Greetings and blessings,
Dear one.
Thank you so much for continuing on this path,
If nothing else,
Find a moment for gratitude
in your presence.
As you stack your spine and find your seat,
Notice the joy of the inhale and the exhale.
Notice the life filling your lungs and truly know the joy of letting go with each exhale,
Letting go of tension.
As you settle into your breath,
Notice the space you've created and honor that space
with stillness,
Removing all tension.
Know in your mind,
You're ready to receive,
Ready to hear.
This segment,
The prophet shares his wisdom on religion and this has varying degrees,
The subject,
Varying degrees of impact on each of us.
What that word means throughout,
The prophet has used the word referring to the being of
God and for some,
This might be a trigger and sometimes in our culture,
Our perceptions
are formed by the religiosity,
If this is a word,
The perception of Sunday morning best.
And in this segment,
I think the prophet makes it clear what he's been trying to do all along
in each segment,
Which is lift the veil of duality,
Revealing the non-duality of our
nature and the nature surrounding us.
Let's take just a moment,
Just to center and if you can,
Let go of your perceptions
of the word,
Religion and God and try to listen to the words and the prophet shares.
Let's take a full cycle of breath together before we begin.
It's a deep breath in and a long,
Relaxing breath out and an old priest said,
Speak to
us of religion and he said,
Have I spoken this day of aught else?
Is not religion all deeds and all reflection?
And that which is neither deed nor reflection,
But a wonder and a surprise ever springing
in the soul,
Even while the hands hew the stone or tend to the loom,
Who can separate
his faith from his actions or his belief from his occupations.
Who can spread his hours before him saying this for God and this for myself,
This for
my soul and this other for my body.
All your hours are wings that beat through space from self to self.
You who wears his morality,
But as his best garment were better naked.
The wind and the sun were terror,
No holes in his skin and he who defines his conduct
by ethics,
Imprisons his songbird in a cage.
The freest song comes not through bars and wires and he to whom worshiping is a window
to open,
But also to shut has not yet visited the house of a soul whose windows are from
dawn to dawn.
Your daily life is your temple and your religion.
Whenever you enter into it,
Take with you your all.
Take the plow and the forge and the mallet and the loot.
The things you have fashioned in necessity are for delight.
For in reverie you cannot rise above your achievements nor fall lower than your failures.
And take with you all men.
For in adoration you cannot fly higher than their hopes nor humble yourself lower than
their despair.
And if you would know God,
Be not therefore a solver of riddles.
Rather,
Look about you and you shall see him playing with your children and look into space
and you shall see him walking in the cloud,
Outstretching his arms in the lightning and
descending in rain.
You shall see him smiling in flowers and rising and waving his hands in trees.
"
So as we lift the veil of duality,
This not this,
That not that,
The prophet encourages
us to see God in all things and ourselves within God,
This universal life force,
Source.
The word begins to create some boundaries perhaps.
So take a moment in this meditation just to practice observing those boundaries as
they dissolve.
Just like observing the echoes of the postures dissolving as you take rest between the postures.
This is in essence,
The reason for the pauses to practice observing,
Seeing,
Feeling,
Even
touching the tension and then noticing as you let go,
Allowing space for growth.
In that space,
Friends,
May you be happy,
May you know that you are healthy,
And may
you truly,
Truly know peace.
Namaste.
