May My Higher Self Grow

If we are to rise above this depression, dejection
and despondency of soul, and turn it to use in God's
service, we must face it, accept it, and realize the
worth of holy self-abasement. In this way you will
transmute the lead of your heaviness into gold, a gold
far purer than any of your gayest, most light-hearted
sallies. Well, then, be patient with yourself. See to
it that your higher self puts up with your lower.

- Francis de Sales -

(Holding one's misery before God and allowing God to
touch and transform it brings true healing, and patience
with oneself during this process is a great gift. Pray
that your "higher self" may grow.)

Preserving a Calm Exterior

I have seen people preserving a calm exterior . . .
while beneath an appearance of quiet they are
nourishing internal resentment. I regard them as
more pitiable than those who give vent to their
feelings. Their dreary character puts the Dove,
the Holy Spirit, to flight.

- John Climacus, "The Ladder of Divine Ascent"

(Resentment is the enemy of much spiritual growth.
Pray the grace to find ways to be relieved of
whatever measure you carry within.)

Canoe Ride

“climb inside this trust we've built.
we've got walls to crash down,
barriers to break thru,
and entire universes to discover.”

~terri st cloud

Quiet Mind

A quiet mind is all you need. All else will happen rightly, once your mind is quiet. As the sun on rising makes the world active, so does self-awareness effect changes in the mind. In the light of calm and steady self-awareness inner energies wake up and work miracles without effort on your part.

~ Nisargadatta Maharaj  courtesy Rosemary Shirely

Signs of enlightenment

“According to Vedanta, there are only two symptoms of enlightenment, just two indications that a transformation is taking place within you toward a higher consciousness. The first symptom is that you stop worrying. Things don't bother you anymore. You become light-hearted and full of joy. The second symptom is that you encounter more and more meaningful coincidences in your life, more and more synchronicities. And this accelerates to the point where you actually experience the miraculous. (quoted by Carol Lynn Pearson in Consider the Butterfly)”
― Deepak Chopra, Synchrodestiny

Awake

Yesterday, I lived bewildered, In illusion. But now I am awake, Flawless and serene, Beyond the world. From my light The body and the world arise. So all things are mine, Or nothing is. - Ashtavakra Gita

The Journey

One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting their bad advice —
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
"Mend my life!"
each voice cried.
But you didn't stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do —
determined to save
the only life you could save.

From Mary Oliver, Dream Work, 1994.

On The Edge

It is becoming clearer that we human beings are living along the edge--we are on the cusp of the decision of who and what we will become. The crisis is upon us--will we evolve or not? We have imagined that as a species we are fixed. Evolution has produced us as we are, and it is settled. But wonder if that is not only not true--we are only transitional creatures on our way to a higher form--to believe otherwise will doom us.

So at this very moment, perhaps this very year, 2012, the decision is being made and the outcomes are stark. To make this exact point, David R. Loy has said:

Perhaps the basic problem isn't self-love but misunderstanding what self is. Without the compassion that arises from realizing our nonduality--empthy not only with other humans but with the planet--civilization as we know it may not outline this century. Nor would it deserve to. It remains to be seen whether the Homo sapiens experiment will be a successful vehicle for the cosmic evolution (or not). (The World is Made of Stories, 97).

The outcome remains to be seen.

The Immortal Diamond

I believe the Christ is the archetypal True Self offered to history, where matter and spirit finally operate as one, where divine and human are held in one container. …Some will think I am arrogantly talking about being “personally divine” and eagerly dismiss this way of talking about resurrection as heresy, arrogance, or pantheism. The Gospel is much more subtle than that. Jesus’ life and his risen body say instead that the discovery of our divine DNA is the only, full, and final meaning of being human. The True Self is neither God nor human. The True Self is both at the same time, and both are a total gift.

--Excerpted from Immortal Diamond: The Search for our True Self, xiii, xiv

Why more people are turned off by Christianity

The following editorial appeared this month in the Dallas Morning News:
Chance Hays: Why more people are turned off by Christianity 

 

 

Westboro Baptist protesters clash with other protesters across a line of police on the second day of the Republican National Convention in Tampa, Florida, Tuesday, August 28, 2012. (Tiffany Tompkins-Condie/Bradenton Herald/MCT) 

Published: 12 October 2012 02:32 PM

Related

Chance Hays of Midlothian is a senior at Ovilla Christian School and a Student Voices volunteer columnist.

