Contemplation Conundrum

First, the personal statistics: Saturday, August 08, 2009

Anniversary day: 24 years sober, 6 years monastery free. Three job doors closed yesterday but I worked on trusting God: I am here to fill the role He assigns. Ego wants me to have fear about the one seemingly sure employment potential I have right now. I’m pretty ok.

I got up at 3:30 am with the alarm. I found myself in a good mood. I had no trouble getting up. Went to my table for prayer and meditation. I remembered then that it was an anniversary of sorts. At 4:30, I got in the car for an hour long drive to the city. During the drive, the word "humble" crossed my mind. I felt humble about sobriety. I felt humble that I may be given a new job next week. I felt humble about the spiritual journey I am on. I stopped for gas and felt humble that I took something from the earth and am going to burn it up for my own personal use. At 5:30, I started running in a little park there, 10 miles in 2 hours. I felt humble that I had no residual problems from yesterday's 20 mile run. Bought some peaches at the farmer's market there, coffee at the quick stop and to an 8 am fellowship meeting. Bought some more groceries, drove the 50 miles home, went for a 4 mile walk just to be sure I love the heat. The rest of the day devoted to voluntary spirituality and contemplation.

I asked God today, "How do I explain contemplation? What do you say?"

Here is God's inane response:

Looky there: Spirit Flower heard my Call to contemplation. I Call lots of people, all in fact, but few hear. Those who do hear don’t know what to do, become discouraged and quit the process. Spirit Flower has had her share of confusion and discouragement; but she perseveres anyway. The problem with true contemplation is that any one particular experience is different from the text books and the methods for any one individual are different from the text books. Spirit Flower used books and religion for learning for many years. Eventually, she will have to come to grips with her own process and go deep into it. There is no other way.

It is the summer of 2009. Spirit Flower has been out of work for about seven weeks. She has done a lot of running but also spent some of that time sitting in silence. Every day, we face each other over a timer. Silently watching each other and asking the same question, “Why?” I think I invented contemplation, I’m not sure. But I know I practice it with each and every one of my contemplatives. The difficult part is the truth of what it is: indefinable, unexplainable, addictive, incomprehensible foolishness. But necessary, oh so necessary. I must have contemplatives and they must practice even if they have no idea why. I am God and I am not helping, am I?

Spirit Flowers feels tears well up as she ponders this. Without words or evidence, she feels devotional love.

You know you are really a mystic when:
- You believe God first.
- You are not invested in the world.
- Peace is your first choice.

Oh sure, you can still become a mystic the old fashioned way: join a monastery and get a guru. But most of us who hear the Call, either can’t or won’t become cloistered monks. No problem. The office of mystic is open to all. The practices and procedures, including those you make up yourself, can be studied, learned and practiced. Although no “master” will ever teach me tantric secrets, I don’t need to know. The simplest quietest meditation will serve me. Don’t be fooled however about the time, diligence, patience and mistakes necessary to consummate the process. But if you really want to be a mystic, you’ll devote yourself to using the tools God gives you.

Honest to God, I feel so inadequate explaining to people why I prefer to sit on a cushion for a few hours rather than watch say a football game on TV or go shopping and out to dinner.

Don't Give Up Before the Miracle

Keep trying!
It so often happens
That the last key opens the door.
Likewise, it is your last prayer That may grant you salvation,
And your last meditation
That may grant you realisation.

Excerpt from Ten Thousand Flower-Flames, Part 17 by Sri Chinmoy.

It is a long journey to the finish. Self transcendence seems to take awhile.

Never lose hope in God's mercy.

Friday LSD

Why do some people do ridiculous LSD for no reason? I would like to be philosophical here, but I am brain dead at the moment.

Run today, low impact jogging with a little walking, 70F temps with south wind and 100% humidity, started in the dark at 5 am, 4 hours and 15 minutes (about 20 mi), 4 Gu, 2 S-caps, 60 oz (2L) of water. No wildlife.

My head was spinning most of the time with job possibilities. After about an hour I came up with my prayer: How may I best serve YOU?

Came home, showered, got the ice on a couple of spots, and immediately had an hour long phone interview.

Been on a diet for a week and lost 5 lbs (at 133 this morning), though much of that must have been water. Below is my chart. Explanation of the chart: I normalized things to get everything on one chart. Calories = calories/100. Minutes of exercise = minutes/10. Weight = lbs - 130.

Confused Contemplation

I have been missing from my blog for a day or two. I have been quite busy with my employment project: recruiters and interviews taking up all my time! But, I'm sure I'll land a GREAT job in the next few weeks.

But the busyness has kept me from silent contemplation, at least yesterday it did. Today I got in 6 "laps" for a total of an hour and a half.

