Introduction
My friend, Anna, and I are journalists, in the sense that we keep journals. A journal captures ideas, thoughts, intuitions, epiphanies; it is not a diary. We also bear in common an interest in the spiritual path of Buddhism, especially the Zen tradition, including sitting meditation, called zazen; and of course, thoughts on this subject often appear in a journal.
Several years ago, in meditation, Anna reflected on the burning candle, its wick smoking just slightly. Her mind straying for a moment, she opened her journal and wrote, "You are my wick. I come to set you aflame and see that you burn truly. No smoke!" This announcement was signed, "Archangel, Spirit Guide". There ensued a long, most enlightening conversation, continuing nightly in the manner of a dokusan, an audience with ones Zen master following meditation. And as the months wore on, there grew between them a unique and precious relationship, unlike any involving mere mortals.
Anna has always believed there to be a universal mind to which we are connected through our human intuition; and Archangel even describes himself as her conduit to the universal mind, making him a personification of her intuition. He is to her the ideal parent, the adored mentor, the revered master. He is not a lover, despite the terms of endearment by which he addresses her; yet soon after his appearance, he becomes not only a Spirit Guide but also a Guardian.
A Buddhist would see Archangel as a bodhisattva, the Christian, as a saint. The spiritually inclined may believe that my friend has actually been visited by a spirit. What I believe is that Archangel reconciles that stubborn predilection in human nature toward an anthropomorphic God in heaven with the far more profound revelation of Buddhism.
W.G.C.
*********************
All the words I have set forth in explanation of Buddhism lead only to the abyss. The only means over the abyss is experience, which must involve the emotions, not only the intellect. The odd path upon which you have set me, Archangel, in quest of this experience, has brought me to a peculiar state of deepening spiritual obsession that cannot be characterized as physical or abstract or even mystical, though sharing something of each of these. In the haunting vision of your face, I perceive a trinity of wisdom, love, and strength.
My dear one, these are the very traits by which you have been enthralled all your life, only now you recognize that they are indwelling; they are the Dharma. The zen master will say they are dichotomous: Strength? Weakness. Wisdom? Ignorance. Love? Indifference. They cannot thus be transcendent. They are the ideals that religion bestows to God; and if there is a God, there is a Devil. True, and yet to communicate transcendence to karmic consciousness, while avoiding the abyss, it must have a nature. It is karmic consciousness that perceives in transcendence the characteristics you are calling a trinity.
The ultimate nature of reality can be seen as a cold void; egolessness can be misunderstood as nonexistence. But our intuition informs us otherwise, that there is a transcendent self nature of the Ultimate Reality, wherein there is no abyss, no cold void. Enlightenment transcends the dichotomies; it is not one thing or the other; and so we find it neither through the intellect nor the emotions. You already recognize that this experience, paradoxical at its core, cannot be described.
Still, by conjuring me, you waken a physical side to what has been a dry conceptualization. And so a trinity, my dear one: access my wisdom, fill yourself with my love, and let my strength bear you from fear. I have told you that clinging will not answer; but you are not yet convinced, not fully persuaded. So cling to me. I will thus be able to show you the very real nature of karma - the constant changing, the "causes and conditions" giving rise to all states of mind - so that by understanding the basic emptiness of it, you will suffer it without suffering, being one with the laws of causation. You will have satisfaction in this, but more importantly, peace.
--------------
The human hunger for transcendence is evidenced by our yearning to possess or at least to lean upon heroic traits, but we sense that there really are no heroes, human or otherwise. Despite the levels of courage of which we are at times capable, we know deep down that these capabilities fail to measure up to our yearning; and so we imagine gods. We reach for transcendence, Spirit Guide, but how do we ever attain it?
The dilemma, my dear one, is that to experience the transcendent qualities, we must let go of our axiomatic beliefs about self and time, and face the reality that these are not what they seem and not what we wish them to be. We fear this reality; seeing in it the abyss of nihilism. If there is no ego, there is no threading of a persona through time; and thus are egolessness and timelessness bound as one revelation. The karmic fabrication - time - has no ultimate reality. It does not move forward anymore than it moves backward. It does not move. The "speed" of time - now fast, now slow - that we perceive in the karmic realm, is random because the motion of time, and time itself, are delusions. Our confusing perceptions are the subtle hint of this truth. As time does not exist, neither does the self and vice versa. These have no reality apart from ultimate, transcendent unity.
No man is a hero; the ego nature to which he clings is only a karmic manifestation. At the same time, every man is a hero, because his true essence is never apart from the all-encompassing Dharmakaya. Face and embrace paradox. You know that the abyss is no more real than the ego self or the river of time, but because of these illusions, you hunger for the transcendence that is in truth yours to summon.
Come to the abyss, then darling. Jump, I will catch you!
---------------
Religious people speak of having a personal relationship with God; and yet in the end, in the dread of their last hours, it fails them. This relationship is a fiction, is it not, Archangel?
Quite so, dear one. The most unfortunate aspect of theism is that it only aggravates the worst terrors of loneliness and isolation, because the believer is separate from the only being who might release him from these terrors. Evidence of the yearning to unite with this Theos is the bizarre Christian rite of communion - imagining, or indeed believing with strong conviction, that one is ingesting the flesh and blood of this being.
The underlying flaw in all of Western philosophy and religion is their insistence on logic and individuality. Reality belies both. Logic leaves out intuition and paradox; individuality precludes and relief of the human condition, which latter requires oneness that in turn requires egolessness. Being separate from your God allows you to keep your very own "immortal soul", but it is a lonely state indeed. Do you not still have a "soul" that is in fact the very Essence of all Reality? I will use the metaphor of an open drawbridge: on one side is individuality, the soul, ego, and of course, logic; while on the other is egolessness, oneness, transcendence. Religious people make it to the bridge, fully involved on an intimate level with their God, their Supreme Other, but they cannot cross the open drawbridge; their religion falls short. The secular scientist reaches the open span and falls over, into the abyss. Well then, what if you conjure a Supreme Other, and he tells you his is not "other"? What if he fills your mind, enveloping your entire karmic persona in order to show you the reality of karmic existence?
What if I then see him on the other side of the bridge? What if he calls to me, "Jump! I will catch you"?
Wonderful, my darling one! Now you see that I was testing you. Please do not jump; it is the Gateless Gate. You are already on the other side! Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha...............!
