Happy Christmas Eve - A Promise of A Better Future

by Robert Wilkinson This time of year always brings some intense and mixed feelings in all of us. It is a time of celebration, but just as often a time of sorrow. And as we are feeling creatures within a vast feeling-field, we’re feeling all the collective streams of many things all at once. Our task is to enjoy our ride through this ever-changing parade of life. In the Northern Hemisphere, this is the time when the nights are longest and the days are shortest, with a minimum of solar force available to bring us the vitality we like to feel. We’ve celebrated “the dark time of the year” for many centuries because we know the days will get longer from here, and have collectively experienced the existential relief of knowing we’re not trapped in long nights which for many are too cold for comfort. This is a time to check in with loved ones. This is a time to imagine happy things. But because throughout our lives we’re learning to feel all there is to feel, we feel sorrow as well as joy. We feel hope for the future, as well as whatever else we’re feeling in the moment about the rapidly fading past. Because of the way our minds work, at the end of the calendar year we tend to look back and feel all that has transpired since this time last year. As always, we’ll have memories of some joyous moments but also many difficult moments. I believe most of us were trained when young to notice the negatives more than life’s positives, the troubles more than the moments of joy. That’s because every generation inherits a life on Earth which has never been easy for anyone, regardless of appearances. And yet, despite all the problems, all the frustrations, all the disappointments, we all learn that we grow stronger and more loving by striving for the good while experiencing happiness and joy along the way. This is a place where we’re forever letting go, whether of things, people, ideas, beliefs, or even what we just thought a moment before. It’s why we can’t get attached to holding on when it’s time to let go. The irony is that even as we are forced to detach from what has brought us pleasure, we also have the gift of being able to detach from that which brought us pain. Those are the moments when we have the power to redirect our mind to better thoughts of love, beauty, and truth. Even as children we want to celebrate and feel love and happiness. As we age, we still want to savor the good and the beautiful, but often are confronted with the usual ugliness of “the way of things.” With a little mental training, it’s fairly easy to learn to see what is good and beautiful around us while paying less attention to the stressful, ugly, and difficult images and statements in our transactional world. Sometimes turning off the news and turning to admire the beauty in the world is the best antidote for difficult feelings. I believe in lighting candles rather than cursing the darkness. While difficult feelings are normal, we can turn them to positive feelings by focusing on all the good which has happened in our lives, and the good we have attempted to bring to others in our world. Not with judgment about whether this or that was “good enough,” but just witnessing the fact that good was done, beauty was created or honored in some way, that friendships were affirmed even with death a constant presence. We have the power to generate “Bodhichitta,” or what I call “Soul Sparkles,” as we affirm the best of life in action, feeling, and thought. While there have been losses this past year, there have also been great gains. In letting go I have learned more about compassion than I ever dreamed. In not holding on to negative thoughts and judgments, I feel more at peace. In giving what I can to my world, I participate in the Choir of Life. I’ll close today’s offering with a thought experiment. Imagine you live in the most wonderful place you could imagine. Peace, beauty, harmony, everyone and everything is in harmony in a great Oneness and everything radiates beauty in transcendent textures and colors as far as you can see. However, every once in a while you know you have to have a different experience of the absolute Love you are, and feel the pull to do loving interactive service at a place “down the road,” far enough away that it’s a different land. You know that many there will recognize you and you will recognize them, even if they don’t know you yet because you’re not there. When you meet, you will each feel an instant bond. You will each be called to be the best you can be. You quicken, knowing that life in that place with those people will be a joyous celebration of life and loving experience. And so you go to that distant land, and realize that love is found in difficulty as well as celebration, and understanding requires contrasting experiences. You grow in your love and understanding through pleasurable and painful experiences until it’s time to leave that land, returning to the land of beauty and bliss to process your experience in the world of matter. At some point you are again pulled to experience your greater Love in the world of forms, and return to learn and serve and help yourself and others grow. And again, after your “time of the season” in that land, you return to the place of beauty, peace and harmony. You do this over and over, loving and being loved, until you realize you have learned all there is to learn, loved all you could love in your own way, and have no more attraction to that distant land. Once you realize you have learned all you can learn and have done all you need to do in that land, you naturally find yourself pulled to other places and experiences which will challenge you in different ways and help you enjoy your journey in others. This is a never-ending journey of discovering we are the love we seek, we are the wisdom we seek, we are the joy we seek, and we are the God we seek. We are Eternals having a human experience. We are Love incarnate. We have Wisdom which we are able to express through our understanding. While life is painful, we do not have to suffer. We have the ability to be the antidote to the suffering of the world, each in our own way. The trick is to enjoy the ride. Aum and blessings, Brother Robert © Copyright 2024 Robert Wilkinson

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