Your Open Classroom

This is a different kind of classroom. This is where you learn from yourself. You are the teacher and you are the student. You are both.

"Before you speak, let your words pass through three gates: Is it true? Is it necessary? Is it kind?"
-some people think Buddha said this, and maybe he did, since Truth is said in many ways, by many people. But as far as I can tell, it came from Socrates. Who also said...

"It is better to change an opinion than to persist in a wrong one."

A practical path

I like today's daily message, thank you, Indira. "A truly spiritual path ought to be a practical path. If your path does not help you have better relationships and function better in the world, of what use is it? Because this is where you live your life. At the same time you must recognize that you are in the world and you are not of the world."

Yes, it is so important to recognize that a spiritual path is not some airy fairy blissful thing. It is hard work. It is applying the teachings in day to day life. It is practicing awareness exercises. It is practicing being present. It is being actually kind to other people. It is going against so many of the ways we have learned to be, which have not taken us to happiness.

It is following the teachings, not just reading them, to see what happens, what changes. It is staying open and committed to the lessons of our school as well as the lessons of daily life. It is not hiding from the pain, but allowing myself to see how much pain there really is inside of me. And remembering that all negativity is pain. I am grateful for our school and all I am receiving.

Forgiveness

When it comes to a question of our forgiving other people, it is partly the same and partly different. It is the same because, here also, forgiving does not mean excusing. Many people seem to think it does. They think that if you ask them to forgive someone who has cheated or bullied them you are trying to make out that there was really no cheating or no bullying. But if that were so, there would be nothing to forgive. They keep on replying, “But I tell you the man broke a most solemn promise.” Exactly: that is precisely what you have to forgive. (This doesn’t mean that you must necessarily believe his next promise. It does mean that you must make every effort to kill every taste of resentment in your own heart—every wish to humiliate or hurt him or to pay him out.) The difference between this situation and the one in which you are asking God’s forgiveness is this. In our own case we accept excuses too easily; in other people’s we do not accept them easily enough.
From The Weight of Glory
Compiled in A Year with C.S. Lewis

Welcome New Students

Welcome to Beth, Amy, and Debra! 

EUROPEAN TOUR 2017 INFORMATION

Oberwiler Kurse Webpage

https://www.oberwilerkurse.ch/leiter/parsons-judy/

European Tour November 2017

Shared Joy is Double Joy

https://judyparsonsineurope.blogspot.com/

FEAR NOT!

You do not exist.

Your flesh is no evidence 

of your existence

past or future

You only think you are real.

What you think is only what you think.

What you think is a thought.

A passing thought, passing through time,

without constant thoughts you do not exist

your name is just a name 

your body is just a body

it all passes away with time

what you are is beyond time

timeless, beginningless, without end

You cannot die because you were never born

a body was born and given a name

given an identity that you believed in

a believe is a strong thought

you are not a thought

you are eternity in a body

a great treasure lies within you

when all thoughts come to an end

then what remains is what you are

a treasure without end

your greatest friend

the only true friend

the body dies

Spirit does not

So never fear

your true nature 

IS 

ETERNAL

Love, Indira 

Already Gone

When we are open and receptive, we can find words of truth and inspiration everywhere, for example, in the song Already Gone by The Eagles:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xM6ibXV20Dk

"Just remember when you look up in the sky, you can see the stars, but still not see the light."

"Well, I know it wasn't you who held me down. Heaven knows it wasn't you who set me free. So oftentimes it happens that we live our lives in chains, and we never even know we have the key."

The point of this message is to encourage you to stay open and receptive to messages of Truth. Life can be an exciting journey of discovery when you let it be. Resolve to live your life alert and aware. See the stars with something more than just your physical eyes. Resolve to see with your heart. Resolve to see without fear. 

When we look at life through eyes of fear, we have no choice but to shut down to protect ourselves. When we shut down in an attempt to stay safe, we are less safe .  . . because we are living life with less intuition, less open to the Truth in every moment. We are focused on the fear in the mind, instead of the love in the heart. 

