November
19, 2006
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Martin Luther King, Jr., in being asked to publish some of his
sermons, wrote in the preface to his book, ". . .
a sermon is directed toward the listening ear rather than
the reading eye. . . I offer these discourses in the hope
that a message may come to life for readers of the printed
words." This is my hope for you, dear reader.
--Rev. Linda
November 19, 2006
WOODLAND MUSINGS:
Over the River and Through the Woods
“Over the river and through the woods to Grandmother’s
house we go. . .” Who’s going somewhere for
Thanksgiving this year? "Over the River and Through
the Woods" has become a standard Thanksgiving song,
familiar to millions. It was written in 1844 by Lydia
Maria Child, one of the earliest American women to earn
a living from her writing. This poem, which was later
put to music, has remained her best-known work
Whether we are going to grandma's house or just going
home from work, we need mental maps of places to help
us move around in our world. And it’s the same for
our spiritual journey.
Today we’re continuing our exploration of Eckhart
Tolle’s book A New Earth, looking at who we truly
are. We’ve been talking a lot this month about the
ego, which is made up of our beliefs, and we’ve been
pretty clear that that’s not who we are. We are not
our beliefs, including our “spiritual” beliefs.
Spiritual beliefs only point to something. So we don’t
want to get attached to any beliefs. As our founder Dr.
Ernest Holmes said, we must remain open at the top. Eckhart
Tolle wrote, “Knowing yourself is to be rooted in
Being, instead of lost in your mind.” (p. 186)
How well do we know ourselves? And how do we know how
well we know ourselves? One of the easiest ways is by
our upsets. By what upsets us. When we get off course
going over the river and through the woods, we get to
know a little something about ourselves, don’t we?
Especially those of us who say we know we’re immortal
spirit and we really want peace. And then something happens.
Someone cuts us off in traffic. How peaceful are we then?
Something is suddenly more important than peace or being
that immortal spirit. We’re more invested in our
ego than our spirit, more interested in giving particular
finger motions or shouting not-so-niceties than pulsating
love.
But sometimes it’s through knowing who we are not,
that we take the biggest steps toward knowing who we are.
Because when we recognize the ego in us, we know it’s
not really who we are. And in that glimpse of awareness,
we remove the greatest obstacle we have in our spiritual
journey, complete ignorance of the ego.
Why is it so important to know who we are? Because the
way the world responds to us is a direct result of who
we think we are. So if we think we’re less than,
limited, lacking in any way, then what we get to experience
is more lack, more limitation, more less-than.
How insightful of our leaders to create a national holiday
for Thanksgiving. Tolle says, “Acknowledging the
good that is already in your life is the foundation for
all abundance. The fact is: Whatever you think the world
is withholding from you, you are withholding from the
world.” And why are we withholding? He says, “You
are withholding it because deep down you think you are
small and that you have nothing to give.” (p. 190)
We need always to give the best we have in the moment—love,
commitment, talent. Give our best at whatever we’re
doing, and do it with thanksgiving. And speaking of that,
we have some examples of people here who do that week
after week in giving service to The Maine Beacon. And
I want to acknowledge and thank them right now for their
commitment, their love, and the way they give of their
talents. So would Sue Goldsmith, Pat Bedell, and Bill
Holmes please come up here?
The love of our Spiritual Center that these three people
show through their dedication, commitment and the giving
of their resources and their talents, make it possible
for us to be here week after week, month after month.
The Maine Beacon would not be if it weren’t for them.
And here’s the other remarkable thing about these
3 amazing people—they do all that they do without
complaining. Now I know there have to be times when they
just don’t feel like getting up on Sunday morning
and coming here. That’s just human. But they don’t
live from that ego place. They believe in what they’re
doing, and they do what they believe in. There are no
words to express my gratitude for each of them. Let’s
give them a big thank you.
Think about this: on our way to grandma’s house,
to Thanksgiving, there is no “good” or “bad.”
We make that up. There is only order, perfect order. J.
Krishnamurti said, “This is my secret: I don’t
mind what happens.” Like the story of the Zen Master
Hakuin Sue read to us earlier. “Is that so?”
Tolle, says, “To be in alignment with what is means
to be in a relationship of inner nonresistance with what
happens.” (p. 198)
Now that doesn’t mean we don’t care or don’t
take action. The Zen Master certainly loved the baby and
cared for him the best he could. But when we’re not
resisting, then we can align ourselves in Power. But when
we resist what is, we’re in a dysfunctional relationship
with Now. It’s always our choice how we respond to
Now, to what’s going on in the Present Moment, Now
with a capital N, the sacred Now. When we’re friendly
with Now, Life becomes friendly with us.
And here’s the great thing, you see: every time
we choose to stay centered in the Now, that’s the
end of the ego. Tolle says, “Time is what the ego
lives on. The stronger the ego, the more time takes over
your life.” (p. 201) How often do I hear people,
and myself, say “I just don’t have enough time.”
“I have too much going on in my life.” “I’m
so busy.” “I wish I could add more hours to
my day.” Sound familiar?
Tolle says there are 3 ways the ego treats Now. One is
that the ego treats Now as a means to an end, to get to
some future time that’s more important than Now.
Another is that the ego treats Now as a way to overcome
something so that finally we can be happy. Whenever we’re
feeling impatient, frustrated, stressed, we need to check
to see if maybe we’re trying to overcome some problem
we’re dealing with so we can be happy. But, you see,
the things we think we have to overcome never end. There’s
always something else, so we never get to happy.
