The Hummingbird

If you're lucky, you've seen them in all their jewel-like splendor hovering over your garden flowers. But did you know that the hummingbird is the only bird known to fly backwards, forwards and upside down, in addition to being able to hover? Their extremely rapid wing beat that goes as high as 200 beats per second, coupled with their unique ability to rotate their wings in a half circle are what make it possible for them to sit in sheer space. Goes to prove the possibility of remaining still even in the middle of intense activity! Can you achieve stillness even in the middle of a busy day? The next time you catch yourself merely 'rushing on,' take a pause and then see what happens when you move from a space of internal calm.

Thanks to: http://qad.charityfocus.org

Making a Difference

Small Change, Big Difference: a Cambridge University study concluded that making small, simple changes to your lifestyle can have a significant impact on how long you will live. Researchers found that eating five portions of fruit and vegetables a day can add three years, not smoking can add up to five years, and increasing exercise by a moderate amount can tack on three years. What is one of the ways Tony Blair is being the change? He's taking the stairs instead of the elevator. Make some small change today and it will make a difference.

From: http://qad.charityfocus.org

Eternity

The Eternity exhibition is a glimpse into Australia's past, present and future through the lives, emotions and experiences of its people. More than 1.6 billion people have lived in Australia, 32 million of them since 1788. Personal stories make an important contribution to our history. Eternity opens a window onto some of them and encourages each of us to consider the significance of our own lives and stories.

In a radical departure from the usual categories of museums, Eternity is based on 10 themes that speak directly to people's real experiences. These themes of Joy, Hope, Passion, Mystery, Thrill, Loneliness, Fear, Devotion, Separation and Chance provide a new angle on Australian history. Each theme features five stories, each anchored by one significant object. Innovative multimedia techniques are used to tell the wider story.Eternity is an exhibition that shows that we can all leave our story in some way.

Take Arthur Stace, 'Mr Eternity'. At least 50 times a day for 30 years he wrote the word 'Eternity' in chalk on the streets of Sydney. His simple, enduring message can still make people stop, think and feel.

Eternity is about happiness and hedonism and what makes Australians laugh, cry or have the courage to turn the other cheek. It shows how people deal with experiences such as war, discrimination, personal tragedy or isolation. Stories range from losing a loved one, facing death every day, spiritual devotion, sporting triumph, missing one's homeland and appreciating the little things in life. Share the emotion as the selected stories unfold. Laugh. Feel fear. Fall in love. Take a chance.

An everlasting story in chalk:


The Eternity gallery's name comes from the fascinating story of Arthur Stace, a reformed alcoholic who for 35 years was inspired to write the word 'Eternity' in perfect copperplate in chalk on the streets of Sydney. Many people who lived in Sydney between 1932 and 1967, and those who visited, would have seen the word written on footpaths. It was a mystery for years, until 1956 when it was revealed to be the work of Arthur Stace. He wrote 'Eternity' over half a million times.
Arthur Stace grew up in poverty, and was jailed at the age of 15. After serving in France during the First World War, he returned to the streets of Sydney, partially blind, unemployed and an alcoholic. One day, drawn into the Burton Street Baptist Tabernacle with the promise of a free meal, Arthur Stace encountered something that changed his life, as he described to a journalist from the Daily Telegraph in June 1965, two years before his death:

John Ridley was a powerful preacher and he shouted, 'I wish I could shout Eternity through the streets of Sydney.' He repeated himself and kept shouting, 'Eternity, Eternity,' and his words were ringing through my brain as I left the church. Suddenly I began crying and I felt a powerful call from the Lord to write 'Eternity'. I had a piece of chalk in my pocket, and I bent down right there and wrote it. I've been writing it at least 50 times a day ever since, and that's 30 years ago. The funny thing is that before I wrote it I could hardly write my own name. I had no schooling and I couldn't have spelled 'Eternity' for a hundred quid. But it came out smoothly, in a beautiful copperplate script. I couldn't understand it, and I still can't. I've tried and tried, but 'Eternity' is the only word that comes out in copperplate. I think Eternity gets the message across, makes people stop and think.

The story of Arthur Stace contains all the elements of the ten themes chosen for the Eternity exhibition. His story is a metaphor for the exhibition as a whole. Written in ephemeral chalk, the word 'Eternity' is suggestive of the timelessness of stories, and embodies the message that all people can leave their stories in some way, with one word or with many.

A Reality Check

Do a reality check on your relationships: ask yourself these two questions:

1. Is it my partner's job to give me love, approval, and appreciation? 2. Is it my job to manipulate my partner into giving them to me?

I know it can seem pretty ridiculous - as if your partner's only purpose is to make you happy...and your only purpose is to make sure they do it to your liking... Now you might be shaking your head in disagreement thinking, "Nope, not me - I don't see it that way." And if you are - good! I love that you're questioning the validity of what I'm sharing with you. And I also invite you to answer these two questions: - Have you ever been disappointed with your partner? - Have you ever said yes to your partner or compromised when you didn't really want to? If you answered yes, here's a bit of a reality check - do you see yourself and your partner as full time employees in those jobs?

Maybe it's time to find your true role within your relationship. Most people spend so much time trying to get their partner to give them love, approval, and appreciation that they actually neglect themselves. After all, if you're over there living your partner's life trying to get them to love, approve of, and appreciate you - there's no one here to take care of you, right? And even the activities that *seem* to be things that you're doing for yourself aren't actually for you because they're all being done with the motive to get your partner to dish out the love, approval, and appreciation.

Manipulation Disguised as Self-Care. There are 2 ways to do anything: with stress or with peace. You could also look at like this: one way to do it is with a motive to get love, appreciation and appreciation, (stressful) and the other is without the motive (peaceful).

Mona Grayson

Sin is the belief that I am only human. Sin is the idolization of the ego at its present stage of development, pretending that this is the reality of things. Sin is the denial that I am the divine in form. Sin is a degrading of self. Arrogance is just a cover up for a deeply held belief in inferiority and inadequacy. Jesus saw through the arrogance and its underlying inferiority and saw the divinity in man. Jesus aroused in people a long lost sense of attractiveness and desirability, but it could not be sustained. The love of even the greatest human lover is not enough to combat our degraded self-estimate. When they lost Jesus' presence, their confidence died. Something else had to happen. They had to experience the absolute total presence of the spirit within and without. They were transformed, not just aroused. A human love may arouse you but it will not transform you. Arousal, however, is an important step. Some kind of eros arouses us. Some kind of eros stimulates an ancient memory of the experience of paradise. This paradise, however, was not known to be total. It was a pre-knowledge experience which seemed to have been destroyed by the human experience. And so this human experience seemed to be reality, and we built our sense of desirableness on what we thought reality was, and who we thought human beings are, and what we thought love was all about.

Rumi give us some strong medicine on this subject when he says:

Those who don’t want to change, let them sleep.

