Of the two known ways to make a contact with Spirit, the most attempted one, by the few who are inwardly led to its attainment, is that of committing oneself to the wholehearted desire for it.
To understand why this is productive at long last, just remember any and every heart-throbbing desires, ones which you refused to let go of, which you’ve had over the course of your life and you’ll see that every one of them was accomplished. Note too, however, that you also had a larger number of wishes or weak desires that fell by the wayside because you weren’t devoted to seeing them through to fulfillment.
It’s the former approach mentioned here that’s needed in regard to making our inner conscious contact with our true Self. This committed persistent desire for It is what will assure Its attainment just like it has in all other areas of our experience where that depth of desire was present.
❤️🌺🌺🌺❤️🌺🌺🌺❤️
John F Drewery Sr
I vaguely remember saying last night
“I DON’T CARE !!”
Something had been trying to tell me I wouldn’t be able to sleep, to which I retorted:
“I don’t care about anything the world mind wants to hit me with.”
“Your legs and feet are twitchy!”
“I don’t care – if it’s not part of God it’s not part of me.”
“You won’t be able to get up early…”
“I don’t care about doing anything but the will of God.”
“There’s a pain in the left side of your neck.”
“Paul endured a helluva lot more than a pain in the neck!”
“You’re just . . .”
“Let me stop you right there! I DON’T CARE ABOUT ANYTHING WHATSOEVER BUT GOD AND MY
UNIQUE PURPOSE IN THE KINGDOM OF GOD.”
I fell into a deep, refreshing sleep z-z-z-z-z.
I feel like Simon Peter all the time: where would I be without the Christ! I believe it takes a great deal of concerted effort over a long period of time to start to really know the Christ, but once started, it’s an unspeakably glorious journey.
John 6:48-68 KJV
I am that bread of life. [49] Your fathers did eat manna in the wilderness, and are dead. [50] This is the bread which cometh down from heaven, that a man may eat thereof, and not die. [51] I am the living bread which came down from heaven: if any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever: and the bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world. [52] The Jews therefore strove among themselves, saying, How can this man give us his flesh to eat? [53] Then Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you. [54] Whoso eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day. [55] For my flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed. [56] He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, dwelleth in me, and I in him. [57] As the living Father hath sent me, and I live by the Father: so he that eateth me, even he shall live by me. [58] This is that bread which came down from heaven: not as your fathers did eat manna, and are dead: he that eateth of this bread shall live for ever. [59] These things said he in the synagogue, as he taught in Capernaum. [60] Many therefore of his disciples, when they had heard this , said, This is an hard saying; who can hear it? [61] When Jesus knew in himself that his disciples murmured at it, he said unto them, Doth this offend you? [62] What and if ye shall see the Son of man ascend up where he was before? [63] It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life. [64] But there are some of you that believe not. For Jesus knew from the beginning who they were that believed not, and who should betray him. [65] And he said, Therefore said I unto you, that no man can come unto me, except it were given unto him of my Father. [66] From that time many of his disciples went back, and walked no more with him. [67] Then said Jesus unto the twelve, Will ye also go away? [68] Then Simon Peter answered him, Lord, to whom shall we go? thou hast the words of eternal life.
“Attachment is bondage. Attachment disappears with the elimination of the ego.”
~ Ramana Maharshi
“You must choose between your attachments and happiness.”
~ Adyashanti
“Attachment is the strongest block to realization.”
~ Neem Karoli Baba
“Everything you attach yourself to in this world, person, place and thing keeps you back. You have to become totally non-attached. You have to become totally free of attachment to your body, to your mind, and to others.”
~ Robert Adams
“The soul that has attachment to anything, however much virtue it possess, will not attain the liberty of Divine union.”
~ St. John of the Cross
“If you want to go all the way, throw all away. …Throw away your attachments, your desires, your needs and immediately you are in a state of total freshness. Total wholeness.”
~ Mooji
“I reached in experience the nirvana which is unborn, unrivalled, secure from attachment, undecaying and unstained. This condition is … to be realized only by the wise.”
~ Buddha
“Pray to God that your attachment to such transitory things as wealth, name, and creature comforts may become less and less every day.”
~ Ramakrishna
“Those who surrender to Brahman all selfish attachments are like the leaf of a lotus floating clean and dry in water. Sin cannot touch them.”
~ Bhagavad Gita
“Let go your attachment to the unreal and the real will swiftly and smoothly step into its own. … With this will come great love which is not choice or predilection, nor attachment, but a power which makes all things love-worthy and lovable.”
~ Nisargadatta
“The senses and the ego will flow towards your attachments. To make them move in a different direction, you have to give up these attachments.”
~ H.W.L. Poonja, “Papaji”
“Her heart is full of joy with love, for in the Lord her mind is stilled. She has renounced every selfish attachment and draws abiding joy and strength from the One within.”
~ Saint Teresa of Ávila
“To attain to perfect purity one has to become absolutely passion-free in thought, speech and action; to rise above the opposing currents of love and hatred, attachment and repulsion.”
