Initiation

Most people are unaware that there is anything more to life than getting "stuff" and improving their standing in the world. Not until they reach a crisis will they start looking for something more. Then they become seekers. If you ask the average person, "What is your life about?" they won't be able to tell you. Life is about initiation, and they don't know anything about that. You have to start with the basics - concentration, mind control, service - for growth to be possible.

Finding God

Edgar Cayce healed by helping the body heal itself. "Works,"such as concentration exercises, meditation, rituals, and other practices, do nothing to make us more spiritual; they only help us get out of the way, help quiet the mind, purify the heart, and animate the body, so that the Spirit can find It's expression in us. That's all. Nothing we can do gets us any closer to God - God reveals God in us where God has been all the time. We have been lost in the periphery of our being, gradually sinking into the Center as we turn away from the cares of this world. And when we are finally empty, unmoved by fear and desire, we find ourselves where we have been all along - in God.

The Body of Christ

There is no literal meaning for the Body of Christ, not in the normal sense of "literal." It has actual existence, but not literal. Let me illustrate what I mean. In the spring of 1995, during her senior year of high school, I drove my younger daughter, Amanda, to a women’s college back east for a "get-to-know-us" visit. As we were driving through the mountains of Virginia, I was looking out of the side window of our rental car at the forests blanketing the slopes off to our left. They stretched for miles in that wonderful, soft kind of way that distinguishes the Appalachians from the Rocky Mountain and Sierra Nevada ranges out West. There are very few places in these older, more weathered mountains that rise above timberline, the elevation above which trees do not grow. So the forests of the eastern United States are more like that velvety covering on a young male deer’s antlers. They hide the hardness of the land, making the trees stand out instead of the geology, more of a botanical majesty than the frozen violence of tectonic force.

As I was taking all of this in, the forest that had been softening the world to my eyes suddenly spoke to me without words. It said, "Look how I move over the land!" And it was. In geologic time, it was moving across the landscape the way a cloud moves across the sky. In my time-lapse vision, the trees in their relentless rising and falling, their growing and decaying, washed over the mountains in a continuous cascade of roots, branches, and leaves. And though the forest comprised a multitude of arboreal entities, these individual trees were but cells of a larger organism - the forest.

I do not know what varieties of trees were commingling there, but each of the species was a forest unto itself. They were passing through each other like pedestrians on a crowded sidewalk, affected but unchanged in their unique identity. Each oak tree was a cell in the vast, sprawling organism called Oak. It had its own direction and its own pace, but was seemingly unaware of the pine trees whose orientation and timetable were so different. And the others—all of them were grazing over the rounded tops of these ancient mountains, the way a starfish crawls over the mounds of sand on the ocean floor, extracting minerals, depositing humus, and breathing oceans of oxygen and water into the air, all the while scrubbing it clean of carbon dioxide with its alveolar leaves and ciliated needles.

What kind of body can spread itself so thin, whose individual cells seem independent from the whole? What mind governs its movements, tells it how to grow, how to die, and how, through the spraying of its seeds, to comport itself across rugged terrain and the periodicity of time? Surely, there must be some ligament of intelligence, a connecting will as invisible as the air itself, a common pulse measured in decades, a single eye fixed in a faraway stare, its brooding vision blanketing time the way forests blanket the mountains.

Each tree is like a glowing ember in the fire of this unitary vision. It grows bright and dull with alternating breath, counted, not by the short attention span of humans, but by the change of seasons. Whatever life moves through it moves through all of it, even those members carried far off by the wind or on the shanks of animals. Regardless of how far, the one pulse and the one breath fan the embers in unison, drawing all together into one body, each flame resonant with every other.

Sometimes, complete absorption can look like indifference. This is how it is with trees. They are utterly filled with forest-consciousness. Their physical location, the relative state of their health, their size, shape, and every other noticeable characteristic, are inconsequential. They can live or die, thrive or suffer, and it does not matter. Because their breath is the one breath, the flame of life in them is the one flame. That which makes them what they are cannot be harmed. It may seem to disappear for a time, the duration of which would exceed human comprehension, but it will always return. If not here, then someplace else. This is how it is with trees.

