"Therefore the Master says... I let go of all desire for the common good, and the good becomes common as grass." -- Tao te Ching, p. 57; Stephen Mitchell Translation
"Miracles are natural. When they do not occur, something has gone wrong." -- A Course in Miracles; Chapter 1, Section I, 6:1-2
What seems to come naturally in our lives is evidently not really natural. For example, babies aren't born with the ability to sing an Aria, or a pop song. But singing feels natural to me. If I inquire honestly though, it took a lot of practicing as a child and then as an adult to get to the point where it feels so automatic. Reading the above quotations has me thinking about just what is natural, what is common and ordinary? If Goodness and Miracles are actually what is common and natural, then we have done a bang-up job of obscuring the Truth with a lot of the un-natural and un-common.
A Course in Miracles explains that defenses are the costliest of habits. They obscure the ever-present Goodness and perfection of our true Self. And what are defenses? They are thoughts, perceptions, habits, projections... all to distract the awareness and attention from the perfection of Self. All with the common attribute of dividing and dissecting the awareness into multitudes of judgements about what is good, what is bad, what is me, what is them, what is here, what is there... and on and on and on. It's the original and ultimate defamation of character.
But what remains when these defenses are forgiven and released is the natural perfection of our Christ Self. The miracle is natural because the Christ is our reality. The miracle reveals what has always been effortlessly true, and so is the most natural thing in the world. All that is required of us is the willingness to let our judgements go, to forgive our false witness to the Son of God. We can twist ourselves into un-natural and un-worthy caricatures, but we can never make them true. Who we are remains holy... wholly innocent and free, eternally One in the Mind of God.
"All your difficulties stem from the fact that you do not recognize yourself, your brother, or God." -- A Course in Miracles; Chapter 3, Section III, 2:1
Showing posts with label Tao te Ching. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Tao te Ching. Show all posts
Monday, March 25, 2013
Friday, March 11, 2011
In Our Own Image
"No one can conceive of his Creator as unlike himself." -- A Course in Miracles; Workbook Lesson 68, 1:7
I have been practicing self-inquiry as taught by A Course in Miracles for a long time now. It's a version of self-inquiry very similar to "Who am I,"the form given by such advaita masters as Ramana Maharshi and Nisargadatta Maharaj. The drill goes that as you examine your body, you realize that if you're looking at it, it's not 'I' but a projected image. The 'I' is actually what is looking and witnessing. As you look at the senses and their subject/object relationship with the world, you realize the senses are not 'I'. As you look at your thinking mind, you realize that there is some 'I' looking even at the thoughts that come and go. And so you gradually refocus the mind to Source, the 'I Am' at the heart of all Being. As A Course in Miracles teaches it, you reverse the process of projection to return to Self with a capital 'S.' This Self is All-Inclusiveness, a Oneness or Singularity without an object.
This is a very effective tool for those who really want to remember who they are. But for most of us, the desire and self-discipline is pretty much lacking. We can't focus for any length of time on who is looking because we're too distracted by what we're looking at... and that is because we don't really want to know. We're enamored of our own images... and why wouldn't we be? We projected them... they're our babies, and we're attached to our own images and thought-forms. And so we pretend they're real. As A Course in Miracles reminds us, "Projection will always hurt you. It reinforces your belief in your own split mind." (ACIM; Chapter 6, Section II, 3:1-2) Our imagined separateness seems to defend and protect that separateness by forgetting, and by projecting outward the images of the sleeping mind.
The real problem, though, is also the good news. Because our sleeping minds are constantly projecting, the projected world appears as divided as our minds. We can have lovely dreams, but we also will have nightmares. The experience of one guarantees the experience of the other. Or you could say that suffering is implicit in pleasure, and pleasure is implicit in suffering. And how is this good news, you may well ask? Because the unstable nature of our projections sooner or later drives us to self-inquiry. Sooner or later our undisciplined minds seek meaning beyond the appearance of our own projections.
