This below is from "The Life and Teachings of the Masters of the Far East" written by Baird Spalding in the late 1800's.  He and a team of researchers went to India to find the Masters whom they had heard of but they wanted to find them and see if what was said of them were fact.  They stayed for years and were well convinced, two of the research party even staying in the Far East in order to develop their ability to be as these Masters.  Baird Spalding came back and wrote about his experiences there.  The person "Emil" is one of the masters who is speaking the this below and is talking about the Temple that they are visiting there.

**************
 

Emil said, "This is called the Temple of Silence, the Place of Power. Silence is power, for when we reach the place of silence in mind, we have reached the place of power -the place where all is one, the one power-God. ‘B e still and know that I am God.' Diffused power is noise. Concentrated power is silence. When, through concentration (drawing to a center), we have brought all of our forces into one point of force, we have contacted God in silence, we are one with Him and hence one with all power. This is the heritage of man. ‘I and the Father are one.' There is but one way to be one with the power of God and that is consciously to contact God. This cannot be done in the without, for God manifests from within. ‘The Lord is in His holy temple; let all the earth keep silent before Him.' Only as we turn from the without to the silence of the within can we hope to make conscious union with God. We will realize that His power is for us to use and we will use it at all times. Then we will know that we are one with His power.

"Then will humanity be understood. Man will learn to let go of self-delusions and vanities. He will realize his ignorance and littleness. Then will he be prepared to learn. He will realize that the proud cannot be taught. He will know that only the humble can perceive the Truth. His feet will feel the firm rock, he will no longer stumble, he will be poised in decision.

"To realize that God is the only power, substance, and intelligence may be confusing at first. But when man does realize the true nature of God and brings Him forth into active expression, he will use this power at all times. He will know that he consciously contacts His power at all times-when he eats, when he runs, when he breathes, or when he does the great work before him. Man has not learned to do the greater works of God because he has not realized that greatness of God's power and has not known that God's power is for man's use.

"God does not hear us through our loud and vain repetitions nor our much speaking. We must seek God through the Christ within, the invisible connection which we have within ourselves. When the Father within is worshiped in Spirit and Truth, He hears the calls of that soul which sincerely opens to Him. The one who makes the connection with the Father in secret will feel the power flowing through him as the fulfillment of every desire. For he that sees the Father in the secret place of his own soul and there abides, him the father will reward openly. How often Jesus disclosed his individual contact with the Father. See how He constantly held Himself in conscious communication with God within. See how He talked with Him as though He were personally present. See how powerful this secret inner relation made Him. He recognized that God does not speak in the fire, the earthquake, or the great wind, but in the still, small voice---the still, small voice deep in our own souls.

"When man learns this, he will become poised. He will learn to think things through. Old ideas will drop away, new ideas will be adjusted. He will soon find the ease and efficiency of system. He will learn at last to take all the questions that perplex him into this silent hour. There he may not solve them but he will become familiar with them. Then he will not need to go hurrying and battling through the day and feel that his purpose has been defeated.

"If man would come to know the greater stranger -himself-let him enter his own closet and shut the door. There he will find his most dangerous enemy and there will he learn to master him. He will find his true self. There will he find his truest friend, his wisest teacher, his safest adviser-himself. There will he find the altar upon which God is the undying fire, the source of all goodness, all strength, all power-himself. He will know that God is in the deepest part of the silence. He will find that within himself abides the Holy of Holies. He will feel and know that his every desire is in God's mind and is, therefore, God's desire. He will feel and know the closeness of the relationship of God and man, the Father and the Son. He will realize that only in consciousness has there been any separation of these which have seemed two-just as his spirit and his body have seemed to be two-but which in reality are one.

"God fills both heaven and earth. It was this great revelation that came to Jacob in the silence. He had slept on the stone of materiality. In a great burst of divine illumination he saw the outer is but the out-pressing or expression of the image held within. So impressed was he by this that he called out. "Surely the Lord (or law) is in this place (the earth or body) and I knew it not. This is none other but the house of God and this is the gate to heaven.' Man will realize, as Jacob did, that the real gate to heaven is through his own consciousness.

