The Lords Prayer (from the Aramaic)

I found this on another blog...

I like this version. How about you?
 

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

 

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.

Rilke's Reality

Rainer Rilke lived 51 years, and died in 1926. Look at what he knew within himself way back then. It's not a secret, we just forgot.

The hour is striking so close above me,
so clear and sharp,
that all my senses ring with it.
I feel it now; there’s a power in me
to grasp and give shape to my world.

I know that nothing has ever been real
without my beholding it.
All becoming has needed me.
My looking ripens things
and they come toward me to meet and be met.
- Rainer Maria Rilke

In other words...

The time is now. This moment. It is this moment that is so clear and sharp, so close and so resonant, that when I am present in it my entire being is rings with life and possibility.

When I am present in each moment, I feel powerful. I am powerful with no fear of taking hold of my life. I accept responsibility for it; I own it. And through the power of that ownership, I give shape to my world.

I have had it all backwards. Creation is not cause, it is effect. Creation is not about making the world conform to what I want. The cause is my "beholding." My world is created from the power of my thought. Thought is primary, it is cause. Creation is effect.

All that is "be coming" is directed now by our thought. Becoming is a constant process, the movement of the universe in its expansion. It is the process of creation. "All becoming" needs me to declare what is so, as I step into the moment.

 Life is a practice. We get a lot of do-overs. The difference between this moment and the next is only the width of a thought. As I notice what is so in this moment and own it as my creation from the thoughts I hold, I can choose. Do I desire something else, do I want a different experience? And I can begin to think anew. Many of these moments together "ripen" my creations. They become more fresh, succulent, sweet, juicy, crispy and fragrant. And I meet my life. My life! My life is my way home!

Check out The Way Of Mastery

Experience Is Effect

I had an experience several years ago that literally turned my mental and spiritual life around. I was taking part in a transformational training (that grew out of the EST model of training). Through the interaction I was having with other participants and the trainer, I was experiencing tremendous rage at some things that had occurred in my earlier life. I was seeing how those circumstances had informed all of my emotions and thinking since. As I allowed this howling rage to move, there was a moment that it all suddenly stopped. I collapsed onto the floor. I was very awake, conscious of my surroundings and the people about me. But I was on the floor, curled up, covering my face.

Deep peace came over me; the consuming rage was simply gone. I opened my eyes, but instead of seeing my hands over my face, I saw a great dark expanse of the universe. Slowly a line of light stretched across that darkness. On this line I could see distinctly every event of my life from my moment of birth to this moment on the floor. Then a thought came into my mind. It was very prominent, like when a person speaks, but there was no sound. I just knew that this thought was what I needed to give attention to. The thought was, "It is all perfect."

From that moment, I knew that there has never been a moment in my life that "shouldn't have happened," or that was "wrong." It has taken me a long time since then to understand what I was given in that training room. A lot of that time was spent looking for a way to justify what I had always believed: that I have been at the mercy of my circumstances all my life, a victim of unfortunate events and relationships that should never have happened

This thought, "It is all perfect," just flew in the face of that paradigm. But this is exactly what turned me about. I would like to share what I have come to know.

I have come to know that all my experience is the effect of where I choose to focus the attention of my consciousness.

 The idea that every event in my life was just right, that is was "perfect," was not congruent with what I had held as true. So, if what I held as true was not really true, what was it? It was just a way of seeing what happened. Neither of these ways of looking at my life changed what actually happened, but how I chose to look at what actually happened changed my experience. In other words my experience is the effect of how I choose to see my circumstances.

"The Work" of Byron Katie has been a powerful tool for me in learning this. I refer you to: Katie doing The Work with a woman and Byron Katie Website

In my next post, I will share with you the most powerful practice I know for moving forward on the path of personal and spiritual growth: forgiveness. This is very different from what we have been taught forgiveness is. It is even beyond the current teaching of "Radical Forgiveness." (See About Radical Forgiveness.)

Remember that you are loved, you are loving and you are lovable forever.

Freedom

I am realizing that the greatest gift I can ever receive comes to me only when I decide to release you, my brother or my sister, from the perceptions I have been projecting upon you.

There is a truth that is true always about you. There is a truth that is unchanged and unchanging about who you are. It is this truth, this gift above any gift, that is revealed to me as I release you from the perceptions I have held about you.

