One wonders how far spiritual and political leaders can genuinely lead us without some degree of mystical seeing and action.

It’s the freedom of the children of God. Such people can connect with everybody. They don’t feel the need to eliminate anybody.

Whole people see and create wholeness wherever they go; split people see and create splits in everything and everybody.

Who is telling us about the false self today? Who is even equipped tell us? Many clergy have not figured this out for themselves, since even ministry can be a career decision or an attraction to "religion" more than the result of an encounter with God or themselves. Formal religious status can maintain the false self rather effectively, especially if there are a lot of social payoffs like special respect, titles, salaries, a good self image, or nice costumes. It is no accident that the religious "Pharisees" became the symbolic bad guys in the Jesus story.

Faith does not need to push the river because faith is able to trust that there is a river. The river is flowing. We are in it.

Christianity is a lifestyle - a way of being in the world that is simple, non-violent, shared, and loving. However, we made it into an established "religion" (and all that goes with that) and avoided the lifestyle change itself. One could be warlike, greedy, racist, selfish, and vain in most of Christian history, and still believe that Jesus is one's "personal Lord and Savior" . . . The world has no time for such silliness anymore. The suffering on Earth is too great.

We do not make or create our souls, we just grow them up.