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The Joys of being Born in the Land of the Free and Home of the Brave
In every machine the smallest parts conduce as much to keeping it together, and to regulate its motions, as the greatest. Virtue is one all over the World, and there is only one faith, one conceivable conduct of life, kindred souls are always near. A bridge is a good thing—worth helping to make. Understanding or misunderstanding, agony or mirth, beginning or ending, service or freedom, reunion or separation are all for love. America is an important house for everyone. We welcome others cultures and love learning new traditions, as well as sharing our own. Every American has the ability to mobilize the inner resources of individuals to participate in their own destinies. #RyanPhillippe 1 of 5
In America, it is not only the mind that wakes up to its true nature, but the heart, the emotions, the core stories and energy patterns of our incarnation, and even the organs, muscles, and cells in the body that are eventually all invited to wake up to experience the truth. Sometimes this process of truth returning for all of itself can be quite surprising and very intense. Some of our social perceptions actually cause people to act in certain ways. Many women play submissive, domesticated, naïve part because they know their husbands expect it. Or they may be afraid to act independent because they think they require husbands for support. So, gritting their teeth, they swallow their more liberated tendencies and play Domestic Dora. #RyanPhillippe 2 of 5
In the actual physical makeup of your eyes there is a very real blind spot. However, in our perceptions, thinking, and attitudes there are other “blind spots” just as important. I know sometimes when we are in situations that are not to our liking, we tend to just learn to accept it and move on, but when people call these situations to our mind, it makes us think a little more deeply. Like, I do not really want to do this anymore, I am tired and do not feel appreciated. I feel like sometimes people blow up and manipulate situations because they know public perceptions are important and that one backing off or showing a lack of support would reflect poorly and so it is a way of keeping someone loyal who really does not want to be involved anymore. #RyanPhillippe 3 of 5
Sometimes we really need to stop for a moment and think about how others may be feeling. Like, would you really put someone else through this because I have seen how well you treat others, but it is like I am your personal servant. In our perceptions, thinking, and attitudes there are other blind spots just as important. These gaps or holes in our ideas are biases and prejudices that literally blind us to the facts. Stereotyping is a blind spot; it distorts our ability to see and relate to people. There is no way to eliminate the blind spot in your retina, and there is no necessity of doing so. However, the blind spots in human relating need to be corrected. This sort of “eye trouble” is very real and a serious problem. There are cures. You can learn more about people and act toward them as if the stereotypes are a lie. #RyanPhillippe 4 of 5
Today is Memorial Day, and I had the honor of meeting a young man, who father went to war. He misses him very much and has spent countless hours praying that his father comes home. He even leaves a light on for him. I really hope that his father returns soon and that they are able to have a good conversation about what defending the country was like and all of the experiences the father missed out on while he was away. Anger and love, the feeling of both do not operate in separate compartments or in separate people. We cannot reject one and hope to experience the other. #RyanPhillippe 5 of 5
Give a Peculiar Relish to our Fun
Love is a passion which kindles honor into noble acts. Is life short? It is evil: But render life happy, its shortness is the only evil. To bury oneself in woods and wilds consists in nothing more than flying from those enemies we have not had the courage to encounter. How much superior is the life of him who lives in the midst of vice and temptation, uncontaminated by example, untainted by the sad influence of age! To walk through life innocently and tranquilly: and to look on death as its gentle termination, which it becomes us to meet with ready minds, neither regretting the past, nor anxious for the future. Guilt is always associated with a feeling of wrongness and potential punishment, either real or in fantasy. #RyanPhillippe 1 of 5
If punishment is not forthcoming in the external World, it expresses itself as self-punishment on an emotional level. Guilt accompanies all of the negative emotions, and thus, where there is fear, there is guilt. The most pious, meek, and harmless individuals are often riddled with guilt. Guilt is really self-condemnation and self-invalidation of one’s own worth and value as a human being. People often feel guilty when they are doing something because they know they are supposed to be doing something different in the moment. Or people may feel guilt for hurting another person on purpose, for sport, fun, or as a cheap source of entertainment. We should be reading books instead of watching television. #RyanPhillippe 2 of 5
Pastoral care and pastoral counseling are only part of my work. One cannot carry everyone; one cannot cover everyone. One’s job requires a skillful balance of many demands and much pain. After seeing a person three or four times, if no progress is discernible, one should probably consult with other professional services. They may be a requirement for legal counsel. When I feel like I am floundering in the situation and it is beyond my competence and control, it is precisely at these moments of uncomfortableness that I turn to God. However, in when times are good, I stay in contact with God and thank him for all of the blessings that are in my life. I am a facilitator, the encourager, the director, the introducer, the clarifier within the community. #RyanPhillippe 3 of 5
