WISDOM 2

P. 132

Again we are lovingly confronted with the paradox of Divine Truth we are living in.

We are well aware of the difference between saying the words “I am a Divine Child of God, unconditionally loved’ as opposed to claiming that as my truth. We might not be able to explain that distinction in words, but here it is. “I love you,” as words or “I love you” as Truth. Same words perhaps, but a very different energy or vibration.

Let us say in a movie, for instance, an actor is playing a part, and doing a very good job at it, but there are also times when the actor “becomes” the character. I’m reminded of Ben Kingsly in Gandhi. As participants in this drama, there are times when we can enjoy watching another playing a part and then there are times when we become lost in the characterization. I am no longer watching a film but am involved with the character himself/herself.

This is somewhat of a metaphor between saying some words and/or claiming them as being the truth. Where we become confused and sometimes lost is that we are attempting to claim an infinite truth through our finite selves. Or to put it in the language of the book, we are attempting to claim our divinity through our limited personality self. As we have discovered, sometimes to our dismay, that method does not work.

So what do we do? The simplest way to expound on the process is to realize that we choose to “open” ourselves to this deeper truth. We do not create it; we do not even embrace it consciously. What we do is we allow it to embrace us. Again another example of this is someone loving you. You do not make some love you. You might not even understand why they love you. You can even reject it if you like but in order to take it in, you must be a you must allow yourself to be embraced by it.

There is a reference made In A Course in Miracles to an aspect of self that is referred to as “the decider.” The “decider” is that energy or that vibration which can choose what direction you go in. Again, in simplest terms, do I decide to go with higher vibration or lower; .do I decide to embrace my personality self is being the truth or do I open myself to the deeper wisdom of the Divine self.” (This is not new stuff--we are all aware of this process on some level. Rather than learning something , we are REMEMBERING.)

We are challenged with this choice each moment. That is why awareness is so essential. If we are not aware then the choices are being made for us by old thoughts, behaviors, patterns, things that we have learned from other people, fears and limitations that we still hold onto.

“Now, speaking the words will not do it. And you must understand the difference between setting an intention in language only and setting an intention in your spirit. When you shift your vibration in a new way, there is an experience, an overlay that occurs because you are moving your vibration from one space to another and, in the new space, acclimating to the vibration that exists there. So this is experiential, yes. But just to say the words and not to acclimate, not to bring your vibration to the new place, will not support you well.”

In our “deciding” we LET LOVE HAPPEN; we LET WISDOM EXPRESS ITSELF; we OPEN OURSELVES TO TRUTH OF WHO YOU ARE.

(One Of the many reasons why I am grateful for this work is that in working together on Sunday mornings and putting together this class reflection, I am pushed into a state of awareness that I am not always in. I am pushed into a state of awareness that is continually in the realm of the practice of the presence of God. It is a paradoxical realization that this life I am living and perceiving is so miniscule when contrasted with the depth of the cosmos and yet at the same time it is a unique and necessary expression of the Divine.

When I am aware God can show up in a spilled cup of coffee as well as in a rainbow.

The books also often speak willingness and intention. This might be another way of perceiving what we called “the decider.” It is also way of knowing how we go beyond words by energizing or raising the vibration of my consciousness and the desire of my heart. Willingness and Intention are within the realm of my personality self, perhaps one of the higher vibrations that it can reach. In my Willingness and my Intention, even through perceived limitation, I begin to bridge the gap between the human and the divine.

Again we are at the level of paradox that the mind cannot completely understand. Because as willingness and intention stretch the personality to its highest point, there is also the necessity for surrender to allow the Divine to take over. in other words, we do not define what our willingness and intention might bring us to. We allow that Wisdom and Truth to be defined and revealed by the Divine within us.

“Now we ask you this: If you ask the question of yourself and you state it as an intention, “I am now asking myself in a higher way to move into alignment with the question I have asked,” and you set it as an intention, “I am setting this intention to move my frequency into accord with the response I require to know my own wisdom, my information in the highest way available to me,” you will claim it. As you make the intention, you must understand that you are making a decision to align to something. That is very different than grabbing something or shielding yourself from something. It is simply aligning to something new. And in this alignment you call your frequency as yourself in this new way.”

