Thank You Very Sweet

This quote from my reading of Emmet Fox’s sermon on the mount has really touched me:

“in deed and truth we are all one, component parts of the living garmet of God..”

Another word for “blessed” is happy or content. Content is the one who shows mercy. You may be farther along on the journey. Maybe you have a deeper spiritual understanding? If so, then when your brother or sister harms you, see that the God in them is calling out to you. The God in them is compelling you to demonstrate your spiritual maturity; to show mercy.

What you give is what you will receive.

You will then “… receive the same merciful help in your own hour of need from those who are farther along the path than you are.”

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If you want to live in harmony, think harmonious thoughts.

If you want to see and experience justice in society, start by being a just person.

Or, as a person said on a call that I was on this morning  – if you want to live in a society that does not make fear-based policy decisions then start by not making fear-based personal decisions.

The point is that we start on the individual level. Why would we demand things of a society that we have not cultivated within ourselves?

Jesus taught that the person who hungers and thirsts for righteousness will  be filled. This person hungers and thirsts for right thinking on all matters.

We must hunger and thirst for this because we are appealing to higher thinking, nothing based on our own preconceived ideas and/or biases; but something higher, harmonious, just and loving.

Hunger and thirst for that and you will be filled.

For just as a person sows in her thoughts, so shall she reap.

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What??

That’s what I’ve always thought about this teaching. But by God’s abundant grace, these are the revelations that have come to me over the last few days:

To be Meek:

Means humbly working with all skill and strength under your Master’s guidance.

Having an inward calm and acceptance of God’s will, not your own.  Accepting that God’s will is good, vital and necessary. What has been placed in front of you is ultimately good vital and necessary.

Means allowing the invisible hand of God to guide you. Doing the work that’s in front of you. Without attachment to the outcome or a desire to be elsewhere.

Inheriting the Earth:

Means that we become masters.

We Gain Dominion over our inner and outer experience in the world.

We realize the true secret to prosperity and power over the conditions of our lives : faith, open-mindedness, acceptance.

But what if God doesn’t know what will make me happy? 

Trust in the Lord. Lean not into your own understanding, but in all your ways acknowledge Him and He will direct your path. (Proverbs 3:5-6)

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My 2017 lenten journey has really opened me up to the beatitudes! It was unexpected. I was on a conference call the other night when a speaker suggested to the group that we read “The Sermon on The Mount” by Emmet Fox.

“I have that book” I thought. I’d been using it to prop up my glass kitchen table-top. I pulled it out from under the table that night.

Fox’s argument is that no matter where you stand with Jesus, it’s worthwhile to consider what he taught. He is, after all, someone that we still talk about more than 2000 years after he lived on earth. So no matter what you believe, it’s worthwhile to go back to Jesus’ words; consider what he taught.

Jesus’ famous speech, The Sermon on the Mount, begins with the beatitudes. Blessed are the Poor in Spirit (wrote about that on Friday)..

Blessed are they that mourn – this is where I am today.

The list continues.

But to they that mourn. To us.. Nobody wants to experience pain but it happens. My yoga teacher – Alison – reminded us of this, just this morning in class.

There she stood, beautiful with her pregnant belly – expecting – telling us a story about visiting her dad, his declining health and his dementia.

Wow- these paradox’s!! – life and death so vivid and real in our everyday experience , reminding us that we are alive.

This is the stuff of life!

Let it all happen.

Alison quoted Rumi “The wound is the place where the LIGHT enters.”

When we allow ourselves to break, or when we just break, space is created for the LIGHT to enter.

Just as Jesus taught- Blessed are they that mourn for they shall be comforted; and by comfort, what is meant is that the breaking creates the openness for us to experience the presence of God.

I have more to say about this.  If you read this story from the beginning, Thank You Very Sweet , you will know my story.  I was so passionate, fighting tooth and nail to save a fledgling community program.  So attached to what I thought was right at the time, that I didn’t see that my partner was dying in front of me.  When he died, Kesner, something in me finally broke; and space was created for LIGHT to enter.  My world opened and I became, I have become, someone different.

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Last night I was led to the sermon on the mount. Jesus begins there with the beatitudes, starting off by saying “Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the Kingdom Heaven.”

Our Spirit is our ego. Those things about us that make us feel that we are right! Our habits and fixed ways of being. Those strongholds, pride, preconceived notions that we are attached to. So being poor in Spirit is to be void of that. To decrease so that God can increase within us.

I had a mentor when I first began as a yoga teacher who advised me regarding an empty apartment that I was afraid to rent. “I have no furniture,” I said. “Find fullness in the emptiness,” she said. I did that, and for a time my place served many purposes: it was a yoga studio, an art studio, even a dance studio at one point; it was an available space for creativity.

As I added furniture – piece by piece- I would come to grieve the empty space that it replaced.

So being poor in spirit, well it’s being non-attached.  It’s being empty and available; then yours is the Kingdom of Heaven.

This is a yoga teaching also. In the beginning of Light on Yoga, BKS Iyengar answers the question “what is yoga?”

‘When a (person) stills their mind, intellect and self through the practice of yoga, they become a Yucta – one who is in communion with God.

Still your Mind.

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