If Life is Love, What Have I to Give?

 I want to share a waking dream this week. I came upon a documentary called “God’s Super Collider,” and I found it so fascinating I watched it three of four times. It is mainly about the Higgs field and Higgs particle (known as the God Particle), which give mass to everything in the known universe. Also it explains ‘dark energy’ and ‘dark matter’ better than I have seen before. But what I liked most is that the narrator/ filmmaker takes a gnostic turn with this scientific discussion into a treatise on God as Everything (and, No-Thing).  God is not outside but within every cell, every atom and particle of Its creation, the very air we breathe both metaphorically and literally. Since the Universe is One = ‘God’ = Love and love only, as THE cohesive and integrative weft and warp of reality or life itself, then It Just Is and that is All.

I Am… That… I Am.

I came away from this program with a mantra phrase that I practiced for several days:

“In Love I live and breathe and have my Being.”

This leads me back around to my monthly question about ‘How May I Serve?’ Since all life is One and we are each and all part of this Whole, then service to one is service to all, including care for oneself and one’s dear loved ones.

So I offer two techniques we can use to “take stock” of our capacity to be of greater service to the Whole:

First, make a list of your five (to ten) greatest strengths. I once attended a creativity conference where a workshop presenter had us write our five greatest weaknesses, then strengths; then he asked us to crumple the list of weaknesses and throw it away. Focus on your strengths to improve those and over time former weaknesses will also strengthen.

Second, write or talk about or make a list about: “What I Have to Give.”

List as many traits or qualities or abilities and talents you have developed that come to mind as ways you have been or could be of service in your life.

Review both lists or journal notes. When I did this I found myself noting beside each ‘what I have to give’ item in what domain or kind of relationship or activity I can or could express that trait. For instance, “caring” I can and do give to my pets, friends and family; while teaching I (can) give in more structured activities.

Try circling 3-5 of the qualities and/or strengths you have noted that seem to stand out to you as potentially linked; so, you can connect the dots between your greatest strengths and what you have to give. Looking then solely at these circled and linked elements, ask yourself if they suggest some specific sort of activity or a fresh approach to your developing and offering a new form of service?

images are from pixabay.com

I welcome YOUR Story and Comments!

Sing Hu, a Healing Song of Divine Love

This past two weeks I have been sharing well-known prayer poems as words from the HEALER archetype energy…whether you think of that as your own inner archetypal Healer part of Self, or Spirit Itself, or the centering Order of the Universe, or God as the Creator and Healer, or a spiritual Teacher or Master who brings Healing to your Heart.  Spirituality in any form brings healing energies and allows us also to be a Vehicle of divine or impersonal, detached love which can be a healing balm for others who are open to receive that love.

I will share two more prayer poems today and Sunday (or Tuesday) to wind up this month of alchemical pairings of the HEALER Archetype with the Life Metaphor Life Is (or, can be!)…Better Endings.

Eckankar Worship Service

Sunday, Jul 8, 2012, 11:00 AM

Marin Eckankar Center
840 B Street San Rafael, CA

1 Members Went

Join us for an ECK Worship Service to share your spiritual insights and experiences with others like you. Discover spiritual tools to meet life’s challenges. Awaken to the divine guidance always within you. Open your heart to give and receive more divine love. Experience how the Light and Sound of God can help you lead a happier life.  The theme fo…

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Sing Hu, an ancient, sacred Name for the Creator

For myself, I take quite seriously Ghandi’s words shared in Tuesday’s post about the value of ALL religions or spirituality and including secular philosophical systems of belief or faith that are each of unfathomable significance and truth to the practicing Believer. My own spiritual practice for over forty years (would you have asked) is that of Eckankar, a modern-day religion with ancient roots, sometimes known as the Religion of the Light and Sound of God.

In Eckankar, we recognize and sing religiously as a love song to God an age-old prayer poem; it is a mantra that we may practice daily, even 24/7 in the background of our thoughts or consciousness. This ancient Word, sung simply on the outgoing breath as the one syllable HU (or, Huuuuuuuuuuuu), is found in many faith traditions. It is found in Allah+HU+Jah(weh) (Allelujah!) in declaration of names of the Divine, and it meant God or the Breath of God in ancient Egypt. It is in the Hawaiian Kahuna (a healing energy or Healer persona), and Hututu is the leader of all of the pantheon of Hopi Spirit-bearing kachinas.

The most popular poet of our modern age is Jalal-ad-DIN-Rumi, whose spiritual Teacher/ Master was Shams, or Shamus-i-Tabriz. Rumi (1207-1273 AD) wrote his “ecstatic” (from Gk. ekstasis: ‘standing apart from the body’) poetry in the mid 13^th Century in a region of what is now northwestern Turkey. Below allow me to share some of Rumi’s poems that include reference to this love song to God or Name of God or the Breath of the Creator: HU.

The HU in Rumi’s Poetry

In sufi circles they say, “There’s prayer, and a step up from that is meditation, and a step up from that is sohbet, or conversation.”
Who is talking to HU! (The pronoun for divine presence.) Lover to beloved, teacher to disciple. The Friendship of Rumi and Shams
became a continuous conversation, in silence and words, presence talking to absence, existence to non-existence, periphery to center.
Rumi’s poetry may be heard as eavesdropping on that exchange.”

