The Takeout Window at Panda Express

Posted on by under enlightenment, spiritual awakening, Spiritual light, Spirituality, True self

You’ve been through some changes. Something has happened in your life – either gradually or abruptly – and now everything is different. You can see, hear, feel, and touch a new world, right here where you’ve always been. The very molecules of your body and everything around you seem charged, bright and alive.

You see your life that came before as dreamlike. You’re seeing the world as if for the first time, and it’s infinitely larger. You can taste eternity in this new air.

So now what?

Do you still have to vacuum and take out the trash now that you see your old life seems just an illusion? Do you still have to do your taxes? With fresh joy in each breath, do you still have to do what your stupid boss says?

There is a Zen saying: “Before enlightenment you must chop wood and carry water; after enlightenment, you must chop wood and carry water.” But our world is a bit more complicated than wood and water. What if the wood and water involves humiliation? Can you be enlightened while working the takeout window at Panda Express?

Of course you can. You cannot be humiliated any longer. Gradually – perhaps suddenly – the takeout window becomes an opportunity to serve and meet each new beautiful face that drives up.

I had a friend who was a Unity minister. Before becoming a minister, he did door-to-door sales. At first it was soul-killing work. With all his heart, he wanted to be a metaphysical minister. As he grew in understanding, he came to realize all his comings and goings in the world were charged with spirit. His attitude about his job changed. As he went up the walk to each new door, he sincerely asked himself, “What will the face of God look like this time?”

Needless to say, soon enough he was a Unity minister.

 

How Long Have I Been Here?

Posted on by under Oneness, presence, spiritual awakening, Spirituality, True self

The answer to that depends on what we mean by “I.” During a good portion of my day, I’m very aware of “me,” the human being who was born a few decades ago, who had particular childhood and adult experiences. A good deal of the time, those experiences seem very personal and overwhelmingly real. “Of course they’re real,” I think.

But there are times when I’m not looking out through the eyes of “me.” There are times when the notion of “me” seems to have little charge. I’m surprised sometimes at how easy it would be to let go of it, to let it fall back into the energy of unrealized potential – or whatever energy goo our lives fall back into when they are behind us altogether.

When I was a teenager and later a young adult, I fealt threatened by the notion of having my life wash out like a rain drop into the ocean. I feared that would be obliteration – the death that some see as simply the lights going out.

Now, when I consider the idea of my life washing out into the ocean, it seems a blessed relief. The personal “me” is useful. It’s a tool. The experiences in our lives – in any one of our lives – are rich and colorful. But less and less do I see them as personal. My life is all our lives. I don’t own it, I don’t hold it, I simply use it.

Some say the “me” doesn’t exist, that it’s an illusion. Oh, it exists all right, but you don’t have to identify it as who you are. Who I am has moved on, or has always been beyond. I’m not sure. But I know the lights can’t go out on the who I experience now.

I Ain’t Wasting Time No More

Posted on by under Oneness, presence, spiritual awakening, Spirituality

You reach a point in life when you don’t want to waste any more time. Time begins to seem precious. Time becomes a limited quantity that can slip away forever with hardly any notice, until years have passed, decades have come and gone. You look in the mirror and – wow – time has passed you by, leaving its scars or gravity and worry. And you haven’t written that novel, you haven’t trained for that marathon, you haven’t even unpacked all the boxes from your last move.

And that’s fear talking.

You can always count on fear to try and snatch the moment away – and the moment is what you have. It’s all you have. It’s all you need.

You have the moment if you choose to accept it. The moment is eternity. The moment is now. Right now. You can bring it into focus by changing your breathing. Slow down your breathing. Let the air all the way out. Let it back in slowly. And be where you are.

It doesn’t matter where you are. In traffic. In your dentist’s waiting room. On hold during a call that’s going to make all the difference. There is only one thing that can make all the difference, and that’s to experience . . . what is called so many things . . . oneness, holiness, centeredness . . . being whole.

It doesn’t matter if you feel broken. We all feel broken in so many ways. Some say that spirit enters our wounds. But spirit doesn’t have to enter us. We are made of spirit. There is nothing else to make us from.

We lack only one thing – the awareness of spirit within . . . and spirit without. It is ours as we choose to have it. This moment is all you need to be one with spirit. Breathing in, breathing out. Right here in this moment that holds all of the time you could ever need.

It Guides Me Now

Posted on by under presence, spiritual awakening, Spirituality, transformation

For most of my life, I’ve been aware of a “still small voice within” that seemed more important than the rest of the thoughts banging around in my head. While many associate this phrase with the Old Testament, Mahatma Gandhi also used it when he said, “The only tyrant I accept in this world is the still small voice within.”

For much of my childhood and adult life I was aware of something inside me that was more essential than all the noise of the world. During much of that time, I could only barely hear the voice, and I could only barely feel the presence that seemed to go with the voice.

I often thought, there is something inside me that knows.

