Celestial Fireworks This is a series of lectures given in the early 1990’s originally titled ". . . and Thunder Rolled". In posting them here, I have not changed a word though I have had more than a few more thoughts in the last quarter century. After the Introduction you will find lessons titled: Creation, The Meaning of Life, Transformation, Meditation and Prayer, and Magic.
Note: For the purpose of these writings I term the "Creator", God. In practice I speak "Great Mystery". Whatever your term for the Great Mystery, please feel free to substitute. "God" simply made writing coherently easier. P.S. It is never acceptable to change someone’s concept of "God" simply to make yourself right.
Understanding our purpose here we must take into account that GOD is simply the Guardian of Dimensions, the Guardian of Data, the Guardian of Divinity and that is accomplished because GOD is also the Guardian of Dreams. Enjoy the read.
Note: For the purpose of these writings I term the "Creator", God. In practice I speak "Great Mystery". Whatever your term for the Great Mystery, please feel free to substitute. "God" simply made writing coherently easier. P.S. It is never acceptable to change someone’s concept of "God" simply to make yourself right.
Understanding our purpose here we must take into account that GOD is simply the Guardian of Dimensions, the Guardian of Data, the Guardian of Divinity and that is accomplished because GOD is also the Guardian of Dreams. Enjoy the read.
Stellar Eggs Emerge INTRODUCTION
One of the major problems I see in the dawning of the "New Age" is that we have been taught that spiritual truth must be complex and enlightenment obtained by the chosen few. To be enlightened surely we must have to understand quantum physics and words we cannot even pronounce. From our first breath, we are taught that nothing worthwhile is ever easy and if by chance it seems easy then we must be doing something wrong. We are taught that life is some thing to be seized and controlled.
Spiritual truths are not complex. They are basic and constant. Presenting spiritual truths in terms that need to be studied and deciphered for comprehension certainly was not the Creator’s idea. God’s idea was simply to let everyone know truth. Humans, in our supposed wisdom, confused and complicated spirituality by making changes, alterations, updates and translations to God’s original plan.
Teaching is one of the greatest joys in my life. To watch recognition of spiritual truth on the face of a fellow human is immeasurably rewarding. The journey to truth requires our breaking down of acquired barriers that block the understandings with which we are all born. Understanding truth comes naturally; when teaching I simply help people remember what they already know, have always known. In their personal war against ignorance, all the great spiritual teachers taught truth: love God, and love your neighbor as you love yourself. With the dawning of the industrial age, there is only one thing I would add: respect the Earth and all her children.
Understanding spiritual truth is easy; living it is where the difficulty arises. Living spiritual truth is the challenge we all took when entering the physical. One of my favorite lessons to teach is that the soul who created the English words "but" and "if" should have been soundly reprimanded. I consistently hear, “I love my neighbor but, if . . .”, “I love myself, but . . .”, "If there is a God . . .”. There are no "buts" or "ifs" in spiritual truth. No true spiritual teacher ever started a sentence with, "love your neighbor, but, if . . .” There are no qualifying statements in truth. Truth is truth, it requires no qualification. Truth requires no proof. Wisdom is knowing that truth is its own proof. Living in that wisdom is balance.
Each individual must recognize his/her own destiny. Every person must make his/her own decisions. We all must live out and justify our futures. In the end, we alone are held responsible for our beliefs and actions. Living in spiritual wisdom is a responsibility earned by understanding spiritual truth. Since spiritual truth is easy to understand, it follows we should all be living responsibly. That was the Creator’s plan and it’s easy to follow. Humans have just gotten sidetracked.
The following text is a compilation of lectures I’ve given over the years. I have tried to take a no nonsense approach and to use words that don’t require a dictionary to understand. Keep in mind that what you are reading does not include the inevitable question and answer period of discussion. Enjoy the read and please remember we teach best what we most need to learn.
One of the major problems I see in the dawning of the "New Age" is that we have been taught that spiritual truth must be complex and enlightenment obtained by the chosen few. To be enlightened surely we must have to understand quantum physics and words we cannot even pronounce. From our first breath, we are taught that nothing worthwhile is ever easy and if by chance it seems easy then we must be doing something wrong. We are taught that life is some thing to be seized and controlled.
Spiritual truths are not complex. They are basic and constant. Presenting spiritual truths in terms that need to be studied and deciphered for comprehension certainly was not the Creator’s idea. God’s idea was simply to let everyone know truth. Humans, in our supposed wisdom, confused and complicated spirituality by making changes, alterations, updates and translations to God’s original plan.
Teaching is one of the greatest joys in my life. To watch recognition of spiritual truth on the face of a fellow human is immeasurably rewarding. The journey to truth requires our breaking down of acquired barriers that block the understandings with which we are all born. Understanding truth comes naturally; when teaching I simply help people remember what they already know, have always known. In their personal war against ignorance, all the great spiritual teachers taught truth: love God, and love your neighbor as you love yourself. With the dawning of the industrial age, there is only one thing I would add: respect the Earth and all her children.
Understanding spiritual truth is easy; living it is where the difficulty arises. Living spiritual truth is the challenge we all took when entering the physical. One of my favorite lessons to teach is that the soul who created the English words "but" and "if" should have been soundly reprimanded. I consistently hear, “I love my neighbor but, if . . .”, “I love myself, but . . .”, "If there is a God . . .”. There are no "buts" or "ifs" in spiritual truth. No true spiritual teacher ever started a sentence with, "love your neighbor, but, if . . .” There are no qualifying statements in truth. Truth is truth, it requires no qualification. Truth requires no proof. Wisdom is knowing that truth is its own proof. Living in that wisdom is balance.
Each individual must recognize his/her own destiny. Every person must make his/her own decisions. We all must live out and justify our futures. In the end, we alone are held responsible for our beliefs and actions. Living in spiritual wisdom is a responsibility earned by understanding spiritual truth. Since spiritual truth is easy to understand, it follows we should all be living responsibly. That was the Creator’s plan and it’s easy to follow. Humans have just gotten sidetracked.
The following text is a compilation of lectures I’ve given over the years. I have tried to take a no nonsense approach and to use words that don’t require a dictionary to understand. Keep in mind that what you are reading does not include the inevitable question and answer period of discussion. Enjoy the read and please remember we teach best what we most need to learn.
Cat's Eye Nebula CREATION
During the past thirty some odd years I have studied, contemplated, reiterated, bounced off the walls in my head, cried, laughed, love and lost. I had been teaching metaphysics for years when one day, with the onslaught of the proverbial bolt of lightening, I understood. The problem we have in communicating is in semantics. I was attempting to explain the concept of "God". God is such a little word for such a grand whole. I'd been teaching for ten years and had just realized that the problems with the "new age" rhetoric were grounded in semantics. In the English language we realistically have one word for God, one word for angel, heaven, hell, love. There was my long awaited answer, the problem in understanding was not in the concepts; it was in semantics. The "new age" upon us, we still lived in the tower of Babel.
I'd often wondered why the truth seemed so hard for us to grasp. There were so many people, making so much money, talking and writing words that no one understood. Those words sounded real, as if an Einstein spiritualist had come upon the planet and, out of the goodness of heart, imparted the theory of spiritual relativity on our kindergarten minds. I know this because I struggled through many, many texts in my search. I thought perhaps I was too feeble-minded as I read, unabridged dictionary attached to my hip. Teaching became a priority for me. Someone had to explain that truth is simple. Where to start? We will start with " . . . in the beginning".
