A Talk With Ramana Maharshi.

Who am I? There is no greater question. And nothing that the mind tells you can come close to the reality of who you are. The only true answer is to abide in the living Silence of your Being. You can see that Silence in the eyes of the Master. Be at Peace and remember who you are.

The Lord's Prayer and Commentary

The other day I was attending, for the first time, the Episcopal Church around the corner from where I live and we began to recite the Lord’s Prayer. And as I was reciting this famous, holy prayer, thoughts about the non-dualistic aspect of it began to race through my head; however, I had no time to actually reflect on each word but to take it in as a gestalt, to be latter reflected upon. So here it is. Is this the right interpretation? Of course not. It is just another perspective of how one reaches Awareness of God, or All That Is, or Whatever you want to call That which is the Source and Administrator of Creation and is beyond and unaffected by Its Creation. The God I speak of is beyond all words or attempts of the created mind to define the Indefinable.

Our Father, Who art in Heaven
Hallowed be Thy Name,
Thy Kingdom come
Thy Will be done
On Earth as it is in Heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread
And forgive us our trespasses
As we forgive those who trespass against us.
Lead us not into temptation
And deliver us from evil.
For Thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory forever and ever
Amen

Our Father, Who art in Heaven

The use of Father dates back to the post matriarchal time, where the male impulse on the planet held sway, for whatever evolutionary needs humanity needed at the time. Today, there is the need for the male and female impulse to be equally honored and thus utilized, in both humanity as a whole and with each individual. I prefer, instead of the appellation Father, Mother/Father God in honor of Unity. Regardless, using a paternal name is in recognition that all of us are created by the Creator. In the Hindu tradition there are many aspects of the Divine that one can focus on: some will focus on the Mother, some on the Father, others on the Friend, the Child, the King or Lord. Yet by keeping the Father aspect as the Point of Reference, there is an important reason why it is wise to do so. The masculine aspect has the propensity to be able to be emotionally uninvolved or become one-step-backward in a situation. Just go to a playground and you will see a different reaction by parents when their child becomes hurt. In a generalization, the mother races over and holds the child to her bosom, while the father looks dispassionately to see if the child is really hurt or not. To reach Heaven there is a dispassion that is needed. If one takes everything personally one is simply entertaining the egoic mind, which is the little mind of separation. He did this to me and made me unhappy. This happened to me and now I am happy. Both of these attitudes are the same, for both have outside circumstances affecting how one feels. Now traditionally, worshippers of God the Father have seen Him as a deity in some faraway place called Heaven. However, from a non-dualistic perspective Heaven is a state of Unity Consciousness. It is not anywhere “out there” but “in here”; and since it is found inwardly, then, consequently, it is found out there. You have to go inside to the place of happiness that is untouched by any external circumstance. When that happens then everything is Heavenly because God is everywhere. If you look for God somewhere first, then God cannot be found, because God cannot be confined by anything corruptible, by anything that is being altered by time. “Seek thee first the Kingdom and everything will be added onto you,” the Master said.

So in a nutshell the first line says:

Rest in your Heart, where God resides, and look not outside yourself.

Hallowed be Thy Name.

In the beginning the Word was with God and was God. There are many ancient traditions that recognize the power of speaking God’s Name. In the Hebrew tradition, the Name of God is seen as so sacred that the true name cannot be uttered. Yet in other traditions uttering God’s name either aloud or inwardly is seen as invoking God’s Presence, and to keep a focus on God’s Holy Name is a way of keeping the mind anchored on the Infinite instead of the temporal. That is why one should not call God’s name in vain because then God’s Name is dissipated in a sense as to its special significance. But does it really affect the power of God’s Name and thus, subsequently, God? Not in the least, for nothing of the temporal can affect the Infinite, no more can a drop of water stop the tides of the ocean. I was initiated by a Holy Mother, Sri Karunamayi, with the Saraswati Mantra, where the Divine Name was written with honey upon my tongue, as a reminder that the tongue was created to speak sweetly of Divine things.

Speak God’s Name with reverence.

