Realities Supernal

Photo credit: Aaron Springston

Time is on my mind today … 🌝

“How amazing time is, and how amazing we are. Time has been transformed, and we have changed; it has advanced and set us in motion; it has unveiled its face, inspiring us with bewilderment and exhilaration. Yesterday we complained of time and feared it, but today we love and embrace it. Indeed, we have begun to perceive its purposes and characteristics, and to comprehend its secrets and enigmas.” 

Kahlil Gibran

“Breaking away from the mutations of time and sense, you will neither lose the solid objects and ends of life nor your own identity. Fixing your gaze on the realities supernal, you will rise to the spiritual consciousness of being, even as the bird which has burst from the egg and preens its wings for a skyward flight.” 

Mary Baker Eddy - Science & Health Page 261:24-30

“Time is your friend, if you leave it to the Holy Spirit to use. He needs but very little to restore God’s whole power to you. He Who transcends time for you understands what time is for. Holiness lies not in time, but in eternity. There never was an instant in which God’s Son could lose his purity. His changeless state is beyond time, for his purity remains forever beyond attack and without variability. Time stands still in his holiness, and changes not. And so it is no longer time at all. For caught in the single instant of the eternal sanctity of God’s creation, it is transformed into forever. Give the eternal instant, that eternity may be remembered for you, in that shining instant of perfect release. Offer the miracle of the holy instant through the Holy Spirit, and leave His giving it to you to Him.” 

A Course in Miracles T-15.I.15:1-11

Mostly, I Want To Be Kind …

Someone wrote in a social media post: “I love the word tribe.  It implies togetherness, friends, protection and so much more.  Everyone needs their tribe.” This is a concept I’ve never understood, but the past few years have brought a desire to know more about this way of thought. Does everyone feel it? I suppose to an extent, even I do. Although I can say I never had a particular group of friends when growing up, nor felt a particular kinship with a church, and have never wanted to join clubs, it’s true that some alliances seem to form themselves. I love my book club meetings, along with a few spiritual gatherings throughout the years. Of course, there are friends and relatives I love madly. So to an extent I can understand tribalism, but not in the way people feel the need to be part of a larger group. Hopefully, I can stay off of my “high horse” while seeking deeper understanding through compassion for that which seems incomprehensible. Namaste…

“Forgiveness-to-destroy has many forms, being a weapon of the world of form. Not all of them are obvious, and some are carefully concealed beneath what seems like charity. Yet all the forms that it may seem to take have but this single goal; their purpose is to separate and make what God created equal, different. The difference is clear in several forms where the designed comparison cannot be missed, nor is it really meant to be.” 

A Course in Miracles S-2.II.1:1-4

“Would existence without personal friends be to you a blank? Then the time will come when you will be solitary, left without sympathy; but this seeming vacuum is already filled with divine Love. When this hour of development comes, even if you cling to a sense of personal joys, spiritual Love will force you to accept what best promotes your growth.”

Mary Baker Eddy - Science & Health Page 266:6-12

Epitaph

 

“Epitaph"

 by Merrit Malloy

When I die

Give what’s left of me away

To children

And old men that wait to die.

And if you need to cry,

Cry for your brother

Walking the street beside you.

And when you need me,

Put your arms

Around anyone

And give them

What you need to give to me.

I want to leave you something,

Something better

Than words

Or sounds.

Look for me

In the people I’ve known

Or loved,

And if you cannot give me away,

At least let me live on your eyes

And not on your mind.

Hands touch hands,

By letting

Bodies touch bodies,

And by letting go

Of children1

That need to be free.

 

Love doesn’t die,

People do.

So, when all that’s left of me

Is love,

Give me away.”

“When your body and your ego and your dreams are gone, you will know that you will last forever. Perhaps you think this is accomplished through death, but nothing is accomplished through death, because death is nothing. Everything is accomplished through life, and life is of the mind and in the mind. The body neither lives nor dies, because it cannot contain you who are life.”

 A Course in Miracles | T-6.V-A.1:1-4

“If the belief in death were obliterated, and the understanding obtained that there is no death, this would be a ‘tree of life,’ known by its fruits. Man should renew his energies and endeavors, and see the folly of hypocrisy, while also learning the necessity of working out his own salvation.” 

Mary Baker Eddy - Science & Health Page 426:12-16

The Ceaseless Unfoldment of Infinity

Photo from Aaron Springston

Bicknell Young is one of my favorite spiritual authors. This fascinating man was the nephew of Brigham Young, the renowned Mormon leader. I can only imagine his family's surprise when he discovered the teachings of Mary Baker Eddy in the late 1800s, and then went on to gain fame speaking and writing about Christian Science during the next few decades. He's the proverbial person, dead or living, whom I'd choose to sit down with for an evening of conversation. These sentences about Spirit are part of what pique my interest to know more about him. “Consciousness is Spirit. It does not become spiritual nor is it spiritualized. Nor does the evolution of consciousness mean a rising above or a purification from anything; it is the ceaseless unfoldment of infinity." Thank you, Mr. Young!