"In the beginning" there was God. This we know. It is fundamental that we accept this because it cannot be proved. Different people have different concepts of God. That is human nature and must be so because we must all follow individual paths. What is not debatable is what happened after God. It is within each of us to remember.
All souls were created in the same instant. To explain the process I use visual imagery. God, a mass of clear light so illuminating we cannot imagine, began to spin. As the spinning increased, sparks began to fly. Those sparks were everything, even souls, all souls being a part of God. As the Creator looked upon the souls he began to smile. The words spoken were "Children of the stars, you are distinct and yet part of the whole that is contained within me. You will all make different journeys back to this light. You need not fear because all paths lead home. I send you away with love, unconditional love; you will is yours. Do not forget our light." God smiled and set all souls in motion. In spinning, each soul made a distinctive sound and music was born, a harmony unmatched and unequaled. That music will once again be heard when the God light is still complete, when all souls have come home.
The story is a nice visualization and based in fact. We should now go over the some points of interest. "All souls were created in the same instant." What this tells us is that, we are all equal; there are no "new" souls being created; there are no "old" souls as we are all the same age; and reincarnation must exist.
As sparks, created in the same instant, we are uniformly equal. It was not until the Creator put us in motion that we acquired our individuality. By setting in motion the souls, sound was created. No two souls have the same sound. When sounded together all souls create the ultimate sound, "the silence". This is not the silence we are used to; what we call silence is the absence of audible sound. The silence I am speaking of is the silence of the ultimate, unconditional love; it is the harmony of the ages, "the heavenly band of angels". It is the silence we become in meditation and it really does set us free.
Onward, to debunk a few of the spiritual teachers out there who consider themselves "old" souls and thereby "wise" souls. Perhaps a better way of saying this would be to say that they have lived many lives and learned many things. That is in fact not always the case. There are those souls who never will choose to incarnate on planet Earth. I personally think they are the smart ones, the ones who never in their "free will" choose to challenge themselves with the mundane task of unlearning and relearning love. They choose to stay in the light and the love.
I find it difficult to believe that most "ascended masters" would descend for only one life to teach truth. The risk is too great. More likely the fact is that these "old" souls on our planet are just more experienced in pain, mistrust, etc., and can teach it well if they remember not to get mired again. That’s not really a very flattering way to portray yourself, so "old soul" translates to "wise soul". I prefer to think of myself as an old, experienced and hopefully, finally, a returning to the light soul. I like thinking that I’ve earned my spiritual grey hair. I’m
actually pleased with myself. I have had a long road back and now I’m at the four-minute mile
pace.
There is another myth I would like to put to rest, the myth that we are taught as children: "Many are called, few are chosen”. I’ve heard too many people say that I must have been chosen for this walk; they couldn’t possibly teach or learn that of which they think I have command. If we were all created equally at the same moment, it would only follow that we are all called and we are all chosen. It is then our responsibility to act accordingly. God, in infinite wisdom, granted us "free will". Understand what is meant by free will. It is "free". God does not, and by definition of free well, cannot, sit in judgment of our action or inaction. The ultimate and most judgmental judgments will be made by our very own selves. That is "God's will be done".
Now, how did I get to my four-minute mile pace? I certainly wasn’t dropped here at this pace so that I could bring enlightenment to the masses. I’ve had many lives, many teachers. Reincarnation is a must. The Creator could not have meant for me to be born an affluent, relatively speaking, American instead of a starving Somalian. Where is the equality in that?
Understanding unconditional love, if given a choice and only one life, understanding unconditional love, all of the "enlightened" souls would have chosen the starving Somalian so that another soul would not have to undergo the physical and mental suffering required. I, for one, refuse to believe that I was not enlightened enough to have chosen the Somalian body. I know that in the past, long lifetimes ago, I learned the starvation lesson. That does not mean that I starved to death; that means the lessons of starvation were learned in the physical. Without reincarnation there is not equality! Since the first lesson of life is that we are all equal then the logical lesson looks like this: If there is equality, then there must be reincarnation; there is equality, so therefore, there must be reincarnation.
I like teaching with logic. There is only one thing that cannot ultimately be proved: the existence of God. That is why it was stipulated in the beginning of this talk. When trying to prove the existence of God, all one can do is prove: If there is a God, then there is a God. Stipulation of God, a universal constant, makes my purpose possible; therefore it is not a hard stipulation for me! If the stipulation is hard for you, you might want to rethink that. For some reason you are continuing to read this.
During the past thirty some odd years I have studied, contemplated, reiterated, bounced off the walls in my head, cried, laughed, love and lost. I had been teaching metaphysics for years when one day, with the onslaught of the proverbial bolt of lightening, I understood. The problem we have in communicating is in semantics. I was attempting to explain the concept of "God". God is such a little word for such a grand whole. I'd been teaching for ten years and had just realized that the problems with the "new age" rhetoric were grounded in semantics. In the English language we realistically have one word for God, one word for angel, heaven, hell, love. There was my long awaited answer, the problem in understanding was not in the concepts; it was in semantics. The "new age" upon us, we still lived in the tower of Babel.
I'd often wondered why the truth seemed so hard for us to grasp. There were so many people, making so much money, talking and writing words that no one understood. Those words sounded real, as if an Einstein spiritualist had come upon the planet and, out of the goodness of heart, imparted the theory of spiritual relativity on our kindergarten minds. I know this because I struggled through many, many texts in my search. I thought perhaps I was too feeble-minded as I read, unabridged dictionary attached to my hip. Teaching became a priority for me. Someone had to explain that truth is simple. Where to start? We will start with " . . . in the beginning".
"In the beginning" there was God. This we know. It is fundamental that we accept this because it cannot be proved. Different people have different concepts of God. That is human nature and must be so because we must all follow individual paths. What is not debatable is what happened after God. It is within each of us to remember.
All souls were created in the same instant. To explain the process I use visual imagery. God, a mass of clear light so illuminating we cannot imagine, began to spin. As the spinning increased, sparks began to fly. Those sparks were everything, even souls, all souls being a part of God. As the Creator looked upon the souls he began to smile. The words spoken were "Children of the stars, you are distinct and yet part of the whole that is contained within me. You will all make different journeys back to this light. You need not fear because all paths lead home. I send you away with love, unconditional love; you will is yours. Do not forget our light." God smiled and set all souls in motion. In spinning, each soul made a distinctive sound and music was born, a harmony unmatched and unequaled. That music will once again be heard when the God light is still complete, when all souls have come home.
The story is a nice visualization and based in fact. We should now go over the some points of interest. "All souls were created in the same instant." What this tells us is that, we are all equal; there are no "new" souls being created; there are no "old" souls as we are all the same age; and reincarnation must exist.
As sparks, created in the same instant, we are uniformly equal. It was not until the Creator put us in motion that we acquired our individuality. By setting in motion the souls, sound was created. No two souls have the same sound. When sounded together all souls create the ultimate sound, "the silence". This is not the silence we are used to; what we call silence is the absence of audible sound. The silence I am speaking of is the silence of the ultimate, unconditional love; it is the harmony of the ages, "the heavenly band of angels". It is the silence we become in meditation and it really does set us free.
Onward, to debunk a few of the spiritual teachers out there who consider themselves "old" souls and thereby "wise" souls. Perhaps a better way of saying this would be to say that they have lived many lives and learned many things. That is in fact not always the case. There are those souls who never will choose to incarnate on planet Earth. I personally think they are the smart ones, the ones who never in their "free will" choose to challenge themselves with the mundane task of unlearning and relearning love. They choose to stay in the light and the love.
