Meditation and Work, Faith and Knowledge, Spirit and Science.

The young acolyte went to his master feeling despondent and anxious.

He said, 'How must I meditate when my mind is taken by the work that has to be done in the world, and how can I work, when my heart longs to be one with the spirit through meditation. These opposites tear me apart, so that I am never happy. When I meditate I am thinking of the world, during work I am thinking about meditation.

'It is simple,' said the master, with that smile which always denoted his wisdom:

'If you make it so that your meditation becomes as practical as life you will learn what is best for your work.'

'How is that possible?'

'Only if, when you meditate inwardly, you observe how the spirit of the world enters into you. Listen to what it is telling and you shall be directed to the best way to perform your tasks in the world.

'Conversely, if you allow your practical life to become like a meditation you will find yourself.'

'How is that possible!'

'It is possible if when you work in the world you seek how every movement you make creates an imprint not only in the physical world but also in the spiritual world.  If you seek to find yourself in your deeds and how they are either in harmony or out of harmony with the spirit in the world. This is self knowledge. You will learn to see how well you have listened to what the spirit has told you about your tasks in the world.'

'So I am to make no distinction between the contemplative life and the practical life?'

'By making Meditation  as practical as life, and practical life as spiritual as meditation you are uniting all polarities, life and death, right and wrong, inner and outer, above and below. This is the cause of all the wars and strife both in the world of men and the world of spirit. You have the power to bring harmony into both worlds. Then you shall find happiness in everything you do, for true happiness is being in harmony with the spirit.'

The acolyte was amazed. 'What is the power in me that you speak of that can unite all things?'

'It is the power that long ago divided all things inside you.'

The acolyte left his master then, and practised his advice and in time became a great and wise master.

He died and was born again a Dominican Monk. He was together again with his reborn master and he now asked him the same question only differently.

He said to him, 'Master, how must I reconcile  Knowledge and Faith? I am never happy for when I am learning about the world through your teachings I cannot find myself, and when I pray before the cross I feel like I am a blind man believing something I can't see!'

His master a man known for his angelic nature said, smiled for he knew this dilemma. 'This is what you do:

'When you are working with knowledge observe how everything you know is gained from the world of nature around you, from what you see with your eyes. But you cannot find yourself in nature, can you? If you were to rely only on nature, you would always set limits to your knowledge, because you would only see half a truth, you would never see the spirit that is in yourself in the things you see.  Train your will to enter the world through the power of devotion, and your will shall become a light that perceives itself and finds its likeness in the spirit of the world - you will see your spirit because it enlightens the spirit in the world. The difference between the two: your spirit and the spirit in the world, this is true self knowledge. Sending out the light of your spirit of the self into the world brings you knowledge of yourself.'

 'In your prayers unite lovingly with what your knowledge of the world in the self, use thinking honed by this knowledge to understand that all you see has its counterpart inside you, and you will understand how this counterpart is the spirit in the world. In this way thinking becomes the power of a Faith that is not blind but which enlightens the spirit of the world in the self through knowledge - this spirit in the world can only be seen because you have a spirit in the self which attracts it.  This is what it means to be faithful - attracting the light of the spirit into the self to give you knowledge of the world.'

'By making  knowledge a power that leads to faith and Faith a power that leads to knowledge you will reconcile all divisions, for in our time heresy and orthodoxy is merely knowledge and faith seen from different sides - one must see holistically - then there is no quarrel only understanding.'

Many lives later that young Dominican Monk was born a Teacher. One day a young pupil came to one of his lectures. He felt he knew this boy, something drew him to the boy. Afterwards when the boy came up to him and asked him:

'How do I bring Science and Spirit together?'

The teacher, now remembering his old teacher, fell at his feet, 

'You need only remember all that you have taught me, my dear teacher!' he said, 'My task shall be merely to remind you of what you already know.'

That young pupil became a great teacher himself. He united the practical life with mediation, knowledge and faith, science and spirit. He taught many how to find a scientific way to spiritual experiences, and how to bring knowledge of the spirit to explain the world around us. He said, 'Look inside yourself to find the world, look into the world to find yourself!'

Many lives later they met again, this time as peers. They both remembered one another and were filled with joy.

The one who had been an acolyte twice an only once a teacher said, 'How can we bring together the Sophia in our souls with the Christ?'

The one who had been twice a teacher and only once an acolyte said, 'We must awaken knowledge and faith in one another!'

CONVERSATIONS WITH AN ALIEN: When two or three are gathered in my name...

A being from a distant planet came to visit me to ask me this question:

'Why do you eat food?'

