Experience Reality

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All that really matters is that we have our own authentic, direct, immediate and intimate experience of God. It’s not difficult, because God doesn’t withhold Himself. But you have to look for God where he can actually be found. Which is within. Jesus says in Luke 17:21 – “Neither shall they say, Lo here! or, lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you.” The kingdom of God that’s within you is the truth about what you actually are. What it really is that you truly are, is what God is that can actually be experienced.

So with deliberate intention look directly within. Experience what is actually there. Taste what you actually are. Meet what God actually is. See for yourself where God truly is found.

You don’t need teachers’ descriptions. Do you need to have the flavor of watermelon described in order to be able to taste it? Neither do you need to have your oneness with God described in order for you to be able to experience it.

We’ve been conned to believe we only can taste what we’re taught. But that’s not true. The only way to experience what’s real, is to taste it all by yourself on your own. There’s no other way it can happen, and no other way that it will.

The reason you can directly experience what God truly is, is because God truly is within you. He couldn’t be more immediate, intimate, available or closer. Never mind what you’ve been taught about God. Never mind what you’ve been taught about yourself. Watermelon descriptions are useless. What you want to do is intimately meet what you actually are. There’s no other way to experience what God actually is.

- Ben Gilberti

Choose: the spiritual way or the un-natural way, the material way

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Exerpts from White Buffalo Teachings

When I was 12 years old, words of our ancient Prophecies were instilled in me by our Spiritual Elders of that time. Those Prophecies concern drastic changes that would come to all life upon Mother Earth. These changes are here with us today!

Our Prophecies tell us that we are at the Crossroads. We face chaos, disaster, and endless tears from our relatives’ eyes - or we can unite spiritually in peace and harmony. It’s time to bring the Message of the urgent need for Peace, of creating an energy shift throughout the world.

As Keeper of the Sacred C’anupa Bundle, I ask for your prayers for Global Healing. Our Mother Earth is suffering. Her wonderful gifts — the water, the trees, the air — are being abused. Her children — the two-legged, the four-legged, those that swim, crawl and fly — are being annihilated. We see such atrocities occurring everywhere.

Nineteen generations ago the beautiful spirit we now refer to as Pte-san win-yan (White Buffalo Calf Woman) brought the Sacred C’anupa to our People. She taught the People the Seven Sacred Rites and how to walk upon Mother Earth in a sacred manner. She said, "Only the good shall see the Pipe…the bad shall not see it or touch it."...

We must comprehend in each of our hearts and minds the two ways we human beings are free to follow, as we choose: the good way, the spiritual way - or the un-natural way, the material way. It’s our personal choice, our personal decision - each of ours and all of ours.

You, yourself, are the one who must decide. You alone can choose. Whatever you decide is what you’ll be - good or bad. You cannot escape the consequences of your own decision. On your decision — yes, on your own personal decision — depends the fate of the World.

You can’t avoid it. You must decide. You personally - each of us personally - is put here in this time and this place to decide the future of humankind.

Did you think you were put here for something less?

Did you think the Creator would create unnecessary people in a time of such terrible danger?

Know that you are essential to this World. Believe that. Understand that. You yourself are desperately needed.

This is the message that I carry to you as we stand at this Crossroads in history — I, Chief Arvol Looking Horse, known also as Horse Man, Keeper of the Sacred C’anupa (pipe) brought to the Lakota-Dakota-Nakota Nation by the Sacred White Buffalo Calf Woman nineteen generations ago.

Hau kola. I am honored to greet you. I honor your sacredness, your humanness. I ask you to honor mine. It is good that we meet. Yes, good. Wasté! Mitakuye Oyasin.

When we say Mitakuye Oyasin — "All Our Relations" — many people don’t understand the meaning of those words. The phrase Mitakuye Oyasin has a bigger meaning than just our blood relatives. Yes, it’s true; we are all one human race. But the word Mitakuye means relations and Oyasin means more than family, more than a Nation, more than all of humankind. Everything that has a spirit.

The Earth herself, Maka Unci, is our relation, and so is the sky - Grandfather Sky - and so is the Buffalo…and so are each of the two-leggeds, the four-leggeds, those that swim, those that fly, the root nation, and the crawling beings who share the world with us. Mitakuye Oyasin refers to the interconnectedness of all beings and all things. We are all interconnected. We are all One.

