The Seer

A man bought a hundred-hectare place in the country and settled down to farm it. A year later he sold it and moved back to town. One day, he met a friend on the street. “Back to town again?” asked his friend. “I thought you were a farmer.” “You made the same mistake I did,” the man said. ~ Anon.

“All that a guru can tell you is: ‘My dear Sir (or Madam), you are quite mistaken about yourself. You are not the person you take yourself to be.’” ~ Sri Nisargaddatta Maharaj

“A man’s errors are his portals of discovery.” ~ James Joyce

“Never confuse a single mistake with a final mistake.” ~ F. Scott Fitzgerald

“There are only two mistakes one can make in regard to the road to Truth: not starting, and, not going all the way.” ~ Adyashanti

Love all and hate none.
Mere talk of peace will avail you naught.
Mere talk of God and religion will not take you far.
Bring out all the latent powers of your being
and reveal the full magnificence of your immortal self.
Be overflowing with peace and joy,
and scatter them wherever you are
and wherever you go.
Be a blazing fire of truth,
be a beauteous blossom of love
and be a soothing balm of peace.
With your spiritual light,
dispel the darkness of ignorance;
dissolve the clouds of discord and war
and spread goodwill, peace, and harmony among the people.
Never seek any help, charity, or favors
from anybody except God.
Never go the court of kings,
but never refuse to bless and help the needy and the poor,
the widow, and the orphan, if they come to your door.¨
This is your mission, to serve the people…..
Carry it out dutifully and courageously,
so that I, as your Pir-o-Murshid,
may not be ashamed of any shortcomings on your part
before the Almighty God and our holy predecessors
in the Silsila [lineage] on the Day of Judgment.

~ The final discourse of the Sufi master, Khwaja Mu’inuddin Chishti, to his students, one month before his death. From: Sayings of Hazrat Khwaja Mu’inuddin Hasan Chishti

A recent study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has determined that almost 65% of Americans are either overweight (an extra 10-30 lbs.) or obese (over 30 lbs.). This extra weight causes 300,000 deaths annually, and it costs Americans approximately $100 billion a year in medical expenses.

It’s easy to blame overeating and junk food for this problem, but many are constantly watching their diet and are still unable to lose weight. We recently discovered why, and in the process, realized a significant correlation between material and spiritual food.

Because we’ve both had major health issues and severe allergies, we’ve been quite careful about what we eat for several years. We’d been exercising regularly, controlling portions and staying clear of what we thought of as junk food, but we both still carried around some extra pounds. Then we accidentally came into contact with a book called Eat to Live by Dr. Joel Fuhrman.

Instead of calling Dr. Fuhrman’s plan a diet, we prefer to think of it as a ‘Live It’ because to be successful, you must make drastic changes in your eating habits and stick with it. Most of Dr. Fuhrman’s patients had become extremely ill or grossly overweight before they were willing to make such radical changes, but they’ve had spectacular results, and so have we.

Dr. Fuhrman contends that Americans are overweight and unhealthy for one reason: we’re not getting the nutrients we need from the food we’re eating. He explains that when you eat nutrient poor food, your body will just keep demanding more food until it gets what it needs. Of course if you just keep eating the same things your body will never be satisfied and this vicious cycle will inevitably lead to excess weight and illness.

Dr. Fuhrman claims that it’s the ‘nutrient density’ of food that matters, not the amount you eat. If you eat only the foods with the highest possible ratio of nutrients to calories and stop eating foods with a low ratio of nutrients to calories, your body will be satisfied, you’ll lose weight and your health will improve. Dr. Fuhrman’s plan is extremely simple: give the body its optimal fuel and you’ll get optimal performance. (By the way, our endorsement of Dr. Fuhrman’s plan is freely given; we’re not receiving anything in return.)

But what has this got to do with spiritual food? Peace Pilgrim, a very spicy spiritual master, once said, “I don’t eat junk food and I don’t think junk thoughts.” Like many other masters before her, she believed what we feed our minds is even more important than what we put into the body. Although most Americans have access to an abundance of nutritious food, a huge percentage of food in grocery stores and restaurants is very low on nutrition and high in calories, which leaves us simultaneously overfed and malnourished.

