The Light in the Woods

2/21/10 Reflections              God is not just another experiment for scientists, for He will never be known completely on Earth. This is not a failing; this is His plan. His plan keeps us seeking, keeps us praising, keeps us grateful for the small hints of heaven that we see all around us when we cultivate awareness of them. If God were not a mystery we wouldn’t be in awe of Him as we are.

Now and then I play at pretending there is no God in my life, just to see how it feels. After all, I put in many years of not thinking of God at all, and I made out OK. But I always come back to the welcoming of my relationship with God, because of what it adds to my existence. I don’t need to understand God completely. What I need is to accept that there is something very much worth seeking, and that even if I don’t fully appreciate God because of my human limitations, the desire for that relationship keeps what I can know ever before me.

God is constantly bringing me towards acceptance of what it is I need. He puts before me what He wants to give; sometimes I reach out for it hungrily and sometimes I’m not hungry enough to reach out at all. In one way I’m better off than in the other, but God doesn’t force me. In the same way, He works with what he withholds from me – fear, despair, disease, calamity, guilt, my own sin. Whether I’m thankful, oblivious, or aware yet without gratitude, I’m not forced to acknowledge the source of my protection or my provision.

Yet if I do choose awareness of God I learn easily in proportion to how much of the process I give over to God. Once I begin, I see results. Once I see results, I want more of the same. The more I ask for the more I get – my asking shows that I’m humble enough to use God’s graces effectively. Even though my role is small, it’s an integral part of God’s master plan and therefore significant. Yet I don’t have to perform it flawlessly; I shouldn’t even aspire to that. I merely need to keep desiring the right attitude for my way to be made sure.

That’s why it’s so important for us not to exclude others’ paths or disdain others’ works. We don’t know what assignments God has deemed appropriate for others. We cannot do His desire while judging His gifts.

2/3/10 Insights from Study           No matter where you are on the religious spectrum, how far you’ve gone on your spiritual journey, or what sins you still hold in your heart – one thing you can always do is take a second to consult God before starting a task. No matter how small or large the endeavor, or how public the place, you can always discreetly put it before God to ask for His counsel and to promise to act according to His will.

You don’t have to wait for an answer – just by doing the asking you remind yourself of the joy of servanthood, and you honor God by your humility. Anything that brings you this close to God is beneficial, for it puts you in peak position to recognize God’s will for your work. This small exercise puts you in mind of God, possessing Him in both your worthiness and your humility working together.

It’s not a good-luck charm, because whether you succeed or fail depends on God’s will only. But it’s an acknowledgment that you desire that something important to you be within God’s master plan as well, and if it is His desire, that He lend you His power so to honor Him with your partnership. When He says you should ask so that you may be given, He speaks not only of material gifts but of good counsel. It’s such an easy thing to do and the reward is instantaneous – a feeling of closeness to the Creator and of being at oneness with Him and His plan.

1/19/10 Inspirations             The more I experience God the more I would need to know in order to do Him justice. I can’t explain the unexplainable, yet this is exactly what a believer is expected to do. This is a world where all you have to do is show skepticism and you appear to have wisdom. But those who have wisdom of Reality — that is, a world more attuned to the Creator than to what He has created – tend to remain silent and waiting.

The first thing you learn when you become truly enlightened is that there is a God and He is in control. You may object to feeling like a pawn in a chess game, but if you do you’re reacting with your ego whereas God is dealing with your spirit. To be spiritual is to be fully free; to accept God’s control so that you may exercise your free will from within the condition that truly responds to human free will — God’s desire to show love and be loved.

This cosmic consciousness is the key to true joy and deep peace. To a humanist happiness for all is a noble cause; to a mystic it is an inheritance from God. It takes acknowledgment of divine control to attain real peace; it will not come about through human desire for it to be so. But our free will can be used to accept recognition of God as Creator and to guide our actions toward working from within God’s master plan.

This master plan cannot be known except generally – the specifics are left to the mind of God, which we cannot probe deeply enough for now. But this is how creation works best; with enough mystery to encourage our participation in God’s plan, and enough knowledge to accept the wisdom of its Creator without question.

As each individual is blessed with mystic perception the fire spreads even more quickly. One day all will grow to abandon ego and embrace spirit – at this point the world can end at last, and we may all awaken into true life of perfect joy in the full presence of God.

11/24/09 Reflections           Once we accept God, we realize we have been forgiven. End of subject — there’s no need to rehash the past. We do not need to make up for what we’ve done – we could never do that as God has already done it perfectly. We don’t have the ability to pay for our past sins, so we neither have the obligation to try.

In the same way, we have no right to expect others to even up their accounts with God. We deal with others as God does – full forgiveness without requiring any payback. What could anyone do to reverse the effects of their sin against God? No more than you can do to square yourself with God. Life is better when we accept God’s forgiveness and extend the utmost degree of forgiveness to each other.

