Love is My Religion

"One cannot pursue one's own highest good without at the same time necessarily promoting the good of others.  A life based on narrow self-interest cannot be esteemed by any honorable measurement.  Seeking the very best in ourselves means actively caring for the welfare of other human beings.  Our human contract is not with the few people with whom our affairs are most immediately intertwined, nor to the prominent, rich, or well educated, but to all our human brethren.

View yourself as a citizen of a worldwide community and act accordingly."

-Epictetus

     The most difficult thing about the establishment and development of so many religions on our planet is the separation that has formed between us because of it.  Religious people separate themselves from non-religious people.  Atheists separate themselves from believers.  Believers of one story separate themselves from believers of another story.  So many people are so intimidated, frightened and angered by other religions and philosophies that they don't actually bother to learn about or understand them.   I have heard many people from many different belief systems refer to other belief systems as "evil," "from the Devil" or "worthless blasphemy."  While talking to a Christian recently about the benefits of yoga and meditation, I was cut off and shut down with the words, "You don't need all that garbage.  All you need is Jesus Christ."

     I attended middle school in a Seventh Day Adventist community, where my religion teacher refused to see validity in anything except his own particular sect of Christianity.  When I asked him why he believed Buddhism was "evil" he was never able to give me a real answer, or even a moment of thought on the subject.  Buddhism is evil, and that's it.  No questions.  So imagine my surprise when I began to learn about Buddhism-about breathing and staying present and love and kindness, and visualization and connecting to God inside of my own heart.   Imagine my shock when I researched the principles of Wicca after years of hearing that Wiccans "worship Satan."  There are all kinds of crazy stories going around religious communities that are based not on fact, but on folklore and superstition, and that have been passed down through generations of families and church families.  There are all kinds of beliefs based on those crazy stories that attach themselves to people, keeping them from ever fully understanding and loving the majority of the people they share this planet with.  If we can't get down to the basic fact that we are a either a species united or a species divided, then maybe we need a little lesson in acceptance from some of our greatest religious and spiritual leaders...

"I am giving you a new commandment; to love one another.  As I have loved you, so you must love one another.  By this, everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another."

-Jesus Christ

"Do you love your Creator?  Love your fellow beings first."

-Muhammad

"Hatred does not cease by hatred.  Only by love; this is the eternal rule."

-Buddha

"There is only one religion-the religion of love.  There is only one God-the light that shines in your heart."

-Satya Sai Baba

"If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other."

-Mother Teresa

"Our prime purpose in life is to help others.  And if you can't help them, at least don't hurt them."

-Dalai Lama

"The great calm and tranquility of a saint is not indifference, but understanding."

-Rudi

"If you send out goodness from yourself, or if you share that which is happy within you, it will all come back to you multiplied ten thousand times.  In the kingdom of love, there is no competition, there is no possessiveness or control.  The more love you give away, the more love you will have."

-John O'Donohue

"Be afraid of nothing.  Hating none, giving love to all, feeling the love of God, seeing His presence in everyone, and having but one desire-for His constant presence in the temple of your consciousness.  That is the way to live in this world."

-Paramahansa Yogananda

"A man filled with the love of God is not content with blessing his family alone, but ranges through the whole world, anxious to bless the whole human race."

-Joseph Smith Jr.

"The more we come out and do good to others, the more our hearts will be purified and God will be in them."

-Swami Vivekananda

"To live and let live, without clamor for distinction or recognition, to wait on divine love, to write truth first on the tablet of one's own heart, this is the sanity and perfection of living, and my human ideal."

-Mary Baker Eddy

"We have been called to heal wounds, to unite what has fallen apart, and to bring home those who have lost their way."

-St. Francis of Assisi

"It is not earthly rank, nor birth, nor nationality, nor religious privilege which proves that we are in the family of God; it is love, a love that embraces all humanity."

-Ellen G. White

     Teachers throughout time have been trying to get us to see one common thing-that it is our duty to care for each other.  It is clear to me that we find our Spirit in different places, under different circumstances, through different teachers, and each person's wisdom has value.  One may find God in the sky, while one may find God inside the heart...but isn't it still the same God?  We grow and learn and evolve in our understanding together, not separated, not divided by judgement and closed up in fear.  All anyone wants is to be listened to, understood and inspired, to be treated as an equal despite background, race, religion or income level.  If we can't give out acceptance and willingness to understand, then we are never going to receive it, and we ourselves will never be loved or understood.  What a sad life it would be to never open to new ways of praising and understanding God and each other.  