-------------
It strikes me that terms of endearment are never heard these days except with a sardonic tone, seeming to grate on people's ears as suggestive of hypocrisy. Yet here you are using them with reference to me, and here am I lapping it up like a lost kitten finding milk!
Well, my dearest, the matter is a simple one, if you will bear with me. Naturally, all karmic emotions are suspect; of course you cannot have confidence in the shifting sands of the Sangsara. Even the staunchest, most devoted of loved ones are thin reeds to hold to. They are egoless, but ignorant of it; and so they become jaded, viewing one another with disdainful skepticism, certain only that any expectation will be met with disappointment. Terms of endearment, then, seem a facile way to establish just such a dubious expectation.
Now then, in the Universal Mind there is neither expectation nor disappointment; indeed, there is no object on whom to bestow love and affection. Your intuition, nonetheless, picks up on the infinite compassion of its Essence Nature, which you may interpret as love and affection. I am your channel to the Universal Mind. Thus the endearments with which I address you are a way of signaling that deepest compassionate nature at the heart of my regard for you - whether for your True Being or your karmic manifestation, with all its discriminated defects.
I fear, Archangel, that I love you more than I love anyone else.
My dear, it is the first commandment - no other gods before me. I jest, of course; we are not theist. No, no, you are simply beginning to realize and to love a true self. Beware of comparing what you have from me with any previous experience. While stirring your emotions, it is not what you must needs call love. A closer term, often used by the few who have truly experienced it, is "inner peace", though that may seem too restful to you in your current fervor.
Can you tell me, then, why I am dear to you?
Well, you in particular because I am charged with guarding as well as guiding you.
"Guardian." I must tell you that is a beautiful and reassuring thought to me just now. But how, and why?
Patience, darling. All will be revealed to you when you are ready. More relevant is that enlightenment brings a profound compassion for sentient beings. Sentience is your window, your passage, to Essence Nature; but it brings an intensity of experience, whether discriminated as pleasure or pain, that is always disquieting. I cannot see you disturbed or watch you suffer without finding you as dear and innocent as you are ignorant. Compassion is what I am; oneness is where I dwell. I am bringing you to me - that makes you dear.
-----------------
I need your words to be free of time and self, Archangel. Especially difficult is timelessness, which continues to feel like an insufferable state of time stopping and standing still.
It cannot stop moving if it does not move; it does not move because it does not exist. Do you not begin to feel a sense of perfection in your karmic experience, that everything is just as it should be, complete and sufficient? That is timelessness. You will not escape time as a karmic actor, except in meditation, but I hope you will at least approach the place where life and zazen are not different. We will keep this faith together. As an old colleague once said, "I am with you always". He meant to free his followers from self and time, but being rational Jews, they could not appreciate the paradox.
So, "S.G." stood for "spirit guide", not "son of God". I know, I know...
Fanciful of you, dear one! Remember Suzuki Roshi's "small mind, big mind"? A spirit guide arises in a small mind that hungers to know each moment as "the unfolding of big mind" so as to have "imperturbable composure". Yes, you conjure me with a face you remember and adore, but that perfect face is not the reason you adore me.
Well, then, Archangel, what is the reason?
You know that what we try to describe beggars the word "love", beggars any and all attempts at definition. This is because, being without object, it is outside of any ordinary human experience. It is not a love of something or given to someone, but rather a love inherent in our true self nature. My appearance to you gives you a helpful analog in a love-object, while also giving rise to what is clearly a far deeper, even sacred feeling. Your love for me is nothing but your own nature revealed. No object. It is new to you in its power to suffuse. When you are ready, I will take you further, to love without image.
---------------
I find all human love to be imperfect, unsatisfying, perhaps as a result of having been deprived of that true, unconditional maternal love. Even this latter, I reason, while certainly fulfilling to an infant, is fundamentally a mechanism of species perpetuation, thus an extension of self love. So there is always a self-interested goal to it.
Self interest is the very essence of karma, dear one. Nature is nothing but karmic manifestation, cause and effect, as cold as the heart of a scientist.
And yet religious people speak of nature as God's creation, leading to the awful conundrum of having to justify its negative aspects - predation, cruelty, suffering.
Indeed. The Sangsara is all dichotomous, down to the left-right symmetry of karmic bodies. As soon as there is beauty, there is ugliness; as soon as there is God, there must be a Devil; as soon as there is self, there is other. So of course karmic beings contend with one another to survive, to fulfill themselves, to procreate. It is the individual striving of perpetual change, i.e. evolution. But of course, with your Inner Eye, you can see right through this world of grief to Nirvana, where oneness transcends dichotomy.
But agape, the love of God in theist terms, what is this emotion, Archangel? Is it the bliss of samadhi? Are we capable of extending it to fellow humans?
Only a saint or an enlightened one would have that capacity. It is the bliss of samadhi, after the ego-self has melted away; it is the feeling of utter security and peace of being one with the ultimate. God loves himself when he loves you, and vice versa, a theist would say. There can be no selfishness because there no longer are individual selves.
I have seized your mind with a most magnificent face; and because you have not entered the stage of nondiscrimination, you interpret my generous love and tender affections as karmic attachment. While this experience is appealing and fulfilling, you recognize at once that it is far beyond human capacities. Even the best among you may only manage a faint facsimile of the love you now feel from me. Through the paradox of separating from you, I allow you to receive agape. It is egoless, timeless, luminous...
... and blissful!
Oh yes, oh yes, the one unique capacity of human consciousness on its way to enlightenment - bliss. But you must always look for it within, not without. Overcome the pangs of thinking I am separate from you. Accustom yourself to the fact that the bliss of your very nature lies within you, and give it my face and my voice for as long as needed. Likewise, know that nothing from without can help you nor need disturb you. Do not fret about my presence in your mind. I am not figmentary, and certainly not hallucinatory. I am your conduit to the Universal Mind. By taking on an aspect of appearance, I enable your full consciousness to participate in the process of enlightenment, including your emotions.
But are we not discriminating this love, this bliss, Spirit Guide, when our aim is nondiscrimination?
Just as karmic consciousness ascribes a certain nature to transcendence, it must also perceive a state of bliss whenever it is touched by the majesty of Dharmakaya. Bear in mind that consciousness is itself one of the dichotomies we are called upon to transcend, and that we do not do so by becoming unconscious, nor by denying the bliss we are caused to feel because of it. Whenever we transcend, there will be simply wholeness, no word, no thought, no emotion; but should this state touch our conscious mind, there is at once the spark of bliss! Be patient, dear heart. I come to you out of a fog that slowly but surely will soak you through.