~ Gandhi
Greg ? R. Danforth
Several have asked me recently about the term “shadow self,” and what that term actually means. I will try but it’s hard without sounding like total psycho-bable:)
The shadow-self is the disowned part of self that we are unwilling to acknowledge as “me.” This denied image may be very negative or very positive. The negative-self we deny because it’s too bad to ever be me and the positive-self is too good to ever be me. Let me also say that in reality there is no such thing as a shadow self, you are one as He is one, but the shadow represents the part of us, that we don’t want to acknowledge. We just use the term “shadow” to shine a light on something well hidden and this terminology helps us see through our blindness. Carl Jung, an analytical physiologist first coined the term in the early 1900’s.
Since we deny and disown these shadow parts, we project them onto others and encounter them as things we despise about another. One of the best ways to recognize our shadow and get to know it, is to look for the things that we find most annoying, irritating or upsetting.
Our first response will usually be “that’s not me!” “I am not like that!!” However a failure to embrace one’s shadow compromises all subsequent development possibilities. Like Peter, it’s easy to say “I will never deny you,” until you do. This smallness has been part of Peter all along, he just denied it by presenting himself as the “bad-ass” disciple. Peter had refused to listen to Jesus all along the journey as Jesus pointed to this shadow-self within Peter. Jesus knew exactly what was the other face of this man, and that the “I will never deny you!” was revealing a hidden and very weak man.
Many who confront their shadow never move beyond it because they seek only to eliminate it, as opposed to acknowledge its actually part of them. We tend to choose the easier issues of our life to focus on which prevents wholeness. Because we view these problems as things to be eliminated, or personal issues we keep running up against, we never recognize how these issues represent real parts of us so we don’t learn the lessons they can teach us.
Until we acknowledge our shadow parts, we will not awaken to the fact the shadow is being cast from us, not onto us. Until we recognize this, we will continue to struggle with anger, bitterness, and depression for we will we will not recognize the face of our disowned self nor the consequences of this ongoing investment in denial and avoidance. I’ll continue tomorrow.
The further into divine awareness we go, the more futile our efforts to define that journey goes. But this doesn’t mean it’s not genuine and divine. Our ego often wants to define it by words because it has no ability to embrace mystery. In choosing to explain it by words, our egoic self wants to reduce it to an intellectual knowing as opposed to an ongoing and expansive divine awareness.
Part of the reason we do this is we honor the mind more than the soul. The soul is a perspective not a “thing.” The soul is the interpretive space between a person and the events of his or her life. The soul allows us to transform these events into awareness that makes life eternal and abundant.
The soul is also the place where we learn to hold experience and not simply define it and explain it. The soul thrives in reality but withers in religious denial. The soul finds the extraordinary in the midst of the ordinary because the soul is tethered to heaven and earth, “in the world, but not of it.” Where the religious mind wants to separate the two, the soul holds the paradox of both and interprets all from an ascended perspective. This is the only way to experience abundant life where we are as opposed to where we want to be or think we should be.
Stan Tyra
Was with a group of buds just now
in the Stillness when suddenly I could see
difficult people as the Transfigured Christ.
Not mortals at all but beams of light!
Yes that was their place in my life.
Not an enemy but a huge bright Light.
For where I desired to go spiritually
every shocking wake up call was
exactly what I had needed.
Now when difficult memories invade
I’ll know they were and are necessary lights.
Wondering though why the Christ-man is not seen more universally as a body-less, irradiance of unending Light.
This “universe” is a dream state. But very very few people have the slightest inkling what that means. People who live in the dream experience rainbows and earthquakes, sublime scenery and horrific ones. They are all “I” and will never die. But in their dream state, death, taxes and i guess reincarnation are as real as the sleeping dreams they have every night.
THE END OF YOUR LIFE DRAMA
Most of the “bad” things that happen in life are due to unconsciousness. They are self-created or rather, ego- created. I sometimes refer to those things as “drama”. When you are fully conscious, drama does not come into your life anymore. Let me remind you briefly how the ego operates and how it creates drama.
The ego is the unobserved mind that runs your life when you are not present as the witnessing consciousness, the watcher. The ego believes itself a separate fragment in a hostile universe, with no real inner connection to any other being, surrounded by other egos which it either sees as potential threat or which it will attempt to use for its own ends. The basic ego patterns are designed to combat its own deep-seated fear and sense of lack. They are resistance, control, power, greed, defense, attack.
Some of the ego’s strategies are clever, yet they never solve any of its problems, simply because the ego itself is the problem.
When egos come together, in personal relationships or in organizations or institutions, “bad” things happen sooner or later. Drama in one form or another, in the form of conflict, problems, power struggles, emotional or physical violence and so on. This includes collective evils such as war, genocide and exploitation – all due to massed unconsciousness.
When you reconnect with Being and are no longer run by your mind, you cease to create those things. You do not create or participate in drama any longer. But even if you live totally alone, you may still create your own drama. When you feel sorry for yourself, that’s drama, when you feel guilty or anxious, that’s drama. Most people are in love with their particular life drama. Their story is their identity. The ego runs their life.
When you live in complete acceptance of ‘what is’, that is the end of all the drama in your life.
-The Power of Now, Eckart Tolle, pages 150-151.
