Happiness For Life

Désiré François Laugée, 1882.

 Following a beautiful bookclub meeting this evening, I offer a quote from one of our favorite books from years ago. 

"There are random moments - tossing a salad, coming up the driveway to the house, ironing the seams flat on a quilt square, standing at the kitchen window and looking out at the delphiniums, hearing a burst of laughter from one of my children's rooms - when I feel a wavelike rush of joy. This is my true religion: arbitrary moments of nearly painful happiness for a life I feel privileged to lead.”

Elizabeth Berg -The Art of Mending

“Elusive happiness, or happiness in changing form that shifts with time and place, is an illusion that has no meaning. Happiness must be constant, because it is attained by giving up the wish for the in constant. Joy cannot be perceived except through constant vision. And constant vision can be given only those who wish for constancy.” 

A Course in Miracles T-21.VII.13:1-4

“Soul has infinite resources with which to bless mankind, and happiness would be more readily attained and would be more secure in our keeping, if sought in Soul. Higher enjoyments alone can satisfy the cravings of immortal man. We cannot circumscribe happiness within the limits of personal sense. The senses confer no real enjoyment.” 

Mary Baker Eddy - Science & Health Page 60:29-3

Doing or Being

Sergei Arsenievich Vinogradov - 

At the Dacha in Summer, 1869-1938

We probably all have at least one friend who is always in motion. I know a woman who won’t let her children have a moment of peace because she feels like it’s a waste of time to not be involved in some type of activity. She herself is a whirlwind of doing and going. The following Thich Nhat Hanh quote caused me to think of her. I wish I could tell her it’s okay to simply be. As Wayne Dyer often reminded us: We’re human beings, not human doings!

“We have a tendency to think in terms of doing and not in terms of being. We think that when we are not doing anything, we are wasting our time. But that is not true. Our time is first of all for us to be. To be what? To be alive, to be peaceful, to be joyful, to be loving. And that is what the world needs most.”

Thich Nhat Hanh 

“Listen in deep silence. Be very still and open your mind. Go past all the raucous shrieks and sick imaginings that cover your real thoughts and obscure your eternal link with God. Sink deep into the peace that waits for you beyond the frantic, riotous thoughts and sights and sounds of this insane world. You do not live here. We are trying to reach your real home. We are trying to reach the place where you are truly welcome. We are trying to reach God.” 

A Course in Miracles W-49.4:1-8

“Spirit is symbolized by strength, presence, and power, and also by holy thoughts, winged with Love. These angels of His presence, which have the holiest charge, abound in the spiritual atmosphere of Mind, and consequently reproduce their own characteristics. Their individual forms we know not, but we do know that their natures are allied to God’s nature; and spiritual blessings, thus typified, are the externalized, yet subjective, states of faith and spiritual understanding.” 

Mary Baker Eddy - Science & Health Page 512:8-16

The Guest of God

Over the years, many friends have told me they don't feel like they belong here. I think we all, at some time or another, have felt this way. What if, rather than us not belonging here, this "here" we speak of isn't what we think it is? What if we don't belong in this crazy world, but the world we see isn't reality? Perhaps our true home is something we've sensed is there, similar to seeing a movement out of the corner of your eye, but when you look directly at it, it's not there.  For years I grasped at straws while ignoring these glimpses. We're not strangers in a strange land when we realize true substance isn’t what we can physically touch. So let's be still a moment and ask to know what that home we desire so badly truly is. When we’re not afraid to remember, shift happens!

“Your Kingdom is not of this world because it was given you from beyond this world. Only in this world is the idea of an authority problem meaningful. The world is not left by death but by truth, and truth can be known by all those for whom the Kingdom was created, and for whom it waits.” 

A Course in Miracles  T-3.VII.6:8-11)

“If you launch your bark upon the ever-agitated but healthful waters of truth, you will encounter storms. Your good will be evil spoken of. This is the cross. Take it up and bear it, for through it you win and wear the crown. Pilgrim on earth, thy home is heaven; stranger, thou art the guest of God.”

Mary Baker Eddy - Science & Health Page 254:27-30

Can’t Bully a Wave

“Have you ever tried to bully a wave in the ocean?” This is the question a 104-year-old Buddhist nun asks her great-granddaughter in a beautiful novel titled, A Tale For the Time Being, by Ruth Ozeki. The two went into a store to get food for a picnic on the beach. A group of gangster girls were hanging around outside the store and harassed them as they went in. When they came out, the old woman bowed deeply to the group of young women before walking away. After they got onto the train to go to their destination, the older woman wondered aloud if it was a holiday of some sort, mentioning that the girls were all dressed so brightly and seemed so happy. The granddaughter tried to explain that they were gang colors, and that they were being derisive in their words and laughter. The grandmother didn’t see it that way and asked her young charge if she had ever tried to bully a wave, explaining that no matter how much you hit at it or yell into it, it stays what it is. That is its function, and that is our function. I love that!

