Staying Grounded in Shifting Sand

A sermon delivered at the Unitarian Universalist Congregation (Blacksburg, Virginia), February 18, 2007, by Dr. Linda Ferguson, a member of the UU Congregation of Roanoke and the author of the book Path for Greatness: Spirituality at Work.

Life as a free and fortunate human being is precious because it gives us the opportunity to cultivate the awakened mind.

His Holiness the Dalai Lama

I greet that place in you wherein resides the center of the universe…..

Namaste

It is often easy to get beaten down by the daily tasks in our lives, to allow our small self, our ego, our fears run the show. The question is- what game do you want to play? Do you want to play the game of life that feeds that small self or do you want to play the game that expands yourself. The bigger game involves seeing where your growing edge is and being willing to stay there long enough to learn the lesson required. This is a game that lets you tap into power beyond your wildest dreams. The game of course is the game of the awakened mind, one where we see our physical, material world and another world where we see the events metaphorically or metaphysically for the opportunities to grow, learn and experience joy. The object of the bigger game is to learn to love deeper, forgive more, offer compassion at every opportunity, be joyful and find peace in any given moment.

Sound like a good game to play? If you aren't sure, keep listening. For, to paraphrase Alice in Wonderland (and it was such a good line in the movie “The Matrix”), once you go down this rabbit hole, you'll never look at the world the same way again.

The Kabbalah speaks of the 1% consciousness that most people live in. There is a powerful 99% consciousness that most people don’t access, yet this consciousness helps manifest miraculous events. This 99% consciousness is beyond the grasp of the unawakened mind. For the awakened mind, this 99% greater consciousness is accessible. It is here where a greater wisdom plays out and the world of miracles happen daily.

Great mystical traditions through the ages have described the magnificence and wonder of beholding the Divine Beloved, even if for a fleeting moment. Great reformers, spiritual teachers, and avatars such as Jesus or the Buddha have tapped into this powerful force, moving past the earthly illusions. We need to awaken to this path and stay committed to following it despite the obstacles and hardships that may scare us back into our sleeping state. If you want to expand your world and your life beyond measure, the awakened path provides such rewards. The smaller self, the scared ego can easily carry sway in our world. You have to be ever vigilant and have a good support network to stay on the awakened path.

The awakened path allows us to live our lives more fully integrated and accept all the life events we experience. We can surrender our worry and anxiety, moving through our fear and grief to new levels of peace and vitality. For centuries mystics and sages have described the experience of awakening, transcendence, or enlightenment. There are many metaphors for the awakened path such as piercing the veil of illusion of this physical world. Plato's allegory of the cave teaches how you can shift your understanding by stepping behind the shadow. Buddha became enlightened by sitting under the Bodhi tree emptying himself of all his previously held desires and beliefs.

The search for deeper understanding and meaning of life has been part of human experience before the written word. Staying grounded in shifting sand requires that we look beyond what is happening, not taking things at face value, and seeing the spiritual process that is unfolding. In essence, playing the game of life following spiritual rules as well as the well trodden earthly material path, with its rules for living and dying.

There is a new truth, a new paradigm emerging. If you’ve seen the movie “What the Bleep” or “the Secret” you’ll know what I’m talking about. Here’s a central point in those movies:

“When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change”

This is best exemplified in a wonderful video called “Celebrating What’s Right in the World”. It’s narrated by a photographer for the National Geographic, Dewitte Jones. Many of us here as UUs have been taught:

“I’ll believe it when I see it.”

This is indeed the essential quality of the scientific process.

DeWitte Jones turns this thinking on its head. He found time and again, if he believed he’d get just the right photo, and was patient enough and open enough to look for it, it inevitably appeared. The video is a wonderful demonstration of this principle and has some stunning pictures in it. He said that mindset permeates National Geographic and why their photos are so world renouned.

As we affirm, visualize, and resonate with what we wish to create in the world, we will experience it. All our thoughts, actions, attitudes and beliefs shape what we experience in our lives. Maybe not right away, maybe not directly. But as we believe — so we perceive. The self-fulfilling prophecy is quite real. It’s known as the Pygmalian effect in psychology. The crux of it is that expectations do change people’s reactions. This is a central premise as well to a spiritual way of being in the world. We can be conscious creators when and as we learn to pay attention to our thoughts and beliefs. Mystics have known this for years. They are not be bound by the 3-D world. Shamans and medicine healers have learned how to shape shift and time travel as necessary to do their healing. This knowledge is being taught and studied in contemporary times as well.