The purser is a conjurer; he can make a dead man chew tobacco. They may go to people wherever they are without having to explain or justify their presence. They may make themselves available by putting themselves in physical proximity to people. That physical proximity may turn into personal presence. The only power which clergy possess is the moral power of their person and the faith that they represent. After I make contact with a hurting person, I have to move beyond empathic support to more confrontational direction. This is the real situation, stripped of all its polite coverings—what you are really up against. I know that it hurts. #RyanPhillippe 4 of 5
As far as it is given to me, I feel for you and with you in facing this trouble; and anytime you want to bring out your anger, your fear, or your doubts, it will be acceptable to me—not because I feel them myself, but because I know that I could feel them. I will standby you to help you if you want me. I will not force you, but at the same time nothing will shake my willingness to help you should you ask it of me. Sometimes this will require that you admit your inadequacies, insufficiencies, and failures in one’s life. Put forward the true situation. There is an endless chain of decisions that we have to make. Repentance, submission, steadfastness under temptation, and faith are all present in such a helping relationship. Although there are unexpected changes in the World and others may have their altar of happiness, I only know and I am only willing that you are my first and last love. Life–I love you so wildly that I can but only love to live for eternity and drink D’Amico coffee. #RyanPhillippe 5 of 5
Secrets and Lies—Lessons from the Laboratory in Expressions of the Emotions
I can go anywhere, be anywhere, move around anywhere without having to explain nor justify my presence. Few professionals are privileged with as much freedom of movement. This early evening, I was in this place when at the usual time, when at the usual time, my Motorola TimePort in the car rang. It rang just as this detective Cornell happened to walk in through the front gate. She saw me and started to get up, she knew the call was for me, but stepped inside the car, and answered it. While looking me dead in my eyes, I heard her saying, “Hello, hello, hello–” And I knew that Ava, taking no chances with the unknown voice, had disengaged the call. “Was that not a call for me?” I asked Cornell. She said that it was. I said, “Well, why did you not say so?” #RyanPhillippe 1 of 8
Detective Cornell gave me a rude answer. I knew she wanted me to make the first move. We both were being hostile. We both knew that we wanted to kill each other. Neither wanted to say the wrong thing. Cornell did not want to say anything that, repeated, would make her sound bad. I did not want to say anything that could be interpreted as a threat. Now suppose we start trying to help each other. They have laid their snare damned cunningly—like a cobweb. If you make any movement, if you raise your hand to fan yourself…none of us can save him or herself; we are linked together inextricably. So You can take your choice. Happiness is extraordinarily wonderful; you feel happy every minute. #RyanPhillippe 2 of 8
Our bad reputations seem linked in part with our harried tempo, our not always taking the time to hear people out to the point where we can make an adequate disposition of the case. Despite our concentration on making careful referrals, clients still complain of having sought service in an Agency and of having been seen by a worker for only ten minutes before being directed to another Agency, which was still unable to meet the request. People are sensitive about being rejected and are inclined to magnify even one negative experience when they are in a position of enforced dependency. Asking for help brings hostile feelings close to the surface. However, sincere friendship links the open hearts, it gives out the sweet tenderness. #RyanPhillippe 3 of 8
Furthermore, people may feel there is a stigma attached to a person using community services. There may be connotations of sickness, pathology, charity, handout, failure. All who rage against you will surely be ashamed and disgraced; those who oppose you will be as nothing and perish. The arm of the law is a strong arm, and a long arm. Even an innocent man must take ordinary precautions to defend himself. To a degree, I have feelings of apprehension and ambivalence about community services, the parishioner will feel a sense of stigma. The clergy’s sense of guilt may act as another barrier to using community resources. For many days, our sensitive hearts have tried to memorize too many things, but suddenly we look back, only to find that we have remembered nothing. #RyanPhillippe 4 of 8
Though one experiences being over one’s head and wants very much to get rid of the individual, a basic desire to help may cause one to hang on to the relationship with the vague hope that problems will eventually resolve themselves. The clergyperson may not want to admit that more help is required by the individual than one can give. It is understood, however, that all community services combine both psychological and sociological dimensions in their work. There needs to be contact with those individuals who provide psychological and sociological resources privately. Services ought to be evaluated before they are used. One needs to ask: who sponsors the agency or the person, what is the training required for the helping person, what is the reputation of the service, does one feel one has enough information about the service that one can direct a person to it with a fair degree of confidence? Let me stand where I am like a naïve child to see you off until you disappear in the distance. #RyanPhillippe 5 of 8
When the clergy person confronts someone in need, he or she has to assess what the need is before the action can be taken. One begins by constructing a working image of the person with whom one is talking. Such as: He seems to be the sort of person who is hardworking and honest. One focuses on the facts of the situation. The facts appear to be that is his smart and has excellent physical, mental, and social hygiene. One explores the possible alternatives to meet the requirement. One evolves a plan that the sufferer will hopefully see as being concerned with his or her welfare. The financial requirements of the family appear to be complicated. Therefore, I would quickly consider how to use other resources in the community. Happiness is not hidden in the satiation, but in the yearning. I always ask you how far it is from the eyes to the heart. #RyanPhillippe 6 of 8
