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THE VOW OF HONESTY WAY OF LIVING SET YOUR FOUNDATION

Imagine that you are inside the bodies of others. We are interpersonally alike. It is like you are in others and others are in you. We all have the same universal consciousness in us. You will finally awaken to the calming relief of seeing yourself in others. You awaken to the peace that passes all understanding – Koan: WORDS ARE TRAPS. “Wow! I am finally awake! It has been in front of my face all of the time! Everyone is like me in their body! I am the Self of all!”

                                                      THE VOW OF HONESTY

The Vow of Honesty is the natural way to permanently open your heart to yourself, others, and the oneness of the universe. It is the most potent seed planted in you. It has you owning your mind. Honesty leads you to realize that you are the pure Spirit of everything beyond the limits of your mind. The complete honesty condition is constant prayer for yourself and others. It is praying without ceasing. Honesty will eventually balance your emotional and feeling centers. Yoga calls these centers chakras. It grounds and aligns you in the way of Nature. It is simple and fundamental for nonfragmented growth and is your foundation. It is the great igniter that makes predominantly stronger the force of the divine or Higher Self of goodness inside you over your weak ego or lower self. Your lower self ego is prone to dishonesty.

The process of becoming completely honest is the process of the ongoing merger of the lower self with the Higher Self in a union with the Higher Self in charge. Honesty makes you whole (one) and nondual inside. Your perception of your inside world becomes one with the outside world because of the merger. You realize you are part of the energy of everything. You begin to see yourself in the behavior of others because our lower selves are generally the same. You notice communication in universal patterns of honesty and dishonesty. Before the merger, you are fragmented with the two aspects of Self/self struggling for dominance; this is duality. Before the merger, your lower self ego is more in charge and is separate from your Higher Self, and you think you are separate from others and from the world. You are not fully conscious of your connection with others and the world. With the ongoing merger, the two inner aspects of you become “one” and are no longer unconsciously separate. With the ongoing merger, you are becoming conscious of the two inner aspects. Your awakening to the merger makes you realize you are psychologically and physically connected with the conscious energy of others and the world. Your lower self is transforming into the Higher Self.

 Honesty eventually weds your heart to your mind with no blocks in between. Being honest with yourself alerts you to the hidden unconscious blocks that you are not facing in the discovery of yourself and others. You realize that these unconscious blocks are lurking in the back of your mind, so to speak. The unconscious blocks are trapped energy and can make you sick. You may be realizing the blocks of others because we are generally the same. You are putting yourself together. Being as honest as you can be is the essential element for the necessary character development of higher spirituality. Being as honest as you can be will eventually render you purification of heart. An honest conscience will nudge you to improve in all aspects of your life. The vast majority of people, past and present, have not been completely honest. Being mindfully honest through the development of a guiding conscience is the cognitive approach to higher spirituality. The necessary emphasis of a guiding conscience has been the simple missing link for enlightenment. 

Complete honesty expands your awareness. Your established disposition of honesty intuitively alerts you to the honesty and dishonesty of others. Dormant spiritual energy naturally awakens as spiritual power as you slowly develop your character through being fully honest with yourself and others. You become self-other-realized. Prolonged honesty enlightens you while it is setting you free. Honesty is pure energy. Dishonesty is impure energy. When you lie, you are psychologically separate from others. A habitual liar thinks he is separate from others (Me vs.You Duality). When you are honest, you are lovingly connected heart-to-heart with others (Nonduality or Undifferentiated). You are separate from others until you realize the Honesty/dishonesty dichotomy of communication. Your attitude transforms from being secretly separate to a conscious connection with others sympathetically concerned for their welfare. Established honesty has you compassionately realizing what our shared energy does to each other for good or harm. Dishonesty is a theft of reality from others. After you make the Vow with sincerity, it will immediately expand your awareness while it accelerates your growth in all areas of life.

                                               CONSCIENCE AND WILLPOWER

The higher spiritual life is about expanding your awareness through love for yourself in connection with love for others and everything else. Universal Consciousness will awaken in you to observe your thoughts and feelings as if you were above them, looking down. You will become aware of your conscience and willpower. The Vow keeps you mindfully in the present. You will gain the presence of your mind’s conscience, which will make you aware when you lie and think about lying or performing falsehoods. You will be on top of yourself, so to speak. You will start noticing yourself being false and correct yourself. Your willpower becomes stronger for everything you undertake, including healing addictions and negative thinking, because of your heart’s loving devotion to yourself and others. Unhealthy desires cease on the path of self-awareness. You become conscious of being kind to yourself and others. You embody compassion. It is the Spirit of your enforced willpower aligning with Truthfulness that will stop you from dishonesty and eventually thinking about being dishonest forever. You live in a state of ongoing refinement of your Truth. Your truth has to do with your body within the universe. Your tendency for Truthfulness is your lower self or ego merging with the higher awareness of goodness of the Higher Self, which is our shared Higher Self.

