This is It

A beautiful poem by Ascended Master Lau Tzu 
describes why we practice meditation and what it does for our wellbeing.

“Always We Hope”

Always we hope
someone else has the answer.
some other place will be better,
some other time it will all turn out.
This is it.
no one else has the answer.
no other place will be better,
and it has already turned out.
At the center of your being
you have the answer;
you know who you are
and you know what you want.
There is no need
to run outside
for better seeing.
Nor to peer from a window.
Rather abide at the center of your being;
for the more you leave it, the less you learn.
Search your heart
and see
the way to do
is to be.
–Lao Tzu
(translated by Witter Bynner: The Way of Life, According to Lao Tzu)

How to Receive a Spiritual Reading

Recently I was asked
“What would you tell someone who is considering getting a Spiritual Reading?”
here’s my answer:

 

1)  When getting a reading, remembering your Free Will is key.

Humans are tremendously capable and creative beings. We each have our own creative power, and the freedom to will that power into existence. There is a rumor going around that our Free Will is a gift from Spirit.

Therefore when receiving a reading I suggest:

• Avoid advice: Information is useful, but you are an adult and don’t need to be told what to do. A healing is empowering when the healer’s words resonate with a truth you already know inside, even if that knowing is very deep.
• Avoid predictions of your future: The only moment you can ever own is NOW.  The only space in which you can harness your immense creative power is HERE. You choose your route, and you can shift your direction anytime by choosing Here & Now to make a change; by choosing to heal.

Questions about the future:

I don’t mean to discourage you in your quest for your truth and your direction… just the opposite.

You can ask to look at any situation or choice that is before you, and examine the energy of that situation in the present moment. By doing this you will see which direction you are currently headed. If it doesn’t look how you’d like, then you can start to heal that path.

This supports you to make your own decisions. By opting to heal yourself and walk your own unique path, you honor the gift of your own spiritual freedom.

 

2) Getting a reading can be a wonderful gift of an outside perspective, a spiritual perspective.

It can be hard to see everything clearly from within ourselves. I can be very useful to receive information from an outside source, someone who is much more neutral, someone with a spiritual perspective...

In our society that is materially-focused we are trained (consciously and unconsciously) to doubt or ignore our own spiritual information. When receiving a reading from a spiritually-dedicated individual, you are spiritually validated.  A conversation is started with the spiritual life energy that enchants your physical form. 

 

This is the gift of a reading – you are receiving a perspective on yourself as spirit and your creations (your life, body, relationships, etc) that is outside your own usual consciousness. It can be like looking in a sacred mirror, receiving a reflection of yourself from a different angle.
This is potentially an incredible blessing!

The atmosphere of a HELPFUL READING: Optimally, your reader will give you a spiritual perspective:

• Neutral
• Amused
• Validating
• Spiritually-focused

Atmosphere of a potentially HURTFUL READING:

• Emotional
• Judgmental
• Invalidating
• Blaming
• Fear-based

If you perceive your reading to be in this unhelpful realm, I would suggest wiping your feet and walking away.  

3)  Getting a reading is like a Spaghetti fight  – what sticks to you, is yours.

In a reading, I encourage you to take what resonates with your deeper truth and leave the rest. You want to stay open minded during a reading, because opening spiritually is usually a new experience and parts of you may meet resistance or fear of this new (but truly beautiful, plentiful and safe) world.

If the reader says something that doesn’t align with your information at all, if you’re thinking “I don’t think so” then let it go.

Please don’t take the reader’s information over your own.
Meanwhile, as a rule: take what is said and let it bake, ruminate on it:

• Even things that don’t initially seem true for you may produce something fruitful upon reflection.
• If something is bugging you, I recommend letting it sit on ‘the shelf’ for a few days; then meditate on it, ask God what the gift is for you in this information.

I encourage you to let this perspective from outside yourself, hopefully a spiritual perspective, inform your life and your living.

4) But, most importantly, I urge you to continue to develop your own spiritual ‘ears’, ‘eyes’, ‘knowing’ etc.; so you can continue to deepen as the authority in your own life, the driver of your own car (life).

