Your Spiritual Work is at Hand

One of my friends keeps asking me to believe distressing things about her. The other day she announced, “I have dementia.” So I asked her, quite crudely, “Why do you always ask me to believe this crap?”  I’m wondering about the difference between drawing a line that says, “I’m not going to take on what you’re asking me to take on,” and being judgmental about another person.


That depends on the nature of the relationship. In relationships that are of a close nature—partners, children, parents, good friends, and often co-workers—the rule is to let go, but if you can’t, then communicate with consciousness.  So what you’re telling me is that you communicated with consciousness with her the other day. But when you communicate with consciousness, you cannot hold out for any particular outcome of any kind. You just simply communicate because your heart must speak. You say what you must say. 

But what does she stimulate in you when she perpetually goes back to her misery and shows it to you in as many shapes and forms as she can conjure up?  You need to ask yourself, “Why do I need to keep seeing this misery? What do I need to learn about this misery?” Because the truth is that you need to see that misery of hers for some reason that is about you. And that’s where we go. That’s the mirror, if you will. 

When you can converse with her on the phone, and she does her thing, but it doesn’t catch you, then you will have succeeded in staying aligned with your consciousness and your frequency. Do you understand that? So, it’s okay to ask her, “Why do you want me to believe in this?” but your real question should be, “Why do I need to keep seeing this through her? Why does she keep teaching me about misery, and why do I keep picking that lesson with this person?”

And it’s not about removing the person necessarily, although that happens sometimes; the lesson is learned, the energy is dissolved, and there’s no tension any more to keep the relationship going, and so there’s an evolution. But sometimes, as with a family member, you learn how to do the work inside and to take the lesson and burn it in the fire of the desire to be peaceful and to be beautiful. You do not just intellectually say, “Well, now I’m not going to react to this verbally with her,” while you are still having a reaction inside. You must see when you’re getting stimulated inside and be honest with yourself so that you can really work with it for healing.

(April 2007)

  

I cry very easily. If anyone is shedding tears, I'll just add mine to the puddle. Compassion is something else, right?

Yes, compassion is something else. When we add our tears to the puddle, we agree to the separation others are feeling through the filters of their illusions. Compassion is crystal clear and knows that the Absolute is holding us at all times, in all places, and under all circumstances. In that knowing, we trust love, and we trust whatever experience we are having to be for our highest good. True compassion comes out in the form of love and acceptance, but our hearts are clear in the light of God, not separate in fear or anger, or anything else. True compassion lifts us and others up into the hands of the Goddess / God.

(October 2004)

February Quotation

When you feel a reaction to anyone or anything,

know that your spiritual work is at hand.

Maresha's next blog will be published February 4. 

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

We Want to Shine Our Lights in Joy

Everyday we face the mundane, ordinary challenges of life. We all have our own “stuff.” It might be getting through the frenzy of the work day, communicating with others, fulfilling family responsibilities, paying the bills, or preparing meals. Superimposed upon the mundane, there may be even greater challenges such as sickness, divorce, or loss of loved ones.

How do we cultivate acceptance and an open heart when it is hard enough just to get through a day without tension and judgment? The difference between facing those places with peace instead of frustration, with joy instead of boredom, with interest instead of indifference, and with optimism instead of pessimism is by allowing the fire of spiritual practice, commitment and consciousness to permeate every circumstance we encounter from morning until night, day after day.

The decision to do this is one of the most profound choices we can ever make in our lives. From that moment on, we begin to burn through resistance, suppression and karma. Every encounter and every interaction becomes the fuel for deeper spiritual awareness. Every moment holds the potential for clear insight and pure awareness.

Tapas, one of the advanced inner practices of yoga, is the cultivation of enthusiasm for the spiritual path. It is the willingness to do whatever is necessary to reach a goal with discipline; it is the determination to undertake sadhana, daily practices that will “burn” the unconscious activity of karma. If this unconscious activity burns instead of being expressed, then the energetic process of catharsis begins. This is the door to transformation and conscious awareness.