I find it difficult to believe that most "ascended masters" would descend for only one life to teach truth. The risk is too great. More likely the fact is that these "old" souls on our planet are just more experienced in pain, mistrust, etc., and can teach it well if they remember not to get mired again. That’s not really a very flattering way to portray yourself, so "old soul" translates to "wise soul". I prefer to think of myself as an old, experienced and hopefully, finally, a returning to the light soul. I like thinking that I’ve earned my spiritual grey hair. I’m
actually pleased with myself. I have had a long road back and now I’m at the four-minute mile
pace.
There is another myth I would like to put to rest, the myth that we are taught as children: "Many are called, few are chosen”. I’ve heard too many people say that I must have been chosen for this walk; they couldn’t possibly teach or learn that of which they think I have command. If we were all created equally at the same moment, it would only follow that we are all called and we are all chosen. It is then our responsibility to act accordingly. God, in infinite wisdom, granted us "free will". Understand what is meant by free will. It is "free". God does not, and by definition of free well, cannot, sit in judgment of our action or inaction. The ultimate and most judgmental judgments will be made by our very own selves. That is "God's will be done".
Now, how did I get to my four-minute mile pace? I certainly wasn’t dropped here at this pace so that I could bring enlightenment to the masses. I’ve had many lives, many teachers. Reincarnation is a must. The Creator could not have meant for me to be born an affluent, relatively speaking, American instead of a starving Somalian. Where is the equality in that?
Understanding unconditional love, if given a choice and only one life, understanding unconditional love, all of the "enlightened" souls would have chosen the starving Somalian so that another soul would not have to undergo the physical and mental suffering required. I, for one, refuse to believe that I was not enlightened enough to have chosen the Somalian body. I know that in the past, long lifetimes ago, I learned the starvation lesson. That does not mean that I starved to death; that means the lessons of starvation were learned in the physical. Without reincarnation there is not equality! Since the first lesson of life is that we are all equal then the logical lesson looks like this: If there is equality, then there must be reincarnation; there is equality, so therefore, there must be reincarnation.
I like teaching with logic. There is only one thing that cannot ultimately be proved: the existence of God. That is why it was stipulated in the beginning of this talk. When trying to prove the existence of God, all one can do is prove: If there is a God, then there is a God. Stipulation of God, a universal constant, makes my purpose possible; therefore it is not a hard stipulation for me! If the stipulation is hard for you, you might want to rethink that. For some reason you are continuing to read this.
Helix Nebula THE MEANING OF LIFE
Through recorded centuries, philosophers, theologians, scholars and students have pondered, iterated and reiterated on the question: "What is the meaning of life?" Lest you all get excite about the forthcoming words, let me say that I can’t answer that one. I find the question monotonous to even contemplate. The problem philosophers have in understanding the meaning of life has been logic.
Life should by all rights be definable, logical. Wrong. The meaning of life must involve spirit or why contemplate it at all? Spirit, that part of us which is God, like God, cannot yet be proved by our scientific or logic standards. I personally believe that at some point in history the existence of soul will be logically proven. For now, it must be remembered.
Memory, in my view, is proof. If I stretch the vision of logic, I can prove "spirit" but only in the stretch, in statements like, “I think, therefore I am". All who have studied spiritual concepts have heard that statement should really read, “I am, therefore I think!" Switching the statement before "therefore" sometimes makes a big difference. Spiritual concepts work that way. There is no proof for ultimate truth. It simply exists.
"What is the purpose of life?" is a much better, logically speaking, question. I can answer that one. The purpose of life is to provide opportunities. We enter the physical in order to utilize all spiritual opportunities presented on our path. In so doing the spirit amasses what has been termed "karma". Spiritual opportunities include charity, compassion, love and unconditional support of other souls in their spiritual opportunities. The purpose of soul is to take advantage of each spiritual opportunity.
Karma plays an energetic role in spiritual opportunity. I’ve heard karma defined as "for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction". Wrong, if you equate equal and opposite with positive and negative. Karma is spiritual opportunity in the making. I would hate to think, having lived a life of unconditional love, what waited for me in the next life would be "an equally negative reaction". No, thank you. Karmic law is much misinterpreted in our days of opulence and health on this realm. It is a simple law and one that again defies logic.
A while back, I overheard a conversation between two "spiritual" beings. They were discussing poverty, disease and karma. They decided that karma meant the poor and diseased had chosen or worse been granted that lot in life as a means of learning. Various possibilities were discussed. Perhaps they had mistreated servants in a past life, hence poverty. Perhaps they had made light of someone’s physical suffering, hence cancer. That is quite a simplistic view of karma.
Here is their simplistic understanding of karma with people plugged into the theory. "Jane" and "John" share a life together. During that life Jane, for whatever reason, picks up a gun and kills John. The next life they share together, John has the gun and kills Jane. Everything has come full circle, hence, karma is gone! Entirely incorrect. In this example, the entire point of karma is lost, not finished.
Let me debunk that simplistic myth of karma now! That’s logical, not spiritual and it’s a tired myth worthy of destruction. There is no place for retribution in Karma. I can’t imagine why anyone would volunteer a soul mission of unrelenting desolation, violence or poverty without hope. My God would not see that as an opportunity. Revenge, retribution, does not have a place in karmic law or spiritual opportunity. You are not poor because you were wealthy in a past life, you are not ill because you were formerly healthy and you certainly do not kill someone because they formerly killed you. In poverty, illness and violence there are lessons; the lessons are to transcend those trials and tribulations.
Karma simply provides opportunities for growth and chances in that growth to apologize or accept apology. Karma is atonement. Break down the word atonement and you are at-one-ment. The purpose of karma is to provide opportunities to be at-one, to atone. We are at-one meant. But I digress . . .
Follow me through on this one. If the purpose of life is to provide opportunities what is the purpose of soul? The soul must take opportunities and provide opportunities for other souls. That is KARMIC LAW.
Life offers us an abundance of spiritual opportunities. Since we can never know which ones are the exact ones we should take for soul advancement, we must take them all. When you see the homeless, do you shudder at their position? When you see a cancer patient or burn survivor, do you shy away for fear that could be your lot? These are spiritual opportunities -- incite yourself to help, not shudder or fear. God did not intend a few blessed number of us chosen ones to be healthy, wealthy and wise. We are all chosen. It is all a matter of response.
No spiritual law should ever be presented as a difficult concept. The laws that govern spirituality are by definition simple. The Creator did not wish what the "new age" has sometimes become: an unending Einstein version of spirituality. It doesn’t take a spiritual "rocket scientist" to figure karma out: "do unto others as you would have them do unto you". The theory is simple, the action complex. The purpose of soul is responding spiritually to opportunities. "Whatever you do to the least of our brothers . . .” How easy it would be for the philosopher, theologians and scholars to define the meaning of life if we all lived its purpose.
Life cheats no one. Our inattention sometimes makes us feel cheated. This is the proverbial, "grass is always greener on the other side of the fence". Karmic law is about flexibility. A lot of people try to manipulate their way through life. Flexibility is not so much about change as it is about understanding that everything in a given moment is fine as it is. That does not mean that things can’t be changed. It does mean that acceptance has occurred. When an abusive person recognizes himself as abusive, he is being flexible. The next step would be to change. That, too, is being flexible.
When accepting change you are being flexible. We have a tendency to attempt to change everything around us to have it the way we want it; that’s being inflexible. I really hate the trite, "go with the flow". Being a writer, I prefer to say, "become the river". It is absolutely not the same thing. In becoming the river, we round bends; we roll over rocks and we, most importantly, find that a single drop of water is still a river. As a single drop of water, yet still a river, we realize that we need others to flow. We draw those people to us and we must make room for them in order to grow. Karmic law states that we must learn to cohabit in flexibility.
