competition just like the work/school/family/friends world.


You play their game to escape from your pain.


We need to shed the husks of ego patterns, and reveal the vulnerable stuff inside—then shed that husk.


We don’t know our destiny; we can’t figure out our destiny. God does what He wills. All we can do is use our gifts and talents to serve Him by surrendering our all to Him, and by making choices in life that conform to the best understanding of His Word. His destiny for us is that we completely trust in Him, and entrust our future to Him without knowing what will come of it.


If everything God did seemed outwardly just, then we could never have the opportunity to exercise our faith in Him.


Most people have a negative relationship to suffering. We want to try to have a positive relationship to it by embracing it and seeing how God uses suffering to help us grow spiritually and reach out for His love. It also helps us to forge bonds of love with others, and it promotes detachment from worldly things.


Insecurity and fear come because others do judge and criticize us, and that hurts. We judge others in the way we fear others will judge us, or in the way we judge ourselves. By judging others, it gives us the power we lose from being judged and criticized by others or ourselves.


When you become emotionally dependent on someone, it produces a sense of expectation and entitlement from the person. When you don’t get what you want from the person, you may get angry with them because you think they owe it to you—but that is just coming from your attachment to them and lack of connection with God’s love.


The more you get hurt, the more your heart breaks open—the greater measure of love you can receive from God as you turn to Him for comfort.


Human beings are like flowers. We need to be continually deriving sustenance from the soil of our trust in God, and opening up our hearts to the sun of His grace and love.

Spiritual talk in park: What is Truth? (audio)

After a busy July 4th weekend, I attempt again to find the truth, my truth, and process my pain a bit.

Facing feelings

(This is from 5/18/94)

Here's a big challenge: we need to be honest with God about our feelings. We don't necessarily have to share our feelings with another person, but we need to share them with God. In other words, we need to come out of denial, stop stuffing the emotions inside, and start opening up the heart and praying to God, and trusting in God that He will help us and heal us of our suffering. Share the joys and the sorrows. Commune with God, be honest with Him--share thoughts and feelings! Why deny the heart its joy of communing fully with God? God understands us, even if we don't understand ourselves. We can let it all out--all the pain--to God. He will turn it into joy, just because we shared it with Him. You know how sometimes when we open up to a person, we feel better, our problems are mysteriously solved, or at least they don't seem as important anymore? It's because we've let God's love in as we opened our heart and trusted Him. And the transcendent Spirit comes into our hearts and lifts us above this temporal world and shows us the visions of the eternal realm. The emotions of the Kingdom of Heaven are revealed to us, and suddenly our earthly problems don't seem significant anymore.

But if we're constantly denying our emotions in the name of being 'a man', who doesn't feel pain or any emotions for that matter, we'll never know the love of God. We'll be blocked because we haven't faced an important part of ourselves. We can't always be in 'business' mode. Just because that's the society's conditioning doesn't mean it's God's way. God has other ways to remedy the problem of suffering. Don't deny it, but give it to God, or transcend it with love and understanding. The truly religious way to be a 'man' is not society's way. Don't be fooled by the apparent similarities: both say 'be happy and loving'. But God says 'be truly happy and loving by my grace'. Society says 'be happy and loving on the outside even if it means you have to be a hypocrite and stuff or ignore your feelings of discontent or confusion'. Society says don't think too deeply about yourself or reality--you might just find out something--you might see through the game of the old world order and its institutions, God forbid!

God says 'face yourself'. And face Him. Give yourself to Him, along with your feelings of hurt, discontent, confusion, or even joy. When God says try to act positive when you feel negative, it is only because He wants you to eventually become the act and be positive--not to deny any reality. Society is big on denying reality.

But I'm big on being honest and finding the truth in any situation. Especially when it comes to what you feel as a human being. It really helps to be honest about your feelings without any fear of others. And when you open your feelings to God, there's no fear, only love. You can get in touch with His love that way, and experience the feelings of His love--the peace and joy. The emotions can again flow smoothly, the love for others comes out. Without the emotions, we're a shell, doing business in a cold world. Sure, we can accomplish things and be moral and serve God and help people. But if we deny such a part of ourselves, are we truly being spiritual? Can we truly share the love of God and show others the joys of the Kingdom? How can we help others face reality if we're not facing a part of our reality--a part which can feel the love of God, the beauty of life, which can feel the wonders of reality and communicate it like a child? Sure, there are parts of ourselves we haven't faced because they haven't presented themselves to us--that's part of our natural growth process of discovery. But I'm talking about simply feeling the feelings that have indeed come our way, but we stuffed away or denied. These indeed have been shown to us. We must use them to grow closer to God. We must use them to trust God more. They are given to us for our growth, for the growth of our love, of our heart. We cannot deny them any longer.

And this comes back to families and community-building. We need to help each other work through the confusing thoughts and emotions which cause us suffering and joy. We must draw closer to each other as we discover that we all experience similar feelings of isolation, hurt, confusion, etc. We draw on God, and open up to Him and to one another. By sharing in this way, God will bless us with His Holy Spirit, and faith will grow in our hearts and faith will grow in the communities, and people will see the love, and they will be attracted to it. If you have faith, and act on that faith, they will come! There must be initiative and inspiration. And there must be some resources. If people see the love, they will open their hearts and trust, and share. We must create this open, loving, trusting, sharing environment. God help us create this environment. Please create this environment in myself. The pain makes me grow. It stretches my heart and I pray to you more--I must find the Way to Peace. I can never block the truth of Love and the Open Heart. It must come out!