The real Truth is that the projected world is a collection of thought-forms in our own image. We project who we think we are, divided into a cast of thousands. The quote I used at the beginning of this blog points out that for the mind asleep, even our conception of Source is projected and experienced in our own image. This is why the God of Christianity and Islam is so often seen as violent, judgmental, vindictive, etc. It's not our Source that we're seeing, but our own sleeping minds.
The even better news is that our actual Source is not the sleeping mind, but Mind Awake. This Mind is One, All-Inclusive, All-in-All. As the Tao te Ching puts it: "There is a Being, All Inclusive, Who surrounds everything with Its Love like a garment. I do not know Its name, and so I call it Tao, the Way, and I rejoice in Its Presence." Source doesn't project... it IS. The refocusing of the mind through self-inquiry returns us to this primal Awareness. And this Awareness then is reflected in the seeming individual mind as Self, a Oneness that is reflected in the projected world as unified vision and experience. In this Awareness of Self there is only Perfection, only Love, and a Joyous Peace that includes everything.
So whose image am I projecting? As long as we live in this dream world, we will always be projecting a world and its imagined source in our own image. So the real question is: Who am I?
"The concept of the self has always been the great preoccupation of the world. And everyone believes that he must find the answer to the riddle of himself. Salvation can be seen as nothing more than the escape from concepts [images]. The world can teach no images of you unless you want to learn them. There will come a time when images have all gone by, and you will see you know not what you are. It is to this unsealed and open mind that Truth returns, unhindered and unbound. Where concepts of the self have been laid by is Truth revealed exactly as it IS." -- A Course in Miracles; Chapter 31, Section V, 14:1-3, 17:1-4
I have been practicing self-inquiry as taught by A Course in Miracles for a long time now. It's a version of self-inquiry very similar to "Who am I,"the form given by such advaita masters as Ramana Maharshi and Nisargadatta Maharaj. The drill goes that as you examine your body, you realize that if you're looking at it, it's not 'I' but a projected image. The 'I' is actually what is looking and witnessing. As you look at the senses and their subject/object relationship with the world, you realize the senses are not 'I'. As you look at your thinking mind, you realize that there is some 'I' looking even at the thoughts that come and go. And so you gradually refocus the mind to Source, the 'I Am' at the heart of all Being. As A Course in Miracles teaches it, you reverse the process of projection to return to Self with a capital 'S.' This Self is All-Inclusiveness, a Oneness or Singularity without an object.
This is a very effective tool for those who really want to remember who they are. But for most of us, the desire and self-discipline is pretty much lacking. We can't focus for any length of time on who is looking because we're too distracted by what we're looking at... and that is because we don't really want to know. We're enamored of our own images... and why wouldn't we be? We projected them... they're our babies, and we're attached to our own images and thought-forms. And so we pretend they're real. As A Course in Miracles reminds us, "Projection will always hurt you. It reinforces your belief in your own split mind." (ACIM; Chapter 6, Section II, 3:1-2) Our imagined separateness seems to defend and protect that separateness by forgetting, and by projecting outward the images of the sleeping mind.
The real problem, though, is also the good news. Because our sleeping minds are constantly projecting, the projected world appears as divided as our minds. We can have lovely dreams, but we also will have nightmares. The experience of one guarantees the experience of the other. Or you could say that suffering is implicit in pleasure, and pleasure is implicit in suffering. And how is this good news, you may well ask? Because the unstable nature of our projections sooner or later drives us to self-inquiry. Sooner or later our undisciplined minds seek meaning beyond the appearance of our own projections.
The real Truth is that the projected world is a collection of thought-forms in our own image. We project who we think we are, divided into a cast of thousands. The quote I used at the beginning of this blog points out that for the mind asleep, even our conception of Source is projected and experienced in our own image. This is why the God of Christianity and Islam is so often seen as violent, judgmental, vindictive, etc. It's not our Source that we're seeing, but our own sleeping minds.