I answered thus:

'Before we were like you, we were whole. In those days we did not need material substance to survive, we lived on spiritual substance.'

'What happened to you?'

'We were tempted to create an inner life in order to have freedom from the gods.'

'An inner life that is free from the gods! You mean, you are not open to the wisdom of gods when they wish you to be?'

'We have learnt to cut ourselves off from the gods, to gain wisdom without them, but we had to split into male and female to do this, for we needed to create a distinction between outside and inside, above and below so that we could lie.'

'What is a lie?'

'We can experience something inwardly that does not correspond to what we see outwardly. In other words, our perception sees something different to what we sense and this has created thought. Thought is a lie because it is based on a half truth. Only what we see in the physical world.'

'This is a lie - for there is spirit behind the physical!'

'Yes, but this lie gave us thinking and thinking gave us the possibility for freedom, but this freedom from the spirit in all things means it cannot feed us. We cannot eat what we are not conscious of! And so we have had to eat material food instead. Eating plants and animals is the result of the development of our thinking and thinking has led to death - a division between consciousness here in the world and consciousness in the spirit. If we don't eat we can't think and we die, we lose consciousness of the world, but because we never found the spirit in the world, we also have no consciousness of the spirit after death! We must return to earth again to gain it. To begin everything again in another life. This is called Reincarnation.

'How awful! This reincarnation must take up all your time!'

'Yes, but we eat to feed the body only so that in between meals we can work creatively and freely on the soul to perfect it and to find something greater than the 'I' that we gain through thinking so that we can be born again, that is the only way to love.

'What is this higher thing you wish to find?'

'The I AM. It is for this reason that we work day and night in order to feed ourselves, but some of us have forgotten this. Some have grown to enjoy the act of eating for its sensual pleasure and think only material things as a result, these people cannot truly love. They cannot think in a way that will lead them to the IAM - which is the highest manifestation of love. 

Then they are doomed to live and die, to eat only matter and perceive only lies and never return to the spirit!'

'That would have been the fate of such people had a being from the world of spirit not descended to help them remember the IAM and bring the truth of the spirit back to our consciousness so that we can love through freedom. 

'Firstly he gave us a gift, he taught us that eating, specially when we join together with others, can be a spiritual experience when it is in His name.'

'How?'

'Sharing a meal in His name has the power to bring consciousness of the truth of the spirit that is in everything that we take into our bodies - not only food, but also all our sense experiences of the world and of each other. When this truth of the IAM enters the soul it changes the physical body and death is overcome and we are born again, because we bring female and male, inside and outside, above and below together.This way what is outside and what is inside are perceived and sensed as the same - we become like you but with a difference.'

'What is this difference?'

'We come to this wholeness again through the IAM, through freedom and love.'

'What is this freedom?'

'The being from spirit worlds showed us how to free our souls so that the spirit of truth can enter into us, and find our IAM, only then can we truly love.

'What is love?'

'The being showed us how to allow another soul into our own so that the spirit of truth in us can feed the soul of the other and help the other discover their own IAM. 

'The being who descended could do this for us so that we could observe His example and follow it. That is how He taught us to overcome the problem of who has more and who has less food  - through the power of His IAM. 

'And that is what He meant when He said that 'When two or three are gathered in my name the IAM will be among them! John the divine, the greatest follower of Christ before he died told his followers - Love one another! That is what he meant. Find the I Am in one other and the spirit of truth will always be among you and you will feed one another!'

'Who is this I AM?'

'Christ.'

'I know this being you call Christ! He was once in the sphere of the Sun but he left and we lost consciousness of Him - he died to us!'

'Yes, but in this conversation I have loved you, and so He is born again for you!

'I see him through you!'

'That is because my spirit has fed you. Now go and tell others the good news: Christ, the IAM Lives again through freedom and love and he can be perceived in the soul of every human being who has found the spirit of truth in freedom and who truly loves!'

The Paradox of True Love and Selflessness

The Alchemy of true love
Is:

Allowing another
To write their story inside our hearts
So that we can read it there
Again,
As if it were our own.

The Alchemy of true Selflessness
Is:

To write the story in our hearts
Inside the heart of the world
So that we can read it there
For the first time,
As if it were not ours. (AK)

Painting by Christian Schloe

GOING WITH THE FLOW!

I am a strong swimmer. I have always been. Near where I live there is a rip in the ocean which takes you out to sea but brings you back to another beach, and the locals call it an 'express lane'. From above you can see how it gently takes a person around the rocks out a little and then back again to shore. 

