It is as bad to take offense as it is to give offense.

 

There is a Gift in Everything, though sometimes those gifts take time to make themselves known.

Dearest & Nearest To My Heart and Soul —

As I mentioned in one of my "daily" messages — I am often posting messages here, rather than by email.  Many people write to me and would like answers. 

To answer a personal email, I put my whole being into it. So it takes time and space and energy. The time I give to responding to an email is time that is gone. So I want that time to be meaningful. 

The responses I post here will be anonymous — that is, I will not reveal names or private information. It is the message that is important, not the person to whom it is sent.

Here is one I sent just today. This person is not a student, and will be anonymous to you. I have clients who are not students.

Dear Anonymous,

I never did say thank you for the lovely card you recently sent me. And for always reaching out to comfort the sadness of others. I appreciate how you continue to grow and evolve, the compassion that flows from you.

I know we have often spoke of your creativity. And now I see your ability to bring healing to others is also a gift.

You heal with your words, your touch, your energy

Yes, the personality has flaws and weaknesses. That is true for all of us

Those who love us, as angels do, see through our weaknesses,

our mistakes — to the Light beyond — and hold us as angels do—in that Light

Although your eyesight was damaged long ago as a child (and I am so sorry that happened...)

Now — the angels say — the gift that came to you ... 

(Because everything comes with a gift, though we must willing and open to receive those gifts)

... is that your Other Senses were strongly developed  — yes, the senses of touch, taste, scent, and yes, your Creativity—

... however the greatest sense is that which is beyond all physical senses

... the sense of Compassion and Tenderness with which you live your life.

LESSONS LEARNED from my Puppy, Benjamin Honey...

Everyone is our Teacher when we approach life with an open mind and a receptive heart, when our eyes are open wide to SEE and our ears are open wide to Hear, when we live in constant prayer, Thy will be done, not mine. 

Puppies are a lot of work, but you get so much joy and love in return. Benji is a great teacher. Here are some lessons learned from my puppy:

___________

Patient. Loving. Kind

1. Benji says, "What? You didn't want your sock chewed on? Then why did you leave it on the floor, right near my mouth?"

2. Benji says, "It's not my fault. I'm just a puppy. Don't blame me. If you don't want your slippers chewed on, put them away."

__________

Patient. Loving. Kind.

Yes, the mind likes to go outward and blame someone else for what goes wrong with our life. Especially, when you share a home with someone, that's where the mind often goes, "My pain is someone else's fault. They should change."

3. Benji says, "What? I should change? I'm a puppy. Puppies chew. Puppies pee sometimes in the wrong places, until they are trained. I'm a puppy. Don't blame me for being a puppy. I am a perfect puppy. You change. I will grow up."

___________

Patient. Loving. Kind.

Yes, we must be patient, loving, and kind to all the puppies in our lives. It is well-known that puppies learn best from loving kindness and positive reinforcement, not from shouts, hits, anger, or cruelty. A dog may obey you because it fears you, but it will not love you. it will not be happy. It will live in fear and pain.

___________

Patient. Loving. Kind.

Be patient, loving, and kind to the puppy who lives within you. When you are harsh and critical towards yourself, that will be reflected in all aspects of your life. 

Benjamin Honey "Benji"

Benji is a happy joyful little being. He is cuddled next to me now, having had his breakfast, gone outside, and played and run around the house. He feels safe. He loves everyone. He greets everyone with a wide open heart, ready to love and be loved. Benji is a rescue dog who has found his Forever Home. 

If you want a certain breed there is probably a rescue for that breed. Benji happens to be a “Designer Dog” — that is, he is a cross between a Beagle and a Yorkie — a Borkie — a relatively new mix, first bred in the 90’s. But that is not why I chose him. I didn’t even know he was a special “designer” dog.

He was rescued from a breeder in Ohio, along with his brothers and sisters and cousins, and brought to a shelter in NYS. Unethical Breeders do horrible things, like keeping a mom in a cage, using her only to breed puppies. 

So if you use a “breeder” make sure the breeder is responsible and gives a loving family life to all their dogs and puppies. Better yet, rescue a dog or a puppy or a cat or a rabbit who needs a home. There are too many dogs already without homes, languishing in shelters, or "euthanized."

I was a foster mom to Benji, who was 6 months old when he was rescued. I had no intention of getting a dog for keeps, but I fell in love with him. He has brought so much laughter and joy to my life. It takes work, training a puppy, but Benji is very smart. He learns quickly.

Dogs want to please us. They want to fit in. They want to live in harmony with us. They want a forever home. 