Coleman Barks, May 2, 1994
Say I am You – RUMI

Mathnawi, Book VI, 4038-4044http://www.sourcetext.com/hupage/Rumi/rumi0.html

 

[Open Secret – Versions of Rumi
by John Moyne and Coleman Barks]

This is what the Friend can do
when one is in such love. Sensual people use the holy names
often, but they don’t work for them.
The miracle Jesus did by being the name of God,
Zuleika felt in the name of Joseph.

When one is united to the core of another, to speak of that
is to breathe the name HU, empty of self and filled
with love. As the saying goes, The pot drips what is in it.
The saffron spice of connecting, laughter.
The onion-smell of separation, crying.
Others have many things and people they love.
This is not the way of Friend and friend.

 

[One-Handed Basket Weaving – RUMI
by Coleman Barks]

Muhammed is said to have said,
“Whoever belongs to God, God belongs to.”

Our weak, uneven breathings,
these dissolving personalities,
were breathed out by the eternal
Huuuuuuuu, that never changes! 
A drop of water constantly fears
that it may evaporate into the air,
or be absorbed by the ground.

It doesn’t want to be used up
in those ways, but when it lets go
and falls into the ocean it came from,
it finds protection from the other deaths.

Its droplet form is gone,
but its watery essence has become
vast and inviolable.

Listen to me, friends, because you
are a drop, and you can honor yourselves
in this way. What could be luckier

than to have the ocean come
to court the drop?

For God’s sake, don’t postpone your yes!
Give up and become the giver.

******   ******

Anyone can sing HU, either aloud or silently. It does not belong to any one religion or spiritual Way. Simply open your heart to love and allow this ancient, creative and healing current, this primal Word, to flow gently through you. It can help to lift your consciousness to link with your highest nature or with the quiet voice of Life—or love—Itself!

Finish A Dream: Your Goal Fulfilled

(Re-blogged from The CrazyBagLady@BulanLifestyle)

Some twenty years ago I dreamed I was hiking along a high mountain trail. Several others were also on a trek to reach the top of this peak. It was a hard trail with a steep, rocky incline in hot weather that seared the skin. Many turned back; only a handful reached the top, singly. I was among these, arriving at the apex after a long, winding ascent.

Finally at the top, I see there is a canyon chasm between the edge of the mountainside I have scaled and what I know to be my true destination: an even higher peak separated from the one I am on by a huge divide.

At first I believe I may be able to cross, for there are steps, suspended in space, hovering between the two peaks. One of the other climbers starts across these floating steps, but they become narrower and further apart as the aspirant attempts to bridge the gulf. He turns back, returns; the steps drop into the gorge as he steps back onto the ledge at the top of the canyon.

The others leave, descending back down the mountain. I stay, alone, gazing across to the realm I desire to reach. I am passionately aware that I have worked so hard to reach this plateau, only to find my deepest goal seemingly impossible to attain.

There is a picnic table at the canyon edge. I sit at the table, not wanting to give up, not knowing how I can go forward. A woman appears and comes over to stand next to me at the table. She seems an Ancient one, yet ageless. She has salt-and-pepper hair, dark eyes, light skin—she reminds me of a person I know to be highly enlightened in my outer life.

“How can I ever get over there?” I implore of this woman whom I know to be a Guide.

“How would you get to another planet?” she replies.

Then, I am alone again; the Guide has disappeared.

I awaken in bed, bemused by the dream, saddened to learn it “was only a dream”. It felt so real, like I was finally “almost There,” to the fulfillment of a spiritual Quest.

Now, many years later, I recall this dream. The feelings are still potent, the desire as ardent as it was then.

I sit for contemplation, return to the picnic table AS IF I have never left.

“How would I travel to another planet?” I ask inwardly, suddenly aware of the obvious solution.

“Direct projection,” I utter in silence. Assume the destination-state accomplished; be-here-Now.

I walk to the edge of the cliff, sit tailor fashion; appreciate the rarified atma-sphere, quiet serenity. I close my eyes, open inwardly, sing a mantra syllable as pure as the air is high: Hu. I become this Sound, resonate with its pulse as a warm, glowing Light.

I open my Heart to just BE. Feel… SHIFT.

Open eyes: a Temple nestled in a misty enclave. Light forms come and go from round platforms surrounding a domed spire. Blues in magenta, iced in golds and white.

Approach. Friendly beings exchange silent greetings as we pass. Enter temple—Door always open, an archway. Inside is still open space, nature, gardens, rooms that appear as I imagine a purpose: library, classroom, stables with horses. I explore, unlimited. See a fountain, sit at a gossamer bench around it, close eyes to listen to the Flow.

Open eyes: sitting tailor fashion, looking across the Canyon. See? A picnic table, across the gulf, far from where I AM.

************

               Complete a dream according to your deepest desire. Imagine life as you assume it to Be, your Heart and Soul fulfilled.                 – lw