WELCOME 18

P. 60-63

As I was reading over this section I was reminded of the concept of “grok”—

Grok /ˈɡrɑːk/ is a word coined by American writer Robert A. Heinlein for his 1961 science fiction novel Stranger in a Strange Land. 

the meaning of grok as "to understand intuitively or by empathy, to establish rapport with" and "to empathize or communicate sympathetically (with); also, to experience enjoyment", understand (something) intuitively or by empathy.

"because of all the commercials, children grok things immediately”

My understanding of the concept is a little different. It includes all of the above, but also carries with it a sense of union, being fully absorbed or “digested” in an experience or another being. When I “grok” you—I not only love you unconditionally, I am One with you; I am not only walking in your shoes, I am you in your shoes. When I grok a sunset, for example, I am so absorbed  in the experience of beauty that for an instant or so there is nothing else.

I hope I am not stretching things too much, but I believe that this is what Jesus was attempting to get across when he instituted what is called the Eucharist–becoming one with the Christ consciousness.(Although the metaphor here is food, it is not terribly far-fetched to get a sense that when the food/the bread/the Body of Christ is digested, it becomes a part of you, and you become a part of It. If the language existed back then this is also what Jesus meant when he said, “Father I pray that they all maybe one just as you and I are one.” In other words, “I pray that we will grok one another in truth.”

John Denver expressed this beautifully in his song, Spring:

Riding on the tapestry of all there is to see, so many ways and oh, so many things.

Rejoicing in the differences, there's no one just like me.

Yet as different as we are, we're still the same.

And oh, I love the life within me, I feel a part of everything I see.

And oh, I love the life around me, a part of everything is here in me.

A part of everything is here in me, a part of everything is here in me.

“Now when you know something, “I am in my knowing,” you are in resonance with something. It is not an idea, it is not an intellectual structure, it is a way of being. Knowing and being happen simultaneously. You cannot know and not be at the same time. You are this thing that you know because you are in agreement with it. ”

The interesting thing here is that in our work with this book and other books like this, the major emphasis is always about Oneness and that separateness is an illusion.

“And what you sacrifice is your attachment to who and what you thought you were. And those creations that you have used to decide these things must be altered as you begin to know yourselves anew.”

In this journey of spirit, we are releasing whoever or whatever it is that we have thought ourselves to be. All of that, we are told is more a reflection of our individual personality selves than the truth of who we really are. 

I have not thought about this before, but whenever we release or let go of an idea, concept, or belief or any other form of attachment, there carries with it the necessity for grieving. It is a major difference between having the thought or the idea of letting go of something, sort of just saying to ourselves, “Oh yes I have let go of that,“ compared to really experiencing the release, the letting go and whatever results in that process. In other words, letting go is an experience rather than a thought. Within the experience of release and letting go there is grieving. Even when I release something that no longer serves me, I will still grieve, and I need to allow myself to grieve, to experience the loss, that is an essential part of my letting go.

One of the reasons why it seems so difficult to let go of some beliefs or concepts or forms that we hold as being true is that we have not grieved or given ourselves permission to grieve or opened ourselves up to experience the loss in the letting go.

WELCOME: We are never alone on the path—no matter what we might be feeling. 

“As we sing the songs of our readers, as we remember them by name, we anoint them to their own possibility that they may be listened to, heard, and healed.”

Here again our work is not about forcing something to happen, it is being open to the possibility, the endless possibility of continuing transformation in love.

At the end of this chapter the guides use the word or concept of being “anointed.’ There is a very subtle or perhaps not so subtle awareness here that is being presented to us. The name “Christ” from the Greek or “Christos” means the anointed one.

I am, you are, we are the consciousness of the Christ. I know who I am; I know what I am; I know how I serve.

“I am he as you are he as you are me

And we are all together…”

WELCOME 17

P.57-59

Why so long on this chapter called WELCOME?

Those who are dedicated to a spiritual path can still fall into the illusion of doing it all by yourself. Certainly there is paradox this learning. I heard a wise person once say “The path is essentially a very lonely one because old n one can do it for you. The path is simply you and God.” The other side is also true. There guides and light workers who are also leading us along the path. Not only that, but since we are all One there is no such thing really as our individual efforts. Everything you do affects all other beings.

