I've heard it said that we are "spiritual beings in a physical world." What does that mean, really? Where do the spiritual world and the physical world come together? They come together in me! In us!
How hard we strive to be good people, to understand the human condition, to help others, to pray. We cry out for wisdom and sometimes it comes out: "What the F-- does all this mean?" Why do we hurt emotionally and physically? Why do "bad things happen to good people?" Who's minding the universal store, so to speak? Somehow we think that by striving and seeking, we can make a difference.
Well, we can't. Tennyson was wrong when he wrote about the human condition in the final line of Ulysses, "to strive, to seek, to find and not to yield." No amount of trying and of effort is needed.
The principle is simple: Love yourself. It flies in the face of all the spiritual do's and don't's we've learned over time. How can it be that loving ourselves IS the answer? That is the answer because each of us is "the word made flesh." We are the meeting place where the spiritual manifests itself. Not the church or the holy books. No one said, "The word is in churches and holy books." No, the word was made flesh in a person. In Jesus, in Buddha, in Mohammed.
The word is made flesh today in me.
So the edict to love myself, just that, begins to make sense. I start to wonder how to do that. How can I love myself, how can I be my own best friend?
Some moments of enlightenment have begun to occur. I was reading and working with my inner teen-ager the other night. She was crying over the loss of her mother. I began to ask her about her feelings and, finally, to tell her that it's a different time and place and that, today, she is loved and protected. All of a sudden, a different voice took over and said:
"I have been trying to tell you all your life that I LOVE YOU. Not because you're good or bad, not because you try hard or have suffered. I love you because you're mine. Yes, you have been brave and survived great hardships. You know what, the hardships came because you didn't hear me saying I love you. You are a vessel containing and expressing the God. I love you with the tenderness of the good mother, with the protectiveness of the good father, with the passion of the good lover, with the loyalty of your best friend. I. LOVE. YOU."
In that moment I was swept up into the joy and peace of the universe. Enlightenment.
This morning, everything seems in slow motion. I am IN my body. I feel the oneness of spirit and flesh in this slightly overweight, arthritic, aging body. That's the best way I can describe my moments of enlightenment. Time disappears. Everything slows down to this moment. Turning on the bedside light is an act of tenderness. Enlightenment. Roxie
How hard we strive to be good people, to understand the human condition, to help others, to pray. We cry out for wisdom and sometimes it comes out: "What the F-- does all this mean?" Why do we hurt emotionally and physically? Why do "bad things happen to good people?" Who's minding the universal store, so to speak? Somehow we think that by striving and seeking, we can make a difference.
Well, we can't. Tennyson was wrong when he wrote about the human condition in the final line of Ulysses, "to strive, to seek, to find and not to yield." No amount of trying and of effort is needed.
The principle is simple: Love yourself. It flies in the face of all the spiritual do's and don't's we've learned over time. How can it be that loving ourselves IS the answer? That is the answer because each of us is "the word made flesh." We are the meeting place where the spiritual manifests itself. Not the church or the holy books. No one said, "The word is in churches and holy books." No, the word was made flesh in a person. In Jesus, in Buddha, in Mohammed.
The word is made flesh today in me.
So the edict to love myself, just that, begins to make sense. I start to wonder how to do that. How can I love myself, how can I be my own best friend?
Some moments of enlightenment have begun to occur. I was reading and working with my inner teen-ager the other night. She was crying over the loss of her mother. I began to ask her about her feelings and, finally, to tell her that it's a different time and place and that, today, she is loved and protected. All of a sudden, a different voice took over and said:
"I have been trying to tell you all your life that I LOVE YOU. Not because you're good or bad, not because you try hard or have suffered. I love you because you're mine. Yes, you have been brave and survived great hardships. You know what, the hardships came because you didn't hear me saying I love you. You are a vessel containing and expressing the God. I love you with the tenderness of the good mother, with the protectiveness of the good father, with the passion of the good lover, with the loyalty of your best friend. I. LOVE. YOU."
In that moment I was swept up into the joy and peace of the universe. Enlightenment.
This morning, everything seems in slow motion. I am IN my body. I feel the oneness of spirit and flesh in this slightly overweight, arthritic, aging body. That's the best way I can describe my moments of enlightenment. Time disappears. Everything slows down to this moment. Turning on the bedside light is an act of tenderness. Enlightenment. Roxie
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