Gamble everything for love, if you’re a true human being. If not, leave this gathering.

A shock is required. Something radical. Transformation requires a shock, an expansion of our wanting and loving to a degree never dreamed of.

The Finite is Not Enough

"You cannot live by bread alone."

How to Become an Alchemist

Transformation is alchemy. Alchemy was the earliest form of chemistry and pharmacology Alchemy was an ancient practice by which philosophers turned lead into gold. Alchemy occurs when a third element is added to two already present. The two present are visible and known, the third is invisible and unknown. The alchemical element is called the Third Factor. You can learn to practice alchemy, the art of transformation. Everyday you encounter the polarization of the opposites. But you must become the magician who, with the magic wand of awareness, adds the Third Factor of transformation. You can turn the lead of your life into gold.

Every situation contains opposing elements: opposites, contrasts, polarities. You and I get caught up in pushes and pulls, in desires and fears, in attachments and resistances, in winning and losing, in pros and cons. Gotta sleep; can’t sleep. Gotta work; too tired. Etc.

The ego world in which we live is self-limiting and requires a third element. Awareness is that third element. It is the element of miracles. Eckhard Tolle describes a leap in consciousness which has occurred throughout our evolutionary history. The leap between a rock and a precious stone; the leap between a weed and a flower. The leap between the snake and the bird, between the monkey and the man. Between a caterpillar and a butterfly. The leap between bitter and sweet. This leap cannot really be explained, so we call it a miracle, alchemy, transformation. Alchemy is the process by which enlightenment occurs.

When adversity is faced with full awareness, miracles happen. The apparent curse becomes a divine blessing. Uninvited situations bring life-changing lessons. Here, then, is the alchemical secret—by using everything for our spiritual growth, we become victor instead of victim. By looking for the good in all things, we turn lead into gold.

The Wolf at the Door

You are a perfect, whole, infinite spiritual being, exactly as God created you, except for your imperfect, finite, piecemeal sometimes inhuman story about it all. The story that we created in our fearfulness and short-sightedness, is such a mixture of fiction and fact that honestly we cannot tell the difference between illusion and reality. God will not be defeated. You are made in his perfect, total, beautiful image and He has guaranteed that at least 1% of that image cannot and will not be destroyed, corrupted, endarkened, lost or forgotten. It will not be forgotten because of our symptoms, even if for no other reason.

Even our most flawed creations and evil imaginations are evidence of our godhood. Even when the entire forest is burned down, there is a seed left hidden in the stump (See Isaiah 6). Our very ability to sow seeds of failure, destruction and corruption demonstrates our creative power. No other species on earth can make such a mess of life in the world as a human god. The extent of our depravity is exactly a mirror of our divinity. When our godly powers are released through our ego perceptions of the world, look what a manic-depressive mess we can create.

Hidden in this travesty of confusion, I am just as God created me, except to the extent that I live unconsciously in the story that I have created about myself and the world. The infinite God is my creator, and I am the creator of my limited and limiting ego image of myself, and my suffering is the difference between the two. Even though what I created is largely illusory, in no way can it undo who and what I truly am. The purpose of my life then is the re-discovery of my true self, beginning with the gift of my most anguishing and life-threatening symptom.

"What I feared has come upon me" is the cry of Job and everyman, and this cry is the necessary beginning of our call to rebirth. God cannot be truly met face to face until we have endured and seen through the worst fears that we have energized as ultimate. We do not know that our worst fear is unreal until that moment in time when we stare it fully in the face and see the truth dissolve it into nothing. All of the false gods in this ego world that we have created are gods of fear. We use the best energy of our days fighting off the wolf at the door, without realizing that we are creating that wolf in our imagination. There is no such wolf, and there is no reality to such fears. The Wolf at the Door is merely a nightmare, a fairy tale, a story we have told ourselves without awareness. Let us wake up to the fact that there is only God, and God is peace and love, and He exists in us as our true identity.

What's the Catch?

Isn’t it exciting to think that I have 24 hours a day access to the Infinite Good, without a cellphone or the internet? Without cost or labor? Without any social or political prerequisites? Without any educational or financial qualifications? Whosoever will may access the Infinite in time. Wouldn’t that be a practical experience of enlightenment?

So what’s the catch?

• The catch is that I have to discover who I really am
• The catch is that I have to admit my mistaken identity story
• The catch is that this re-connection with what I really want in life is internal and that may feel unfamiliar or even unknowable to me.
• The catch is that I have to give up my exclusive identification with the finite and expand my awareness infinitely
• The catch is that I have to let go of my sense of victimhood, insignificance and powerlessness
• The catch is that I have to drop my belief that suffering, controlling, complaining, criticizing, nagging, blaming, threatening, punishing, bribing and angering will get me what I want
• The catch is consciously realizing that these strategies block my way to security, power, bliss, freedom and belonging.
• The catch is that I have to be willing to be surprised, awed, awakened, and follow the road less traveled
• The catch is that really there is no catch except to wake up to the truth.

How to Stay Stressed

Good Suggestions for Bad Health

David Gordon


Take all criticism as absolute truth and take it all personally
Condemn your mistakes and imperfections without mercy
View your work not as a commitment but as a burden to resent
Fixate on the goal, and ignore the process
Identify the outcome of every endeavor as an assessment
of your value as a human being
Worry obsessively about factors beyond your control
Avoid all avoid meditation and relaxation
Eliminate your sense of humor
Never listen to music for pleasure
If you have a physical problem, seek a quick, easy solution outside yourself
Don't exercise; eat anything at all, anytime you want
Smoke, drink, use stimulants, take drugs
Don't fasten your seatbelt
Take on too much, never say no
Rate everything as critically and equally important
Stay disorganized
Ignore your support networks
Don't ask for help
Take no responsibility for your behavior
Exploit the friendship of others for your short-term advantage
Stay in the victim position
When in doubt, blame someone else

http://www.thaiexotictreasures.com/chants_mantras.html

The King's Archer

The King’s Archer was about to lose his beautiful wife. In desperation he sought the advice of a wise man who lived in the mountains. He was told that in order to keep his wife he must cross the River of Fire and enter the Land-Of-I-Know-Not-Where and bring back with him I-Know-Not-What so as to defeat his enemies.

The chief archer, although a warrior and a very brave man, was afraid of the River of Fire which burned day and night. He knew of no one who had ever crossed it and lived. But the wise man had said that he must find a way. After several scorching tries, the warrior returned again to the wise man to ask him “How?” The wise man replied “Perhaps your dreams will help you.”

Exasperated with such a silly answer, the archer left in anger. After several more exhausting attempts to cross, he was full of despair and ready to totally give up. But then he decided the next morning that he would swim across, even if it cost his life. Living alone just wasn’t worth living anyway.

While he slept that night, he dreamed of riding on the back of a Giant Frog. When he waked he remembered the words of the wise man, and he began a search for this mythical frog. After a long journey, the archer came to a cave in which there was an underground stream of water.