“Identity is the reflection of Spirit, the reflection in multifarious forms of the living Principle, Love.”
Mary Baker Eddy- Science & Health Page 277:20-22

“Your wholeness has no limits because being is infinity.”
A Course in Miracles T-7.VIII.7:5

The Letter Without Love is Lifeless

David Deal circa 2006 

I once had a dear friend who often said he was the man who knew too much. He was a devotee of the Sufi tradition and he loved all topics metaphysical. Often when we were having one of our in-depth discussions, he would lament the fact that he knew too much. I would always advise him to forget it all, to let it go, to let it be. He understood the concept, but could not embrace the spirit of it. I think I now understand what he meant. At times I feel jaded, perhaps calloused, by the worldly knowledge I have attained. I find myself finding it difficult to feel love for my fellow humans. During these times, I’ve felt the need to reach deep into memory for the great love I’ve felt for pets, and attempt to transfer that feeling into daily interactions. I hear my mother’s voice telling me, when I was very young, that if I could love people as much as I loved animals, I’d be “all right”. This void I’m feeling is what reminded me of my dear friend, David Deal — the man who knew too much. I will try to take the advice I once gave to him, to forget everything and “let it be”. The divine Love which flows through the universe is always there, I only need be empty enough to let it fill me.

“The vital part, the heart and soul of Christian Science, is Love. Without this, the letter is but the dead body of Science, — pulseless, cold, inanimate.”
Mary Baker Eddy - Science & Health Page 113:5-8

“Any relationship you would substitute for another has not been offered to the Holy Spirit for His use. There is no substitute for love. If you would attempt to substitute one aspect of love for another, you have placed less value on one and more on the other. You have not only separated them, but you have also judged against both. Yet you had judged against yourself first, or you would never have imagined that you needed your brothers as they were not. Unless you had seen yourself as without love, you could not have judged them so like you in lack.”
A Course in Miracles T-15.V.6:1-6

Life After Hate

Santa Fe Flower

Photo from Aaron Springston

So-called hate groups have increased by a large percentage over the past few years. A man named Tony McAleer describes himself as being beaten and bullied as a child; bitter and isolated as a teenager. He became involved in one of these groups while seeking a connection with others. To quote him: "When you're starving and somebody keeps feeding you what you think are your favorite foods, even though it's junk food, there's going to be a while where you're not going to get up from the table." He continued to practice violence and anger until after the birth of his daughter. He said that was the first time in his life he had felt connected to another human being, and he started to want to change. He has now organized a group called "Life After Hate" and he is helping others to build relationships with people. He says if we are to counter these groups, we must get to a place where empathy outweighs fear. That is what we are realizing through these studies, too. "Light and joy and peace abide in me" -- and in everyone!

“Light is a symbol of Mind, of Life, Truth, and Love, and not a vitalizing property of matter. Science reveals only one Mind, and this one shining by its own light and governing the universe, including man, in perfect harmony.."
Mary Baker Eddy - Science & Health Page 510:27-1

“Why would you not be overjoyed to be assured that all the evil that you think you did was never done, that all your sins are nothing, that you are as pure and holy as you were created, and that light and joy and peace abide in you? Your image of yourself cannot withstand the Will of God. You think that this is death, but it is life. You think you are destroyed, but you are saved.”
A Course in Miracles W-93.4:1-4

The Company You Keep …

Unknown image creator

“The company you keep is important. If you leave your coat in a room where people are smoking, pretty soon it will smell of smoke. If you leave it outside in the garden, later on, when you bring it indoors, it will carry with it the fragrance of fresh air and flowers.

“Such is the case with the mind. Your garment of thoughts absorbs the vibrations of those with whom you mix. If you mingle with pessimists, in time you will become a pessimist. And if you mingle with cheerful, happy people, you yourself will develop a cheerful, happy nature.

“Environment is stronger than will power. Whether one becomes a saint or a sinner is, to a great extent, determined by the company he keeps.”  

Paramhansa Yogananda

“Your influence for good depends upon the weight you throw into the right scale. The good you do and embody gives you the only power obtainable. Evil is not power. It is a mockery of strength, which erelong betrays its weakness and falls, never to rise.” 

Mary Baker Eddy - Science & Health Page 192:21-23

“It is as needful that you recognize you made the world you see, as that you recognize that you did not create yourself. They are the same mistake. Nothing created not by your Creator has any influence over you. And if you think what you have made can tell you what you see and feel, and place your faith in its ability to do so, you are denying your Creator and believing that you made yourself. For if you think the world you made has power to make you what it wills, you are confusing Son and Father; effect and Source.” 

A Course in Miracles T-21.II.11:1-5