   Do not be afraid of religion-be wary of fundamentalism.  Most people who choose a religious or spiritual way of life do so because they want to lead a happier, more fulfilled life-not because they want to cause damage and become irrational.  The thoughts, words and behaviors that happen when fundamentalism creeps in are something to watch for, as one watches for mental illness.  We all know that countless atrocities have been committed in the "name of God," but we also know that these atrocities were committed by desperate, unstable people who became obsessed with a very small picture.  When a person, family or community latches on to fear, hatred and judgment, nobody can see anything clearly.  Nobody is seeing things for what they truly are.  When you cannot clearly see and accept the world around you, you have no way of being connected to it.  When you cannot connect with the world around you, you cannot grow beyond the confines of your mind.  When you cannot grow beyond the confines of your own mind, you are closing yourself to growth, understanding, love and of course happiness.  Fundamentalism and obsession are not the core of faith.  Divine love is the true core of faith.  God's love is constant, open and beautiful, as our words, our thoughts and our actions should be-not exclusively reserved for those who believe the same story that we do.  We are given this love in plentitude.  Shouldn't we be sharing it?

     If you don't believe in God, so what?  Scientists and researchers are starting to agree with religious leaders on things like meditation, compassion, happiness, acceptance, energy and consciousness.  I believe in God, but I also have no idea what (or who) God is.  Life is a paradox, and as the amazing songwriter Billy Jonas says, "God is in the atheist saying, 'Yeah...I don't exist!'"  Even if God is that incredible energy force that fills you up when you fall in love, even if God is a supreme ruler who expects you to lead a virtuous life, even if God is masculine or feminine or both or neither, even if God is far beyond anything we could ever envision or imagine, and even if there is no God, don't you still want to be a conscious, open human being?  Don't you want to fulfill a beautiful destiny with what you've been given?  Whether this is your hundredth chance at life or your only chance at life, don't you want to find meaning in your existence?  Don't you want to be a part of healing instead of hating, accepting instead of judging, loving instead of fighting and evolving instead of declining?  Would you rather obsess over little differences, or zoom out to a bigger picture where we are all in this together?

     If leaving a positive legacy for our children is our intention, there is no more time for fighting and degradation.  We are not animals preying and attacking, blindly following law and instinct.  We are an advanced, sensitive species who has the ability to move into a new consciousness together.  We actually have a choice to accept and celebrate each other's differences and focus our fire on changing ourselves.  We can consciously choose to open in love, forgetting the old monologue about how everyone is so separate, so different from us.  The truth is, if you hear the story of your enemy, you will understand their beliefs and decisions.  If you open your mind to holy script, science, folklore, spiritual wisdom and to other humans, you will see that there is beauty and value in everything.  The Seventh Day Adventist community at the world renown Loma Linda University Medical Center has recently accepted the mindful awareness practices of Buddhism as a valid form of treatment in dialectical behavior therapy.  We never know what incredible things we can create together until we open up our minds and try!

     I remind myself daily that although anger is sometimes necessary, hatred is not.  I remind myself daily that the scariest people can be softened by a heartfelt encounter.  Nobody wants to live in fear and hatred-it just happens.  It happens when that's what we teach, so let's stop teaching it.  Let's make a choice to stop living in it.  After we have told our stories and opened our hearts, we will have the space and healing to move forward, leaving no one behind.  The more we bring blessings to others and wish love to all humanity, the more those blessings will fall into our own lives.  Let's create a beautiful world for our future ancestors.  Let's find a way to turn our planet around.  Let's unite as flesh and blood in the quest for joy and meaning, for in this human form, in this spiritual life, we already hold the key to heaven.  God is already here, just waiting for us to open our eyes and say, "What a gift this life is!  What a gift it is to be human!  Thank you!"

"This is my simple religion.  There is no need for temples.  No need for complicated philosophy.  Our own brain, our own heart is our temple.  The philosophy is kindness."

