Out of Sorrow

There is a brokenness out of which comes the unbroken, 
a shatteredness out of which blooms the unshatterable. 
There is a sorrow beyond grief which leads to joy 
and a fragility out of whose depths emerges strength. 
There is a hollow space too vast for words 
through which we pass with each loss, 
out of whose darkness we are sanctioned into being. 
There is a cry deeper than all sound 
whose serrated edges cut the heart as we break open 
to the place inside which is unbreakable and whole, 
while learning to sing. 
~ Rashani

Life's Fountain

In the secret cave of the heart, two are
seated by life's fountain. The separate ego
drinks of the sweet and bitter stuff,
liking the sweet, disliking the bitter,
while the supreme Self drinks sweet and bitter
neither liking this nor disliking that.
The ego gropes in darkness, while the Self 
lives in light...

~ Katha Upanishad

Spiritual Bypassing

“Spiritual Bypassing: A term first coined by author John Welwood. The spiritual bypass is the tendency to jump to spirit prematurely, usually in an effort to avoid various aspects of earthly reality (practical challenges, unresolved emotions and memories). The bypass has many symptoms- the starry-eyed bliss trip, radical detachment from one’s self-identifications, premature forgiveness, ungrounded behaviors, wish-full thinking etc.” ~Jeff Brown

http://www.collective-evolution.com/2013/01/22/3-powerful-tips-to-avoid-spiritual-bypassing/

Awakening

When your soul awakens, you begin to truly inherit your life. You leave the kingdom of fake surfaces, repetitive talk and weary roles and slip deeper into the true adventure of who you are and who you are called to become. The greatest friend of the soul is the unknown. Yet we are afraid of the unknown because it lies outside our vision and our control. We avoid it or quell it by filtering it through our protective barriers of domestication and control. The normal way never leads home.
~ John O’Donohue 

Pentecost

Hildegard of Bingen (1098–1179)

O Comforting Fire of Spirit

O comforting fire of Spirit,
Life, within the very Life of all Creation.
Holy you are in giving life to All.

Holy you are in anointing
those who are not whole;
Holy you are in cleansing
a festering wound.

O sacred breath,
O fire of love,
O sweetest taste in my breast
which fills my heart
with a fine aroma of virtues.

O most pure fountain
through whom it is known
that God has united strangers
and inquired after the lost.

O breastplate of life
and hope of uniting
all members as One,
O sword-belt of honor,
enfold those who offer blessing.

Care for those
who are imprisoned by the enemy
and dissolve the bonds of those
whom Divinity wishes to save.

O mightiest path which penetrates All,
from the height to every Earthly abyss,
you compose All, you unite All.

Through you clouds stream, ether flies,
stones gain moisture,
waters become streams,
and the earth exudes Life.

You always draw out knowledge,
bringing joy through Wisdom's inspiration.

Therefore, praise be to you
who are the sound of praise
and the greatest prize of Life,
who are hope and richest honor
bequeathing the reward of Light.

Listening

Once Mother Theresa was asked 
what she said when she prayed. 

She answered that 
she didn’t say anything, 
she listened. 

When asked what God said to her, 
she said that God didn’t say anything; 
He listened back. 

She added that if you didn’t understand, 
she couldn’t explain it further. 

God speaks in the silence of the heart. 
Listening is the beginning of prayer.

~~Mother Theresa

For true followers of Islam, the most important jihad is the individual struggle with the ego, not the external battles that are in the news. The link below offers excellent commentary on this struggle. Muslims, just like Christians, Hindus, Buddhists, etc. face the same struggle but we all often let the ego dominate our lives.

http://andrewcohen.org/blog/true-jihad#.UYZf72ckK14.email

All In the Heart

"it's all in the heart, she said.

open it and you get magic.

close it and you don't.

it's not rocket science, she laughed,

but it will get you to another space and

time

in a heart beat."

 

~terri st cloud

Accept That You Are Accepted

You are accepted. 

You are accepted, accepted by that which is greater than you, 

and the name of which you do not know. 

Do not ask for the name now; perhaps you will find it later. 

