Atheism and the Responsiveness Mystery

Fog droplets in predawn moonlight

I was part of a discussion recently about atheism. A professor was asking the students to provide evidence of the existence of God.

While I would probably fail if the assignment was mine to do, I don’t lack for responses, and it set me to thinking.   

Can you provide evidence of the existence of Love?  

It’s true, people act like they love each other, but what proof is there? Nothing is tangible.  Nothing is measurable. Obviously it disappears sometimes.  People say they love each other, and then later they don’t, so maybe it wasn’t there at all. Could you – or I – prove to someone who didn’t believe in Love, that Love exists?  I’m not sure that I could.   

But I know that it does.   

Can you provide evidence of the existence of Gravity?

Of course, things fall to the ground, we all know that. But maybe that’s just the way the earth works. Why does there have to be a force? There is no proof that there’s a force called gravity.   Well sure, out in space things are different, but that’s to be expected. You cannot see it, touch it, taste it, measure it, etc. Why do some people think it exists?  

Can you provide evidence of the existence of God?

No, I can’t provide evidence of an Old Testament angry God. I don’t believe that God is real, except in people’s minds.   

But here is what I know absolutely.  

The Universe (which is another name for God) is responsive. 

Responsive.  

Before I explain further, a little detour.. let’s imagine a young woman who has been traumatized as a child by people who said they loved her – perhaps beaten, even assaulted.  Her concept of Love is completely corrupted by what has happened to her. Now, as an adult, she no longer believes in Love.  

“Love doesn’t exist. It’s all fake. People just act like they love each other so they can get what they want. Prove to me that Love exists. I don’t believe it.”

What are the chances of her finding a healthy romantic relationship, or even a solid friendship, in the face of her beliefs?

Little to none. Practically zero. Why?  Because the Universe is responsive. Her mind is powerful enough to overcome the truth that Love exists, at least for the duration of her beliefs, and perhaps her entire lifetime. 

I’m not saying that simple affirmations or statements will bring about something. I AM saying The Universe is Responsive.  

Over time, statements, convictions, and deeply held beliefs we have show up in our lives and bring us “proof.” This young woman is quite likely to find herself in similar situations to her childhood dynamics that “prove” to her that Love doesn’t exist. 

The Universe is Responsive.  

Over time, by contrast, if I am convinced that Love is all there is, and that people simply choose to deny or contradict it sometimes, my life demonstrates that Love. The Universe is Responsive.   

In my garden, if I Love and nurture and spend time with the plants, I am rewarded with a great harvest and little surprises.   

In my family, if I Love and spend time with my little grandchildren, I’m rewarded with a huge smile a week later from my one-year old, who remembers and loves me back.  

In my marriage, if I Love and appreciate and devote time to my relationship, I’m rewarded by a deep sense of connection. No, I can’t prove the existence of that Love.  But I can savor it.

Simply put – over time, what we are deeply convinced of shows up in our lives. The Universe is Responsive.   

If you are deeply convinced you are isolated and alone, that will show up in your life. Much like an anorexic who is thin to the point of death can look in the mirror and “see” fat, you will ignore the love and connection that is in your life and see only the isolation.  

If you are deeply convinced the Universe is a loving place and you are connected, that will show up in your life. You will find yourself in mostly loving relationships and activities, and will find creative and loving ways to navigate difficulties so that more love appears.  

God is Mystery. God is Principle. God is Responsive. God is Love. 

If you’ve had trauma that convinced you that Love doesn’t exist, or Love hurts, or you are alone, there is help to heal that trauma. 

You CAN learn to open, trust, Love, and experience the responsiveness of the Universe from a place of deepening Love. You don’t have to prove it to anyone. Just experiment.  

The Universe is Love and and the Universe will respond to you. 

I cannot prove the existence of Love or God or even gravity to you.  But you can prove it to yourself.  

   © by Linda Chubbuck 2019 

See Yourself as a Novice Buddha Sitting Surrounded……

Meditation

Conversations with Yeshua.  This is channeled material, edited minimally for clarity only. It is personal information given to me and my husband Stan, but relevant to many situations and this is one I am asked to share with the world. From a session with a client. 

Client:  I feel the biggest issue that I need help with right now is regarding how to make my living.  I need at least double what I’m doing now. I don’t know the best avenues if any to make that happen. I’d like guidance about how to find about the ways to do that if indeed that’s what I’m supposed to be doing.

Y.  The question has been received and we are giving Linda just a  little time to step to the side so that her thoughts do not intrude.

We see you as immensely rich, and at peace. We’re going to give you an image that you can meditate upon. We see you sitting upon your cushion, meditating, surrounded, literally in this order, by gold coins, by a ring of rich and beautiful foods, and by people listening to you, receiving what’s coming through you.  And you in the center, at peace, knowing all this is yours.

