Sangha and Mystery

Are you a Seeker?  Are you interested in the Truth of who you really are?

Then you are in the Sangha, the Family of Seekers of Truth. 

Sometimes, this can be a rocky road, with painful Dark Nights of the Soul. 

Sometimes, filled with Ecstatic Bliss. 

Sometimes, feels just like a mundane slog through our everyday existence. 

Today we will contemplate three metaphoric exercises to remind ourselves of who we really are:    

Again, try the Douglas Harding experiments of pointing at the outside world, and then pointing toward your eyes, looking with an inward gaze. 

http://www.headless.org/experiments-video.htm

The second is in the book by Wayne Teasdale, The Mystic Heart:   

As a child we may poke holes in a cardboard box and shine a flashlight in that box, within a darkened room, making “stars” that shine all around us. 

We are like these points of light, dancing on the ceiling and walls. 

If we turn our gaze backward into the Source of the light, we see we are really the bright light of Source.

The third experiment is a more modern version of Plato’s cave: 

Imagine an old time movie projector with a strip of film that runs quickly past a bright light Source, projecting a moving picture on a screen or a wall.  

What we see in everyday life is these shadows on the wall.  We mistake these shadows for the whole Truth of who we are. 

If we turn our gaze around and look into the projector, we see the bright light Source.  That Source is who we really are.

We are the brightest light.  We are the darkest dark.  Truth is always within Paradox. 

Yet, we also live our life. 

We have roles to play in this projected movie. 

That is the Mystery.  How do we play our roles the best we can? 

How do we know what should be our next perfect Right Action? 

This gazing inward… seeing Source… Being Source. 

This allows us access to Truth, to Wisdom. 

We shed the comfortable coat of Ego, contemplating what we are in Truth. 

Compassion arises for ourselves, and for others,

                                                            as if there really were any other. 

Then we can don our comfortable overcoat of Ego, and walk in the world. 

Wisdom allows our each action to be filled with compassion. 

Ultimately, there is no other. 

We are all the bright light of Source.  Shining in the world. 

When we incorporate this Truth in our Bones. 

Only Right Action arises in every movement,

                                    as we walk through this filmstrip of our life. 

Thank you…

For shining within the Sangha…