The Shadow Self – The Authentic Self
Last Sunday, I mentioned the “shadow” and when Karen asked about it, this gave me a great segue to this Sunday’s topic. So, in order to find out what the shadow is and how to deal with it, I turned to Elizabeth Lesser and the Seeker’s Guide. She says:
SHADOW-WORK
“If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you. If you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you.” —JESUS
Jung called the secret shame and the old voices buried in the dark heart the “shadow.” He wrote, “by shadow I mean the ‘negative’ side of the personality, the sum of all those unpleasant qualities we like to hide….” In their excellent anthology, Meeting the Shadow: The Hidden Power of the Dark Side of Human Nature, Connie Zweig and Jeremiah Abrams use the term “shadow-work” to describe “the ongoing inclusion of that which was rejected” in our psyches. “The goal of shadow-work,” they write, “cannot be accomplished with a simple method or trick of the mind. Rather, it is a complex, ongoing struggle that calls for great commitment, vigilance, and the loving support of others who are traveling a similar road.” Jung himself warned that shadow-work was a delicate process: “Each piece of the shadow that we realize has a weight, and our consciousness is lowered to that extent when we take it into our boat. Therefore, one might say that the main art of dealing with the shadow consists in the right loading of our boat: if we take too little, we fly away from reality and become, as it were, a fluffy white cloud without substance in the sky, and if we take too much we may sink our boat.”
We may know people who float around like clouds, unwilling or unable to recognize their own darkness, who consistently try to cover their anger with a smiley-face sticker, or their grief with a joke. And we also may know those whose boats are sinking from the weight of their unconscious emotions—those people who take everything to heart, and then don’t know how to handle their feelings. They may be full of rage or despair, or embittered by the trauma and misfortune that have come their way. Shadow-work is a balancing act, a slow process and a stage of growth whereby we fish in the waters for the darkness that leads to the light. In A Little Book on the Human Shadow, my favorite of all the shadow literature, Robert Bly writes a short passage that describes the shadow beautifully:
“ Behind us we have an invisible bag, and the part of us our parents don’t like, we, to keep our parents’ love, put it in the bag. ” Elizabeth LesserWhen we were one or two years old we had what we might visualize as a 360-degree personality. Energy radiated out from all parts of our body and all parts of our psyche. A child running is a living globe of energy. We had a ball of energy, all right; but one day we noticed that our parents didn’t like certain parts of that ball. They said things like: “Can’t you be still?” Or, “It isn’t nice to want to kill your brother.” Behind us we have an invisible bag, and the part of us our parents don’t like, we, to keep our parents’ love, put it in the bag. By the time we go to school our bag is quite large. Then our teachers have their say: “Good children don’t get angry over such little things.” So we take our anger and put it in the bag. By the time my brother and I were twelve in Madison, Minnesota, we were known as “the nice Bly boys.” Our bags were already a mile long.
All of us are dragging a bag of shadows behind us. Being a girl, I put in my bag things like my sexuality, my aggression, and the tidelike ebbs and flows of my emotions. My mother told me girls weren’t supposed to be sexual beings; my father expected that women should be sweet and yielding; and the culture maintained that women’s moods were way too fickle to be trusted. All that went in the bag. “We spend our life until we’re twenty deciding what parts of ourself to put into the bag, and we spend the rest of our lives trying to get them out again,” writes Bly. Shadow-work is getting those parts out of the bag in such a way that we heal ourselves and our relationships without causing more harm.
“ Each piece of the shadow that we realize has a weight, and our consciousness is lowered to that extent when we take it into our boat. ” Elizabeth LesserIt’s helpful to read about the shadow, but I cannot stress enough the importance of experiential work in this area of the spiritual path. The beauty, and the terror, of shadow-work is that it demands we make our spirituality real. Noble ideals are put to the test if we take shadow-work to heart. If we just make an intellectual investigation of human darkness and the ideas of the shadow and projection, we’ll have done nothing more than add a few more words to our vocabulary. . . .
I had all the right vocabulary for a long time before I was challenged to make my shadow-work real. When my stepson first came from Los Angeles to live with us full-time, he was eleven years old and, as far as I perceived, from another planet. Where my other sons, ages ten and thirteen, were calm and relatively quiet, Michael, quite literally, bounced off the walls. He was so full of energy that he was often out of control—and I was determined to control him. “We see the shadow most indirectly,” write Zweig and Abrams, “in distasteful traits and actions of other people, out there where it is safer to observe it. When we react intensely to a quality in an individual or group—such as laziness or stupidity, sensuality, or spirituality—and our reaction overtakes us with great loathing or admiration, this may be our shadow showing. We project by attributing this quality to the other person in an unconscious effort to banish it from ourselves, to keep ourselves from seeing it within.”
Soon after he moved in, we discovered that on top of his natural exuberance, Michael also was suffering from Tourette’s syndrome, a neurological disorder that manifests itself in tics and hyperactivity. Although it was mild, and many people never knew about it, Michael’s Tourette’s was hard on him. It manifested itself in tics and restlessness, which he tried to mask by constant activity.
I felt as if there were two strangers living in my home: one was Michael—a little, wild stranger; the other was myself—a big, controlling stranger. At work I was the one known for her sensitivity and compassion: I listened to coworkers’ problems; I championed our scholarship fund; I worked to make our staff more diverse. Now, someone with problems, someone different from the rest of the family, was living with me. Did I greet the “other” with love and compassion? No, I did not. I was horrified to find that I was not the person I thought I was. Michael was just a little boy, suffering not only from a traumatic move from his mother’s house to his father’s new family, but also from a disorder beyond his control. Instead of trying to love him, I tried to make Michael change. I wanted him to calm down, to sit still, to fit into the mold. We entered into a battle of wills.
“Doing shadow-work,” write Zweig and Abrams, “means asking ourselves to examine closely and honestly what it is about a particular individual that irritates us or repels us; what it is about a racial or religious group that horrifies or captivates us; and what it is about a lover that charms us and leads us to idealize him or her. Doing shadow-work means making a gentleman’s agreement with one’s self to engage in an internal conversation that can, at some time down the road, result in an authentic self-acceptance and a real compassion for others.”
The year before Michael had come to live with us, I had wanted to have a Fresh Air kid—a child from a disadvantaged home—spend the summer with our family. Why not share the bounty of our life with a child who needed the kind of love we had to give? I argued to my husband. He argued back that there was already enough chaos in the house and we’d better wait until we were more stable. After Michael had been with us for a year, my resistance to his behavior was becoming a big issue in our marriage. One night, in the middle of a fight, my husband said something that finally got through to me: “Remember that Fresh Air kid you wanted? Well, here he is! He’s Michael.” That’s when my shadow-work began.
For the next few years I made my relationship with Michael my spiritual path. In ways more graphic than I ever would have chosen, I got to see aspects of my shadow self: how desperately, at the expense of other people, I wanted to control life; how arrogant and aggressive I was; how right I thought I was; how conditional my love was. Every time I would spout loving-kindness philosophy at work, and then go home and resist loving Michael, I would feel sick. Did I really want to walk my heartfulness talk? This was as good a chance as any to do it. Over and over I went through the process of shadow-work: feeling my resistance to Michael’s inability to sit still and just be; beating myself up for it on the one hand, or blaming Michael for it on the other; then going deeper into my feelings—using the ways in which I reacted intensely to aspects of Michael’s behavior to learn more about myself; and eventually forgiving myself, forgiving Michael, and accepting the situation; and finally, taking responsibility to make our family work.
In the end, we both made it work. Michael went through his teen years, got a handle on his energy, and became a gifted actor and basketball player.I loosened up and learned how to give more of myself, how to love more fully. Where he would say that I became a second mother to him, I would say that he taught me, firsthand, how love heals and how control doesn’t. Michael is my son by choice, which makes our bond rare and precious. Choosing to work on my relationship with Michael was as important a step on my spiritual path as the more glamorous-sounding ones. Pilgrimages to Jerusalem or long meditation retreats might provide a shot of inspiration, but shadow-work creates long-lasting change. I could have remained shut down. Or I could have opened just enough to maintain a cold-war kind of peace in our family. God knows, that’s what I would have preferred to do many times. But my shadow was insistent, and thankfully, I listened to it and got a taste of what the Jungian analyst Marion Woodman calls “the dignity of unprojected human love.”
