There's
a radiance around our heart. Yes, this beating organ of blood in our
body. The radiance of the heart is more magnificent than the energy
around the brain. These healing golden beams flow into every cell, every
atom of our flesh, making the human body a divine temple. And they flow
into the environment around us. Neuro-cardiology shows that this is as
true in bio-physics as in the language of the Spirit.
As soon as we insist on a name for this radiance, we diminish its
power, and forfeit the guidance of our lives to the brain. But if we
simply rest our breath and our attention in this mysterious golden
flower, the pollen of grace bursts out, and seeds the miraculous.
The heart space is our sacred door to the eternal, immovable, and
self-luminous. It is the portal to a love so universal, yet so personal,
that the Beloved longs for us as much as we long for the Beloved.
Name this presence the Christ, Buddha, Shiva, Allah, Wakan Tanka,
Mother Divine. Or leave it nameless. But whatever the name, isn't it
time to stop looking for that place, and start looking from that place?
Wouldn't it be more accurate to say, "Of course I don't know. But within the limitations of my mind, my heart, my senses, this is my current opinion. It may not be true for others, and it may not be true for me tomorrow, but for now it is my truth."
Let us call this the Confession of Limited Knowledge. Would we not see 98% of human conflict dissolve if we all just prefaced our statements with this confession?
If the Pope prefaced every encyclical by stating: "This is my personal opinion;" if the Ayatollah began every fatwah with the words, "This is only a suggestion, based on my best advice;" if the scientist introduced her conclusion with the caveat, "This is only a theory that other evidence may modify in the future;" if every political leader commenced speeches with the words, "None of what I say is certain; neither I nor my party has any right to proclaim its policy as absolute truth; but I ask you to consider my view as you form yours...;" then wouldn't we live in a more sane and peaceful world?
Yet few would respect such a humble Pope, evangelist, imam, president, or scientist. Their tentative statements would sound uncertain and ambiguous to us. We hunger for unquestionable authority. We secretly yearn for commandments written on tablets of stone. Absolutes absolve us from the anxiety of being free.
Now please, do NOT agree with me. Do not agree with anybody. You are not here to agree. You are not here to find the absolutes that are true for all of us. There are none. You are here to bounce off the opinions of others into your own uniqueness. Just thank everyone for their ideas and consult your own heart.
You know that you know your truth, not mine. I know that I know my truth, not yours. Now we can dance, because we are not required to agree.
Wash the dust from your smile with tears.
Trying to be happy has made you stiff.
Frown boldly, fall down, unpolish yourself.
Cleanse your forehead with grass and soil.
Into your bright wounds rub this
tincture of darkness.
God is all of you.
Drink the full moon in
to the night of your heart.
Hold her like a breath.
Now set her back gently in the sky.
Gaze awhile and you will see
the bruise of your kisses.
She loved that. It awakened her.
That is the how God kissed the earth
and you must kiss the stars.
It is like standing at the edge of a canyon at night, calling your name waiting for the echo and hoping to hear my name return. It is like standing at the edge of an empty canyon calling 'Beloved!' and hoping to hear your voice in reply. It is like crying in the desert of the heart and listening until I am thirsty, so thirsty I must drink silence. It is like standing at the edge of love without a name in a place where longing has taught me to abandon the cry.
In my love mirror, your heart sees itself.
Thousands of petals spill out.
"What fragrance is this?" you cry.
O friend, O friend,
you are the beauty you yearn for.
No one can burst you open
but you!
Nights like this I stay home and gaze. The full moon and I. Clear secret sky. Mirror facing mirror, celebrating emptiness. Astonishing dazzle of the Self in the other, the Other in the self.
All night the moon sail sweeps across an ocean of blackness, pulling my red boat toward the shores of awakening, where you wait by your candle in the hour before dawn.
I steal through your window, bend down to kiss you, run my golden beams through your glistening hair, set these lips of fire on your forehead, like the ruby wound of the pearl-fanged serpent.
Only then do you open your eyes and inhale, imagining that my journey was a dream in the moment between two breaths.
But I was there, my dear. O yes, I was there! And which is the dream: that presence or this absence?
Now it is morning. Walk down to the shore. Above, even in blue day, the moon sails on, driven by a nameless yearning.
The tide recedes, but in ripples of silver sand you'll find my heart still beating, a strange living sign that there are creatures in the deep....
The beginning of every moral corruption and
abuse of power is to surrender authority over our own spiritual life to
another human being.
If we give away our innate authority to Pope, priest, imam, evangelist or guru, we are bound to suffer abuse, for we have abused ourselves. Forfeiting ourselves to another is a consent to corruption.
What then is our relation to the Divine? A relationship of infinite friendship, not subservience.
Any spiritual leader who demands our absolute obedience, threatening us with punishment, excommunication, or hell, is a thief who robs our very soul. Thus Jesus said, "All who came before me were thieves and robbers." (John 10:8)
A real guru never gives commandments, never demands surrender of our will. A real guru is our dearest friend. We follow the advice of a trusted friend not out of fear, but because we know we are loved unconditionally.
This is why, at the close of the Gospel, Jesus said, "I no longer call you Servants, but Friends." (John 15:15)
Take this wild rose and hold it
in your hand.
Here is your mistake.
You assume that God is a cause.
But God is just as bewildered
as you and me. In fact,
God is pure
bewilderment.
The difference?
God doesn't search for an answer.
God just rides astonishing waves
that spiral ever outward and inward
in the shape of a rose, yes,
this rose.
The difference?
You have yet to fall
into what you see, but God
has dissolved into laughter and tears.
A healthy lasting marriage is really two marriages in one.
The husband is inwardly wedded to the divine feminine, the power of Shakti. The wife is inwardly wedded to the divine masculine, Lord Shiva. Marriage is not about the passionate quest of two halves for their "soul mates." It is a deep abiding partnership between whole human beings. How can I fulfill another person if I am only half full? To fill others, I must overflow.
In early Gnostic Christianity, the inward marriage of divine masculine and feminine energies took place in the heart center and was called "the sacrament of the Bridal Chamber."
Some modern authors have tried to turn the mystical symbolism of the inner marriage into a literal sexual affair. Such misinterpretations are as prevalent in the Indian tradition as in the West. Is the lila, or love play, between Krishna and the Gopis in the garden of
Vrindavan a historical event in which a king has promiscuous sex with
local cowherd girls? Of course not. It is the eternal love song of the soul and the Spirit, the heart's longing for union with God.
