08-05-2021, 09:43 AM
I wrote something and then I scrapped it. This is my second attempt at addressing the first quoted passage, as it touches on some pretty intricate balances in reaching that grade of spiritual community, I believe. I really enjoyed it, so thanks to whoever channeled it.
From the first few lines, this channeled entity makes the point that first and foremost, community members are to have "a very strong desire for harmony". Harmony is yearned for in the heart and mind, with a strong intention set. And so, to not care about harmony, to not make it a priority, would be insufficient. This is not a step that can be missed. Yet how is this harmony to be conducted? What are the ideals that balances and grounds this harmony so that it has solid footing? So that it is not forced or manufactured or easily corruptible? The entity goes on to share: "Freedom is the hallmark of successful community—freedom to be yourself, freedom of each to be himself and freedom to experiment, to make mistakes, to be at risk and to grow." This is a statement which sings the praises of acceptance. It is an acknowledgement of the divine right of all beings to find their way back home to the One in their own way. This freedom must be universalised if it is to benefit the whole community, and so must be extended to all. How often do we demand this freedom for ourselves, but then not for the other? How often do we look to judgement, almost to the form of nitpicking at another's way of being, in order to make ourselves more comfortable in a group? And so, not having healthy and respectful boundaries with one another, giving into the temptation of molding the other in order to reach harmony, is no real harmony at all and likely to cause discordant energies to go underneath, making them more difficult to be attended to. Yet, in caring for one another, we also willingly desire to express accommodation, tolerance and hospitality. We should desire to put others at ease, if they are not already so.
The balances to hit here are incredibly nuanced and ambitious, almost seemingly unattainable. It then dawned on me that this whole passage could just as easily be describing the effect of love on a group of people. Doesn't love give a group the capacity to both move to connect, unify and harmonise, while also holding a space of openness, acceptance and freedom? Love is as constructive, in its ability to form bonds and create a culture of positive regard for the other, as it is flexible, in its forgiving nature which demands nothing in return.
Yet to have love as a goal, is similar to having harmony as a goal. We are consistently met with the issue of moving towards what others have claimed to be the artificial or superficial. Acting for the appearance of love, or just reinforcing our pre-existing intellectualised notions of what love is, what it looks like, how it behaves; instead of engaging in an exploration of love, in which experience is allowed to inform our evolving conceptions of it, if we must conceptualise it at all. Love and harmony, then perhaps, is not to be idolised, just as the positive emotions possible in spiritual communing are not to be held up as a goal. As they say, "to expect community to supply one with happiness is unrealistic due to the nature of that emotion". So love/harmony/joy operate in the background, inspiring, uplifting, imbuing, yet they remain like a warm breeze of air. We are to "appreciat[e] the joys that occur without attempting to retain that state of mind and emotion".
The existence of loving harmony is similar to that of the sun's. The sun's role in life is unmistakable, our dependence on its energy unquestionable. Yet stare directly at the sun on a bright day and your eyesight will suffer for it. The world will dim as your retinas burn. We therefore go on with our day, enjoying the bounty that the sun's rays offer every square inch of the globe, with the simple condition... do not stare directly at the source, lest you be consumed in its fire.
And so, the spiritual community, I believe, must have a conduit, a practice which is grounded in life. We need to have work to do, to live and express our natures. We set goals which are practical and sustainable, but these are not the be all, end all. These transient goals provide us with our work, but they do not provide the why for our work. As they say, "if you expect to sustain that light by intellectual practice or by dependence upon logic alone, the light will lose its luster, it will dim and the darkness will overcome it." Simultaneously love/harmony/happiness cannot either be made into goals to be attained, and so we are left with process. We have a journey without destination, we have wandering, we have being. And to believe it can be anything more concrete than that, well, it would just take one out of that most fruitful space in which ambiguity is held in equanimity. Perhaps it is this place which allows one or many to step into and participate in the mystery itself.
From the first few lines, this channeled entity makes the point that first and foremost, community members are to have "a very strong desire for harmony". Harmony is yearned for in the heart and mind, with a strong intention set. And so, to not care about harmony, to not make it a priority, would be insufficient. This is not a step that can be missed. Yet how is this harmony to be conducted? What are the ideals that balances and grounds this harmony so that it has solid footing? So that it is not forced or manufactured or easily corruptible? The entity goes on to share: "Freedom is the hallmark of successful community—freedom to be yourself, freedom of each to be himself and freedom to experiment, to make mistakes, to be at risk and to grow." This is a statement which sings the praises of acceptance. It is an acknowledgement of the divine right of all beings to find their way back home to the One in their own way. This freedom must be universalised if it is to benefit the whole community, and so must be extended to all. How often do we demand this freedom for ourselves, but then not for the other? How often do we look to judgement, almost to the form of nitpicking at another's way of being, in order to make ourselves more comfortable in a group? And so, not having healthy and respectful boundaries with one another, giving into the temptation of molding the other in order to reach harmony, is no real harmony at all and likely to cause discordant energies to go underneath, making them more difficult to be attended to. Yet, in caring for one another, we also willingly desire to express accommodation, tolerance and hospitality. We should desire to put others at ease, if they are not already so.
The balances to hit here are incredibly nuanced and ambitious, almost seemingly unattainable. It then dawned on me that this whole passage could just as easily be describing the effect of love on a group of people. Doesn't love give a group the capacity to both move to connect, unify and harmonise, while also holding a space of openness, acceptance and freedom? Love is as constructive, in its ability to form bonds and create a culture of positive regard for the other, as it is flexible, in its forgiving nature which demands nothing in return.
Yet to have love as a goal, is similar to having harmony as a goal. We are consistently met with the issue of moving towards what others have claimed to be the artificial or superficial. Acting for the appearance of love, or just reinforcing our pre-existing intellectualised notions of what love is, what it looks like, how it behaves; instead of engaging in an exploration of love, in which experience is allowed to inform our evolving conceptions of it, if we must conceptualise it at all. Love and harmony, then perhaps, is not to be idolised, just as the positive emotions possible in spiritual communing are not to be held up as a goal. As they say, "to expect community to supply one with happiness is unrealistic due to the nature of that emotion". So love/harmony/joy operate in the background, inspiring, uplifting, imbuing, yet they remain like a warm breeze of air. We are to "appreciat[e] the joys that occur without attempting to retain that state of mind and emotion".
The existence of loving harmony is similar to that of the sun's. The sun's role in life is unmistakable, our dependence on its energy unquestionable. Yet stare directly at the sun on a bright day and your eyesight will suffer for it. The world will dim as your retinas burn. We therefore go on with our day, enjoying the bounty that the sun's rays offer every square inch of the globe, with the simple condition... do not stare directly at the source, lest you be consumed in its fire.
And so, the spiritual community, I believe, must have a conduit, a practice which is grounded in life. We need to have work to do, to live and express our natures. We set goals which are practical and sustainable, but these are not the be all, end all. These transient goals provide us with our work, but they do not provide the why for our work. As they say, "if you expect to sustain that light by intellectual practice or by dependence upon logic alone, the light will lose its luster, it will dim and the darkness will overcome it." Simultaneously love/harmony/happiness cannot either be made into goals to be attained, and so we are left with process. We have a journey without destination, we have wandering, we have being. And to believe it can be anything more concrete than that, well, it would just take one out of that most fruitful space in which ambiguity is held in equanimity. Perhaps it is this place which allows one or many to step into and participate in the mystery itself.
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