The Master of the Work

Sun bucurestifm

The grapes of my body can only become wine
After the winemaker tramples me.
I surrender my spirit like grapes to his trampling
So my innermost heart can blaze and dance with joy.
Although the grapes go on weeping blood and sobbing,
“I cannot bear any more anguish, any more cruelty!”
The trampler stuffs cotton in his ears: “I am not
     working in ignorance.
You can deny me if you want, you have every excuse,
But it is I who am the Master of this Work.
And when through my Passion you reach Perfection,
You will never be done praising my name.”          Rumi

 

The path to God is littered with the bones of those who did not remember Who they were looking for, and how great beyond all concepts and imagining God always is.  Rumi

Jesus said to John, “You must have become very forgetful of God’s graces and tendernesses to weep so much.”

If you live according to the Tao, nothing can harm you.  Realizing this, there is nothing to fear.  There is only constant monitoring of self to ensure that one stays on the path.  Tao Te Ching.

 

Worry is Negative Prayer

Crocus Flower Public Domain

Worry is negative prayer.  Judy Juanita

The key is to be in a state of permanent connectedness with your inner body – to feel it at all times. This will rapidly deepen and transform your life. The more consciousness you direct into the inner body, the higher its vibrational frequency becomes.  Eckhart Tolle

Whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.   Philippians 4:8

When disturbed by negative thoughts, opposite [positive] ones should be thought of.  Patanjali

Gains and losses pass swiftly by . . . but to those who walk on despite obstacles and fears, success comes at last, a triumph beyond all dreaming and doubt.  The Buddha

Live Each Moment As Though It Is Precious

To live each day as if it had been stolen from death, that is how I would like to live.  To feel the joy of life.  To separate oneself from the burden, the angst, the anguish that we all encounter every day.  To say I am alive, I am wonderful, I am.  I am.  That is something to aspire to.  The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein

One day your life will flash before your eyes.  Make sure it’s worth watching.  Unknown

The present moment is filled with joy and happiness. If you are attentive, you will see it.  Thich Nhat Hanh

When you arise in the morning, think of what a precious privilege it is to be alive – to breathe, to think, to enjoy, to love.  Marcus Aurelius

Practicing Our Divinity

There will always be some contradiction between the divinity in our hearts and what we are able to actually practice in the world.     Russell Simmons

I have created a hashtag #NoResistanceDay.  While I try to always practice acceptance and mindful behavior, it helps to have a day in which I commit to productive speech and behavior.  I schedule exercise days and work days.  Why not days to focus on improving self?  #NoResistanceDay is a day that I choose to be positive in the face of perceived negativity.  I think “peace” when I feel anger.  When I feel irritation, I smile.  I turn judgment into perceptions of beauty. (Practicing this makes me conscious of how I form judgments about almost everything I see and hear). I think of praise when I want to criticize.  I calm myself when I feel anxious.  When I am fearful, I remind myself that I am protected. When I feel lack, I find something for which to give thanks. When I feel hopeless, I tell myself that something awesome is coming my way. On and on.

If you like, use #NoResistanceDay to document your efforts to change your speech and behavior and, therefore, your life!

Evolution

Evolution flickr

Where would we be today if we could have foreseen our future slavery, genocide, colonization, separation from our cultures, and unawareness of our nature and Spirit?  Where would the world be?  The destruction of a species is abhorred.  But, in the process of evolution, many forms die.  In the case of human beings, there are plagues, wars, and mass killings.  Eventually, all empires and regimes fall and disappear.  During the process of extinction, the death is very painful.  Much darkness endures, sometimes for centuries.  Out of that decay comes new beginnings and knowledge.  We miss the old ways; but, if nothing ever changed, we wouldn’t be where we are today.

Massacre, genocide, and extinction are worse than horrible.  However, if we believe that Life is eternal, that there is an infinite energy that continuously creates and destroys; if we realize that we exist within that Energy, that Flow, whatever it is that IS, then we have to accept that we are part of Its process of creating and destroying.  We have to accept that we have these tendencies within us and to notice when we ourselves are destroying and creating (at any level – at home, at work, in our communities, in our states, in our nations and in the world) and whether our actions in this regard are productive or harmful, are kind, loving, considerate, and virtuous.  Do our thoughts and actions nurture or destroy life?

