Consciousness individually and collectively shapes our material world. Our interior life constantly shapes our exterior life. This is why no matter how diverse our work in the external world, the "common work" of humanity —the only true way we can live our external lives — requires becoming conscious of the relationship between our inner and outer lives.
For a few minutes we sat there petting the kittens, saying nothing. But every so often I glanced at Demetrios. His big, thick, wrinkled hands cradled the animal lovingly as he stroked its fur in repetitive waves from the neck on down. Then he looked up and sighed.
"Touch everything this way."
"What do you mean?" I asked.
"Try to love everything. Everything wants love, just like these ghatakia (kittens). Let your love flow--let it be constant, like the seasons. . . . We are called to love people, birds, beasts, trees, seas, stars . . . all the universe wants to be cherished!"
Much of life…is about awakening to the interior experience. In our day-to-day living, we come to see how all of our physical journeying is not simply a temporal exercise, a transitory, earthly trek, but increasingly points to a shared and liberating inner passage . . . As Christianity and all the great religious traditions of the world testify, our surface-level living is the symbolic acting out of a deep inward pilgrimage leading to -- and beyond -- the gates of the heart.
~ from THE ISLE OF MONTE CHRISTO by S. T. Georgiou