Meditation You have gifts that have come in with you, gifts that you have polished and refined, the gift of a soulful eye which you use with your art, the gift of kindness which you feel and practice towards the world at large and the gift of healing which you have honed by doing your own work.

Add to this the gift of your words, the ability to put all those things into words and you are —truly —gifted.

But we also know that you have old familiar shackles that you still carry with you that keep you from even remembering those gifts at times. They are heavy like a ball and chain despite all the work you’ve done, and you feel frustrated with this at times, is that correct?

C: Yes.  And more stubborn to change than I would like to admit. There’s something inside me I feel little control over that feels stuck and stubborn and unwilling to change. Fearful.

(silence)

We are going to ask you to —and we are going to ask you to repeat this practice —we are going to ask to to do something that dis-identifies with your name and personality.

This could be an astral journey, or this could be a meditative practice. But within this we’re going to ask you to pretend you’ve died.

Pretend you have died.

Imagine how you would want to come back?  How would you bless this soul that is you with your greatest love?  as if for your dearest friend or your nephew or anyone you felt love towards.

How would you want them to come back to the next lifetime?  What would you gift them with?

And you don’t have to answer that now but if you have an answer we’re willing to listen.  What would you bless them with?

C: Love. Belief in their own gifts.

Would you bless them with a loving family, or a challenging family?  And if you don’t know that’s alright. Doesn’t matter.

C: I don’t know. I want to say a loving family.

Yes.

C: It’s been hard without that. Hard to find a place to stand in my life. Hard to believe in myself.

Play with that. Meditate on that. And then, go through a ceremony for yourself. Die.

"Hello Darkness" tall bearded Iris
“Hello Darkness” Iris

Then come back with all these gifts that you already have refined and honed. But you don’t have to live them as You, The Wounded One anymore. You can let him die and you can have a beautiful ceremony, for all the good he’s done and all the hard work that he’s done.

You are a soul. You are not only what Your Self experiences. Do you believe that?

C: Yeah, I believe that, I just can’t quite comprehend it.

Well, let’s imagine for a moment. (We’re taking you out to the edge.) Let’s imagine for a moment that you had received a dire diagnosis last week, and this was perhaps the last expectation of a week with your family.

Everything would be sweet and rich. Even all the pain you’ve suffered in your life, yes?

C: Yes, probably.

And the people that have loved you, and the love you’ve experienced, and the teachers that you’ve had and the joys you’ve had with your cats.

And then, somewhere along in the next few months, you die.

And what happens then? What do you take with you and what do you leave behind?

C: I don’t know how that works. I think I take the love that I have cultivated.

Uh-Hmmm..

C: I fear I also take the challenges and the stuck-ness. And the fears.

Do you believe you have to?

C: I’ve been told that’s the way it works.

You’ve been told you have to take that with you?

C: Well, that that’s the way the cosmos works. We carry with ourselves both the freedom and the stuck-ness.

Well we’re going to tell you that we don’t agree with that. And that you don’t have to take the stuck-ness with you. We’re not saying it’s not real, we’re saying you don’t have to take it with you.

And you don’t have to die to do what we’re describing to you. But you have to go through some sort of death.

C: Yeah. I understand.

Different traditions will give it different names. The tradition that we are in, as Yeshua, we would call it forgiveness, compassion, and complete surrender.  In other traditions it might be called the Emptiness. There may be other words for it. What we are suggesting is a complete Death.  to everything tangible and everything that feels stuck to you.

Wrestle with, if you need to, wrestle with the part of you that says “You have to take all this with you.”

We say to you that part is the unforgiveness. Unforgiving of yourself, unforgiving of certain others, and we know its there, we get that, but you do not have to take it with you. But you have to use more keys to unlock that since it is part of your belief system.

Death is actually a freedom, a release when a person gets too tired of the patterns, and a chance to start over with compassion, with love. Some people do bring more than others with them. But that’s not the rule. There is no requirement for that.

If you can go through a deep and radical forgiveness you can do it all and keep this same body.  It is possible and others have done it before you. If you start watching for those who have left behind a life of stuck-ness, a life of unforgiveness, you will see them. and we say to you, “You can do that.”

And when the voice comes up that says, “No, you’ve been too wounded, this will never work, it doesn’t work for me,” you respond, “When I die, I want to leave behind the stuck-ness. I want to leave with only Love, only Compassion, and hey, while I’m at it, I’m gonna do it before I die.”

Do you believe that’s possible?

C: I believe it, like, I hear the words, and it makes sense and I could see somebody else doing it, I don’t believe it in that I don’t know HOW, I don’t know Step 1 to take that I haven’t already tried a hundred times before. And with discouragement I say that.