So I believe that one of our learnings through this chapter is the realization that no matter what we might be feeling emotionally, no matter what challenges may present themselves, that we are never alone; we can never be alone.

As we were speaking together Sunday morning I became aware that despite all of our efforts to avoid thinking in terms of separateness, that we might still create a hierarchy in our minds between the guides and ourselves. That somehow or another, because they seem to know more than we do, that they are better or smarter than we are.

A bird cannot swim because the medium that it functions in is the air rather than the water. That does not make the bird better than the fish. Using this metaphor each one of us could probably learn to develop a functional participation on various planes of existence. Swimming, flying, walking. One is not better than the other, simply different.

If a being lives on one particular plane of existence, let us say the air, in this case, then any other planes of existence such as earth and water not only would be totally foreign but essentially nonexistent. So for some of the guides, at least, we are introducing them to a working in existence on planet Earth that for some or perhaps all of them this is a milieux which they have no cognizant awareness.

In one of the books the guides express themselves as being a collection of beings some of who who have had physical form, but we are never told if that physical form existed on what we call planet Earth or some other physical realm. So as the book states the guides are learning from us as well as our learning from them.

That is still only one form of perception, that there is some form of separation between ourselves and the guides for some sort of distinction.

I recall come across a book by a psychic channeler whose name was Pat Rodegst called Emmanuel’s Book. I was impressed because my buddy Ram Dass wrote introduction so I assumed this was not some flaky version of somebody's perception of Lala land. One of the items that he mentioned was whether or not this channeled being was a separate entity or simply a part of Pat’s higher consciousness essentially makes no difference. The most important reality that we are dealing with is the information that flows forth and our ability to align ourselves to that information.

Recently in following some electronic pathways, I discovered some sayings that were attributed to someone or something called “Fake Buddha.” What I discern from these statements was they are quite Buddhist in nature but that they were not historical quotes from the Buddha himself. One of my favorites is, “Do not believe anything I tell; do not believe anything anybody else tells you even if they seem to be in authority. Believe only what resonates with the truth of your heart.” Now one of the things that is interesting about that is that you can only really believe what resonates with the truth of your heart and nothing else. You can pretend to believe something else and act upon what somebody else told you as being the truth, but  you can only truly resonated with or believe that which is in alignment with the frequency of your own heart. In the book’s language that means “being in your knowing.” 

So we are encouraged here, in a subtle way, to learn to listen to the the promptings of our own heart, sometimes what we might refer to as the intuitive heart. We can describe that information that we receive and attribute it to anyone or anything we choose: Buddha, Jesus, or the guides or our own intuition, but again, for the moment, it is being able to discern what rings true for us within our own being.

I suggested that might be one of the practices we take with us this week: taking a moment anytime we think about it, to tune into our intuitive or spiritual self, to notice if there is anything it needs to communicate to us. Or if we become troubled or confused, for any reason, to go within to seek the answer or the solution.

In last week's summary I jumped the gun a little bit and talked about wonder so I am not going to repeat that here.

An aspect of wonder, however, that was not emphasized, was the whole sense of being able to perceive and respond to each moment of life with a sense of clarity and newness.

As Jesus is said in the book of Revelations, “Behold I make all things new.”

 What would it be like if I approached each moment each person with the sense of wonder and newness?

You see what usually happens when I am involved in a familiar task, let's say a repetitive one, doing the dishes driving, my car, etc. is that I get on “automatic pilot.” I'm just doing things without thinking. Now, obviously, sometimes that might be useful, but you often when I'm performing a task or interacting with another human being, I bring with me whole boatload of baggage and past experience. So the “you” I am relating to is not who you are in this moment, or even your perception of yourself at this moment. It is my perception of you based on all sorts of other past experiences. When I bring all of that baggage to a personal encounter or even a physical task, I am denying myself any possibility of experiencing newness or wonder. Essentially, without me realizing it, I am living in the past of my own creation.

So here we are challenged again. Challenged in terms of our awareness of everyday events and even pushing that further, because in these moments of conscious awareness, we are also being asked to think and act with the consciousness of love.

The strange thing is, although this loving response to everyone and everything is a natural part of our nature, we have come so distant from this knowing, that it seems to take a huge amount of work to be in this innate state of acting and thinking in love.

