Video accessed on original site via below upper left artist-title...
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A man said to the Sage, in one of the evening meetings the Sage daily offered visitors, "I feel, after walking a spiritual path now for many years, I'm like losing a sense of who I am. That's kinda scary. I thought I would come to really know myself. Possibly, I was all wrong." Smiling, the Sage sang a verse...
I looked in my house no one home now to whom does this place belong?
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You may go to a counselor to find out who you are, the Way leads you to lose the who you thought you were.
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One could ask, "What who replaces the who lost?" No who does. If someone were to inquire of me, "Who are you?," I could reply, "I'm Brian, good to meet you." It is okay for me to do that, that is a logical response in human relations. Yet, "Brian" is a thought, that one word indicates a Reality that is not that thought, not any thought. So, one reason to appreciate diversity is that each creation embodies and signifies the spirit-of-Things.
As the Quakers say, "That of God in everyone." We could equally say, "Everyone in God." So, using the language of theism, anyone can rightly say, "When you see me, you see God." Here, then, the Marvel is that the self is an unfathomable intersection of a being-and-Being, no separation. This is a mystery. You cannot know in-thought what this is, only invite the reality of it into yourself. Only in Intimacy do you know this.
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No one can demonstrate a dividing line between that called "Brian" or "Margie" or "Richard" or "Jesus" or "Buddha" ... and one who asks, "Who are you?" or "Who was she?" or "Who is he?" We bleed into each other like the diverse colors of wet paint bleeding into each other.
Yet, at the same time, this bleeding into each other is possible because of each other: the diversity of selves. So, we honor the singularity of our self, while the self is seen to be a self-in-community, rather than merely a self that can or not choose community. Community and self are not two different realities, self is self only for being in-community by virtue of being a self. To join in community, even if a friendship with only one other person, is an expression of being community. So, the reason we long for deep connection with others, this is for that deep connection that is who we are is seeking to experience itself, we are seeking to know our selves as the communion-we-are. Then, the outer community mirrors back to the self the self, relieving the self of being in self-isolation, which is impossible, but can be believed by the self that has forgotten itself as self-and-selves.
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We are not seeking community to fulfill ourselves, we are seeking community for we are community, and, so, to be together is Natural. Here, "community" is not merely the gathering together of persons, for this does not make community. We speak of the heart-with-heart connection that can be actualized with and without physical proximity. Getting, in fact, together can be an avoidance of community. Yet, to some extent, we will want to embody this heart-with-heart in outer ways of creating shared space. We can work together to create this outer community that is truly a holy communion, for we are wholly community. That is, diversity rests on the Reality of oneness, this even as oneness seeks to express as diversity, this being Love seeking to love.
