Stop tinkering with your soul

Like the eye which sees everything in front of it
and never sees itself, faith is occupied with the
Object upon which it rests and pays no attention
to itself at all. While we are looking at God, we
do not see ourselves--blessed riddance. The one
who has struggled to purify himself and has had
nothing but repeated failures will experience real
relief when he stops tinkering with his soul and
looks away to the perfect One.
- A. W. Tozer (1897-1963), The Pursuit of God

We never perceive our sins

Never let us be discouraged with ourselves; it is
not when we are conscious of our faults that we
are the most wicked: on the contrary, we are less
so. We see by a brighter light. And let us remember,
for our consolation, that we never perceive our sins
till He begin to cure them.
- François Fénelon (1651-1715),
Selections from Fénelon

The Subtlest Level of Reality

In our modern world, we think of the most mysterious of realities as photons, electrons, quarks, and neutrinos. For us these substances underlying reality are the most subtle of all, giving rise, of course, to the "real world" of shapes, forms, and living creatures where we live. But Sacred Tradition says otherwise. This not all. Underneath all quantum, microcosmic reality, deeper still, holding all else, is a Realm of transpersonal relationships called "God's Infinite Nature" filled with potentialities and qualities that give rise to every other substance that human beings know directly or that can be detected by science.

Those potentialities have names and possess qualities--we call them the Names and Qualities of God out of which everything else arises. This Ultimate Reality is the foundation of the universe and is a network (or tissue) of transpersonal relationships between these qualities just like human society is a network or tissue of personal relationships.

And we human beings not only have an inner instrument called the heart that can detect this, the finest and most subtle reality of all, but that instrument can also take on (or absorb) those qualities and distribute them throughout the whole of human existence both personal and collective. Everything, then, from the most subtle qualities of God (in living relationship) to the most material of all, forms a web called the "Unity of Being" in which the heart lives and out of which it helps to build its own unique reality called "the Kingdom."

Interestingly, the prophets, the carriers of this most subtle energy and light of the Divine Nature, embody these qualities and make them available to us. They live in these relationships and each in their own unique ways open the human soul through the doorway of the heart to this level of the most subtle of all realms so that we also can embody and manifest (make real, or realize) these qualities ourselves and through them help establish or build the Kingdom--that ultimate realm of human habitation. We also in ourselves on earth can live in the lattice of these relationships--in the living tissue of the Divine Nature beyond quarks, neutrinos, electrons and photons.

It is a great gift made to us--this opening--and it is called a "grace." As the prophets have said, "We have opened you."

Renunciation of the world is followed by peace; its desire brings sorrow. Restrain your desires, discipline yourself, and do not allow anyone to oppress your soul.

~Rabi'a, "Rabi'a the Mystic"

Awakening

Awake! I've been sleeping

I've been restless and reckless

I've jeapordized my viability

This is not me! This is not me!

I've come up from the grave

and met You face to face.

Awake! Awake! I'm awake.

~Harp and Lyre

Choosing

In a world of opposites woven out of the double cloak of life and death, division and cooperation where we are forced to make choices or we are torn asunder. How do we choose?

In a world of fast rushing events and the all engulfing world of relativity and formal manifestation where we are forced to act or we are caught simply in the downward swirl to the lowest common denominator. How do we act?

In this world that wounds us by its very nature, we come to realize that to ignore it is fatal. We must act and choose, but also as wisdom seekers, we must transcend the pairs-of-opposites that make up the fabric of the world--not privileging one to the exclusion of the other. We learn, sometimes the hard way, that this is not done by failing to distinguish between them, but by choosing always the 'lesser of evils.'

We do not transcend good and evil by treating them as if they were the same thing, but by always choosing the good as we understand it and at whatever cost, until the Sovereign Good is finally won--that Eternal Good which lies beyond the opposites of this world, because by being Good, it has no opposites.

We are not there, but that day will come.

The Great Mystery

In a book called Showings (177), Charles Upton explicates the Great Mystery of our existence in time and place. He speaks of this Mystery in the context of Homer's great epic journey in which Helen of Troy plays a pivotal, sapiential role. He says,

Only she knew the darkest secret of existence: that in the depth of the Great Mystery, the loss of God--felt and fought against and suffered through and finally redeemed--is in fact the deepest realization of God, that after 'My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me,' comes 'Into Thy hands I commend my spirit; it is finished.'

This, I believe, is core and key to our understanding of and on the wisdom path.

I hope, trust and love

I am viewing the world with the facts at hand
and I am discouraged.
I realize that any idea such as faith, hope,
love and trust are not rational.
I realize that this situation that Lynn stated
so well, will not have a rational end.
It will be a miracle of trust and evolution.
Humanity will have to shift its track,
gain new insightful conclusions
and choose to be irrationally
changed.

