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Unenlightened Action Is The New Cool…
Is it our ignorance that seduces us, to always be unwavering about what we believe to be the truth? Isn’t it possible to be led down the thorny garden path of deception, and feel so right about our acceptance of this path that nothing, not even the naked truth about its deception, will move us to stop our dying loyalty to its voice? It seems that we are mired in delusion. We are ready and willing to jump on any bandwagon that resonates with our self-serving ways. This is the way of the unenlightened. But, Unenlightened Action is the New Cool…
According to a 19th century legend, the Truth and the Lie meet one day. The Lie says to the Truth: “It’s a marvellous day today”! The Truth looks up to the skies and sighs, for the day was really beautiful. They spend a lot of time together, ultimately arriving beside a well. The Lie tells the Truth: “The water is very nice, let’s take a bath together!” The Truth, once again suspicious, tests the water and discovers that it indeed is very nice. They undress and start bathing. Suddenly, the Lie comes out of the water, puts on the clothes of the Truth and runs away. The furious Truth comes out of the well and runs everywhere to find the Lie and to get her clothes back. The World, seeing the Truth naked, turns its gaze away, with contempt and rage.
The poor Truth returns to the well and disappears forever, hiding therein, its shame. Since then, the Lie travels around the world, dressed as the Truth, satisfying the needs of society, because, the World, in any case, harbours no wish at all to meet the naked Truth.
The world famous painting- “The Truth coming out of the well” Jean-Léon Gérôme, 1896.
Is this our world? The herd mentality that will follow even to its death.
WAKE UP!
Letter Seven – Ego’s Great Gift
“Excuse me, but I don’t believe it. It sounds so glib. I just can’t believe human beings are going to end like that. Call it my distrust rising again, but I find it impossible to accept that all of my kind could be wiped out that swiftly and completely. Nor can I believe that the Earth could ever be rid of violence, hatred, aggression, ever. There is so much of it in the world today. Where could all that malevolence go? Even animals and plants can be violent and selfish from what I’ve seen in nature. How could billions of people be converted into something they are not? Getting from my world to the world you’re describing seems just too far to go—in 500 years or even in five million.”
It is your right not to believe. Though I am not asking for your belief. That is not the purpose of these letters. It matters little whether you put this information into your mind in the form of a belief. The mind is not where my message is directed. I seek to touch your consciousness, beyond the mind, and certainly beyond belief. There the information will stimulate a shifting of your being, toward the evolutionary step that is next for you. It can greatly aid in making your shift a more peaceful one. It can also facilitate the future well-being of all other creatures on the planet. This is all about how consciousness itself engages with evolution.
“As much as I agree with your premise that ego is the biggest problem humanity has, it seems an absolute necessity to me. How could we have become a creative and inventive species without it? How would we ever have developed genius?” (more…)
Tribute, Our Soulful Cry To Action
By John Lewis
While my time here has now come to an end, I want you to know that in the last days and hours of my life you inspired me. You filled me with hope about the next chapter of the great American story when you used your power to make a difference in our society. Millions of people motivated simply by human compassion laid down the burdens of division. Around the country and the world you set aside race, class, age, language and nationality to demand respect for human dignity.
That is why I had to visit Black Lives Matter Plaza in Washington, though I was admitted to the hospital the following day. I just had to see and feel it for myself that, after many years of silent witness, the truth is still marching on.
Emmett Till was my George Floyd. He was my Rayshard Brooks, Sandra Bland and Breonna Taylor. He was 14 when he was killed, and I was only 15 years old at the time. I will never ever forget the moment when it became so clear that he could easily have been me. In those days, fear constrained us like an imaginary prison, and troubling thoughts of potential brutality committed for no understandable reason were the bars.
