p.200-204
There were a number of passages here that had me reviewing some ideas from past learnings, and looking at them in a fresher way:
“Now the vibration next to you is still vibrating at that frequency without the vocabulary or the focus or the exercises. But right now you have them. So when we speak of co-resonance and the individual change impacting the global change, it is really as follows: One person wakes up, the next person wakes up, they wake up ten, and a thousand, and on and on and on.”
or if you want a more scientific interpretation:
This next paragraph is a reflection of a lesson, one of my teachers offered years ago. Simply put, she said, “When it’s up, it’s on its way out.” This is true for all toxicity we might be dealing with—anger, fear, scarcity, etc.
When we pick up the challenge of spiritual growth, again with the tools of willingness and intention, all the stuff that might have been in our way comes into our consciousness to be healed, transformed or let go of.
So when we pray, “Lord, let me be filled with light” one of the things that happens is that all that has been getting in the way or blocking the light comes up to the surface—it has to.
Most of us are not prepared for this and might become overwhelmed, or even angry and bitter. This is where that misconceived idea of “Be careful what you pray for” came from. There is nothing wrong with our prayer or its results; its just that most of us have not been aware that the answer to my prayer also involved some work on my part.
“So now, once you understand that your individual consciousness is being transformed through these energies that are acclimating the planet right now, and once you understand that this makes for change on individual consciousness and group experience, you can begin to understand a little more about what is transpiring on a global level. All of the groups are fighting who believe in separation. And this is, in some ways, the big hurrah for separation—just as you know when you have a pimple or a blemish or a boil, it will rise to the surface and break through the skin as it exits the body. And if you think of the body right now as the global matrix, these things are releasing in pockets of behavior and in crises and in planetary problems. And that is part“of this shift. The old behavior has to leave. The sense of separation between men cannot be other than the separation between man and God.”
And lastly:
“We need you to understand this. When you say, “Turn the other cheek,” you are not speaking about a physical response as much as you are speaking about a change in consciousness where what is slapped has no real meaning because the cheek does not burn on a level of consciousness. We will explain.
If you have an issue with your brother, and you are angry at your brother, and you send anger his way, that brother can turn the other cheek by rising in consciousness to a place where they cannot be struck by the energy that you are sending to them. It’s really that simple. If you are vibrating at a higher frequency, you do not get zapped by the lower because, in fact, you have risen above it.”
reminded me of a marvelous story by Terry Dobson as written by Jack Kornfield:
The quieter you are, the more you hear the true nature of compassion. The intuitive compassionate heart is the doorway to our unity.
This story from Aikido master Terry Dobson is one of my favorites because it shows how to bring about harmony by embracing conflict with compassion and understanding: The train clanked and rattled through the suburbs of Tokyo on a drowsy spring afternoon. Our car was comparatively empty, a few housewives with their kids in tow, some old folks going shopping. I gazed absently at the drab houses and dusty hedgerows. At one station the doors opened and suddenly the afternoon quiet was shattered by a man bellowing violent, incomprehensible curses. The man staggered into our car. He wore laborer’s clothing and he was big, drunk, and dirty. Screaming, he swung at a woman holding a baby. The blow sent her spinning into the laps of an elderly couple. It was a miracle the baby was unharmed. Terrified, the couple jumped up and scrambled toward the end of the car. The laborer aimed a kick at the retreating back of the old woman but missed as she scuttled to safety. This so enraged the drunk that he grabbed the metal pole in the center of the car and tried to wrench it out of its stanchion. I could see that one of his hands was cut and bleeding. The train lurched ahead, the passengers frozen with fear. I stood up. I was young then, some twenty years ago, and in pretty good shape. I had been putting in a solid eight hours of aikido training every day for the past three years. I liked to throw and grapple. I thought I was tough. The trouble was, my martial skill was untested in actual combat. As students of aikido, we were not allowed to fight. Aikido, my teacher had said again and again, is the art of reconciliation. Whoever has the mind to fight has broken his connection to the universe. If you try to dominate people, you are already defeated. We study how to resolve conflict, not how to start it. I listened to his words. I tried so hard. I even