Re: Shamanism course Hypnosis

I have done self hypnosis for many years and have been able to relieve stress with this aide. I think I have done it even as a child. My parents used to tell people that if I was watching TV there woud be no use talking to me because i would never hear them but I never remembered what I was watching on TV. I would "Space- Out" as my mother called it and would not respond unless yelled at or touched. I remember this being said about me yet never remembered anything anyone said or did during that time period.

-- Virginia
ULC Seminary

Lesson 8 Dr. of Spirituality course

Hi Amy,

Here are my answers to this week's lesson:

1.       Give my understanding of what it means to serve Truth or illusions: I believe we have forgotten who we are.  We have forgotten our Divine selves. We have forgotten we are One with the All That Is. As we have "forgotten" our heritage we have invented an illusion that we are separate and we are small and not up to the task of doing whatever it is we believe we are supposed to do. We believe we are weak and we believe that if we fail to live up to some imagined standard that we will be punished and forever separated from the All That Is.  With the Holy Spirit we can "re-member" that we are not separate and therefore there is nothing to fear. Without fear we move out of illusion.  We change from "responsible" (and therefore guilty of doing or failing to do something) and we move into the ability to "respond".  When we respond in Truth we are answering our Divine calling.  We are in partnership with the Divine.

2.       In my own words explain how perception and projection work to dilute the power of prayer: I think that perception and projection are examples of separateness.  It keeps us into thinking of "me" rather than "I".  If we attend to "perception" i.e. our illusory beliefs about something we then must find a reason for why this perception is so.  When we do this we are locked into the illusion and are not open to the What Is.  These "defense mechanisms" keep us from realizing the Truth and from accepting any answer that does not fit into our false belief system. I am reminded of a Buddhist story I read several years ago that seems to fit this lesson.  It talked about a priest and his followers walking along a mountain path on their way back to the monastery.  They looked up and saw an elderly man walk into the river and saw him go over a waterfall.  They ran as fast as they could to try to rescue this man, however, were quite a distance from the river.  When they finally arrived they were astonished because the elderly man was wading out of the river.  They asked him "how he had survived" as they were sure he must have died during this experience.  The elderly man replied, "I learned a long time ago not to fight the river."  I think the priest and his followers represent "illusion" and the elderly man represents "Oneness with the All That Is." I think he also demonstrates that by surrendering ourselves to the Truth there is no death, there is no separation.

Rev. Monnie

Universal Life Church

Spirituality

Spiritualism or Defining Spirituality

An essay for a course from Universal Life Church Seminary 

Rev. Carol Birdwell

This course had 19 lessons and covered a great deal of the history of western thought and the development of religion. It was directed toward the minister so that she would know how to respond to people who argue against spirituality as unscientific.

It is my belief that today we are seeing science and spirituality merge and meet each other in Quantum Physics, but it may be years yet before this becomes widely recognized as fact. Just last week my 17-year old nephew sent me an email in which he expressed his atheistic beliefs, but did not wish to go into explaining why he feels that way. He has never been exposed to any religion in his young life.

I dove right in and took the opportunity to explain some of my spiritual beliefs to him in a very kind and loving way, that I hoped might be “dropping a seed” for him to pull out and look at some time in his future, perhaps after it has even “grown” a bit. There was only love between us in this email exchange and he wrote back a nice note and I was thrilled.

As ministers it is important that we observe people and decide which ones are mind driven and which ones are heart driven. If we want to talk about our beliefs to others it is important that we never, ever push our beliefs, but always be gentle, kind, and understanding, and be aware of where “they are coming from”.

In this course, we studied people whose names I was not familiar with, that I have never studied before, and we also studied many well-known names, such as Plato, Aristotle, Descartes, Kant, Einstein, Nietzsche, Merlin, Jesus, Buddha, Socrates, and others. We also learned of various movements and groups.

I agree with our course teacher that if Jesus were alive today, it is very likely he would not be a Christian, and if he were a Christian, he would not be the kind of Christian we are most accustomed to seeing most of the time. He would certainly not be a “fundamentalist” Christian, but more likely a Positive Christian or a New Thought Christian, like the kind of Christian I am. For many years I even took offense at the word Christian and certainly would not call myself one!

Jesus did not come to this planet to start a religion. None of our great teachers and avatars did. They came to teach. Jesus was our big brother and came to teach us that we are Gods, co-creators with all of the energy of the universe, of all that is and ever was and ever will be.