Do you see how hard it is to speak of the Body of Christ? What can possibly be said? What do trees talk about amongst themselves? Do they discuss the ins and outs of Forest-ness? And if they could speak, and if they could speak to us, how would they match their tempo to ours? Each word would last a lifetime for the average human, much more their silence. And this is how it is with the members of the Body of Christ. That which really matters, that which makes us one in Christ, cannot be spoken. It cannot be analyzed. It can’t even be experienced, not in the way the world serves up its stimulations. And yet it is always there, closer than our breath—a background event—a background that looms large, that overshadows, hopefully to shrink everything in the foreground, reaching over us all, going before us like the crest of a wave precedes the wave itself.

This is how it is with the Body of Christ. How much more complex than a forest, how much wider in its expanse, how much larger its lifespan? Where forests cover mountains of Earth, what is the geography of spirit, what map could describe it? What timberline could contain it? Or is it that this forest only grows above the timberline? And yet it longs to push past it, until all of Earth is made habitable for the sons and daughters of God.

This is how it is with the Body of Christ.

Better Late Than Never

It occurred to me that being "saved by faith, not by works" is the same as saying that one cannot change, as in "transformation," by willpower alone, but that one must ask for help from above. We cannot change ourselves.

Darn it. No heroics - no Ironman - no taking credit. Just humility.

Every time I have tried to change by sheer force of will, I have failed. Every time. But when I ask for help, especially from the Master Jesus or from Mother Mary, I get results so fast and so easily that it's spooky. I mean, shouldn't it be difficult? Shouldn't I have to pay THROUGH THE NOSE? You would think that someone would say, "Sure, I'll help you. But first you have to learn your lesson." At least, that's what I learned in Catholic School. (Thanks a lot, Sister Jude!)

Father Paul once said that it is in our utter failure that we find God. When we have exhausted every attempt to "do it ourselves" and find ourselves totally defeated, then we turn to the Almighty. But if there is one scrap of ego left, one tiny impulse to prove something, then we're screwed. Right back to square one. Any belief that we have done it slams the door in our face.

A very, very close friend of mine once said that she got in meditation that we are either a "yes" or a "no," and that's all we are. Thinking that we do anything at all is sort of like...well, taking God's name in vain. Isn't that the Second Commandment? A little like the flipside of the First, I think.

Interesting Times

"May you live in interesting times." That was a Chinese curse, wasn't it? Well, at least we know now who to blame it on. All the economic stuff is interesting enough, but the real show is happening right in my own atmosphere. Just watching what kind of vibration I allow myself to have, whether I succumb to fear or get mad as hell (I have GOT to stop listening to NPR!) or whether I'm just gonna breathe. It's up to me. 

You know, we've all been through this before. Many of us were probably alive during the Great Depression, died there, and then came back for these interesting times. We were probably around for the fall of Rome. During our time on earth, we've had to have seen many of the great civilizations come and go. Not that any of it was fun, but it sure was interesting! Now, we might live to see the collapse of the entire ecosystem. That would make the fallen civilization thing look not so bad by comparison. But much worse than any of these things would be to lose ourselves in fear and anger. That would be tragic. To keep things in perspective, I tell myself that none of this is new. I've been here before and this is pretty much the same. 

Now more than ever I feel it's important to watch what I think. I can almost see my thoughts gather around me like a mist; sometimes the mist glows and sometimes it doesn't. I like it better when it glows. But best of all is when there is no mist, when there aren't any thoughts, just that wide-awake, silent awareness - watching, waiting, letting go, lifting up, receiving - in other words, consciousness. I can either be scared and angry, or I can be conscious. I can either control my thoughts, or I can let them blow in the wind. Negative thoughts can either stick to me, or I can peel them off and expel them from my mindspace. This I can do. Or not. It's up to me.

Today, I choose to be conscious.

Inspiration for today...

Man can touch more than he can grasp. --Gabriel Marcel

Good News of the Day:
Half of Estonia's territory is forest. Yet, these forests are plagued with a traditional acceptance of being the country's dump sites. Watch how a group created a grassroots initiative to rid Estonia of 10,000 tons of trash littering its forests and natural environment. In one day, over 50,000 volunteers - or 4% of Estonia's population - cleaned their country in 5 hours.