The even better news is that our actual Source is not the sleeping mind, but Mind Awake. This Mind is One, All-Inclusive, All-in-All. As the Tao te Ching puts it: "There is a Being, All Inclusive, Who surrounds everything with Its Love like a garment. I do not know Its name, and so I call it Tao, the Way, and I rejoice in Its Presence." Source doesn't project... it IS. The refocusing of the mind through self-inquiry returns us to this primal Awareness. And this Awareness then is reflected in the seeming individual mind as Self, a Oneness that is reflected in the projected world as unified vision and experience. In this Awareness of Self there is only Perfection, only Love, and a Joyous Peace that includes everything.
So whose image am I projecting? As long as we live in this dream world, we will always be projecting a world and its imagined source in our own image. So the real question is: Who am I?
"The concept of the self has always been the great preoccupation of the world. And everyone believes that he must find the answer to the riddle of himself. Salvation can be seen as nothing more than the escape from concepts [images]. The world can teach no images of you unless you want to learn them. There will come a time when images have all gone by, and you will see you know not what you are. It is to this unsealed and open mind that Truth returns, unhindered and unbound. Where concepts of the self have been laid by is Truth revealed exactly as it IS." -- A Course in Miracles; Chapter 31, Section V, 14:1-3, 17:1-4
Sunday, October 18, 2009
The Choiceless Path
I just read a book about the idea that everything is already decided, predestined. It posits that choice is just an illusion. Of course, it was based on the assumption that material life is our reality, and that it has life and substance and meaning. But what if predestination simply refers to our spiritual Reality?
While walking in this dream we call life, we seem to move in endless reaction to the world around us. Sir Isaac Newton described it with his Third Law of Motion: "Whenever a first body exerts a force F on a second body, the second body exerts a force -F on the first body. F and -F are equal in magnitude and opposite in direction." This endless action and reaction, whether physical or emotional or mental, is what constitutes the sowing and reaping Jesus talked about, or the wheel of samsara referred to in Eastern philosophy, the wheel of karma. In this endless spinning of action and reaction, it seems the only real choice is the choice to get off the wheel. But how do we do that? This has been the quest of wise women and men throughout time.
I like to think about it this way: even a wheel has to be spinning in space. What is the space that contains the wheel? What is the "I" that contains all my ideas about the world? Moving our attention to the unchanging, limitless Self that holds it all, we realize what Lao Tzu meant by these words: "There is a Being, whose name I do not know. It surrounds everything with Its Love, like a garment. I do not know Its name, and so I call it Tao, the Way... and I rejoice in Its Presence."
I call this Presence God, or our True Self... but you can use whatever name is big enough, inclusive enough for you. Names and symbols shift and change, but God remains unchanging, as do we. Consider the following quote from A Course in Miracles: "As God created you, you must remain unchangeable, with transitory states by definition false. And that includes all shifts in feeling, alterations in conditions of the body and the mind; in all awareness and in all response." (A Course in Miracles; Workbook 152, 5:1-3) This is not the action and reaction of Newton or karma, but is the unchanging, choiceless Reality that holds everything in Its embrace.
Our true Life is not as we imagine it to be when we're bouncing around like ping pong balls in endless reaction to the people and circumstances of our lives. The choiceless, effortless Path is revealed as we come to realize that "The choice you fear to lose you never had." (ACIM; Chapter 27, Section III, 7:4) Only through forgiveness do we find release from the imagined cause and effect of the material dream, from the wheel of samsara. And in the quiet light of forgiveness we see the eternal, choiceless Love that is our true Life.