Inside this dark cave, he heard the loud awful croaking sounds of a monster frog. He was amazed when he saw the size of this frog-god. Making himself a rope of vines, he finally captured the Giant Frog, led him out of the cave, and rode him across the River of Fire in one giant leap, into the Land-Of-I-Know-Not-Where and he found I-Know-Not-What, and was able to defeat his enemies and regain his beautiful wife.

What a tale! Notice that he sought the help of a wise man who lived high in the mountains. Wisdom always comes from some higher dimension. He was told that had to cross the river of fire, which is the archetypal chasm between the mind and the heart. The archer knew of his physical prowess and he relied on his mental cleverness, but it wasn’t enough to cross this great obstacle. The challenge to go deeper into love than just the physical and mental seemed an impossible task, a dangerous task, a foolish task. He tried all his strategies and tricks, but none of them worked.

Then he returned again to the wise man for more help. He overcame his masculine pride. His lover was more important than his pride. And so, he had turned to the wise man for diagnosis, as to what was wrong. Actually, the wise man diagnosed his problem as his lack of heart. He cared but not totally, and he didn’t understand that everything would be required of him. Good intentions would not be enough for his task.

He had no idea of the territory of himself that he had not known. And so he had to go to the land of I know Not What if his love was to become full. He was not yet a spiritual lover. He was merely a king’s archer, a warrior with other men. He had not become a spiritual warrior. He had not come to terms with himself. Secondly, based on his diagnosis, the wise man prescribed a treatment by pointing the seeker to his dreams, to his deepest desires, to his soul territory, for help. Our desperate seeker decided he would make one last ego try, but this time it would be different: he would risk his life totally. It was when he let go of his caution and pride totally, that he had a dream. His soul spoke. He must search for something bigger, a Higher Power, a frog-god. Now more accustomed to the language of the soul he went on a search. He risked entering the land of Not-Knowing and he risked not even being able to say what he needed to find. He still risked all, but he had opened up his spiritual powers. He had transcended the fear of the river of fire and he was transformed, and you know “the rest of the story.”

This archetypal hero made many “you decide’s”. His pride turned into foolishness; his relative safety turned into absolute danger; his human knowledge turned into not-knowing; possibility turned into impossibility. He made the longest journey from the head to the heart. Everything was transformed. He found Rumi’s field beyond good and evil, and met Love there.

The Day that God Died

When God Died

God is dead, and we have killed him
Nietzsche

The death of God announced by Nietzsche over 100 years ago has resulted in a “profuse
sequence of breakdowns, destructions, annihilations and revolutions” which we read about everyday in our newspapers. And yet now there are new sciences and spiritualities emerging.

Indeed man may now be defined as the latest expression of the cosmic earth process, as that being in whom the cosmic-earth-human-process becomes conscious of itself.
Thomas Berry

God is being re-born in human consciousness through “…prayerful, meditative and mystical experiences as those states of grace as the mind-body system attunes to the primary field of Being and, for a time, has the accumulated knowledge of the patterns stored in the mind of God.” Jean Houston

And what is that primary field of Being? And what is that accumulated knowledge? Houston suggests that we are searching for the Beloved. After the death of God and almost all of our traditional values, we find that God and man are becoming conscious of each other again in some new ways, in a process of the “beloved searching for the beloved.” Interesting, isn’t it? We had to throw out all of our traditional static concepts about ourselves and our life and risk the possibility of total loss or re-discovery. We risked experiencing meaninglessness and annihilation to find what was real. We invented new words and new languages, and discovered that the old ones had some hidden meaning and power. We might still use the words “God” and “love” but such words would have to have a more profound experiential meaning than just shibboleths.

When God died, love died, and mankind went into years of war, darkness, existential despair, violence, illness, drugs, insanity and secularism. We tried everything and began to find out what works and what doesn’t. It wasn’t enough just to be told. We had to know by experience. And we discovered that love power is fundamental and that the source of that energy is the Sacred Within. Never has God had so many new names. Everyone has his own name for his Higher Power. Some have named this higher power Science, some have named it Security, some have named it Individuality, some have named it Music, some have named it Love, some have named it Mystery, some have named it Cosmos, some have named it Unity. What is your name?

Two Worlds?

There are two worlds, just as there are two emotions. There is fear, its consequences and its world; and there is love, its consequences and its world. One of these worlds is made up and the other is real. Your life reflects your choice to confuse or understand these two. We have decided that there is good or bad about fear, and there is good and bad about love, and that is why we do not see the Infinite Good.

There is only anxiety (fear) and caring (love), and anxiety appears to rule the world. Anxiety, however, is simply an indicator or symbol of our unreality, our sleepiness, our unconsciousness, our illusions. All problems are fear-based perceptions about a fear-based world. Actually love/oneness, is the only reality. The Infinite Good is the only reality, the rest we made up. Burdensomeness and boredom we made up. Loneliness and crowdedness we made up. None of us is separate from the Mind of God and the Infinite Good. None of us in reality is separate from what we want.

I am driving a 20 mile trip home. I could consider this a dangerous trip, or a boring trip or a waste-of-time trip, but is this true? I could see this as just a necessary journey between where I am and where I want to be, but it is not so for me unless I say so. In actuality nothing is lacking, nothing is missing. There is nothing necessary or unnecessary except in my story about it. The Infinite Good is all that exists. All is present right now, except in my self-limiting thoughts.

If God is omnipresent, whenever I am conscious, I experience my Infinite Good. Whether I am conscious or unconscious, the Infinite Good is present. If I am aware of the infinite good, then problems and wars and all of the other symbols of anxiety do not preoccupy or stress me. If anxiety is only a warning that I am into a dream world, then I can realize that fact, and the anxiety will disappear. If anxiety is an indicator of illusion, can we actually say that anyone is a victim? That is a basic question I must answer the rest of my life. If I am an enlightened being pretending to be unenlightened, how can I be victimized? I am Love Itself, pretending to be fearful, how can I be victimized?

There are no problems anywhere, only the unlimited, joyful Self. There are no problems, limits, boundaries, difficulties or hard tasks, unless I make them up. There is nothing but unlimited infinite good anywhere, unless I make it up so that my ego can have problems to solve and have a reason for its existence.

Perceptions are about differences, and differences imply separation, and there is no separation. And so, in reality there are no differences and no separation. In essence I am in no way separate from, or different than, anyone or anything. What this means is that we are all enlightened but unaware of it.

