The Lords Prayer (from the Aramaic)

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O Birther! Father- Mother of the Cosmos
Focus your light within us - make it useful.
Create your reign of unity now-
through our fiery hearts and willing hands
Help us love beyond our ideals
and sprout acts of compassion for all creatures.
Animate the earth within us: we then
feel the Wisdom underneath supporting all.
Untangle the knots within
so that we can mend our hearts' simple ties to each other.
Don't let surface things delude us,
But free us from what holds us back from our true purpose.
Out of you, the astonishing fire,
Returning light and sound to the cosmos.

Shalom,

Stephen

A More Perfect Union

I have been blessed to become acquainted with the community of Congregation B'nai Israel here is Sacramento. In particular, with Rabbi Mona Alfi. I see in Rabbi Alfi something that seems to be rare in spiritual leaders: a keen sense of oneness along with a commitment to inclusion, restoration and united effort.

Rabbi Alfi was invited to speak on Thursday night at the Salaam Center of Sacramento on the occasion of the 10th Anniversary of 9-11. 

Rabbi Alfi's remarks follow.

[Just as a note, Judaism and Islaam have the common root of being the tradition and lineage descended from Abraham, Israel (Judaism) from Abraham's son Isaac; and Islaam from Abraham's son Ishmael.]

A More Perfect Union

(Presented at Salaam Center of Sacramento, Sept 8, 2011)

 

Hinei mah tov u'mah nayim, shevat achim gam yachad - How good and pleasant it is when brothers and sisters dwell together (Psalm 133).  Tonight we come together, as brothers and sisters, children of a shared dream, a single family that has also suffered loss together, all of us the children of this great nation of the United States.

In the Bible we are taught that when our father Abraham died, his sons Ishmael and Isaac came together to bury him (Gen. 25:9).  

The Jewish tradition teaches us that with Abraham's passing, Isaac and Ishmael lived in harmony with each another.  They came together not only to mourn their shared loss, as brothers should, but they also found healing from their pain, by living side by side in peace.  

I can easily imagine these two brothers standing at their father's grave, weeping and embracing each other, and asking themselves what is the purpose of fighting?  What greater way is there for two brothers to honor their father's memory than by living in harmony with each other?

Today we come together, also as brothers and sisters, to mourn our shared losses of all those who perished on September 11, ten years ago.  This is a time for us to remember that we are all part of the same American family.

By coming together tonight we are given the opportunity to not only look back at the terrible events that haunt us still, but it also reminds us of the necessity for us to look toward the future and our shared obligation to create a society that lives by our country's greatest teachings.

In the preamble of our Constitution, our founding fathers wrote that "We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity..."

We are the lucky inheritors of these great ideals.  And what greater way is there for us to honor our founding fathers than to live by these beliefs?  This is not an inheritance for us to put on a shelf or to simply read about or study.  This is an inheritance that provides for us a blueprint of a great and just society.  

The Blessings of Liberty that the founding fathers spoke of are blessings that need to be secured and nurtured by each and every generation.  And it is our shared responsibility to create opportunities to come together for the common good, so that we can ensure that our children, and our children's children, will enjoy these blessings as well.

We must never forget that our nation is a Union - a collection of people with different backgrounds and religions, different regional interests, different political beliefs, and yet we can come together with not only common purpose, but also a shared feeling of responsibility for each other's welfare.

We are a family, and like every family, we do not need to be the same, but we must listen to each other, accept each other, know and understand where each other's concerns are coming from.  We must find ways to honor our differences and protect each other's rights.  And we must never forget that our destinies are intertwined.

When my brother grieves, my heart is saddened.  When my sister has success, I am joyful.   And when I weep, or when I celebrate, it gives me comfort to know that it matters to them.  In the shadow of 9-11, we must never forget that all Americans are brothers and sisters, and we must never fail to act as such.

Ours was a shared horror as we watched the Towers collapse and the Pentagon attacked.  We all mourned the deaths of those who were killed.  We were all inspired by the first responders and those on United Flight 93 who showed tremendous courage on that fateful day.  We all felt lost and scared in the days, weeks and months following the attacks.  And we went through all of these experiences as an American family.

But just as we are able to come together in times of mourning and remembrance, and in times of great celebration, we must remember what makes a family strong is how they interact on a daily basis.

Let us study together so that we can understand how to put our shared beliefs into practice.  Let us repair the world together by helping the most vulnerable in our society.  Let us break bread together, and share our stories, and remind ourselves over and over again - how good it can be when brothers and sisters dwell together - hinei mah tov u'mah nayim, shevat achim gam yachad.

May the Holy One, the Creator of all humanity bless our nation with shalom, with salaam, with peace.  Amen.  