Is the love of Christ and Mary Magdalene a tantric sex ritual? Of course not. It is the Western version of the Radha Krishna story. These ancient symbols describe the marriage of dynamic forces within a whole human person, not the marriage of two separate bodies:
"Jesus said, When you make the two into one, and when you make the inner like the
outer and the outer like the inner, and the upper like the lower, and
when you make male and female into a single one... then you will enter the kingdom." ~Gospel of Thomas
Obviously the purport of this passage is balance between Shiva and Shakti, Yin and Yang, Ha and Tha: the solar male and lunar female energies in Hatha Yoga. The passage describes an interior union, not an external act of romantic love-making.
According to the science of Yoga, the male energy spirals down the spine through a nada, a subtle nerve channel called the Pingala, meeting the feminine energy spiraling upward through the Ida. They form a double helix. Male and female, sacred sky and holy ground, converge in the human heart. Our body is the lightning rod linking earth and stars. Solar Male unites with Mother Earth in Hridaya, the heart center. Hrid is the Sanskrit root of the English word heart.
This union of down-pointing and up-pointing flames is symbolized as two inter-penetrating triangles, forming a six-pointed star. Interestingly, this symbol of union, the Star of David, is found in both Jewish and Indian tradition. The Kabbala visualizes the union in the heart as Tifereth, meaning Beauty. Tifeteth integrates the energy of all worlds, the Sephiroth, in the cosmic human form. Similarly, the texts and yantras of Yoga use precisely the same six-pointed star as the symbol of the heart.
Lacking an internal balance of male and female in our own hearts, our outer sexual relations are tantalizing but fruitless quests for a wholeness that is only realized within. Thus the Gnostic Gospel of Philip declares of male and female:
"Through their sacred embrace, we are invited into the interior. As long as this is hidden, unhappiness prevails..."
Christ celebrates this "sacred embrace" of male and female in the heart's Bridal Chamber. The Gospel of Philip says:
"In his Breath, we experience a new embrace: we are no longer in duality, but in unity... All will be clothed in light when they enter into the mystery of this sacred embrace.... What is the bridal chamber if not the place of trust and
consciousness in the embrace? It is a symbol of Union, beyond all forms
of possession. Here is where the veil is torn from top to bottom; here
is where some arise and awaken." *
So marriage is an outward sacrament and sign of an inward mystery. There is no evidence in early Christianity that this "embrace" was a tantric sex ritual. At the same time, there was no calling to become a monk. Monasticism was a later development.
From the Gnostic Gospels it is clear that both men and women were called to interior union, and they helped each other to its fulfillment as partners in the state of marriage.
__________
* 'The Gospel of Philip: Jesus, Mary Magdalene, and the Gnosis of Sacred Union,' J. Leloup, Inner Traditions, 2004 (Leloup is a French scholar whose translation is excellent, though I don't always agree with his interpretation).
2/23/2013
"We
dedicate ourselves to a peace so profound that it inspires everything
we do... We offer the world a new vision of peace. Now more
than ever, we need the courage and compassion to believe and live and
love and work as men and women of non-violence. There is no higher calling!" ~Sri Sri Ravi Shankar
Politics didn't nourish me any more. Too heavy. I thirsted for weightless joy.
The active-aggressive Right held a gun in its hand, calling it righteousness. The passive-aggressive Left raised its clenched fist in protest, calling it peace-making. I looked for a way that was neither of the Left nor the Right, neither passive nor aggressive, neither the protest nor the police. For these opposites merely create each other, and sustain each others polarizing negativity.
Then I found Sri Sri's practical teaching of Sudarshan Kriya, Sahaj Meditation, and Seva, empowering the mind to transcend duality and enter the Kingdom of the Heart. Established in the Heart, we don't stand 'against' anything, we stand 'for.' For one world family.
But what about
the injustice, unrighteousness, and inequality around us? Our response
to it all depends on our vision. We respond as we see. If we try to
carry the world's problems, we gain a lot of weight.
Holding all that suffering, suffering is all we have to give. But becoming light, we share light.
Let go, become light, become free right now. Doesn't this sound irresponsible?
Well it isn't. Being light and free in the present moment is the
deepest response-ability. Only with a spacious mind and an open heart
can we be fully Present, and respond.
The English word
'courage' is rooted in 'cour,' meaning 'heart.' Right now, rest in the
heart. Whatever conflict engages us, whatever battlefield surrounds us,
whatever prison cell encloses us, breathe peace. This is courage.
Every breath we breathe is an invitation to soften the heart of the world.
There is a breath that fills your blood with stars. Enormous suns and galaxies spill through the soft spot in your skull, where infancy never quite healed. Spiraling behind your eyes, the zodiac of perfect night: luminous worlds drip down the back of your throat, the nectar that oozed before God said, Let there be light.
Whether you name this inbreath 'Ya' or 'So,' whether you name the outbreath 'Hweh' or 'Ham,' your belly fills up with constellations, heavens swirl through your sex. Rooted with your muddy toes, old gods swim for the egg at earth's core.
Breathe like the mirror of a mountain lake and you'll need no other love, for the night herself is love, gem'd in reflection, veiled in silence, whose gaze arrests your desire like a stab of diamonds in the wounded emptiness you call your heart.
Breathe like this. Your lips will utter no more sounds like 'I' and 'You.' Nakedness your jewelry now, tears replace language; Bibles, Qu'rans, Vedic texts, consumed in the smoke of one sigh. And before another breath enters this body, pulsations in your sparkling spine sing everything those ancient mouths could never quite put into words.
Try not to rise above your longing; sink deeper, plant pain in the earth. Try not to rise above your weariness; sink deeper, plant sorrow in the loam. Try not to rise above your body; sink deeper, plant every breath. To the Mother, you are a seed. Your body is a seed, your breath is a seed, your pain is a seed; offer them. She will open you up so gracefully, like a wound. Darkness will nourish you with infinitesimal starry voices, rising from the furrow where you spill. Beauty is an underground power; it knows how to ascend, just as it knew how to fall, namelessly. What has no name meets no resistance. Something green, unspeakably innocent, trembles out of your broken heart. Now here's our secret: the warmth that draws us upward is inside.
What we call "Valentine's Day" was most sacred in the primitive Church, the Roman feast of Goddess Aphrodite. The Ritual of Cacoa was created to commemorate that day when the disciples found Jesus in the upper room, weeping.
"He refuses to open the door," Peter told John, knocking harder.
