ON OPENING THE MIND

For some reason, it is very difficult for us to accept our divine nature. This has always puzzled me. We pay money for books about how destructive we are. We stand in line to see movies that emphasize our capacity for making trouble. We go to encounter groups where we agitate each other over our weaknesses. Then, when [It] comes to tell us that the kingdom of heaven is within us, we say, 'There must be some mistake.' - "Words to Live By," by Eknath Easwaran, October 28.

Thank You.

GRATITUDE...A COSMIC FIX

[The following is a reprint of a blog of mine from July 15, 2008.]

It has been said that all one needs do to be happy right this very moment is to thank God for everything exactly as it is right this very moment.

Every time I find myself hoping, praying that “this” will happen or “that” won’t happen, I know, once again, I’m outside my gratitude field…in effect, telling God how life should be.  

I’m told that God’s will is what I would wish for if I had all the facts. To my chagrin, I’ve had enough of my prayers answered, exactly as I prayed, to know that for truth. [Meaning, of course, that I did not have all the facts and now look at the mess I have.]

I spent way too much of my life not knowing the exactly right thing to do, so doing nothing. I half jokingly say my idea of perfect peace back then was having somebody to blame.

Most times today, when I’m totally clueless how to handle something, I figuratively hold my nose, take a leap of faith, and thank God for whatever comes. That’s the joy of coming to believe, and then trusting, that a loving God is on my side…and yours.

Meister Eckhart said, “If the only prayer you say in your life is thank you, that would suffice.”

Thank You.

FILLED WITH LOVING-KINDNESS

The following is a really neat meditation from A Path With Heart by Jack Kornfield, at p. 20:

"...begin to recite inwardly the following phrases directed to yourself. You begin with yourself because without loving yourself it is almost impossible to love others.

May I be filled with loving-kindness.
May I be well.
May I be peaceful and at ease.
May I be happy.

"As you say the phrases, you may also wish to...picture yourself as a young and beloved child, or sense yourself as you are now, held in a heart of loving-kindness."

I use that for my afternoon meditation, and always add my recent BFO: "I am as good as I ought to be...being me."

Thank You.

THE SECRET OF ALL RELATIONSHIPS

My Easwaran daily this morning spoke of relationships, how jealousy comes into a relationship when we try to possess someone for ourselves. "This is the secret of all relationships....Instead of trying to exact and demand, just give, give more, and give still more. This is the way to earn love and respect."

Note, he wrote "all"  relationships...within that, I'm thinking of our ever so tenuous relationship with God.

I'm guessing that is why so many of us cannot believe in a personal God, a loving God...God period. We have never not demanded from It. We have never thought to give to It...to ponder exactly how we could give to It.

We give to It in the exact same way we heard back in the day: Give to a friend, a spouse, a parent, a love with open hand, head, heart, seeking nothing in return but to give more. We heard that back when we were believing in Cinderella, Snow White, and that becoming homecoming queen would make us perfect and loved forever...back when it was easy to believe that we could and would love with open hand, head, heart, seeking nothing in return but to give more.

We believed that until we got run over by a Mack truck a few times (never accepting that we were the ones choosing to lay down in front of that truck). That's when we took matters unto our own self...and Armageddon bloomed.

And there's the pearl...our own personal Armageddon is our pearl beyond price. Without it, we'd still be looking for love in front of Mack trucks.

The trouble with loving with open hand, head, heart, seeking nothing in return but to give more is it is the truth, and it does not make sense to our reasoning mind. It is a hard, hard lesson learning that we  must go beyond reason to love...reason will block our every move.

We start with friends and family...and find it's actually easier to start with those we don't know at all. Then move up to those we're not too fond of. "With those we dislike we can begin to practice justice and courtesy, perhaps going out of our way to understand and help them." [Author anonymous.]

