To
suppose that the Creative Intelligence of the world would create woman in
bondage and leave her bound would be to dishonor that Creative Power which
we call God. On the other hand, to suppose that God could make woman as an
individual, without leaving her to discover herself, would be to suppose an
impossibility. Individuality must be spontaneous and can never be automatic.
The seed of freedom must be hid within the shell of the human. But, like the
Prodigal Son of old, woman must make the great discovery for herself.
Although the journey may at times seem hard and the burden too great to
bear, woman still feels within a subtle sense, a mystical presence, a divine
Reality. Thus, the inherent nature of herself is forever seeking to express
itself in terms of freedom. We will do well to listen to this inner voice,
for it tells us of a life wonderful in its scope, of a love beyond our
fondest dreams, of a freedom which the soul craves.
But
the great love of the universe must be one with the great law of Its own
Being, and we must approach love through the law.
This,
then, is the teaching,—Love and Law. As the love of God is perfect, so the
law of God is also perfect. We must understand both. "Who hath ears to
hear, let her hear." [i]
"Do
not fear, little flock, for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you
the Kingdom."
Luke
12:32
The
Mastery of Love Is Part of a Successful Way of Life
We
live in a Universe of Love as well as in a Universe of Law. One is the
complement of the other-the Universe of Love pulsating with feeling, with
emotion; and the Universe of Law, the Executor of all feeling and all
emotion. [ii]
We get ideas from a very
early age about what love is. We
are trained very well by our experience to believe that love is something
that it is not. Ernest Holmes
defined Love in the 1926 Science of Mind as “The
Universal Urge to express, the Self-givingness of Spirit.” [iii]
What does this mean? Our
primary belief is that God is all that there is, so whatever we get is, in
this sense, one part of the same thing giving to another part of the same
thing yet another part of itself. This
is self-givingness. This is
Love and it is complete and open acceptance of all parts of oneself.
It means that all that exists belongs to the whole.
It means that we can relax and take things lightly.
Something about how this works reminds me of things that turn in upon
themselves, like the ocean on the beach.
The water seeps into the beach each time a wave breaks upon its
shoreline and little by little the water seeps back out into the ocean.
What part ocean, what part sea, what part sky?
It is all connected. If
you were God, and God is all there is, then in Truth it is all you, what in
the world would you withhold from yourself?
Nothing, clearly, nothing. It
wouldn’t make sense. This is
also the Truth of Love. It is
the Truth of our essential nature and it is the reason why it makes no sense
to think less of ourselves than that we are truly Divine.
Somewhere, very early in our
childhood, we begin being trained by those around us.
Don Miguel Ruiz calls this domestication in his writings and says it
is much the same as the methods we use to train our pets.
We are rewarded and punished according to what is wished to be
encouraged in children. But
this method backfires and squelches the natural state, the natural
playfulness and freedom of a child.
I will share with you how I
remember this part of childhood as my memories of it are very clear.
It was a time when I realized that the adults did not tell me the
rules until it was too late and I was always finding myself about to be
punished. From my point of
view, I was just playing and exploring, indulging my natural curiosity, when
suddenly, I was getting a whipping for doing something that was bad or
wrong. I had not set out to do
something bad or wrong, it seemed that I just stumbled into something that
didn’t please the adults. And
once again, I was let in on the rules of life after the fact, much to my
education in misery. And one
more thing would be eliminated from my list of possible things to do, if I
wanted to avoid punishment. And
then after I had been punished sufficiently, so that I could avoid physical
punishment simply by suppressing myself and my natural desires, it became
clear that what I was doing that was encouraged was not really measuring up
either, and while I was not being punished, neither was I being rewarded
when it seemed I should be. And
I began to doubt myself. I
began to doubt that I was loved and accepted.
And before long it seemed I was wearing the mask of a good little
girl with the adults, and the secret prankster when I could not be seen by
adult eyes. There was a secret,
wicked, self-indulgent me that I kept hidden. And this is how I forgot what
Love meant and probably it is something like how you forgot what it is too.
The
Toltecs say this is how we get trained to live in the dream that life is.