“The peace of God is everything I want. The peace of God is my one goal; the aim of all my living here, the end I seek, my purpose and my function and my life, while I abide where I am not at home.” A Course in Miracles W-205.1:2-3

“The history of error is a dream-narrative. The dream has no reality, no intelligence, no mind; therefore the dreamer and dream are one, for neither is true nor real.” 

Mary Baker Eddy - Science & Health Page 530:26-29

Projecting a Quiet Mind

Image from Alexandra Bochkareva Photography

 “The world is a reflection of our internal state. If we dwell on turmoil, anger and confusion then that is how the world will be perceived to an individual. A quiet mind and and an open heart are important attributes to project into the world.” Ram Dass 

“Progress takes off human shackles. The finite must yield to the infinite. Advancing to a higher plane of action, thought rises from the material sense to the spiritual, from the scholastic to the inspirational, and from the mortal to the immortal. All things are created spiritually. Mind, not matter, is the creator. Love, the divine Principle, is the Father and Mother of the universe, including man.” Mary Baker Eddy - Science & Health Page 256:1-8

“Peace, then, be unto everyone who becomes a teacher of peace. For peace is the acknowledgment of perfect purity, from which no one is excluded. Within its holy circle is everyone whom God created as His Son. Joy is its unifying attribute, with no one left outside to suffer guilt alone. The power of God draws everyone to its safe embrace of love and union. Stand quietly within this circle, and attract all tortured minds to join with you in the safety of its peace and holiness. Abide with me within it, as a teacher of Atonement, not of guilt.” A Course in Miracles T-14.V.8:1-7

Thinking Makes It So …

 

Unknown photographer

A friend once said to me: “You can’t help what goes through your mind; it’s what you do with it that’s important.” As she always got upset when I talked about perception and how things are as we see them to be, I didn’t think I should tell her I disagreed with her statement. I do think we can keep rampant negative thoughts out of our head. I also think we can stop ourselves from flitting from one memory to another, flowing through a tangent of remembrances and idle repetitions. Through these spiritual studies, we are practicing training our mind away from blame and guilt, away from circular, meaningless thought, and hence allowing our function as the expression of divine Mind to flow through us, beautifully blossoming for others to share and experience. On this perfect day, I will work toward cleansing my thoughts of unnecessary chatter, while opening myself to my function as the reflection of Love!

“Simply do this: Be still, and lay aside all thoughts of what you are and what God is; all concepts you have learned about the world; all images you hold about yourself. Empty your mind of everything it thinks is either true or false, or good or bad, of every thought it judges worthy, and all the ideas of which it is ashamed. Hold onto nothing. Do not bring with you one thought the past has taught, nor one belief you ever learned before from anything. Forget this world, forget this course, and come with wholly empty hands unto your God.” 

A Course in Miracles W-189.7:1-5

“There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so. 

Science & Health Page ii:4

Truth Through Fiction

Photo credit: Alden Stallings

An upside down world seems normal to us. We have become accustomed to believing the testimony of our physical senses is reality, while we discount the feelings gained through what we think of as otherworldly intuitions. Many of my favorite authors write about metaphysical concepts, using the genre of fiction to allow them to take this new/old thought all the way without empirical evidence in support. And I applaud this method! What better way to introduce ideas to a skeptical audience than through the entertainment field? Dan Brown is an expert at this form of writing. He brings us thought-provoking concepts without asking us to accept them as true, such as in "The Lost Symbol". Paulo Coelho gently hits closer to home in his books. Two of my favorites are "The Alchemist" and "The Aleph". These and other novels are softly preparatory for the life-changing concepts presented in A Course in Miracles textbook and also by Mary Baker Eddy's writings. Without prior opening of our thought, the ideas contained in these teachings can be jarring indeed! Let us not fear stepping through doors which are waiting to show us a deeper understanding!

"Divine metaphysics explains away matter. Spirit is the only substance and consciousness recognized by divine Science. The material senses oppose this, but there are no material senses, for matter has no mind. In Spirit there is no matter, even as in Truth there is no error, and in good no evil. It is a false supposition, the notion that there is real substance-matter, the opposite of Spirit. Spirit, God, is infinite, all. Spirit can have no opposite." 

Mary Baker Eddy - Science & Health Page 278:3-11

“Miracles are thoughts. Thoughts can represent the lower or bodily level of experience, or the higher or spiritual level of experience. One makes the physical, and the other creates the spiritual.”

A Course in Miracles T-1.I.12:1-3