"It is this ‘ladder' of consciousness, revealed in a vision to Jacob, which each of us must climb before we can enter that silent secret place of the Most High and find that we are in the very center of every created thing, one with all things visible and invisible, in and of the Omnipresence. In Jacob's vision he was shown the ladder reaching from earth to heaven. He saw the angels of God descending and ascending upon it-God's ideas descending from Spirit to form and ascending again. It was the same revelation that came to Jesus when the ‘heavens were opened unto him' and he saw the wonderful law of expression whereby ideas conceived in the divine Mind come forth into expression and manifest as form. So perfectly was this law of expression revealed to the Master that at once he saw all form may be transformed, or changed in form, through a change of consciousness in regard to it. His first temptation was to change the form of stones to that of bread to satisfy personal hunger, but with the revelation of this law of expression came the true understanding that stones as well as all other visible forms have come forth from the Universal Mind Substance, God, and are in themselves true expressions of divine Mind; and all things desired, (not formed) are still in this Universal Mind Substance ready to be created or brought forth to fill every desire. Thus, the need for bread but showed that the substance with which to create bread or any other needed thing is at hand without limitation and bread can be created from this substance just as well as stones can be created there from. Every good desire man has is God's desire; therefore, there is an unlimited supply in the Universal God Substance all about us to fill every desire. All we need do is to learn to use what God has already created for us and this He wills to have us do that we may be free from every limitation and thus be ‘abundantly free.'

"When Jesus said, ‘I am the door,' He meant that the I AM in each soul is the door through which the life, power, and substance of the great I Am, which is God, comes forth into expression through the individual. This I Am has but one mode of expression and that is through idea, thought, word, and act. This I AM God Being, which is power, substance, intelligence, is given form by consciousness; and for this reason the Master said, ‘According to your faith be it unto you,' and ‘All things are possible to them that believe.'

"Now we see that God is within the soul as power, substance, and intelligence-or in spiritual terms, wisdom, love and truth-and is brought out into form or expression through consciousness. The consciousness which is in the infinite mind of God and in man is determined by the concept or belief that is held in mind. It is the belief in separation from Spirit that has caused our forms to age and die. When we see that Spirit is all and that form is constantly being expressed from Spirit, then shall we understand that that which is born of or brought out of Spirit is Spirit.

"The next great truth to be revealed through this consciousness is that each individual, being a concept of the divine Mind, is held in that mind as a perfect idea. Not one of us has to conceive himself. We have been perfectly conceived and are always held in the perfect mind of god as perfect beings. By having this realization brought to our consciousness, we can contact the divine Mind and so re-conceive what God has already conceived for us. This is what Jesus called being ‘born again.' It is the great gift the silence has to offer us; for by contacting the God' mind we can think with God mind and know ourselves as we are in reality rather than as we have thought ourselves to be.

We contact God-mind through true thought and so bring forth a true expression; whereas, in the past, perhaps through untrue thought, we have brought forth an untrue expression. But, whether the form be perfect or imperfect, the Being of the form is perfect God-power, substance, and intelligence. It is not the Being of the form that we wish to change but the form that Being has assumed. This is to be done through the renewing of the mind, or through the change from the imperfect to the perfect concept, from the thought of man to the thought of God. How important then to find God, to contact Him, to be One with Him and to bring Him forth into expression. How equally important is the silence or the stilling of the personal mind, that the God' mind in all its splendor may illumine the consciousness. When it does, then we shall understand how ‘the sun of righteousness (right-use-ness) shall rise with healing in his wings.'

The mind of God floods consciousness as sunshine floods a darkened room. The infusion of the Universal Mind into the personal mind is like the entrance of the vastness of the outside air into the impurity of that which has long been held in some close compartment. It stands alone, supreme, and we realize that we are to build but one temple. The Temple of the Living God is the blending of the greater with the lesser through which the lesser becomes one with the greater. The impurity was caused by the separation of the lesser from the greater. The purity is caused by their union, so that no longer is there a greater and a lesser but just the one good, whole, pure air. Even so much we know that God is One and all things visible and invisible are One with Him. It is separation from Him that has caused sin, sickness, poverty, and death. It is union with Him that causes one to become a whole Being or to become conscious of being whole.