In May 2008 a massive country-wide clean-up day took place, bringing together more than 50 000 volunteers to clean-up illegal waste from all over the Estonian countryside. This extraordinary project helped to change the waste department system as well as public perspectives on the environment and the possibilities for civic action.

Last year, 650 active people got involved to plan and make that day happen. The initiators caught wind of its success and called a new project to life – My Estonia.

http://www.dailygood.org/more.php?n=3683

Love

What if---- we woke up in the morning and decided to Love All no matter what --- for a day, a week, a year, for the rest of our lives?

"Like a river, love comes forth from its source as a small trickle that then becomes a stream that is then added to other streams until, as it falls from the heights, it becomes a Great River of Love that spreads across the world eventually mixing and merging with all of the waters.

A source is a point of origin. Love as a power flows into the universe from its source, through each of us. Through each one of us, love is added to the Great River of Love.

Love flows like a river from its source into the world and as a great power, love blesses everyone and so the world is changed.

Power is a force exerted. Love is a power only when expressed. The power of love is potentially transformative and when expressed is kinetic; transformation occurs because of love's movement; through the power of love, the universe is both effected and perfected.

Love is infinitely available and infinitely created. Love flows from the Spirit of God when we access the pure desire to love.

We may connect to the Source of Love and feel its power. Love emanates from the Source as a gentle force that when expressed causes a response.

All things vibrate to the Power of Love.

Love permeates all, unobtrusively.

Things do not love. Only we can love.

Love is a movement of nurturing energy, unseen, but felt and known.

Love is uplifting and inspiring; love is healing; love is caring and concerned for the well-being of others.

Love is gentle. Love is kind. Love brings peace and joy."

http://www.gnostic.org/tree_1/09_love/09_love_1.htm

Cane Hill, Missouri

I am in rural Missouri. It is 5 am and I am awake; not that I have to be, I just am. I have not done any formal meditation here, like I usually do in the city. I checked and I feel as though I have already meditated. Anything I do will serve.
Yesterday--St. Patrick's Day--was my mother-in-law's birthday. My wife and I made corned beef and cabbage and a delicious chocolate cake. We celebrated my birthday, too, because it comes up later this month when we will be back in Portland.
We spent a long time just sitting and lying out in the yard before supper. It was such a beautiful day and we wanted to see all the signs of Spring and listen to the birds sing. Later, Karen and I walked down to the spring to pick watercress while Mom took a nap. When we returned to the house, Alex, Mom's dog, was rarin' to go for a walk, so I let him off the leash and we walked up the road all the way to the highway while Karen stayed behind just to sit and feel the evening come.
Earlier in the morning I had taught Mom how to scroll through a photo album on my computer of pictures I took here on the farm last December. She kept asking me where particular views were taken and was really interested. Since her strokes she has been confined to a wheelchair and cannot get down the gravel road. In the evening, I took her through several albums of Oregon wilderness taken on backpacking trips the last couple summers. She has never been there and never seen such powerful falls or majestic trees but she could see in the faces of portraits what an exhilarating experience it was.

Gnostic?

Why Gnostic Round Table? It's the only word I could come up with that adequately describes what we have in common. I don't intend for it to mean that this blog is sponsored by a particular group (such as the Gnostic Order of Christ). I personally heard Father Paul say that he was a "gnostic", and I took that to mean that he based his spiritual knowledge on what he had experienced, not what he had read. I think that that's what makes us different from so many "spiritual" types, and it's what prompted me to start this blog. So, I hope the term "gnostic" doesn't put anyone off. 

Why "round table"? No hierarchy here. No head, no feet. Hopefully, only heart.

I sure hope many of you can find the time to contribute your experiences here. Doesn't have to be long  -  or world shaking. Just true.

This is your blog

This is a "group blog". It's the same as if you had created it yourself. You are the author. Whereas most blogs have just one author, this blog can have as many as one hundred authors. All you need to become a part of it is to respond to the invitation. 

