DARK INTO LIGHT...FREE

Blinding flash of the obvious: There is a higher consciousness...it is light and is of God, pure spirit. There is a lower consciousness...it is dark and it is the reasoning or material mind, pure intellect.

It is our dark consciousness that keeps us separated and insulated. It is that same consciousness that represents our security to us and keeps us from a higher consciousness so we go lower...seeking more security.

We  keep ourselves isolated through that mean consciousness. However, if and when we come into a higher consciousness...into the light...the dark consciousness becomes dissipated and cannot hold.

Our insecurities, fears and foibles are not and cannot be conquered, only masked, by our own efforts. Neither learning more nor fighting better will ever fully conquer those insecurities. It is in our realization that our reasoning mind (dark) consciousness needs the light and in that realization surrenders that we are freed from the fear of being. Just being.

The fun fact is the highest, God, consciousness is all there is...all else is just illusion on the road to getting there.

Thank you.

HUMILITY...THE PEARL BEYOND PRICE

Learning to trust that God has my back has been the hardest thing for me...has been? IS!

Just this morning I was thinking of a friend who has terminal cancer and is resisting it; i.e., he is filled with anger (fear). I remembered others I've known who, in their dying days, were able to release themselves from the fear of it all and be at peace. Several ego-stoked thoughts occurred to me that I could say to him which I just knew would lift him over his fear.

And then....

And then I thought of an upcoming engagement where I'll speak for an extremely limited time...fear of death is nada compared to the fear that clutched my gut. And I didn't even know I was apprehensive about it! It's not like I haven't done this before...a lot. And there it is...my lump of coal looking to become my diamond. It begins its journey when I laugh at my reasoning mind's high-flown aid to my friend...with gut-grabbing fear sweeping through me over my 10-minutes of possible failure.

Giving ourselves permission to feel fear when we feel fear...and laughing about it...is doing it right according to me. The "doing it," the feeling whatever and laughing about it, is just part of the process of learning to trust that God has our back.

It is when we feel the fear and beat ourselves up for it that our ego has taken charge again, locking us in place, calling it "common sense."  Telling us that believing that God has our back is just magical thinking...like whistling by the cemetery, a pacifier or a panacea at best. Not truth, like fear is.

This I know from my experience...asking God to ensure that any future happening goes well is my ego still in charge. For there is no God in the future. There is no God in the past. God is here and God is now, in this instant, and that is all. Setting up conditions for God to meet and calling it prayer is me testing God.

It may be for my own personal good that my fear does come true; i.e., I speak and meet deafening silence. All I'd get is the dreaded but much prayed for dose of humility of which I am always a quart low. Which to my reasoning mind is small comfort but that's the cosmic nature of humility...it doesn't look pretty on its face, but inside, it is the pearl beyond price.

Thank you.

THIS, TOO, IS GOD'S WILL

Fr. Richard Rohr quotes Ken Wilber as teaching: It is not what a person says, but the level from which they say it that determines the truth of a spiritual statement.

There it is: "...the level from which they say it...." That's also known as "walking it, not just talking it."

Too often we hear a truth and we just spout it out as if it is our own...as if we earned it. We didn't; we merely learned it. We have to move it on down...from the head to the heart to the gut to our Soul...and it is moved by our acceptance of our daily life experiences.

We've all heard the one about love begets love, hate begets hate. Then we perceive our dear friend Gertrude whom we love showing us an attitude of disrespect, and whoa! In a heartbeat, her name is on our mental "unfriend" list. It takes a lot of patient practice to head our own perception of disrespect off...to not immediately marry ourselves to our own hurt.

The biggest detour to our simply getting over our own self is that we stop and beat the living be-jayus out of ourselves for feeling hurt, for wanting to retaliate.

There's where we get on our merry-go-round...never going higher in consciousness, not really going lower where it would be more apparent even to us that we're on the wrong ride. We just get on and go around and around and around, gathering more mental evidence of hurt, of betrayal. Saying all the while "Please, God, bless her, change me." And we throw another log on our fire of resistance.

It is in disciplining ourselves to live and breathe an attitude of gratitude that we are given the gift of choice in our initial response. We learn to welcome whatever comes rather than resist it, then try to overcome our resistance. Overcoming our resistance means we keep the object of our resistance as our focus. No. We welcome whatever...then let our higher good make it welcome-able.

We have learned "God can and will intervene in my life in my behalf." The rest of the story is that there's a lot of inner work we must do daily in order to accept that intervention...in other words, to upgrade our thinking so that our first thought is: "This, too, is God's will."

Thank you.