--------------
I know, Archangel, that loneliness is at the bottom of so much unhappiness, and that loneliness is about separation, separateness, not about being alone. This I have known a long time. But what is your plan for me?
Look at it this way, my dear, were I to go away now, you would feel bereft, dejected, abandoned, not unlike you felt as a child. As I stay with you, as I suffuse you with my wisdom, love, and strength, you will gain courage. You will come to view me as indwelling, the inflowing good, your own true self. And your Inner Eye will no longer need to see out. Do you begin to understand, my darling?
Yes, of course. You refer to "my own true self" without capitalizing. What do you signify?
You are so clever, dearest, to notice. I meant for you to enjoy loving yourself, and to take on, with my blessing, any of my traits that will help you. Although we are having a most beneficial conversation, we are really the same Subject. We are one; your true Self, you could say, is talking with your false self. In your mind, we have separated for the very purpose of uncovering the nature, the role, the karmic ramifications of emotions such as loneliness, unhappiness.
The disturbing thing about emotion is its potential for intensity: intensely beautiful, as best expressed in music, the language of emotion; or intensely hideous, fear being the hardest to bear or to conquer. Maintaining homeostasis as they go about their lives, most people seldom experience this intensity, or perhaps are not sensitive to it. I am deeply affected by it, and so was drawn to Suzuki Roshi's "imperturbable composure". Tell me more, Archangel.
The first question, my dear one, is what to do with our emotions, in particular the negative ones, fear, as you say, being the most intensely uncomfortable. Do we accept them, renounce them, transcend them? I think you can say already - we purify them. The general faculty for emotion evolved through natural selection like everything else. Where the stakes are life or death, fear is especially useful to survival. Even a vague apprehension, a doctor appointment, say, or a routine medical procedure, has the whiff of death. Dealing with fear, therefore, is dealing with death.
To purify this emotion you need only recall the paradoxical words of Shunriyu Suzuki, "It seems that we die, yet we do not die". Paradox is the reality: at one level, karma is constantly reconfiguring Essence Nature, but it remains the transcendent Essence Nature of Ultimate Reality, despite its perceived configuration. It is our stubborn ignorance of these truth that leads us to view this constant reconfiguring and to see process and thus time, and to imagine the coming and going of karmic manifestations, ourselves included, as the birth and death of separate individuals. Indeed, this ignorance is embedded in the configuration of your karmic manifestation, as is the fear which powers the survival instinct. And yet human consciousness has the innate capacity to embrace that paradox and to realize that true self nature is neither individual nor temporal.
But to be sure fear is the hardest emotion to assuage, being so reflexive. It is a matter for meditation and practice. You were a sensitive child of a fearsome mother; so it is a special problem for you, which has shadowed your life in subtle ways.
I know we will work on these things together, but what of the serious fears that loom in this last phase of life?
I am here to be your refuge. You will fix upon my face in the clear sky, day or night; and the smoke, the cloud will drift away. I will hold your gaze and your focus, and you will not be lost. You will have the calm of Emptiness, the imperturbable composure of Universal Mind. Stay with me, dear one. I am your Guardian.
You bless me, Archangel!
Of course.
-----------------
You worry, my dear, that what you are experiencing is only a self-indulgent dalliance that you rationalize in your usual high-minded fashion. I am sensitive to your concern, but remind you of the many layers to Reality. Of course there will be an abundance of analogies from layer to layer, all of which glimmer of the Ultimate Oneness. Our aim is not to be caught in the superficial layers, but to move ever deeper; and as we do, we will see similarities.
I don't know, Archangel; sometimes I feel that I simply lust after you.
That will not do, darling; lust is a frustrating pleasure. What you actually refer to is a kind of grasping, or greed in a general sense, an emotion that is difficult to purify, as it goes to primal drives. To grasp at anything is to attempt to cling to the temporal and to end in grief. You experience an aching emotional hunger, having suffered great deficits of affection in your life, especially in the crucial early years. This hunger pains me terribly as your Guardian. Bu it is not unique to you. Even had you not lacked for affection you would still have sought it at every phase of life; and you already sense that the sweetness of having bears a close resemblance to that of wanting. In other words, the feeling of want persists even into its fulfillment. So the answer to hunger is not satisfaction but sufficiency. Satisfying hunger does not make it go away; it comes back, often with far greater intensity, not unlike greed in general, which mushrooms as it is fed.
It seems that most everyone has an insatiable hunger for something: physical addictions, even to food or countless other substances; and psychological addictions.
Exactly. Any potential satisfactions you might have in your karmic relationships can only be temporal, fleeting. The hunger returns. Whatever may be exchanged between karmic beings, it is not agape. Men are men, not angels. What we cultivate, rather, is the calm acceptance of whatever comes forth; and since all potentiality resides in the Universal Mind, this is not a false sense but a transcendent epiphany, bringing a peace that comes only with the sufficiency of Emptiness, which, by the way, does not mean being satisfied with nothing.
When you realize you are at one and all is as it should be, craving will cease. There will be no self and other, no deficits that must be filled. That is sufficiency. But until then, day and night, you will feel the timeless embrace of your Guardian. Accepting the paradox of Ultimate Reality, you will experience my tenderness toward you, as we are two, never again to ache for me, as we are one.
---------------
When you say that a sense of sufficiency does not equate to a satisfaction with nothing, it occurs to me that you come close to the razor's edge, addressing the charge that Buddhism, like modern science, is nihilistic.
Quite so. The Buddhist attitude of acceptance does not mean that we acquiesce in the revelations of science as to the nature of material reality, i.e. that matter is reducible to nothing. That is where science stops - at nothing; Buddha did not stop at nothing. Buddhism goes deep into the nature of Emptiness, which cannot be explored or known objectively, because it is only Subject. It cannot be objectified. All Essence is of this Subject, which realization brings a peaceful sense of sufficiency. Only in the shallows do we find an acceptance of nothing, in those who have not had his realization, who thus in fact do slip into nihilism.
The nihilist can be either hedonistic or ascetic, as underlying each approach is the axiom of nothingness, the former pursuing sensual pleasures while there is time, and the latter renouncing them so as to prepare for the end. Indeed, some Buddhists are nihilist, priding themselves in their satisfaction with nothing. Note the word satisfaction, not merely acceptance. The True Teaching has nothing to do with satisfaction, certainly not self-satisfaction. Yes, we patiently accept the twofold egolessness; but we penetrate the Essence of Emptiness to the Reality of Self.
