Tag Archives: essence

To Serve Comfort Needs

Posted on by under A spirit teacher tells me that, developing awareness, Finding our unique way, higher education, Life-long learning continues

Spirit tells me that there is more to life
than material existence can ever offer,
for it is as the lowest step on a ladder
to ever-higher levels of existence.

Peaceful co-existence can never come from
focus on form alone, while ignoring essence,
and all form possesses, or contains, essence.

Even a chair?

Even a chair.

What essence could a chair possess.

Purpose, or potential purpose.

To serve comfort needs?

Yes, Life itself serves comfort needs.

How?

By expressing itself within all forms
of life.

But, not all forms of life feel comfortable.

How do you know?

I’m a form of life.

Yes.

I don’t always feel comfortable.

Why?

How could that be possible?

How could it not be possible?

There’s something you’re not telling me.

What?

Perhaps we each define comfort differently?

As a quality or as a variable?

I could feel less comfortable?

Yes.

Yes.

A Tree of Compassion

Posted on by under A spirit guide shares a precious gift, Attitudes can be seen, developing awareness, Finding our unique way

Spirit asks me what I will do to celebrate
my recovery.

I haven’t fully recovered, yet.

Do you expect to?

More or less.

Then, it is time to plan to celebrate.

How will I celebrate.

You could give thanks to the Universe.

I do, now.

How do you express your thanks?

In action?

How else would it be possible?

What would you suggest?

You could plant a tree.

Where?. My small garden is crowded, now.

Is your heart also crowded?

What kind of tree could I plant in my heart?

A tree of Compassion.

Compassion for whom?

And what?

How can I feel compassion for …

Go on.

For Life?

Is that not possible?

It would include myself.

And?

To feel compassion for myself would require
separating myself from myself.

Can you do it?

Separating the actor from the role she plays?

Yes. Separating essence from form.

It wouldn’t be easy, for me.

I didn’t promise easy.

Intentionally or Otherwise

Posted on by under a sense of community, A spirit guide shares a precious gift, Attitudes can be seen, developing awareness, Finding our unique way

My spirit teacher tells me that we are whom we are,
intentionally or otherwise, and that we each share
with the world we live in and are a part of
the essence of our life.

A rose is a rose even when it has been planted
among vegetables, and a sheep grazing with cattle
is still a sheep.

But, He tells me, a rose growing among vegetables
has an opportunity to become aware of being
different from her or his neighbours, as does
a single sheep among cattle, in a way
that would not have been possible if they each
had been surrounded only by their own kind.

Is this about individuality?

In what way?

Awareness of our uniqueness.

Yes and no.

Please explain.

What?

No. Why?

Why what?

Please explain why awareness of being different
from those around us is not about uniqueness.

Each of the cattle and vegetable plants
are also unique in some way.

But, not nearly to the extent that a different
animal or plant would feel.

Were we talking about feeling unique
or being unique?

How is one possible without the other?

Awareness or lack of.

How can awareness change reality?

Awareness is reality.

There is Room in One World for Many Religions

Posted on by under developing awareness, simple spiritual insights, The essence of all is within us

Spirit tells me that to everything there is a season
and purpose.Of course I’ve heard that before,
in the Church of my childhood.

Perhaps every religion has its own history that is
taught to honour the wise prophets
of that particular tradition.

They are all one tradition in different forms.

Why would one come in different disguises?

Never in disguise.

Then, why are they each seemingly designed …

Not seemingly. They are each and every one designed
to fit the needs of individual cultures, at a
specific time in their formation and development.

But, why are they each a part of specific cultures?

To express the essence and potential of each
specific culture.

Then, the Universe contributes to the …

The Universe more than contributes to individual
expression. It designs each individual expression,
at least the essence of that expression.

But, its expression is in form.

Yes, and form requires …

What?

What do you think?

Form is the expression of essence?

Not necessarily.

How can it not be?

Form can be distorted and misused.

Perhaps every religion is guilty of that.

None are.

Please explain.

Religions in themselves are all pure,
as reflections of a vision provided to a
particular culture, through saints and
prophets. It is never the religion that
becomes tainted.

However, some individuals are and always
have been tempted to distort and contaminate
its pure essence, and to use and abuse
the flock they were entrusted to serve and care
for, to benefit themselves, alone.

But, if all religions have always ..

No

Then if some …

All religions, in essence have been designed
to serve us all. But, all religious leaders
have been tempted, and some have surrendered
their souls to that temptation.

So, what is the answer?

To what?

If all religions have been designed to serve us
well and yet can become contaminated by human greed,
how can individuals who seem to need to belong to
a religious community with a structural centre that
symbolizes their particular faith, ever know
the original messages of the founders of their faith?

The essence is within us and can never be distorted.

Then, what is this essence?