Don’t call us "earth-based," as if we worship the Earth. We don’t worship her. We honor her. But to worship anyone, we, the Indigenous, will never do that. We humble ourselves to the sacred energy of all life knowing we are one. We stand up when we address the Creator, we bow down and touch the earth, to acknowledge and give thanks to our Mother.

We see ourselves as part of the universe, part of all that is seen, and part of all that is unseen. We recognize that we are no better - and no worse - than the grasses, the trees, the birds, the insects, the animals, the stars.

But we also understand that we humans are different. Each being of Creation has a unique role and place, and a specific task to perform. Our Original Instructions tell us what our role is, where our place is, and what our task is as human beings.

Do you know your task? Unless you know it, and then perform it in this life, you have strayed from the Good Red Road that the Creator - Wakan Tanka - has given each of us to walk.

Even those who don’t know how will pray or meditate. They will learn to contribute their energy. All people need to learn that within each of us, we have this ability and gift.

Yes, our life energy must be a gift for our future. Your life, my life, everybody’s life must follow your given path.

So pray or meditate. Follow your inner path and learn just how powerful you are and learn that you are a leader for your people, your family, your children, and the Mother Earth.

What happens within us happens in the World.
We are the Message of the World.
As we are and as we do,
So the World will be.

When the people of all colors pray together with the Sacred C’anupa (pipe), or with any other sacred gifts given by the creator, even with just our natural spirit energy — without anger or resentment or prejudice — extremely powerful things can occur. When we do this with a good heart and in a sacred way we can - and will - change the world!

When you begin to believe in the sacred way of life, you will begin to understand the importance of the sacred sites, knowing that they are a connection to Mother Earth. You will understand the traditions and the ability to see the prophecies that were passed down through the generations of Ancestors, who lived in harmony. They had seen what was in store for their seven generations to come (us), they prayed we would re-find the "key" to harmony in understanding the Spirit of the Circle of Life. It is then that you assist in bringing health, prosperity and balance back to Mother Earth. That is human sacrifice and spiritual growth. That is the way. We as the Buffalo People believe in this circle of life, where there is no ending and no beginning. The process of mending the sacred hoop continues.....

Know that you yourself are essential to this world. Believe that. Understand both the blessing and the burden of that. You yourself are desperately needed to save the Soul of this World. Did you think you were put here for something less?

-Chief Arvol Looking Horse

Messenger

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Messenger
Mary Oliver

My work is loving the world.
Here the sunflowers, there the hummingbird—
/ equal seekers of sweetness.
Here the quickening yeast there the blue plums.
Here the clam deep in the speckled sand.

Are my boots old? Is my coat torn?
Am I no longer young, and still not half-perfect? Let me
/ keep my mind on what matters,
which is my work,
which is mostly standing still and learning to be
/ astonished.
The phoebe, the delphinium.
The sheep in the pasture, and the pasture.
Which is mostly rejoicing, since all the ingredients are here,

which is gratitude, to be given a mind and a heart
/ and these body-clothes,
a mouth with which to give shouts of joy
/ to the moth and the wren, to the sleepy dug-up clam,
telling them all, over and over, how it is
that we live forever.

The Warrior is a Child

Recently reminded of Twila Paris' The Warrior is a Child

Blast from the past!
And, I often think about this image, when things get rough, and I start draggin'

They don't know that I go running home when I fall down
They don't know who picks me up when no one is around
I drop my sword and cry for just a while
'Cause deep inside this armour
The warrior is a child.

Might as well take the opportunity to enjoy the fantastic, useful, encouraging, inspiring and all-too-true scripture on which this song builds, below.

Blessings! Wendy

Ephesians 6 (NKJV):
10 Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might. 11 Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. 12 For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places. 13 Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand.
14 Stand therefore, having girded your waist with truth, having put on the breastplate of righteousness, 15 and having shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace; 16 above all, taking the shield of faith with which you will be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked one. 17 And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God; 18 praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, being watchful to this end with all perseverance and supplication for all the saints...

