Clear Path to Peace

Recently, I traveled to New York City to visit my family. It was really hot, and traveling in the subway felt like spending time in a sauna that hadn’t been cleaned in about 10,000 years.  Tensions were high – you could feel it in the air.

I got into a subway car with my son and sister. The doors were still open and the place was fairly crowded with sweaty New Yorkers of all colors and shapes. All of a sudden, a black man arrived at the doorway and began yelling at a white man who was sitting in the subway car. “What you did was wrong! I’m gonna make you pay, white man! I’ll see you tomorra! You can’t beat me! You can’t beat me!” he bellowed.  The white guy, who had a fresh black eye, began yelling back, matching the energy and contributing his own equally violent threats to the mix. Finally, the doors closed and the black guy slammed his fist onto our car BOOM! as it sped away into the bowels of Manhattan.

After a split second of stunned silence, a couple of people laughed, either because they thought it was funny, or because they were actually nervous and needed to break the tension. Everyone looked around and realized that we were fine, no big deal. A young black man looked over toward my white, 13 year old son and rolled his eyes with a smile.  Aron smiled back; so did I.

A few years ago, this incident could have sparked a race riot. In the heat, anything can happen. But this time, what I noticed was all the people (black-eyed white guy excepted) telling each other in subtle ways, “No thanks. We’re not going on that ride to racism, anger and violence. We’re done, and we’re not interested. We aren’t taking the bait and we won’t get hooked. There’s a lot more to life than macho posturing and slugging it out, no matter who’s involved or what their racial background. Let’s all get along and have some fun, instead!”

I got off that subway car inspired by how far we’ve come, and how great New Yorkers are. Some might say that New Yorkers are cynical, they’ve seen it all, and that’s why they let the incident slide into oblivion. But I don’t agree. People reached out to each other to make a better, richer fabric of community together.  Now that’s something to celebrate!

While the Gulf of Mexico’s piercing still bleeds, and all hell seems to have broken loose wherever we look, A Course in Miracles helps to calm our nerves and give us inner fortitude.

“Heaven is the decision I must make.” — ACIM

This is one of my favorite quotes. There’s no room for dithering or hesitation. Moment by moment, we decide.

Heaven is here in this moment. Not outside. Inside. Here – in your heart of hearts.

Namaste.

“A happy outcome to all things is sure.” — A Course in Miracles, WB #292

Allowing the possibility of a happy outcome to all things takes a lot of trust. How can there be a happy outcome when there is so much pain and suffering in the world…and in our hearts?

The only way to achieve any kind of real happiness is to offer all of our loneliness, fear and sadness to the Holy Spirit. Giving it to another person or idea doesn’t work. We’ve already tried to pawn it off on desires for possessions, prestige, sex, and drugs. We’ve attempted happiness through work, or sought relief through our spouses, children and therapists. None of that was successful, except for a minute or two, was it?

We are left with only one course of action that leads to healing. Pain and suffering can only be finally cleansed in one way. We must look in only one direction for support and guidance. Why? Because there is only one source of Love that is real. How can we find healing in anything that isn’t real? We can’t – it’s impossible.

If we want peace, we’ll need to offer up our pride and surrender on bended knee. We must acknowledge with a grateful heart this source that gives us life, minute by minute, moment by moment, breath by breath. Let’s finally understand that this source is pure love…so we can find the soft strength that’s necessary to lay down our burdens. Breathing out our sadness and confusion, we’ll make room for clarity, joy, and new direction. We’ve got to make some space, to clear out. Only the Holy Spirit, God’s grace in action, can help us here.

We will walk off the battlefield as many times as we need to. Over and over…or just once and for all. It doesn’t matter. What matters is directly experiencing relief from the illusions of bitterness, revenge and hatred. They are not real…we just made them up. We can let them go and find sanity…peace…heaven on earth.

This is the way that a happy outcome to all things is sure. Aaaahhhhhh, so good to know. 

A peaceful day to you.

Recently I’ve been playing with a solid gold coin. It’s a quarter ounce gold piece – round, shiny, and dripping with golden abundance. I’ve been holding it in my hand as a way to bring the gold into my life, both on the inner plane as a holy blessing and on the outer plane as prosperity in all I am and all I do.

A few days ago, I lost the coin. I couldn’t find it anywhere, though I did all the sensible things -checked my pants pockets, retraced my steps, etc. I began to feel sad that it had disappeared, and angry with myself for losing it. Damn!  I liked that coin!  I saw my attachment, my assumption about what it meant to me, my annoyance with my irresponsibility. And the little thing is worth about $200, on top of it all.

Anyway, the next day I taught my first Uncovering Your Inner Rumi devotional poetry workshop. A wonderful group gathered in Mount Shasta, CA, to explore writing devotional poetry together. Since I was thinking about the gold coin, I wrote about a poem about it during the workshop.  Here it is:

O Beloved

give me back my gold!

I lost it…yet could I ever lose it?

Jesus, your golden grace

coalesced in my hand

Lakshmi, I prayed for your help

Gone now

poof! it flew into the Mystery

Here is the teaching

if I dare:

never lost,never taken

this golden glow of mine.

