The day will come when, after harnessing the winds, the tides, and gravitation, we shall harness for God the energies of love. And on that day, for the second time in the history of the world, humankind will have discovered fire.
If you fuse knowledge of your transcendent origin with tireless service in and for God, you will come, on earth and in this body, to know divine joy and be fed by the ceaseless passion-energy of divine love. Human and divine, inner peace and outer action, knowledge and love, will be married in you at ever greater depths to make you an ever more powerful and radiant warrior for Love and Justice in all dimensions.
~ from A WALK WITH FOUR SPIRITUAL GUIDES by Andrew Harvey
New Year's Greetings, dear friends of silence! As we move through the winter season, let us, like the earth, lie fallow for a while, allowing unseen and as yet unknown life to gestate within our depths. With deep humility, let us reflect in the silence upon what it means to surrender to the Divine Spark that resides in each of us and allow that creative Life Force to do with us what it will. It is a gift of this quieter season that we can be released from our ego-driven lives and draw closer to the source of Love in the silent darkness. Let us surrender ourselves in humble recognition that we are called, through faith, simply to be open and accepting; to listen, without expectations, to whatever is coming to birth within us. We are called to a humble openness, to walk the way of goodness with the comfort of Love, at one with all humanity and with our earth. May we surrender to the call, whatever it may be, as it comes to each of us.
Humility as a virtue has to do with knowing ourselves as human, as earthy, as the clay into which the divine breath has been breathed . . . It is to live the paradox of our blessed and broken natures, to know that matter matters, that flesh carries spirit, that life is discovered at the precise meeting place of the human and the divine. To practice humility is to live deeply into this truth, to lift oneself to the mountain top of prayer and aspiration and to embrace the lowly valley of our own abjection.
~ from "Little Things" by Wendy M. Wright in Weavings, Jan-Feb 2003
We are striving for humility in our lives, to draw closer to God . . . It is not an accident that the humus, or the soil, comes from the same word. It's the base from which everything grows. Gardening and the spiritual life go together.
Humility is not a matter of beating ourselves up. It is not a question of judging ourselves as stupid or sinful, as hopeless and bad. Who are we to judge these things? Humility, it seems, is the gentle acceptance of that most tender place inside ourselves that throbs with the pain of separation from the Beloved. It is that deep knowingness that identification with the false self brings nothing but further separation. It is an initially reluctant dropping down into the emptiness and an ultimate experience of peace when we stop doing and rediscover simple being . . . when we heed the call to cease creating and remember we are created.
The word "humility" (also "human") is derived from the Latin "humus," meaning "the soil." Perhaps this is not simply because it entails stooping and returning to earthly origins, but also because, as we are rooted in this earth of everyday life, we find in it all the vitality and fertility unnoticed by people who mostly tramp on across the surface, drawn by distant landscapes.
Humility is an inner quality that is ranked as the primary prerequisite for holiness. Without humility, we might be too proud to acknowledge our weaknesses, and so we wouldn't be inclined to work to make the necessary inner changes. . . . To strengthen the soul-trait of humility, walk the mind slowly and methodically along the full journey of life, from the fertilization of the egg all the way through death and decay. It engenders great appreciation for the wisdom of the divine and fosters a healthy and genuine sense of humility and gratitude for all we have received.
The heights of the spirit can only be climbed by passing through the portals of humility. You can only acquire right knowledge when you have learnt to esteem it.
~ from KNOWLEDGE OF THE HIGHER WORLDS AND ITS ATTAINMENT by Rudolf Steiner
We don't talk much about humility in AA, almost never use the word. Maybe that is because, as the spiritual adage has it, if you think you are humble, you are not. But I see enough of freedom, serenity, healing, and unselfishness around me to think it must be hiding there somewhere.
I try to be like water. Water goes to the humblest, lowest places and provides moisture. My place in the world is pinpoint small, but it goes down deep. The residents of this bleak, barren, and disjointed community have taught me that there can be profound wisdom, wonder, and love in a place of almost total despair. Our neighborhood may be nothing like the pristine hallways of a gallery, but we do art here. Our art holds our feelings, the feeling that we care deeply -- like water, like life.
~ from Lily Yeh in "The Other Side," July/August 2004
Once you grasp the nature of unconditional love, you realize there is a higher order of complexity that is unfolding within human consciousness as a whole. Then you receive the next gift of the angel light -- humility, perhaps the hardest gift to accept. In the angel light, there is no room for self-importance -- it is, in fact, a major obstacle. Instead, it is necessary to surrender all our false pride. Humility ultimately teaches us that all life is sacred -- a gift of the divine union of form and the formless.
~ from RETURN OF THE CHILDREN OF LIGHT by Judith Bluestone Polich
Cara Mia, if that man has not separated you from the love of God, and he has not, then the only thing keeping hate of him alive is your thought about him. Only your pride keeps him in your memory. Dissolve your pride, and you dissolve your hate. To be still possessed of the hate that pain made is not intelligent. Take care. It can sap your energy to what you know to be your purpose. By being troubled about it, you have already discovered it to be unworthy of your grander aims, and that is the beginning of humility.
A saint is a person who practices the keystone human virtue of humility. Humility in the face of wealth and plenty, humility in the face of hatred and violence, humility in the face of strength, humility in the face of your own genius or lack of it, humility in the face of another's humility, humility in the face of love and beauty, humility in the face of pain and death. Saints are driven to humbling themselves before all the splendor and horror of the world because they perceive there to be something divine in it pulsing and alive beneath the hard dead surface of material things -- greater and purer than they are.
"Is there enough Silence for the Word to be heard?"
Winter Greetings, dear friends, and deep peace of the season's first silent snowfall to each of you. As we naturally turn inward in response to the more reflective nature of the season, may we find there reminders that we can carry the peace of this slower, quieter season within us to every place and every time. For peace, fostered by silent communion with the Love that ever accompanies us, is not confined to any outward season or circumstance. Rather, it is born of our constant awareness of and gratitude for the companioning Presence that accompanies us all the days of our lives. May our innate longing for peace foster a growing ability to nurture it within ourselves and each other by turning within in silence. Discover the "still point" of peace within your sacred heart-space and listen for the Word to be heard.
Without doing anything, things can sometimes go more smoothly just because of our peaceful presence. In a small boat when a storm comes, if one person remains solid and calm, others will not panic and the boat is more likely to stay afloat.
To the degree that each of us is dedicated to wanting there to be peace in the world, then we have to take responsibility when our own hearts and minds harden and close. We have to be brave enough to soften what is rigid, to find the soft spot and play with it. We have to have that kind of courage and take that kind of responsibility. That's the true practice of peace.
~ from PRACTICING PEACE IN TIMES OF WAR by Pema Chodron
I asked for peace You offered your presence. I asked for hope You came to my side. I asked for joy You lit my journey. I asked for love You gave me yourself.
Peace is not something you can force on anything or anyone... . much less upon one's own mind. It's like trying to quiet the ocean by pressing upon the waves. Sanity lies in somehow opening to the chaos, allowing anxiety, moving deeply into the tumult, diving into the waves, where underneath, within, peace simply is.
