You are a whisper my dear,
Softly spoken in this moment’s ear,
A subtle song sung in perfect harmony.
Surrender my Angel now,
And forgive this sinner somehow,
And enjoy the sound of a Lover’s Symphony.
Do not at once lose your sight,
But please go blind as Angel’s might,
And see my canvas as through a Lover’s eyes.
Paint me, sketch me, or better still,
Do with me what you will,
Just love and let be this Lover’s Harmony.
Tag: Spirituality (Page 4 of 4)
Original photograph by Sandy Chase
I am sitting here, goose bumps covering my skin and tears welling up in my eyes. Each hair on my body is alive as if each is reaching for the sky while my body seems to be melting into the space beneath it. My breath is still slow, my heart content to beat in time with the rhythm that has pulsed through it. I am alone but not lonely. I am still but far from doing nothing. I am alive and I am aware even as the universe fades from view in eyes wide open.
Thus ends my midday meditation and for those of you who may not have experienced this I highly recommend it. It’s not the first time that I have been graced with such an explosion of emotion. Once, when I was about 14, I had such a tremendous experience while meditating that I stopped practicing until I could better understand the experience. In that moment I cried like a baby as a sense of love came cascading down from points all around me. I felt the room fade away as all that remained was the sense of love that filled the areas where intense pain once dwelled. Light filled darkness, and the unusual experience of joy filled my heart. Needless to say, I was not prepared to handle it.
I was not alone but I was lonely in my youth. I was a tortured soul if ever there was one, with parents who instilled such agreements in me as “I am not worthy” or “I am nothing”. They also created agreements for me that caused me to fear love, to fear commitment, to fear giving myself freely and to fear trusting in anything with a heartbeat. Yes, they drew up the contracts but it was me who readily agreed to sign them. I did not understand the latter part of that equation until after my children were born and love began to invade places I kept locked deep within me. Today, those places are becoming “public parks” where anyone can visit without a moment’s hesitation on my part.
It was not until recently that I decided those contracts must become null and void. Now, you just don’t cancel a contract with fear or anger. It just doesn’t work that way. Rather, you must replace those contracts with agreements that make them null and void. You don’t “ask” for release, you release yourself (action, by the way, is the purest form of asking). I’ll say that again, this time without the parentheses. Action is the purest form of asking. Perhaps, for those of you who don’t know me, this requires a bit of explanation using my patented analogies.
Say I want to have a successful business in landscaping and I am a very creative landscaper with many talents for the task. I sit in silent prayer asking the Universe (or God) to make my business successful. I do this for countless hours a day, several days a week for several weeks in a row. At the end of the practice, I look at my sales figures in total disbelief. “Zero sales!?,” I shout. “The universe must hate me. That law of attraction stuff is nothing but nonsense!!”
Source: Photobucket (username: eyeness)
I suggest that is simply not so. What you have truly done is ask the universe to make you successful at sitting still and praying, to which it replied “YES!” I have found in my experience that action is the only question the Universe actually understands. If I sit in a church somewhere and pray for world peace, and then leave the building and attack a person walking down the street, which request am I actually asking the Universe to meet? That answer seems relatively simple, and to me is one reason gurus like Gandhi said, “BE the change you wish to see in the world” and not “pray that the world changes”. Make sense? I can’t find anything else that is clearer spiritually.
Having this experience within me, I discovered that I cannot simply ask that an agreement with fear be nullified. I cannot ask for an end to loneliness while remaining in an empty room attached to a need for companionship. I cannot ask to be loved while continually spreading fear to those around me. I cannot ask to “see the light” while sitting on the basket that covers it. No, I must make other agreements and, in turn, ask the question correctly. I must walk out of my empty room toward a room filled with others (or lose my attachment to companionship) if I no longer want to be lonely. I must spread love if I want to see love in return. I must lift the cover if I wish to see the light under it. Action, therefore, is the question the Universe understands.
Now, back to the analogy. I ask the Universe to have a successful landscaping business not by praying for it, but rather by going out and doing a good job at a good value. I relish in my passion for it and it, in return, provides me with success. I have made an agreement with success by not only identifying my passion and talent but by putting that passion and talent in ACTION. To this, the Universe always says “YES!”