Before this choice is made, we may face our challenges with resistance, negativity, martyrdom, victimization, or at the very least, disdain. Because it requires us to take responsibility for ourselves and for everything about our lives, this choice is momentous. When we do not take responsibility, we hold our reactions inside, allowing an internal struggle to set up camp in our bodies and minds. Our minds engage in ongoing chatter as we defend or justify our thoughts and project them onto a situation or person. Each thought is designed to entrench ourselves in righteousness concerning our own feelings.

While the mind is busily engaged in self-terrorism (terrorizing others as well, for our thought forms are real and affect the objects of our focus), the body is also under attack. The intensity of reaction can result in muscle tension, stomach ache, a tight chest or a lump in the throat. The longer we engage in suppression, the more serious our physical problems become. Without the ability or choice to let go into the light of consciousness, we are in the full ravages of suppression. Repeatedly indulging in our reactions to life causes great pain physically, emotionally and spiritually. Yet, most people continue to do so.

 

That Which We Truly Yearn For

 

The commitment to spiritual growth and the decision to bring more consciousness and awareness into our lives can purify and transform these reactions into a more subtle response which allows our energies to continue flowing in our bodies and allows our minds to retain an emptiness or space for awareness without judgment. From the compost of our challenges emerges the fertile soil of awareness, communion and growth. This is the “stuff” in the deepest part of ourselves, the stuff that we truly yearn for. We want to see and feel the beauty all around us. We want to shine our lights in joy.

In our conscious awareness, we witness or watch everything. We witness our emotions rolling through the body. We witness our thoughts streaming through the mind. From the place of witness, we experience everything while practicing becoming nothing.  When there is no holding of an emotion or thought, it is free to flow through.  Paradoxically, we see and feel everything, but we hold nothing.

Through this ever deepening practice of allowing life to move through us, all of the holding of the past starts to melt and release, making room for more awareness to meet every moment more fully.

Peace and serenity result from a willingness to engage in surrender—surrender to the situation, surrender to the thoughts and feelings, surrender to the moment. Ishvara Pranidhana, one of the practices which is observed in Yoga, is the practice of surrender and service to God. It is the practice of allowing spirit to do its will through us. We can practice this by surrendering to the situation, surrendering to the thoughts and feelings, and surrendering to the moment. While we may be feeling the charge of reaction and anger inside, we can simultaneously allow ourselves to witness and not hold. This practice becomes the fire which burns through our suppressions and holdings and purifies our being with its heat. This is the fire of tapas.

With commitment and practice, we begin to grow the seeds of allowance, acceptance and peace within our hearts and minds. Knowing that the everyday stuff we face is the fuel for transformation can spark the willingness to accept, look forward to, and even be thankful for every single moment of every single day.

 

The Seeker

 



An old story tells of a spiritual seeker who had been meditating in seclusion in the mountains for 20 years.  When at last he felt he had achieved his goal of liberation, he  was ready to return to the village to see his teacher. On his way down the mountain, he met a woman on the path. “Please give me some water,” he asked. “I am very thirsty.” 

“Go find your own—I have barely enough for myself!” she snapped back. Filled with indignation and rage, the seeker slapped her across the face.  Later, when he had arrived in the village and had found his teacher, he spoke with great remorse. “I must return to the seclusion of meditation, for I still carry the seeds of anger within me.” To this his teacher replied, “No, you must not return. You must stay here and learn how to find peace in your heart when you are in the world with other people.” Like the seeker, we must first integrate our spiritual principles into the stuff of our daily lives before we can become truly free.

 (February 2001)

 

Maresha's next blog will be published January 28. 

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



 

Lessons in Earth School

 
I was only five years old. It was the first day of school. I did not know the teacher or any of the other children. Mrs. Stinson asked each one of us to say our names and to say what our fathers did for work. I listened carefully: “Andrea Hoadley. My father is an engineer. Majorie Law. My father is a doctor. Brian Moriarty. My father has a store.” It did not take me long to realize that I did not know what my father did, but I knew enough to make something up that sounded like all the other fathers’ professions. So I said, “Donna Ireland. My father works in an office.” Mrs. Stinson looked at me with disdain. “He does no such thing, young lady. It says here that he is a machinist!”