“We ask you this: When you know what you know, must you act on it? And we will tell you, yes. When you have new knowledge—and new knowledge, we say, is new information that you have gone into agreement with in your knowing—it becomes part of your frequency and the reckoning with it is nearly instantaneous. To reckon with something is to face it, to see it for what it is, and then to move with it as you choose.”

This again is not a judgment, simply an awareness. You always have a choice of a higher vibration or a lower one. This is one of the many reasons why awareness is so important. Since we can only make these choices in our awareness.

No matter which I choose higher or lower, there are consequences connected to that choice. So if I metaphorically choose a lower vibration I am digging a hole that I put myself in and therefore if I want to, I must choose to dig myself out. That is simply a cosmic law like a physical law of gravity it is neither good or bad.

What is interesting to me lately is that it has become or is becoming easier for me to make positive healthy choices in my life. In other words, to choose a higher vibration rather than the lower one. The choice is still there; it just simply seems more natural to flow into that positive state of higher vibration.

The reason why I find that so fascinating, and certainly an object of my gratitude, is that I have often perceived to myself as someone who identifies with the negative more than the positive. Of course, when I perceived myself in that lower vibration state of mind, I was only vaguely aware that I had a choice. Today than choice is much more obvious to me. As we have mentioned many times before, this is more a choice about the thoughts and actions that I am involved with, it is not always a choice about how I feel. Eventually feelings will align themselves with my choices of thoughts and actions, but not necessarily right away.

Thank you all; thank you all; thank you all. Amen

WELCOME 16

WELCOME 16

Just hanging out in the Kingdom.

We are “there” all the time; we infrequently realize it. I am too busy being right, or trying to protect myself from one thing or another*, or trying to find something else that will bring me peace and/or satisfaction.  

• I became aware the other day that all of my stuff, my material possessions, as well as my mental and emotional stuff are all attachments and my attempts to insulate myself from change or any other form of insecurity. Of course, they do not really work in lessening my fear, in fact, they increase my anxiety because now I have to protect the things I think are protecting me!

“We are taking you each by hand to welcome you to what can be as yourselves as you coexist as a species, as a civilization, who honors the truth of who each of you are.”

How beautiful is that. And yet here I am wondering what lies ahead of me. What am I going to be asked to do? Will I be able to handle it? Will it hurt (as the Velveteen Rabbit asked the Skin Horse.) I am like the person at the Pearly Gates—there are two signs—one says “Heaven” the other “Lecture about Heaven.” Here I am waiting on the lecture line, just to make sure. (Hey, is that you in front of me?)

Isn’t it odd that I perceive myself as being fearful of what I desire the most?

“May I be in my wonder in every day. May I allow myself to be in wonder in every choice I make.”

There was a move recently called Wonder about a little boy with severe facial deformity. It was a simple, but delightful parable, and I became very enamored of the title. Wonder. In the book of Revelations, Jesus claims, “Behold, I make all things new.” What would it be like if I perceived everyone, everything with newness and wonder? 

I sit at my desk—a new desk, new notes; a new chair that holds me up; I allow myself to be blown away as I discover all the information in the world is available to me at my fingertips. The touch of a few buttons, and Voila!

Or I go to work and I see Mary and Mike, and Wynona and Bob and instead of seeing them with all of yesterday’s baggage and labels, I see them as completely new. I look at them, I listen to them for the first time. (Now if you are like me, you will either create a new set of labels and prejudices or resurrect the old ones, but that’s OK, it just gives me the opportunity to “choose once again.”) 

“As you claim this for yourself, you claim yourself, you open to new possibilities. The windows begin to open and what was stale releases. The new air comes in and fills the room with new choice, new ability, new love. The ideas that we give you to sort through, to choose from, to decide with, will be there for you as you need them.

The trajectory we are choosing, you say, is one of wonder. Attending to yourself in wonder, as the one who may be in the new trajectory, is what we ask for you today. “Am I willing to claim myself as the one who may be in wonder? Am I willing to align myself to the possibilities that come to me as I align myself to wonder? Will I listen to myself, to the new thoughts that are gifted to me with each choice that I make, with each idea that comes, with each belief I hold, so that I may know something new?”