Do not try to do anything now; perhaps later you will do much. 

Do not seek for anything; do not perform anything;

do not intend anything. 

Simply accept the fact that you are accepted!

-Paul Tillich, 'The Shaking of the Foundations'

Love

Love means to learn to look at yourself
The way one looks at distant things
For you are only one thing among many.
And whoever sees that way heals his heart,
Without knowing it, from various ills--
A bird and a tree say to him: Friend.

Then he wants to use himself and things
So that they stand in the glow of ripeness.
It doesn't matter whether he knows what he serves:
Who serves best doesn't always understand.

~Czeslaw Milosz

Beyond Belief

"Beyond the beliefs of any one religion, there is the truth of the human spirit. Beyond the power of nations, there is the power of the human heart. Beyond the ordinary mind, the power of wisdom, love, and healing energy are at work in the universe. When we can find peace within our own hearts, we contact these universal powers. This is our only hope." -Tarthang Tulku

Courtesy Lisa Bonner

Time

Attachment

According to Buddhist psychology, most of our troubles are due to our passionate desire for, attachment to things that we misapprehend as enduring entities. The pursuit of the objects of our desire and attachment involves the use of aggression and competitivenessThese mental processes easily translate into actions, breeding belligerence. Such processes have been going on in the human mind since time immemorial, but their execution has become more effective under modern conditions. What can we do to control and regulate these poisons—delusion, greed and aggression? For it is these poisons that are behind almost every trouble in the world.

- His Holiness the Dalai Lama

Sacred Vessels

“it was when she dipped deep inside,

and scooped out her very essense –

and then stretched her arms outwards

with her hands full of stars –

it was when those stars passed thru

her fingers and out to the world –

it was then she understood she was a sacred vessel,

that we are all sacred vessels –

with the entire universe flowing thru us –

and all we need to do is open and be”

~terri st cloud

In the beginning...

Only Breath

ONLY BREATH

Not Christian or Jew or Muslim, not Hindu,
Buddhist, sufi, or zen. Not any religion

or cultural system. I am not from the East
or the West, not out of the ocean or up

from the ground, not natural or ethereal, not
composed of elements at all. I do not exist,

am not an entity in this world or the next,
did not descend from Adam or Eve or any

origin story. My place is placeless, a trace
of the traceless. Neither body or soul.

I belong to the beloved, have seen the two
worlds as one and that one call to and know,

first, last, outer, inner, only that
breath breathing human being.
~ Rumi

Resurrection

Long, long, long ago;
Way before this winter’s snow
First fell upon these weathered fields;
I used to sit and watch and feel
And dream of how the spring would be,
When through the winter’s stormy sea
She’d raise her green and growing head,
Her warmth would resurrect the dead.

Long before this winter’s snow
I dreamt of this day’s sunny glow
And thought somehow my pain would pass
With winter’s pain, and peace like grass
Would simply grow.  (But) The pain’s not gone.
It’s still as cold and hard and long
As lonely pain has ever been,
It cuts so deep and fear within.

Long before this winter’s snow
I ran from pain, looked high and low
For some fast way to get around
Its hurt and cold.  I’d have found,
If I had looked at what was there,
That things don’t follow fast or fair.
That life goes on, and times do change,
And grass does grow despite life’s pains.

Long before this winter’s snow
I thought that this day’s sunny glow,
The smiling children and growing things
And flowers bright were brought by spring.
Now, I know the sun does shine,
That children smile, and from the dark, cold, grime
A flower comes.  It groans, yet sings,
And through its pain, its peace begins.

~Mary Ann Bernard

 

Easter Communion

 

Pure fasted faces draw unto this feast:
God comes all sweetness to your Lenten lips.
You striped in secret with breath-taking whips,
Those crooked rough-scored chequers may be pieced
To crosses meant for Jesu's; you whom the East
With draught of thin and pursuant cold so nips
Breathe Easter now; you serged fellowships,
You vigil-keepers with low flames decreased,

God shall o'er-brim the measures you have spent
With oil of gladness, for sackcloth and frieze
And the ever-fretting shirt of punishment
Give myrrhy-threaded golden folds of ease.
Your scarce-sheathed bones are weary of being bent:
Lo, God shall strengthen all the feeble knees.