THERE IS NO GOD THERE

The thought flashed that all this horrific torture by ISIL and now others is just masturbation in public.

I'm guessing that the sex drive is at the core of of all bullies. And the harsher the "punishment" they deal, the deeper the sexual thrill they feel, thus the harsher the punishment they deal...until it becomes torture, ever demanding deeper sexual release, more horrific torture.

I have to wonder why boys into men can't take a "Playboy" into the bathroom, why girls into women can't take a soft porn book into the bedroom...and leave the rest of the world at its own muddling-through best. Until, of course, someone thinks to seek God.

That's the trouble with the sex drive...it kinda overrides any desire for spiritual growth until after it's satisfied, then it's all about "Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned."

Not to put too fine a point on it.

Thank you.

DOGS SAY THE DARNEDEST THINGS

[The following is a reprint from my blog of March 3, 2011.]

My past is the gold of my today...everything I am, everything I have came to me by my invitation only, more or less like a kid at a grab-bag party...not thinking, not considering anything, just grabbing in greed.

Imagine my surprise when I saw Charlie Sheen seemingly self-destructing on nationwide hook-up and recognizing myself at 5...at 15...at 30. The grab-bag that had attracted me when first I grabbed it had said to me Recognition, Attention, Love, and oh how I wanted that.

A huge percentage of my rues, regrets and remorses are all about me grasping for attention. I remember some 30 years ago, my little dog Ari, my first spiritual adviser, was acting out...jumping around, yapping, tripping me, yapping. Finally, in my voice of authority, I say, "Stop it. You just want attention!" And, cocking his head, he all but puts his little fists on his hips and says, in exasperation, "Well, yeah."

I was stunned. That was the first time in my life that I consciously realized that wanting attention was not an embarrassing thing...that it was, in fact, simply wanting love. I remember as a kid, whining around the house about this or that, and my mom saying (surprise, surprise), "Stop it. You just want attention!" And I'd feel mortified, and deny, deny, deny that that was the case.

So, back with Ari. I stopped me...sat down on the floor and played with him...gave him my full attention and love, and we were both just as happy as if we had good sense.

There is nothing wrong with wanting love...it is in the trying to get it through unlovable acts that hurt and haunt us, and they only haunt us as long as we hold them to our chest in secret...in effect nurturing them.

Those are the secrets we swear we'll take to our grave, and learn when we share them they are the glue that holds our friendships together. There's my gold.

We get love by giving love...no more, no less.

Thank you.

FIND THE GOLD...ALWAYS AND ALL WAYS

I had a prayerful thought this morning: "Lord, let me walk in your shoes." Then a second thought: What a hoot. 

And my thoughts took wing: I see the Lord walking in my shoes right this minute as I sit here barefoot...my shoes and feet are My shoes and feet. Wherever I walk or have walked, willfully or willingly guided, God is/was/will ever be there...belly of the whale, lion's den, southern California or southern Ohio...God was with me every step...as my every step. 

Sidebar: With that, I am reminded of a clever novelty song I heard in San Antonio in 1957.  I only remember its punchline: When they were handing out noses, I thought they said roses, and I said, 'I'll have a big red one.' I laugh but I  love that  image of before conception we choose our life's selections. Which explains my belief that everything happens by invitation only...my personal invitation only.

According to me, I made my basic life's selection away from God's will toward self-will and ego-victories. At birth I began in the direction I had  picked and never changed my mind or my direction. I got to make my U-turn (to begin my journey back to God) as surrender, by crash and burn. Having no choice, I sought God in whatever manner or means he chose to throw in with me. In truth, I expected street corners and tambourines, and at that point, I was fine with that. At that point? Another hoot...I still am fine with it if that's his will. In surrender, I gave up the quibble.

It is a wonder, but I have been going in the right direction ever since with wonderful life-gifts beyond my comprehension plus a boatload of bumps and bruises, detours and roadblocks, and all for my benefit in the end. 

Staying the course, finding the gold always and all ways...gratitude for the gifts, humility in the uh-ohs...is walking in the right direction. According to me.

Thank you.

PONDER THE GOOD, BE DONE WITH THE UGLY

[The following is a reprint of my blog of February 16, 2012.]

I am reminded again, "Even were I never to speak to you, you would be well rewarded for setting apart this time...." (God Calling, February 16)

What a comfort.

Each swift turning, each mantram, each fleeting withdrawal from self, each thank you...all are well rewarded even if, in the moment, unseen by my eyes. It is in looking back at my life, my magical mystery tour, that I can document the rewards, the many rewards of still more spiritual growth.

It is for me to remind myself, as Saint Paul advised, to ponder the good, be done with the ugly...acknowledge the grace of gratitude, and know: I Am, God.