When we teach with love, puppies and dogs feel safe. They learn. They grow. And we receive so much. Puppies are great Spiritual Teachers when we are willing to learn. 

THE REAL SECRET

 

The Secret for a Heavenly Existence:

"The secret for a heavenly existence is to learn how to discontinue yourself from moment to moment. This means that you are mentally vigilant at all times so that you can see with your spiritual eye every thought as it enters your mind, and then be very careful that that thought does not form an I, a self, a me, a mine. 

This in turn means that when the thought comes up, any thought whatever, out of the tens of thousands that go through your mind a day, that every thought is going to be recognized as it appears and then you're to let the thought do what it’s naturally intended to do, which is to appear before your inner vision and then pass away from your mind and disappear." 

- Vernon Howard

REAL LIFE

 

Real Life

     Don’t be afraid to die to what you imagine you are. You don’t know that you imagine you know who you are. You would vow that your imagination is you. All you have ever known is your acquired nature.

     God says, and Christ taught, that if you will die to your illusory self, which is a time-nature, you will have a spiritual nature that is endless and can never die.

     Part of your false belief in yourself is that you are this very familiar physical body. Your hair is a certain color, you are 5’10” tall, you are 40 years of age, male or female physical structure. Calling yourself the body and your acquired thoughts, knowing they die, you fear death. Of course, you do this, as long as you take yourself as your time-nature.

     Your real nature does not go by the clock or calendar. It is not physical. It isn’t your fleeting thoughts and emotions. That’s your mistake. As long as you make this mistake, you will be afraid of all conditions. As long as you call yourself a marvelous person or a flop, as long as you call yourself anything in time, you will be scared and not have everlasting life. That is what Christ taught. What do you think all true teachings are about, except to understand that you are not your time-nature. Look and see what a mess you are, and that will prove you think you are your body and experiences.

     Simply let go and die to your false, artificial beliefs about yourself and there can be no fear of death because you have died to death. Die to the belief that you are your thoughts about yourself. Die to that and you will die to death. You are under death now. You have no life.

     Pray. Ask God to show you how to die. It doesn’t matter how awkward you are, or how little you know what you are talking about.

      When you die, you will know you have died. You will not think the way you now think. You won’t have the death you now have. You are living in death without knowing it.

     Christ came to teach people how to abolish death and they killed him.

     You have got to get rid of your own hypocrisies that are keeping you in a state of death.

     Obey the rules I have given you and you will have life...real life. 

  —Vernon Howard        

Help Nature Spirits (Nature Angels) help the Bees...

Feed the Bees

During the summer months there are fewer flowers and other food sources for bees. Water is also scarce, so many bees drown when they try to drink from the water sources.

Grate an apple in a bowl, and add some water. The bees will be able to get the sugars from the fruit, drink the water, and not drown because they can stand on the pieces of fruit.

Hsin Hsin Ming

 Third Chinese Patriarch of Zen, Hsin Hsin Ming Seng Ts'an, Translation by Richard B. Clarke

https://web.csulb.edu/~wweinste/HsinHsinMing.html

The Great Way* is not difficult for those who have no preferences.  When love and hate are both absent, everything becomes clear and undisguised.  Make the smallest distinction, however, and heaven and earth are set infinitely apart. If you wish to see the truth, then hold no opinions for, or against, anything.  To set up what you like against what you dislike is the disease of the mind.  When the deep meaning of things is not understood, the mind's essential peace is disturbed to no avail.

The Way is perfect, like vast space where nothing is lacking and nothing is in excess.  Indeed, it is due to our choosing to accept or reject that we do not see the true nature of things.  Live neither in the entanglements of outer things, nor in inner feelings of emptiness.  Be serene in the oneness of things, and such erroneous views will disappear by themselves.  When you try to stop activity to achieve passivity, your very effort fills you with activity.  As long as you remain in one extreme or the other, you will never know Oneness.

Those who do not live in the single Way fail in both activity and passivity, assertion and denial.  To deny the reality of things is to miss their reality; to assert the emptiness of things is to miss their reality.  The more you talk and think about it, the further astray you wander from the truth.  Stop talking and thinking, and there is nothing you will not be able to know.

To return to the root is to find the meaning, but to pursue appearances is to miss the source.  At the moment of inner enlightenment, there is going beyond appearance and emptiness.  The changes that appear to occur in the empty world we call real only because of our ignorance.  Do not search for the truth; only cease to cherish opinions.

Do not remain in the dualistic state; avoid such pursuits carefully.  If there is even a trace of this and that, of right and wrong, the Mind-essence will be lost in confusion.  Although all dualities come from the One, do not be attached even to this One.  When the mind exists undisturbed in the Way, nothing in the world can offend, and when a thing can no longer offend, it ceases to exist in the old way.

