Saying For Today: Have you noticed when you are surrendered into love, you feel peaceful? Love feeds you peace, so you want to fall more deeply into that love.
'A Winter Morning... in Northern Maine'
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Saying: Why do we humans continue to spread misery, hurt, among ourselves when we could spread peace? We spread suffering until we say "Yes" to love. Lovers not only enjoy peace, they embody peace. Lovers know peace, for they know love. Peacemakers are lovemakers.
A Sufi tale -
A blackbird found a large piece of food in the village. It picked it up and flew into the sky. A flock of birds chased the blackbird and attacked the food, pulling it from the beak. The blackbird finally let go of the last bit of the food. The frenzied flock left the blackbird alone. This bird gleefully swooped, dived, and thought, "I have lost the food, but I have regained the peaceful sky."
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We are surrounded by emotional drama - what is called crazy-making in relationship counseling. We see it being churned up all about. It serves as a distraction, low-grade self-entertainment. Through conflict, blame, racism, religious and political bigotry, we humans distract ourselves from the beauty of life.
Such is a defense against something. In this ego-defense against inclusion and intimacy, we forfeit the precious gift of inner peace.
The ego defends itself against love by behaving unlovingly, and, thereby, inner peace is gone. Have you noticed when you are surrendered into love, you feel peaceful? Love feeds you peace, so you want to fall more deeply into that love. So, speaking of peace, we speak of love. And staying close to love, you enjoy peace.
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One role of daily entering the Silence is to see the ways we sabotage our own peace and, so, spread suffering. In this, we may see how we sabotage loving and being loved, too. So, in the Silence, we open to the Light. And the Light exposes all. Hence, the Silence demands of us rigorous honesty. Meditation will not work for our utmost best if we use it only to feel good. No, the Light exposes the emotional games we play. When we see with honesty, then, honestly seeing is confession. Hence, the Silence becomes a confessional to us. We are not there to judge ourselves when we see, but to see.
We enter the Silence for stillness of mind - all personality battles occur in the mind. Remaining still in the Light, peace finds us, for it is already there. If it were not already present, it could not find us. The warring ends. After years, maybe many, one comes to feel no interest in warring. Conflict has lost its appeal; Grace has seduced you into Itself. The fighting is over, even if it is still going on all around. The futile battling has been cooked out of you. What joy! and with no apologies for being over it.
We turn to the Light - love, joy, peace ... . We step out of the emotional boxing ring, take off the gloves, and choose tranquility rather than warfare. We cease attacking and begin caring.
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If we do not tend the heart garden daily, treating it with respect and reverence, including being a wise guardian at its gate, we will not enjoy peace. Your heart is your garden. This means you are responsible for your peace, not anyone else, not even God.
So, you are no longer lured onto the bloody interpersonal battlefield. You are attracted, now, only to peace and love. You go where it goes, where it is. It goes with you, and you meet it everywhere, for it is your peace.
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What is of the Light will bring peace into your life. If anything does not bring peace to you, is it really of love?
The bird regains the peaceful sky when it realizes what it had clung to could not compare to the grace of tranquillity. Is anything or anyone worth sacrificing your peace for?
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*(C) Brian K. Wilcox, 2021
*Brian's book, An Ache for Union: Poems on Oneness with God through Love, can be ordered through major online booksellers or the publisher AuthorHouse. The book is a collection of poems based on mystical traditions, predominantly Christian and Sufi, with extensive notes on the poetry's teachings and imagery.