What we see is the oncoming train,
what we fail to see is the end of fear.
Fear can be rationally explained.
I fear because of this and this.
I love because my heart is moved,
but I cannot prove it to you. I trust
because I choose that outlook on life,
not because I can prove that trust works.
I hope because despair is my other choice.
I choose not to live in despair,
so I hope, trust and love.

Sam Roberts

Love and Knowledge

Certainly one of the most curious of the sayings in the Gospel of Thomas is Logion 22, where Yeshua speaks of male and female becoming a single whole. This image accords in some fundamental way with our modern sensibilities that the male and female aspect of our human person (the anima and the animus, to use the psychological terminology) has become bifurcated, and in order to be whole, healthy human beings psychologically, at least, we must reunite them into a unity of personal well-being.

But there is more here than a psychological interpretation of this saying. This image also clearly points toward the esoteric figure of the hermaphrodite. This idea may be both compelling and repelling in its own way, but when one looks deeper at the origins of the word itself something important emerges. Etymologically, a hermaphrodite is the union of the god Hermes (knowledge) with the goddess Aphrodite (love). This figure is portrayed in medieval iconography as a double-headed person (one male, one female) holding in its hand the symbolic rose of enlightenment.

Could it not be that this is precisely Yeshua's meaning; that only when love and knowledge figured as masculine and feminine are united in a single individual can there be true fullness (or oneness)--which is the prerequisite for entry into the Kingdom of Heaven, because the Kingdom itself is the place where love and knowledge exist together in equilibrium. It is there also that heaven and earth are united (the higher with the lower) and together all these images symbolize the essence of Wisdom which has overcome fragmentation into a new wholeness. It is that wholeness, that oneness that Yeshua sees clearly.

Isolated from its source, becomes an idol

Holding [the Way of Affirmation], we see that every
created thing is, in its degree, an image of God,
and the ordinate and faithful appreciation of that
thing a clue which, truly followed, will lead back
to Him. Holding [the Way of Rejection], we see that
every created thing, the highest devotion to moral
duty, the purest conjugal love, the saint and the
seraph, is no more than an image; that every one
of them, followed for its own sake and isolated from
its source, becomes an idol whose service is damnation.
- C. S. Lewis (1898-1963), ArthurianTorso

Reaching 7 Billion Souls

Planet earth has reached another milestone--we are now 7 billion souls inhabiting a small planet in the immense ocean of space. Is this to be celebrated or mourned? We could see it from both perspectives: celebrated because of the critical mass that is necessary, perhaps, to change the consciousness of humanity. Mourned because we are putting unbearable pressure on the limited resources of the earth and rapidly reaching a tipping point of unsustainability.

Clearly we must "grow up" or destroy ourselves. The earth and its riches are not limitless, but as has been proven, they are supple and elastic--they can bend and change as the environment evolves. What we possess is a legacy of life that is a rich, rich heritage. The planet holds millions of species of plant and animal life, each possessing unique qualities that make them special and precious in their own way. We inherit this abundance, this richness--it is our heritage (our biological inheritance), but perhaps like spoiled "rich kids" born into affluence (inheriting wealth and fortune and the privileges that go with them)... we can miss the whole point, act carelessly, out of total self-interest and of benefit to no one but ourselves, exploit the planet and squander our inheritance, destroying the very richness that was the basis for our life in the first place. Here is a poignant observations about the current state of affairs and our attitude toward the living-heritage of our planet.

In the Western tradition, we pay lip service to the"sanctity of all life," but in practice, give little consideration to the spirits of living things other than people. In fact, we tend to view other species as little more than commodities for our food, clothing, medicine, entertainment or economic exploitation. The implication is that if the species in question does not provide a direct benefit to humanity, it is expendable--even to extinction. (Gregory R. Huth, Awakening, 76)

We can go on like this, or we can grow up, take what we have inherited, cherish it in every detail, preserve it, add creatively to it, and pass it along to the coming generations as our gift (our legacy) to them and to the universe. It is a choice, and the window of opportunity to make this choice appears to be closing.

Listen for the Voice of God

If ye keep watch over your hearts, and listen for
the Voice of God and learn of Him, in one short
hour ye can learn more from Him than ye could learn
from people in a thousand years.
--Johannes Tauler (ca. 1300-1361), The Inner Way

The Divine Wisdom has given us prayer

The Divine Wisdom has given us prayer, not as a means
whereby to obtain the good things of earth, but as a
means whereby we learn to do without them; not as a
means whereby we escape evil, but as a means whereby
we become strong to meet it.
- Frederick W. Robertson (1816-1853)

Only You; Non-duality

"As you contemplate the nature of consciousness and you awaken to this pure subjectivity in your own awareness, ask yourself: Could there be anyone else here? Is there another? Could there ever be anything separate from this One Self? If you really go into it, you will find the answer. If you go all the way back to the beginning--before thought, before feeling, before your body or your mind, before the world and the whole universe was created--what is there? There is only you, and you are everything."

~Andrew Cohen