People who don't know this rip, or this beach, and get caught up in it, struggle to swim against it and often drown. Those who allow it to take them out and back to the beach survive. Occasionally there are the clever ones who can swim across the rip to get out of the flow, but people rarely see that it is really just a narrow band of water that pulls one out to sea for a little while and then returns them to the shore again. They are not conscious of the big picture.

Life is like that in a way and writing for me is always like this; like trying to survive in a rip. It is not always a fun process, particularly when one is sensitive to the requirements of the spiritual world. 

I set my deadlines, I think I am writing the book I think I'm writing, the water is fine and it is a beautiful day and then I find myself being taken out to sea!

How did that happen? Who created that rip? How will I get out? That was not the plan! Ah but this is the point exactly: There is a plan!

The rip one could say, is the flow of inspiration - the flow of life, and it is created in my sleep in consultation with my angel every night. In the day I may resist it because I forget that it exists. I get caught up in what fun I'm having and suddenly realise I'm being taken out to sea! At this point I think can get out by swimming against it. But I tire myself out - I am resisting myself! I feel sorry for myself, my limbs grown tired. Meanwhile the shore is further and further away and the feeling of being out of control, causes panic and despair to rise up - will I ever find the shore again or will I
drown?

Yes, my heart sinks when I hear those helicopters which fly over our town looking for those who have been caught in the rip and have felt powerless against the force of it.

If I am wise I do a retrospect of the past books, as I have just shared with you. It always brings me to something that I have forgotten: I know this rip. I have been here before, and I can do three things: I can drown by continuing to swim against the flow of inspiration - which means I will burn myself out and the book too; I can be 'clever' and swim across the rip and get out of the flow of inspiration altogether which means the book will not be what it was destined to be; or I can allow the flow to take me out to sea knowing it will bring me back to shore at some exact right point. 

I have freedom. 

Now there may be a handsome life saver coming out to save me and I think this happens all the time, but I refuse to listen - 'I'm alright mate!' I call out, 'I know what I'm doing!'

Do I?

This is the agony I go through with every book in one way or another, the agony of forgetting my past books and the agony of remembering that I can create new ones! 

In the end, the more I trust in the big picture, the more of the book I remember and the closer it will be to the truth I created with my angel. 

Now my angel has to trust also. My angel has to trust that sometimes the 'truth' of the spirit can only find its way to human hearts through a human voice and this is not always what the angel can foresee! 

I trust that my angel knows what I should be doing.
My angel trusts that I know what I should be doing.

Oh dear. smile emoticon

THE WATER OF WISDOM, AND THE WATER OF LIFE: A discourse on Morality and how it can be taught.

A pupil said to his master. 'What can I do, master, to be as wise as you?'


The master said, 'You must climb that hill.' He pointed to a steep hill with a winding path. 'And carry two buckets of water without spilling a drop, you must do this every day until you have gained wisdom.'


After some days, months, and then years of carrying water up the hill the pupil came to his master and said. 

'I have not learnt any wisdom at all, I am almost middle aged and I am still the same. Carrying that water up the hill has not made me wise for I cannot even prevent myself from spilling water. I have learnt no skill! At the top I am the same as I am at the bottom. Then I have to descend and take more water up the hill again.'


The master said. 'What has changed? Are your legs not stronger than when you began?'

'Yes.'

'Is the path more worn?'

'Yes.'

'And did you not see further at the top than at the bottom?'

'Yes.'

'Is the path now more alive with plants than before?

'Yes.'

'But you have not yet learnt how not to spill water, is that it?'


'I still spill water all the time. The trouble is, the stronger I have become, the faster I can walk up the hill and the faster I walk up the hill, the more worn the path becomes, and for both these reasons it is harder not to spill water!'


'So you have found the paradox.'

'The paradox?'

'Ideas that are contrary and must live side by side....this is the path to wisdom.'


'I don't understand!'

'Wisdom is not found at the bottom of the hill for this is ignorance, nor is it at the top of the hill for this is knowledge. The greater the knowledge, the harder is the task to stay balanced and to contain what one knows, but the paradox is this, the containment of knowledge is not wisdom. Wisdom must be carried but it must also be released.'

'So, you mean, that wisdom is knowing that the water I have spilt on my journey is really wisdom?'

'Wisdom is life. Your journey, each day, each month and each year has created new life along the path. You have become a creator, you have changed yourself and in doing so, the world. You have used the faculty of transformation! When one realises that one walks the path of change for the sake of the world, one is wise.'

'Then what is love?'

'When one consciously walks the path, each day, each month and each year, knowing one already knows the view at the top, knowing the changes to the soul have already been made...why does one do so?'

'Merely to water the plants, to bring them life!'