A sense of oneness of community,within a larger
community within an even larger ….

Then, there is room in one world for many religions?

Is there room in one body for more than one organ,
or for more than one cell within each organ?

The individual body components are designed to serve
both themselves and all others, each in its own way?

Yes.

Existence Expresses Essence

Posted on by under higher education, self-transcendence

Spirit tells me that the existentialist claim,
if it be one, that existence must necessarily
come before essence is based on a misconception
of reality.

Nothing exists without essence and essence
exists to express itself.

Essence can be described as a spiritual
underground movement, whose roots do not develop
in the open air but beneath the surface of
everyday life.

Their light comes from within and they live
to nourish and support, not a transcendent form
of themselves but a life that can thrive
in the open air and learn to adapt to
a different form of light to sustain it
above ground.

The underground environment protects
and nourishes roots that know they will
never see the results of their life’s work.
But they also know they are part
of something much greater
than might seem to be.

Roots are as one with the plant
they feed with their life.

Roots could teach us, if we are
willing to learn, that we have
limited control over outside forms,
but we do have an inner source
of power and light, if we will
only open to it.

Then, perhaps we are as form
unaware of our own essence?

Yes, or a plant that denies
it has roots.

The Essence of Form is Life

Posted on by under developing awareness, grass-roots ethics, Uncategorized

Spirit tells me that the purpose of form is to express essence, and the

Essence of all or any form is Life.

 

Conscious awareness allows humans and all other beings to choose

How they express their individual essence, which, of course, is not

All that individual.

 

But, if how I choose to live my life expresses my essence, and others

Express their essence by how they live, and if we all seem to live in

Ways that are unlike those of each other, then what does this say

About life?

 

It simply describes Life as dynamic, variable, and highly unpredictable.

The Price of Bonding

Posted on by under developing awareness, seeking the middle way, Uncategorized

Spirit tells me that, to the extent that we each influence another,

To that extent we are consuming or being consumed into

The essence of the other. Some call this process bonding.

 

This is, He tells me, a Universal Law, wherein all separated

Aspects of life return to again become one.

 

That may be so, in the long term, but how does knowing that

Affect my life here and now?

 

Have I influenced your thinking?

 

Very much so.

 

Then, are we bonding?

 

Yes, I hope so, but I would resist being consumed.

 

Yes.

 

 

 

Seekers of the Limit

Posted on by under developing awareness, seeking the middle way, Uncategorized

Spirit tells me that we are here in physical form

To refine our essence, and our essence is potential.

 

Each mountain we climb, and each and every struggle

Is as climbing a mountain, prepares us to climb ever higher.

 

From the valleys to foothills and then to the highest peaks.

And, as we climb higher and higher, we serve as inspiration

To those who struggle to follow, not us, but the way

We follow our dream.

 

And, as high as we might climb, we seem to know that

Ahead of us there will always be heights beyond heights,

Where other climbers who, like us, are seekers of the limit.

 

Spirituality’s Seductive Nature

Posted on by under developing awareness, Uncategorized

It was not love at first sight, at least not in a physical sense, since I

Have not yet developed the capacity to visualize that area wherein

Form and essence merge in ever-finer elements of matter.

 

But, human and spirit qualities seem to be, in many ways,

More close than similar. And, so would be the potentially

Seductive nature of student and teacher attraction.

 

When I ask Spirit to explain why mutual attraction to

Spiritual values could …

 

Be corrupted? The corruption, or danger of such, is in

My own mind, or it isn’t.

 

He then reminds me of the countless gurus I have followed

Throughout many lifetimes, or so it seems, with each one

Falling from grace, in my mind.

 

They didn’t fall; they seemed to crash. Confucius might calmly

Comment, “No blame”, but I was, each and every time,

Devastated and confused. I was sure, beyond a doubt, again,

Again, and yet again that I had discovered a philosophy

To live by that explained everything, until it didn’t.

 

Will I meet the same fate?

 

How can I know..?

 

Until or unless it happens?

 

Yes, and perhaps that scares me.

 

Why? When it is time to move on to another teacher, we must,

Or stagnate.

 

My earlier teachers belonged to recorded history…

 

So, were less personally a part of your life?

 

Yes.

 

 

 

Oneness with viariable attributes

Posted on by under developing awareness, seeking the middle way, simple spiritual insights, Uncategorized

Spirit tells me that spirituality is a natural capacity

To expand a mystical awareness and understanding

Of life that develops compassion for others.

 

We can, if we will to, increasingly recognize

Ourselves in others, and others in ourselves,

Without which, He claims, compassion is not

Possible.

 

There is no essential difference between anyone.

We could never, He tells me, recognize love or

Hostility in others, if we were incapable of

Experiencing, to a greater or lesser degree,

Perhaps, the emotions that we witness.

 

In essence, there is oneness with variable attributes.