The Peace of Wild Things

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The Peace of Wild Things
by Wendell Berry

When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

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What We Resist, Persists

from Jung to a group of ministers in 1932:
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People forget that even doctors have moral scruples  and that certain patient’s confessions are hard even for a doctor to swallow  yet the patient does not feel himself accepted unless the very worst in him is accepted too.  
No one can bring this about by mere words.  It comes only through reflection and through the doctor’s attitude towards himself and his own dark side.
.If the doctor wants to guide another, or even accompany him a step of the way, he must feel with that person’s psyche. 
He never feels it when he passes judgment. Whether he puts his judgments into words or keeps them to himself makes not the slightest difference. To take the opposite position and to agree with the patient offhand is also of no use. 
Feeling comes only through unprejudiced objectivity.

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This sounds almost like a scientific precept and it could be confused with a purely intellectual, abstract attitude of mind, but what I mean is something quite different. 
It is a human quality, 
a kind of deep respect for the facts, for the man who suffers from them, and for the riddle of such a man’s life.

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The truly religious person has this attitude; he knows that God has brought all sorts of strange and inconceivable things to pass and seeks in the most curious ways to enter a man’s heart. 
He therefore senses in everything the unseen presence of the divine will. 
This is what I mean by unprejudiced objectivity.It is a moral achievement on the part of the doctor who ought not to let himself be repelled by sickness and corruption.

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We cannot change anything unless we accept it. Condemnation does not liberate, it oppresses. I am the oppressor of the person I condemn, not his friend and fellow sufferer. 
I do not in the least mean to say that we must never pass judgment (discernment?)when we desire to help and improve. 
But, if the doctor wishes to help a human being, he must be able to accept him as he is and he can do this, in reality, only when he has already seen and accepted himself as he is.

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Perhaps this sounds very simple but simple things are always the most difficult. In actual life, it requires the greatest art to be simple. 
And so, acceptance of oneself is the essence of the moral problem and the acid test of one’s whole outlook on life. 
That I feed the beggar, that I forgive an insult, that I love my enemy in the name of Christ
– all these are undoubtedly great virtues. What I do unto the least of my brethren, that I do unto Christ. 
But what if I should discover that the least amongst them all,the poorest of all beggars, the most impudent of all offenders, yay the very fiend himself, 
that these are within me, and that I myself stand in need of my own kindness, that I myself am the enemy whom must be loved, what then?

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Then, as a rule, the whole truth of Christianity is reversed. 
There is then no more talk of love and long suffering. We say to the brother within us, Raka, and condemn and rage against ourselves. We hide him from the world. 
We deny ever having met this least among the lowly in ourselves and had it been God himself who drew near to us in this despicable form we should have denied him a thousand times before a single cock had crowed.

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Healing may be called a religious problem. In the sphere of social or national relations, the state of suffering may be civil war 
and this state is to be cured by the Christian virtue of forgiveness and love of one’s enemies. 
That which we recommend with the conviction of good Christians as applicable to external situations we must also apply inwardly in the treatment of neurosis. 
This is why modern man has heard enough about guilt and sin. He is sorely beset by his own bad conscience and wants rather to know how he is to reconcile himself with his own nature, 
how he is to love the enemy in his own heart and call the wolf his brother.

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The modern man does not want to know in what way he can imitate Christ but in what way he can live his own individual life, however meagre and uninteresting it may be. 
It is because every form of imitation seems to him deadening and sterile that he rebels against the force of tradition that would hold him to well-trodden ways. All such roads for him lead in the wrong direction.

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He may not know it, but he behaves as if his own individual life were God’s special will which must be fulfilled at all costs. 
This is the source of his egoism, which is one of the most tangible evils of the neurotic state. 
But the person who tells him he is too egoistic has already lost his confidence, and rightly so, for that person has driven him still further into his neurosis.

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If I wish to affect a cure for my patients, I am forced to acknowledge the deep significance of their egoism. I should be blind indeed if I did not recognise it as a true will of God. 
I must even help the patient to prevail in his egoism. If he succeeds in this, he estranges himself from other people, he drives them away and they come to themselves, as they should, for they were seeking to rob him of his sacred egoism! 
This must be left to him, for it is his strongest and healthiest power.

