In Yoke

I have a special love for a little book called "Spiritual Notes to Myself", by Hugh Prather, published in 1998. It is written in a contemporary conversant style, but is laced with the thoughtfulness, depth and eternal wisdom of a great mystic. One passage that is special and significant to me is his little vignette about nurturing the silence of the heart(which he, in his non religious style, calls "stillness") to foster remaining true and vigilant to listen to the still, small voice of the Spirit in our lives. "No matter how small, any daily problem is sufficient to effectively "rob" us of stillness. Don't wait until you are in the middle of the event to remember stillness. Remember stillness first; go through the problem with stillness; and afterwards, look only to stillness for the outcome. Stillness is a baby I carry in my arms. Nothing in the world can tempt me to abandon it." Prather reminds me that this quality of life--living contempl...

"It is I, do not be afraid." John 6:20. Christ is the Great "I am". He reassures Peter and the disciples who are shivering in fear in the boat on the sea as he approaches on the water. They are overwhelmed by the circumstance of the storm, raging all around them. In this state of fear, they are shocked by the apparition they see in the maelstrom--an image of a man walking on the raging waves! As an entrepreneur, dependent on the whims of clients and new business, I live in what to me is sometimes a storm of uncertainty. Life's circumstances seem to me to be engulfing my fearfilled self. For me, I am in a state of doubt and anguish. The three basic needs of life seem to be out of my ability to achieve--1.power and control, 2.security and survival, 3.esteem and affection. The present storm is washing away my sense of security and survival: I can hear my small self/"ego" saying--"you are not going to make it!", or it is threatening my own abil...

"Criticism and polemic ism are mortal enemies of the spiritual life." - Valentin Tomberg In "Meditations on the Tarot", Tomberg, in the role of the anonymous friend, expounds on the meanings of the stories(arcana) within the fascinating icons called the Tarot cards, the ancient mystical divining rods of hermits and soothsayers. Within this book are myriad nuggets of truth, waiting for those who would but mine them. "A complete change of of the inspiring and motivating source of will takes place when a person or spiritual movement becomes engaged in the way of rivalry--and with it the criticism and polemic ism that it comprises." "There is no authentic spirituality which owes its origin and existence to opposition or rivalry." As I ponder on these issues, I realize that it has effect on my own spiritual life and development. I grew up in East Texas in the fifties and sixties, when "Southern Baptist church ways of working and worshipping...

The older I have grown, the more I detest going to shopping malls. My wife loves to shop, so I endure by taking my laptop or my journal and some good reading and trying my best to detach from the "karma" at the mall and somehow "retreat." It usually doesn't work that well. We have been ruthlessly conditioned to think we can find fulfillment in possessions, to love things rather than people - so much so, that when we feel an emptiness in our hearts, we go to shopping centers to fill it up. I am all for living in reasonable comfort, but when I go to shopping centers, I cannot help getting alarmed. Not at the money that is being wasted - there is enough money in this country to waste. But there isn't enough will to waste. There isn't enough energy to waste. When we hear of the energy crisis, this is it. All our vitality, energy, and drive is sapped and undermined by the constant propaganda: go after this, go after that, and you'll be happy. Things are n...

*At my church several of our well intentioned staff members have used the above term to describe times when something good happens in a group in which they have been leading or participating...or it will be used as a salutation. I have found it quite amusing that our "leaders" describe their experience with the Spirit in this way. For I believe that God has "shown up" since "in the beginning"--since the earth and fullness thereof, was created. After all, way down through the centuries, when Moses the great leader of Israel asked what is His name--the response came back in the form of the Tetragrammaton, *YHWH*..."I am that I am." My belief is that we are the ones who must make the effort to "show up"! "The Great I Am"--has been showing up every second of every day since before there were human beings on the planet who could even have expectations. I suppose the expectation that I should be tilted to the Knowledge that He li...

"Know One, know all." -from the Katha Upanishad To know others, you do not have to go and knock on four billion separate doors. Once you have seen your real Self, you have seen the Self in all. It makes it easy to understand and to forgive, and very difficult to quarrel. All of life springs from the same root. The Self in each of us is one and the same. For this Self, different names are given in different traditions. Christian mystics call it the Christ within. When a person ceases to identify with his perishable self, they say he has become Christ-conscious . The Hindu mystics speak of Krishna-consciousness, or say that such a person has attained complete freedom from the conditioning of time, space, and circumstance. The Buddhists call the same state nirvana, from nir, "out" and vana, "to blow." The ego has been extinguished; there is no more shadow to be mistaken for the real.

"You are quaffing drink from a hundred fountains: whenever any of these hundred yields less, your pleasure is diminished. But when the sublime fountain gushes from within you, no longer need you steal from the other fountains." -Jalaluddin Rumi This Sufi mystic of the 11th century is onto something. This is the contentment that comes from none other than the Holy Spirit. "Come, all you who are thirsty, come to the waters; and you who have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without cost." Drink up!