 I jokingly added at the end of our class Sunday, but not so jokingly either, that our homework is to consciously work with what is sometimes referred to as “The Practice of the Presence of God.” I encourage you to do that if you wish.

I've often quoted Mother Teresa  when she defined her work on planet Earth by saying, “My job is to find the Christ in all his distressing disguises.”

Gratefully I will leave you with that one. 

WISDOM 1

“Indeed, there is an unbroken golden thread that weaves its way through human history, stitching together the many wise voices that have pointed seekers toward the simple spiritual truth. Yet while the timeless message of spirituality may be simple, the searching is not. Why? Because human beings are complex. By the time we make our spiritual searching a conscious endeavor, we have acquired layers of stubborn misconceptions about ourselves and the nature of life. Not only must we follow the golden thread toward spiritual freedom, but we must also unravel the garden variety twine that is wrapped tightly around our hearts and minds. The golden thread parts of my own spiritual story are interesting and enlightening—they involve extraordinary teachers and are set in exotic places, like India and Israel. But the most useful stories emanate from the unraveling of the tightly wound twine. Here the characters and sets are ordinary—me, my family, and others who have shared their questions and growth with me. How we unravel the twine—through the hard knocks of daily life and the hard work of self-examination—is just as much a part of the spiritual path as are solitary retreats and meetings with remarkable teachers. In daily life we make real the rarefied wisdom that we can only glean in meditation and in the words of saints and gurus.”

Lesser, Elizabeth. The Seeker's Guide

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

P.  130-132

SOLOMON AND WISDOM

7 “Now, Lord my God, you have made your servant king in place of my father David. But I am only a little child and do not know how to carry out my duties. 8 Your servant is here among the people you have chosen, a great people, too numerous to count or number. 9 So give your servant a discerning heart to govern your people and to distinguish between right and wrong. For who is able to govern this great people of yours?”

10 The Lord was pleased that Solomon had asked for this. 11 So God said to him, “Since you have asked for this and not for long life or wealth for yourself, nor have asked for the death of your enemies but for discernment in administering justice, 12 I will do what you have asked. I will give you a wise and discerning heart, so that there will never have been anyone like you, nor will there ever be. 13 Moreover, I will give you what you have not asked for—both wealth and honor—so that in your lifetime you will have no equal among kings. 14 And if you walk in obedience to me and keep my decrees and commands as David your father did, I will give you a long life.” 15 Then Solomon awoke—and he realized it had been a dream. 1 Kings 3:7-15

That phrase, “ a discerning heart” is often translated as “wisdom,” although “discerning heart” probably give sis a better feel for what wisdom truly is. 

“We speak of an inner knowing that is inherited by you through the vehicle you stand in, the energy bodies and the physical body that transmits the frequency through you so you may be in your own knowing in a new way.”

Have you ever become aware that you are “seeing” someone or something differently? A disaster turns into a gratitude; an annoying person turns into a teacher; a difficult situation pushes you into the challenge to respond lovingly. 

“Now understand this, please: When you are awakened in a new way, the vision is changed. When the vision is changed, the possibilities are new. When the possibilities are new, there are new choices to call to you. But to be in your wisdom means you identify what you need in a thoughtful, kind way and you inherit your wisdom; you claim the magnificence as the one who may know.”

Certainly one of the ways then you can recognize you are in your wisdom rather than your judgment judgment is of the ego and of the personality wisdom is of the heart .

Another concept which is similar to wisdom is sometimes referred to as discernment. Now this is not just word play. Judgment will practically always be a comparison or an “either-or situation;” “It is either this or that you must choose between black and white.”

Discernment or wisdom comes from the realization that human life lives in an area of grayness and that the directives for one moment might not be the same as the next. The mind loves to have definitions and wants to find ways of dealing with particular in similar ways situations. In the realm of wisdom and discernment, each moment presents us with a choice. And even though my question to myself might be the same, “How can I approach this lovingly?” the answer might be different from one moment to the next. We realize this is terribly disconcerting to the thinking mind which would much prefer to have a formula to follow or an equation to solve, and yet life it's not a cookbook or a mathematical proof.