Now we know it’s futile to promise to make up for our sins or to require others to make up for theirs; so what can we do? Only accept that God has done this for us, and do our best to not get into the same occasion of sin again. Nothing forces us to do this, and if we do return to sin, we’ll be forgiven as before. So what’s the motivation for goodness?

It’s that no matter how prideful and “tough as nails” we want to appear, it feels good to feel good. Righteousness feels right. There is a peacefulness in justice and serenity in living right. We don’t even have to be sure of where such contentment comes from, although it makes sense that God would supply the favor when it seems right to Him. What matters is that a good deed begets the desire of the recipient to pass along the sentiment. And forgiveness of one person spurs on his desire to forgive someone in his life. It doesn’t always come to fruition, but the desire is there where it wasn’t before.

The motivation for goodness is the good feeling that comes from doing what has been put in our hearts as “right”, and the tendency of God to acknowledge the desire for goodness on the same scale as if the good deed had actually been done. This is because all we can really do that God does not take upon Himself is to give up our human tendencies in favor of letting our free wills conform in harmony with the will of God. Having done that, we only wait for God to act upon our desire. The result will be goodness.

We tend to miss this phenomenon because it seems too simple to be the meaning of life. But it stands to reason that, as helpless as we feel, life is far less about our contribution and more about God’s. Take away responsibility for everything but what God has given us to do, and life really is quite simple.

From there, we can contribute to society to the extent that we can, always keeping in mind that the die has already been cast, the roles have already been awarded, and the outcome is sure. We feel better when we exercise goodness and make life on Earth as serene as possible for the most of us as is possible. But it’s also important to remember our limitations; leaving the impossibilities up to God.

9/30/09 Insights from Study             The more we think on God’s works, the more apparent it becomes that God does not act in the way human beings think to be logical. When we accept that this is so, we understand that what we don’t know about God’s ways would fill a much thicker book than the one about what we do know of God. God is mystical to us even though there are hints and clues, and the more these hints and clues become available, the deeper we seek. It’s between each of us and God what we are able to learn of Him, and this process has never ended.

It’s like digging a hole in rocky ground – each rock you discover reveals another beneath it that, when you remove and examine it, exposes yet another rock. You will never get to the bottom of the hole, but the more you dig, the more you come to understand this. You become gratefully content that there is much you can’t do, and get on with the business of enjoying what you can.

We say we get to know God, but we really mean we reserve for God the honor of the wisdom He has chosen to give us. It doesn’t bother us at all that there’s so much we can’t measure, considering what we have been given to know. Our unknowing only brings God more glory in our eyes, and affords us a great opportunity to trust God in the faith of His goodness. He knows exactly what to reveal and what is not good for us to know; we are blessed to be treated individually and perfectly.

9/20/09 Insights from Prayer          Lord, all I ask is that I do Your will in whatever form that takes. It doesn’t matter if that involves my pain – I can take any pain You give me because I know it’s for my good. But I’m human, and being human has sadness, and human sadness persists no matter how accepting I am.

So You know of the times when I can’t persevere; when I can’t live up to my sincerest desire to follow You without question. I know You’ll remain pleased with my desire to do Your will with gladness even if I fall short of perfection. It is the desire that pleases You. How well You know my limitations; that they don’t take a thing away from how You appreciate my abandonment of self.

What could I fear, if all is in the hands of my Creator? It’s when I fall short of perfect abandonment of my will in favor of Yours, dear God, that I’m in danger. That’s when I count on myself instead of on the Almighty. I never fear the loss of self-regard, because it means I have Your perfect help. What I fear is when I forget my fate is in Your hands and I take on something I can’t handle myself.

So help me make my desire more perfect; to accept with a smile the trials You must use toward this end. I want to be humble enough to invite You in without question and to say with all sincerity that whatever You present to me is good. I want to live so that no matter how I in my humanity perceive it, Your plan for me goes on good and glorious. Then I have no worry since, whatever comes, I’m fine with it.

7/6/09 Insights from Study            We are all equal in the mind of God because all God cares about is that we give Him glory and praise; this can be done by anyone and everyone, anywhere and everywhere with no other requirement. And where you are lacking in this, God helps you along no matter what you do or have, so that His desire will be met and His kingdom inhabited by all His creatures. Therefore you will enter eternity as equal to all others no matter what has taken place in your life on Earth.

Why be good then? Why worry about morality and justice and charity and the sharing of God’s attributes? Because these things bring satisfaction and peace to you in the here and now in ways that God gives you, in His wisdom. Any glory we give to God comes back to us – that is the point of what He does; He Who would need nothing from us otherwise.

The glory we give to God comes back to us as individuals and also as members of the human race, who all benefit from the praise others of our kind have sent God’s way. All human goodness comes about through the auspices of God the Creator, Who allows us to co-create with Him by offering others that same goodness by our dedication to God. God sees us collectively as all humanity – that’s why we are punished together on Earth and promised together eternal heaven. Our instructions come to us as individuals; our compliance benefits humanity as one entity.