Rabbi Mona Alfi

 

Albert Speaks

“A human being is a part of a whole, called by us “universe”, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest… a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.”

- Albert Einstein

Honesty

Everyone starts at the bottom

of the mountain of honesty.

The climb is long,

littered with the stones of lives

that became hard and brittle

with what is required in this ascent.

Slowly, and upward, things become sparse,

exposed, elemental.

Slowly come

the brilliant views,

the intense light rising within,

the brutal effort in moving another step.

And then the summit

presents itself:

a mirror of diamond clarity

giving nothing, reflecting everything,

offering you to yourself.

In this moment, you are alone.

In this moment, all that is in you

is all that is needed,

and you must decide if that

is enough.

The Way

"The way to God can only be found in your willingness to embrace and live fully the very life that is within you and that unfolds through you with each moment."

Quoted from The Way Of Mastery, Lesson 3, The Power of Forgiveness

I refuse any longer to judge my life so harshly. I choose to live freely without regret.

I now assume responsibility in this very moment for all I see, all I think, all I feel and all that I remember. I am the one that gives these perceptions form, substance and energy. I embrace my creations, and therefore transform them.

Of myself, I can do nothing. But the Father, through me, does all things.

Father bring each moment to me that I might learn anew to love, and to allow that love to transform this temporary illusion into that which extends the good, the holy and the beautiful.

I Am Content

This year,  I have experienced contentment for the first time in my life. I’ve been happy. I’ve been enthusiastic and excited. I’ve been in love and peaceful and joyful. But contentment was not among my experiences until this year.

I even looked the word up to make sure this was the right word for what I was experiencing. The dictionary said “content” means “satisfied with what one is or has; not wanting more or anything else.” Yep. That’s it. I have never been satisfied with what I have; I have never not wanted more. But today, I am content.

I run in circles that talk about abundance, and how to get more out of life and following my passion or my bliss or my longing. All of it is fabulous. But contentment, for me, is better.

I had a bit of a hard time with this at first. Contentment was simply off my emotional map. I could talk about it, even pretend that I had it, but when it came, I wasn’t sure how to navigate the experience of it. Does that sound odd? It does to me too. But then I remember how driven I have been in my life.

In the year 2000 I entered into what might be called my “mid-life crisis.” I lost my job that I really liked. Got a new job I didn’t. Divorce. Debt. Addiction. I gave up the first house I ever bought. All of this brought me down to bottom, several times. But I started taking a look at my life.

This wasn’t the first time I had examined my life, but it was the first time I ever did it with some humility. I had learned to play the victim with finesse. I was real good at it because I knew that I was a victim. But I was brought up short one day after a talk with my therapist. I realized that - out of all the things that have happened in my life, out of all the relationships, out of all the times I felt I had been wronged or overlooked - out of all those experiences I was the only common denominator.

This was uncomfortable, but there was something in this idea that felt powerful. As I looked back over my life I saw how I had always been on the hunt. I was always looking for something that I could never quite identify, because any time I got what thought I wanted, it never turned out to be what fulfilled the need. During one period (of about twenty years), I moved (family and all) about that same number of times. I spent money I didn’t have. I never got the recognition at work or in ministry I felt I deserved through all my efforts. I wanted something. My life was consumed with wanting anything until I found it.

I can’t tell what my secret for getting contentment is. I don’t have one, and I’m not sure there is a follow-the-dots kind of secret to getting there. I’m not even sure that contentment is something one “gets.” Like I said before, “content” wasn’t on my emotional map, and I never had the thought, “Contentment! That’s what I want! I’m going to affirm and work my way there.” One day while sitting in my backyard with my wife, Sandora, drinking a cold Bud Light, I looked at her and said, “I am content.” When I said it, I was filled with gratitude for knowing this. I had never put a word to this experience I had been having until now.

For me, contentment is about my soul that I have nurtured and heard, and how my soul fills my heart and mind with love. Before Sandora, I don’t think I knew what love was. With her, it seemed like all these hollow places were being touched and filled. Also, she is an open recipient to the love I extended to her, and that, I found, filled me as well.

I have a new way of being around giving and receiving. For me, giving is an act of surrender, of giving over to the hands of a loving universe what I seem to possess. The receiving part was the big awakening for me. Receiving is not about getting. Getting requires work. Receiving requires grace. If giving is about surrender, then receiving is about allowing.