The same is true of spiritual food. The world is overflowing with an infinite and plentiful variety of spiritual food to choose from, but people are both overfed and malnourished. In both cases the problem exists because we reject real nutrition in favor of the tastiness of empty calories. And sadly, a diet of tasty but non-nutritious material or spiritual food often makes us think the nutritious food seem boring and unappealing.

Much of what passes for spirituality today is little more than sensationalism, but the excitement over specific dates, sacred places, secret information, etc., etc. makes the teachings of the sages that have stood the test of time seem dull in comparison.

Unless we recognize the problem and re-educate our physical and spiritual taste buds, we’ll never feel satisfied.

We might be convinced we have a ‘sweet tooth,’ but in reality, we’re starving for nutrition and addicted to a ‘high’ that we get from the combination of fat and sugar. The same is often true on a spiritual level. We may be addicted to new and exciting ‘spiritual highs’ if we find ourselves eager to keep moving from one new spiritual idea, book, teacher or practice to another.

We tell ourselves that we’re on a spiritual path, but we’re actually just ‘snacking’ to satisfy our curiosity. Curiosity can be a beginning, but it can also be a trap that keeps us from maturing. At some point we need to settle down and begin our inner work. That doesn’t mean that teachers, books, ideas or practices have no merit, but instead of using them as a springboard for deep inner work, we’re like the child who hides their vegetables and goes right to the cupcake.

Rumi was alluding to people who toy with spirituality when he said, “These spiritual window-shoppers who idly ask, ‘How much is that?’…they handle a hundred items and put them all down.”

In that case, spirituality becomes a bag of potato chips. We just keep popping in one ‘chip’ after another, hardly cognizant of what we’re doing. We feel full because we’ve collected lots of information, but we’re malnourished because we haven’t let it reach the heart and bring about real change. We may feel that we’re very busy and involved spiritually, but Buddha addressed this problem when he said, “Few are those who reach the other shore; most people just keep running up and down this shore.”

In our society, we want things to be quick and easy, so we’ve learned to eat on the run. We go to the drive-thru, pick up some food while the car is still running, and head right back to the road. Occasionally people do what we’ve come to think of as ‘drive-thru emails.’ They write and ask us to distill the information contained in the 600+ pages of our books in a few words so they can swallow it quickly and keep on moving.

Like diet pills, liposuction and weight loss surgery, they believe there must also be some form of ‘instant enlightenment gratification.’ As Hafiz pointed out, “God is trying to sell you something, but you don’t want to buy. This is what your suffering is: your fantastic haggling … over the price.”

Spiritual awakening, like Dr. Fuhrman’s plan, is very, very simple. However, that doesn’t mean either of them are easy. Both require that we make major changes, and those changes will be difficult or easy depending on how attached we are to the status quo. Most of the people who finally came to Dr. Fuhrman were in a desperate situation. They stuck to his plan because they faced death or a miserable existence if they didn’t.

Our thoughts and intentions have pushed the earth to the brink of disaster and left humanity in tenuous circumstances. Now is the time to act; the cure for our problems has always been right before us. Yes, big changes can be both frightening and disruptive, but the big question is: Do we want to keep playing around with our spiritual food, or dig in? Do we want to keep looking at the menu, or eat the meal?

~ by Lee & Steven Hager in Spiritual Awakening, Nov. 13, 2011.

There is a plan (you get to choose whether you believe that or not), but it isn’t a given that we’ll fulfill it or fulfill it in a way that was intended. What can interfere with that plan are our beliefs — about ourselves, others, and life. Our beliefs are often limiting because most of them come from the ego and take us in the ego’s direction instead of Essence’s, or the higher plan’s. Without our beliefs, we can find our way much more easily to where we’re meant to go.

