Thursday, May 7, 2009

May 3, 2009

Spirit of beauty, truth and love.

Spirit that resides inside us, beside us, beneath us and above us.
Send your blessings through us, among us, rising up from the ground into our bodies, raining down from the heavens on all the Earth’s creatures.

Forgive us the times when we have acted against you, against ourselves, and against each other.

Forgive us the times when we failed to notice beauty in our selves or others or the world, when we failed to make the beauty we could have, when we made ugliness instead.

Forgive us the times when we spoke less than the truth to our own advantage, when we used our powers of reason and persuasion to justify actions we knew to be unworthy, when we let damaging lies said in our presence go unchallenged because of our own fear of confrontation.

Forgive us the times when we could have loved more but loved less, or acted from hate. Forgive us the times we failed to love ourselves, failed to love our neighbor, failed to love our enemy, failed to love the holy ideal we claim to seek.

Move us deeper into your realm of beauty. Help us see more clearly the world of justice we can yet create and guide us toward it. Grant that we should live in love, as loving people in loving community, and held in your loving embrace, eternally.

Amen

Tuesday, May 5, 2009

My experience

I was got the last seat on the Meditation boat at the Self-Realization center when we visited last month. Everyone there seemed well settled into their own private journey.
As quietly as I could I stowed my purse under the chair and centered myself with my hands on my knees. I closed my eyes to the water view and the small shrine at the front of the "houseboat". My breath deepened I forgot the drive to Santa Monica, the other members of our group, my cell phone, the world. I feel deeply into a semi-consciousness that was unique for me in my meditation efforts.

Time passed I really don't know how much slipped by. The water caused a very slight movement to the space. The quiet was perfect in its wholeness.

When I opened my eyes the man next to me had left. I never sensed it nor even felt a ripple in the air. It was as if he just disappeared. It took some effort to get up and leave because the air seemed to hold me. I felt refreshed, uplifted, peaceful.
I think my experience echos Jean's idea of an after "life". I had been carried away from the now perhaps lifted by the energy of the more experienced spiritual beings around me. I thought after I was either alone there or at one with every other person in the room. Perhaps I was given a glimpse of eternity.

Friday, May 1, 2009

Quotation & Response (by Eric Felker)

"When we view ourselves in space and time, our consciousnesses are obviously the separate individuals of a particle-picture, but when we pass beyond space and time, they may perhaps form the ingredients of a single conscious stream of life. As it is with light and electricity, so may it be with life: the phenomena may be individuals carry on separate existences in time and space, while in the deeper reality beyond time and space, we may all be members on one body."

Sir James Hopwood Jeans
astronomer & mathematician


My prayer in response to Jeans' statement:

O Divine One, I joyfully know myself to be one of the separate consciousnesses of being and life. From that viewpoint, I attempt to know myself and know the world around me; I arrive at a changing, partial and imperfect knowledge, a changing, partial and imperfect linking.

Using my partial view, I can, with Jeans, glimpse beyond time and space to the unity of being and life. That glimpse of fuller truth is a great challenge and a great opportunity for me to open my spiritual life to the "one body" that is You.

May I remember every day that I live in the world of time and space and also in timelessness and spacelessness. May the relationship between those two conditions be a deep source of compassion and inspiration, of action and stillness.