I am a Christian. I even go to a Christian school. That’s not exactly something most people are so proud to say anymore.
This week, a Pew Research Center said that 46 million Americans don’t associate with any religion and that, for the first time in our nation’s history, less than 50 percent of us say we are Protestant Christians. The trend is most visible among people under 30. A growing number of former Protestants are now checking the box for “none.”
I think part of the reason is that Christians have gained a bad reputation for judgment, condemnation, political agendas and even hatred. Many have seen the exploits of the group known as Westboro Baptist Church, as they protest at military funerals, contending that God is punishing the military for the U.S. tolerance of homosexuality. Or perhaps you’ve heard of the less famous hate-filled Detroit Arab-American festival, in which Christians stuck the head of a pig on a stick, parading it around Arabs. One of these “Christian missionaries” was even heard shouting, “You’re gonna burn in hell!”
I have grown up in an increasingly pluralistic society, and those who are judgmental and narrow-minded are becoming enemy No. 1 among people my age.
I even grew up in a “churchy” environment, and what I see outside of that environment is a general dislike for Christians as a whole.
For too many people, church is a place of pain — a place of constant reminders of their past, without any indication of a future. For example, my neighbor of 11 years refused to go to any church. He was rejected because of his appearance; he was very rough around the edges. He was a habitual smoker and lived a lifestyle that was hard for many to accept. He was also one of the nicest men I ever knew, but because of one church and the pain it caused, he lived with a wound that could not be mended. The last time he was in a church was at his funeral.
I believe in a man named Jesus, and the Jesus I know, the Jesus I follow, loved. He was a friend to failures. He loved the unlovable; he gave incredible grace to those who didn’t deserve it. So why does a church, an establishment that once stood for such love, reject grace and embrace judgment instead? The Jesus I know wasn’t very kind to those people. In fact, the religious leaders of his day (surprisingly similar to “churches” today) hated “sinners” and in turn, Jesus was very harsh to them, while the kind of people many Christians judge today were given extravagant love by Jesus.
Recently, many “Christians” have been known for anti-gay rallies, pro-life protests and political bias. But would Jesus, the one who we claim to follow, be telling gays that they are going to hell, or would he be comforting the hurt?
According to the 2009 documentary Lord Save us from Your Followers, 9 out of 10 Americans profess some sort of belief in God. Furthermore, writer-producer-director Dan Merchant found that while many people disliked Christians and what they stood for, they understood that Jesus was a kind, loving, incredible person. So it’s not Jesus that’s the problem! It’s us!
It’s time to stop. It’s time for our reputation for hate, judgment and walking all over those who are hurt to end.
Mahatma Gandhi once said, “I like your Christ. I don’t like your Christians. They are so unlike your Christ.” I am a Christian. It’s time we were all more like our Christ.

Chance Hays of Midlothian is a senior at Ovilla Christian School and a Student Voices volunteer columnist. To respond to this column, send an email to voices@dallasnews.com.

There is a Wonderful Game

There is a game we should play and it goes like this
We hold hands and look into each others eyes and scan
each other's face
Then I say "now tell me a difference you see between us."
And you might respond, "Hafiz, your nose is ten times
bigger than mine,"
Then I would say "Yes, my dear, almost ten times!"
But let's keep playing. Let's go deeper. For if we do,
our spirits will embrace and interweave.
Our union will be so glorious that even God will not be
able to tell us apart.
There is a wonderful game we should play with everyone
And it goes like this . . .

-Hafiz, a Sufi Poet

(Offered today by Linda Diehnelt)

Prayer; a Supernatural Act

Because prayer is indeed a supernatural act,
a movement of spirit toward Spirit, it is an
act in which the natural creature can never
begin or complete of itself. Though it seems
to come by one's own free choice that one
lifts the soul toward God, it is in truth this
all-penetrating God, Who by His secret humble
pressure stirs us to make this first movement
of will and love."

- Evelyn Underhill [20th C.],
The Golden Sequence

The Nature of the Soul

Awakening to the infinite sooner or later brings us face to face with our own soul. And the soul has many dimensions. In my understanding, it is different from that infinite, timeless, formless Self that we awaken to in profound spiritual revelation. I describe it as the deepest part of the self that's still personal. It is a metaphysical self-structure that is the receptacle of life's deepest wounds and greatest glories. It is that part of ourselves that carries the momentum of our past, which we experience in the present as inclinations or tendencies, both positive and negative. That's why some people seem to be born with fears and traumas that defy explanation. Or why others enter into this world with gifts and capacities that they have not been taught. Most importantly, it is the state of our soul that endows us with capacities for good or evil—capacities that come from a deeper source than those that are merely psychological in origin.

