It takes conscious effort to know and show the spiritual growth that we believe we have, that for which we've studied and worked so hard to attain. According to me, the conscious effort comes solely through our willingness to detach our self from our own ego. Lucy sings my song like none other.
A way too good example of just that siren song: Yesterday I had a two-word pushback with a friend...both of us laughing all the while. I don't even need to write the punchline, do I? My mental gears have been miss-mashing ever since...on the various loving words I can say to let him know who was right. I'm not sure which is more important to Lucy and me...to show who was right (me) or who was wrong (him). Whoa! Talk about splitting hairs. And that is precisely how Lucy stays in charge...that quick turn to the reasoning mind, and uh-oh...God Who?
Here's the good news. I have known, even as I mentally squabbled with myself, that my friend is another outer teacher for my inner growth, my angel-in-the-moment. Then I read in my Easwaran this morning, "To the extent we can be loyal to the outer teacher, we are being loyal to ourselves." Isn't that wonderful? My direct instructions delivered directly to me.
God loves me so much. And my outer teacher, too.
Thank you.
Saturday, May 21, 2016
Friday, May 20, 2016
BAD BUSINESS GETS YOU BAD BUSINESS
It seems "defects of character" and "bad behavior" and "should" and "fault" and oh so many more words are verboten in today's world. Apparently because they make us feel guilty. Today, that feeling, guilty, seems also to be verboten. Well, nine times out of nine we are guilty of whatever it is for which we're trying to find either a pretty description...or somebody else to blame.
It is pure fact that bad business gets us bad business. Bad business is not an "inadvertent error in judgment," and allowing our self to believe it as that only prolongs our inside agony. We will scramble mentally for somebody, something, some place outside of our own self to blame until we own up to our own bad behavior...not that time, not that place, not him/her/them, but our self. Until we claim it, until we own our bad behavior and hang our name on it, we'll not know peace.
Not owning up is how we become carriers. Carriers of our own misery. We are the source of all our woes. Any upset, mental gyration, justified peeve that we have now, had then, ever will have started with our making "a decision based on self that later placed us in a position to be hurt."
When the cure for our misery is so simple, why do we cling to our ego's way. Ego is utterly incapable of admitting its mistake so it must find excuses and scapegoats and justifications. There. That's the exact reason we must learn to love our ego...it is utterly incapable of being anything but what it is. Hug it and kiss it and quick turn to God. Which is the only thing more powerful within us than our ego, according to me.
We have come to believe that God can and will intervene in our life in our behalf. Let him.
Thank you.
It is pure fact that bad business gets us bad business. Bad business is not an "inadvertent error in judgment," and allowing our self to believe it as that only prolongs our inside agony. We will scramble mentally for somebody, something, some place outside of our own self to blame until we own up to our own bad behavior...not that time, not that place, not him/her/them, but our self. Until we claim it, until we own our bad behavior and hang our name on it, we'll not know peace.
Not owning up is how we become carriers. Carriers of our own misery. We are the source of all our woes. Any upset, mental gyration, justified peeve that we have now, had then, ever will have started with our making "a decision based on self that later placed us in a position to be hurt."
When the cure for our misery is so simple, why do we cling to our ego's way. Ego is utterly incapable of admitting its mistake so it must find excuses and scapegoats and justifications. There. That's the exact reason we must learn to love our ego...it is utterly incapable of being anything but what it is. Hug it and kiss it and quick turn to God. Which is the only thing more powerful within us than our ego, according to me.
We have come to believe that God can and will intervene in our life in our behalf. Let him.
Thank you.
Thursday, May 19, 2016
WHY NOT SEEK THE SPIRITUAL FIRST?
Back in the day, my go-to phrase was: Perfect peace is having someone to blame. That, of course, came straight from my ego Lucy directly into my heart of hearts, i.e., my reasoning mind...where it made perfect sense.
Today I lean on my golden rule (lifted from a 1980's "Washington Post" column by the late Henry Mitchell): I just try not to be as nasty as I want to be.
This morning a mental picture popped up of Lucy, having crossed that somebody to blame, all battered and bruised, on crutches, head wrapped in bandages...searching for somebody else to blame. She finally crashes and burns whimpering, "When I find the one to blame, I'll just try not to be as nasty as I want to be."
There. All roads lead to God. Why beat our self senseless with what we believe is right...and may even be right, but right too soon! (Right too soon is wrong right now.)
