Walking by Faith, Not Sight

I can see, and that is why I can be happy, in what you call the dark, but which to me is golden. I can see a God-made world, not a manmade world.

-      Helen Keller

       

I recently read a number of quotes by Helen Keller and what struck me was the number of references she made to the importance of sight, vision, light, seeing and beholding. Remarkable advice from a woman who had no physical sight. Though deprived of the view of life that we sighted people enjoy, she developed clear perception of the invisible world that sustained her. "What I am looking for is not "out there", it is in me."

I observed this phenomenon in my own mother who lost most of her sight to macular degeneration in her later years. As her perception of her outer world dimmed she became more convinced of the reality of God's presence within her. I found this remarkable and inspiring. Most of us would assume that it is the great miracles of preference, like sight being restored to the blind that would quicken a person's faith. My mother's faith was not diminished but substantially increased through a great loss. Perhaps it is the vision of one world that costs us the vision of another. Without eyesight, there is still insight, perhaps even more keenly, in the case of Helen Keller and Frieda Schellink.

It is human nature to want to see life working out according to our preferences. We seem to know what would be best for us, make us happy, or serve our life purpose. Yet many of us got what we wanted, and happiness remained at large. Or we avoided some awful fate, and never dealt with our deepest fear. When we ask the question, what is best for us, we must be willing to abandon personal will to make room for soul wisdom.  Then we are lead to our growing edge, the current limit to our capacity to understand our true self. This is the place where we can discover the difference between Life and life situations.  This is the place where we can build our faith in the invisible reality of our Being, as the temporary forms of life change before our eyes, leaving us with a sense of unalterable Life within. While eyesight bears witness to the temporal world, insight reveals the eternal.

To some people, the fruits of their faith are in getting what they pray for. That is visualization; using the infinite universal Power to create according to our will. This is a useful tool, but builds a fragile faith, entirely dependent upon circumstances for its strength. A deeper faith comes when we discover a persistent state of well being, through whatever arises. Jesus said, there will be trials and tribulations in this world. Buddha said there will be 10,000 joys, 10,000 sorrows. Notice they did not say there might be, they said, there will be challenges. If my faith in God is predicated on how my life unfolds in a purely outer sense, I am assured of a wobbly faith, built on sand. Yet if I resist the temptation to "judge by appearances" and seek the kingdom of heaven within my own consciousness, I will be sustained by knowing that I am one with the eternal presence power and love of Spirit, whatever may come.  This is why we pray and meditate, so that we can improve our inner vision and come to know that the presence of Spirit is inseparable from who we truly are. Then the fruits of our practice is a sense of equanimity, perhaps even joy, as we encounter and embrace the outrageous winds of change that will surely come to pass in our life.

Hands on or Hands Off?

As I started to picture the trees in the storm, the answer began to dawn on me. The trees in the storm don't try to stand up straight and tall and erect. They allow themselves to bend and be blown with the wind. They understand the power of letting go. Those trees and those branches that try too hard to stand up strong and straight are the ones that break. Now is not the time for you to be strong, Julia, or you, too, will break.

- Julia Butterfly Hill

Most of us will never learn the lesson that Julia learned while spending days living in a tree. However, most of us will face storms on the ground of our daily lives and face the question, How we will respond to the forces that challenge us? 

Spiritual teachings can confound us when they seem to prescribe contradictory instructions for how to respond to life circumstances. The affirmative, co-creative approach prescribes an, I can make it happen attitude. This approach applies the creative power of our minds to the field of infinite possibilities to declare and claim how life should unfold for us.  It is the power of intention brought to bear upon the unset jello of quantum probabilities that can bring a specific outcome into manifestation.  It often works because, as the latest science confirms, reality is not fixed, but alterable, not objective, but shaped in part by our perception of it.  This is an exciting, empowering principle that can be used for greater good in our lives.

The other side of this principle is a passive wisdom approach. The cliché for it is Let go, let God. It is the capacity to take our hands off the wheel of our lives, and trusting that an unseen Guide will steer us to greater good in our life. This can be a most difficult attitude to cop in the midst of a storm that seems sure to break us.  Our survival instincts and spiritual bravado would have us rear up and take a resolute stance to oppose the ill winds of circumstances that surely seem against us.