Jesus shouted. "Leave me alone for an hour." Peter answered, "Master, we want to stay with you!"
Jesus unlatched the door. The disciples sat down around him. He looked at them wearily. "I can't go on," he said. "I am lonely. And I am tired."
Peter noticed immediately that the master's scrolls were gone, the ones containing channeled messages from the Archons, who were known in Hebrew as the Elohim Fathers. There had been a scroll of channeled messages from from Gabriel about the Church they were supposed to organize; one from Zamiel about economics and justice in the "City of God," the ideal state; a military manual from Archon Michael about preparing for the Final Battle at the End of Days; also a compendium of astrological and medical knowledge from an Archon who claimed to be Raphael, containing countless laws about food. Now, every one of these downloaded message-files was missing.
Peter had a bad feeling about this. "Where are the scrolls?" he asked. Jesus was silent. Peter knew that one must sometimes be very gentle with the master. All this channeled information pouring through his crown into the human cortex could make even the Incarnation of God testy. He suffered from mood-swings and had migraines. Peter asked again more quietly, "Master, we're only here to assist you. What happened to the instructions from the Archons?"
Jesus answered, "I burned them."
"What?"
"I threw them out and burned them. I got tired of information."
Now Peter raised his voice. "How can I run a Church without that information?"
"I don't want a Church," Jesus replied. "What people need is not information."
The disciples looked at each other in gloomy silence. This was their worst fear come true. The voltage of Knowledge had been too much for his nervous system.
"And I don't want to organize any new economic plan," Jesus continued. "And those physiology mandalas, all that nonsense about what to eat and what not to eat, what herbs relate to which signs of the Zodiac; and all that drivel about the end of the world, the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. it's all just... just information! I'm not interested in teaching any more information. Information gives me a headache. I want to take a nap."
Meanwhile John, who assumed that he was Jesus' favorite disciple, stroked the master's hair. "You all go away and leave him with me. I'm his friend."
Peter rolled his eyes, "You've all gone soft. This is not what the Baptist taught us when we were with the Essenes in the desert. Our mission is Knowledge. We bend Natural Law into Divine Law until they become one Law. We hammer the blade in the fire of discipline!"
Then the Magdalene spoke. "You heard him, Peter. He's not interested in that anymore. He burned it up, blade and all."
Peter said, "Who are you to stick your pretty nose into our affairs, woman?"
The others held their breath. They knew it would come to this, a confrontation between Peter and Mary. Philip interjected, "We're upsetting him. Why don't we all leave and let John comfort him awhile."
"Yes go!" Jesus said, "All of you, John too. But you stay, Mary. I need Mary to stay."
Peter glowered at Mary, then left the room, followed by the others. When they had gone, Jesus sighed. then allowed himself to weep.
"I can't do this any more."
"You don't have to," she answered gently.
"The Archons will be furious," he said. "They'll let the Romans have me. And the Romans will torture me, the way they do to slaves and Zealots, on a cross."
Mary whispered, "Issa, we can flee together! Come away with me to Egypt again, to the School of the Mysteries where we first met. Or we can sail across the sea. My uncle Joseph has ships, he is a wealthy merchant. He will arrange to take us to the land of the Gauls. To Avignon, where we could keep a vineyard and start a new community. We could even journey to the Western Isles, the land of Eirenn."
Jesus looked up with ruthless clarity through his tears. "What are we without the Knowledge of the the Elohim?"
She sat down beside him on the bed and wiped his tears away with her long black hair, fragrant with ointment of citrus and frankincense. She drew his head to her breast, leaned down and kissed his cheek. He put his arm around her and said, "My heart is on fire, Mary. The Knowledge of the Archons means nothing compared to this fire!"
"My heart is on fire too," she said.
He said, "You must understand, Mary, this love is not the love that brought our bodies here. That love was only a preparation for this love."
"Hush now, I know what love is," she answered as she daubed his tears away.
Jesus said, "Help me understand, Mary."
Mary said, "The breath of the Spirit is your Mother. She flows down from the stars like a stream of pearls through the crown. Until now, you tried to grasp this with your mind, to contain it in the prison of your skull. Now let it pour into your heart, and merge with that other stream, the dark surge of rose light gushing like wine from the earth into your loins, into your navel, into your chest, from below.
"Let the stream from heaven meet the stream from earth in the center of your body. In your heart is the bridal chamber where they become one. Two triangles, one descending, the other ascending, wedded in a six-pointed star. This is not the marriage of a man and woman. It is the wedding of 'I' and 'Am'."
Jesus gazed at her, enraptured with the beauty of her face. She said, "All the ancient wisdom is here," and gestured to her breast. Then she placed his hand on her heart, so that he could feel it beating.
He said, "How many lifetimes have we prepared our bodies for these hearts?"
"I am Aphrodite Ourania," she whispered, "Who are you?" Then Mary unfolded a kerchief containing lumps of chocolate. "My uncle Joseph brought this cacao from Africa." She smeared a little on his cheeks and lips. "Taste and see how good it is, Issa!"
They ate chocolate together and lay down, embracing gently, feeling their hearts beat together in unison, two rose wings joined in a single jewel, delicate and tiny as a moth. This gentle embrace, this mutual irradiation of hearts, was their love-making.
Then they called the disciples back into the room. Issa said, "We have a change of plans."
For Peter, it felt like a betrayal.
"We will have no Church," Jesus said, "I will not be your Teacher, your Savior, or your Judge. Each of you will be your own Teacher, Savior, and Judge."
"But Master!" Peter protested, barely controlling his anger, "We have the saving Knowledge of the Archons, the Elohim Fathers!"
"What do the Archons really know?" asked Issa, looking at Peter with tenderness. "They have never even known a beating heart."
The men stared at him in wonder. Issa gently continued, "Now we bear Good News not only to men but to angels."
"What good news?" Peter asked scornfully.
"Just this," the master replied: "Love one another. And if you must have rules, here are the only rules you need. Walk barefoot. Sing for no reason. With infinite gratitude, offer every breath you take back to the Giver. And rest in your heart."
The disciples were dumbfounded. Then Peter announced, "I'm leaving. If you won't fulfill the mission of the Archons, I will. The Church will be mine!" So Peter walked out.
Issa looked at Mary, but he was speaking to the disciples, "If you must have a leader, let this woman lead you. She will keep minds low and hearts alive. The world will scorn you, yet you will be purified by their scorn. You will sing like fools. Then the world will listen and dance, for the foolishness of God is wiser than the wisdom of men."