I had an odd confidence in that voice. Yet the nose of the world nearly obscured it for years. There were times I tried deliberately to increase the volume of that still small voice. But it stayed remote and scratchy, like a radio station in the middle of the night you can barely hear – a station that happens to be playing the music you most want to hear. It slips away again and again.

Then, I experienced a physical trauma that suddenly changed how it felt to be in the world and changed what it meant to be in the world. All for the better, surprisingly.

As part of that change, the still small voice became clear. The shift in clarity seemed almost physiological. The voice was suddenly at hand, and the sense of presence I always associated with the still small voice seemed to permeate the very cells of my body. Instead of far away and indistinct, the voice and the presence became accessible.

I don’t know what to call it. I don’t know what it is. But I trust it and it guides me now.

It’s Gonna Take a Miracle

Posted on by under miracles, spiritual awakening, Spirituality, transformation

D.H. Lawrence said just the fact we’re here is a miracle. I believe everything in this world is miraculous. Walt Whitman agrees: “To me every hour of the light and dark is a miracle. Every cubic inch of space is a miracle.”

Sometimes a miracle doesn’t even seem like a miracle, but it changes your life. I went through a health crisis that left me believing it was a miracle that I’m still in this world.

A Course in Miracles states that miracles are normal occurrences. If miracles are not happening, that means something’s wrong.

Sumner Davenport asserted that thinking positively is not sufficient to bring real change. For that it takes a miracle. “Positive thinking by itself does not work. Your embodied vision, partnered with vibrant thinking, harmonized with active listening, and supported with your conscious action, will clear the path for your miracles.”

Phillips Brooks believes that we ourselves are the miracle: “Do not pray for easy lives. Pray to be stronger. Do not pray for tasks equal to your powers. Pray for powers equal to your tasks. Then the doing of your work shall be no miracle, but you shall be the miracle.”

According to Saint Augustine, we’re in a land where miracles are natural phenomena: “Miracles are not contrary to nature, but only contrary to what we know about nature.”

Maybe a miracle is simply a reminder the substance of our world is divine. Dwight Longenecker said, “Maybe miracles are given not to prove anything, but simply to remind us that the physical world is not so solid and real and dependable as we think.”

It takes Buddha to say it so simply: “If we could see the miracle of a single flower clearly, our whole life would change.”

 

When We Awake We Will Remember Everything

Posted on by under Oneness, spiritual awakening, Spirituality, True self

The lyric, “When we awake we will remember everything,” comes from the chorus of “When we awake” by Richard Manuel and Robbie Robertson of the Band. The song is about a boy going to his grandfather for wisdom. The song doesn’t explain exactly what the line means, but it has remained in my head for decades.

That thought, “When we awake we will remember everything,” seemed true to me on some level I didn’t understand when I heard it as a teenager. The idea has haunted me through the years in a very encouraging and hopeful way. In the very core of my presence here, I believed it.

While reading spiritual texts – anything from the Upanishads and the Way of Life to Eckhart Tolle and A Course in Miracles – I’ve experienced a remembering rather than learning. I get an overwhelming feeling of recollection when reading spiritual texts.

Over the years, I’ve come to believe we already know who we are. We already know our oneness with each other, so the process of spiritual learning, of coming to consciousness and being part of spirit, is a process of recollecting. Our spirituality is a path of coming home.

When we awake, we will remember everything. We will remember who we belong to. We will understand that we have never been alone. Even in the depths of seeming isolation, we are one with spirit and always have been. When we awake, we will remember everything.

Spirit Is Singing Everywhere

Posted on by under peace, spiritual awakening, Spirituality, transformation

As I began to awaken to the spirit within me, I also began to awaken to the world. During most of my life, I had difficulties with the world and in the world. I believed that only after this life would things begin to make sense. I saw this world filled with massive contradictions, barely inhabitable – in many areas and for many people, uninhabitable.

That has changed remarkably.

I look out my back window as I write this and I can see elm branches rustling in the wind, heavy with April seed pods. I hear a basketball thumping on cement next door. I hear the cooing of a mourning dove. I hear the chirping of our pet parakeets in the room behind me. I see a stone rabbit in the backyard garden that has yet to bloom – and all of it is beautiful.

I didn’t realize spirit was on the outside too.

I am still aware of the pain and fear that dampened my world for so many years – the constant gnawing inside – sometimes a low hiss other times a bone-crunching intensity. This is the pain and fear we all experience.

That pain and fear forces our growth. It insists we find a way to solve it, to move beyond. Leaving it behind takes work, daily effort. That effort takes practice, experiments in grace, and the risk of entertaining the stupid belief that life can be welcoming, healthy, and beautiful.

Once the spirit begins to grow inside, the outside reflects the glow.

I see that beauty on the outside now, in the dazzling world of wood and leaves, on the streets that used to seem so vicious, in everyone’s eyes. And the rushing vitality outside reflects again back through me.

I am not Pollyanna. I know there is much work to do in this world. But there is so much more that I can do now that I see the world as worthy and pain and fear no longer cloud my vision.

We All Shine On

Posted on by under love, peace, spiritual awakening, Spirituality, True self

“Why in the world are we here? Surely not to live in pain and fear.” These are lyrics from John Lennon’s song, “Instant Karma.”