The dualistic notions of Spirit vs. matter, Divinity vs. humanity are deeply embedded in the Western culture, yet are not found in early mystical writings of both East and West. Non-Western cultures and indigenous cultures have long integrated these two realms and try to hold on to them despite the colonization of Western ideologies and life styles. Seeing all of life as an expression of the Divine and infused with divinity is an ancient viewpoint. It is one that each generation seems to have to keep relearning. Luckily as we move more consciously and intentionally in this learning we can help others awaken at earlier ages. Many of us on this awakened path feel the quickening happening in our own lives and around the planet.

However, too many in our society still seem to be caught up in scarcity or consciousness or victim mentality rather than an abundance and interdependence consciousness. We all need to learn, practice, or refine our "awakened mind" to make a world of joy and abundance possible. We're seeing the ramifications of our not learning how to do this in dramatic ways globally, from deforestation and global warming to sweatshops and exploitation during times of enormous wealth and advances in science and medicine.

Most of us here have spent enormous amounts of time and energy trying to stop or reduce what we Don’t want. We’ve got to shift course. We have to instead keep affirming and visualizing the world we do want to create. Then give thanks that it is already being formed and coming. Gratitude potentizes all things in our life.

I began my book in the early stages of the US war against Iraq. It was a time of great anxiety, confusion and uncertainty in our country and around the world. “Staying Grounded in Shifting Sands” fits these times perfectly. How are we to stay centered and balanced in the midst of confusion, chaos and uncertainty? Even if our own life is going fairly smoothly, we will encounter others who are feeling anxious or angry, and we will have to deal with their pain or troubled emotional state. Finding ways to not only achieve our own inner peace but to offer support and guidance to others so that they too may find some peace is important work for these times. Indeed one of the most important spiritual rule is that we create our world from the inside out- believing first, then thinking, affirming, then action. All our actions come from our thoughts and beliefs- so how we respond to the world is a reflection of and direct product of our thoughts and beliefs. And what we experience is a result as well of our thoughts and beliefs. How we respond to others (fear vs. Love), how we hold on to ego or call in Divine Guidance all determine what world we create.

A friend of mine wrote me an email during the first months of the Iraq war about learning the core lesson of peace. He wrote, "This war has taught me much about peace. I'm seeing that my anger over the war is no better than the anger of those waging it. When it comes right down to it, everyone is doing the best he or she can do. I have come to rest in that awareness and now I am the peace around which I had been dancing." What a beautiful insight!

This new perspective of my friend is precisely what we need to learn, not just for our own inner peace but truly to help transform the world. Bullies and terrorists exist, not just on a global or national scale but in people's work lives and in their own homes. September 11th 2001 was a dramatic global wake up call. The Enron and WorldCom crisis similarly hit people where they could feel the pain. September 11th was a cosmic 2 X 4 plank that came smacking across the face of just about anyone remotely connected to contemporary life. It was probably necessary to get people to seriously pay attention to their lives. Will we continue to slumber and accept life cruising along as it is? In his book, "Creating a Meaningful Life," Bo Lozoff urges us to get off the fast lane and into the vast lane. The vast lane awaits those of us ready to move into it. The game of expanded consciousness and awakened mind is there if we accept the call to play the game.

I've been fortunate that my book tours have allowed me to meet incredible people who are taking their awakened path seriously. They are committed to not just doing the same old same old. They are courageous enough to examine their own past programming and unhealthy patterns to release them and move forward. My journey the last few years has been likewise. As a result of my divorce shortly before my first book was published, I went into the depths of previous pain that I didn't know was there. I doubt I would have "voluntarily" created the situations to address my deeper wounds. But life gives us those opportunities to do our most important work; indeed that is the essence of our soul journey.

This is the basic condition of life- we will always get what we need to awaken and expand. AND we always get what we believe. The consequences of thought and behavior may seem contrary or negative to us at the time, but they are co-created by US to learn and experience what we need. If we want to change our life situation, we have to change our patterns not only of responding, but of thinking. What we experience may not come in the way we want or expect or in the time we desire. However, we ALWAYS get opportunities to heal our wounds and face our fears. We ALWAYS get experiences to move to greater love, compassion and forgiveness, and we can choose to experience joy at any time. The work we’re here to do is to clean up our own house so that we can be more present and loving to those as they try to clean up their inner house.

Following the awakened path you can have a sense of lightness and openness that you’ve never experienced before. It will also require that you face your fears and self-limiting beliefs and clear them out. This can be scary work but ultimately leaves us much freer and easeful since we don’t spend as much energy reacting from a place of woundedness or fear. Word to the wise, Following an Awakened path is not for the weak hearted or faint of mind. Through the last five years I've had to be present to the pain and joy in my life and learn how to take it all in as it arises without guarantees, attachments, or judgments. It's a very difficult task for a (recovering) Type A, High Need Achiever person such as myself. I'm more of a B+ person now and see my achievements on a whole other scale. Humility is also a very useful and important tool in this game.