I believe in the possibility of psychological change. This kind of faith is helpful during shadow-work because the territory is often dark and full of conflict. Going through the darkness may take a long time. Real growth happens in stages, and sometimes a stage may seem to go on and on forever. Trust the process. Reach out. Get support and help from friends and healers. Be on the lookout for your own resistance to change. Read the feedback life provides. And don’t fear that by bringing your negativity out of the shadows and into the light that it will overpower you or run amok. As Jung says, “Once the negative side of your battle has become conscious, it will lose power.”
Lesser, Elizabeth. The Seeker’s Guide: Making Your Life a Spiritual Adventure (Kindle Locations 3390-3467). Random House Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
I want to finish with another wonderful quote by Rainer Marie Rilke who wrote:
“So don’t be frightened, dear friend, if a sadness confronts you larger than any you have ever known, casting its shadow over all you do. You must think that something is happening within you, and remember that life has not forgotten you; it holds you in its hand and will not let you fall. Why would you want to exclude from your life any uneasiness, any pain, any depression, since you don’t know what work they are accomplishing within you?”
Whose Voice is it? – Finding the Authentic Self
I thought we could begin this morning with a piece Jan sent me from a Sunday School teacher in Ireland about how to get to Heaven:
I was testing children in my Dublin Sunday school class to see if they understood the concept of getting to heaven.
‘I asked them, ‘ If I sold my house and my car, had a big garage sale and gave all my money to the church, would that get me into heaven?
’NO!’ the children answered.
’If I cleaned the church every day, mowed the garden, and kept everything tidy, would that get me into heaven?’
Again, the answer was ‘NO!’‘If I gave sweets to all the children, and loved my husband, would that get me into heaven?’
Again, they all answered ‘NO!’
I was just bursting with pride for them. I continued, ‘Then how can I get Into heaven?’
A little boy shouted out: ‘YUV GOTTA BE F***N’ DEAD.’
I wanted to continue with the discussions we have been having about being broken open, and about finding our authentic selves. Elizabeth Lesser wrote a book called, “Broken Open: How Difficult Times Can Help Us Grow” in which she wrote:
“When there is nothing left to lose, we find the true self—the self that is whole, the self that is enough, the self that no longer looks to others for definition, or completion, or anything but companionship on the journey.”
Essentially, she is suggesting that being broken open to the point of surrender is the way to find the authentic self. In The Huffington Post, Judith Johnson wrote an article entitled, “What Does It Mean to Be Your Authentic Self.” She begins with a quote from Hamlet (Act 1, Scene 3, 78-82) so I knew it would be good:
“This above all:
To thine own self be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.”
— Shakespeare
“To thine own self be true.” That is about the soundest advice you could get. But, what does it really mean? How do you know who you really are, let alone how to be true to yourself?
Let’s look first at the “Who am I?” question. Like peeling the layers of an artichoke, you go through many layers before you get to the delicious heart of who you are, and it seems that each layer is more and more succulent. Most of the outer labels of our identity place us in boxes or categories relative to other people. We might identify ourselves by race, gender, religion, political views, occupation, and so on. Many of those labels were given to us by birth or circumstance and all of them inform our point of view. But none of them are who we are — they are simply categories of relative identification and the preferences of our egos.
The more we live on the surface of our identity, the less we are in touch with our deeper self. We live in a world of “reality” television and the endless bombardment of media impressions that seek to influence our thoughts and behaviors. They give the impression that we are nothing more than superficial, selfish, judgmental and greedy individuals competing for center stage on the top of the heap. It’s a sad social commentary, but thankfully not much help in getting to know our true selves. The problem is that the more we look outside of ourselves to create a sense of self, the farther off track we go. How can we know who we truly are when we spend our time and attention trying to be something other than what we find ourselves to be? No amount of changing ourselves for the purpose of being perceived as cool or fashionable or getting the approval of others is going to bring us any closer to really knowing ourselves.
For most of my life I have been exploring the profound questions of human existence: Who am I? What is the purpose of human existence? And, of course, the God question. The answers I have gathered so far are my answers and do not necessarily ring true for others. One of life’s greatest ironies is that when it comes to esoteric and spiritual matters, “knowing” is a personal experience — not an absolute. What I “know” to be true, I know inside myself and can provide no proof to another who does not resonate with the same truth.
For each of us, our truest life purpose becomes seeking answers to the deep questions of life and then living in accordance with what we find to be true. Like turning on an inner light, it is as though we have to awaken something inside ourselves. Once we have done that, our inner knowing seems to have a voice that, if we listen to it, guides us in our daily choices. This is not the voice of personal opinions, judgments and preferences.”
In The Seeker’s Guide, Elizabeth Lessors asks us to ask ourselves, “Whose voice is it?” and to keep asking until we identify the source and when we absorbed, assimilated, or were coerced by the voice. She described her own journey and the pain of realizing that she had been living her life instructed by the condemning voices of her mother and father.
Johnson goes on, “[the voice] comes from a deeper place than that, and with practice and time we can learn to tell the difference between the voice of our ego and the voice of our authentic self. For me, it took a lot of time and experimentation to distinguish between these two voices. Now, the difference is very clear to me. The challenge is in choosing to listen to my true self rather than to my ego when they don’t agree.
Now, I know that I am being authentic when I am making a choice that creates a resonance of affirmation inside of me. Alternatively, I have learned to recognize the lack of resonance as well — even for simple things. For example, the other day a friend enthusiastically proposed we go shopping at the nearby outlet stores. Her invitation went clunk inside of me, so I declined and suggested something else that passed my inner test of resonance. Ultimately, we were unable to find something that worked for us both and chose not to get together at all. I’ve learned that if we had tried to force it, at least one of us would probably have been out of sorts. When I listen to my inner feedback system, I find my life is easier, more graceful and I am more peaceful inside. When I fight against it or ignore it is when I get into trouble and find myself disconnected from what I am doing or who I am with and I become irritable inside. It’s like having an internal GPS that tells me where my truth is.
Living from a place of profound authenticity involves being rooted in your deepest beliefs, values and truth and living a life that is a true reflection of them. It is about being true to yourself through your thoughts, words and actions. It means being willing to sacrifice any relationship, situation or circumstance that violates your truth. For example, if you are in a job or relationship that requires you to function in a way that is not in accord with your truth, you leave it. Does this mean you will live a charmed life? No, you will still have your share of sorrows as well as sweetness in your life. However, you will have the wisdom of knowing who you are to guide you. The more you practice listening to your inner wisdom, the less friction and discord you will find yourself creating in your life.
Will you ever be perfect at honoring your own truth? No, but you can strive for excellence. It’s largely a matter of where you place your focus. By holding the intention of being true to yourself, you focus your attention on whatever resonates with your truth. It becomes a self-editing process where you do more and more of those things that express your truth and less and less of those that do not. Through a clear intention and paying attention, you learn to hold yourself accountable. Through discipline and commitment, you learn to do your best to live according to who you know yourself to be. That’s profound authenticity, and it sure beats the alternative!”
I would like to finish with another quote by Elizabeth Lessor from Broken Open. She quotes Rumi’s poem:
Drum sounds rise on the air,
and with them, my heart
A voice inside the beat says,
“I know you’re tired
but come
This is the way.
And then she writes:
“May you listen to the voice within the beat even when you are tired. When you feel yourself breaking down, may you break open instead. May every experience in life be a door that opens your heart, expands your understanding, and leads you to freedom. If you are weary, may you be aroused by passion and purpose. If you are blameful and bitter, may you be sweetened by hope and humor. If you are frightened, may you be emboldened by a big consciousness far wiser than your fear. If you are lonely, may you find love, may you find friendship. If you are lost, may you understand that we are all lost, and still we are guided—by Strange Angels and Sleeping Giants, by our better and kinder natures, by the vibrant voice within the beat. May you follow that voice, for This is the way—the hero’s journey, the life worth living, the reason we are here.”