"Create joy right now. No other time exists. Only the present moment contains the spark of life!
You may also create misery by constantly wanting to speed ahead to some other time. Most people live their lives wanting to exist elsewhere and elsewhen." Christopher Westra

The Transformative Power of Love

Through love all that is bitter will be sweet
Through love all that is copper will be gold
Through love all dregs will turn into purest wine
Through love all pain will turn into medicine
Through love the dead will all become alive
Through love the king will turn into a slave
Rumi

I Am your Lover whom you will Betray

I Am Your Lover

I am the Great Sun, but you do not see me
I am your Husband, but you turn me away
I am Your Captive, but you do not free me
I am the Truth, but you will not believe me
I am that City where you will not stay
I am the Captain, but you will not obey me
I am that God to whom you will not pray
I am your Counsel but you will not hear me
I am your Lover whom you will betray
I am the Victor, but you do not cheer me
I am the Holy Dove that you will slay
I am your Life, but if you will not name me
Seal up your soul with tears, but never blame me.

Found on the back of a 16th century crucifix

Aldonza or Dulcina?

Aldonza or Dulcina?

In the stage play, The Man of La Mancha, Don Quixote meets a harlot named Aldonza. “You will be my lady” he announced to the whore. Then he added “Yes, you are my lady and I give you a new name “Dulcina” But she laughed scornfully.

But Don quixote followed the approach that Jesus used with Mary Magdalene. Undaunted, he keeps affirming her to be what he wants to believe she is. And of course, the affirmation becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

The play continues and the stage is empty. It is night. Offstage a woman screams. It is Aldonza. She is being raped in the hay. She appears onstage, hysterical, blouse torn, hair disheveled, dirt on her face, terror in her eyes, breasts heaving with the fast breathing of a panic-stricken soul. Loud and clear comes the voice of the man of La Moncha. “My lady!”

She can’t handle this any more and she screams: “Don’t call me a lady. I was born in a ditch by a mother who left me there naked and cold and too hungry to cry. I never blamed her. I’m sure she left hoping that I’d have the good sense to die.”

Aldonza is weeping now, head downcast, humiliated, shame-wracked. Then her shame turns into violence, and as her head rises, she screams “Don’t call me a lady. I’m only a kitchen slut reeking with sweat. A strumpet men use and forget. Don’t call me a lady, I’m only Aldonza. I am nothing at all.” She then whirls and runs into the night, but Don Quixote calls after her with a loud voice “But you are my Lady Dulcina!”

The curtain drops, but shortly it rises again to the death scene of this glorious dreamer of the impossible dream. He is dying now, like Jesus, of a broken heart—scorned, laughed at, despised, and rejected of men. Suddenly, to his side comes what appears to be a Spanish queen in a mantilla and lace. She kneels and prays. He opens his eyes and asks “Who are you?” The lady rises and stands tall “Don’t you remember?” She is beautiful, perfectly proud and perfectly humble at the same time. She speaks softly “Don’t you remember? You called me your lady. You gave me a new name. My name is Dulcinea!”

Addiction is Love’s dark reflection

People come to me for psychotherapy. Before they sit down to talk, I already know what is wrong and what is lacking. I already know that all symptoms point to the desire for love and the fear of love.

A man pursues freedom, his wife pursues romance, and they fight over it continually.
They are going to divorce because she demands something and he protects something else. She says she is starving for attention; he says that he is not going to lose his freedom to be himself. She imagines that love is absent; he imagines that love is suffocating. She imagines that she is alone; he imagines that he is bound. They each have a half truth that they will divorce for and even die for. Each has the missing half that the other needs.

We shall call this wholeness Love Power. She does not have love power, she has love deprivation, love weakness, love absence, love need. He does not have Love Power, he has love fear, love dread, love restriction, love constriction, love evasion. She believes that she could lose love; he believes that he could lose love power and love freedom. She thinks that if she had freedom, it would kill her. He believes that if he gave in to love, it would kill him. It would only kill their life strategies, not their self.

Love, freedom and power cannot be separated from our creativity. At every moment we are creating images of love and of love’s power. Since love’s individuality and love’s unification are at the heart of love power, we are in an endless search for love’s meaning and wholeness. Since this search is largely unconscious, we develop a whole language of evasion and denial. We develop a whole clinical casebook of symptoms which attempt to replace love’s centrality. These symptoms carry many messages which indirectly say that something is wrong or missing.

Why are we so reluctant to admit a need for love? Is it because we imagine that we could be rejected and even worse off than now? We imagine that love is a co-dependency situation in which we could feel even more the pain of isolation, loneliness and fragmentation. IF we have ever fallen in love with anything or anyone, and lost, we begin to fabricate a story that the universe is treacherous and undependable.


We spin out a story that subtly substitutes power for love. Love becomes a battle for control. Love is not about control. Love is about that unity which precedes control and makes control issues obsolete. Love is the ultimate dependency, the ultimate oneness, the ultimate vulnerability. That is why people are always embarrassed to speak about love, and feel uneasy about it. That is why people prefer the sense of security and control if they can reduce love to money, to sex, to power, to being right, to knowledge, to hundreds of little habits and addictions.

Addiction is a substitute for absolute love. If I don’t have love for the entire universe, at least I can love my cigarettes. If I don’ t experience unconditional love for each lover I meet, at least I can be unified with my love for food. I am not separated, I am not alone, I am not divided…I love my sport totally. I love my cocaine totally. I love my pornography totally. I am safe. I am in control. Nothing can hurt me. My stash is always available. My connection is not subject to human whim. No one can take my security away. My habit is dependable. My obsession is guaranteed. Something is dependable in a chaotic universe. Love is not necessary. Love is not needed. I can survive well without it, thank you. I never could depend on love anyway. Love is for the stupid and the foolish. I got over that childish thing in my teens. Look at the lovers around you. They are not really lovers, they are just out for what they can take from others. They don’t really care. They just want something. Yes, I am a cynic. But I am the realist here. Love is not realistic. Love is a come on, love is a deceit, love is a scam, love is a manipulation. Love is a farce. Love is a pretense. I had rather be safe than sorry. I had rather be safe than foolish. I had rather be powerful than vulnerable. Who can live with an open heart in a world of wolves.

And so, we have the desire for love and the fear of love. That is what all of our symptoms are about. That is what all of our medical and psychological problems are about. We build a fortress of safety to protect us against the dangers of love, and then we wonder why we suffer numerous diseases and numerous health problems. We get addicted to our safety mechanisms and strategies and then we wonder why life doesn’t flow and sing. We distrust flowing and singing. We resist flowing and singing. The cat purrs and we complain. The birds sing and we whine. The river gurgles and we burp and belch.

We prefer war to love. In war at least we are battling for our rights and our power and our security. We get to yell about national security. We get to fight and die for our liberty.
We get to kill those who try to take away our freedom and our power. Our history is studded with wars and memories of wars. Our young men die for our protection. The lonely Nazarene says to love unconditionally. But look at him. He was nailed to a tree and shut up. He loved everything and everyone and look what it got him. Do you think I am going to get myself crucified! And besides, he was not even human. If he had been human, he would have seen the truth of the situation. How can you defeat armies without a bigger army. Love may be a nice thing to talk about in the back of a car on lover’s lane, but not on Wall Street and not in Harlam or in Iraq. I want an automatic weapon in my bedroom. I have constitutional rights. If love means giving up power, forget it. Any realist would tell you that love is not the rule in society. Armies, police, guns and laws are where the real power is. Just try going to court and you will find out that love has nothing to say about judges and jury decisions. You can go to jail. And what rules the prisons? Certainly not love or anything that even sounds remotely like love. Lawyers rule courts and prisons. The double-talking power of legalese is what is in control. And you had better put your money in an overseas account or it can be taken by the IRS.

