I went to bed last night feeling in a brown funk...woke up feeling that I am a brown funk which feels worse so fits better. It's all Roger Federer's fault.
So I sat down to my Goldsmith reader, and there (again!) is God's personal message to me: "...even though God has placed you on that spiritual path and there is now no turning back, at this period of your unfoldment, there is still the opportunity for a choice: You can choose to let your progress be slow or to speed it up. Choose you this day whom ye will serve. (Joshua 24:15)"
Thank you.
Monday, July 7, 2014
Sunday, July 6, 2014
ON FORGIVENESS
"Until we recognize the potential for evil in all of us, there can be neither atonement nor forgiveness." --from a letter to the editors, The Washington Post, July 6, 1997
"Only I can pardon my persecutors, only I can set them free." -- from my God Calling, June 24, 1997
"Life will give you whatever experience is most helpful for the evolution of your consciousness." -- an Eckhart Tolle quote found in the comic strip Agnes, January 3, 2009
"Driven by a hundred forms of fear, self-delusion, self-seeking, and self-pity, we step on the toes of our fellows and they retaliate. Sometimes they hurt us, seemingly without provocation, but we invariably find that at some time in the past we have made decisions based on self which later placed us in a position to be hurt." -- Anonymous
Thank you.
"Only I can pardon my persecutors, only I can set them free." -- from my God Calling, June 24, 1997
"Life will give you whatever experience is most helpful for the evolution of your consciousness." -- an Eckhart Tolle quote found in the comic strip Agnes, January 3, 2009
"Driven by a hundred forms of fear, self-delusion, self-seeking, and self-pity, we step on the toes of our fellows and they retaliate. Sometimes they hurt us, seemingly without provocation, but we invariably find that at some time in the past we have made decisions based on self which later placed us in a position to be hurt." -- Anonymous
Thank you.
Saturday, July 5, 2014
ASK GOD FOR NOTHING...AND RECEIVE GOLD
I awoke one morning very aware of just how hard it is to regret telling a bald-faced lie when one feels no real regret for the lie (because it was for the benefit of another...it was justified!) but instead feels only fear of being found out, like being pilloried in public.
I remembered my commitment to ask God for nothing...probably because I didn't know what to ask for. I clearly couldn't ask him to bless a lie, or to not count this one because it was justified...whose lie isn't justified? At any rate, I simply started repeating the holy name. I then went into my quiet time, and my very first reading quoted Pema Chödrön on the practice of tonglen. (I personally never heard of tonglen, but from this reading, we can figure it out.)
The following is what I read and is from The Practice of Tonglen by Pema Chödrön:
"....begin to do tonglen for what you are feeling and for millions of others just like you who at that very moment of time are feeling exactly the same stuckness and misery. Maybe you are able to name your pain. You recognize it clearly as terror or revulsion or anger or wanting to get revenge. So you breathe in for all the people who are caught with that same emotion and you send out relief or whatever opens up the space for yourself and all those countless others. Maybe you can’t name what you’re feeling. But you can feel it—a tightness in the stomach, a heavy darkness, or whatever. Just contact what you are feeling and breathe in, take it in—for all of us and send out relief to all of us.
“. . . [You] can do tonglen for all the people who are just like you, for everyone who wishes to be compassionate but instead is afraid, for everyone who wishes to be brave but instead is a coward....
“Breathe in for all of us and breathe out for all of us.
“Use what seems like poison as medicine. Use your personal suffering as the path to compassion for all beings.”
I love most of all "use what seems like poison as medicine." Paradox again.
What a perfect message to receive in answer to my silent repetition of the holy name. God is so good to us.
Thank you.
I remembered my commitment to ask God for nothing...probably because I didn't know what to ask for. I clearly couldn't ask him to bless a lie, or to not count this one because it was justified...whose lie isn't justified? At any rate, I simply started repeating the holy name. I then went into my quiet time, and my very first reading quoted Pema Chödrön on the practice of tonglen. (I personally never heard of tonglen, but from this reading, we can figure it out.)