Being Vulnerable – Showing the Authentic Self
Well this is going to be hard after being gone for a couple of weeks. However, Jeff sent me an audio of last week’s service so I was able to hear the wonderful discussion that you had. While I was sitting up at the hospital yesterday, I had lots of time to think about what was said and I wanted to share a few observations that I had. The first thing that hit me was when I was thinking about that great Leonard Cohen quote from his song, Anthem:
Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack in everything
That’s how the light gets in.
I have always loved that – but then something Ruth Ann said made me stop and realize what I am sure many of you will think of as blatantly obvious (but I’m a bit slow) that the crack in us when we are broken open is not to let the light in; it is to let the light out. We are being given an opportunity to see the light within and to glimpse the power that Marianne Williamson tells us that we are really afraid of. Like a fruit that must be peeled to reveal its treasure, we have to be broken open to discover ours. And, just as Mary said, we have to slow down to savor what we find, just as we do with fruit or any kind of food. I am very bad at wolfing down my food as fast as possible, but one of the best meals I have ever had was in France when we stayed at the table for four hours and really took the time to appreciate every bite – and every course and glass of ewine, and Gauloises cigarettes (which are really, really nasty!!!).
We become so caught up in trying to reach for the light, call in the light, find the light we miss the obvious: the light is always there within but it takes being broken open to see it. We are given a glimpse of the kingdom – and the kingdom is to be found within.
Just as an interesting aside, how many of you have noticed the Scripps (Channel 2) company motto? It shows up at the end of every news broadcast and has their motto for decades. (The Scripps Company was founded in 1878.) It says, “Give light and the people will find their own way.”
Anyway, I digress. Then, Scott’s remark about the word “vulnerable” being negative sent me on a search of the etymology to see exactly where it comes from. In many instances, words evolve over time and become divorced from the original meaning. It is called semantic change. One such example would be the word Awful. Originally meaning “inspiring wonder (or fear)”, it was used as a shortening for “full of awe.” In contemporary usage, however, the word usually has a negative meaning. So, anyway, I decided to see where vulnerable began and if it had evolved over time. Vulnerable comes from the Latin “vulnerare” which means to wound, to injure, or to hurt. In order to make contact at the deepest level with someone, we must show our wounds: the raw, open, exposed, painful parts of us, trusting that the person to whom we show them will not hurt us. In society today, vulnerability frequently does have a negative connotation as it is regarded as a sign of weakness. But rather than being an act of weakness, allowing another to see your vulnerabilities requires great courage. It is truly an act of faith.
Stephen Russell (Barefoot Doctor’s Guide to the Tao: A Spiritual Handbook for the Urban Warrior) puts a slightly different spin on it than what we normally think. He wrote, “Vulnerability is the only authentic state. Being vulnerable means being open, for wounding, but also for pleasure. Being open to the wounds of life means also being open to the bounty and beauty. Don’t mask or deny your vulnerability: it is your greatest asset. Be vulnerable: quake and shake in your boots with it. the new goodness that is coming to you, in the form of people, situations, and things can only come to you when you are vulnerable, i.e. open.”
So that then led me to authenticity. Sarah Ban Breathnach wrote, “The authentic self is the soul made visible.” Which I thought was wonderful. But what actually is the authentic self? Vironika Tugaleva is a young woman of Eastern European origin who, after wrestling with the teenage angst of not feeling good enough – to the point of inducing mental illness – wrote, “one spring evening in 2012, I ended up sitting on my bedroom floor with my mind strangely clear, knowing that I had to make a choice: change or die.
I weighed the pros and cons for a long time that night. If I changed, I would have to relinquish control. I would have to stop hiding and set myself free. And what would I set free? Was it a monster? What if I was hideous inside? But if I died, there would be nothing more. Nothing could get better. Still, dying meant no more pain. No more hallucinations. No more hatred. No more shame. No more anxiety.
Somehow, I made the right choice.
I woke up the next morning and realized, for the first time in my life, that I had a problem with my thoughts. I had a problem with the things I believed about myself, about people, about the past, about life. I didn’t need to change myself. I needed to learn to accept myself. I needed to heal.That day began a long journey that still continues to this very day—a journey of authenticity, vulnerability, and healing.”
She went on to write a book called, The love Mindset in which she said, “Self-discovery changes everything, including your relationships with people. When you find your authentic self, those who loved your mask are disappointed. you may end up alone, but you don’t need to stay alone. While it’s painful to sever old connections, it’s not a tragedy. it’s an opportunity. Now, you can find people who understand the importance of looking for truth and being authentic. Now you can find people who want to connect deeply, like you’ve always wanted to, instead of constant small talk and head games. Now you can have real intimacy. Now, you can find your tribe.”
I believe that this is what we have here at the Center of Light: we have found our tribe. We have a safe place to discard our masks and allow our authentic self to show up. We can take a chance and reveal our wounds. We can feel safe admitting our fear about acknowledging our own divinity, and we can nourish our inner light and inspire everyone around us to do the same. As Jesus said (Matthew 5:15), “You are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden. 15Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a basket. Instead, they set it on a lampstand, and it gives light to everyone in the house.”
I’m going to finish this morning returning to that wonderful quote from Marianne Williamson that we need to keep repeating to ourselves over and over:
“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, ‘Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?’ Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”
God Is In The Wound
Centers for Spiritual Living around the world are doing a series this year on the values of Spiritual Living – and this month’s Value is Spiritual Living as Diversity and Inclusivity
Ernest Holmes said:
The great lesson that Life is trying to teach us is that we are all rooted in God, but each is an individualized center in the Divine Being. We have what Emerson called unity at the center and variety at the circumference.
Last Sunday we discussed the spiritual principles of ONENESS and UNITY
We are all one – we are all connected – We are both human and Spirit, a mashup of Divine perfection and human flaws. We discussed the challenge it can be for each of us to live with this paradox—to overcome and understand the human errors of others –
So This week we discuss examining our own errors or imperfections
And I call this – God Comes Through The Wound
Without exception, all things have worked and are working for our highest good. I find so many interactions on a daily basis – with others – and with my self-talk where I feel less than perfect, where I would love to have an instant do-over. Yet when I step back and breathe, I can honor it all, every season of my life.
There are 3 general concepts to share – with inspiration from my friend Rev David Ault from Spiritual Living Center of Atlanta
The first one is
1) Broken vs. Broken Open
Brokenness is not a destination. It is the inevitable enveloping energy that slaps at the face and pounds at the gut to remind us we are vessels of feelings.
But what do we do with these feelings, with this seeming irreparable mess?
Do we barricade ourselves from their raw presence or do we learn to breathe with them and through them, all the while learning that by allowing them the space to flow through us, we go from someone who is broken to someone who is broken open?
Author Vance Havner stated, “God uses broken things. It takes broken soil to produce a crop, broken clouds to give rain, broken grain to give bread, broken bread to give strength. It is the broken alabaster box that gives forth perfume.” (Mary broke the alabaster box to pour perfume on Jesus near the end)
Being broken open revives us. It creates within us a spaciousness that did not exist before. The poet Rumi said, “The wound is the place where Light enters you.” Our brokenness is the place where this leading light can penetrate through us and shine itself upon all the strengths, talents, and possibilities we had forgotten were in us.
I spent the last 3 days in an intensive training on Broad-Based Community Organizing with 125 other mostly Tulsans from interfaith and non-profit institutions and wow! The iron rule of organizing is that we never do for others what they can do for themselves. The passion for organizing and making a change comes from the place of brokenness and the cold/cool anger that fuels the desire for change and improvement – we also cannot heal our own or another’s brokenness without a willingness to experience being broken open!
How many of us have experienced brokenness – and then being broken open? Some of us may be feeling broken right now. What I do know is that you are loved and capable and as brilliant in your brokenness as you are in your healing…
Discussion
Our next concept is:
2) Reconciliation
I am intrigued by the seeming radical teaching style of Panache Desai, bestselling author and guest on Oprah’s Super Soul television series. He would listen to the attendee’s story, discern their universal victim narrative and then ask them to declare out loud, “I am a victim.”
Everyone balked and resisted. Many regurgitated the familiar teaching point that what you put after the words I AM becomes your reality. He countered back by saying, (something like) “No one is denying that. However, what you are telling all of us is how unfair, unmanageable or difficult your life has been up until this point. I’m asking you to own your feelings around all of that so we can move on to the other polarity of the I AM you have been instructed to affirm.”