Paranoia rules the streets, the courts, the Pentagon, and Congress, does it not? Do 1000 points of light hold any power? Do “inclusion and compassion” mean anything?
Are those just shibboleths to hoodwink the public for all sorts of crooked politics in smoke filled rooms? Paranoia is the underlying ego problem which we all have to face and work through, is it not? How do we survive in a power hungry world which is denying the relevance of love.

Has love succumbed to power? Has power become loveless? Has the patriarchy destroyed femininity? Have money, armies and walls won? Has rape, lust, and intimacy-less sex won?
Do addictions have the last word? Can medication control the recurrent damage being caused by powerless love and loveless power? That is your decision. This little love poem is not just for idealists and romantics, is it?

Love cannot be tamed and put in a jar of peanut butter. Love cannot be tamed and confined to a zoo. Love cannot be tamed and sold at Victoria’s Secret. Love cannot be packaged and sold in beer, pizzas and Viagra. Yet I would not be one to say that love is not the essence of peanut butter, tigers at the zoo, Victoria’s panties, beer, pizza, and Viagra. Love is the essence of all things. At the heart of every thing and everyone, there is only love.

What is Love?

Love is immanent and transcendent. In its immanence, it is the connecting power of all things; in its transcendence it is the individualizing and personalizing power of all things. In its immanence , love offers the power of freedom, in its transcendence it offers the power of creativity. The power of love in its immanence involves a person in the entire cosmos; the power of love in its transcendence frees a person from the tyranny of necessity and society.

Love is not merely a sentimental feeling nor an act of will nor a bodily event. Love comes from the whole being and acts synchronistically. Love is a spiritual event. Love originates from the inmost spirit, not from the body, nor from nature nor from the ego. Love is guided by inspiration and not by calculation. Love is a gift, not a trade or a purchase. Love has no strings of manipulation. Love offers ties that bind but do not control. Love is letting a butterfly land on your head, not catching the butterfly in a net. Love binds you only to freedom and creativity.

Love is feminine softness and masculine purpose. Love is feminine reasoning and masculine feeling. Love is a christological lifelong adventure in discovering and living the divine-human mystery. Love is the Cosmic Christ incarnated in the present moment. Love shines upon nature and society, but arises from the depths of the heart and the heights of the spiritual sun. Love depends not upon its object, but upon its subject; yet love finds the hidden subject in the obvious object.

Love is an interpersonal exchange of energy. Love informs and transforms. Love is a flow from God through the human back to God. Love is God communing with humanity and humanity communing with God. Love is a circle that has no beginning and no end. Love is a circle whose center is everywhere and whose circumference is nowhere.

The cosmos is the child of Love. Mankind is the child of love. Nature is the child of love. Even society is the child of love but also of fear and bondage. Love is what frees us from bondage and fear; and love frees us for the heights of human creativity. Love frees us from the necessity of pleasure and frees us for the joy of pleasure. Love frees us from the tyranny of sex and frees us for the choice of sex. Love can be very tender and very tough, but the tenderness pervades any toughness and creates a gentleman. Love is not from society, but for society. Love which arises from society per se binds one to the social averages. Love which arises from God transforms the social averages.

When you face death, you will remember only the things you love. Everything else fades into unimportance.

There is Nothing to Change but your Mind

"You are at this moment nothing less than complete and total Love. Instead of hearing this as simply a message of words, allow it to go deeper. You must allow it to bypass your intellectual understanding. You must stop being afraid of understanding that there is nothing about the Real you that is not constituted solely of Love. I am not offering you encouragement - I am simply stating a fact to you. As the perfect creation of the Father, it is impossible for you to be less than what I have described. For you to be less than that would make him less than that. "

"Once you have allowed yourself even the beginning of this understanding, you will find the world around you beginning to change dramatically. Feel good about that change, but do not let it be mysterious. Understand that it is changing because you are changing. "

Edward Carpenter, Dialogue on Awakening

There is nothing to change but your mind because the entire world is in your mind. You are not separate from the Mind of God or from any of creation. The illusion of Littleness was created by the ego. Grandeur is the truth. Practice saying today "I am not separate from anything I see." There is nothing separate from Love. You will have a miraculous day!

Foolishness is Love’s humorous trademark

Foolishness and Humiliation

The ego thought system is based upon illusions which resulted from the fearful belief that we are separate from God, from the truth and from our source. Radical Re-education is not something we beg for. Rather we want something which promises to enhance the ego, not destroy it. Even if the ego is false, we still want to enhance it. Spiritual Psychotherapy also begins with the patient’s hope to return to normal, but somewhere along the way we begin to realize that normality is a trap, a disease, a danger to the person. Normality is what created the crisis and the suffering in the first place. We have to change horses in the middle of the stream. Since we believe we are the ego, we are on the defense against ego exposure and ego humiliation. Little do we realize that ego humiliation is a necessary step in change. If we do not allow ourselves to seem foolish and to endure ego humiliation with insight, we end up defending our illusions as precious to our very identity because we believe we are an ego.

Can we expect the ego to welcome Radical Re-education? Expect your ego to run like heck from radical re-education. The ego is a bundle of unconscious fears and guilts. The last thing the ego wants is truth and reality. "What you see and seem is nothing but a dream within a dream," said Edgar Allen Poe. And you are going to spend your time, energy and money for some Radical-Re-education which the ego doesn’t even want? Radical Re-education is not going to make us more popular. Radical Re-education is going to make you healthy, wealthy and wise, but that is not what the ego wants. The ego only appears to want that. The ego wants contention, friction, problems, and to win. The ego wants to be on top of the heap. The ego wants to be in control because it is in a very precarious position and cannot be otherwise. The ego wants you to believe that you are it. The ego wants you to believe that you are separate from God. The ego wants you to believe that you are this body and that this physical world is essential to your peace, happiness and freedom. Love includes the willingness to experience foolishness and humiliation on the path to real freedom.

