In Yoke

As I have perused many treatises regarding the Christ, it is obvious to me that Jesus teaching was centered on three core principles. As I have digested His message, I come back to the three pillars of Jesus' teaching. They are: Kenosis - (letting go, non-clinging) Abundance - ( “I have come that they might have life abundant”) Singleness - (oneness of heart) From Mark 12:28-31: “One of the religion scholars came up. Hearing the lively exchanges of question and answer and seeing how sharp Jesus was in his answers, he put in his question: "Which is most important of all the commandments?" Jesus said, "The first in importance is, 'Listen, Israel: The Lord your God is one; so love the Lord God with all your passion and prayer and intelligence and energy.' And here is the second: 'Love others as well as you love yourself.' There is no other commandment that ranks with these." Love the Lord your God with all your passion & prayer, inte...

"Keep your attention within yourself (not in your head but in your heart).  Keep your mind there (in the heart), trying by every possible means to  find the place where the heart is, in order that, having found it, your mind  should constantly abide there. Wrestling thus, the mind will find the place of the heart.  This happens when grace produces sweetness and warmth in prayer...with God's help,  you will learn...from your own experience, by keeping your mind attentive  and in your heart holding Jesus, that is, His prayer -"Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy upon me!"  One of the holy fathers says: 'Sit in your cell and this prayer will teach you everything.' " - St. Simeon the New Theologian , Three Methods of Attention and Prayer This is so wonderful! Since 1999, my mantram has been the Jesus prayer: "Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy upon me!"...it is mysterious to me how this little repetitive prayer when practiced faithfully, can correct wayward s...

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...

One cannot collect all the beautiful shells on the beach. One can collect only a few, and they are more beautiful if they are few. -Anne Morrow Lindbergh If you are determined to stick to what is really important in life, then from day to day you will see that the unimportant pastimes, the distractions that lead you away from your purpose, will gradually weaken their hold. On the list of priorities, first and foremost is your daily prayer time[quiet time, silence, practice of presence,meditation]. This focus has the capability to reveal your True Self, the Sacred Essence within, the Holy Spirit who dwells in your heart*. The Spirit will clear your eyes and bring the detachment and discrimination that one needs in order to make wise choices. So right at the top of your list should be the resolution to Practice the Presence of Christ, aka Christian Meditation, and not to let anything come in the way. Not even the greatest of worldly achievements will satisfy us completely. Nothing fin...

"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...

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...