Spiritual Teacher/Spiritual Seeker

A man flying in a hot air balloon realizes that he is lost. He spots a person on the ground, reduces his altitude, and shouts, “Hey! Can you tell me where I am?”

The person below says, “Yes, you’re in a hot air balloon hovering 30 feet above this field.”

The balloonist says, “You must work as a spiritual teacher.”

“I do,” replies the person, “How did you know?”

“Well,” says the balloonist, “what you told me is true enough, but it’s of no use at all.”

The person below said, “You must be a spiritual seeker.”

“I am,” replies the balloonist, “but how did you know?”

“Well,” says the person, “you don’t know where you are, or where you’re going, but you expect me to be able to help you. You’re in the same position you were in before we met, but now it’s my fault!”

-source unknown

“At the height of laughter, the universe is flung into a kaleidoscope of new possibilities.”
-Jean Houston

Loneliness—————

Is being out of touch with yourself

Denying your innermost need by pretending it doesn’t exist

Defying what you desperately want to accept

Exchanging tenderness for bitterness

Causing unnecessary alienation all for the sake of pride

-source unknown

by Oriahe Mountain Dreamer

It doesn’t interest me what you do for a living. I want to know what you ache for and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart’s longing.

It doesn’t interest me how old you are. I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool for love, for your dream, for the adventure of being alive.

It doesn’t interest me what planets are squaring the moon. I want to know if you have touched the center of your sorrow, have been opened by life’s betrayals or have become shriveled and closed for fear of further pain.

I want to know if you can sit with pain, mine or your own, without moving to hide it or fade it or fix it. I want to know if you can be with joy, mine or your own, if you can dance with wildness and let the ecstasy fill you to the tips of your fingers and toes without cautioning us to be careful, to be realistic, or to remember the limitations of being human.

It doesn’t interest me if the story you are telling me is true. I want to know if you can disappoint another to be true to yourself, if you can bear accusation of betrayal and not betray your own soul.

I want to know if you can be faithful and therefore be trustworthy.

I want to know if you can see beauty even when it is not pretty everyday, and if you can source your life from it’s presence.

I want to know if you can live with failure, yours and mine, and still stand on the edge of a lake and shout to the silver of the full moon…YES!

It doesn’t interest me to know where you live or how much money you have. I want to know if you can get up after a night of grief and despair, weary and bruised to the bone and do what needs to be done for the children.

It doesn’t interest me who you are or how you came to be here. I want to know if you can stand in the center of the fire with me and not shrink back.

It doesn’t interest me what or where or with whom you have studied. I want to know what sustains you from the inside when all else falls away.

I want to know if you can be alone with yourself and if you truly like the company you keep in empty moments.

by Mary Oliver

One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting their bad advice —
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
“Mend my life!” each voice cried.
But you didn’t stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations
though their melancholy was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice,
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do —
determined to save
the only life you could save.

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate;
Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.
It is our light, not our darkness that frightens us.
We ask ourselves,
“Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?”
Actually, who are you NOT to be?
You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world.
There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that others will not feel insecure around you.
We are all meant to shine – as children do.
We are born to manifest the glory of God that is within us.
It is not just some of us: it is all of us.
As we let our own light shine, we give others permission
to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear,
our presence automatically liberates others from their fear.
May we all give ourselves permission to shine today
so that the truth is reflected in all of us.

– Marianne Williamson

An Emotional Rescue in the Dark Night of the Soul *

By GINA BARECCA
The Hartford Courant
August 06, 2001

Ready for some tough questions this morning?

What’s your demon? What’s your nightmare?

What wakes you up in the middle of the night – not in fear but in the threshing buzz of low-grade panic?

The dread of being alone? Of getting older? Of illness? Of death? Of being unable to help alleviate the sadness of those close to you?

I have a friend, a woman I consider one of the blessings in my life, who is facing a whole bunch of those nightmares right now. Her nightmares are sitting there at the kitchen table with her. Maybe you know her; maybe you are her. Many of us have been where she is, in the dark night of the soul, at some point -but when you are inside the tumble and hiss of the bad time, it is almost impossible to imagine rescue or survival.

But we, more or less, survive. Either the worst happens, or it doesn’t. We brush up against the savage edge of loss and cut ourselves, counting ourselves lucky to have been only scarred, only mangled.

Because there are worse possibilities: those times when you can’t back away and you can’t move out of range; the edge saws away until it can no longer be borne.

Or change the image. The hurricane that obliterates everything in its path goes through a place we once thought safe as if to teach one lesson: Nowhere is safe. At least not forever. At least not all the time. Happy times and bad times move through our lives like the weather. There are accurate predictions to be made, but there is nothing to be done when a force of nature moves in. You can see the horizon darkening, but whether you run to it or flee from it, you cannot change what will happen. You are stuck in that moment of time, with only yourself as your shelter.

So what is there to say when someone you love is deep inside that storm?

Or change the image again: What is there to say when a friend is playing a part in a great tragedy, on a stage too removed, too terrible and too awesome for you to offer help? You can’t shout out lines because the script is not yours to invent; you can’t offer to replace her in the part because it is not your role. What is there to say that does not trivialize pain by offering sentimentality or that does not show disrespect by offering mere palliatives?