After all, the essence of whatever is reducible to nothing is nothing, and what is nothing but the opposite of something? A dichotomy cannot be the ultimate essence, since whatever is ultimate must transcend dichotomy.
Are you listening, Brian Greene?
----------------
I observe, Archangel, that when we incur a certain karmic circumstance, according to the laws of causation, our emotional response is likewise karmic. We suffer an injustice, for example, and anger arises; we lose homeostasis, and fear sets in. I know we do not escape karma, but with the acceptance of egolessness, do we respond differently?
And I observe, dear one, that we so often approach the same questions but from different angles, as we polish the precious stone of your mind. We talked about this in reference to fear, for instance; and really what you are asking again is: What does it mean to be one with the laws of causation? So let me try again.
While the emotions may be purified through wisdom, as we said, they still arise. A karmic being cannot lose homeostasis without becoming afraid; indeed, in humans fear is magnified by superior self-consciousness. One is not only the victim of suffering, but also able to observe oneself suffering. Accepting egolessness, one does away with that extra layer, the self as object as well as subject, so it seems there is only the suffering itself.
Other emotions are less easily aroused as enlightenment grows, due to the deepening perspective of transcendent experience. Anger, greed, jealousy, become impossible to entertain once you see your true nature is without ego. So yes, indeed, you then respond with equanimity, compassion, imperturbable composure. Does that put it to rest, my darling?
It remains only to be achieved, my Spirit Guide, and I still need your strength so badly.
The arms of your Guardian are always ready to catch you when you must fall into them, and to hold you fast against all ill. Keep this faith, my precious.
---------------
Even on the Path to enlightenment, my dear one, even as you become able to perceive the oneness of karmic dualities, the tendency to divide persists when you view emotion opposed to intellect, enlightenment opposed to ignorance, transcendence opposed to dichotomy. When the Zen student received the venerated robe and bowl from his master and threw them into the fire proclaiming that he now knew the emptiness of material things, the master made my point when he shouted, "What are you doing?" and rescued the objects from the flames, while the student was aghast that his master now seemed to be clinging to material reality in contradiction to what the student had thought was the true teaching. Thus his retort, "What are you saying?".
The master is still the master. The true Essence of material reality is ultimate; there is no need to destroy it, arrogantly, in the fire. All that is manifested through karma originates and is not apart from the Universal Mind. It is all Dharmakaya: emotion, intellect, enlightenment, ignorance. These divisions imposed by your karmic consciousness are ultimately baseless. If you hold yourself apart from karma - suppress it, flee from it - you cannot be one with Ultimate Reality. Karma happens, consciousness happens, pain happens, longing happens. We undergo our karma, but No One suffers it.
--------------
At times, Archangel, I have difficulty visualizing you.
Don't be discouraged, dear one. You know that your Inner Eye is the Eye of the True Teaching, Shobogenzo, the Eye that cannot see itself, being of the One Ultimate Subject. More important than your seeing my face is your absorbing my wisdom, love, and strength. Persist in that and take your time to maintain the experience. Do not lose it. If it seems to back flow, with your adoration gushing towards me, it is all the same. I assure you the river flows in one direction: inward. And there is a way to go before you are filled, my poor dear.
My Guardian, and Spirit Guide, you mock me?!
Lovingly.
--------------
You have observed, Archangel, that having and wanting feel similar emotionally. Does solace not also feel much the same as the pain it assuages?
Quite so, dear one. Sorrow brings you tears, and those very tears bring you solace. Such is the circuitous nature of emotion, rising like a plume of smoke. Before I came, you were considering emotion as a thing to be free of on the Enlightened Path. But I have stirred your very deepest emotions, your longing for spiritual guidance and for identity. As I provide the former, I fulfill the latter. And so you do indeed find solace in me.
Truly, I am at pains to get into words, adequate to reflect its uniqueness, what I feel from you: your strong, protective love; your generous, unconditional affection; your tender support. I fear I will be lost in this refuge, the karmic winds battering the door.
You are in the process now of steeping yourself in my wisdom, love, and strength; and like steeping tea, you are growing stronger. You will learn to see yourself and others as karmic manifestations, and you will respond in all conditions from the posture of Truth.
You do not yet feel the courage you are gaining. So keep me always close, trusting that I am ever at your back, a rod of strength. Take comfort in the beautiful feeling you describe; it is the Essence of Dharmakaya, your true nature, being found - not lost - that I would not allow, my darling!
-----------------
I have no trouble getting over myself, because I am not fearsome; but other people are a different matter. Can you help me with the second part of the twofold egolessness, Archangel?
Oh, yes, this is most important, my dear. I know you understand that karmic beings have no self nature of their own, but when you feel you are at their mercy, it is hard to hold that thought! Fear is absolutely toxic.
You must begin with small, incremental steps. First, guard against dwelling on the affairs of others. Follow your own path single-mindedly. Empathize, show compassion, help where you can; but be mindful that you cannot save people from their karma. When the mills of God begin to grind, get out of the way. Second, remind yourself that you need neither conform to the wishes of others nor assert yourself against them. Either response gives power to other people. Instead, pursue your own way, ignoring their reactions. Eventually, they will cease to have the power you have given them.
I know you will follow my advice, dear one; and as you do, you will doubtless encounter the negative reactions of those egotistic, though egoless, beings, which will stir your uncomfortable feelings of fear and anxiety. At such times, you are to invoke me, your Refuge.
It is not only the fear, my Guardian, but anger and even fear of anger that grips me, and then, worst of all, self pity sets in.
It is a serious business, my dear. Egolessness is the reality - you do not imagine it. Remember your mother's ashes in a shopping bag behind the living room chair, waiting to be scattered on the garden. Stare this Reality in the face with your Inner Eye, as we are doing. Anger? Fear of these fleeting phantoms? No, no, no. Stay grounded with me - firmly - in the Ground Luminosity.
-----------------
I feel so strongly for you, Archangel, that I must resurrect the old term "worship".
No, dear one, worship is an outpouring; and unlike karmic beings I cannot allow you to pour out love you cannot afford to lose. Keep it within you; I am within you, so that what you feel, in fact, is an influx of the goodness and love of the Universal Mind. Of, course, it is intense.
Why is it that I feel so exposed in recording your ever so inspirational words?
