SALVATION

In the Bible reading for today, Jesus says to a man, “This day is salvation come to your house.” This day. Not tomorrow or yesterday. Not sometime in the future, but this day, in these 57,000 moments stretching ahead of me. This Friday, July 17, 2009. Salvation – as the dictionary says, “the preservation or deliverance from destruction, difficulty, or evil.” Today I will be preserved and delivered. It takes a powerful force to preserve and deliver, and I will, indeed, be in the presence of, and part of, the strongest possible force – the force of the gently unfolding and infinite present moment. I will be preserved from destruction, yes, but not only destruction. I will also be delivered (rescued) all day from “difficulty or evil”. That’s an amazing thing to realize, that on this day I will be (am, right now) part of a power that knows no boundaries or limits, and that instantly destroys any difficulty or evil. This is the true meaning of salvation, and it has come to my “house” on this day. Rejoice!

RAYS OF THE SUN

One-ness is the hardest mystery to understand, but it is also the most important. “Never two, but one” – that’s the grand truth that I must contemplate as I go about my teaching today. My scholars and colleagues and I are not separate from each other. We are not separate, distinct physical beings engaged in a struggle to get and protect. That’s the universally accepted belief, but it’s simply not true. Today, all that will be happening is the unfoldment of thought in the present moment. Each present moment, a thought will be causing everything to happen. For convenience sake, we call it “my” thought or “Jimmy’s” thought or “Anna’s” thought, but it’s all really just thought in an infinite universe of thought. That’s why the sun is a good comparison. In my classroom today, the infinite sun of Thought (sometimes called God) will be shining, and my scholars and I will be the rays of that sun. There won’t be many separate suns – just the rays of the one infinite sun.

GOD, THE LORD

The word “God” or “Lord” is mentioned thousands of times in the Bible, and it reminds me of something: the nature of God is the most important thing for me to study. Nothing else counts if I don’t understand – not just believe but really understand – what God is. Today I want to focus on keeping in mind just exactly what this God is that I’ve been praying about all these years. I want to keep before my thought the great fact that there is always only one power active at any given moment and that is the power of thought, or awareness. Since it’s the only power, then it is unopposed and unlimited – that is, it goes on forever. And also, since there is nothing besides this power of thought, or awareness, then there really is nothing material – no “me”, for instance. “I” am a part of this infinite power. I think and work because this power thinks and works. This power – this infinite thinking, this unlimited Mind – is God, the Lord.

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WAITING PATIENTLY

“Waiting” is a wonderful word. It implies so many things. For instance, if we are waiting for something, then we are expecting it to happen, to come to us. We don’t have to do anything ourselves; we just have to relax and wait, because we know it will come. If we are waiting, then - in a sense - we are relaxing, because we are totally confident that what we are waiting for will arrive. Waiting does not imply worrying and fearing. Rather, it implies being patient, because we know that what we wait for is definitely coming. Today, I want to wait patiently for the power of infinite Mind to exert itself and to control my life. Of course, I don’t really have to wait for that, because it’s already happening – at every moment today. What I do have to do is resist the temptation to start "working hard" to bring happiness into my life. The happiness is already there, because I am an inseparable part of the peacefulness of Mind. What I have to do is realize that and then confidently wait to see this peacefulness each and every moment.


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WAITING

(written in October 2002)

Today I need to practice the fine art of waiting. For example, I need to wait for my scholars to settle down at the start of class. They have probably just finished a serious, demanding class in the previous period, and they don’t need another teacher pushing and prodding them to get quickly started with another such class. Like a pond after the water has been stirred, they will quietly calm down into peacefulness soon enough. I also need to remember to wait a few seconds after I ask a question in class. Why do I think the students will have instant answers for my questions? I need to remember that thinking takes time, and cannot be rushed. Finally, I need to wait for happiness today. I can’t chase down happiness, for it only comes to those who wait patiently, just like we wait by the side of the pond for the water to slowly clear. Happiness, like so many good things, is always ready to arrive at the doors of those who are calmly waiting.


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THE FACTS OF LIFE

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GENTLENESS

There are many kinds of power, but to me the power of gentleness is the greatest. For example, consider the strong gentleness of a river. Water is one of the softest of all material things, and yet it can move trees and houses when it floods in the spring. This gentle substance that washes your dishes can effortlessly wash away an entire town in flood season. In addition, there is the persistent power of even the softest breeze. A cool breeze in the summer can refresh the lives (and nerves) of an entire town in a matter of minutes. One minute you’re sweating and frustrated, and the next minute you’re relishing your life while a tender breeze ruffles you’re hair. And finally, the strongest, bravest, most admirable people I know are also the gentlest. These are people who know that the most important battles are won by gentleness. Like rivers, these people flow softly along with enormous power. Like the breezes of summer, they change our lives with their strong, relentless gentleness.


