Greetings and blessings.
Thank you again for joining us as we continue to progress through these glimpses of wisdom from the prophet Cleo Gabran.
In our next section we'll focus on crime and punishment.
Let's take a moment before we begin just to center.
You've found a comfortable seat and stack your spine.
You can close your eyes,
Your head square right over the shoulders.
So your physical body is at ease,
But your mind is alert and ready to receive,
Not to judge,
Just to listen,
To observe.
To observe,
And especially in this topic of crime and punishment,
Practice letting go of guilt.
You do not need to serve as judge and jury on your actions.
Be present in this moment.
Let go of the tension related to the past,
And the future.
What we learn through meditation is an ability to be grounded in the present.
And gratitude is that anchor to keep us steady no matter how high the seas,
How heavy the wind blows.
Come back to that anchor.
As you notice thoughts to creep in where you might feel guilt or even anger,
Resentment,
Just observe.
It might seem impossible in the moment,
But we aspire to observe until that feeling of disconnection,
Of discord,
Dissipates.
You might even visualize a cloud drifting across the sky.
The sky is not defined by the clouds.
Just observe and allow the thoughts and any judgments to disappear until you find unity again.
Let's take a deep breath in,
And a long relaxing breath out.
And then one of the judges of the city stood forth and said,
Speak to us of crime and punishment.
And he answered saying,
It is when your spirit goes wandering upon the wind that you,
Alone and unguarded,
Commit a wrong unto others,
And therefore unto yourself.
And for that wrong committed,
Must you knock and wait a while unheeded at the gate of the blessed,
Like the ocean is your God self.
It remains forever undefiled.
And like the ether,
It lifts,
But the winged,
Even like the sun is your God self.
It knows not the ways the mole,
Nor seeks it in the holes of the serpent.
But your God self dwells not alone in your being.
Much in you is still man,
And much in you and much in you is not yet man,
But a shapeless pygmy that walks asleep in the mist,
Searching for its own awakening.
And of the man in you would I now speak.
For it is he,
And not your God self,
Nor the pygmy in the mist that knows crime and the punishment of crime.
Oftentimes have I heard you speak of one who commits a wrong,
As though he were not one of you,
But a stranger unto you,
And an intruder upon your world.
But I say that even as the holy and the righteous cannot rise beyond the highest,
Which is in each one of you.
So the wicked and the weak cannot fall lower than the lowest,
Which is in you also.
And as a single leaf turns not yellow,
But with the silent knowledge of the whole tree.
So the wrongdoer cannot do wrong without the hidden will of you all.
Like a procession,
You walk together towards your God self.
You're the way and the wayfarers.
And when one of you falls down,
He falls for those behind him,
A caution against the stumbling stone.
Aye,
And he falls for those ahead of him,
Who though faster and surer of foot,
Yet removed not the stumbling stone.
And this also,
The word lie heavy on your hearts.
The murderer is not unaccountable for his own murder.
And the robbed is not blameless in being robbed.
The righteous is not innocent of the deeds of the wicked.
And the white handed is not clean in the doings of the felon.
Yea,
The guilty is oftentimes the victim of the injured.
And still more often the condemned is the burden bearer for the guiltless and the unblamed.
And you cannot separate the just from the unjust and the good from the wicked.
For they stand together before the face of the sun,
Even as the black thread and the white are woven together.
And when the black thread breaks,
The weaver shall look into the whole cloth,
And he shall examine the loom also.
If any of you would bring to judgment the unfaithful wife,
Let him also weigh the heart of her husband in scales,
And measure his soul with measurement.
And let him who had last the offender look into the spirit of the offended.
And if any of you would punish in the name of righteousness and lay the axe into the evil tree,
Let him see to its roots.
And verily he will find the roots of the good and the bad,
The fruitful and the fruitless,
All entwined together in the silent heart of the earth.
And you judges who would be just,
What judgment pronounce you upon him who though honest in the flesh yet is a thief in the spirit?
What penalty lay you upon him who slays in the flesh yet is himself slain in the spirit?
And how prosecute you him who in action is a deceiver and an oppressor,
Yet who also is aggrieved and outraged?
And how shall you punish those whose remorse is already greater than their misdeeds?
Is not remorse the justice which is administered by that very law which you would fain serve?
Yet you cannot lay remorse upon the innocent,
Nor lift it from the heart of the guilty.
And Biden shall it call in the night that men may wake and gaze upon themselves.
And you who would understand justice,
How shall you unless you look upon all deeds in the fullness of light?
Only then shall you know that the erect and the fallen are but one man standing in twilight between the night of his pygmy self and the day of his God self.
And that the cornerstone of the temple is not higher than the lowest stone in its foundation.
And so with our practice of meditation,
We often see the duality,
The good and evil,
Even within ourselves.
It's natural,
We are human,
And we are prone to suffer.
First,
Because we forget our true nature.
It's veiled by perceptions and misperceptions of what's real.
And this is the value of our meditation.
No matter how you practice,
Whether it be listening,
Or silently,
Seated,
Or moving,
Walking,
Sipping tea,
Practicing the asanas,
The postures,
To see the balance and the wholeness,
And be content to find stillness.
And thank you again for taking the time to practice.
It is a practice.
None of us are perfect.
And yet,
You are still even more so,
More than enough.
The commitment to your practice,
This is the path to understanding,
To unity,
And wholeness,
To enlightenment.
So I thank you again with all my love,
And with all my gratitude.
Namaste.