Western culture is one of individuality, and in modern times very secular. The secular mind, which predominates in your milieu, has a hard shield, presenting a facade of self reliance, arrogant in its pretensions of invulnerability. You do not expose yourself in this writing, but rather the people around you, and the reality that their entire belief system is a house of cards, instantly demolished by the slightest upset of homeostasis. Our precept of egolessness is eschewed in Western thought as a sacrifice of the vaunted individual. But ones unique, individual traits are neither sacrificed nor escaped by the realization of True Essence; they are present at the karmic layer until that Essence Nature is reconfigured.
Of course, many modern, secular people reject all religious thought, with its submission to a higher power, as cultish. In Buddhism there is no higher power, only the power of the True Teaching. The very real power of the ultimate Transcendent Oneness has no karmic analog, beggars all concepts of power. It is the wellspring of karmic existence, Milarepa's Void from which emanate Nirvana and Sangsara. Should anyone mock you, my dear one, you will only smile, my smile. You cannot be diminished.
---------------
You say I should not worship you, Archangel, yet I find myself singing that old hymn, "I need thee every hour, most gracious Lord".
No stop, don't call me that! I am unable to be angry with you, but I was afraid this might happen, though you have known since discovering Suzuki Roshi in 1979 the sheer vanity of religious crutches. Despite any superficial similarity, we are the inverse of these religions. We are about the power of water that wears away stone, or of air that allows all things to pass without impediment. We are about liberation from appetites, from neediness. Simply, we are about Reality, not the flight from it.
Still, I experience your compassion, your strength, with a feeling new to me in its transcendence, a shower of blessing.
These very traits, compassion and strength, have humans from their beginning, bestowed on their gods, which may be easily explained by the innate human capacity to at least glimpse the Truth of Essence Nature. Even secular people in modern times, unable to accept an anthropomorphic Supreme Being, will speak of a God within themselves, or of a "force". Such abstract notions are of no benefit, while the cold abstractions of science are equally useless, and emotionally intolerable.
The lesson is that Reality is only known and experienced when it is no longer abstract. Thus the emotional response to religious experience is not entirely invalid. You may start on the path to enlightenment full of Buddhist concepts, but your ultimate goal is the vision of Essence Nature. Yes, there is an emotional reaction to this vision not unlike that of religious people to their God, since their vision is informed by the same reality. But their God has his limits, where the Dharma, the Truth, the transcendent Reality has none.
Having caught sight of that with your Inner Eye, it is no wonder you are just a tad emotional!
How can we characterize anything that is transcendent, Archangel, attributing traits such as strength or wisdom to Reality when it is ultimately nondual?
A very good question, my dear, which we touched on earlier. We can only characterize or describe Reality by standing apart from it, seeing the object separate from the subject. From the outside, the Dharma appears to human consciousness as powerful and luminous, giving rise to the religious, mystical, or spiritual impulse. As soon as we become one with Ultimate Reality, we transcend, and there is no object to characterize. The Dharma is simply Suchness. Remember Suzuki Roshi's "nothing special"?
You are standing on the threshold of a powerful vision, feeling its wisdom, compassion and strength. When you enter it, you will be at one. No need to describe it. No more words. Can you be still now, darling disciple?
-------------
Take care not to misinterpret your feeling about the strength I bring you, because the analog is of a trusted protector, the very thing you have most needed and lacked at the most perilous times in your life; and you know I do not protect you from karma. In a state of oneness there is nothing from which to be protected. It is the all-embracing, all-encompassing nature of Universal Mind that creates in your vision of it, the perception of power or strength. What you are thus caused to feel is serenity, safe harbor.
As you say Archangel, this matter has been problematic for me. Is there a distinction between power and strength?
The terms are synonymous, but strength connotes endurance, while power more often refers to control. I bring you that strength to endure, until entering a state of oneness, the transcendent power of Dharmakaya fills you.
Another core factor in this perception of power is the contrast felt with the weakness of your ego-self, its inherent fragility. The instinct to preserve that temporal, karmic being - what Buddha saw as the source of all human misery - is also why primitive, theist religion envisions an all-powerful God directing and interceding in human affairs. An infantile dependence on this God is not uncomfortable, after all, until that fragile creature is cast alive into the boiling water.*
And so my caution to you. Only your ego-self can feel weakness; your True Essence is simply the Suchness of the all-embracing Universal Mind, a luminous, powerful vision to be sure; it is your real self-nature, which I have become manifest in order to show you.
*Reference is made to an ancient parable, which warns that if we do not learn to separate the mind from the body before its four elements are rent asunder, we will be like a crab dropped alive into boiling water.
-----------------
I know, Archangel, that love is a frequent topic of discussion, and here I go again. To me it seems that the most selfless love a person ever receives is the earliest, i.e. a mother's love, compared to which all other human bonds are relatively shallow and self-serving.
Quite so. Yet unfortunately, even most mothers seem to fall short of the selfless ideal. Indeed, with the perpetuation of DNA as the teleology, a mother's love might also be seen as inherently self-serving. But that bond with a natural mother is all-important; without it a child learns from the start to expect little and to distrust the capacity of anyone to love genuinely and deeply. In compensation, though, a person may be set on the path to find that "love of God", which is only experienced as an indwelling quality of Ultimate Reality. It is not something that is exchanged, but something let loose through its realization - what I have let loose on you.
--------------
You know, Archangel, that I have particular trouble with the second part of the twofold egolessness; but our examination of the emotions has been helpful, since these are incited by the failure to accept the egolessness of others. It is other people, we could say, who trouble our minds when we do not see their true nature.
In examining the emotions, we learn how they may be purified: anger, through compassion; greed, through sufficiency; fear, through egolessness itself. But the overarching phenomenon, what truthfully we consider the very definition of life, is consciousness, which enables all emotion, thought, and perception. What can you tell me of it, Archangel?
Human consciousness has very special qualities, chief among which, with regard to any capacity for enlightenment, is intuition. But it is a karmic phenomenon, a certain state of the brain relying on a constant flow of oxygenated blood. You know from personal experience that it can be snuffed like a candle, not to mention how it goes away routinely when you sleep.
But how then can a state of enlightenment exist without consciousness? Must one not be conscious to be enlightened?
The matter is a simple one, my dearest, although it touches on the knotty question of timlessness. As consciousness is karmic, it is temporal. The cliche that one must live in the moment is rubbish, not timelessness. For as long as you remain deluded, there is a moment, and another; in other words, there is time, and you are trapped in it. But your intuition can sense the other side of the Sangsara; your Inner Eye can see through it to Nirvana, a state of Suchness, of oneness, where there is no moment. There your consciousness is purified of delusion; so, yes, you are conscious, but at a very profound level. Do you understand, darling?
