An unexpected teacher

I've been of the mindset for the past several years that if I do love and experience love, it would be one wherein Light mirrors Light. At the human being's most honest moment, he becomes Light, and our belief that we are part of the God Spirit, if not God Spirit ourselves, begins to be stripped off of its totally intellectual nature and actually becomes something we experience. I've had moments when I literally saw a person as Light, so beautiful, and it left me in tears. But lately, I've been realizing that this doesn't just happen with people we have relationships with, but can happen in our interactions with people we meet everyday, in the most fleeting of moments.

For my lunch, I decided to minimize the drudgery of the day and eat chicken longsilog at Rodics. I also heard from a friend that the book shop that I've been coming to just re-opened, and I promised myself that I would go there. Always lifts up my spirits, takes me out of my little world. I really don't buy much and often, I often just go to second-hand book shops and stalls to feel the collective energy of the books. I don't know what it is about second-hand book shops but they always manage to remind me of the richness of the history, evolution, and process of thought probably more than established bookstores. It must be something about knowing that other peoples hands, other people's eyes have come into contact with the books. Someone has learned, been touched, probably been changed by the books, and knowing this, it just fills the place with this pregnant air of insight.

But... and this is really the point of this entry... Little did I know that I would not only be reunited with that familiar energy, but that I would also meet one of the wisest people I have ever had a chance to speak with... And that this person would not be in the guise of a professor, a priest, a good friend, a learned person, but would be in the form of the simple middle-aged man who tends to the bookshop.

It's funny how a simple comment can strike up the most enlightening of conversations. In a matter of minutes, this person and I were talking about Spirit, God, consciousness, fear, lack, simplicity, Sun Tzu, Lao Tzu, Marianne Williamson, Stephen Levine, Kahlil Gibran, kindness, reincarnation, politics, Mother Teresa, changing the world in small steps. I was amazed to find someone whose life, words, and demeanor were genuinely in sync, and how my own views resonated with his. Yes, in this journey, we meet fellow travellers, strangers who alternate roles between teacher and student, and exchange life insights with them.

Well, we left the conversation on the point that real change in the world can only happen when people's consciousness change. It is not a matter of just changing your material position in the world. Even if your external circumstances change, if your paradigm remains to be that of fear and lack, you will still relive the same things you have been in the past. It is this overly materialistic focus of the Western mind that keeps people suffering. We don't notice that in our daily encounters with people, in our work, in conversation that we have the opportunity to positively affect people's lives. I remember Mother Teresa saying "We cannot do big things. We can only do small things with great love."

So yeah, small steps to change. Be Light because that is who you are.

:)

Early morning coffee

Like I promised, I'm writing again. And I was surprised to realize that the inner voice hasn't left me, once the pen touched-down on paper, it was as if I was reunited with that part of myself who sees clearly, who listens beyond words, and sees beyond outlines... to meaning and truth.

What is this truth that I talk about? It is not the kind of truth that I will offer to someone else and say, "This should be your truth too, accept it." It's truth that lies at the core of my experience, it's the essence of my moments, the laughter, the joy, the pain of inner knowing. It's probably a misuse of the word truth. For others, it's authenticity, genuineness, honesty. For me, too, it's all those things. It's what is left when all the layers have been peeled off and I allow the part of me, pure and untouched by grief, soft still even as life's pain has hardened everything else that surrounds it... to surface once more.

And herein lies the paradox. Because it has truly been touched, affected, influenced, altered, changed by life... because it is in this part of myself that life has truly, profoundly entered... so it remains untouched. Pierced to my core, piercing through life's core, this part of myself, this Spirit, remains pure as morning's dew, as a child's breath.

I now look out my window to the buildings, the houses, and the piece of sky that line my view, and once again, I am left in silence, the silence of knowing that everything is, that nothing need change, that all is beautiful. I feel my Spirit expand once more and I am lifted beyond my circumstances. Truly, life is more than this pettiness of need and greed and expectation. Life is more than this cup of coffee, these feelings of hurt, this experience of joy... And truly, too, as with life's paradoxical return, with eyes that truly see, it is also all that is.

This is life.

And it is beautiful.