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This is http://www.essayz.com/a9509181.htm Previous-Essay <== This-Essay ==> Following-Essay Click HERE on this line to find essays via Your-Key-Words. {Most frequent wordstarts of each essay will be put here.} ========================================================== %RELIGIOUS LEADER TEACHER GOD SAVIOR DISCIPLE EVIL+950918 %FOCUS ATTENTION CONFLICT RESOLUTION ALIENATION SIN+950918 %SCRIPTURE METAPHYSICS ULTIMATE REALITY TRUTH DUTY 950918 Many religious teachers and scriptures have been the focus of human attention. Many sincere people have focused their attention according to their differing understandings of religious leaders and scriptures---and have engendered much conflict, misery, tension, violence, alienation and destruction. Those who are in conflict with each other often claim to be in possession of ultimate truth, power, authority, knowledge and wisdom--- about the nature of ultimate reality and the ultimate source of all truth, power, authority, knowledge and wisdom. We can know religious leaders by the fruits of their followers; not by any supernatural confirmation of the ultimate truth of their teachings, scriptures and metaphysical assertions about God, heaven, sin, evil, damnation, salvation, etc. Human conflicts over all that transcends human experience are conflicts which always bear bitter fruit. We will do well and be well when we focus more modestly upon our own experiences and are true to ourselves and to each other about our own experiences. People who focus attention upon negative aspects of life usually lead negative lives which are disintegrative and destructive of personal and communal integrity. It is not possible to focus attention upon negative aspects of life and thereby promote positive living. People who focus attention upon positive aspects of life usually lead positive lives which are integrative and promote personal and communal integrity. It is not possible to focus attention upon positive aspects of life and thereby promote personal and communal disintegration. It is not helpful to be dishonest about our negative experiences: to mis-represent them, to repress them, to mask them, to hide them, etc. Such dishonesty is disintegrative of persons and communities. To be honest about our negative experiences does not necessarily make them ultimately real and powerful. Many of our negative experiences are the results of mistakes, ignorance and misleading ideals and values. We need to recognize such mistakes, ignorance and misleading ideals and values---and all the negative experiences to which they lead. We need to trace from our negative experiences to whatever has lead us to experience life so negatively. Often we have experienced life negatively because we have approached life full of negative assumptions, beliefs, convictions, preoccupations and attitudes about ourselves and about each other. We become negative prophets who live in ways which lead to the fulfillment of our negative expectations. The fact that our negative expectations are fulfilled is no proof that we are in tune with the ultimate nature of reality---it is proof that we have much to do with how we experience reality as we expect it to be. If we try try to eliminate evil in alienative ways; we promote alienation which is the essence of evil relationships among misled people. If we fixate upon evil in efforts to transcend it; we become alienated from the people whom we regard as being tainted with evil. If we fixate upon perfection as a way to transcend evil; we become alienated from the people who we discover not to be perfect---including ourselves. If we fixate upon ultimate definitions of virtue, goodness, and salvation in efforts to achieve them; we become alienated from people (including ourselves) who fail to fulfill our ultimate definitions. To the extent that we are preoccupied with dichotomous distinctions in our efforts to be distinctive; to that extent we become fragmented, alienated, disintegrative and miss the mark of being truly human beings. To enjoy being truly human beings we need to focus upon being truly humane as we do justly, love mercy and walk humbly with each other in the PRESENCE of all that transcends our limited conceptions of reality. (c) 2005 by Paul A. Smith in (On Being Yourself, Whole and Healthy) ==========================================================