"In quietness are all things answered, and is every problem quietly resolved." -- A Course in Miracles; Chapter 27, Section IV, 1:1
While walking in this dream we call life, we seem to move in endless reaction to the world around us. Sir Isaac Newton described it with his Third Law of Motion: "Whenever a first body exerts a force F on a second body, the second body exerts a force -F on the first body. F and -F are equal in magnitude and opposite in direction." This endless action and reaction, whether physical or emotional or mental, is what constitutes the sowing and reaping Jesus talked about, or the wheel of samsara referred to in Eastern philosophy, the wheel of karma. In this endless spinning of action and reaction, it seems the only real choice is the choice to get off the wheel. But how do we do that? This has been the quest of wise women and men throughout time.
I like to think about it this way: even a wheel has to be spinning in space. What is the space that contains the wheel? What is the "I" that contains all my ideas about the world? Moving our attention to the unchanging, limitless Self that holds it all, we realize what Lao Tzu meant by these words: "There is a Being, whose name I do not know. It surrounds everything with Its Love, like a garment. I do not know Its name, and so I call it Tao, the Way... and I rejoice in Its Presence."
I call this Presence God, or our True Self... but you can use whatever name is big enough, inclusive enough for you. Names and symbols shift and change, but God remains unchanging, as do we. Consider the following quote from A Course in Miracles: "As God created you, you must remain unchangeable, with transitory states by definition false. And that includes all shifts in feeling, alterations in conditions of the body and the mind; in all awareness and in all response." (A Course in Miracles; Workbook 152, 5:1-3) This is not the action and reaction of Newton or karma, but is the unchanging, choiceless Reality that holds everything in Its embrace.
Our true Life is not as we imagine it to be when we're bouncing around like ping pong balls in endless reaction to the people and circumstances of our lives. The choiceless, effortless Path is revealed as we come to realize that "The choice you fear to lose you never had." (ACIM; Chapter 27, Section III, 7:4) Only through forgiveness do we find release from the imagined cause and effect of the material dream, from the wheel of samsara. And in the quiet light of forgiveness we see the eternal, choiceless Love that is our true Life.
"In quietness are all things answered, and is every problem quietly resolved." -- A Course in Miracles; Chapter 27, Section IV, 1:1
Monday, July 28, 2008
Do You Think You Know?
CAUTION: Only proceed if you are looking for disillusionment.
"What is an idol? Do you think you know? For idols are unrecognized as such, and never seen for what they really are." -- A Course in Miracles; Chapter 29, Section VIII, 1:1-3
I love the above quote from ACIM. "Do you think you know?" Ha! And then there's this quote: "The ego is nothing more than a part of your belief about yourself. Your (Real) life has continued without interruption, and has been and always will be totally unaffected by your attempts to dissociate it." (A Course in Miracles; Chapter 4, Section VI, 1:6-7) Isn't dissociation grand? After all, how can we be responsible for something we don't even know is there? Ha! It becomes obvious that disillusionment and the unmasking of the ego are our only hope in this world!
"What is an idol? Do you think you know? For idols are unrecognized as such, and never seen for what they really are." -- A Course in Miracles; Chapter 29, Section VIII, 1:1-3
I love the above quote from ACIM. "Do you think you know?" Ha! And then there's this quote: "The ego is nothing more than a part of your belief about yourself. Your (Real) life has continued without interruption, and has been and always will be totally unaffected by your attempts to dissociate it." (A Course in Miracles; Chapter 4, Section VI, 1:6-7) Isn't dissociation grand? After all, how can we be responsible for something we don't even know is there? Ha! It becomes obvious that disillusionment and the unmasking of the ego are our only hope in this world!
As we follow the meandering dream we call our life, we may have the illusion of progressive growth and wisdom. I say illusion, because all external results are a part of the great dissociation. As ACIM puts it, "Everything you perceive as the outside world is merely your attempt to maintain your ego identification." (A Course in Miracles; Chapter 12, Section III, 7:5) It's all and always an attempt to separate and dissociate from the Allness of God, the only Truth there Is. Have you noticed how 'old friends' always seem to call just when we're wanting to solidify a new or old identity? Ouch. But true, isn't it?