It’s really just the Law at work, isn’t it?
Giving back to us what we’re giving out—trying
to overcome something. How bountiful is our Giver in the
problems we get to overcome!
And the third way the ego treats Now is as an enemy.
“When you hate what you’re doing, complain about
your surrounding, curse things that are happening or have
happened, or when your internal dialogue consists of shoulds
and shouldn’ts, of blaming and accusing, then you
are arguing with what is, arguing with that which is always
already the case. You are making Life into an enemy.”
So says Eckhart Tolle. (p. 203)
So get this—wanting more time is wanting more ego.
Time is a horizontal dimension, the linear realm of the
world. But there is a vertical dimension that goes to
the depths and heights. And Now is the portal to the depths
and heights, to the sacred. So in reality, “The elimination
of time from your consciousness is the elimination of
the ego. It is the only true spiritual practice.”
(p. 207) And, of course, Tolle is talking about psychological
time here, not clock time. Obviously, we need clock time
to keep appointments and live in this world.
But we must eliminate psychological time, the ego’s
treatment of time. And we can do that by constantly saying
“yes” to Life, to the Present Moment, to Now.
When we surrender to Now, we open the portal to the vertical
dimension, the spiritual realm. And the event or condition
of the moment is transformed in our thinking and often
in our physical realm as well. Though not always. It may
not look like a healing to the world, but you know yourself,
we know within us, that something is different, more peaceful,
more joyful, more fulfilled.
“Unhappiness or negativity” says Tolle, “is
a disease on our planet. What pollution is on the outer
level is negativity on the inner.” (p. 213) And the
more pollution, “stuff,” we have in our lives,
the worse it can get because things, forms, possessions,
achievements, people, or events, conditions, thoughts,
theories, none of these forms are what satisfy us. Joy
comes from within, from That Which Is, the formless, from
Consciousness, Pure Consciousness, before thought.
Because we have come to believe the ego is who we are,
it’s always on the lookout for any signs of diminishment,
and the ego will go into what Tolle calls “automatic
ego-repair” mode to fix any damage it feels it’s
encountered. Psychology calls this defense mechanisms.
The ego doesn’t care about the truth or even the
facts. It only cares about self-preservation. But since
less is more, less ego is more I Am, being conscious of
the ego and what it’s doing is a true spiritual practice.
So when your son decides he wants to quit high school
and go to work digging ditches, you get to experience
the ego in diminishment and trying desperately to build
itself back up. “No son of mine is going to be a
ditch digger! You are going to medical school and that’s
that! I don’t care what YOU want. I want a son I
can be proud of, that I can brag about to my friends,
a son who’ll make me look good. I know you can’t
be happy unless you’re doing what I say will make
you happy, and digging ditches ain’t it!”
But when we stop and just observe the ego and do nothing,
no thing, go into deliberate spiritual practice, for a
while it’s going to feel pretty awful, pretty scarey
because the ego is shrinking. But then we begin to feel
the freedom from it as we experience more of the I Am,
the Larger Self, the Divine Self. And for me, I often
end up laughing at myself, my ego self, at my little ego
having a temper tantrum because it couldn’t have
its way. And this turning from ego to the I Am is what
the great Jewish prophet Jesus of Nazareth meant when
he said to turn the other cheek, and to deny yourself,
you see?
When the ego is quiet, the All-Knowingness of Wisdom
can flow through us unimpeded for our highest good and
the highest good for our son, which can’t be in conflict
since we’re really one. And we get to experience
trust. The Power of Wisdom spoken with no negativity is
what comes forth through you from the Universe. “For
everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who
humbles himself will be exalted.” (Luke 14:11)
There really are only 2 things in the world—things
and space, two dimensions of reality—thing-ness and
no-thing-ness. So there are material things, things to
do, things to think about. Or as Winston Churchill said,
“. . . one damn thing after another.” And no-thing,
space, Spirit, Consciousness. To live in balance, we can’t
just be in thing-ness. Tolle says, “The arising of
space Consciousness is the next stage in the evolution
of humanity.” (p. 227) This is awareness.
When we’re completely absorbed by things, and that
includes thoughts remember, it’s impossible to be
aware of space, so we can’t be aware of ourselves.
The only “self” we’re aware of is the ego—which
is not a real self. Inner space consciousness, the no-thing-ness
of us is our Essence. How can we experience It? It’s
in the “little things” that we experience more
of the space of us, the “little things” of life.
The joy of living, the joy of being, inner joy comes from
the “little things” of life that really aren’t
so “little”—sunrises, sunsets, the smell
of lilacs, the voice of a loved one, a child’s hand
in yours, a night sky filled with bright stars, “raindrops
on roses and whiskers on kittens.”
But to hear these things, to see them, to experience
them, we must be present and aware in the moment, in the
Now. One of the simplest ways to be in- the-moment aware
is by breathing, become aware of your breath. Stop several
times a day for a few conscious breaths. Let’s do
that now.
Just close your eyes and pay attention to your breathing.
Notice the space at the end of the out-breath, a still-point,
the stillness, the no-thing-ness, the gap. And as you
continue to breathe, notice the aliveness within you,
in your body, Life within you. Put your attention on your
heart. Feel it beating. Focus on a different area in your
body. Feel the aliveness of it. Feel the Life. You have
found Who You Are.