Blessings on your Unique Journey, Wendy

Unfolding Perfection

 

I used to be dominated by the pressure to be perfect...
to be very different, better! than I am and better! than I ever could realistically be.

In various layers of my being, consciously and not-consciously,
I used to think that I had to be perfect to be loved, to be acceptable, to deserve good things.

I have been allowing shift on this for many years now, layer after layer, thought after habit, emotional default after energetic attachment… shifting and allowing light and lightness.
It is a blessing to allow healing and change at the deep layers.

It gave me a lever to help me free myself, when my spiritual teacher told me that there is NO perfection in this world.  On the Physical, perfection is an unobtainable ideal (perfect picture), so it would serve me to let go for this Imaginary Delusion of Perfection.

At the same time, it helped me to see and expereince over and over, from a Spiritual perspective, that Everything and Everyone really is perfect: right now.  Always have been, always will be  Perfect.  Everything is ALL Right!  That is the spiritual reality which I expereince, when I tune into my mystical senses.  As Julian of Norwich said:

‘All shall be well, and all shall be well and all manner of thing shall be well.’ 

 
It also helps me to notice what I think perfect is...

Is it a rigid picture of how someone or something should be, an IDEAL?
This doesn’t work for me, I never live up to my own or other’s idealized pictures of who I should be, what I should look like, and what I should do.
And nothing in this world lives up to my idealized pictures either.
This is a painful way to live, and it doesn’t work for me.

Fortunately my spiritual practice has very useful distinctions and practices around these ‘perfect pictures’ that so often drive us – so I am grateful to be in the process of letting go of them, and the mechanisms behind them, deep in my psyche.

Another way to look at perfect, which I find enlivening:

The Greek word that is often translated as perfect, can also mean:  Complete, Mature.
See full definition here.

I find this a useful way to look at ‘perfection’ – like an acorn that has now become a mighty oak (As my favorite Christian Minister, Dr Bruce Morgan, used to say ; )

Of course, I STILL won’t get to full maturity in this reality, until my life completes and I am ready to transition. But, I really like this definition of perfection: to be allowing myself be in active process of wholeness and coming to completion as MYSELF in my Unique Being and Doing in this world!

And to be clear! I do not mean coming to maturity through Striving, through Effort, though Trying to be bigger, faster, smarter, BETTER!

• I mean like a child in the sandbox, playing: and while I play: learning and growing and maturing.

• I mean like the beautiful tree BEING itself every day in every way: enjoying the land it is on, soaking up the rain, delighting in the sunlight, swaying in the breeze… then millimeter by millimeter = after years, or decades, or centuries of being – it comes to its fullness.

• I mean a maturity that comes with being myself, creating and playing in the physical reality, trusting Spirit.

I am excited about that kind of perfection!
How about you?

in Life!
Wendy

PS

I believe our path in this world 

is to bring the Perfection we already spiritually Are - our true selves: Light, Love, Truth...

fully and uniquely manifested into this reality - this world, this body, this life

Want to read more? Here are some posts on: Teleios? Coming to our Perfection

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Sympathy Hurts, Empathy Heals

The system I share to Empower Healers and help us invite Self-Care works as a unit, and is better understood as an experiential whole.  But, I am sharing some pieces, because I believe these distinctions are life-changing for many of us, and those who have 'ears to hear' can hear them, independently.

There are many Healing Distinctions.
I shared 2 in a this blog post:
- Heal Yourself First
- Heal Yourself and you Heal the World

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Questions that I often hear, in some form, in class:
"How can you have empathy if you haven't felt pain?"

My first thought is usually:
All healers have pain, and have felt pain.  It's not like we need more practice ; )
We are humans, in the earth-game - pain is part of the deal.

My second thought is usually:
If we are wallowing IN pain, how can we help?
 - If the blind lead the blind, they both fall in a hole, Jesus said.