~Gerard Manley Hopkins

Teach What You Want to Learn

"Do not underestimate the power you have to effect people. You are a teacher, and are teaching all the time. From your demonstration and example others learn, while at the same time you are learning what you teach. Every moment you teach you are reinforcing within what you are sharing, the more you teach the more you will reinforce what you teach as being part of you. You have been sent here to teach the lessons of joy, peace, compassion, forgiveness and hope. The more you teach them the more real and familiar they will become. The more real they become, the greater part of your journey they will be. Because this is what you have come to do, you will have a feeling of fulfillment as you realign yourself with who you truly are. The light in you will shine bright, and by doing so others will be more able to clearly see, remember, and acknowledge the teacher in them."

James Blanchard Cisneros

The Importance of Love

There are two basic motivating forces: fear and love. When we are afraid, we pull back from life. When we are in love, we open to all that life has to offer with passion, excitement, and acceptance. We need to learn to love ourselves first, in all our glory and our imperfections. If we cannot love ourselves, we cannot fully open to our ability to love others or our potential to create. Evolution and all hopes for a better world rest in the fearlessness and open-hearted vision of people who embrace life.
― John Lennon

Our Journey

If you have felt like a stranger on this planet it is because you are. You have volunteered to come down and assist your brother and sister in remembering the truth in them by first recognizing it in yourself. When you are expressing your truth/natural state, that of being joyful, peaceful, compassionate, and loving, others will naturally be attracted to you, because they will see in you what they themselves are searching for. When you’re expressing your natural state you will have a feeling of fulfillment because in essence you are doing what you have come to do. If instead you’re investing your time, effort, and energy in the ego’s thought system, expressing anger, judgment, when you are stressed out and confused, when sadness and chaos seem to surround you, these are all signs that you are not expressing your truth, and thus you will experience a feeling of incompleteness, an emptiness within. You may be doing everything the ego’s world insisted you do, doing everything “right,” and still you will not find peace. Today let us all practice taking conscious steps in the direction of our truth, our natural state.

James Blanchard Cisneros

A Prayer for Easter Time

Gracious and loving God, as we prepare to celebrate Easter, may we be aware that the joy of Easter morning followed the sorrow of the preceding Friday and Saturday, just as spring follows the darkness of winter. Easter is about joy, but it is also about suffering and finding meaning in suffering. Help us remember that you often harness the darkness of our sorrow to generate light and life for us and for others. Keep us mindful that as we, like Jesus, travel through the valleys of life, you will always meet us on the other side.

May we learn to be like the soil, ready for turning and to welcome new life.

May we be like the buds of flowers and expand into color and joyfulness.

May we be like the rivers that receive the spring rains and move forward with power.

May we be like the sun as we go forth into spring and bring light to your world.

May we be aware of the many ways we are blessed, even in the midst of sorrow, and that we, like the spring flowers, can begin anew.

Disruption

Love wants to reach out and manhandle us,
Break all our teacup talk of God.
If you had the courage and
Could give the Beloved His choice, some nights,
He would just drag you around the room
By your hair,
Ripping from your grip all those toys in the world
That bring you no joy.
Love sometimes gets tired of speaking sweetly
And wants to rip to shreds
All your erroneous notions of truth . . .
The Beloved sometimes wants
To do us a great favor:
Hold us upside down
And shake all the nonsense out.

Hafiz

A Vision for Each Day

"The manner with which we walk through life is each man's most important responsibility, and we should remember this with every new sunrise."
--Thomas Yellowtail, CROW


Every spiritual person should carry a vision of God's will in every area of their life. One day at a time, each morning at sunrise, we should spend time praying to the Creator. We should say something like, my Creator, this morning I ask you to show me, in terms I can understand, what you have for me to do. By doing this daily, over time, we will develop an unquestionable vision. Each person is responsible for taking the time to do this. It will bring great joy and peace of mind to those warriors who do.

