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Monday, June 02, 2008
Love is the only thing that's real
"Love is the only thing that's real. Everything else is an illusion."
--Marianne Williamson
In Return to Love, Marianne Williamson shares her reflections on A Course in Miracles with us. I was inspired to learn that she did not go to Harvard and that her success is based on her desire to live a spiritual life.
The premise of A Course in Miracles is that things manifest out of either the Holy Spirit (or whatever you like to call it) or the Ego. The Ego is a negative entity that creates fear rather than love.
Since God is love, love is therefore the only thing that's real and fear is an illusion created by the Ego to keep us away from love. This means that every negative thing I see is created by my own mind (ego) and I have to ask God to correct my perceptions in order to get past it.
This statement is both simple and powerful, and I am using it in my own life to keep me from being unhappy. I have a lot of difficult things going on in my life right now. By using mindfulness, I am able to view them as neutral rather than positive or negative.
This change in perspective helps keep things from getting too overwhelming. When I am upset, I now ask for my perceptions to be corrected, which is also a Buddhist tool as well. Mindfulness teaches us that life is an exercise in perceptions and in order to experience mudita in the here and now we need to focus on the joyful things in life.
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I have been self-employed for more than 25 years. It has been an up and down ride, sometimes frustrating, but I am still here with no regrets. I have reinvented myself several times, at least in part, to add to my repretoire, to better fill my entrepreneurial tool box, and to continally assess my values, goals, and rewards.
Most of the rewards have proved to me that "Love is the only things that's real." In a way, my business has three parts; none of them is really in conflict with the others, but each gives me a niche, adding power and energy to my ability to weather storms in any. I always think of the Apostle Paul. I can visualize much in my life as similar to his ability to set out in a craft somewhat lacking in its ability, probably with a lateen sail, and little knowledge of weather or geography and go to visit the Colossians, the Thessalonians, the Corinthians, ets, to spread the message of love.
Unwittingly, my mother imprinted the Ghandi messages in me early on. When I was a very little child, two or so, she would read me stories from the newspaper about India and Ghandi and the passive fight and how it achieved success. I do not think Ghandi passive, really he was the supreme activist, but his acceptance of all persons and all that happened, made him appear irritatingly passive to those around him, yet, their curiosity as much as their puzzlement, helped him win his point. So, too, will you in your self employment. Accept yourself, accept others, take action. Action doesn't mean wading into the fray with fists flailing. Just find your pattern of action and while the goals might change, the pattern adjust, the values remain. E Fuller
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