The moral of this story, of course, is why not start with the spiritual since we're going to wind up there anyway. All we need do is...literally, there is only one thing we need do to live in the spiritual now...turn a deaf ear to Lucy. Hug her, kiss her, tell her we love her (because without her, we would never have sought still more spiritual growth to begin with) but listen no more to Lucy.
Hark! The herald angels sing...that's Ari and his chorus. Listen up.
Thank you.
Today I lean on my golden rule (lifted from a 1980's "Washington Post" column by the late Henry Mitchell): I just try not to be as nasty as I want to be.
This morning a mental picture popped up of Lucy, having crossed that somebody to blame, all battered and bruised, on crutches, head wrapped in bandages...searching for somebody else to blame. She finally crashes and burns whimpering, "When I find the one to blame, I'll just try not to be as nasty as I want to be."
There. All roads lead to God. Why beat our self senseless with what we believe is right...and may even be right, but right too soon! (Right too soon is wrong right now.)
The moral of this story, of course, is why not start with the spiritual since we're going to wind up there anyway. All we need do is...literally, there is only one thing we need do to live in the spiritual now...turn a deaf ear to Lucy. Hug her, kiss her, tell her we love her (because without her, we would never have sought still more spiritual growth to begin with) but listen no more to Lucy.
Hark! The herald angels sing...that's Ari and his chorus. Listen up.
Thank you.
Wednesday, May 18, 2016
AND GOD'S HAND IS ALWAYS IN IT
Being called a bald-faced liar is not a bad thing if we're not a bald-faced liar. (Or, if we are, we maybe need to hear it and change our ways.) But if we're not, it only becomes a bad thing when we pick it up...when we rise up in righteous indignant resistance to being called a bald-faced liar.
That's when we own it...that very resistance makes that which we are resisting ours. We have just wrapped our arms around the tar baby and kissed it on the lips. We have become the tar baby's tar baby.
That's why its so important to not just agree with spiritual directives, sort of like loving them from afar, but we need to love them unto living them. "We have ceased fighting anything and anybody" is an excellent example of a spiritual directive that defies our reasoning mind but makes the crooked places straight when we live it.
A short time back, I was, in fact, called a bald-faced liar. By a friend. My ego Lucy immediately thought "I am being called a bald-faced liar by a bald-faced liar...for what is being said about me by her is a bald-faced lie." I am grateful that God slapped his hand over my mouth and that stayed a thought so I only needed to say I disagreed but that she was welcome to her opinion.
Another thought was that it's sad that she never learned "restraint of tongue." I later realized if she had, I would have missed this experience...which is pure gold to me. For the rest of the story is: Our relationship shifted, she apologized, and...the proof of the pudding...we're still friends only closer friends than we had been.
We know God's hand is in it when everybody comes out the winner.
Thank you.
That's when we own it...that very resistance makes that which we are resisting ours. We have just wrapped our arms around the tar baby and kissed it on the lips. We have become the tar baby's tar baby.
That's why its so important to not just agree with spiritual directives, sort of like loving them from afar, but we need to love them unto living them. "We have ceased fighting anything and anybody" is an excellent example of a spiritual directive that defies our reasoning mind but makes the crooked places straight when we live it.
A short time back, I was, in fact, called a bald-faced liar. By a friend. My ego Lucy immediately thought "I am being called a bald-faced liar by a bald-faced liar...for what is being said about me by her is a bald-faced lie." I am grateful that God slapped his hand over my mouth and that stayed a thought so I only needed to say I disagreed but that she was welcome to her opinion.
Another thought was that it's sad that she never learned "restraint of tongue." I later realized if she had, I would have missed this experience...which is pure gold to me. For the rest of the story is: Our relationship shifted, she apologized, and...the proof of the pudding...we're still friends only closer friends than we had been.
We know God's hand is in it when everybody comes out the winner.
Thank you.
Tuesday, May 17, 2016
FRIEND OR FOE...LET IT BE THE HELP WE NEED
I had an awakening recently about my golden rule (which is "try not to be as nasty as you want to be"). I'd always seen that as applying to those with whom I'm dealing at that moment or in a certain time period.
I find it is even more powerful when I apply it to my thoughts, specifically my thoughts about the one I may be dealing with in the present or, just as likely, the one from whom I'd long since moved away...my sophomore Latin teacher for instance.
Whomever I opt for, make book that he was wrong, I was right, and I shoulda said....
