Short quotes and notes on life and spirituality 1

Growing in spirituality means having a deeper realization of your need for God.


People believe in and trust in human love, but not in God’s love, even though God created humans, and He is the Originator and Author of love, and His love is infinitely greater than any human’s love.


People don’t like to feel painful feelings. They use materialism as an escape from unpleasant feelings. They don’t admit that they feel disconnected from God and are materialistic: relying on job, money, house, family, people for comfort and security.


We say the world is a mess. God says yes, it’s a mess, but it’s a perfect mess.


You must let yourself feel the pain of God’s judgments (or the consequences of your actions) in order for it to work as a deterrent for future wrong actions. If you numb your pain, you won’t learn or grow from your mistakes. If the pain is not a result of wrong action or personal weakness, then the suffering is a test from God for the growth of your soul. Either way, suffering is a beneficial test from God. But if we numb the pain, repress it, or escape into material pleasures, we will lose the opportunity for human depth, relationship, love, connection, compassion, as well as spiritual growth, love, unity, closeness to God, love for God, feeling God’s love, healing, mercy, and compassion.


There is nothing but God-goo surrounding you.


You can’t be attached to the teaching work, your understanding of the process of spiritual growth, your understanding of anything, the work of helping people, your accomplishments, your knowledge, any person, your thoughts or feelings. Just cling to God—attach to Him only. Then you will know selfless love. No one can generate or produce selfless love, obviously. We must untangle from our attachments first, otherwise it will always be selfish love. To the extent we are detached from this world is the extent to which we can love others.


Your spirituality is different from your worthiness. Not everyone is spiritual, but everyone is worthy.


I want someone who is made happy by my presence, and whose presence makes me happy.


People use religion for ego power and ego security. It breeds guilt and competition just like the work/school/family/friends world.


We need to shed the husks of ego patterns, and reveal the vulnerable stuff inside—then shed that husk.


We don’t know our destiny; we can’t figure out our destiny. God does what He wills. All we can do is use our gifts and talents to serve Him by surrendering our all to Him, and by making choices in life that conform to the best understanding of His Word. His destiny for us is that we completely trust in Him, and entrust our future to Him without knowing what will come of it.


If everything God did seemed outwardly just, then we could never have the opportunity to exercise our faith in Him.


Most people have a negative relationship to suffering. We want to try to have a positive relationship to it by embracing it and seeing how God uses suffering to help us grow spiritually and reach out for His love. It also helps us to forge bonds of love with others, and it promotes detachment from worldly things.


Insecurity and fear come because others do judge and criticize us, and that hurts. We judge others in the way we fear others will judge us, or in the way we judge ourselves. By judging others, it gives us the power we lose from being judged and criticized by others or ourselves.


When you become emotionally dependent on someone, it produces a sense of expectation and entitlement from the person. When you don’t get what you want from the person, you may get angry with them because you think they owe it to you—but that is just coming from your attachment to them and lack of connection with God’s love.


The more you get hurt, the more your heart breaks open—the greater measure of love you can receive from God as you turn to Him for comfort.


Human beings are like flowers. We need to be continually deriving sustenance from the soil of our trust in God, and opening up our hearts to the sun of His grace and love.

Short quotes and notes on life and spirituality 2

If we praise or love people because they exhibit certain qualities, then it is conditional love. Then our likes and dislikes determine which people are worthy of praise and love. We should love and praise all people, and love them despite their personality. Any quality you see is just a development and manifestation of the compensatory self. So you’re just praising the person’s ego. He should be praised and loved for his soul, and for God--for we are praising God, who created all people.


We must look beyond personality and be a SOULSEER!


When we feel sadness or worry about someone, it is basically because we’ve lost our connection with God. We don’t have faith and we don’t have love. In order to help someone, we need to have strength and power from God. Instead of worry, we can have faith. Instead of sadness, we can have compassion. How can we help people if we become weakened by their hurt, sadness, and pain? As well, we have to be comfortable with our own pain and weakness and turn to God with our pain and weakness in order to help others do the same, so that they can feel comforted by us in their pain.