It was my understanding that he was wanting the audience to understand that what we don’t own, owns us. Far too often we miss teaching this vital beginning step on the pathway of assisting others in changing their teachings.
Brene Brown said:
“We think of vulnerability as a dark emotion. We think of it as the core of fear, shame, grief, disappointment and uncertainty. Things we don’t want to feel…
So what we do is armor up, and say, ‘I do not want to let myself slip into these emotions. I will not let myself be vulnerable.’…
But here’s what I learned from my research….vulnerability is the center of difficult emotion, but it’s also the birth place of every positive emotion that we need in our lives: love, belonging, joy, empathy…
Innovation and creativity are born of vulnerability.”
Pause for discussion –
When we explore the successful steps of every recovery program, there is the 4th and 5th step of creating a moral inventory and speaking it aloud to an impartial witness.
It is much like the confession of sins.
Examples: I am a liar. I am a victim. I am a hypocrite.
Without this uncovering of condemnation within our subjective world, are we simply placing band-aids over ancient, subconscious wounds rather than inviting the wound to the light?
Ernest Holmes in the Science of Mind says”
When we enter this Spirit and bare our souls to Its great light, we lose our troubles and are healed. The confession of sins, or mistakes, helps us to let go of troubles, and to feel that the Universe holds nothing against us. SOM textbook page 501
I just love this whole concept. I am one that can or could quickly skip over the yucky feeling parts of my life and go quickly to the more positive I AM statement – something I’ve learned has a name – Spiritual Bypass. There is richness in the broken openness and one way for me to get there is by first owning the break…
Discuss
The final concept to share this morning is –
3) Kindness/Compassion (towards self and others)
Once upon a time there was a blind girl who hated herself just because she was blind. She hated everyone, except her loving boyfriend. He was always there for her. She said that if she could only see the world, she would marry him.
One day, someone donated a pair of eyes to her and then she could see everything, including her boyfriend.
Her boyfriend asked her, “Now that you can see the world, will you marry me?”
When she opened her eyes to see for the first time the girl was shocked when she saw that her boyfriend was blind, too.
Hating her former blindness, she refused to marry him.
Her boyfriend walked away devastated.
Months later she received a letter, “Just take care of my eyes, dear” he wrote.
We are often behaving like the girl in this story. The Universe acts like the boyfriend, giving to us unconditionally in spite of our frequent rejection of self and Self (Big S Self). As we reprogram ourselves to love the totality of all that we are (our blindness, our shortcomings and failings), all that we are will finally begin to feel the love that is self-existent.
Brené Brown, Author of Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead
“Because true belonging only happens when we present our authentic, imperfect selves to the world, our sense of belonging can never be greater than our level of self-acceptance.”
Do we – do I – do you do that…?
Summary
Rumi’s poem The Guest House says it all. ~
This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.
A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.
Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they are a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.
The dark thought, the shame, the malice.
meet them at the door laughing and invite them in.
Be grateful for whatever comes.
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.
— Jellaludin Rumi,
translation by Coleman Barks
Affirmation
Today I hold myself in unconditional loving arms. Everything on my path has served me.
Diversity and Inclusivity
Centers for Spiritual Living around the world are doing a series this year on the values of Spiritual Living – The values that those of us who chose to live a spiritual life hold dear – and consider both internally in the quiet of our prayers and meditations – as well as out in the world in which we live.
This month’s Value is Spiritual Living as Diversity and Inclusivity
We value, embrace and celebrate the individual uniqueness and contribution of all people as they express through differences of gender, ethnicity, culture, history, experience, talents and sexual orientation. We include representatives from all our organizational constituencies in leadership, sacred service and decision-making.
So two of our spiritual principles are
ONENESS – We are all one – we are all connected – we all come from source or source energy – we are made of God Stuff – the same stuff at the core essence.
UNITY – the state of being united or joined as a whole
Talk about Our beliefs – what attracted us – and wow are we different
How else can we embrace Oneness if not with acceptance, respect, and the understanding that each individual is a unique expression of one creative power? Individual differences include race, sexual orientation, gender, beliefs, politics and much more. And celebrating diversity means allowing and welcoming it with an affirmative attitude.
So why then are we so damn different and think that the other is not Divine??
According to an old Hindu legend, there was a time when all human beings were gods, but they abused their divinity. So, Brahma, the chief god, decided to take the divinity away from them and hide it somewhere they could never find it.
Brahma called a council of the gods to help him decide where to hide the divinity. “Let’s bury it deep in the earth,” said the gods. But Brahma answered, “Humans will dig into the earth and find it.” Some gods suggested, “Let’s sink it in the deepest ocean.” But Brahma said, “No, Human will learn to dive into the ocean and will find it.” Then some gods suggested, “Let’s take it to the top of the highest mountain and hide it there.” Brahma replied, “Humans will eventually climb every mountain and take up their divinity.” Then all the gods gave up and said, “We do not know where to hide it, because it seems that there is no place on earth or ocean that human beings will not eventually reach.”
Brahma thought for a long time said, “We will hide their divinity deep into the center of their own being, Humans will search for it here and there but they won’t look for the divinity inside their true selves”
All the gods agreed that this was the perfect hiding place, and the deed was done. And since then, humans have been going up and down the earth, digging, diving, climbing, and exploring, searching for something, which already lies within themselves.
“Divinity lies within us all”
And….All means All! Yes it includes people viewed as good and bad. People that we support or rail against with all our human strength.
We all have the powers of discernment and choice and so this can lead us in as many different directions as there are people!
Ernest Holmes Quote from the Science of Mind
Since everything is an individualization of the Universal, every spark is alike in that it is divine. It is made of the same Cosmic stuff, but no two sparks are identical. The process in Nature is the multiplication of an infinite variation of unified identities, no one of which is identical with the other, even though each and all are in the same field.
And so To Be Human Is to Embody Paradox
We are both human and Spirit, a mashup of Divine perfection and human flaws. The personal challenge for each of us is to live with this paradox—to overcome our human errors and the human errors of others, while seeking the fuller expression of Divine perfection.
So why then is it so hard to see this in each other? Why does the Right implement policies that are hurtful to so many? And embraced by so many as a salve for their fears of “other”? Why does the Left shut down free speech on campus when someone is speaking what they vehemently oppose? And so hatefully mock what we don’t like – but OMG Saturday Night Live nailed it last night!!
Yesterday I facilitated an online class on the Abraham book Ask and it is given.
• It turned out that just one person from Chicago was on the call and during our check-ins she shared how upset she is with the state of affairs in our Country.
• She attended the Women’s March in Washington DC and has long marched for women’s rights.
• Just last night she met with other activists and was profoundly frustrated about what could be done.
• I listened and shared with her my growing role as a broad-based organizer with the newly formed interfaith group in Tulsa call ACTION.
• I shared with enthusiasm and joy about the process of organizing and revealing and understand of relational power and how to use it to bring about positive change in our communities.
• And then we came back to the law of attraction – She called me into this perfect divine conversation. She reflexed back the divine spark in me and soaked up some real practical and divine guidance on how to channel her energies of fear and doubt into action and good!
We are constantly calling life into our experience – including the nastiness of today’s political climate. I pose that there are two ways through this time. One is to go entirely within. Check out. Om it up.
The other is to be in relationship. Real relationship. Social media doesn’t change minds but it does start fires. Real relationships bring change and understanding.
Turn to someone near you. What one thing/experience/person most influenced your values today. – Go
“But the mind is filled with the accumulated doubts of the ages, as though a vast abyss of doubt, fear and uncertainty were standing between you and your desires.”
This Thing Called You, page 9
LESSON POINTS moving into next week
• Spirituality is more of a journey toward acceptance than an attempt at perfection. Self-love and acceptance is the key to growth. Without it, you cannot move forward in life.
• Emerson observed, “There is a crack in everything God has made.” Perhaps it is through that crack where God enters. Perhaps our open wounds are an open invitation to healing.
There’s No Place Like Home – The Present Moment
While I was researching the piece last week by Jeff Foster, I came across this article about being in the now and loving ourselves for who we are.
Follow, Follow, Follow, Follow, Follow The Yellow Brick Road…
“The Kingdom of Heaven is spread out upon the earth, yet men and women do not see it.”
