December Musings

“Progress is impossible without change;
and those that can’t change their mind
can’t change anything.”
George Bernard Shaw

If you have a Burning Desire
and you’re Determined to Change,
Welcome! You’re at the right place!
Joe

Carmen Moshier ~ SONLIGHT

Here, we don’t let life’s speed bumps stop us. Instead, we look behind Life’s curtain and practice the steps that change everything! Here, you discover and experience how what “seemed to be” held you back – through changing your perspective – gives you wings.

There is wonder, encouragement and excitement in being open and receptive to seeing with new eyes. There is only stagnation, eventual disillusion, frustration and regret with clinging to that which we once thought but eventually found contrary to humanity’s’ emerging.

Nietzsche said, There will always be rocks in the road ahead of us. They will be stumbling blocks or stepping stones; it all depends on how you use them. To live is to suffer, to survive is to find some meaning in the suffering. I was in darkness, but I took 3 steps and found myself in paradise. The first step was a good thought, the second a good word and the third a good deed.

I’ve found that by imagining the rocks in my path as being pop-quizzes, this helps me confirm how well I’m aligned. Am I walking the path I talk? My path is “That every event is a gift – be grateful and loving for it.”

You see, when I’m in alignment, are my actions and words on the same page? After all, this is the story I imagined and wished for, then I’m in paradise. Have you driven a car with the front end out of alignment? If you have, you remember the bumpy ride getting bumpier and bumpier as you increased your speed. But, after you had the front end aligned, your ride is again smooth and enjoyable. Same for when your thoughts, words and deeds are aligned with your dreams – you wake up feeling grateful for your good fortune of being you.

The Dalia Lama shares an experience that “SCIENCE has always fascinated me. As a child in Tibet, I was keenly curious about how things worked. When I got a toy I would play with it a bit, then take it apart to see how it was put together. As I became older, I applied the same scrutiny to a movie projector and an antique automobile.

At one point I became particularly intrigued by an old telescope, with which I would study the heavens. One night while looking at the moon I realized that there were shadows on its surface. I corralled my two main tutors to show them, because this was contrary to the ancient version of cosmology I had been taught, which held that the moon was a heavenly body that emitted its own light.

But through my telescope the moon was clearly just a barren rock, pocked with craters. If the author of that fourth-century treatise were writing today, I’m sure he would write the chapter on cosmology differently.

If science proves some belief of Buddhism wrong, then Buddhism will have to change. In my view, science and Buddhism share a search for the truth and for understanding reality. By learning from science about aspects of reality where its understanding may be more advanced, I believe that Buddhism enriches its own worldview.

You see, many people still consider science and religion to be in opposition. While I agree that certain religious concepts conflict with scientific facts and principles, I also feel that people from both worlds can have an intelligent discussion, one that has the power ultimately to generate a deeper understanding of challenges we face together in our interconnected world.”

The underlining is mine to draw attention to it. Imagine, the breakthroughs we will experience as more and more of us, dogmas included, update beliefs from this perspective.

There’s no shame in discovering what one thought to be true is later found not to be. If there’s shame, it’s in being so invested in the story one thought to be true that one refuses to accept new findings showing it’s not as we previously believed.

Thomas Merton, Trappist monk, author (his autobiography The Seven Storey Mountain sold over one million copies, translated into over fifteen languages and made National Review’s list of the 100 best non-fiction books of the century) of over sixty books, theologian, mystic, poet, social activist, Catholic priest and scholar of comparative religion.

With all of Merton’s acknowledged and recognized extensive background in religion, even he had trouble wrapping his head around God. He wrote:

“Perhaps I am stronger than I think.
Perhaps I am even afraid of my strength, and turn it against myself, thus making myself weak.
Making myself secure. Making myself guilty.
Perhaps I am most afraid of the strength of God in me.
Perhaps I would rather be guilty and weak in myself,
than strong in Him whom I cannot understand.”

God is so much more than we think. With each of us a spark of God – we are more than we think. From this perspective, look with new eyes at Swami Vivekananda’s comment, “Never think there is anything impossible for the soul. It is the greatest heresy to think so. If there is sin, this is the only sin; to say that you are weak, or that others are weak.”

As Merton said, not only are we not weak – we are stronger than we can imagine. More important than we acknowledge. As Rumi said, “You have more love within you than you could ever understand.”

Swami Vivekananda stated, “All the powers in the universe are already ours. IT is we who have put our hands before our eyes and cry that it is dark.”

Just because back in the dark age it was thought otherwise is no reason to cling to that mistaken certainty.

How easy it is and how many of us succumb to denying what our emergence tells us again and again.

Regardless the name we each call God, we all are a spark of The One.

Carmen Moshier ~ Child of the Universe

We’re all doing the best we can given our current awareness and perception: What has happened in our lives, what we’ve learned, where we are and what we have done. Time and knowledge don’t stand still, time marches on.

Frequently, as we emerge, we discover we were wrong. There’s no shame in that.

Just follow the Dalia Lama’s example. Give the benefit of the doubt while acknowledging, accepting and using what we have learned. It behooves us to be Open and Receptive to learn and grow including Acknowledging and Accepting what humanity learns through discovery and experience.

Accept we did the best we could do then – not now. Don’t limit yourself because of previous limitations in knowledge, awareness and perceptions.

Until Next Time,
Joe

Carmen Moshier ~ CAN WE LOVE IT ALL

 

“Magic is Believing in yourself – if you can do that, you can make anything happen.”
Goethe