Do I want a doctor/caregiver/healing helper who is feeling my pain with me?
Or, do I want a healing helper who can help me step out of pain, so I can be empowered & whole.
When I am in Pain, I really don't care how my Healer (healing helper) feels about it!

For me, I have come to the place where I want to live my OWN life, learn my OWN lessons, solve my OWN challenges, grow into OWNing who I am, walk my OWN true path.

It doesn't help ME as a healer
- and it doesn't help me help THEM, the ones I mean to help -
when I let their emotionality get All Over Me!

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So, I realized it might be useful for some folks if I share this Healing Distinction.
From my experience, where we stand, where we come-from when assisting others, really matters:
Sympathy Hurts, Empathy Heals 

I define Empathy, like Compassion, as an important part of Love.
This is one of our spiritual senses, I like to call Affinity - 4th chakra.
It is the beautiful experience of the Oneness that IS
- one with Earth, one with Universe, one with Source, one with All our Relations.

We can powerfully connect with someone from Empathy.
This is a heart centered experience...
It can be a Joy for us; and it can make a very Positive difference for folks on their healing journey.

But if I fall into Sympathy, into Pity, things get sticky. For example:
emotionally matching them,
experiencing Their distress as my Own - or conflating the two,
taking-on Their distress as My problem...

When I fall into the Sympathy Game:
I am likely Reacting instead of Acting.
I am likely becoming part of the Problem instead of part of the Solution.
I am likely multiplying the challenging emtions, rather than deescalating them.

Because Sympathy is an emotion centered expereince - 2nd chakra.
It can add a lot of Suffering to Our lives, as healers;
and it makes no Real, Lasting difference for Them - the folks we mean to help.

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So here is a parable of what it can look-like:
If I climb into a hole filled with crap with my friend, and I get stuck there - not only does this not help my friend; Also, I have no time/energy/grace left to help anyone else.
Actually *I* become part of the problem!  *I* now need saving, along with my friend.

When I graduated Lifeguard Training around 1987, the most important thing we were taught was: don't go down with 'em.
If you can not engage them safely, then don't engage at all, because then we will be having two funerals instead of one (ain't nobody got time for that ; )

And here is the thing, only a few years later, Lifeguard Training shifted in a Very Intelligent way - the new rule became - don't engage directly, ever.   
For the general public, the mantra became: “Reach or throw, don't go.” 
For lifeguards: “Make direct rescues with equipment” - always have something for them to grab onto, something that isn't YOU! 

Is the parallel clear enough?
Do Not Go Down With Them! 
We can not help if we are drowning too.

So, to apply this:
We stay out of Sympathy with them.
We practice being Neutral and not being hooked by whatever they may be feeling.
We avoid taking-on their emotions.
We steer clear of making their problems, our problems.


Sometimes advocating for someone's wellness, acting from empathy, can look tender, sometimes it can look fierce.
When I am standing for someone’s wellness, empathy strengthens and informs me.
But, sympathy weakens me - I fall into emotionality, I get lost in the mire.
I am not free to be in compassion, and I am not empowered to fiercely fight for their freedom.


I lived for decades, energetically taking on other's pain, meaning to help.
I am an Empath, that is what Empaths naturally do - energetically feel what other’s feel.
I really suffered.
But, it helped no one,
and it almost killed me - literally.

I have repented of that path.
Now I help people every day
and I am free to live in love, joy, peace
- I am learning to Live!

I have found it is unnecessary and painful to suffer with people,
I have found that love looks like helping them to stop the suffering! not adding more!
This is my experience, what is your experience, friends?
- Wendy

Love thy neighbor as thyself

Love thy neighbor as thyself

- Jesus

Most people hear this as a Should to love others. 
It is often practiced exactly the opposite of what Jesus said - trying to ‘love’ others Before ourselves.

It is not just what is says:
Love others as I love myself
…. so I better darn-well love myself ; )

Question:
Is it possible to Love others, without loving ourselves?
Is it possible to Love ourselves, without loving others?