Fear itself is the greatest danger that the human body faces. It is fear and guilt that bring about disease and failure. We can take proactive actions out of love rather than out of fear. I care for my body and family because I appreciate and value them, rather than out of fear of disease and dying. I am there for others out of love, rather than out of fear of fear of losing them. There is no such thing as irrelevant testimony. Being polite and courteous to others is important to be because it shows that I care for my fellow human beings, rather than just being concerned with their opinion. A man of honor wears his law by his side. Caring about the quality of a performance and my co-workers helps me to pursue ambition and allowed us to accomplish more by cooperation. There are many people whose lives have been filled with love, it is difficult to describe the emptiness and pain that fill some of these peoples’ lives, and it is clear that no antiarrhythmic drug by itself will prolong their lives much longer. #RyanPhillippe 7 of 8
My goal is to drive safely because I love my life and your lives as well. On a spiritual level, God tells me to act out of compassion and identification with my fellow human beings, and to care for you and show you love. It makes me feel very good someone is concerned about me. There are people of all ages, young and antiquated, whose children have gone far away, or whose loved ones have recently died, or who do not know the names of even one person in their neighborhood, or who do not know who you should notify in case they die, and who lie in hospital beds for weeks without visitors. They are literally brokenhearted—there really is no other term to describe it—and something beyond drugs, heart transplants, coronary bypass operations, or artificial pacemakers is required to save them. Your love-lit eyes are like sparkling stars, dispelling loneliness from my heart. #RyanPhillippe 8 of 8
Secrets and Lies–Deliver us from Sudden Death with the Doctrine of Resurrection of the Body
Nothing can be so great a discouragement to learning, as to find a fellow with only simple nature to guide him, who shall have the impudence to know the same things that learned men have studied so many years to attain the knowledge of. Juries have the effect of placing the control of the law in the hands of those who would be most apt to abuse it. The laws of nature having made one man wise and another man foolish, this strong and that weak, human laws should reverse it all by making another man wise and one man foolish, that strong and this weak. Safe behind that impenetrable shield the law, the scurviest rascals upon Earth make a scurvy use of their scurvy tongues. Take a break anytime you feel yourself slipping back into old feelings of anxiety, shame, depression, anger, or fear. The arm of the las reaches far, and though its movements are sometimes slow, they are not the less certain. Be sure that all who are enraged against you will be ashamed and disgraced; those who contend with your will become as nothing and perish. Your patient instructions are turned into wisdom, warm blood, and regulations. I thank you for your painstaking cultivation. You, like the second Sun, bring us Sunshine and wisdom. People who need to approach their painful memories through some kind of activity instead of intellectual contemplation often prefer to use the process of investigation and verification. You can do this by talking to others who share the same family history, or were part of very similar families, to investigate and verify your memories.
I had spent too long dreading the weekends. On weekdays, I was quite content with my life and my relationship. I went to work, had occasional dinners out with friend, went to my spouse’s weekly chorus rehearsal, and worked out at the fitness club on the way home from work three times every week. I also enjoyed my nightly phone conversations with my spouse. We spend almost every weekend together. Ryan and I love going for *drives in the country, hiking, and movies. We cook together and spent hours talking about the weather, plants, life, and architecture. The World smiles when you smile. There is a will to live, and that is fueled by human concern and human companionship. My heart is waiting and waiting. I love lilac you present me most and you are white lilies in my heart. I miss you, every second, every minute in every day. I dream of you, every second, every minute at every night. I have been laughing with you, full of tender feelings; I have gained your elation which only love gives you. You are going to be alright. I do not force my presence when you prefer privacy. I just let life flow, and this creates a genuinely human relationship. With such an invitation from you, reaching out in love is what matters most. When together we experience a sense of continuation with our healthy lives.
You are a living person, one who is respected, cared for, shared with, turned to, relied upon. There is a sphere of sharing when you take my feelings into account in making decisions and carrying on activities. Encouraging behavior possess much real psychic space. Even if the choice is which shirt to wear. Concrete decisions and specific acts are what have enabled us to experience ourselves as a part of life. My love falls in your White Squall, splashing a beam of blue moonlight onto your Albatross. And in this moonlight, your love floats into my heart. I love you for your absolute sincerity. You add something of extraordinary value in my life. You have such warm hands. I hope you are going to be with me when I get colder and colder, right here and right now. Deliver us from sudden death and let me know my end. The point of these petitions is a plea that death not come prematurely and without warning. We want some time to assimilate the reality of God. We want enough time to act wisely in relation to these responsibilities that are ours. We want time to learn to die. We want to participate in and own that which is at hand. I give you my sense of humor, my ability to see life in ways others do not, my genius at putting others at ease, and my gift of lifting a bit of the burdens others bear. I bestow upon you my gift to mystify others with imagination, warmth, peace, purpose—life itself!