Thank you.

GOD LOVES ME...THAT'S ALL

What doth the Lord thy God require of thee, but to fear the Lord thy God, to walk in all his ways, and to love him, and to serve the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul. -- Deuteronomy 10:12

What doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God? -- Micah 6:8

Truth to tell, neither of those quotes rings my bell. I don't doubt them, they just seem dry as dust...they strike me as the definition of boooring.

So I asked me, what does the Lord my God require of me? In the quiet came my answer: open mind, open heart, open fist, open purse...detach from all reasoning mind wants dressed up as needs...love all, every grain of salt and sand, every new born lamb and fallen leaf, every resisting thought and feeling...love thoughtlessly...and when taken advantage of, love that...love the person or the condition taking advantage...love the "calcitrant" and the recalcitrant...love.

There. That rings my bell...then my reasoning mind, not known for taking God's word without a push-back, kicked in with "Sounds good. Lots of luck."

I then opened my book and read: There can never be a limit to the unfolding consciousness which you are when you go beyond the reasoning, thinking mind. -- Joel Goldsmith, "The Heart of Mysticism" at p. 1051

God loves me sooo much.

Thank you.

FREED FROM THE URGE TO REACT

I pass the following on as an important lesson from my own experience: We will be given credit for some beautiful words that we have never said...in fact, never had the good sense to say. Conversely, we will be all but slandered for words that never would we speak because we have too much good sense than to utter them.

Here's the nut of the lesson: We are only responsible for the words (and our intent behind them) that we actually say. We are not responsible for what others hear us say, nor are we responsible for how others choose to interpret what they hear us say.

As we remember this, we are freed from the urge to react...to in any way glory in the beautiful and feel guilty or to resist the slander and feel fury. It does not apply to us...we say our inner thank you in either case and mentally walk on by.

Words, the speaking of words, is the least important thing we do to "pass it on." They are not unnecessary, they are just the least necessary. It is our consciousness, our experience unto doing without thought and as we breathe, that shows forth as the invitation for others to see and to accept or reject as their consciousness dictates.

We are [I am] shows forth for others to see. If we never said a word, our inner Self would show forth as the personal invitation to others...and theirs, then, to do with as they chose.

Thank you.

LOVE, LAUGH, LET GO

[The following is a reprint of my blog of August 13, 2010.]

I was fretting this morning over a future happening…how it is going to take place, how I’m going to have to grit my teeth and bear it, how I am going to be made to look the fool…and I heard me asking God to help me handle this future happening with grace and dignity.

Then I heard the words (or they came to mind), “Love, laugh, let go.”

I realized these words were not about the projected happening. They were about looking at myself in the midst of my fret, accepting that I’m being the God of my own understanding. That’s all worry is, actually…playing God in my mind as if this non-event is mine to arrange or un-arrange…then fooling myself by asking God, with a bunch of humble words, for help to be cool…or, in truth, to look cool.

God is not in the facade, God is in the heart.

Thank you.

THE WINNING IMPERATIVE...GOOD FOR ALL

I've been watching Ken Burns's "The Roosevelts" on PBS this week.

In my extremely simplistic opinion, the Nazis of the 1940s  were the ISIL of today...feared because their intent was so pervasively evil that they were unconquerable in the minds of many.

We won that War, according to me, because our primary goal was the survival of democracy...not the destruction of the Nazis, the fascists. The goal of the fascists on every level was the obliteration of all, the survival of none, who was not a fascist.

The power of We. We came together. We had a common goal. Then, the winning imperative: Our goal was for good, survival of all, not ill, destruction of most.

Thank you.

LISTEN...THEN OBEY

In order that you may receive God's grace, because even though God is present with you, you cannot receive God's grace unless love, joy, and respect fill your mind and your Soul. -- Joel Goldsmith, "The Heart of Mysticism" at p. 1044

Here's the quiet word according to me...just because we have another in our life with whom we live, treat courteously, never bad-mouth to others, respect even does not mean we love him as our Soul needs to love.

We can know this by our attack thoughts that we harbor toward her. We may never breathe a less than wonderful word against him, all the while the ego-centered mind can be sitting in heavy judgment of her.

The mistake we make is trying to keep that from showing...all our efforts go into keeping our ugly hidden. I hasten to add it is never a bad idea to keep our ugly hidden as opposed to parading it...but that is neither our Soul's goal nor Its good.

Our Soul's goal is to keep in constant contact with our God-center which knows all we do and brings back to us that which we give out...and then some. Remember the word is: You cannot receive God's grace unless love, joy, and respect fill your mind and your Soul.