Thy Kingdom come

What comes must go, Ramana Maharshi reminded those who came to him speaking of visions and states of Consciousness. In other words, do not fixate on anything that is temporary but only on That which has always been and always will be. Yet in our linear way of looking at reality, with past and future, we have a tendency to look forward to things to come, that salvation awaits us at some distant time. But if Heaven is our salvation or freedom from suffering, the only place and time that is true and not fleeting is the Present, in the Here and Now. In the Hindu tradition Heaven, or swarga, is simply a level of consciousness where gods/angels and saints reside, but is seen as something that is not to aim for. It is simply a place where one’s merits are rewarded. It is not freedom, which entails residing in Awareness of the Permanent. I had a dream where Jesus told me that not only must I renounce hell but Heaven as well. In other words, abide in the Eternal that is beyond all levels. And didn’t Jesus tell his disciples and anyone who would listen to hear the good news, for the kingdom of God was at hand? Heaven was already there, it was just there awaiting those with eyes to see.

However, we live in a time where a level of Consciousness is rising, when we are beginning to see that our needs are found in the other, where a new paradigm is being created where the past paradigm, where survival of the fittest held sway, is passing away. It is a wondrous vision to hold onto and to invoke into matter, for that is the type of world that I would like my children to grow up in. Yet again, when my eye is single and I look into the world, then this Kingdom is not a future state but is already here, for everything and everyone shines in a holy light. That holiness is always here, for God’s holiness is true and cannot become truer. It is or it isn’t. And since we are all created by God, and God can only create like Himself, then we are all the same Essence of God, for Father and Son are One.

May you see Heaven here and now.

Thy Will be done

A Course in Miracles (ACIM) is very clear about this, that God’s will cannot be denied, and what God Wills is that His Son be as He is. God wills that His Son be happy, powerful and one with all of creation. It is done. It has been accomplished the moment the Son was created in the likeness of the Father. And there is no power that can usurp what God wills for there is nothing outside of God who is All That Is. What is outside of God is not real or true, for only God the permanent is True. What is outside of truth is nothing but a shadow and cannot affect God’s Son or Creation. That is why the voice of the ego, or Satan, which is nothing more than the thought of separation from God, a thought of believing one is only a body that is born to rot away, was told by Jesus to “get thee behind.” One does not follow a shadow because then one is not moving to the sun of Truth. Walking to the Light one’s shadow lies behind. When one is facing the sun, is one concerned with the shadow, those petty whisperings of a delusional mind? Know the Truth of your nature and be done with the falsehood of the ego.

Trust that God wants you to be happy.

On Earth as it is in Heaven

God is everywhere. There are no gaps of the omnipresent Lord, or God is not omnipresent. Just like when I play with my 5-year-old and I put on my “impenetrable force shield,” no matter what super weapon his mind conjures, since my force shield is impenetrable than nothing can penetrate it. The power of logic! My first teacher cast me out to the “outer rim of darkness” when I would not surrender to him—he who claimed to be THE Son of God. I was very distraught at the time and felt like Cain cast out from the Holy of Holies. But then God had different ideas and sent a little old lady to my side with an invitation to her home in Canberra, Australia, where she held ACIM study group. It was then that I was reminded that I am as God created me and can never get outside of Him, for I eternally dwell in Him, and He in me. I went back and confronted the teacher and told him that he had no power over me. I have also come to realize that the earthly pleasures and sufferings have no power over who I really am. At first upon my Spiritual journey I tried to fight against the worldly ways to become more holy. But the Earth has no power over Spirit and when one is united in awareness with God then all of Earth has God in it. Just as Quantum physics is revealing to our modern minds that there is nothing that is solid, that all is energy, and there is no separation between the observer and observed. We are not separated from the Earth, but we are separate in our awareness holding onto the idea that there is a world out there where we can become happier or miserable. So God’s will is for all of us to awaken to the fact that God is already here. This is the good news. We do not have to wait until we die to reach Heaven. And by being aware of God’s Presence then we create a Heavenly realm of co-creation.

Let joyous creation flow through you.

Give us this day our daily bread

Why bread and not our dream house or car or whatever it might be? We don’t need much, no matter what the commercials tell us. The American dream is nothing but a nightmare if that is your goal, your focus. It will only be emptiness in the end. If you look at the American culture where we work and work and work, both parents toiling away from home, the children being cared for by institutions, where is there time for quiet reflection, for listening to the presence of God who whispers: “How Holy is my Child.”? But we are so busy we do not hear and so we live meaningless lives. Look at St. Francis and how he took up the ways of the Master and lived so simply and brought our attention to God’s creatures whose needs God provides without exception. It is not holier to live a simple life, but it is easier to maintain. A Buddhist rule is to not have more than you can manage with a peace of mind. Some people are more adept at juggling many things—I am not. So I live pretty simply. I have tried to teach my children the very hard lesson that needing is not the same as wanting.