Ponder that wonderful line quoted above, “you claim the magnificence as the one who may know.” In other words, you are the unique expression of the Divine in this moment and aligned with Divine knowing you respond to this moment perfectly and lovingly.

“Now, when we speak of knowing, as we have explained previously, we do not speak of thinking. Thinking is a process. It’s a sorting. It’s a way of managing information. And you may come to a decision through thinking anytime you need to. Wisdom is inheritance of a divine sense of authority. When one is in his wisdom, he is a benefactor to others because he may share information from a higher level.”

This is also another way of determining whether I am acting from wisdom, my Divine consciousness, or from judgment in my limited personality self. “Am I choosing something that raises the vibration or lowers it; am I opening my heart or am I closing it?”

On some level, we always realize whether what we are holding onto or the action that we are planning or manifesting at this moment is either a loving one or not. Wisdom will always respond lovingly and it will always know the difference between enabling and compassion. We suggest you sit with that one for a moment. 

We cannot describe or define all of the many times and situations you might need to apply wisdom in that way, but we encourage you to trust the God wisdom that you are a part of. Then when you are open to it, you will always be guided in a way that expresses love in its most ideal form.

It is probably not difficult to imagine or two sense that love is all around you as well as within you as the essence of your being. We recall that periodically, and there are times when we are gently or forcefully reminded of that truth. Well, wisdom carries with it a similar kind of energy. It is always here. It is an energy or a quality that can be called upon whenever you need it. and eventually there will come a time when you will not need to call or claim love or wisdom because you will realize they are the essence of Who You Are. 

This book and others like it often speak of “going into alignment” with a particular quality or energy. We realize this language is different from what you are used to and can sometimes be confusing, so let us repeat a lesson from the past as a way of understanding our present teaching today.

Since we mentioned love above, let us take that as an example. Someone can say to you “I love you” and you can take the words in and even agree with them and say “Yes I know that is true,” but that is an intellectual process you are agreeing to, something on a level of awareness that does not really change or transform anything. It's almost like passing someone a piece of paper with the word “Love” written on it. That's nice but it doesn't do anything

Now let us suppose again someone says, “I love you,” and you will know the truth behind those words and open your heart to it. When you do that, you allow yourself to come into alignment with the truth of the love, in the light, that someone holds you in. You do not need to understand or explain this process, you simply know the truth of it, but notice there was something more that you needed to do rather than just listen to the words. You needed to open yourself up to the truth behind those words or as we are saying here to “come into alignment” with being loved.

Now here we speak of coming into alignment with wisdom. This is a little bit more difficult because we are not used to doing this and so we will offer a very simple example and a very simple method of aligning yourself to wisdom.

You put this process into action without even realizing. It it is a simple technique of moving ourselves away from the needs of the intellect into our awareness and connection with our intuitive self. So if I say to myself, “What would it be like, in this moment, in this situation, to be aligned with Divine wisdom. I immediately open myself up to an awareness of an energy and a deeper truth that goes beyond my human understanding. In other words, I am aligning myself with wisdom. All of us have done this at certain times in our lives although we might not have been totally aware of the process. If for instance we are with someone or talking with someone whom we know and love and discover that they are in a difficult situation, and we want to be compassionate and consoling as well as having the need to offer some advice or information or direction that would be helpful to this person.

Often times when I have found myself in situations like this I have said a silent prayer, “God I have no idea what to tell this person. I have no idea what words might be helpful. Please guide me in the best possible direction to offer this person whom I love, who is in pain or doubt or confusion ,to offer them the best that I possibly can.”

Whether we realize it consciously are not what we have done in those moments is we have aligned ourselves to Divine wisdom. We have released our need to fix someone else or to control their behavior or their feelings and opened ourselves up to the Divine teacher of compassion who will always offer us and give us the grace to respond in the most loving kind compassionate and healing way possible. That energy is always available to us. I only seem to recognize that those sometimes when my back is up against the wall.

And so here, I believe, is a lesson for today. We do not have to wait for our back to be up against the wall before we asked to be aligned to Divine wisdom. 

