By Rev. Glenn Neil Stocking

Gold and white, or blue and black. It’s all in our individual perception. All the buzz in social media this week over the colors of a dress demonstrates a basic challenge in human relationships. Clearly, even when presented with the exact same information, our individual interpretations can produce dramatically different conclusions.

It seems that for almost every question there are at least two viable options and camps of supporters for both. In his nineteenth century illuminations on ethics, John Stuart Mill described the term “Utilitarianism” as basically falling similarly into two camps, Rule utilitarianism and Act utilitarianism, allowing for a universe of moderations in between.

On the one hand a society is best served by establishing a well thought through set of rules that when followed unerringly by all would create the most happiness for the most people. The polar opposite forgoes establishing formal rules allowing that individual acts are judged by their effect on society. The latter position allows for circumstances to guide values while the former simply demands adherence.

Reasonable people quickly agree that neither position in its extreme is perfect for all occasions. Some formal legal system is required to conduct commerce and maintain a level playing field in complicated social structures. Two farmers however, should be able to trade some grain for a pig with a simple hand shake if both are agreeable to the terms.

Each of us is free to see the dress as gold and white, black on blue or some other combination because we have accepted something between “rule” and “act” utilitarianism. If we agreed that the designer’s proclamation that the dress is blue and black established the only accepted interpretation, the gold and white camp would be in violation of the rule.

The gold and white camp would then be left with two choices; deny the evidence of its own eyes or live in violation of the rule. The former solution provides fodder for a lifetime of therapy, the latter leads to deterioration of respect for the rule and rules in general and eventually anarchy. From this simple example it becomes clear that a strict “rule” society is bound for self-destruction by its self-imposed rigidity.

Our spiritual nature is “rule” based and has only one rule, Love. This core rule allows our human experience to be the chaotic adventure it is because Love can only give us what we expect to receive, and its first gift is freedom. We have freely created our own anarchy by denying the core rule.

Who we are may seem to be an accident of fate, but only if we define ourselves in terms of what we believe and how we perceive the world we live in. We are spiritual beings having a human experience. When we forget that truth and become immersed in the world of effects enveloping us we surrender to the idea of fate. Remembering our faith, our true nature, provides an avenue back to self-determination.

When through our exercise of choice we judge the acts of others by their effect on society, whether or not the result is more happiness, we move back toward the core rule. A couple who choose to share their lives and contribute to their community may do so in violation of some human sourced moral standing, but that standing aside do no harm and much good. This is demonstrating love, the core rule. The act is beneficial, the rule if strictly enforced would harm the couple and provide no appreciable benefit to society.

The rule of love gives us freedom because nothing else would be love. Freedom gives us anarchy because nothing else would be freedom. It is no wonder then that life is a paradox. Spirit or God if you prefer, set us free to find our own way home with no manual or directions. We have the basic intelligence of the universe because we are all expressions of the One Mind, and we have the freedom to use our universal wisdom or deny it.

Whether the dress is one color or another is hardly important. How we choose to accept the interpretation of others is. Are we willing to allow the same value to the interpretations of others as we assign to our own? Does one cause harm and the other not? Is any perceived harm real or simply a violation of someone’s rule? What does the rule of Love demand?

Our freedom to choose may seem a cruel joke when we consider the Universe could have made us adherent to its core rule and saved a history of strife. But what history would there be then if instead of our freedom we were created to conform. Spirit itself is required to conform to its only rule and created us as a means to explore the consequences of freedom.

Our history is often marked by our blunders but also by our triumphs. Every heroic odyssey starts with a disruption of the norm. We heroically stand one more time than we are knocked down and do so over and over again. The Rule of Love is our undeniable core. We have strayed from it on a million roads and travel millions more seeking our return.

We can all agree it is a dress. We can agree that there appear to be two principle colors in its palette. If we start there and understand that everything else is subject to personal interpretations fueled by vastly different experiences, perhaps we can choose to be guided by the only rule that matters, the one that created us all.