– Jesus, Gospel of ThomasSo much of spirituality these days seems to be an attempt to turn ourselves into superhumans. It is a war against imperfection, an attempted genocide against what is unfamiliar and therefore frightening in ourselves and each other. Maybe it has always been this way.
But what was wrong with being human in the first place? Is being fully human a cop-out, somehow less than we deserve, some kind of denial of our cosmic inheritance? Have we been led to believe that there is another world, a better world, a more perfect world, a Kingdom beyond this one? If we “accept” this moment as it is, are we missing out on something greater? Is acceptance only a first, naive step on a long journey towards the stars? Have we been hoodwinked into separating mortality from immortality, the ordinary from the extraordinary, duality from nonduality, the ground from the groundless? Do we deny or reject or look down upon this present incarnation, this body, this present moment, in hope of some future heavenly and transcendent realm? Do we long for something “better”? Why exactly do we separate our humanity from divinity in the first place? Why this primal separation of ‘Oneness’ from everything else? Can you see the irony here? What are we afraid of, exactly?
“ The Wizard of Oz could not deliver what he promised. No, that was the dream borne of fear. ” Jeff FosterBeing human was never the problem, was it? The problem began with a denial and rejection of our humanity, and a loss of humility – through a pushing-away of so called ‘human’ thoughts, sensations and feelings, the move away from human experience, and a search for some other experience, some superhuman experience, some better experience, some more ‘awakened’ realm of consciousness. Thus began the war between wholeness and separation, between light and dark, between God and the devil. The flight from Here. The escape from Home. The journey down the yellow brick road, towards the Emerald City, with the forgotten fragments of the one Self.
We forgot our humanity, and lost our humility – and our humour.
But it was a war that never really happened, because the separation never really happened. In waking up, we discover a deep and unconditional embrace of this moment exactly as it is. We find a reality that is whole, undivided, and indivisible. There can be no war here, because there can be no cleft in reality. There can be no Emerald City separate from Kansas.
A total welcoming of ourselves in all our broken humanity is what we discover. The lion, the tinman, the scarecrow, all three are beloved to us, even in their imperfection. We are, each of us, Jesus on the cross, and in our brokenness, in our imperfection, in the midst of our shattered bones and broken dreams the light of God shines through, the light of awareness itself, illuminating the ‘ordinary’, rendering it extraordinary beyond words, and we wonder if it wasn’t always that way. Perhaps it was. Perhaps we just missed the obvious. Perhaps there’s no place like Home.
The touch of a loved one’s hand. The winter breeze gently caressing your cheek. That strange music we call birdsong. The intensity of joy. The familiar kiss of uncertainty. The liquid love of fear. Life in all its bitter-sweet beauty and fragility. All of this was never merely ‘human’, some ‘illusory’ block to our cosmic inheritance. The Wizard of Oz could not deliver what he promised. No, that was the dream borne of fear. This life was always our deepest longing made manifest, disguising itself as an ordinary moment, so that we spent forever and a day looking for it, travelling far from Home only to wake up to Home again, exhausted but so, so relieved.
“ The Emerald City, however colourful and exciting, doesn’t even come close to the intimacy and majesty of a single instant of being alive. ” Jeff FosterFrom one perspective a dirty joke was played on an innocent victim. From another perspective, this was grace beyond understanding. A journey of grace, by grace, to grace.
There are no ordinary moments. Young children know this. We have always known this, deep down, for we were young children once, and secretly we still are. We just pretended to be ‘grown ups’, that’s all. Life is still the cosmic adventure it always was.
It is not the ‘me’ that awakens. Awakening cannot enter the story, for it is beyond time and space and cannot be some kind of conclusion for a ‘person’. The awakening is from the mirage of ‘me’, with its projects, its plans, its conclusions, its incessant seeking for more, and its never-ending holding up of an image, including the image of myself as some kind of Wizard of Oz, some superhuman, some Christ figure, some hyper-awakened being sent down from heaven to awaken the mortals and the ignorant and the unlucky.
For some, this realization is sudden. For many, it is gradual, over a lifetime. For all, it is timeless, and for all, the destination is the same – Kansas, Home – and the destination is the origin, and it all points to this moment exactly as it is, right now. Stunningly ordinary, yet as vast as the universe, as rich and as full as the Ganges at sunrise, as precious as that look in your child’s eyes, so easily forgotten, so soon remembered.
“ You are not a project to be solved and you were never unhealed. ” Matt LicataThere’s no place like Home – the present moment. The Emerald City, however colourful and exciting, doesn’t even come close to the intimacy and majesty of a single instant of being alive. Only empty magpie-promises live in that shining city of light and darkness, and the following, following, following, following, following of false prophets living and dying for profit.
There’s no place like Home. Click your heels together three times and say it. Nothing to lose.
© 2015 Life without a Centre
I want to finish this morning with a quote from Matt Licata, who wrote:
“When your inner world is on fire and you are burning for resolution, it is tempting to conclude that something has gone wrong, that you have failed, that you are flawed, and that you are unworthy of love. The questions are surging, the longing is unbearable, and you are still aching to find some relief. You are exhausted, but this is no ordinary exhaustion. It is sacred. It is the end of one world and the beginning of another.
Stay close. In these moments, which may always arise in the heart of an open, sensitive human being, slow way down. Touch the earth, look up into the sky, listen to the song of the unseen. Dare to consider that things are not always as they appear. Today may not be the day for answers, but to finally let your heart break open to the vastness of the question. You are not a project to be solved and you were never unhealed. With eyes wide open, see that you could never lose the way. The unfolding of the heart is the work of a lifetime and there is no urgency on the path of love.”
Grief, Loss, Awakening from Dreams
In 1859, at the beginning of the novel, A Tale of Two Cities,Charles Dickens wrote:
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way – in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.
This seems to sum up these last few months which have been a very strange, emotional roller coaster for everyone, covering the full spectrum of emotions from great joy to the deepest sadness. When I have spoken to a lot of people, they have expressed tremendous fear, grief, or an intense sense of loss, so when I read this article by Jeff Foster, it seemed to sum up, to resonate with what we need to be aware of at this time.
On Grief, Loss, Death and Awakening from Dreams – by Jeff Foster
To paraphrase the spiritual teacher Adyashanti: “Grief is the loss of your dream of a future that wasn’t going to happen anyway.”
These are very profound words about something so deeply human universal, something we have all experienced, and may well experience again, if we are not yet numb to life.
When a loved one leaves you, or an unexpected diagnosis comes, or a relationship ends, or we experience some kind of deep shock or loss, we can be ‘rudely awakened’ from our slumber, shaken by that dear old familiar friend, grief. “This was not in the plan!”, we think to ourselves. It feels like life has gone ‘wrong’ somehow, that the universe has been knocked off course, that “my life” is perhaps over and recovery is impossible.
Sound familiar?But what has really happened, friends, but the loss of a dream? What has really died, but our seemingly-solid plans for the future? We dreamt of walking off into the sunset with each other, we dreamt of all the things we were going to do together, all the fun we were going to have, all the things we would accomplish. We were living for so long with those dreams, those plans, those expectations, that we forgot they were only our dreams we were holding onto, and we took them to be the reality of “my life”. Now that the dream has crumbled, what is left?
“ The mind can only guess at a future. Be willing to not know, to stumble sometimes, to bow before the unknown.” Jeff FosterBut these movie-futures were “never going to happen anyway”. It’s not that our plans were going to come true, and then they were ruined by our incompetence or bad luck, it’s that they were never going to happen anyway. (Why? Because they didn’t. That’s reality, however much we would like to argue with it.) That is a huge difference. That is the difference between despair and deep suffering, and total liberation. It’s the difference between the irreversible loss of something that was “mine”, and the realisation that what was “mine” was never mine at all.
Going deeper, we see that in the experience of loss, our own identity that is being threatened. When ‘father’ dies, what happens to my identity as ‘son’? When ‘girlfriend’ leaves me, and I have been identified as ‘boyfriend’ for so long, who the hell am I? When the diagnosis seems to stop me from being ‘athlete’ or ‘doctor’ or ‘singer’ or even ‘seeker’, and that’s all I’ve ever known myself as, it’s like a death. The death of the image of myself. We are literally grieving over our own lost identities, lost images. It feels like we are grieving over something or someone ‘out there’, but really, the death is much closer and more intimate.
