Your Story is Your Religion
Your Story is Your Religion
Everyone lives and dies by their story. All murders, wars, crimes, divorces, addictions and neuroses are due to story-blindness and story-attachment. We are sleeping with and married to our unconscious scripts and stories about self, God, others and the universe.
Our most valued treasure is not our money, our family or even our own life, but our religion. Our religion is our story and god has little or no part in our religion. Sorry. That’s a wake-up call-to arms, right? I’ve gone from gossip to meddling. When I said that your religion has nothing to do with God, wasn’t that a battle cry? Our inmost loyalty is to whatever we consider god to be. My theory is that our story is our religion, our god, our most valued treasure. Everyone is a martyr to his god, to his religion, to his story, to his or her own self-defined identity.
What I have discovered in my lifetime is that for the most part (about 99%) our story is unconscious, automated, habitual, and hidden. We don’t know the difference in ego and Self. That ignorance accounts for all of our anxieties, problems and unhappiness. And if I could prove that to you, I would be your best friend or your worst enemy. Fortunately or unfortunately, I can’t do that. No one can prove anything to anyone. Self-inquiry is a possible but not likely lifetime career choice. Who wants to doubt himself or herself? Suffering is the only sufficient motive for self-inquiry that I know of. Desire for knowledge, however, runs a close second, and happiness a distant third. Some people say that happiness is our chief motivator, but the ego will choose being right over being happy every time.
And so, enlightenment is not very high on our list of priorities. For the most part, no one gives it a thought. How many times do you wake up in the morning and say “Enlightenment is my number one priority for today.” I argue in this book that whatever we put before enlightenment makes enlightenment unlikely. The only thing you could possibly put before enlightenment anyway is your ego story. And that is precisely our human dilemma.
And so Jesus’ first question in his ministry was “What do you want?” And when you ask that question to yourself, be sure to put the emphasis on which “you” is doing the “wanting.” There are two you’s: the ego and the Self. And they are vastly different “you’s” and they want absolutely different things. We spend our whole lives carefully crafting our ego story. Every line in this drama is carefully scripted, rehearsed, and choreographed. It’s all theatre, drama, fiction. We are not who we think we are. It’s all made up, imaginary, fantastical, illusory. Is that good news or what?
If you or I knew ourselves as sons and daughters of God, we would not be in the mess we is in, would we? God didn’t make the ego, we did. So let’s begin with the wisdom of the Greeks: Know thyself. That is what enlightenment is all about. Let’s be thankful that we don’t know and that we are ignorant! Even in this most “enlightened” age, we are not yet enlightened.
The Buddha said “Be grateful if you have ever even heard of enlightenment; be more grateful if you pursue enlightenment; be most grateful if you ever experience enlightenment.”
And so, what are your chances of just happening to become enlightened? Zero. It ain’t going to happen. With 25,000 hours of programmed tapes playing in our heads by age 21, our chances of random enlightenment are zero. But, on the other hand, enlightenment is inevitable. That puts us in a very interesting dilemma, doesn’t it? The dilemma is that anxiety without enlightenment is a given. The whole universe is designed for your enlightenment, and absolutely every event in your day today has that singular purpose. What a trip! Just be glad today for your anxiety and that will open doors in itself.
Everyone lives and dies by their story. All murders, wars, crimes, divorces, addictions and neuroses are due to story-blindness and story-attachment. We are sleeping with and married to our unconscious scripts and stories about self, God, others and the universe.
Our most valued treasure is not our money, our family or even our own life, but our religion. Our religion is our story and god has little or no part in our religion. Sorry. That’s a wake-up call-to arms, right? I’ve gone from gossip to meddling. When I said that your religion has nothing to do with God, wasn’t that a battle cry? Our inmost loyalty is to whatever we consider god to be. My theory is that our story is our religion, our god, our most valued treasure. Everyone is a martyr to his god, to his religion, to his story, to his or her own self-defined identity.
What I have discovered in my lifetime is that for the most part (about 99%) our story is unconscious, automated, habitual, and hidden. We don’t know the difference in ego and Self. That ignorance accounts for all of our anxieties, problems and unhappiness. And if I could prove that to you, I would be your best friend or your worst enemy. Fortunately or unfortunately, I can’t do that. No one can prove anything to anyone. Self-inquiry is a possible but not likely lifetime career choice. Who wants to doubt himself or herself? Suffering is the only sufficient motive for self-inquiry that I know of. Desire for knowledge, however, runs a close second, and happiness a distant third. Some people say that happiness is our chief motivator, but the ego will choose being right over being happy every time.
And so, enlightenment is not very high on our list of priorities. For the most part, no one gives it a thought. How many times do you wake up in the morning and say “Enlightenment is my number one priority for today.” I argue in this book that whatever we put before enlightenment makes enlightenment unlikely. The only thing you could possibly put before enlightenment anyway is your ego story. And that is precisely our human dilemma.
And so Jesus’ first question in his ministry was “What do you want?” And when you ask that question to yourself, be sure to put the emphasis on which “you” is doing the “wanting.” There are two you’s: the ego and the Self. And they are vastly different “you’s” and they want absolutely different things. We spend our whole lives carefully crafting our ego story. Every line in this drama is carefully scripted, rehearsed, and choreographed. It’s all theatre, drama, fiction. We are not who we think we are. It’s all made up, imaginary, fantastical, illusory. Is that good news or what?
If you or I knew ourselves as sons and daughters of God, we would not be in the mess we is in, would we? God didn’t make the ego, we did. So let’s begin with the wisdom of the Greeks: Know thyself. That is what enlightenment is all about. Let’s be thankful that we don’t know and that we are ignorant! Even in this most “enlightened” age, we are not yet enlightened.
The Buddha said “Be grateful if you have ever even heard of enlightenment; be more grateful if you pursue enlightenment; be most grateful if you ever experience enlightenment.”
And so, what are your chances of just happening to become enlightened? Zero. It ain’t going to happen. With 25,000 hours of programmed tapes playing in our heads by age 21, our chances of random enlightenment are zero. But, on the other hand, enlightenment is inevitable. That puts us in a very interesting dilemma, doesn’t it? The dilemma is that anxiety without enlightenment is a given. The whole universe is designed for your enlightenment, and absolutely every event in your day today has that singular purpose. What a trip! Just be glad today for your anxiety and that will open doors in itself.
posted by Dr. Joe at 8:36 AM
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