Is Spirit doomed by its rigid adherence to its one rule? Only if unconditional love can ever be wrong. Spirit is infinite and thus immortal. What appears as chaos from our limited perspective is simply a neutral element within the greater soul.

Learn more about your true nature, your freedom to choose and the Rule of Love at a Center for Spiritual Living in your community or on line starting at CSL.org or CSLFTL.org.

By Rev. Glenn Neil Stocking

There is a bulletin board in the mail room of a South Florida community association. Maybe the one you live in. Most of the items pinned to the board are placed there by the association’s management, neatly placed with a push pin placed at each corner. There is a desk organizer on a shelf at the bottom of the bulletin board containing pens, pencils and a generous supply of push pins.

With some regularity others have occasion to place notices on the bulletin board and here is where an interesting phenomena frequently occurs. Although there is an ample supply of push pins readily available and easily accessible, these notices are haphazardly pinned to the board with push pins purloined from the corners of other notices. The other notices are not left hanging with one corner loose, rather their pins are removed and re-pinned so that two notices are left raggedly posted by one pin at the center in the top and one at the center in the bottom.

Eventually it is not unusual to find more notices all suspended by a single pin while the reservoir in the organizer remains overflowing. A lazy person would use the pins from the organizer, even if only one; it would be easier than rearranging the ones already in use. A deep seeded sense of lack demonstrates as the appearance of poverty even where abundance is within arm’s reach.

Our true beliefs manifest in the simplest ways. Being alert to the clues, even the little ones, can change the course of our lives. Imagine if one day the persons denying themselves the use of the ample supply of push pins awakens to their folly. Out of pride they may continue as they always have and there would be no change, except that now they know there is a better way so there is that extra baggage to tote around.

Say they realize it is easier and neater to use the extra pins and start doing so right away. They will have allowed themselves to release an old idea and move into a new experience. In the world of dragon fighting mythologies this is the single armor scale being torn away; an occurrence that never ends well for the dragon.

Where else in their lives have they been denying their wealth? Where have they been hording an endless supply? Is there something holding you back, or is it something you are holding on to? What clues are you overlooking, and what are you ready to let go of?

Many of us go through our entire live never knowing we have control over how we feel, never knowing we can change the course we are on at any time. Sometimes we need an ah-ha moment to stimulate our attention. Nature has many tools to bring that about; some more appealing than others. One choice we can make is to be proactive by employing our own tools first.

Tool number one, Understanding our True Nature: These individual lives we are living are just cells in a much bigger organism. The evidence? Everything that lives finds a way to cluster with other living things, we are collaborative beings, suggesting a connections that transcends the physical. We have commonalities that we build upon. At basic levels we are all alike, laughing, crying, lusting, caring etcetera.

Tool number two, Understanding the nature of that bigger organism. It is Love. The evidence? It gives us whatever we believe. It does not judge us. It just gives. It is infinite. There is no outer edge. Wherever we perceive an outer edge, it continues beyond our comprehension.

Tool number three, pathfinders. Pathfinders are those in our acquaintance that have already traveled the road ahead, they know where the water holes are and the quick sand. Every spiritual practice has pathfinders. Whether they are called minister, monk, rabbi, mullah, or friend they can help us see things we have been overlooking or didn’t even know to look for.

The universe overflows with push pins. We can use them or not. We can make our lives better or continue as we are. We can use the tools at our disposal or continue scratching at the dirt with our hands. Still not sure you can do it? Stick a pin in that doubt and talk with a pathfinder. You can always come back to your status quo, though never quite the same.

Learn more about your true nature, your connection to the infinite and the pathfinders available to you at a Center for Spiritual Living in your community or on line starting at CSL.org or CSLFTL.org.