Your main fundamental undertaking for the clarity of your inner and interpersonal life is being as honest as you can be. You must make the Vow.

                             WE ARE GENERALLY THE SAME INSIDE OURSELVES

The Vow is your foundation to know yourself and others. We are generally the same inside. The Vow will show you that we are generally the same inside because when you know the workings of your mind and body, you generally know the workings of others due to our general sameness. We have specific egos and personalities. We are the same in that we all have the same Higher Self in a ‘tug of war’ with our individualized lower ego selves. Whether we are being honest or not, we communicate in recognizable universal patterns. We are just in different bodies. The Vow creates empathy for all beings, making you think about the inner life of all beings. You realize what others are going through. You realize that other beings are your soulmates or Spiritmates, and so is the earth and the entire cosmos. You stop thinking of having enemies. It makes you think and feel with your heart about the Truth of everything. Empathy has you realizing what you do to others when you are dishonest. As our consciousness becomes purer, we stop being dishonest and mean. Why would you be dishonest or mean with someone who is generally the same as you inside? You are separate from others when you are dishonest and mean. You have not accepted yourself. You are not adjusted. You are not positively connected. It is like you are being dishonest and mean to yourself, and you are. 

                                          SELF-ACCEPTANCE IS SURRENDER 

The love of your heart is opening and further opening here. The Vow has you realistically accepting who you are and is your surrender to the universe. After you surrender, you notice you are strong enough to look others in the eye. Self-acceptance is the foundation for the virtue of humility. No matter what you have to put up with, you have to accept yourself to flourish. It has you becoming universally conscious of yourself and others. Your conscience, with your strengthening willpower, has you saying, “I accept myself.” You must accept your body with your looks and the conditions of your life. We gain higher spirituality through our pain. Peace comes to those who can control the mind and body. We have to admit our difficulties to ourselves. Some of us have more pain than others. It is much easier for some of us to accept ourselves than it is for others. Many people never think about self-acceptance. You may need to make a prayer of petition to God as you understand God to give you the strength to go on. Your lower self ego is surrendering to the divine, Great Spirit, yourself, or goodness in you and the universe at this point. Your heartfelt surrender is the doorway to union with the Self of all. The Self of all is the Spirit of all manifested as the living, clear Spirit of perception of interpersonal consciousness in humans.

 You may be at the lowest point of suffering called “The Dark Night of the Soul.” The Dark Night has you realizing your mortality. You realize you could die if you do not accept the conditions of your life and go from there, changing for the better. You are surrendering to “what you are,” and this is when what are called miracles happen. You are aligning with what you are among other people and with the universe. Here you come face-to-face with God or Truth. You will eventually realize that you are the infinite Spirit of all. You must surrender.

As you surrender to accepting your body with your looks and the conditions of your life, your health will improve. You will become strongly conscious about improving your diet and getting proper exercise. We eat and exercise to live. Physical activity increases blood circulation. You will find physical activities that suit your mind and body. You will study health and spirituality. You will become continually mindful of your breathing. We get most of our energy from the air. Tune into your breathing. You will notice that as your breath slows down, so does your mental activity, as in meditation and other concentrative activities. You will strengthen your capacity for deep concentration through meditation and other concentration activities, including sports. The contemplative awareness of knowing your mind and body naturally has you transcending your mind and body. You will realize in deep silence that you, everyone, and everything are pure Spirit within and beyond your mind, body, and material existence. Spirit and matter are one. You will naturally notice that others are or are not going through the same processes of growth. You will notice that some people are disabled or limited by their good looks and fame. Empathy has you self-other-realizing that others are going through the surrender-acceptance process like you are experiencing. You understand suffering. You are becoming whole. Most people suffer in silent separation from others for their entire lives. You must change your perspective from separation to connection. You are interpersonally awakening to yourself among others. You are developing the intention of benefiting everyone and everything. 