All that you need God will provide.

And forgive us our trespasses

We don’t need forgiveness from God for God sees only Himself—sees only the Truth. The separated mind of the ego believes that we can somehow usurp our divine inheritance in time and diminish the Eternal. How nonsensical. We are forgiven for we have been given our divine eternal Essence. “Lord, forgive them for they know not what they do.” Of course they knew not what they did, for they thought they could actually kill the Son of God. But believing that they were bodies killing another body it reinforced the idea of body identification. Guilt is a great veil that covers the lamp of Love within us. It cannot extinguish it; only hide it from our Awareness. The Holy Spirit, according to ACIM, is the voice of forgiveness, reminding us that we are not bodies and that we are forever in God.

Know that God sees you as innocent, as you are created by Him.

As we forgive those who trespass against us.

The Holy Spirit gently blows a cool breeze upon our brothers when we ask to see past the temporal event that has seemed to have caused us pain, and seek to see the Christ in the other. What we give, so we receive. If we give the gift of forgiveness, not against a wrong, but for our misperception of not seeing the Beloved in our brother, then we receive the Awareness of Christ within. The Eternal cannot be touched by a little piece of time. Forgiveness is the bridge to Truth. Real forgiveness is not seeing someone who has done wrong to you and you magnanimously relieve them of their guilt. To see in such a way says what happens in time is real and can affect Spirit. To be born into Spirit is to know that nothing of the world can touch you. When Francis forsook his rich father and all his inheritance he said to him that he was born again into Spirit and had only one Father. The Great Spirit.

May you see the Christ in your brother.

And lead us not into temptation

What is temptation but believing that something out there can cause my Eternal Spirit, that is forever united with my eternal happiness, to be either less and more than it is. Temptation of focusing my attention on the temporal, instead of the infinite, just causes me to lose my Awareness of the truth. In a dream I watch dream characters do their thing, whether good or bad. There is usually a character I identify as me in the dream, but there is always a watcher of the dream, like one watching a movie. The watcher is never bothered by the activities of the dream characters, for it knows it is but a dream. Sometimes the me in the dream becomes the watcher and knows it is but a dream, and then the dream becomes a wonderful experience and can be altered to reflect the joy of that discovery. Temptation is just believing that our lives are what we are. And that in itself causes great mental suffering. Because believing in this body-dream death cuts us down like lambs to the slaughter. When the Watcher enters our Awareness, death is no more.

So should we just act in anyway we want to? No. There are actions that reinforce the idea of separation from our brother and from God. All religions give us guidelines how to act to help us come back to that Awareness. The only problem with some of these guidelines is that they become gods in themselves and people worship them instead of the Spirit behind them, and are used to justifiably judge one’s neighbor as well as oneself. There is really one simple rule, and the simpler the better—act in love. Be kind. Be filled with gratitude. See your brother’s need as yours. That is Love.

Let Love guide you in all your actions.

And deliver us from evil.

There certainly seems like there is evil in the world. Just look at the news every night. And your mind will certainly whisper constantly that something bad most likely is going to happen, for look how the world has been. The future follows the roots of the past. But when the mind is present and abides in God and hears the reminders of the Holy Spirit, evil does not exist. ACIM talks about the revelation. And the revelation is just that: The world is innocent. When you look upon the world, when that light of grace shines from your eyes, you will see that nothing has ever happened to the son of God, to you, to anyone. It is the most freeing experience in all the world, for it comes from beyond the world. Evil is just believing in what the senses tell you. Victor Frankl describes his revelation on a march when he was a prisoner in Auschwitz and he saw the clear glowing image of his wife: “Then I grasped the meaning of the greatest secret that human poetry and human thought and belief have to impart: The salvation of man is through love and in love. I understood how a man who has nothing left in this world still may know bliss, be it only for a brief moment, in the contemplation of his beloved. In a position of utter desolation, when man cannot express himself in positive action, when his only achievement may consist in enduring his sufferings in the right way – an honorable way – in such a position man can, through loving contemplation of the image he carries of his beloved, achieve fulfillment. For the first time in my life I was able to understand the meaning of the words, ‘The angels are lost in perpetual contemplation of an infinite glory....’” Victor was delivered from evil, although he still suffered under the hands of his captors. But he became free.