—Andrew Cohen

The Indwelling Christ

Salt, when dissolved in water, may disappear,
but it does not cease to exist. We can be sure
of its presence by tasting the water. Likewise,
the indwelling Christ, though unseen, will be
made evident to others from the love which he
imparts to us.

- Sadhu Sundar Singh

Transfigured from Within

Faith is also a plea for the everlasting light,
a thirst for this illumination and transfiguration.
This light continues to shine, through the darkness
and evil, through the drab grayness and dull routine
of this world, like a ray of sun piercing through the
clouds. It is recognized by the soul, it comforts the
heart, it makes us feel alive, and it transfigures us
from within.

- Alexander Schmemann

Under One Small Star

My apologies to chance for calling it necessity.
My apologies to necessity if I'm mistaken, after all.
Please, don't be angry, happiness, that I take you as my due.
May my dead be patient with the way my memories fade.
My apologies to time for all the world I overlook each second.

Wislawa Szymborska (born 1923)

The Three Vows

The three vows are, in essence, memories of paradise,
where man was united with God (obedience), where he
possessed everything at once (poverty), and where
his companion was at one and the same time his wife,
his friend, his sister and his mother (chastity). 
For the real presence of God necessarily entails the
action of prostrating oneself in the face of Him "who
is more me than I myself am" -- and here lies the
root and source of the vow of obedience; the vision
of the forces, substances and essences of the world
in the guise of the "garden of divine symbols" (the
garden of Eden) signifies the possession of everything
without choosing, without laying hold of, or without
appropriating any particular thing isolated from the
whole -- and here lies the root and source of the vow
of poverty; lastly, total communion between two, between
one and another, which comprises the entire range of
all possible relationships of spirit, soul and body
between two polarized beings necessarily constitutes
the absolute wholeness of spiritual, psychic and
physical being, in love -- and here lies the root and
source of the vow of chastity.

Meditations on the Tarot, Arcana VI, The Lover,
pg. 124

An Inner Contract

Something profound happens at a soul level when someone makes a commitment to their own spiritual development. No one forces you to do it. It's freely chosen. And, of course, when you make that commitment, you don't really know what you are committing to. But what you do know is that it's a commitment to that which is absolute, to that which is nonrelative, to that which is inconceivable, to that which means everything, forever. That much you do know. And I've always felt that once someone freely chooses to make that commitment, once you say yes to the Absolute, to God, there is no going back, even if you want to reconsider later down the line. In other words, once that free choice is made from the depths of your own soul, something happens at a karmic level that is eternal—an inner contract is signed.

—Andrew Cohen

Seeds, Rain and Harvest

This poem is inspired by Rumi--expressing his ancient sentiments for our ears and time:

The mystery of human existence is this:
We are like seeds--asleep in seed-form.
The divine rain comes and You fall
all around us making a moist, sweet stain in our world.
Our seed coverings begin to decay,
and You mix with whatever is inside us.
And look! Something entirely new arises.
But in time your bright divine blade falls
and the harvest begins
at the keen edge of this present moment.
And then You make bread, and You eat
and our souls slide into the very seeing of your Soul...
light upon light
as your Light covers all. 

States of Ecstasy

These are a series of posts from Ed Clifford who sent them to be posted on the blog. The exemplify the strange and paradoxical state of ecstasis--that is, moving outside the egoic self to stand in some new place of knowing and seeing.

When I am with You, we stay up all night.
When You're not here, I can't go to sleep.

Praise You for these two insomnias!
And the difference between them.

-- Rumi's Quatrain 36
Version by Coleman Barks
Open Secret
Threshold Books, 1984 


A bedouin was asked, "Do  you acknowledge your Lord?"
He replied, "How could I not acknowledge Him/Her who has sent me hunger,
made me naked and impoverished, and caused me to wander from country
to country?"
As he spoke thus, he entered a sate of ecstasy.

Inside the Rose

This is another rendering of Rumi, allowing us to see from "inside the Rose."

That camel over there with its calf running behind it 
(Sutur and Koshek),

we're like them.

We're mothered and nursed by who we are, and where we are from,

following our fates (our camel natures) wherever they lead.

But then we hear a clap, and a drum beat begins,

grace enters our lives.

We feel the Presence and call of God and the journey we've been on changes.

The dry fields of desert and stones turns soft and moist like cheese.

The mountains feel level under our feet.

Love comes alive in us--agile and quick

and suddenly we are there, nowhere, everywhere.

This kind of traveling is not done by the body.

This is God's hidden secret and it takes place inside our loving.

But there are those in bodies who are already pure Soul and full of Spirit.

It can happen!

And these become Messengers and invite us to walk with them.

They say, "You may feel happy enough where you are, but we cannot be without you any longer.