He took a blue aster from the vase on the table, twirled it in his fingers, and smiled. Then he handed the little flower to Mary, who blushed, glancing down at its wheel of blue petals. In that moment, to her astonished gaze, the tiny flower became the whole zodiac, wheeling in the azure empyrean, each blue petal inscribed with a sacred syllable of incomprehensible beauty, written in white stars. These sound syllables resonated in her heart, inscribed in her consciousness forever. Mary could hear them vibrate in the silence of the room.
Fine as breath itself, a voice in her chest whispered, "These sounds are seeds of one-word prayer, eucharistos monologisthos. Give them to all who join our circle. They are the mantras of the heart, the true worship of the coming age."
The space in that little room seemed to tremble with starlight, and pulsate with trillions of infinitesimal bells. Gazing into Mary's face, the men found her countenance more lovely than a dark moonlit rose.
Issa said, "You shall no longer be called my followers. You shall not be a religion. You shall be Children of the Light."
John stepped forward, crestfallen, brooding. He said, "Master, over Peter and me you have chosen a woman. Therefor, I must leave you. I go to Patmos, where there is a small community of Essenes. I will live as a monk, and continue the work that you refuse to do. There is much knowledge yet to be channeled from the Archons, concerning the End of Days and the Last Judgment."
"John, I tell you because you are my friend, no one knows the outcome of this world, not even God. Our faith is to dwell in possibility, not to prophesy about the end-times. Don't sell your wonder for certainty." But John was already out the door and gone. Issa sighed, "He will end by babbling. Yet many will follow his visions."
Issa and the disciples departed from the upper room, using side streets and shaded alleys, for imperial guards were already on the move. They made their way to the garden where Issa and Mary loved to stroll in the cool of the evening, and sit in meditation under a spreading cypress. Mary of Bethany, her sister Martha, and several other women with their children met them there. For in our circle, there are no priests, male and female have equal status, and the wisdom of children is most sacred.
Peacocks wander here among fragrant lilies. The moon rises. The grass is soft and stinging, delicious with dew, on our bare feet. Issa and Mary teach us a love song. As they sing, we walk round in a circle, very slowly, on a pilgrimage to ourselves, receiving caresses, kisses and blessings from one another.
Issa stands in the circle, not at the center, but simply as a link in the moving ring. Each of us whispers our heart's message to the others as they pass by us. Here is what Issa whispers: "You are the angel of your own guidance, you are the one you have been longing for." What do you whisper, friend?
Last of all, Mary Magdalene places a tiny smear of cacoa on our lips, sweet chocolate of Africa. Then she whispers a secret syllable in our ear.
For there is a sound that descends from hearing to heart, resonating in each cell of our body, gathering into one note the music of all the galaxies, the secret of the heavens, the silence of eternity. And in that silent music where creation is born, we are reborn. Our bodies laugh and sing.
At the heart of the warm is the cool.
At the heart of the cool is the warm.
At the heart of the full is the empty.
At the heart of the empty, the full.
The deeper you sink into darkness,
the closer you come to the source of light.
Not knowing this, we cling to warmth
and freeze.
We cling to wealth and become poor.
Why not be a tiny black bug
with enormous golden wings?
Last night's starry radiance,
inflected by a hazy blue afternoon,
now thickens to curds of mist and drizzle.
I'm meaningless this evening,
burnt out, empty, cool.
Aren't you? What shall we do?
Non-resistance is our discipline.
Don't even try to strike a spark in vast loneliness.
Instead, become the dark.
Do less than I am, so boundlessly alone
it's easier to abandon being than solitude.
Listen!
There's a spark in the heart of emptiness
that never had to be struck.
Sink so low you ignite!
Like the blossom in a vase,
I place the stem of the smile
in my heart, to keep it fresh,
unfolding and real.
I do not tell about the Master,
lest people weary of my words.
I let the fragrance of the Master
seep through me. He glistens
on the dance of my hands in service.
Who do you think filled the vase?
Where do you think the petals
get their nectar?
One password I will never change
is the pass-word to my Heart.
Thousands of hackers have already
entered the space inside,
but when they learn what's there,
they just surrender, and become Me.
Whisper "सो ऽहम्" and gain access
to the One who wrote our software.
So'ham gets you in with one click.
Dark energy is 73% of the universe. Dark matter is another 24%. Scientists know that dark energy is thousands of times more powerful and luminous than light. But they have no idea what dark energy or dark matter are made of, being utterly beyond the models of classical physics. That means, all the matter and energy we know anything about is 3% of creation.
Science knows that it doesn't know. That is good. That is the beginning of wisdom.
We can't define it but we can use it. We can breathe dark energy. Dark energy is Prana. In samadhi, we immerse in dark energy. Like infants from the birth canal, we emerge from meditation, wings sparkled with luminous flecks and bubbles of dark energy.
Yet on Sunday, 2/17, Benjamin Netanyahi said, "Israel is not like other countries."
The notion that Israel is special is the source of 99% of its problems, just as "American exceptionalism" is the source of 99% of our problems.
Nationalism is a fantasy whose time has past. Nations are drawn with lines that only exist in the minds of conquerors and surveyors. National boundaries have no reality in the edgeless curves and fractals of the natural world. They exist because imperial occupiers impose them on indigenous peoples.
Nation states are dissolving. We'll replace them with bio-regional tribal confederacies, empowered by local shamanic circles, regional business collectives, and diverse sources of local green energy. We’ll have no need for the tyranny of an international banking system, or the dehumanizing oppression of multinational corporations. The best elements of "liberal" cooperative and "libertarian" individualism converge in the authority of The Local.
A fantastic dream? No, this phoenix already rises from the ashes of burnt-out government and corporate systems that only function on fumes of the past. The new vision awakens wherever local entrepreneurs, farmers, healers, and energy producers work to exchange services in cooperative free enterprise.
Cooperative Free Enterprise? Entrepreneurs realize that free markets work better through cooperation. Socialists realize that local markets engender creativity. Then “left” and “right” vanish. Worker-owned cooperatives replace corporations. Local credit unions replace international banks. No bubble of debt. Only the earth.
I
don't need a lifecoach who tells me to burst my limits and push my
comfort zone. That is for people who feel limited and uncomfortable.
My life-coach is the warbler on a cherry twig. My life-coach is a
shaggy stray. My life-coach teaches me the art of living within my
limitations. Accept, surrender, allow grace. Not pushing against
boundaries, but infusing them with boundless Presence. My life-coach points out miracles of the ordinary.