“If life gives you lemons, make lemonade!” Turn the sourness of suffering into the sweetness of God’s healing balm, as you supplicate the Holy Threshold.


The greater the hole of need and desire, the greater the faith and love that fills it!


Install God in your secret inner weakness and He will replace it with His strength.


Pain is necessary and positive. Without it, we wouldn’t build, invent, or work for justice. Without suffering, we are dead. It is a necessary part of human life. What is negative is denying or repressing pain, and then saying that we are transcending it. If there were no suffering, there would be no need for prayer, supplication, love or compassion. Our hearts would no longer grow wide. We would grow proud and self-satisfied. Indeed, God works through the suffering of His chosen ones. This is His way, and it will ever be so. Whoever tries to live without suffering is doing a disservice to himself and to the Cause of God.


These are our basic feelings: fear of getting hurt; and desire for comfort, love and connection.


Look how they posture all day, even for God!


It’s simple: God is our foundation and is the primary Reality. Then there is the human mind and its perceptions, feelings, and will. We need to align with God. The problem comes when we put our perceptions and will before God; and we shouldn’t rely on our perception of God, either. That would be putting our perception first. How can we know God except for our perception of God? That is the path of mystics, my friend!


The biggest comfort and security about remaining deluded and trapped in illusory self is that everyone else is caught in it also. So it seems the right thing to do, and there is apparently validation and fellowship in this illusion.


True spiritual awareness is an integration of self-awareness and God-awareness. It is not a denial of the self, with its lower nature. But the lower nature, as it is held in the light of God-awareness, becomes transmuted, and is then seen in its purified form as an expression of God’s grace and creative power, to be used in service to humanity as an expression of His all-encompassing Love.


People are riding on the cultural engine of materialism and individualism, and can’t seem to get off the train in order to enter the Kingdom of God.


Pain and suffering from injury, illness, or emotional hurt is good for us. It can humble us and cause us to bond with all others who are similarly hurting and suffering.


Spirituality is experiencing my humanity as a divine creation.


Sexuality is my humanity wanting to fuse and merge with another’s humanity.


Anger is masculinized discontentment.


Until you become filled with the Holy Spirit, all your efforts toward humility will be in vain. And after you are filled with the Holy Spirit, all your efforts toward humility will be in vain.

Short quotes and notes on life and spirituality 3

People define themselves in the context of, and in reference to the hopes and expectations of life that were taught to them by society’s leaders: parents, teachers, etc.


If things change, and change is the nature of things, then to think that one’s personality or response to the world should remain static or solid is not concurrent with reality.


People don’t accept life as it is—they want it to be another way, so they fight against it, and build up barriers against their feelings. They have to learn to feel their pain without projecting blame onto others.


Contradistinction: that’s how we tend to view others.


Our subtle spiritual faculties are enfeebled by the claws of materialism. Our spirits are withered and dried up; we are trapped behind thick veils laden with years of worldly conditioning.


We either deny others in order to take care of ourselves, or we deny ourselves in order to take care of others. In this culture, we haven’t learned how to take care of ourselves and take care of others at the same time.


People are validated for worldly success, so we learn to suppress emotions and spiritual awareness, and focus all our energies on personal worldly success in order to feel accepted.


Everyone is competing with everyone else to cover up insecurities. If we could just be honest and loving, we wouldn’t have all this posturing and alienation. But materialism and individualism and the rewards they bring (worldly goods, ego success, achievement, sense of accomplishment) have been exalted above truth, love, unity, and honesty, and definitely above God and religion.


My life is filled with things I don’t do.


If you can’t feel pain or emotions, you can’t feel God’s love and healing grace.


There is no real resolution without revolution!


Our self-worth is conferred on us by our loving Creator—we don’t have to do anything to earn it. Being liked and accepted by others, however, is something we may have to work for.


People don’t want God’s grace, because it means they have to let go of their worldly attachments and the pleasures derived from them. This includes attachment to self-esteem and a positive self-image (false self: what you think you should be, what you want to be, but not really what you are), and the attachment to wanting others to like that positive self-image.