"The separation from unity is the descent of the angels on the ladder of consciousness. The return to unity is the ascent of the angels upon the ladder. The descent is good, for unity then becomes expressed in diversity, but in diversity there need be no concept of separation. That which is diversity has been misconceived from the personal, or external viewpoint, to be separation. The great work for each soul is to lift the personal viewpoint to such heights in consciousness that it becomes one with the whole. When all can ‘meet with one accord in one place,' that place in consciousness where it is understood that all things visible and invisible have their origin in the one God, then we stand upon the Mount of Transfiguration. At first we see Jesus and with Him Moses and Elias; or Law and Prophecy, and the Christ, (the power within man to know God); and we think to build three temples, but the deeper meaning comes. We are given to realize the immortality of man and to know that divinity is never lost, that Divine man is deathless, eternal. Then Moses-the Law, and Elias -o-the Prophecy, disappear; and the Christ stands alone supreme and we realize that we have to build but one temple-The Temple of the Living God within our very selves. Then the Holy Spirit fills the consciousness and the sense delusions of sin, sickness, poverty, and death become no more. That is the great purpose of the silence.

"This temple from which you may chip a piece and the scar will be instantly healed but typifies the temple of our body, of which Jesus spoke, the temple not made by hands, eternal in the heavens, which we are to bring forth here on earth."

I believe beauty is also truth.  

  From "The Divine Illiad"

"I am the soul of art. To him whose soul would touch My soul, and feel the heartbeat of its mighty rhythm, I say: In so far as thou knowest thyself as Light, shalt thou know Me as Light.

"I am Beauty. In Beauty must man be born anew. Through Beauty must knowing man become ecstatic Man. 


The art of past civilizations have outlived the past civilizations.  Why is it that art is so enduring? The pyramids of Egypt speak of an art of building which a race long gone from the face of the earth, gave to  us. Must have been some very creative genius thinking involved in that or it would not have lasted. That which is not orderly (some would say evil) has the seeds of it's own destruction built right into them so work that is not done in beauty is transient at best.  

"Art alone endures. All else passes". 

And think of the sculptural and architectural beauty of Greece, still speaking of a race which had many creative genius people in it.  

One more quote from "The Divine Illiad"

"Great art can be created only by working moment by moment with God as co-creator. When man and God thus work together they commune one with the other as One Person. The language of their communion is the language of Light which man calls "inspiration."

Moment by moment working with God as a co-creator, and we will become filled with light but we must not fail to know our connection with God.  We must teach and live what Jesus taught about our Oneness with God.  Jesus the "atonement",  Jesus the "AT ONE MENT" and he prayed that we also would become One with God. This must mean it is possible. When we reach that kind of ONENEss, then all that we create will be estatic and quite beautiful.


.

I can be the change I want to see in the world by being able to look upon events and not buy into them in an emotional way where I might let my emotions lead me into having fearful thoughts.  I can have a vision for the world and detail it out in my mind and get happy that it will be as I see it as being.  I can expand my understanding and join my thoughts with others who also have a good vision for the world. I can work on my own peace within the dynamics of my own family for that kind of finding peace reverberates throughout the cosmos.

Can you see that little girl in there with her arms extended and her legs extended. 
She reminds me of my grand daughter AnnaKate. 


  just a little bit sun burned

We need our leadership to begin talking about forgiveness of the enemy.  Someone who would do this would have to know that they would really catch a lot of criticism, but that the ones who would get behind such a message would be the most powerful allies he or she could ever want.  It is one of those times now when we need a few good men and women, ones who will not back off of the position they will have to take even though the deck seems to be (but actually is not) stacked against them.

We need to as a people insist that those who wear any kind of religious label, began to put into practice what they claim in their scriptures concerning the Golden Rule and their desire for peace.  

Below are some prayers that various religions believe.....but simply need to put into practice.

 

1. HINDU PRAYER FOR PEACE......Oh God, lead us from the unreal to the Real. Oh god, lead us from darkness to light. Oh god, lead us from death to immortality. Shanti, Shanti, Shanti unto all. Oh Lord God almighty, may there be peace in celestial regions. May there be peace on earth. May the waters be appeasing. May herbs be wholesome, and may trees and plants bring peace to all. May all beneficent beings bring peace to us. May thy Vedic Law propagate peace all through the world. May all things be a source of peace to us. And may thy peace itself, bestow peace on all, and may that peace come to me also.

