grumpy man

Life’s a Bitch. Then You “Die”.

Hidden Wisdom

Only now, having been exposed to A Course in Miracles for several years… do I see the real wisdom of this codgedy phrase.

I remember growing up as a kid hearing adults utter this sardonic phrase when things weren’t going their way.

“Life’s a bitch… then you die.”

Wow! I thought…  what a shitty attitude!

There IS NO glass!
It’s not half empty. It’s not half full. There IS NO glass!

Of course life’s going to be a bitch for you, because you’re a pessimist… a glass half empty kind of gal…

But not for me, because I choose to see the good things in life. Life’s only a bitch for people who make it a bitch.

While there is some validty in that last statement, the Course gives us a much better perspective on this seemingly offensive and defeatist phrase.

What perspective you ask?

That it’s actually true.

According to the world we made up….  it’s very true. Think about it. Life on earth is a bitch. Sure, there is beauty… there is love… there is fun… excitement… and even peace in some cases.

The dichotomy of light and dark is a problem only in this made up world. In our true reality, there is only light.
The dichotomy of light and dark is a problem only in this made up world. In our true reality, there is only light.  [Photo credit: Apromit]
But it’s short-lived. For every 80 year old gleeful married couple… I can show you a bitter old divorced man or widowed wife (who in some cases actually killed her mate!).

For every bed of flowers and plate of bacon…  I can show you a pile of dirt vomit where kids are fed mud pancakes to give them the illusion of fullness.

For every beautiful birth… there is a horrible death.

This version of events is in the world we made up. Not the one God created. And not the one that actually is real.

So it all depends on your definition of Life. As most ‘people’ define it… life really is a bitch… and then you really do die. Because there is no other possibility as long as we believe in the illusions of separation.

It’s the arrogance of the ego that makes life a bitch.

Lose the ego…. and then life will no longer be a bitch… at least that is the gist of the Course. I see no reason to question it… searching my own life, all suffering can be traced straight back to the ego. True joy can be traced back to the Holy Spirit and God.

Once we awaken to, and embrace the truth… life is never a bitch… and you never die.

We’re All Wolves of Wall Street

Wolf of Wall Street is actually funnier, yet less outrageous, when you view from the perspective of the course.. we all live this life… just a matter of degree. This isn’t about saying you shouldn’t pursue pleasure (or pain)… it’s about understanding how seeking pleasure in the dream makes no difference… only your awareness, the way you see it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kqo7am5oq0U

sex and God

Why We Love Sex

Beer and Other Drugs

Three letters with such draw, such power.

What is it about sex?

The critically acclaimed Don Jon movie captured it as good as any attempt. The main character, Jon, was addicted to pornography… to the point where he actually preferred it over actual sex!

At the “climax” of the movie (sorry but you can’t do an article about sex without innuendo), Jon has an epiphany that the reason he is so drawn to porn, is because he is able to “lose himself” in it.

So apparently sex is an escape from the madness of the made-up self… and all the pain that comes with it, and a chance to connect with what we really are which is just pure joy, love.

He ends up hooking up with an middle-aged widow in a night class he’s taking, and has the same experience of “losing himself” during sex with her.  Which he then realized this was the actual feeling he was craving.

Lose yourself in Sex, Lose yourself in God

Statue from Love Land in Korea, a museum park featuring provocative sexual art.

In A Course in Miracles, the ultimate goal is pretty much the same as sex for Jon (and I think many people). We are in pursuit of truth, which requires us to wake up from our made-up life and identity and realize what we really are which is pure love, pure God.

So pursuing sex is simply the pursuit of God and the pursuit of truth.

Even though we don’t really ever find it through sex, it allows us to momentarily “forget ourselves” because all of our attention is on the feeling.

At the peak moment nothing else matters but the feeling, which is why often you feel no pain during sex. Then when it’s over you’re like… why is my knee hurting so much?

Sure… it has some twisted aspects to it. For some it’s a power trip. Wanting to feel powerful… hmmm… powerful like who?

