In Yoke

"One who would be serene and pure needs but one thing, detachment." -Meister Eckhart(13th century Christian mystic) Eswaran notes a most applicable issue in my life, that of non-identification with my own opinions(or preferences), a term known as detachment . My wife Leslie and I have been involved in an ongoing conversation about this discipline and how the practice of detachment brings much more peace and contentment in our daily lives. I can save myself lots of trouble and pain by not expending energy defending my opinions or preferences. To quote the teacher: "Most of us identify ourselves with our pet opinions. Then, when we are contradicted, we take it personally and get upset. If we could look at ourselves with some detachment, we would see how absurd this is. There is scarcely any more connection between me and my opinions than there is between me and my car. I have a close friend who is devoted to her Volkswagen Bug. If I compliment her on it, she is pleased; if...

“You fathers—if your children ask for a fish, do you give them a snake instead? Or if they ask for an egg, do you give them a scorpion? Of course not! So if you sinful people know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him.” ---Jesus The Christ The greatest teacher of wisdom in history is Jesus, who became the Christ. In this passage, at the culmination of the teaching regarding the prayer we call the Lord's Prayer, he makes an irrevocable promise that brings hope and daily strength to those who take His promise "to heart" and claim it in prayer. He is saying that if but ask the Father for His Holy Spirit, He will give it to us, much like when your children ask you for what can sustain them...albeit--we are sinful--we will still do what we can to help our own children. That is the way the Father views us, as His own children. So, because what we truly and undeniably need in this life is H...

"Like a ball batted back and forth, a human being is batted by two forces within." -Yogabindu Upanishad "As human beings we have a divided nature - partly physical, but essentially spiritual. We are constantly batted by two conflicting forces. One force is the fierce downward thrust of our past conditioning as separate, self-oriented, physical creatures. Yet built into our very nature is an inner drive that will not let us be satisfied with a life governed only by biological laws. Some inner evolutionary imperative is constantly exhorting us to grow, to reach for the highest that we can conceive." Eswaran I liken this ancient Indian spiritual teaching in the Upanishad to the concepts of the False Self and the Essential Self. "The Work" of Transformation would cast the dilemma in the terms of being open to an objective observation of the driving force within my life. Which of the polar opposite influences in my life do I follow? 1. The Holy Ghost , expansi...

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...

In tribulation, immediately draw near to God with confidence, and you will receive strength, enlightenment, and instruction.------Saint John of the Cross This testimony is lifted from the writings of Eknath Eswaran, one of the English language's foremost teachers of meditation, whose systematic methods I have studied for the past ten years: **** I confess that I have always been sensitive to pain. When I was a little boy, I hurt my leg playing soccer. It became infected, so my granny took me to our doctor. He washed the wound as gently as he could while I winced. Then he told me apologetically, "I'm going to have to apply tincture of iodine." Now, I had heard many stories about how much it hurt to have iodine applied to a wound. So I closed my eyes. I felt the doctor's touch on my leg, and then a wave of pain across the wound. I think my yell must have lifted the roof. Then I noticed the pain had subsided, so I opened my eyes. "Is it over?" I asked...

In short, it is the work of a steward. What is a steward? A steward is-via the dictionary: A person who manages the property or affairs for another entity. A ship's officer who is in charge of making dining arrangements and provisions. A flight attendant, especially but not exclusively a male flight attendant. Often as "air steward", "airline steward", etc. A union member who is selected as a representative for fellow workers in negotiating terms with management. [syn:...a shop steward ] A person who has charge of buildings and/or grounds and/or animals. [syn: a custodian, a keeper] In IT, somebody who is responsible for managing a set of projects, products or technologies and how they affect the IT organization to which they belong. All these contemporary definitions refer to managing the possessions or properties of another, a 'higher up'. I believe that it implies servanthood. It implies obedience. The analogy of the Kingdom of God, and our role in...

Hugh Prather, in his book, "Spiritual Notes to Myself" comes to a rather interesting conclusion about our own desire to engage in the development of our own contemplative practice, or in his simple way of cancelling religious sounding words--our own "capacity for stillness"... Prather quips, "If you love your inner peace, you must learn to "break with the situation". If you need to pray, then PRAY NOW. "Oh, but that might be awkward", or "that is too much trouble", we say to ourselves. However, just think about it--if you have diarrhea, don't you do everything possible to "break with the situation"? We will get up from the meeting. We will get out of line. We will pull the car over to the side of the road. We will excuse ourselves from the dinner table. We will put down the phone." As my former Pastor Julie PR would say when she began to sense herself becoming overwhelmed by a situation-- "I need to set this...