1. BUDDIST PRAYER FOR PEACE......May all beings everywhere plagued with suffering of body and mind quickly be freed from their illnesses. May those frightened cease to be afraid, and may those bound be free. May the powerless find power, and may people think of befriending one another. May those who find themselves in trackless, fearful wildernesses, the children, the aged, and the unprotected, be guarded by beneficent celestials, and may they swiftly attain Buddhahood.

1. JANIST PRAYER FOR PEACE........Peace and Universal Love is the essence of the Gospel preached by all the enlightened Ones. The Lord has preached that equanimity is the Dharma. Forgive do I creatures all, and let all creatures forgive me. Unto all have I amity, and unto none enmity. Know that violence is the root cause of all miseries in the world. Violence, in fact, is the knot of bondage. "Do not injure any living being." This is the eternal, perennial, and unalterable way of spiritual life. A weapon howsoever powerful it may be, can always be superseded by a superior one; but no weapon can, however, be superior to non violence and love.

1. MUSLIM PRAYER FOR PEACE......In the name of Allah, the beneficent, the merciful. Praise be to the Lord of the Universe who has created us and made us into tribes and nations, that we may know each other, not that we may despise each other. If the enemy incline towards peace, do thou also incline towards peace, and trust in God, for the Lord is the one that heareth and knoweth all things. And the servants of God, Most Gracious are those who walk on the earth in humility, and when we address them, we say "PEACE."

1. SIKI PRAYER FOR PEACE........God adjudges us according to our deeds, not the coat that we wear: that Truth is above everything, but higher still is truthful living. "Know that we attaineth God when we loveth, and only that victory endures in

     consequence of which no one is defeated.

1. BAHAI' PRAYER FOR PEACE......Be generous in prosperity, and thankful in adversity. Be fair in thy judgment, and guarded in thy speech. Be a lamp unto those who walk in darkness, and a home to the stranger. Be eyes to the blind, and a guiding light unto the feet of the erring. Be a breath of life to the body of humankind, a dew to the soil of the human heart, and a fruit upon the tree of humility.

1. SHINTO PRAYER FOR PEACE........"Although the people living across the ocean surrounding us, I believe, are all our brothers and sisters, why are there constant troubles in this world? Why do winds and waves rise in the ocean surrounding us? I only earnestly wish that the wind will soon puff away all the clouds which are hanging over the tops of the mountains."

1. NATIVE AFRICAN PRAYER FOR PEACE......Almighty God, the Great Thumb we cannot evade to tie any know: the roaring thunder that splits mighty trees: the all-seeing Lord up on high who sees even the footprints of an antelope on a rock mass here on Earth. You are the one who does not hesitate to respond to our call. You are the cornerstone of peace.

1. NATIVE AMERICAN PRAYER FOR PEACE.......Oh great Spirit of our ancestors, I raise my pipe to you. To your messengers the four winds, and to Mother earth who provides for your children. Give us the wisdom to teach our children to love, to respect, and to be kind to each other so that they may grow with peace in mind. Let us learn to share all the good things that you provide for us on this earth.

1. ZOROASTRIAN PRAYER FOR PEACE........We pray to God to eradicate all the misery in the world: that understanding triumph over ignorance, that generosity triumph over indifference, that trust triumph over contempt, and that truth triumph over falsehood.

1. JEWISH PRAYER FOR PEACE......Come let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, that we may walk the paths of the Most High. And we shall beat our swords into ploughshares, and our spears into pruning hooks. Nation shall not lift up sword against nation - neither shall they learn war any more. And none shall be afraid, for the mouth of the Lord of Hosts has spoken.

1. CHRISTIAN PRAYER FOR PEACE..........."Blessed are the PEACEMAKERS, for they shall be known as the Children of God. But I say to you that hear, love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you. To those who strike you on the cheek, offer the other also, and from those who take away your cloak, do not withhold your coat as well. Give to everyone who begs from you, and of those who take away your goods, do not ask them again. And as you wish that others would do to you, do so to them.