So come, please, walk with us." ...and we do, inside the Rose, pulled like mountain creeks and rivers, out of ourselves, from the towns and villages we have been living in and into the valleys.

O my Guide--O my Soul--your only sadness is this--when I am not walking with you.

If in deep silence and with some exertion I could stay in your Presence,

I could save us both a lot of trouble. 

Opening Center

Revelation presupposes emptiness -- space put
at its disposal -- in order to manifest itself. 
This is why it is necessary to renounce personal
opinion in order to receive the revelation of
the truth, personal action in order to become an
agent of sacred magic, the way (or method) of
personal development in order to be guided by
the Master of ways, and one's personally chosen
mission in order to be charged with a mission
from above.

Meditations on the Tarot, Arcana IV, Emperor,
pg. 79

Searching for Center

In searching for my center, I found myself in
many unlikely places. It should be hard to
find, unused and unexpectedly crafted.

Little did I know, but that when I found it
it would be the place from which I was looking.

Yes, the place from which I was looking is my
center and the setting is like some busy
intersection, confusing, smelly and full of
noise that makes it hard to concentrate.

I have found my center and there is no room
for intimacy, compassion or the energetic
flux of sacred magic.

I have found my center and there is work to
be done and practice to participate in and
rejoicing to be done.

I have found my center and perhaps one of
these bizarre and wonderful conversations
is the voice of the Master or the Creator
or some other transcendent utterance waiting
to be interpreted; digested.

I have found my center and my listening must
be Infinite.

Sam Roberts

Autumn

Fall Song

Another year gone, leaving everywhere
its rich spiced residues: vines, leaves,

the uneaten fruits crumbling damply
in the shadows, unmattering back

from the particular island
of this summer, this NOW, that now is nowhere

except underfoot, moldering
in that black subterranean castle

of unobservable mysteries — roots and sealed seeds
and the wanderings of water. This

I try to remember when time's measure
painfully chafes, for instance when autumn

flares out at the last, boisterous and like us longing
to stay — how everything lives, shifting

from one bright vision to another, forever
in these momentary pastures.

From Mary Oliver, American Primitive (1984)

Text and Story

You are a "text" (a story) being written by the Grand Biographer. Do not idolize your story here by insisting on some literal truth about yourself that you must believe. For all literalisms are idols, and idolatry is an attempt to fix the meaning to a single narrative--some stable, monolithic truth that is set once and for all. Instead, learn to read the text of your life as a metaphor, which means as a system of mysterious signs in which the Presence lives, and these new metaphoric meanings will be the "raft" that will allow you to "cross-over" (meta-phor) to another shore, a new context in which your life can be read and understood in light of its larger meaning, the Grand Story. There, recontextualized, it returns and is reconnected to its Origin, the Source of all stories and all meanings.

Non-Dual Enlightenment

In a remarkable and mysterious passage of the Gospel of Thomas, where Yeshua instructs his students on how to answer inquiries about their origins in the Source of Light (Logion 50), he concludes with these words:

If you are questioned, "But what is the sign of the Source within you?" say, "It is movement and it is rest."

This integration of opposites (movement and rest), which is to be a clear sign of the Source manifesting itself in a human being, expresses a deep underlying metaphysical truth.

The Divine itself must be understood to be a non-dual unity of opposites--a living paradox which can come also to be expressed through a human person who is integrated with that Source who is Light. In monotheistic terms (within the Abrahamic traditions) it is easy to think of God as a monochromatic unity. Christianity has always resisted such a description through the doctrine of the Trinity. Yeshua is saying something similar here without using strictly trinitarian terms. The Divine is a unity (without contradiction) of the formless and form, emptiness and fullness, apophasis and cataphasis, being and becoming, a super-Essential Reality without qualification and the Essence who is the source of all qualities.

To be a realized human being (which is the apotheosis of The Luminous Gospels), therefore, is to actualize the same living intregration of these forces which exist in God as dynamic reality, but now expressed in human reality. More simply put, non-dual enlightenment for a human being is to realize action (movement) and contemplation (rest) as the yin-yang of an integral marriage of the human and the divine. This full expression (or manifestation) of divine-human reality united in non-dual form is what Yeshua himself knows and is teaching.

So to realize these (to express them as real in oneself) is therefore to transcend the egoic limits of human form through self-transcendence in order to experience the authentic human Self that is at the heart of these Gospels. This theanthropic move, where authentic action along the horizontal axis is integrated with contemplative rest along the vertical axis, is the human equivalent of the experience of the Source in its own Ultimate Reality. This is also Enlightened Non-Duality in a human being where opposite energies live and inform each other making possible the emergence of a new whole, which will later be called theosis (divinization). The sign of the Source within a human person is this living, light-filled, non-dual integration which is Non-Dual Enlightenment in the tradition of Yeshua.