And life’s invitation is this: Stay with that internal death. Stay with the mess, as I often say. Do not make a single movement away from present experience. There may be gold hidden there, and you will never know if you try to move away. Stay close to the grief, to the universal pain of loss, so that it doesn’t solidify into bitterness and depression, into a belief about how terrible the world is, how cruel life is, into a heavy story about “my horrible loss” that you carry around with you for the rest of your days. It doesn’t have to be that way.
“ It is God’s kindness to terrify you in order to lead you to safety. ” RumiLife itself is not cruel, for life is All. It is the loss of our dreams that feels ‘cruel’ at first. But contained within that loss is a secret invitation – to wake up from all dreams. To see the inherent perfection in all things, in all movements of life, not as a concept or fluffy belief, but as a living reality. To see that life itself never really goes wrong, for there is no goal to miss, and that even the intense grief that we feel is a movement of love, even if it doesn’t feel that way right now. It is because we love life and each so much that we feel everything so intensely. And we are vast enough to contain it all – the bliss and the pain, the joy and the grief, the plans and the destruction of those plans. Who we are is not broken, who we are is never lost, only our dreams, only our innocent hopes.
And so every loss is a little invitation to wake up, to let go of those dreams that were never going to work out anyway, and to see life as it actually is. It feels like suffering and depression at first, but it is really a kind of cosmic compassion the likes of which the mind has no hope of understanding.
Right at the heart of every experience of loss is the joy of letting go. It’s a case of knowing where to look.
I’m going to finish this morning with another quote from Jeff:
The mind can only guess at a future. Be willing to not know, to stumble sometimes, to bow before the unknown. Stop thinking your way through life, always trying to work it out before living it. Life is to be lived, not analysed to death. Feel it – feel all the energies that want to be felt, energies that have been waiting so long for your warm attention and embrace. Let all of life move through you, the joy as much as the sorrow, the boredom as much as the bliss. Let the questions stay awhile, do not try to annihilate them with premature answers. The questions are your intimate friends, the answers are strangers now. In the warmth of the sun’s love, flowers bloom in the perfect moment, and not a moment before. Let the warmth of awareness illuminate those parts of yourself struggling for life. See the perfect choreography. Now.
The Spiritual Renaissance
Marianne Williamson wrote:
There is a spiritual renaissance sweeping the world. Most people feel it, some deride it, many embrace it and no one can stop it. It is a revolution in the way we think. Its torchbearers are a motley mix. Some are religious in a traditional sense, while some are not. Some are successful in the world, while some are not. Some of us genuinely like one another, while some of us do not. Some are politically liberal, while some of us are conservative. Some seek Truth in fellowship and some seek Truth alone. Some of us are old and some of us are young.
We are an assorted group, an unlabeled group, but together in spirit, we are affecting the world in significant ways. We are turning away from a purely worldly orientation. We seek an ancient God and a modern God. We feel a current of change, a cosmic electricity running through our veins now. However disparate our personalities and interests, we all agree on one very important point: Mankind has come to a major crossroads, at which the spirit alone can lead us toward human survival.
We wage, in our way, a revolution based on love. We seek to replace an old, oppressive order, not so much politically or socially, but within our minds where it lives and works. We try to hate no one, for we recognize that hatred itself is the enemy. We hope to change the world into a place of grace and love. The first shots have rung out in this revolution, but they were not shots. They were bursts of light, streaming silently yet dramatically through the hearts and minds of millions. This historic unfoldment has already begun, and it is playing out on inner planes. The question on most people’s minds, whether conscious or unconscious, is this: What will happen now?
From channeled entities claiming to hail from the Pleiades to fundamentalist Christians, from the prophecies of Nostradamus to visions of the Virgin Mary, from angels who whisper to a backwoods carpenter to scientific think tanks, come predictions of global shift, perhaps cataclysm, in the years ahead. Our own inner sense corroborates the evidence: It doesn’t seem as though the future is going to be much like the past. It feels as though something is up, as though something significant and big is about to occur. It feels, for one thing, as though something is fundamentally wrong. It isn’t just the environment, just the wars, just the gangs or the violence or the drugs. It isn’t just the lack of values or integrity or love. Something lurks. In Yeats’s poem “The Second Coming,” he describes a time in which the center cannot hold. Our center isn’t holding. The center isn’t there.
And yet, the deeper the despair that seems to creep around the edges of things, the brighter the light that seems to beckon from the center. It turns out that the center only seemed not to be there; it has merely been ignored. To those who look inward, it is bright indeed. Now, in growing intensity and yearning, the mind of humanity is seeking its Source. The antidote to what is fundamentally wrong is the cultivation of what is fundamentally right. Should we choose to expand who we are on a fundamental level, new structures will replace the casualties of premillennial disintegration, and the next twenty years will usher in an age of light more dazzling than the world has known. The next twenty years will be the deciding factor. We need all our attention and all our focus to turn the species in the direction of survival. Ultimately, the choice to love each other is the only choice for a survivable future. The meek shall inherit the earth because everyone else will have died on their swords.
Every time we open our hearts, we create the space for a global alternative. The opening of the heart is an awesome personal politic, providing us with an internal strength greater than any worldly power. As we receive God’s love and impart it to others, we are given the power to repair the world. As we give up our collective enslavement to the dictates of Western materialism, we relinquish the increasingly primitive belief that the world outside remains unaffected by our thoughts. We have begun to recognize that our individual minds create our collective realities, and we are ready to take responsibility for the world by taking more seriously our individual contributions to it.
Personal transformation can and does have global effects. As we go, so goes the world, for the world is us. The revolution that will save the world is ultimately a personal one. Some people think that things are no worse now than they have ever been, that all this talk of some millennial shift is nonsense, even dangerous. Perhaps this book is not for them. I am not trying to convince anyone of the reality of a global crisis; I am concerned, as are millions of others, with increasing consensus and hope among those who already believe that there is one. This is the drama of our times: the climax of our historical epoch as we reach the conclusion of the twentieth century. Our planet, our species, our generation is shifting. And they are all the same shift. This is not a personal story, though everyone’s personal life is affected andeveryone’s life affects the story. Like strands of DNA, all of us are coded with the history and possibilities of the species. Ours is a collective, generational drama, for our dramas at their core are all the same story. We all came from the angels and we have all fallen far. Now we are poised on the edge of a cliff. As a group, we will fall, or as a group we will fly.
(Williamson, Marianne. Illuminata: Thoughts, Prayers, Rites of Passage (pp. 1-6). Random House Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.)
That was written in 1994 – 23 years ago. So now let’s look at a piece she wrote last year.
Blog Post: July 11, 2016
In A Course in Miracles it says there is a limit beyond which we cannot miscreate. What this means is that when we are using our minds in a loveless, i.e. miscreative way, it will only be so long before the whole thing falls apart.
Modern civilization is in many ways predicated on miscreative thought, the realities of love and brotherhood and justice and mercy far too often pushed to the side by our blind obeisance to principles of greed and domination. In that sense, nature has needed to rebalance itself. It was an illusion to think things could continue as they were.
What we are experiencing now are signs of a reckoning, which of itself is neither good nor bad. If we place this period in a sacred context, enough of us rising to the occasion of co-creating miraculous possibilities wherever we are, then this will one day be looked back on as the time when humanity began to wake up. If, on the other hand, we allow ourselves to use contemporary dramas to simply bolster the ego, tempting enough of us to keep crouching within the self-created cages of our narrowness and fear, then this will one day be looked back upon as a time when humanity lost its mind.If you’re wondering where the leaders are, then that’s a sign you are to rise up and be one. If you’re wondering what the Answer is, that’s a sign you are to answer Love’s call. If you’re wondering where the love is, that’s a sign you’re being called upon to look inside your heart.
The world is falling apart in many ways, because humanity has not cleaved to love. And in our modern arrogance, we thought we could get away with that. Alas we cannot, and the time has come when the moral order of the universe will re-assert self — with or without our cooperation. Denial and distraction can numb you to the revolution, but they can no longer protect you from the revolution. On the level of consciousness, it has already begun. There are only two choices for any individual: to join the revolution of love, or endure the revolution of fear.