The following is what I read and is from The Practice of Tonglen by Pema Chödrön:
"....begin to do tonglen for what you are feeling and for millions of others just like you who at that very moment of time are feeling exactly the same stuckness and misery. Maybe you are able to name your pain. You recognize it clearly as terror or revulsion or anger or wanting to get revenge. So you breathe in for all the people who are caught with that same emotion and you send out relief or whatever opens up the space for yourself and all those countless others. Maybe you can’t name what you’re feeling. But you can feel it—a tightness in the stomach, a heavy darkness, or whatever. Just contact what you are feeling and breathe in, take it in—for all of us and send out relief to all of us.
“. . . [You] can do tonglen for all the people who are just like you, for everyone who wishes to be compassionate but instead is afraid, for everyone who wishes to be brave but instead is a coward....
“Breathe in for all of us and breathe out for all of us.
“Use what seems like poison as medicine. Use your personal suffering as the path to compassion for all beings.”
I love most of all "use what seems like poison as medicine." Paradox again.
Thank you.
Friday, July 4, 2014
ONLY IF IT IS HIS WILL
My handwritten note in my daily Easwaran reader this day: "2003 - on 7/3 I asked for 'a state of listening consciousness' and on 7/4/13 I was gifted with: 'You've got the power.'" And all year whenever I've gotten stuck in thought, word or deed, I've consciously reminded God, "You got the power...use it."
This morning the question hit me: Do I have this bass-ackward...again? Is this, instead, God telling me I've got the power not me telling him?
Thinking it through, I don't see that it makes a lot of difference...because every time I remind him that he has the power, use it, I'm the one who gets to walk forward and do it.
It is my reasoning mind that doubts I can do it (and rightly so!). It is the power greater than myself within me that I must turn to first who then walks me through.
And then only if it is his will....
Thank you.
This morning the question hit me: Do I have this bass-ackward...again? Is this, instead, God telling me I've got the power not me telling him?
Thinking it through, I don't see that it makes a lot of difference...because every time I remind him that he has the power, use it, I'm the one who gets to walk forward and do it.
It is my reasoning mind that doubts I can do it (and rightly so!). It is the power greater than myself within me that I must turn to first who then walks me through.
And then only if it is his will....
Thank you.
Thursday, July 3, 2014
IS ALL DESIRE SUFFERING?
[The following is a reprint of my blog of July 3, 2008.]
Eknath Easwaran has written, “The Buddha is sometimes quoted as saying that desire is suffering. A more accurate translation is that selfish desire is suffering - in fact, the source of all suffering.”
However, Joel Goldsmith wrote exactly what The Buddha is quoted as saying, that desire…all desire…is suffering.
Eknath Easwaran has written, “The Buddha is sometimes quoted as saying that desire is suffering. A more accurate translation is that selfish desire is suffering - in fact, the source of all suffering.”
However, Joel Goldsmith wrote exactly what The Buddha is quoted as saying, that desire…all desire…is suffering.
Jesus the Christ is quoted as saying that the Father knows our needs…so what is there to desire?
As for me, I believe that all desire is based in self (no matter how pretty I dress it up, i.e., for the poor, for world peace, etc.) and is therefore a self-determined objective, not of God. On the other hand, the Sermon on the Mount is all about putting others first, thinking of and for others before one thinks of and for self. Wouldn’t it follow that desire has to be an acceptable learning tool?…one way toward learning the discipline of putting others first, of aligning my will with God’s will?
Maybe it’s all about where we are on the path…to the wholly enlightened, The Buddha, Jesus, desire would be suffering because by its nature it would take them out of their enlightened state. Desire to the likes of me is necessary to keep me on the path toward enlightenment…which at my stage is many lifetimes away, and I’d best keep that unselfish desire honed and at the ready.
As for me, I believe that all desire is based in self (no matter how pretty I dress it up, i.e., for the poor, for world peace, etc.) and is therefore a self-determined objective, not of God. On the other hand, the Sermon on the Mount is all about putting others first, thinking of and for others before one thinks of and for self. Wouldn’t it follow that desire has to be an acceptable learning tool?…one way toward learning the discipline of putting others first, of aligning my will with God’s will?
Maybe it’s all about where we are on the path…to the wholly enlightened, The Buddha, Jesus, desire would be suffering because by its nature it would take them out of their enlightened state. Desire to the likes of me is necessary to keep me on the path toward enlightenment…which at my stage is many lifetimes away, and I’d best keep that unselfish desire honed and at the ready.
Thank you.
