Short Lessons on Unconditional Love: Spiritual Fasting Simplified
To understand spiritual fasting, an act of pure unconditional love, agapé, consider the duality name revealed in knowledge of Word. It is not polarization, for that term indicates two parts of a whole knowingly in opposition. The duality name is the illusion of two wholes simultaneously unable to recognize each other in a person or nation. These wholes are the states of spiritual life and spiritual death coexisting in our suneidesis (conscience).1 However, spiritual fasting brings the light of spiritual life into the darkness of spiritual death and does away with the duality name.
While present, the duality name prevents us from having the fulfilling experience of knowingly participating in the activities of Name’s agapé light, the light of God or the light of Life. But since we are part of the activities regardless, we look for ways to substitute the fulfillment through the duality name. Nothing can substitute it though and all attempts only lead to addiction through misuse of the word-symbol evil, the devastating instrument of the duality name.
The Word-Symbol Evil
According to knowledge of Word, resisting evil is the blind act of resisting the light of Name without knowing it is Name. Thus, evil first means “spiritual blindness to the agapé light of Name”, which cuts us off from the light’s fulfillment. Being cut off and seeking a substitute, then, naturally works through the word-symbol evil. Therefore, spiritual fasting is against the word-symbol evil in the duality name, breaking all addiction.
Key to the fast is knowing that blindness is a state of mind, not a substance, and thus evil is a state of mind not a substance. But in our blindness, we consider the physical substance used to express evil to be evil. In essence, we believe people, in their physical form, are evil themselves when appearing to express evil. This is the word-symbol evil at work in the part of the duality name designating us spiritually dead.
By not resisting evil as the blindness, we can see that people themselves remain names of light even when appearing to express evil. And this reveals them in the part of our duality name designating us spiritually alive. But when we resist it, we use the word-symbol evil and blindly curse them physically and their light as evil substance. Finding a type of fulfillment in doing so, since it is their light we are using, we use it as a substitute for the real fulfillment of Name’s light and form spiritual addiction, which deepens spiritual blindness. But during spiritual fasting, we restore awareness of Name being the source of all substance, deepening our spiritual vision (see The Practical Guide).
Of course, with Word having full vision of Name in everyone, when he told someone that they were evil, he first meant that they were spiritually blind to Name and, nonetheless, loved them as enemies of the suneidesis.2 He spiritually fasted for the world, against the word-symbol evil in the blind, ready to do away with the duality name in anyone ready to choose agapé.
Spiritual Fasting
Spiritual fasting is the method given to us to do our part in breaking spiritual addiction to the word-symbol evil in ourselves and doing away with the duality name. Once free, we spiritually fast to share in Word bearing the addiction of others, even its symptoms in our own body through Word permeating its joints and marrow, Name in Word. Bearing it, therefore, means we recognize their addiction and can bear its symptoms in our body—without allowing it to play out in our body. This is referred to as not hiding ourselves from our own flesh. To better understand both ways of spiritual fasting, see the symbolic diagram of the duality name.
As an example, Paul bore the temptations of the Galatians in his body. Knowledge of Word does not mention which temptations specifically, but let’s assume one of them was lust. It produced certain expressions and behaviors in them that appeared in Paul, but he demonstrated the ability to “turn them off” before they could play out. For he was not tempted. He was free from spiritual addiction and the duality name. Bearing their spiritual addiction and its physical symptoms through spiritual fasting for them in Word, he suffered for them as an act of pure unconditional love.
Had any of them turned to the principle during that time, Word would have healed them of their addiction by removing their duality name immediately or putting them on the path of knowledge to learn how to do their part.
Unfortunately, none of them did. They soon misinterpreted the temptation in Paul’s body to mean that he was tempted also. So they judged him, probably with the outer word “evil” but most certainly with the word-symbol in their own inner blindness. They probably also used Paul’s past when he was addicted to convince themselves that he still was. This is how spiritual blindness to everyone being names of light is made worse.
However, that does not make seeing through their state of mind any more difficult, even when watching two or more names of light blindly calling each other evil. Restore your awareness to see all substance in Name and working through Word, with those under deeper spiritual blindness unknowingly wrestling Name with its own substance. And restore your discernment to know that Name in Word permeates your physical body. It empowers you to bear the symptoms of their addiction in it, when called on by Word, out of pure unconditional love for them without being against yourselves.
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Suneidesis, pronounced soon-eye-day-sis, is a Greek word that joins our natural awareness with our sense of conscience. Click on the link for a detailed explanation. It is central to this teaching. Using this foreign word regularly in discussions helps us get accustomed to experiencing something new and positive working in our awareness itself. When the word conscience is used, it will refer to the aspect of suneidesis that involves right and wrong, but this aspect cannot be separated from our co-conscientious awareness of all things.
If I understand that my awareness of something as simple as a cup includes co-conscientiousness, I do not allow myself to get blinded by the cup alone but know it as part of all creation at the hands of the Creator or the universe, depending on one’s beliefs. Spiritual maturity does this naturally.
The repetition of suneidesis is meant to challenge you to consider this positive dimension in your awareness. Apologies, but it will only be a necessary annoyance until it becomes natural.