When no discriminating thoughts arise, the old mind ceases to exist.  When thought-objects vanish, the thinking-subject vanishes, as when the mind vanishes, objects vanish.  Things are objects because of the subject (mind); the mind (subject) is such because of things (objects).  Understand the relativity of these two and the basic reality: the unity of emptiness.  In this Emptiness the two are indistinguishable and each contains, in itself, the whole world.  If you do not discriminate between coarse and fine, you will not be tempted to prejudice and opinion.

To live in the great Way is neither easy nor difficult, but those with limited views are fearful and irresolute; the faster they hurry, the slower they go.  And clinging (attachment) cannot be limited.  Even to be attached to the idea of enlightenment is to go astray.  Just let things be in their own way, and there will be neither coming nor going.  Obey the nature of things (your own nature) and you will walk freely and undisturbed.

When thought is in bondage, the truth is hidden, for everything is murky and unclear, and the burdensome practice of judging brings annoyance and weariness.  What benefit can be derived from distinctions and separation?

If you wish to move in the one Way, do not dislike even the world of senses and ideas.  Indeed, to accept them fully is identical with true enlightenment.  The wise man strives to no goals, but the foolish man fetters himself.  There is one Dharma, not many; distinctions arise from the clinging needs of the ignorant.  To seek Mind with the (discriminating) mind is the greatest of all mistakes.

Rest and unrest derive from illusion; with enlightenment there is no liking and disliking.  All dualities come from ignorant inference.  They are like dreams or flowers in air; foolish to try to grasp them.  Gain and loss, right and wrong; such thoughts must finally be abolished at once.

If the eye never sleeps, all dreams will naturally cease.  If the mind makes no discriminations, the ten thousand things are as they are, of single essence.  To understand the mystery of this One-essence is to be released from all entanglements.  When all things are seen equally, the timeless Self-essence is reached.  No comparisons or analogies are possible in this causeless, relationless state.

Consider movement stationary, and the stationary in motion; both movement and rest disappear.  When such dualities cease to exist, Oneness itself cannot exist.  To this ultimate finality no law or description applies.

For the unified mind in accord with the Way, all self-centered striving ceases.  Doubts and irresolutions vanish, and life in true faith is possible.  With a single stroke we are freed from bondage; nothing clings to us and we hold to nothing.  All is empty, clear, self-illuminating, with no exertion of the mind's power.  Here thought, feeling, knowledge and imagination are of no value.  In this world of Suchness, there is neither self nor other-than-self.

To come directly into harmony with this reality, just simply say when doubts arise, "Not two".  In this "not two", nothing is separate, nothing is excluded.  No matter when or where, enlightenment means entering this truth.  And this truth is beyond extension or diminution in time or space; in it, a single thought is ten thousand years.

Emptiness here, emptiness there, but the infinite universe stands always before your eyes.  Infinitely large and infinitely small; no difference, for definitions have vanished and no boundaries are seen.  So, too, with being and non-being.  Don't waste time in doubts and arguments that have nothing to do with this.  One thing, all things, move among and intermingle without distinction.  To live in this realization is to be without anxiety about non-perfection.  To live in this faith is the road to non-duality, because the non-dual is one with the trusting mind.

Words!  The Way is beyond language, for in it, there is no yesterday, no tomorrow, no today.

Nature is talking to you, are you listening?

 

“Drink water from the spring where horses drink. The horse will never drink bad water. Lay your bed where the cat sleeps. Eat the fruit that has been touched by a worm. Boldly pick the mushroom on which the insects sit. Plant the tree where the mole digs. Build your house where the snake sits to warm itself. Dig your fountain where the birds hide from the heat. 

Go to sleep and wake up at the same time with the birds — you will reap all of the days' golden grains. Eat more green — you will have strong legs and a resistant heart, like the beings of the forest. Swim often and you will feel on earth like the fish in the water. Look at the sky as often as possible and your thoughts will become light and clear. 

Be quiet a lot, speak little — and silence will come in your heart, and your spirit will be calm and full of peace.”

Saint Seraphim of Sarov

Seraphim of Sarov (July 30, 1754--January 2, 1833)  

Born Prókhor Isídorovich Moshnín [Про́хор Иси́дорович Мошни́н ]. 

One of the most renowned Russian saints. Venerated in the Eastern Orthodox Church, the Eastern Catholic Churches, and the Anglican Communion. Generally considered the greatest of the 18th-century staret (elders of the church).

the way we see....

