Tuesday, May 20, 2014

Our Unfailing Resources


This planet gives us everything we need. It gives us the air we breathe. It gives us our food by giving us light from the sun, and it transmutes and transforms this light into the nourishment we need to live. This planet gives us the water we need, and it gives us fire to transform all of the elements for our benefit. Everything we do every day depends on the Great Circle of Life, and yet we rarely think about it.

We all know we need to eat food or we will get hungry; we know we need to drink water or we will get thirsty; and we know we need to find a way to stay warm when it is cold or we will freeze. This is a very mechanical understanding of the earth and of our relationship to the earth. As we move beyond the mechanical, we expand out from that very small view, and we begin to contemplate the nature of the earth that we live on, this huge planet that sustains us. 

The Earth is a cosmology that completely supports us. As we have overtaken the Earth and her resources, and as we have consumed and become insatiable, we have moved far away from our understanding of our infinite resources, and thus we have lost our connection with spiritual substance. Because we do not farm any more and because we do not need to collect our food in the way that we used to – we go to the supermarket instead – all of the things that we do now keep us void of our spiritual substance.

If our lives really depended on it, and if we really thought about it, we would always be amazed at the mystery and magic that sustains us—it would never leave us!  We would always be amazed that the seed sprouts into the plant. We would be amazed that the rivers and the waters are sacred pools that nurture and cleanse and refresh us. We would be amazed at the breezes and winds that come in and fill us up, and we breathe in and we are alive!  We would never forget how amazing the fire is. Every time I light a fire, I talk to the spirit of the fire, and every time I thank the spirit of the fire. 

The spiritual substance has diminished, not in reality and not from the spirit world, but it has diminished in the consciousness of human beings as we have begun to live lives separated from the natural world, and as we have chosen greed and forgotten how to be grateful. The substance is here, but we do not perceive it because we rarely see, in the vast sea of humanity, people connecting with the natural world anymore. We still depend on this earth just as much, but we live with the illusion that the supermarket is always going to be full of food.

What are we truly hungry for?


Humanity always wants something more or something else. We have become the hungry ghosts of Tibetan cosmology, forever trying to consume. But what is it that we are really hungry for?  It is not to consume more fast food, more clothes, more gadgets, or more of the stuff that we are hooked into.  Hungry ghosts are hungry for spiritual substance, but the spiritual substance is almost imperceptible. We must contemplate the nature of the Earth or participate in spiritual observances of the import of the natural world upon us. We must contemplate the diminishing resources, the quality of the water and air, and the consequences of our greed and arrogance. 

The messages about our disconnection that come through the news—“A hundred million gallons of toxic waste were dumped into the river” —are like stones skipping on water. We do not go deep; the news of our disconnection is just another little thing that we hear as white noise in the back of our consciousness.

The spiritual substance has been overlooked, dried up, and replaced with something else which we human beings focus on.  Somehow, in the world of matter, everything comes down to the body:  “Do I have enough food to eat?  How do I feel? How do I look? Do I have my health?”

 Our spirit is just as significant and important as our physiological body.  Our spiritual selves are a real aspect of our vibrational human constitution, and when we do not nurture our spirit, we turn into hungry ghosts.  Then we are disconnected, never satisfied, and we want something more. The more we are void of it, the more we need it, but to fill ourselves up, we perpetuate the cycle of greed and consumerism. As we cut ourselves off from the world of spirit, we suffer in various ways, and we will continue to see all of the changes that are happening environmentally on the face of the Earth. These changes will affect us in much more dire ways as we continue on. 
 
 What is the one “unfailing resource”?

You can nurture your connection to the spiritual substance from which comes all visible abundance; it is never depleted! Fight for that spiritual substance to be enlivened in you as much as you would fight for every breath you breathe in.  It is always there!  It is not affected by our not believing in it, by our not thinking about it, nor by our not standing by it. The unfailing resource is always ready to give.  There are always gifts ready to be bestowed, and there is always magic and synchronicity happening at any moment that we are ready for it.

The universe is so beautiful and so abundant. Everything you want is here for you, in whatever way you want it. I’m not talking about money in the bank and I’m not talking about personal wealth.  I’m talking about the synchronicity of the universe to provide when something is needed.

Our unfailing resource is that part of our consciousness which can comprehend the spiritual substance that brought us here to begin with and sustains us while we are here.  This is what is unfailing.  It will never let us down.  In order to realize this unfailing resource, expand out of your small self and contemplate and reflect upon the Great Mystery, the ways in which you are sustained, and the sacredness of all life; then you will feel that connection. 

The words you speak are alive. Your words are living and  create energy that follows your thought. Energy follows the thoughts you think and the words you speak.  When you say, “I don’t have enough,” you will not have enough because you said so, and it is done. Direct your living words to the Omnipresent Substance, to the substance that is everywhere for us all.  Turn the great energy of your thinking toward ideas of plenty and abundance, and you will have plenty and abundance, regardless of what others around you are saying or doing. Focus your mental energy so you are careful about what you say and how you say it, so you are creating what you intend to create, so the spiritual substance can fill you and you can feel safe in this world. 
 

I find it difficult or even impossible to extricate myself  from the net that we’ve created. I compost, I recycle, and still I feel so discouraged by what I send to the landfill.


Take one step at a time and do the best you can.  We’re not going to change the world tomorrow, but just being conscious and doing the best that you can matters very much.  Even thinking about how much you put in the landfill is important.

We are all separated from the miracle, especially if we don’t put forth the effort to be part of the miracle and especially if we don’t give ourselves the gift of growing our food. Even if it is growing some herbs in our kitchen window or dedicating ourselves to buying from a local farmer, it will begin to change us. We don’t all have to be farmers, but we can support the people who are growing. We can do the things that support those cycles that are good for us as well as seeing how we can reduce our waste everyday.

This morning, let us remember. Let us call upon the spirits of remembrance and upon the spirits of sustenance; let us remember the Great Sustainer is always sustaining all of us. If we want it, the spiritual substance is always there.

(February 23, 2014)
 
Maresha's next blog will be published May 27, 2014. 


Messages of Light is published by the Sanctuary of Universal Light on Snow Dragon Mountain in Meredith, New Hampshire. www.snowdragonsanctuary.com.