Understanding when to steer in the direction of our preferences and when to surrender navigation and control to the master Pilot is not necessarily an either/or proposition.  When we understand that our lives depend on a synergistic collaboration between the Infinite Mind of God and our own conscious awareness, we can be as ready to take the wheel as to release it. We can intend for our good and move confidently in the directions of our preferred life, all the while holding a deep pervasive knowing that Spirit is seeking to live our lives through us and as us.  The recognition of an indwelling love and intelligence seeking to express through the vessel of our life experiences grants us a willingness to surrender, accept and adapt to the path unimagined by our mortal minds.   

Every powerful hero's journey takes the hero to unimagined places, forces him/her to confront their deepest fears, and ultimately brings the adventurer home with an inner reward that enriches the soul precisely because they took the road of greatest challenge. As Joseph Campbell noted, We must be willing to let go of the life we have planned, so as to accept the life that is waiting for us.

Love Made Audible

"You don't have to go looking for love when it's where you come from." 

-   Werner Erhard

You have heard this wisdom before.  If you believe that you are a chip off the old block, a microcosm of the macrocosm, an emanation of the One Presence and Power we call God, then you may have a concept that your true nature, like God's, is love itself.  There is of course a vast experiential chasm between a concept and an inner knowing; as between seeing your birth certificate and being hugged by your mother.

If love is at hand, closer than our very breath, and unlimited as Infinite Presence, then why do we not know and feel its embrace and hear its soothing voice?  Just as infants do not recognize their parents until their perceptual abilities develop, we as children of God do not recognize the still small voice of Love despite its constant whispers in our hearts.  We have a form of psycho spiritual hearing loss where our faculty to hear the Voice of Love is dependent on our need for certain circumstances that make Love's voice audible.

If our partner does not return our loving advance, if children disobey or don't call, if our employer overlooks our accomplishments we may experience a world with little or no love in it. If we experience difficulty or loss, we can subconsciously believe that we are unworthy, unloved, even unlovable.  In such moments the voice of fear drowns out Love's eternal message.

This is the real life-threatening disease facing us. We confuse form with content, and create false idols that, true to form, always shatter our faith.

Love is formless, an eternal energy that cannot be limited or destroyed.  Like its divine siblings of Truth, Wholeness, Harmony, Peace, and Joy, Love arises in abundance to meet all our needs when the conditions are right.  Paradoxically right conditions for love to arise are no conditions at all.  While we may seem justified in prescribing what love needs to look like for us to hear it voice, Truth beckons a different perspective.  Truth asks us to give up form for content; give up the fickle for the eternal and be willing to exchange the illusion of love for the real thing. As ACIM says, When you want only love you will see nothing else....you will hear nothing else.

I am a student of unconditional love.  Every day I am asked to hear differently in order to be spared the deafness experience that prevents me from hearing that all that is being voiced in this world is the voice of love or a call for love.

So in the final analysis it seems that love, stripped of externals, comes not by listening for it, but by listening from it. Since it is what we come from, it's what we need to come from.  If we welcome love, it will be at our doorstep, whispering its reminder that it lives with us, in us and as us. This can save us an enormous amount of suffering as we seek but not find in the world for the love that waits only on our welcome, not on time.

What Is God Preparing Me For?

From an evolutionary perspective or worldview, development - the emergence of that which is new-is seen as the greatest good. So during the limited time that each of us has here on Earth, we all have the opportunity to develop, to make a difference in this world through applying our God-given capacity for free agency, or freedom of choice, to our own conscious evolution. No matter who we are, we all have some measurable, not insignificant degree of free agency. And learning how to activate that gift, so that which is truly higher and new can emerge through us, is what makes all the difference. -Andrew Cohen

One of the pitfalls of a spiritually focused lifestyle is the tendency to denigrate the world and diminish the significance of what we do here, seeing activity as inferior to being itself.  Because the emphasis and goal of enlightened spiritual practice is to know oneself as formless essence, we might be tempted to believe that it matters little what we do here. Yet a singular focus on the inner life will deny us the privilege, if not the responsibility, to take our place in the evolutionary process in which each of us has a key role.