-Dalai Lama

For this painting and others, please visit www.RNoelle.com

     

     

     

     

      

     

Accepting Yourself, Saving Yourself.

"When we fight with our failing, we ignore the entrance to the shrine itself."

-David Whyte

     Disorders, disorders, disorders.  We live in a world full of disorders.  Half of the people I know have at least one disorder, and most of them are on multiple drugs for them.  Numbing the feeling, evening the moods, saving us from experiencing ups and downs-that's what the drugs seem to be for.  I know for a fact that many people benefit greatly from psyche meds-people who have a true imbalance that requires chemical help...but I wonder how many people that is, compared to the number of people who are simply using their "disorders" as a way to acquire mind-altering drugs, to gain endless help and sympathy, and to get out of actually doing the personal growth work that growing up requires.  

     I myself used to walk through my life with such labels pinned on me as "Anxiety Disorder", "Panic Disorder", "Depressive Disorder" and "Eating Disorder."  I fed into these labels so easily, feeling sorry for myself for having disorders and looking for ways to numb my feelings of intense panic and extreme sorrow, just so that I could make it through day to day life.  The more I thought about my "Panic Disorder," the worse and more frequent my panic attacks became.  The more I thought about my depression, the more I allowed myself to slip into it, and the more easily I justified my addictions.  I tried everything from heavy pain meds to alcohol to prescription psyche meds, but every single chemical I put into my body made me feel worse, and worse about myself.  After a beautiful day of Vicodin happiness, I would spend two days crying from the low that inevitably came when it wore off.  After months of anti anxiety and depression meds that numbed everything (including my orgasms,) I stopped taking them, only to find that my depression, anxiety and suicidal thoughts returned stronger than ever.  Do you know how many people commit suicide while trying to get off of psyche meds?  

     It is a beautiful thing to seek peace...but when did it become the norm to numb yourself out of existence?  When did doctors go from being caregivers and healers, to being drug dealers?  Were these drugs invented so that they could be loosely thrown around into society, and into any patient that wanders into the office complaining that they feel stressed?  Is putting someone on multiple psyche meds for anxiety and depression, and other drugs to treat the side effects of the psyche meds really that different from more primitive psychiatric therapies like insulin shock therapy, electroconvulsive therapy and lobotomies?  How many people are actually better off in the end?   And when the psyche meds start messing with the rest of the body-the blood pressure, the sex drive, body weight and movement, and overall physical and mental health, how many other drugs for other problems will people end up on?  

Psychiatric Side Effects   

     I heard a radio show recently that talked about how many people are on disability in the U.S. for things like anxiety and depression.  These people are panicked about ever losing their disability money, so guess what-they continue to go into their clinics, complaining of anxiety and depression.  They continue to feed their own minds about how messed up they are and why they can't survive without help.  They complain that it keeps them from holding a job, paying their bills, getting up in the morning, etc.  Their entire psychological and financial existence is based upon their disorder, and so they cannot live without it.  In short, if they ever move on from their disorder, they will no longer receive the check that is paying their bills.

     I know a homeless mother of three who drags her kids from motel to motel, barely able to find a bed each night, because she has "panic disorder."  When she can't get her psyche meds, she drinks alcohol to numb her panic.  She hides out in her motel room all day, too scared to go see her doctor to get the meds she thinks she needs to survive.  Maybe she does need these meds-I don't know, and I doubt if her doctor knows either.  What I do know is that she is seriously burdened with a disorder mentality.  When I attempt to walk her through a meditation practice or hand her literature on local shelters, she simply continues spewing out all the reasons why she can't pull herself together.  Her daughter has been taught to act in the same way.  If she drops something on the ground, she complains, "Can someone help me?"  If she wants something from across the room, she whines, "Can someone go get that for me?"  Her favorite thing to say is, "I can't do it."  I say, "Bullshit.  You are the only one who can do it."

     I know exactly how people feel when they slide into a victim mentality.  I had been through so much by the time I reached Steven that I could barely see straight.  I had no idea who I was, and less of an idea of what I wanted to become.  I had learned to rely on my problems to get me out of my responsibilities.  I had learned to feel comfortable with misery and depression.  But the panic was horrible, the loneliness was unbearable and my adrenal system was giving out on me, so I knew that if I didn't change, I would die. When Steven asked me this question during one of our sessions, I wanted to punch him.  I know now that it's because that's exactly what I needed to hear, but in the moment, I thought, "What the hell is he talking about?  I have a million responsibilities, and a million issues and I'm just doing the best I can!!!"  