We will one day not exist.  We must strive while we are here to not cause harm, to have a positive effect, and to not leave this place worse than when we arrived.

I believe that I chose to live as a physical being on Earth, but once embodied in the flesh, I became caught up in the ecstasy of physical feelings and the emotions of love, pride, and ego.  It became overwhelming.  Eventually, I forgot who I Am and why I came here.  I became lost.  How do I return to that which I Am?  Maybe I don’t.  Maybe I came here to evolve into something greater.  At some point, it will all come together.  My awareness of who I Am will be accentuated by all that I have learned.

Achieving Your Personal Best

Your Personal Best  katesiner

What I know for sure is that no matter where you stand right now – on a hilltop, in a gutter, at a crossroads, in a rut – you need to give yourself the best you have to offer in this moment.  This is it.  Rather than depleting yourself with judgments about what you haven’t done, who you could have become, why you haven’t moved faster, or what you should have changed, redirect that energy toward the next big push – the one that takes you from good enough to better.  The one that takes you from adequate to extraordinary.  The one that helps you rise from a low moment and reach for your personal best.  Oprah Winfrey

Come, even if you have broken your vow one thousand times, come, yet again, come, come.  Rumi

In every challenge, there is good.  If you give up, you have not given yourself an opportunity to learn what there is in the challenge for you to learn.  The Reverend Dr. Barbara L. King

Contemplate

It is as if in creating us God asked a question, and in awakening us to contemplation [God] answered the question, so that the contemplative is at the same time, question and answer.                       New Seeds of Contemplation by Thomas Merton

The Universe does not recognize good or bad.  It only recognizes universal principles that are exhibited by both “good” and “bad” people.  The Universe does not judge.  It only responds to focused intent.       Robin Hart

Spiritual Unfoldment

Spiritual Unfoldment whiteeagle

It is illogical to face the present only as an object of enjoyment or tolerance, neglecting to use it as the opportunity to create the future.  Unknown

When people are unsympathetic to you and the world does not go as you wish, this should be a help to detachment of feelings from the repetitious cycle of becoming and decay, gaining and losing.  Unknown

Never look upon the discords and inharmonies of your life as if they represented a lack of understanding or a lack of demonstration.  Regard these unfortuitous circumstances as opportunities which will be dissolved when they no longer serve their purpose as spurs to your spiritual unfoldment.  Joel S. Goldsmith, The Art of Meditation

 

Reflect Upon Life by Knowing Self

reflection thefabweb

The ancients who wished to illustrate illustrious virtue throughout the Kingdom first ordered well their own states.  Wishing to order well their states, they first regulated their families.  Wishing to regulate their families, they first cultivated their persons.  Wishing to cultivate their persons, they first rectified their hearts.  Wishing to rectify their hearts, they first sought to be sincere in their thoughts.  Wishing to be sincere in their thoughts, they first extended to the utmost their knowledge.  Such extension of knowledge lay in the investigation of things.   Confucius in the Great Learning.

For the first time I noticed – as I would notice repeatedly during my ordeal, between one throe of agony and the next – that my suffering was taking place in a grand setting.  I saw my suffering for what it was, finite and insignificant, and I was still.  My suffering did not fit anywhere, I realized.  And I could accept this.  It was all right. (It was daylight that brought my protest: “No! No! No! My suffering does matter.  I want to live!  I can’t help but mix my life with that of the universe.  Life is a peephole, a single tiny entry onto a vastness – how can I not dwell on this brief, cramped view I have of things?  This peephole is all I’ve got!”).  I mumbled words of Muslim prayer and went back to sleep.  Life of Pi (Novel by Yann Martel)

Attack the evil that is within yourself, rather than attacking the evil that is in others.  Confucius

When you see a good person, think of becoming like her/him.  When you see someone not so good, reflect on your own weak points.  Confucius

Your task is not to seek love, but merely to see and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.  Rumi

Create From Joy

Joy is a Choice sarahuma

We are manifestations of what IS. We are continuously being created according to our thoughts and behavior. We fail to recognize our infinite power and, therefore, cling to the inconsequential material forms within our limited perception.  If we knew that we could create new worlds, we wouldn’t cling so tightly to this one.

I have seen that which is created from anger, hatred, sorrow, and pain. Life improves for a season. Then the storms return.  Knowing this, create from joy.