Blogs are personal. This is what makes them different from an online soapbox. People read blogs to learn more about the author and, in the process, more about themselves. The more candid a blog is, the more compelling, and therefor more valuable. 

We have all experienced spiritual initiation. This is our forum. Our conversation here is unique, because it's not just how we are using the Teachings, but how we are incorporating the experience of initiation in our lives. By sharing, we can energize these experiences both in ourselves and in others.

One can find all manner of instruction and advice elsewhere on the Web, but this blog is not about that. Here we want to share with each other what's going on in our inner life, how we are coping, and what we are experiencing. Rather than discuss our opinions about the Teachings (which is fine in other venues) we want to tell our story  -  our insights, our challenges, our victories, our defeats. I believe that such sharing could be enormously valuable for each one of us. I know it will be for me.

Here are some prompts. You will probably have some of your own, but these are merely suggestions to help get the ball rolling:

• What is my experience of Self?
• How am I using the Law?
• Am I being compassionate?
• What's going on for me on the Other Side?
• What sustains me now?
• Where am I heading?

I hope this blog develops into something potent, something we can all contribute to. If you don't want to post a separate topic, please do comment on what someone else has posted by clicking on the comment button at the bottom of the post. 

These stressful times

Hi, Everyone,

Lately, I've been noticing, given all there is to worry about these days, that I'm doing a lot of projecting out onto the world, seeing trouble where there is none or seeing more of it than there actually is. Then, when I go within for guidance, I tend to drag all those projections in with me. I start seeing everything through the filter of my own worry, and my inner guidance gets all confused. It's about that time that I look at the Universe "stretched in smiling repose", and I want to tell her to get up off her lazy ass and do something about this mess!  :)

I don't know about you, but I'm finding that I have to let go of my worries more and more often during these stressful times just to stay somewhat sane. I can remember a few times when coming out of meditation where I did not know who I was, where I was, whether it was day or night, or how much time had elapsed. (That happened once while I was on break at work - very weird experience!) I have always wanted to tie my meditations into what is going on in my life, so much so that I tend to forget that meditation is its own reward and that my "life" benefits greatly from it  -  but usually indirectly. 

So meditation is really important for me right now, as well as saying no to all of my concerns while in meditation. 

How about you?

Words of Wisdom

Here are some sayings of Jesus as recorded in the book by Marvin Meyer The Unknown Sayings of Jesus. These are taken from various gospels. "He said, 'I have come to make what is below like what is above and what is outside like what is inside, and to unite them in that place" (Gospel of Thomas). "Be filled with the spirit, for this reason I say to you, be filled and leave no space within you empty. For heaven's kingdom is like a head of grain that sprouted in a field. And when it was ripe, it scattered its seed, and again it filled the field with heads of grain for another year. So also with you, be eager to harvest for yourselves a head of the grain of life, that you may be filled with the kingdom" (Secret Book of James). "Do not let heaven's kingdom become a desert within you. Do not be proud because of the light that enlightens" (...James). "I say to you, if I had been sent [only] to those who would listen to me and had spoken with them, I would never have [needed to] come down to earth." (Secret Book of James).

Letting go can be an act of service

This morning my teacher reminded me that in these uncertain times, while everyone around the world is reassessing his or her values, letting go is more important than ever. 

It's hard for me to stay conscious while at work, because after all these years it's easy to run on autopilot. But when problems arise, I try to use the opportunity to let go - to relax and submit to the process, instead of getting frustrated.

I install window treatments. The other day, while installing shutters on a living room window, a little voice inside me said, "This is going to be one of your most challenging installations." And sure enough, every problem that could come up did. I had to use every trick in the book to get the shutters to swing freely and not bind up. But instead of freaking out, I just kept trying different approaches, and eventually it all worked out. I took the challenge and trusted my ability. And by relaxing into the problem, I let God work through me, whereas getting angry would have blocked the movement of Spirit. 

Letting go felt so much better than succumbing to frustration and anger. The customers felt better, too. Had I gotten irritated, I'm sure they would have felt it, and my presence in their home would have had a negative influence. But as it turned out, I may have made it easier for them to relax into their life problems as well. 

So, letting go was my act of service for the day.

Michael Maciel