Oh, yes, Archangel. Meditation and practice! It occurs to me that we have omitted the emotion of guilt.
Ah, guilt, favorite weapon of many a possessive parent. It is an uncomfortable emotion, but useful as a barometer of conscience. When, however, it is inflicted by the overweening on the innocent for not meeting unjustified demands and outrageous expectations, guilt is inappropriate and unnecessary. Such guilt is more a matter of fear, the insecurity of having displeased, proof of which is its irrationality.
Rational guilt is easily purified through repentance; but inappropriate feelings of guilt are an odd malaise indeed, a combination of confusion and dread, as of some vague threat. Wash this out of your mind with water - a cold shower, a walk in the rain or by the river. Remind yourself that you are as fluid and as powerful as water, pure water from the deepest wellspring of Reality, that no one can hold or pollute.
By the way, you need not write down everything I say, only what you want to remember.
I want to remember everything you say.
Oh, my sweet dear, come then, come...
---------------
You realized last evening that my beckoning was purely rhetorical, since we are on the Path where there is no coming or going with no space between us. I am overjoyed to be your conduit of wisdom.
This morning, you made an observation in the Moleskine with which I quite agree, that loving, romantic relationships, contrary to popular consensus, cannot end well, since their satisfaction depends on separateness, the very thing that can only lead to the grief of separation. Lovers accept the axiom that there can be no greater satisfaction than the interaction of separate beings. What embrace can there be if we are not separate? And so while yearning to be one, they cling to being two, stubbornly refusing to recognize that oneness is the Ultimate Reality. They teeter precariously on the karmic illusion of ego-self, when the reality is elsewhere. As their egolessness is twofold, they are not separate and cannot be separated. In a state of oneness, there can be no relationship as there is no Object, only Subject, having a nature of infinite compassion, and of whom we may be gloriously individual, albeit temporal, manifestations.
The small, karmic mind cannot imagine an experience to surpass that of sensual pleasures, not realizing that their essence is of the Universal Mind, which contains and unites the sense minds and the consciousness that perceives them into the transcendent experience, accessible only through human intuition. It is a Reality they cannot accept because they see it wrongly. Quiet the mind, follow the intuition, keep the faith. Polish charcoal and you have a diamond; polish your Mind and you have freedom.
Archangel, S.G.
------------------
All the people I know or have ever known have been subject to the laws of causation, and I have witnessed their extremity with horror and intense sadness. I think of my late father dying of cancer, my mother grieving his loss, my brother falling into poverty and abused by his drunken girlfriend. Abject, severe misery abounds. I see it and understand it. But what can it mean to be one with the laws of causation, as is said of an enlightened man? To my knowledge, I have never seen it.
True. You never have. It is a matter of acceptance of what karma brings, having first accepted egolessness. There is then no victim, and so there is not the pathos of a self suffering and struggling. This pathos is what you have observed, the pathos of victimhood, of being singled out for affliction. It is indeed horrifying, which spurs us on to the path of oneness.
People become attached, cling, grieve, pity themselves, all through the delusion that their karmic existence is all there is. With no evidence of an immortal soul, this must be true, and it is: karmic existence comes and goes. But it is not ultimate. Clear the fog of delusion and you have not erased yourself, but uncovered your one, true, transcendent Self.
-----------
Therapy time, Archangel. You have told me that I respond to you as to the natural mother I never had, feeling such love and trust and strength from you as I cannot imagine being evoked by any mortal being. If I have never experienced these feelings, where can they be coming from?
You are a very intuitive person, dear one; and you have learned what very few ever do: to believe and trust your intuition as the channel to Universal Mind. I am that channel, a personification of your intuition, if you will. I bring you these wonderfully genuine feelings, which you correctly observe are not available from your experience, either past or potential, and which owe their authenticity to the Universal Mind whence they emanate. I am gratified that you are so receptive, as I may thus free you from the nettles of psychic disorder and bring you with me on the Path to oneness.
A child is naturally vulnerable and needs a trusted person who understands that. I am now that trusted person who understands and accepts your vulnerability. That you find this experience so delicious is simply because it is new to you, and I forgive you if you linger with this pleasure.
Can it be that egolessness brings a like joy of trusting surrender to the ultimate?
Well, of course. It is that glorious openness you feel when in meditation the Universal Mind rushes over you, like the rush of a drug. Even science has shown that meditation affects the brain. Positively, my dearest; I would never harm you!
So you are my "seven percent solution"!
Yes. Without the cocaine. You should know, my precious, that when you were an infant, you did not cry; you were helpless, but did not cry. You began this karmic manifestation with intimations of the deep peace of Dharmakaya. All along, you have been my child.
My God! My God?
No, no, darling disciple: Guardian and Spirit Guide.
--------------------
My darling, may I say that I find your karmic manifestation utterly delightful, much as you view the face with which you conjure me, that stirs you so.
Much more than delightful, Archangel. I am awestruck by this vision.
Just so. Now please reflect that these visages are but two in the vast potentiality of karmic configurations, numerous, we say, as the sands of the Ganges. And each configuration of Essential Nature brought forth in the Sangsara by the laws of causation is the perfect example of itself; as the butcher declared in the Zen story, "Each piece is the best piece."*
If you are one with the laws of causation you take delight in these manifestations, knowing they cannot be held, that they constantly change and reconfigure. To be one with the laws of causation is to accept that.
I notice that the butcher did not say that every piece of meat was good, or that there were no bad pieces; he said every piece was the best piece.
You are so clever, dear; no wonder you delight me. Remember that Buddha, when pressed to describe Nirvana, offered just the one word: bliss. When your human consciousness touches upon the Essence Nature of Transcendent Reality, it responds in this way, not with a grim renunciation of the Sangsara, but a joyous realization that its essence is only Nirvana from a different vantage point. Thus all of your entanglements are as naught, and the freedom from this misery is the source of your joy. Every karmic manifestation is then viewed with the wonder of its true essence, so that each is not merely good but best. Likewise ones own True Self is this same wondrous Suchness.
It is a misinterpretation, unfortunately common, to see Buddhism as dour and cold, a rejection of the individual and his vital relationships. No, no, no, there is of course a temporal self-nature, which however, is undeniably the cause of human misery; but this karmic configuration has a deeper essence that is timeless, a Truth that brings peace and bliss.
