DOING IT WRONG LEADS TO PEACE OF MIND

By love, God can be embraced and held, but not by thinking....You must also know that this darkness and this cloud will always be between you and your God....So be sure you make your home in this darkness. It’s the closest you can get to God here on earth, by waiting in this darkness and in this cloud. -- extracts from The Cloud of Unknowing 

 

It is a wonderment to find comfort in the words of an anonymous 14th-century mystic that the darkness and the cloud will always be between us and our God. 

We were taught, and have sought to believe, that if we prayed hard enough, acted good enough, spoke with love only, we would feel good about our self, we would be fear-free, guaranteeing our perfect peace of mind. 

Ignoring the fact that to seek perfect peace is still a self-determined objective, we carried our own personal cross of less-than...never good enough...and seeking, studying, pondering more and harder became our how-to. 

When we came across the quiet word that we must go beyond reason to love, our life changed...or, more to the point, our mind changed which changed our life. Our changed mind lifted us into higher consciousness, and we began to think, feel, do and be from a place of love, i.e., God consciousness. 

The rude awakening, albeit necessary suffering, to be lifted into God consciousness does not preclude living in the natural world. That explains the comfort we receive from the words you must also know that this darkness and this cloud will always be between you and your God. 

Or, as our home-grown saint Fr Richard has written, we don't get to God by doing it right, we get to God by doing it wrong. There's our peace of mind...if we will use it.

Thank you.