Personal power is about flexibility. Power comes from being able to look at someone and say, “I love you as your are and as you are not". The "new age" term of sitting in acceptance is the flexibility of personal power. As I’m teaching, people understand that I accept them as they are and as they are not. The power that comes from that acceptance is extraordinary. Karmically speaking it is a test. When people trust that I am teaching, they also trust that I will not misuse their trust. The true test of personal power is not to misuse trust.
While I was teaching a class in attaining personal power, a woman asked me why she couldn’t feel or see her guardian angel. She felt that she was totally alone in her search. I spoke to her of the river. That didn’t work. I spoke to her of becoming a spider web and drawing to her spiritual nourishment. That didn’t work, it scared her. Finally, I talked to her of angel wings, the flutter of angel wings. When she understood the whisper of the wings, I explained to her that in flight, angels must have somewhere to land. She had been so caught in her "real life" and all its stresses that she had forgotten to clear her angel landing strip. Even angels need a place to land. As understanding spread over her face she laughed. Laughter cleared a space. All the room felt her "angel land". All felt her step into the personal power of balance. That is the responsibility of being a good teacher. All teachers need to find words and ways for those who listen to them. There is always a way, an inner track to understanding. We simply have to find the words and understand that we are all teachers.
As an aside here, please do not go to classes where the teacher proclaims that you must return for a certain number of classes, or that you must do anything to continue learning with them. Don’t believe them if they say that they alone have the answer you seek. Too many people get caught in that trap. They are searching so diligently that they will grasp at anyone they feel might have answers. There is no one teacher so important that you "must" do something that you are not comfortable doing. No good teacher would ever make someone do something they are spiritually uncomfortable doing. This is spiritual law. Spiritual law cannot be changed. It is "law". You always have choice and the responsibility for that choice. For an adult to say, "my teacher said . . .” is unacceptable. The choice is yours. It always has been and always will be.
Through recorded centuries, philosophers, theologians, scholars and students have pondered, iterated and reiterated on the question: "What is the meaning of life?" Lest you all get excite about the forthcoming words, let me say that I can’t answer that one. I find the question monotonous to even contemplate. The problem philosophers have in understanding the meaning of life has been logic.
Life should by all rights be definable, logical. Wrong. The meaning of life must involve spirit or why contemplate it at all? Spirit, that part of us which is God, like God, cannot yet be proved by our scientific or logic standards. I personally believe that at some point in history the existence of soul will be logically proven. For now, it must be remembered.
Memory, in my view, is proof. If I stretch the vision of logic, I can prove "spirit" but only in the stretch, in statements like, “I think, therefore I am". All who have studied spiritual concepts have heard that statement should really read, “I am, therefore I think!" Switching the statement before "therefore" sometimes makes a big difference. Spiritual concepts work that way. There is no proof for ultimate truth. It simply exists.
"What is the purpose of life?" is a much better, logically speaking, question. I can answer that one. The purpose of life is to provide opportunities. We enter the physical in order to utilize all spiritual opportunities presented on our path. In so doing the spirit amasses what has been termed "karma". Spiritual opportunities include charity, compassion, love and unconditional support of other souls in their spiritual opportunities. The purpose of soul is to take advantage of each spiritual opportunity.
Karma plays an energetic role in spiritual opportunity. I’ve heard karma defined as "for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction". Wrong, if you equate equal and opposite with positive and negative. Karma is spiritual opportunity in the making. I would hate to think, having lived a life of unconditional love, what waited for me in the next life would be "an equally negative reaction". No, thank you. Karmic law is much misinterpreted in our days of opulence and health on this realm. It is a simple law and one that again defies logic.
A while back, I overheard a conversation between two "spiritual" beings. They were discussing poverty, disease and karma. They decided that karma meant the poor and diseased had chosen or worse been granted that lot in life as a means of learning. Various possibilities were discussed. Perhaps they had mistreated servants in a past life, hence poverty. Perhaps they had made light of someone’s physical suffering, hence cancer. That is quite a simplistic view of karma.
Here is their simplistic understanding of karma with people plugged into the theory. "Jane" and "John" share a life together. During that life Jane, for whatever reason, picks up a gun and kills John. The next life they share together, John has the gun and kills Jane. Everything has come full circle, hence, karma is gone! Entirely incorrect. In this example, the entire point of karma is lost, not finished.
Let me debunk that simplistic myth of karma now! That’s logical, not spiritual and it’s a tired myth worthy of destruction. There is no place for retribution in Karma. I can’t imagine why anyone would volunteer a soul mission of unrelenting desolation, violence or poverty without hope. My God would not see that as an opportunity. Revenge, retribution, does not have a place in karmic law or spiritual opportunity. You are not poor because you were wealthy in a past life, you are not ill because you were formerly healthy and you certainly do not kill someone because they formerly killed you. In poverty, illness and violence there are lessons; the lessons are to transcend those trials and tribulations.
Karma simply provides opportunities for growth and chances in that growth to apologize or accept apology. Karma is atonement. Break down the word atonement and you are at-one-ment. The purpose of karma is to provide opportunities to be at-one, to atone. We are at-one meant. But I digress . . .
Follow me through on this one. If the purpose of life is to provide opportunities what is the purpose of soul? The soul must take opportunities and provide opportunities for other souls. That is KARMIC LAW.
Life offers us an abundance of spiritual opportunities. Since we can never know which ones are the exact ones we should take for soul advancement, we must take them all. When you see the homeless, do you shudder at their position? When you see a cancer patient or burn survivor, do you shy away for fear that could be your lot? These are spiritual opportunities -- incite yourself to help, not shudder or fear. God did not intend a few blessed number of us chosen ones to be healthy, wealthy and wise. We are all chosen. It is all a matter of response.
No spiritual law should ever be presented as a difficult concept. The laws that govern spirituality are by definition simple. The Creator did not wish what the "new age" has sometimes become: an unending Einstein version of spirituality. It doesn’t take a spiritual "rocket scientist" to figure karma out: "do unto others as you would have them do unto you". The theory is simple, the action complex. The purpose of soul is responding spiritually to opportunities. "Whatever you do to the least of our brothers . . .” How easy it would be for the philosopher, theologians and scholars to define the meaning of life if we all lived its purpose.
Life cheats no one. Our inattention sometimes makes us feel cheated. This is the proverbial, "grass is always greener on the other side of the fence". Karmic law is about flexibility. A lot of people try to manipulate their way through life. Flexibility is not so much about change as it is about understanding that everything in a given moment is fine as it is. That does not mean that things can’t be changed. It does mean that acceptance has occurred. When an abusive person recognizes himself as abusive, he is being flexible. The next step would be to change. That, too, is being flexible.
When accepting change you are being flexible. We have a tendency to attempt to change everything around us to have it the way we want it; that’s being inflexible. I really hate the trite, "go with the flow". Being a writer, I prefer to say, "become the river". It is absolutely not the same thing. In becoming the river, we round bends; we roll over rocks and we, most importantly, find that a single drop of water is still a river. As a single drop of water, yet still a river, we realize that we need others to flow. We draw those people to us and we must make room for them in order to grow. Karmic law states that we must learn to cohabit in flexibility.
Personal power is about flexibility. Power comes from being able to look at someone and say, “I love you as your are and as you are not". The "new age" term of sitting in acceptance is the flexibility of personal power. As I’m teaching, people understand that I accept them as they are and as they are not. The power that comes from that acceptance is extraordinary. Karmically speaking it is a test. When people trust that I am teaching, they also trust that I will not misuse their trust. The true test of personal power is not to misuse trust.