It is a true will of God that sometimes drives him into complete isolation. However wretched this state may be, it also stands him in good stead, for in this way alone can he get to know himself and learn what an invaluable treasure is the love of his fellow beings. 
It is, moreover, only in the state of complete abandonment and loneliness that we experience the helpful powers of our own natures.

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- C.G. Jung, CW 11, Psychology and Religion: West and East, Chapter V, "Psychotherapy or the Clergy," § 519-520
(WRW added whitespace)

They're Singing Your Song

From a story told by Alan Cohen
in his book: Wisdom Of The Heart:

When a woman in a certain African tribe knows
she is pregnant, she goes out into the wilderness
with a few friends and together they pray and
meditate until they hear the song of the child.
They recognize that every soul has its own vibration
that expresses its unique flavor and purpose. When
the women attune to the song, they sing it out loud.
Then they return to the tribe and teach it to everyone
else.

When the child is born, the community gathers and sings the child's song to him or her. Later, when the child enters education, the village gathers and chants the child's song. When the child passes through the initiation to adulthood, the people again come
together and sing. At the time of marriage, the person hears his or her song.

Finally, when the soul is about to pass from this world, the family and friends gather at the person's bed, just as they did at their birth, and they sing the person to the next life.

To the African tribe there is one other occasion upon which the villagers sing to the child. If at any time during his or her life, the person commits a crime or aberrant social act, the individual is called to the center of the village and the people in the community
form a circle around them. Then they sing their song to them.

The tribe recognizes that the correction for antisocial behavior is not punishment; it is love and the remembrance of identity. When you recognize your own song, you have no desire or need to do anything that would hurt another.

A friend is someone who knows your song and sings it to you when you have forgotten it. Those who love you are not fooled by mistakes you have made or dark images you hold about yourself. They remember your beauty when you feel ugly; your wholeness when you are broken; your innocence when you feel guilty; and your purpose when you are confused.

You may not have grown up in an African tribe that sings your song to you at crucial life transitions, but life is always reminding you when you are in tune with yourself and when you are not. When you feel good, what you are doing matches your song, and when you feel awful, it doesn't. In the end, we shall all recognize our song and sing it well.

You may feel a little warbly at the moment, but so have all the great singers. Just keep singing and you'll find your way home.

Standing outside the Fire

If your knowledge of fire
has been turned to certainty by words alone,
then seek to be cooked by the fire itself.
Don't abide in borrowed certainty.
There is no real certainty until you burn;
if you wish for this, sit down in the fire.
~ Mevlana Celaleddin Rumi

I believe poetry is wonderful because there is no exact meaning,
it means many things, and different things to different folks.
Below are 3 thoughts, of many, I have regarding this awesome quote.
I would love to hear your ideas!

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1)
Experience and practice, being in present time with our body and in this world, ARE reality
- I hear Rumi say: jump in with no holds barred!

Theory and hearsay are shadows of reality.
I would rather directly experience what is real and true and love and God... for Myself... not second-hand.
Hearsay, a borrowed life, is like watching life on TV, it is not LIFE!

AND meanwhile,
oh how reality Burns!

But then, no one can say this theory or that theory to me,
I KNOW my experience
- that is my own certainty, not someone else's belief or theory...

Christian writer Paul says:
"in order that we may be no longer babes, tossed and carried about by every wind of that teaching but... holding the truth in love, we may grow up to him in all things"

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2)
My favorite Christian Teacher, Dr Bruce Morgan, used to say this often:

Our God is a consuming fire,
who burns up everything that is not God

for me it is axiomatic.

From my perspective, everything comes from God and everything returns to God.
I can flow with the process or I can resist it. 
Depending on my level of resistance I can suffer little or much. 

But in the end, whether I let-go or I fight tooth and nail (like a cat trying not to take a bath)
- no matter what:
everything that is not only-God, goes into the fire...

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3) One of the Christian spellings for Rumi's quote, I believe, is Jesus saying:
"If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me".

I would translate this something like:
I must let go of letting the 'lower/ego self' run the show...
Paul calls this the 'flesh',
I let go of the physically-focused self;

and I be, I identify as who I really am as spirit, a part of God,
and I walk my unique spiritual path.

This fulfills me and naturally serves the world.
AND this Way goes through the fire, the cross, there is no way around it!
Just like Jesus did, in his unique way, we have the opportunity to do, in our unique way.