Credit for Peace Prayers, "The Peace Abbey" Two North Main St., Sherborn Massachusetts 01770

I am waiting on something developing in me like as though I were in a dark room with very little light  (tinted red)  to see by in order to develop the negatives of the pictures I am dealing with. (like photography used to be)  These pictures right now exposed to the light, would be destroyed by the light were it to shine on them too soon, so I know that it is going to take some time longer in the dark to get them prepared enough that they can be taken out into the light.

But it is a paradox I find myself involved in. For the thing I am developing IS the Light which right now can not come forth into the physical light until my work is done. Well it can not now be seen so well in the physical world and sometimes not even by myself, but I know it is there.  Yet when it is done, when I am finished with it,  it will be the Light that it took the Dark to make  show up. 

And I  myself am the photograph that is in this dark room being developed.  I hope to use what I have learned from being in the dark looking at mere shadows of what will be and sometimes  thinking, "Well I know I am right about this"  or "I could be wrong about that" and not knowing how many times I am both right and wrong in the course of a single day spent here in this dark room.   

Sometimes as I dream and muse , puttering about inside of  this dark room, I think  that perhaps I dream too small, that perhaps I need to have a grander vision.  Perhaps the grandness of what is to be  is so beyond what I can even imagine that there actually will not be words in our language that are capable of expressing the grandure of what is to become of all of my negatives once they are developed.  


I read a lot while in the dark room, words like this. 
  

When we know the nature of God sufficiently to reflect His nature in us, we become God to the extent of our ability to reflect His nature in us. By knowing the secret of Light, we will know the mystery of life and death-of reincarnation, of matter and space, and the relationship of suns to planets.

The more we know the Light, the more we shall realize our purpose in manifesting that Light gloriously. Every moment of life in the Light is a moment of glorification in the awareness of our omnipotence in manifesting the Light.  Walter Russell

And so I think.  "Well I must be something like a mirror and what I look at is what I will mirror or reflect to the world.  And that Something is no less than a Light BEING, an omnipotent Light Being which I am a reflection of.....I must look for the Light while I am in the dark and focus upon it mainly.

And then I sometimes look around in my dark room at some of the negatives that I don't want to reflect upon or develop before coming out of the dark room.  I don't want to be that picture of war and destruction, buildings burning down, people showing sadness and dispair or the hungry starving pictures of children with bloated bellies.  I don't want these negatives to even be developed.

Perhaps the world outside  of this dark room is a fantasy world which is not even real. Perhaps I am in the real world now  with all of it's good and bad and ugly things.  I look around as best I can and it seems to be that there are unsurmountable problems in the dark room.  I feel so little, so insignificant, not at all omnipotent.  

But there is this silent voice within me getting my attention saying to me to pay attention to words describing myself as the Light, a Being capable of omnipotence....Omnipotence is a word that means "all powerful".....Well then if it is true that I am an all powerful creator, a being of Light ,then I want to think like an all powerful BEING. 

What does a Omnipotent Being do?  

An Omnipotent Being creates with Light.  Allow the Light into that dark room.....But what about my pictures that can't be exposed to the light yet?

Don't worry I am told. Use your wonderful imagination. Image what you want onto your negatives. Play around with them, make them good. Use them for good. Do not judge your pictures you have taken.  Expose them to the Light.  And remember that the real world and Fantasia  (Heaven) have no boundaries.  You can take Fantasia (Heaven)  into your real world and make of your world a Paradise.

I am stepping out of the dark room and it is like I am feeling the words of this song.

 

Moving out the old

Bringing in the new

And walking through the fire between the two

What am I doing here?

What are my dreams?

Should I be flowing with the current

Or be rowing upstream?

Is there an end to the cycles of pleasure and pain?

Or does my joy need my sorrow?

Does the sun need the rain?

WEll now I am figureing it all out.  I am going to embrace the dark and love the dark by shining my light in the dark places and accepting and allowing what I see without judgment.  But I am going to use my imagining abilities since I am an omnipotent being, to have a  vision of the dark accepting the light and allowing that which will not stand the light to simply melt away.  There will be something left of them for is not that spark of God giving life to all that IS.  The spark will be left though maybe it look more like just an ember faintly glowing. Yet  with a little fanning it will spark into a flame and grow.  

