Good Wednesday to You!

Sorry for the late blog posting yesterday. Vidya and I were extremely busy and did the best we could do to get the blog out. Big hug to Vidya. She actually posted the blog from home because she was so busy at work she couldn’t get to it.

I had a very busy day yesterday, but got a nice pushing workout in. I went home after work and started a new art piece. It was fun and I’ll finish it this afternoon if the flow of Tao takes me that way.

I’M LONELY AMONG YOUR WORSHIPERS GOD!

Today, I’d like to share a poem by Rabi’a (717 AD), considered a major saint of Islam and one of the central figures of Sufi tradition.

 

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In the book, Doorkeeper of the Heart, Versions of Rabi’a by Charles Upton (p. 51), Rabi’a writes:

Your hope in my heart is the rarest treasure
Your Name on my tongue is the sweetest word
My choicest hours
Are the hours I spend with You−

O God, I can’t live in this world
Without remembering You−
How can I endure the next world
Without seeing Your face?

I am a stranger in Your country
And lonely among Your worshipers:
This is the substance of my complaint.

This is really a beautiful poem. It expresses the pains and challenges of isolation that most who are truly on the spiritual path come to experience.

Often, as we grow, we find ourselves estranged from those that we once thought of as family, friends and associates. As we grow spiritually, we see that the pain and ignorance that underlies their motives and behaviors, yet we also quickly learn that “to help” such people is akin to trying to “fix” them.

The ego resists attempts at being “fixed” by others as a means of keeping the experience of spiritual growth authentic.

There comes a point in everyone’s spiritual development where we carry the paradox of knowing that the world is exactly as it should be; it is where we wake up to the truth of ourselves.

The world gives us a cocoon we grow our spiritual muscles in so we can take soul-flight when the day to leave the cocoon behind comes. We know we can, and will fly from this world to the next. Yet, naturally, it is hard to leave the rest of God behind!

Only when we realize that God’s perfection is the basis of the ego’s perceptions of imperfection can the world ever become beautiful, just as it is. We don’t fret over leaving elementary school when we graduate to high school because we know that elementary school is for children that need elementary education.

Once we achieve Union with our own soul, we begin taking flight. Yet, we must be brave enough to leave those that are in elementary flight school here to learn the lessons they need to be safe in the Grand expanse of the Universe.

If all souls were free to fly, it would be akin to letting all children have keys to their parents cars. Would we be helping them? Would that be safe for the rest of the drivers that have learned the rules and laws of the road? No.

Know that Love is the Teacher. No one IN LOVE can be left behind. All graduate when they learn to fly. That’s God’s Plan.

Let’s learn to fly together so others can see how we do it!

If they truly want to fly more than they want to die, they will observe, practice, and fly when it is their time.

Love and chi,
Paul Chek