May you see all actions with the eyes of Christ.

For thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory for ever and ever. Amen

I guess there is some controversy as to this last line as it is said that originally it was only the power and the glory. I do not want to go there. What this says to me, regardless, is for us to recognize that God is the only Power in our lives and the more we recognize and have gratitude for God then we are able to manifest it in our lives in a glorified way. God dwells in our Hearts most and when we follow the urgings of our heart we give God glory. This power, being free of the world, can do anything. There are no laws but God’s, is a lesson in ACIM. There is no disease that cannot be cured, there is no dream that cannot be lived, there is no obstacle that cannot be overcome. ACIM talks about the true Creation, or the true kingdom of God, that is being manifested now and forever. You may think of this true creation as being in another dimension, a higher frequency to the one that we generally exist in with our dense judgment-oriented existence. Yet it is a dimension that we can glimpse in exalted states of mind.

May you express God’s power in all you do, in creating a beautiful world.

********



The Holy Spirit’s Prayer

Rest in your Heart, where God resides,
And look not outside yourself.
Speak God’s Name with reverence.
And may you see Heaven here and now.
Trust that God wants you to be happy.
Let joyous creation flow through you,
And all that you need God will provide.
Know that God sees you as innocent,
As you are created by Him.
May you see the Christ in your brother.
Let Love guide you in all your actions;
And see all actions with the eyes of Christ.
May you express God’s power in all you do,
In creating a beautiful world.

Amen. OM.

--Janaka Stagnaro

The Prayer of St. Francis and Commentary

Lord, make me an instrument of thy peace;
where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light,
and where there is sadness, joy.


O Divine Master, grant that
I do not so much seek
to be consoled as to console;
to be understood as to understand;
to be loved as to love;
for it is in giving that we receive;
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
and it is in dying that we are born to Eternal Life.


Amen

Lord, make me an instrument of thy peace;

Why is peace the first attribute Francis asks for? Because without peace how can you come to God? Without peace there is fear. Fear is chased away by one who is an embodiment of peace. Ramana Maharshi, a sage of India, said that to know who your teacher is you must feel peace around him or her. To be an instrument of peace is to know you are with God right Now. Not some time in the future. To be in peace is to feel the wings of angels around you, and as you walk through the world their wings will blow a soft breeze in the normal world where suffering abides. When you feel that Presence of peace you are feeling your divine nature that has never changed, nor ever will. As A Course in Miracles (ACIM) states: I am as God created me. All I need to do is to remember who I AM.

where there is hatred let me sow love;

From out of peace love flows. Out of the peace of Being comes the Awareness that God is my love and that I am God's love and that love explodes into all creation. There is only one Parent and all creatures are His/Her children. There is only the one body of God and all creatures God's parts. How can there exist hatred? How can there be the cutting away that enmity demands when all is God? Where is the shadow of hatred in the Light of love?

Francis warns us that hatred is the first step that will lead a soul onto a very dark path. To hate anything is a sword that cuts away your connection to God. Not in Truth, but in Awareness. To hate any part becomes a seed of great suffering. This does not mean that you must like everything and everyone and every circumstance. The Dalai Lama finds no joy in the destruction of his country and the atrocities committed there, nor did Victor Frankle enjoy being in the concentration camps and watching the murders of his family and people; yet both men went beyond the actions, and remembered the Essence of those who appeared to be persecuting. They deplored the actions and loved the God in those who were acting in hate. And by their love they transformed many who lived in hate and offered light to those darkened minds.

where there is injury, pardon;

When you come from the peace of Being and the Love of being Aware of God's Presence everywhere, who can be injured? In one of the Upanishads it states that the slayer who thinks he slays and the slain who thinks he has been slain, neither know the way of Truth; for the Eternal in Man cannot slay nor the Eternal in Man cannot be slain. The world of men is based on bodies doing good or bad to other bodies. The bad deeds require punishment, retribution of some sort: An eye for an eye syndrome, leaving only a world blind with vengeance. Francis asks of us to be as Jesus who came to remind us that whatever you do to the body it does not mar God's love for His creation. No matter what happens to your body has no bearing on who you are; whether you are nailed to a cross or thrown into the lion pit as were the martyrs. Thieves one day assaulted Ramana at his ashram. When his followers tried to intervene and stop the beating, Ramana told them that they had no right to attack his beaters because his followers were seeing with their body's eyes and saw not the whole picture of debts having to be repaid. I counseled a woman who told me that a man had broken into her apartment and was proceeding to rape her. As he was on top of her she felt an overwhelming sense of compassion for the suffering of this man and told him that she loved him and that he need not do this. He stopped and was ready to execute her. As she closed her eyes ready for the bullet, while feeling a wonderful calmness, she heard him apologize and disappear. This rape was the most powerful experience of her life. For the man, no doubt he had a hatred for women, and when hatred is not transformed by love, it will lead to giving injury.