As Andrew Cohen observes it is allowing that which is "truly higher...to emerge through us..." that empowers us to use our spiritual insight to make a difference in the world.  For despite the relative, temporary nature of the physical world it remains undeniably the ground upon which we are currently assigned to live, move and have our Being. We do not have to be conformed to this world as the apostle Paul admonished, but transformed -- awake and fully functional on this plane of life. A balanced approach transcends and includes the world and the choices it offers, in order to bring an engaged spirituality where, as we say at UCOD, we embrace our humanity while we express our spirituality.

When we see that our spiritual yearnings are connected to the unfoldment of the greater good we can open to a sense of our divine purpose or assignment. This is the recognition that we each have a special gift that only we can share in a particular way that serves the world.  Life is not capricious - it does not on one hand give us the passion and talent for something that would not serve a greater evolutionary purpose.   The world needs our enlightened and engaged action. If we are to our know our authentic self we must be consciously committed to the expression of the beauty, perfection and wholeness revealed by our spiritual practice, not merely sit on it. Our recognition of this unique purpose and willingness to give ourselves fully to its expression is the way we cooperate with the evolutionary impulse while bringing meaning to our lives.

We can inquire more deeply. "What does life want from you?'  How do you fit in the totality?  What is your place in the whole?" When we venture beyond the cave of our personal awakening we are available to be used by Infinite Love and Intelligence for its greatest purpose. We can hear and express our heart song. If we listen deep enough, we can hear the music of our heart that fills us with a purpose and passion and then let that purpose inform our choices and guide our steps.

Questions That Lead Us Home

Ask, and it shall be given you; seek; and you shall find; knock and it shall be opened unto you. For every one that asks receives; and he that seeks finds; and to him that knocks it shall be opened. Matthew 7:7-8

Down through the ages and across the variety of spiritual traditions, perennial questions have called out from the heart and soul of every deep and sincere spiritual seeker. While we tend to believe that true answers will lead us along the path of wisdom, we often overlook the fact that profound answers are consequence of evocative inquiry. As Francis Bacon asserted, a prudent question is one half of wisdom.

For the next six Sundays, we will focus on questions that evoke our deepest truths about ourselves, our purpose in this life, and the choices that make up our days. Our inquiry will bypass the surface mind, with its expedient explanations that serve only to manage the surface conditions of life. Our questioning will take us into the deeper reaches of our hearts and souls and evoke our deepest understanding of what constitutes meaningful, conscious, faithful living.

We will welcome and seek to amplify the sacred whispering in our hearts that offers its infinite wisdom and love. We will explore these questions to find ways of experiencing greater clarity, peace, and spiritual understanding in our daily lives. We will take this journey so that our lives are as much an expression of our true selves and as on-course as possible in the crosswinds of our human dramas.

Perhaps the most important question of our spiritual quest is Who Am I, for it is our sense of self that most profoundly impacts our connections and experiences in this life. On the surface we see ourselves as flesh and bone men or women with identities defined by race, culture, family, education, careers and material possessions. As many of us have experienced, when we identify ourselves with these external facets of ourselves, our identities and self esteem are highly vulnerable when great change strips these definitions from our lives. Yet such losses can actually be a boon on our spiritual quest because we are then forced to seek and encounter our deeper essence, the you and I that is not altered by the winds of change.

Mother Earth: Ground of Being

To see a world in a grain of sand,

And a heaven in a wild flower,

Hold infinity in the palm of your hand,

And eternity in an hour.- William Blake

My earliest experiences of spiritual insight occurred in the sanctuary of the natural world. Long before I found the divine in worship and meditative practice, I encountered the sacred in the harmonious and peaceful milieu of a quiet creek that ran beyond my childhood home. This special place offered the promise of stillness during those times as a child when I retreated from the family drama in the house. In this natural environment I could see, touch and appreciate the harmonious interaction of many living things. In contrast to a volatile home environment, life in the creek followed predictable, comforting patterns. The scent of trees, the songs of birds and frogs, and insects were soothing balm to a young heart stung by angry and frightened human voices. The gentle current of water beckoned me to follow its path and I did. In this flow I was buoyed, carried and led along a path of tranquility. Perhaps unknowingly I was drawn by the promise of something untouched, unexplored, a life and life force beyond the confines of life as I knew it at home.