I think we move to our beloveds last because we expect with them that it will be easier...expecting them to respond in kind. When we don't get our expected result, it's devastating, and we drop the whole experiment and never move on to those we're not all that fond of to begin with...much less to God.

My life experience in giving love, just love, is it is a daily exercise...first in remembering, then in trying, then in trying again...and yet again. The miraculous news...the beyond my wildest dreams: I know I am going in the right direction. I have had some success. I'm building on that by asking God daily, "Whom  may I serve for you today?"

"You send them, I'll serve them" is my motto...any modicum of success is a YES! day for me.

Thank You.

EVENTUALLY IS HERE AND NOW

In any discord, no matter how minor, if one party does not yield, if only within him/herself, a major war will erupt...eventually. It will only be resolved by the yielding of one or both sides...complete surrender or compromise...which, when we look back, means that the discord was unnecessary to begin with.

Our reasoning mind always legislates for itself and will always have a self-determined objective at hand. Introduce a "minor discord," as in, we may want to simply shut the other person up or, something prettier, to not "upset" the other one (which, in reality, is the proverbial moi), and there is the seed of  resentment.  That seed will grow, will fester, will erupt into the very war our self-determined objective was seeking to avoid.

Again we are reminded: We have given up fighting anything and anybody. Eventually, the lesson we  learn is in how we give up. We learn to shuck our shields, to live with a giving-over attitude...also known as an attitude of gratitude. We give over through spiritual principles, spiritual growth, spiritual means.

The great lesson is that eventually is always NOW the instant that we realize that this, too, is of God, that in giving over we have been graced with peace, the pearl beyond price, our reasoning mind's one desire.

Thank You.

WHATEVER, GOD

My blinding flash of the obvious: To the ego-based reasoning mind, "changing my mind" equates to "losing my mind."

We do...in fact, we must...lose our ego-based reasoning mind. We must "loose it and let it go" in order to move more deeply into higher consciousness. Our reasoning mind becomes that which it was intended to be, a tool for the use of the higher power, the force within.

This is also known as turning over our will to a higher power. We do not turn over our will outwardly, we turn it over inwardly, to the power within. And that's not all: If we in truth turn over our will, our life will follow and follow into a better place...a place not dictated by ego-victory self-determined objectives, but determined by the perfect objective which is of God.

It all starts with our willingness to simply change our minds...not to what we think will be a better-for-me result, but to...the result we cannot know except that it will be in our behalf. It already is set and is in our behalf, we just need to awaken to that.

Being hesitant to trust what we cannot see, we need to look back over our life...almost invariably those events we tried to pray away became our gifts, those that we fought for and succeeded in winning became our "What was I thinking?!"

It comes down to the willingness to exchange our reasoning mind's "for me" results to "Whatever, God, thy will not mine be done."

Thank You.

TICKED OFF? GET GRATEFUL

I realized sometime back that all my defects of character are my gifts, my Golden Goose. I keep saying that I haven't had a bad day since I retired, but, in truth, I haven't had a bad day since I realized that.

The Golden Goose is the defect du jour. There's always something. Since I accept that nothing is in the past tense with me, I have learned to get grateful for everything. Whatever is ticking me today is that which I can use in my search for still more spiritual growth today.

Nothing else is such an effective prod. Knowing that to remove this character defect I should, I want to, I must...do naught because each leaves the burden of removal on me. That is like asking a handcuffed person to walk a tightrope over Niagara Falls. The chances of success are slim to nil.

Living an attitude of gratitude keeps a constant "Thank You" flowing...without thought therefore without reasoning mind deciding whether this one is thank-able or not. Unless it is wrapped in gold, it's rarely thank-able to the reasoning mind.

The reasoning mind, driven by the ego, will never find a less-than-wonderful appearing thing to be thank-able. My greatest gift awoke within me looking unwanted, ugly, bad and not good for me...I thank God for it daily.

That being true, then the current "Oh no, not that" can be...no, IS...thank-able.

Thank You.