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GLORY

(written in October, 2006)

This morning, someone said, “Isn't it a glorious day?”, so I decided to look for glory all day – and I found it in many places. For example, I found it in a glittering tree I passed on the way to school. I rounded a corner and there it was, shining out across a hillside like a call to glory. I was a little sleepy when I first noticed the tree, but its special beauty snapped me awake. I also found glory in the face of some first-graders as they pranced down the walkway at recess. Their faces were as fresh as a sunrise and as glorious as a sunset. I had just finished teaching a somewhat disappointing lesson, and those magnificent faces were just what I needed to lift my spirits. And finally, I discovered glory in a single paragraph in the book I’m reading, Jane Eyre. Can excellent writing be called glorious? I think so, if it’s filled with sentences so clear they seem to shimmer on the page. Yesterday, in fact, I think I could have found glory anywhere, because the whole day glowed like light in October.


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WORK

Today I want to work hard, but I also want to think about exactly what that means. I have always liked the idea of work – the idea that by applying my will and energy, I can accomplish things. However, today I want to think of work in another way – a spiritual way. I want to ask who – or what – actually does the work that I speak of? What I am starting to understand, more and more clearly, is that all the work that will be done today will actually not be done by any individual persons (like me), but rather by the infinite, always-present Mind. This Mind, in a sense, has no choice but to work. It’s always working. Thought is always happening today – and thought is what actually does the work. Each moment on earth, something like three billion thoughts are happening – sort of like waves happen in the sea – and that is where the astonishing power of today comes from. So … I don’t have to work hard, because I am part of the infinite Mind that is always working hard. All I have to do is stay aware of that.


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A SENSE OF THINGS

I often hear people use the phrase “a sense of things”. A person might ask, “Do you get a sense of what I am trying to say?”, or “Do you get a sense of what’s happening?” Today, I want to think about what this word “sense” means, and I want to consider what my “sense of things” is. When we say “sense of things”, we mean the way we see the world, the way we interpret what’s happening. After all, the same situation can be interpreted in different ways by different people. A rainy day can cause a farmer in a drought area to celebrate, while a family that has planned a picnic will be miserable. The farmer and the family have a different sense of things. They look at the same reality, but see it (interpret) entirely differently. I want to have a spiritual sense of things today. I want to see the world as it truly is – an unceasing unfoldment in the present moment of the ideas of the infinite Spirit, Mind, God.

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WORKING AND RESTING

I see many things around me in the world that seem to be able to work and rest at the same time, and I would like to learn how to do that. When trees are swaying in a breeze, they seem to be working hard, tossing their limbs in an energetic way, but they also seem completely stress-free. Perhaps their secret is that they don’t resist the breeze. They simply lean back and let go, and the breeze actually does all the work, allowing the trees to sway forever and not grow weary. Also, leaves that fall in the autumn don’t seem to work hard as they float to earth, and yet in a matter of a few days they can cover hundreds of square miles of ground. This is an amazing achievement (one that would take we humans a supreme effort) and yet the leaves do this work in the most relaxed manner. What is more serene than a leaf drifting through the autumn air? A final example is snow. I always eagerly await the first snowfall of the season, because these armies of snowflakes are the most peaceful workers I have ever seen. Within a few hours, a nation of snowflakes can cover an entire city with a paralyzing sheet of white, and yet they do it in the quietest possible way. A snowstorm has a way of combining tranquility with effort, and it’s something I admire. Perhaps my goal in life is to live like snowflakes live – with both enthusiasm and serenity.


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Newness

I have gradually come to understand this important truth – that oldness is nowhere and newness is everywhere. Every day is a totally new day. The sunrise each morning shines a little differently than it ever did before, and the breeze I feel when I walk outside blows in a faintly new way from yesterday, and from the moment before. Totally new things will happen to me today – the way a person smiles at me, the way people walk past me in the park, the way sunlight lands on my hands. Even each moment is brand-new each day. As I type this paragraph, new dust particles lie on my computer table in arrangements that have never existed before. The shadows from my fingers fall on the keyboard, not like they did yesterday, but in a slightly and wonderfully new way. Even each thought is totally knew each moment. This is the most astounding thing for me to realize. The exact thought that I’m thinking right now has never been thought before – in the whole history of the human race. It’s amazing – almost scary – to live in a world of such breathtaking newness.


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On Giving Up the Struggle

ON GIVING UP THE STRUGGLE

On this mild, rainy Sunday morning, I’ve been thinking again about how life-changing it would be if I simply gave up struggling. As I was getting ready for the new day, it came to me that almost all of my days (since 1941!) have been taken up with a struggle of some kind or other. Right from the start, it seems, I have pictured life as a constant skirmish between a separate “me” and the countless other separate “me”s, and I have engaged in the struggle with earnestness. From morning to night, it’s been me against the universe. What if I simply – here and now, today – gave up the struggle? What if, once and for all, I fully accepted the simple fact that there is no separate “me” to do the struggling, and no separate universe to struggle against? What if I fully understood, finally, that the universe, including me, is a single, unified, harmonious, and peaceful dance? It’s something worth thinking about, worth working toward. It’s a revolutionary idea, one that would transform my life from top to bottom, inside to out. It might conceivably make life a remarkable celebration instead of a backbreaking competition.

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