Rumi, as read by Coleman Barks

Spirit House

Spirit houses provide appealing shelter for deities who protect and bless the family who reside in the "real" house on one's property. In Thailand, these tiny temples are perched high up on poles in every yard or garden. The Guardian of the House is the spirit that watches over and protects the home. It is uncertain whether there is one spirit that watches over all homes, or if individual spirits do this for each home. However, all you have to do in Thailand is look around and you'll see that every home has a spirit house. Thai families who believe wholeheartedly in the spirit house and it's importance light incense every morning and ask the spirit to watch over and protect the home.

I have decided I would like to have a spirit house, maybe perched by the front entrance to my house, or in the serenity of the garden in the back. Who wouldn't want protection and blessings from the spirits as one goes through the stresses of life? We would all like less suffering, and let's face it, we humans think we would like to alleviate it completely. Yet it appears as though the only way to grow spiritually, to be more enlightened, is through that door of suffering. We can choose to either be broken down or to be broke open.

In her book "Broken Open" by Elizabeth Lesser, she was given a gift by her sister and it was a beautiful spirit house. As she was unwrapping the treasure, she discovered to her amazement that the house had gotten broken from being sent through the mail. Disappointed from her discovery, she still had a good laugh from this. She said to herself, "A broken spirit house!" She had just spent the year finishing her book, which is about finding protection and blessings in the broken moments of our lives. She tells stories in her book of blessings that come disguised as disaster, not as cute little houses in lovely gardens. Elizabeth Lesser keeps the broken shards of her spirit house gift in a basket to remind herself that while she is never safe from breaking, she is always protected by spirit.

From her book she writes, "Over and over, we are broken on the shore of life. Our stubborn egos are knocked around, and our frightened hearts are broken open - not once, and not in predictable patterns, but in surprising ways and for as long as we live. The promise of being broken and the possibility of being opened are written into the contract of human life. When the sea is rough, and when we are suffering, we may want to give up hope and give in to despair. but brave pilgrims have gone before us. They tell us to venture forth with faith and vision. "

The poet Rumi tell us this:

Drum sounds rise on the air,
and with them, my heart.
A voice inside the beat says,
I know you are tired,
but come.
This is the way.

Willingness to Evolve Spiritually

Why can't I evolve into a more spiritual person? What's holding me back? Most of us have asked ourselves these questions at one time or another. We've all secretly wondered if it's an impossible feat that only the spiritually gifted people can accomplish.

The key to evolving spiritually is willingness. A simple, heart-felt conviction of willingness is all that's required. Anyone and everyone can have that willingness at any moment - which is all we ever have - one moment, or the present Now. Saying that you should have done it last year, last week, etc. or that you will try to do it in the future, but not now, is an indication that you aren't understanding the illusion of time. We don't live in the past or the future. We are Now. The time is always Now, and your willingness to be connected to all there is, all that is God or Spirit, is the critical portal into being Oneness, a divine spark of Spirit, if you will, and that's all you ever are. That's all, you ask? YES, that's all. You are Spirit, pretending to be a separate self, until, that is, you find your real self, which is the ultimate core essence of who you are.

So, do you have the capacity to consciously evolve? YES, absolutely! When you have that compulsion to find something bigger, deeper, higher, and infinitely more real than anything you have ever known, nothing will hinder your search. We are pulled by an invisible web - a web connecting the universe, and we are grasping to become that something which is at the deepest level of our being. We feel choicelessly compelled to reach for it, not knowing what that "it" is.

Keep grasping, don't give up, and as the Persian poet, Rumi has said, "don't go back to sleep". Who knows when you will pass this way again.

Don't go back to sleep

The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you.
Don't go back to sleep.

You must ask for what you really want.
Don't go back to sleep.

People are going back and forth across the doorsill
where the two worlds touch.