Though I was surrounded by two loving parents, plenty of brothers, sisters and cousins, their love could not protect me from the unholy oppression waiting just outside that family circle. Unchecked, unrestrained violence and government-sanctioned terror had the power to turn a simple stroll to the store for some Skittles or an innocent morning jog down a lonesome country road into a nightmare. If we are to survive as one unified nation, we must discover what so readily takes root in our hearts that could rob Mother Emanuel Church in South Carolina of her brightest and best, shoot unwitting concertgoers in Las Vegas and choke to death the hopes and dreams of a gifted violinist like Elijah McClain.
Like so many young people today, I was searching for a way out, or some might say a way in, and then I heard the voice of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. on an old radio. He was talking about the philosophy and discipline of nonviolence. He said we are all complicit when we tolerate injustice. He said it is not enough to say it will get better by and by. He said each of us has a moral obligation to stand up, speak up and speak out. When you see something that is not right, you must say something. You must do something. Democracy is not a state. It is an act, and each generation must do its part to help build what we called the Beloved Community, a nation and world society at peace with itself.
Ordinary people with extraordinary vision can redeem the soul of America by getting in what I call good trouble, necessary trouble. Voting and participating in the democratic process are key. The vote is the most powerful nonviolent change agent you have in a democratic society. You must use it because it is not guaranteed. You can lose it.
You must also study and learn the lessons of history because humanity has been involved in this soul-wrenching, existential struggle for a very long time. People on every continent have stood in your shoes, through decades and centuries before you. The truth does not change, and that is why the answers worked out long ago can help you find solutions to the challenges of our time. Continue to build union between movements stretching across the globe because we must put away our willingness to profit from the exploitation of others.
Though I may not be here with you, I urge you to answer the highest calling of your heart and stand up for what you truly believe. In my life I have done all I can to demonstrate that the way of peace, the way of love and nonviolence is the more excellent way. Now it is your turn to let freedom ring.
When historians pick up their pens to write the story of the 21st century, let them say that it was your generation who laid down the heavy burdens of hate at last and that peace finally triumphed over violence, aggression and war. So I say to you, walk with the wind, brothers and sisters, and let the spirit of peace and the power of everlasting love be your guide.
Mr. Lewis, the civil rights leader who died on July 17, wrote this essay shortly before his death, to be published upon the day of his funeral.
Daily Affirmation:
“Each day I become more consciously aware. I remain vigilant against superficial differences and conflicts. I discriminate wisely. I will refrain from criticizing, fault finding, judging and blaming others for mistakes. I consider myself and others worthy of love forgiveness respect. Love is my Divine nature and I have an endless capacity for love, which is ever seeking expression through me. The Divine dwells within everyone’s heart. All people are expressions of the One life. There is no place for harming in love.”
Practice:
“Give service to others and perform all your actions with love and awareness, offering all the fruits of your action to the Divine. Forgive all those who have ‘hurt’ you.
This affirmation is from the book: OPPOSITE DOING: THE FIVE YOGIC KEYS TO GOOD RELATIONSHIPS by Marshall Govindan, 2011. Available at babajiskriyayoga.net
The Holy Unknown
Therein Lies The Hope
In my waking breath, I start and start again this day’s long pace. I have a choice to walk it right or throw the day to waste? Can stay captive to the mind-noise that yesterday I fought, or carry forth the truth set in unencumbered thought.
I can busy Me, my Self, in the ego-sea of Me, or journey to a world of those around who’ve been set free. I can nod to no importance, ignore beauty through my eyes, or linger in the peacefulness, seeing splendor beyond the skies.
If my heart is beyond shallow I won’t hear the crying sound, I’m destined to the sadness of a horrid day gone down, and patterns that have made me Me, repeating, repeating a lost strategy.
This thing we’re all built on, truth and love and willing, it’s time to set a new stride and keep the dark from killing. It’s time to offer Gratitude and Loving arms that brace, it’s time to see our lives are a wasteland but for Grace.
© 12/24/17 Stefan Bright
Below is a passage from “The Holy Unknown.” It gives power to the Path Of The Enlightened Mind. Anger is the sword that cuts the thread between the joyful open heart and the delight of the mind. Can we regain that space of peace? Follow the guidance here and see life through the eyes of divine grace.
