LIVE INTO THE ANSWER

I read in my Easwaran "Words to Live By" today: A knack for quiet self-sacrifice is the very life and soul of friendship. 

In a heartbeat I saw that I have learned how to 'suffer in silence the slings and arrows' of a friend's peeve. And I have reaped the rewards...love and continuing friendship...without resentment. The pearl beyond price. 

My way once was loud and cutting snark or silent scorn; it was by grace and by God that I learned silent acceptance. But now I realize that my silent acceptance has become my unrecognized pride, therefore, ego's foothold. That is the nature of ego...God's gift can become ego's pride oh so easily. It's kinda like ego's motto is If I can't win, I can claim their victory as mine.

In that heartbeat I saw that my quiet self-sacrifice has morphed into another need now...to become willing to push back with love and laughter. It is a self-sacrifice because that is a scary proposition...I don't know how to push back verbally except with loud snark or silent scorn (which is just an amplified attitude).

Then I read my Rohr "Daily Meditation" which had a Rilke quote that allayed my fear (for the moment) and answered my "Yes, but...how to?" question:  "As Rainer Maria Rilke wrote in his Letters to a Young Poet: I want to ask you, as clearly as I can, to bear with patience all that is unresolved in your heart, and try to love the questions themselves. . . . For everything must be lived. Live the questions now, perhaps then, someday, you will gradually, without noticing, live into the answer."

My question, of course, is how do I speak softly with humor to 'Rude who is blasting me with her/his anger? 

God's answer, of course, is to just try, that's how you learn. Or, hold your nose and take a leap of faith.

That's the God of my understanding being as specific as he gets. But then, how else to build faith?

Thank you.

ON UPGRADING OUR THOUGHTS

An important and oft-quoted tradition (hadith) has Muhammad say on his way home after a battle: 'We are returning from the Lesser Jihad and going to the Greater Jihad,' the far more important and difficult struggle to reform one’s own society and one’s own heart. —Karen Armstrong (from Fr Richard Rohr's "Daily Meditation," September 29, 2018)

I immediately connected with We are returning from the Lesser Jihad and going to the Greater Jihad...the lesser Jihad being the dailies of life, the greater Jihad being still more spiritual growth. I immediately thought of our daily squabbles, within and without, the daily resistances we meet...if the jihad to get over our own self counts, Comcast alone is clearing my path to Heaven.

My running thoughts upon that reading:

We are surrendering our petty squabbles, accepting our daily hurdles.

We are awakening from our prison of wants, entering the realm of needs.

We are awakening from our own ego-framed consciousness into the limitless consciousness of Spirit.

We are detaching from resistance to others, inviting the presence of others.

We are detaching, we are flying free.

We are detached from the tether of human consciousness. We are One with God consciousness.

I hope to add to these...keeps my thoughts aimed upward...or higher than my thoughts about Comcast anyway.

Thank you.

KEEP IT SIMPLE, STUPID

Only in the degree that we accept and really understand His word -- feel and gain the connection of God as the reality of our being, feel this oneness, this contact -- only in that degree can we prove the law that says that no harm can come to  us, that no weapon that is formed against us can harm us. -- Joel Goldsmith, "The World is New," pp 104-105

There is the pearl I seek...the conviction, the revelation, the reality of God as my being.

AAAAAAAAh. It is in the seeking that I lose My way!

Now what?

And with that question, I read my today's Rohr, and there's my answer: 'Wash yourself of yourself,' says Rumi [a Sufi]. 'Be melting snow.' 

That sounds so right. And reading it, talking it...hey, look at me, I'm flying!

Howsomever, as Grandma would say...for my poor pitiful walking-around comprehension, that boils down to ego deflation in depth. Which, like just change your mind, cannot be done on want-to alone. We gotta go higher to our deeper place within...God's hidey hole.

I've found try not to be as nasty as you want to be a sure start. That may be as close as I ever get to agree with your adversary quickly, plus it heads me in the right direction...away from want-to toward need-to. 

I suspect I dismiss self-determined objectives too quickly. Wasn't it exactly that...a self-determined objective...that started me seeking still more spiritual growth? God induced, of course. Then, same thing that led me to attempt actually doing less me-first things.

I recall how it is said that self-preservation is the first law of man. It would not surprise me one bit to learn in the end that is the first "law" we need to jettison...that is, if we really want to stroll across Heaven all day.

Face it...that which sounds so right and true, wash yourself of yourself,..be melting snow, wipes self-preservation off the board.

