Light Rekindled

Sometimes our light goes out but is blown into flame by an encounter with another human being. Each of us owes the deepest thanks to those who have rekindled this inner light.

-Albert Schweitzer (Courtesy of Gary O'Connor)

Contemplation

Seeing God in everything
and everything in God
with completely extraordinary clearness
and delicacy

Marie of the Incarnation

Devotion

Mother of the Universe,
I have no desire to exercise power.
I would not even care to be an emperor.
Sweet Mother, please grant me
two simple meals each day
and wealth enough to thatch the palm roof
of my clean earthen house,
where I offer dreaming and waking
as red flowers at your feet

-Ramprasad

Unity

Hear, O children of immortal bliss,
You are born to be united with the Lord.
Follow the path of the illumined ones
And be united with the Lord of Life.

Kindle the fire of kundalini deep
In meditation. Bring your mind and breath
Under control. Drink deep of divine love,
And you will attain the unitive state.

Dedicate yourself to the Lord of Life,
Who is the cause of the cosmos. He will
Remove the cause of all your suffering
And free you from the bondage of karma.

-Shvetashvatara Upanishad

The Unknowing of God

In order to worship God, you must know God. In order to know God, you must recognize his unity. In order to recognize his unity, you must deny any possibility of describing how God is present, where he is present, and when he is present.

-Junayd: Tawhid

The Whole IS Greater Than the Sum of its Parts

I have just returned from a gathering of Monks, Novices, Friends at the Way of the Wolf Retreat Center for the Order in Fredericksburg, Texas. As in any such experience it is difficult summarize into words what occurs exactly, but the deep sense I and others had as we left the gathering was that we experienced a Whole that was, indeed, greater than the sum of its parts. The Whole is a living entity--a body of beings and souls--that enter into something larger than themselves, out of which comes and energy and creativity and loving awareness that not only holds us all, but carries us forward. I experienced that.

Also I sensed that what is forming is just a small part of some spiritual entity that is even larger, that encompasses many such gatherings and holds us together in some kind of inner communion. We do indeed belong to the spiritual body of humanity, and this body has a consciousness which can effect future outcomes. All is not lost in the darkness which also seems to be gathering. Light and darkness are in some kind of contest or struggle, and one cannot exist without the other. Like a battery with a negative and positive pole, some new energy is born out of that interchange.

So we are working together to extend this body of wisdom seekers and transmitters into the modern world. Into our midst came many new faces, and some joined as novices for a period of discernment, and five joined the order as monastics of the interior tradition. We are grateful and I salut each of them, and those who supported us without being present.

Mirrors

O You who seek God, know this:
We are the mirrors of God, the absolute Truth.
Come into this tavern of ruin, O clever one;
drink of this cup and see our purity.


-Nur Ali Shah

The Lord of Love

Even as the sun shines and fills all space
With light, above, below, across, so shines
The Lord of Love and fills the hearts of all created beings.

From Him the cosmos comes, He who teaches
Each living creature to attain perfection
According to its own nature. He is
The Lord of Love who reigns over all life.

-Shvetashvatara Upanishad

Living as an Artist

There are moments in our lives, there are moments in a day, when we seem to see beyond the usual—become clairvoyant.… We reach then into reality.… Such are the moments of our greatest happiness.… Such are the moments of our greatest vision. At such times, there is a song going on within us, a song to which we listen. It fills us with surprise. We marvel at it.… We would continue to hear it.… But few are capable of holding themselves in the state of listening to their song.… Intellectuality steps in, and as the song within us is of the utmost sensitiveness, it retires in the presence of the cold, material intellect.… It is aristocratic and will not associate itself with the commonplace—and we fall back and become our ordinary selves.… Yet we live in the memory of these songs, which in moments of intellectual inadvertence have been possible to us.… They are the pinnacles of our experience and it is the desire to express these intimate sensations, this song from within, which motivates the masters of all art.
I think the real artists are too busy with just being and growing and acting (on canvas or however) like themselves to worry about the end. The end will be what it will be. The object is intense living, fulfillment; the great happiness in creation.

Robert Henri, from The Art Spirit

Lotus of the heart

As great as the infinite space beyond is the space within the lotus of the heart. Both heaven and earth are contained in that inner space, both fire and air, sun and moon, lightning and stars. Whether we know it in this world or know it not, everything is contained in that inner space.

-Chandogya Upanishad