Lennon used intuitive powers to reach this metaphysical point. He knew about pain and fear and knew those emotions couldn’t possibly be the point of life. In the chorus of the song he repeats, “We all shine on.”

When you strip away the pain and the fear, we do all shine on.

In Ana Karenina, Leo Tolstoy said, “Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” He was right. Our pain and fear differentiates us. We’ve all heard someone say, “You don’t understand what I’ve been through.” They’re talking about their pain and fear. We never hear anyone say, “You just don’t understand how happy I am.”

We identify with our pain and our fear. We are not as quick to identify with our happiness or peace. We tend to see those as temporal.

When you strip away all our ego identification, our roles, our childhood pain, our adult trails, the addictions and compulsions, the obsessions and betrayals, when you take all of that away, there is something that remains that’s powerful, something that remains that we share alike. We all shine on.

It’s the presence. In the presence we are one. Our truest self lies beyond the particulars of our lives, beyond our likes and dislikes, beyond our promises and failures, beyond the short-lived triumphs, beyond illness, beyond our pain and fear. While our truest self may sometimes seem far beyond our reach, it’s actually right here. It’s here in the now.

When we strip away those things that are not our truest self, the pain and fear, we release our suffering.

What’s left when we let go of our pain and fear? The here and now, the happiness and peace, the love and acceptance.

To be here now is to demonstrate the awareness that is the same in all of us. All that’s left when we take away the pain and the fear is love and acceptance. In that we’re all the same, in that we all shine on.

You Are a River

Posted on by under spiritual awakening, Spirituality, True self

The most profound question we ask in this life is: who am I? The answer to that question will influence many of your decisions, including how you live your life.

Most of us believe we’re not a thing. We’re not just flesh responding to stimuli. However, some of us believe we are psychological beings who are responding to stimuli.

Many of us believe we are a conglomeration of our roles: a child, a parent, a business owner, a teacher, a sibling. How we perform these roles helps determine who we are: I am a good child, a caring parent, and so forth. This can be played out negatively as well: I am addicted, I am dishonest.

Ultimately, the role-based view of ourselves is unsatisfying – not as unsatisfying as believing we’re just a thing, but unsatisfying nonetheless. Many solve this problem by associating with a belief system: I am a practicing Catholic. I am Mormon, Buddhist, or simply I am spiritual.

I have seen friends reach a state of honest bafflement with the question. “I don’t know who I am,” is an amazing and refreshing statement. It acknowledges that roles and religious affiliation are not sufficient to explain who we are.

I think we’re a river.

The river is not the water that it contains. That water passes or evaporates. At some point the water is no longer a river.

The river is not the river bed or the banks. The bed and the banks are simply the scar the river makes on the earth as it passes.

The river is not its behavior. Some rivers are rough, some are calm, and some are frozen much of the time. Most rivers change their behavior by seasons or by weather.

The river is not its water, the river is not its bed or banks, the river is not even its behavior. Yet there is still something we all recognize as a river. We even name our rivers. We recognize there is something there, even if we can’t say what it is.

I think we’re a river.

The river simply is, just as I simply am.

Spirit Looking Through My Eyes

Posted on by under Healing, love, spiritual awakening, Spirituality, transformation

As time passes it becomes clear that I am seeing the world as spirit. The “me” looking out through my eyes has changed.

For many years, I invested myself in a world that didn’t seem like spirit at all. I tried to fit into the world, to make my way, to find love and love others, to be a good partner, a caring dad, to learn the workings of the world and help where I could. Those intentions were fine. I cherished them.

But the insecurity of falling short over and over was unbearable. And we cannot help but fall short.

The insecurity brought dread and self-loathing. I tried to sooth those painful feelings with alcohol. It worked for a while, but alcohol only works for a while. Then it quits working. After that, it produces its own dread and self-loathing.

I tried to wrestle peace out of the darkness of a world without spirit. A fool’s errand. There is no peace in darkness. I fell further and further behind in my goal of being a decent person.

Thank heavens a crash came. The crash was inevitable. It was my health. And surprisingly, it came with an overwhelming feeling of relief and a final, “OK, I give up.”

Surrender was all I had left, but I had no idea that surrender was a door, the only door. My surrender was followed quickly by healing. It was surrender and healing, over and over, day after day.

Once I was back on my feet – a bit wobbly – it was clear I had become a different creature. Something else was looking out through my eyes. And the world I saw had become a spiritual place. Now I know that it had been spiritual all along. My eyes were finally seeing the truth.

A friend observed that my spiritual awakening was not intentional. Indeed it was not. It came through a life-threatening health crisis. Nor can I credit myself for my recovery. Recovery came through medical science and sustained sobriety. I can’t even credit myself for the sobriety. When I awoke into this new world, all desire for mind-altering substances was gone.

So I can’t say follow my path. Please don’t. But I can say, the world is a spiritual place to the eyes that look out through me to the world. It’s a spiritual place for you as well.