Just keeping our harsh thoughts from escaping does not translate into showing love, joy and respect. And we are the only ones being fooled by our attempts. We for sure are not fooling God within, nor are we fooling God without, i.e., those who walk with us. All that leads to is our feeling unfairly put-upon because to our ego-mind, our efforts are so noble. We're trudging down that wrong path again.

The right path is learning to listen. We do not need to talk to God as much as we need to listen for God...for God to speak to us through whatever manner or means God chooses to speak. And then to obey.

Thank you.

ON MISSING FINAL JEOPARDY

God is always offering the perfect answer for and to each and all of us. It is our job to tune into him to receive his perfect words. Goldsmith compares it to a radio or TV which comparison I like...both are always giving information in one form or the other but we cannot hear it if we don't tune in.

The tuning in is what takes discipline...just like a TV program that we really want to watch. We eagerly wait for the time to turn it on, get ourselves all set to watch, then spend the next half hour running our minds on a personal problem and miss the program entirely. Or we fall asleep. I watch "Jeopardy" every night it's on and miss the final the majority of the time...and it's not my fault, of course. They have that way too long commercial break after Double Jeopardy right before Final Jeopardy, and all the applause wakes me as they sign off.

What's really irritating is that I know what I  need to do. I need to get up from my comfortable chair, go do something...anything...until I hear the end of the commercial, come back and catch the final.

Here's my thinking almost every night: I should go ready the coffee for tomorrow morning. But I don't want to get up out of my comfortable chair. It is really comfortable...really, really comfortable. I'll just run my eye over the newspaper here which I've already read. Then...loud applause. Final Jeopardy is over, and I've missed it again.

I repeat: The tuning in is what takes discipline. And right there is the core of the problem...just saying it again is not a solution. Doing it is the solution. I can say it again till my face falls off...while I nap.

Here's my take on the removal of all personal defects that we have finally recognized as defects not assets. We wear our brains to a nub either trying to think of a way to remove them or trying to think of the exactly right words to pray so God will understand what he needs to do to remove them.

Wearing our brains to a nub is our comfortable chair...our really, really comfortable chair. When, in fact, the solution is in practicing the presence of God...moment by moment. Too hard? Wearing our brains out spinning them uselessly just seems so much easier?

Here is the flat fact answer: "You have only to close your eyes, get quiet for a moment, and God will solve your problem." [Joel Goldsmith, "The Heart of Mysticism," at p. 1042]

Can it get any easier than that? But...the big hold-back but...it takes discipline. Self-discipline. Which means that only we each alone can apply the necessary discipline for our own self.

I look forward to missing Final Jeopardy again tonight. But tomorrow I'll....

Thank you.

ON FINDING THE WAY

"The way of uncertain future and faltering steps. It is My Way. Know that you will be led. Know that you will be shown." - God Calling, September 17

There it is. There is the fact of faith..."uncertain future and faltering steps" is the Way.

And, according to me, when still we weep and wail that our steps are faltering as we go forward uncertainly, that is the right way.

Call it the sausage making of still more spiritual growth...it might not be pretty, but that's only to the eye of the reasoning mind. We are being led away from the reasoning mind's sure and certain to our own inner knowing that we are being led, our own inner knowing that we will be shown.

There is no coming to believe and instantaneously walking free of self...doubt, worries, regrets. There is only walking through our doubts, through all that our own self throws at us. We're not getting to the other side of what worries us...no. We are getting to the other side of self...to that power greater than self.

Welcome the way of uncertain future and faltering steps...for there we will find the Way.

Thank you.

THE GOLD THAT PAVES OUR PATH

Every day in every way we are growing with God...because in every instant God and I are one. Self-doubt, self-hate, late-night natterings are all tools for use in the process of shedding the outer garments...like the peeling of the onion...and that is the correct process, according to me.

Ego lives and expresses itself through our reasoning mind, growing stronger through either self-glory or self-hate...makes no never mind to ego. We give over to the ego when we fight that, when we resist it. No.

When we catch ourselves once again beating on us for our ego thoughts (i.e., resisting), we learn to simply welcome those thoughts. Nothing shuts nattering up faster than agreement. Then we can choose to move on to a peaceful thought. [FYI, that works, too, with people who are just using our ears for their raves...that simple "You may be right" is a time and mind saver.]

What we must come to accept unto realization is that it is the missteps and mistakes, done by us or to us and that we dwell on with thoughts of regret or vengeance, that are our fortune. How we think on them is our gold. Those are the nuggets that are paving our path to God.

