We've come to the seventh and last of our simple practices to help you realize your highest spiritual possibility.
And the last of these practices is invite the light of love to lead you to spiritual freedom.
Invite the light of love to lead you to spiritual freedom.
The key lesson reads as follows.
It says,
For those who persist,
Who will with patience walk up to and go through whatever limitation they meet along the way,
Here's what they're guaranteed to find.
Hidden in the seed of any limitation awaits the flower of some new and higher possibility beyond imagination.
Now before we get started with the last of these seven practices,
I have a small confession to make.
I wanted to make this last practice,
You know,
Kind of sum up all of the work and studies that we've had until now.
And I wanted to add a touch of some needed and well-deserved encouragement.
I mean,
After all,
If you've been listening and working with these practices,
You've already taken some very crucial steps required for you awakening to your own highest possibilities.
But mostly I wanted to talk about the necessity of persistence as one of the key elements in the work of our soul's perfection and connect it to the idea of persistence,
The idea of conscious patience,
Without which there can be no chance of realizing our highest possibilities.
But I covered those in an earlier exercise.
But I still wasn't content.
I still was looking for a way to marry those ideas along with this idea of what it takes in our practice to reach this kind of realization of how we can work inwardly to bring about the dawning of a new understanding.
And as I was thinking about it,
I realized the best way to convey the subtleties of this particular last practice,
Which was to invite the light of love to lead you to spiritual freedom,
I realized the best way was to tell you a couple of stories.
Because in putting these two stories together,
As we're going to,
We're going to learn the whole story.
It'll be a great summary and hopefully the incentive we need to do the work required of us.
So here's the first story.
A sports reporter for a large newspaper was assigned to cover an international marathon hosted each year by the city where he lived.
From past experience,
He knew that thousands of people are going to turn out for this test of themselves over that grueling 26-mile course.
I mean,
He'd seen 10 times the number of people line the streets to cheer them on,
And it was always exciting,
And he always learned something about himself as a reporter investigating these races.
But this was like the umpteenth time he'd been asked to cover the race,
And he really wanted to do something new.
After all,
He'd already interviewed most of the likely winners more than once.
He knew their backstories all too well,
So he decided that he would cover the race from a different angle this time.
This year's story would be about the person not who finishes first,
But who finished last.
So comes the big day of the race with its official pomp and ceremony,
Including the usual confusion surrounding the runners registration booth.
We've all seen,
At least on television,
All these runners lined up wearing brightly colored jerseys with paper numbers pinned in front and back,
Waiting for the starting gun,
And then boom,
They're off.
It was only a little more than two hours later,
When setting a record time,
The first contestant crossed the finish line to the deafening cheers of all the admiring fans,
And as the minutes and hours ticked off the official clock,
More and more men and women made their way into the arms of family and friends who were waiting there,
Cheering them on,
Actually waiting to catch them as they fell over the finish line.
Slowly but surely,
The throngs of all the people who had lined the streets faded back into the city's background,
Returning to their homes,
Enriched,
Exhausted by the day's events.
The sun was setting by the time the last group of a few runners came walking,
Some limping across the finish line.
The reporter wanted to go home,
But he knew the race wasn't over yet,
Because the last person had yet to cross that line.
It was still hours later when he spied the last contestant,
Making her way to the final checkpoint.
Her body fairly shouted the pain that she was in.
Clearly every step was a struggle,
And as he watched her,
A wave of compassion swept through him,
And for a moment he doubted the wisdom of trying to interview this last runner in the race who was finishing last.
I mean,
After all,
Surely she was suffering enough without being asked what it was like to finish dead last.
And as she drew closer,
He strained to make out some of her features.
At first,
Due to the dim light cast by the city street lamps,
He doubted his own eyes,
But as she got closer to where he stood,
It looked like she had this huge smile across her face.
Soon enough,
He could see that in spite of the occasional involuntary grimace of pain,
She was in fact quite happy.
In spite of her exhaustion,
And bent over by it,
I might add,
Her eyes were bright.
Something about her spirit was standing there upright,
Undaunted,
And he couldn't help but feel strangely drawn to her.
So grabbing one of the sponsor-supplied sport bottles with water in it,
He trotted over to the spot where she was standing and handed to her,
Offering her his congratulations.
