The Ambrosia of Truth

Happy New Year,

I have been making my E Pluribus Flag series for 15 years now. This year I plan to celebrate diverse culture more than ever and I have a simple way to do this. I hope you too will join in. I plan to watch out everyday for special gifts of culture that enrich all of our lives. Yesterday you might have seen my first Instagram post. I used a pair of Nordic patterned socks to patch the elbows of my favorite cashmere sweater. Enjoying and putting to use colorful patterns and craftwork inspired by one culture is one thing but today I want to go to the utterly opposite end of the spectrum and share something deeper.

On New Year’s Day I listened to an inspiring New Year’s talk by Gurumayi Chidvilasananda. I came away cherishing the term Satya Rasa – the ambrosia of truth. Today the idea of truth is very confused. It is too often manipulated, politicized, misunderstood and abused. I for one feel battered after this last year but yesterday I dipped into a sweet, calm, delicious pool of truth and enjoyed profound, ancient gifts of wisdom from across the world. http://www.siddhayoga.org/gurumayi-chidvilasananda

The company of truth is unmistakable when the heart is open and when the mind is awakened, it is ambrosia. It is, also, as I heard yesterday “available to everyone.” I am reminded that my passion for exploring all the aspects of culture began during a fire ceremony at the Siddha Yoga Ashram upstate New York many years ago. Whether dealing with a damaged sweater or a battered heart we all have so much to offer each other. The fabric of our civilization is strong because of the profound and the practical gifts we share. I will be watching for them and sharing on Instagram, I hope you will join in and share inspirations about your culture too. Check in at – murielanyc

Tipping Point

This Heaven is Here blog is because I am noticing things in the world that show how amazingly blessed and supported we really are. Today I think we have reached some kind of tipping point; I was stunned to see that Oprah’s show was all about John of God. Since Oprah shied away from ‘spiritual’ topics a few years ago because she was roundly trounced in the media for her shifting focus her shows have been very careful around the, as she put it today; “Woo woo” stuff. But we all know there is no subject that Oprah cannot tackle with grace. Everything she touches becomes mainstream. This show was/is amazing; try to catch it somehow. Also there is an article in O magazine about John of God entitled, ‘Leap of Faith‘.

I have heard of John of God for many years, and I am heartened to know that he is doing his wonderful work; work that is miraculous. His presence and the presence of so many other ‘healers’ who work in mysterious ways are definitely evidence that we are in Heaven. Throughout the course of Oprah’s show we heard from many people healed or not healed, or even perhaps healed without knowing they needed healing grapple with a sense of reality as previously known coming undone. This is the true miracle. A skeptical doctor concluded by sharing the thought that maybe we are not really the physical beings we appear to be but something else. How many times do we hear this from the great masters?

We are on the cusp of miraculous awakening, the evidence is all around us. Things are coming at us faster than ever and in the fray of information, choices, worries, disasters, manufactured drama, political noise and financial dismay the Truth stands out. Watching Oprah’s show and listening to the sensitive way her guests spoke of their experience I would describe as a refreshing pool of wisdom, a respite from the noise. Anything that opens the mind and reminds the heart of it’s own miraculous power is a gift to be savored. This was a daring show for Oprah and I thank her for it. Psychic surgery is very mysterious and also very threatening to status quo in our current medical industry. When you have millions of people and a whole economy propped up on the illness of a great proportion of our population, a man who performs miraculous healing for free is not welcome. John of God does not recommend that people stop using their medications or avoid conventional treatments.  Clearly now is the time for us to move on to the understanding that we are not simply the physical form, to grasp the understanding that our greater Self is far more powerful than we think.

johnofgod.com

Self Inquiry

The first step on the spiritual path is self inquiry. It is the dark night of the soul that is ironically embarked upon when the brilliant light of the Self shines inward. Suddenly all the places ignored where dust has gathered over millenia and lifetimes loom large and terrifying. Dragons of ancient judgements, expectations, fears, regrets and terrors lunge into our awareness and seem to drag us into the muck of despair and hopelessness. Where the heck did heaven go? But I assure you, heaven is here now.

In all things the divine resides, the divine resides in all things. Perfection.

“Om purna madah purna midam
Purnaat purnam udachyate
Purnasya purnam adaaya
Purnam eva vasishyate
Om shanti shanti shantih”

This is Perfect, That is Perfect.
Perfect becomes manifest;
Taking away Perfect from Perfect and Perfect remains.
Om peace peace peace

That from which we came to which we will return is beyond the appearance of good and evil. But if that is true then what mire of consciousness are we swimming in now where so much terror, fear, manipulation, deceit and control swamps our awareness? We are in the dark night of the soul of our community of man right now. Light of truth is washing through our frequency and zone of space and ruffling up the dross of our collective consciousness. Stuff that we have constructed together and tolerated for aeons is no longer appropriate. Darkness will no longer survive as the light of Truth/Love scrubs through every corner of our constructs; government, communication, financial, educational, communal and more. We will all see things come up that we would rather not see.

Right now I am reading the book, “The Shock Doctrine” by Naomi Klein where she diligently describes the rise of disaster capitalism and outlines atrocious war mongering and disaster mismanagements designed to sweep away social governments and make room for unfettered laissez faire capitalism. Why? I wonder, am I reading this? It makes me feel terrible and yet I feel it is essential to know. I feel like Naomi, blessings to her for suffering through uncovering this material, that I am witnessing the inner dysfunction of this awakening collective being – Humanity. Part of the self-inquiry process is to watch to see our anger flare up unprovoked and taste it without judgement or action. Until we can see deep into our dysfunctional interaction and unveil the misguided self-interest of the ego we will not be able to still the mind and enter the heart where heaven is.

Right now we need powerful collective, self-inquiry. I am not here to say what’s right or wrong, who is good or bad but merely to say look within and discern the flavor of your heart. What’s the resonance there with your heaven? Does this outer noise promote heaven or scare it away? Ironically inspite of the dismay and shock I experience reading that book I keep gravitating to it, I feel compelled to finish it. It is like a joyful duty of clearing out a claustrophobic closet filled with the scariest, dangerous stuff that I just have to get out of my house.

The blessing here is that the light is becoming so bright and veils of illusion are thinning so much that truth cannot be squelched or spun. Truth will come out. When truth comes out constructs that used to support illusions will collapse. We have seen this already within the financial system. We are seeing it with the startling failure of government’s solvency from Iceland to Greece, to New Jersey and California. The unsustainable profiteer capitalism responsible for this is explained in, “The Shock Doctrine”.

Interesting times are here. Shocking changes are happening right now and more will come. Equanity, poise and self-inquiry are called for in times of distress. We must remember that we are not these constructs that we identify with; nation, job, spouse, parent, child, teacher, leader. We are responsible light beings here to play together and if the constructs of our imaginings seem to fall apart like a sand castle in the tide then let’s come together and build another better, sustainable (for a time) sand castle that we all can share the joys of.

I want to invite you to check out a superb inner resource that I personally love; http://www.emergingearthangels.com/ Karen Bishop regularly writes about the energetic shifts that we go through as a planet. Karen provides grounding, insightful and useful information on the energetic frequencies of the moment allowing us to connect to what is going on and understand the deeper reasons for various physical and emotional states of the ascension process. I was inspired by her postings to look out into the world to see what evidences of these shifts are becoming physically apparent.

More on, “The Shock Doctrine” at: http://www.naomiklein.org/shock-doctrine