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.
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.