Have you truly looked this morning? Have you seen the unfolding petal
of a daffodil, whose golden edges are not edges at all, but fractals
interwoven with soft mountains of infinite space?
Have you noticed that deep silence is not silent? It is filled with infinitesimal bells of joy.
Have you watched the motionless explosion of your garden awakening, weeds lit from within their seeds?
Thrust your hand into the loam as into a birthing mare. Search for the
foal's head. Help what emerges. Have you bowed to the world?
Don't stop in the doorway
dancing and shouting, "I have arrived!"
The tavern sign is the shape of the path
that led you here, not what's inside.
A vagina glistens, but she's only
a portal of skin.
There's a darkness beyond that quivering
made of Mystery.
"Dangerous, sexual, holy" are just carvings
on the lintel.
"Jesus, Guru, Lord" are but fluttering veils.
Pass through lips and words, be swallowed!
Wind your way down warm crimson canals.
Dissolve in the swirl of music
that first made you want to sing.
Fall into place. Befriend entropy. Be the slope of grace, the soaring wing that dances on gravity. Rise only by surrender, not knowing how the melody is made out of listening silences. There are ten thousand reasons to be unhappy. Not one of them is this cherry blossom. Painting by Zoey
All religions and political systems based on a
conflict between good and evil have assumed the classical model of
physics, where the life-force of Creation struggles against the
death-force of Chaos, or entropy. But there is a new model in which Chaos contains Creation, and Entropy contains the secret counter-force of Life itself.
Dance replaces struggle. Systems integrate, evolve complexity, and live
quite effortlessly through sacrifice and surrender. The angst of
individualism dissolves in the circle of community, where each evolving
spark shines brighter because its light is wave, not particle.
I heard this song from a Seed who surrendered to gravity, only to
sprout and tremble greenly upward again, toward the grace and warmth of a
dying star.
Or as a Master said, "A grain of wheat remains just a
separate seed, until it is dropped into the ground and dies. Dying, it
produces many seeds. Those who love their own life will lose it; those
who lose their own life will keep it for life eternal." ~John 12
Only the Eternal sees time pass.
Only stillness witnesses the whirled. Only Silence can listen. Therefor, just to be aware of life, there must be
some still eternal silence inside you. That is Love. You are That. Tat Tvam Asi. Isn't it time to stop lookingfor that place and start looking from that place? Others will drink the fountain of your presence. Just being here will be of great service.
That is why Jesus said, "You are the light."
We spend our waking hours loading the mind with sense data, in-forming ourselves with the external world. After gorging on streams of random conversation, iPhone, TV, radio, internet sound bytes and constant sensory stimulus, we shut down and go to sleep for a few hours, sorting it all as best we can through mad dreams, only to wake again and plunge into another world of in-form-ation.
This is how we form ourselves out of the material world, but how do we receive spiritual formation? Do we ever take an hour, or even a few moments, to turn 180 degrees and gaze within, to receive the radiant information of Silence?
Why not be disappointed? Be disappointed
in everything. Perfect disappointment is bliss.
When I am
disappointed, I am free from expectations. Then the ladybug is a
ladybug. The twig is a twig. When I make no appointments, every moment is an appointment with beauty. And when I have an appointment to keep, I keep it without expectation. I don't mind being disappointed.
I am disappointed in God and God is disappointed in me. We expect nothing from each other! God Therefor I am showered in grace.
I am disappointed in my guru. I am
disappointed myself. I am disappointed in you. Expecting nothing, we shower one another with
unconditional love.
I am disappointed in the rose, the honeybee, and the mountaintop. Therefor every creature is free to be what it is. God is free
to be graceful, and you are free to be yourself. Freed from my
expectations, every blade of grass is a miracle of the unexpected.
I'm sure that liberation is
the final disappointment. How do I know? I am disappointed.
You were born into a world where people kill people. You chose to be here. Think about it.
You are the whole human condition. I am the whole human condition. We all embrace the best and the worst of it.
Yet our so-called 'spirituality,' and our 'liberal' politics, though they pose as compassion, are often but a form of disdain, a cynical idealism that finds most human behavior intolerable. That is why we spend much of our energy protesting in anger and trying to reform the rest of the world. But our endless protests and reforms don't really change the world, because the human condition is just as it is.
There is another Way to be in this world, a Way which has nothing to do with protest and reform. It is the Way of non-resistance.
Embrace everyone, embrace everything, just as Jesus embraced the world when he spread his arms on the Cross. He didn't say, "Father, reform them. Father, wipe away their ignorance and teach them the path to enlightenment. Father, overthrow the hierarchy and fight for social justice."
He said, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." He just embraced their not-knowing, their ignorance. He embraced violence and gentleness, wealth and poverty, oppression and the oppressed.
One embraces all. The hug is unconditional. This is the Way of compassion. And the mystery is, the miracle is, if we embrace things just as they are, that is precisely when they blossom, transform, and unfold their wings.
For those who get tired of little pink hearts, I invite you to contemplate a more ancient symbol of Hridayam, the Heart Center, a symbol identical in Jewish mystical tradition and Yoga: the six pointed star made of two interlocking triangular flames...
The violet flame of the solar force, Ha, descends through the crown, carrying the prana-laden blessing of the star devas. It meets the ascending crimson Shakti, flame of earthen and lunar forces, Ta, the great mother, giving us stability and greening power. They merge as Ha-Tha Yoga, Masculine-Feminine Union, in the center of the body.
There we hear the song of the heart, Anahata, the Unstruck Sound that created the universe. It vibrates out into every cell of our flesh, spins every quark of body and aura, and aligns our heart-center with the center of the galaxy.
This heart center is also known in Hebrew as Tifereth, Beauty: in Jewish Kabbala, the integration of all the Sephiroth. In early Gnostic Christianity, this heart-space was called the Bridal Chamber, opened by the highest sacrament. The sacrament of the Bridal Chamber was not groovy tantric sex between Jesus and Mary Magdalene; it was the wedding of 'I' and 'Am', the solar and lunar forces in each of us. This is the wedding of Shiva and Shakti, Christ and Magdalene, Yahwey and Shekinah, the central Mystery in every living religion. Without this union of love in the heart, religion is useless dogma, yesterdays newspaper.
Wedded, these two lovers whirl upward in a spiral dance around the spinal column, the Sushumna, forming the real Tree of Life, the true healing Caduceus of Hermes, and transforming Temporal Love (Aphrodite Pandemos) into Divine Love (Aphrodite Ourania).