“Now we will ask you this: What is one thing you need to know? Now, don’t ask where you left your keys. You probably left them in your bag anyway, or on the place you always leave them. Ask what you need to know in your worth. “Am I the man I believe I am to be in this lifetime? Am I living the life that is in all my possibilities? Am I allowing myself freedom in true ways? Am I trusting myself enough to give myself the promise of a new way of being in my own way, expressed as me, I know who I am?”

So we offer this challenge today— Anytime, in any situation, this week that you recall this lesson, ask yourself this question and to be open to however it might be answered— “What would it be like to be in Divine wisdom, to be aligned to Divine wisdom in this moment?”

And if you wish to take another leap in consciousness, to ask Divine wisdom that it give you a demonstration of its presence in your life this day. And again, be open to however that might show up.

In love; in light; in gratitude. thank you 

PRECIPICE 10

P. 127-129

“I suddenly saw everything in a new way.” She turned back towards the daylight. “An epiphany,” her friend breathed. “An epiphany.” She had been taught the word but she hadn’t found it on her lips when she wanted it. An epiphany. Seeing the world anew with new understanding. Like when those trick pictures suddenly made sense and you saw the bump as a hole, the young woman as an old lady. The same thing had happened today. The new picture didn’t erase the old—the bump was still a hole, but now it was a bump as well; the old lady was still a young one, but now she was old too.”    Lawrence, Mark. Red Sister

(When I am open, wisdom is everywhere--even in a fantasy, “escape” novel.)

As we were completing this chapter, I became aware of all of our talking about standing on the precipice and taking a leap into the unknown. It seemed as if that leap in consciousness beyond the known was by its very nature scary and threatening.

I wondered if there might be a different way of teaching this next step. Now I have to be very careful here because I do not want to rationalize myself through a difficult space or avoid something uncomfortable that I really need to learn from. So what I will share next is the best I can do at the moment and my description or my perception is always open to further exploration.

Instead of standing on a ledge getting ready to leap into the unknown,  I found myself standing in this huge open undefined space. There was a “me” there, this personality self, but along with that was an awareness of “I am,” the sense of being a part of everything. I was reminded of a wonderful line from an old John Denver song , SPRING: “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.”

So here I Am, standing in this infinite expansiveness and what I am being asked to do is to open myself to it. To do that I must drop my attachment, my identification with this personality or Persona that I have created. I align myself as best I can In this moment to the truth that resonates within me. Not only am I Divine Child of God unconditionally loved, but I am a part of all things, and everything is sacred. And even if I do not recognize the sacredness in a particular person, place, thing or situation then I pray that my perception might be enlarged, stretched, so that I can see all things for what they are.

Here is the essence of this teaching:

“You stand right now at an end of all you have known. You stand at this ending with one choice in mind: I am now claiming my worth as a divine being born into his knowing, in response to the Creator within him. I choose my life, I claim my worth, and I accept the offering that is gifted to me as I say these words:

“I stand on a precipice of great change. I stand on the edge of truth. I stand on the edge of freedom. I stand on the edge of all that I have known and believed to be true. I stand on the edge of my limitations. I stand on the edge of my fear. And as I say yes, as I say yes, as I say yes, I step forward into the unknown.”

It was pointed out that often times in this book and others by Paul and the Guides that when an emphasis is needed, a particular phrase or words are repeated three times. Such is the case here. It is very much like the directive Jesus gave when he said, “He that has ears let him hear.” Or in a more crass language, “If you did not hear it the first time, I will repeat it again. And again.”

We are not learning the same lesson over and over again. We are learning whatever it is we have decided to learn on a deeper and deeper level. A simple example of that would be to become aware of someone in your life whom you love dearly. You know that the love or connection you have with this individual is not the same as it was yesterday. Whether you have done this consciously or not, you have chosen to love on a deeper level. As we have said before it is that simple and that profound. In human terms: “I love you more today than yesterday

But not as much as tomorrow.”

If you want to take that a step further into the realm of the Divine, here is a mavelous excpert form a little book called Mr. God, this is Anna. Anna is a five year old little girl who has insights into truth far beyond her years

“Mister God made everything, didn’t he?”