Hmmm...
Here is my belief / experience:

Spiritually, regarding loving self or others
(or sharing any spiritual fruit / vibration / blessing: joy, peace, forgiveness, gratefulness, whatever)
to me it is ONE experience.

Either I am IN the vibration/blessing of love, or I am not.
Either They are IN the vibration/blessing of love, or they are not.

If I am interfacing with them,
I cannot be in vibration of Love for them but not for me. And,
I cannot be in vibration of Love for me, but not for them.

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Many of us have blocks to these spiritual blessings.
When we are blocked from spiritual blessing, we can do physical things to try to  compensate:
we try, strive, ‘fake it til we make it’

But, I believe,
if we are not spiritually IN the vibration of Love,
we cannot love ourselves or others.

If we are not spiritually IN the vibration of Love,
we can only try to do loving things, we can act nice, we can try to serve people… or ourselves.

Gosh, doing it this way is not only unReal:
it is Hard work;
with little fruit, BTW

When we allow the Blocks to Light, the blocks to Love to move, to melt.
When we allow the Blessings to Flow - spiritual experience (like joy, peace, forgiveness) in this case, Love
 Our internal experience of blessing can shift dramatically.

And amazingly,
sharing the clear, bright vibration of Love with others,
can shift as well.

IMO, this is why it is primarily important to clear, and allow the healing, transforming spiritual gift of Love for ourselves.
Love thy neighbor as thyself then takes on a whole new meaning and power.


Read more: posts about Love

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Empathy is our Natural State - let's enjoy it!

thanks for original picture from Maksym Kozlenko 

We cannot outsource empathy... compassion, love, experiencing the oneness that we truly are behind all the distraction...

and what a shame if we could outsource this, really,

what a loss to miss the delight of connection.

We learn to make empathy SO hard.

But I believe empathy is our natural state, we are One.

Unfortunately, for most of us, experiencing this Oneness in this life usually involves the expereince of pain, fear, shame...

And we are programmed by almost everything and everyone around us to shut-down - so most of us do.

Meanwhile, I believe our natural heart state is like a sweet, gentle flower
- open to the sun, swaying in the breeze, so present, so joyful, so beautiful, so delicious.

But our flower gets covered-over - often with many ouches, scars, various armorings.

It becomes hard for many of us to even see the flower - to experience that it is there - in ourselves, in others...

But the flower IS there - our natural state of Oneness... its still there, under all the crap.

So I believe from this perspective,

it may be easier to see:

WHY getting to this oneness, enjoying empathy,

can - at first - be very confronting, painful, scary, sharp, full of resistance... wearing.

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Actually BEing with another means

actually BEing present,

in the moment, with what IS

- really with ourselves and with them and with this reality.

This can be Really!! Tiring!!

- all the getting over the crap - ours and theirs and our culture's crap.

For many this is way too hard.

We do half-measures, or some just give up.

But the road of opening the heart is available to all whole want it 
- it is not easy for most of us, but the fruit is delicious.

And the good news is: 
From a healed and open heart, empathy is like falling off a log, it is our natural state.

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So, most of us have closed-up our hearts, deep within ourselves.

And we are blessed with the challenge and the fruit of opening our heart.

But some of us are blessed with even more to learn and practice. 

(yes, where we trip IS our Treasure - so let's dig ;)

Very central to this conversation - what can be seen as the other side of the coin:

some are too open; in ways that are detrimental.

Some terms used for this are being an 
Empath, being a 
Sensitive or an HSP (Highly Sensitive Person)

BTW, this is not a heart-issue - our deep heart is made to open and expereince our natural connection.

But, Some of us, because of our background and choices, are too receptive in other ways - to others thoughts, feelings, experiences, will, desires...

Within, we have not learned things like:

• Dancing our own power and volition;
• Enjoying comfortable boundaries;
• Interacting-with and learning-from emotions, and then letting them go;

• Balancing within ourselves, not dragged along by our own or others feelings, instincts, drives, judgements;
• Belonging in this world, being safe and well regardless of others opinions and behaviors...

We can learn these things.

And it is important to note, there are always very compelling reasons why we have learned them yet.

