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What the spiritual path leads to is the "Amen!", the silent affirmation that everything we most deeply yearn for comes to one as gift. Even the capacity to receive this gift, is given.
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Qualities~love, joy, peace, patience...~ appear
like bubbles on the surface
Spirit is the depths
in Spirit all Qualities inhere prior to appearance
Spirit unmanifest, "the Creator"
Spirit manifesting, "Creating"
Spirit manifested, "Creation"
so, moment to moment Creation is happening
and any arising of Quality is the act of Creating
all the Qualities lead us back to the Creator
through Creating and Creation
we, therefore, have no Quality
we cannot move toward a Quality
Qualities are not 'spiritual,' 'religious,' or 'moral'
for they partake of and express the nature of the Source
as a flower partakes of the nature of the tree
and, likewise, all that made the tree possible to arise as "tree"
Qualities, likewise, are not personal
no one have "his" love or "her" patience
to say, "He has a lot of love" or "She is a patient person"
is a misunderstanding of our relationship
to the Source and Qualities
commodities we can
get, lose
move toward, move away from
deserve, not deserve
Qualities do not comply with this
common understanding of personal cause and effect
so, returning to "Bliss," from yesterday
a popular cliche is "Follow your bliss"
first, you have no you life
to claim you have anything or can have
anything as a something belonging to you
try to find this you life
where is it?
even "you" is a thought arising
when "you" are not thinking "of yourself," no "you"
so, how can a not-you have a you anything? be anything?
so, bliss, or uncaused-Joy, is not a something
you can follow as a result of a personal choice
this turns joy-as-consequence into the same old game
of being a good girl, a good boy, and get your reward~
the wish for a "my" reward is denial of the purity of Love
counter to a life with joy
Qualities appear as impersonal
so, no one can claim them, no one be identified with them
example, I am not a joyful person, or unjoyful one
whatever joy becomes present, is present, is not of me
joy, then, is simply present as joy
even as I cannot call God, my God, or their God ~
and joy is present prior to any registering of it bodily
God is simply Presence, Creator
appearing in, Creating
Qualities, Creation
hence, if you want a flower to grow in your garden
you cannot grow the flower
only cultivate an environment for the flower to flower
while we, then, cannot follow any bliss
we can take care of our daily lives to set the environment
joy, any Quality, however, cannot be cultivated
when the flower appears in the garden
it arises from the potential of Flowerness in Nature
so, you cannot rightly say, "Look at the flower I grew"
it grew from the Source, as well as the whole plant
as well as all that made possible the flower
~From whence comes Flowerness itself?
for a flower cannot create Flowerness, only express Flowerness
as does every flower, regardless of diverse traits of form~
and, as I have written prior on the Fruit of Spirit (Qualities)
~love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity,
faithfulness, gentleness, temperance~
one Quality appears with all others, being singular
so, when joy arises, love arises ~
recall I, yesterday, said when I truly see the tree
I love the tree
a single tree in a single place
becomes a means for joy, a passage for the Source to express
in one timeless moment a gift to receive, be grateful for, reverence
bliss, then, always arises as Gift
and the response is reverence for the Source and Gift
even for the whole process of Creation, or Arising
last, the reason we are drawn to the Qualities
is for our nature is the Qualities
we, like the Qualities, arise from the Source
sharing the nature of the Source
so, again, we aspire for causeless joy
for that is our nature~joylessness is a denial of self
yet, we cannot get this joy, we cannot follow love, joy, peace, patience...
we receive it, as it is given to us
so, "We reap what we sow...
those who reap to the Spirit, receive Eternal Life" ~
the Qualities are expressions of Life
One could inquire, "Yet, how can one live with joy and not feel this joy arising at all times? Where is the joy when I do not feel joyful?" I will explore this soon. For now, as observed above, joy is prior to any physical sensation of joy, and that joy we can know. How? is a logical matter to address, for we need practical guidance that our cultures provide little guidance in. We need this, for we are born into joy, to enjoy joy.
*(C) Copyright 2018. Brian K. Wilcox. Photography by Brian K. Wilcox. Move cursor over photos for more details. Quote, "We reap..." from the Holy Bible, Book of Galatians 6.8.
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