God and Me, a GUEST POST by Jim

Continuing our series about the search for God, and how aura readings can change it, here are fascinating comments from Jim:

I grew up in a very strict Roman Catholic household. My parents were both somewhat sticklers for every detail in every instance, although I make no pretense of having lived up to their expectations in any sort of consistently reasonable way. I fell short over and over again, although I was always trying to do better.

In every generation, the Church has fostered saints of superb, pristine excellence. These people have attained great heights of spiritual adjustment, attunement and accomplishment. They all have personal experience of the Divine in a way that is powerful indeed. In this vein, we could list an unending supply, although today I will list St. Theresa of Avila, St. John of the Cross, Brother Lawrence, Brother Andre, and St.
Catherine of Sienna. There are thousands more.

To my mind, it has always been strange indeed that the Catholic clergy has—at the pastoral level—treated these people as if they were exceptional people. Taking the view, more or less, “don’t try this at home” is somehow counter-productive.

I would have expected these people to be trotted out for everyone to see and to meet. I would expect video tapes of them giving their “tips” on the spiritual life, something like the way that Jack Nicklaus might give golf tips or Rod Laver might give tennis tips. So, as Laver might say, “get your racquet back early, keep your eye on the ball” (he does always say that), I would expect something similar from these saintly people. Can’t you just see Theresa of Avila smiling sweetly and saying “get your ego back early, keep your eye on the humility?” Well, maybe not.

Of all the writings, the best clues I could ever see were left in St. John of the Cross’s encyclopaedic writings. I just love mathematics texts and physics text so much—because they are all content and no hot air. So, John of the Cross gives the closest thing I ever found to a course in “engineering spirituality.” What would that mean?

If you read a college engineering or physics or math text, you read some instructional words and then you work a bunch of problems. In effect, you go out (mentally) and experience real situations in which you have to make those ideas work. You turn them over many times and use them—suddenly you understand for real. I wanted that so much.

Still, I confess I couldn’t do it. I tried hard with John’s stuff for 20 or 30 years (the decades go by quickly after a while). Still, I was no nearer at the end than at the beginning.

It has only been gradually and very lately that things have shifted a bit.
While it sounds unusual, aura reading (I do it at the baby level—I read auras sort of at the Dr. Seuss level and not at the Kobayashi Nomizu level) and cutting cords of attachment mattered to me. These allow me to recognize as valid or important some stimuli that I had not noticed or that I had thought to be unimportant or unreliable. It allowed me a new skill.

Reading auras gives me access to perceptions I have but didn’t notice well.
That is important—extending perception. Also, “getting big”, done often enough, makes a big difference.

I have used these techniques toward many experiments indeed that are not in the book. If you can read the aura of a person, why can you not read the aura of the earth itself (you can). Why cannot you investigate the inner nature of an institution (you can, but it gets flakier—institutions are often, by nature, flakier).

It stands to reason that it is possible to turn this kind of perception toward the Divine. Yes, you can. So, I tried it (lately), and I found vastly, extremely unexpected things.

The factual history of my life is not somehow changed. However, it can be seen wildly differently that I have ever seen it. I see it as a very long sequence of usually (not always) fruitless struggles. I see it as mostly failure (not entirely failure). We could say it is a painting of modest successes on a background of vast failure—to me.

God, apparently, sees the same facts differently. This has all been necessary preparation. This whole sequence to now has been the first learning stage of a bigger school.