There has been someone rather than no one; there has been something, rather than nothing. And the pain of having lost does not need to diminish the joy of having had. Life is lifted up and thereby becomes part of our truly human destiny. Our faith always looks beyond our little lives to the larger life in God. We are beings of the soul and there is something within us that does not die. You are like the wind in the Spring, tender and warm, blowing gently into my chest and wrinkling my heart. For thou who sleeps in stone and clay, heed this call, rise up and obey, trek on through the Mortal door assemble flesh and walk once more. The doctrine of the resurrection of the body expresses a long way of life. The union is ephemeral. May our hearts be closely together and inseparable forever and display God’s potentialities. We are part of the fabric of the Universe—all are restored to meaningful relatedness. In life there is always more than dreams. You with my hope take wisdom and knowledge and greet honesty, goodness, and resolution. Our best is worth forgiveness for those realities and is worth preserving so that which matters most does not officially go down the drain. Our love is something neither moth nor rain can consume. Life and love are the intensity that flood us in the presence of Heaven. The painful loneliness of unconnected living mirrors the fact that only human responding can heal that most human hurt. I hope someone I love will hold my hand—closeness is greater; love is greatest!
A Long Time Passes in Silence—is there Anything Else You Are Experiencing?
It is a striking fact that United States of America mortality rates for all causes of death, and not just heart disease, are consistently higher for all divorced, single, windowed individuals of both genders and all races. Some of the increased death rates in unmarried individuals are astounding, rising as high as ten times the rates for married individuals of comparable ages. The human hearts exhibits a wide range of responsiveness to human contact, dependent to some extent on the particular circumstances of the experiment. However, in general, social interaction with man can have noticeable, and at times profound, effects on the cardiac system. Human contact can alter and even eliminate the usual cardiac responses to fear and physical pain. Can you tell me what you are experiencing? #RyanPhillippe 1 of 7
The lack of human companionship, the sudden loss of love, and chronic human loneliness are significant contributors to serious disease (including cardiovascular disease) and premature death. Social isolation has officially been a link in the emotional destruction of some people. It is possible to emotionally scar some people for the remainder of their lives. In people who have been isolated, it has been noted that severe depression remained long after they were removed from social isolation. Also, their heart rate was significantly lower after separation from loving contact. Also, people who experience social deprivation have demonstrated resistance to disease as varied as cancer, malaria, and tuberculosis. A similar suggestion was made about children who suffer from parental loss or abandonment. So if your child is constantly alone, they are probably starving for loving human contact. And now what seem to be happening? #RyanPhillippe 2 of 7
We are not trying to transcend the moment, nor change our thoughts about the moment; we are simply being intimate with the moment exactly as it is. Nothing is required to change. What was rejected is welcomed; what was divided is whole; what was out there comes close. No matter how hard the mind wants to try on what it think it means to be awakened, we cannot pretend our experience is undivided when it is not. Neither can we pretend to be loving if we do not love. Wanting to awaken is what keeps us from noticing what is already present. Imagining there is someone to be loving is what separates us from Love itself. The total paradox and mystery cannot be untangled by the mind. The mind must live in openness and unknowing, without an agenda, without the effort of trying to get something. Where is the sadness? #RyanPhillippe 3 of 7
Awakeness, when it is deeply moving in its human experiencing, is incredibly free to move however it does in its sheer love, clarity. And intimacy with the moment. Whatever is arising—be it feeling, belief, story, body sensation, energy, suffering itself—is an opening into the mystery of our nonseparate being. We are the mirror as well as the face in it. We are tasting the taste this minute of eternity. We are pain and what cures pain, both. We are the sweet cold water and the crystal glass that pours. Sacred flames, carry these energies away, let our relationship begin anew today. God and Goddess above, help me reunite with my love. Bring us loving harmony and peace, may the strength of our bond increase. I feel such compassion right now. I feel like my heart has been fed. I usually have lots of thoughts all the time, but right now most of them seem to be gone. Truth that looms so awesome in anticipation looks so simple in retrospect. What we felt would damage and destroy, we discover actually helps and heals. #RyanPhillippe 4 of 7
I have never felt this way before. One should learn to consider the beautiful soul more valuable than the figure. The love course of life shines in the corner of life obscurely, once together with you, you have showed love and the life you have lived—all these make you more amiable and respectable with every passing year in my heart. It is a reliable symbol is spiritual health. Wish you pleasure and laughter every day in the coming years. It feels hard to let in such love. I want to run away, but yet I do not want to. I feel squirmy, like I am free-falling. What happened to my sadness? I wish I could do this all the time. Wow, this feels psychedelic! Can you see what if left by the golden Sun, the silvery Moon, the green mountains and the running waters. May our love last forever with the Sun and the Earth. But how to see that reality and how to get to that truth sees so complicated. #RyanPhillippe 5 of 7
