ON GETTING OVER ONESELF

Authentic spirituality is always on some level or in some way about letting go. * * * We become free as we let go of our three primary energy centers: our need for power and control, our need for safety and security, and our need for affection and esteem. -- Fr. Richard Rohr, "Daily Meditation," June 7, 2015.

Letting go of our reasoning mind reality is the  ultimate freedom, according to me. And, of course, feels the wrongest, the riskiest...probably because it requires the ultimate trust in an unseeable power greater than our own reasoning mind.

All the spiritual books I read or have ever read have one common message...the reason we are born into this world is to return to God...which may take a thousand lifetimes, but that's a whole 'nother Bible verse. 

I know I am blessed because I feel blessed, and that is enough. It is not for me to explain that; in its authenticity, it is explained. My reasoning-mind explanation diminishes it. 

And I'm already in my own way, racing to get ahead of God's peace, love and joy. There. That's where my reasoning mind takes me...keeps me...in the weeds of rational, never daring to trust the seemingly irrational because it's just not rational.

Oops...there I go again. I feel like...was that Lindsay Lohan or Britney Spears? Whatever. It's for sure a less than wonderful place to find myself when I was tripping along so beautifully...in my own mind.

God loves me so much.

Thank you.

SELF, THE ONLY REAL BLOCK TO GOD

Gertrude is baiting me, and I am mentally responding in kind. My goal is to not take her bait and, more importantly, to not bait.

I speak from experience when I say that those who live a self-protected life live in fear of others' slings and arrows aimed at our heart. That is our bait, the bait that we take and the bait that we pitch. We take the bait...real and/or imagined...and react in kind, aiming our own slings and arrows at the other's heart.

I awoke last night with the thought: "I thank you, Father, for Gertrude's peace and joy."

With that thought, I knew that it is for this that I bring the past into the present...to use whatever, whomever I choose in order to help me to get over my own self...the only real block to God.

I bless Gertrude, I thank God for flowing through her, bringing her the peace that passes understanding.

Thank you.

THAT WALL OF SEPARATION

I received a gift this morning. I saw...like a picture before me, I saw...that my sister is me, that I am my sister. I resist this not in the least, but I recognize that she would resist it a lot. I laughingly suspect that she would regard it as her cross to bear.

In our judgmental place, we are rigid, righteous and right, totally opaque.  In our nonjudgmental place, we draw others to us without effort, are utterly transparent, have a tish of clairvoyance, and are fun to be with.

There my be a special reason why I saw this, and this morning. There may not be. Right now, I'm just grateful because I can believe if that is true of my sister and me, then it can be true of others I want to love but have a hard time of it.

It puts another tiny chink in my wall of separation...not just from my sister and others...but from God, too.

Thank you.

SILENT...BE SILENT AND KNOW

Blinding flash of the obvious: I see a change that needs be made. The change is "out there." My job is to be patient, ever aware of the change a'coming, and know that I am changing it. I will inform my heart and my head, as needed, as to what to do and/or not do to effect the change.

Silence.

Peace, be still.

Know: I have already made perfect the path.

Thank you.

EGO-STANDARDS V. GOD'S STANDARDS

[The following is a reprint of my blog of April 14, 2010.]

As I was brushing my teeth this morning, I got a blinding flash of the obvious: “You need to lower your standards.”  Since my standards aren’t extraordinarily high to begin with, I knew that could not mean what it seemed to say.  

I realized that I was being told to lower my ego-standards.  It is in letting go of ego-standards that one reaches God’s standard…Love.

Deep in the center of one’s being is that standard which brings perfect peace. It is known by various names…the Golden Rule, service, loving kindness, are a few. The practice of any one of those can and will bring one perfect peace, but, I’ve learned, one cannot practice them in order to get perfect peace…or indeed in order to get anything.

One practices love in order to love…ah, perfect peace.

Thank you.

OUR ONE GOAL...STAY THE COURSE

I'm reading this morning instructions for spiritual growth, one being, "Learn to be detached and to take joy in renunciation."

According to me, folks today, through psychiatry and the assorted self-help books, are more and more ignoring life's spiritual answer of ego reduction in depth, striving primarily to protect not our pure self but our ego-victory self. I mean, how likely is it that "detachment and joy in renunciation" will immediately sound like a plan to your ego? Mine either.

"The divine qualities lead to freedom; the demonic to bondage," That translates for me to "Ego reduction in depth, i.e., spiritual growth, is freedom; ego is bondage."

Those of us on the spiritual path for any amount of time at all, on reading these instructions, will know them for truth. Many of us already are striving to do them for we have learned that if we're not serving God, we're serving ego.

The good news is what counts is not how well we walk the path, away from ego toward God, but that we are headed in the right direction with but one goal...to stay that course.

Thank you.

EVERMORE

Sandy Bee, God rest his soul, is my example of one who got over himself. I know this because he never publicly castigated his so-called friends for their mud-slinging bumper sticker. More importantly, he never got any credit for that! He only got more and more people quoting the stickers as proof of his not being up to their high standards. Which never lessened his belief in the goodness of God and that God had his back. Now that is righteous.

I'm doing the mental arm-wrestle right this minute with a friend who is getting over on me. I'm justifying setting her straight, and I have the ammo to do it. Because I am right and she is just wrong. (Quoth the ego, "Evermore.")

Then I read today's Easwaran, and...here we go again...God talking directly to me. In the first paragraph, Easwaran writes that in personal relationships friends will dump on us and we will want to dump back: But that is just where the Gita or Jesus or the Buddha would say, 'No. That is the way of the weak.' Stick it out: not by becoming a doormat..., but by resolutely refusing to hurt anyone no matter how much you have been hurt.

I mentioned Sandy first off because of the fact that I knew him, I saw him DO that which I am trying to do. I believe the Bible, the Gita, Jesus, the Buddha, don't doubt any of them for a minute, but I personally knew Sandy. There's where the proof is for me.

I can believe in that which I have not seen till my face falls off, but seeing it on the hoof? That's what tells me I can do this. I have seen it done.

That is more proof that always and all ways God knows my needs. He knew that in my life I would need to meet up with Sandy, et al., that I would need the special tools they used, and by using those same tools I can get over myself with my latest "wrong" friend. Maybe I'll just name her "me."

Love and laugh.

Thank you.