Happy Feast Day of the Goddess Aphrodite. Please remember always: There is no more exhilarating discipline than non-resistance!
Between the stamen and the sky,
between the diamond dust-mote
where pollen is conceived
and the space of mirageless wonder,
you live in layered crimson distances,
concentric shadows of presence.
I climb the foothills and peaks
of your fragrance, into the lashes
and pupils of your wine-dark gaze,
your voice, your lips, those
burgundy curves petaling out into air...
Yet only a fractal of myself is entangled
in your beauty, dear, like a fingertip
in black hair, working the essence
of cinnamon in, just a part of me
follows your scent into its radiance.
I swim with the motion of the rose,
ever outward, ever inward toward
blue emptiness, where the greater part
of what longs for you is already
what you are.
Apavitrah pavitro wa Sarwa vasthan gatopi wa Yasmaret pundari-kaksham Sa bahya-abyantarah shuchih "Whether pure or impure, whether full of purities or impurities, one
who remembers the lotus-eyed Lord, the Self, gains inner and outer
purity in an instant!" ~Vedic Prayer
No need to renounce what was never mine. But if I must renounce, first I renounce my breath. Then I can renounce anything. I surrender this breath by noticing that it was a gift to begin with.
*
I renounce wine by tasting it with deeper devotion. I become aware
of every flavor, touch, fragrance, sound and color. This is why I am
born on earth: this sacrament of sensation, the marriage of perception
and awareness.
When I am awake, sensuality is renunciation,
renunciation is sensuality. So fully aware of a sensation that, in the
deepest center of delectability, I taste awareness itself.
Now so effortlessly, so gently, I let go of the sweetness that enticed
me. For the taste of awareness out-sweetens its object.
There is a vast difference between losing myself in the taste, and tasting it deeply with awareness. When the Self is awake, the moment I taste this wine, I am not
this wine. The moment I see the rose, I am not the rose. The moment I
perceive the busy-ness of the market, I am motionless inside. The moment
I witness time passing, I am eternal. For the seer must be other than
the seen.
Therefor, the instant I fearlessly perceive my most
vicious impurity, without judgment or rejection, I am pure! This is the
real meaning of repentance, 'metanoia' in Greek. 'Meta' means beyond,
'nouos' means intellect. To repent is to rest as the silent witness, beyond
the images and sensations of the grasping mind.
The object of
my passion has manifested before me for this very reason: so that in becoming aware of
it, awareness may be liberated. Impurities are here to free me from
them. I bow down to roses, birds, clouds and babies. Then I bow down to all that binds me, all that makes me angry and lustful and jealous. I bow down to my liberator in the
form of beauty and ugliness, purity and impurity.
*
"Blessed is this human birth. Dwellers in heaven desire this birth,
for true wisdom and pure love are attained only by humanity." ~Srimad
Bhagavatam, 11.13
Angels envy us. They are so absorbed in
beauty that their attention is lost in celestial delight. They are in
bondage, but the chains that bind them are made of golden flowers.
Here in this world of opposites, the gods must be reborn to gain
liberation. Because here, our attention can't get lost in any sensation for more
than a moment. The Self just won't get stuck in a play of opposites. On
earth, awareness is jolted into Self-awareness.
*
It is very difficult to renounce a single sin, a single obsession. But
it is very easy to renounce everything at once! Just by becoming aware
of the world, I am not the world.
Desert air contains the
mirage while remaining perfectly empty and still; so awareness allows the
shimmer that does not exist to appear as if it does.
By giving
its waves room to play, the ocean renounces them. As boundless space,
the sky has no need to resist the clouds that arise and dissolve within
it. That is how the sky is surrendered.
Only resistance creates boundaries.
Let us remain limitless and pure, whatever arises in the world,
whatever arises in the mind. We have no other choice. This is the
immaculate wisdom of Seeing What Is Always Already Here.
I took this at midnight, February 12, the beginning of Ash Wednesday. Miracles in my front yard. First cherry blossoms of the new year. Proof that Jesus never died, he was only in samadhi.
What shall I give up for Lent? I have so many sins, where do I begin?
Ah
yes, that's right. I would not be aware of my sins if I were not
already sinless. Only the virgin silence of pure awareness, which is
already sinless and perfectly liberated, can observe what it is not.
The
moment I see this cherry blossom, I am not this cherry blossom. That is
why the cherry blossom exists, to liberate me. This cherry blossom is
my savior.
To be liberated from this world, I need only to see it, taste it, touch it, smell it so deeply!
Science began with an elemental explanation:
"Earth, Air, Fire, Water,
and the Space of the Observer.
For every disease there is a living cure
in the soil and forest.
If you sing beautiful music,
sickness will not arise."
After thousands of lifetimes of research,
the scientist will stand before God and say,
"This is what I have learned:
Earth, Air, Fire, Water,
and the Space of the Observer.
For every disease there is a living cure
in the soil and forest.
If you listen to beautiful music,
sickness will not arise."
Believing is a subtle act of aggression against the Self. You are only free when the radiance of the believer outshines every belief.
As soon as we begin to believe, we confuse Truth with the robes of religious authority and political propaganda. You are not required to believe anything!
Now here is what God really said to Moses. "I Am. Don't believe in Me: just Be. Then you will need no commandments."
Hear the beautiful chant of the Jesus Prayer at the end of this post by Ukranian Orthodox nuns. I. Three Jewels
There are three precious jewels which you were given in your mother's womb. I am only going to remind you of their value, for you have let them get tarnished. Once you understand the value of what you already have, you will experience the deepest meditation and the highest form of prayer just by breathing. Before you set out on this life, your Inward Teacher gave you these three talismans to take on your journey: Breath, Heart, Silence.
The human body itself is the great sacrament. When you are fully embodied, no further sacrament is needed. If we would but attend to this body with as much devotion as we attend to church buildings, we would enter the temple of God at once.
As the center of the temple is the Holy of Holies, the center of the body is the Heart. The Heart is not merely a physical organ, but the matrix of our consciousness. The Heart is like a radio: it is constructed out of physical matter but in such a way as to receive invisible energies, turning them into music. We can attune our hearts to God just as surely as we can set our radio to our favorite channel. In this prayer, we quite literally put our awareness in the heart, in that beating organ at the center. Prayer is a sacrament: spiritual presence apprehended through a physical sign. When your attention rests in the Heart, you pass through a tiny golden portal to the Kingdom. Eternity dwells in a tiny spark at the center of your Heart. Entering that infinitesimal door, you discover yourself in the infinite expanse of God. This what Jesus meant when he said, "I am the door." The I Am at the center of your Heart is the portal to God-Consciousness.