There was no point in saying I didn’t really know. I said “Yes.”

“Even the dirt and the stars and the animals and the people and the trees and everything, and the pollywogs?” The pollywogs were those little creatures we had seen under the microscope.

I said, “Yes, he made everything.”

She nodded her agreement. “Does Mister God love us truly?”

“Sure thing,” I said. “Mister God loves everything.”

“Oh,” she said. “well then, why does he let things get hurt and dead?” Her voice sounded as if she felt she had betrayed a sacred trust, but the question had been thought and it had to be spoken.

“I don’t know,” I replied. “There’re a great many things about Mister God, we don’t know about?”

“Well then,” she continued, “if we don’t know many things about Mister God, how do we know he loves us?”

I could see this was going to be one of those times, but thank goodness she didn’t expect an answer to her question, for she hurried on: “Them pollywogs, I could love them till I bust, but they wouldn’t know, would they? I’m million times bigger than they are and Mister God is million times bigger than me, so how do I know what Mister God does?”

She was silent for a little while. Later I thought that at this moment she was taking her last look at babyhood. Then she went on.

“Fynn, Mister God doesn’t love us.” She hesitated. “He doesn’t really, you know, only people can love. I love Bossy, but Bossy don’t love me. I love the pollywogs, but they don’t love me. I love you Fynn, and you love me, don’t you?”

I tightened my arm about her.

“You love me because you are people. I love Mister God truly but he don’t love me.”

It sounded to me like a death knell. “Damn and blast,” I thought. “Why does this have to happen to people? Now she’s lost everything.” But I was wrong.

She had got both feet planted firmly on the next stepping stone.

“No,” she went on, “no, he don’t love me, not like you do, its different, its millions of times bigger.”

I must have made some movement or noise, for she levered herself upright and sat on her haunches and giggled. The she launched herself at me and undid my little pang of hurt, cut from the useless spark of jealousy with the delicate sureness of a surgeon.

“Fynn, you can love better than any people that ever was, and so can I, cant I? But Mister God is different. You see, Fynn, people can only love outside, and can only kiss outside, but Mister God can love you right inside, and Mister God can kiss you right inside, so its different. Mister God ain’t like us; we are a little bit like Mister God, but not much yet.”

It seemed to me to reduce itself to the fact that we were like God because of the similarities, but God was not like us because of our differences. Her inner fires had refined her ideas, and like some alchemist she had turned lead into gold. Gone were all the human definitions of God, like Goodness, Mercy, Love, and Justice, for these were merely props to describe the indescribable.

“You see, Fynn, Mister God is different because he can finish things and we cant. I cant finish loving you because I shall be dead millions of years before I can finish, but Mister God can finish loving you, and so its not the same kind of love, is it?”

― Fynn, Mister God, This is Anna

“I say yes to the journey before me and I step forward into the unknown.”

We are greeting you each as you make this choice. You will be surrounded by us now and received by us in love. We are making you new, we are making you new, we are making you new.”

The Christ in Revelations exclaimed, “Behold, I make all things new.”

We are reminded here that this newness that we speak of is not the result of straining or effort on the part of our personality self. It is the result of our choice to be open, to the transformation in perception that is always available to us, and to be open to the help the guidance, strength and grace of all of these other non-corporeal beings who have chosen to be part of this process of Awakening with us.

Grateful for all that is. Especially you providing the loving space for me to share in. 

PRECIPICE 9

P. 126-128

“Now you deny yourself your light. You pretend you are not worthy.”

Notice you can pretend, you can’t make it real, your unworthiness, but you can make it seem real. Perhaps that is the ultimate illusion of making something seem real which is or cannot be. if you and I were created worthy then there is absolutely nothing we could do to change that. Even though we are a creative aspect of God, we are still created and because we are created as with all other beings, there is nothing that we can “uncreate,” especially the Truth.

Paul expressed it this way, “I tell you nothing absolutely nothing can separate us from the love of God.”

Now again we can play the game of denial and we will play that as long as we need to, but eventually the illusion will be erased. Marianne Williamson put it this way, “God will eventually outsmart your self-hatred.”