                                         FORGIVING YOURSELF AND OTHERS

Forgiving yourself and others is part of the process of self-acceptance as surrender. Most people are carrying unhealed pain. The surrender process has you realizing that you could not help the bad and wrong things you did to others in the past. You did not know what you were doing. You were not conscious of yourself among others. You were not conscious that love is about loving yourself, others, and everything. You are awake for the first time. You realize others are like you inside their bodies. You realize they are going through the same awakening process as you, or they are not. You start to see yourself in others doing things you did before awakening. Many people stay stuck at a certain degree of awakening. It begins to seem like we have the same self in our different bodies. Spirit becomes many. What we have is the same Self/self set-up. You are intuitively realizing that we act in universal patterns. You see the same Self/self set-up inside you in others. You are in the profound awe of self-other-realization. All the cells of your body know when you have truly reached the high vibrational degree of complete honesty; this is when you become enlightened or are on the verge of enlightenment. You realize that it is the same Higher Self Spirit in all of us that struggles to conquer the individualized lower self ego of our different bodies. You realize we are at different degrees of awakening to this awareness. You have set your foundation. You are grounded in our collective sameness, which is our collective consciousness.

You are now loving yourself, everyone, and everything with all of your heart. You are becoming universally conscious. Honest communication makes intimate relations much more comfortable and pleasurable. You are now ready to accomplish what you sense you should accomplish. It is said that we are closest to God when we are doing things we love. Find what you love to do and give it your heartfelt devotion.

Keep the koan WORDS ARE TRAPS in your mind. It is designed to take us beyond intellect to the clear intuition of our open hearts while expanding us in universal awareness.

INSIGHT REVEALED IN NEW BOOK

My new book WORDS are TRAPS ENLIGHTENMENT MADE SIMPLE can be purchased now at store.bookbaby.com and pre-ordered at barnesandnoble.com. On 1/15/25 it will be available at Amazon and major book outlets.

The major groundfloor insight of the book is that honesty forms our conscience. This formation and reformation fosters heart-to-heart communication. It takes us out of our false sense of separation to know our interpersonal connection with each other that we are essentially the same inside and love each other as ourselves and grows us to know we are part of everything.

The book is a guide for high illumination, embodying the relief of natural inner peace that comes from awakening to a heart-to-heart connection with others, and enlightenment that stems from the extremely rare compound mystical experience I underwent explained in the feature article of the blog. Within the book and on the back cover, I list the important catalysts for high illumination: Complete Honesty + Character Development + Concentration + Meditation = Enlightenment.

The major catalyst that takes us out of the prison of our own minds or the illusion that we are separate from each other is honesty. Jesus simply said, “The truth will set you free.” John 8:32. Sensing the profundity in the honesty catalyst is of the higher mind or intuition. The heart knows. You get “on top” of your conscience. You become as honest as you can be with yourself and others. You make a commitment to never lie along with accepting your body with your looks and it is your surrender to God or the Universe. You stop your automatic lying responses. Being honest with yourself takes out your blind spots enabling you to see them in others. As honesty grows your character you will see your old self in others because we have the same model of self in each other that struggles to become one inside with the lower self uniting with the Higher Self – the Universal Self. You become better and better. This awakening fosters the deepest empathy. Your surrender to honesty graces you with the ability to notice dishonesty. You keep growing in this grace if you stay completely surrendered to honesty. In the Buddhist sense, we have no self because it is referred to as an illusion, it could be called The Universal no-self. The practice of contemplation takes in the virtue of honesty. Honesty with other character development including concentration and meditation are methods for knowing what goes on with our interior makeup and guides us to control ourselves.

When I went to Roman Catholic school in the 50s and 60s our consciences were improperly conditioned with strictures that were not properly explained by the clergy. It could be called brainwashing. We kids suffered greatly with warped neurotic consciences. If you did not go through an indoctrination like this you do not have experiential insight into it. Fortunately, we were able to learn about the behavior of holy people and saints. These strictures kept us from an expansive natural spiritual life like that of St. Francis and Nicholas Black Elk.

I simplified the whole thing within myself and it led me to know the Sacred Heart of Jesus or the Universal Heart. I threw out what did not make sense by becoming brave enough to be honest with myself as best as I could with constant revisions in understanding. I went against church doctrine where I felt it necessary and I eventually freed myself. I freed myself to know the hearts of others because I know my heart. I realized that we have the same self-makeup in our bodies. This is how we understand to love our neighbor as ourselves. I realized the Universal Self which is our mission. Committed honesty makes the spiritual energy of our bodies awaken. Christians call this grace. Yogis call it kundalini. As we become fully honest, never secretly believing we can lie, along with accepting ourselves the way we are, our bodies vivify with the purity of our shared Spirit. Committed honesty eventually takes us above the heart chakra to eventual Christ or Cosmic Consciousness. The cells of our bodies become glorified. The glorification process awakens us to the expanded awareness of our natural connection to each other and everything. A conscience formed in honesty naturally keeps us in the present because were are ever mindful of dishonesty. We combine the cognitive approach of honesty with further character development which includes different types of meditation and breathing and we become mystics.

