GO TO GOD TO GO FROM EGO

Eknath Easwaran has written that in every emotional relationship, when we react, it is to our own self's expectation...good or bad, it is our own projection onto the other that we are reacting to.

In other words, you are never angry for the reason you think, and I forget where I found that, but I know it to be true. Which is the same as what you see is always yourself...another forgotten origin but true to me.

Dig deep, and we'll find the same thing in Meister Eckhart’s The eyes with which we look back at God are the same eyes with which God looks at us. (Ponder that for a while.)

I've learned that I need to keep these things handy. They're my go-to in order to go-from...to God, from ego. Face it, there will ever be snags and snarls in our daily life, and the tinier the snag, the harder it is to detach.

I'm convinced that my ego Lucy will determine that "this" is too insignificant to bother with...then  finds it impossible to let go of as I See Me takes hold and builds, ever downward. Spiritual growth is lost to self...again.

The never-too-old saying applies: No one ever stubbed their toe on Mount Everest. 

Thank you.

THE BANE IS THE BOON

[The following is a reprint of my post of May 26, 2017.]

There is a page in "God Calling" where it is set forth that we must take joy in the gray days...that our hard lesson of the gray day will be repeated until we do.

There are those who believe that welcoming, that the Thank You prayer, that joy in the dark is just malarkey, plain and simple. Whenever we hit a rough patch, we can count on one or more to rather gleefully ask, "So where's your good in this?!"

Hey...the bane is the boon.

The resulting gift from looking our Monster in the eye, calling it by its name, "Monster," comes with our changed mind...in effect, we see it for the "puddy tat" it is, or a raised consciousness if you will. How else can we learn to never try to dodge a fear (which is all the Monster is, of course), or to desperately call it Good, hoping that'll change it? That changes neither "it" nor our mind.

Most everybody I know feels at some point in life that they have gone through the crucible, crashed and burned, and emerged as gold. It was that bane that gave them their boon. There. That is my God's instruction book for us for life. Use it or lose it.

Thank you.

TO LIVE IN ACCEPTANCE...AH, PERFECT PEACE

I am convinced that a peaceful head and heart comes by taking nothing personally.

That, just that...take nothing personally...has been a goal of mine for a long time. One of the gifts of that goal was the realization that every feeling of irked, peeved, instant of inner push-back is the result of our taking it personally...whatever the momentary it is.

It would not surprise me to learn that the entire starter course in learning how to take nothing personally is encompassed in knowing that I am not responsible for what s/he hears me say...nor am I responsible for how they choose to interpret what they hear me say. And vice versa.

The second course in our learning may well be in the thought that what you think of me is none of my business...I love you, no matter. Then we must needs help that be true in our head and in our heart.

The obvious (but well-hidden to ego) fact is that if we want our life to reflect what we are learning, then we must do that which we say we agree with...we must live a turned-over to God life.

To enrich our own life we must learn to give recognition to the true identity of those we meet. -- Joel Goldsmith, "The Gift of Love," p. 5

TO LIVE JOYFULLY AMID MISUNDERSTANDING

I welcome the opportunity to be thought wrong without any opportunity to set the record straight...to be thought wrong by all or any of my peers. -- December 11, 1989, note in my "God Calling"

To be unjustly accused and to answer not a word in self defense...such was my specific desire, stated during a discussion of a spiritual nature last year. This led to cross-purposes to the reasoning mind...which I believe/hope is in fact proof of initiation for all concerned in the discussion.

I am just beginning to believe...from my eyebrows up anyway...that the prize really is crucifixion...and, who's kidding whom? Crucifixion to me is not being nailed to the cross...apparently it is being unjustly accused and answering not a word in self defense.

To live joyfully amid misunderstanding and slander points beyond 'my kingdom' to the Kingdom of God. -- Unknown author

Thank you.

GRATITUDE IS OUR ONLY ENTITLEMENT

To receive miraculous healing and yet to be able to refrain from personal glory in the achievement is most difficult. All that they were entitled to was gratitude that they had been called and that the Power was working through them -- not that they had the power. The Power was working through them, but it could work through them only in proportion to their humility, and the true sense of humility is not any detraction or depreciation of one's self: it is a realization of one's greatness in having been called to be a servant of that power, which is true paradox. -- Copied from I know not where, dated 10/5/78 in my journal.

It is a personal fact that I and most of my friends have received miraculous healing...it is uplifting to see in black and white that which our heart knows: All that we are entitled to is gratitude that we have been called and that the Power is working through us...not that we had the power.

Thank you.

MAINLY REMEMBER THIS: GET OVER YOURSELF

The supreme work of spirituality is keeping a 'right mind' (which is the work of contemplation or meditation) without attachment to past woundings. [Lifted and rearranged from Fr Richard Rohr's "Daily Meditation," December 9, 2018.]

Keeping a "right mind" is one of those simple sounding but oh so hard to do sayings. Purely and simply because it requires that we think not of our self, but of the other, the other that ninety-eleven times out of a hundred we are in disagreement with.

What is especially daunting is that "the one we are in disagreement with" is way too often from years past...possibly our sister at age 13, when we were 10. Or the love of our life...the first one from 50 years ago.

Which explains why these are the words that grabbed my attention: without attachment to past woundings. It matters not whether the past woundings occurred 50 years ago, or a week, a day, or an hour ago.

When (not if) we go there, we hunker down with ego...there is no spiritual growth there. Which sounds like a gotcha, doesn't it? Ah, but God is not in the gotcha...he cuts us slack. He cuts us slack because he knows our needs...and how we will ever mistake our wants for our needs. So we slide over for a sip of the sweet water of resentment...and God it is who turns the sweet to bitter.

Our "right mind" that we've attained through spiritual growth, that and a little help from our friends, reminds us of our thank you prayer.

Then we remember God's words: Love and laugh...and get over yourself.

Thank you.

LOVE, THE ETERNAL ANSWER

[The following is a reprint of my post of December 8, 2016. It describes perfectly where I am exactly  two years later to the day and hour.]

My morning's blinding flash, a prayer:

Lord, bring to my mind all that you have taught me...I am not in need of new thoughts, new words,  new ideas for I already have all the revealings I will ever need, i.e., love is the answer, no matter the question. It is my thought-life, my attack mind, that calls for help. Please and thank you. Amen

Thank you.