Isn’t it ironic that beliefs, which seem so true and valuable, are actually what can be most limiting? This is because most beliefs aren’t actually very true (or not the whole truth anyway) because beliefs are just conditioning. Conditioning is useful, but it doesn’t hold the key to how to live your life or fulfill your destiny.

Conditioning is meant to help us function, and some of it does that, but much of it just gets in the way of living life as the beautiful Being that we are. Many of our beliefs get in the way of being happy, which hopefully we can all agree is a worthwhile goal.

We all have a lot of false and useless conditioning. Our conditioning makes us think of ourselves in certain ways that can be limiting: “I’m not smart enough to succeed at that,” “My mother would have a fit if I became an artist,” “Girls cant do science,” “Making money is more important than doing what you want to do,” “You should carry on the family business.”

We have so many ideas about what we should do and what our life should look like, but are they true, and where did they come from? Is the source of these ideas trustworthy? What are we trusting when we trust our ideas? What happens when your ideas are in conflict with another sense of what seems true — with your Heart, with what you’d love to do? Then, what do you trust? What is more trustworthy?

People suffer when their ideas — their conditioning — are at odds with their Heart. This conflict can feel almost life threatening because often these ideas are ones we received from people we care about and are or were dependent on, from parents and others close to us. To not agree with these ideas feels like disagreeing with the truth, with the voice of God, with what’s right, with your parents!

Such ideas are not necessarily the truth even though others believe they are and questioning them feels dangerous. They are just what ot others believe and taught us and what we picked up along the way. They aren’t tailor-made for us. They are one-size-fits-all: They are supposed to fit everyone, but they don’t. And they certainly don’t fit all occasions.

When ideas that others close to us believe feel like they don’t fit for us, we often feel guilty, afraid, and even ashamed, like there’s something wrong with us or bad about us.

So what do you trust? Do you trust other people’s ideas and beliefs and your conditioning, or do you trust that little voice inside you that tells you something else? There seem to be two selves here: the conditioned self (the ego) that believes in following ideas and conditioning and another Self that feels differently.

Isn’t it funny how everyone knows what the ‘little voice inside’ is? We’re born with an awareness of something other than our thoughts that is at times in conflict with our thoughts or other people’s ideas. Even though this voice may go against our conditioning, we’re often encouraged when we’re young to pay attention to this voice. And if we didn’t learn to do this as a child or we don’t pay attention to this voice, we rather quickly learn that this voice does have something valuable to say! It can even save our life.

What is this voice? Well, it’s not actually a voice but a knowing, a nudging, sometimes an uncomfortable feeling when we go against it. It is our intuition, our Heart, the ’still, small voice within.’ We all know it, but we don’t always listen to it because there’s often a lot of pressure from others and even from ourselves in the form of fear and guilt to follow our conditioning and other people’s ideas instead. However, people usually end up quite unhappy when they let their conditioning and other people’s ideas determine their choices.

Unhappiness is not a good sign, although it’s a common state. Unhappiness is usually a sign that we’re not aligned with our personal truth — with what’s true for us. We’re not listening to our Heart. Understanding why we’re unhappy is complicated by the fact that the ego is often unhappy and discontent even in the best of circumstances and possibly even when we are aligned with our plan.

The ego complains about anything and everything. It’s an ongoing voice of discontentment — the grass is always greener somewhere else. If we pay a lot of attention to the voice in our head, we’re bound to be unhappy much of the time. So there is the usual unhappiness that’s characteristic of the egoic state of consciousness, and there’s the unhappiness that is a sign we aren’t listening to our Heart or that we’re out of step with our higher plan.

The unhappiness that indicates we aren’t aligned with our plan is a deeper variety, a sense of our soul longing for something else, something more meaningful or more in tune with who we really are. This deeper unhappiness is often experienced as depression and often indicates that our life structures don’t fit our plan.

The cure generally calls for making different choices and possibly creating different life structures: changing our job or career, changing our relationship, moving, including something new in our life, developing an overlooked or a buried talent, or making some other important but possibly difficult change. This deeper unhappiness or depression is the ’stick’ that is attempting to get our attention and move us in another direction.

