In Yoke

Where are you searching for me, friend? Look! Here am I right within you. Not in temple, nor in mosque, Not in Kaaba, nor Kailas, But here right within you am I. – Kabir Many have begun the spiritual search while still suffering from severe personal problems. Saint Augustine was deeply enmeshed in the life of the world, and pulled himself free only after great anguish of mind. Others suffered physically. Saint Thérèse of Lisieux endured the constant pain of tuberculosis. So there is no need for any of us to feel downcast about our situation or the particular difficulties we face, provided we do everything we can to purify our mind. Meditation is essentially a discipline for slowing down the furious pace of thinking; if you can gradually bring your mind to a state so still that no movement, no thought, can arise except those you yourself approve, your mind will have become pure. We have no need to teach pure motives to the mind. All that is necessary to make the mind...

It is here, my daughters, that love is to be found, not hidden away in corners but in the midst of occasions of sin. And believe me, although we may more often fail and commit small lapses, our gain will be incomparably the greater. -Saint Teresa of Avila From Eswaran --- The widest possibilities for growth lie in the give-and-take of everyday relationships. The truth of this is brought out sweetly in a story about Saint Francis of Assisi. Three young men approached Francis and asked his blessing to become hermits and seek God, each in his own cave, deep in the mountains of Umbria . Francis smiled. He instructed them to be hermits indeed, but hermits all together in a single hut. One should take the role of father; a second should think of himself as the mother; and the third should be their child. Every few months they should exchange roles. Living in this way they were to establish among themselves perfect harmony, thinking always of the needs of one another. We can almost see the th...

In yoke with Christ--it is a big universal church, of seekers... This is from a girl I do not know, named Kelly Ramsey, who is from Las Vegas, NV and wrote this testimony while in Swaziland, Africa. I think she has happened upon a deep truth, and she knew that she had. Random Thoughts…Finding God in the silence We had a day of silence this week. I loved it. 24hours, no talking, no iPod, no distractions, just me and God. (Yes, Dad, no kidding, I did not talk for 24 hours ☺) While I was at Alabanza last month, I was blessed to be able to sit with the Lord, a lot. He started to speak to me in a new way, through very vivid spiritual visions and illumination of scripture. I am reading the Bible, and it is like I am reading it for the first time. During my inner-healing time with 'Dini' - the Holy Spirit re-wrote my life for me, I saw it not with eyes that see into what is seen, but with my heart that was focused on the unseen, the eternal! My eyes were opened to an intimacy with Jes...

I have been studying the works of Kabir Helminski , a contemporary Sufi mystic. His book, "Living Presence, has had a profound effect on me, and has profoundly impacted my own personal journey of transformation. The Sufi descriptions of the fundamental aspects of the Self as defined and utilized through Shaikh Helminski's teachings have been quite instructive. It applies to me, quite pointedly, and I believe in varied ways and from varied points of view, to all of us. What I believe I pursued for the first 45 years of my life, was a constructed, fearful and compulsive self, driven by ego and my own sense of "I, me and mine". I have become accepting of this the more I have grown in "The Work" of transformation. What the process has involved in my own sense of awareness and awakening is to become fully cognizant to what is contained within my Essential Self, where my own true, un-constructed soul emanates. This is where "Spirit" is manifest. Thi...