Inspiration
The mind of an enlightened creator does not arise in the morning and say, “How can I survive yet another day in this world? In the morning, when an enlightened creator arises, the question is:
How this day might I extend the treasure of the good, the holy, and the beautiful?
How can I, right where I am, experience these treasures
even within the space and volume of this body?
How can I look lovingly upon what my physical eyes show me,
so that I discern or extract the good, the holy, and the beautiful,
and therefore, give them to myself?
What I learned
The overall message from this section is that salvation is a full time job and that my motivation is to escape the pain of living an unenlightened life. I have tried everything else and none of it has worked. Getting better jobs, making more money, being a mother, a wife, a friend. I have tried travel, music, books, all sorts of entertainment. None of it has made me happy. None of it was enough. I have tried changing so that I would be a better mother to my children, so that I would be a better wife, so that I could help others, but the reason I want to awaken is so that I can return to bliss. I have no doubt that this will be helpful to everyone I know and to those I don’t know, but I am not doing it for anyone else; I am doing it for myself. I know that we all return together, but each one has to do this. I cannot awaken for you, only for myself.
And I understand that this is not something I do in my spare time. It requires a full commitment. Everything I experience is an opportunity to awaken more fully. And that is all it is. In the past I thought that it was about living in the world and that I could also use it to help me wake up. Now I understand that it is about waking up and the world is just a classroom in which I learn, my body a useful tool. It has no other meaning, unless I give it some other meaning. When I choose to give it another meaning I am just distracting myself from my only purpose.
Teaching only love is part of the process, but that does not mean I have another purpose. Jeshua says: “By the world teach, I mean simply that you choose to express Love in each moment.” As I undo what is not love, I express what is left which is Love. As I release what is not love and as I do this more and more then more and more there is nothing within me to express except love. My life becomes a teaching tool. What a splendid thought!
All quotes are used by kind permission of the Shanti Christo Foundation. To buy a copy of this profound book visit their website at www.shantichristo.com. I invite your thoughts and comments.