Like yesterday’s reading, today’s reading encourages us to see purification through to its completion regardless of how difficult it gets during the process. It says:
I have placed before you an open door that no one can shut. Keep your eyes fixed on the door as you go through your final temptations. Remember that no one can keep you from walking through that door but you.
The reading points out that as long as you believe your conditioning, the “world is your shepherd.” That means that you are merely reactive, in the same way sheep fearfully react to a shepherd who shouts and swings his staff. You are herded about by your thoughts, perceptions and emotions. You may think you are independent, but you are like a dumb robot that performs according to programming without choice.
The reading also says:
“But when you have left these beliefs behind as tiny wisps of air that are not noticed, you shall see the world differently. It shall not be your shepherd. It shall be your banquet table. And at this table, you shall feast daily, joyously with me.”
Consider these two poems, one by St. Francis of Assisi and one by the Sufi saint, Rabia:
Wring Out My Clothes
By St. Francis
Such love
does the sky now pour,
that whenever I stand in a field,
I have to wring out the light
when I get home.
This Choir
By Rabia
So amazing this choir of
socks, shoes, shirt, skirt, undergarments,
earth, sky,
suns, and moons.
No wonder I too, now
sing all day.
Consider carefully what you really want; to be a slave to conditioning, or to experience the world with love and joy, like Francis and Rabia did.
Do you want to be one of the few who persevere?
Thoughts of Awakening # 271
The “I” of knowledge
does not see others.
In this way, there is no “I”.
There is only existence
and the heart of existence
beating as one.
When one hears the heart of existence,
one is in tune with I.
When one sees self and others,
one has lost awareness of truth.
~From our Holy Spirit