went so far as to cross the street to avoid the kids, the pinball punks who lounged around the train station. My forbearance exalted me. I was both tough and holy. In my heart, however, I wanted an absolutely legitimate opportunity whereby I might save the innocent by destroying the guilty. This is it, I said to myself, as I stood up. People are in danger. If I don’t do something fast, somebody will probably get hurt. Seeing me stand up the drunk recognized the chance to focus his rage. “Ah ha!” he roared. “A foreigner! You need a lesson in Japanese manners.” I held on lightly to the commuter strap overhead and gave him a slow look of disgust and dismissal. I planned to take this turkey apart but he had to make the first move. I wanted him mad so I pursed my lips and blew him an insolent kiss. “All right,” he hollered, “You’re going to get a lesson.” He gathered himself for a rush at me. A fraction of a second before he could move, someone shouted “Hey!” It was ear-splitting. I remember the strangely joyous, lilting quality of it as though you and a friend had been searching diligently for something and he had suddenly stumbled upon it—“ Hey!” I wheeled to my left, the drunk spun to his right. We both stared down at a little old Japanese man. He must have been well into his seventies, this tiny gentleman, sitting there immaculate in his kimono. He took no notice of me but beamed delightedly at the laborer as though he had a most important, most welcome secret to share. “Come here,” the old man said in an easy vernacular, beckoning to the drunk. “Come here and talk with me.” He waved his hand lightly. The big man followed as if on a string. He planted his feet belligerently in front of the old gentleman and roared above the clacking wheels. “Why the hell should I talk to you?” The drunk now had his back to me. If his elbow moved so much as a millimeter I’d drop him in his socks. The old man continued to beam at the laborer. “Whatcha been drinkin?” he asked, his eyes sparkling with interest. “I’ve been drinking sake,” the laborer bellowed back, “and it’s none of your business.” Flecks of spittle spattered the old man. “Oh, that’s wonderful,” the old man said, “absolutely wonderful. You see I love sake too. Every night me and my wife, she’s seventy-six you know, we warm up a little bottle of sake and we take it out in the garden and we sit on our old wooden bench and we watch the sun go down and we look to see how our persimmon tree is doing. My great-grandfather planted that tree and we worry about whether it will recover from those ice storms we had last winter. Our tree has done better than I expected though, especially when you consider the poor quality of the soil. It is gratifying to watch
when we take our sake and go out to enjoy the evening even when it rains.” He looked up at the laborer, his eyes twinkling. As he struggled to follow the old man’s conversation, the drunk’s face began to soften. His fists slowly unclenched. “Yeah,” he said, “I love persimmons too.” His voice trailed off. “Yes,” said the old man, smiling, “and I am sure you have a wonderful wife.” “Nah. My wife died.” Very gently, swaying with the motion of the train, the big man began to sob. “I don’t got no wife. I don’t got no home. I don’t got no job. I’m so ashamed of myself.” Tears rolled down his cheeks. A spasm of despair rippled through his body. There I was standing in my well-scrubbed youthful innocence, my make-this-world-safe-for-democracy righteousness. I suddenly felt dirtier than he was. The train arrived at my stop. As the door opened, I heard the old man cluck sympathetically. “My, my,” he said, “that is a difficult predicament. Sit down here and tell me about it.” I turned my head for one last look. The laborer was sprawled on the seat, his head in the old man’s lap. The old man was softly stroking the filthy matted hair. As the train pulled away, I sat down on a bench. What I had wanted to do with muscle had been accomplished with kind words. I had just seen aikido tried in combat, and the essence of it was love.
You and I are in training to become conscious, compassionate beings, in the truest and deepest sense. Become an instrument of joy, an instrument of equanimity, an instrument of presence, an instrument of love, an instrument of availability, and at the same moment absolutely quiet. Since we all spend so much time in our relationships, why not turn them into a yoga for getting free? Living a spiritual life is a strategy for working on yourself for the benefit of all beings. That’s another way of saying that the optimum thing you can do for someone else is to work on yourself —not out of some idealistic sense of altruism, but because getting to oneness for yourself means resolving your sense of separateness to where we’re all family. Use every situation you have with other people as a vehicle to work on yourself. See where you get stuck, where you push, where you grab, where you judge, where you do all the other stuff. Use your life experiences as your curriculum.
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Again, thank you all for a marvelous continuing journey.
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