Reflections on A Love Supreme, Part Two

 We never give up on love.  Until we stop being human, the desire to love and be loved is for ever.  Only love itself, in its many different appearances, seems to come and go - hence the stories and songs of love found and love lost.  This verse is from 'Come All ye Fair and Tender Ladies' (a Mountain Song):

'I wish I'd known before I courted / that love would be so hard to find / I'd have locked my heart in a box of golden / and tied it down with a silver pin'.  

I'm coming to accept that I grew up in a household without love. A boyfriend noticed this years ago when he spent time in my family house.  I was so used to this experience it just became the atmosphere I lived in - and I adapted and functioned quite well.  Even so, like plants without sun or good soil, we may survive but not fully flourish or bloom.  Unless perhaps you're a certain type of wildflower which only blooms on poor soil!  Wow - yes, so many creative people, with unique offerings to the world have grown up with hard challenges, have come through difficult trials, made their way on poor soil.  Their challenges and struggles motivated them to tread different paths and gain inner strength. 

'Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven', Jesus said to his disciples (Matthew 5:3)   This struck me - thinking about poor soil - yet this Greek translation of Jesus' words is confusing.  In his book 'Prayers of the Cosmos - Meditations on the Aramaic Words of Jesus', Neil Douglas Klotz goes back to the language Jesus originally spoke which helps clarify and uncover the root meaning of his profound statements.  The Aramaic reads:

Tubwayhun l'meshenaee b'rukh d'dilhounhie malkutha d'ashmaya.

"Poor in spirit" is a traditional Aramaic phrase meaning "humble", according to Dr. George Lamsa (1936).  Behind this, these Aramaic roots tell us that when one attuned through the breath of God (rukha 'qoodsha), one does not put oneself forward inappropriately.  One's readiness for action rests in the  eternal silence of God's Name (malkutha - is the 'I can' - the queendom and kingdom of the universe).  pg 48

Love is available and present, whoever you are and whatever circumstances you are in.  Especially important for anyone who feels the 'lack' of something -  a root meaning contained in the Aramaic words (meskenaee). 

Those who struggle, who feel a lack of love,  often sense a deep well-spring of love - even when it can't be seen or felt directly.  About twenty years ago I found I was being drawn onto a Christ-centred path.  As I grew up with a lack of love, the path of meditation and witnessing had brought me a long way but I could not feel love within.  Opening to the Christ energy for the first time I knew I was loved. Simply loved for who I was - not needing to earn or deserve love.  Even if the whole world forsake me, I am loved.   

Mystics radiate their lived experience of Source/Love and encourage us to remember. I am still Osho's disciple - that has not changed.  Osho left his body in 1990 but as he promised, his presence has become more vast, more available.   Years later, I found myself asking questions and hearing answers that sounded as if they could have been spoken by Osho himself.  This question was about Easter.  

Remembering when Christ was crucified, can you say something about offering and surrender to God? 

Here is the final part of what I heard:

'This is why we should remember Jesus - he was a man of total surrender. This is what the crucifixion is about - his totality, his final surrender to God and his commanding us to do the same: ‘Do this in remembrance of me’.

After the crucifixion his consciousness became attuned to God. He may have lived on for another thirty or forty years but he was no longer living as flesh. His nature was aligned to God - the universal. He had completed what he had come to Earth for - on the Cross he says ‘It is accomplished’. He became a light for others to journey by - a shining example of unconditional love, total surrender and pure compassion. His followers were prepared to give up their lives for him, to preach the truth of his life and his Word. They carried on his teaching to ‘do this in remembrance of me’.

So offering and surrender are very important for humans. It is what we came here for - not only to enjoy our life in the flesh but to set our spirit free. I don’t suggest you ‘take up your cross’ as Jesus did. But in order to know the joys of being fully human and divine at the same time you will be asked - somewhere along your journey - to make an offering of yourself. To surrender to a will, a power that is bigger than your tiny mind.

You can be open to life, to experience and to love. Your way will bring you to your own Last Supper. Then you will know there is no going back, no escaping. Although you may be afraid, you know that you have to say ‘yes’ to what is happening. You will make an offering of your small version of of how you think the world is supposed to be. By offering your small version of reality, you’ll find another world opens up. You will be transformed. Jesus says ’Whoever wishes to find his life must first lose it’.

Happy Easter to everyone!

Marion Carlisle - aka: Marion Atmo             West Wales, UK