Joy is the ‘carrot’ that says, “Go this way!” What a beautiful setup it is that joy is the sign that something is part of our higher plan! Do you want to know what your plan is? What do you love? Where is your joy, your juice, your excitement right now? The things that give you joy right now are part of your plan right now, not something that gave you joy in the past or something you think will give you joy in the future, but what gives you joy right now? All we can ever really know of our plan is what is true right now.

The fact that following our joy and doing what we love brings happiness and fulfillment is evidence that love and goodness are behind life. When joy and love are motivating us, the result is happiness, love, and goodness, not just for us as individuals, but for the Whole. Joy and love align us with our higher plan and with the Whole, and that can only be good for everyone.

Think about it: Has following your joy ever led to evil or harming someone? It just doesn’t. Other people might not approve of what you love to do, but you aren’t harming them by doing that, even if that’s what they believe. On the other hand, negative emotions, especially fear, lead to all sorts of addictions and harm. But love is the opposite. Following love and joy leads to happiness and more love and joy, not just for you but ultimately for others too. If what you’re doing is in your highest good, then it must be in everyone’s highest good — in the highest good of the Whole.

What a great formula for life this is! Life is prodding us to follow our joy and love by rewarding us when we do that. This is very kind of Life. In providing us with this guidance system, Life is being very loving. You could conclude that Life loves love and joy.

You could conclude that love and joy are behind life. This Intelligence that has a plan loves and celebrates love! What’s not to trust about that?

~ by Gina Lake, From her book: Trusting Life: Overcoming the Fear and Beliefs that Block Peace and Happiness

Until you actually awaken to deeper levels of freedom, it’s inevitable that you will try to hold onto a story — some thought, belief, concept, or philosophy — which gives you the flavor and feeling of the freedom you seek. This is okay up to a point, but eventually it will become clear to you that even the words and philosophies, no matter how accurate or succinct they may be, have to be released.

One of the last public talks I attended with Jean Klein was in a church hall in Sausalito, California. There were fifty or sixty people in the room, waiting patiently for Jean to come in and take his seat at the front. When he arrived, he had to be helped to his chair. He seemed very old, thin, and frail, yet his gracious European bearing was still very much in evidence, and he was dressed as elegantly as ever.

He sat down with some difficulty and smiled at us. A beautiful, clear light emanated from his eyes. We sat in silence for a while, and then he began to speak. He talked of the need to see through the “person” so we could come to our real presence, our true being. There were some questions, and subsequent dialogue.

About half-way through the evening, a serious-looking young woman in a business suit raised her hand. When Jean acknowledged her, she stood up. She looked like a banker, or a stockbroker. “Dr. Klein,” she asked, “what is your philosophy of life?”

There was a long silence. Then Jean beamed one of those disarming smiles of his. “Madame, I have no philosophy … That is why I am a happy man.”

Laughter rippled throughout the room. The young woman smiled rather self-consciously, and then sat down.

For months after the exchange, I found myself thinking about Jean’s words. It was so simple. Forget the philosophies, the stories, the beliefs, the theories and just abide in the openness and freedom of our true nature. Then we really will be happy. We’ll live out of wholeness, with wisdom and compassion, and we’ll do what needs to be done — without fuss, without bother.

But if we hold onto a philosophy, a belief system, or an agenda of any kind, we create a barrier to the unfolding of something deeper, something more authentic, fresh, and alive. When our beliefs reinforce the idea of being a separate “self,” a lonely wave on the ocean of life, it is that separation that breeds feelings of isolation, insecurity, and fear.

But when we let go of all philosophies, all stories, and just be, happiness is ours.

~ Jim Dreaver, author of End Your Story, Begin Your Life.