So compassion around this learning is really helpful.

We can learn and shift inside, and then in our outward expereince.

But, until we learn how to live comfortably, safe and empowered in and with our body, in the presence of others,

we suffer, we are overwhelmed, we take-on other people's stuff, our lives don't work.

This really is a super-draining way to live, and often painful, debilitating - certainly ineffective.

But, this (also) is not our natural state.

Naturally, we are powerful, and we can find and live in that natural flow of power.

And we can find and learn to own our free will, again.

Naturally, we can learn to turn our internal senses up and/or down, comfortably as needed. 

Within ourselves, we can turn down the volume of others feelings, experiences, communication 

- so we can comfortably be with others, without getting bowled-over.

Naturally, we can learn to shift our intention:

although we are all, already One;

we can learn to happily play the game of I/Thou in this life of dichotomies.

In this world of 10,000 things, we can be our own selves, enjoy our own body our own life, our own challenges, our own choices - and not get lost in everyone else's journey and expereince.

We can be blessed in a relationship with all others - with a space between us - so we can see, love, and play with others - and not be a big pile of mush one finds, for example, in co-dependency.

It may seem counter-intuitive, but truly honoring another and ourselves as separate unique individuals, can support us to show-up to Be With them, in a safe and loving way.

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Here I go, on and on

because

I am passionate that

our natural comfortable empathy, connection with each other, understanding and being-with each other very deeply

really can be easy, delicious and enriching.

I believe it is our natural state.

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Archimedes said:

give me a firm spot on which to stand and a lever long enough and i will move the world.

As in sports, business, etc -

it helps to stand-in and act-from an efficacious place

and have many levers/practices to utilize

- so we can be equipped and empowered to be who we are and do what we are here to do - more easily, more gracefully.

I believe it is useful to know,

this is possible regarding empathy, as well.

If we are willing to learn and shift:

Showing up in/with empathy can be easy & fun, 

and true connection with others can actually help fill our well, not drain it.

Empathy is our Natural State - let's enjoy it!

Thanks for reading.

Blessings on your Unique Journey, Wendy

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After I wrote this, I realized it goes very nicely with a class I am offering, starting in a few weeks: Enough! Receiving & Giving... and Boundaries! with Mother Mary - online workshop

you can read more about being an Empowered Empath

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Want to Help & Heal Others, but tripping yourself? Learn from Wendy's Mistakes!

Wendy was called as a healer-becoming, when she turned 30, and quickly became a much-appreciated healer.

BUT, she also started 'taking-on' other's pain and brokenness - even more than she had before! 

She did not have healthy energetic boundaries.

She did not understand the deep importance of letting others be responsible for the trajectory and outcomes of their own life...

But, she did learned the consequences of these missteps Very Well. 

She experienced the emotions, energy, illnesses, and brokenness of others, within her own system - experiencing almost every malady of her healees. and more...
Wendy quickly went way beyond burn-out to succumb to a syndrome of chronic illness, stuck in pain & fatigue for over a decade, and bed-ridden for years!

It wasn't JUST taking on other's energy that brought her down. 

It was the unprocessed trauma and abuse from her earlier life, as well as the deep pain, fear and invalidation... that were hidden within, like a time-bomb released when she said YES to a whole new level of operating as a healer in the world.

The usually unappreciated news of being a Healer:
the First, Last, and Middle step is ALWAYS self-healing.

The GREAT News is:
As we heal and transform ourselves, we heal and transform our world.

It is Amazing how much change happens around us, just as we BE more and more ours true selves, and DO more and more our true path!
      
At 40, with increasing well-being, having learned to powerfully heal and create in her life, as well as safely assist and inspire others to do the same; she began investing in her life’s work in a whole new & powerful way:  serving soul evolution.

See here for more about how she did this:

• Wendy's Journey
• Flourishing as a Healer

This Path is Spiritual, Not Religious

As spiritual practitioners, we should be open to being a failure. We can take heart in the fact that Siddhartha found enlightenment not through his great success at religious practices, but through his failures.

