In Yoke

On the one hand I felt the call of God; on the other, I continued to follow the world. All the things of God gave me great pleasure, but I was held captive by those of the world. I might have been said to be trying to reconcile these two extremes, to bring contraries together: the spiritual life on the one hand and worldly satisfactions,pleasures, and pastimes on the other. ----Saint Teresa of Avila Saint Teresa of Avila was a remarkably spiritual woman. Even as a girl she could say passionately, "I want something that will last forever!" Yet this woman who was to become one of the world's greatest mystics went through twenty years of doubt and struggle before becoming "established" in God. If Teresa took twenty years, can people like you and me think of doing it in less? Her words can inspire all of us, for everyone begins with d...

We are celebrating the feast of the Eternal Birth which God the Father has borne and never ceases to bear in all Eternity. . . . But if it takes not place in me, what avails it? Everything lies in this, that it should take place in me. -Meister Eckhart from Eswaran: The Lord of Love, immortal and infinite, comes as a divine incarnation in times of great crisis to rescue mankind from disaster. In age after age, whenever violence and hatred threaten the world, the Lord comes down to inspire and protect those who turn to him, who live in harmony with the law of unity. He comes to protect such people from the heavy odds ranged against them, and to re-establish peace on earth and good will among all. Yet there is another level on which this divine birth can take place. Every one of us has this choice: shall I prepare for the divine birth to take place in my consciousness by abolishing my own selfishness? It is up to you and me to keep our doors open, to put up a little sign, "Ready for...

Ah! would the heart but be a manger for the birth, God would become once more a little child of earth. Immeasurable is the Highest! Who but knows it? And yet a human heart can perfectly enclose it. -Angelus Silesius ____________________________________ May your heart be filled with The Spirit of Christ, so that you can truly worship The Son of God who became the son of man. Merry Christmas.

From “Psychological Commentaries on the teaching of Gurdjieff and Ouspensky”, by Maurice Nicoll, M.D. (1884-1953) "In the Gospels it is said: “The Kingdom of God cometh not with observation: neither shall they say, Lo here! Or, lo, there! For behold, the Kingdom of God is within you.” It is not something outside that if you would only join you would be liberated. When it is said in the Gospels that “the Kingdom of God is within you”, by this is meant a state in which the hypnotism of life no longer acts on us and in which we are invested with the influence of ideas coming from quite a different source. (Christ Consciousness) Now let us take one of the ideas of The Work from which we are taught to observe ourselves and from which we must think and build up within ourselves a new point of view. There is the idea that “Man Cannot Do”. (This idea is inherent in the concept of “The Kingdom of God”.) Have you ever thought about this idea? Remember that an idea is comparable with a very ...

If we had to seek for virtue outside of ourselves, that would assuredly be difficult; but as it is within us, it suffices to avoid bad thoughts and to keep our souls turned towards the Lord. -Philokalia From my teacher: To remake ourselves, we don't have to bring goodness,love, fearlessness, and the like from without and force them into our hearts somehow. They are already present in us, deep in our consciousness. If we work to remove the impediments that have built up over many years of conditioning, to dislodge the old resentments and fears and selfish desires, our life will become like a fountain of living waters, as it was meant to be. An old fountain may be clogged so that not much water can get through. But with a lot of cleaning, you can get the water to start playing again. Then grass and flowers will grow around it, and birds will come there to have their bath. Just so, love can flow from us as from a living fountain, and those we live and work with will come to us to be r...

Give all thou canst; high Heaven rejects the lore Of nicely-calculated less or more. -William Wordsworth From my teacher: This morning, when I was reading an important New York paper, I noticed an article on the dynamics of gift-giving. This article quoted a distinguished professor of sociology as saying that in every gift there is a reciprocal relationship, even if it is not conscious. In other words, when you are making a gift, you are expecting a gift in return. Not only that, there are very subtle social gradations: gifts to longtime friends, to recent friends, to acquaintances, to possible benefactors. All these factors come into play when choosing the gift. No wonder shopping for gifts is so terribly time-consuming. No wonder people feel confused and inadequate about what to give. But the spiritual approach is very simple. Whatever you give - it may be a check to a worthy cause, it may be clothes to a person who is cold, it may be food to the hungry, it may be medical help to the...

"Envy and wrath shorten the life." -Ecclesiasticus ____________________________________________________________________ All of us have a need to forgive, whether in large or small matters. All of us suffer little irritating pinpricks every day. It is not very effective to analyze these small wrongs and then forgive them one by one. Much more effective is not to dwell on them at all. Whenever a stray bit of wrath arises and wants to talk over some incident from the past, don't invite that thought in. When we can withdraw our attention completely from the past, it is not possible to get resentful; it is not possible to be oppressed by mistakes in our past, no matter who made them. All our attention is in the present, which makes every moment fresh, every relationship fresh. Staleness and boredom vanish from our life. _________________________________________________________________________ I am more and more convicted of the need for forgiveness in our community. What this ...