Uh-hmmm.

Then the other suggestion we are going to make is this: we say to you this is possible. We say to you, you may want to make that decision in advance of your physical death to burden yourself less in your next lifetime, and we’re saying to you you can do it in this lifetime.

If you don’t believe it, call upon your favorite teachers and say, “Help Me Believe This!”

Any one of them, all of them.  And we’re sure you know this, you’ve told others this —you don’t have to know HOW to do it. You just have to have a sincere and deep intention.  And then kind of… go have fun.

C: Yeah, I know that. One of the most reliable ways I can get in touch with my open heartedness is I think of the many people who have honored me with their surrender to my wisdom.  And have asked me for help.

And most of them received help yes?

C: Yes.

You are no less worthy

C: I can almost get in touch with willingness to change just in order that I might be more available to more people.

YES.

C: I know there are limitations when I am more stuck.

The use of the word STUCK is not entirely accurate. We would describe to you that you, over the years, have certainly changed, you have certainly made progress. But this is a way you describe yourself, and to you it feels as if the soul progress, the soul unfolding, the awakening process is very slow.

So we would invite you to stop using the word stuck, and just say, “I would like to release more, faster, and if that means I need to forgive my mother, if that means I need to forgive Trump, if that means I need to forgive… I’m willing to do anything that’s real and loving in order to get unstuck.”

You may not be able to say that today. But that’s what we invite you to say. And of course, we won’t even try to describe to you what could happen in your life and in your work as you do these things.

We started you out with a vivid image. Instead of seeing you the way you see yourself now, as a stuck curmudgeon, see yourself as a novice buddha sitting surrounded by everything you could have ever wanted.  With people listening to your words and benefitting from them.

You are that. And it’s right there for you.

The answer to your question about your work is that the way you see yourself and the way you hold that stuck-ness as a default setting is the first thing that has to change.

You could market and market and market and as long as you hold that stuck energy feeling, you won’t have much more success than you have now. This is the answer that is relevant today.

If you were really facing Death how much do you want to take with you?  How much do you think God or the Universe or Karma requires you to take with you? Think about those things.   And then, if you choose, do it now, instead of at whatever time you choose to lay your body down.

 

Who knew? Puppies and Principles

When my children were in grade school, we got our beloved Liska, a white Spitz puppy.   She looked – and pounced – like an Arctic fox and was a fabulous companion and playmate in our country home.

Of course she always knew when we were preparing to head out for a walk down our country road – what dog doesn’t?   But there was another stranger thing.  Sometimes I would be finishing the kitchen cleanup and think to myself, “I need to give Liska a bath.”  At the moment she would be dozing nearby.   By the time I finished the cleanup, she was nowhere to be found.

Normally responsive to my calling, she uncharacteristically did not come to me.  Nor could I locate her visually anywhere.  Hmmm…. what happened?        IMG_4065

No bath of course.

Eventually she’d reappear.   When this happened repeatedly I looked harder.   I found her on the floor deep under our queen-sized bed, in the middle, too far for my arm to reach.   She never went there normally, but there she was.

As I pondered all this, I realized she was picking up on my mental intention to bathe her – which she didn’t like.   So, when the “intention” faded out, she resurfaced.

I had to find a way to keep my mind clear of thoughts of “bath” and just pick her up.  That was challenging, but over the years, I managed to do it often enough that she was usually nice-smelling.  It still amazed me that she could read my mind in that way.

Fast-forward to now.   Stan and I find ourselves raising a lovely white Spitz (officially American Eskimo miniature) puppy, now just under 4 months old.   Desperate to solve problems, be good doggie parents and eventually have a well-mannered companion, I’m reading two puppy books and watching films.

Here’s what I have learned so far.  In All Dealings with Puppies, you must:

1. be clear and unconflicted in your intent
2. project only a calm, assertive energy (manage your energy); use body language as well
3. praise acceptable behaviors, ignore most unwanted behaviors.
4. use words only after these conditions are met.

Do you see it?

When I read this list, I can substitute Your Life, for Puppies.  These are the same principles I’m working on in the rest of my life.

Who knew?

Well, probably Cesar Millan for one… and the Monks of New Skete.   But I sure did not.

Raising a puppy – successfully- is a profound spiritual practice.   With immediate feedback.  Unlike Life, which can be a bit slow, a puppy is a downright instant biofeedback machine.

Upset? Angry? Nervous?  Puppy is unsettled, frenetic, chewing and biting.

Calm, assertive, loving?  Puppy is cooperative, relaxed.

Puppy can “read my mind,” just like Life does.

Wow.  If I had known this I would have saved myself a lot of grief and got a puppy years ago.