For the Week of December 3 - 9: Today, Tomorrow, Forever
Beloved, there is no fear in love …
- 1 John 4:18
His students said to him,
"So tell us, then, what our end and destiny will be?"
Yeshua answered,
"Have you already discovered your origin
so that you are now free to seek
after your end? It is only at your source
that you will find your destiny."
- Gospel of Thomas, logion 18
The object of this Way is to get in touch
with Higher Emotional Center directly
through love.
- Maurice Nicoll, Commentaries, "Commentary on Conscious Love," February 8, 1945, Vol. 2, p. 611
We have been given the Way, the Work, Scripture, prayer, one another -- and just exactly where are we going? From Source to Fullness: it is possible to sometimes catch a glimpse of the whole. Higher influences come to us and lift us into the fourth dimension (objective consciousness), a reality all its own, in which our usual sense of forward motion does not apply, in which time – all our times – are contained, in which all our little histories, past, present and future, all our hopes and dreams, are already contained – and mysteriously already fulfilled in a wholeness borne of love from which nothing can possibly be lost; everything is complete, full – only not of self.
Maurice Nicoll in one of his final Commentaries shortly before his death, explains this realm of being, quoting Jacob Boehme, "'I can only like it to a resurrection from the dead.' He realized that the prison of the sensual mind is like death. After another experience of the same level of consciousness he says that he seemed to gaze into the very heart of things. His surface consciousness was replaced by a depth of comprehension whereby he saw 'the Essence, use and properties of whatever he looked at … the Being of all things.' … Notice his rate of impressions was greatly increased. He saw in a short time what would have otherwise taken a long time. In the fourth state of consciousness he took in more impressions in a quarter of an hour than he would have in many years. …
"A higher state of consciousness is not characterized only by an increased rate of perceptions and a deepening of them, which gives greater meaning, but by a 'state of bliss' – that is a feeling of release. … The state will pass, however, because you have not as yet paid enough to retain it. You pay by applying the Work to yourself. The state comes momentarily as a reward. All positive emotions or 'bliss' comes as a reward. Such happiness as belongs to the sensual level is as nothing by comparison. … Self-love and its motives cannot open the supra-sensual or inner parts of centers. Another quality of love is needed" ("Objective Consciousness," June 6, 1953, Vol. 5, p. 1715).
Cynthia Bourgeault agrees that we cannot linger in this realm of being for long: "It is too vast for us, too beyond our limited power of reckoning. 'To apprehend the intersection of the timeless with time is an occupation for the saint,' says T. S. Eliot, and most of us are just not there – or there only briefly, in moments of very great love or freefall.
"General Lowenhielm got it briefly in that sublime scene in the movie Babette's Feast. At last, briefly reunited at the banquet table with the woman he has always loved, though time wrenched to a separate destiny, he rises and offers a toast: 'Mercy and truth have met together. Righteousness and bliss shall kiss one another,' he begins, quoting a verse in Psalm 85. Then, in what becomes the film's eloquent climax, he continues:
Man in his weakness and shortsightedness believes he must make choices in this Life. He trembles at the risks he takes. We do know fear. But no. Our choice is of no importance. There comes a time when our eyes are opened. And we come to realize that mercy is infinite. We need only to await it with confidence and receive it with gratitude. Mercy imposes no conditions.
And lo! Everything we have chosen has been granted to us. And everything we have rejected has also been granted. Yes, we get back even what we have rejected. For mercy and truth have met together. Righteousness and bliss shall kiss one another.
"… Yes, the journey in time is real. Yes, we must grow and change, and come round and full in time, and actualize in time what would otherwise only be there as potential, the mirror-like reflection of another realm. But there, in the center of our hearts, sits that gateway to the infinite: 'this little point of nothingness' that is 'the glory of God written in us,' the intersection of the timeless and time … And it is also, claims [Thomas] Merton, the point of communion, as each of those 'everybodies,' [I's] reunited in that inner sanctum of the heart … form our common place of paradise regained.
"'It is only at your source that you will find your destiny.' You sit with this koan for a while, and suddenly you see the secret, which like all koans is so obvious once you've finally grasped it. Time doesn't flow in a linear direction. Never did, never will. It spirals out … weaving the tapestry of finitude as the glory of God. We are full at point of origin, and from that fullness flow out synchronously, into time. … And if we can learn to flow in this direction – like learning to row a rowboat, facing your origin, and hence effortlessly flowing toward your destination, the journey through time becomes a sacrament of God's own compassionate aliveness. And at the end, you – as that great saint Bede Griffiths is reputed to have said on his deathbed, 'Receive the growing Christ'" ("Becoming What We Are," cited in We are Already One, Thomas Merton's Message of Hope).
Thomas Keating, using the language of the contemplative dimension, explains this state of being in the following way: "The right order of human nature consists in the effective integration of our emotional and rational lives into our intuitive faculties and the surrender of our unified nature to God in love. In divine union, the great 'I' of Jesus Christ becomes our 'I.' Our identity becomes rooted in [Christ] rather than in our own interests. If we still have interests, we are ready to give them up at the request of the Spirit, who has become the senior partner, so to speak, of the firm. …
"However, the tendency of the transforming union … is rather to be without extraordinary experiences and to lead ordinary daily life in an unobtrusive way. If one has special gifts, these are exercised in dependence on God. One is completely free of the results and does not draw one's identity from any glamorous role, but is simply, like God, the servant of creation" (Invitation to Love, p. 111).
And so, we await with confidence and receive with gratitude. And we work.
This is the day the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it!
- Psalm 118:24
+
We dedicate and consecrate our Work
to the victory of consciously-chosen love,
over the lie that we are separate, and our useless acting out from fear.
We give freely and receive joyfully,
and how blessed we are to simply remember God.
- modified offering prayer, The Church of Conscious Harmony
Homework
- As our year is drawing to a close, you might select one of these questions to ponder in the days ahead:
If new to the Work, have you stepped over the threshold of the Way, the place of no-going-back? What does this mean in terms of life choices?
In the midst of this extraordinary year which no one could have envisioned, have you, nonetheless, experienced glimpses of what has been expressed in this email, with an unutterable sense of peace?
Even if you have been in the Work many years, what have you learned about yourself, God, the world, the cosmos?
What do you wish to take with you? What do you wish to leave behind?
Finally, Maurice Nicoll noted, "The chief preliminary voluntary act – and it needs to be lifelong in its voluntariness – towards the inner spirit, the source and conveyor of meaning, is that of affirmation. Only by this act does all that is outward, external and dead become connected with what is internal and alive. This is the chief of all psychological acts. It is the preliminary and at the same time, the continually renewable act whereby psychology, in the deepest sense – that is, the science of personal evolution – begins. The final goal, far ahead, is the unity of oneself. … Affirmation is not by argument but by understanding" (The Mark, p. 28). You may wish to craft an affirmation borne of your new understanding for the time ahead.
Gloria in Excelsis Deo!
Attend tonight's class: 7pm Central Time via Zoom only.
Click on this link and Zoom should open automatically on your laptop or tablet, or
Open Zoom, click on Join Meeting and enter this meeting ID: 996-101-9778. When prompted for a Passcode, enter: CCH.
The Journey School Archive: The class content archive is organized by class and class date and includes free mp3 recordings of each class, as well as a link to the class email. The glossary of terms may be found here.