When you are humble and supplicating to God, you relinquish control of your life and let God take over. Usually, people assume control and imitate trust in God by conforming to an idealized self-image. When this whole self-image collapses, and one determinedly turns himself over to God, the Holy Spirit fills his heart and he acts by the will of God as a co-creator of destiny, and as a servant of the Cause. Surrendering self brings in the True Healing power—so powerlessness breeds true strength. God is in control anyway—better to surrender and yield to this truth, and give up false control.

Paradoxically, control happens when you relinquish control. You help people while asking God for help, while being helped by God. It is God doing the helping, through we who are supplicating God’s help. We empty out, and God fills us. We simultaneously help others and get helped by God and others. It will be a new humble way of relating and being connected to people—no longer behind walls and masks, no longer hiding fear, shame, vulnerability, and neediness. We will give our fears, shame, and needs to God, and he will show us His love, and we will love others—not just acting as though we love them. And we will have detachment from all things, as we act purposefully in the world. We will soar in the heavens as we relate and interact with people and things on earth.

Short quotes and notes on life and spirituality 4

Why are we afraid? Simply because we don’t feel loved. Fear is a lack of feeling comfort and security, which comes from pleasure, mainly, but specifically from feeling an inner warmth and glow. This ultimately comes from the love of God, but we use all kinds of worldly things to give us a feeling of pleasure. Fear arises when we perceive we don’t have these securities, or when we feel they have been taken away. I believe we feel fear around others because others don’t love us, and we sense that in our bodies. We also are not in touch with God’s love. But we need love from people as well as from God in order to eliminate fear. Sure, we are afraid of people’s judgments about us, and their thoughts and remarks about us may hurt us emotionally. If they had pure love for us, we would not feel scared. So I believe fear is a real indicator of a lack of love within us and as well, within others as they relate to us.


When a couple who were once in love break up, their feelings for each other eventually become repressed and go into hiding in the unconscious. The hurt is initially covered with anger and resentment, then the exigencies and requirements of life force the couple to build emotional walls and scars around the resentment. The feelings of love and desire, need and attraction which they once felt for each other, ultimately become hardened and frozen, and turn into artifacts of the unconscious, housed along with many other demons and ghosts from past hurts and unmet needs.


From religious communities, we get our superficial needs met for acceptance. But this is artificial, since we must be artificial in order to fit in and be accepted. So are our needs really being met? Is it only at a superficial level, or not at all? Our real need is acceptance for our soul, and for our whole being—not for the constructed person we become in order to please others and gain their approval. Is that even acceptance at all? We are deceiving ourselves if we think that is a satisfying kind of acceptance.


Negative thoughts such as remorse and regret and about past actions, blaming people, anger at others and oneself, hopeless thoughts about one’s future--all serve to ward off feelings of pain and sadness. The negative thinking becomes a buffer for the actual painful sensations of loss. Anger and judgment create an ‘ego power’, as a defense mechanism for the feelings of loss, defeat, vulnerability, sadness, fear, emptiness, or guilt that would be a normal response to when unfavorable conditions and situations occur in life.

All human beings are at all times subject to desire for pleasure and aversion to pain. Every impulse of every human being, at all times, is to maximize pleasure and to minimize pain. Even altruistic impulses have pleasure as their root motivation (it feels good to help someone). Absolute selflessness is impossible. The closest one can get to selflessness is recognition of one’s helplessness and powerlessness before a sovereign, all-knowing, all-loving God. Even if a person embraces pain as a spontaneous spiritual act, it is because ultimately the spiritual or sacrificial act leads to a pleasurable feeling of prayer or transcendence. We are always imperfect and always in need. God is the only loving one, the only one who can be trusted.

Our life is not the circumstances of our life. Our true life consists of our faith in God, and the spiritual spark that animates us. Our true life is not the content of our lives, it is the spirit of life.

When you become emotionally dependent on someone, it produces a sense of expectation and entitlement from the person. When you don’t get what you want from the person, you get angry with them because you think they owe it to you, but that is just coming from your attachment to them and lack of connection with God’s love.

