The Advent of Hope

A few weeks ago we all turned our clocks back one hour. It marked the end of Daylight Savings Time. It was an act that would shift the quantity of light in our days and nights. I've seen no opinion poll, but am sure there are those who embrace the change, and those who lament it; those who find greater acceptance of an earlier dawn versus an earlier dusk. Regardless, we all encounter days of less light as we move from the summer solstice to the winter counterpart on December 22.  Each day we have less light than the day before with correspondingly longer nights. It's significant to realize that this is our experience in the northern hemisphere; the people of the southern half of the earth are experiencing days of more light. Just as when we watch the light diminish with the setting sun, there are others with an opposite perspective experiencing greater light. Perspective is everything. So it with our experience of light and dark in the human condition.  If we take in the headline news accounts of this day, there seems to be a lot of darkness in the world. Across the globe countless lives are threatened by poverty, disease, and endless warring. If we take this in, even a little bit, we can be overwhelmed by the seeming darkness. Of course the challenges and difficulties of our own lives can dim our perspective as well. Again perspective is everything. Our current president ran a successful campaign based on the promise of restoring hope to Americans - it was an open invitation to exchange pessimism over the way things had been for positive expectation of a better life for all. Politics aside, this a powerful message rooted in spiritual reality. Hope is not some flimsy religious notion that denies reality in order to falsely buoy our spirits. Hope is the legitimate offspring of a true understanding of Reality. We too can carry an expectancy of greater good for our lives when we hold tenaciously to our primary assumption; that we are heirs to the Infinite Life and Love and Goodness of the Divine.  Heaven is metaphysically defined as "ever expanding good," and Jesus declared that it is "the pleasure of my father to give you this kingdom," and it is "spread before upon the earth."  Hope sees the apparent darkness of the human condition without losing awareness of an inner Presence, an interior Radiance that illuminates possibilities for good. A positive expectancy for life is not mere Pollyannaish wishful thinking, it is an attitude based upon the Supreme facts of Life - that there is nothing or nobody than can separate us from Ultimate Good. Life can toss us about, and we can sustain great losses, but whatever happens externally, "it will not come near us." We can take refuge in this Higher Truth through all the "dark days," knowing that the Light that enlightens every man and woman coming into the world is in you and me. This Light is foundational to our Being, universal, unconditional and deathless. It is the light by which we can navigate the uncertain and dangerous passages through life. It is a beacon of Hope that draws us ever forward like the Shepherds who followed a star in the East, that we too might be present at the scene of a blessed event - a scene where even in the lowliest of human conditions the Christ is born in the manger of our own hearts. May we begin this season of Advent by restoring Hope. Not the wimpy wishful kind. Let our hope be ignited by nothing less than the Light of God within our souls. This Light always leads us unerringly to recognition of Love made manifest in our life.

Closing The Gap

"...We are asked to consider that the distance we perceive between any other human being or living creature and ourselves is the exact distance that lies between us and our experience of Presence. In the same breath, we are invited to consider that in any given moment, the significance we place on this gap is what prevents us from realizing that it is always Presence looking directly back at us from the other side of the gap."       

                                        - Michael Brown, The Presence Process

 Today I muse  that Jesus sensed the real nature of the universe and was among other things, a master teacher of quantum reality.  Of course  he did not have quantum in his vocabulary, yet he clearly had the mystical awareness of the inseparable energy that connects all things.  He called it the kingdom of God, which in the language of his time, was the vastest encompassing descriptor of the boundless energy that is the source of all that is.

Quantum science refers to a "field," or "zero point field," an invisible sea of minuscule vibration in the space between all things. Some scientists, who do not subscribe to the "field" notion, subtract it out of the equations.  But when the field is considered fundamental to understanding reality, it resembles our spiritual perspective in which  everything and everyone is connected together by an imperceptible web.

We too have the choice to exclude the field, i.e. perceive separation or include, i.e., recognize connection when we look upon our world and the "others" that share this world.  Our mortal minds too easily perceive the boundaries of bodies, and space and time and fall into the belief that we are separate entities with scant resources, clamoring for separate interests. Our failure to notice the ties that bind us is most notable (and troublesome) in our inability to recognize Presence in other people. We may have an easy time "loving God with all our heart, soul and mind," but "loving others as our self" can be very difficult. 

I know that the separation I feel with other people is the crucible for my spiritual growth. It is the gap, Michael Brown alludes to in the opening quote, that becomes the very measure of my separation from Presence itself.  As Jesus, observed You have heard that it was said, 'Love your neighbor^[i] and hate your enemy.'  But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven. Like the quantum perspective, we simply can't make exceptions to where we find Presence  It is Omni-Presence, which means everywhere and everyone.

Wherever and whenever I decide God is missing, marks the place and time of my suffering. Wherever I perceive a dark place in my life, or in an individual, I know I must invite Light to show me the truth about the situation or the individual. Until that Light illumines my perception, I do suffer, because maintaining the "gap" is a gaping wound in my relationship to my Wholeness, to Presence, to God.

This is why so many of Jesus teachings emphasized relationships, loving of enemies, forgiveness, compassion, and service to others. He held a deep understanding that closing the gap of separation by whatever means is the way to our Oneness with God.