Of course, this is so regarding anything that I see. I am beginning to understand that I have not known the world. I have only known my perceptions of it. And I have learned to insist, and guard vehemently, that my chosen perceptions are right:

• My perceptions of you, what you do and say.
• My perceptions of my parents, the choices they made, the way they were toward me.
• My perception of my job, my behavior, my choices.
• My perceptions of myself.
• My perception of the world.
• My perception of God.

As I relinquish my insistence to be right about my world, I find that there is something deeper, something glimmering, something holy just beyond my perception. As I allow the world - you, others, myself, God - to be as it is, to be innocent, I am free. Free from the idea that circumstances control me. Free to see and therefore create my experience as I desire. Not by making what is out there different in itself, but by allowing myself to be changed, deeply, gently, by the choice to see only the good, the holy and the beautiful.

Have A Light Touch With Yourself

I have spent many years fighting with "my demons," that on-going conversation within my mind that was able to convince me of my own ineptness, my own guilt, my own weaknesses, my own undeserving-of-anything-good nature. It seemed like other people's on-going inner conversation was convincing them of just the opposite: their worthiness, their ability, their strengths. And so, I got into comparing. Comparing myself against an impossible standard that I had constructed within my own mind, and also against what others seemed to be able to accomplish in their lives, while I struggled to even get off the ground. Some people refer to this on-going conversation as "monkey-mind," or "the committee."

Sound familiar?

Well, I have come to understand some things that have really helped me. Here is one:

I have come to understand that I am responsible for my experience of life. At first this can be a hard one to swallow, but once swallowed and assimilated, it leads to tremendous relief and awakening. One of the hurdles I had with this concept is the word "responsibility." There is a lot of "baggage" that comes with that word. I finally understood that responsibility in this statement does not mean "burden" or "blame," (unless we make it so). Responsibility here means that we choose the experience. We choose the experience by placing meaning or value upon the circumstances we perceive. I discovered that if I am able to witness my circumstances in a way that allowed me to question how I was perceiving them, I could make a different choice. And once a different choice is made, the thoughts that correspond to that choice make sense.

As an example, I used to have a "bad temper." So much so that it got in the way of relationships with my children, work and friends. I even used to fly off the handle at circumstances that didn't go the way I wanted them to, like my car breaking down, a stop light being red, or an appliance not working properly. Slowly, I began to bring some quality of "witness" to these time of anger. Before bashing the toaster with my fist, I began to see that  the toaster was just a toaster. It didn't have an agenda of malice towards me. I saw that whatever I was thinking about the toaster, was creating this experience of rage toward it.

One of the keys to this process is having a light touch with yourself. I found it easy to fall into the thought that I am such a dope for thinking this way. That is a vicious circle of thought that is just another aspect of the on-going chatter of "the committee." So having a light touch with the toaster meant for me that I found the humor in wanting to beat up the f&#%@+g toaster for not cooperating. Not laughing at myself, but laughing with myself for what I had just made up about this situation. I just didn't take it so seriously. Instead of identifying with my anger, I was able to step out of it, and find a lightness and humor in my creation of this experience, through my thoughts about it. The seriousness and the identification began to evaporate with practice. I discovered that it was this great seriousness with in the mind that held these triggers of rage in place. Once I could dis-identify myself from the anger, it left. Having anger is not the problem. The problem was identifying with it. If I am not identified with my anger, I can make a different choice, I can see things differently, I can think differently, and therefore have a different experience.

I've had my toaster for several years now, too.

"All my experience is the effect of where I choose to focus the attention of my consciousness." - The Way of Mastery

58 years

It has taken me most of 58 years to embrace the words of the first post ("Your life..."). 58 years of pointing to the world with a finger of blame, listening to myself as a victim, living in guilt, never being happy. Poor sad Steve was my theme, and it was reinforced by everyone, it seemed, and mostly my family...and I believed it.

What changed? Well, it took a while and a lot of painful work. But in the right season and in the right place I began to see that I was the author and creator of my experience. The world is innocent. All events are neutral, until I place value or judgment upon them. Then they are no longer neutral for me, and my judgment does not change the event. The point is not to change what is out there in the world, but to change my mind, to discover the truth that is true always about me.

It took 58 years for Sad Steve to become Happy Steve. It was time well spent.