I distinctly remember the feeling of heat rising up through my chest and into my face. The closest place I could find to hide was in the small desk that was in front of me. I bent over and pushed my face into the opening as far as I could. I had been embarrassed and humiliated in the very first hour of my very first day of school. 

On that day I learned two things: I was accountable to tell the truth. And, I learned that I was not in the same “class” as most of the other children. My family was blue collar, not white collar.

Earth School starts when we are born. Being on the path is exactly like being in first grade. How you take the lesson makes all the difference in the world. If you use the lesson for self-deprecation, by turning it against yourself, you will grow a shameful self. If you take the lesson and become angry or frustrated with it, and turn it against others, you will grow a blameful self. Shame and blame are useless. You cannot progress if you indulge in either of these. Knowing this is the key that opens the door to inner freedom. Those two lessons immediately gave me an understanding of life that I did not previously have.

Even though I felt humiliation, I transformed this lesson into honesty and into the acceptance of who I am, by not trying to be like all the others. All of the outer circumstances of life that create the tests, challenges and trials, have only one real function: to grow and strengthen our consciousness. If these lessons are not rejected or resisted, a great well of perseverance and wisdom is born. A hunger and thirst for greater consciousness is inspired. Stand steady and open, in both your successes and failures. Learn how to take everything and turn it into your benefit. The lessons become the rich and fertile fabric that we weave into strong wools and soft velvets. Learn how to become an alchemist and turn lead into gold.

 Examine me, O Lord, and prove me; try my reins and heart.

For thy loving kindness is before mine eyes: and I have walked in thy truth. (Psalm 26:2-3)

(February 2008)

 

Maresha's next blog will be published January 21. 

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



 

 

 

Attuning to Love

Bring conscious awareness to your sadhana, your spiritual practice. Open the sacred energies with the embodiment of gratitude, humility, and respect as you go forth to attune to the world of spirit and vibration.

How does one attune to spirit? We do so by refining our frequency or vibration so that we resonate with the vibration of Goddess / God. Remember what you are doing when you are attuning. Remembering will create the difference between an empty ritual and an ecstatic and fulfilling connection.  Empty ritual leaves you wondering why nothing has changed. To make your connection, you must change your chemistry—not only your physical chemistry, but also your vibrational or energetic chemistry.

The inner journey is energetic. You have to make that journey. The frequency is there. To attune your vibration to the subtle frequencies of the inner realms, quiet yourself with the breath and with the stilling of body, mind, and emotions. Creating sacred space and time to be quiet assures our ability to resonate with the frequency of healing and love.

Spiritual attunement in the morning sets the course for the entire day. Upon awakening, prepare yourself briefly: wash your face, brush your teeth, comb your hair, and then go to your altar and sit quietly for a few moments. Attuning at the beginning of the day, as the energies are rising, will make all the difference. If you skip this because you’re in a hurry or because you think you’ll do it later, you will be attuning your frequency to who-knows-what—to the first experience, situation or person that you meet. Then, when you enter a stressful workplace, you will vibrate with stress. Or, if you go to the bank and speak with a clerk or a stranger, you will vibrate at that person’s frequency. It’s subtle, but it’s real. Give yourself an opportunity to learn the difference and to learn how it is that you have this power to absolutely and simply choose the frequency and resonance of spirit and love and vibrate there.

Attunement to this resonance allows you to vibrate at the level of the Masters. From this place, everything changes. You succeed in being in this world, but not of this world. You succeed in being a human being with all of the traits of a human being, and yet you can encounter anything and still vibrate at the point of peace with perfect love and perfect trust. Perfect love and perfect trust are the embodiment of simplicity, clarity and honesty. 

 

Maresha's next blog will be published January 14. 

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