In Yoke

The more I sit with the wisdom of the ages, and study the mystics, the more congruence I begin to sense. One philosophical congruence is the concept of the power of NOW—as Eckhart Tolle has popularized. Approximately 500 years before Christ’s advent in the Middle East, the life of Siddhartha Gautama emanated in Nepal and Northern India. His noble eightfold path and his words and teachings still ring true. Many of the concepts of his teachings are not at all incompatible with the capacity we are given through life in Christ. The secret of health for both mind and body is not to mourn for the past, not to worry about the future, or not to anticipate troubles, but to live the present moment wisely and earnestly. -The Compassionate Buddha Eknath Easwaran comments: “When the mind is at rest, we are lifted out of time into the eternal present. The body, of course, is still subject to the passage of time. But in a sense, the flickering of the mind is our internal clock. When the mind...

(adapted from Fr. Richard Rohr) When Job believes he is about to lose his life, he has a choice. He can respond in one of two ways. He can curse God and die; and I think he considers that option quite seriously for a moment ...(I know I have considered the relief of pain and suffering for myself if I was to die and be done with the humiliations I was suffering!) or he can surrender to the love and the grace that he had become awakened to/aware of and say : "Why fifty years? Why did I deserve anything?" When we take on that attitude, we have made a decision for grace, not "rights" or "entitlement"! "Naked I came into the world, and naked I will leave"(Job 1:21) What do I have brothers and sisters, that has not been given to me? All is grace. All is given. Who gave me the hands I am using to type this or to do anything creative? Who created the eyes whose connectivity, configuration, construction, and 'wiring' I cannot begin to understand?...