This morning, I was comforted to read in Beyond Words and Thoughts, that one should focus on one's spiritual practice and evolution and respond when the universe summons one to help somebody. This is how it happened yesterday when my elderly relative called me to go and help her, and as I read Goldsmith's words I wondered if it was she that called or Universe/God. Technically, she was at the other end of the telephone line, but I don't yet understand if it was spirit that moved her to make the call or her own need. I really am not yet certain about this: how much Universe/God is behind our drive, motivation, action, and how much is just us. Adyashanti has implied that God/The Mystery is behind all our actions. If one takes a quantum view of God, Adya's statement would be true.
A lot of Joel Goldsmith's address today was about how the Christ lifts consciousness and that is the only way that the things of the world -- humanity -- will improve. If one leaves it to consciousness nothing will happen or improve as indicated by human history. I think I have a semantic problem here as I thought that consciousness was awareness or God and now it is being suggested that it is something else and that it needs to be influenced by the Christ in order for humanity to find better kinder ways to treat itself.
After my reading, I went into my daily meditation planning to meditate on what I had read. To do this, instead of attempting to still my mind as I usually do, I tried to work on inner listening, but used questions related to the reading to focus my attention. Somehow, the quote, "Love yourself as I have loved you" popped into my mind and I decided that I would explore that and try to figure out the nature of this type of love. I remembered that modern spiritual teachers harp on the idea that there is either fear or love. I then turned my attention to fear as I know that too well and if I can understand what fear is not, I will know what love is. I know what love is in terms of how I feel about my mother, sister, children, dog, and cats; even my home and car. I really don't know what it is to love myself, truly.
A lot of people suggest that how we treat ourselves is a sign of how much we love ourselves. I have become much better at acting respectfully towards myself, but this is mostly towards my body and its physical needs: I keep it clean; try to feed it with nutritious food, something that I find challenging, not the nutritious food part but the actual feeding of my body as I sometimes find eating to be boring so don't get around to feeding myself as often as I should; attempt to make it sleep during an appropriate timeslot in the day; exercise it regularly; hydrate; and now I am trying to breathe properly. And I even attend to my emotional well-being and make certain I have a good bit of fun and R&R in my life and I cuddle my pets and hug family members, especially my mother who is a widow and lives alone.
As I meditated on fear and love, it occurred to me that this wasn't entirely it. That respecting and taking care of my self and body wasn't really what was meant by loving thyself. I am sure that all of that is part of it, but really it is a byproduct of loving one's self. What came to me is that fear is of the body and physical plain or humanhood and love is of the spirit. So I need to spend some more time contemplating all of this and hopefully and God willing, I will see what is truly meant by love thyself as I love you. I am certain there is something else to this; something that I am missing. I expect that how I love myself is simply an act and as most of it is aimed at keeping the body in good order, it cannot be the love that is being referred to in the injunction to love thyself as I have loved you.
Now that I am convinced that love thyself has something to do with spirit and Christhood, I need to get the feel of it or experience it as it is really meant and know that I am experiencing it. After my dream of death and the twenty minutes I spent experiencing what it was like to awaken, I know that fear was nowhere to be felt and that is one of the main reasons that I felt at peace. In the death experience, it also helped to feel peace because there was no physical body and that caused me to feel extremely light and free. It is amazing how heavy and emotional the physical body can feel at times. I haven't finished reading Michael Newton's trilogy, but so far, nowhere have I read that somebody experienced fear when they were disembodied and between lives. Other states are mentioned such as love and freedom and lightness, but not fear. Apparently, there can be confusion, especially after a life spent harming others or experiencing unexpected sudden death. But I am certain that one can be confused without feeling fear. So maybe it is true and that fear is strictly related to the human body or physical state and a Christ sort of love is related to the spiritual state.
Namaste
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