Interestingly, some form of these ideas has existed throughout the
history of humanity. The Toltec idea
of the dream is similar to the way we describe the collective consciousness
of the human race in Religious Science.
It can be heaven on earth of a dream of hell.
The same tools are employed. Knowing
oneself, transforming ones patterns of thought through the practice of
awareness and observation of ones self, all of these work to transform the
quality of ones experience, and thus they lead to a deeper happiness,
freedom and a life of Love. Many
say this is a process of remembering our essential and original state
of being. The Toltecs say that
we are luminous beings and that this dream that we are living in obscures
our ability to see and experience this light within us.
Transformative practices lead us back to our lost experience of our
true selves, or our essential nature. In
our traditions we think of this as our soul.
In the Hindi tradition, it is the Self.
It is that part of oneself that appears behind all observation,
behind all that we do, it is changeless and ever-present.
Some refer to this as the heart.
The author of The
Little Prince, Antione de Saint-Exupery, wrote, “It is only
with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to
the eye.” Antione de Saint-Exupery
Ralph
Waldo Emerson teaches us in his essay The
Oversoul that “Man is a stream whose source is hidden.”
Events and thoughts flow from a higher source through us.
Our individuality is contained and unified with everyone and
everything. We are all integral
parts within the eternal One. Emerson
pointed out how very much we compartmentalize and separate things, and says
that the whole of these parts is the soul.
It is the context of our being.
“From within or from behind, a light shines through us upon things
and makes us aware that we are nothing, but the light is all.”
When we try to be somebody or somethiing of ourselves alone, we are
nothing. Our soul permeates and
contains us. There
is no place where man ends and God begins.
He speaks of the soul’s advances being by ascension of state, a
metamorphosis. We
rise not in one area, but in all simultaneously.
This is the point of doing the work that we must do to acquaint
ourselves with that which is Real, and distinguish it from that which is
not, or that which changes. What
we can change will change our experience of life, but what is essential and
good already is good, it already is God and it already shines with that
light. “The soul is the
perceiver and revealer of truth.” Emerson
maintains that we are wiser than we know. I maintain that we have this
capacity so that we might know who we are and what we are a part of so that
we are empowered to express Love without limit, to know Joy beyond measure
and in this experience to realize that we truly are One with God.
Apparently, the Toltecs share these same ideas with New Thought and
other forms of idealism. I am going to read to you from the website for don
Miguel Ruiz:
Though
it [The Toltec] is not a religion, it honors all the spiritual masters who
have taught on the earth. Though it does embrace spirit, it is most
accurately described as a way of life. Unlike our familiar experience, this
way of life is distinguished by the ready accessibility of happiness and
love. The quality of love in this context is a radical departure from the
concept of love we have been taught. The love most of us have come to know
often feels like pain, makes us suffer with jealousy and need, or compels us
to try to control one another. It is a false image of love, originating in
fear and worn like a mask to protect us from the wounds we believe others
inflict on us. On the other hand, the Toltec concept of love originates in
the intention of the Creator. This love is what we could - if we would -
perceive as divine love, the love with no conditions….
The
Toltec knew that the universe is a living being in which the macrocosm and
microcosm mirror one another….
To
support our own personal island of safety, we assume that our perception is
the extent of possibility. Our reason is so limited that it prevents us from
understanding the scope of our power to create reality. So, our reality is
also our illusion, or, more accurately, our own personal dream. You might
even call it a trick of the mind….
Our
final destination on the Toltec journey to personal freedom is an awareness
of the spiritual human as Godself. Here we completely align with Intent and
serve as co-creator in our Earth journey. With full illumination there is no
illusion, and we become free to discover the identity of the I AM and
embrace the light of divinity within. [iv]
“It
is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential
is invisible to the eye.” Antione de Saint-Exupery
It
is through the Mastery of oneself that one masters Love.
Your essential nature is not different from the essential nature of
the Divine. Whatever you do to
remember, uncover, unleash, directly experience what is essential about
yourself leads you to Love. This
is our real power, that we can experience Love without the white noise of
life, without the interference of the domestication, the training we have
experienced in life that led us away from it.