When we stop chasing around outside of us (fixing, changing, squirreling, consuming, desiring, worrying, scheming, helping, controlling... ad infinitum)
and focus inside of us (which feels like sitting in the fire, no? at least at first!!!)
then, well, that is IT. 

The way can be painful, but the fruit is sweet.

The fire could be THE BELOVED (GOD),
it could be LOVE,
it could be LIFE,
it could be BEINGNESS. 
Here is one possible reading of Rumi's words, that could sum all these things:

If your knowledge of GOD
has been turned to certainty by words alone,
then seek to be cooked by GOD directly.
Don't abide in borrowed certainty.
There is no real certainty until you are consumed/transformed through/by GOD;
if you wish for this, sit down in GOD.

Of course I find myself singing Garth now  ; )

Life is not tried, it is merely survived
If you're standing outside the fire

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the country they call life

God speaks to each of us as he makes us, then walks with us silently out of the night.

These are the words we dimly hear:

You, sent out beyond your recall, go to the limits of your longing. Embody me.

Flare up like flame and make big shadows I can move in.

Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror. Just keep going. No feeling is final. Don't let yourself lose me.

Nearby is the country they call life. You will know it by its seriousness.

Give me your hand.


"Gott spricht zu jedem…/God speaks to each of us…"
from Rilke's Book of Hours: Love Poems to God, by Ranier Maria Rilke, translated by Anita Barrows and Joanna Macy

Loving Enemies

A clip from Steve Goodier, of '3 Minute Learning':

SO YOU HAVE ENEMIES?

A knight returned to his castle at twilight. He was a mess. His armor was dented, his helmet askew, his face was bloody, his horse was limping and he listed to one side in the saddle. His lord met him at the gate, asking, "What has befallen you, Sir Knight?"

Straightening himself up as best he could, he replied, "Oh, Sire, I have been laboring in your service, robbing and burning and pillaging your enemies to the west."

"You have been what?" cried the startled nobleman. "But I haven't any enemies to the west!"

"Oh!" said the knight. And then, after a pause, "Well, I think you do now."

What about you? Enemies to the west? Or the north, the south or the east? None of us will calmly sail through our lives in perfect harmony with everyone we meet. And though most conflict can be resolved along the way, and most of our bruised relationships can eventually be healed, some passionate issues may threaten to drive a permanent wedge between people. Heartfelt moral and political stances, especially, can polarize folks who just as passionately hold differing positions. Former U.S. Ambassador Claire Booth Luce once observed: "I don't have a warm personal enemy left. They've all died off. I miss them terribly because they helped define me."

So-called "enemies" can serve a valuable purpose. If we let them, they can teach us about ourselves. By holding a mirror before us, they can help us see what we may have missed. By disagreeing with our heartfelt convictions, they can sharpen our points of view. And, if we allow it, they can unwittingly help us practice strength and compassion in the face of criticism.

If enemies cannot become friends, they can become teachers. If we listen, they will teach us what our friends cannot.

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Amen!

My main spiritual teacher used to talk about relating to our enemies, and I resisted.
I thought, "if I have enemies, I am doing something wrong."
Now, fortunately and sadly, I know differently. Sometimes they 'just comes.'

One time my Partner Michael ordered breakfast in the South.
When it arrived, he asked about the grits.
 "Honey, you don't order grits, they 'just comes.'

And so do enemies,
and it helps if I name it and accept the reality of it.

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I have found what Steve Goodier says above, about enemies, to be true.
And what Jesus said to be true, as well - according to Luke 6:
But I tell you who hear me: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you.

Although I must admit, I had to learn better what love is, and how to be more comfortable in my own skin, before I could even begin to really understand what Jesus was saying...

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Life is complicated. I have found that somrtimes:
* I love those whom I hate, and I hate those whom I love.
* My friends become enemies, and my enemies become friends.
* My friends Act like enemies, and my enemies Act like friends.
The game is pretty complex... and life is long, roles change.

I have found, for many reasons more than are quickly covered in this post,
the dance of enemies is a blessing (often uncomfortable),
as well as a fantastic opportunity for healing and learning!

Hope you are enjoying your dance!!