One of the ways we can close the gap of separation is in serving others.  Even if we don't perceive the spiritual benefit beforehand we can often discover the personal value in fostering the good of another through the act of serving itself. Social scientists and biologists have established this phenomenon. When we serve others from an unconditional place of sincere help, we are blessed with the realization that our good is inseparable from the good of others. This is more than enlightened self-interest.  It is the actual experience of enlightened service that makes real the axiom "as I give, I receive."

What Wisdom Knows

O seeker,
        These thoughts have such power over you.
        From nothing you become sad.
        From nothing you become happy.

        You are burning in the flames
        but I will not let you out
        until you are fully baked,
        fully wise and fully yourself.
                                               - Rumi

One of the most upsetting moments in our spiritual development is the moment we identify the suspect who is responsible for our life experiences. What a distressing moment when we realize the singular and constant source of all our experiences. That source of course is you, it's me. In every iteration and manifestation of the myriad life experiences that I have loved or hated over the years, I am the only one who was there, every time, to have the experience. Whoever else may have been present, whatever else may have been happening, the experience that I logged, was perceived, interpreted, and translated by moi. The same goes for you, and you, and yes, even you. The Truth will set us free, but first it may tick us off - big time!

The reason this realization rocks our world with such ferocity is that we've been living from a whole different paradigm for so long.  We get agreement from every corner of the world of appearances to tell us that our experiences are effects of external events.  The translation goes something like this:  If I get what I want, I'll be happy, and if I don't I'll be unhappy. It all seems very reasonable and rational to the surface mind that places causation outside of our self, and believes that our experience of life is shaped primarily by outer events. And each of us continues with this mode of search for happiness in all the usual outlets, seeking fame, fortune, power, and pleasure until we encounter disappointment after disappointment and we finally question the whole premise. That's a sad day for the ego, but a good day for the soul!

The fly in the ointment of this "outside-in" approach to happiness is that everything that changes (transient life circumstances) cannot possibly provide us with the constant, unwavering fulfillment that we are seeking. Thus our pursuit of happiness in the world yields only frustration. This is tantamount to quantum physicists trying to pin down the elusive location and movement of sub atomic particles. One moment you have it, and the next moment it's gone or has morphed into something else. It's an endless, maddening game of "seeking but not finding!"

The enduring spiritual truths of every great wisdom tradition all point to the futility of seeking our good outside of ourselves and extol  a deeper understanding of self and the unchangeable Truths,  as the enlightened approach to life.  This is the entry point of all Wisdom - the path that leads from suffering to liberation, inner peace and abiding joy - independent of circumstances.

From Blindness to Real Eyes

I've worn corrective lenses since I was 10 years old."Inherited myopia," the eye doctor decreed.  I remember the day I discovered my short sightedness.  Actually I didn't discover it. It was brought to my attention by my family. Driving home with the family one night, Mom exclaimed, "Look at the rabbit!" The open fields surrounding our new suburb provided a haven of cover and food for an abundant rabbit population, and sightings were commonplace. Except for me.  I said, "What rabbit?"   Didn't see it. Didn't see the next sighting or the next one either.  The conclusion?  I needed corrective lenses. Eye glasses followed, and just like that my vision was restored.  Soon after I had the newly acquired privilege to be the first in family to say, "Look at the rabbit" before anyone else spotted it!

Not all vision problems are so easily remedied and not all vision deficiency is a physical limitation.  Humanity's universal vision problem is metaphysical sight impairment. We struggle to behold the sacred in everyday encounters, fail to recognize the divine in the mundane landscapes of our lives, and to our peril we judge life merely by outer appearances.  Every great spiritual master or wise sage was a great seer, endowed with extraordinary capacity to penetrate the veil of surface understanding that obscures a deeper spiritual reality.

All the great spiritual awakenings refer to a new way of seeing. Jacob of the Hebrew Scriptures cried out with the realization, "The Lord was in this place and I did not know!"  Jesus referred to inner vision, referring to the eye that is "the lamp of the body," and "if the eye be single then the whole body shall be filled with light." In the Bhagavad Gita (Hindu scripture) it says, "Because you cannot see me with your natural eye, I will give you a celestial eye." 

We can get tripped up in our spiritual work when we focus exclusively on visualizing a better exterior life and neglect the essential practice of developing spiritual vision.  It of course is tempting to use our creative ability to solely improve the outer conditions because we are spared the need for developing spiritual vision.  Yet as we mature spiritually, we find our ability to recognize the presence of good, despite appearances to the contrary, is what truly blesses us through all the ups and downs of life.

In the Gospel of Thomas (Saying 113) Jesus' disciples ask him, 'When will the Kingdom come?' He replies, 'It will not come by waiting for it. It will not be a matter of saying 'Here it is' or 'There it is.' Rather, the Kingdom of the Father is spread out upon the earth, and men do not see it.' This is the good news in this myopic dilemma. What we are seeking is not missing, we just can't see it clearly yet. 

So our spiritual practice is to improve our vision.  And we have the spiritual technology to do it.  The simple prayer "Show me," show me what is here that I am not seeing.," can open our eyes to what is real.  I believe that just as Jesus restored sight to the blind, our spiritual vision is restored by the grace of God coupled with our willingness to see differently in every moment.

We can all be spiritual visionaries. I have great hope for a new world view, in which you and I can demonstrate corrected vision, and be the first to exclaim, "Look I see a greater Truth in this situation! " The power of spiritual vision is such that it does more than benefit one seer, it can become a revelation for a multitude.