My Creator, give me the vision, today, of what you want me to do.

~ Don Coyhis

Presence

"It is only from Presence that you can come into right relationship with your ego. It is only from Presence that you can come into right relationship with your feelings and emotions. It is only from Presence that you can come into right relationship with the inner child. It is only from Presence that you can come into right relationship with judgment. It is only from Presence that you come into right relationship with life and with God.

~Leonard Jacobson, courtesy Gary Davis

Inner Mystery

God is not looking for servants, for slaves, or for people who are going to pass loyalty tests. God is just looking for images -- "images and likenesses" of the Inner Mystery. Whoever God "is," is profoundly and essentially what it means to be both male and female in perfect balance. We have to find and to trust images that present both a healthy feminine face for God and a healthy masculine face for God. Both are true and both are necessary for a vital and loving relationship with God. Up to now, we have largely relied upon the presented masculine images of God (which closed many people down) while, in fact, our inner life is much more drawn to a loving feminine energy. That is much of our religious problem today, and I do not believe that is an exaggeration.

--Richard Rohr

Don't Define Yourself

Give up defining yourself - to yourself or to others. You won't die. You will come to life. And don't be concerned with how others define you. When they define you, they are limiting themselves, so it's their problem. Whenever you interact with people, don't be there primarily as a function or a role, but as the field of conscious Presence. You can only lose something that you have, but you cannot lose something that you are.

~ Eckhart Tolle

Clarity

“confusion and doubt can fill my heart so easily.
until I close my eyes and think of my love for you.
clarity and courage come into focus -
and I wait for your return.”

~terri st cloud

The Importance of Gratitude

Every time we show gratitude for the millions of ways we are blessed daily, we send our energy into the unseen world of the Dream Weave, and those threads of gratitude strengthen our spiritual connections. The resulting fabric of trust and faith is the safety net that catches us when we go through the Dark Night of the Soul, protecting us against the internal enemy of victim thinking.

Opportunity is normally the last thing we think about when we are in crisis, but that is one gift that is always being given. We are given the opportunity to grow, to learn how strong we really are, to see the value of loving support, to become more sensitive to the pain of others, to share our burdens with others, instead of thinking we are always alone, and to ultimately trust that we will be better people on the other side of our present, darkened passage through life.

~Jamie Sams 

To love is to know; to know is to act

When mystics use the word love, they use it very carefully-in the deeply spiritual sense, where to love is to know, to know is to act. If you really love from the depths of your Consciousness, that love gives you a native wisdom. You perceive the needs of others intuitively and clearly, with detachment to any personal desires, and you know how to act creatively to meet those needs, dextrously surmounting any obstacle that comes in the way. Such is the immense, driving power of love.

~Eknath Easwaran

Enlightenment

Regardless of what has happened in your life,
the universe is able and prepared
to bring you comfort and repair.
You are loved and your purpose is to love.
From a mind filled with infinite love
comes the power to create infinite possibilities.
We have power to think in ways
that reflect and attract
all the love in the world.
Such thinking is called enlightenment.
Enlightenment is not a process we work toward,
but a choice available to us in any instant.
~ Marianne Williamson

Becoming Peace

We now know that whatever you vibrate, you create and attract to yourself. So, you work on healing yourself in order to create peace around you. You become peace. If there’s conflict living within you, you cannot live in a world of peace. The world mirrors back to you perfectly the condition of your love and of your intent. And if the world you’re living in is not a world that is at peace and at joy and at grace, then you have to find peace, joy, and grace within you.

The shaman no longer looks for meaning in life, but brings meaning to every situation. The shaman stops looking for truth and instead brings truth to every encounter. You don’t look for the right partner, you become the right partner. And then the right partner finds you. It’s a very active practice focused on healing.

~ Alberto Villoldo

Attentiveness

If you seek after truth, you should investigate things in such a way that your consciousness as you investigate is not distracted by what you find, or diffused and scattered; neither is it fixed and set. For the one who is not swayed, there will be a transcending of birth, death, and time. Whether you walk or stand or lie down, stretch your limbs or draw them in again, let you do all these things attentively, Above, across, and back again. Whatever your place in the world, let you be the one who views the movement of all compounded things with attention.

