Seeds of Wisdom

Choices, Toil and Care

~ Written by Carrie Hart

Sometimes the rains fall from heaven and gently nourish your fields, even though you do little.  And sometimes the sky dries up, the plants begin to wither, and you wonder where the love and bounty have gone.  Look, look over here.  See this well going deep into the river of love, the endless river that never goes dry.  Pull up a bucket of this love and drink it.  Let the love flow through your body, nourishing you, filling you with peace and joy.

Look at your hands.  See that they are tools that you can use to clear away the weeds of old ways of thinking and being, the weeds of regret and blame, so that the new shoots can reach the sun.  See how strong your hands are, strong enough to remove the chains of fear and doubt that are shackled to your ankles, making your life a burden and keeping you from freely walking your fields in joy.

When the drought comes, it is necessary to roll up your sleeves, lower your bucket, pull up the water and walk your fields, pulling the weeds and pouring on the water.  You must toil hard in the field, deciding which plants are the most important to you and spending your time there.  For when you water by hand, you see that it is not always possible to nourish everything. And you must choose, choose to spend your time building an irrigation system or watering the soil with a bucket.  Choose how much to allocate to the tree that will bear fruit in the spring and how much to the vegetables that will flourish soon.  Choose whether to pour your love on a beautiful flower so that your heart may be filled with beauty as you work. 

Choose how much time you should spend working in someone else's field to provide for your household while waiting for your fields to mature. There are no right or wrong answers, simply choices, toil and care. But know this:  the fields are full of seeds that are awaiting your care.  And where you put your attention, is where life will spring up.  Where you pour the waters of your love and attention is where the sprouts will push up through the fertile soil of your life and reach the sun. 

Where you take the time to plant stakes and tie up the saplings to support them against the winds that blow, this is where you will find the strongest trees in years to come.  Where you take the time to prune the roses is where you will have the biggest blooms when the spring inevitably comes. Remove those chains of fear and doubt and begin to walk.  Dip into your well of love and attention and begin to pour.  Work on your irrigation system a little every day, even as you walk the fields to save what can be saved.  Plant new seeds of deep-rooted trees for the future and nourish these as well, even as you focus most of your efforts on the crop that will sustain you right now.

And while you do this, while you begin to transform your fields, toiling under the burning sun, feel the sweat pouring down your body and be glad.  This is what it feels like to be alive, fully alive.  This is a part of the path, a part of the vast and wondrous experience of being who you are.  This, rising to the challenge, using your wits and your sweat, feeling your muscles strain against the hoe and the plow, then lying in the open field at night, the freshly plowed earth warm under your back, the moon shining in beauty above you, this is life.

Yes, this is life.  This is the glory of and wonder of life, to spend the day removing stones from the field so that tomorrow's crop may flourish, to rise up to the challenges of life with courage and commitment, enjoying the strength of your soul and body as you overcome.  Yes, this is life, a great journey through all the seasons, through the droughts of summer and the storms of winter, as well as the fertile, gentle days of spring, when all that you have done begins to bear fruit.

For no matter what happens, the well of love is always full, if you will only lower your bucket down into it and use your strength to pull it up.  And the seeds are always there in the soil, if only you will water them with love and attention.  And if you have only the strength to bring forth one flower, then bring it forth and let it grace your life.  For this single flower is enough to light up your life and see you through until spring comes and the gentle showers from the heavens once more grace your life with bounty and beauty.

And know that when this spring arrives, you will look back on this time of toil, sweat and courage with pride.  You will remember how you let your power surge through you, how you filled your heart with courage and your mind with new ideas, how you used your wits and your faith to do what needed to be done, how you dug deep into your well of peace and patience, love and joy, to create bounty, how you poured your sweat and blood into the fertile earth.

Someday, you will look down at your callused hands and feel the joy surging through you.  Ah, yes, you will say, I knew then what it was to be fully alive.