where there is doubt, faith;

Doubt is one of the weapons of the mind. What is this doubt? It is the doubt that you are worthy of God's love, of Gods protection. If you have caused injury, you will believe you are deserving of retribution and that what you have done has caused God not to call you His own. When in doubt no miracles are possible: it is just cause and effect in a mechanistic universe. Doubt is a box of limitations imposed on your mind, suffocating you to death, shutting out God's infinite love and mercy. Faith is the whispering of Truth that God can do anything through you. God can melt away all errors of the mind, all sin in an instant. Faith is the flag that proclaims you are God's Child and that no matter what you do, God dwells within you and will make use of every thought word and deed (even the most loveless mistakes) and that wherever you go you are inside of the omnipresent Lord. Faith is the paintbrush by which you are to paint your life free of any judgment. Another word for faith is certainty. When you have faith in God's omniscience and your innate Divinity, you will have a certainty about you and will thus possess true Self confidence. Look how much faith people place in other people who have great reputations, like hiring some agent to get a book published, or the insurance company to take care of you in case misfortune happens or the police to make your life safe. How feeble are such refuges in comparison of taking refuge in God, in All That Is! '

where there is despair, hope;

Despair and die. Despair is an acute case of doubt. Whereas doubt will confuse you on life's road, slowing you down, sending you in wrong directions; despair cuts away your very legs, sucking out all of your life force. Despair is Sisyphus pushing the boulder, his sin, up the immense mountain and watching it roll back down, again and again and again. Hope is the knowing that all conditions will pass. All pain will end. Thomas a Kempis encouraged the monks of the Middle Ages to bear with whatever hardship that was sent their way, because what did a short time of pain compare to the bliss of Heaven that awaited them. This is not a hope that is, Gee, I hope this happens. This is the hope that comes from knowing of faith that has no doubt. Despair is the thought, the feeling, that this pain will never end. Tibetan monks have a practice that can get them through torture by focusing the mind on the moment of pain, on just one increment of pain. Despair is the mind remembering all the past increments of pain and projecting all those increments into the future. Instead of one increment of pain that is bearable, you are dealing with massive pain that will seem to be endless.

where there is darkness light.

From despair darkness follows. No ray of hope to the end of suffering can penetrate this gloom. This is the general condition of humanity, hopeless suffering, of war after war, disease after disease, failure after failure, loss after loss and finally death after death. This is what the Buddha saw when he was prince Siddartha, that no earthly condition can alleviate mans suffering for all are doomed to experience the turning of the wheel of matter. So only by becoming enlightened, to be filled with light--a light beyond the duality of the world, the light of the Truth of ones Being, ones Nature--then does darkness, suffering end.

and where there is sadness, joy.

Sad spelled backwards is das. Das is a Sanskrit word meaning servant. When you are sad you are not serving. To get out of malaise is to find someone to help. The book Love is Letting Go of Fear, by Gerald Jampolsky, abounds in anecdotes of people overcoming terminal diseases by getting out of their poor me-ness and reaching out to help others who suffered. Sadness is the result of sinking into the shadows of believing you are just a pathetic body, unloved in an unforgiving world with the believe you have nothing to give. Look at the faces of passers-by on a city street. So many mouths turned down by habitual frowns. You do not have to be a Mother Theresa to bring joy to the suffering. A smile is an amazing gift. Smile as you walk down one of those streets and bless all you pass and you will give a flower to every heart. Leela is the word the Hindus give to the world describing life as God's Play or Game. God is seen as a Child creating for just the sake of creating. Jesus asked us to be as little children. What does that mean? To have joy. Look into the eyes of a young child as she picks up a sand dollar on the beach or finds a shiny pebble. Her eyes will sparkle with the creation of stars. Joy is the participation in this great dance of life, letting your little self go into this Dervish dance.