**************

If you are so moved, you might want too check out the questions on the bottom of p. 59 and top of 60.

These are my personal reflections:

What do I want for myself?

I want to be free; I want to see with the eyes of the Christ. I want to be forever conscious of my service as a unique expression of the Divine.

What do I no longer need?

The collected baggage of self-judgment, my comparing myself to others, all of my coulda, woulda, shoulda.

What have I cared for too much?

The opinion of others; being right; immediate gratification; my intellectual understanding.

What have I cared too little for?

my body; listening to the yearnings of my soul; the love others bring to me.

What have I agreed to that is no longer true, and what would be a new belief that would liberate from me the things I have attended to as myself that cannot truly be myself, because now I know who I am in my wonder?

In the past I have agreed to and aligned myself to a belief system that emphasized my limitations and sense of separateness. As much as I realize these are untrue, I am still somewhat shackled by them. My only conclusion is that I continue to hold onto and even nurture some of these old and unnecessary beliefs—in doing so I seem to limit my beliefs in my Divine Truth. (I am aware that what I speak of as being “real” is still only my perception, which by its nature is limited).

Wonder—to greet each moment with wonder. You see, that would continually be the present moment, no expectations, no goals just wonder!

May all beings be at peace; may all beings be free of suffering; may all beings know who they are.

WELCOME 15

P. 54-55

As I sit with these reflections about our Sunday morning class, there are two things that stand out for me. First, I do not feel as if I was as aware and centered as I could have been, and the second is a sense of gratitude for your willingness to question and comment, because more than anything else that stretches me.

The primary focus of our gathering on Sunday encompassed a sense of being in the Kingdom. I am often reminded of the statements of Jesus regarding the kingdom of heaven when he expressed, “the kingdom of heaven is within you; the kingdom of heaven is now, and unless you become as a little child, you shall not enter into the kingdom.

To me, these days, being in the kingdom means being in a state of loving awareness, no matter what I am doing. I am not thinking about being in a state of loving awareness I just am. Now being in loving awareness or being in your bliss might be experienced by each one of us in different ways. 

During class on Sunday I was drawn to powerful piece of wisdom expressed in Thornton Wilder's “Our Town.” This scene involves Emily, who died young and who requests from the stage manager if she could revisit her life for one day. She decides to come back for her 16th birthday. What she experiences, however, is her father being busy fixing a watch (to make little extra and needed income) and her mother being busy making a cake for her birthday. Emily decides that most people reside in a place of unawareness.* 

I became rather fixated with Emily’s conclusion. I did not realize that by doing so I was negating or ignoring many other possibilities. I was thinking to myself that being in the kingdom meant to being present and loving to the one before me. As important as that is, I discovered that your questions and comments encouraged me to widen my perspective. Who am I to say that baking a cake or fixing a watch cannot be a reflection of perfect love or bliss and being in the kingdom?

I came to that paradoxical place where my intellect was pushed to its limits and when asked the question, What constitutes being in the kingdom?” I had to answer “I don't know.” I can know what works for me in this moment, but other than that whatever comes next I do not have a clue.

I must also say that being in this place of mystery of the unexplainable does not negate or take away from the truth that we are continually confirming; “I know who I am; I know what I am; I know how I serve.”

“When you understand this, that your worth is the key and that what you would claim is always in accordance with your worth, you begin to think outside of yourself. And you begin to think of the larger issues that present you each as a species, as a civilization, as an aspect of the Creator operating in tandem with others.”

In reflecting this last piece, we began to move from a more personal sense of awareness to one that was more universal in truth. We are part of a race, a civilization that is also evolving and transforming.

And finally there is this marvelous image of the guides taking us by the hand, that we need to willingly stretch out; taking us by the hand and leading us more and more into a deeper, deeper awareness of the kingdom of heaven.

I know I have shared this image before, so I hope you do not mind me sharing it again. I happened to be present when our oldest granddaughter was learning to walk. I have noticed that every child goes through this stage a little bit differently, but what Mikayla did was, after she would struggle up to her feet, she would simply stick one hand up in the air, waiting for someone to take hold and someone always did,

I am grateful and as we extend our hand, it is taken in love to lead us forth to a more deeper awareness of the truth of who we are.

Peace