If this cycle of glory was all there was in the world, it would be sufficient. All else is added complication which more often than not tends to interfere with the basic duty of man – to love God by setting all else aside. It’s why we are equal in our quest – there is nothing involved but our willingness. No one has an advantage over another; nor is anyone disadvantaged in honoring God’s request.

As we move about the Earth let’s keep in mind that God has promised Himself to us with a small but sincere effort on our part. That’s why we need give only little heed to what we eat or wear, since God provides what we need and what He doesn’t provide we don’t need. But we also ought to remember that the small thing God asks of us can wind up being denied to Him if in our human pride we busy ourselves with tasks we think He ought to require of us. We believe God asks too little of us and we come up with ways to improve on His demands. It’s a common stumbling block, destined to upset the cycle of glory. We get back on the right track by going back to cultivating our relationship with God first and foremost; if there is more we can do He will tell us, and it will be for our benefit. As for God, His request of us is not diminished by its simplicity.

6/16/09 Inspirations           Why do we take offense at the rule of God? Because we love control; because we live in a world where human beings dominate. When we are constantly reminded of our rule over the Earth, it’s easy to lose sight of how we got this privilege in the first place. After having lost the perspective of the man/God relationship, we become so used to having things our way it’s hard to go back.

Mystics spend their lives going back. They know what’s in human nature to forget – that real freedom is to allow yourself to be controlled by God. How can abandonment of your will to God’s desires be freedom? Because God’s desires are for what’s good for you, and allowing the Almighty the responsibility of guiding your free will is the sure and easy path to joy. How marvelously free we are when God takes over our work and our responsibilities. Instead of striving under our own power, we are able to coast under God’s. Ever after, our work goes lightly because we are boosted along by the presence of God at all times. Whatever difficulties we face we are given the ability to handle.

So we shouldn’t take offense at the rule of God – it’s given out of love and designed to lead us safely home. It’s amazing that people will object to God’s “intrusion” into their lives, then will docilely follow the crowd at the first sign of peer pressure.

As for me, I will gladly accept God as the control of my life. I’m aware that this is the only way to get what I want. Why would I settle for something less sure and more difficult – my autonomy? It means nothing to me if by it I lose my relationship with God.

4/30/09 Insights from Prayer       It’s so hard to let go; to let God do what He does and not feel we have to interject human passion into the workings of the universe. But that’s exactly what we need to do in order to place ourselves in the proper perspective. To think of God we have to expand our minds, and when we do we see ourselves as tiny specks on our Earth which is itself a tiny speck. Each of us is extremely important to God, but we have little importance to His plan other than to exist in it willingly, as God wishes for us.  This is because all we can do, we can do only in a worldly, temporal existence. 

We can expand our minds to see our consciousness in the same way – a tiny speck in the big scheme of things, but extremely important to God Himself. But to put ourselves at the helm of the eternal plan is our big mistake. It leads to confusion because we have misplaced responsibility. It’s not ours; it’s God’s.

No matter how important I am, I’m still a tiny speck on a tiny speck. No matter how important this Earth, this life, this world may be to me, I can do nothing about it other than to agree to order my life along God’s grounds. God designs it and God runs it. He may give us a big role or He may give us a small role. And there are times when you would swear He may give us no role at all! None of this matters if we leave it all to God to figure out. It’s when we try to take control, even to congratulate ourselves on the good works we’re doing, that we have already forgotten the most important role of all – God’s.

Mystic theology intuits that God’s goal is supreme goodness for all. You will have to change your perspective to understand how war, disease, or natural disaster has a good ending, but changing one’s perspective is possible and desirable. We believe, in fact, that it is the way to peace because it points to the way of God. No one likes pain, but it’s the pain in your nerves and its transmission to your brain that prevents you from allowing yourself to be burned if you should try to put your hand in a flame. God protects us every minute we live. Sometimes our human understanding does not see the good of it, but the good is there. To see God’s good in everything is a gift, given because we show that we want it. We show that we want it by accepting God’s plan no matter how it appears to us.

We have taken it upon ourselves to hold the reins of life; we are taught this from the beginning. It’s as if we could be punished or rewarded for the things God’s does, so we must carry out responsibility that’s not really ours. We are even made to feel guilty that we aren’t doing enough and face God’s damnation for our failings.  This is the most arrogant pride of all – to berate each other for not sticking our noses into God’s business, and then having the audacity to preach that God will damn us for being abandoned to His desires.

Our greatest virtue is to be able to live out our lives by being kind; showing the God within us through our dedication to Him. It’s not an assignment and there’s no grade. It’s us without the pride. It’s us without sin as much as is possible. It’s using our free will to accept God’s plan and to live in peace with it no matter how it’s being carried out. It’s our refusal to take over from God the enormous tasks that only God can carry out well. It’s our saying “Yes” to whatever is, and accepting God’s framework and God’s will. We worship God in this way, and if there’s something He wants us to do beyond that, by being in this state of acceptance we will clearly see His will and do it. This is what is meant by practicing the presence of God. It’s the greatest human accomplishment because it involves letting go of our own sense of importance for God’s greater good.