O Divine Master,

The first half of the prayer is Francis telling us what qualities of character we need to foster. This latter part informs us of what right actions we need to take to come back to the Awareness of God.

Immediately, he calls upon the Master. Who is the Master? The Christ. The Divine Child created exactly like God, perfectly unaffected by matter, yet who is found in all forms. And for Francis he saw that Jesus and Christ were the same. Francis renounced intellectualism as a way to God, despite the great minds in his order of monks. His path was the path of simplicity, the path of love, of devotion. He so loved his teacher that he received the stigmata. His mind became completely absorbed in Jesus, and since Jesus was completely one with Christ and Christ in God, so Francis through Jesus realized his Divine Nature. This is the importance of having an enlightened teacher to focus on, to call upon, whether in body or without.

grant that I do not so much seek

He does not say that I may not seek, but not so much seek. Why? What is the difference? Because he asks for us to be balanced. Francis knew about extremes. His first part of his life was living the worldly life to the hilt. Then after his conversion he swung to the spiritual life, never compromising, pushing his body that it literally wasted away with austerities. The Buddha too did the same, swinging from one side to the other of the mind, until he realized that a string too tight on a vina will snap, yet if too loose will be off key. It is the middle way, the path of moderation. At least on the outer forms of expression. On the inside, however, the intensity for God should never slacken.

To say that you will never receive, or never ask to be consoled or to be understood would be to become dogmatic and not responsive to what life might be asking. To be only one way does not allow others in your life their opportunity to give or to console. Plus, it can be humbling to ask for help, safeguarding you from spiritual pride.

to be consoled as to console;

We as people have a habit to seek our friends when we are in pain. Oftentimes this is out of the need to get others to sympathize with our pain, our grievance. This does not help us to go beyond the condition of our suffering. It may make us feel better in the short run, like a shot of booze may, but it does not get to the cause. And the cause is not some action that may have inflicted pain on us; for what is the cause behind that action that caused pain? Such actions are but symptoms. The root cause is our feeling separate from the Whole, from God. Our only consolation ultimately lies with God. If we have the habit of seeking consolation from people, or possessions (going shopping, for instance), or eating, or entertainment, what will happen at the time of death when none of them will be there to find solace? Where will our refuge be then? Only God will be there for eternity.

However, there are times when it is beneficial to share with others on the Path our suffering, so they can remind you about who you really are. Francis had his brothers go out two by two so they could remind each other when the cloud of forgetfulness would block the sun of knowing. Here is where confession is helpful. It is important to speak ones ills to another who will listen without judgment, standing in the place of equanimity.

How do we console? By listening. In the novel Siddartha, by Herman Hesse, the ferry man Vasudeva helped ease the pain of Siddartha by just listening, which he had learned from the river; for in the river the saint and the sinner are but its bends on the way to the Ocean. ACIM counsels us not to get caught up in ones troubles, but to silently affirm for the other who appears to be suffering that she is as God created her, that, in Truth, in God, she is not suffering; it is only in her mind,. In the Arthurian legends, Parsival misses his chance to drink from the Grail and to heal the Fisher King because he fails to ask what ails the king. In Buddhism there is a call for compassion, to recognize that there is suffering (at least in this world of duality), and to meet it with kindness and not condemnation or even with the desire to fix the problem.

to be understood as to understand;

What a joke seeking to be understood! What a hopeless request! Our true Self is beyond any definition, any understanding. How many times in a relationship will there be the cry, You don't understand me! Yet does the one who cries so understand herself? No. Otherwise, she would not be in need of understanding. She would not be in lack. What is under the standing of each of us? It is Beingness, the Godhead, the Noumenon. It is by having the Awareness and Experience of this Being under our standing that we no longer will demand to be understood. And, while we cannot be understood by someone else, we can reach out in compassion to understand. To truly understand is to see their suffering as a cry for help and the need to connect in Awareness to God. It is not to get wrapped up in their drama and to sympathize as many want when they are in distress. It is a passive reaching out of listening without judgment, and remembering and being witness to the One Divinity we all are in every moment. All that can be really understood is that we all are suffering, every one of us, regardless of our station in society, if we do not have the Awareness of our true Nature.

to be loved as to love;

Again, if we are demanding that Life love us, our parents, friends, family, colleagues, politicians, police, then we believe that we are not being loved. However, every breath we breathe is God's whisper that each one of us is loved as Himself. No creature can give us infinite, unconditional love. Every person or thing will pass away and turn into another form as all forms must do in this wonderful life of dancing particles and surging waves. Just as the cute baby will turn into the yelling two-year old, youth into an adult and old age to dust. To ask for love from a source other than from God only invites suffering, for it turns your Awareness from the real Source and focuses on the futile.