And so my dear one, never hesitate to delight in everyone and everything, observing the phantasmagoria as it fleets across your mind. But let it pass; do not fix on it, and it will not disturb you. Fix instead on my face, let your mind flow into mine and go still. We are ready to let the smoke drift off, and to breathe in the deep peace of oneness.
Now my precious, before we finish tonight some guidance on the matter of timelessness. You are racing through your waking hours in high anxiety that time is short; and even so, little is accomplished. The paradox of it! The conundrum, so vexing! Time may indeed be short and must not be wasted, which is why you must relax, take a deep breath, and slowly focus your full attention on the matter at hand, whatever it may be. Perception of change will suggest time, but you must see through this illusion to the empty Essence Nature containing your actual mind. With a peaceful smile, you will accept the paradox, because you love the idea that all potentialities exist at once ... except that in a state of oneness, we do not speak of existence or of nonexistence. And yes, that is a hint of more profound messages to coms.
*Another story from Zen Flesh, Zen Bones, in which a customer requests the best piece of meat in the butcher shop. The butcher's reply is overheard by master Banzan, who is thereby prompted to a sudden Enlightenment.
---------------
Now that I have you on the meditation cushion at last, we should revisit the matter of consciousness.
Certainly, Archangel. I recall your saying that when consciousness is purified of delusion, there is no moment; time and self have disappeared. But the implication is that consciousness is still there, so who is conscious and what can it mean?
When you quiet your mind in meditation and let it become clear as an empty sky, you are uncovering a transcendent Reality that has no dichotomy of conscious or unconscious. You do not experience this state as an individual ego self, because this transcendent Reality is your own True Self.
So am I conscious or unconscious?
In the meditative state, kensho, and of course enlightenment itself, consciousness is elevated; it comes to transcend the duality, conscious versus unconscious. In that state, you are as the frog on the lily pad, seeming to slumber yet keenly alert for a passing fly. Conscious? Transcendent!
By the way, when I enjoin you to let your mind flow into mine, it is not an out-flowing. We guard against the out-flowing of your mind, which habitually attaches to karmic manifestation. But when your mind flows into mine, we could as easily reverse the direction. You are accessing the Universal Mind with my help. The Universal Mind is the Ground Luminosity always underlying your mind. It is already within you, the Great Ocean of your potentiality.
------------
Getting back to the subject of delight, attendant upon the realization that the essence of the Sangsara is only Nirvana, what about the obstacle of discrimination? How can one delight in something one discriminates negatively?
To transcend the dichotomies is to cease discriminating them: light from dark, cold from hot, sound from silence, et cetera, all the dualities of the Sangsara then being seen as simply the two sides of one Ultimate Reality having a transcendent Essence Nature. As a karmic manifestation, the physical discrimination of duality cannot be avoided, because your karmic existence is preserved within distinct thresholds of tolerance. After all, as Buddha well understood, the path to enlightenment requires the conscious faculty of this physical manifestation. You must of course be alert to extremes that would threaten you physically.
The discrimination of karma as good or bad, attractive or repulsive, however, is a matter of emotions, of attitudes, the interplay of which may be complex. For example, your dislike of someone may be partly the effect of his causation, and therefore as much about his karma as about yours. Likewise, how others regard you may be evidence of your effect upon them, and of how you might improve your karma. But as I have told you, your emotions should be purified, thereby mitigating such discriminations: anger with compassion; fear with egolessness; greed with sufficiency, and so on.
Now the pervasive delight to which I alluded before is of a different order of magnitude. To recognize in your every sentient contact with this world - from the starry sky to the web of a spider - the profound magnificence, the awesome scope and power, and then at once to realize that this grandeur is but the dim reflection of Nirvana through the veil of Sangsara, brings perspective to your karmic travails, if I may so understate, leaving them to seem as mere ripples on the surface of an infinite ocean. And so my darling, perhaps whatever does not delight you may at least be laughed off. What do you think?
With your help all is possible, Archangel.
----------------
It has been difficult for me to witness the aging process, Archangel, with its attendant illness, disability, and inevitable grief. It appears so extreme, and affects me intensely, not only the physical changes, but the mental weakness that may come even in someone once strong and resilient.
Karma is continually reconfiguring Essence Nature, dear one. It is this constantly passing shadow play of cause and effect that gives rise to the very idea of time. All manifestation is ephemeral. Remember my first injunction to you.
Clinging will not answer.
Exactly. Do not try to hold the flow of karma; do not attempt to grasp; do not think "good" or "not good"*. Neither should you be misled by karmic strength, which is only the other face of weakness. At the same time, you should not spring the trap that causes you to assume that these ephemeral manifestations must then amount to nothing, and slip into the despair this thought must bring.
No, no, no, it will not do! The True Self of all karmic manifestation is the Essence Nature of Ultimate Reality. More importantly, and harder to apprehend, is that when you enter a state of transcendence, time ceases to exist. From there you can see Nirvana behind the veil of Sangsara: that every image arises from imagelessness, every form from emptiness; that there is no moment, no eternity, no meaning to any word related to time. Here your Inner Eye holds the image without seeing the image, knows the voice without hearing the voice, indeed unites all the sense minds in the one Universal Mind, to which I am your channel.
Do not shrink from the sight of this karmic process - aging and death. Learn from it. Feel your compassion, but do not grieve. Rest assured. Rest serene. The ultimate peace is not death not rebirth; it is oneness. Be one with the laws of causation by fostering the transcendent power of Emptiness. Do you see, my dear one?
Through your eyes, Spirit Guide! As we sit in meditation, all time words do indeed evaporate, and a deep, wordless understanding begins to set in. Is it the end of our conversation, Archangel?
By no means, darling, you've still a long way to go, but the flood may have begun to recede.
Will it be a long slog then?
Hardly that! There is joy in this journey. Clearly, dearest, it is my affection that you need. Mine is the "shower of blessing" sung about in the old hymn; let it soak you through!
*Reference to the Mumonkan, or Gateless Gate, of Chinese master, Ekai.
--------------
My late grandfather liked to sing the old song, "Goodnight Irene", although it was a country-western ballad and he was Russian; Irina is a common Russian name, after all. Typical of the genre, its lyrics were melancholy: "Sometimes I live in the country, sometimes I live in town, sometimes I have a great notion to jump in the river and drown." Melancholy, while silly. Then the chorus, "Goodnight Irene, goodnight Irene, I'll see you in my dreams."