Wherever you are and whatever you’re doing, you’re imbued with a mission: to be the presence of the Alternative, the uplifter of energy, the worker of miracles, a conduit of love. No one but you can determine whether you will accept this mission. But the time has come. Nothing is more important now than that we commit more deeply, and support each other, in doing our best to go all the way… to join our forces in co-creating with God the massive wave of cosmic love that will dissolve our fear and purify our hearts, that tears shall be no more.
The light within is the light of a new horizon, if it’s the light we choose to follow now. The outer eye reveals all kinds of trouble, but the eye within reveals trouble’s end. As God said to Joshua, “Do not be terrified, do not lose hope, for I go with you wherever you go.”So as you go on your way this week, this strange week in American history, and always everywhere you go, remember God’s words to Joshua:
“Do not be terrified, do not lose hope, for I go with you wherever you go.”
Human Givens
Good morning, everyone and welcome to our first service of 2017. I don’t know about all of you but I have been having severe withdrawals from not seeing my Church Family for close to a month!! Can you believe it? There is a college in the UK called the Human Givens Institute. The 2 founders Dr. Joe Griffin and Dr. Ivan Tyrell, have developed a model for depression that they suggest progresses because our emotional needs – that they call the Human Givens – are not met. The Human Givens include:
Emotional needs:
- Security — safe territory and an environment which allows us to develop fully
- Attention (to give and receive it) — a form of nutrition
- Sense of autonomy and control — having volition to make responsible choices
- Emotional intimacy — to know that at least one other person accepts us totally for who we are, “warts ‘n’ all”
- Feeling part of a wider community
- Privacy — opportunity to reflect and consolidate experience
- Sense of status within social groupings
- Sense of competence and achievement
- Meaning and purpose — which come from being stretched in what we do and think.
So you see there is a scientific explanation as to why we start feeling depressed when we don’t get together. Fortunately, we do have each other, the holiday season is over, and we can get back to normal.
So how many of you made New Year’s resolutions? Those of you who went to Karen’s New Year party were able to participate in our Bowl Burning Ceremony which gives us an opportunity to leave behind all of those things which no longer serve us, and then to invite into our lives what we do want to manifest this year, by giving thanks for what we know will be given. We were then truly blessed to have Danny perform a Native American Peace Pipe Ceremony for us which made the evening very special indeed.
As we begin this New Year I thought it might be good starting point to revisit the notion of abundance and the faith necessary to manifest it. And yes, faith is the key to bring what you have asked for, as Abraham would tell you, out of the Vortex and into your reality. If you doubt that this has anything to do with spirituality, I would suggest that you read the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew Chapters 5, 6, and 7), especially Matthew Chapter 6., and Chapter 7 verse 7, “Ask and it is Given,” which is where the title of the Abraham book that first made me aware of Esther and Jerry Hicks, came from.
First of all, however, we need to recognize that abundance is not necessarily money: blessings come in all sorts of shapes and sizes and yet we frequently fail to recognize them because we become so attached to a specific outcome. How many of you know the story of the man and the flood?
A very religious man was once caught in rising floodwaters. He climbed onto the roof of his house and trusted God to rescue him. A neighbour came by in a canoe and said, “The waters will soon be above your house. Hop in and we’ll paddle to safety.”
“No thanks” replied the religious man. “I’ve prayed to God and I’m sure he will save me”
A short time later the police came by in a boat. “The waters will soon be above your house. Hop in and we’ll take you to safety.”
“No thanks” replied the religious man. “I’ve prayed to God and I’m sure he will save me”
A little time later a rescue services helicopter hovered overhead, let down a rope ladder and said. “The waters will soon be above your house. Climb the ladder and we’ll fly you to safety.”
“No thanks” replied the religious man. “I’ve prayed to God and I’m sure he will save me”
All this time the floodwaters continued to rise, until soon they reached above the roof and the religious man drowned. When he arrived at heaven he demanded an audience with God. Ushered into God’s throne room he said, “Lord, why am I here in heaven? I prayed for you to save me, I trusted you to save me from that flood.”
“Yes you did my child” God replied, “And I sent you a canoe, a boat and a helicopter. But you never got in.”
Too often we are so attached to specific outcomes that canoes, boats and helicopters come and go in our lives without us even noticing them.
But that silly story demonstrates two things about the Law of Abundance: you ask but you have to be ready to see the canoe or the boat or the helicopter even if it doesn’t look like the Rolls Royce you asked for. And Faith is the fuel that allows you to take that chance and step in. When I was a little girl I saw a skit where a young girl was torn between eating or leaving a piece of pie temptingly left on a table. While she was contemplating her options, she looked up and saw a plaque on the wall which read, “God helps those who help themselves” – and so she ate the pie. For the longest time, that really troubled me as I only saw the one meaning of “help themselves” and, being a good Catholic child, stealing was stealing was stealing so why would God be complicit?
By the way, all these years I thought that the phrase, “God helps those who help themselves” was biblical but it is not. The phrase originated in ancient Greece. It is illustrated by two of Aesop’s Fables and a similar sentiment is found in ancient Greek drama. Although it has been commonly attributed to Benjamin Franklin, the modern English wording appears earlier in the work of Algernon Sidney, a 17th century British politician who was eventually hung for treason.
Anyway, as I told you on Hogmanay at the Bowl Burning, fear is what stops you from taking the step into to the canoe, boat or helicopter. Most of our suffering comes from fear of lack: fear of not having enough; fear of not getting our needs met; fear of not doing enough; and, of course, fear of not being enough.
Now, fear is another of those interesting constructs that make our lives miserable but we can’t live without them: the other being the one and only awful, relentless ego. But both are necessary components of our physical journey and it is an excess of both that causes all the problems. Fear was designed to keep us safe in our hostile, primitive environment, and it still acts as our protector alerting us to situations that may endanger us. The problem arises when fear gets out of controls and inhibits us from moving in any direction. Shall we say, the Devil you know is better than the Devil you don’t know – and this was a principle well understood and used by the fundamental churches.
What is ironic is that all the stuff of the Law of Abundance was all there in all four gospels, but because of the religious interpretation and the fearful sub-messages of greed and guilt and LACK, we were raised to be fearful not only of not having enough but of not being able to ask for what we wanted. It has taken leaving the church and becoming aware of a group of channeled entities for me to understand the scriptures and appreciate what they were actually telling us, to find the underlying assurance of unconditional love.
My grandmother was 4’ 11”, totally deaf, she lost the love of her life in WWI, she married my grandad and then lost 2 of her 3 children, a daughter that was 2, and a son that 26, she worked hard all her life, had Parkinson’s Disease and yet every time you saw her, she had a cheery disposition and, if you complained about something, she would remind you to count your blessings, name them one by one.
So as we move forward on our spiritual journeys this New Year, I invite you to be aware of the grace in your life, to count your blessings, name them one by one, and to keep your eyes and ears open for the canoes, boats, and helicopters that are constantly coming your way. If all else fails, start with appreciating that we have each other, and a forum where we can discuss and share, without fear of being judged or criticized. We have a place where all opinions are valid, and valued, and each piece contributes to the whole. And I am going to finish this morning with a quote by that wonderful spiritual teacher, Oprah Winfrey, who said:
Be thankful for what you have; you’ll end up having more. If you concentrate on what you don’t have, you will never, ever have enough.
The Metaphysical Meaning of Christmas
Since we are not going to be together next Sunday – which is Christmas Day – I thought we could look at the metaphysical meaning of Christmas and the symbolism embedded within the story. Those who have been part of Center of Light for a long time have heard me offer a metaphysical interpretation before but I would like all of you to think about all the elements of the Christmas story and perhaps expand and enhance my interpretation.
For most people, the birth of the Christ child is an annual event that evokes altruistic feelings even in people that show no compassion for the rest of the year. This is a time that is synonymous with love and peace and good will to all men and even the most callous of people are caught up in the special feelings of the season. It is such a powerful narrative that it has persisted for 2,000 years.