While I was teaching a class in attaining personal power, a woman asked me why she couldn’t feel or see her guardian angel. She felt that she was totally alone in her search. I spoke to her of the river. That didn’t work. I spoke to her of becoming a spider web and drawing to her spiritual nourishment. That didn’t work, it scared her. Finally, I talked to her of angel wings, the flutter of angel wings. When she understood the whisper of the wings, I explained to her that in flight, angels must have somewhere to land. She had been so caught in her "real life" and all its stresses that she had forgotten to clear her angel landing strip. Even angels need a place to land. As understanding spread over her face she laughed. Laughter cleared a space. All the room felt her "angel land". All felt her step into the personal power of balance. That is the responsibility of being a good teacher. All teachers need to find words and ways for those who listen to them. There is always a way, an inner track to understanding. We simply have to find the words and understand that we are all teachers.
As an aside here, please do not go to classes where the teacher proclaims that you must return for a certain number of classes, or that you must do anything to continue learning with them. Don’t believe them if they say that they alone have the answer you seek. Too many people get caught in that trap. They are searching so diligently that they will grasp at anyone they feel might have answers. There is no one teacher so important that you "must" do something that you are not comfortable doing. No good teacher would ever make someone do something they are spiritually uncomfortable doing. This is spiritual law. Spiritual law cannot be changed. It is "law". You always have choice and the responsibility for that choice. For an adult to say, "my teacher said . . .” is unacceptable. The choice is yours. It always has been and always will be.
Eskimo Nebula TRANSFORMATION
I’m often asked about the fast track to enlightenment. I call this the "McDonald's Syndrome". From a very young age we are all taught that everything can be made easier; everything can be made faster. We’ve come to expect fast cars, fast money and fast food. There is one thing I know for certain: there is no McDonald’s of spiritualism, no drive through window for enlightenment. I tried really hard to find that drive through window. Ten long years later, I did. So, what was fast about that? And . . . I had to pay for every previous order I’d placed. Enlightenment takes work, long, arduous, lifetimes of work. Transformation is a process, not something you can order up and have served in less than five minutes or it’s free.
As children we are told wonderful stories of transformation: the ugly duckling becomes the swan; the lowly caterpillar, a magnificent butterfly. Missing in all of those stories is what happens after the initial transformation. The teaching tales read to us as children always seemed to end "and they lived happily ever after".
I remember as a child always wanting to understand how they all managed to live happily ever after. The ugly duckling becomes a swan and then what? The caterpillar becomes a butterfly and then what? Then, as I’ve come to understand, is the dawn of real adulthood and transformation continues. If all goes according to plan, the swan and butterfly get real jobs, find mates, establish homes, raise children, watch their children have children and then they die. In death, they find their ultimate transformation. On the way to death they live, and in the wisdom of living, instruct and teach.
Living is transformation. Life is the passage of events marking our transformation. The way we live our lives allows us to transform. Too often we cut ourselves off at the pass. Too often we doubt ourselves. We cling to the idea of the ugly duckling when the mirror shows us a swan. We lose faith while inside the cocoons, waiting for what seems an interminable amount of time in search of wings. We tend to stunt our growth with "can't" statements, with excuses, with impatience and with lack of trust.
The one thing that all people possess equally is loneliness. That is the cause of our growing and also the cause of our greed, wars, etc. Once we understand that loneliness is the common tie, we begin to listen to each other; we begin to understand each other. Once we grasp that loneliness is the great equalizer, we have patience and we’re never truly alone. We always seem to think that someone else’s life looks better than ours. Not true. At the root of that life, is loneliness too. It is a no win situation until we once again merge with the Creator and never again feel the loneliness that binds us as humankind.
We all have come here for enlightenment, to be at one with God. That is the very thing we are most afraid of becoming. The rules for enlightenment are simple, you must learn to be alone so that you will never be alone again. It’s like taking a giant step into the unknown only to find it’s unknown.
Fear is part of the unknown, part of the experience that cannot be named. Fear is not something we can express in words. Fear is a feeling. It is very much like love in that perspective. Love is simply comfortable so we don’t mind so much. Fear is uncomfortable. When things are uncomfortable and the feeling is not really explainable, we have to heap it with the "unknown".
Fear of fear is a vicious circle. You have to be willing to walk through that fear in order to get somewhere. We all know that if we walk in circles we simply get tired. We don’t change our destination. A student questioned me once about a walk around the block. That’s a circle, he told me, "what's wrong with that?" Destination. When we walk around the block we do have a destination. We are trying to get back to where we started. There is nothing wrong with that. A lot of people I know are really comfortable with that. A lot of people I know are really comfortable walking around the "fear" block only to get back home to "fear". When we walk around the block we’re usually happy to see home. The same is true with fear, we’re comfortable in it; it feels like home.
Enlightenment is sharing, caring, all those words you learned in kindergarten. Parents and teachers try to tell us truth when we’re young but they contradict themselves by first grade when they tell us about winning and losing, good and bad grades, roles and popularity. That’s when the rules change and we become competitive. I learned a lot about being competitive. Then, I unlearned a lot about being competitive. When standing in my personal power I never compete. I may find myself in opposition, never again in competition. You see, when you compete for your own personal power you’ve already lost. In doubt, you lose. It’s in the asking to compete that you challenge yourself, you become your own worst enemy, easy prey!
Trust, patience and the will to be one with ourselves are secrets of transformation to the place of personal power. Trusting that the universe is unfolding as it should continually tries my patience. Sometimes it is hard for me to come to grips with my own transformation in a world of seeming chaos and insurmountable odds. I find myself frightened when I look in the mirror and catch a quick glimpse of the swan instead of the ugly duckling. It’s too soon I think, too soon to accept responsibility, too soon to give up excuses, too soon to trade insecurity for knowing myself. Just imagine the responsibility.
Then, I remember that if the universe is unfolding as it should, the me in the mirror is the swan. Even if only for a moment I saw it and I know it. Once something is known, you can never not know it again. Once I realized that in doubting myself I was perpetually trying to restore my personal power, perpetually trying to get a glimpse of the swan, I stopped. She’s there, I trust that now and it is good.
Trying to sort through my personal task of transformation brought me to the realization that only step by step can I make my transformation complete. Knowing I have lifetimes to become complete has given me the patience to continue. The struggle to "be" has been made manageable by trusting that one foot in front of the other means I’m taking a step. I understand now that one foot doesn’t even have to go very far in front of the other foot. There is no need for a giant step. A fraction of a centimeter forward is still forward. And, as I now teach, "she who stands at the edge of the cliff is wise to see progress as one step backward!"
Here I should explain that enlightenment is not a state of being; it is a process. If a person considers him/herself enlightened, guess again. Enlightenment is momentary! It can only be in one moment, any given moment, however, only one moment. That’s the purpose of time.
Those who claim to be "enlightened" should also understand that if they were, they would not be here. While here, we learn lessons. When we’re finished learning lessons, we die, only to come back to learn more lessons. Those who are enlightened are not on this planet. Remember when I spoke about the light of God; when you become one with the light again, you are "enlightened". At various moments in our lives we can feel that at-one-ment with the light. During those precious moments, we are enlightened. Enlightenment is not complete until we are complete. That doesn’t happen on planet Earth!