Begin the exercise, believing or not believing, that this, this which we are regretting so deeply and wishing it were otherwise, is our nugget of gold. Those thoughts, transmuted through love by God alone, not through prayer, worry, rues or remorses, form the foundation of our road to freedom from self.

Thank you.

WHERE PERSONAL PEACE IS BORN

Blinding flash of the obvious: Life's Golden Horseshoe is the u-turn we make from thanking God for every good thing that comes to us to thanking God for every single thing that comes to us.

According to me, that Golden Horseshoe has self on one end and God on the other...we start our life on self's side and make our turn toward God's side when we realize that "thank you" is the answer. That is all we ever need for honest, earnest, deep and uplifted conversation with God.

It's no great shakes to say "thank you" when we're gifted with a pot of wonderful, but when we see a pot of steaming stupid coming our way...can we think "thank you" then?

The first crack in our reasoning mind's resistance to such a concept is to just consider saying "thank you" for that is where still more spiritual growth has its roots...in the opening of a closed mind. It is in coming to acceptance within with that which we do not want to begin with that begins the process of overcoming our reasoning mind's resistance. That is where our personal peace is born.

A thank you for an unwanted anything goes against our common sense and confounds our ego, its need to win. We see the very possibility of any unwanted ugly coming toward us, we throw on our prayer shawl, hit our knees, and start running our mouth...calling it prayer.

There is no spirituality there, no spiritual growth, just our reasoning mind clamoring because to say thank you does not make reasoning mind sense...and again we learn: We must go beyond reason to love. Reason will not, cannot, get us there.

"Thank you" is our permission to our own selves to let go and let God. This is especially true when our reasoning mind is left wondering why? How can that be right? The key words there are, "our reasoning mind is left."

Thank you.

GOD SPEAKS...LISTEN!

Per Fr. Richard Rohr quoting St. Teresa of Ávila: “For the most part, all our trials and disturbances come from our not understanding ourselves.” (Interior Castle, IV, 1, 9).

Everything happens by invitation only...according to me. Every personal stumbling block I come to was chosen by me before conception. It is My way to set me free of me...when I chose it I saw what I would need from before conception to after death to enfold me into I, a.k.a., We, a.k.a., God.

It is not God's mouth not speaking, it is my ears not hearing. 

Thank you.

RADICAL MEANDERINGS

I'm reading a Jack Reacher novel, and I've come to a fact I was blissfully unaware of about the tribal women of Afghanistan.  They apparently are more feared than the Afghan male soldiers. Reacher, unfortunately, spells out several of their methods of torture. They are beyond anything I've ever heard of...it being a given I know less than nothing about torture and that's more than I want to know.

He quotes lines from a poem by Rudyard Kipling "about failed offensives and groaning abandoned battlefield casualties and cruel Afghan tribeswomen with knives. When you’re wounded on Afghanistan’s plains, and the women come out to cut up what remains, just roll to your rifle and blow out your brains, and go to your God like a soldier.”

All of this is by way of explaining my thought on awakening this morning: Is it the ruling consciousness of those torturing women, not the fierce fighting men with weapons, but the cruel consciousness of the women, that keeps Afghanistan poor, behind the modern world, and unconquered?

[I always hate to parade my ignorance but that seldom stops me...so following is my pitiful take on history.]

Is it that consciousness, that non-feeling consciousness, that turned back the Crusaders a thousand years ago (give or take), Russia some thirty-forty years ago, and has kept America in battle these last few years? All those who went to battle went with weapons made by man. Any weapon made by man can be defeated with another bigger, better and badder weapon made by man. And war goes on.

I believe that the human mind cannot long ponder that non-feeling consciousness without trying to overcome it...and the reasoning mind will invariably try to overcome by winning thus becoming like "them," only worse.

I believe, too, that an inhumane, godless consciousness can only be surrendered, not conquered, and surrendered only to God's grace, his love, its compassion. We are God's hands and feet on this earth and thus carriers of her love. Imagine.

Imagine loving our enemy as ourselves...and there it is. That's the open invitation for their surrender...not to us, not to our way, but to God, to love, to compassion.

If the reasoning mind spirals down to win for self, and the spiritual mind gives up to bring peace for all, why not give peace a chance?

Lift up mine eyes....

Thank you.

GOD DOES INDEED HAVE OUR BACK

I am convinced that our real work is inner-life work, a.k.a., ego deflation at depth.

We do not need to lose ten pounds, win the billion dollar lottery, find a miracle cure for our ills and ails...those are all wants, and there is nothing inherently wrong with wanting them. It is when we pray for them, expecting affirmative results from Out There, that we get off the path.

