An Affirmation on Trust

Trust

Life has a rhythm and a process and I am
part of its perfect current. My life has a path
and a purpose and I am continually expand-
ed and delighted by my awareness as it
grows. I trust that Life is loving and support-
ive of me, providing me with everything I
need to reach my greatest good. I know all
that I need to know for right now and I trust
that Life will provide me with all of the revela-
tion I need at just the right time. I cease stri-
ving and relax my mind. I change my posture
to being open and ready to receive. I am calm
knowing that I am exactly where I should be
at this moment. Life becomes effortless and
sweet. I am free to enjoy life.

Change is a Miracle

I was in a quaint, little cafe Saturday morning with two friends. The week had been so busy...the pace of life had been so fast that I had lost touch with my inner state of balance. As they where talking around me, I allowed myself to disconnect, to go within and try to find my center.

As my friends continued to talk, I gazed at the leaves on a tree just outside the window and all of the sounds around me began to grow more and more distant.

Suddenly, as my being began to open up, I had a realization. I noticed that everything around me was ALIVE, everything was CHANGING every second...reinventing themselves, evolving, growing. I started to look around as the revelation blossomed inside of me. I noticed the steam swirl and rise from my friend's coffee, which was changing in temperature by the moment. The little vase of flowers in front of me was trembling gently in the moving air in the room, changing more and more since they had been plucked from their homes. The water in my glass was evaporating. The light outside was changing.

All of this pointed my heart to the truth in every moment, the truth in embracing every single moment, every single day as a gift, never having been lived before. How important it is to regard ourselves as new, more evolved beings every day. How important it is to embrace everything there is to embrace in THE NOW, the fleeting now, far too precious to overlook. The now is full of change and change is a miracle, a gift, that creates mystery and excitement.

A poem written by a dear friend...


Returning

It's to you I return once more, sweet singer
of my soul, little child, holiest Mystery.
May you pour forth always, joyful and clear,
a gaily running brook or dancing fountain.

Nothing this world can boast--neither fame
nor fortune, praise nor bread, could equal
your innocence, or replace your simplicity.
I'd rather die than know that you were dead.

It's to you I return once more, secred lover
of my heart, little child, sacred Miracle.
May you flourish always, tender and real,
a fruitful, nurturing tree, a shading pool.

Whatever I do, whatever I hope to be, you
are my Source, My Light, my Song, my Home.
Beyond the danger of the nights, the struggle
of the days, may all my paths return to Thee.


***

Bob Savino -- 8/9/99

Surrender

"Surrender is a beautiful movement in which you gracefully, willingly, languidly fall, only to find midway that you have been gathered into some unimaginable embrace. Surrender is letting go, whether or not you believe the embrace will occur. It’s trust to the hundredth power–not sticking to your idea of the outcome, but letting go in the faith that even the absence of an outcome will be the perfect solution.

Surrender is diaphanous and fluid. It’s the giving up of rigidity of every kind: rigidities of the mind that design outcomes to occur in very specific ways; rigidities of the heart that refuse the heart to be soft and open; rigidities of the body that refuse to receive the touch that could heal, the passion that could transform; rigidities of the soul that congeal and congest the spirit, causing it to imagine it has a life apart from the body and mind.

Surrender is the meltdown of every rigidity we’ve ever been committed to, the conscious and unconscious dismantling of how we thought things should be to make way for the way things will, in fact, occur. It’s a kind of being surprised by joy, of happily swimming into the greater consciousness that’s always operating on our behalf. Just as a child, learning how to swim, discovers, amazed, that the water does hold him up, so surrender buoys us up, supports us for the fulfillment of our destinies.

Surrender requires purity of intention. In the absolute freedom it grants in response to our letting go, it requires an absolute commitment of holding on to nothing. Whatever you thought you had–the idea, the expectation, the plan, the hope of how things should be you must let go of it fully. Surrender is stepping away from the certainty of your categories into the no-man’s-land of all possibilities.