Encountering the sacred in nature predates the earliest written scriptures. The ancient indigenous people did not need a special day to honor the Earth. It was a daily practice rooted in an ongoing realization. At some point, for reasons not clear, God was sent to reside exclusively in the heavenly realm and became an absentee landlord who reigned above and apart from the earth. As part of this relocation process, mankind was awarded dominion over the earth and its creatures for its benefit. What has followed is not surprising, since once anything is seen as Godless, all manner of insensitive, loveless behavior in relationship to it is easily justified.

But there is a new consciousness emerging that is restoring the sacred view of the earth. It is even born out by the latest quantum scientific observations, and reversing the old science that viewed the universe as a great, meaningless machine. More and more of us are sensing the invisible web that connects all of life, restoring our sacred vision to all of nature, that now bridges the wisdom of the earliest people to the awakened heart and informed mind of today's conscious earth dwellers. Akin to all spiritual practice, it involves a shift in perception, having eyes to see beyond appearances, and availing ourselves of an intuitive knowing of the presence of the divine in every place and every thing. Once we experience this omnipresence of spirit, God comes off the cloud of unknowing and becomes a local, present-moment reality and all the earth becomes holy ground.

We're all susceptible to this vision. In a moment, a sunset, or an expanse of wildflowers, or any beautiful expression of nature can break us open to seeing anew. Like Jacob in the Jewish Torah, we suddenly recognize that "the Lord is in this place - and I did not know it," and we can understand Jesus profound utterance that "the kingdom of the Father is spread out upon the earth, and men do not see it."

If we give sway to the intuitive awareness that recognizes the sacred all around us, we are doing perhaps the most we can possibly do to heal our relationship with mother earth. And with a renewed sense of love and appreciation, we will find all the right ways to bless and serve this hallowed land, our earth home.

The Holy Purpose of Relationships

When you meet anyone, remember it is a holy encounter. As you see him, you will see yourself. As you treat him, you will treat yourself. As you think of him, you will think of yourself. Never forget this, for in him you will find yourself or lose yourself. - A Course In Miracles

As I've written before, I am fond of the paradox found in spiritual teachings. Paradox is like a self generating machine that produces the fuel it requires to function. Paradox in spiritual conundrums reveals the answer within the question, usually as a simple reversal of logic. We find that we receive in the act of giving. We find our search for happiness in the world eventually spins us around to find the treasure buried within ourselves. Perhaps the most difficult paradoxical teaching to accept and practice is in the area of relationships - for spiritual insight suggests that other people are the key to knowing and accepting ourselves.

Why is it that we cannot find our self in ourselves alone? The answer lies in who we truly are - not a small isolated self set apart from the billions of others selves on this planet. This is a purely egoist perspective, which is a dead end that will only deepen a sense of separation and keep me from knowing the greater I am that includes others. As spiritual teacher and author, Robert Perry writes, "Your true Self is a shared Self. It is something you share with everyone and everything. You cannot see that if you are looking only at yourself. You cannot see the ocean by examining a drop of water with a microscope."

Here is the sublime paradox of self knowledge: it arises with awareness beyond self, to the Self that includes everyone. Oneness becomes real to us when the distinction between I and thou, dissolves. Every encounter with another can become a "holy encounter" because it offers us an opportunity to see through the appearance of separateness and behold the essential Self that we both share. This is a foundational premise of Unity philosophy which declares that we are all children of God, individualized expressions of the Life and Intelligence that is our true parent. Just as a sunbeam cannot be separate from the sun nor a wave be apart from the ocean neither can we be apart from the One Life that is our source.

This way of seeing others is transformative knowledge that can rock our world, as it saves us from the deeper suffering of separation. It is a new way of seeing my brother or sister that removes the scales of judgment from my eyes so that in them I am able to behold their inherent goodness (true nature). It is such holy perception that allowed Jesus to exonerate the adulterous woman about to be stoned by the condemning crowd, exalt the prostitute who washed his feet with her hair, and finally to forgive those who betrayed, abandoned and killed him.

To know ourselves as we truly are, we must see others as they truly are. It is perhaps the most arduous and challenging of spiritual practice and yet, paradoxically, what it asks of us is precisely what it offers us. It is in seeing the inherent goodness in others that we help them find their way home in God, and then, in one of the most beautiful compensations of life, we discover that it is our way as well.