Human beings can reshape their lives...

As an irrigator guides water to the fields, as an archer aims an arrow,as a
carpenter carves wood, the wise shape their lives. -The Buddha

The glory of the human being is our ability to remake ourselves. The Buddha is very rightly called the Compassionate One because he holds out hope for everybody. He doesn’t say our past has been dark, therefore our chances are dim. He says whatever our past, whatever our present,the sky is bright for us because we can remake ourselves.

The Buddha says, be a good woodworker. Consciousness is the wood, and you can make it take any shape you like. Just as a carpenter works the wood to build a house or a fine piece of furniture, similarly we can fashion the responses and attitudes we desire: love, wisdom, security, patience,loyalty, enthusiasm, cheerfulness. _my teacher, Eknath Eswaran

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I confess--- this is not an easy thing to consider. It seems that the more I seek --in my own power--and according to these and other wisdom teachings--to remake my self, the more the small or false self seems to become more and more evident.

The Work of Self Observation is the reason for this. Indeed for 45 years of life, I was asleep, never awakening to what I am(was) or how my responses and attitudes were fashioned. Since I began the practice of meditation, I am more and more sensing and understanding these things. I admit that initially, the practice of meditation was for me, a weak effort to seek other ways of living, other ways of belief, of comfort, of faith. I was hoping to somehow be transformed.

I was hopeful to be able to switch over to an alternate transformational belief system, one that could bring me more satisfaction and joy in life than the Christian/Baptist tradition in which I had been raised. As I began to seek to learn meditation from Eswaran ( in 1997)I had already experienced shock, or a major trauma in my career and also in my marriage...and my faith tradition, or so I thought--had failed me. It did not bring me the success I had set as my goal in life. I thought I needed to switch out my belief systems.

Actually, as a result, I did change belief systems! I was able to awaken to the fact that what I thought was faith in Christ was faith in "moralistic churchism", and not true Christianity. I sought to find an alternative to this belief system and instead of becoming a student who had faith in transcendental meditiation, I become a yoked follower of Christ, who practiced meditation in His Spirit and under his leadership.

It was Eswaran who taught me this. He showed me that a Hindu/Buddhist/Catholic person from Kerala state in India, could follow Christ and pay respect and learn from the wisdom and teachings of both the other traditions. The Gita, and the words of Buddha, both are instructive to me. However, when I began to truly move into the state of nothingness--nirvana--in meditation...it was there where I found The Ascended Master, Jesus, waiting.

One key for me is this--I am not dependent on the words or The Spirit of The Buddha to change me and to remake my Self. Don't misunderstand. I value the influence and the teachings of Buddha, for indeed, he was a uniquely wise person and worthy of being followed as teacher. But...the power to change and to be transformed into a new man, living a non anxious, abundant, self observant, fruitful life comes from The Lord Christ...and for me, this kind of life comes from nowhere else.

My hope is that each day of 2009...may be fruitful for you.