I reflect, in the silence, on all the distant turmoil in my home time—and in my own ‘distant’ mind. I can’t help raising a challenge, “Your description of the Unknown sounds plausible and wonderful, O. I trust what you are saying. I know you don’t lie. [Your] third and sixth centuries are clearly better places than my own age. But in that world right now—in the Great Storm—terrible things are happening, befalling many people, nations, the environment, and all of civilization. My question is how can humans be expected to trust the Unknown in the midst of unspeakable horrors and violence?”
You answer calmly, “We indeed empathize with your plight. However, you cannot blame the Holy Unknown for that. Humanity has created the problems for itself. The Unknown does not create horrors. You do! Your ‘civilization’ has always been violent.”
“OK. True,” I allow. “But, in light of this, how can we ever come to ‘trust the Unknown’? I seem to be back to my original doubt: What’s to trust? When awful things are happening, how can we be comfortable with an invisible force, associated with the future and ‘destiny’, that keeps delivering terrible things?”
You reply, “It is your lack of trust that creates the future you experience; it creates separation and cuts you off from the goodness of universal freedom. It is indeed a terrible, vicious cycle you live in. From our perspective, the answer is easy: Accept the deeper reality of what is—not the surface one you believe to exist. Go into your inner sensation and make faith—generate trust in what lives deep within you, within which you live and have your being.”
Again I challenge, “That sounds very much like an old, standard, religious platitude to me. They always say, ‘just believe in … whatever. Fill in the blank. … and you will be saved!”
You retort, “We do not believe, in order to be saved. That is expressly not what I’m saying. We accept and trust the Holy Unknown because we know it to be true—within our own being. It is not a concept in the outer world, in the words of preachers or of dictators or of decomposing dogmas. We do not take a ‘belief’ into our minds and substitute it for what we do not know. Faith is not that!”
“But how,” I ask, “is that really different from what humans are doing? You say ‘accept’. Isn’t belief just another form of acceptance?”
“Belief is a mental and emotional construct. It moves you away from inner knowing, not toward it. Strong belief inevitably turns into rigid political and religious systems through lack of true inner trust; belief does not link you to your essence. Instead, it holds your heart at bay and manipulates you into a governance not your own. ‘Belief systems’ are only proclamations, delivered from external authorities—with mass individual acquiescence—ending in debilitating uncertainty. There is no soul in them. The soul is within you! It is that Life force which permeates your being. Look deeply into what imbues your nature to find the acceptance I speak of.
“I don’t know, O. I’m still not sure your words can convince my readers that trusting the Unknown is any different from believing in an invisible, silent God who rarely, if ever, answers prayers.”
You say in conclusion, “The only difference is the essence you choose and accept—in other words, that you ‘take into’ yourself; that is what ‘acceptance’ means. The distinction lies in the conscious awareness of what you discover within. It constitutes the gulf between outer belief and inner faith. We are here only to say to you that the inner world of the soul is real and that you can remember it when you are ready. That is the difference you seek to understand.”
© 2018 Robert Lee Potter
Let Us Remember His Words
And again we lose a leading voice for civil rights. Rest in Peace, John Lewis. Your soul’s mission has earned its praise. The tears we shed are for your voice and those voices still to come.
Looking To Our Past To Navigate Our Present
In this most turbulent of times, protesting for civil rights, I wonder if those who sacrificed their lives and freedoms at the beginnings, when peaceful protest was first tested, were more nuanced in their approach and more mature in their understanding of what they faced, and the best way to approach the issue. They did throw caution to the wind, but their words held strong in the hearts of the people they tried to impress upon. Perhaps we should revisit the words and actions of these Civil Rights pioneers.
“Martin taught us that it’s in the action that we find out who we really are.”
Are We True Believers, Or Just Deceivers?
“We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence.”