When you turn towards God in your Awareness, it is life turning on the valve on the divine faucet. Love will just flow. And when you turn towards creatures the faucet simply closes. When love flows in it cannot be contained. The individual who has identified with the body/mind organism is too small of a vessel for true love. There becomes no choice but to share it with all humanity because love just overflows. To ask to love is to be filled with God's love to share with all of the world. It cannot be confined by blood, race, nationality, religion, affiliations, etc. It suffers no limitations. If it is confined in any way then the focus goes back to creatures and upon whatever definition that may be placed on them (such as, whether this type is worthy of love or not). When this happens, this focusing away from All That Is, then, one small step away, will be the demands that those who are deemed worthy of receiving your love must return that love in kind. Quid pro quo ensues, and instead of love it becomes politics and the faucet turns off. Waiting to be turned on again.

for it is in giving that we receive;

Once more we have Francis exhorting us to get out of the me-me way of living that we so commonly do. When we give without the thought of reward we let go of what we have been holding onto. It seems that the more we have, perhaps in the form of money, possessions, fame, power, the more we are less likely to give away without thought of gain, and we will set up mighty defenses to guard these treasures. However, it is like the tale of catching monkeys where the monkey becomes captured because it will not let go of the banana it holds in the trap. Those who hold less are held less by such things and are freer to give. And when we are not clutching at what has come our way, what life needs to give can come in. Nature abhors a vacuum, says the old physics adage. When we are filled with things and goals and desires for grabbing anything of what the world offers, God has no room to come into Awareness.

On the other hand, while giving is seen by Francis as a virtue to cultivate, again we must remember the caution of moderation, of being balanced. There exists many who feel that they have to give and not to receive to actually become good enough to be loved, either by others or even by God. There are those who will give away everything indiscriminately because they think God loves that best. However, deep below the surface of the action, guilt will most likely be found. ACIM says that giving is no greater than receiving, nor is it any less. Why does receiving have an equal part to play? Because giving can be done with pride. A subtle 'You owe me one or God will surely reward me' will grow in the personality. Francis and his brothers received whatever food that was given as a humble act of accepting what God had to give them in order for them to live and carry on their spiritual mission. Here in the West, in the land of the strong and independent, those who receive help, support, may be seen as those who lack drive. There is such a strong current in America of being self-sufficient where one needs nothing from anyone else. But this becomes only ego-sufficiency not Self-sufficiency. There exists a partnership with life, the manifested, of receiving and giving. Yet, with God, there is nothing to give to God in the sense that God, Who is All, has any need. However, it is good to give up the idea to God that we have anything that we own, so that we are not owned by anything. After all, we are all renters of these bodies; thus all things that we seem to own are really but rentals, used for a brief moment in time. We must only want to be owned by God. God really only wants our Awareness.

it is in pardoning that we are pardoned;

We return to forgiveness. To say that someone has struck us, has attacked us and that we, out of righteousness, will forgive our attackers, is not forgiveness. For there is still the belief that we can be attacked. In Truth, there can be no attacking or being a victim. No two exist to act because only the One exists. When you can say to some body who acts in an unconscious, hurtful manner that You are as divine as God created you; you are the holy Child of God, then you see (or you are asking to see, for it may not be easy for such a perception) beyond the body, beyond time. And by seeing not with the eyes of the body the happenings in temporal space, then you can see your Self with the I of Spirit. If you see others as only loved by God, not because of their actions, but due to their innate Nature, so you will remember your own Nature. If you see a world of sinners, how can you but join them?

and it is in dying that we are born to Eternal Life.