In spirituality, attainment has to be gradual because the circumstances of life are what refines and purifies you, and that occurs over a lifetime. When we feel we have attained, a test will come and show us how much more we have to go. So the tests are necessary in order to humble us and to offer us opportunities for further growth.

People don’t know what they want. Society, mostly through corporate advertising, tells them what to want, and that is what is called cultural conditioning.

God’s grace is not only there when you get the things you want in life, but His grace is present even when you don’t get what you want. Since your heart is not getting filled with attachment to this world’s pleasures, when you don’t get what you want you have more opportunity to realize God’s grace—more reason to seek it.

We judge others in the ways we fear others are judging and have judged us. We’re hurt by others’ judgments of us, and instead of processing those feelings by understanding them, turning to God, and forgiving others, we project these feelings onto others—not onto those who are judging us, but onto those whom we are judging.

The only benefit people receive from following the laws and rules of religion is confirmation of their identity of being a good person, so this identity can successfully ward off the feelings of inadequacy, guilt, shame, and the feeling of being unloved. In these people there is no real experiential understanding of the benefits of following the laws of God.

Progressive people often rebel against following the laws of God when this compliance is used for ego validation. Yet their own inner feelings of guilt result from this same attitude and approach to the laws of God. They intellectually realize that this is a flawed approach to following the laws of God, but emotionally it is still what has been ingrained and conditioned into their psyche. This approach revolves around the idea that your value and worth is dependent upon how well you follow the letter of religious law, as it is dictated to you by parents, teachers, and leaders of religion. In this approach, there is no mercy, grace, love, or forgiveness. The sense of inadequacy engendered by falling short of this standard and other man-made standards is the driving force behind almost all worldly accomplishments, as people rush to compensate for this sense of weakness. The result is a hollow and materialistic culture filled with artificial and alienated people.

When we see a great musician perform or a great piece of art, we always praise and glorify the artist or musician. We speak of how great and talented he is. But we rarely praise and glorify God, the author of the talent. We praise people in an exaggerated way because we don’t realize that God is to be praised—we miss that important component in appreciating great works of art or design.

We fabricate a counterfeit self because other people would not know how to relate to us otherwise. We know there is more inside, but other people are not taught how to relate to what is behind the mask. So we take on roles in life so our function can be identified, and then people know how to interact with us. Mother, teacher, lawyer, homeless guy, musician, crazy dude, obnoxious guy, pretty girl, smart kid, whatever. We all relate according to what we can get or what we can give. We’re not taught to communicate or interact from a deep place, so it gets filled with fear, insecurity, shame, confusion, hurt, anger. No love gets deep inside, so it is filled with these dark ‘demons’. We must put a mask on and bury all this fear and shame, lest we get no acceptance in this artificial world.

Isn't it interesting how some people feel extremely blessed after a terrible, crippling accident because their life was spared? They gain a new appreciation for life. Calamities and suffering always have a deeper meaning, and are always meant to help us grow spiritually--whether the suffering is due to our mistakes or not.

We have to transplant our trust in the world to the soil of trust in God.

It takes a village to raise a child; it takes a community to transform a soul.

It is best to relate to people from the love of God. If you can’t do that, try to be authentic with them. If you can’t do that, then construct an artificial self and relate to them through this mask. But make sure it treats all people well!

Cultivating authentic spirituality--a letter

Hey, ____! It's Bob, here--the one who talked to you about authentic spirituality at the Convention! I woke up this morning with a strange energy. I felt energy to connect with people, because connecting and spreading the spirit I must do! But what do I have to share? That is a mystery to most people...but of course we are much more than what we do and seem. But when and where can we develop and utilize what we are but what we don't see? Can't spiritual growth and transformation occur at a more rapid pace with the support of a group setting? I feel it is almost necessary. That's why we are asked to have devotions, children's classes and Institutes. But we are so caught in individualistic and materialisitc models of growth. I believe that in less materialistic and more communal societies, there exist elements and understandings of spiritual unity which we in the US need to learn. We are desperate to learn and implement these understandings, but most of us don't know we need it! We are feeding ourselves with poison, but don't know we are diseased. Those of us who see, can help ourselves and help others. I know you see, and are helping others. Service exists in many different forms. I need to help others. This email is both an expression of service, and a plea for help. Don't we all need each other? And we all have something to give. So I am just being authentic here!