What I want to say to my friend is this: I honor you as you move through this time. Not as a martyr or saint full of gracious sorrow, but as a fighter, as a warrior, as someone engaged in a contest for her soul, as someone who refuses to surrender to despair or to plot a coward’s escape.

And I would remind her of an old story:

Late one night, three demons decided to ambush a woman who lived alone. The three demons were manifestations of her worst nightmares: fear, anxiety, and despair. They made a racket, breaking things, ruining what she held dear, disfiguring what she cherished. Gleefully, they spent hours immersed in their rampage. They were enormously confident because they figured she was all alone and past her first youth, so why should they stop?”

They went at it for hours, into the darkest part of midnight. The woman they were tormenting was almost inconsequential; the destruction of her world had little to do with her.

When she started to build a fire at the hearth, therefore, they barely glanced over. But the demons became more thoroughly distracted when they noticed her busily setting out a kettle.

Wary now, they ratcheted up their activities. When she calmly set out three cups nevertheless, they stopped in their tracks. Her hands weren’t even shaking. She looked calm, if weary.

“What are you doing?” they cried in unison, breathless from their tasks of destruction. “We are everything in the world that is against you. Why are you boiling water and setting out dishes?”

The woman stared at them and tolerantly shook her head as she opened the cupboard. “I know all of you by now. You’ve been here before, and you’ll be here again. You might as well make yourselves at home.”

Raising one eyebrow and fully meeting their gaze without rancor, wholly in possession of herself, she asked familiarly, “What kind of tea would you like?”

* This column has been re-formatted for free distribution to the public, with the consent and permission of the author, Gina Barecca

When I ask you to listen to me,
And you start giving me advice,
You have not done what I asked.

When I ask that you listen to me,
And you begin to tell me why I shouldn’t feel that way,
You are trampling on my feelings.

When I ask you to listen to me,
And you feel you have to do something to solve my problems,
You have failed me, strange as that may seem.

Listen.
All that I ask is that you listen,
Not talk or do – just hear me.

When you do something for me
That I need to do for myself,
You contribute to my fear and feelings of inadequacy.

But when you accept as a simple fact
That I do feel what I feel, no matter how irrational,
Then I can quit trying to convince you
And go about the business
Of understanding what’s behind my feelings.

So, please listen and just hear me
And, if you want to talk,
Wait a minute for your turn – and I’ll listen to you.

By Sheldon Kopp

1. This is it!
2. There are no hidden meanings.
3. You can’t get there from here, and besides there’s no place else to go.
4. Nothing lasts!
5. There is no way of getting all you want.
6. You can’t have anything unless you let go of it.
7. You only get to keep what you give away.
8. There is no particular reason why you lost out on some things.
9. The world is not necessarily just. Being good often does not pay off and there is no compensation for misfortune.
10. You have a responsibility to do your best nonetheless.
11. It is a random universe to which we bring meaning.
12. You don’t really control anything.
13. You can’t make anyone love you.
14. No one is any stronger or any weaker than anyone else.
15. Everyone is, in his own way, vulnerable.
16. There are no great men/women.
17. If you have a hero, look again; you have diminished yourself in some way.
18. All of you is worth something, if you will only own it.
19. Childhood is a nightmare.
20. But it is so very hard to be an on-your-own, ‘take care of yourself because there is no one else to do it for you’ grown-up.
21. Love is not enough, but it sure helps.
22. We have only ourselves, and one another. That may not be much, but that’s all there is.
23. How strange, that so often, it all seems worth it.
24. We are responsible for everything we do.
25. No excuses will be accepted.
26. You can run, but you can’t hide.
27. We must learn the power of living with our helplessness.
28. The only victory lies in surrender to oneself.
29. You are free to do whatever you like. You need only face the consequences.
30. What do you know – for sure – anyway?
31. Learn to forgive yourself, again and again
32. And again and again.

You will receive a body. You may like it or hate it, but it will be yours for as long as you live.  How you take care of it or fail to take care of it can make an enormous difference in the quality of your life.

You will learn lessons. You are enrolled in a full-time, informal school called Life.  Each day, you will be presented with opportunities to learn what you need to know.  The lessons presented are often completely different from those you think you need.

There are no mistakes, only lessons. Growth is a process of trial, error and experimentation.  You can learn as much from failure as you can from success. Maybe more.

A lesson is repeated until it is learned. A lesson will be presented to you in various forms until you have learned it.  When you have learned it (as evidenced by a change in your attitude and ultimately your behavior) then you can go on to the next lesson.

Learning lessons does not end. There is no stage of life that does not contain some lessons.  As long as you live there will be something more to learn.

“There” is no better than “here”. When your “there” has become a “here” you will simply discover another “there” that will again look better than your “here.” Don’t be fooled by believing that the unattainable is better than what you have.

Others are merely mirrors of you. You cannot love or hate something about another person unless it reflects something you love or hate about yourself.  When tempted to criticize others, ask yourself why you feel so strongly.

What you make of your life is up to you. You have all the tools and resources you need.  What you create with those tools and resources is up to you.  Remember that through desire, goal setting and unflagging effort you can have anything you want. Persistence is the key to success.

The answers lie inside of you. The solutions to all of life’s problems lie within your grasp.  All you need to do is ask, look, listen and trust yourself.