He that loveth not, knoweth not God, for God is love. – I John These words sound so ethereal that most of us cannot connect them with daily life. What, we ask, do personal relationships have to do with the divine? I would reply that it is by discovering the unity between ourselves and others – all others – that we find our unity with God. Jesus taught unity, not a cosmos of dualism. We don’t first get to know God and then, by some miracle of grace, come to love our fellow human beings. Loving others comes first. In this sense, learning to love is practicing religion. Those who can put the welfare of others before their own small personal interests are religious, even if they would deny it. This posture is possible only through what the scriptures refer to as "faith". This is the only route to life in the Kingdom, Jesus' code word for walking with him in the Spirit, being "born again" or "born from above". It requires a gaze on Christ...
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The goodness of our true selves—do we believe it?
As pure water poured into pure water becomes the very same, so does the Self of the illumined man or woman verily become one with the Godhead. ~Katha Upanishad Easwaran notes that for some reason, it is very difficult for us to accept our divine nature. “This has always puzzled me. We pay money for books about how destructive we are. We stand in line to see movies that emphasize our capacity for making trouble.” Then, when Jesus comes to tell us that the kingdom of heaven is within us, we say, "There must be some mistake." It is to convince us that our real Self is always pure and eternal that men and women of God keep arising among us. More than anything, we need to hear their good news that the source of all joy and security is right within. In the Hindu scriptures there is a precise term for our real nature: the Atman. All it means is "the Self" - not the little self, the changing personality with which most of us identify, but the higher Self, our re...
Being Led by Light
O Enlightened One Life Giving Spirit May I bear Your Image, and Be a Child of Light . ~ Sciretti I am drawn to the analogy and the words of scripture that describe the influence of Holy Spirit in my life as "light". The concept of what it means to be "enlightened" is a compelling mystery to me as I continue to study and seek to follow the Lord Christ, thereby being transformed into a different person. Last evening, in three year old choir at Calvary, we sang "This little light of mine"...(and we sang it quite well, and most enthusiastically, I might add.) ...on Tuesday in my "brothers of the rule"group, where Mike led us in the chant I restated above, we were reminded that each of us has an essential self, a little Child of Light baby, that must be fed, nurtured, cared for, and "grown" in order for it to be strong and capable of being the primary source of our individual self's decisions and insight. This Essence--"this little...