The door is round and open.
Don't go back to sleep.
- Rumi

BIRTH ---- DEATH

"The day you were born
a ladder was set up to help you
escape from this world."
-Rumi

Surrendering

The picture above depicts a person experiencing extreme despair. Many of us can relate to extreme suffering at some point in our lives, if we continue to live long enough. The universe itself can bring you to your knees and leave you feeling alone, wondering if it's worth it to continue living for another day. How will you respond when major disappointments come your way?

The poet, Rumi, has said:

"Learn the alchemy
true human beings know.
The moment you accept
what troubles you've been given
the door will open."

As long as we believe we can handle by ourselves the troubles we've been given, we will patch up our lives with temporary fixes. We often latch onto a new belief or idea that makes us feel better.

And what's wrong with believing in a belief? What's wrong with having faith in something that makes you feel better? Let's look at what a belief is. A belief is a fixation upon a version of the truth. When a belief becomes rigid, growth is not possible. The truth we think we've found is made up of self-projected thoughts that we say is a belief or faith. You can say the mind has found its own self-projection. An ideal or belief is self-projected, fictitious, and unreal.

A belief (even a religious belief) can entrap us in our own isolated bubble. It often separates us from people we view as either being different or those who believe differently.

Any institution or group can be used to divide people, whether it is a church, an exclusive club membership, a school or university, a city you live in, an organization, or a nation that believes it's better and more powerful than all other nations. When an individual believes he is superior to others, he becomes rigid, blocked, greedy, and often times, jealous. Or he may even have hidden emotions and thoughts of being inferior to others. When an entire nation identifies itself with an inflated ego or a belief, such as "we're right, they're wrong", the destruction that can and often does occur is tremendous. Wars are created or fought, and people think it's rational and even justifiable to injure and slaughter others.

Understanding and experiencing who you "really" are on a deep level is the key to the freedom of beliefs. So, how do you find the "real" you? By surrendering all beliefs, all thoughts and labels of who you think you are, and by tossing them away. "But then I'll be nothing!" you may be saying. Yes, that's exactly right! You are a no-thing, a no self. Only in your mind have you created a "false self" belief, which gives you the illusion you are separate from everything.

True freedom from suffering comes when you surrender the "false self" idea and realize you are so much more. You are Life, the beautiful Oneness, the precious "I Am-ness". Prana is a word that describes who you are so well. It comes from India, where "prana" literally means "life force". This life force is the flow of intelligence, this life energy, the source of all, is the essential core nature of who you are. There is no self, no need to find yourself, for how can you find yourself when you never were a "self"? Once you know this on a deep level, how can you then not experience the internal divineness within you and within all people and beings throughout the universe?

May you experience this for yourself now: peaceful, blissful, eternal awareness.

-----diane

Rumi poem

Rumi is a 13th century Persian Sufi mystic, born in Balkh, in what is now Afghanistan. The general theme of his thoughts, like that of the other mystic and Sufi poets of the Persian literature, is essentially about the concept of Tawheed (unity) and union with his beloved (the primal root) from which/whom he has been cut and fallen aloof, and his longing and desire for reunity. - Text from Wikipedia

The following poem is one of my favorites:

Since You Are I, You Who Are Myself

Once a man came and knocked at the door of his friend.
“Who are you?” asked his friend. “It is I,” he replied.
The friend said, “Go away! This isn’t the time to enter!
There’s no place at a table like mine for the one
Who’s not been cooked in the fire of true gnosis?
Apart from the fire of absence and separation
What’ll cook the raw or free the uncooked from fraud?
The poor man went away and for a whole year of travel and absence
He was burnt utterly by the flames of separation.
His heart burned until it was consumed; he came again
To the door of his friend and knocked at the door
With a hundred signs of the utmost fear and reverence,
Terrified a wrong word should escape his lips.
From within, his friend called out, “Who’s at the door?”
He replied, “It is you who are at the door, O charmer of hearts!”
“Since you are I,” the friend said, “O you who are myself,
Enter; there’s no place in my house for two I’s.
~ RUMI