Love is Oneness

L. Silverman in The Search for Oneness (1982. International University Press, Inc: New York) reports on numerous research studies from 1961 to 1982 in which he and other colleagues were testing a single premise: that unconscious oneness fantasies can enhance adaptation, if simultaneously a sense of self can be preserved.” The most successful oneness fantasy that they tested was “Mommy and I are one.” This message was fed subliminally to a wide range of subjects through a split second subliminal message that was not detected consciously by the viewer. Such subliminal treatments with this MOMMY message produced significant changes in schizophrenic pathology, obesity, phobias, alcoholism, smoking, reading ability, anxiety reduction, and learning ability. (pp. 100-113)

A sense of self as separate can only be achieved through a safe experience of oneness gratification. (p.128) From this extensive research we can extrapolate that love is a fundamental oneness experience which, paradoxically, can reenforce the sense of self, a stable entity. With a oneness experience, if the sense of self is protected or transformed, certain symptoms would be relieved and certain abilities enhanced.

Let us consider then the power of love to be the power of the transcendent or the search for oneness and unity. David Gordon in Self-Love (1968. Macmillan:New York)
argues that man’s basic drive is for unification, to be one in mind and body, to be one with the world, to be one with others, and to resolve the subject-object split that divides him from others since his birth. The drive for unification is the mainspring of man’s behavior, which is characterized by his search for happiness and ultimate reality. The person is not aware of the real object of his quest, except insofar as he feels incomplete, alienated, restless and unhappy. (p.49)

People daydream about vacations, about sex, about sports, about money, eating and drinking. But Gordon asks what does sex, climbing a mountain, running a race, watching a football game, having a few drinks before dinner, consummating a business deal, making money, and getting high on alcohol have in common? He points out that these are all activities in which one gets his kicks through peak experiences of unity. In many of these experiences there is a build-up of tension which is then lowered, relaxed or discharged with a feeling of unification, much as in orgasm. Gordon is saying that many ordinary experiences are similar to what Maslow calls the peak experience or moments of cosmic consciousness (Bucke) or a Zen satori.

There is a moment of joy when we see our team score a touchdown. A really good game is when there are more of these concentrated climactic, thoughtless, contentless moments when a person feels totally unified with himself and his environment. One professional gambler said that next to gambling and winning he liked gambling and losing, because what he savored was the orgasmic unification experience. The real goal of playing cards is not to win money, but to obtain and savor as many moments as one can when he is totally unified without thought. There is a climactic moment with each new card, a climactic possibility of winning. The chief characteristic of the mind during each such unification state is that it is thoughtless, contentless, no mind at all. The mind and the body have coalesced and man is one withself, even if only for a second. He is no longer divided, standing back and looking at himself as an object, nor his body as separate from his mind.

A person feels most alive when he is most passionate, enthusiastic, loving. Even in heightened times of crisis, passionate arguments and identification with some cause, we feel involved, identified with the activity, transcending our sense of separateness.

The mind is our chief source of unhappiness, always focused upon some problem, fragmenting us into many roles and feelings. There is no mind-body problem in these moments of unification. In the desire to win, to achieve, or to succeed, it is the desire for unification that is the underlying motivator. When we win, do we not feel one with ourselves and the world? We seek to be turned on, and this occurs when we can turn off our normal state of tension and worry. We are ordinarily under tension at all times, and people seek relief or highs from these tensions through narcotics, which amounts to a unification experience. Criminals experience a unified state during the heightened excitement of committing a crime. Crime is not committed for the spoils but for the experience of feeling totally involved, totally concentrated and one with himself. Man is never more unified than during orgasm. The mind is totally quiescent at the climax. For that brief moment in eternity, all of his earthly problems are solved. (65)

Love makes the world go round. Love is the healing power, the healing energy, which is required for our bodies, minds and souls to function optimally. Love keeps our immune system strong and vibrant; love is what our cells vibrate to, love is what our DNA is coded to. Love is what makes things beautiful. Love is what makes the birds sing. Love is the power of wisdom.

And yet, why is love what we avoid like the plague? Because we are committed to neither love nor to life, but to knowledge, the knowledge of the fruit of good and evil. Science bows before facts, statistics, sensory knowledge, and so does the human mind. Yet our DNA and our basic self cries out for love as much as for water and air. We just can’t hear those cries, or if we do, we perceive them to mean something else. Love is the most desired and yet the most resisted force in the universe. Our souls cry out for the power of love but we feed them all kinds of inferior energies and forces.

And so, pain is love’s strange teacher.

Look at your pains and hurts, your aches, your stresses. What is missing? What is lacking? What is being mis-qualified? Wht is being misinterpreted? What is being denied? What are we most afraid of? We say that we want security, knowledge, control, power, freedom, and ecstatic pleasure, but all of that is encompassed in love.

Every person has a bottom line, and if we analyze our motivations. People come to me for psychotherapy. Before they sit down to talk, I already know what is wrong and what is lacking. I already know that all symptoms point to the desire for love and the fear of love.
A man pursues freedom, his wife pursues romance, and they fight over it continually.
They are going to divorce because she demands something and he protects something else. She says she is starving for attention; he says that he is not going to lose his freedom to be himself. She imagines that love is absent; he imagines that love is suffocating. She imagines that she is alone; he imagines that he is bound. They each have a half truth that they will divorce for and even die for. Each has the missing half that the other needs.

We shall call this wholeness Love Power. She does not have love power, she has love deprivation, love weakness, love absence, love need. He does not have Love Power, he has love fear, love dread, love restriction, love constriction, love evasion. She believes that she could lose love; he believes that he could lose love power and love freedom. She thinks that if she had freedom, it would kill her. He believes that if he gave in to love, it would kill him. It would only kill their life strategies, not their self.

Love, freedom and power cannot be separated from our creativity. At every moment we are creating images of love and of love’s power. Since love’s individuality and love’s unification are at the heart of love power, we are in an endless search for love’s meaning and wholeness. Since this search is largely unconscious, we develop a whole language of evasion and denial. We develop a whole clinical casebook of symptoms which attempt to replace love’s centrality. These symptoms carry many messages which indirectly say that something is wrong or missing. Pain is love's strange teacher.

Wait and Watch for the Miracle of Love Today

Wait for the Gift. Wait for what you really want. Edgar Cayce regularly received messages from the Source. He relayed these messages to various seekers. Among his seekers were some rich people from New York. Some of them were investors in the stock market and others in Texas oil. They had made millions following the advice of these messages. They gave some of this money to the Cayce Foundation. In August, 1929, the message was that they were to sell all their stocks. They saw no particular “reason” to sell. Things were looking good, they had made money on these stocks. They did not sell. One client did sell, the others did not.
Those who did not, lost millions. They never listened to Cayce again. Earlier the same thing had been true with the Texas oil investors. They were told to buy a 99 year lease, but they saw "“no reason" and only bought 10 years. By the time the wells were flowing, their lease ran out, and they lost millions of potential profits.

The self that has its own reasons does not listen to the self which seeks Higher Reasons. But the message of love says “Wait upon the Spirit.” Clear the decks. Make way for the Cosmic Christ. Make yourself big enough to receive the universe, not just what you think you can want. I know what I can want. I am familiar with what I can want. But do I really want More? And how can I know what More is? If I am only willing to receive what I know, will I be betraying What I Don’t Know? Am I willing to go the “Land I Don’t Know” and receive “I Know Not What?”