And it is in surrendering, in letting go into the void–into the mysterious, unnamed, mystical, formless future; into the arms that are invisible–that we become finally ready to receive all. Surrender is the giving of your all to the All; the waiting with an absolute absence of expectation for the totally perfect thing to occur."

~Daphne Rose Kingma

The Key to Playing the Game of Life

This clip is from one of my favorite movies, the Sandlot, where the esteemed "Benny the jet Ramirez" imparts the secret of playing baseball to the heavily ridiculed, clueless new kid "Scotty Smalls." This secret turns out to be the key that helps him to unlock his ability to play the game.
The message is simple: STOP THINKING AND JUST PLAY! What a great message.

If we listen to the deeper meaning in Benny's message, we will find that applies to our daily lives. The message becomes...If we acted out of the belief that there is a Deep, Instinctual, Infinite wisdom within us that is readily available to guide us, that it IS guiding us now, that we are inseparable from it...If we lived this knowledge, how simple life would be! How often we so over think and over complicate things in our lives that are truly simple to the point where we bury our own truths and solutions, making them unaccessible to ourselves, discoverable only through great and unnecessary effort.

However, when we embrace the moment, when we live in the now...when we cast our fears, self consciousness and self doubt aside, when we throw ourselves into life's beautiful and mysterious concoction with abandon and zeal, we are able to engage not only with ourselves but with others, with LIFE completely. We are able to see what we are actually capable of and are able to unlock the greatest good each moment has for us.

And still there's more...As Benny the Jet encourages Smalls, the Spirit encourages us to just raise our open gloves in the air, to hold them there, to TRUST, to cease all striving, distraction and fear, and It will send our utmost good our way, straight into our mitts. All we have to do is believe, to "be still and know."

The Power of Transcendence

So much of life we tend to spend on an earthly level, recycling thinking others have done for us, rehearsing situations that have already happened and otherwise circling and circling with our own limited intellect. However, when we open up and tap into the God consciousness, otherwise known as the Divine Mind, we are able to crawl out of our little holes and enter in to an expansive universe that has no boundaries. We are able to embrace true clarity and conceive ideas without limits, without the weight of fear or self doubt. When we do not attempt to enter in to this higher realm, it is as though we are only living in the bottom floor of our house. But, the top floor is where the light pours in with the most beauty, the place where we can have the greatest perspective of all that surrounds, the place where the leaves rustle close enough to touch. It is time to take an adventure, to put our keys in those rusty locks and venture to the top floor, to chase the true, living perspective that can only be found in the place where the Spirit dwells.

The Child Within

In our culture, time is expressed as something that is linear. The roads we drive are straight, the calendars on which we chart the goings on of our daily lives are geometrical, the years that we measure time with are chronological and so on. Everything is a mathematical equation. And so by default we often see our inward journey as linear also. However, the landscape of the inward journey is organic, more like a spiral. As we travel on this spiral we are radiating from our center, our origin and as we do so, often perceiving the same objects that have life within us, but simply from a different vantage point.

The question then becomes, “What is my origin?” Our origins point back to our childhood, and a child that is still alive and well within us. There are a number of conditions that shaped us as children. Perhaps our parents were loving, supportive and attentive. Perhaps they were distant, distracted and aloof. Perhaps they were a combination of these things. Perhaps we felt alone and abandoned as children, perhaps we were even abused.

As an adult any wounds or apprehensions I had then are capable of still being as fresh as they were at their onset. When I come across a difficulty in my adult life, if I can seek more deeply and embrace this truth, turning in towards this child with love and acceptance, perhaps that it never received. If I apply myself, if I make an effort to understand this misunderstood child, I can make an impact to heal this child within me that is living still and is actively effecting my relationships and general outlooks with its thoughts, fears, and wounds.

