Surrender

The boat I travel in is called Surrender. My two oars are instant forgiveness and gratitude — complete gratitude for the gift of life. I am thankful for the experience of this life, for the opportunity to dance. I get angry, I get mad, but as soon as I remind myself to put my oars in the water, I forgive.

I serve. I do the dance I must. I plant trees, but I am not the doer of this work. I am the facilitator, the instrument. I am one part of the symphony. I know there is an overall scheme to this symphony that I cannot understand. In some way, we are each playing our own part. It is not for me to judge or criticize the life or work of another. All I know is that this is my dance. I would plant trees today even if I knew for a certainty that the world would end tomorrow.

Balbir Mathur, founder of Trees for Life

Ask Yourself

The purpose of all spiritual work is the transformation and evolution of spiritual consciousness and being. If it is not this, then it is simply a game played in the mind. The following quote from Eknath Easwaran (courtesy of Gary O'Connor) helps to make this sussinctly clear.

"Meditation may require a lifetime to master, but it will have been a lifetime well spent. ... If you want to judge your progress, ask yourself these questions: Am I more loving? Is my judgment sounder? Do I have more energy? Can my mind remain calm under provocation? Am I free from the conditioning of anger, fear, and greed? Spiritual awareness reveals itself as eloquently in character development and selfless action as in mystical states."

-- Eknath Easwaran

Mary's Song

In the recovery of the ancient text of the Gospel of Mary Magdalene we have found this song of ecstatic vision. I have been translating this fragile and important text and wanted to post what appears at its very heart.

“What bound me has been slain. What encompassed me has been vanquished. Desire has reached its end and I am freed from Ignorance. I left one world behind with the aid of another, and now as Image I have been freed from the analog. I am liberated from the chains of forgetfulness which have existed in time. From this moment onward, I go forward into the season of the Great Age, the Aeon, and there, where time rests in stillness in the Eternity of time, I will repose in silence.” And having said this Mary fell silent since it was to this point that the Savior had brought her.

Integral Spirituality

Ken Wilber is the quintessential "map maker" in the modern world. This is his most recent text, and long awaited by many of us. I have my copy and am deep into it. It is not unlike many of Wilber's more recent texts, but the focus is upon religion and spiritual tradition as it relates across the "integral map" Wilber has been building for some years.

I recommend this text to all of you who are likewise wanting a comprehensive, across-systems approach to religious phenomena and spirituality in the contemporary world.

link

Two Views

"... no matter what our difficulties may be, we recognize that there is a deep untroubled stream flowing below all surface troubles and that we are of one substance with that stream. The soul knows no difficulties."

-- James Thornton

Masters teach that we can experience two completely different states of reality at the same time -- from the personality and from the soul.

Author Pema Chödron talks about being hungry, cold and tired but at that same time deeply content. Ram Dass speaks of how the emotional heart can be breaking while we recognize that all is unfolding perfectly.

Allowing our soul to be present with the discomforts of the personality shifts our experience of the discomforts.

"True self simply refers to the aspect of our being that is completely aware of its expanded nature no matter what we may be experiencing in our lives."

-- Martia Nelson

Courtesy: Higher Awareness

Community

IN THE EARLY EVENING we see the stars begin to appear as the sun disappears over the horizon. The light of day gives way to the darkness of night. A stillness, a healing quiet comes over the landscape. It’s a moment when some other world makes itself known, a numinous presence beyond human understanding. We experience the vast realms of space overwhelming the limitations of our human minds. As the sky turns golden and the clouds reflect the blazing colors of evening, we participate for a moment in the forgiveness, the peace, the intimacy of things with each other.

- Thomas Berry, from “The Great Community of Earth,” Earth Letter, September 2001

The universe is a community of subjects, not a collection of objects.
- Thomas Berry

Icons

I thought I'd share these
icons I wrote of Jesus Pantocrator
and Mary Magdalen.

Agape Love

The Native American poet Manitongquat wrote:


Life is the Sacred Mystery singing to itself,
dancing to its drum, telling tales, improvising, playing,
and we are all that Spirit,
our stories all but one cosmic story
that we are love indeed,
that perfect love in me seeks the love in you,
and if our eyes could ever meet without fear
we would recognize each other and rejoice,
for love is life believing in itself.

All the world’s people, whatever their religious beliefs,
are part of the same family. We all have the same
general needs,problems, desires, and dreams. When we
embrace the possibility of agape love, we are
expressing, amidst our differences, a unity of
purpose, a common hope. At the dawn of the third
millennium, what vision could be more important?

--Sir John Templeton

Healing medicine

Those who attain perfect wisdom are forever inspired by the conviction that the infinitely varied forms of this world, in all their relativity, far from being a hindrance and a dangerous distraction to the spiritual path, are really a healing medicine. Why? Because by the very fact that they are interdependent on each other and therefore have no separate self, they express the mystery and the energy of all-embracing love. Not just the illumined wise ones but every single being in the interconnected world is a dweller in the boundless infinity of love.

-Prajnaparmita

Assignment

I ASSIGN YOU to be a beautiful, good, kind, awakened, soulful person, a true work of art as we say, ser humano, a true human being. In a world filled with so much darkness, such a soul shines like gold; can be seen from a far distance; is dramatically different.

… Anything you do from the soulful self will help lighten the burdens of the world. Anything. You have no idea what the smallest word, the tiniest generosity can cause to be set in motion. Be outrageous in forgiving. Be dramatic in reconciling. Mistakes? Back up and make them as right as you can, then move on. Be off the charts in kindness. In whatever you are called to, strive to be devoted to it in all aspects large and small. Fall short? Try again. Mastery is made in increments, not in leaps. Be brave, be fierce, be visionary. Mend the parts of the world that are "within your reach." To strive to live this way is the most dramatic gift you can ever give to the world.

Consider yourselves assigned.
—Clarissa Pinkola Estés, Ph.D., from An Assignment for You from Dr. Estés

Enlightenment

When we are firmly established in nonviolence, all beings around us cease to feel hostility. When we are firmly established in truthfulness, action accomplishes its desired end.

When we are firmly established in integrity, all riches present themselves freely. When we are firmly established in chastity, subtle potency is generated. When we are established in nonattachment, the nature and purpose of existence is understood.

-The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali


Enlightenment is a way of saying that all things are seen in their intrinsic empty nature, their Suchness, their ungraspable wonder. Names or words are merely incidental, but that state which sees no division, no duality, is enlightenment.

-Prajnaparamita