He came to teach us that LOVE is the lesson, and that we can do the same miracles he did and “even greater”, when we know and accept who we are, all of us a part of the Divine Creator, all Divine Energy, all the same Sons of God that he was, our teacher, not our savior as the fundamentalist Christian churches believe.

We walk our paths, our many different paths that all lead back to God, from whence we came and in whom we have our very lives and breathe our very breaths, the breath of God, with whom we are all one, and all of us are all one together, all the same Divine Energy, that changes form, forever and ever, and is always God, as you, as me, as the guy next door.

I very much enjoyed this course, and intend to continue to study it over and over. There is a lot of history and philosophy in it with which I want to become more familiar. There are more “reads” ahead for these lessons I have saved on my computer.

Thank you.

**********************

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Spiritual Awareness

Masters of Spiritual Awareness Final Essay Rev. Barry Deel             When I decided to take the spiritual awareness course I was in a time of my life when I had become disconnected from my own spiritual path that I had chosen.  I was trying to find a way to fan the flame that I had so become depended upon in my life.  I had become bitter and resentful of all the situations and people involved that seemed to be some how against me or out to hurt me.  I had thrown all my beliefs out the window and stopped using the lessons that I had learned over my life to guide myself through this time.  I had even thought that I had lost my connection to Divinity and thought that my chosen gods and goddesses had turned from me leaving me alone and without any reason as to why they would have done this.  I spent many hours in self-loathing and pity cursing the fact that I had made really bad choices.  I was going around asking people that I knew and thought that I could trust beyond a shadow of a doubt to see if they could help shed some light on what I was going through, but they could not give any information or reasons that made any sense.  So, I decided that I need to take a good look at myself and see what I could find.  All that I could come up with was the fact that I had an urge that was very strong to learn something but not knowing what it was I had no where to even start looking for this new learning.  When, I would be out and about among the people that had some how hurt me I would here about the ULC in some way or form.  The ULC kept coming up, coincidence, I don't think so.  I thought what the heck, I am a member of the ULC and what could it hurt to see what they had to offer.  Well, I found that the ULC was exactly what I needed and was looking for.  The first course I took was the Maters of Metaphysical healing do to the fact that I was a Healer with my own practice I figure that I would use this course to judge the validity of the lessons offered.  By the time I had finished the twenty week course I had come to realize that this was "It".  I found myself going through the courses being offered and deciding which courses that I wanted to take after I had completed the metaphysical healing course.  At that moment when I made the choice to continue with the learning provided by the ULC the courses lined up on there own as to which would be next and all the way to the last course.  I knew right then and there that my divinity had not stopped talking, but, that I had stopped listening.  Once that connection had been realized within me the flame of my spirit sparked and began to burn though it was not as bright as it had been in the past.  I realized that my divinity had wanted me to return to a beginning point to reassess my life and what I had learned.              The masters of spiritual awareness began with a very simple insight, find beauty in life.  This insight was so simple and so easy that I thought what in the world are they trying to convey?  Well, even the simplest of things and actions can have the impact of a lightning strike.  I followed the lessons of the awareness course and practiced the techniques and found that the flame of my spirit was getting brighter.  As all of this was going on I realized that the course was teaching me the same things that I had already done in my life and practice when I started out on my chosen spiritual path.  It was like a homecoming to me and every time I made a connection with what was being taught and my earlier years I would found myself laughing.  Yes, at my self for being so stupid in forgetting were I had come from.  I had gotten caught up in my mundane life of trying to make money, pay bills, meet my needs that I had lost myself and had forgotten my vision and purpose, which I now understand to be the incorrect choice, not the wrong choice.  Due to the fact that I now know I am fulfilling my vision.  But, everything in life needs to be in balance.  The spiritual awareness course was just what I needed to reassess and become even more connected in my spiritual practice and balanced in everyday life.  By becoming aware of the coincidences in my life and truly looking at them I now have had great opportunities arise that I thought that I would never have in this life time.  The Spiritual awareness course was a spiritual life preserver for me and I would recommend it to anyone who feels or thinks that they are not connected to divinity or to life. ******************** Ordination with the Universal Life Church, is free,  and lasts for life, so use the Free Online Ordination, button. As a long time member of ULC, Rev. Long created the seminary site to help train our ministers. We also have a huge catalog of Universal Life Church materials.  I've been ordained with the Universal Life Church for many years and it's Seminary since the beginning and have loved watching the continual growth of the seminary. Try our new free toolbar at: ULC Toolbar