I’m often asked about the fast track to enlightenment. I call this the "McDonald's Syndrome". From a very young age we are all taught that everything can be made easier; everything can be made faster. We’ve come to expect fast cars, fast money and fast food. There is one thing I know for certain: there is no McDonald’s of spiritualism, no drive through window for enlightenment. I tried really hard to find that drive through window. Ten long years later, I did. So, what was fast about that? And . . . I had to pay for every previous order I’d placed. Enlightenment takes work, long, arduous, lifetimes of work. Transformation is a process, not something you can order up and have served in less than five minutes or it’s free.
As children we are told wonderful stories of transformation: the ugly duckling becomes the swan; the lowly caterpillar, a magnificent butterfly. Missing in all of those stories is what happens after the initial transformation. The teaching tales read to us as children always seemed to end "and they lived happily ever after".
I remember as a child always wanting to understand how they all managed to live happily ever after. The ugly duckling becomes a swan and then what? The caterpillar becomes a butterfly and then what? Then, as I’ve come to understand, is the dawn of real adulthood and transformation continues. If all goes according to plan, the swan and butterfly get real jobs, find mates, establish homes, raise children, watch their children have children and then they die. In death, they find their ultimate transformation. On the way to death they live, and in the wisdom of living, instruct and teach.
Living is transformation. Life is the passage of events marking our transformation. The way we live our lives allows us to transform. Too often we cut ourselves off at the pass. Too often we doubt ourselves. We cling to the idea of the ugly duckling when the mirror shows us a swan. We lose faith while inside the cocoons, waiting for what seems an interminable amount of time in search of wings. We tend to stunt our growth with "can't" statements, with excuses, with impatience and with lack of trust.
The one thing that all people possess equally is loneliness. That is the cause of our growing and also the cause of our greed, wars, etc. Once we understand that loneliness is the common tie, we begin to listen to each other; we begin to understand each other. Once we grasp that loneliness is the great equalizer, we have patience and we’re never truly alone. We always seem to think that someone else’s life looks better than ours. Not true. At the root of that life, is loneliness too. It is a no win situation until we once again merge with the Creator and never again feel the loneliness that binds us as humankind.
We all have come here for enlightenment, to be at one with God. That is the very thing we are most afraid of becoming. The rules for enlightenment are simple, you must learn to be alone so that you will never be alone again. It’s like taking a giant step into the unknown only to find it’s unknown.
Fear is part of the unknown, part of the experience that cannot be named. Fear is not something we can express in words. Fear is a feeling. It is very much like love in that perspective. Love is simply comfortable so we don’t mind so much. Fear is uncomfortable. When things are uncomfortable and the feeling is not really explainable, we have to heap it with the "unknown".
Fear of fear is a vicious circle. You have to be willing to walk through that fear in order to get somewhere. We all know that if we walk in circles we simply get tired. We don’t change our destination. A student questioned me once about a walk around the block. That’s a circle, he told me, "what's wrong with that?" Destination. When we walk around the block we do have a destination. We are trying to get back to where we started. There is nothing wrong with that. A lot of people I know are really comfortable with that. A lot of people I know are really comfortable walking around the "fear" block only to get back home to "fear". When we walk around the block we’re usually happy to see home. The same is true with fear, we’re comfortable in it; it feels like home.
Enlightenment is sharing, caring, all those words you learned in kindergarten. Parents and teachers try to tell us truth when we’re young but they contradict themselves by first grade when they tell us about winning and losing, good and bad grades, roles and popularity. That’s when the rules change and we become competitive. I learned a lot about being competitive. Then, I unlearned a lot about being competitive. When standing in my personal power I never compete. I may find myself in opposition, never again in competition. You see, when you compete for your own personal power you’ve already lost. In doubt, you lose. It’s in the asking to compete that you challenge yourself, you become your own worst enemy, easy prey!
Trust, patience and the will to be one with ourselves are secrets of transformation to the place of personal power. Trusting that the universe is unfolding as it should continually tries my patience. Sometimes it is hard for me to come to grips with my own transformation in a world of seeming chaos and insurmountable odds. I find myself frightened when I look in the mirror and catch a quick glimpse of the swan instead of the ugly duckling. It’s too soon I think, too soon to accept responsibility, too soon to give up excuses, too soon to trade insecurity for knowing myself. Just imagine the responsibility.
Then, I remember that if the universe is unfolding as it should, the me in the mirror is the swan. Even if only for a moment I saw it and I know it. Once something is known, you can never not know it again. Once I realized that in doubting myself I was perpetually trying to restore my personal power, perpetually trying to get a glimpse of the swan, I stopped. She’s there, I trust that now and it is good.
Trying to sort through my personal task of transformation brought me to the realization that only step by step can I make my transformation complete. Knowing I have lifetimes to become complete has given me the patience to continue. The struggle to "be" has been made manageable by trusting that one foot in front of the other means I’m taking a step. I understand now that one foot doesn’t even have to go very far in front of the other foot. There is no need for a giant step. A fraction of a centimeter forward is still forward. And, as I now teach, "she who stands at the edge of the cliff is wise to see progress as one step backward!"
Here I should explain that enlightenment is not a state of being; it is a process. If a person considers him/herself enlightened, guess again. Enlightenment is momentary! It can only be in one moment, any given moment, however, only one moment. That’s the purpose of time.
Those who claim to be "enlightened" should also understand that if they were, they would not be here. While here, we learn lessons. When we’re finished learning lessons, we die, only to come back to learn more lessons. Those who are enlightened are not on this planet. Remember when I spoke about the light of God; when you become one with the light again, you are "enlightened". At various moments in our lives we can feel that at-one-ment with the light. During those precious moments, we are enlightened. Enlightenment is not complete until we are complete. That doesn’t happen on planet Earth!
Crab Nebula MEDITATION & PRAYER
How do we step out fear, how do we transform? The answers lie in prayer and in meditation.
First we’ll cover prayer. I think prayer has gotten mired in dogma. Prayer sometimes seems too attached to a building we call church, synagogue or mosque. It should be an every day occurrence in every life. A quiet thank you is good for the soul. There are many ways to pray all of which are valid if your intent is "Thy will be done." I’ve heard people pray for lottery money, attaching to the prayer that they "would do good for a lot of people if they just had that money". Well, if that is true, it doesn’t matter if you are a millionaire at all; you can still do good for a lot of people. Maybe that’s how rich works, examine your motives.
I once heard a woman pray for her husband to live after he had been critically injured in an accident; he lived, in a coma. She was devastated; she couldn’t find the strength to face life without him; she wanted him back. Day after day she tended to his needs hoping against hope that the Doctors were wrong in their prognosis and in their diagnosis of "brain death". Someday, she prayed, he would come back to her.
We talked for long hours on one sunny August afternoon. At sunset we prayed; she changed her prayer to "Thy will be done." He died that night. It was a quiet night and a peaceful end. On that night I learned there is only one true prayer: "Thy will be done." All the other prayers are asking for help. All the other prayers serve as reminders that we need help, we need understanding.
When you live in a state of "Thy will be done", when you truly live that prayer, life becomes magical. Of course, in a utopian state, we would all live the prayer. That takes practice. We tend to want divine intervention to come and answer our prayers, in our way and in our time frame.
Someone once asked me why no one came when they prayed. I smiled. I know this one. It’s any easy question to answer. Prayer is the active "asking". I have my wonderful vision of myself sitting and praying and praying and praying, asking and asking. Finally I stop to take a breath, angry because I get no answer, tears of frustration flowing because my prayers are not being acknowledged. In the moment I stop to take a breath, my guardian angel, exhausted from hovering for hours, breathes a sigh of relief and says, "Child, child, I thought you would never stop talking, I know your mother told you it’s rude to interrupt someone! Now . . .