I found this to be a wonderful essay from Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche about Ascended Master Buddha, and about us. Copied below Huffington Post, August 6, 2010.

This is written to Buddhist practitioners, but i believe it has more universal usefulness.
I highlighted a few sentences which I found especially exciting…

Is Buddhism a Religion?

We often talk about Siddhartha, the young man who became known as the Buddha, as if he were a god. The fact is that he was just a simple Indian guy, a human being like you and me. We think of him as some kind of super-genius for having attained complete spiritual awakening, but in fact his real genius was in showing how any one of us can attain the same awakening as he did. We describe him as a prince and a member of the elite royalty of his time, and we think that must have given him an advantage over us — but the reality is that most of us today are probably better off, in material terms, than Siddhartha was.

We talk about his kingdom and so forth, but what the prince Siddhartha had was really no more than what you might find in any middle-class American household. He might have had more wives, but you’ve got more gadgets, more technologies and comforts and conveniences. Siddhartha didn’t have a refrigerator, and you do. He didn’t have WiFi, or a blog, or Facebook or Twitter. He might have had more houses and land, but you’ve got a more comfortable bed than he had. Maybe you even have one of those new, space-age Tempur-Pedic beds. Think of how much time you spend in bed, and how important your bed is. I guarantee that Siddhartha had a worse bed than you have.

The point is, we shouldn’t mythologize Siddhartha’s life and think that his spiritual awakening was due to his special circumstances. Most of us today actually live in conditions very similar to Siddhartha’s, in terms of our material situation.

Siddhartha was a truth seeker, nothing more. He wasn’t looking for religion, as such — he wasn’t particularly interested in religion. He was searching for the truth. He was looking for a genuine path to freedom from suffering. Aren’t all of us searching for the same thing? If we look at the life of Siddhartha, we can see that he found the truth and freedom he was seeking only after he abandoned religious practices. Isn’t that significant? The one who became the Buddha, the “Awakened One,” didn’t find enlightenment through religion — he found it when he began to leave religion behind.

The Lure of Religious Trappings

A lot of people prefer to think of Buddhism as a religion. It’s easy to see why, when Buddhism abounds with religious trappings: the rituals and the chants and the golden statues sitting on the shrine. Buddha himself never wanted to be deified in any kind of icons; at the beginning, he told his students no icons, no worshiping. But it’s said that he had a very devoted student who kept pestering him, requesting his permission to make a statue of him, until finally the Buddha gave up and allowed the first image to be made. And now we have all these elaborate golden icons that look like they were dug out of an Egyptian pyramid. It’s nice to have these reminders, but we must remember that’s what they are: reminders of something, an example to be followed, not idols to be worshiped.

If our goal is to turn Buddhism into a religion, that’s fine — in America we have freedom of speech and the Bill of Rights. We can make Buddhism into a religion, or a branch of psychology, or a self-help program, or whatever we want. But if we’re looking for enlightenment, we won’t find it through relating to the Buddha as a religious idol. Like Siddhartha, we’ll find real spiritual awakening only when we begin to leave behind our fixed ideas about religious practice. Seeing the Buddha as an example and following his example — recreating, in our own lives, his pursuit of truth, his courage and his open mind — that’s the real power of Buddhism beyond religion.

Truth Has No Religion

Siddhartha actually became the Buddha through his failure at religion. He saw that the ascetic practices he’d been engaged in were not leading him to true liberation, and so he left them behind. But he had five colleagues who continued their religious practices of asceticism, and they regarded Siddhartha as a failure. From their point of view, he just couldn’t hack it, and that’s why he gave up. Later, after he attained enlightenment and became known as the Buddha, they became his first five disciples; but at the time when he left behind their religious program, they regarded him as a failure. I find that very encouraging. As spiritual practitioners, we should be open to being a failure. We can take heart in the fact that Siddhartha found enlightenment not through his great success at religious practices, but through his failures.

