Tag Archives: birth

WHO WOULD HAVE GUESSED!

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“You must die before you die.”
                                    Rumi

It’s a race against time –
Like a river filling up,
Drowning you, and then leaving you behind.

We begin life swimming upstream –
Towards birth, towards an unfolding life, and, then, towards death –
Which comes like a wave –
Or an unfinished song.

There is physical life
And spiritual life –
But they don’t start at the same time
Or travel in the same direction.

The physical life starts out strong but over time winds down
Spiritual life may also get old quickly –
However, “dying” to discover the next life
Sometimes can be useful –
Getting born a second time before dying the first time –
Entering a spiritual world –
Eyes wide open –
Prepared for a birth into love and joy.

Life is such a surprise –
So unexpected –

Who would have guessed!

A NEW START

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The self is nobody
And God is no one.

That’s a start!

God, was, is, a great idea
Coming into existence through a single flashing thought
On its way to becoming everything else.

This idea that eventually became everything
Met nobody – time after time –
And exchanging places in a magical spiritual marriage –
Repeatedly resulted in the birth of pure joy.

I’m working on another idea –
It runs through me only when I’m not looking:

Suddenly, I become a new person
Shining like Jesus or the Buddha
Born this very day.  

It looks like this!

DREAMING OF THE TRUE SELF

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We don’t age in dreams – or internal consciousness either
But we do in mirrors and other peoples’ reactions to us –
Teaching us what our external appearance shows.

God sees the same person at birth, childhood, young adulthood, maturity, and old age
Because, spiritually, we’re always the same age –
Which is why, sometimes, we believe we might survive
Even after our last breath’s been taken away.

If we could only remember that our “true self” doesn’t track physical age –
Whether young or old –
And also remember what our existence feels like in dreams –
We would understand our “true self” lies beyond success or failure,
Age, sickness or health.

Of course, our true self does have the ability to learn –
Especially in one’s attitude to gifts of the spirit – like truth, love, beauty, or justice –
And we’re always free to ask God to accept us just as we are
So that, in turn, we’ll be able to accept ourselves (and others) in the same manner.

Remember, don’t judge yourself by externalities –
But only by the internal feelings and intuitions
Arising out of your individually unique experience.

 

HEART OF GOD

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My grandson, Jules, was recently born
Knowing a good part of what I’d like to know
The moment I die.

And that is – a moment of purity, serenity, and composure –
Before, one day in the future, hopefully, flowering into ecstatic joy.

From the moment of birth – God’s gift of first in-breath –
To the moment of death – God’s gift of final exhalation
Is usually a long and eventful road.

I myself would like to end up with Jules’ ability to gaze out at the world
With such unknowing “wonder” –
In fact, at the end, I’d like to achieve that same look –
Accompanied, of course, with a conscious compassion for the entire world.

I’d like to understand what Jules experienced as truth at his birth –
And then end up achieving a mature ability to love.

Jules, someday I’d like to be able to “see” as clearly as you did on day one –
While, over my lifetime, developing a heart as big as the entire world –
Perhaps even paralleling, in my own small way, God’s own infinite heart.

Yes, I want to go out as clear-eyed as this newborn baby arrived –
While, over time, diligently developing a heart of God.

MIRRORS ARE NO LONGER NECESSARY

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The ego is a “manufactured self”
That we weren’t originally born with.

At birth, we simply arrived as open consciousness –
Innocent – without ego.

Our “ego” was primarily created in response to others –
I.e., we slowly, carefully create personhood over time
Largely in interactions with other people – and especially in response to their opinions about us
And this is true, whether such opinions turn out to be true or false.

So, instead of being unconditionally loved by God – who truly sees us –
We experience a love and acceptance that’s highly conditional
Through “others,” i.e., through human “mirrors” who constantly show us
Our “face” the world sees –
In tens of thousands, maybe even hundreds of thousands, of reflections –
That, eventually, we come to accept as our “self” –
Ending up seeing ourselves the same way others see us –
Most especially, how our parents saw us –
(Who previously went through this same kind of impersonating process).

As a result, we’re incentivized – and sometimes even threatened –
Against re-discovering our original “true self” –
Because that’s not what “others” have been willing to recognize.

The price for regaining our “true self”
Is to completely drop that hard-earned, hard-shelled ego –
Along with everything else we’ve historically become –
And start over!

This might happen one day when we, suddenly, experience the freshness
Of engaging with the world like a “child” again –
That is, the day we discover and claim our original true face.

At that point, we’ll begin radiating the glory inherent in being a “true self” –
The only one God has ever thought worth loving!

BECOMING NOTHING

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We need to give up our false selves – that is, our egos –
And become “nothing”
In order to gain an ability to love everyone and everything.

When you can do this –
You actually become “part of everything” – sharing this gift with God.

In other words, God is Nothing who gives birth to everything –
Or, alternatively, God could also be considered “Everything”
Which, literally, started out from “Nothing.”

God, however, is a full and overflowing Nothing, not an empty Nothing:

This is something we need to think about with respect to our own lives.

ALL THE TIME

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Even if you put on an official “coat” of religion,
You probably still won’t achieve what God truly wants –
However, if you courageously open your heart – even a bit –
You’ll quickly find yourself being flooded with loving spirit.

Actually, “God” isn’t God at all –
Because God doesn’t have a name
And disappears whenever we are attempting to use one.

God sometimes may be found out in open fields or beneath gently rustling trees –
You can’t actually see or hear God then,
But, during such times, it is possible to gain a sense of God’s airy touch.

More often, though, God is found in hardship and suffering –
You won’t hear or see God then either,
But, if it’s important to you, you’ll be able to feel God’s presence.

God is known most completely by us
At birth
And death.

The rest of our lives should be just the same –
Yes, God should be that close – all the time.

TEARS OF JOY

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Evangelical Christians talk about being “born again” –
As if it’s easy.

And that suffering and dying are nothing more than just saying the words
“Jesus Christ.”

But this is all a sham.

Suffering and dying are very difficult –
As Jesus so graphically demonstrated.

But that’s what it costs –

Dying, to make way for the birth
Of the kind of people God meant for all of us to be –

Pretty much everything in the ancient world had to be destroyed
To make room for that.

It’s the same for each one of us – it won’t be easy –
Giving up and
Starting all over again –

Arriving straight out of a spiritual womb
Into a sky we’ve never experienced before.

At birth, everyone starts crying,
You, your friends, the entire world – everyone –

Tears of joy.