- Itivuttaka Sutta

The Three Poisons

"If ever there has been a time in America to ask, 'is human suffering unavoidable' it’s now. To answer this question, I look to Buddhism because its main purpose is to reduce suffering. Buddhism is not a religion per se; it is really a philosophy of life. A Buddhist is not required to believe or disbelieve in God. The Buddha’s goal was to reduce human suffering, so he confined his teachings to this life.

So even if you are a devout Muslim, Christian or Jew, I am asking you to consider a Buddhist teaching called the “three poisons.” The Buddha taught that the three poisons cause a great deal of suffering. They are: Greed, Anger and Ignorance. His goal was to get people to strive for a life of: Generosity, Compassion and Wisdom. If we could reach that goal, we could eliminate a lot of human suffering, including our own.

Let’s examine how these three poisons produce suffering. First, greed comes from a desire to have more than we need. It’s a desire that cannot be satisfied with its object; for instance, money. When we give in to greed, the more we have, the more we want. Greed can never be satisfied. It can only be challenged with self awareness. We must determine how much we need and when we have enough, admit it. Greed is a distraction that always puts happiness out of our reach. It only produces suffering.
Generosity is the antidote to greed. It’s no secret that every great spiritual prophet gave everything away to the poor. I’m not suggesting that you do the same. I am suggesting that each of us look to our conscience and learn from their examples. There’s more than enough to go around.

Anger is the next poison. It’s not anger that causes suffering; it’s the actions that we take when we don’t know how to handle our anger. Anger is natural. Harming others is unnatural and causes suffering for the victim and the perpetrator.

Most Americans were very angry because of 9/11. We had a right to be. Anger is a natural reaction to such an atrocity. But we failed to direct that anger to the responsible parties and here we are twelve years later. We’ve lost thousands more lives. We’ve spent trillions of dollars that we don’t have on two unnecessary wars. And what have we achieved? We’ve created more terrorists. The terrorists’ anger that inspired the attack and our retaliatory anger have caused immeasurable human suffering. We can’t reduce suffering by adding more suffering.

Compassion is the antidote. I know, it’s difficult to imagine being compassionate toward terrorists. That’s not what I am proposing. I am proposing that as a nation, we become more circumspect in how we act out our justifiable anger. And as individuals we do the same. That action will reduce suffering for all of us.

Ignorance is the third poison. The most vivid example today is the ignorance that prevails in certain countries that are struggling to keep modernity at bay with archaic forms of obsolete religious belief systems. I won’t argue that there certainly are some aspects of post modernity that I wish we didn’t have to tolerate. But institutionalized ignorance is not the answer. This kind of ignorance demands that terrible things happen to innocent victims. For instance, demanding an honor killing of a female family member because she was gang-raped while the perpetrators went free. Or that a young gay man be bullied into committing suicide.

Obviously, we don’t need to go to the Mideast to find this kind of ignorance. Right here in America we suffer the ignorance of states like Tennessee, where a child can refuse to participate in a learning activity if it conflicts with his or her religious beliefs. Or in those states that continue their efforts to have religion taught in the science curriculum by calling it by a different name, i.e. intelligent design or creation science.

Wisdom is the antidote. We should naturally grow in wisdom as we age. Here’s the problem; there are people who have many years of living experience and become wise as a result. And then there are others who have had the same year of experience many times over and insist that life is the problem because it doesn’t conform to their expectations. We need to be open to what life brings and learn from it. That’s all life asks of us for wisdom to flourish."
Robert DeFilippis

Our Own Efforts

The soul cannot have true knowledge of God through 
its own efforts or by means of any created thing, but 
only by divine light and by a special gift of divine grace. 
I believe there is  no quicker or easier way for the soul 
to obtain this divine grace from God, supreme Good 
and supreme Love, than by a devout, pure, humble,  
continual, and determined prayer.

- Angela of Foligno -