Those who are in the dark ar a lot like me in that dark room. Maybe their darkness was greater and their actions more devious but they are to be loved nevertheless.  They are in the dark and can not see from lack of  enough light so I must be that Light and even go so far as to thank them for helping me to develop the qualities in myself  that needed to be developed and which were helped in the development by my having had experience with the dark. 

So what I am waiting to discover is that this Light that is within me, can become a reflection of the sort that it can reflect God's nature.  And then me, omnipotent me, can look upon ALL THAT IS and bless it and create with  it because I can see the WHOLE and I will know how all can transcend and be as ONE with God.  That is my goal. Maybe I am only partly there now but some of my life I have been trying to row upstream.  Now a days I am going with the flow knowing that I can have divine guidance to steer me and can trust that I will always thus be led into ever expanding horizons that show more and more of Fantasia to be right here and now.  

Fantasia has no boundaries except those set by humans who believe that there are boundaries and who have given up hope that they could ever bring Fantasia to their (unreal) reality.  Its the hopes and dreams that make up Fantasia but if you have none, that would be the problem.

There is nothing out there.  No "thing" is out there including our vast enormous cosmos. It is all right within us as hard as that is to grasp.  Tiny is something that can get tinier and tinier until the vastness of tiny is infinite. 

I think this is because God is stillness and rest, not motion and space and time or matter. God is idea and idea can never become physical matter, but can appear to be physical matter. It appears to be physical matter and to exist in the constructs of time and space, but the construct of time and space is not real, only imaged out of the ONE Mind of God.  We are God's imagining.  We live not in a created Universe but in a CREATING Universe. We ourselves are creating all the time.

And yes there are evidences of this being true such as one who could walk on water (Jesus) perhaps others as well.  Levitation is possible for some who have become One with God. "Bi-location" is another evidence.  Some have even reported that it is possible for man to walk through a wall.  All of this sounds just phenomenal but it is really a natural ability that we will hopefully all possess someday. And it can only be true because the reality is that all is illusion. I think this is somewhat demonstrated by those who hypnotise others into believing or KNOWING a thing to be true that is not true and thus the person hypnotized may think for a while that they are holding a snake when they are only holding a twig or something.

I want this awakening to happen to me. But It won't happen until we absolutely know that what is out there is not really out there. Mankind will gradually be able to live less and less in this sensed reality which is the unreality, and more and more in the cosmic KNOWING reality that is our true inheritance. I think we need to began to prepare for that somehow.

Once I read that there is as much distance between the electron spinning around the necleus of an atom as there is distance between our Earth and the Sun comparatively.  That means that atoms are mostly empty space.  And we being composed of atoms are mostly empty space, just whirlling motion of atoms spinning so fast that we have the sensed experience of solid matter. 

We are told that we use only a tiny portion of our brain to think.  Also we know that our body is electrical.  I think we are like a product on an assembly line nearing completion.  We have some electrical awareness already built into us but we have yet to be fully plugged into the main switch.  We are put together in such a way that the maker of us wants us to self finish ourselves and that requires a KNOWING.  And the Knowing requires a great desire in us that we KNOW.  "Seek ye first the Kingdom of God" and all these things shall be added unto you must have a more profound meaning than we have imagined. I think it means that we ourselves  will be just as Jesus was after the resurrection.  The only difference being that we will come into this ability without having to die or 'appear to die" for to die is part of the illusion and unreal.  We, being God, never are really born and never really die for we are as immortal as God is immortal and as eternal as God is eternal though those two words probably mean the same thing.

The human condition is that we have gotten ourselves so focused on being in a body that we have completely forgotten that we are spirit experiencing a physical body, not a body seeking a spiritual experience. 

From having read "The Secret of Light" by Walter Russell (a book I have typed in it's entirety and can send to anyone who wants to read it by the way) I have been contemplating the words of God in that book where God implores us to "Seek me, Know me, BE Me."  He says 
 

"Man alone of all My creating things hath begun to hear My whisperings. Since his beginning My still small Voice hath whispered within him that I am he and he Me; but even now barbaric man on thy small new world heareth dully, and maketh idols which he treasures before Me, for he is still new. He is still but in the ferment of his early brewing.

"for I say, that all things which floweth from Life of Me have Life of Me flowing through them, e'en to the least of these; but, I say, that e'en though My Light of immortal Life floweth through those mortal symbols of My thinking, It toucheth them not in Its passing.