Truth is always speaking to us. When you know this, when you stay open to discovery, then your life has meaning because you see the meaning of life, which is self-discovery . .  . discovering your true nature, the nature of everything. You allow yourself to be guided by light . . . and there is no need to fear the darkness when you are guided by light.

So oftentimes it happens that we live our lives in chains and we never even know we have the key.

*Written by Jack Tempchin & Robert Arnold Strandlund for The Eagles 1974 On the Border.

 

Happiness

You might like to read this...

This is how to be happier, according to brain science: be_happier

nature

acceptance of what IS

In this moment, I deeply and profoundly accept myself. All my faults, problems, and the greatness of my life.

problem:
 1. a matter or situation regarded as unwelcome or harmful and needing to be dealt with and overcome.

• a thing that is difficult to achieve or accomplish.
• [ as modifier ] denoting or relating to people whose behavior causes difficulties to themselves and others (such as a problematic person).

2. Physics & Mathematics: an inquiry starting from given conditions to investigate or demonstrate a fact, result, or law.

live love laugh

MOTHER GOD

For this moment, let us experience God in the Feminine Form, as Divine Mother

Give every moment to Mother God. Entrust your heart to the keeping of Mother God. It sounds so simple, perhaps too simple. Angels love what is simple. Life is simple when you lovingly accept yourself as you are and life as it is.

Melt into softness. Each moment is new. Accept what is and what is not. In the newness of the moment you are alive! You are here! You are present! Life in a human body is brief, too brief to spend time being absent, unaware, trapped in thoughts that come like a wall between you and life.

Know that you are loved more than you could ever dream, because you are God's dream, and in God's dream there is only love, no matter what the outer appearance seems to be.

Rilke

For beauty is nothing but the beginning of terror
which we are barely able to endure,
and it amazes us so,
because it serenely disdains to destroy us.
Every angel is terrible.
-Rilke

...angels are terrible only to the ego. Angels seek not to destroy ... but to reveal ... to reveal your true nature ... what is "destroyed" -- your false self of lack, loss, fear, and limitation -- is revealed never to have existed at all -- what Remains is ... what Remains ... LIGHT.

C.S. Lewis

Those Divine demands which sound to our natural ears most like those of a despot and least like those of a lover, in fact marshal us where we should want to go if we knew what we wanted. He demands our worship, our obedience, our prostration. Do we suppose that they can do Him any good, or fear, like the chorus in Milton, that human irreverence can bring about ‘His glory’s diminution’?

A man can no more diminish God’s glory by refusing to worship Him than a lunatic can put out the sun by scribbling the word ‘darkness’ on the walls of his cell.

But God wills our good, and our good is to love Him (with that responsive love proper to creatures) and to love Him we must know Him: and if we know Him, we shall in fact fall on our faces. If we do not, that only shows that what we are trying to love is not yet God— though it may be the nearest approximation to God which our thought and fantasy can attain.

Yet the call is not only to prostration and awe; it is to a reflection of the Divine life, a creaturely participation in the Divine attributes which is far beyond our present desires. We are bidden to . . . become like God. That is, whether we like it or not, God intends to give us what we need, not what we now think we want. Once more, we are embarrassed by the intolerable compliment, by too much love, not too little.

The Problem of Pain. Copyright © 1940, C. S. Lewis Pte. Ltd. Copyright restored © 1996 by C. S. Lewis Pte. Ltd.

AWARENESS

AWARENESS  If only we knew how much others are secretly suffering, we would be very consciously tender to them.  If you could only feel this secret feeling, you would treat them differently than you now do. Human beings cannot feel others because they are asleep.

On the present moment

Wise words from the man who wrote Alice in Wonderland and many other wonderful books:

"Never, in peace or war, commit your virtue or your happiness to the future. Happy work is best done by the man who takes his long-term plans somewhat lightly and works from moment to moment “as to the Lord.” It is only our daily bread that we are encouraged to ask for. The present is the only time in which any duty can be done or any grace received."