Peace, Love, & Unity Shatters the Illusion of Separateness

~by Pamela J. Wells

January 6, 2011

Anything that does not involve love, peace, and unity in the world that we live in; in our hearts, thoughts, and our verbal expressions towards one another is an illusion that pulls us away from our true nature and drives us further towards separation and our false perceptions that only leads us to self-destruct. Add to that a group of people who come together with these false perceptions and you have pain, suffering and even worse war! As Mother Teresa once said, "I will never attend an anti-war rally. If you have a peace rally, invite me." Debates are for politicians! What is there to debate if you have peace and love in your heart for everyone?

Discrimination towards others originates from ego, competition, and separateness. Peace within yourself cannot come from discrimination, from ego. It only brings about distaste and dissatisfaction, which only has room for judgment. When we put others down, you will notice that one can find anything about another person to put down. It may be verbally or by our actions or inactions.

It can be about anything: another’s race, culture, gender, handicap, social class, that someone has a lower formal education than oneself, that one’s job doesn’t pay as much, making a comment about a person being ugly from ones perception of what is considered beautiful or ugly, or putting down someone who has a different religion than oneself or because they are not religious, so you believe that something is wrong with them, that they are not on the right path.

Judgment is a never-ending vicious cycle, that only takes the focus off of your insecurities and what you consider your faults instead of seeing beyond the illusion of separateness. Ego and competition with others creates a never-ending pursuit of seeing who can make it to the top the fastest, so the empty ego will feel fulfilled, which it never does, so the never-ending pursuit continues.

Remove the Mask of Ego & Separateness.

Labels that you put on others are labels that can be put on you.

Others can label and judge you because you are a different race than them, you have a different culture, you are in a lower social class, you have a lower education, you have a lower paying job, you are not physically beautiful in their eyes and from what they perceive as physically beautiful. These are only judgments that further divides people into separate categories. How can you only love some people and not others?

It all stems back from the ego that was learned as a child. Insecurity with oneself can feed the ego to look for something to discriminate against about others in order for oneself to feel less insecure. When this is a futile endeavor that does not fill you up, does not make you feel good or better, but that further divides you from others and leaves you empty inside.

You may get a false and superficial feeling that you feel better when actually your ego feels better. You are still empty inside. The ego is like a double edged sword. It not only hurts the other person, but it hurts you as well. Division from others does not fill your heart with joy or happiness or oneness. It sucks the love right out of your heart and feeds the ego, an illusion of worthiness and separateness.

Many times people like it when they are told that they have a big ego. They think that it validates their worthiness, their superiority over others, that it makes them important, and makes them stand out from others. It does make them stand out from others.

No one wants to be around someone who has a big ego. They either avoid the person or they try to compete with them by trying to prove how much better they are than the other person. They stand out from others not in a good way. They are alone and empty inside, craving attention, but they cannot find it.

Labels that you put on others are labels that can be put on you by other people who are a different race than you, who have a different culture than yours, that are in a higher social class than you, that have a higher education, that have a better paying job than you, and their perception of who and what is beautiful and what is ugly is their judgment further dividing people into separate categories.

Just being as nature is, as a flower is, and not judging everything and everyone brings about peace and unity.

Everyone should remove the mask of ego and have love and compassion for one another, especially those who are suffering, who are dying, or who are in poverty and take action, helping one another to no longer suffer, to no longer die when it is preventable, and to help others, so that they no longer have to live in poverty. You never know, you may find yourself suddenly homeless or worrying about how you are going to make it day by day, week by week, providing for your family.

We are all here together!

There is an abundance of food, money, and love here for everyone! What we all need is to share and have compassion and love for one another regardless of one’s race, culture, handicap, social class, belief or non-belief.

Let us all love one another; together with peace, love, and unity, we can shatter the illusion of separateness!

I Am

~ Written by Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

The seeker is he who is in search of himself. Give up all questions except one: "Who am I?" After all, the only fact you are sure of is that you are. The "I am" is certain. The "I am this" is not. Struggle to find out what you are in reality. To know what you are, you must first investigate and know what you are not. Discover all that you are not - body, feelings, thoughts, time, space, this or that - nothing, concrete or abstract, which you perceive to be you. The very act of perceiving shows that you are not what you perceive. The clearer you understand on the level of mind you can be described in negative terms only, the quicker will you come to the end of your search and realize that you are the limitless being.