She looked up,
Thanked him for his kindness,
And took a couple long deep swallows.
In a moment or two,
After she had caught her breath,
He introduced himself as a reporter and asked if he might trouble her with just a couple of questions.
To his surprise,
She showed no hesitancy at all.
She said,
Of course,
What would you like to know?
Doing his best to make eye contact with her,
He hoped that she could see that he sincerely wanted to understand the way she was feeling.
It was important to him at that point,
Knowing the kind of question he was about to ask,
That she realized he wasn't sitting there judging her performance.
And so he began.
He said,
Do you know you're the last,
The very last person to finish this race?
She looked up and said,
Yeah,
Pretty much what I expected.
Well,
What's that like?
He said,
I mean,
How does it feel?
Again,
He wanted to convey through his eyes,
If nothing else,
That he wanted to understand what she was experiencing.
He said,
Do you have any regrets that out of probably 2,
000 people who ran this race today,
None of them took as much time as you did to reach the finish line?
She looked down at the ground for a moment and his heart kind of went out to her.
The last thing he wanted her to feel was that he was belittling her or her efforts.
But the next moment she looked back up at him,
Eyes still smiling,
And said something he would never forget.
She said,
You know,
I'm very much at peace with myself.
Do you want to know why?
And surprised by his question,
The reporter said,
Yes,
Of course,
I mean,
Please,
By all means,
I think all of our readers would like to know something of your experience here today.
She paused for a moment again and collected her thoughts,
And then she said,
I don't run these races to hear people say how much they admire or love me because,
I don't know,
I never give up.
I learned long ago all of that's too painful,
Meaning running to fulfill the expectations of others.
And he looked at her with a question in his eyes and she paused again,
Wanting to answer what she knew he was thinking,
And she said,
The reason that I run is because I love to.
There was a dead silence that came over the reporter and she could see that he wasn't quite following what she meant,
And so she continued and said,
What I mean is that I love exploring all that I am.
And that,
She said,
As if she was telling herself a joke that he couldn't hear,
And as often as not,
That means in finding out all that I'm not,
And then doing whatever it takes in order to transcend that limitation,
Whatever it might be.
And by the way,
I never fail at that task.
I run because I love to,
And I love to explore my own possibilities,
Regardless of what anyone else thinks about them.
She looked at the reporter to see if he understood,
And when he nodded in agreement,
She smiled and returned his glimpse and said goodbye.
And off she walked.
And that reporter never forgot that interview,
I promise you that.
Take a nice deep breath before we go to the second of our stories.
That's designed not only to help clarify the lessons in the first one,
But it should also reveal to us what's required by all of us who long to realize our own highest possibilities,
Even if it is,
As it often must be,
Momentarily painful to some image that we have of ourselves that stands in the way of that realization.
Here's the story.
A brilliant but still very young musical genius goes to see her teacher,
A master pianist with whom she is in training.
Knowing her own tendency to get so tense while she performs that she often strikes wrong keys,
She's terrified about an upcoming recital,
An important one,
And has come to seek his guidance,
If not his blessings.
She says,
You know,
I'm trying,
I really am,
She says,
But I just,
I don't know,
I just don't seem to be making any real progress when it comes time to perform.
And she paused there to take a deep breath and followed it by a sigh just loud enough for the master to hear it.
She was hoping,
Of course,
To win some sympathy from him,
But she finished her thought nevertheless and said,
I want,
I want to be like you,
I want to play flawlessly in front of an audience,
Just like I watch you do whenever you have a concert.
She looks at him again briefly to see if he's reacting at all to her comments,
But if he is,
His eyes don't show it,
And for some reason this makes her rush to get on with the rest of her thoughts.
She said,
When I'm by myself or playing for a friend,
I don't know,
I have no problems.
There are no glitches,
I don't miss notes,
Every moment seems to come out perfect.
But,
She went on to say,
The minute it really counts,
The moment it's time to shine before an audience,
It feels like all that I've worked so hard to learn,
I don't know,
It's like,
It leaves me like I've never practiced the piece at all.
At that point,
The master looks at her,
Slightly raises his eyebrows,
Indicating that he has something else that she knows he wants to say,
And she receives this invitation and goes on to ask him what is it that he wants to say.
Please,
She says,
Help me,
What am I supposed to do?
How will I ever get to the point where I can play as well for others as I do when I practice by myself?