     What he really meant by "taking responsibility" was this:  Imagine that you chose everything in your life before you came here, for the purpose of growing, learning and making connections.  Imagine that you have the light and power of the universe and God right inside of you, waiting for you to acknowledge it, waiting for you to use it.  Imagine that you have created everything that has happened to you up to this point.  Imagine that you can create any life that you want to have, with each decision that you make.  Imagine that you have the power to take and keep responsibility for yourself and your children, and the ability to change into anyone you want to be.  To bring your darkness into the light, and just be you.  To be vulnerable whether you are accepted or not.  To take responsibility for your good and your bad, your gifts and your shortcomings.  To do the hard work every day of lessening stress and building strength.  To be accountable for your actions, to forgive yourself and others, and to make a decision with each moment to heal instead of hurt.  Can you imagine what our world would be if we each took this kind of responsibility?

     In Herman Hesse's incredible novel, Steppenwolf, Harry watches the universe around him transform from a dark, wretched purgatory into a beautiful, living, breathing miracle.  A lifetime of utter misery and near suicide opens up into a full, joyous and connected existence.  All because the people around him dared him to stop feeling sorry for himself, and showed him another way.  In Hesse's novel Siddhartha,  after many years of searching and changing, incredible ups and hideous downs, true joy and meaning finally come to Siddhartha at the moment when he is about to kill himself.  Life took him to the depths before he ever saw what a gift it was.  Hesse himself had a difficult life, weighted with serious hardship and depression, which of course is why he was able to capture the feeling so unbearably well.    He experienced many chapters and transformations in his lifetime, but the search for understanding and joy that burned within him brought him through the darkness, to many beautiful places.  He turned the hard lessons of his life into inspiration for the rest of humanity.  Studying his life and work, and the lives and work of all authentic artists and teachers, we get a glimpse into the incredible depth of feeling that this world has to offer.  If not for the lows, would the highs be so magnificent?  

     What bothers me most about pinning disorders on people and numbing them with drugs is that it takes the focus away from what's important-understanding our pain, taking responsibility for our pain and learning the best ways to heal our pain and move on.  It takes away from the acceptance that pain is just another feeling.  When children are put on mind numbing drugs, they no longer have to find the tools they need to make it through the ups and downs of their own life.  What they are learning instead is that the only way to be accepted as who they are is to be on drugs.  Of course we all have problems.  Of course we are going to have horrible times in our lives.  Of course we are going to be sad and angry.  Of course we experience anxiety when we ignore our feelings or relive the past or resist responsibility or neglect our health.  Lasting healing has nothing to do with numbness and quick fixes, and everything to do with finding the will power, tools and support we need to lead meaningful lives, despite our troubles.  

     People in our society say, "Leave your baggage at the door," and that's taken to mean "We expect you to be perfect, and if you're not perfect, fake it."  Well, nobody's perfect, so that means that we're all faking it.  And how are we faking it?  We're numbing it, or stuffing it.  We're hiding how we feel under an exterior of image and ego and lusting after all the crap we think we need to make us happy.  What if we changed from "Leave your baggage at the door" to "Bring everything you have, and we will help you find more."?  "Bring your experience, tell your story, let us know who you really are, and we will accept you.  Show us your weaknesses so that we can give you tools to strengthen them.  Show us your gifts so that we can help inspire them."  What if we learned to embrace the contrast, rather than believing that difficult feelings are bad?  What if we realize that everything that haunts us is here to teach us?  What if we stop fearing and avoiding intense feelings and realize that it's just a part of being human?  What if you decided in this moment to forget your entire past and create yourself anew?  Would you decide to have disorders or just gratitude and excitement?  We are not perfect, and we cannot fake it forever.  But we're also not broken, and it is up to each of us to save ourselves.  

TED talk: Brene Brown on shame, vulnerability, authenticity and happiness.