According to me, the right path is: Seek ye first the kingdom of heaven and all these things shall be added unto you. Whenever it wants to, however, my ego still arm-wrestles with "and all these things shall be added...." That very promise makes the first part secondary to my ego where self-determined objectives live and thrive. That may be the first test of the sincerity of my desire to seek first, etc.

To be happy in our daily life, it is good...or not bad...to set personal goals and strive to accomplish them. It is the nature of our personal goals that needs fine-tuning. When our goal is for self fulfillment alone...more money, better health while eating junk food only, a higher place in society...our ego is doing our thinking for us. We've left the kingdom of heaven way behind.

I like to think the kingdom of heaven is within us and operating for the benefit of others.

I try to build on that idea, on the idea that that applies to each and all of us. I don't have to concern myself with the kingdom of heaven operating for me for you're taking care of me; I've got Hector's back; he's got Joe's back...and the beat goes on.

When we get that right, we have our guarantee that God does indeed have the back of each and all of us.

Thank you.

GOD'S IMPERFECT MESSENGER

It is well for me to take the time to ponder the whole concept of oneness ever so often...just to reinforce my own understanding, a concrete idea of all is and as one.

I start with the ocean: A little wave out there, feeling good...then it looks to its left, and there's a much bigger wave, strutting its stuff. Little wave is like Whoa...look at that! I am nothing compared to that one. But take a glass, fill it with the water of the little wave, and another glass filled with the water of the big wave...same water, one. 

Then there's time. A second sitting there envying a minute who is wishing it were an hour who is in awe of a day who is intimidated by a week...through to the year catching a glimpse of an eon. I see that eon stretching out into infinity on a pinpoint. There. There is God as all the seconds, waves, grains of sand, seeds, larvae, embryos...One, we are one. 

We are one, and each grain of sand unto the mother/father supreme of all mankind is God's imperfect messenger.

Get over it.

Thank you.

NOTHING ORIGINAL CAN BE ADDED

I dreamed last night that I was on my own...that I could and would never again experience any of God's little giftees...no unexpected pearl beyond price for me ever again.

I awoke with a feeling of dread, and I remembered the dream. I realized I was figuring without the giftees that I would not know God in my life. I asked me, "What if that were true? Without the little 'proofs of purchase,' would I still have a profound belief in the personal goodness of God in my life?"

Quick as a blinding flash, God gave me a giftee: Of course, I would still have my belief. I have all the instructions in black and white laid out for me personally from who knows how long ago up up to as I type. I have the Sermon, which if I live to be 200 I'll never do exactly as written, I have a big book that speaks to me personally. It makes any spiritual literature I've ever read (especially the Sermon) understandable to me...doable by me.

As long as I have all that's gone before me, I can rest in the knowledge that I have all I can ever need to keep me seeking still more spiritual growth which desire is God's ultimate giftee, Nothing original can be added...the very use recycles it as new, different, better. It's a whole new world daily...or as often as I choose to use it so why not daily?

We have the knowledge and the place to go to when we forget. It's all reusable...in fact, the more we use it, the deeper it lifts us higher.

Thank you.

IN SELF-FORGETTING ONE FINDS LOVE

When the small self knows that it has no meaning, no foundation apart from who it is in God, that’s radical transformation. -- Fr. Richard Rohr, "Daily Meditation," September 9, 2014,

I read the above and immediately thought: "For it is in self-forgetting that one finds" from the Prayer of St. Francis of Assisi. In regard to those very words, a friend questioned recently what exactly one finds?

My contention is in self-forgetting one finds God...for to the self, self is all. Stripped of self, what else is there but God?

Stripped of self does not leave us with no self-esteem...there is no self to have esteem for. We do have esteem, but it is esteem for God which is esteem for all, God being love.

Self-forgetting then leaves us with love...that's all.

'I live no longer, not I' (Galatians 2:20), that is a completely different experience of the self. -- Ibid

Thank you.

ON MOVING UP DEEPER

I say unto you, that ye resist not evil; but whosoever shall smite thee on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. -- Matthew 5:39

Matthew 5 in the Bible is the Sermon on the Mount. In it entirety it goes contrary to the reasoning mind, to rational thought. It is paradox start to finish. Look at resist not evil -- in what world does that make sense? And the answer is: In the fourth dimensional world.

I have been given to going to the outside of enough, to the extreme, to prove wrong something I don't agree with...the subject might have been the dangers of sugar, and I'd bring up Hitler and Nazis to prove my point. That being true, just imagine on my first reading my resistance to the entire Sermon, but most especially to "resist not evil."

