Since I already love the whole world, I do not get into relationships because of love. I use three criterions to determine a relationship’s interest to me:

1. When the silence happens, and we are just at rest with each other and not ‘doing things,’ do I enjoy this person’s presence?

2. Am I willing to live with this person’s childhood demanding programming, and are they willing to live with mine?

3. Do we share similar ethics, ideals, interests, hobbies, and etcetera? Does this person like to read my work, and do they support my dreams?”

Since I already love the whole world, I do not get into relationships because of love. I use three criterions to determine a relationship’s interest to me:

1. When the silence happens, and we are just at rest with each other and not ‘doing things,’ do I enjoy this person’s presence?

2. Am I willing to live with this person’s childhood demanding programming, and are they willing to live with mine?

3. Do we share similar ethics, ideals, interests, hobbies, and etcetera? Does this person like to read my work, and do they support my dreams?”

Another Jewel...

The Question is the Answer

A moth sees a flame, and he keeps trying to get to it, but instead just keeps hitting a pane of glass over and over. Finally, one day he finds a little crack and slips through, and is consumed by the flame; but, for a moment, he and the flame are finally one.

Such is the search of most religionists; the only way to experience the divine for them is by dying. While alive in their temporal bodies they just keep smashing their head over and over into a pseudo mental-obstruction that keeps them from realizing there actually is no obstruction; they already are the flame, they always were and never were anything else.

YOU ARE, right NOW, the SOURCE. All you have to do is realize it. Subject (You), Object (flame/Source), No Obstruction (open, awake, realized mind).

The final barrier to enlightenment is that which prevents you from realizing that you are the Source—in all futures, all pasts and right now, in this moment. To experience the divine, you don't necessarily have to die to your body; rather, you just need to die to your old nature, your old ways of beliefs, and realize the elements you really are. Your body is made up of the elements of the universe, namely: water/oxygen, carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, calcium, and phosphorus and the universe are where they came from.

Now, the next logical question is, "Yes, but where did the elements come from?” And this is where most are about to hit the pane of glass because they say, “God.”

Then you ask them the next question, which is, “And where did God come from?” And they say, “God has no beginning and no end, he/she just is,” And SLAM, there’s your pane of glass if you cannot see the next logical question beyond that. Can you see it? And once you get to that, there’s another question, and so on and so on, and this is when the wise person realizes that THE QUESTION IS THE ANSWER, and, I might add, vice versa.

There is always another question, and always another answer. But some have lain down their roots at the entrance to enlightenment and stopped going any further; thus, they never really experience the divine because they keep trying to behold god, instead of realizing they ARE god and also all that informs the god. They wish to covet and possess something they think they see somewhere else, and never realize they already not only have it, but ARE internally that which they think they are experiencing “out there, somewhere!”

Now, you don’t have to be stuck in your notion of god, and you can call the “question as answer” “god,” or even capitalize it as, “God.” All of this is fine, but if you want to go through that door to enlightenment and start walking back to yourself then just make sure your idea of god is open and transcendent to the invisible source that supports the god, or else you will hit your notion of god like hitting that proverbial pane of glass.

Don’t concretize your metaphors; rather, keep them open to further interpretation.

(From my amazing book, A Glimpse to Open Pt You [II], available at: http://www.lulu.com/shop/danielle-sainte-marie/a-glimpse-to-open-pt-you-ii/hardcover/product-15101923.html)

Here's another Jewel...

New students learn forms, which are solid, constraining ideas. But forms are actually meant to teach the illimitable spirit, where there are no forms. Advanced students forget forms and see possibilities the new student does not.

Remember: wheat has to die so we may have bread.

How many times have you seen a film or read a book where a person trips or stumbles in a particular part of life, only to discover the treasure beneath their feet right there, or in their heart? Where you stumble is your potential for finding a grand treasure. (This means the treasure inside of you, potentially waiting to be found.)