     It is our duty to care for this life that we have been given.  It is up to us to take responsibility for our own mental and physical health, our thoughts, our behaviors, and our decisions.  It is up to us to be strong enough to listen to the truth, when someone is brave enough to speak it.  When we give up the numbing of truth and our resistance to doing the hard work, we discover an expanse of consciousness that pulls us back on track.  When we get over the fact that we're not perfect and accept responsibility for our own happiness, we learn ways to create peace everywhere we go.  We can only be helped if we stop destructive behaviors and learn to care for ourselves.  We can only find joy if we take our sorrow and transform it.  We can only find strength if we continuously seek our own brilliance.  We can only find peace if we lovingly accept our own insanity. 

"It is not easy to find happiness in ourselves, and it is not possible to find it elsewhere."

-Agnes Repplier

R. Noelle Paintings

     

     

     

Finding the Meaning of Life

"You give but little when you give of your possessions.  It is when you give of yourself that you truly give."

-Kahlil Gibran

     I've been wanting to talk about volunteerism for quite a long time now, because I've rarely found anything so life changing.  I used to send money here and there to charities that touched my heart-orphans in Africa, women in Afghanistan, people who I really felt needed the help.  They do.  People always say that even the smallest amount helps, and I believe that, but when my family and I were barely scraping by, I needed to find another way to give.  I also felt so distant from any help I might be giving, and I felt in a way that it was a cop out to doing any real work in the world.  I don't want to be the person sitting under a palm tree in California, sending out checks to third world countries.  I want to be the person who is in the middle of it, helping out.   I don't want the worth of my giving to be purely financial-I want it to also bring meaning into my life, and the lives of others.  I want to make authentic connections.  I want to help build a better life.  I want to be a part of the change.

     Very few of us have lives that allow us to go running off to build a church in Mexico or fly to Rwanda to teach about healing techniques, no matter how much we may dream.  Sometimes the real work seems to be so distant and complicated that writing a check seems like the only option.  That's how I felt before moving to San Diego, but when I got here, everything changed.  Thousands of homeless people sleep on the streets here.  Thousands of soldiers, many with serious physical and emotional injuries, are returning from deployments only to be given pink slips.  Women and children are sleeping on the streets or going in and out of shelters and motels, because they are addicted, mentally ill or simply have no support.  Animals and sea life are dying because of the trash they eat off the beaches.  Men and women are getting out of prisons into a world that seems like no one cares what happens to them.  Thousands of sick and elderly people sit in hospital rooms day after day, with no visitors except their nurses.  Public school children no longer get field trips, art classes, counselors, nurses, librarians, office staff, and many other things because of budget cuts.  I had to move smack dab in the middle of it all to realize that all around me, in my own community, there is an aching hole that can only be filled by me.

     I realized when I moved into the city, that my heart couldn't handle what my eyes were seeing unless I started helping.  I began by giving food and money to beggars, and learning which ones actually wanted food, (I was turned down more than once) and which ones were spending the money on their addictions.  The truth is that if you give a street person money, you are possibly feeding the addiction that is keeping them on the streets.  However, I have also seen people who haven't eaten for days, who benefit greatly from me buying them a burrito, or even sharing half of mine with them.  I try now to give food instead of money so that I don't have to worry about where my money is going.  I try to carry something in my car (even bottled water) for the guys on the corners, and little bags of snacks aren't hard to carry in your pocket.  It always amazes me how grateful people are for the tiniest things.  Not all of them,  but many.  And some people really do need small favors.

     I needed more than just handing out snacks on the street, so I found a shelter and residential rehab program in walking distance to my apartment, and I began volunteering there.  I go there once a week to serve lunch to the men, and just being there for a couple of hours changes my day and my week.  I quite often drag myself there in a bad mood, but I always bounce out on top of the world.  It's the easiest job in the world, it's fun because the guys are so funny and such incredible, authentic people, and I have made many lifelong friends there, in under a year.  Everyone knows my name, and they know that I'm the one who makes them the homemade cookies.  Don't think cookies make a difference?  Try asking the guy who tasted one and cried because it brought him instantly back home with his wife and kids.  Or the guy who tasted a cookie and suddenly remembered his last Christmas with his mother.  Such seemingly small things are gestures that I care about them, and they never, never miss that.  In fact, it's what they need and appreciate the most.  They know that the regular volunteers are there because we really do care, and their gratitude and love is overwhelming.  They cheer for us before lunch, and bless us during grace, and thank us to infinity for being there.  Just for being there.  Where else can you experience that?

