STOP! (for a moment)

STOP! (For a Moment)

Copyright 2016 Don Ray

There is good reason mystics seclude themselves in monastic retreats. Though a functioning society cannot have all its members living in monastic retreats, without question any society in which people were encouraged to seek quiet, alone time with Self  and Source would be a healthier, happier, less violent, and more meaningfully productive society.  ("Self" being that non-ego, individual expression of a greater consciousness that is hard to explain to modern people)

The natural, contemplative opportunity of food gathering, field work, and careful craftsmanship has been banished from our lives, and a poverty of perpetual busyness assaults our senses and batters our souls. We have gradually lost the riches of quiet and healing solitude and lost the ability to be still.

We feel guilty and empty if we dare to be still with God and ourselves. All our contacts and connections never ask “what state of being did you attain today?” The question at the end of the day is “what did you do?”

When we do sit still, we have no thoughts of our own or awareness of the Self because
we hand our consciousness to a media or digital input device, visually and aurally plugged in to the organic USB of our eyes and ears.

How ironic that in the most self-absorbed age, with culture and marketers demanding we focus on the self (the little ego-based self), ours is the age in which we have no opportunity or encouragement to experience even momentary in-depth awareness of the essence of the greater, connected Self.

I want to cry to the world “you do not have to do so much!” I suspect that was part of what Yeshu (Jesus) had in mind when He pointed out the beauty of flowers that labor not.

Allow yourself to accept the gifts of your Self, each other, and the loving Source.

Indeed, we have plenty of work that we must do, and plenty about which to worry. All the more reason to not add to it with busyness that is not really necessary; all the more reason to not let media and marketers, intrusions and “entertainment”, steal every moment in which we could be deeply alive with our Self, each other, and sustaining Spirit.

Copyright 2016 Don Ray