You see, prayer, the asking, is nothing without meditation, the listening. When you pray for guidance you must stop long enough to hear it. Continually praying for yourself to become enlightened leaves no space for enlightenment. You must learn to listen. Listening is meditation!
How I would enjoy telling all of you that meditation is magical, that you meditate for three weeks and understand. Well, it’s work, real work. Meditation requires practice, practice, practice. For ten long years, every night, every single night, I meditated. At first I fell asleep, then I held meditation for three minutes, then five minutes. Despite having a grasp of meditation, sometimes it’s still a struggle.
There are a lot of different meditation techniques out there, most valid as learning tools. The problem is in the definition and ultimate goal of meditation. We seem to have lumped a whole lot of things under the umbrella called "meditation". Let me see if I can help sort through that jumble.
Meditation is the active listening for the God understanding you were gifted when your soul was created. That is all "meditation" is. Meditation is not visualization. People leading meditation journeys are leading visualization exercises, not meditation. Kicking back on the couch and watching "movies" on the blank screen behind your eyelids is not meditating, although it is for me sometimes the best "learning" channel. That’s another form of visualization. Visualization is a wonderful tool; you can learn a lot from visualization.
When you achieve a true meditative state you are in the state of "no mind". One of the things I
enjoy saying is, "You must lose your mind to come to your senses." The meditative state happens when you become one with everything around you. In "no mind", you are listening for the truth. Truth is available to all who seek it; the "no mind" state is one requisite.
In seeking the truth through meditation, we cannot be encumbered by everyday life. Since we are continually bombarded by sensation, thoughts and movement we must train for meditation as the athlete trains for sport. You can’t expect to play with the pros if you’ve seen a game on TV once. The same is true with meditation. You can’t expect to find your true self if you’ve only watched him/her play for a while.
When teaching meditation to people I start with tools. I used to start with tapered candles telling people to focus on the candle flame -- too hard. Now I start with birthday candles. All you have to do is watch the candle burn, burn all the way down and go out. When you can watch the candle go out, buy a bigger one; watch that one go out. Pretty soon you can start a roaring fire in your fireplace and watch it go out. You’d be surprised how much you can learn when watching a blazing fire all the way through to cold embers. I know I was. Eight hours of silent concentration is good training for "no mind". It is however, not "no mind". The "no mind" state comes after your brain is trained, when you have the control to be silent; when you have the control to become the silence.
The first time I achieved "no mind" I thought to myself, "well, that was interesting". Since I couldn’t remember learning anything in the silence of "no mind" -- duh!--,that’s all I found it, interesting. While going through my day I noticed things seemed a little easier to understand, I had more patience. Then that evening, I sat down in the quiet of my house and was amazed. My purpose had become clear, as clear as an eagle’s cry. I understood more in that one evening than I’ve understood since. My first reaction was fear: "not me". My second reactionwas acceptance: "tell me how". Third reaction: "O.K., so don’t tell me how, I'll know when it’s right?" Fourth reaction-- pay attention here, this is the important one -- “I better get back to the ‘no mind’ state soon". I would swear to you, I heard applause. Ten long years vanished in that second. I'd come home.
I tell that story because people think I plopped down on the planet knowing all this. I did, you did and nothing could be farther from the truth. I put in my time and I’m still paying my dues. That story lets people know it’s possible. If I can do it, anyone can. It is spiritual law; we are all equal. There are many paths, many roads, and they all lead home. I found my road home. I finally quit going around and around the block called "fear". I expanded the block to include "home". I still have to walk past fear and it is no longer my destination.
Having come home I realized the age-old lesson I teach: "Find the Magic within Yourself". I knew once and for all that magic did exist within me.
How do we step out fear, how do we transform? The answers lie in prayer and in meditation.
First we’ll cover prayer. I think prayer has gotten mired in dogma. Prayer sometimes seems too attached to a building we call church, synagogue or mosque. It should be an every day occurrence in every life. A quiet thank you is good for the soul. There are many ways to pray all of which are valid if your intent is "Thy will be done." I’ve heard people pray for lottery money, attaching to the prayer that they "would do good for a lot of people if they just had that money". Well, if that is true, it doesn’t matter if you are a millionaire at all; you can still do good for a lot of people. Maybe that’s how rich works, examine your motives.
I once heard a woman pray for her husband to live after he had been critically injured in an accident; he lived, in a coma. She was devastated; she couldn’t find the strength to face life without him; she wanted him back. Day after day she tended to his needs hoping against hope that the Doctors were wrong in their prognosis and in their diagnosis of "brain death". Someday, she prayed, he would come back to her.
We talked for long hours on one sunny August afternoon. At sunset we prayed; she changed her prayer to "Thy will be done." He died that night. It was a quiet night and a peaceful end. On that night I learned there is only one true prayer: "Thy will be done." All the other prayers are asking for help. All the other prayers serve as reminders that we need help, we need understanding.
When you live in a state of "Thy will be done", when you truly live that prayer, life becomes magical. Of course, in a utopian state, we would all live the prayer. That takes practice. We tend to want divine intervention to come and answer our prayers, in our way and in our time frame.
Someone once asked me why no one came when they prayed. I smiled. I know this one. It’s any easy question to answer. Prayer is the active "asking". I have my wonderful vision of myself sitting and praying and praying and praying, asking and asking. Finally I stop to take a breath, angry because I get no answer, tears of frustration flowing because my prayers are not being acknowledged. In the moment I stop to take a breath, my guardian angel, exhausted from hovering for hours, breathes a sigh of relief and says, "Child, child, I thought you would never stop talking, I know your mother told you it’s rude to interrupt someone! Now . . .
You see, prayer, the asking, is nothing without meditation, the listening. When you pray for guidance you must stop long enough to hear it. Continually praying for yourself to become enlightened leaves no space for enlightenment. You must learn to listen. Listening is meditation!
How I would enjoy telling all of you that meditation is magical, that you meditate for three weeks and understand. Well, it’s work, real work. Meditation requires practice, practice, practice. For ten long years, every night, every single night, I meditated. At first I fell asleep, then I held meditation for three minutes, then five minutes. Despite having a grasp of meditation, sometimes it’s still a struggle.
There are a lot of different meditation techniques out there, most valid as learning tools. The problem is in the definition and ultimate goal of meditation. We seem to have lumped a whole lot of things under the umbrella called "meditation". Let me see if I can help sort through that jumble.
Meditation is the active listening for the God understanding you were gifted when your soul was created. That is all "meditation" is. Meditation is not visualization. People leading meditation journeys are leading visualization exercises, not meditation. Kicking back on the couch and watching "movies" on the blank screen behind your eyelids is not meditating, although it is for me sometimes the best "learning" channel. That’s another form of visualization. Visualization is a wonderful tool; you can learn a lot from visualization.
When you achieve a true meditative state you are in the state of "no mind". One of the things I
enjoy saying is, "You must lose your mind to come to your senses." The meditative state happens when you become one with everything around you. In "no mind", you are listening for the truth. Truth is available to all who seek it; the "no mind" state is one requisite.
In seeking the truth through meditation, we cannot be encumbered by everyday life. Since we are continually bombarded by sensation, thoughts and movement we must train for meditation as the athlete trains for sport. You can’t expect to play with the pros if you’ve seen a game on TV once. The same is true with meditation. You can’t expect to find your true self if you’ve only watched him/her play for a while.