Have you ever noticed how your ego dreams that someone around you is noticing how much you've changed for the better? And how you think this is an indication that you're on the right track? Do you think you know? Ha! And have you noticed how much we love it when people think we're wise or that we're happier or more peaceful or different somehow? What is this but another idol, another descent into the dream, and more dissociation? "All idols of this world were made to keep the Truth within from being known to you, and to maintain allegiance to the dream that you must find what is outside yourself (attention and approval) to be complete and happy. It is vain to worship idols in the hope of peace. God dwells within, and your completion lies in Him." (A Course in Miracles; Chapter 29, Section VII, 6:1-3)
When we think we know, we are clinging to idols. When we smugly think we are being strong in faith, remember that the priests that started the Inquisition thought the same thing. ACIM cautions us to never underestimate the sneakiness of the desire to protect and defend our imagined selves. It is the motivation for literally all our thoughts and decisions and so-called moral stands in this world. The desire for comfort and security simply morph into their spiritual disguise of spiritual pride and superiority... or sometimes inferiority... of seeing others as 'out there' or as not really there at all, as better than us, worse than us, but always other than us.
While there is a separate self and an 'other', illusory questions of helping or not helping arise. They're about ego identities, too (should I do this or should I do that?), not about alleviating suffering or helping. If it was really about alleviating suffering or you really thought it would help and you really cared, you would be doing it no matter what questions arose. Not because it's real or because it's this or that, but because your Beloved Self is calling out to be re-membered in some way.
If you find yourself growing uncomfortable reading this blog, you can be sure my ego felt exposed writing it! Ha! Being uncomfortable is only experienced by the ego. The Self remains ItSelf, Awake and Aware in the midst of all. Dan Millman said, "One sure sign of growing awareness is that you "feel" as if you're getting worse. Awareness is literally a disillusioning process." Feeling uncomfortable and exposed is a VERY good sign. It's when you think you know that you're in trouble. It's when you think you've finally gotten it. Do you think you're getting it? Do you think you know? Ha!
"When the ancient Masters said, "If you want to be given everything, give everything up," they weren't using empty phrases. Only in being lived by the Tao can you be truly your Self." -- Tao te Ching, translation by Stephen Mitchell
Thursday, July 24, 2008
White Space
"The Master leads by emptying people's minds and filling their cores, by weakening their ambition and toughening their resolve. She helps people lose everything they know, everything they desire, and creates confusion in those who think that they know. Practice not-doing, and everything will fall into place." -- Tao te Ching, translation by Stephen Mitchell
Have you ever thought about paper and the words you write on it? Technically speaking, the words can't exist without the paper, or the computer screen, the white space that serves as the ground of being for words. It's often referred to as negative space, but is in reality acknowledged by graphic designers, artists, and writers as the most important element, which actually enables words or other design elements to exist at all. Words, pictures, and other objects may come and go across the screen or paper... but the white space is the primal background for all of it.
There is a Ground of Being, a state of Awareness that is the White Space of Spirit. Thoughts, images, emotions come and go, but what remains when the mind is emptied is the Fullness of Being. Like white space, it is the constant. There's a reason that in every spiritual tradition the Master Teacher leads the student to question and drop every thought and belief. What remains beyond belief is the effortless Truth. It reveals itself when we stop our constant busyness. We are like pages so full of words and pictures that the white space is completely covered. Not only is it hard to read, it's exhausting. White space gives words on a page room to breathe, and gives the eye space to soften and focus and find patterns in what it sees. Awareness of Being gives our everyday lives a beauty that is not dependent on busyness, with room to breathe and to be. Everything simply IS.
Like starting a new composition, why not start each new day with White Space? And instead of filling the space instantly and constantly with thoughts and desires and compulsions, why not drop them all for a time each morning? Why not rest in the Awareness of Being that is our True Self? Whether we call this Self the Tao, or God, or Buddha, this expansive Self is the White Space for a life of fulfillment. Not the fulfillment of the busy desires and egoic delusions of the illusory separated self. But the fulfillment of the True Desire of every heart... to know Self. This is what we all long for, to return to the White Space of Being.