I was at the time in a world of trouble trying to let go of a particular obsession of mine. One day I was pondering the Sermon...how it could not be right...and I received a blinding flash of the obvious: "The more you resist your obsession, the more obsessed you get."

It was as if God had spoken in my right ear, and I knew it to be true.

I became a believer in the Sermon, and I have tried since then to at least keep it in mind at some point during my day. (Which in actuality is just my going contrary to what I want to do or think in the moment.) I probably have failed as often as I've succeeded, but wanting to counts...toward willing, toward ready.

I became more willing when it became clear to me that I can lie (and have), I can deny (and have), but all that I accomplished was I kept binding myself tighter and tighter to that which I was resisting.

It is our refusal to resist not our perceived evil, to simply hug it and kiss it and let it go, that makes it, in effect, the god of our understanding. Our entire being is super-glued to that which we want to release.

Why is it such a hard lesson learning that we can't hug it and let it go at the same time? The reason, of course, is that we are living in our reasoning mind...believing victory will be ours for the thinking.

Just like acceptance, we can't resist not evil through our thinking. We've got to move us up a notch deeper...and for that, we must go to God.

Thank you.

FEELING LIKE A BUTTERFLY...FREE

Our deepest secret, our most hated (read "feared") idea about ourselves is our gateway to freedom.

Which is also true of our little no-account secrets. We may have something that occurred last week or last month, and we can see no good reason to share it. Unfortunately, our feelings often can't discern between deep and dark and little no-accounts...both can give us the feeling of a hidden-since-birth secret.

Interestingly, there are many ways around our secret...as in lie and deny...but those are temporary fixes with ugly hooks on them. There is only one permanent way through it. And through with it. That is to accept it just as it is, and acceptance, according to me, is an impossibility to our unaided self alone. So, in other words, seek inside help...ask God what he has in mind here.

Personally, I remind God, and often, that he's the one in charge, he's got the job, he's got the power. If he wants to delegate, do it already, but he's going to have to give me a clue. It is amazing...miraculous is not stretching it...how often I give over, and he answers in the next thing I read. Sometimes it's Rohr or Easwaran, sometimes it's Carolyn Hax, sometimes it's an e-mail from a friend. But there it is. my answer...pure and simple, to quote my beloved Chet.

Free the fear, free ourselves. And here we are...feeling as free as a butterfly.

Thank you.

KEEPING OTHER-FOCUSED

I recently overheard a woman  talking to her friend. She was really upset at a third person, and she was hot. She was wishing she could just walk up to Third Person and give her a set-down she wouldn't soon forget...no, what she'd really like to do is let Third Person start talking to her and just turn and walk away with the Third in mid-sentence...no, what she'd really, really like to do....

I saw me back in the day talking to my bathroom mirror...and, who's kidding whom, scratch me and there's me today in any off minute.

That whole episode was karma aborning...the very roots of "bad business gets you bad business." And here's another kicker...Third Person may not be the source of that woman's woes when it comes back on her. It may very well come through a person she has "done nothing to." Karma doesn't care who or what you did it to...karma only knows you did it.  

I pondered that whole scenario later, and I understood yet again the outcome of that payback mentality. It is not only achieving our ugly imagined wants that is bad business...just the thinking, just the want to, whips back and slaps us silly. That's how we get our toes stepped on "seemingly without provocation." That's the ugly/beautiful punchline.

We've got to clean up our thinking so that our doing is not self-driven.  Self-driven is our ego looking for its reward.

God is our Self driver...we keep God-focused, other-focused, we don't have to wonder, worry or fret about our reward. Other-focused is its own reward...a.k.a., peace of mind.

Thank you.

NOW...THE APPOINTED TIME

The mind can only reprocess the past, judge the present, and worry about the future. Only some form of meditation will teach you how to move from an egocentric, fear-based life to a love-based life. - Fr. Richard Rohr, "Daily Meditation," September 5, 2014.

The ego cries, "How long, oh Lord?!"

The Lord answers, "Now."

We are the source of all our woes...for "I don't know" is a cop-out, and "I can't" is a lie.

I am is the power, I am is the snag.

The snag is always "I am thinking, analyzing, pondering." The power is always "It is I, be not afraid."

Now is the appointed time, the only acceptable time: "Choose ye this day whom you shall serve."

Thank you.

COMMIT DAILY TO OUR SPIRITUAL GROWTH

My note to self written in my 24-hour book on 9/4/88: It is not having everything in life go smoothly that shows forth a good spiritual condition...it is when things go awry and I go smoothly that shows forth a good spiritual condition.