There is a language of the heart, of intuition, of love, which is beyond concepts and words, and I know you are in tune with it. This is the mystery door which leads to the sea of treasure which is currently being withheld from many Baha'is. In this treasure, we find connectedness and intimacy with all people. We find acceptance and love. We find emotion and passion. We find helpfulness, openness, and even humility. When these treasures are burnished with the Spirit of the Word of God, shiny, new and pure treasures are revealed to our eyes, minds and hearts, which hold immense value and healing capacity. These special pure treasures can be reached by those who are pure in heart and who have the courage and faith to travel through the door of detachment from this world. There is sanctification, purification, and trials through this door, and on this path. The attachments to this world are seen as illusion, and befitting only those who desire them. The pearls of the Spiritual Kingdom are revealed through the fire of purification, and can only be reached through longing, fervent devotion and yearning. These gems of divine mysteries are more valuable, much more precious that any earthly treasure. These gems and qualities of the heart and spirit, which exist in the spirit, possess the power to heal the peoples of the world, and to set aglow the hearts of men and women, in such wise that many of them will fling away this world, and join with us in celebrating this Love, and spreading the savors of the Blessed Beauty far and wide, with passion and zeal!

I know this sounds preachy, but it is all really how I feel--it is from my heart and soul, not just my head! What do I do with all this zeal and love for God? I feel like a mystic wanderer. I know I need some structure--a channel to express this love and wisdom. I am giving it all to God, since He gave it to me. I know who I am, and I dedicate it all to God. But I still feel my human needs--I am not always detached and pure! I need help from others, and I need to help others. But it seems I traveled so far in certain directions of consciousness, there is no one there to direct me, but God. And I have accepted that. The worst part is that it seems no one is ready to receive the gifts that I have to offer, unless I can offer it in a way which causes them to realize that they need it! And I am not so good at packaging things in a way which is appealing to others, unless it happens to be in my heart at the time. I can't market myself, so to speak. And I believe we should work with others to spread the fragrances of our gifts and our service, anyway. It's just that my gifts and talents are elusive to many, there is presently no environment to cultivate them, and I believe they are rare and unusual, but valuable, nonetheless. (There are schools and apprenticeships for accountants, doctors, engineers, landscapers, etc., but nothing for new age mystic psychologist/free-improv musicians!) I believe we need to help create and carve out new roles in society--uh, the new world/society, based on authentic and spiritual identities, instead of having people conform to and fit into existing molds which suppress the true self, and suffocate the soul. Oh, the youth would benefit tremendously! Isn't this the core of the issue for them?

I believe there are many people with gifts and talents which are not recognized and appreciated by most people, and in this society, there are no means to develop, cultivate and nurture many human qualities which are crucial to the healthy functioning of any society. These people fall by the wayside, become labeled as mentally ill, take medication or drugs, become angry, bitter, isolated. If we could only nurture these gems in a spiritual environment, with love, acceptance, openness, humility, and the Words and Spirit of God, we would reap great benefits for the Cause of God and humanity! My mission is simple. I want to utilize my gifts and talents, and help others to do the same, in an environment of love, openness, humility and spirituality! Some arts and music would be great!

My dream is to have an Arts and Healing Center. But first I wanted to have an Institute for Healing and Transformation, which would be like a workshop setting. But even an informal support group would be fine. It seems in this fast-paced culture, we need to set aside a prescribed time and place to meet and focus on God and spiritual growth, and to detach from this world. And this is what the UHJ is asking us to do. They are asking us to design and hold Institutes, devotions, social and economic development projects, etc. Soon, we will see more calamities and entry by troops, and these new institutions will be the refuge. So why not get real, get spiritual, and...well, I guess--start sharing? I know it is a lot, but I felt inspired to write to you.

Baha'i Love,

Bob Charnes