Is what we see always what we see?

A man or a dog running through the snow

(& little pups in the trees)

A SHINING SILVER STREAM

The Stream of Life

If a shining silver stream had a mind like a human being it might lament, “Am I running in the right direction? Will I make it to the ocean? Why was I born a stream anyway? Why not a river? If only it would rain and rain, perhaps I could swell up and become a river. Then maybe my life would have meaning.” 

Meanwhile, the stream is just shining, just flowing towards the ocean. Meanwhile, life just goes on. 

The angels lovingly suggest that you jump wholeheartedly into the stream of your life. Trust that the stream knows the way, even when your mind does not. The stream of your life is intuitive, magical, intelligent, a bright and beautiful genius. Yes! It is a sparkling singing stream of light and wisdom carrying you where you need to be.

Doubt, fear, and self-criticism are blocks that keep us from flowing intelligently and enthusiastically with the stream of life. It pays to ask ourselves intelligent questions about the direction we are going. It pays to use the mind as a tool - not as a compass. The only accurate compass is the heart. 

When we let the mind take over, as though only it has sight and we are blind, we become prisoners of the mind. We get lost in the dark forest of ego. We forget we are a stream of light flowing through the dark forest to Light. We forget we can trust the heart. Instead of going within to find out what is true for us, we attach to and believe the vagrancies of the mind.

No matter. This is just what human beings do. Even getting lost in the dark forest of ego is not so dire. The heart knows the way. The heart lives in confidence because the heart is always connected to God. Into the heart flows a steady stream of intelligent intuition. 

You can always tap into this intuition. Ask God for help when you need it. Eventually, you will find yourself back in the flow. Maybe then you will realize you were never out of the flow - that every experience is just part of the stream of life. Maybe then you will be the ocean.

A Story of love and learning

Here is a story, created this moment, just for you. It happens to be about a little girl. She could have been anyone’s child. She could have been you.

A BOUQUET OF LOVE

One bright sunny day, this little girl was picking wild flowers in a meadow. Feeling like she was the warmth of the sun, she gathered her bouquet of purple and gold brightness and ran to her father, offering him this bundle of spontaneous love. Her father saw only miserable weeds that set off his miserable hay fever. He shouted at her to get them out of the house, asking how could she be such a stupid little girl, and where was her consideration?

The little girl did not know what consideration was, so she had no idea where hers could be, and she was afraid to ask. She was sure that if she had any, she would not be stupid. She ran outside, no longer feeling like she was the warm yellow sun. Her brightness faded, she sat under a tree with her flowers, consoling them, assuring them they were in no way stupid, or else how could they be so beautiful? Then she planted each one in the earth again, telling them she was sorry she had taken them from their homes, and promised never to do so again. 

The little girl pondered this event as the years passed and somewhere in the angels’ singing, since angels are always singing to little girls and big girls and people of all ages, she heard a song of wisdom: You are not the doer. The fruits of your actions belong not to you, but to God. And the little girl, who by now lived in a bigger body, hugged that song to her, and it comforted her way back to the time when her father had shouted at her and into the future when her own and other people's songs would be shouts.

As the years passed, she learned from these shouts. Sometimes people shouted loudly, sometimes silently. Deep within the angels’ whispers, she discovered that all shouts came from fear and ignorance. People were afraid to feel, so they shouted. People were afraid to tell the truth, so they shouted. People were afraid to love and be loved, so they shouted. People were afraid, so they hid behind shouts that were loud and shouts that were silent, wearing the disguises that pass for love, life, and intimacy. 

Time passed, as time has a way of doing, teaching what it teaches to those able to listen with their hearts. Time taught her to sing gentle songs, giving them away like candy. Once they were gone from her, she never looked back, knowing that gifts with strings attached were no gifts at all. 

One day, when the little girl lived in a body with skin that showed the passage of many lessons learned, she found she had become the bouquet of flowers. And people came from everywhere to catch the scent of her love. 

The angels will leave you to gather your own bouquet from this story, the way the little girl did. The joy of stories comes from listening with your heart. In this way, the story awakens the truth that lives inside you and that truth becomes your own. 

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Essential Spiritual Writings

Ralph Waldo Emerson (May 25, 1803 – April 27, 1882)

"The soul’s communication of truth is the highest event in nature … and this communication is an influx of the Divine Mind into our mind …. Every moment when the individual feels invaded by it is memorable.

It is a mistake for anyone to think he has lived too long in his old, unsatisfactory ways to make the great change. If you switch on the light in a dark room, it makes no difference how long it was dark because the light will still shine. Be teachable. That is the whole secret.”