Faith has been recognized as a power throughout the ages—whether it be faith in God, faith in one’s fellowmen, in oneself, or in what one is doing. Faith is an affirmative healthy mental approach to Reality. The thought of faith, believing something good will come true, casts the undifferentiated substance, and brings into manifestation the thing which was fashioned in the mind. This is how faith brings our desires to fruition. When we use our creative imagination in strong faith, it will create for us, out of the One Substance, whatever we have formed in thought. In this way man becomes a Co-Creator with God. There will never be an end to any of the eternal verities like Truth, Love, Beauty. There will never be an end to God, nor to any of the attributes which are co-eternal and co-existent with God. It lefts life flow. It creates a genuinely human relationship. This relationship is yours. #RyanPhillippe 6 of 7
I guess I do not really have to close my eyes to love, do I? Your face is young. I had to look away because I felt I was disappearing. There is an equality here that is not supposed to be here, is it? I feel vulnerable; it is like your gaze sees right through me. I really do not know how people do the kind of work we do. I could not let in the pain if I did not experience this here, too. Love leaves nothing out. My tender feelings flow into your closed heart like water. I wish everything will turn out as you wish in the New Year. I am your companion to meet fear, groundlessness, sexual wounding, rage, love, expression, clarity. We cannot help but experience what is here on many levels because we are not separate; everything is connected. It feels to me that there is something powerful in the room that no one is talking about; do you know what I am referring to? What is important is not what you are experiencing, but rather that I be present in your experience. As we care, we give courage. #RyanPhillippe 7 of 7
Ryan with the Good Hair–Tales from the Darkside
You really cannot learn to enjoy your leisure time by copying anyone. However, you can benefit tremendously by spending time around people who seem to enjoy life and get fully into their activities and interest—basically, people who are vital, alive, and mostly happy in their outlook. Few things are more pleasure-destroying than being around someone who is constantly down on himself and the World. While nearly everyone has down periods from time to time, you will get and stay happier if you can generally avoid people who are habitual sourpusses. Once we are willing to look at the same movies on the TV screen of our own minds and see whence they really originate, the attraction of such entertainment disappears. People who have acknowledged the content of their own shadow have no interest in crime, violence, and fearful disasters. #RyanPhillippe 1 of 6
The World’s greatest requirement is mutual confidence. No human being ever knows all the secrets and lies of another’s heart. One of the blocks to becoming acquainted with the fears in one’s own mind is the fear of opinions of others. Than wanting of their approval goes on inside of our minds in a constant fantasy. We identify with the suppositions of others, including authority figures, and merge this in such a way that we hear it as our own opinion of ourselves. The whole evening, I was in a high-spirited, pugnacious mood; I chaffed the waiter and the cab-driver, I hope without hurting their feelings; and now all kinds of bold and revolutionary thoughts came into my mind. I am paying for a whole first-class compartment. We should let nothing escape; we should take what we can get, even if we do a little wrong; we should never let an opportunity go by; life is so short, and death inevitable. #RyanPhillippe 2 of 6
Because this is meant even sexually, and because desire is unwilling to check itself before the thought of doing wrong, this philosophy of carpe diem has reason to fear the censorship, and must conceal itself behind a dream. And so all sorts of counter thoughts find expression, with recollections of the time when spiritual nourishment alone was sufficient for the dreamer, with hindrances of every kind and even threats of disgusting sexual punishments. As in waking fantasy, the dream is often the workshop of creative minds. People may go to bed with problems they have been working on and find solutions suggested by the events they experience in their dreams. People who are dead, we see alive; events which we watch in the present, occurred many years ago. When we experience ourselves and the movement as it is, without division, we experience healing into our essential wholeness, into the truth of our being. #RyanPhillippe 3 of 6
What is awake in us has never been absent from a single experience. It does not require our life to change or our experiences to be good in order for awareness to be present to itself. What is awake and ware does not require years on the meditation cushion or the mind’s learning anything or analyzing anything in order to be present. In fact, it cannot be acquired and it cannot be lost. It does not come and go with states of mind. It is here in the most mundane experiences or tying a Cuban neck tie, in the most overwhelming experience of terror, and in the blissful state of unity consciousness. It does not leave us in our suffering or in our joy. It is aware of life as it is without comment, without refusal, without claiming anything as its own. It is a total mystery yet experienced by all beings. #RyanPhillippe 4 of 6
Being truth, it lives and actuality, the authentic reality of each moment. The mind that is desperately trying to make things look or be a certain way cannot experience such truth, and this is frequently frustrated in its attempts to find healing. Healing happens when we are not separating ourselves from the true fact of the moment. More than half the tombs in this particular graveyard held the remains of people who died before they were 35 years old. Clearly these settlers knew firsthand the uncertainty and terror of disease and death. Their children could be healthy one moment, playing in the snow, then catch a cold and bead dead in a week. While there may be a time to live and a time to die, there certainly seems to be a he variation in the amount of time allotted to various people within the United States. #RyanPhillippe 5 of 6