Knowledge-by-Presence

A deep insight from the Abrahamic traditions, and one that becomes even more essential for those on the spiritual path they speak about is the awareness that the cosmos is saturated not just with consciousness, but also with Presence. “Someone” is there present, and true knowledge, therefore, can only come through “direct experience” or encounter with that Presence, which makes possible something that is called knowledge-by-presence. Knowledge can come in many forms. We often explore epistemological frontiers at a distance. But we all know, however, that without being in the presence of something, say the Grand Canyon, we can have indirect knowledge for sure, but the extra being-in-the-presence of that holy space is without parallel and essential.  This is even more true when we are wanting to know persons.

With that awareness in mind, this rendering of a poem by Rumi is powerfully poignant for all those who “show up,” making themselves present at the lip of the divine Abyss whose intimacy overwhelms us.

When I press my hand to my chest it is your own chest I am pressing.

And now, look, you are scratching my head.

Sometimes you put me in the middle of the herd with your other camels.

But sometimes you put me out in front of the troops as commander.

Sometimes you wet me with your mouth like you do your seal-ring just before you plant your power.

Sometimes you round me into a simple door-knocker.

You took a little earth to make blood and sperm.

You take sperm and blood to create an animal.

You use the animal to evolve intelligence.

Life keeps spiraling into more life.

You drive me away gently as a flute does a dove from the eaves, then with the same song you just as gently call me back.

You push me out on many journeys, then you anchor me in a place of rest with no motion at all.

I am like water that flows.

I am also like a thorn that catches someone’s clothing.

I no longer care about marvelous sights.

I only want to be in your presence.

There is nothing now to believe, and only when I quit “believing in myself” did I enter this beauty.

I saw your blade coming and I burned my shield of protection.

I flew on six-hundred pairs of wings like Gabriel’s into your presence, but now that I am here, what do I need wings for?

Day and night I have guarded the pearl of my soul, but in this ocean of pearling currents I have lost track of which one is mine.

In this vast sea there is no way to describe you.

Speak the end of all this so strongly that I ride up over my own commotion. 

Troubled in Spirit

Troubled in Spirit, I look within.

Those closest to me stand in my center;
intimate.

Standing, waiting patiently is my guardian
showing my invitation to be in the presence
of the Master; exposed.

The callouses of fear make the transition
seem awkward and twisted.

This level of intimacy existing only in
possibility overwhelms my sensitivity;
nerves in air.

Wearing this connectedness to light screams
of vulnerability and danger.

Perhaps, this feeling is normal in ecstasy.
Perhaps, this transformation transports
chrysalises to Eden.

Sam Roberts

Joy in Sensible Things

When the will, the moment it feels any joy in
sensible things, rises upwards in that joy to
God, and when sensible things move it to pray,
it should not neglect them, it should make use
of them for so holy an exercise; because sensible
things, in these conditions, subserve the end for
which God created them, namely to be occasions
for making Him better known and loved.
- St. John of the Cross -

(Here is a powerful affirmation of the "kataphatic"
dimension of Christian spirituality--namely,
of how creation can mediate God's presence.
Be alert to God's messages through creation
this day.)

The Light of Your Light

You, O eternal Trinity, are a deep sea,
into which the more I enter the more I
find, and the more I find the more I seek.
The soul cannot be satiated in your abyss,
for she continually hungers after you, the
eternal Trinity, desiring to see you with
the light of your light. As the heart desires
the springs of living water, so my soul
desires to leave the prison of this dark
body and see you in truth.

- Catherine of Siena (1347-1380),
Dialog of Catherine of Siena [1378],
Treatise of Obedience, xi.

Continual Walk with God

There is not in the world a kind of life more
sweet and delightful than that of a continual
walk with God. Those only can comprehend it who
practice and experience it; yet I do not advise
you to do it from that motive.

- Brother Lawrence (c.1605-1691),
The Practice of the Presence of God

Jesus Takes Possession

When Jesus takes possession of our lives it
is not only that the past is forgotten and
forgiven; if that were all, we might well
proceed to make the same mess of life all
over again; but into life there enters this
new power which enables us to be what by
ourselves we could never be, and to do what
by ourselves we could never do.

- William Barclay (1907-1978),
The Gospel of John, v. 1

From the Stars

“ she brought it with her from the stars.
and after she spread some of it's Light,
she would bring it back.
because now she knew. ”

~terri st. cloud