LAUGHTER

By Julian Duckworth

Sometimes, when people laugh, it’s at someone else’s expense. That’s a rather cruel kind of laughter, though. A nicer laughter is to be able to laugh at some of the foibles of life and not to take it all too seriously. Being able to laugh like that eases everything and it’s a good place to be. Perhaps we could stretch this idea even further and say that seeing and sharing the funny side of life is the normal way we’re meant to be because it is healthy and healing. It immediately dissolves tricky moments and tensions that come along.

It’s lovely watching a group of people, perhaps over a meal, being together, and noticing the relaxed friendly laughter coming from among them as a group. They are right into it and nobody seems at all self-conscious but catching everyone’s fun. Laughter is contagious of course. They say it even does our body good, lowering blood pressure, letting off steam and having a good chuckle. There are even groups of people who get together, say in a park, simply to be together to laugh.

Jesus talked about having joy. This isn’t exactly the same as laughter, but it still suggests a lightness of being, a feeling of well-being through having joy in yourself.

One telling statistic that has emerged is that little children laugh (with that wonderful open children’s way of laughing) about 300 times a day, but adults on average only laugh about 15 times a day. Something got lost in the business of growing up and we’ve forgotten the therapy and spontaneity of this precious gift of laughter.

So let’s aim to reverse that dreadful statistic and allow ourselves, more and more, to be caught up in letting laughter do us good.

DEALING WITH DIFFICULT PEOPLE

By Julian Duckworth

This is a situation we all have to cope with from time to time. What is the best way to deal with someone who, for example, gets angry or is rude to you? Or it may be as simple as someone who never gets around to doing what they said they would do.

Perhaps it will help to appreciate that in some way we are probably all a bit difficult to deal with at times. You may be habitually unpunctual and always turn up late – how annoying that can be. I may be someone who never puts things back where they go. That can be maddening! These situations just need a bit more courage and clear communication, to let the other person know that their habit is something you aren’t prepared to accept. Say it and then get over it. If it still happens, say it the same again. But don’t smoulder over it or else everything about that other person will submerge under one grievance, which is a great pity.

But some situations can be more full-on, and be almost a direct attack, or feel like one to us on the receiving end. There are some techniques that can help when it’s like that. Having an opening phrase perhaps – Excuse me, can you tell me exactly what your problem is? Or, Look, if I’ve upset you, it certainly wasn’t intended.

You have every right to stand your ground and be assertive against unwarranted aggression.

Jesus said, Love your enemies. He did not mean be soft with those who oppose you. He meant something quite simple. When we do not retaliate but keep love as our energy towards every other person, this takes away the energy coming to us and makes it truly powerless. Anger feeds on anger but it can’t cope with love.

ARE YOU CONTENTED?

by Julian Duckworth

Maybe asking yourself if you are contented is better than wondering if you are happy. Being happy implies being cheerful and bright, and nobody can be like that all the time. But we can be basically contented even though easy times and hard times come their way, as they do.

Contentment is about being glad to be who you are; it’s about accepting yourself and feeling satisfied with what you are like, what you are able to do, and your overall circumstances in life. It helps us to make the most of everything and it keeps us away from all those niggling comparisons and envies. It can lead us to be very thankful for what we do have, and make us more compassionate and generous towards people who have less than we do. We can then start to help other people towards their own contentment and acceptance of their life.

God makes each person completely unique and different from any other person around. God knows that each of us is a special person and he loves us as if he only had each one of us to love.

When you come to know yourself reasonably well, and find out what you are good at doing and also what you can’t do very well, then you’re in a position to find your best niche in life. Then you can throw yourself into life, enjoy being yourself, make your contribution to what’s happening around you, and trust the whole process.

And perhaps in the end the question we first asked ‘Are you contented?’ starts to disappear because you’re no longer needing to ask it or to wonder if you are. Getting on with life leads on to contentment so that if someone asked you the question, you’d stop, pause and think, ‘Well, yes. I guess I am contented.’ And that is a good place to be.

ALWAYS DO YOUR BEST

 by Julian Duckworth

It may sound obvious of course that we should always try and do our best. But it doesn’t hurt to be reminded about this from time to time. It gives us a personal standard to set ourselves and if we adopt this it can also bring us a real peace of mind. I did my best – who can argue with that?

You might well ask, though, how do we ever know what our best possible is? Perhaps we don’t nor ever will. But doing our best is not asking us to be perfect or superhuman; it’s simply asking us to be sincere and well-intentioned. We can’t guarantee how others will feel about the way we do things; that will vary from person to person, and even though we do our best we might find that some people don’t like what we did. We need to leave that problem largely with them, and, if we feel that we did our best, it allows us to avoid feeling guilty or blaming ourselves for the way things turned out.

The only person we have full responsibility over is of course ourself. We need to be true to ourself. It will help too if we adopt the idea that other people are probably doing their best because that stops us from blaming them.