When teaching meditation to people I start with tools. I used to start with tapered candles telling people to focus on the candle flame -- too hard. Now I start with birthday candles. All you have to do is watch the candle burn, burn all the way down and go out. When you can watch the candle go out, buy a bigger one; watch that one go out. Pretty soon you can start a roaring fire in your fireplace and watch it go out. You’d be surprised how much you can learn when watching a blazing fire all the way through to cold embers. I know I was. Eight hours of silent concentration is good training for "no mind". It is however, not "no mind". The "no mind" state comes after your brain is trained, when you have the control to be silent; when you have the control to become the silence.
The first time I achieved "no mind" I thought to myself, "well, that was interesting". Since I couldn’t remember learning anything in the silence of "no mind" -- duh!--,that’s all I found it, interesting. While going through my day I noticed things seemed a little easier to understand, I had more patience. Then that evening, I sat down in the quiet of my house and was amazed. My purpose had become clear, as clear as an eagle’s cry. I understood more in that one evening than I’ve understood since. My first reaction was fear: "not me". My second reactionwas acceptance: "tell me how". Third reaction: "O.K., so don’t tell me how, I'll know when it’s right?" Fourth reaction-- pay attention here, this is the important one -- “I better get back to the ‘no mind’ state soon". I would swear to you, I heard applause. Ten long years vanished in that second. I'd come home.
I tell that story because people think I plopped down on the planet knowing all this. I did, you did and nothing could be farther from the truth. I put in my time and I’m still paying my dues. That story lets people know it’s possible. If I can do it, anyone can. It is spiritual law; we are all equal. There are many paths, many roads, and they all lead home. I found my road home. I finally quit going around and around the block called "fear". I expanded the block to include "home". I still have to walk past fear and it is no longer my destination.
Having come home I realized the age-old lesson I teach: "Find the Magic within Yourself". I knew once and for all that magic did exist within me.
Spiral Galaxy M-100 MAGIC
As children we were, a lot of us, taught the story of Adam and Eve and the "fall from grace". Let me tell you, in my opinion, when we fell from grace. We fell from grace when we lost the wonder of childhood, when we began to "name" things. As babies, we thought that everything was magical, everything was somehow different from everything else. Then came language and the proverbial Tower of Babel. We learned that a chair was a chair; never mind that a chair was a Windsor or a Lazy-Boy, it was a chair. We learned that a woman was a woman, never mind her name was Sarah, Margaret or Constance. We learned that birds were birds, not chickens or eagles, birds. We forgot to look at the differences, we learned the similarities. We became trapped in boredom. We became trapped in similarities and forgot to look for the miracles of difference.
For years I have loaned people books with a bookmark that says "Find the Magic within Yourself" in hopes that one of them would say, "define Magic". One of them finally did. We have all wanted "magic" in our lives. Magic, we’re taught, is something we can’t do, something we can’t have and something that’s fast. Not true. Magic is respect for life and the laws of nature. Magic happens when we practice that respect.
Part of practicing the magic of respect is wonder. In life we must have wonder to have magic. The birth of a child is not magic, it’s biology, sperm meets egg, gestation and birth occurs. The
magical part of birth is that a newborn soul wishes to breath and share life within our world. The flight of an eagle is not magic. We all know that an eagle is aerodynamically sound, capable of flying. That’s not magic. The innate desire to soar is magical, "wonder" full.
Another part of practicing respect is faith. Understanding the existence of a higher power -- whatever your terminology -- is an act of faith. It cannot be logically or scientifically proved. With a higher power anything is possible; the doorway for magic enlarges. The Biblical story of faith tells us that faith the size of a mustard seed can move mountains. I happen to know that’s true. What could be more magical?
Transformation, the ability to change, is another facet of magic. A favorite quote of mine is from "Illusions" by Richard Bach: “. . . what the caterpillar calls the end of the world, the Master calls a butterfly." We are continually learning, transforming. The Earth is a wonderful school for transformation. We come here to learn love, to learn respect and joy. Love can transform us all.
Most of us get caught in the reality of our harried, hurried worlds. We often forget the magic of life. Magic seems to flounder pitifully in telephones, tollbooths, televisions and taxes; that’s just a few of the “T”words. If we pause long enough, if we open our hearts not just our eyes, we begin to see magic. Children breath, eagles soar, rain falls, plants grow and little by little we are transformed. The caterpillars we are become butterflies when we take responsibility for our lives and our perceptions. That, my friends, is magic.
If we live with respect for life, our lives will be magical . . . if we teach our children that magic is born of respect; that wonder, faith and transformation are part of the respect, then their lives will be magical. There will be magic everywhere. We will take care of our planet and our planet’s children. We will begin to solve our societal and ecological problems. It is a natural process of magical thought. Imagine a place where magic is everywhere, evident, everyday.
Imagine a world where magic is everywhere, evident, everyday and know we live here. Walk in that truth and you recognize God.
As children we were, a lot of us, taught the story of Adam and Eve and the "fall from grace". Let me tell you, in my opinion, when we fell from grace. We fell from grace when we lost the wonder of childhood, when we began to "name" things. As babies, we thought that everything was magical, everything was somehow different from everything else. Then came language and the proverbial Tower of Babel. We learned that a chair was a chair; never mind that a chair was a Windsor or a Lazy-Boy, it was a chair. We learned that a woman was a woman, never mind her name was Sarah, Margaret or Constance. We learned that birds were birds, not chickens or eagles, birds. We forgot to look at the differences, we learned the similarities. We became trapped in boredom. We became trapped in similarities and forgot to look for the miracles of difference.
For years I have loaned people books with a bookmark that says "Find the Magic within Yourself" in hopes that one of them would say, "define Magic". One of them finally did. We have all wanted "magic" in our lives. Magic, we’re taught, is something we can’t do, something we can’t have and something that’s fast. Not true. Magic is respect for life and the laws of nature. Magic happens when we practice that respect.
Part of practicing the magic of respect is wonder. In life we must have wonder to have magic. The birth of a child is not magic, it’s biology, sperm meets egg, gestation and birth occurs. The
magical part of birth is that a newborn soul wishes to breath and share life within our world. The flight of an eagle is not magic. We all know that an eagle is aerodynamically sound, capable of flying. That’s not magic. The innate desire to soar is magical, "wonder" full.
Another part of practicing respect is faith. Understanding the existence of a higher power -- whatever your terminology -- is an act of faith. It cannot be logically or scientifically proved. With a higher power anything is possible; the doorway for magic enlarges. The Biblical story of faith tells us that faith the size of a mustard seed can move mountains. I happen to know that’s true. What could be more magical?
Transformation, the ability to change, is another facet of magic. A favorite quote of mine is from "Illusions" by Richard Bach: “. . . what the caterpillar calls the end of the world, the Master calls a butterfly." We are continually learning, transforming. The Earth is a wonderful school for transformation. We come here to learn love, to learn respect and joy. Love can transform us all.
Most of us get caught in the reality of our harried, hurried worlds. We often forget the magic of life. Magic seems to flounder pitifully in telephones, tollbooths, televisions and taxes; that’s just a few of the “T”words. If we pause long enough, if we open our hearts not just our eyes, we begin to see magic. Children breath, eagles soar, rain falls, plants grow and little by little we are transformed. The caterpillars we are become butterflies when we take responsibility for our lives and our perceptions. That, my friends, is magic.
If we live with respect for life, our lives will be magical . . . if we teach our children that magic is born of respect; that wonder, faith and transformation are part of the respect, then their lives will be magical. There will be magic everywhere. We will take care of our planet and our planet’s children. We will begin to solve our societal and ecological problems. It is a natural process of magical thought. Imagine a place where magic is everywhere, evident, everyday.
Imagine a world where magic is everywhere, evident, everyday and know we live here. Walk in that truth and you recognize God.
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