I am convinced the hold back to living in trust that God has our back is a refusal to rein in our ego...which is always looking for a shortcut; i.e., a pill, a shrink, a new this or a new that. All of which may be helpful in getting momentarily unstuck...just sharing with another trusted person sometimes does it. But without the discipline of our commitment daily to still more spiritual growth, our lives will be based on momentary fixes...dashing from ennui to crisis to ennui and back again, torn as to which is worse...and what's the best fix for right this minute.

It is a scary fact that our self-determined fix for right this instant is the seed for our next crisis.

It is a comforting fact that a sit-and-wait-on-the-Lord fix is the seed, the vine and the bloom of peace, joy and love. It is only through "our commitment daily to still more spiritual growth" that we are gifted with that comfort...for our ego is still looking for that shortcut and its voice is still up and running.

Thank you.

THE PERFECT POWER OF GRATITUDE

Many of us are stuck in the belief that we must "take care of ourselves," "stand up for ourselves." At some point, we must gut-bucket believe that a power greater than ourselves can and does have our back...can and will "take care of us," "stand up for us."

The hard part in truly believing that, I am convinced, is that we want to see it, see our winning, through our own eyes. No. We must let that perfect power, aka God, lift us up so that we look out through its eyes.

All our ego eyes can see is what our ego believes it needs, which is, in fact, simply a want. Our ego has neither an idea nor a care as to how its want may adversely affect others. God does. (And we should because that's where karma is born...what goes around, comes around or what we send out comes back to us...quadrupled.)

We learn by living spiritual principles that on arrival God's perfect gift to us quite often looks less than wonderful to our ego. As in the other person gets the prize, wins, looks good...or better than we feel like we look at any rate. And ego wails, "I coulda done better than this...I shoulda stood up for myself."

No. It is in the going to the other person, as honest, open and willing as we can muster, and simply saying, in effect, "You have an interesting point...thank you."

We do this, not for the other person, nor to simply shut down our ego...we do it for God, for the still more spiritual growth that we need as much as we need water. It is a lifetime practice which we know we are growing into when we can say to ourselves about ourselves and with gratitude in our hearts, "Thank you."

Thank you.

ON AWAKENING...RESENTMENT FREE

"Bad business gets you bad business." My mentor told me that oh so many years ago, and it becomes truer to me every time I have reason to remember it.

We learn as long as we stay in the payback mentality, we're dealing in bad business...no matter how justified our ego assures us we are. If we stay in payback, we reap rues, regrets and remorses...even (or especially) when we "win" the current round of payback...for another round is coming, we know it and we cringe even as we gear up for it.

Since our supposed goal is to get, be and maintain happy, joyous and free, we must detach from the payback mentality, that "don't get mad, get even" hothouse for resentments. Loose it and let it go must be our new and constant mantra.

One sure way to be a winner is to work toward the other one feeling like a winner...there is our "sleeping pill." There's our assurance we won't be awakened at 2:00 AM by our own shoulda, woulda, coulda and poor, pitiful, put-upon me.

We'll awaken at our chosen hour feeling happy, joyous and free...groggy and looking forward to our coffee, maybe, but resentment free. Let's hear an "AMEN!"

Thank you.

WHERE WE FIND OUR GOLD

The great spiritual teachers always balance knowing with not knowing, light with darkness. In the Christian tradition, the two great strains were called the kataphatic (according to the light) or “positive” way—relying on clear words, concepts, and ideas—and the apophatic (against the light) or “negative” way—moving beyond words and images into silence, darkness, and metaphor. Both ways are necessary, and together they create a magnificent form of higher non-dual consciousness called faith. -- Fr. Richard Rohr's "Daily Meditations," September 1, 2014

Rohr's share this morning reminded me of back in the day when we used film with which to take pictures. The image we took with the camera first emerged as a "negative" which was then put through a process, i.e., developed, and became the final picture, the "positive" end result. It took both the negative and the positive to have a permanent picture.

Merging a negative opinion with a positive thought (a.k.a., changing our mind), is helped along by mentally relying on the power of  paradox...which today is my favorite place. How else can we explain Jung's contention that where we fall, where we fail, there is where we find our gold? Whoever fell or failed who didn't first thing curse the fall? We usually felt abandoned, alone...stupid, at least...for not knowing better, my least favorite admonition. And then, later, find that fall, that failure, to be the origins of a blessing beyond reasoning...the pearl beyond price.

I have read in many different books that ignorance isn't what we don't know, it's what we think we do know...and are dead wrong about, all the while refusing to open our minds to another view. 

That's where paradox can lift us over the hump. If we're right this minute sitting in the uglies, we don't have to believe those uglies are our gold...we just need to remember Jung wasn't stupid and he may have been right. 

Thank you.