~ Jim, originally from Auckland and now living in Los Angeles, is coming to Australia this month! He’ll be leading a workshop in Perth Fri. Nov 18 (free) Sat. Nov. 19 & Sun. Nov. 20. To book, see:
Jim’s Website or contact Pete on 08 9336 4737 or via: peter@peterspearls.com.au

Have you ever felt that there must be something more to life, something beyond our mundane experience of the everyday world? From our childhood on we are programmed to conform to the reality we perceive around us, the reality that our family and friends perceive.

We are conditioned to believe that we are only our personality, our thoughts. Yet, this is not so. The conditioned mind and structured personality are just a set of energies that overlay the original Self. Then how do we discover the nature of this original Self?

Jnana yoga (pronounced nyah-nah yo-gah) is a system of Self-inquiry whereby we gradually let go of our identification with the personality until the true Self is revealed. Just as Hatha yoga stretches and opens the body, jnana yoga stretches and opens the mind.

As we dissolve our description of reality, we realize the world is different to what we had imagined before. Life becomes new, fresh. We become more discerning, more peaceful inside. Insights and clarity arise more readily and our lives become balanced and filled with Grace.

There are three main methods used in this Self-inquiry.

The first is called “activating the witness consciousness”. Our witness is our unbiased, neutral, eternal Self. It is who we really are. In order to cultivate our witness we consciously and deliberately examine how we feel, think, and behave.

With this, we gradually strip away our layers of social conditioning and identification with the ego. We discover that the mind and awareness are not the same and that there is an intelligent part of us that can observe our mind dispassionately.

The second method is to ask the question “Who am I?” The approach used here is normally a stripping away of who we are not, which leads us to a place beyond the mind where nothing remains to describe the individual being but the true, essential nature of the Self.

The third technique involves bringing what has been unconscious into consciousness. It is important to uncover and dissolve the hidden patterns wedged in our unconscious in order to be free of them, as the newness and freshness constantly coming to us from Source is blocked by these patterns.

Here we look at aspects of ourselves such as our unconscious behaviors, habits and addictions. We bring what has been in the dark into the light. It’s as though we have to understand the functioning of this human system fully before we can move beyond it. We own all of our parts, and then we let them go.

As we progress in our practice of jnana yoga, we take a step back and observe ourselves on the stage of life, playing our role, like watching a movie on a screen. We are the actor, yet we also get to write our own script. Our witness is really our Divine Self watching the ego living life in this way.

The more we strengthen our identification with our witness and the less with our egoic personality, the more we grow spiritually. As this process continues, we experience an emptying out, a letting go of our attachments, desires, fears, and stories.

The more we empty, the greater our Presence and our love; the less we attach, the greater our delight and joy in the mystery of life; and the more we cultivate acceptance, the greater our contentment. We experience a “lightening up”. Indeed, this is the process of achieving “en-lighten-ment”.

Even a little bit of jnana yoga practice goes a long way to bringing more consciousness into daily life and along with it more clarity, peace and joy. The invitation here is to celebrate the process! How far down the road of awareness are you willing to tread?

The 10 Principal Aims of Jnana Yoga

• To activate our witness consciousness, so we are at once the observer and observed, noticing that when we shine the light of awareness on something it changes.
• To cultivate a habit of gracious acceptance for life as it is rather than resisting the things we can’t change.
• To let go of our attachments to outcome and surrender up our preferences to God.
• To come fully into our feeling nature, so we can be more present with our experiences and move through our lessons more quickly.
• To know that we are totally responsible for the quality of our experience of life and that how we respond in any situation is always our choice.
• To realize that we can have no peace in the present without healing our past.
• To appreciate the sacredness of life just as it is.
• To feel what it is to be a person of integrity, speaking truth and being authentic.
• To surrender our habit of control, so we can explore the frontiers of life’s mysteries, rather than remaining in the safety of our known.
• To realize that true joy is in living out our life’s purpose as an instrument of God.

~ From: Twenty Questions for Enlightened Living, by Julia Tindall, www.juliatindall.com/

Some form of the Golden Rule can be found among the teachings of virtually every enlightened sage. Why? Whether we say, “Do unto others what you would have them do unto you,” or “Hurt not others with that which pains yourself” we are recognizing the foundation of life: Oneness.