Down through the door of the Heart flows the Breath, the carrier of all that nourishes and heals. Breath is the unacknowledged physician in every human body. It cleanses each cell, enlivens each atom. If we would employ the power of our breath, we would worry much less about the growing costs of health care. As our Heart is the physical sign of the soul, so our Breath is the physical sign of the Spirit. The Biblical authors knew this. In the Hebrew and Christian scriptures they used the same word to express both spirit and breath. The double meaning of the Hebrew ruach and the Greek pneuma corresponds to the double reality of our own breath. Breath is both the vehicle for oxygen and the host for spiritual energy. Each great religious tradition acknowledges this subtle energy in the breath: it is called chi in China, prana in India, spiritus in the West.
Simply to breathe is the purest form of prayer. But what turns ordinary respiration into worship? Awareness. Fully conscious of breath, I discover that each breath is a gift. I am not breathing: I am breathed by the Almighty. Inhalation is grace; exhalation is surrender. Breathing in, breathing out: grace and surrender. Merely observing this gift, with awareness, transforms mechanical act into angelic sacrament.
The jewel of Silence is our third birthright. When we become aware of the Silence that is always here beneath the static chatter of our thoughts, we immediately enter the kingdom of the present moment. Silence is the space where God dwells as eternal presence. Only when we enter the spacious silence of the present moment can we meet God. For God is never in the future, never in the past. God is presence itself.
"Take no thought for tomorrow," Jesus declared. He always brought his listeners into the Kingdom of Now. They asked when the kingdom would come and he replied, "The kingdom of heaven is right here, in the midst of you!" He declared, "Before Abraham was, I Am." The whole spiritual journey is from here to now. Those who aren't ready for this journey study old maps.
Then how do we dwell in silent presence without being swept into the past and future by a flood of thoughts?
First, we acknowledge the fact that thinking creates time. The past and future only exist as thoughts. We carry past and future in our heads, but our hearts always beat now. Our hearts are always in the Kingdom.
Failure to acknowledge presence is the seed of suffering. Regrets of the past and anxieties of the future are actually physiological stresses carried in the neurons of our brain. Time is a neurological phenomena, a chemical-electric activity in the cortex. Time is anxiety, and anxiety is time.
The solution to the problem of time is simply to become aware of time as a sensation in the brain. Watch time forming inside you as a knot of thoughts, fears, desires. See how you label this knot past and future. Instead of being mesmerized and absorbed by mental images, inner movies about what happened or what might happen, become aware of these thoughts as minute physical impulses. The moment I become aware, "Ah, this passing thought is just a chemical activity in my brain," the thought loses its binding power. I can observe the sensation that underlies the thought, without converting it into a mental picture. Then, penetrating that sensation without resistance, I can rest in the silence that is always here, behind every thought. This silence is the pure awareness that observes thoughts, but is never a thought itself. Pure awareness is the still space where thoughts arise and dissolve. This still space is the real me. I am the watcher. Thus Jesus taught, "Watch and pray." The watcher, not the thinker, finds God.
The silence that watches thoughts come and go is always in the present. Silence is the end of time.
Let each breath be an anchor that moors you to the silence of the heart. Follow your exhalation from the mind into the heart. At the very end of the exhalation, you will discover a moment of complete emptiness, just before inhalation begins. In that emptiness, there is no thought, no mind, no time: just silent emptiness. This is Christ's kinosis, or self-emptiness. "He emptied himself" (Philippians 2). Rest in that measureless empty stillness at the end of the exhalation, where this little stream of soul returns to the ocean of Spirit.
From that depth will rise the inhalation, your next breath, a gift. Yes, you will discover that this breath is not really yours. It is the gift of the infinite.
Heart Mandala with the seed syllable, "Hum". This syllable is practiced in Tibetan, Yogic, Sufi and Hebrew mystical prayer. 'Hu' is one of the names of God in the Hebrew scriptures.
II. Practice These meditation instructions should be practiced, not analyzed. With eyes closed, practice each step for awhile until it becomes natural and easy. Then move to the next step. Don't try to force your way through the whole sequence at one time. Use the instructions that work. Own them. In the end, they flow together as one simple process carried out, not by your effort, but by Grace: the Grace of your Inner Teacher. There is no major religious tradition in the world that does not contain this practice.
• Close your eyes and observe the breath. Observe with gentle attention, not forced concentration. Let the breath flow naturally from the nostrils down to the abdomen. Be aware of it all the way.
• As you breathe out, let go of tension. Let go of any subtle holding in the muscles of the shoulders, chest, or belly. As you release tension through the exhalation, let go of grasping thoughts in the mind. What unconscious holding are you doing in the region of the solar plexus? Breathe out this tension. Along with it, drop the mind! Breathing out tension of your body, you can breathe out the tension of time past.
• Allow awareness to sink from the head to the heart, quite literally. Gaze down into your heart and feel it beating. Give it room to beat. Feel its warmth. With awareness in the heart, observe whatever sensations come, without analyzing or labeling the sensation "good" or "bad," "pain" or "pleasure." You may have denied your heart for a long time. Attention here can release strange feelings: heat, cold, fluttering, anger, fear, sadness. These words are just labels. Feel the sensations as energy without words. After regular practice, eventually you will experience a causeless glow of happiness in the heart.
Don't let this quiet joy confuse you, asking, "What right have I to be joyful?" The innate joy of the heart has no cause. In Sanskrit it is called anahatta, meaning unstruck causeless sound. The heart is called the anahatta chakra. The gracious gift of undeserved happiness is your birthright. You don't have to accomplish anything in order to deserve a song in your heart! As Jnaneshwar sang:
"The moment the energy of Spirit (kundalini shakti) enters the heart region, the self-begotten divine unstruck music begins to play."
• Now you are simply breathing in the heart. At the end of your exhalation, notice the stillness, the silent emptiness, the still point. This is the door. Here, surrender. This is the boundless space from which creation arises, the formless void mentioned in the first verse of the Bible. It is here already, even before God says, Let there be light.
• After spending some time observing the exhalation and resting in silence, become aware of the inhalation. Observe each in-breath as a stream of living energy, flowing into your heart.
• Receive the inhalation with gratitude. Note its effortlessness. The breath is given. It is not something you work for. With this awareness, you will feel a soft thrill, a warmth deep in the heart. This is the outward and physical sign of Grace. Life is a gift.
