Special Lessons

It seems to me that the main reason we suffer, as we do -- over the things we do -- is not because these things, in themselves, have the "power" to punish us, but rather because we forget in these moments that who we really are cannot feel "punished" without having forgotten that God is good.

To see what is true is not the same as being true to what you see, let alone working to embody it. Not yet. It's the beginning of it, because it's the invitation from truth. It touches you. It says, "Will you see this?" And then you either agree to see what the truth has requested you to see or you turn your eyes from it. And may God have mercy on the souls of the individuals who turn their eyes from what truth wants to show them...

A wild stallion was captured and put in a wood-fenced compound bordering the open country in which he once ran free. His first week in captivity he showed all the wildness of a once-free creature now penned; but in the weeks that followed, even the dried grasses once refused as food became not only tolerable but even agreeable.

Isn't it true that the moment we are disturbed by an event, there is a reaction that takes place within us? That reaction forms as a stimulus we then respond to by trying to figure out how to resolve this pain we're in, fix the person, or change the condition so that the disturbance we're feeling will go away. This means that we are meeting the disturbance with further disturbance, but we don't see that the disturbed is an effect of the disturbance.

You and I live from a black and white mentality. That means, we live from a mind that, in its divided state, is entirely the captive of opposites. For us, this idea of good and bad, black and white, means that "I know." I was told what was good. And by the way, how were you told what was good? Here's your parent saying, "Don't you be like that. You told a fib. You white-lied. Oh, hell is coming to you, it is. Hell's coming to you because you never should lie.

You can't separate the meaning of this life from who you are and your relationship to it. They are inseparable. The kingdom of heaven is within. What do you think that means? Some lost horizon that one day you're going to arrive at? No, it means that this very moment is the expression of the kingdom and everything in the kingdom is present to you if you will be present to it.

What if whatever we see in the world that makes us feel confined or sorrowful, that has us angry, anxious, or rushing around is because of what we are? When we look at the world around us, it's easy to see there is beauty in nature, love among family, compassion in times of disaster; in truth, there are wonderful things all around us. But, when we look at the world that we've made, what do we see there?

There is so much that goes unexplained in human life. And that isn't to say that you and I don't have explanations, but over and over again our explanations prove to be lies. And the way we are able to justify this way of getting around a problem (or a person), and stand momentarily on some ground as if we've conquered the world, is that we believe we have understood the situation and risen above it...

Our eyes and ears, thoughts and feelings, empower us to move freely through the extraordinary web of life of which we're a part. But these gifts of perception, as considerable as they may be, are more like a looking glass than they are the keys to that secret kingdom of freedom we seek. With their aid, we can almost see into, and so confirm, that innermost realm where our heart senses we belong.

Whenever we find ourselves running after something -- anything -- to complete us, what is the real nature of this force within us that compels us in this way? We are pushed along in these pursuits by a very subtle, but solid sense of feeling as though we are somehow incomplete.

In one respect, at the heart of our predicament as a species of beings -- because it negatively impacts our possibilities -- is that we do not see the big picture. For most of us, the big picture is our problem, our heavy heart, our irritation with somebody else, or our own sense of inadequacy. The big picture is the weight of our past. And that's not the big picture at all. That is a self-pitying picture. It has nothing to do with what it is that we need to understand.

If our intuition can perceive that the peace we long for is inherent in this perfectly present moment we call the "Now," what is it that keep us from knowing the fulfillment of its promise within us? Let's look.