The Candle of Vision

I used this quote in a Life Plan last week; it has come up several times this week, and then it came up again 3 times yesterday alone, so it must be wanting to be shared:


"When one calmly reflects upon something beautiful, some vision of the future, noble ideas and images, a plenitude of thoughts arise and one's imagination takes wings. It soars upwards like Shelley's skylark and then descends to that point in space and time where, in the words of Shakespeare, it can ’give local habitation and a name’ to resonant images. This is a mirroring of the divine activity of the mighty Masters of creative imagination who ceaselessly work with precision, purity, and perfect control for the sake of universal good."

-- Raghavan Iyer

This quote is dedicated to all who are ceaselessly working on themselves for the sake of universal good.

Touching our shared pain

"Touching with mercy and loving kindness the pain we all share, we receive the healing we took birth for."

-- Stephen Levine

In honor of my dear friend, J.P., and his sister, M., both of whom are part of this community, in support of her long process of healing and recovery. I am reminded once again of just how fragile, and yet resilient, we human beings are. Thank God we're all in this thing together. It is comforting to know that we have each other for support when the emotions just get too big and intense. Please share your thoughts and prayers for M. with me so that I can pass them along to J. and his entire family. You don't really have to know who she is or the circumstances of her pain - only that she is one of us, and that she suffers right now and would benefit greatly from our collective caring, compassion, and prayers.

At the end of searching

"I searched through rebellion, drugs, diets, mysticism, religions, intellectualism, and much more, only to begin to find ... that truth is basically very simple - and feels good, clean, and right."

-- Chick Corea

There are many of us in this e-community who have been on a personal development path, doing our own inner work for a looooooooooooong time, and we've searched in every nook and cranny for the truth - reading (and writing) the books, taking (and teaching) the courses, receiving (and giving) coaching. And yet painful longing taunts us with its seductive complexity, while the truth gently teases us with its elegant simplicity. Be true to yourself and your soul's duty, practice creating and experiencing "unbearable happiness" in each present moment, choose to love deeply and richly, and give up anything that does not feel this good, clean, and right.

Self-revelation

"Far more incredible than this tale of the Israelite warrior are the circumstances under which you and I engage in a similar battle to-day. It is easier to believe, I think, that the blast of rams' horns and the shouting of a mob could cause a stone wall to crumble than that you and I should hope to find ourselves -- to take our Jericho -- by some brief event that shatters in a moment what self-deception has built up only over the course of years. But it is true. It is not only possible -- it must happen to all who would see things as they are. Self-revelation is the supreme experience, the chief victory, of a man's life. In all the realm of the spirit, in all the Canaan of the soul, no conquest yields so miraculous a reward. I urge you therefore to besiege yourselves; to take honest counsel with the little fraction of God, of Truth, that dwells in us all. To follow the counsel of that Truth and beset the wall of your own self-deception. So will towering illusion tumble. So will you straightaway enter triumphant into the promised land."

-- Rudolph Fisher, from The Walls of Jericho

I have had many use me over the last few weeks as a mirror of self-revelation, and it has moved me to tears. You know who you are, and I honor you and am humbled before you in sharing this "supreme experience." I want you to know that if it was shared in a moment where you saw yourself as weak, that I see it as strength.

Being present

I'm sending this out tonight, about 10 hours early, since I'll be up and on the road too early tomorrow morning.

"Life works when, in the present moment, I can see it as no less and no more than a celebration of the world and who I am in it, exactly as things are."

-- Yours Truly

I had a few people ask me today to define what it means to be "present." There are many interesting answers to this question, but this is the one that works best for me. When I am celebrating my current breath, my ability to feel, hear, see, taste, and/or touch the world, my ability to be with a person I love and see them completely in their perfection (which includes their imperfections), I am aware of being fully present to that moment. At any other time, when life shows up other than that, like a complaint, I am lost in memories or anxiety about the future.

Love is a choice, not just a feeling.

Well, I was scheduled to facilitate a Marriage Commitment Group Meeting last night with a group of 5 couples who meet monthly to support each other in building great marriages, and with one of those couples in the car with me, my car broke down and left us stranded on the side of the highway. We all stayed calm, and everything worked out just fine in getting the car towed to the dealership and the three of us home safely. For us, it was just not meant to be last night. We had a very nice chat together, I shared my thoughts on the theme for the evening had it unfolded as planned, we wished each other a Happy Thanksgiving, and we went happily on our way. So I'll take this opportunity to share the intended theme with all of you, with total confidence that the 4 couples who were there last night understood this intention without me there to state it and created a special evening for themselves in our absence. Anne, Jake, and I are off to Austin this morning for 3 days. Have a great week, all!

"The desire to love (or be loved) is not itself love. Love is an act of will (so much more than a feeling) - namely an intention and an action. Will also implies choice. We do not have to love. We choose to love. No matter how much we may think we are loving, if we are in fact not loving, it is because we have chosen not to love and therefore do not love despite our good intentions. On the other hand, whenever we do actually exert ourselves in the cause of spiritual growth, it is because we have chosen to do so. The choice to love has been made."

M. Scott Peck

Awakenings

"Life is a series of awakenings, with birth and death being the most exciting and dramatic."

-- Sivananda

And the more we learn to accept and welcome these awakenings when they come, the more graceful our transition through them. How do we know when an awakening is approaching? We tend to feel totally confused, hopelessly lost, scared out of our minds, like nothing makes sense anymore. That's the time to let go of our mind's need to control things in order to keep us safe, and to trust that bigger things are now at work.