Quantum research has discovered the truth in these words. Seemingly separate material forms are an illusion that overlay our quantum Reality of indivisible, interconnected oneness. From a quantum perspective, it is impossible to harm one part of the whole without affecting everything in existence.

The Golden Rule is a truth that none of us can afford to ignore. But when we look at world conditions it quickly becomes obvious that many either ignore these words or repeat them with no real understanding of what they actually mean. Although the Golden Rule is most often associated with Jesus, many who claim to be followers of Christ appear to have far more interest in Bible verses that promote judgment rather than love.

Currently the world’s attention is focused on the massive disparity between the rich and the poor. We could not be where we are today if the Golden Rule was taken seriously. Clearly, it’s time to revisit this teaching with an open heart.

“Do unto others” has most often been applied to our treatment of other human beings, but quantum physics tells us that our oneness does not stop with humanity but includes everything in existence. If you could see the universe from a quantum perspective, you would see an ocean of energy, but no form. You would see no distinctions or boundaries of any kind. You would realize that you are not a body at all, but a part of the whole that could not be distinguished from any other part.

In Reality, you’re a part of one non-local consciousness that permeates everything in existence. Like a drop of water in the ocean, you are simultaneously nowhere and everywhere. The body you think is you, is a projection from pure consciousness.

If we aren’t really separate bodies in a universe of form, why is the Golden Rule important? When we say ‘do unto others’ we usually think in terms of one body doing something either positive or negative to another body, but this is part of the illusion. In Reality, this is a universe of thought. Whatever is acted out in the virtual reality of form, began with a thought in non-local consciousness. Difficult as it may be to accept, it’s not what bodies are doing that’s important, it’s what consciousness is thinking.

If you’re familiar with our other @rticles, you already understand that this world is the outworking of our rebellion against Divine Oneness. As the Children of the Divine, we were certain we could create a universe of separation and specialness that would rival the universe of Oneness and equality created by the Divine.

We were given the free will to project such a world while remaining safely within Oneness. Sadly, we have been trying to reach our goal for so long, we’ve forgotten who and what we actually are. Our experiment is failing, and the only way out is love.

No matter how bad things get, we’re free to continue experimenting with separation and specialness as long as we want. But we can also wake up and remember who we are anytime we want. One of the easiest ways to do this is by waking up the love that flows through the heart. The Divine is love. As the ancient Nasadiya Sukta points out, “In the beginning Love arose, which was the primal germ cell of the mind.” You were made in the image of Divine consciousness; in Reality you are love.

In this world, we equate love with feelings, mere emotions that can be given and taken, but that has nothing to do with being love. When we let go of pseudo love and return to being love, we will know our true Self. Spiritual masters through the ages have walked the path of love and oneness. Like Jesus, they encouraged their followers to open their heart connection and experience oneness afresh:

• The Supreme is Love itself—Plotinus
• Love is nothing other than finding the truth—Rumi
• The Lord of Love is the one Self of all. Realize the Self hidden in the heart and cut asunder the knot of ignorance here and now—Mundaka Upanishad
• The Lord of Love may be known through love but not through thought. He is the goal of life. Attain this goal—Mundaka Upanishad

These words cannot just be said, or believed. Unless we tattoo them on our heart and make them our way of life, they won’t have any impact. Until we become love and extend that love to everything in existence, they’re just words. But when they become real to us, they create a ‘conscience,’ an inner voice that lets us know when our thoughts are taking us closer to, or further from, oneness. But for many, conscience has been replaced by the drive for self-interest at virtually any cost.

Humanity has ignored its connection with the Divine for so long, it has become easy to deal with others in a heartless, unloving way while still feeling very good about ourselves. Instead of remembering the inclusive, unconditional beauty of Divine love, love is used as a tool to get something we want from someone else. We’ve reduced love to a sexual or sentimental travesty that bears no resemblance to love whatever.