Thoughts from today's silence:

• In silence I find...well...silence. In the void, we kiss.
• I find time, thoughts; but most precious of all is surrender. In silence I get to be nothing.
• Books on silence make promises for silence. Silence itself obeys its own rules and doesn't honor the books.
• Silence has its own ways and gifts for each one that comes to it.
• I should go to silence wanting only silence; with no expectations. Any requests or expectations of silence are ego conniving.
• Silence is honorable; adorable like the Host in the Monstrance. In silence, I am the monstrance.

Oh la la!!!!! I love silence.

Many years ago, at least 12 if not 30, I came to believe that God could be found in silence. My trip to the convent was based on this belief. I still have it. I am only now realizing that my God comes to me as He chooses and not the same as the monastic gurus. So I am only now really letting go of my preconceived notions and letting God be who He wants. It is so freeing because I wasn't getting what everybody else said. I have to work for a living, but at any other time, I seek silence as much as possible.

Why do I seek God at all is another long story!

Personal Statistics:

• Yesterday I had a fabulous 7 mile run. It was the first run in a long time where my legs felt really bouncy and I ran in the hilly park at 9 minute miles. Thunderstorms were just on their way out, so it was a little drippy, cloudy, and about 70F.
• Today I ran 10.5 miles in about 11 minute miles. I felt great for about 6 miles and then began to feel a little leg tiredness. Tomorrow is a rest day.
• Today is the anniversary of my transition from monastic hell to this world of real people who really love me. Six years ago I was informed that I was getting kicked out of the convent. I've been reading my journals from when I was a novice. I was totally insane with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, which was inflamed by the monastic social structure. (I got PTSD from a difficult childhood).
• August 8 is my sobriety anniversary. I will have been sober 24 years.
• Just about 6 weeks until Skinny Bear ( http://robhortonrunning.blogspot.com/ ) and I do the Patriot's Run. I sure hope I can swing that somehow.
• I've been unemployed 6 weeks. 40 more weeks of unemployment benefits left.
• I mowed the lawn today.

Miracle Monday

Everyone is a miracle.

Believe it.

Take the next quantum leap of faith today. His Hands will carry you to places far beyond anything you could ask or imagine. Find Love in the leap and share the love with others.

Know that I love you.

SF

God Narrates His Point of View

Spirit Flower loves to sit alone. She is seeking My face. She may sit on a cushion, Zen style. She may sit at her table with A Course in Miracles. She may sit on her bed, eyes closed, simply yearning. I think for us, Spirit Flower and Me, the condition of simply yearning is the closest communion and the most intense loving possible. You wouldn’t think that God would need intensity, but between Spirit Flower and Me, that is what happens. The yearning itself is what she and I share. For her, this is what My face looks like. The face I show Spirit Flower is different than what all the books she has read say my face should look like. This difference often confuses her as she reads some renowned author and doesn’t have what he has. For Spirit Flower to accept the intense yearning as the truth of our relationship is a big step.

Spirit Flower does spend lots of time with Me. I know she is pained that other people don’t understand or think it healthy. The zeal with which she delves into her inner being is something I behold with wonder and reverence. You see, as she delves into herself, she is actually delving into Me; and this is a type of communion I almost can’t stand it is so intimate and gentle and loving. At these times, I hold My breath and become ever more quiet as I attempt to contemplate Spirit Flower’s journey. I contemplate her with the same intensity that she contemplates Me.

So in the long run, no matter what the experts in Spirit Flower’s life say, I hope she keeps coming back to the sustenance of my breast. Breast feeding and nurturing and feeling the little intimate touches are how I feel about the silent contemplative. I need these silent contemplatives. I love to enter into and experience their yearning. I love it when one of them figures out how it is that I am having communion and they accept it as truth. When they do this, doubts about My existence vanish and they start to love Me as I am. Then, our communion is unshakable and we begin to produce really great love manifestations.

It was nice of God to make this perfectly clear for me. I do really get frustrated with other people's conceptions of God. SF

Running Woman

I ran 10.8 miles today in a park on the Missouri River.

For weeks, I’ve sort of lost one image of myself and adopted another. That is, the woman who is training has taken over the woman who runs. The woman who runs is my energy source and true inner being. The woman who runs chugs out miles as a flowing mystic transcendental phenomenon. The training woman is worried and sometimes runs stupidly just to meet a goal.

This morning, I read that Supbraha Beckjord has a hip injury and is struggling this year with the 3,100 mile self transcendence race. Yet she is still doing about 30 miles a day. Yet she still has 650 miles to go. On the same page, was a picture of Sri Chinmoy in winter running suit, chugging out his miles. I feel bad for Supbraha, yet I yearn for the meditative running of Sri Chinmoy.

My soul needs the comfort and peace of running for enlightenment. My body does not need the stress of training. Coupled with the uncertainty of my living location, training seems a little nonsensical at the moment. While meditative running is something I desperately need.

I don’t need to make any decisions. I’m just in favor of running as seems natural to me and not pressuring myself. Tomorrow, I plan a 10 miler out into the netherworld of corn and soybeans, flat dirt roads and early morning humidity. It is out there, alone, that I touch the love and come home happy.