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LOTUS OF THE HEART
An Interspiritual-Interfaith Work
of The Lotus Fellowship and
Brian K. Wilcox
Brian K. Wilcox, a vowed Contemplative, offers an interspiritual work focusing on cultivating the Heart of Compassion. His book of mystical Love poetry is An Ache for Union: Poems on Oneness with God through Love. Brian integrates wisdom from the major spiritual Paths. May you always know that you are blessed!
*Christ the Redeemer in Rio..., Carlos Eduardo, Flickr
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A Buddhist story tells... One day day Mara, the Evil One, was traveling through the villages of India with his attendants. He saw a man doing walking meditation whose face was lit up with wonder. The man had just discovered something on the ground in front of him.
Mara's attendant asked what that was and Mara replied, "A piece of truth." "Doesn't this bother you when someone finds a piece of truth, O Evil One?," his attendant asked. "No," Mara replied. "Right after this, they usually make a belief out of it."
Some belief is essential to create order and direction, and belief can inspire uplifting, compassionate, and wise experience. If someone says, "I have no belief," that itself is a belief. Yet, belief, when priority, divides us from one another, rather than fostering unity among us.
Each us is challenged, at this time in our collective history, to examine closely our beliefs - our ideas of truth - and transcend in an experience of Truth-as-Presence that leads to empathy toward persons who hold to different beliefs. Any belief that is opposite gracefulness in our relationships is not a belief we need to hold to.
Being honest about belief is vital to our emerging world. Our lives and future are more and more becoming based on experience, not belief. In the past, often belief held priority over experience. Now, belief is in vain that does not lead to an experience bringing mutual edification in our diversity.
We each can ask, "Am I willing to be honest thoroughly, so as to ask, 'Am I holding to any idea that is not for the best of the world in which I, with all others, live?'" Therefore, we must, for all our good, have intellectual honesty about our belief systems, so as to shape our lives consciously in the direction of Grace toward all Creation. We can no longer afford to hold beliefs unconsciously - simply as an inheritance from others, from the past.
May the touchstone of all our beliefs be openness to Creation in Divine Kindness and willingness to see the best in others, not least those who most seem to disagree with us.
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To contact brian, write briankwilcox@yahoo.com .
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