We’ve made it easy to convince ourselves we need only apply the Golden Rule to those closest to us. How often do we see someone do something unconscionable and let themselves off the hook by saying, “Don’t take it personal, it’s just business.” But the Golden Rule tells us that everything we do is personal and it does matter.

As an example, we knew a woman we’ll call Meg, who was fiercely loyal to her close friends and family, and especially her mother. These connections meant everything to her and she saw herself as a loving and caring individual. A fellow worker had been given leave to go home to be with her dying mother, but a problem cropped up at work that needed this woman’s attention.

Others could have dealt with the issue, but the boss told Meg to call the woman, whose mother had just died, and tell her that if she didn’t miss the funeral and return to work immediately, she would be terminated. Meg had no difficulty dismissing the other woman’s pain. She made the call, still convinced she was a loving and caring person. After all, it was just business.

Governments that are supposed to be concerned about all their citizens regularly cut off the meager social assistance they offer to starving and homeless people, yet pour billions into welfare for corporations that make huge profits and pay no taxes. They spend vast amounts of money on wars while ignoring the infrastructure and social systems that would actually aid the people.

It’s not unusual for those who scream the loudest about their religious principles and moral standards who hand out the most unloving treatment to others. Take the words of the master Hafiz to heart, “Don’t copy those who make reciting the Book a cover for lies.” We can recite the words “do unto others” or we can live them.

At times that will mean we will be at odds with society and following our heart-directed conscience could put us in a difficult position. There are very few things in this world worth living or dying for. One of these is the opportunity to wake up to Reality and extend unlimited, unconditional love to All That Is. When Jesus said, “do unto others as you would have them do unto you” he was willing to live those words. Are you?

~ Written on Oct. 16, 2011 by Lee & Steven Hager … in Love

Arthur Stace, or “Mr Eternity” as we kids used to call him, was one of Sydney’s eccentrics. He was born in 1884 in a Balmain slum of parents who died of drinking methylated spirits. He had little schooling and by his mid-twenties he had only ever worked as a brothel pimp and a two-up school cockatoo, had a long police record and was already a chronic alcoholic.

One night he went to a Christian mission-meeting in Sydney because he had heard they served tea and hot pies afterwards. That night, Arthur Stace was converted. For the next twenty-four years, he worked tirelessly, caring for derelicts and down-and-outers of all kinds, preaching in the open air and visiting mental institutions, men’s hostels and the leprosarium.

In 1930. Arthur Stace heard John Ridley preach. “I wish I could shout “Eternity” through the streets of Sydney,” Ridley called out. The words forcibly struck Arthur. After the meeting, outside on the footpath, he found a piece of chalk in his pocket. He felt a powerful urge and with the chalk wrote “Eternity” on the pavement.

“The funny thing is,” he said later, “That I could hardly write my own name. I couldn’t have spelt “Eternity” for a hundred quid, but it came out smoothly and in a beautiful copperplate script. I couldn’t understand it and I still can’t.”

For the next thirty-seven years, Arthur chalked the word “Eternity” into the footpaths of Sydney and into the character of the city. He also chalked it into the minds and lives of countless people who testify to the power of his one-word sermon. Later on I met Arthur when he spoke at our church — a small, quiet man in an old suit.

He said eternity was something for all of us, something to lift us out of our ordinariness, out of our sin and give us hope. Arthur died in 1967, but today, near the Sydney Square waterfall, set in the paving stones in letters about 21cm high in white wrought aluminium, is the old word “Eternity” exactly as he used to write it. Arthur Stace is still held in the city’s memory.

~ by Rowland Croucher, in: High Mountains Deep Valleys – Eternity in our hearts.

Spiritual people often want unconditional support and understanding from their friends, family, and mates, but all too often seem blind to their own shortcomings when it comes to the amount of unconditional support and understanding that they give to others.

I have seen many spiritual people become obsessed with how unspiritual others are and assume an arrogant and superior attitude while completely missing the fact that they themselves are not nearly as spiritually enlightened as they would like to think they are.

