The Great Mystery

God, Lord, Father, Goddess, Allah, Jehovah....so many names for God. my favorite term for God is Great Mystery. One of my favorite prayers is

“Oh Great Mystery, I give myself to you in complete unknowing”.

It is the process of learning to practice this prayer that helped me better “let go and let God” as the saying goes.

Great Mystery. Those words are so descriptive, like looking into a vast portal of unfathomable realms. And I am a traveler that can enter and experience these exciting places. My human experience is the conduit to my God experience. Every day is a mystery unfolding. How egotistical for me to believe I know it all.

Or think I can control it all.

And who likes to be around a “know-it-all”? And how much fun and adventure does a “know-it-all” have? Better to be surprised, ready for adventure, live in the moment here and now.

Meanwhile the mystery goes on. Where do we come from? How does life stay alive?

Why is the sky blue? These questions all have answers. But are they only a mystery until we know the answers? We do know the answers to questions that were unanswerable in the past. Mysteries that are now solved. Every day we get more answers. But is the magic ever really gone? Maybe the word magic will be inappropriate someday when we use much more of our brains and consciousness. But the feeling that magic brings, its purpose, is the joyful celebration of life itself. The wonder, newness, exhilaration, the thrill of witnessing God.

All this is easy to write about from my (I hate to admit it) know-it-all vantage point. It is another thing to live day to day away from the keyboard.

But fortunately Great Mystery is relentless. And if we are lucky enough to have a life filled with divine interventions (and we all are), we get a life filled with the opportunity to practice. And because Great Mystery's humility is also great, we are not judged or made any less whatever happens. Another opportunity to practice this ourselves. Because that has been a hard one for me and I suspect most of us-the self judgment part.

The biggest challenge underneath the rest is fear. Whoa nelly! Who has the courage to jump into that vast portal anyway! A baby toe in there is terrifying enough eh? Well we don't need to jump in because Great Mystery comes to us. We just need to swim or fly instead of drown if we can. Even if we crash and drown we are ok. Even if we die we are ok. The big secret is that we will only fall deeper into the mystery, and....this is how the mystery is revealed.

being the christmas tree

this was written december 24, 2011. i sent it to some friends on email. it was more timely then but i want to keep it with my other posts and can't figure out how to put it in chronologically, so here it is. 

dear friends,
i hope you enjoy the writing that follows.  consider it my christmas card to you. 

i was raised jewish. i have no christmas memories from my childhood.  though i never had christmas as a kid, it is only now, when i'm 60 years old that i am longing for a child's christmas.  living up here in the great north is a guaranteed white christmas. not only is it exquisitely beautifully white, it is also exquisitely peacefully white.  i have not heard any canned xmas music forced on me, or been inundated with advertising.  people are wishing each other happiness as they pass in the streets or stores. i rang the bell for the salvation army on december 21 (solstice) in our little mall.  well it is three stores, x-tra foods grocery store, fields  everything discount store, and the pharmasave. the whole time i listened to the sounds of people talking, laughing, shopping, etc. without the piped in christmas music or advertising posters.  i said an inner mantra, rang the bell to it's beat, and wore a natural smile as i imagined all the people as bright white lights moving around in clear light.  i was quite lit up myself with a huge smile as a giveaway. i noticed if i looked at people it sometimes triggered a reaction  involving giving a donation.  i didn't want anyone to think i was a sales person for the salvation army or that they were any more or less for giving money, so i stopped making eye contact. i was doing swami nithyananda's teaching of going to the mall and blessing everyone. fun. 
this morning (december 24, 2011) i woke up thinking about the christmas tree.  i pretended we had one here in our home.  (we have a perfect place to put it.)  in my mind i decorated this gorgeous green being with colored lights.  an angel or a star on top i questioned.  i wanted both.  then i imagined i was the tree.  a spiritual teacher i had when i was young taught that we are inverted trees with our roots in heaven. when thinking this i saw my physical body as the green tree with physical roots in the earth, and my soul as the star angel at the top with intrinsic roots in heaven.  i am so connected to everything.  so whole. so i am having my christmas experience.  i think jesus, the jewish rabbi who was a brilliant embodiment of love, lived christmas every day.  it is a blessing to have made one day survive into our calendar.  maybe someday it will not be a religious holiday, but a way of life.  joy to the world. 
merry christmas every day.
allisone  

spiritual religion 1

I was raised jewish, initiated by a hindu swami at 18. developed an intimate relationship

with jesus at 19. joined a spiritual community at 20. lived there for 15 years, practicing meditation, judeochristian/lemurian/hindu/hopi/extraterrestrial teachings. Upon leaving there i embraced first nation/native american teachings/ way of life and became a pipe carrier. Later I became a sufi.

One thing I know is that all these ways are related and have the same purpose.

They are all included in the great OM, the sound containing all sounds. Like different songs played on the same instrument.

I want to share with you some of my experiences inspired through the great religions of the world. For there are fantastic gifts in all of them.

my intention is the same as the religions intentions -that we humans can come to know God.

My first true story is my experience of the christian mass....

I have participated in the Eucharist ceremony a handful of times over the last 20 some years. Every time I am overwhelmed to tears from the experience. I feel the spirit of jesus descend and fill the space of the church as the priests talk about him-calling in his presence.

When I go to the aisle and up to the altar I am already crying. When I physically receive the wafer and wine as a symbolic act of receiving his body and blood, it doesn't feel symbolic. I am every time completely overwhelmed with the most amazingly powerful energy of love. I simply cannot begin to contain it. I am a sobbing wreck of body drowning in a sea of love. This continues until the service is over. People discreetly and not so discreetly stare at me. I am wondering why all of us are not drowning.

After the first time I did this I thought it would be a one time peak experience. But the next time and the next was equally powerful. now you know why I do it rarely. it is just too much. How I wish to grow into the ability to handle such boundless love.

When I first began to cultivate my relationship with jesus at age 19 he was a very personal teacher. He taught me like an elder brother. Treated me like an equal. There was not that distance of me being human and jesus being god. It was more like “these things I do you can do also, even greater things.”

what a great teacher. The one who wants to share everything they know with you. The one who knows you are no less than them.

It took me a long time to learn that I am god too, and even now that I know this I cannot live it like jesus did.

But I can open up to it a little more every day. I can let in as much love as I can take every day knowing that although I may only hold the tiniest bit more, it is still more.

I have jesus to thank for introducing me to the boundless sea of love that we all swim in. and I can remember the saying -”the fish in the water is not thirsty”.