If Columbus had turned back, no one would have blamed him. No one would have remembered him either.- Unknown

Columbus must have waited at least a few days for his discovery of the new world. A few days past all known reasoning. A few days with no land in sight. A few days with no reassurance. Can we wait even a few minutes? Can we wait long enough to ask "What would Love do?"


Oh lovers, Where ar e you going? Who are you looking for? Your beloved is right here.
Rumi

Love is the way messengers from the mystery tell us things.
Rumi

But don’t be satisfied with poems
And stories about how things
have gone with others
Unfold your own myth
Rumi

Let yourself be silently drawn by the stronger pull of what you really love.
Rumi


You sit here for days saying “This is strange business”
You’re the strange business. You have the energy of the sun in you but you keep knotting it up at the base of your spine. You’re some weird kind of gold that wants to stay melted in the furnace so you won’t have to become coins. Say ONE in your lonesome house. Loving all the rest is hiding inside a lie. You’ve gotten drunk on so many kinds of wine. Taste this. It won’t make you wild. It’s fire. Give up, if you don’t understand by this time that your living is firewood.
Rumi

No one knows the source of joy. Rumi

Be source, not result. Rumi

Love is a mad man , working his wild schemes, tearing off his clothes, running through the mountains, drinking poison, now quietly choosing annihilation.
Rumi

Your Source has spoken, without “reasons,” of a new possibility of discovery. Are you a Columbus? The old map of the world will be annihilated. Are you truly a Discoverer?Wait. Allow. Notice how, even now, as you wait, that your body tingles. Just be aware. You were told in a Chinese fortune cookie a few days ago that you will travel. Is this not travel to a new land? Wait. Don’t pass up your “oil lease” this time. Sell out those “old stocks”. The Spirit may be saying to you: I gave them to you anyway. Just don’t hang on to them now. I give, I take away. I am the Source. Listen to my new message, not to your old messages. Behold, I make all things new. Be imageless, not attached to old images. The image is not the thing. The map is not the territory. The symbol is not the kingdom. I am what all images represent. Wait upon the “coming” . Wait upon the exposure. Wait upon the revelation. Wait upon the naked emptiness. Wait and watch for Love today. "

There Ain't No Cure for Love

Ian Suttie, M.D. a psychiatrist, challenged the theories of Freud and Adler in the early 30’s, saying that love is the fundamental motivator in every human life. He discovered that the so-called sex drive, the so-called death drive, the so-called aggression drive, the so-called power drive, the so-called pleasure principle, are all derivative reactions to frustrated love and to the tenderness taboo resulting from this frustrated love. When love is frustrated, it is experienced as anxiety, anger, guilt or grief. When love is threatened, it becomes anxiety; when love is denied, it becomes hate; when love is interfered with, it switches into jealousy; when love is rejected, it becomes despair or guilt or shame; when it is lost, it becomes grief; and when it suffers it becomes pity.

Rather than assuming that we are dealing with many primary feelings, it is “… better to suppose that we are dealing with a single “fund” of love energy capable of endless transformations of quality or aim, even into the apparent opposite of love—hate.” (p. 61) It is Suttie’s studied opinion that love remains the affair of poets, romances and the religious, and not of the scientists, because the disposition of love is the center of all the bitterness of human nature and this leads directly to the denial of the existence of love. Hate owes all of its meaning to a need or demand for love. (p.23) Suttie argues that love is social rather than sexual in its biological function. Psychiatrists and theologians have treated human misbehavior as due to egotism and aggression rather than as a loss of the security of love and a sense of unconditional love. We seek power as a means to love, rather than seeking love as a means to power. (p.49)

Although Christianity is primarily a system of psychotherapy, it has often fallen into the hands of neurotics who turn a fellowship event back into an authoritarian event. Many churches have focused upon fear and guilt while others have focused upon the good news. The main concern of Christian teachings, maintains Suttie, is the cultivation of love as the basis of happiness, mental stability and social harmony. Psychopathy is a disturbance in the love life and psychotherapy deals with frustrations to love (p.203) In this instance, hate is not overcome by love, but cure means that frustrated love, having no more reason for its existence, is reconverted into love. (P.208) Love is the effective agent in psychotherapy. (215) Freudian theory itself is a disease, concludes Suttie. (p. 218), although Freudian practice is often a form of love.

(The Origins of Love and Hate, 1935. Ian Suttie. New York: Julian Press)


There Ain’t No Cure for Love, by Leonard Cohen

I loved you for a long long time
I know my love is real
It don’t matter that I was always wrong
It don’t change how I feel

And I can’t believe that time will heal
this wound I’m speaking of

There ain’t no cure, there ain’t no cure,
There ain’t no cure for love

I’m aching for you, baby,
I can’t pretend I’m not
I need to see you naked,
in your body and your thought
I’ve got you like a habit and I’ll never get enough

There ain’t no cure, there ain’t no cure
There ain’t no cure for love

All the rock ships a’climbing through the sky
All the holy books are open wide
All the doctors working day and night
But they’ll never find that cure for love

There ain’t no drink, no drug
Nothing is pure enough to be a cure for love

I see you on the subway, I see you on the bus
I see you lying down with me, I see you waking up
I see your hands, I see your hair
Your bracelets and berets
I call to you, I call to you,
but I don’t call soft enough

There ain’t no cure, there ain’t no cure
There ain’t no cure for love

I walked into this empty church, I had nowhere else to go
When I heard the sweetest voice I ever heard
Whispered to my soul:
I don’t need to be forgiven for loving you so much
It is written in the scriptures, it is written there in blood
I even heard the angels declare it from above:

There ain’t no cure, there ain’t no cure,
There ain’t no cure for love!

There ain’t no cure for it. There ain’t no cure for love. There ain’t no cure for
its absence or for any of its reflections, shadows or perversions, except to realize Love’s all-pervading presence and reality. Love is not absent. Love is not perverted. It is all in our attitude and opinions. Everything is made of Love.

Of course, we can say that Cohen sings about codependency or that he is a dirty old man or that he is having a mid-life crisis. We can say that he is grieving, or that he is guilty for ignoring or mistreating his lover. But in his attempt to express his pain and longing, he expresses a universal truth about being human. He reaches through and beyond his own dilemma and points us to the fundamental fact of human existence: that love cannot be cured, that love is irreducible to anything else. We are incurable lovers. And if we do not love in healthy ways, we will love in unhealthy ways. And when we love in unhealthy ways, there is no medicine except healthy love that will cure our condition, whether it be mental, physical or emotional.

Sebastian Temple wrote a very profound song for children which was published by G.I.A. Music Corporation back in 1969. I was so impressed by the ideas in this little jingle that I kept it for years tucked away in my heart and mind as a fundamental truth.