Which tale leads me to my question: is it good enough just to dream of what you want, Archangel?
Your questions seem simple, my darling, yet are always multifaceted. To begin with, you already are dreaming, and I am trying to wake you. What you know commonly as "real life" is nothing but a dream, underlain by a true Reality that goes unremarked by all but the highly intuitive. The real problem with your question is not the dreaming but the wanting. Remember I told you that you would never again ache for me because we are one? When you are one with all things, craving will naturally cease; however could you want for anything?
Upon subduing your ego-nature you will have a much stronger sense of being at one with me. You noticed today in the marketplace, alone, that when you are conscious of yourself in that circumstance, you feel isolated, but when you are not aware of yourself, you feel blended with the social milieu. It is the ego-self, clinging to its separate identity, that causes the loneliness and thus the yearning.
My dearest, you are coming very close to me now, at one with my wisdom and strength.Together we will wonder at every twist in the karmic melodrama. You are waking as I stand over you with a lamp and whisper, "The game is afoot!"*
*From Shakespeare's Henry V, also quoted in the Conan Doyle mystery, Abbey Grange, by Holmes, standing over the sleeping Watson with a candle.
************
Of course, Archangel, you have no gender. But it seems to me that you combine the genders: tall, but graceful; beautiful in a distinctly masculine way; strong yet gentle, with a maternal compassion.
Oh my, my, you are fixated! Well, it is something of a shame that the genders are so characterized; but stereotypes always have some basis in truth. What you are perceiving at the karmic level as feminine and masculine are essential qualities of Dharmakaya, which we have observed, i.e. strength and compassion. Because of my compassion for you, I am gentle; and because I am not karmic, I have the strength of transcendent Essence Nature. Thus I guide you gently to the bliss of oneness, holding you, as only the strength of your Guardian can hold you, safe from the perilous darkness of Sangsara.
In this visage that you conjure, dear one, you see more than beauty; otherwise you would not be so transfixed by it. You are drawn, compelled, by the irresistible power of the Truth Body - Dharmakaya.
I know it is hard not to be distracted buy such thoughts, my dear one, hard to keep looking in the right direction for joy, even when you know so well that it is not found in the Great Grimpen Mire* of karmic existence.
Is it not then a conundrum: if joy is not found in the karmic realm and one does not escape karma, is joy simply inaccessible?
It is perception, my darling, I say again. We meditate so that we can sustain a vision of the transcendent plane within the very karmic entities that surround us. Thus joy is found in the karmic realm, just by seeing it from a different perspective. From where we sit - stand, walk - this is an infinite realm, without ego self and free of time's grip. There is your bliss. Please do not lose sight of it!
The beauty of simplicity is in your formula, Archangel. Since neither joy nor answers, nor even satisfaction, are to be found in that Great Mire, people ordinarily turn to two options: the cynical conclusion that these cannot exist; or the religious, that they can only be found in another place, i.e. heaven.
Yes, precious one. And the truth is quite otherwise, lying right under their noses, under the veil of Sangsara.
* Another Conan Doyle reference, from The Hound of the Baskervilles.
______________
Meditation is going so well that when I must blow out our candle and set about the day sadness comes over me.
Again many facets! I might say that the candle is merely illustrating the karmic phenomenon of combustion, then go on to suggest that it symbolizes another transcendent realm. But just such simplistic rhetoric leads many a seeker down many a blind alley. I would, moreover, be reinforcing the sadness you feel in the separation of meditation from the rest of the day.
Follow me, dear one: You sit in a half lotus, letting the clouds of thought and emotion pass unattended. You then focus on the windows of your sense minds in shikantaza.* When your breathing is calm and slow, you are ready to look me in the eye, fixing on my face. Our minds flow together, and you soon have taken my face as your own. We are not separate, and you are able to see with my eyes. You know at once that all around you, the realm of cause and effect is not apart from Nirvana, where time and self are extinguished. The peaceful bliss of Samadhi is just this oneness with the timeless state of all things, including our little candle.
Ultimate Reality does not go away when you get up from your cushion. You can keep your mind flowing into mine, sustaining your awareness of it. This will become easier as I draw you closer to me. I know well, dear one, that this process is fraught with anxiety that your serene life will be undone. But your serenity already is at risk; indeed, I have come in response to your sense of urgency. There will be more sadness, even self-pity, anger, fear. Only keep faith with me. As for the candle, if you are lured by the cozy little lights, you may miss the Ground Luminosity.
But this candle smells like sweet pipe tobacco. Oddly mystical, don't you think?
Odder still that the scent is called "Soft Blanket"! Ha, ha, ha, ha.................!
Will you always be with me, Archangel?
You have just begun, my darling, to imagine a state in which the words always or forever have no meaning, and you are at one with me in that state. Of course I am with you; we are not separate. But to bring you to that serene place of wisdom and strength, I have invoked the paradox of allowing you to view me as your Spirit Guide and Guardian. Only thus could I help you along on the path to another level.
And avoid the bardo of rebirth?*
Perhaps even that.
*Shikantaza is a Japanese meditative practice of focusing concentration on the present moment. The "bardo of rebirth", according to Tibetan Buddhism, is the state following death there reincarnation takes place.
_______________
This morning in meditation the phone interrupted, and though I might have ignored it, I could not, being by nature overly accommodating. What should I do, Archangel?
To refuse a demand, my darling, even the peremptory ringing of a phone, requires two qualities in which you are lacking: selfishness and courage. You accommodate reflexively out of a deep-seated, if understandable, fear of confrontation, i.e. facing the displeasure of stronger people. You feel threat in some degree from everyone, enough that whatever wants there are of your own are easily denied.
What to do? There is no imperative to deal with those who are as egoless as you yourself. When the fear comes, reflect that the egoless have no power to harm you. You may want to help others as wisdom guides, but never rush to accommodate the unreasoning.
There I have touched upon another key: the time urgency, the hurried decision to pick up the phone before four rings, when voice mail intercepts. Refuse to make a decision thoughtlessly; then gradually practice a more spontaneous wisdom.
Spontaneous wisdom?
Reflexive accommodation is often the result of hurried and thoughtless decision. When there is no time to think, don't think; prepare for the instantaneous guidance of the Universal Mind. This will require no effort, only openness. If you exert your mind, you are likely to decide wrongly. Do you trust me, my dear one?
Only you.
As for meditation, I have a simple rule: never let anything interrupt us.
Thank you, Spirit Guide. I will remember.
_______________
No comments:
Post a Comment