On Thursday morning I received
an email from a very good friend. She said, in part: “[My husband] and I have started studying ACIM together
again and, of course, every time I get your wonderful [weekly message] I think
of you doing it too…. At any rate, it's making a lot more sense to me than it
did three decades ago. I read someone
the other week who referred to God as ‘The Great Quiet.’ I love that name – it rings
true for me. So I think, ‘The Great Quiet is in me and I am in the Great
Quiet.’ It helps so much.”
What a wonderful description – “The
Great Quiet.” I had never heard that before.
Oddly [don’t you just love spiritual synchronicity?], that same Thursday afternoon
I felt that Great Quiet. It had not been a very good day for me. I had to have
some dental extractions and be fitted for a removable partial. The extractions
went like clockwork. However, the partial had been made incorrectly, and I was
going to have to return the following day for another fitting. As the day wore
on the anesthetic wore off and my jaw began to hurt. On top of that I couldn’t
eat anything REAL men eat – so I ate yogurt, soup, pudding and other foo-foo
foods. I couldn’t work in the yard. I couldn’t lift anything. I couldn’t do much
of anything.
It was a perfect storm consisting
of perfect ingredients for me to crawl up into my King Baby chair and sulk long
enough to conjure up a gold-plated Pity-Pot for myself.
Later that afternoon it began to
rain – and rainstorms on Tennessee’s Cumberland Plateau, which creates a 1,000-foot
overlook into the Tennessee River Valley, can be gentle, refreshing,
life-giving nourishment for the woods. Yet, in an instant these storms can become
wild, wooly, gale-blown sheets of penetrating water darts. It was that way this
Thursday. Gentle rain fell straight down with no wind. I could almost hear the
grass and plants as they were giving thanks. My Pity-Pot dissolved and I stood
on my porch rather transfixed.
“The Great Quiet!”
Then trees began bending to the
wind, shaking so violently tips of limbs were flying off. The gentle,
nourishing rain became a squealing banshee [one-half inch in 10 minutes] and
the grateful vegetation began yelling, “My God! Stop! In the name of Heaven
what are you thinking of?”
I was fascinated with the sudden
fury of the storm. What a change! – Yet I remained on the porch in that “Great
Quiet.”
I was also very aware of what a
blessing that was.
It made me realize I can do that
anytime I want/need when I’m around people, places, or events. All I need to do
is step outside myself and observe all the goings-on, including myself – just
become the Great Buddhist Observer – standing shoulder-to-shoulder with (and
in) the “Great Quiet.”
But, most of the time it’s hard
for me to do that.
When I talk about quieting my
mind I do not mean stilling all the thoughts that go on constantly in that
universe between my ears. I seem to have a whole committee of voices that lives
up there. If I try to quiet them, that’s where my concentration lies: trying to
still the voices and thoughts that pop out of nowhere and demand my attention.
My concentration does not lie in listening to the whispers of the Holy Spirit. It
lies in fighting a very futile battle with my voices.
So, I’ve learned that to still
or quiet my mind means simply to learn not to pay attention to the thoughts of
my resident committee. This takes practice and a modicum of self-control. I can
teach myself to do that. ACIM calls this process “mind training.” It’s not a
brain-washing. Rather it’s a learned skill to pay attention to the whispers,
not the shouts, of the constant stream of random thoughts that travel from one
of my ears to the other. I use the mantra of Ho'oponopono to do this. It has been rather effective. [See
Msg-1-Jun-2014: Experiencing the Peace and Truth of the Realities of Spirit]
There’s an old saying: I do not have to believe everything I think.
The louder the voices in my head, the more I know they are of my ego. I am
learning (and practicing) to listen for the whispers that will guide me to
understanding the next, dumb, right thing I need to do. I’m beginning to
understand that many times this next right thing to do is nothing.
Although these messages are
mostly for me, thanks for listening. As always – feel free to forward this
message to your friends, family, and those accompanying you on your spiritual
journey.
Don
#2 Jun, 2014
Copyright, 2014
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