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Each Moment Contains Everything
Spiritual people aspire to be in both places, timebound and timeless. In India this is sometimes expressed as “the lamp at the door” your soul is poised, as if on a threshold between the everyday events that occur in time and the background of the unchanging, infinite absolute.
The reason this is important is that if you can live from the level of your soul, you are doing something very special. It doesn’t really matter what actions you take. The important thing is how much consciousness you add to the whole of human existence, for that is how eternity expresses itself, like a lamp shining in through the window of eternity.
A great soul like Buddha or Jesus wasn’t just a lamp at the door; they were beacons. You and I may feel smaller than Buddha or Jesus, yet that is an opinion formed by our egos. Spiritually, all the light being expressed through a human being is equal, at least in terms of quality.
Why? Because light is a metaphor for the power of consciousness. Everyone’s consciousness draws from the same underlying reality. But it doesn’t really matter if history will remember you as a great soul. At this moment you are expressing the entire universe through your consciousness.
The cosmic plan, whether we call it divine or not, doesn’t need you or me to reach its ultimate fulfillment. Yet the parts you and I play are unique. No one can duplicate them; we make our own cosmic history every second.
So what is the world becoming and what are we becoming? I’d like to think that we are becoming a new humanity, but I may be wrong. My vote won’t hasten that new humanity, nor will it retard it. What my vote will do is put consciousness into action.
I am connected to everything in the world. This is the realization that takes me to the polls. I am essentially one strand in the web of consciousness, and when my little strand trembles, the universe notices.
Adapted from: Peace Is the Way, by Deepak Chopra (Harmony Books, 2005).
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7 comments
add your comment »Charles, just because I choose to send love and healing energy to the ones who would rather fight than find peace does not mean I tolerate or condone that kind of behavior. It means, I choose not to lower my consciousness to their level. People go to war because they feel they have no other choice or are told they have to. What if no one chose to pick up a weapon against another and the leaders had to fight each other? What if every human dug deep into their soul and asked “is this the best way to handle conflict – to kill another? Will this bring peace, love, and tolerance, or will it simply perpetuate hate and violence?” What if nations used the kind of strategies that Gandhi used to free India? I think that there would probably be a lot less wars. Too many go to war because they are told it is their “patriotic duty", they must protect their country from the "bad guys". The problem is both sides think they are the "good guys" and the other is "bad". I can denounce war by not participating in the consciousness of war, by choosing not to pick up a weapon to kill another. Could I be endangering my life? Perhaps, but if ENOUGH people put their minds and ACTIONS together and REFUSED to fight another, war, not people would become extinct. This is a monumental task for humanity, but one that I believe in the end is the ONLY thing that will save our species. Can’t we see that war has NEVER lead to real peace, only to more hate, resentment, intolerance, and
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We may be so loving and tolerant that the human race becomes extinct...some things have to be denounced not tolerated. War is one such false profit and the willingness to accept considerable collateral damage. Making a profit off of others surffering and misery another such thing.
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Charles G., I think this is an essential quote from this piece:
"So what is the world becoming and what are we becoming? I’d like to think that we are becoming a new humanity, but I may be wrong. My vote won’t hasten that new humanity, nor will it retard it. What my vote will do is put consciousness into action."
I too feel the pain of these actions that I can't understand. I can only hope that by raising my own consciousness to one of love, compassion, tolerance, and healing that my little bit of consciousness will add to all others on this planet so that these events stop and all of humanity sees each other as sacred, divine beings. I believe that if I let my anger and fear over these events be my focus, I only add to their continuation. I recognize them but I must let go of my anger and send out love and healing energy, otherwise I am part of the problem instead of being part of the solution.
We all have a choice of which consciousness we will feed: a consciousness of fear, repression, anger, intolerance, self-righteousness…, or a consciousness of love, tolerance, compassion, understanding, and healing. I may not like what I see on the evening news but instead of going into the pain and anger, I do my best to send to victim as well terrorist the energy of unconditional love.
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Spirit is the essence of belief.
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Thank you for another great one, Deepak.
Spirit is universal. That which we see as good and great and pure and true in Jesus, Buddha, or Gandhi is the same Spirit that shines within each of us.
Were it not there within you and me, then we would be unable to see it in others. Being able to see it, we can strive to become more intimate with it. We can do this not necessarily by trying to get closer to Jesus, Buddha, or Gandhi (whose physical presence seems so far removed from us by many miles and years), but by dissolving the illusion of distance between our own ego and the inner Spirit that gives it life, light, and hope.
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It is my connection to Iraq and Afghanistan that bothers me plus the birth defeats from agent orange still occuring and the mines and cluster bombs that are still blowing off hands and legs in SE Asia...but probably everything is related to nothing and nothing related to everything...
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Maybe the next step in evolution is the merging of the two thresholds ? Maybe even the new human, one that is connected, and stays connected. So as the one source, can finally experience and know in the same moment. Just a thought.
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