In the Bible, Jesus talks about new beginnings. It is a marvellous thought that whatever has happened in the past, any moment can become a brand new beginning based on our decision to do our best.

And more: if we do our best rather than accepting our second-best, we become a good example to people round us who feel that we have integrity and mean what we say. They might not ever tell us to our face how good we are, but they, just like us too, gain so much from being with people who can be relied on and trusted to do the best they can.

No one can ask for anything more!

Book Review of The Map of Heaven

By Julian Duckworth

Many of you may already be familiar with Eben Alexander’s first and best-selling book “Proof of Heaven” in which he describes in great detail his personal experiences of continuing consciousness after the incontrovertible death of his brain.

Dr Alexander began as a dedicated neurosurgeon after years of training and preparation. He became highly thought of and an expert in his field of surgery. He had no thought that consciousness could or would continue on if the brain has stopped living or functioning, and he would have argued, he says, vehemently against the whole idea.

Until it happened to him during a sudden severe illness which shook him to the core because he saw, met and experienced events and beings after his brain died. This had such a profound effect on him that he could not deny the evidence of it and the certainty, for him, that consciousness continues on in powerful, new and beautiful ways after death.

This is all written about in his first book “Proof of Heaven” which has been a long best-seller. He has done many talks and tours on this subject in recent years.

The second book “The Map of Heaven” has just been published. It ranges far and wide – like any ‘map’ should – of very many people from antiquity to modern times who have put forward the idea of continuing consciousness. He introduces Swedenborg in roughly the middle of the book and later refers to him again several times, very positively.

It is probably best to give a short extract on Dr Alexander’s summary of Swedenborg and the afterlife. If you get the book, it is round about p62 onwards.

“Swedenborg had a particular interest in the brain and spent many years trying to isolate the seat of consciousness – the physical location of what, back in his time, was still called the soul. Then in the middle of his life, Swedenborg discovered (as the psychologist and Swedenborg scholar Wilson Van Dusen put it) that he had been ‘looking in the wrong place’. Swedenborg underwent a spiritual crisis. A series of terrifyingly vivid dreams finally led to a moment in which the heavens themselves seemed to open. Swedenborg’s old world cracked, buckled, and collapsed. A new one grew up in its place.

“Swedenborg devoted the rest of his life to studying and cataloguing the spiritual worlds he had discovered, with the rigour that he had previously devoted to studying the physical world.”

Then Dr Alexander goes on to outline Swedenborg’s understanding of these worlds and what they are, and where they are in relation to our sense of ourselves. He describes the familiarity of objects in the afterlife – there are trees! – and then he covers the all-important point that the laws of spiritual world life work rather differently than here. “The one rule we need to remember from here, however, is that we end up, in the end, where we belong, and we are led by the amount of love we have in us, for love is the essence of heaven. It is what it is made of.”

By all means, go and get yourself a copy of the book. It covers the afterlife extensively and shows the remarkable similarity of different peoples’ experiences and understanding of it. It is … a map of heaven.

Julian Duckworth

Religion Means Nothing if You're Still a Jerk.

By Curtis Childs

"A life of religious devotion without kindness is not a spiritual life."

- Emanuel Swedenborg

The lyrics to the video Religion Means Nothing if You're Still a Jerk

Lyrics:

Peace, please believe, that there's a lot of human need

And a lot of hungry bellies that could do without human greed
And a lot of people packing churches looking for a seed

hoping for a higher love to patch up where we all bleed

they're there to learn, it's a perfect opportunity to say

hey we're all God's children and pump love and aid into the community
but what they get is politics, us and them, and judgement of the sick
and then we use God to hit each other, like God's some kind of stick

religion means nothing if you've got it, but you're still a jerk
for me, you, and the planet, buddy it doesn't work

religion means nothing if you've got it, but you're still a jerk
for me you and the planet, buddy it doesn't work

Exhibit A: human ego, selfishness, and it strives to subjugate, manipulate, and

criticize other people and their lives
it's got territory in each of us and it's looking to rule and if it's in charge,

religious concepts are just another tool
the way religions go to war, is the way countries go to war
it's the way people go to war, for whatever they want a war for
the mentality and the method here are all the same, isn't that odd?
it's cause it's the ego driving all of it, the religious covering is just a facade

religion means nothing if you've got it, but you're still a jerk
for me, you, and the planet, buddy it doesn't work

religion means nothing if you've got it, but you're still a jerk
for me you and the planet, buddy it doesn't work

you took faith over love, and that sticking to your interpretation of the plan
was higher on God's priority list than the agony of your fellow man
why's there so much anti-religion stuff on the message boards,
cause there's a lot of really mean people out there saying "I know the Lord"
you say belonging to a club is the way, but love is the way
it's not a ritual you do, it's not a prayer that you say

the world has open hands, looking to you for wisdom, but they find none
let me remind you in a few lines, just how far you've fallen from
you were meant to tell us:
that there is meaning in experience, an antidote for the cold
healing from our flaws, marriage of body and soul, a higher purpose,

