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LOTUS OF THE HEART
An Interspiritual-Interfaith Work
of The Lotus Fellowship and
Arem Nahariim-Samadhi
Brian K. Wilcox, a vowed, eremitic Contemplative, offers an interspiritual work focusing on cultivating the Heart of Compassion. He integrates wisdom from the major spiritual Paths. To contact Brian, see the email address at the conclusion of this presentation. May you always know that you are blessed!
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*Red Stripy Rose..., Plexq, Flickr
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Living up-hill from the creek I crossed many times in childhood and youth, as a middle-aged adult I am drawn back to those waters. I often walk down the hill to get a brief look, seeing how high the waters are and enjoying an admiration of the waters flowing, meandering through the trees. Why? What is this admiration of such an ordinary sight to most, one that many others likely would feel no awe before? These are evocative waters to me.
After taking a walk to the creek yesterday, this morning I have been ruminating on it – seeing the waters often in memory, flowing cold and dark - and a Scripture passage from the Christian New Testament. In St. John's Gospel, Jesus meets a woman. He speaks to her of living water. He tells her that he can give her living water. She being at a well to draw water, as often, he tells her that the water she draws will not satisfy her thirst but for a time. She will thirst again. The water he would give her, this living water, would leave her satisfied, not to thirst again.
What is this living water? In Jewish thought living water was flowing water. This water contrasted with water bounded on all sides and sitting still. So, let us think on this, today.
Living water? Life-giving. Ever-fresh. Ever-renewed. Flowing clear. In contrast to deathly, stale, penned-in, and polluted. So clean, I recall drinking from the creek when a child.
Jesus uses an image to connect the woman to her immediate experience. He does not give her an answer. He uses an image, like a poetic metaphor to evoke from her an exploration, to awaken her more clearly to her deepest longing. Answers from the surface of life will not satisfy.
As I reflect on the living water of the creek and on Jesus' reference to living water, I am reminded the soul longs for a fulfillment that cannot be met by anything bounded by space and time. Yes, I must live in the boundaries of this space and time. That is the sacred Calling of the soul here on Earth. Yet, to be content, I must open my heart daily to Life that is not a mere duration, a sequence of happenings internal or external: the Boundless, the Timeless. And, while persons call This many different names and open to This in many different ways, I am reminded this Living Presence is intimate, even One with the life I feel by simply relaxing and being silent for a few moments of mindfulness. This Intimacy is not bounded by feelings. Grace is Intimate always, breathing me into being, as surely in the sense of Its absence as when I am overwhelmed by Its Nearness.
How do we open our whole selves to this living water, this Truth? By Love, Love before loving, and in every moment of selfless self-giving. By being intimate with this moment, I am present to the Grace that is ever-present to me, that is Flowing to me from the manifestations of Nature. I find a fulfillment in opening the Heart to Something this world cannot give, that is birthless and deathless. All the great spiritual Teachers have pointed us to This, beyond the limitations of the traditions from which they spoke to us. They did not tell us what the living water is, for they could not. Grace is indefinable, even as the beauties of Nature awe us and leave us speechless in wonderment. The answer lies within us. Possibly you will find by going within, that there are untold Depths to this Life and that this Life leads you to surrender more and more to the Wonderful, Awe-inspiring Presence that is living and life-giving. Possibly, we can know this Presence only as a Mystery, one that unfolds to us an increasing intuitive sense of Appreciation and Gratitude.
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The Sacred in Me bows to the Sacred in You
*Photo, Angelito De Luz
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♥ ♥ ♥
* * * CLOSING BLESSING * * *
Namaste'
Brian's book of mystical love poetry, Brian K. Wilcox. An Ache for Union, can be ordered through major booksellers.
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