Friends,
Thank you for your presence as I share some of my thoughts here. Please know. Your gift of presence is so appreciated and so beneficial to me. It allows me to
“find my way.” I love these words.
“To sit and listen while someone talks and allow that person to be with her feelings and experience her emotions without comment, and to create a safe space for that person to find her way through whatever passage she is making is an act of service.”
(As found in Caroline Myss’ book
Invisible Acts of Power, p. 186)
At this time in my life, one of the things I'm grateful for is my good friend and fellow Project Meditation forum member Darren, aka D. James Albert, from Australia. Currently, I am on page 305 of his 345 page book
The Realization System. If any of you are interested in learning practical ways how to implement the “law of attraction” into your lives, I highly recommend that you consider reading and pondering this excellent book. (See:
The Realization System )
In the next part of this post, I refer to Jesus and his teachings. Please know that I’m not trying to preach to or convert anyone here. In fact, I no longer affiliate myself with organized religion of any persuasion. However, I want to acknowledge and honor the religious traditions in which I was raised. I was schooled in the Christian tradition. Therefore, I frequently refer to teachings from the Bible. I imagine if I had been raised Hindu, I would quote from the Vedas and Upanishads. If Muslim, I would quote from the Qur’an. And if Taoist, I would probably quote from Lao Tzu’s Tao Te Ching. However, raised as I was, the words from the Bible are what I’m familiar with. As time permits, I look forward to reading these other great religious texts. I am confident that many of the words there will be very similar to those of Jesus in the Bible.
I am grateful that I am becoming aware of and meeting people who are humble and who aren’t concerned with getting the credit or taking credit undeservedly. I am reminded of how one of my favorite teachers, Jesus, responded to praise.
And when he was gone forth into the way, there came one running, and kneeled to him, and asked him, Good Master, what shall I do that I may inherit eternal life? And Jesus said unto him, Why callest thou me good? there is none good but one, that is, God. Thou knowest the commandments, Do not commit adultery, Do not kill, Do not steal, Do not bear false witness, Defraud not, Honour thy father and mother. And he answered and said unto him, Master, all these have I observed from my youth. Then Jesus beholding him loved him, and said unto him, One thing thou lackest: go thy way, sell whatsoever thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come, take up the cross, and follow me. And he was sad at that saying, and went away grieved: for he had great possessions. (Mark 10:17-22)
Concerning humility, one of my favorite writers the Trappist monk Thomas Merton wrote:
The humble man receives praise the way a clean window takes the light of the sun. The truer and more intense the light is, the less you see of the glass. . . .
If you were truly humble you would not bother about yourself at all. Why should you? You would only be concerned with God and with His will and with the objective order of things and values as they are, and not as your selfishness wants them to be. Consequently you would have no more illusions to defend. Your movements would be free. You would not need to be hampered with excuses which are really only framed to defend you against the accusation of pride—as if your humility depended on what other people thought of you!
A humble man can do great things with an uncommon perfection because he is no longer concerned about incidentals, like his own interests and his own reputation, and therefore he no longer needs to waste his efforts in defending them.
For a humble man is not afraid of failure. In fact, he is not afraid of anything, even of himself, since perfect humility implies perfect confidence in the power of God, before Whom no other power has any meaning and for Whom there is no such thing as an obstacle.
Humility is the surest sign of strength. (
New Seeds of Contemplation, 192-193)
Like the man who came to Jesus above, I am not yet at the point of
“selling whatsoever I have” and trusting in the goodness of God, of the Source, of the Universal Mind, of whatever name you choose to call the Divine Source of Love from whence we all sprang. However, there is a part of me that I’m noticing that is starting to grow. It is like a pin-point of light that lies buried deep within. Maybe it would be more accurate to say that my
awareness of this pin-point of light deep within is what is starting to grow. And I believe—I have faith—that I have the capability of awakening to this truth of who I am. I love these words of the Apostle John in the New Testament:
Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God: therefore the world knoweth us not, because it knew him not. Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is. And every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself, even as he is pure. (1 John 3:1-3)
One of the things suggested in Darren’s book
The Realization System is to make and prioritize a list of my desires. This is proving more difficult than I thought it would be. The questions I ask myself are:
“What do I desire more than anything else in the world? What is the “pearl of great price” that I will give up “all else” in order to obtain?
In referring to this very thing, Jesus said:
Again, the kingdom of heaven is like unto treasure hid in a field; the which when a man hath found, he hideth, and for joy thereof goeth and selleth all that he hath, and buyeth that field. Again, the kingdom of heaven is like unto a merchant man, seeking goodly pearls: Who, when he had found one pearl of great price, went and sold all that he had, and bought it. (Matthew 13:44-46)
Recorded in the book of Luke in response to a question put to him of the Pharisees, Jesus replied:
And when he was demanded of the Pharisees, when the kingdom of God should come, he answered them and said, The kingdom of God cometh not with observation: Neither shall they say, Lo here! or, lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you. (Luke 17:20-21)
The Amplified version of the Bible translates the above passage like this:
Asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come, He replied to them by saying, The kingdom of God does not come with signs to be observed or with visible display, Nor will people say, Look! Here [it is]! or, See, [it is] there! For behold, the kingdom of God is within you [in your hearts] and among you [surrounding you]. (Amplified Bible Luke 17:20-21)
Now, I’m not a Bible theologian by any means. However, I sense that the
“kingdom of heaven” and the
“kingdom of God” are in essence the same thing. They are two sides of the same coin. They are the deepest most longings of every human heart. This “universal desire” is
“within” each person [in our hearts] AND it is
“among” us [surrounds us].