     Another thing I started doing is volunteering in 2nd, 4th and 6th grade public school classrooms.  I teach art, but as every teacher realizes, it's so much more.  So many kids need someone who will listen to them, care about them, and encourage them.  I teach them the technicalities of art, and all about staying creative, but what I also feel a need to teach them is that they are valuable, beautiful, talented human beings who each have something different to say.  So many kids who have severe difficulties in academics or who have "attitude problems" are brilliant at art, but they're rarely getting a chance to do it anymore, so they don't think they're good at anything.  It is easy to get angry at the government and the school system about the lack of funds for education, but it is a lot more productive to just get involved directly with providing the kids with what they need.  When I realized this, I knew that although I can't help every child, at every school in the whole world, like I'd like to, I can at least teach one child at a time and help pick up the slack for the teachers.  Here's what's in it for me (besides the feeling of a completely meaningful life):  More authentic friendships-with teachers, children and parents, more inspiration and knowledge in my own artistic work, and incredible gifts from the children!

     I'm not telling you all these things because I want you to know how generous I am-I actually feel that what you do for others is a private matter.  But I also don't want to not talk about it.  The more I talk to people, the more I realize that so many people are lacking meaning in their lives, because they're not doing what they're passionate about, because they don't feel like they're making a difference, or because they're not satisfied with the quest for extrinsic satisfaction.  They realize that there is something else out there, some other way to live, but they don't know what step to take, and in what direction.    With so many causes, it's hard to know where to start, and with so many people living only for themselves, it's easy to retreat, with your blinders on.  But the real truth is that eventually you will be affected by what's going on around you.  You already are.  

     It's truly admirable to believe in causes and fight for things, but it's more important to get into the middle of it and be a positive influence.  It's undoubtedly important to send checks to poverty stricken countries, homeless shelters, animal shelters, environmental advocates, human rights advocates, local schools, and whoever you feel compelled to help, but it's also so important, both for the healing of others and for yourself, to be the one doing the work.  If you follow your own personal passions and talents and give what you can, when you can, you will be the recipient of more love than you ever knew existed.  I don't know why it took me so long to become a regular volunteer.  We all have our excuses.  What I do know is that I will never go back.  Caring for others because you want to, showing up for people who really need it, giving your own time and attention to the things that matter most to you-that is how you find out what you're capable of and what you're worth.

My husband is an avid volunteer, for many organizations.  He is the one who inspired me to act on my need to give back.  The people who have been touched by his love and generosity and the people who have been touched by mine, have him to thank.  When I saw how much he gave of his time and life to all of these people who otherwise would have been lost, and how much love and gratitude he got in return, I knew that I was missing out on something big.  Another thing he taught me is that there are infinite ways to volunteer.  You can teach, you can perform, you can hammer and dig or pick up trash-there is no limit to your options, once you open the door.  I heard recently of a non-profit that is entirely devoted to holding proper burial services for abandoned babies.  My husband runs our local chapter of a non-profit that teaches veterans how to play the guitar.  There are people who go out in the middle of the night, asking the homeless if they want to get off the streets, and offering them more.  There are shelters and beach cleaning groups and hospital music programs.  There is no end to the possibilities of what we can do with our talents to help others.

     Your community needs you, just as much as your family needs you.  Protecting yourself and your family does not come through ignoring what is wrong with the world-it comes from getting in there and fixing it.  Finding a deep sense of self worth does not come from holing up on facebook all day or ruthlessly pursuing money, power or fame.  It comes from human connection, witnessing change, and being a part of something beautiful.  Think about what you have to offer, and give it.  Share your time, your talents, your sweat and your attention with the world and you will wake up every day knowing that your life has meaning.  Let your generosity extend to yourself, your family members, your friends, and everyone you meet.  Do these things for a few months, a few years, a few decades, (without announcing it on social media) and you will find a strength and integrity within your heart that you never knew existed.  Once you witness a magnificent change, you will know the true meaning of why you're here.

"We make a living by what we get.  We make a life by what we give."

Winston Churchill 

R. Noelle

For this piece and more of my artwork, please visit www.RNoelle.com