Oh, here's a thought: Trust God. Clean house. Help others.

God loves me so much.

Thank you.

ON LIVING FREE OF EGO VICTORIES

According to me:

God's will cannot be figured out ahead of time. It is discerned moment-by-moment...as a need arises.

Planning God's will in advance stays us in the reasoning mind. The result we seek is our  self-determined objective...not in and of itself wrong, it's simply an ego booster.

God's will for us is for the benefit of others.

Aligning our will with God's will is all about putting others' needs first.

Spontaneous aid to another is the essence of doing God's will...spontaneous aid to us given by another is the essence of accepting God's will.

When we sincerely seek to put others' needs before our wants, and work toward that end, we can know the peace that passes understanding...and we can smile.

Living by the laws of God allows us to let go of things that create unrest and fear in us.  Ah, then we can live free of our own ego-demands.

God's will is not a one-shot deal. It constitutes life itself. God's will is a one-shot deal.

Thank you.

FORGETFULNESS...A BUILT-IN HUMAN CONDITION

My key to peace in these uneasy times: a fundamental belief in the impermanence of evil in the face of God’s love.

I regret I did not note when or where I read that, but I saved it and came across it again this morning...just as I read, Forgetfulness is what we must constantly struggle against. (I did note from whence that came: Avideh Shashaani, an Iranian-American poet and translator of Sufi mystic texts,  lifted from today's Rohr meditation.)

That second thought about forgetfulness relieves us of the guilt we feel when we stray from the first about our fundamental belief in God's love.

We do have that fundamental belief but we do forget! Realizing that forgetfulness is built into the human condition, and we all must struggle against it, gives us permission to believe in our belief...to know it's not just a want-to. To accept our forgetfulness is to accept that the world is ever with us...ah, but so is God's love.

Our spiritual growth map, simplified: a fundamental belief in the impermanence of evil in the face of God’s love and forgetfulness is what we must constantly struggle against.

Thank you.

CHOOSE PEACE...KNOW LAUGHTER

Nonviolence. Passive resistance. Detachment. Depersonalization. Peace.

We are born into the material world, and blessed are those who learn early that there are two ways to trudge destiny's road: by reliance on our reasoning mind (a constant push/pull)  or by dependence on a power greater than our self (peace...slow but certain).

I think of war and peace...opposite sides of the same coin the core of which is one thought or, really, one decision...peace or war? One thought...welcome it and have inner quiet; resist it and our battle within is set.

There it is, the choice with which we begin our discerning life: the material road or the spiritual path?  Our decision determines our life's perspective...as realized through self's eye or through a Selfless view.

We will rest assured of our better choice when we find our self praying not for others to change but for our thoughts about them to change.

Choose you this day whom ye will serve. -- Joshua 24:15

Thank you.

OR GO TO GOD FOR GOD AND THAT IS ALL

One of the great gifts I get from reading the same spiritual books daily, year by year, comes when I read and remember the occasion for the notes I have written in them. When a biggie...good or ill...happens, I note it with the year beside it. A biggie does not happen every day, of course, but over the years there is something on every page.

The majority of my biggies bear the names of friends, co-workers, relatives...the people in my world who were either "doing it wrong" or had, out of the blue, graced me with their love. All these years later I get to see the end result, and the "doing it wrong" crowd invariably wind up as a gift. It is easy to see that is the natural result once we learn to recognize the source of all our woes...namely, our own self.

It is true, we can forgive any insult, any put down, any slight if we so choose. That's all it takes, to choose. Ah, but we know there's a catch. Isn't there always to so-called easy-peasy stuff? The catch in all that it takes is choosing is we cannot make that choice stick all on our own.

Doing it on our own keeps resentment's eternal flame burning. Let a friend or foe, parent or second cousin thrice removed make a snide one at our expense, we either must respond in kind or.... We rarely finish the thought since we've already responded and lit payback's fire ablaze.

It is through spiritual growth that we learn, slowly, slowly, that those remarks do not need to be addressed. They can and must be transmuted...made impersonal to us. They are not ours. They're akin to misaddressed mail or a wrong number...we need not accept delivery no matter how much we want to.

And there it is. The nut of our woes...our want to. We go to shrinks, shrines and sponsors trying to justify our wants. The hard lesson a-learning  is, we personalize our wants...we see them as our own self.

Loose them and let them go. Or forgive. Or love and laugh. With the grace of God and a little help from our friends, we can do any or all of those. Without, we can't. Plain and simple.

Thank you.