Instead of becoming less personal, we are required to become more personal. What we could gloss over in other circumstances can no longer be avoided. Whereas we may have seen each other through a glass darkly, now we are to attend to each other face to face. The transition from a negative to a beneficial circumstance requires our human presence. The means of human presence means speaking the truth in the situation. There is to be as much full human contact as possible. What we say and what we do is communications in search of communion. We intentionally seek a relationship. There is no dignity and no courage in deception. If we have known only a fraction of the truth previously, now we are to know it as fully as is humanly possible. For that is the heart of love, and faith and hope somehow have it grounding in love. The issue is not whether we share what is happening. Instead the issue is how we share what is happening. I was fortune enough to arrive there at the beginning of a new era. #RyanPhillippe 6 of 6
The Sun is the Heart of Grass—the Moon is its Soul and the Rainbow is its Feeling and Life
Thinking of you fills me with energy. I longed to be to you something more than a piece of sentient prettiness, a passing diversion to your eyes and brain; and the longing betrayed itself in my reply. Take a few minutes to relax your body and mind. Begin to think about something that makes you happy. Now think about something in the past week that bothered you. It could be something that happened at work, or something a friend told you, or something that annoyed or disappointed you. It could be something you read or saw in the newspaper that upset you. Now, move back in time. Allow yourself, without thinking too long about it, to pull up a memory from your childhood, one that is not really bad or good—something more or less routine. Detach yourself from the experience by pretending that you are the cameraman filming this event for a movie. I was wondering if I should be able to have a work with you before the special snatched us away. The appeal of your helplessness touched in me, as it always did, a latent chord of inclination. It would have meant nothing to me to discover that my nearness made you more brilliant, but this glimpse of a twilight mood to which I alone had the clue seemed once more to set me in a world apart with you. Now, put yourself into the mind of someone who wants to get all the details right. What does the camera see when it films you as a child? Do not go back and become part of this. To my exasperated observation you were only too completely alive to them. You were perfect to everyone: subservient, good-naturedly watchful, brightly companionable, and you harmonized yourself with your surroundings.
We have not since Sunday walked at the castle, and that episode was still so vivid to me that I could hardly believe you to be less conscious of it. However, your greeting expressed no more than the satisfaction which every young man expects to see reflected in masculine eyes; and the discovery, if distasteful to my vanity, was reassuring to my nerves. Hang it, Ryan, I thought you had given me the slip: I have been hunting all over for you. You seem disdainful by your acquaintances. When you saw me, you became alert and expectant, and your lips parted in a smile at whatever I was about to say, and your very back conscious of the privilege of being see with me. You leaned against the window, a detached observer of the scene, and under the spell of your observation, I felt myself powerless to exert my usual arts. I continued to face you in silence, my glance was vacant. Opposing forces, values, and interest are balanced in such a fashion as to keep pleasure in check, and the means to this balance is the budget. Economics becomes the management of pleasure. It is natural to seek more and more satisfaction by consciously, deliberately maximizing all gains at a given moment through budgeting. This position, where we are now, opens the door for consumer economics: the manipulation of goods and services through attaching them to pleasurable states. It also leads to the situation in which money itself becomes a commodity to be sought after, money doing business on its own detached from any relation to the soul of the World.
The psychic starvation brought about by removing soul from the World produces insatiable greed, for when the World is no longer surrounded with soul a vast emptiness intervenes that must be filled. Over the last four hundred years the people in the World have become psychopathic—very successful, very adapted, very clever, but lacking the feeling of affliction. The reduction of soul to economic psychology has made the World sick. Now there is so much sickness to care for it may force us to forget ourselves and return to the World to recover its soul. We are provided with an opportunity to enter into a new age of the soul, a new care of the World soul. As the individual freedom becomes more conscious, group life become less so. However, as freedom strengthens so does the seeds for a new kind of group life, a conscious community of soul with the World. We can learn another one of the laws of consciousness: Fear is healed by love. High levels of consciousness are in themselves capable of healing, transforming, and enlightening others. Letting go the block to love, our capacity to love increases progressively, and loving energy has the capacity to heal ourselves as well as others. The only drawback to these types of healings is that often the healing is sustained while in proximity to a person capable of radiating high levels of love, but the illness returns when people leave that presence, unless they themselves have learned to elevate their own consciousness. With your love, you create a warm and friendly group.