What Agreements Does the Universe Have With You? (source: NASA)
Once I discovered this truth a new reality was born for me. I have replaced the agreements I had with fear with new agreements with Love. I have replaced the agreements I had with anger with new agreements with joy. I have replaced the agreements I had with judgment with agreements with peace. Mostly, I have replaced agreements I had with death with new agreements I have with life. Amazing, huh? I have begun asking the questions correctly. I used to pray that I could become a writer. Now, I write. A prayer never once put a moment of inspiration through my fingers onto paper, actually typing them did. An agreement I had with a dream has been replaced with a new agreement I have with action. I have replaced asking with action and expecting with doing and have found a great new world in front of me.
Now, the goose bumps have subsided, and I can return to the rest of my passion-filled day. See, prayer may not get inspiration from fingers to paper, but it does get inspiration from Source to fingers. Prayer in itself is a question. Meditation is, after all, an action. The Universe always says “YES” to both, and anytime we believe it has failed what really has failed is our perception of what we have asked or what we have done. The Universe never fails, ever.
Be well, and prosper my dear friends. It’s all up to YOU.
Peace. ☮ ©2011 Thomas P. Grasso All Rights Reserved ☮ ℓﻉﻻ٥ ツ
My dear Children,
I stand here as just your father. A man whom you may see much differently than I see myself in a way only a perfect child can. A man who would pay a great price to be able to see the world through your eyes, to see me as you see me, to find joy in most things, and love in all things. Today is a day set apart for you to honor me, and I stand here, just a man who would be so much less if not for you, to tell you the truth as I see it.
On this day you honor me my truth is that I honor you. You have taken a boy and made him a man. You have shown light into the darkness, heaped joy upon sorrow, and gave way to a bright new view of the world through eyes not yet jaded by life’s insanity. See, the day you were born I was but a boy myself wandering alone in the fields of self pity and self indulgence. You taught me joy beyond words and a smile in sacrifice while giving me the sense of direction no compass could provide. Those things you honor in me on this day are the very things you have given me. The strength you see has come from a place but empty before you filled it. The light of love you see in me has come from a place very dark until you enlightened it. The teacher you see in me has come from the student you have allowed me to be. I am because you are, and in that no greater gift could you give me on this day.
My dear Children, you were perfect the day you were born. You lived without a sense of time, causing me to question its very existence. You moved without a sense of urgency, causing me to wonder why I need rush at all. When you laughed you brought a smile where none existed, and yes even created a laugh where none would have been otherwise. When you took your first steps you taught me patience. When you learned to run you taught me even more patience. When you learned to talk, well you challenged those lessons of patience you had taught me. Through it all you knew that I could never stay mad at you, and you forgave me for even trying. Yes, it was you who held my hand and caused me to stand straighter, it was you who taught me that love wasn’t just something you said without thought, and it was you who gave my life tremendous meaning in the simple word which still sends a jolt through my soul:
“Daddy.”
Yes dear Children, your Daddy loves you. I love you when I am trying to teach you something and you look at me like I am crazy. I love you when you decide to do your own thing regardless of how much I kick and scream. I love you when you save a worm from the sidewalk after a rain. I love you when you pick your Mom dandelions from the yard “just because”. I love you when you don’t call, when you don’t go to bed on time, when you question the very existence of everything I may hold dear. I love you when you win, I love you when you don’t, and I love you when you could care less as long as you had a good time trying. I love you when you sing, I love you when you pout, I love you when you root for the Giants or the Yankees just because I am rooting for my team. I love you when you are who you are regardless of who I think you should be. I love your hugs, I love that you know your Mommy is the greatest and I love you when you tell me my favorite song is “old”. I love you because you are, and because you are you have allowed me to be.
So I go about this day taking in the “Happy Father’s Days” and the cards and the gifts. I take them in so that I can let the love they show return. They are tokens my dear Children. Tokens of a day when the Universe bestowed upon this lowly man the greatest gift it has to offer. We call this gift your birthday, and in each of those days we find an example of the power that love itself provides. A single and childless friend one asked me “wouldn’t you like to go back to the days when you could just leave when you wanted and could do what you wished?” I simply closed my eyes and saw your faces and replied, “not in a million trillion bazillion years pal.” See, I know when you tell me that you love me “to the moon and back” that you are talking about some moon science hasn’t even discovered yet. I know that because you won’t stop asking me how to get there…
Anyway, thank you for letting your Daddy tell you how he feels and thank you for always telling me how you feel in the many different ways you do. I used to think when changing your diapers “do unto others as you would have them do unto you”. Why? Well you’ll get it someday, maybe, and when you do we’ll both laugh at the irony of it all. At least I hope so.
Peace. ☮
©2011 Thomas P. Grasso All Rights Reserved ☮ ℓﻉﻻ٥ ツ