Are Baha'is doing more outer work than inner work? For now, it is important to spread the Teachings. But we must do the inner work, and get in touch with the Real Transcendent Love, that flies above this temporal world. Love that is calm and powerful, and gives tremendous hope. Love that is patient and kind and not overbearing. Love that listens and hears and is compassionate and understanding. Love that heals the suffering. Love that unites the people and unites the hearts. Love that purifies souls and builds families and communities. Love that will one day unite the world in perfect love and harmony.

With this love that comes from God, we can face ourselves and face the world. And we must! We must move forward as an Army of Light and conquer the hearts of men, for the good of the world, for the Cause of God! But we must not force the Message on anyone. People, with their free will, may reject the Message if they wish. We will move on, unshaken, and with complete faith, being nourished by the love of God and His unshakable Word of Truth!

Help us God! Help us find the resources to do this! Oh God, all things come from you. I pray that you give us what we need to fulfill our potential in this earthly realm. Bless us, help us!

Intimacy (a prayer)

Oh, God, help us be You. You are us, so give us, transform us, be us! Brighten our day, be our Light, be who we are! Make us You, make of us what You will, and cause us to accept us, to accept You! Let our unity be apparent. Flow into our lives right now, purify us, open our hearts to You right now, oh God. I pour my heart out to You. I want only to love You and to love others, make it true. Make this prayer a humble loving gesture for all to know You, without deceit, without pride. Help me, help us all, oh God. I want all to love You, and it is all okay anyway. I don't know what they think. This is free, it is me, it is You. Bring them to You, they are You, they are Yours. Love us all, love is all, there is love in us all. Let it be so. You are our Lord. Let love be our Lord, for You are love.

Short quotes and notes on life and spirituality 2

If we praise or love people because they exhibit certain qualities, then it is conditional love. Then our likes and dislikes determine which people are worthy of praise and love. We should love and praise all people, and love them despite their personality. Any quality you see is just a development and manifestation of the compensatory self. So you’re just praising the person’s ego. He should be praised and loved for his soul, and for God, for we are praising God, who created all people.


We must look beyond personality and be a SOULSEER!


When we feel sadness or worry about someone, it is basically because we’ve lost our connection with God. We don’t have faith and we don’t have love. In order to help someone, we need to have strength and power from God. Instead of worry, we can have faith. Instead of sadness, we can have compassion. How can we help people if we become weakened by their hurt, sadness, and pain? As well, we have to be comfortable with our own pain and weakness and turn to God with our pain and weakness in order to help others do the same, so that they can feel comforted by us in their pain.


“If life gives you lemons, make lemonade!” Turn the sourness of suffering into the sweetness of God’s healing balm, as you supplicate the Holy Threshold.


The greater the hole of need and desire, the greater the faith and love that fills it!


Install God in your secret inner weakness and He will replace it with His strength.


Pain is necessary and positive. Without it, we wouldn’t build, invent, or work for justice. Without suffering, we are dead. It is a necessary part of human life. What is negative is denying or repressing pain, and then saying that we are transcending it. If there were no suffering, there would be no need for prayer, supplication, love or compassion. Our hearts would no longer grow wide. We would grow proud and self-satisfied. Indeed, God works through the suffering of His chosen ones. This is His way, and it will ever be so. Whoever tries to live without suffering is doing a disservice to himself and to the Cause of God.


These are our basic feelings: fear of getting hurt; and desire for comfort, love and connection.


Feel the pain that that implies for your life.


Look how they posture all day, even for God!


It’s simple: God is our foundation and is the primary Reality. Then there is the human mind and its perceptions, feelings, and will. We need to align with God. The problem comes when we put our perceptions and will before God; and we shouldn’t rely on our perception of God, either. That would be putting our perception first. How can we know God except for our perception of God? That is the path of mystics, my friend!


The biggest comfort and security about remaining deluded and trapped in illusory self is that everyone else is caught in it also. So it seems the right thing to do, and there is apparently validation and fellowship in this illusion.


True spiritual awareness is an integration of self-awareness and God-awareness. It is not a denial of the self, with its lower nature. But the lower nature, as it is held in the light of God-awareness, becomes transmuted, and is then seen in its purified form as an expression of God’s grace and creative power, to be used in service to humanity as an expression of His all-encompassing Love.


People are riding on the cultural engine of materialism and individualism, and can’t seem to get off the train in order to enter the Kingdom of God.


Pain and suffering from injury, illness, or emotional hurt is good for us. It can humble us and cause us to bond with all others who are similarly hurting and suffering.


Spirituality is experiencing my humanity as a divine creation.


Sexuality is my humanity wanting to fuse and merge with another’s humanity.


Anger is masculinized discontentment.


Until you become filled with the Holy Spirit, all your efforts toward humility will be in vain. And after you are filled with the Holy Spirit, all your efforts toward humility will be in vain.