In this big family, the Sunshine, the sound of the song, and cheerful laughter are everywhere and every moment. I missed you, respected teacher! Cherished in my heart are your urgings like the Spring breeze, the drizzling rain, a bunch of bells ringing in my heart forever. As masters, they appear in a supreme form in which every personal element has been converted into something supersonic, almost remote from the World, or at least not involved in it. One rarely, if ever, meets the happy or suffering individual, through whose joy-filled, sorrow-filled eyes the other Worldly glimmers in a unique personal sense. In this intimacy we find ourselves undivided. When we experience being our wholeness, we are not afraid to experience the truth of the moment, regardless of how things look to the judging mind. The words heal. You taught me how to welcome what feels unwelcome, and that has made all the difference in my life. What I want is to be awake and directly experience deep intimacy with what is. To experience something directly is not to discharge it, deny it, act it out, redirect it, repress it, represent it, judge it, analyze it, make commentary about it or understand it with mind. We might picture love to be like Sunlight and negative thoughts like clouds. As we consistently let go of resisting our fears and allow them to be surrendered, the energy that was tied up in the fear is relinquished and now becomes available to shone forth as the energy of love.
My love is complete within me, and the Love of God binds itself to me, and will not let go, and we shall journey through life hand in hand. I shall sit in your Presence and learn the wondrous things you will tell me; for you are God. Love sits within me. The increasingly dehumanizing aspects of many jobs and, perhaps, the threat of nuclear or environmental disaster are other sources of uncertainty and anxiety. Thus, people have become more and more anxious, and more willing to admit their feelings of uncertainty. Many are looking for ways to be more open in their expression of affection toward other people (and to receive affection in return), partially as an antidote for this increased anxiety. A person who has experienced a great deal of love early in life has fewer fears and a head start, and this love is intrinsic within all of us. By the very nature of our being and by the very nature of the life energy that flows through us and empowers us to breathe and to think we all have that same vibrational energy level of love within us. As we discover love, we discover true happiness. The greatest good which his mind is able to conceive should be affirmed as a part of his everyday experience. The light of love shines on our daily life and the lighting turns the mediocre gullies and lush forest into legendary mirages. So deep is my love that I am controlled by emotion instead of reason. Your love-lit eyes are like sparkling stars, dispelling loneliness from my heart. All who rage against you will surely be ashamed and disgraced; those who oppose you will be as nothing and perish.
Where will the Kingdom of Heaven Put Down its Roots on Earth?
The greatest ills on the planet—war, poverty, economic exploitation, ecological devastation—all stem from our inability to tolerate differences, engage in intelligent dialogue, and reach mutual understanding with one another. Social organizations and institutions at every level—marriages, families, schools, corporations—are in disarray. Just look at the candidates for the upcoming Presidential election, they argue and say unprofessional things. And spiritual communities are hardly exempt from the internecine wars, schisms, and political intrigue that beset most secular organizations. Economics and money work together as the primary veil covering direct perception of the soul of the World. #RyanPhillippe 1 of 6
The soul permeates everything and is not limited to human beings. Having a soul means that you are able to discern through senses, understand, think, compare, and deduce. Also, a soul gives one the ability to feel and love. The human soul has nothing to do with the human World. The soul is our connection with God. People may know what to do to acquire gain. That greed may enter cannot be controlled, but they may proceed as long as they have presumably turned their will over to God, pursuing gain without seeking their own pleasure. The desire of bettering our condition comes with us from our moment of conception and never leaves us. #RyanPhillippe 2 of 6
In itself, loving is certainly not difficult, for open, loving presence is an intrinsic, essential quality of our very nature. Why then is it so hard to embody this open presence in relation to other people in all circumstances? The psychology of self-interest puts a severe strain on restraint, the central element of capitalism. Another part of the problem lies partly in early wounding around loving connectedness suffered in childhood—which is especially prevalent in modern societies. Out of this wounding, unhealthy relational patterns develop and perpetuate themselves unconsciously, despite their best intentions. #RyanPhillippe 3 of 6
Fear is so pandemic in our society that it constitutes the predominant ruling emotion of many people. Fears tend to escalate leading to more and more avenues of life, leading to further and further restrictions of activity, and, in severe cases, to total immobilization. The hard truth is that spiritual realizations often do not heal our deep wounding in the area of love, or translate readily into skillful communication or interpersonal understanding. As a result, many people either choose not to engage in personally intimate relationships at all, or else wind up having the same relational difficulties and problems that everyone else has. #RyanPhillippe 4 of 6
Even though some may have a loving, compassionate intention toward all beings, most modern spiritual people nonetheless continue to act out unconscious relational patterns developed in childhood. Often what is required here is psychological work that allows us to bring the underlying psychodynamics that maintain these patterns into consciousness. One may want to get help toward fuller living and fewer conflicts in life. Or you may feel absolutely no need nor desire for such help. In any event, there are a number of things you can do to help yourself—and people around you—outside any formal therapy. #RyanPhillippe 5 of 6
