Teaching 1 - “Being Love,” not just “Doing Good”

Gamble everything for love,
if you’re a true human being. 
If not, leave this gathering.

Half-heartedness doesn’t reach into majesty.

You set out to find God, but then you keep stopping for long periods at mean-spirited roadhouses.

Don’t wait any longer.

Dive in the ocean, leave and let the sea be you.

Silent, absent, walking an empty road, all praise.

~ Rumi

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Teaching 2 - “Joy.” not just “Pleasure”

As soon as the center of all being is apprehended, there ariseth a joy in the heart that surpasseth all other. 

~Jacob Boehme
What keeps one from the “center of all being,” the center of your own being? What keeps you on the surface of life seeking endless satisfaction, pleasure, distraction, fun and play? While these are certainly preferred ego states to shame, fear, anger, self-pity, and dissatisfaction, they are still not the same as living and being in a state of joy, bliss and ecstasy that is the natural state of your Self. 

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Teaching 4 - “Patience/Forbearance,” not “Apathy and Despair”

Once a small boy was playing by the river when he saw an old, old man with a long beard sitting with a stick in his hand. He was drawing on the sand a completely perfect circle.

The boy was impressed, and he ran over to the old man and asked him, “Hey old man, how did you manage to draw such a perfect circle?”

The old man looked at him and simply said, “Well, I tried and tried and tried.  Here you try.” He handed the little boy his stick and the boy tried.

At first his circles were all crooked, long, or wide, but slowly, slowly he got better and better. He kept trying and trying until one day he managed to draw a completely perfect circle.

He then heard a little boy’s voice behind him saying. “Hey there old man, how did you manage to draw such a completely perfect circle?”

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Art as Sacred Activism

I want people to be able to connect and remember the person they've lost. That's why I left a space on the T-shirt blank. It provides an opportunity for the viewer to reflect on their own loss, and place their own memories within that negative space. -Jammie Holmes

Jammie Holmes's painting The conversation reflects on the despair in the Black community being caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and the continued violence at the hands of the police. The conversation portrays a ritual in Holmes's hometown of Thibodaux, LA, in which bereaved loved ones make black t-shirts printed with the name and image of someone recently deceased. inscribed with the words "Rest in Peace." Here, Holmes leaves the portrait blank, going beyond grief for any one individual to reflect on the effects of deep and longstanding social and racial inequity.

Teaching 5 - Kindness, Not cruelty

The acceptance of oneself is the essence of the whole moral problem and the epitome of a whole outlook on life. That I feed the hungry, that I forgive an insult, that I love my enemy in the name of Christ -- all these are undoubtedly great virtues. What I do unto the least of my brethren, that I do unto Christ. But what if I should discover that the least among them all, the poorest of all the beggars, the most impudent of all the offenders, the very enemy himself -- that these are within me, and that I stand in need of the alms of my own kindness -- that I myself am the enemy who must be loved -- what then? As a rule, the Christian's attitude is then reversed; there is no longerany question of love or long-suffering; we say to the brother within us and condemn and rage against ourselves. We hide it from the world; we refuse to admit ever having met this least among the lowly in ourselves.” ~Jung

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Teaching 8 - “Gentleness,” not “Control and Violence”

Any attempt to impose your will on another is an act of violence.  ~Gandhi

The North Wind boasted of great strength. The Sun argued that there was great power in  gentleness.                                                                          "We shall have a contest," said the Sun.                                                                                                                                                                                 Far below, a man traveled a winding road. He was wearing a warm winter coat.                                                                                                                       "As a test of strength," said the Sun, "Let us see which of us can take the coat off of that man."                                                                                       "It will be quite simple for me to force him to remove his coat," bragged the Wind.                                                                                                            The Wind blew so hard, the birds clung to the trees. The world was filled with dust and leaves. But the harder the wind blew down the road, the tighter the shivering man clung to his coat.                                                                                                                                                                           Then, the Sun came out from behind a cloud. Sun warmed the air and the frosty ground. The man on the road unbuttoned his coat.                       The sun grew slowly brighter and brighter.                                                                                                                                                                        Soon the man felt so hot, he took off his coat and sat down in a shady spot.                                                                                                                      "How did you do that?" said the Wind.                                                                                                                                                                                           "It was easy," said the Sun, "I lit the day. Through gentleness I got my way."  ~Aesop Fable

 Read this fable, as all stories of an inner dynamic, not an outer one. We are not doing spiritual practice to get our way with each other, but to form a gentle and loving dynamic with every aspect of our own being, so that all parts of ourselves live in harmony, gentleness, and co-operation. In this fable the attempt to control the man whether the sun or the wind, it was an act of violence. However, as an inner dynamic, if we shine warmly on ourselves, we will achieve inner co-operation instead of inner conflict. In this story the sun represents the love of the Spirit, the Wind the power and control of the world.

One paradox of human children is that they are very resilient and so very fragile. They find within thems

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Teaching 9 - “Self Control,” not “Will-Power”

I don't understand what I am doing. For I don't practice what I want to do,

but instead do what I hate.     ~St. Paul

The question is not of finding in your thoughts what is right and what is wrong, in your actions what is right and what is wrong. The question is of finding a consciousness so total and so intense that only whatever is right remains, and whatever is false burns out. You don’t have to decide.      ~Osho

            Do you eat too much? Drink too much? Play on devices too much? Buy too much? Collect too much? Talk too much? Work too much? Play too much? Sleep too much? Procrastinate too much? Help others too much? Laugh too much? Gossip too much? Judge too much? Ruminate and obsess too much? Express anger too much…?

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Chapter 10 - Being Love, In Action

“If you're really listening, if you're awake to the poignant beauty of the world, your heart breaks regularly. In fact, your heart is made to break; its purpose is to burst open again and again so that it can hold ever more wonders.”        

~Andrew Harvey

When you are awake to the beauty of the world it is because you are awake to the essence of your being. The only way for this to happen is for all the defenses around the heart of love to be shattered. A heart of love is a heart that beats without constriction. It is wide open, exposed, and vulnerable.

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Sacred Activism, Not Social Activism

The flower does not know it gives life to the butterfly - it does so by just being itself without motive or thought of consequence. ~ Lyndall Johnson

 Sacred Activism requires mastership, a certain level of awareness that is attained through the commitment to doing the practices of becoming aware.

Bill Plotkin in his book, “Nature and the Human Soul,” says,

“The gift that the Master is to her people goes beyond her leadership, mentoring, and tending to the community soul. Her very being is a gift of wholeness, and in at least three ways.

First, the core value in her life, which arises from her psycho-spiritual center of gravity, is the desire that everything and every creature be allowed its true place, so that the world functions in its fullness, in accordance with its comprehensive destiny. She appreciates that each species, each habitat, and each social issues is related to all others. She understands that everything is alive, that it all fits together, and that we are all participants and reflections of the whole. Like a grove of old-growth trees, her vital presence holds the world together. She radiates wholeness.