"See the world as your Self. Have faith in the way things are. Love the world as your Self. Then you can care for all things." -- Tao te Ching, translation by Stephen Mitchell
Have you ever thought about paper and the words you write on it? Technically speaking, the words can't exist without the paper, or the computer screen, the white space that serves as the ground of being for words. It's often referred to as negative space, but is in reality acknowledged by graphic designers, artists, and writers as the most important element, which actually enables words or other design elements to exist at all. Words, pictures, and other objects may come and go across the screen or paper... but the white space is the primal background for all of it.
There is a Ground of Being, a state of Awareness that is the White Space of Spirit. Thoughts, images, emotions come and go, but what remains when the mind is emptied is the Fullness of Being. Like white space, it is the constant. There's a reason that in every spiritual tradition the Master Teacher leads the student to question and drop every thought and belief. What remains beyond belief is the effortless Truth. It reveals itself when we stop our constant busyness. We are like pages so full of words and pictures that the white space is completely covered. Not only is it hard to read, it's exhausting. White space gives words on a page room to breathe, and gives the eye space to soften and focus and find patterns in what it sees. Awareness of Being gives our everyday lives a beauty that is not dependent on busyness, with room to breathe and to be. Everything simply IS.
Like starting a new composition, why not start each new day with White Space? And instead of filling the space instantly and constantly with thoughts and desires and compulsions, why not drop them all for a time each morning? Why not rest in the Awareness of Being that is our True Self? Whether we call this Self the Tao, or God, or Buddha, this expansive Self is the White Space for a life of fulfillment. Not the fulfillment of the busy desires and egoic delusions of the illusory separated self. But the fulfillment of the True Desire of every heart... to know Self. This is what we all long for, to return to the White Space of Being.
"See the world as your Self. Have faith in the way things are. Love the world as your Self. Then you can care for all things." -- Tao te Ching, translation by Stephen Mitchell
Saturday, April 26, 2008
Love
"There is no Love but God's, and ALL of Love is His. There is no other principle that rules where Love is not. Love is a law without an opposite. Its Wholeness is the Power holding everything as One. If you achieve the faintest glimmering of what Love means today, you have advanced in distance without measure and in time beyond the count of years to your release. He HimSelf will place a spark of Truth within your mind wherever you give up a false belief, a dark illusion of your own reality and what love means. He will shine through your idle thoughts today, and help you understand the Truth of Love. In loving gentleness He will abide with you, as you allow His Voice to teach Love's meaning to your clean and open mind." -- A Course in Miracles; Workbook 127, 3:5-8, 7:1, 9:3-5
"There is no material truth. The physical senses can take no cognizance of God and Spiritual Truth. The senses of Spirit abide in Love, and they demonstrate Truth and Life. Divine Principle, Love, creates and governs all that is real." -- Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy; Page273, Lines 2-4; Page 274, Lines 12-13; Page 286, Lines14-15
How do we even begin to speak about what is All-Encompassing and so Beautiful that I weep as I write this? Imagine a time when your experience of love was so intense that there was no containing it. You may have thought it was because of a certain person or experience. It wasn't. In those moments we simply relax our defenses of mind and heart enough to glimpse the breathtaking Reality of Love. In any moment, in any experience when our undefended heart opens, the unimaginable experience of ever-present Love rushes in.
In the Tao te Ching, Lao Tsu wrote, "There is a Being, whose name I do not know, Who surrounds everything with Its Love like a garment." The overwhelming experience of Divine Love leaves no story unchanged. All that previously looked like pain or limitation is transformed, radiant with blessing. Every drop of blood, every experience of failure, every hateful experience becomes a source of gratitude and wonder. How is it possible? What mystery is this?