Wednesday, July 2, 2014
AND WE ARE GRATEFUL
Except ye become as little children ye cannot enter the Kingdom of Heaven.
To become as a little child is the subject of today's "God Calling." To me, the most important part in the reading is: "Seek...until the years have added to your nature that of the trusting child." That is another truth wrapped in a paradox: "Until the years have added to your nature that of the trusting child."
I have that underlined in many different colors, meaning every year that I read it, I am astonished again as if I'd never read it before. I've finally quit underlining, but here's me this morning...astonished again. And wonderfully so. Mainly because it was just very recently that I realized that becoming as a little child is to give up self-determined objectives...no, it is to give up the how-to-get our self-determined objective.
As a little child, we want, we say so, and we never give a thought about how the folks are going to get our want to us. That's probably our first glimpse at the difference between a want and a need...we may or we may not get our want fulfilled, but if it is truly a need, it will be provided.
The years have added to our understanding that a true need will be met by a power greater than self. We come to trust that it will get done, and we no longer natter God about "how to" or even "if." We have especially learned that a met-need may arrive looking like an "OH NO!" And we quick pray our "Thank you" anyhow...with fingers crossed at first, but that's how we learn.
We come to realize the deep abiding comfort in the words, "Thy will, not mine, be done." We have experienced the truth that God's will is better than our will no matter how right and true and good and pretty our will seems to our reasoning mind. And we are grateful.
Thank you.
To become as a little child is the subject of today's "God Calling." To me, the most important part in the reading is: "Seek...until the years have added to your nature that of the trusting child." That is another truth wrapped in a paradox: "Until the years have added to your nature that of the trusting child."
I have that underlined in many different colors, meaning every year that I read it, I am astonished again as if I'd never read it before. I've finally quit underlining, but here's me this morning...astonished again. And wonderfully so. Mainly because it was just very recently that I realized that becoming as a little child is to give up self-determined objectives...no, it is to give up the how-to-get our self-determined objective.
As a little child, we want, we say so, and we never give a thought about how the folks are going to get our want to us. That's probably our first glimpse at the difference between a want and a need...we may or we may not get our want fulfilled, but if it is truly a need, it will be provided.
The years have added to our understanding that a true need will be met by a power greater than self. We come to trust that it will get done, and we no longer natter God about "how to" or even "if." We have especially learned that a met-need may arrive looking like an "OH NO!" And we quick pray our "Thank you" anyhow...with fingers crossed at first, but that's how we learn.
We come to realize the deep abiding comfort in the words, "Thy will, not mine, be done." We have experienced the truth that God's will is better than our will no matter how right and true and good and pretty our will seems to our reasoning mind. And we are grateful.
Thank you.
Tuesday, July 1, 2014
FOR THE BENEFIT OF ALL
He prepares a table before me in the presence of my enemies.
Blinding flash of the obvious: The turmoil in our life right now is the invitation we sent out being returned to us...in order that we may see ourselves as we appear to others. This is the first step in our forgiving them for their actions/reactions toward us.
How we are perceived by others at any given time determines their reaction to us then. Our lesson is in recognizing that it, their reaction, is not personal to us. This, in order for us to see ourselves as we appear to be to others so that we may forgive them for their actions, their reactions.
In seeking to forgive, the vital first step is we go to God in praise that we are not taking the slings and arrows of daily life personally. I am a believer that forgiveness is not possible if we are taking the action personally...we have not accepted God's will, in other words.
Blinding flash of the obvious: The turmoil in our life right now is the invitation we sent out being returned to us...in order that we may see ourselves as we appear to others. This is the first step in our forgiving them for their actions/reactions toward us.
Our reasoning mind, linked with our ego, can never entirely get this. But we are learning to think on the spiritual plane, and we come to the realization that all negative actions or reactions that we perceive from others originated as an invitation we sent out.
Here's us, thinking, "This is me, just being me," with him thinking, "I never did anything to you to deserve such disrespect...take this!" And the discord begins...and/or continues.
In seeking to forgive, the vital first step is we go to God in praise that we are not taking the slings and arrows of daily life personally. I am a believer that forgiveness is not possible if we are taking the action personally...we have not accepted God's will, in other words.
He prepares a table before me in the presence of my enemies....this is our table where we are brought full circle, where we all find peace. We know God's hand is in it when it benefits all.
Thank you.
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