• Continue for as long as you wish, just resting and breathing through the heart. Nothing could be simpler. Nothing could be more profound. With every inhalation, receive. With every exhalation, offer. Breathing is the whole story of salvation: the gift of God and the soul's response. Your breath is Holy Communion on the heart's alter.
The Holy Breath is the Holy Spirit, consecrating and trans-substantiating your body into the Host of God. Adam was created out of dust (adamah) by the breath of God (ruach Elohim) to become a living soul (nephesh). Nephesh also means breath in Hebrew, an individual breath descended from the divine breath of the Spirit. So in the prayer of the heart, you become the new Adam: humanity reborn with every breath.
Of course, this is just the description in Western and Biblical terms. Exactly the same experience is described in the sacred literature of the Sufi mystics, the Buddhist masters, and the devotional saints of India. The Upanishads teach:
"The breath goes out with aham (I am) and comes in with Sah (God). Within everyone this natural meditation of ham-sah is happening."
Eastern Orthodox icon of the heart.
III. The Divine Name
When I find myself gazing into the radiance of my Heart, which is the radiance of every Heart, I have become a silent Mary brooding over the manger. A strange and wonderful sensation is born in my core, a sensation both physical and spiritual. It is what we have been seeking. All other desires are but shadows of this yearning for the birth of Christ-Consciousness within. As Augustine wrote, "Our hearts are ever restless till they find their rest in Thee."
Empty of thought, silently watching, untainted by time, my own pure awareness is the Virgin's Womb. So the early Christian Gnostic,Valentinus, said that the true Virgin Mother is "mystical eternal silence within."
Christ is born in the womb of awareness as an Inward Light. The Spirit who begets this offspring of God is the Breath. The Heart is the manger, for there is no room in the busy inn of the mind.
It sometimes happens that, even when we plunge into the ocean of silence, the Heart is so filled with gratitude that it needs to cry out, to express the beauty it gives birth to. This requires no more than a single word - a prayer word - what the Orthodox masters called eucharistos monologistos: one-word prayer. Please remember that this word is the effect, not the cause, of prayer. The word is not a technique but an effulgence. Word is the gift of silence.
In the East, the prayer-word is called a mantra, which means vehicle for the mind. We get both the English word mind and the Greek suffix -tron (as in electron) from the Sanskrit. Thus man-tra: a carrier or vehicle for the mind. In Biblical traditions, the mantra that carries the mind into the heart is the Divine Name.There is a vast tradition in Kabbalah about the practice of the divine name in Hebrew meditation. There is also a vast tradition in the Philocalia concerning the use of the name of Jesus in Orthodox Christian meditation. LINK
A true experience of mantra is neither repetition nor concentration. These are misconceptions that commonly ruin the innocence of prayer before it even begins! There is no instruction to mechanically repeat the mantra, or to force the mind into focusing. The mantra need not be mechanically synchronized with the breath either. A true prayer-word is felt, not spoken: it is a vibration of silence. As a bird, soaring in a current of wind, only beats its wings with an occasional pulse to sustain its effortless air-born flight, so we invoke the mantra ever so softly. This image is from St. Theresa of Avila.
Breathing out or breathing in, gently and without effort hear the Name. Let the Name arise on the breath of silence as foam arises on the crest of a wave. Touch the Name with your awareness as gently as a feather touching a bubble.
Praying the divine Name with the breath folds the mind into the heart, like sugar stirred into cream. As the mantra dissolves into the breath, its subtle but powerful vibration infuses every cell of the body, thrilling each electron. This is how the word of prayer becomes the Word of creation, which God speaks in the genesis of heaven and earth. "In the beginning was the Word.... all things were created through Him." (John 1) So the Indian Mandukya Upanishad declares, "The syllable Om is the eternal Godhead, and is the universe. Whatever was, whatever is, whatever shall be, is Om." When the mantra vibrates in the Heart, we are attuning our individuality to the universal source of creation.
The ancient masters of Christian prayer experienced this epiphany through the name of Jesus. By means of the breath, Orthodox masters carried Jesus into their hearts. St. Hesychius of Jerusalem (4th Century) spoke of "breathing Jesus Christ." In the 6th Century, St. John Climacus wrote, "Let the Name of Jesus be joined to your breath: then you shall know the use of silence." A later saint, Nichodimus of the Holy Mountain, wrote, "Let Jesus be your breath."
I invite you to listen to God's Breath in your heart. The Spirit will reveal a prayer-word appropriate for you, a word that helps your mind merge into God. After all, the original Aramaic meaning of messiah is God's out-breathing. God's anointing happens to you through the grace of the divine Name.
If you have experienced the blessing of initiation by a true spiritual master, then practice the mantra your Guru gave you in this effortless graceful way.
Prayer is not your work, but God's work inside you. When divine breath centers to a single fiery seed of love in your heart, silence vibrates with the thunder of God's Name. The Word incarnates in your body. Though you are not aware of its true amplitude, theWord sends forth a wave of healing that ripples through every photon of light, every atom of creation, regenerating not your flesh alone, but all humanity. Every particle of your body is inter-woven in one quantum field with each child in Darfur, every mother in Haiti. This principle is known as Bell's Theorum in physics, and has been verified experimentally. In the words of founding quantum physicist, Sir Arthur Eddington, "When the electron vibrates, the whole universe shakes." You are truly part of the "universal body of Christ." Every breath you breathe through the Heart is a breath for the world.
IV. The Culture of Prayer
We need to confess that there is a spiritual void in our hearts. Most of today's social and economic problems arise from our denial of that void. We deny the void by stuffing it: filling it with alcohol, stimulants, fast food, nerve-pounding music, instant sex, even violence. The busy-ness of work is also a way to stuff our inner void. So is shopping! Strolling through the mall, we buy not out of necessity, but despair. Our national economy of consumerism thrives on spiritual emptiness.
Ironically, the solution is right where the problem is: the empty space in the heart. Nowhere but here will we find the antidote to our angst and the dryness of our workdays. If we would only take a little time each morning and evening to enter the Heart through prayer, it might be "the little leaven that raises the whole loaf." Renew your world by renewing your Heart!
This prayer is not a flight from darkness: it embraces darkness. Not a flight from emptiness: it embraces emptiness. Prayer of the Heart accepts our inner emptiness as sacred ground. When we embrace emptiness, we become the vast space of compassion. When we embrace darkness, we hear the silence say, "Let there be light!"