a message in the weather,
and a divine protector who can string these hearts and moments together
and how love in the eyes holds the potential, and eternity
the still small voice say take, come and learn from me and

yes, you'll see them in a while again, they were never just the flesh
and I'll hold and you’ll smile again, as we watch the death of death
and kindness is not a weakness, it's the holy core of life
blood and competition too will pass, as epiphanies grow from strife
and you were no accident, you are precious, and you'll be fine
in short, the most beautiful things that you can tell a conscious mind
it's not about doctrinal boxes or what you say or how you appear
but this: when you walk in do people say "oh thank God you're here"

religion means nothing if you've got it, but you're still a jerk
for me, you, and the planet, buddy it doesn't work
religion means nothing if you've got it, but you're still a jerk
for me you and the planet, buddy it doesn't work

Comments on the film 'I am' by Tom Shadyac

This extraordinary documentary chronicles Tom's journey of awakening as he travels around the world asking leading teachers and thinkers, such as Desmond Tutu, David Suzuki, Noam Chomsky, Lynne McTaggart ‘What’s wrong with the world?’ and ‘What can we do about it ?’ This is an excellent film.
Other questions he asks are:
Is there a problem that causes all the other problems?

Are we basically just greedy, aggressive, and violent creatures wreaking havoc on the planet and each other? What about love, compassion, kindness, empathy? It seems to me the most important question, so I asked it – What is human kind’s basic nature?

Is it possible that we have been looking at the world, each other, reality incorrectly? That things are really connected and not separate. If that is the case how do we change things? Can we change things?

In response to these questions the following is helpful and adds to the discussion.

Nothing unconnected ever occurs, for anything unconnected would instantly perish. Emanuel Swedenborg, Heavenly Secrets 2556.

oooOOOooo

Swedenborg’s view of the individual

Swedenborg regards the individual as a degenerate being who can easily make the mistake of hoping for salvation by faith alone. Even the highest knowledge of Divine things cannot save a man: until he wills into action the truths he has acquired through knowledge, his essential being does not change. And when he learns to use his will correctly, the change takes place in stages and not all at once. It is because considerable patience and long-suffering is required, that the Lord declared:

“In patience possess you your souls” (Luke 21:19)

A literal translation of the Greek text reads:

“In your endurance you will gain your soul.”

Transformation or rebirth is a very big process. In essence it is the birth of a new life, spiritual life, in the individual. Unregenerate men and women of all types have before them a tremendous and pleasing destiny if they will but apply themselves to

· self-analysis,

· self-correction, and

· regeneration with the help of God.

Every individual has a vital part to play in the building and expansion of heavenly life. The individual must wisely and lovingly devote himself to this supreme end of the creative process for it to become real for him. Without the constant caring action of the Lord God inside a person, not a single thing of regeneration could possibly take place. But the Divine activity must be acknowledged, received, and also reinforced by the individual’s will to reject all that is false and evil. The individual is the locus where the astonishing process of rebirth takes place. It is an exquisitely personal process that requires the joint activity of God and man, and the man always has the complete freedom to choose this as his way of life.

Dr Philip Groves, Swedenborg’s Mighty Contribution: Swedenborg’s view of the individual.

oooOOOooo

What would a Swedenborgian response be to these 2 questions?

« What’s wrong with the world?

« What can we do about it?

These are the responses from people who are very familiar with Swedenborg’s Writings.

What’s wrong with the world?

The pervasive atmosphere is a spirit of living life for oneself, which arises out of the appearance that one is an autonomous independent being. There is something deep within that seeks to preserve this at all costs (which is from the Lord) however when the Lord is not acknowledged this is misinterpreted and leads to behaviours and a willingness to sacrifice the happiness and well-being of others – if that’s what it takes (fully justified of course). Without a sense of connection to the source of all life we create an illusionary world in with we can exercise a false sense of control and effectively make our self a god of our own little world. David Millar

What can we do about it?

Acknowledge the illusion we live in, look to the source, and attend to the quality of our own belief structures and patterns of being in view of our understanding of truths. We cannot change the world or others, what we can do is be willing to have the Lord change us. The Lord provides for this – work on ourselves (examine ourselves in an attitude open to seeing and responding to what’s revealed) - which is the most effective way to bring a change into the world. David Millar

When we go through regeneration we become completely different and altogether new because we have been born again. Even though our face and speech hasn't changed, our mind certainly has; it is now open towards heaven, and love to the Lord, love for others and faith all live together in it. Such a changed mind makes us completely different from before and in fact makes us new. Swedenborg ‘Heavenly Secrets’ 3212 (selected by Julian Duckworth)

Dedicate - or re-dedicate - ourselves to a life of service.

Teach it to and nurture it in our children.

Refuse to accede to the appearance that the ‘What's in it for me’, ‘Must look after number one’ philosophies are all that there is. The appearance, however, is not the reality. Countless people are dedicated to service and usefulness. Ian Arnold