SAME SELF DIFFERENT BODIES

1 Corinthians 12:13 NIV For we were all baptized by one Spirit so as to form one body whether Jews or Gentiles, slave or free – and we were all given one Spirit to drink.

Paul became enlightened when he was temporarily blinded by the firelight of explosive spiritual energy (kundalini) which caused him to fall off his horse. Paul realized our universal Spirit-Self or Christ Consciousness through the influence of Jesus. Christ Consciousness means the same as Cosmic Consciousness and is the embodied knowing of being part of everyone and everything. The unity consciousness known as Christ Consciousness is the Self-Other-Realization that we are the consciousness of the earth of Joseph Campbell, the I that is We of Richard Moss, and is the I am he as you are he as you are me and we are all together of the song, I Am The Walrus, by the Beatles.

The song WE ARE MANY PARTS, by Marty Haugen sung by Christians around the world relates the one Spirit of everything and us as the consciousness of the earth being the same Spirit-Self in our different bodies. We grow into recognizing that we have the same Spirit-Self in our different bodies. The awakening of awareness to the same Spirit-Self in our different bodies realizes (Self-Other-Realization) the love of neighbor as yourself (the same Spirit-Self) of Jesus. If we harm another we harm the other as the same Self in our bodies. You are in the other body. We exist at different degrees of awakened awareness that we are in the bodies of each other. The song:

Refrain – We are many parts, we are all one body, and the gifts we have we are given to share. May the Spirit of love make us one in deed: one, the love that we share, one, hope in despair, one, the cross that we bear.

1. God of all, we look to you, we would be your servants true, let us be your love to all the world. 2. So my pain is pain for you, in your joy is my joy too; all is brought together in the Lord. 3. All you seekers great and small, seek the greatest gift of all; if you love, then you will know the Lord.

There is an old Irish saying: Singing is twice praying.

Saint Paul became enlightened…

Paul became enlightened as he was jolted off his horse by a spontaneous massive kundalini surge to his crown chakra. The firelight of Kundalini was so luminous that it momentarily blinded him. Paul was realizing himself among others as he experienced the external locution of Jesus saying “Why do you persecute me?” Until this point of interpersonal clarity, Paul had been breaching the ethics of the Eighth Commandment, “Though shall not bear false witness against thy neighbor.” Intentionally making another appear bad for no good reason breaches this commandment. At this moment Paul awoke to Universal Consciousness referred to as Christ Consciousness in Christianity. Paul realized that Jesus was conveying Universal Consciousness to everyone through Judaism. Paul achieved what has been traditionally called Self-Realization which is really Self-Other-Realization.

The spontaneous kundalini arousal Moses received enlightened Moses with the interpersonal ethics of the Ten Commandments. These ethics are intended for us to realize ourselves among each other. The Commandments were created to awaken and enlighten us about the responsibility to respect and grow each other as a tribe. The commandments carry the force to take us to Self-Other-Realization when interpreted properly. The tribe extended becoming too large and the original potency of the grace from Moses became weakened.

The Universal Heart-Mind is Universal Consciousness.

When the heart is open the heart-mind is always beating to help everyone. When this stage or state becomes clear the so-called self or yourself is transcended and the state of the heart-mind of others is known. The state of the heart-mind of others is known because the illusion of being separate from others has turned from the illusion of being separate to the clarity of connectedness of how much others have realized the universal self as opposed to the lower-ego-false self. Until connectedness becomes clear thoughts and actions of deception are carried out. This is true from “the clergy on down” as the old saying goes. People labeled as enlightened invariably employ deception, competition, self-esteem maintenance, and damage control strategies until the state of non-separate connectedness is realized. When ascension in lovingness gets to the state of non-separation the heart has reached the love of everything which loves neighbor as self because the realized heart knows the struggles others are going through to realize the expanding state that knows universal consciousness. Universal consciousness is the same as Christ Consciousness and Krishna Consciousness. This is self-other-realization.