What amazing growth we could experience in our lives if we were able to pause when the moment arises, look within and tend to this child! How impactful it could be if we could put a stop to that pain and insecurity and permanently change the trends of our lives! What beautiful territory is waiting to be charted by a more whole YOU!? This is not only possible, but absolutely probable when we look within.

At the same time, the child within us is not always a being that needs to be tended to, it also needs to be listened to and learned from. This child is the summation of all the purity in the universe. This child within us is innocent, it’s needs are simple. This child within has no ulterior motives, and is not capable of manipulating others. It has no desire to. It has the ability to see to the heart of a matter easily and expresses it’s basic needs without greed. It clings to truth. It loves unconditionally. It keeps no record of wrongs. This child within can identify with the pain of others, it cares, this child is readily compassionate. This child gives without reservation or selfish regard. This child within trusts The Spirit and others without suspicion.

Oh how we could live more fully, and more sincerely, the child within us as our guide.

A River of Peace Within

The other day a series of thoughts and emotions collided and I found myself teetering into a state of emotional panic. My fears all assailed me at once! In the avalanche I stepped into a prayer quickly to catch myself. "God please help me!" (It is amazing how unsophisticated, how completely honest, how childlike, how crude our prayers can be when we are desperate, and yet I have found that Spirit finds nothing more earnest or irresistible!)

Soon after I sensed that "still, small voice," so easily drowned out or ignored, breathe a message into me: "Reach down, reach down slowly...Reach your fingers down into that cool, peaceful, gentle water that is always flowing at the center of your being. There you will find your peace. There you will find your truth." So I did, and gradually my consciousness began to calm and finally settle into that place of stillness. In effect, that moment, that choice changed the whole course of my evening.

What a profound message! I embrace it with exhilaration!!! There is a stream, dare I say a river, of cool, peaceful, gentle water flowing at the center of our beings that we can reach into and find peace. In that river, we and God are one. That part of us knows more than what any other part of our being knows. What a comforting liberating message!

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"Humankinds's last frontier is also it's first. It's the kingdom within us. All of our explorations: mountains, seas, space and even the exploration of our bodies are preparation for the time when we will venture within ourselves. The discoveries we make when we explore the last frontier will be the greatest and most far reaching discoveries we have ever made.

Undoubtedly, there will be great explorers to be acknowledged but the truth is that the last frontier is something that each person must explore. In this way, every discovery we make about ourselves and the kingdom within us enhances the human family and contributes to the greater breakthroughs that await us."

-Jim Rosemergy

Love, Not Fear

Anxiety is a dizzying fretfulness that alientates us from our lives, from others and disorients us from our truths. It can insinuate it's way into our thoughts in ways we do not recognize until it really has a grip on our consciousness. Anxiety often starts with a question that is asked in our minds. It is often a good question, but the key is that it is asked with a sense of unbridled worry that at first seems innocent, but once it takes hold can spring into full fledged panic. Suddenly the floor becomes slanted, the walls start caving in and all we can think about its looking for a window to jump out of! We are desperate for a way out.

There is no truth that can be found in anxiety. Not only this, we are allowing our lives to be stolen from us with worry. These are precious moments that we live and it is so important that we stand up and claim our lives back from this unbridled fretfulness. Spirit has given us THE NOW and we must embrace it fully, enjoying every color, every scent, every sound. We must not overwhelm ourselves with the details of the future. We were not designed for that!

We all have to find our way out of these webs of confusion. Here is what I can offer...I have found that taking a deep breath, a moment of pause to be grateful to God for our blessing, and for all that God is to us can be the first step out of the maze of worry. Then, when our beings calm we can trace our steps back to what that question was that insinuated its way into our minds. We can address that question with a balanced mind, not a fretful mind. We can open up to Spirit and allow It to help us to answer that question with a Life Giving answer. So often the answer is simply TRUST and KNOW that I am God. Simply trust in the loving, supportive hand of Spirit...that Spirit will help us and lift us to that higher ground when we need it, when we are ready. That whatever may befall us, Spirit will be there, ready to provide us with what we need. What an incredible guarantee! What on earth are we so afraid of!