Enlightenment can be measured by how compassionately and wisely you interact with others — with all others, not just those who support you in the way that you want. How you interact with those who do not support you shows how enlightened you really are.

As long as you perceive that anyone is holding you back, you have not taken full responsibility for your own liberation. Liberation means that you stand free of making demands on others and life to make you happy.

When you discover yourself to be nothing but Freedom, you stop setting up conditions and requirements that need to be satisfied in order for you to be happy.

It’s in the absolute surrender of all conditions and requirements that Liberation is discovered to be who and what you are. Then the love and wisdom that flows out of you has a liberating effect on others.

The biggest challenge for most spiritual seekers is to surrender their self importance, and see the emptiness of their own personal story. It is your personal story that you need to awaken from in order to be free.

To give up being either ignorant or enlightened is the mark of liberation and allows you to treat others as your Self. What I am describing is the birth of true Love.

~ by Adyashanti www.adyashanti.org

Jesus said, “Those who have beome oppressed within themselves will be honored. It is they who have truly come to know the Giver of Life.” (Gospel of Thomas 69)

“Those who are in longing will be honored, because they will receive what they long for.”
(T. 69, Sayings Gospel QS:8)

For Jesus, self-oppression here is actually self-scrutiny. The self-awareness that is necessary to become spiritually aware is difficult and can initially be quite uncomfortable. It requires being totally honest with one’s self and recognizing the negative as well as the positive.

Developing spiritual awareness is also uncomfortable at first, because one has to question and ultimately abandon beliefs about religion and about the nature of physical and spiritual reality. In the second half of this saying, Jesus is recognizing that people who become spiritually aware begin with a sense of longing. The longing is for a truth that is missing. The longing is the cause for the search and for the satisfaction when the truth is found.

The self-awareness that is a necessary step on the way to spiritual enlightenment is not easy. We must see ourselves at every level as who we are rather than who we hope to be. Beyond simple behavior, we must examine our thoughts, feelings and motives. Only then are we ready to fully connect with our own spirits.

The quest for spiritual enlightenment begins with a hunger. Something is missing. Something about who we are or what we are to do feels urgent and yet vague. The explanations we have been given regarding life, death, heaven and meaning are insufficient or simply feel wrong. This longing is the beginning of spiritual searching, which leads to spiritual development and can result in spiritual awareness.

Jesus said, “If they say to you, ‘Where did you come from?’ Say to them, ‘We came from the light, the place where the light created itself. We come in the image of the Giver of Life, The One.’ If they say to you, ‘is it you?’ Say, ‘We are the children, and the chosen of the Giver of Life.’ If they ask you, ‘What is the sign of the Giver of Life in you?’ Say to them, ‘It is movement and stillness.’” (T. 50)

Although all spirits and, therefore, all people come from the Giver of Life, those who have become spiritually aware know where they are from and that knowledge makes them different. The difference is visible. A spirit is energy. Energy is movement. The energy of spirit moves visibly within them.

At the same time, the spiritually aware exhibit a calm stillness. They are not worried about what will or will not happen next because they know they are immortal. In fact, being still and alone (as in meditation) allows them to become aware of their own spirits, of The One and of the Universe….

The spiritually mature person stands with a foot in each world. One foot is in the physical realm, concerned about paying the bills and the frailties of our human bodies. The other foot is in the heavenly realm, aware of eternity, God and how physical concerns fade in the light of heaven.

To put it simply, the spiritually mature person is not frightened. We become scared when we believe that if a certain thing happens, we could not survive or could not tolerate the pain. When faced with potential tragedy, the spiritually mature person does a big “Yes, but.” “Yes, that terrible event might occur. I don’t want it to, but everyone concerned will ultimately survive. We all do.”

This is the movement and stillness. The movement and activity of a spiritually aware person is not stopped by anxiety. Instead, there is a calm stillness in this person.

~ From: The Original Teaching of Jesus, by Michael Buckner M. Div. Ph. D.