I’ve worked plenty hard to get what I thought I wanted. But it was not until I gave up the work - the struggle, the effort, the striving - that I could experience allowing. I don’t mean that I have stopped going to work, or to church, or that I just sit around waiting for money to materialize. It doesn’t mean that I don’t have a goal, or a vision, or a plan. I just know that contentment is not found through these aspects of living. I still want to do my workshops, my coaching, my ministry. I still want to go camping, and enjoy friends’ company, and cook a nice meal. But I don’t need any of this. My “wanting” has no drivenness in it. It is simple, pure desire that helps me experience more grace, newness and fulfillment. All I do is allow it to occur with no need for it to occur.

I think I began feeling content when I made a decision to stay in the home we now live in. This will be the place Sandora and I live the rest of our lives. It felt very different to make such a decision because wanting to move on to the next thing or the next place was “in my blood.” But I began to settle into it. We started doing things together around the house that made it more comfortable, and pleasant. We cleaned out rooms and the garage, and got rid of a lot of belongings. We have completely changed the look of our backyard. It used to be a square patch of lawn. Now it is becoming a sunny and shady garden sanctuary. We grow our vegetables, and just get so excited when they first pop up out of the ground, and get bigger and bigger, and when we harvest them, and eat them.

Now all of this may sound like a lot of work, and it is. But I do not work to be content anymore. My work is an expression of it, and that is a huge distinction.

Sure, there are days that this contentment seems to evaporate.  I can get caught up in the struggle and toil. I have a way of looking at this that has really helped. The struggle, the anxiety, the upsets - all these are clouds passing through my experience of life. Clouds always move. They are simply blown away. The sun always is there. I don’t have to do anything. And I certainly don’t have to identify with the clouds.

My brother, Douglas, gave me a poem back during the time that I was on my way to the bottom. “The Truelove,” by David Whyte, has been with me all along. It has been a rudder for me in my travels through this life, to this contentment. I offer it to you.

The Truelove

By David Whyte

There is a faith in loving fiercely

the one who is rightfully yours,

especially if you have

waited years and especially

if part of you never believed

you could deserve this

loved and beckoning hand

held out to you this way.

I am thinking of faith now

and the testaments of loneliness

and what we feel we are

worthy of in this world.

Years ago in the Hebrides

I remember an old man

who walked every morning

on gray stones

to the shore of baying seals,

who would press his hat

to his chest in the blustering

salt wind and say his prayer

to the turbulent Jesus

hidden in the water,

and I think of the story

of the storm and everyone

waking and seeing

the distant

yet familiar figure

far across the water

calling to them,

and how we are all

preparing for that

abrupt waking,

and that calling,

and that moment

we have to say yes,

except it will

not come so grandly,

so Biblically,

but more subtly

and intimately in the face

of the one you know

you have to love,

so that when

we finally step out of the boat

toward them, we find

everything holds

us, and everything confirms

our courage, and if you wanted

to drown you could,

but you don’t

because finally

after all this struggle

and all these years,

you don’t want to any more,

you’ve simply had enough

of drowning,

and you want to live and you

want to love and you will

walk across any territory

and any darkness,

however fluid and however

dangerous, to take the

one hand you know

belongs in yours.

The House Of Belonging, by David Whyte. 1996, Many Rivers Press.

Get Over It

I was having a conversation the other day with a friend. She was sharing some thoughts and feelings about a work situation, feeling frustrated at how emotional she was. She said, "I just need to get over it."

Does this sound familiar? I just need to get over it, get past it, get on with it. I need to grow up, buck up, shut up. Just can it, stuff it, put a lid on it. All variations on a theme: if you don't like what's going on in you, push it away.

I asked my friend, "How do you do that?"

"What?"

"Get over it. How do you 'get over it.'"

"Well, I just have to forget about it, you know, keep myself together..."

"Okay. But how do you do that?"

She saw that I was going to be persistent. She looked a little dismayed and stumped.

I went on, "I know when I've tried to 'get over it,' the emotion, the feelings, and the judgments that come with them, never really go away. There is always some residue of resentment, or anger, or sadness. So ... I'm just wondering ... how you do it."

How does one "get over it?"

In my view, the big problem here is not the desire to be done with the feelings. The big problem is the self-judgment I have in the moment I say "I've just got to get over it." Think about when you have said it. What was the force behind the question? For me it is frustration, anger, bitterness. And so if that is how I feel when I "just get over it," then what have I really accomplished for myself? Not much. But this is how I went through a lot of my life. And I can tell you, I was one angry, frustrated, bitter guy. I wasn't much fun to be around, but the worst of it was that I didn't like myself, I didn't like being me.

I have found a way to work through these challenging situations that is more self-affirming and gentle than "Stuff-It Mode." I'll break this down for you.