Well, I really prayed that the coin would reappear, since I’d now gotten the lesson. A friend helped me search once more, and lo and behold – I found it!  Where, you might ask?  On my altar, where I’d placed it for safe-keeping, beside an image of the Hindu Goddess Lakshmi, goddess of grace, beauty and abundance.I had to laugh. Lakshmi had me covered – the whole time!  Another life lesson:  Divine Love holds my golden grace, even when I’ve forgotten it, and forgotten where I’ve put it.  So good to know.

Many of us go through really hard times. My hardest time was when my mother died, by her own hand, when I was young, pregnant, confused and almost penniless. You probably have a different, painful story that affected your life. What did you do when the traumatic thing happened?  What are you doing with the memory of it? Are you open to jumping into the River of Love, no matter what happened – or might happen in the future?

The River of Love is the healing experience of Divine contact. It’s sometimes called the Holy Spirit, the Divine Mother, Father God, or the “peace that passeth all understanding.” It was the only thing that kept me sane and whole enough to raise my children well, despite my mother’s illness and its effect on me. It helped me learn that I am a lot stronger than anything that shows up in my life, even the shock and pain of my mother’s suicide.

It took years to receive all of the lessons this experience gave to me. I needed to learn that the Grace of God offers a more powerful love than what my human mother could give me. It’s a love that never leaves, never gives up, and always heals when we allow it into our hearts.

Through this life journey, I feel humbled and in awe of the great mystery. I wonder where my mother is now, and how she is doing with the lessons that she learned. I don’t know the answers to these questions, but I feel the movement of my soul in holding them. I am open-hearted and open-minded, calling for more wisdom.

Life gave me this experience to show me that NO MATTER WHAT, the River of Love will float me home to a deep inner sense of security and serenity. This river taught me to release my sadness, and find gratitude for the lessons I’d learned. It gave me the joy and freedom of knowing I am never isolated or without a friend. The River of Love showed me that the edges to all things are friendly…if I relax into the safety I share with the Divine.

In the past, I rarely spoke or wrote about what happened with my mother. Even now, I feel reticent to discuss it. But I also feel that we need to share our life experiences – not to wallow in the pain of them, but to transform difficulties that seemed impossible to overcome.When really tough things happen, using our minds to figure out what to do doesn’t help very much.  We need more space, more breath, deep intuition and a lot of prayer and true forgiveness to feel whole again.

I give swimming lessons in the River of Love. It’s OK to get your feet wet – or plunge right in with a full, naked leap! See you on the river…..

I received this from Tikkun  (to heal, repair and transform the world), a peace-centered Jewish organization. I hope you will ask these questions with me, whether you are Jewish or not.  These questions are for all of us:

NEXT YEAR IN A JERUSALEM REDEEMED THROUGH JUSTICE AND THOSE RETURNING TO HER THROUGH RIGHTEOUSNESS

The Four Children at the Seder Table:  Which Child Am I?

As we celebrate this Holiday of Freedom, the ending of slavery, we ask, “Who am I, when I hear of human rights abuses? Who will I choose to be when I know that others are suffering?”

Will I be one who does not ask? Will I close the newspaper or turn off the television so that I do not hear? Will I turn my head and heart away?

Will I ask only simple questions? “What is this?”  Will I ask what, but never why?

Will I let the evil impulse, my yetzer hara ask: “What has this to do with me?” Will I let the problem belong only to the victims and the do-gooders? Will I distance myself from those in need?

Or will I strive to act in wisdom, to ask: “What are the underlying causes of the problem and what needs to be done to stop the abuse and free the oppressed? What are the laws and what does Gd expect of me?”

May Gd open the eyes of those who do not see, the mouths of those who do not ask, and the hearts of those who do not care, and grant us the wisdom to open our hands to our fellow humans when they are in need  – the hand of generosity, the hand of support, the hand of peace and friendship.
— From Passover: Ridding ourselves of the khametz of arrogance, by Rabbi Arik W. Ascherman, Rabbis for Human Rights, Israel

The deeper I go into forgiveness…in the ecstatic, radical sense of the word…the more I see that its invitation is surrender. Forgiveness is the golden door, the way past all fear and grief, and an entry into life beyond dictatorship of the ego.

What is radical about radical forgiveness? What is ecstatic about it? Using a spiritual philosophy grounded in the teachings of A Course in Miracles and other holy books, we go beyond the traditional usage of the word “forgiveness”.  Rather than “letting bygones be bygones” (somehow), we agree to let our spiritual intelligence teach us. We humbly learn about the gifts that were hidden or obscured – in even the most terrible events in our lives. We surrender to the wisdom that lives beyond what our intellects can decipher. Allowing the healing blessings in, we also let pain and sorrow out of our hearts.

When we choose to let go of blame and grievances, and the corresponding thoughts and emotions buried deep within, we can refill ourselves on a cellular level with healing grace. We then find out that there is no spiritual need for forgiveness, after all, because we are not helpless, solitary victims of our circumstances. The world is not out to get us — in fact, God wants our perfect happiness.