When we release anxiety, when we make the decision that we will not allow our moments to be stolen from us. We become fully present and our worlds will open up to us. We will be free to experience it not as our fear would frame it but as it truly is, without bounds!

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A beautiful poem a friend sent to me about that shining moment the Spirit rescues us from those dark, mysterious places our humanity can take us to has made my heart sing....

SONG OF THE SUMMONING ANGEL

When the Summoning Angel appears, you'll know.
A just-opened rose with its glistening raindrop
will astonish, will shake your being to the core.
A handful of starlings skittering across the sky
will unsheathe you from your body into thin air.

I've been there. I've tasted this Wider Reality.
Everything I ever loved rolled into a single ball
of almost unbearable Radiance--an entire world
transformed--and my tiny, foolish stupefied self
burst apart like the milkweed pod, spilling seeds.

God's Summoning Angel is a Holy Terror, no lie.
Utterly exposed, all barracades smithereened,
I prayed for mercy! I begged for more! But Love
at its first declension is not human. It's always
heartbreaking. Our thudding hearts are too small!

The command was simple, overwhelming: change,
grow, awake, become! Yet there's nothing harder
than letting go of my addiction to old wounds.
Goodbye and goodbye and goodbye, dark familiars.
I turn with new eyes toward the breaking dawn...


***

-- Bob Savino 10/31/99

Choosing The Spirit's Perspective

Challenges tailored specifically for our weaknesses come to us each day in different forms, not as an act of punishment from Life to us, but as an act of Love. Spirit knows the positive impact our being stronger in these exact ways will have on our lives. These instances have the possibility of making ancient wrongs within our beings, right, and forging brave, new ground. There is no chance for failure here as we continue to press in and apply ourselves, passionately responding to The Absolute’s overture to us.

When each challenge comes, we are presented with an opportunity.

Our highest objective is to embrace the challenge when it comes, accepting the agitation it may create in our being, asking ourselves, "What can I learn from this? How can this strengthen me. How can I better my life or the lives of others involved in this?" It is this acting out of a sense of inward attentiveness that can help us to make the utmost progress.

In the face of adversity it is easy to be wrapped up in our humanity...that voice that says "I am afraid of...I am angry because..." It is like seeing our lives through dirty glasses.

But if we would relinquish our ego and open ourselves, even for a split second, to see with the eyes of Spirit we could see our situations, our lives as they truly are. Suddenly those dirty glasses are removed and all forms appear in crystal clarity. We are then able to act out of a sense of understanding, peace, love and abandon.

Spirit sees all things as an opportunity and if we choose to see as Spirit sees, we are able to begin to see things that way, too. How differently we would feel and act if this truth grew roots within us!

Today I long to see things as Spirit sees them, and not with the narrowness of my humanity.

A New Chapter...

Pray for your Own Discovery, Thomas Merton
From "The Seeds of Contemplation"

"There exists some point at which I can meet God in a real and experimental contact with His infinite actuality. This is the “place” of God, His sanctuary—it is the point where my contingent being depends upon His love. Within myself is a metaphorical apex of existence at which I am held into being by my Creator.

God utters me like a word containing a partial thought of Himself.

A word will never be able to comprehend the voice that utters it.

But if I am true to the concept that God utters in me, if I am true to the thought of Him I was meant to embody, I shall be full of His actuality and find Him everywhere in myself, and find myself nowhere. I shall be lost in Him: that is, I shall find myself."

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This passage has always truly inspired me because Thomas Merton has a such a way of putting sacred things into words that crystallizes them in the mind, and yet does not limit them, as they cannot be limited. Additionally, I have always sensed that he reached such a depth to his spirituality that it found itself at a place that was beyond definition. That is something I deeply admire.