Perhaps the reason that this story is so evocative for all of us is that somewhere, deep in the depths of our subconscious, it resonates with us that although, on the surface, the story of Christmas is a poignant account of the birth of a child, there is definitely more to it. The birth only appears in two of the synoptic gospels, Matthew and Luke, and differs in content, background, and cast of characters in both (see Appendix A), and yet it is taken as an immutable truth by the fundamental Christian churches. But if we look beneath the “facts,” we can find a rich symbolism that explains why the story has such appeal for all.
There are many metaphysical interpretations of this story but we can create our own as a contemplative device. The first thing to note is that “Christ” is not the last name of Jesus: it is a title meaning “anointed” (Jesus THE Christ) – but it is actually referring to a level of consciousness. The virgin birth could be a metaphor to explain that Jesus came into this world as a pure spirit, higher in consciousness than others at that time of spiritual darkness.
Perhaps the baby represents ourselves in all our innocence and vulnerability, stripped of any of the trappings of our everyday lives. The image of a baby being born in the lowliest of surrounding, a stable, reminds us that on a spiritual level, there is no rich or poor, weak or strong: we are all equal. During the annual “rebirth” what is being born is our awareness of the Christ consciousness within. It is an opportunity to recall to your attention the words Jesus himself told us, “Ye are Gods” (Psalm 82:6 and John 10:34) but our understanding of this is very tenuous and difficult for us to believe, so the idea must be nurtured and suckled to bring it to maturity. Mary, the mother of Jesus, represents the feminine, the emotional, feeling side of our nature, while Joseph, the Carpenter, is the masculine, pragmatic, thinking side; the two together providing the balance, the yin and yang.
If we perceive the inn as ourselves, our mind, it brings awareness that the phrase “there is no room at the inn” may indicate that many times we fill our minds, our thoughts, with mundane things leaving no room for spiritual understanding. We are fearful of allowing in even the smallest seed that we are indeed that spark of the divine being reborn, as we have been socialized to acknowledge our separation and deny our godliness. But even in denial of our true selves, we have the stable with the manger – representing our heart – to hold and keep safe our vulnerability, although we must step outside of our mind (the inn) and abandon our cluttered thoughts to get to a calm, safe, open place that acknowledges our connection to Mother Earth (the stable).
The notion of this connection is further represented by the shepherds and the animals (Luke) while the Magi (Matthew) represent the wisdom from the East – the source of light – that we can draw to us if we are open and receptive. Another important character in the story, King Herod (Appendix B), can be seen to represent an additional essential part of ourselves: our ego. Our ego is always threatened by something new happening in our lives. It tries to stop, to kill off anything which threatens to change the place of safety we have chosen – whether it is good for us or not. Remember, Marianne Williams said: Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us.” The light in the Christmas story, the star, is a symbol of guidance, of hope, and of the potential of wishes and dreams. Remember, when you wish upon a star, your dreams come true.
The three gifts that the Magi brought were gold, frankincense and myrrh, perhaps metaphors for the physical, emotional, and spiritual. Gold could be seen to represents our material possessions which, when we lose attachment to them, become a force for good and a powerful magnet for everything we truly need in life. We need to be reminded that we are co-creators of our reality. Nothing is denied us unless we choose to allow fear to feed our doubts. Shakespeare said, “Our doubts are traitors And make us lose the good we oft might win By fearing to attempt. (Measure for Measure, Act 1, Scene 4).
Frankincense, or Olibanum as it would have been known in the time of the Magi, is an essential oil produced from the resin of the Boswellia tree. As the resin bleeds from the tree, the hardened clumps are known as tears. These tears are collected and processed to produce a substance used for healing, and in religious ceremonies. Frankincense, therefore, represents the healing power we have within us which is often thwarted by our emotional attachments. Often, tears precede healing as we wrestle with the unconscious, underlying motivations that manifest as illness in our bodies.
Traditionally, Myrrh, an embalming ointment, is metaphysically interpreted to be connected with Jesus’ directive: “Follow me: and let the dead bury the dead” (Matthew 8:22) and Paul’s statement “I die daily” (1 Corinthians 15:31) as a way to acknowledge that although we hold on tightly to things in our spiritual and material lives that are no longer needed, we are given the opportunity to begin our lives anew each and every day, but most especially at Christmas.
Christmas is a time of peace, love, and joy and has become synonymous with light, perhaps a remnant from the fear of the dying of the sun at the time of the Winter Solstice. People cover their churches, businesses, and homes with candles and lights. Light is also associated with knowledge and understanding. In John 9:5 Jesus said: ‘I am the light of the world.’ But in Matthew 5:14-16, he also said:
You are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before men.
So today, I want you to put your light on a stand so that it may be seen by everyone in your life. Christmas is indeed a day of celebration. It is an opportunity to review where we are spiritually, to feel the rebirth of our own spiritual source within, and to resolve to keep our light on a stand to light, not just our whole house, but to be a candle in the window, a beacon of hope for others.
And so, let’s finish today with a prayer.
Closing Prayer:
Divine Creator, Thank you for bringing us together as a spiritual family today and every day. Thank you for giving us a place to be able to express our thoughts, our feelings, and our vulnerabilities without fear of criticism or rejection. Thank you for this safe environment to nurture the rebirth and growth of our spiritual selves.
As we leave this place, let us be guided by the star from the East, choosing to see the light in everyone we encounter and sharing our light with those whose light has dimmed, especially at this time. Help us to know always that we are loved and to keep the fear that creeps in at bay by having faith that we are never alone. Let us be aware of the responsibility we have to encourage the light to grow within ourselves and others, not just at Christmas, but every day of the year.
Amen. And so it is.
My Christmas wish for all of you today is that you are blessed with knowing that you are a gift to all those around you.
May you find joy in everyone, and in everything you do.
May you be wrapped in love always.
May gratitude be your mantra.
And, most of all, today and every day, I wish you Peace.
Merry Christmas everyone.
APPENDIX A
Matthew 1:18-2:12New International Version (NIV)
18 This is how the birth of Jesus the Messiah came about[a]: His mother Mary was pledged to be married to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found to be pregnant through the Holy Spirit. 19 Because Joseph her husband was faithful to the law, and yet[b] did not want to expose her to public disgrace, he had in mind to divorce her quietly.
20 But after he had considered this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, “Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. 21 She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus,[c] because he will save his people from their sins.”
22 All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet: 23 “The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel”[d] (which means “God with us”).
24 When Joseph woke up, he did what the angel of the Lord had commanded him and took Mary home as his wife. 25 But he did not consummate their marriage until she gave birth to a son. And he gave him the name Jesus.
Luke 2:1-7
2:1 In those days Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world. 2 (This was the first census that took place while Quirinius was governor of Syria.) 3 And everyone went to his own town to register.
4 So Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to Bethlehem the town of David, because he belonged to the house and line of David. 5 He went there to register with Mary, who was pledged to be married to him and was expecting a child. 6 While they were there, the time came for the baby to be born, 7 and she gave birth to her firstborn, a son. She wrapped him in swaddling cloths and placed him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn.
Luke 2 8 – 20
[8] . . . there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night. [9] An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. [10] But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. [11] Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is Christ the Lord. [12] This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.”
[13] Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God and saying,
[14] “Glory to God in the highest,
and on earth peace and good will to all men.”
APPENDIX B
Matthew 2 1-12
1Now after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, behold, wise mena from the east came to Jerusalem, 2saying, “Where is he who has been born king of the Jews? For we saw his star when it roseb and have come to worship him.” 3When Herod the king heard this, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him; 4and assembling all the chief priests and scribes of the people, he inquired of them where the Christ was to be born. 5They told him, “In Bethlehem of Judea, for so it is written by the prophet:
6 “‘And you, O Bethlehem, in the land of Judah,
are by no means least among the rulers of Judah;
for from you shall come a ruler
who will shepherd my people Israel.’”
7Then Herod summoned the wise men secretly and ascertained from them what time the star had appeared. 8And he sent them to Bethlehem, saying, “Go and search diligently for the child, and when you have found him, bring me word, that I too may come and worship him.” 9After listening to the king, they went on their way. And behold, the star that they had seen when it rose went before them until it came to rest over the place where the child was. 10When they saw the star, they rejoiced exceedingly with great joy. 11And going into the house they saw the child with Mary his mother, and they fell down and worshiped him. Then, opening their treasures, they offered him gifts, gold and frankincense and myrrh. 12And being warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they departed to their own country by another way.