There. That's the exact point in time to think of the golden rule...to practice applying that rule in order to tame our thoughts. It matters not how long ago the hurt, it's not old if it's still showing up for this is the ego's playground, the place where Lucy renews herself.
Another BFO: To tame, not to fight...ah, there's the key. To tame means we get to learn how to be an ego-whisperer. The golden rule ever so gently leads us there. Resist nothing (out there)...tame all (in here).
The secret, of course, is: Self is powerless to tame self all on its own. We must seek help...God's help, and then let anything that comes to us be. Whether looking like a friend or acting like a foe...let it be. Let it be the help we need...and get grateful.
Thank you.
Monday, May 16, 2016
FIND YOURS, THEN LISTEN
My morning's blinding flash of the obvious: An ah-ha! moment comes when we get what we already got. (We couldn't connect with it if we didn't already have it.)
We connect with a new author, her every word is beyond wonderful so we order all of her previous books...and sometimes feel a tish disappointed. She seems to have gone stale. In fact, we got all there was for us to get from her with the first ah-ha! in that first reading. Her words brought up a reality within us that hadn't clarified yet.
Instead of searching for a new, different, better author, we can go deeper into whatever our first ah-ha! reading was. It is there we will find all the truth we will ever need...we just need to go deeper to a higher consciousness.
Which isn't to say that we quit searching for new books and authors to read. Finding new, good and different reads is my kind of exhilarating. We do quit looking for our enlightenment in books...or people or anything out there. We already have it...it is within.
Find the one who speaks to us...and listen. Deeper.
Thank you.
We connect with a new author, her every word is beyond wonderful so we order all of her previous books...and sometimes feel a tish disappointed. She seems to have gone stale. In fact, we got all there was for us to get from her with the first ah-ha! in that first reading. Her words brought up a reality within us that hadn't clarified yet.
Instead of searching for a new, different, better author, we can go deeper into whatever our first ah-ha! reading was. It is there we will find all the truth we will ever need...we just need to go deeper to a higher consciousness.
Which isn't to say that we quit searching for new books and authors to read. Finding new, good and different reads is my kind of exhilarating. We do quit looking for our enlightenment in books...or people or anything out there. We already have it...it is within.
Find the one who speaks to us...and listen. Deeper.
Thank you.
Sunday, May 15, 2016
ANGELS OF THE EMERY BOARD
[The following is a reprint of my blog of January 27, 2012.]
A new way of looking at/feeling toward a friend came to me this morning. On the one hand, she is a lovely gracious and giving person with a great sense of humor; on the other, she has a too-often-present competitive attack mode.
My BFO: When in that mode, she is my angel of the emery board. (I have come to believe that people who rub us the wrong way are our emery boards, helping to smooth our resistance into acceptance.)
Her too-often-present competitive attack mode is exactly what I resist. It intimidates me, so when she is in that mode, my attitude judges, with my mouth pursed, which triggers more attack.
I know “that which we resist, persists” so I need to start to walk this through (find my acceptance) with gratitude in grace…I have started just through my BFO of recognizing this.
Actually I haven’t started...”It is finished.” My reasoning mind is all set to ponder this forever and do nothing. In fact, the problem is solved through the recognition. The rest is all in the discipline of training my mind to focus on the fact of my own freedom. All that is required is a “thank you” when this angel of the emery board rises up and my judgmental mind starts to answer.
It will be interesting to me to see how long I choose to take in living this new freedom…for it is entirely up to me.
Thank you.
A new way of looking at/feeling toward a friend came to me this morning. On the one hand, she is a lovely gracious and giving person with a great sense of humor; on the other, she has a too-often-present competitive attack mode.
My BFO: When in that mode, she is my angel of the emery board. (I have come to believe that people who rub us the wrong way are our emery boards, helping to smooth our resistance into acceptance.)
Her too-often-present competitive attack mode is exactly what I resist. It intimidates me, so when she is in that mode, my attitude judges, with my mouth pursed, which triggers more attack.
I know “that which we resist, persists” so I need to start to walk this through (find my acceptance) with gratitude in grace…I have started just through my BFO of recognizing this.
Actually I haven’t started...”It is finished.” My reasoning mind is all set to ponder this forever and do nothing. In fact, the problem is solved through the recognition. The rest is all in the discipline of training my mind to focus on the fact of my own freedom. All that is required is a “thank you” when this angel of the emery board rises up and my judgmental mind starts to answer.
It will be interesting to me to see how long I choose to take in living this new freedom…for it is entirely up to me.
Thank you.
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