"When they shall know the Light of Me in them, then they shall be Me and I them."

And also this...............
 

"All knowledge existeth. All knowledge cometh to man in its season. Cosmic messengers periodically give to man such knowledge of My cosmos as man is able to comprehend, but that which he can bear is like unto a thimbleful out of the mighty ocean, for man is but beginning to comprehend.

"when man knoweth Light then he will know no limitations, but man must know the Light for himself and none there can be who can make words of it, for Light knoweth Light and there need be no words."

The most wonderful thing is to know that we are nearing that day when we will know no limitation.  And though I try to put into words what that might be like, really my words are inadequate for like God says "LIGHT KNOWETH LIGHT".  and no words can really tell.

"the world in a grain of sand"  has profound meaning when you know this to be true.

My son decided to take us to the lake where we would ride in a speedboat.  Well, this was some adventure and a lesson in life as you will see.

We rented the boat for 3 and one half hours.  Upon getting through the harbor where one has to go slow, as soon as faster speed is allowed,  Steve rebs the motor up and does quick right and left turns which throws us all around since we were not aware that he would just go high gear so suddenly. The ice chest with it's contents (ice and bottled drinks)   were falling out and were projected towards his wife, MaryEllen who was screaming, "STOP". 

Then to make matters worse, Steve screams at us, (me,  Mary Ellen, and the his two daughters) saying that we were just being silly  for getting scared.  He kept berating us and got his wife very upset.  Then when we tried to tell him that we did not like that kind of driving, he just would not really listen to us.  So he gets even more upset and says, "Well we will just go back and turn the boat in and go home".....at which time the kids start crying hysterically.
So we all just get silent and don't say another word to him except for the crying the girls are doing.  He then says, "Everything is always my fault, no matter what, it's my fault".  I then speak and say to him, "Not everything is your fault, but this thing happening now IS. "  I knew he had been under a lot of pressure with his business and his finances and all and that this went deeper than just being mad at us.  Mary Ellen told him that she wished he would treat his own family with as much respect as he did his business associates and that the way he talked down to us was demeaning. 

Finally he realizes that he has been out of line and he turns the boat around and we start out anew, with his attitude altered somewhat.  He did apologize and we accepted his apology. We wanted to get on with our boat trip and show the girls a good time.

So now the intent is to find a nice shore to pull up on in order to let the girls get on the shore so that they can play in the water which is 62 degrees (not that great for swimming in) but they wanted to swim anyway.  The sandy shore we passed did not appeal to Steve, but we all wanted him to stop there,,,,but NO he had to find another place...would not listen to us (again)   Finally he settled for a shore that you reached by going down a little cove of water and this shore was rocky. We got out and tried to enjoy the water but it was very cold for swimming and I did not go into the water but halfway because it was so darn cold.

When we had enough of this place we get back in the boat to go somewhere else, but the boat motor won't start now.  Try as we might and after giving the motor time to get over being flooded, it still will not start.  We knew we had to do something so we tried calling on our cell phones, three different ones by three different providers, none of them would work in that cove with it's mountains around.  Emma fell trying to get back on the boat and hurt herself with  the little rocks on that beach peppering her arm and rear where she fell.  "Be tough, get over it" he told her.  Well Steve is having to be tough and get over a lot of things in his work a day world and so it carries over I guess.


So there we were looking for ways to get that boat out to the more open waterway.  The boat had only one paddle and that did not help much. It had no rope at all. I made a rope with my purse straps extended as long as they would go and tied to a life vest with it's strap and this we used for a rope.  And here is where the karma comes in.

While we had forgiven Steve, the UNIVERSE had a little lesson for him.  That boat would not start even after an hour of trying to get it to do so.  The only way was for Steve to get into that freezing water and pull the boat by swimming with my strap modified rope to pull the boat forward with.   He cringed at the thought of plunging into that water but it was the only way.   We waved our flag at other boats on the main waterway, some of them even stopping but paying no attention to our situation even though we had our flag and were waving it and waving towells and other things and with Steve in the water swimming and pulling the boat, you would think they would have known something was wrong.  I wish I had not been holding the other end of that rope so I could have taken a picture of Steve in the water. 