Our human stories about love really have very little to do with Love. They distract us from what IS. "Perhaps you think that different kinds of love are possible. Perhaps you think there is a kind of love for this, a kind for that; a way of loving one, another way of loving still another. Love is One. It has no separate parts and no degrees; no kinds nor levels, no divergencies and no distinctions. It is like ItSelf, unchanged throughout. It never alters with a person or a circumstance. It is the Heart of God, and also of His Son." (ACIM; Workbook 127, 1:1-7)
Love is not what we think it is. It is completely impersonal, without a story... and yet It is more intimate than any emotional or sexual encounter, more deeply fulfilling than any human relationship or attachment. There is no describing It in words, and yet It spills over into words, into this blog, into imagined time and space... It cannot and will not be contained. Forever ItSelf, It is Our Home and Our Self.
"No law the world obeys can help you grasp Love's meaning. What the world believes was made to hide Love's meaning, and to keep it dark and secret. There is not one principle the world upholds but violates the Truth of what Love IS, and what you are as well. Seek not within the world to find your Self. Love is not found in darkness and in death. Yet it is perfectly apparent to the eyes that see and ears that hear Love's Voice." -- A Course in Miracles; Workbook 127, 5:1-3, 6:1-3
"Accept the Truth about your Self, and go your way rejoicing in the endless Love of God. It is but this we are asked to do." -- A Course in Miracles; Workbook 139, 10:2-3
"There is no material truth. The physical senses can take no cognizance of God and Spiritual Truth. The senses of Spirit abide in Love, and they demonstrate Truth and Life. Divine Principle, Love, creates and governs all that is real." -- Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy; Page273, Lines 2-4; Page 274, Lines 12-13; Page 286, Lines14-15
How do we even begin to speak about what is All-Encompassing and so Beautiful that I weep as I write this? Imagine a time when your experience of love was so intense that there was no containing it. You may have thought it was because of a certain person or experience. It wasn't. In those moments we simply relax our defenses of mind and heart enough to glimpse the breathtaking Reality of Love. In any moment, in any experience when our undefended heart opens, the unimaginable experience of ever-present Love rushes in.
In the Tao te Ching, Lao Tsu wrote, "There is a Being, whose name I do not know, Who surrounds everything with Its Love like a garment." The overwhelming experience of Divine Love leaves no story unchanged. All that previously looked like pain or limitation is transformed, radiant with blessing. Every drop of blood, every experience of failure, every hateful experience becomes a source of gratitude and wonder. How is it possible? What mystery is this?
Our human stories about love really have very little to do with Love. They distract us from what IS. "Perhaps you think that different kinds of love are possible. Perhaps you think there is a kind of love for this, a kind for that; a way of loving one, another way of loving still another. Love is One. It has no separate parts and no degrees; no kinds nor levels, no divergencies and no distinctions. It is like ItSelf, unchanged throughout. It never alters with a person or a circumstance. It is the Heart of God, and also of His Son." (ACIM; Workbook 127, 1:1-7)
Love is not what we think it is. It is completely impersonal, without a story... and yet It is more intimate than any emotional or sexual encounter, more deeply fulfilling than any human relationship or attachment. There is no describing It in words, and yet It spills over into words, into this blog, into imagined time and space... It cannot and will not be contained. Forever ItSelf, It is Our Home and Our Self.
