The other understanding I gain from this text is a cautionary one. How often do I approach someone or something with a rigidity of mind? The answer is often. I often take the time to define what it is I am saying or trying to say but dismiss the other. I do not explore their understanding of words and terms we may be using in a conversation. I can sense in myself how I often feel I am right. Frankly there are many times I don’t want to take the time to fully consider the other. What a blunder of heart, both to mine and the other. When I consider the scripture from I Cor. 13 from a mystical perspective, meaning look what Love has done to me, then my actions should be long-suffering, kind, not puffed up or easily provoked, baring, believing, and enduring all things. Love never fails.

If you are inclined towards this way of intentional living, as I am, then all we can do is our best, which is to find those good listeners that can support us in our efforts. Those that understand what it is we are after. We’re also aware that sticking with our practices, such as meditation, journaling, inquiry, counseling, whatever it is for you, is essential. As Jim Finley says, light your candle, do your practice, and intend to not break the thread during the day even knowing the thread will be broken. I trust that the good work that has begun in us will be completed, although not packaged in a large quantity of efficient productivity. Teilhard de Chardin says to “trust in the slow work of God.” May you grow more and more attuned to the exuberance and gentle stillness guiding you. 

In our last blog we talked about the path, which we will continue discussing except in relation to the idea of  slowing unfolding. Roberts says, “Truth is only gradually revealed.” How do I understand or experience that a “gradual accommodation is required”? For myself the discovery is closely tied to the inner discovery of what I am really up to. I am indebted to the Enneagram and Russ Hudson’s teaching to help me understand I have a pattern that I prefer to live from. Having said that, it is important to note that I am not that pattern, but instead an Essence, which has a particular expression at Point Nine. 

A more recent revelation is that Love is everywhere; meaning in everyone and everything. There were a number of weeks where Love was exuding itself from everything and from everyone and from everywhere. Literally, when stepping on the ground Love oozed out, almost as an aroma, the air was infused with Love, and total strangers were Love too. This Love struck me as both ridiculous and reasonable all at the same time. Living life knowing everything is Love requires, as you might imagine, a period of integration and adjustment. If everything is already Love what is left for me to do?

Lastly, Roberts says that revelation is something universal. It seems that as I learn what is true at the micro level it is also true at the macro level. For instance, when I become aware of some newly discovered trampling I’m doing it is never just about my trampling, it is about how my actions hurt others, which is to say the whole. It never dawned on my before that I was trampling the whole. Simply put, at the end of the day it really does seem to be all about love. An easy way to check how I am doing on this front is that if I am unable to love at any given moment then there is trampling going on. The next step then becomes to investigate my shoes and remove them. Removing shoes has become a way of life. So has relaxing into a heart-mind aimed towards love. There are plenty of shoes left in the closet waiting for recycling. It is enough to get rid of today’s pair! 

So how do I understand the concept that I, myself, am the barrier? It simply means that I take my stories, story lines, beliefs, illusions, and projections to be truth. Often these narratives are what I believe myself to be even though I know this is not the truth of who I am. How do I know I am not these things? Because when I am still these structures can be sensed and seen through for what they are; barriers or false beliefs. Barriers separate me from “That” and from myself and also occlude the beauty of others. These barriers cloud and distort reality causing fear,  judgement and interior constriction. In other words, full participation with the moment is blocked because I’m caught up believing the barrier is true, that I must be the reaction or storyline vying for my attention. 

I know I sense this childlike alignment in watching my two-year old granddaughter. There is no striving on her part, just an organic, innate capacity to be existence expressing itself in each moment, and doing it unapologetically. Knowing we are aligned is a process, one that must be (re)learned as an adult. One way I think of this learning process is my habitual, mechanical patterning, that I have armoured with over the years, must be softened and eventually released. This process involves psychological work as well as psycho-spiritual work to compassionately touch into the unknown broken places of myself. 

It can feel very dark, very alone, very awkward. The image that comes to mind is when someone speaks to you in a foreign language and you have no idea what they are saying. You feel a little lost because you can’t converse with them, yet, if you're paying attention you know if they are happy or sad, agitated or excited, all through experience. So even in this position of not knowing there is a kind of knowing. This is the journey, learning to know in the not knowing. At this point in the blog I begin asking myself how are Robert’s words impacting me? How is this journey going? In a word, slow. Although maybe that is the way, a walk that is dark, slow, and intentional allowing the darkness to embrace. I’m finding myself more at home in the darkness even trusting the darkness more than the concreteness; after all, I’m finding that all the concrete has to offer these days is stubbed toes. 

Once choice is possible and I’ve processed through the block, then Love is back in the mix and I can show up differently. I was not sure how this verification process via the scientific method would turn out, which is really how it should be, but this process shows that verification is possible. It seems Roberts is correct, “only through repeated experience is a revelation continuously verified and perpetuated.” Imagine a riotous chorus of us involved in such verification. My conclusion is it would be a better world if more of us discovered that Love is  perpetually possible!

My take away today is to understand that revelation can not come through a reified concept, which helps me relax into my intention of living an allowing life. Revelation only presents itself in the open and allowing space, one where it can’t be boxed in. I said this before, but what living openly entails is a lot of falling down (everyday) and a lot of getting up (most days). I’m committed to this way of life because nothing is sweeter than trees whispering their secrets to me. 

These invitations are a work in process. I’d like to think that I have made progress; that there is less darkness, less blindness, and less judgment, but I see that even that is a subtle filter I use to measure myself against you. The only thing to be done for my beautiful, messy human predicament is to offer gentle compassion to both myself and others as we grow and mature throughout this life. May it be so today!

Robert’s wisdom that revelation or truth is diffused through our personal cognition, cultural understanding, emotion and psychological make-up makes a lot of sense. Frankly, it is a wonder that any truth gets through to us at all. I also appreciate her idea of a “level of reception,” which explains various religions, sects, and denominations throughout time. I’ve experienced levels of reception because in my own on-going experience as I continue to surrender the prism of my cultural, emotional, and psychological beliefs to Love I find I am more open to see the world through the eyes of Love.