A smile crosses the face of the master and it puts her at ease,
And then he says,
Many years ago,
Like yourself,
I went to my teacher,
Asking him pretty much the same questions that you've asked me.
Would you like to hear what he told me?
Because what I learned back then,
Meaning the answer that he gave to me,
Is exactly the same answer as I would give to you now,
If that's your wish.
She thought for a moment,
It wasn't a question about it,
Please,
She said,
I'd really like that.
He said,
My master said that without practice,
There's no perfection,
But the real perfection of any piece must include its repeated performance under the most difficult circumstances.
He paused for a moment,
Looked at her and said,
You do understand that much,
Don't you?
And she answered in the affirmative,
Adding a little afterthought that she actually didn't even mean to say it,
But she said,
Well,
But why?
Why does it have to be that way?
And he said,
Because only then and there,
In moments that no practice can prepare you for,
Are you shown your limitations.
He looked at her,
Smiled at her,
Wanting to see how she responded,
In part because he wanted to encourage her,
But also remembering in that moment with gratitude,
How his own journey to become a respected pianist,
A master,
Began the day his own teacher asked him that same question that he's now asking his student.
He said,
Can you see we would never,
Ever be able to see our imperfections,
Whatever that level of performance may be,
If it weren't for the fact that there was already something perfect within us?
Looking at her face,
He could realize she wasn't following,
And so taking a moment to think through the best way to make the point,
He added this thought,
Listen,
He said,
Think of it this way,
Just as we would never be able to see our own shadow,
If it weren't for the light of the Sun revealing it to us,
Neither would we ever be able to see our own limitations without something,
Call that presence what you will,
Without something showing it to us.
It is the light of this higher awareness that lets us see that not only are there endless levels to this music that waits to be more perfectly performed,
But that for our insight gained by the same awareness,
We're the one invited to play it.
Yeah,
She says,
You know what,
I don't think I ever saw it that way.
He said,
Good,
Let's look a little deeper still then,
How else can you explain your feeling that there's much more to a passage that you just played than you were able to express it as you played it,
If it weren't for the fact that something in that moment was telling you so?
Wow,
She said,
I think I understand.
I mean,
Of course,
If what you're saying is true,
Then you're saying that even though we have a definite role in the realization of the performance,
That in some ways we're not the ones who perfect the music we play.
Rather,
If I understand correctly,
It's the music,
Our love of it that perfects us,
So that increasingly we can express it more and more perfectly.
That's the deal,
He said.
That's the whole thing.
Try not to forget it.
We don't practice to prove ourselves competent.
As you've already seen,
And hopefully are learning,
That approach breeds fear and a growing sense of doubt,
Because then we just try to repeat what we've practiced.
We're not interested in repeating what we've practiced.
We're interested in allowing our practice to help us to discover,
To show us at once,
Not just our limitations,
But our endless ability to transcend them,
Because already living within us,
Already home in our heart,
In our mind,
In our body,
In our hands,
Is everything that's required for us to realize the highest performance,
Because we have remanded ourselves over to the one part of us that understands the purpose of the exercise,
Which is to embrace every revelation and allow the revelation to release us,
Not just from our fears,
But into the actualization of our own highest possibilities.
If we do that,
The Master said,
The rest is done for us.
That's the purpose of these practices.
It isn't to prove to ourselves that we can do them.
It isn't to achieve some momentary satisfaction because we measure our present performance against a past one.
It's to take into every moment with us a small,
Simple,
Powerful wish,
To let the moment reveal to us at the same time whatever limitation we meet,
And to invite us in that same moment to transcend it by the awareness of something that is already within us that knows exactly the nature of that limitation and what we must do to surrender ourselves to the revelation that releases us from it.
Take one of these practices,
One a day for a week.
Work with it.
Make it something that you get up in the morning,
You think about it,
You sit with it,
You allow it to convey to you what only you can have conveyed to you through that relationship.
Nothing else,
No one else can give you,
Explain to you what it is that that practice itself will show you that you need.
You let your love of the light of that revelation lead you to and through all of the ways in which that same light,
That same love,
That same intelligence wants to take you through that limitation and you will know for yourself the beautiful,
Endless possibility that waits for you within you in every single moment.
You are willing to approach it with a willingness to learn the truth about yourself.
