Control, And Lack Thereof

Recently I was watching one of my favorite TV shows when a woman on the program made the comment, "That way I can better control the perception people have of me."

I have to say that I was pretty blown away by this comment, and I imagine that this individual is going to have an alarming wake-up call someday.

To imagine that we have any control over how people perceive us, what they think about us or what they believe about us is a fantasy. We may well go to our graves being misunderstood, misrepresented, lied to, lied about and generally disrespected. On the other hand, we may go to our graves with the world believing grand but untrue things about us and our intentions. We just can't know, and we can't do a thing about it.

It is for this reason that we must know who we are free of the limitations of even our own judgments. We can only be responsible for ourselves, but we must be responsible for ourselves if we are to step into this world in power and with effectiveness. With grace, we may find kinship and true recognition. But regardless of how the world perceives us, it cannot truly limit us if we remain aware of our own gifts and shortcomings, and if we use this awareness with integrity. Our personal "power," as it were, is neither given nor taken by another. It is ours to know and claim. It is ours to use in our search for the joys of essence rich living.

Know your authentic self. Learn your personal gifts and talents for this lifetime, and share that wealth with the world around you. And should all around you fail to see who you are, it matters not, for it does not touch the truth of you.

Still Thinking About It

My mentor Jennie Marlow brings the teaching of Spotted Eagle forward in her series entitled Beyond Personal Magic. While enjoying a recent review of this work, I ran across these words on the subject of "truth." I hope you find them as provocative as I do.

"How do we know something is truth? First of all you need to understand that, just as truth is never static, the truth is also relative and individual. So, your understanding of truth will always be fractionalized and distorted to some degree. This is as it should be, and it is simply a feature of being embodied and living out a life on the material plane.

So, it is imperative that, when we think of truth, we understand it as more about our truth in this now. Otherwise we might become confused ourselves by believing that there is some sort of universal, ideal, unchanging truth out there, and that, when we discover it, we will have arrived at some sort of divine state of perfection. Embodiment makes such a state impossible, even when one is a realized being.

The universe holds her mysteries in what is unrevealed, unformed, and unforeseen. No sentient energy, no matter how evolved or powerful, can ever fully know how all the individual choices and the creation events that result from them will play out on a Universal scale in all of the dimensions of reality."

This just gets more interesting all the time!

The Question Of Truth

Are you after it, too? I've made some good friends on this wild goose chase -- the search for truth, or is it Truth?

The funny thing I keep running into along the way is that truth seems to be a moving target -- not static. Even in the Bible, mankind's sense of the Divine and what was true evolved from "an eye for an eye" to "turn the other cheek," and from an angry God to a loving God.

One of my favorite moments in Bible history was Pontius Pilate's question to Jesus: "What is truth?" The Bible doesn't record a response at that time from Jesus, but at another moment he advised that truth would make one free. Mary Baker Eddy, in her book Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, draws from Ephesians when she writes: "Truth makes a new creature, in whom old things pass away and all things are become new."

So, what and where is this thing that can transform us? "It" may in fact look quite different to each of us.What if it actually is quite different for each of us, really? What if there isn't one truth or one right way? What if we're all right, or, for that matter, all wrong? Personally, I think we may have to stop chasing and making pronouncements and start seeing what is around us, and in us, to find it. Elusive truth, for me, does not seem to reside in the noise of the world, but in a "still, small voice."

Life is a feeling experience. Can you be still enough to know what you are really feeling and what is true for you in this moment? Truth itself, oddly, does not strike me as an emotional thing. It may crack open my heart to pain or joy or awe, but it seems to be magnificently neutral on its own. So, perhaps acting as a neutral witness for ourselves and our feeling experience, in inner stillness, can more readily put us in touch with this thing called "Truth."

I know I am not the first to suggest this technique, nor am I terribly skilled at it, but here is a guide to that still place where the "small" but powerful voice might be heard:

Be still and know that I am God.

Be still and know that I am.

Be still and know.

Be still.

Be.

See you there.

A Morning Prayer

This morning as two-legged I and three-legged Dandelion moved along the wooded path for our early meditation and squirrel chasing practice, I was contemplating healing and all the shapes it takes. I was struck by the beautiful breeze moving through the tree forms and the fern forms and the me form. And I was aware of the constantly evolving but ever-perfect quality of Divinity moving through all material form. I thought of the seven directions -- north, south, east, west, above, below, within -- and prayed to all-hearing Being that my expression in this life might have evermore clarity. I prayed to be able to see that breeze of Divinity, that briskly flowing river of perfection moving through all forms, regardless of the apparent expressions of pain or anger or violence or heartbreak or illness or confusion. I prayed to be that river in my daily life so that my awareness might bring to the stagnant places, those within me and those without, the impulse to move, flow, breathe and see anew. And then I remembered to look north, south, east, west, above, below and within, and to say, "Thank you." Amen.

Still thinking about it...

My mentor Jennie Marlow brings the teaching of Spotted Eagle forward in her series entitled Beyond Personal Magic. While enjoying a recent review of this work, I ran across these words on the subject of "truth." I hope you find them as provocative as I do.
"How do we know something is truth? First of all you need to understnad that, just as truth is never static, the truth is also relative and individual. So, your understanding of truth will always be fractionalized and distorted to some degree. This is as it should be, and it is simply a feature of being embodied and living out a life on the material plane.
So, it is imperative that, when we think of truth, we understand it as more about our truth in this now. Otherwise we might become confused ourselves by believing that there is some sort of universal, ideal, unchanging truth out there, and that, when we discover it, we will have arrived at some sort of divine state of perfection. Embodiment makes such a state impossible, even when one is a realized being.
The universe holds her mysteries in what is unrevealed, unformed, and unforeseen. No sentient energy, no matter how evolved or powerful, can ever fully know how all the individual choices and the creation events that result from them will play out on a Universal scale in all of the dimensions of reality."

This just gets more interesting all the time!

The Question of Truth

Are you after it, too? I've made some good friends on this wild goose chase -- the search for truth, or is it Truth?
The funny thing I keep running into along the way is that truth seems to be a moving target -- not static. Even in the Bible, mankind's sense of the Divine and what was true evolved from "an eye for an eye" to "turn the other cheek," and from an angry God to a loving God.
One of my favorite moments in Bible history was Pontius Pilate's question to Jesus: "What is truth?" The Bible doesn't record a response at that time from Jesus, but at another moment he advised that truth would make one free. Mary Baker Eddy, in her book Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, draws from Ephesians when she writes: "Truth makes a new creature, in whom old things pass away and all things are become new."
So, what and where is this thing that can transform us? "It" may in fact look quite different to each of us.What if it actually is quite different for each of us, really? What if there isn't one truth or one right way? What if we're all right, or, for that matter, all wrong? Personally, I think we may have to stop chasing and making pronouncements and start seeing what is around us, and in us, to find it. Elusive truth, for me, does not seem to reside in the noise of the world, but in a "still, small voice."
Life is a feeling experience. Can you be still enough to know what you are really feeling and what is true for you in this moment? Truth itself, oddly, does not strike me as an emotional thing. It may crack open my heart to pain or joy or awe, but it seems to be magnificently neutral on its own. So, perhaps acting as a neutral witness for ourselves and our feeling experience, in inner stillness, can more readily put us in touch with this thing called "Truth."
I know I am not the first to suggest this technique, nor am I terribly skilled at it, but here is a guide to that still place where the "small" but powerful voice might be heard:
Be still and know that I am God.
Be still and know that I am.
Be still and know.
Be still.
Be.

See you there.