We made it to a rock where Steve gets onto the rock and from atop the rock enters the boat again.  Again we try to start the motor but no luck. Now the boat is being blown by the wind into another little alcove where we won't even be in sight of the main waterway and there is no other choice for Steve but to jump into that cold water for the second time.  This time he does the backstroke to pull the boat with us, it's prescious cargo a little farther through the cove hopefully to reach the main waterway and get someone to help us.  He bumps his foot on something underwater and says, "that might hurt if I were not numb from the cold and can't feel my body". So we get a little farther along and it looks as though Steve is really spent.  MaryEllen tried once more to start the motor and it actually starts.  We scream to Steve to get in but he can not even hear us or the motor at first.  When he does hear us he swimms up to the three little rungs for entering the boat and I have to grab his hands and pull him in for he is too weak to pull himself up.  But the motor is running and we are SAVED.  Now we can go to the sandy beach with the 30 minutes we have left of our boat time and let the girls have some fun.


Steve said, "Maybe I was being given a lesson for my not listening to or caring for your feelings" and MaryEllen and I agreed it must be so.  

I enjoyed this trip even though this part of it was trying.  What it showed me is that we are each of us being assisted in learning our lessons in life by a power that is invisible to us, but we are being assisted by it nevertheless, and sometimes the assistance is to just foul up the working of a boat motor.  

I learned that hearing your husband tell you over the phone that he wants a divorce and has someone else hurts just like a knife were actually stabbing you in the heart.

I learned that crying can last unabated for as much as three days, night and day and make one so weak that they think they will die of it.

I learned that  sometimes, maybe always the things that  happen to us can be used for our good even though at the time we can not possibly imagine that good can come from  things we consider so bad.

I learned that I had placed all my happiness in the hands of another, not in my own hands where it should have been placed.  Had I known better I would not have made my husband my whole world.  I don't think that it is a healthy thing to do.

I learned that one can pick up the pieces of their heart and put it back together but it is sometimes a slow and painful process, though it does not have to be for if I knew then what I know now, I would have had less difficulty. 

I learned that if one truly loves their partner and that partner wishes  to leave, that we should let them and not want to keep them in our lives if they can't be happy with us.   (this was a hard lesson)

I learned that if you throw a pity party for yourself, not many people will come to your party to join you there.

I learned that drinking a lot of beer to dull the pain is a bad way to handle a problem.

I learned that I could make a living and raise my children.

I learned that  some men are very bad about paying child support.

I learned  that raising kids by yourself is difficult.

I learned how to economize.

I learned that seeking love making  from  another in order to assure yourself that you are still lovable, is just more self doubt and there are many men who only want sex and have no concern for your well being but their own satisfaction.

I learned how to be alone and not feel so bad about not having someone in my life other than my kids. 

I learned after many years, that even if I could have my X back, I would not want him back.

I learned that if you wish another woman would get fatter and be unpleasing to your X, that same thing can happen to you because what your wish for another happens to yourself as well. 

I learned that not having a husband, and much aloneness can get a person into closer communion with God.  

I learned that it was good not to turn your children against your X which is something I never did. Thank goodness I knew better than to hurt the children further. 

I learned to get over the thought that to live with someone without the benefit of marriage, was not a terrible sin, though it made me the black sheep of my family (sisters) . I learned how to get over their dissappointment and judgment of me.

I learned that the difficulties I had making ends meet and not having a lot while my kids were young, their quitting school before graduation and all, did not stop them from turning out good and making a good living for themselves and finding happiness in their marriages.  They are actually more appreciative of things and more determined to make their marriages work.

I learned how to love myself more and honor my own self.

I learned to trust the syncronicities that led me to finding the one I lived with and finally married after 8 years of being together. 

Now a days I am learning that I am a good grandmother and I am getting to see my grandchildren grow up and be a nanny to them. 

I am learning that I am someone who does not want to have a lot of possessions. 

I am learning now that my second husband has passed on that grieving was not a problem when he died for I had a kind of strength developed in me that helped me see that death is not the disaster that a lot of people think of it as being. 

I learned that I have become someone who is so particular now, so set in my way of life and my views of things, that I doubt that I would ever marry again for I would not want to change me for anyone.  Unless, I find a kindred spirit.    ....