...being willing to expand and see things from a larger perspective...is like looking at our small life on this planet from a great distance and from a great length of time. It is the recognition that all created things pass, and what matters then is not how much we collect or what we make or do, but how we live this short dance, and how well we learn to love. Let us learn to live wisely even though life passes like a flash of summer lightening and a dream.
Jack Kornfield ( page 86)
Connecting thoughts from different sources again. It is so uncanny how that happens...I will be reading or studying something and then I will run across that something...that tidbit of wisdom from other resources or sources and it will be like "click" in my head. Of course, in order for it to click completely it has to resonate with something already inside me.
So the above qoute from Chapter Six of Seeking the Heart of Wisdom has stuck with me and I was able to connect it to the thoughts that were "randomly" brought to my attention from others during my daily listening.
Looking at our puny little lives from a larger perspective is game changing. Eckhart Tolle in the video How Important is Our Personal Life? echoes that quote when he describes how we are one of billions of sparks of consciousness. If we were above the earth, from some grand expansive distance, we would look down to see these billions of sparks flashing in and flashing out. Every tiny speck of light appearing so bright for the briefest of moments ...then out...while a new spark flashes in. Each spark comes in, learning what it is here to learn by coming, and then it leaves. Coming, learning, leaving, coming, learning and leaving...a continous momentum of flashing light.
What is each spark and what is it learning? It is consciousness learning of itself with each flash in.
Each spark, each flash of summer lightening, is not here to achieve success at the level of form. It is not here to make a million dollars, find a soul mate, gain recognition for achievements from self and others. It is not here to climb Mount Everest or find the cure for cancer...It is not here to write a Pulitzer prize winning novel or to play the piano beautifully to thousands of fans at Carnegie hall. I mean it is okay if it does any of these things but these types of achievements will always be those things , Jesus teaches , that will be added on. But seek ye first the Kingdom of God, and His righteousness; and all these things will be added onto you. (Matthew 6:33 KJV) Anythings besides a spiritual connection will not sustain us and they are not why we are here.
We are not here to suffer either. We will only suffer if we do not recognize who we are while we are here.
We, these tiny sparks, these brief flashes of lightening, are here so consciousness can discover itself. We are here to shine our light which is loving kindness on this world. We are not this world or of this world, we are just flashing through it.
Many of us are so consumed with our personal goals and our personal problems ...in a state of delusion thinking , "It is all about me and what I am experiencing."
I am so there sometimes...locked in this little version of my puny reality. Come on! I get so consumed with what I am confronting and reacting to that I lose the greater perspective. There is almost 8 billion people on this planet...8 billion tiny sparks...how can it all be about this one here?
I mean...I ...who I really am...have a role to play. I am a part of this amazing light show. I have a purpose here, just not in the sense the world makes us believe. There is something in me so much greater than this clump of flesh, this overactive mind and the things I feel, sense or do. There is a light, a light of love in me. My mission is to simply let it shine as brightly as it can while I am in this clump of flesh, this overactive mind and expressing myself through the things I feel, sense and do. I need to focus on the light not the fleeting form.
That light in me is the same light in you. We are all just temporary expresions of it.
This expression is a short dance...let's put away our delusions of "it is all about me" and learn to dance this dance beautifully while we can.
All is well.
Joseph Goldstein & Jack Kornfield ( 2001) Seeking the Heart of Wisdom. Shambala Classics: Colorado.
Eckhart Tolle ( July, 2021) How Important Is Our Personal Life? Eckhart Tolle Teachings https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=62HiGSsOL7I
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