Divine Love beckons us, welcoming us to release the pain of this material world, while supporting us to remain present in the world in order to guide others to the door. Divine Grace, sometimes known as the Holy Spirit, is the healer, and our part is to surrender to the healing…constantly flowing…the River of Love.

Recently, I found two plays on words that gave me a chuckle.  I share them here for your enjoyment and inspiration.

One of the hardest parts about being human is the tendency toward feeling abandoned. Abandoned by loved ones, by the death of loved ones, by the “betrayal” of others, and by God as well.  Especially by God. Hence all of the feelings of helplessness and hopelessness that muck up our innate happiness.  Well, I found that there is a great use for abandonment.  Turning around, there is the possibility to abandon ourselves to God. That’s the juicy sort of abandonment that brings sublime joy, health, and happiness. This is the abandonment that Sufi poets describe so well. So next time you are feeling sadness or pain over thinking you’ve been abandoned by someone, abandon yourself to God instead. Freedom will be yours, every time.

Meditating upon “turning around”, I remembered the analogy that Colin Tipping likes to use in his explanation of Radical Forgiveness.  He describes our lives as being tapestries. They are beautiful, but usually we look at the backside of them. (“Ass backward,” as we used to say in New Jersey.) From that viewpoint, there are knots and hanging strings, and the image is messy and blurred. Turn it over, he suggests, and we see the divine perfection of our life plan, including everything that has ever happened for us. Not to us, but for us. It’s a turn-over!  Delectable!  I can remember that….apple turn-over, yum…let’s go get one right now.

When life seems unmanageable, try abandoning yourself to God. This surrender will put you on the path of forgiveness. And when circumstances are distasteful, turn it around…give yourself a tasty turn-over. Witnessing the perfection of each moment will make your life delicious again.

One of the ways that we can live a generous life is with empathy – and with compassion, humor, laughter, and joy as well. We don’t have to reach out only when times are bad, thinking, “Oh, it’s a crisis; I’d better reach out.”  How about simply connecting with each other because it’s more fun to live on a planet where we share the good times, the medium times, and the bad times – all of it?

We can share a smile, a wink, a sunset, a poem, a rainbow….

Envisioning a world in which we all live this way comes from our own desire. We do it simply because it’s natural. There is no neediness, and no feeling of being drained or exhausted. Instead, there’s a playfulness to it, so that when we travel away from home across the street or across the world, we’re recognizing equality in all beings. We feel safe to stop and chat, to look people in the eye, to share love and art and beauty with them.

Lay forgiveness on your mind

and let all fear be gently laid aside

that love may find its rightful place in you.

— A Course in Miracles (T198)

Forgiveness is a link between me, you and freedom.  Every time I forgive, I release my pain and make room for Love.  It isn’t about being weak or relinquishing power, it’s about letting go of what hurts … for me, and for you, if you choose.

Forgiveness, in a radical sense, is for all of us. For more peace in our hearts and in the world. For a new beginning.  That’s what this time is all about – new beginnings and fresh starts.  How can we be fresh and new when we’re carrying boatloads of past pain, anger and resentment?  We can’t.  We need to clean house.  Make space. Allow the grace of the Holy Spirit to wash us in the River of Love. Our world, and our sanity, depends on it.

On our forgiveness path, we examine many aspects of our emotional life. For instance, what is the difference between sympathy and empathy, and how do they fit into a life dedicated to generosity and healing?

We are often taught that sympathy is the same thing as love. “Oh, you poor thing!” = “I really care about you!” My mother taught me that from the time I was about 4 years old. Agreeing that sympathy is love became the normal way that we interacted with each other.

But when we’re having sympathy for someone, it’s not respectful of who and what he or she is. We might be giving caring action or words, yet we think that people in general are victims of their circumstances and that, to receive sympathy, there must be something terribly wrong with them. These thoughts create a distortion and an imbalance. Sympathy actually lowers the energetic vibration of our interaction together, because it is based on falsehood instead of truth. There isn’t much room for real love to enter.

In sympathy, there is no respect for our inner divinity, which everyone shares. Instead, there is a belief that our outer circumstance is, in fact, reality. That’s a mistake. A Course in Miracles says, “I am not a victim of the world I see.” (WB 48)

When this error is corrected, then we realize that we are in fact all equal beings, no matter what the circumstances. We can reach out with compassion to simply join with our friend, to support with love while accepting whatever the situation is in the moment. This is empathy. It doesn’t need the drama, excuses or pity that comes with sympathy. Instead, we simply open to the possibility that there is a perfection beyond what we can perceive, and we are all sharing it all the time – in sickness or health, pleasure or pain.

How can we be more generous with ourselves and others, by giving empathy instead of sympathy? Our forgiveness path requires that we make the switch – consciously – so that we can respect our inner light and reach to it, past our circumstances in life.  Instead of saying to each other, “Oh, poor baby!” we say, “I know you can wake up out of this, no matter what it is.” Sounds like real friendship to me.