“Here is the true meaning and value of compassion and nonviolence, when it helps us to see the enemy’s point of view, to hear his questions, to know his assessment of ourselves. For from his view we may indeed see the basic weaknesses of our own condition, and if we are mature, we may learn and grow and profit from the wisdom of the brothers who are called the opposition.”
As we watch our nation’s frustration turn on itself we must realize that ignorance exists at every level of participation. There are those whose convictions are sincere and will express that sincerity through resisting the ugly that festers in our ranks. There are those whose convictions are cancerous and will express that cancer through vile means, climbing over the body of justice to facilitate ignominious behavior, with no regard for the other. For the lover of truth, this moment in our tortured history will stain the pages of history forever, and tears will supplant the righteous call that should be this moment-in-motion.
Consciousness, Evolving Consciously…
How small we are in this thing of dreams, no Wonder to enthrall,
How minuscule, how thinly masked, that grit that makes us tall.
We tower in our minds alone and revel in our ploys,
We think us greater than all else, and yet we play, as toys.
No deep thoughts linger to move the world, no depth in our perception,
We travel in a mindscape vision, mighty lost in the wrong perfection.
Towards end a light awakens me, the fog of thought now tiring,
How silly, was there all along, just lost in my self ‘miring.
The magic of life is simple and plain, it waits with patient breath,
The magic of life so willing, so game, to love us beyond cosmic death.
© Stefan Bright 02/04/18
[Conscious Evolution]
Stop where you are in your mind, right now. Listen to the energy that is coming in with this vision. Go behind it. Convert your awareness now, using a very specific intention. Instead of seeing the images, listen to them. Go down to the sensation beneath both seeing and hearing.
“Sorry, I can’t hold it back anymore. What I’m sensing is very large… vast in fact. It’s the size of the whole solar system. No, make that the whole galaxy. I don’t know why I’m saying this. It sounds crazy. But I’m feeling that sensation you suggested, way down below. That’s where these visions are coming from. That’s where the leak is. There’s an opening of some kind down there. I’m sensing a contradiction: The opening is in complete darkness, but it’s generating light. Am I making any sense?”
Absolutely. Stay with the sensation and tell me everything you hear and see.
“OK. It’s like I’m sensing molecules in my own body. I’m hearing them, literally, crashing into each other’s force fields. The vibrations of these impacts are synchronizing, merging, and carrying a message upward and out to my ears and eyes. The impression is rising and expanding out into the world. That’s the channel you are using to communicate with me. Wow! I get it. I actually sense it. Is this what you’re doing? Is this news to you?”
Yes and no. I understand the mechanics of this communication. But I certainly did not think you would be able to register at that level. You’re going much deeper than I would have expected.
“Now the impulse is beyond the world, out into space. It’s like I’m getting bigger along with the radiating vibration. I’m flying out through the galaxy. It’s all crystal clear. I’m seeing every planet, star and nebula in precise detail. The message is going out there, everywhere, all at once, in one timeless moment. There is complete stillness. And yet, it is all expanding, evolving, changing.
“Oh! Now it’s all getting very chaotic, agitated. I’m seeing stars erupting, exploding, wheeling through space, crashing into each other. Fire and searing bright light everywhere. Suddenly there’s an ominous blackness. The stars are all gone. What happened to them? I’m feeling a deep, unrelenting fear building up, pounding on my senses. It’s coming at me with infinite force, sucking me into it. Irresistible! I can’t imagine such a thing. This is horrible! I’ve got to… whew. The vision is fading. I’m losing it now, thank God. There is nothing coming through … only the root sensation. What does this mean?”
It means, my dear friend, that you have found your place in our work. There is destiny afoot here. Conscious Evolution has shown you the path of this project, what your role might be. It has shown you some of the microscopic and macroscopic mechanics of what we are using here.
“I’m not sure what you’re getting at. That was a very vivid thing I just witnessed. What was that fear, that darkness?” (more…)
The Calm After The Storm
No verse today to prologue this wire,
No words, no thoughts moved in to inspire.