'This is morality, my son! Morality is the greatest wisdom of all...for it is the fruit of a path to wisdom which is life and in bestowing life, becomes love. That is what this means: to be a lover of wisdom.

Now you are wise...go and take life and love to the world!'

HOW THE SPIRIT OF GOETHE ENTERED A CONVERSATION ABOUT OPPOSITES AND GAVE BIRTH TO INSPIRATION.

The artist stands by his painting pondering it when a woman comes to stand beside him.

'I never understand your paintings. To me the colours and forms do not seem aesthetically pleasing.'

The artist considers this and says, 'Perhaps it is because what you find aesthetically pleasing is merely what corresponds to the world of nature and I try to convey not nature itself but my soul's experience of nature.'

'Is that why you paint roses green?'

'When I see a red rose, and I look within my soul, its imprint is green and this to me is the essential nature of the rose - its counterpart, or hidden spirit. This one might say is the truth of the rose, what is hidden from physical eyes - the green seen only by the eyes of my soul! For me this truth is more beautiful than the red you see with outer eyes, and which is only it's outer material counterpart.'

The woman looks at the painting and closes her eyes. She opens them excitedly. 'I see what you mean! But for me it is a different experience.'

'How so?'

'Well, the moment you painted that rose green on the canvas, it acquired a material substance which is seen by me as green with my eyes. Your soul's spiritual experience when made physical is a physical experience for me until I look inside myself and find the red rose again!'

'I hadn't thought of that, but I suppose you are right! When you look at the green rose, inside you, you now have a red counterpart which corresponds to what I have made physically perceptive! How odd!'

'You have added something to creation, turned spirit into matter through your soul.'

'And you have turned the matter I have created into spirit in yours! The cycle returns, the rose is red but this time it is red in your soul!'

'I have learnt something now...!' says the woman, 'I have learnt that I must pay more attention to everything I see and note its counterpart for its truth!'

'And I have learnt that whatever I create, no matter what it is will always bring the spirit down into matter and by doing so take the spirit truth out of it!' he says dejectedly.

'Unless you show both!' she offers.

'How do you mean?' the artist asks, almost breathless.

'When you look at a yellow bale of hay, do you not notice how its shadow is always purple?'

'Yes! Indeed! You mean one can show both counterparts together and in this way the experience in the soul of the viewer will always be complete, no matter whether they are seeing it physically or spiritually?'

'When I look at your green rose now,' the woman says to him, 'I see the red hovering all around it...is this not the spiritual shadow? I see the activity of both physical and spiritual!'

The painter smiles widely, so widely it fills the world with warmth.

The woman has never seen this young man, who looks so old in his eyes and so tormented, smile this way before, and she walks away from him smiling too because the world has changed for her now. The world will never be the same and her soul will also never be the same. For she has realised what it means to free the soul so that it can find its wings!

The artist now contemplates his painting in a new light. He realises that in expressing the spirit of the red which is green, he has created a physical green, whose spirit is red!

'So that is what old man Goethe was trying to say!' he says to himself, almost with a chuckle. 'I have been trying to understand it all my life and now I do! If I only show one side of existence, be it spiritual or physical, it will never speak the whole truth and it will, therefore, never be beautiful! I must show both and not merely that! I must show how they interact - how they converse. To perceive this one needs a higher faculty than the faculty of imagination, which knows only the image of the opposite. One must be able to observe the conversation of opposites that goes beyond words, a form of seeing which is a hearing! A hearing that does not need ears to perceive it - and yet, and yet! Which has been inspired by words, just as red in the eyes, inspires green in the soul, and green, red!

'My conversation with that woman has reconciled the opposites in my soul and I have come to something higher! This must be what happens when the gods converse with their creations, they learn something and rise higher! The creator learns from His creation and His creation becomes creative, in turn a creator who again learns from His creation! And the cycle continues...

'But how to express this mystery without using words! Using only colours, shadows, light and lines? How to show the weaving movement of inner and outer, darkness and light, image and after image, colour and counterpart, spirit and matter, matter and soul, soul and spirit? After all, to show what inspiration is, I must first be inspired by God! I must enter into His soul, just as the red rose has entered into mine!'

Thinking such deep thoughts Van Gogh leaves his paintings behind and with a frown and fitful purpose goes out into the starlit night, in search of inspiration...

...And he finds it by listening with his eyes.

Love unites with all it sees.
And by its very nature
It reveals
The Truth
That those who do not love
Do not see.

So it is that those who love
Love because they see the Truth.
And because they see the truth,
They are be-loved
By Christ,
Who is love and truth combined.