From: The Weight of Glory: And Other Addresses. Copyright © 1949, C. S. Lewis

MOVING ART

https://www.youtube.com/user/LouieSchwartzberg

Gratitude HD - Moving Art™

A Moving Art original short. Flmmaker Louie Schwartzberg motivates those around him as happiness is revealed. Spoken word and music montage created and composed by Gary Malkin -- narration written and spoken by Brother David Steindl-Rast.

"So, my very dear friends, don’t get thrown off course. Every desirable and beneficial gift comes out of heaven. The gifts are rivers of light cascading down from the Father of Light. There is nothing deceitful in God, nothing two-faced, nothing fickle. He brought us to life using the true Word, showing us off as the crown of all his creatures." - James 1:17-18The Message (MSG)

Seeing with your Heart

Helen Keller, who had eyes that could not see and ears that could not hear, said, “The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched. They must be felt within the heart.”

What might it be like to really see—with the heart? Perhaps the sense of separation would vanish. Perhaps you would be completely safe and serene in the Oneness of things. Perhaps you would be wiser and saner. Perhaps you would see better than ever before!

Even if you were without judgment, you would not be without discrimination. Discrimination is necessary so you do not try to tie a snake around a box. Seeing things as they are, not as you think they are, allows for more acute discrimination.

INSTRUCTIONS FROM A MYSTIC

A man who lived in constant dread sought out a teacher of mysticism. "Please help cure my overwhelming fear," the man implored the mystic.

"What makes you afraid" the wise man inquired.

"Both my enemies and my future. I fear what they can do to me."

Instructed the mystic, "Go collect some of this fear of your enemies and bring it to me in a box."

'But I cannot do that," protested the trembling man.

"Very well. Go into your future and bring me some of its fear in a box."

"But that is also impossible," the man stated. "Then how can you fear either enemies or the future?' asked the mystic. "You fear things having no existence outside of your own unenlightened mind. Like most people, you project your own mental state and wrongly conclude that the fear exists in external objects. Now you know better. Even this bit of knowledge qualifies you for class-study, which starts this evening."
                      --Vernon Howard, The Power of Esoterics

Be As You Are

You know that you are. Don't burden yourself with names, just be. Any name or shape you give yourself obscures your real nature. ~ Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

I had the good fortune to meet Nisargadatta on my first sojourn to India in 1978. I'd been reading his book I AM THAT -- which he didn't actually write, but which was a compilation of his talks by one of his students. Nisargadatta lived in Mumbai, which was called Bombay then. (The English  changed the name from its original Mumbai, now the Indians have rightfully changed it back again.) I walked up narrow stairs to his flat where he lived with his family. The door entered into a room where students sat on the floor facing Nisargadatta. Nisargadatta held my hand as I left and gazed into my eyes. His eyes were so bright, so intelligent, so piercing. I felt only kindness and understanding. He understood more about the young woman I was and the paths I would have to walk then I knew myself at the time. He told my everything with the look in his eyes, but I would have to travel far before I could even begin to receive what he gave to me, before I could become receptive enough, before I could give up false loyalties and begin to be loyal to the Truth within.

Dancing Angels :)

"I'll just leave you with this. I don't care how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. It's enough to know that for some people they exist, and that they dance." -Mary Oliver

Angels do exist

In art we are once again able to do all the things we have forgotten; we are able to walk on water; we speak to the angels who call us; we move, unfettered, among the stars. -Madeleine L'Engle

Let down the walls of negative thoughts

Right now, right this moment, the angels are trying to get through to you. Truth, God, Reality, Higher Consciousness -- whatever name you choose to use -- is trying to get through to you.  It is all a matter of listening, of what you listen to. Thoughts are like walls between you and the angels. Walls prevent you from being free. Open all your windows wide. Wide! Be receptive. Let the angels, who love you, who want the best for you, let the angels in. You do not have to listen to thoughts of lack, loss, fear, and limitation. Listen to the higher voices of the angels. Let Intuition be your Guide. Let yourself be guided, instead of thinking you have to guide yourself. Now! Right now! Whatever you are planning to do next, unless it is urgent, let it go, and let the angels guide you. Trust. Follow your Intuition. Just relax. Take a deep breath and let all tension go. Let the higher energy of the angels guide you. See what happens.