Now all of this might seem rather harsh. We might tell ourselves, “I don't deny my light; I don't pretend I am not worthy. Well if that were true,if you were in touch with the truth of Who You Are and therefore the truth of who everyone else is as well, then there would be no moments of darkness, doubt or fear. You would see through them as the illusions that they are without even thinking.

Not sure about you, but I do not perceive myself being there yet. And here is a wonderful, tricky thing that I have becoming closer to realizing— I am not lacking in the truth but my perception is lacking. My perception of myself as being a Divine Child of God, as being the light,as being worthy, as being the Word, as knowing my worth—here is my work to transform that perception.

Now I could make a list all of those things, all of those thoughts ideas and patterns of behavior that seem to be clouding my perception of the truth, but I have come to believe that there is a better way of working through this. And that is by becoming more and more aware of those moments when the truth of who I am shines through, when I am in my knowing when I know who I am what I am and how I serve.

Most of those moments are beyond reason or explanation and yet here they are.

Today we are reminded that we have a choice. I have a choice of how I perceive myself. Now by perceiving myself, I do not mean how I look or how I appear, but what is it that I am attuned to, what is it that I am in alignment with, what it is that I am I am identified with. I say this because it is important to realize, as we have stated before, that knowing the truth of who you are or being in the truth of who you are, is not a matter of emotions or feelings, even though it is wonderful when the feelings go along with that truth. But do you see what happens here? We become more dependent upon the feelings and we begin to use the feelings themselves as being the truth. It is like that horrible piece of misdirection that asked the question “If you feel far away from God who moved.”

First of all God doesn't move, secondly nothing can separate you from God's love, thirdly how you feel has nothing to do with how present God is to you or how present you are to God. Some of our most powerful lessons come to us when we go beyond our feelings or our emotional state.

I can know I am aligned to the truth of who I am when I choose to be loving towards myself or towards others, when I choose to bite my tongue or stop my mind when it desires to be bitter or angry or harsh or unforgiving. Do you get that? You choose love. We don't always have the ability to choose our emotions or feelings, that is neither good nor bad it is just the truth, but I can certainly choose to love even when I do not feel like loving.

“And choice, we say, is always a free thing. When you have a choice, you are free. How can you deny yourself this choice you are making now?”

The next paragraph in the book is extremely important and powerful. It offers us an example of choosing to go along with the set of preconceived patterns or structures as opposed to falling into a limited way of thinking that suggests something is happening to us. 

“When you are driving down the highway and you see a sign that says there’s a speed limit of fifty miles an hour, you decide to go into agreement with that sign, for your own safety, perhaps, because you would like to think that everybody else is doing the same thing. And that is a mutual agreement you have made to keep yourself safe on a highway. When you see something that you don’t like and you make a decision about it born in your history—“He looked at me that way, he must want something I don’t want to give him”—you are aligning to a fear, you are aligning to a belief, and you are creating a choice that you are expressing as your vibration.”

There is an interesting concept here that is not often talked about--praise.

This is not about ego boosting; it is about “lifting your frequency in accord with the Divine.” Do you get a sense of that? 

I need to experience myself as worthy to lift my frequency the Divine. Again, this is not an emotion. When I recognize my ability to choose, and especially to choose a higher frequency, I am in MY KNOWING AND WORTH!

“Now the free woman that you are today, the free man that you are right now, has things he must do, and doing these things, we say, in accordance with your worth will give you a foundation that you may stand upon. Every time you take an action on your own behalf, every time you deny fear its purview and stand in your power, every time you align a conscious choice to a new possibility of freedom, you give yourself praise. And to give oneself praise means you lift your frequency in accord with the divine. You are not praising the personality self, you are lifting your vibration. When you give praise to the Christ, you are aligning your frequency to the Christ, so it may lift you as well. That aspect of you that is the Christ, “I know who I am, what I am, how I serve,” will always respond.”

As I read that last paragraph I could not but help think of a power rule quotation from Robert Kennedy

“Each time a man stands up for an ideal or acts to improve the lot of others or strikes out against Injustice, he sends for the tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring, those ripples build a current which can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance.”

Thank you

Peace!