The whispers, they voice around a.m. 3.
Last eve not even a drop tickled me.
So here’s the post, just let it be said,
More words like yesterday, I’ll just let them wed.
[Three More Suggestions]
“Several letters ago, you gave me three suggestions for living through the Great Storm. Can you give me any more?”
Yes. That’s what I was just preparing to do. We are synchronizing more and more. Have you noticed? This is what I anticipated from the beginning. You are learning to read between the lines. Here are three more suggestions, which are follow-ups to each of the three I started with:
1) As you improve your capacity to actively notice what you are feeling and thinking, and what is happening around you, turn that noticing into the expansion of awareness. Invite into your being a new openness and allowing that will begin to dissolve barriers around the little self. The focus of this is the release of your identity with form, and that which is separate from the Cosmos.
You may use noticing as a technique within your meditations. Observe, for instance as you sit still, that there are holes within the fabric of your thinking. There are occasional brief pauses in the streams of thought. There are openings between all the streams as well, loopholes if you will.
Use your imagination to zoom down to microscopic levels in these holes. There, if you are patient, you will recognize what we call points of peace. Now apply your awareness to these points. Center in on them. Relax into their spaciousness. They feel enormously peaceful. When you enter their orbits, you feel blanketed by the most refreshing and calming influence. If you do this, you will find that they are not only supremely serene, but they are also internal power generators of great abundance.
Peace points are always within your reach; they are built into every conscious inner being. Normally, in humans, they’re layered over by the jumble of thoughts, emotions and physical vibrations. The belief that you are an isolated individuality reinforces these distractions in your head. The point here is to make conscious what already exists. You do not have to go searching for peace. That would be a mental activity, and it would only cover the points over with another layer of mind stuff. This is what spiritual seeking does, by the way. It layers over the very thing you thinkyou are looking for, and leaves it perpetually hidden. Seeking does not reveal what is sought; only that which is sought can reveal itself. Instead of seeking, allow yourself to be patient, and notice.
“But that sounds like it would take an eternity. And besides, I have found many things in my life by searching for them.”
What you have found is not what you sought, my friend. It is a mental facsimile of that. Searching for things only creates more things in your life. If you are seeking the spirit, the soul, you will never find it in the mind.
“Hmm. I guess I always knew that somehow.” (more…)
Deep Within The Road That Carries Many Lives Mantle…
[The following is a repost from Letters from 500 “Three Suggestions.” Reminders are wonderful things, especially now, in a world so filled with mind noise and distractions.]
“Here we go again. I’m seeing stars! And I don’t mean like in the old cartoons. These are real! I’m getting images of quickly flowing lights, streaming gases, chaos. I feel like there is a bubble of light around me. It seems to be alive! Suddenly darkness. But this is not ordinary darkness. This is infinite blackness. No hope of light anywhere. I sense great fear, intense resistance. I can’t help but fight against it; it’s pushing on me so hard from all sides. It’s like this darkness is thick with its own presence, its own essence of fear. The sense of confinement is unbelievable. It is living death, totally alone. What on Earth is this?”
I feel that it is not on this Earth!
“Yes. It’s somewhere else. At last I feel a small degree of relief around me in the darkness. It’s hardly a glimmer, but something is there, a tiny glimmer of light; and now it’s gone. It’s all gone. God, I’m shaking all over. What was that? I don’t like it at all.”
It makes me think I must invite you more quickly into an open understanding of our project. I will initiate that upon completion of this next step.
“What do you mean, ‘next step’? Why do you keep delaying your explanation of these visions?”
Because the visions have their own explanations embedded within them. They must speak to you for themselves. You must listen. I can help, but the realization can only come from you.
I will say this, however. The visions are prompting our conversation to now move into a new phase. It behooves me to reveal some order in all this. I will give you some specific advice on how to live through the times you’re in.
“Great! That sounds right to me. I think we all have our heads spinning these days. Please help. Not that I’m giving up my right to raise tough questions, mind you.” (more…)