Surely Francis is not speaking of the physical body dying that promises salvation. When your body falls away you will be left with a naked mind. What was the habit of the mind throughout life? That is, did it run rampantly like some wild beast, pursuing this and that of the world, ever watchful of dangers; or was it trained to think only of God, and was used as a tool for God's Will? If of the former, untrained and unruly, the mind existed to preserve the notion of being a body, separate from the Universal Mind of God. And with such an existence there can only be life and death of bodies in a world of fear and brief moments of pleasure. This is not the dying that Francis asks us to do or to prepare for. It is the latter, of cultivating a focused mind and heart on the Divine; for when we think of God and His Glory, we will experience the Joy of God, bereft of anything the world has to offer; and then the body-conscious mind will fade in the Eternal Light of God. This is the dying of the ignorance of separation to the Wisdom of the Unity of All That Is.

Amen

May all Men, all humans end their suffering and find the Happiness of their Divine Nature. May we find inspiration in the life of Francis and all lovers of God or Truth, in all traditions, that we may lead our lives devoted to bringing Love and Wisdom to the world.

Janaka Stagnaro
www.janakastagnaro.com

Focusing on the True

Once you recognize the power of that true self, there won’t be any remnants of Mind for Restraining. For a Saint, a mind may work or it may not, but according to him there is only one thing that is the true self. The Mind, The world and the Body are not different and separate from that true self. All of them are arising in that true self and disappearing in that. They can’t stay separate and survive on their Own.

They are not different from the true self. So always remain with the awareness of that power of true self. Don’t worry and think about the shadows, they can’t do anything to the true self.

The Mind, the world and the body are just reflections of that light of true self.

-- Sri Ramana Maharshi.

Fasting

From "Talks with Sri Ramana Maharshi"

D: Can fasting help realisation?

M: But it is temporary. Mental fast is the real aid. Fasting is not an end to itself. There must be spiritual development side by side. Absolute fasting makes the mind weak too. You cannot derive sufficient strength for the spiritual quest. Therefore take moderate food and go on practising.

I opened up the book to that passage. This is the end of my fifth day on the Master Cleanser lemonade fast. It is a fast I have done many times. It is a great aid, I find, in not only giving my body a rest but quieting the mind with more sattwa (purity). Other fasts I have found overly taxing and debilitating. With this fast I am fully functional and with lots of energy. I have fasted for 14 days and I will see with this one. I highly recommend this fast.

Guru Purnima--Honoring the Teacher Within and Without

"The Guru is both external and internal. From the exterior he gives a push to the mind to turn inwards. From the interior he pulls the mind towards the Self and helps in the quietening of the mind. That is Guru's grace. There is no difference between God, Guru and the Self."--Ramana Maharshi

In the Indian tradition the full moon at this time is the day to honor your teacher. As someone said, if one has only oneself as a teacher then one has a fool for a guide. We all need teachers in any field we want to excel and master, except the very small minority of geniuses. Unfortunately, we get mixed up with being devoted and appreciative to a teacher, especially in the spiritual realm, to being consumed in an infantile adoration. Such adoration neither helps the teacher nor the student.

The teachers that have helped me along the way have been legion. In fact, I must say that everyone and every event (whether painful or pleasant) has offered to be my teacher in one way or the other, whether I was conscious enough to realize it at the time.

However, there are some teachers who have profoundly changed my life. There is Ramana Maharshi, whose glance has taken me to the Silence beyond the mind, and who whispers to me when I get all caught up in trying to figure this mystery called life and death--"Who are you?" There is Jesus who has taught me forgiveness by reminding me that I am eternally perfect and that no action could ever taint my Being, and has showed me the power of miracles by asking to see the Christ in all creatures. There is St. Francis who has taught me the joy of simplicity and the love of all creatures and manifestions of Nature. There is Ramakrishna who has taught me that all paths lead to the same Oneness, whether it is devotion to an Ideal Form or the realization that there is No Other. There is Rudolf Steiner, by his creation of Waldorf education, who has opened up a path of service in a world that had previously offered nothing for me. There is Karunamayi who has given me spiritual tools of mantras and who opened the door to Saraswati, the Goddess of art and knowledge, and who is a living embodiment of Sattwa or pure sweetness. To the great poets of Hafiz, Rumi and Kabir whose words have influenced mine in their unabashed devotion to the Beloved. Then there is Krishna who fills my heart and washes my face with tears, and Rama who has donned me with his golden armor of dispassion to take what the world throws at me. And finally Shiva (also manifesting as Yama), the Still Center, watching all things turn to ash and saying: Neti neti--I am not this, not this.

Blessings to all these and to all the great Masters who guide humanity out of ignorance and into the Light.