First, I came to the point where I finally accepted responsibility for what I experience in life, feelings and all. My experience happens in me, not "out there." I often do desire to pass this responsibility over to the fellow that "made me so mad!" But when I get into that place of blaming the world (my circumstances) for my reactive state, I have to ask myself, if he's responsible for my anger, who is responsible for my happiness?

Someone once asked me, with a stirred up voice, "You're telling me that I am to blame for how pissed off I am? He's the one that did this to me."

Let's be clear: I am not blaming you or me or anyone or anything. I am talking about responsibility. Some people hear "blame" when they hear the word "responsibility." This is an important distinction to have. They are not the same. Blame comes from judgment that I have. Responsibility comes from a place of self-love. When I blame, I am powerless. When I am responsible, I am powerful.

So what happens when I take responsibility? What is so powerful about it? Choice. I get to choose. I choose the experience I have in every moment.

I can hear it now: “What!? I did not choose to be upset. It ... it just happened...” Well, no. Nothing “just happens.” I know that the choice I make in this kind of circumstance is unconscious, that is, I just seem to react. It doesn’t really feel like a choice. I feel powerless over it. But if it is a choice, then I have the power to make a different choice.

So, if instead of trying to push the circumstance away, I now move toward it, I can explore it with curiosity and without judgment. As I give attention to this reaction I am experiencing, I can find the source of the choice I have made concerning this kind of circumstance. Perhaps it is a way to defend myself that I learned early in my life. I can understand how I made that choice, and notice that it is not helpful now. I might begin to see how the choices I made then are running my life now.

In this light, I can now look at my life in each moment and know that it is my way home. Nothing has gone wrong. I am always at choice. Everything that “comes up” offers me an opportunity to become more awake, more conscious and more alive.

I have discovered that gentleness and mercy toward myself are necessary. I like to think of this as embracing my emotions. Taking them to myself. Understanding them. Honoring the choices that I made in the past, that I have now brought to consciousness. Embracing those choices, and then choosing again. Until I assume responsibility for all my choices, conscious and unconscious, I will be “under the circumstances.” As I embrace my life, move toward it, I can always choose again.


For more, see The Way Of Mastery.

Reality and Experience

There is a phrase that is used quite a bit in new thought circles: "I create my reality." I understand what meaning is intended, but the word “reality” is not the right word to use. The more precise statement would be: "I create my experience." I was making this point at a workshop a few months ago. One of the participants said to me "Reality... Experience... What's the difference?" Let's explore this distinction, which is fundamental and huge.

Reality is what is true always about me, about you, about all events, and about the nature of the universe. I do not create my reality. That is already done. The truth that is true always - reality -  is established.

 

Experience - my experience - is how I perceive reality. I do create my experience, and I do it moment-to-moment. My experience is neither reality nor truth. It just is. It is what it is because of how I choose to perceive the world.

A really good question to ask right now is, “What is reality?” That is, what is the truth that is true always? Famously, Pontius Pilate asked this very question of Jesus before handing him over to the crowd to be crucified. He asked it in a sarcastic way, which is unfortunate, because he was asking a person that could have answered the question. So let’s ask it now, sincerely.

What is the truth that is true always?

• The truth that is true always is that God is love.
• The truth that is true always is that all of creation is birthed out of this source: God, Love... including you and me.
• The truth that is true always is that all events are neutral, not good or bad, positive or negative, right or wrong. These are judgments we place upon the events.
• The truth that is true always is that I am always at choice to perceive reality as I desire. So are you.
• (There are other truths that are true always, but these tasty little nuggets are enough to munch on right now.)

These are aspects of what is true always. Truth does not depend upon anything for it to be true, not even my belief in it. How I experience truth, is, well...my experience. My experience does not alter the truth, but I can choose to alter my experience.

My experience happens in me, not “out there.” This is something I was never taught, so mostly I give my experience over to my circumstances. I experienced being “under the circumstances.” I have thought my circumstances determined my experience.

This is not true. What is true is that all events (circumstances) are neutral. I give them valence by deciding how I will perceive them. So my experience happens inside me, not “out there.” As a matter of fact, my experience has nothing to do with what is “out there,” and everything to do with what is in me: my beliefs, morals, judgments, assessments, etc.

So what?

One of the very wonderful aspects of consciousness is the ability to witness our lives. We have an ability to be self-aware. We can use this to become observant of how we are perceiving our circumstances. To the degree that we notice the “charge” we give to any situation in life, we are able then to be responsible for our experience, rather than blame the world for it. Since our experience is what we have chosen to make it, out of that responsibility, we can choose again.

We don’t create our reality. We do create our experience.

Experience the joy of this truth!

More about beliefs, morals, judgments and assessments  in subsequent posts. Check back!

For more: The Way Of Mastery