Everything is Made of Love, Sebastian Temple

Everything is made of Love
Everything we’re thinking of
Sticks and stones, frogs and bones
Candy, rice and telephones
Skipping ropes and ice cream cones
Everything is made of Love

Every person that we see
Is made out of this Mystery
Mom and Dad and brother John
Sister Jane and Grandpa Don
Auntie Mame and Uncle Ron
Everything is made of Love

It doesn’t matter if its blue
Red or white, me or you
A book, a cat, a bird or tree
A mountain, river or the sea
A planet, moon or galaxy
Everything is made of Love

You can call it by any name
It will always be the same
It has no color, race or creed
It is the fruit tree and the seed
The grain, the flower and the weed
Everything is made of Love
Everything is made of Love!

If God is love, then how could creation be made of anything else? If love is the fundamental and perhaps only reality, at the deepest level of awareness, we can understand its many mis-expressions.

Pain is Love's Strange Teacher

Pain is Love’s strange teacher

Physical, psychic, mental or emotional pain arises when unconditional Love is not flowing. Love of anything makes life flow and sing about that thing. Love of everything makes life flow and sing about everything. So when you are upset, frustrated, angry or bitter, you are blocking your awareness of the Goodness of something. You are in conflict. You are focused on something you have labeled as bad, worthless, wrong. The Big Picture is lost in tunnel vision. You have given your God-vision and God-power to some circumstance or human opinion. You have noticed the clay feet of your idol. Pain tells you that this idol is not your True Power.

The Great Physician recognizes only one remedy for all human stress and ills: forgive all conditions and love again without conditions. When we do not recognize the Good in our present situation and love it, we become judgmental and conditional with ourselves. We ignore the good and reject our present situation. We demand good elsewhere and we become judgmental and conditional with others and stress occurs again. We must look again and see the good in our situation, release our judgments and then stress will decrease. We must look again at our neighbor and see his good and release him from our judgment. The positive paradox is that when we stop judging about the bad, we become more aware of the Good we love. Love is the source of all good; human judgments are the source of all that seems less than good.

For healing, release all limiting judgments and embrace unlimiting Love. If you see pain as a punishing enemy, you will only fight harder and dig your hole deeper. If you accept pain as your liberating teacher, you may walk out of the hold of human opinions a freer person. Every idol is an imitation of the Real. It offers promises it cannot keep. Your affection for its misleading appearance and promises hides from your mind the source of your pain. Analyze the pain and you will find a cherished but limiting belief/expectation that has failed you. But remember, any limited human good out there is a symbol of the unlimited divine good in here in you.

You must use your pain to realize that “bread alone” will not satisfy your hunger. Augustine tried every “food” on the face of the earth to “feed his appetites,” but finally he realized that “I was restless until I found my rest in Thee.” When you take a bite of bread, take a bite of the Bread of Life in that same moment. When you breathe in air, consciously breathe in the Life-Giving Spirit in that same breath. When you touch your lover, be aware of the Divine Beloved in that touch.

· The Eternal is hidden in every moment of time
· The Spirit is in every breath
· The Good is hidden in every good
· Wisdom is to be found in every piece of information
· A Blessing is hidden in every occasion of cursing
· The Sacred is secreted in every ordinary event
· Christ is contained in every human
· The true God is obscured in every false worship
· Love is to be found in every lust or greed
· Forgiveness and renewal exist in every sin released
· Virtue exists in every vice
· Vision is possible in every limited human sight
· The Word exists every word thought or spoken
· The heavenly light is hidden under every hellish bushel
· A lamb rests in the heart of every wolf
· Truth awaits recognition in every lie
· Healing exists in every message of hurt
· The solution is the heart of every problem
· The answer at the center of every question
· True love at the center of every broken heart

Desire is Love's paradoxical motivator

Someday, after we have mastered the winds, the waves, the tides and gravity, we shall harness God for the energies of Love. Then for the second time in the history of the world, man will have discovered fire.

Teilhard de Chardin

Desire is Love’s Paradoxical Motivator

The Great Physician recognized only one remedy for all human stress and ills: forgive all conditions and love again without conditions. When we do not recognize the good in our present state and love it, we become judgmental and conditional with ourselves. We reject the good in our present situation and stress occurs. We demand our good elsewhere and become judgmental and conditional with others and stress re-occurs. We must look again and release our judgments and then stress decreases. We must look again at our neighbor and see his good and release him from our judgment. The positive paradox is that when we stop judging about the bad, we become conscious of the good we love. Love is the source of all good; human judgments are the source of all that seems less than good. For healing, release all limiting judgments and embrace unlimiting Love.

Out beyond ideas of wrong-doing and right-doing there is a field, I’ll meet you there.

Rumi

On April Fool's Day, don't be fooled again, everyone you meet today is an anxious lover.
For the next 52 weeks, we will take one line each morning to remind ourselves that we are all anxious lovers. Our mediatation today is to read the entire poem below and focus on the line in
red.

Love Can Never Be Tamed!

Anxiety is the inevitable path to Love
Desire is Love's paradoxical motivator
Pain is Love's strange teacher
Pleasure its most seductive attraction
Foolishness is Love's humorous trademark
Awareness is Love's catalyst
Mystery is Love's eternal ally
Addiction is Love's dark reflection
Security is Love's habitual trap
Unconditionality and freedom its true nature
Failure its most frequent opportunity
Self-protective control its most recurrent impasse

Imagination and inspiration are Love's creative power
Responsibility is Love's daily muscle
Friendship is Love's mutuality
Romance is Love's tender embrace
Sex is Love's passionate body
Kindness is Love's most trusted face
Forgiveness is Love's eraser of error
Peace is Love's ocean depth
Freedom is Love's guarantee

Music is Love's vital dance
Science is Love's uncanny arithmetic
Art expresses Love's beauty
Nature is Love's awesome clothing
Health is Love's flow through mind and body
Money is the social coinage of Love’s energy
Silence is Love's perpetual resting place

Grief is Love believed lost
Guilt is Love forsaken
Jealousy is Love mistrusted
Fear is Love forgotten
Hostility is Love hurt and frustrated
Cynicism is Love gone sour
Illness is Love calling
Grace is Love given away

The heart is Love's soft throne
Human language her perplexing speech
Healing is Love's first priority
Reunion her ingenious plan
On time's edge where Love's infinity happens
Performing its curious alchemy
Betrayal's wounds may seem to be our only companion
But disillusionment is Love's necessary process
And limbo our cocoon for Love's rebirth.
Although fear may appear to haunt us on every corner,
Only Love is real.

Love's patient watchfulness nurtures us
Coincidences mark Love's miraculous presence
Moving us toward its inevitable goal of transformation.
Embrace the ironies of Love, for it is our
Source and Destiny, requiring everything of us.
Love can never be tamed!

Carroll J. Wright, Ph.D

Anxiety is the inevitable path to love

Anxiety is where we seem to be, but love is who we are!