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Welcome to OneLife Ministries. This site is designed to lead you prayerfully into a heart experience of Divine Presence, Who is Love. I hope persons of varied wisdom paths will find inspiration here.
Blessings,
Brian Kenneth Wilcox
MDiv, MFT, PhD
Interspiritual Teacher, Author
You are invited to join Brian at his fellowship group on Facebook – Inspirations for Living – Love, Joy, Peace.
OUTLINE
1) Entering the Inner Sanctuary
2) Musing on No-Self
3) Story ~ Feelings and "I"
4) Reflections on the Story
5) Questions to Ponder
Entering the Inner Sanctuary
Enter this sanctuary time by becoming still and quiet, and breathing deeply. Remind yourself you are in the Presence of Love. This place you are entering, within, is the inner Temple, where you are One with Grace. You may wish to use a mantra, or prayer phrase, follow the breath in-and-out, or witness the rising and falling of all around you as the manifestation of universal-Life. Enjoy these moments of quiet centering and come out when you are ready.
Musing on No-Self
Meditation is practice in growing connection with our Source. Out of this Source arises all phenomena. This Source is the singular Potential of all, holding divergent dualities within as One energy-potency. The All-Potential is birthing eternally, for that is the Nature of Potency. You could no more say to God, “Quit creating,” logically, than say to a star, “Quit burning,” logically. If a star ceases to burn, the star is not a star, has died to being a star. For God to cease manifesting would be for God to have ceased being God. God is Goding; Goddess is Goddessing. This is One.
You, within the Divine, no more have to try to meditate than try to see. The eyes naturally see. If the eyes do not see, something is wrong with the eyes. If I struggle to meditate, this is not natural. Something is wrong.
Indeed, we meditate to reconcile to the natural state of Being, not to transcend in an unnatural super-natural state. Finally, we discover the “I” we thought existed does not and never did, except as a construct of mind. And the “God” we thought was is not, for that too arose in time as a construct of society. And the “other” we thought we saw, we did not, for the other, as we as saw him or her objectified, is based on the relativity of separation.
Yet, “I” - or the phenomenal self-sense - as One with the Source, an expression of Life, is real by participatory being in God Be-ing. The spiritual Path is a training in living in this Awareness of Union as process. This I AM I AM-ING does not negate the sense of the phenomenal self; rather, the phenomenal self more becomes infused with the I AM consciousness. As “I” becomes more aligned with and transformed by the creative-expressing of I AM, the phenomenal self sees more as I AM, thinks more as I AM, acts more as I AM, is more I AM.
*Brian Kenneth Wilcox
Story - Feelings and "I"
A Zen student came to Bankei. He said: "Master, I have an uncontrollable temper. How can I cure it?" "You have something very strange," retorted Bankei. "Let me see what you have." "Right now, I cannot show it to you," replied the man. Bankei asked, "When can you show this temper to me?" “Master, it arises unexpectedly," replied the student. "Then," said Bankei, "it must not be your true nature. If it were, you could show it to me at any time. When you were born, you did not have it, and your parents did not give it to you. True?"
Reflections on the Story
With language, we claim ownership of emotions. We identify ourselves with the negative feelings. We say things like, “I have anger.” Or, “I am jealous.” Or, “I have a problem with anxiety.”
We can say the same about positive feelings. “I have love for her.” Or, “I am grateful.” Or, “I live with calmness.”
Do we have any emotion? Does any feeling define us? When we claim to have an emotion, we wed it to us in our thought. When we identify with a feeling, we create an illusion of the personality having some merging with this affect.
Questions to Ponder
Then, what is underneath these passing feelings? What does not pass, the What or Who that is the Ground of the rising and falling of all feelings? How do you recover a connection with that Ground of Being? How might living from the Ground assist you in your most deeply-felt aspirations? Is this Ground “your” Ground? The Ground where “your” is no more?A Source where all share and arise from, but each retains its unique identity, also?
©Brian Wilcox, and OneLife Ministries. 04/17/2010
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*OneLife Ministries is a ministry of Brian Kenneth Wilcox, SW Florida. Brian lives a vowed life, as an Associate of Greenbough House of Prayer.
*Brian welcomes responses to his writings at briankwilcox@yahoo.com . Also, Brian is on Facebook: search Brian Kenneth Wilcox.
*You can order his book An Ache for Union from major booksellers.
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