"No law the world obeys can help you grasp Love's meaning. What the world believes was made to hide Love's meaning, and to keep it dark and secret. There is not one principle the world upholds but violates the Truth of what Love IS, and what you are as well. Seek not within the world to find your Self. Love is not found in darkness and in death. Yet it is perfectly apparent to the eyes that see and ears that hear Love's Voice." -- A Course in Miracles; Workbook 127, 5:1-3, 6:1-3
"Accept the Truth about your Self, and go your way rejoicing in the endless Love of God. It is but this we are asked to do." -- A Course in Miracles; Workbook 139, 10:2-3
Friday, February 15, 2008
The Holy Work of Change
"God rests in action. Imparting has not impoverished, can never impoverish, the Divine Mind. The highest and sweetest rest, even from a human standpoint, is in holy work." -- Mary Baker Eddy
"Change is always fearful to the separated, because they cannot conceive of it as a move towards healing the separation." -- A Course in Miracles
"All things pass. God never changes." -- Theresa of Avila
A Course in Miracles says we are not capable of being tired, but that we are very capable of wearying ourselves. This is in alignment with the above quote from Mary Baker Eddy. We exhaust ourselves resisting change, resisting the flow of Spirit that emanates from our very core. It's exhausting trying so hard to be what we are not. Like trying to fit into clothes that are many sizes too small. Who We Are is Infinite. How could we feel at ease in such imagined limitations? Resisting change is to limit our infinite Mind.
The holy work of change in this dream world is that it ultimately shows the unreal nature of all material form... but the bonus is that it shows that nothing is limited by form. Forms morph and shift and change, and nothing is ever really lost. Coming to know and remember this is what we call Awakening. The core of Infinite Changelessness is the heart of All That Is. God, the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow. Allness, Oneness, is at the heart of all and yet untouched by change.
The Tao te Ching says: "You can't know It, but you can be It, at ease in your own life." This is the holy work of change. In the midst of what comes and goes, in the core of stillness that is always effortlessly present, is the True Self, the Beloved that We Are. So allow change to have its way with you... allow it to do its holy work.
"The miracle attests salvation from appearances by showing they can change. Your brother has a changelessness in him beyond appearance and deception, both. It is obscured by changing views of him that you perceive as his reality. The happy dream about him takes the form of the appearance of his perfect health, his perfect freedom from all forms of lack, and safety from disaster of all kinds. The miracle is proof he is not bound by loss or suffering in any form, because it can so easily be changed. This demonstrates that it was never real, and could not stem from his reality. For that is changeless, and has no effects that anything in Heaven or on earth could ever alter. But appearances are shown to be unreal because they change." -- A Course in Miracles
"Change is always fearful to the separated, because they cannot conceive of it as a move towards healing the separation." -- A Course in Miracles
"All things pass. God never changes." -- Theresa of Avila
A Course in Miracles says we are not capable of being tired, but that we are very capable of wearying ourselves. This is in alignment with the above quote from Mary Baker Eddy. We exhaust ourselves resisting change, resisting the flow of Spirit that emanates from our very core. It's exhausting trying so hard to be what we are not. Like trying to fit into clothes that are many sizes too small. Who We Are is Infinite. How could we feel at ease in such imagined limitations? Resisting change is to limit our infinite Mind.
The holy work of change in this dream world is that it ultimately shows the unreal nature of all material form... but the bonus is that it shows that nothing is limited by form. Forms morph and shift and change, and nothing is ever really lost. Coming to know and remember this is what we call Awakening. The core of Infinite Changelessness is the heart of All That Is. God, the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow. Allness, Oneness, is at the heart of all and yet untouched by change.
The Tao te Ching says: "You can't know It, but you can be It, at ease in your own life." This is the holy work of change. In the midst of what comes and goes, in the core of stillness that is always effortlessly present, is the True Self, the Beloved that We Are. So allow change to have its way with you... allow it to do its holy work.
"The miracle attests salvation from appearances by showing they can change. Your brother has a changelessness in him beyond appearance and deception, both. It is obscured by changing views of him that you perceive as his reality. The happy dream about him takes the form of the appearance of his perfect health, his perfect freedom from all forms of lack, and safety from disaster of all kinds. The miracle is proof he is not bound by loss or suffering in any form, because it can so easily be changed. This demonstrates that it was never real, and could not stem from his reality. For that is changeless, and has no effects that anything in Heaven or on earth could ever alter. But appearances are shown to be unreal because they change." -- A Course in Miracles
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