To follow the awakened path we must have courage and faith. We must have faith that we are never dealt more than we can handle. It is requires faith to accept that our lessons come to us as we need them. Faith also will help us embrace the truth that our lessons come for our highest good. And it is an iron clad spiritual law that the opportunities for such learning come when we are ready to experience them. We may not like how the opportunities appear, but they come when we are ready. As much as we might like to skip certain lessons, either because they are too painful or we want to jump ahead a level, the steps happen in the right progression for our highest learning. It is also important to remember that we each have our own particular soul progression. We can not know for another person what lesson they need to learn or the progression of their lessons.

When we see our life events happening from a spiritual perspective, we can dig deeper to find the greater lesson of what is going on. Indeed we can give up judgments of "right" or "wrong" about things happening in our life. We can see that all that is unfolding and being presented to us is for our greater growth, joy and healing. Therefore all that flows around us comes in perfect timing, even if we can’t see the bigger picture at the time. Once we give up our attachments and our judgments of things in our life being “right vs. wrong” or people being right or wrong, we can more freely accept what is. From this place of open awareness and acceptance, we can give and receive Love more freely. Releasing our attachments to how we think things "should be", frees up an enormous amount of energy that is used to fight off an enemy, prove we are right or worthy, or cover our wounds.

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Following the awakened path often entails releasing your attachments to those things and beliefs that have anchored you in the past. Perhaps this release will be voluntary or perhaps you will experience a ‘non-conscious’ or “unintentional” release such as a job, relationship, illness – and trying to make sense of. If you are questioning basic beliefs about your life or have to rebuild your life after a major loss, find comfort in knowing it is all part of awakening. It's all part of being more aware of and tending to your inner life.

When you follow the awakened path you will find that you aren't rocked as hard when tough times occur. As an awakened being you will respond to challenges with greater clarity and strength. You will be able to embrace the times of doubt and darkness rather than fight it when it occurs. And as you learn to be more aware you won't need such dramatic or intense wake up calls to get you to pay attention. A few years ago, as I began to really live the awakened path, I developed a new prayer- 'May my lessons come more gently'. I've found on the whole that they have or at least I've been able to get the lesson or insight more quickly so I can come back to center that much quicker.

Part of the game is realizing that our life won’t be all bliss once we learn an important lesson. We get continual opportunities to practice the lesson. On this journey we can return to our center and remain grounded much quicker when we get rattled. It is not that we don't have obstacles or losses once we choose this path. The awakened path often puts us more in touch with deeper emotions that have been buried for so long. We may feel even more intense pain or sadness for a time. We may be even more sensitive to the suffering of others. But as we do our own healing and growing, we are more able to live with the pain and move through it quicker. What used to bother me for days now only upsets me for hours or moments. Like the bobo doll that rocks back to center when hit squarely, we can come back to our own center smoother and more fluidly when we learn the way of the awakened path.

All our stretch points, life stressors, even illnesses, are reminders to seek out more ways to love, offer compassion, feel grateful, or release some attachment. One of the biggest attachments we have to move past is our attachments to things being judgments of right vs. wrong. We need to stop blaming ourselves or others for being or doing “wrong” and forgive ourselves and others when we or they fall short of fully expressing their Divine Essence. This is pretty radical thinking – especially in a UU church, but as we learn to see our lives as a spiritual awakening, it is true.

The best way I’ve learned to shift out of fear to see how Spirit may be operating is to ask “how can this be a grace-filled moment?” I look at ways that God may be moving through my life even if it feels scary or uncomfortable. Some times I can find the grace in the moment and some times I can’t. Often it entails simply accepting that I can’t see the whole picture at this time. That often allows me to step out of my judgments of right or wrong about other people’s behavior and be open to Spirit working through them or me in the situation.

The Divine Plan for Peace on Earth is made more concrete the better we are able to express Love. As the famous passage from St Francis of Assissi goes, “Make me a channel for Your peace.” Heaven is not a place that is a physical destination, it is a state of being, a Oneness. The Spirit plane and the Earth plane are separated only to the degree to which we believe in that separation. Though we often speak of living in two worlds, in fact there is only One world, one dimension, and that is with Infinite Source. Buddhist and Native American spirituality refers to this as the interdependence of all Beings.

As the path emerges before you, may the wind be at your back and your heart remain open.

Namaste.

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