As Buddhists, Siddhartha’s example is the most important one for us to follow. He was a great explorer of mind and its limits. He was open-minded, seeking truth, with no preconceived agenda. He thought, “Okay, I’ll do these religious practices and see if I can find the truth that way.” He did the practices, he didn’t find the truth, and so he left the religion. Like Siddhartha, if we really want spiritual enlightenment we have to go beyond religiosity. We have to let go of clinging to preconceived religious forms and ideas and practices.

Religion, if we don’t relate to it skillfully, can trap us in another set of rules. On top of all the ordinary rules we are already stuck with in this world, we pile on a second set of religious rules. I’m not saying there is anything bad about religion or rules, but you should be clear about what you’re seeking. Do you want religion and a set of rules to follow, or do you want truth? Truth has no religion, no culture, no language, no head or tail. As Gandhi said, “God has no religion.” The truth is just the truth.

If you are interested in “meeting the Buddha” and following his example, then you should realize that the path the Buddha taught is primarily a study of your own mind and a system for training your mind. This path is spiritual, not religious. Its goal is self-knowledge, not salvation; freedom, not heaven. And it is deeply personal. Without your curiosity and questions and your open mind, there is no spiritual path, no journey to be taken, even if you adopt all the forms of the tradition.

Standing outside the Fire

If your knowledge of fire
has been turned to certainty by words alone,
then seek to be cooked by the fire itself.
Don’t abide in borrowed certainty.
There is no real certainty until you burn;
if you wish for this, sit down in the fire.
~ Mevlana Celaleddin Rumi

I believe poetry is wonderful because there is no exact meaning, it means many things, and different things to different folks. Below are 3 thoughts, of many, I have regarding the quote. I would love to hear your ideas!

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1)
Experience and practice, being in present time with our body and in this world, ARE reality
I hear Rumi say: jump in with no holds barred!
Theory and hearsay are shadows of reality.

I would rather directly experience what is real and true and love and God… for Myself…
not second-hand (That is like watching it on TV, it is not LIFE!)
AND at the same time, oh how reality Burns!

But then, no one can say this theory or that theory to me,
I KNOW my experience.
That is my own certainty, not someone else’s belief or theory…

Christian writer Paul says:

in order that we may be no longer babes, tossed and carried about by every wind of that teaching but… holding the truth in love, we may grow up to him in all things

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2)
God (Light/Love/Life/Fire) burns up everything that is not God (Light/Love/Life/Fire).
My favorite preacher, Dr Bruce Morgan, used to say this all the time, for me it is axiomatic.

From my perspective, everything comes from God and everything returns to God.
I can flow with the process or resist it.
From my level of resistance I can suffer little or much.
But in the end, everything ends: everything goes into the fire…

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3)
One of the Christian spellings for Rumi’s quote, I believe, is Jesus saying:

If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.

I would translate this something like:
I must let go of letting the ‘lower/ego self’ run the show…
let go of the physically-focused self;
and be who I really am as spirit, a part of God, and walk my unique spiritual path.

This fulfills me and naturally serves the world;
AND this Way goes through the fire, there is no way around it!

When we stop chasing around outside of us (fixing, changing, squirreling, consuming, desiring, worrying, scheming, helping, controlling… ad infinitum)
and focus inside of us (which feels like sitting in the fire, no? at least at first!!!)
then, well, that is IT.
The way can be painful, but the fruit is sweet.

The fire could be THE BELOVED (GOD),
it could be LOVE,
it could be LIFE,
it could be BEINGNESS,
it could be the LIGHT,
it could be Our PATH...


So, here is one possible reading of Rumi’s words, that could sum all these things:

If your knowledge of GOD
has been turned to certainty by words alone,
then seek to be cooked by GOD directly.
Don’t abide in borrowed certainty.
There is no real certainty
until you are consumed/transformed through/by GOD;
if you wish for this, sit down in GOD.

Of course I find myself singing Garth now  ; )

Life is not tried, it is merely survived
If you’re standing outside the fire

.

ReNew You! with Wendy R Wolf

You can find more, earlier, writings here:
ReNew You! with Wendy R Wolf