By Rev. Glenn Neil Stocking

Spring in hurricane country is the time to buy a little extra in preparation for the storm everyone hopes does not appear. Prudent shoppers pick up an extra can of beans, bag of rice or bottled water every time they shop to squirrel away in the pantry or a corner of the garage. These non-perishable extras are accumulated bit by bit into and through the season so that they do not have to be purchased during a panic rush ahead of an eminent storm bearing down.

Our bodies do something similar with the food we eat. Anything not needed for immediate energy is stored as fat for later consumption. And like our imprudent shopper who waits for the storm before stocking up, our bodies also have a panic mode. Our bodies sense when they are not getting enough good nutrients and begin diverting available stocks to storage and shutting down non-essential functions to conserve fuel.

A result of our body’s survival mechanism is a lack of energy and enthusiasm for the things that make living fun, productive and generally worthwhile. We also experience a buildup of fat because our body-mind consortium is convinced there is a scarcity of nutrients even when there is sufficient supply relative to our reduced rate of consumption.

Is it possible that our hearts follow the same survival practices? Do our hearts begin hoarding love when they sense an insufficient supply of renewing love? Does our heart turn inward withholding its stock of love out of fear there may not be enough? Does it harden itself developing an insulating layer that actually suppresses our ability to receive additional consignments of love?

Answering yes to any of the questions above allows an insight into the behavior of the hurtful people in our lives. We are not designed to live without love, it is crucial to our existence. Love is the natural state of the Universe, the prime directive, the Word of God. Our every belief is made true by the love of a Universe that can only say yes to our stated desires. Sensing little or no source of love, our hearts redirect their love impulses toward providing for themselves at the cost of free circulation and eventual self consumption.

The inward focused heart loses its ability to recognize love directed toward it. It becomes self concerned, self-fixated and numb to any attempts to approach it. It becomes hard in its attempt to retain its self-perceived threatened supply. It consumes itself growing more dry and brittle as its stores evaporate.

The ironic paradox is that our fearful heart has its belief fulfilled by a loving Universe that continues to provide in accordance with our beliefs. The 1964 movie “Fate is the Hunter” centered around an airplane that crashed because a cascade of design faults indicated to the pilot that his one good engine was on fire causing him to shut it down and force an unnecessary emergency landing. Our fearful hearts likewise trigger a cascade of reasonable responses to increasingly inaccurate information driving us into undesirable results.

When the inevitable storm hits and the electricity goes off, we quickly eat our perishable foods first saving the dry and canned goods for the extended recovery period. Eventually conditions improve and a new normal emerges. If starving our bodies consume the food in our digestive systems before eventually tapping their fat reserves. Ideally starvation is avoided and our metabolisms stabilize. Our hearts act only on what they know, and continue consuming themselves.

If there is no storm, we use up our stores in the following months clearing our pantries to be refreshed the next year. If we are not faced with starvation our metabolisms adjust and our energy levels return to normal. Proper diet and exercise eventually reduce stored up fats and the resulting new eating habits help us maintain healthy bodies. Our hearts respond to our beliefs, new beliefs open new possibilities.

When we accept the possibility that our beliefs are erroneous, that our instruments are giving us false readings and what we are doing cannot continue we become open to new solutions. If we allow some small part of our self-directed love to be shared with others in some way, we open our pantry and provide an avenue for circulation to resume. Love wants to circulate, its natural state is to be in motion. A tiny crack in our armor erodes into a torrent of love pouring out and rejuvenating our heart with its flow. In response the Universe pours more love in and the cycle accelerates and expands into the limits of our belief.

Unrestricted by our interference love is self-perpetuating and infinitely expansive. Our hearts soften and expand their capacity to absorb becoming a conduit drawing love in as quickly as it can pump love out. When the next storm hits, our pantry will be overflowing, our bodies will be lean and our experience energized and fulfilling as we lead, respond and identify with the power of love.

Explore more about the power of love and our natural state at a Center for Spiritual Living in your community or on line starting at CSL.org and CSLFTL.org.