The deep longing in your soul is to return to its essential nature,
and that very nature is Love, it is Joy and Happiness.
This is your essence.
I
remember my teacher, Dr. Bill, harping on this endlessly.
Do you know what a Harpy is? According
to Encyclopedia Brittanica, in
Greco-Roman classical mythology, these are fabulous creatures, probably wind
spirits. The presence of harpies as tomb figures, however, makes it possible
that they were also conceived of as ghosts. In Homer's Odyssey
they were winds that carried people away.
I know that something in me I was afraid I would be carried away.
And I was right. I was
carried away, to a place of
peace, calm and centeredness. Regular
spiritual practices and study changed my life from one of endless
emergencies and dramas to a life that contains great Joy.
Ernest Holmes used to begin his radio talks by starting with
the statement which I leave you with today: “There is a power for good in
the universe, greater than you are, and you can use it.”
This power is shared here every week and you are invited back to
share in it.
PRAYER
FOR SELF-LOVE
Today,
Creator of the Universe, we ask that you help us to accept ourselves just
the way we are, without judgment. Help us to accept our mind the way it is,
with all our emotions, our hopes and dreams, our personality, our unique
way of being. Help us to accept our body just the way it is, with all its
beauty and perfection. Let the love we have for ourselves be so strong that
we never again reject ourselves or sabotage our happiness, freedom, and
love.
From
now on, let every action, every reaction, every thought, every emotion, be
based on love. Help us, Creator, to increase our self-love until the entire
dream of our life is transformed, from fear and drama to love and joy. Let
the power of our self-love be strong enough to break all the lies we were
programmed to believe —
all the lies that tell us
we are not good enough, or strong enough, or intelligent enough, that we
cannot make it. Let the power of our self-love be so strong that we no
longer need to live our life according to other people’s opinions. Let us
trust ourselves completely to make the choices we must make. With our
self-love, we are no longer afraid to face any responsibility in our life or
face any problems and resolve them as they arise. Whatever we want to
accomplish, let it be done with the power of our self-love.
Starting
today, help us to love ourselves so much that we never set up any
circumstances that go against us. We can live our life being ourselves and
not pretending to be someone else just to be accepted by other people. We no
longer need other people to accept us or tell us how good we are because we
know what we are. With the power of our self-love, let us enjoy what we see
every time we look in the mirror. Let there be a big smile on our face that
enhances our inner and outer beauty. Help us to feel such intense self-love
that we always enjoy our own presence.
Let
us love ourselves without judgment, because when we judge, we carry blame
and guilt, we have the need for punishment, and we lose the perspective of
your love. Strengthen our will to forgive ourselves in this moment. Clean
our minds of emotional poison and self-judgments so we can live in complete
peace and love.
Let
our self-love be the power that changes the dream of our life. With this new
power in our hearts, the power of self-love, let us transform every relationship
we have, beginning with the relationship we have with ourselves. Help us to
be free of any conflict with others. Let us be happy to share our time with
our loved ones and to forgive them for any injustice we feel in our mind.
Help us to love ourselves so much that we forgive anyone who has ever hurt
us in our life.
Give
us the courage to love our family and friends unconditionally, and to change
our relationships in the most positive and loving way. Help us to create new
channels of communication in our relationships so there is no war of
control, there is no winner or loser. Together let us work as a team for
love, for joy, for harmony.
Let
our relationships with our family and friends be based on respect and joy so
we no longer have the need to tell them how to think or how to be. Let our
romantic relationship be the most wonderful relationship; let us feel joy
every time we share ourselves with our partner. Help us to accept others
just the way they are, without judgment, because when we reject them, we
reject ourselves. When we reject ourselves, we reject you.
Today
is a new beginning. Help us to start our life over beginning today with the
power of self-love. Help us to enjoy our life, to enjoy our relationships,
to explore life, to take risks, to be alive, and to no longer live in fear
of love. Let us open our heart to the love that is our birthright. Help us
to become Masters of Gratitude, Generosity, and Love so that we can enjoy
all of your creations forever and ever. Amen. [v]
Emerson
Center for