You can do a great deal to provide yourself with feelings of being valued and understood. Self-other understanding involves, strangely enough, self-transcendence—which calls for one to go beyond his own private motives and thoughts in order to better understand and share another person’s requirements and goals. Social feeling is an attempt to understand oneself through the understanding of others. Every baby has to be in close contact with other, they need to be held. Some babies who do not have this requirement satisfied may become intellectually disabled or die. Do you hear the yearning of my soul? It is flying with the Sun to the far-flung frontier, lingering over your heart. All humans (even adults) need touching, though they may repress the desire. #RyanPhillippe 6 of 6
Strength and Guidance are True Wisdom
Love is automatically attracted to the person who is loving. God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference. I have no desire that anyone should recognize any social differences in me; but I want to be received as your equal, and perhaps before long to show myself your superior by a special deftness of touch. However, it is humiliating to find that, after years of drudgery, I still betrayed my lack of early training. Remote is the day when I aspire to exercise the talents I feel confident possessing. Where am I looking to get love rather than to give it? The more loving we are, the less vulnerable we are to pain and suffering, and the less we need to seek attachments. When the source of happiness is found within our hearts, we are immune to the losses of the World. #RyanPhillippe 1 of 6
What one holds in mind tends to manifest. So whatever we consistently hold in mind and consistently give energy to will tend to come into our lives according to the very form in which our mind has held it. Thus, love creates loving thoughts. The more we hold good thoughts in mind, the more likely the joyful event will happen in our life, which again reinforces our harmony. The incapacity to experience the beauty of the soul World is not counted among known illness. Perhaps it is an illness so wide in scope, so pervasive, that it constitutes a normal abnormality. Some people are unable to enjoy the beauty of life, and we call that syndrome aesthetic amnesia. The syndrome consists of an unresponsive disposition to beauty, a coldness of the aesthetic function, together with a culturally reinforced rationalization excluding beauty from the definition of consciousness. #RyanPhillippe 2 of 6
With many people, cold unresponsiveness alternates with random activity lacking feeling but carrying the illusion of having functional utility. Those afflicted with the aesthetic amnesia syndrome enjoy all the extremes and exaggerations of utility, an obsessiveness with the frivolous and the garish. Somewhere behind them, in the background of their lives, there is a doubtless real past, peopled by real human activities: they themselves were probably the product of strong ambitions, persistent energies, diversified contact with the wholesome roughness of life; yet they had no real existence than the poet’s shades in limbo. Sometimes the environments we find ourselves in are as strange to us as its inhabitants. I know sometimes life can be so challenging and we feel like we cannot endure much more and wonder when will God deliver us. #RyanPhillippe 3 of 6
One person can make a beneficial difference in your life. Just think about how great it would be for someone to genuinely care for you and want to spent time with you because they love you. They are not wanting to take anything from you, but give you love. That is such a nice experience. These people seem to float together outside the bounds of time and space. No definite hours are kept; no fixed obligations exist: night and day flow into one another creating the brightest ornament. Opening to the full play of the human experience allows for the possibility of a sudden dawning of wakefulness, which is basically wisdom born within. We recognize that unconditional love and awareness can infuse each and every moment, regardless of how much we are suffering, then the play of being a person, being in relationship, facing our issues, and honoring the experiential process as it unfolds. #RyanPhillippe 4 of 6
Many people want to manifest Heaven on Earth, as we try to transcend our human shortcomings and imperfections. To liberate ourselves from sins and defilements, we have to enter into them and suffering consciously allows us to exhaust their momentum, move through them, and be done with them. The faith that is required here is the recognition that whatever we are experiencing is truth, for the moment; it is all that we have to work with because at that moment, it is what is. For one human being to love another, this is the most difficult of all our tasks because the struggle and neurosis of the ego is also what is creating conflict and controversy, experiencing it fully and directly is awakening. For wakefulness comes about through entering into what is rather than moving away from it. #RyanPhillippe 5 of 6
So we can remain open and present with the experience that is arising, neurotic as it may seem, we discover—either gradually, through psychological inquiry, or abruptly, through emergent wisdom—that this experience is not solid, fixed, or definite in the way it first appeared to be. As it starts to flow, unfold, ripen, or release, it reveals its true nature as the play of original wakefulness, embodied in human form. I cherish your true love in my heart. I do not care if we are together as long as we love each other. May we love each other forever. Each star is bright and each flower is fragrant, and whenever I remember you, I remember your love for me. In the morning when you open your eyes and look at me, dreams come out from your heart. #RyanPhillippe 6 of 6