But sex is not God.

All stable minds can agree on this. It is a cheap imitation.

Granted it can certainly be an enjoyable, loving and healthy activity as far as those things go in the dream… but it will always fall short of delivering you to truth… which is why we need it again… and again… and frankly it will never be enough… anyone who is having good sex will never tell you they’ve had enough, unless they’re fully awake already perhaps.

Of course age takes over at some point for most, but modern medicine is doing its best to change that too.

Nothing sells like sex.

Everyone seems afraid to really answer the why…  but course students shouldn’t be, because it’s a giant clue to learning what we all truly want.

To be one with God.

If God is, Sex can’t be.

So is sex bad then?

No worse than breathing or pumpkin pie.

Sex is not more bad or good than anything else. The important point is your awareness of that. Enjoy it. You’re here. Why not? In fact when you know why you want it… it actually gets better.

Heck that’s why I love craft beer…  sure it’s all just made up sensations on my tongue that I enjoy vs. waking up to my ultimate home with God… but if I was ready for that, that would be my experience.

But it’s not  my experience… so that means sex and beer in the mean time.

And I’m going to enjoy the hell out of it every time, all the while knowing it’s not real or necessary except to help me wake up to that very fact.

Just understand that if you have an addiction to sex, drugs or anything else… that is likely destructive in ways that cause unnecessary pain. The point of the course is to help you get home faster, and with less pain along the way.

See.. you can be normal on the outside, while being not so normal on the inside. Because it’s the inside that matters.

addicted to smartphone

Why Constantly Looking At Your Phone Bugs People

Forgive this!, Uncategorized

You’ve likely seen it and done it. A group of people who are supposedly at a social gathering but spending the bulk of time staring and thumbing at their phones and tablets.

It’s especially cute when a couple is out to eat and they are sitting with their faces buried in the electronic glow of iphonia. Heck, they could be a thousand miles away from each other for all they care it seems.

And then there’s the line at Starbucks. 10 people ahead of you? No problem… there must be at least 3 emails and 46 status updates you can check to easily kill that time.

It’s hilarious when I look up from my own phone, only to notice a line of folks plugged into the matrix.  God forbid we should have to acknowledge each other or engage in conversation!

Doesn’t anyone engage in “traditional social” interaction anymore?

The form of attachment doesn’t matter

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OINa46HeWg8

What’s the driving force behind these “supposedly disturbing” viral videos with flocks of humans staring into digital bliss-pads while “real” human interaction is within arm’s reach?

It’s the valuing of one form of the dream over another.

As course students, we learn it doesn’t matter whether you’re texting someone or talking face to face… they are equal illusions. One is not somehow “more real” than the other.

The reality is that smart phones and tablets just give people instant access to parts of the dream they would rather engage with.

Computers give just as many opportunities for forgiveness as live interaction.

So from the perspective of undoing the dream…

I would offer that smartphone drones are actually one step closer.

They’ve already dis-engaged from the heaviest form of the dream… physical time and space… and traded it in for non-physical, mental stimulation.

The one pitfall?

Denying your experience of the physical dream while you are clearly still in it, is usually not helpful. In my experience, however, most folks that are “plugged in” to the digital world are not denying their physical illusions… they just aren’t engaged or acknowledging them very much (or as much as older generations would prefer). So there’s a fine line to consider.

Don’t let one illusion bug you more than another

There’s no order in miracles, the course says. No degrees of difficulty… they are all the same.

So the couple laughing and smooching it up over courvoisier are not necessarily more enlightened than the horny guy glued to his phone in the next booth, fantasizing that he’s Katy Perry’s boyfriend as he watches Youtube, while his girlfriend is catching up on her high school flame’s latest facebook posts (or they could both just be reading books on their Kindles… the point is the same).

And the one guy at Starbucks trying to engage strangers in conversation is not weird, he’s just bothered that people seem to be devaluing what he considers to be the more important parts of our illusory separation from God.