Our task in meditation is to allow our unity to be restored and for our scattered parts to move back into their proper harmonious alignment to the center of our being. To do this we must not scatter ourselves further. We concentrate to move towards our center. When our consciousness truly awakens to that center, in silence, then a power is released which is the power of life, the power of the Spirit. In that power we are reformed, reunited, re-created.
LISTEN for the voice of the Spirit, for that which enlarges the mind, frees the heart, brings together what was scattered and lost, holds fast in unswerving fidelity, instills peace, renews confidence, comforts and endures. Happy are you if hear that voice!
In meditation we turn within a state of silent receptivity with that open inner eye of love, that listening ear, and we let our self unfold and reveal to us whatever is necessary to the NOW of our experience. We truly drink from the well of our consciousness. The water of eternal life "gushing up" brings forth to our external world a manifestation of harmony, love, peace and health.
Silence is not merely negative -- a pause between words, a temporary cessation of speech -- but properly understood, it is highly positive: an attitude of attentive alertness, of vigilance, and above all, of listening.
You can listen to silence, Reuven. I've begun to realize that you can listen to silence and listen to it. It has a quality and a dimension all its own. It talks to me sometimes. I feel myself alive in it. It talks. I can hear it.
LISTEN is such a little, ordinary word that it is easily passed over. Yet we all know the pain of not being listened to, of not being heard. In a way, not to be heard is not to exist. This can be the plight of the very young and the very old, the very sick, the "confused", and all too frequently, the dying -- literally no one in their lives has time or patience to listen. Or perhaps we lack courage to hear them.
We forget how intimate listening is, alive and fluid in its mutuality. It involves interaction even if no one moves a muscle and even if the listener says nothing. Vulnerability is shared when silence is shared.
EVERY BLESSING BE YOURS, dear friends, in Love's Heart! May we each remembr to take a daily pause in the Silence to affirm that we are here "to learn to bear the beams of Love" and to beam that love out to others. Bask in the Love and become more loving ...
We are here because the Big Love recognizes our value and knows what we can become, what we can give, what we can do that will bring new life, new vision, new spirit, new love to the world. This is the primal call: to treasure and value and love one another and all the other creatures and things of the earth. It is the call to acknowledge and to act from that knowledge that each person is just as valued and just as loved as the next, and all are invited to participate in the communion of that love.
In order to have compassionate relationships, compassionate communication and compassionate social action, there has to be a fundamental change of attitude... The basis of any real kind of compassionate action is the insight that the others who seem to be out there are some kind of mirror image of ourselves. By hurting others, you hurt yourself. By making friends with yourself, you make friends with others.
~ from START WHERE YOU ARE by Pema Chodron thanks to Lisa Merrill
God is love, and God is my life. Divine love, as me, continually gives of itself in sacred relationship. As I keep open the door of my heart and behold the face of God as everyone I meet, true friends abound in my life. With divine insight and a compassionate heart, I witness the sacred reality of each friend. I am grateful for God's love as my life.
It is not through the way in which someone speaks about God that I can see whether that person has passed through the crucible of Divine Love, but through the way the person speaks to me about things here on earth.
As we are filled ever more deeply with the Spirit, we become more confident in God's abundant love for us.
There is always a way to extend our love depending on the situation and what is appropriate, and by doing that you'll make a difference. Start small. Rather than trying to love the human race, love whom you love, love what you love, and express that. This will draw creativity out of you and will lead you to the next step. Gradually your capacity to love deepens and becomes more universal. Start where you are.
~ John Robbins in MEETING WITH MENTORS by Soren Gordhamer
Love is the strongest unifying factor; it is directed outward, toward the other, toward the world and its problems, toward God. The fire of love has the greatest power to unite, to transform, to make whole, to heal.
Our hearts are one single Virgin, which the dream of no dreamer can penetrate ... which only the presence of the Beloved penetrates in order to be conceived therein.
The unfathomable mystery of God is that God is a Lover who wants to be loved. God not only says: "You are my Beloved". God also asks: "Do you love me?" and offers us countless chances to say "Yes" to our inner truth. The spiritual life, thus understood, radically changes everything. Being born and growing up, leaving home and finding a career, being praised and being rejected, walking and resting, praying and playing, becoming ill and being healed -- yes, living and dying -- they all become expressions of that divine question: "Do you love me?" And at every point of the journey there is the choice to say "Yes" and the choice to say "No".
Love in action is the answer to every problem in our lives and in this world. Love in action is the force that helped us make it to this place, and it's the truth that will set us free.
