I once was speaking with a friend about how necessary it is for us to live what we speak. The curious thing about this is that when we don't, when we say what we think we should say but do't really feel or understand, we aren't holding authentic power. Now power itself has a lot of associations, and the power that I am speaking of is what you are, your truth, what you embody here and now.
Not long after speaking to this friend, who is a family friend who went through her own awakening some years back, I came across an introduction to a book by Ram Dass. He explained that he was talking to his teacher and his teacher was wondering why he had not learned something more fully from his previous teacher. Dass was himself curious about why this was so and his teacher quipped simply that the reason why Dass had not learned it, even though his previous teacher taught or espoused it, was because his own teacher did not embody or live the teaching. There was something in there that the teacher had not fully integrated into himself and as a result, it could not be expected that the student would pick it up even if it was conveyed perfectly to Ram Dass.
In the same way, we can also deny or be blind to what our teachers do embody because we ourselves do not embody it. It is a lot like what children do in their teen years, thinking that their parents are clueless people who just don't know the ways of the world. Ego does this, of course, and blinds us to the truth of the matter. We project upon the world what we are, which is that we ourselves are the ones who are without the clue. Only in time do we get the opportunity to see what it was that we had missed.
As a result of this, I stay away from proclaiming what I know to be true but that I myself do not embody. I know that it is a waste of time to do this. I write from my heart, from the very essence of who and what I am. I do not hide what work remains within me to do and my book Waking The Infinite seeks to use my own shortcomings along the way to help point out how we misperceive things due to our own lack of awareness.
Very recently I have begun to reclaim my voice in a way I have not done before. I had felt the stirrings of this for some time, but had not put all the pieces together. I realized that I have had some traces of fear related to our own authentic power and inner voice that I had not fully recognized. I very recently had to stand up for myself, to do what was right for me as a simple act of honor and respect for others. Even though this was not honored, I knew that the true voice does not bend when it is in its truth. People have freewill to ignore and to deny, but if we get caught up in making them see the way, we only heap karma upon karma. Letting people to be free to be who they are and what they want to be is the single biggest gift that we can give to others. It si the only gift that will ever matter in the end, I think. And from that we will be free to be ourselves beyond all of our karmic threads that have bound us for so long.
The path right now is disentangling ourselves from all those old threads. What the world looks like beyond those tangles is for another day, for right now, we all honor ourselves by bringing love and self responsibility to the moment. True strength lies in letting those be who they feel they need to be while our own inner bliss is not moved or lessened one iota. Our jobs here, those who awaken, I believe, is to simply anchor this bliss so others remember that there is a better way.
Not long after speaking to this friend, who is a family friend who went through her own awakening some years back, I came across an introduction to a book by Ram Dass. He explained that he was talking to his teacher and his teacher was wondering why he had not learned something more fully from his previous teacher. Dass was himself curious about why this was so and his teacher quipped simply that the reason why Dass had not learned it, even though his previous teacher taught or espoused it, was because his own teacher did not embody or live the teaching. There was something in there that the teacher had not fully integrated into himself and as a result, it could not be expected that the student would pick it up even if it was conveyed perfectly to Ram Dass.
In the same way, we can also deny or be blind to what our teachers do embody because we ourselves do not embody it. It is a lot like what children do in their teen years, thinking that their parents are clueless people who just don't know the ways of the world. Ego does this, of course, and blinds us to the truth of the matter. We project upon the world what we are, which is that we ourselves are the ones who are without the clue. Only in time do we get the opportunity to see what it was that we had missed.
As a result of this, I stay away from proclaiming what I know to be true but that I myself do not embody. I know that it is a waste of time to do this. I write from my heart, from the very essence of who and what I am. I do not hide what work remains within me to do and my book Waking The Infinite seeks to use my own shortcomings along the way to help point out how we misperceive things due to our own lack of awareness.
Very recently I have begun to reclaim my voice in a way I have not done before. I had felt the stirrings of this for some time, but had not put all the pieces together. I realized that I have had some traces of fear related to our own authentic power and inner voice that I had not fully recognized. I very recently had to stand up for myself, to do what was right for me as a simple act of honor and respect for others. Even though this was not honored, I knew that the true voice does not bend when it is in its truth. People have freewill to ignore and to deny, but if we get caught up in making them see the way, we only heap karma upon karma. Letting people to be free to be who they are and what they want to be is the single biggest gift that we can give to others. It si the only gift that will ever matter in the end, I think. And from that we will be free to be ourselves beyond all of our karmic threads that have bound us for so long.
The path right now is disentangling ourselves from all those old threads. What the world looks like beyond those tangles is for another day, for right now, we all honor ourselves by bringing love and self responsibility to the moment. True strength lies in letting those be who they feel they need to be while our own inner bliss is not moved or lessened one iota. Our jobs here, those who awaken, I believe, is to simply anchor this bliss so others remember that there is a better way.
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