The Apostle Paul explained this universal longing for relationship with the Divine when he wrote:
That they should seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after him, and find him, though he be not far from every one of us: For in him we live, and move, and have our being; as certain also of your own poets have said, For we are also his offspring. (Acts 17:27-28)
One of my favorite Christmas songs is
“Grown-up Christmas List” (music by David Foster; lyrics by Linda Thompson-Jenner; and sung by Amy Grant) Here are the lyrics:
Do you remember me?
I sat upon your knee
I wrote to you with childhood fantasies
Well, I'm all grown-up now
Can you still help somehow?
I'm not a child, but my heart still can dream
So here's my lifelong wish
My grown-up Christmas list
Not for myself, but for a world in need
No more lives torn apart
That wars would never start
And time would heal all hearts
Every man would have a friend
That right would always win
And love would never end
This is my grown-up Christmas list
What is this illusion called the innocence of youth?
Maybe only in that blind belief can we ever find the truth
No more lives torn apart
That wars would never start
And time would heal all hearts
Every man would have a friend
That right would always win
And love would never end
This is my grown-up Christmas list
This is my only lifelong wish
This is my grown-up Christmas list
I’m somehow sensing that the desire expressed in this stanza:
No more lives torn apart
That wars would never start
And time would heal all hearts
Every man would have a friend
That right would always win
And love would never end
is in very essence what the
“kingdom of heaven” or the
“kingdom of God” that we all long for is all about. It is the desire that is planted in every human heart to return home—to return to God.
So, what I desire more than anything else in the world is to
“return home to God who created me and gave me life.” And the paradox of it is that this desire will never be found in anything outside of myself. It will not be found in amassing great treasures of financial wealth. It will not be found in physical objects and possessions like new cars and swimming pools and palatial homes. It will not be found in robust physical health and physical beauty. And yet these very “outside” types of things will be mine—they will be added unto me—if I first seek
“the kingdom of God, and his righteousness.”
At this Christmas Season, the wisdom of the words of the great teacher Jesus resonate with the desires of my heart.
Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal: But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal: For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. . . . Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed? (For after all these things do the Gentiles seek) for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things. But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you. Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof. (Matthew 6: 19-21 & 31-34)
And so if my greatest desire is to
“seek first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness,” then I wonder how I might do this most wisely and efficiently.
Once again, the following words of hope and guidance from Thomas Merton’s
New Seeds of Contemplation come to mind:
Therefore there is only one problem on which all my existence, my peace and my happiness depend: to discover myself in discovering God. If I find Him I will find myself and if I find my true self I will find Him.
But although this looks simple, it is in reality immensely difficult. In fact, if I am left to myself it will be utterly impossible. For although I can know something of God’s existence and nature by my own reason, there is no human and rational way in which I can arrive at that contact, that possession of Him, which will be the discovery of Who He really is and of Who I am in Him.
That is something that no man can ever do alone.
Nor can all the men and all the created things in the universe help him in this work.
The only One Who can teach me to find God is God, Himself, Alone. (p. 38) . . .
This then is what it means to seek God perfectly: to withdraw from illusion and pleasure, from worldly anxieties and desires, from the works that God does not want, from a glory that is only human display; to keep my mind free from confusion in order that my liberty may be always at the disposal of His will; to entertain silence in my heart and listen for the voice of God; to cultivate an intellectual freedom from the images of created things in order to receive the secret contact of God in obscure love; to love all men as myself; to rest in humility and to find peace in withdrawal from conflict and competition with other men; to turn aside from controversy and put away heavy loads of judgment and censorship and criticism and the whole burden of opinions that I have no obligation to carry; to have a will that is always ready to fold back within itself and draw all powers of the soul down from its deepest center to rest in silent expectancy for the coming of God, poised in tranquil and effortless concentration upon the point of my dependence on Him; to gather all that I am, and have all that I can possibly suffer or do or be, and abandon them all to God in the resignation of a perfect love and blind faith and pure trust in God, to do His will.
And then to wait in peace and emptiness and oblivion of all things.
Bonum est praestolari cum silentio salutare Dei. ("It is good to wait in silence for the salvation of God.") (pp. 47-48) . . .
If nothing that can be seen can either be God or represent Him to us as He is, then to find God we must pass beyond everything that can be seen and enter into darkness. Since nothing that can be heard is God, to find Him we must enter into silence.
Since God cannot be imagined, anything our imagination tells us about Him is ultimately misleading and therefore we cannot know Him as He really is unless we pass beyond everything that can be imagined and enter into obscurity without images and without likeness of any created thing.
And since God cannot be seen or imagined, the visions of God we read of the saints having are not so much vision of Him as visions about Him; for to see any limited form is not to see Him. (pp. 134-135)
Thank you for your presence and attention as I expressed myself. I wish each of you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! With love, --Keith
