2002-09-27. Agendas, Distress, Balance
Costa Rica #113
Topic: Agendas, Distress, Balance
Group: Costa Rica TeaM
Teacher: Alana
TR: S. Butterfield
Opening
S and D went into their stillness practice. At one point, D picked up the tape recorder thinking S hadn’t turned it on correctly. He asked S, who came out of her stillness to explain, but also with a look (and inner feeling) of distress and disapproval for the interruption. As S went back into her stillness, Alana told her to open her eyes. Opening her eyes, she saw D smiling at her and saying, “Relax.” As S went back again into her stillness, she could “hear” Alana’s laughter, and eventually felt the joy of laughter within herself…laughter within herself at herself.
Opening prayer, T/R: Mother-Father, I surrender my thoughts, my opinions, my judgments to you, as I was required to do just now in order to open my heart and my mind to your will, good will. Thank you for your love, and the joy you bring us when we turn to you, always ready to embrace us with your love, and make my heart smile. Thank you.
Dialogue
Alana: Yes.
David: Hello.
Alana: Yes, this is Alana.
David: It is nice to be with you again with no agenda, my beloved.
Alana: Yes, no agenda! Rather a difficult task for you human beings. Yes?
David: Apparently.
Alana: Must do this, must do that! Think this way, think that way! You enjoy my perspective?
David: Yes, and I also enjoy watching my beloved; you seem to be getting that wiggle into her spine as well.
Alana: Yes, a few bones of contention there for you, yes?
David: You mean about the wiggle? Or about what we talking about re Oliver?
Alana: You wiggle your bones at each other, yes?
David: Yes, it’s wonderful. It’s a feeling of life. I’ve noticed when that movement of energy appears I frequently think of you.
Alana: The flexibility …the flexibility of the spine, and the musculars, and the organs of life, this is what reminds you of me. The perspective of love embraces all; even that which is rigid must eventually release into love.
David: A wonderful way of putting it.
Alana: It is not unusual for the mind to become tricked by the idea of love. A good idea! But hard to practice, yes? Sometimes it is well and good to practice love, as if you understood it, as if you knew what it was, as if you could even do it. In the practicing, quite naturally comes the experience…of both love, and errors in love. Generally speaking, beloved, human beings have demonstrated a propensity, shall we say, for putting the errors first, in order to learn. That does not negate the possibility that this propensity, sufficient love blown upon it, shall we say, could disappear. One can choose love.
The difficulty of the mind to recognize, or to remember, the message of the heart, the message of the heart room, the message of that stillness point within wherein you find love, is a matter of balance. Yes?
David: Yes.
Alana: When you rest in the stillness, when you rest in the arms of God’s love within you, wrapped around you, you experience balance; a balance so light, you are filled with light and can not help but radiate. The lessons of love create joy.
David: I agree.
Alana: The errors of love…in love…in practicing love…create pain. In the learning is joy. When you learn to return to the balance point, which is the stillness, which is the heart room, which is love, you embrace the lessons of love and the lessons of the errors in love, equally. You understand and experience your understanding as a lightness of being, so light that you radiate joy, and allow, allow love to welcome…welcome change…welcome difference…welcome criticism…welcome the pain of error…with love. It is as all these things, as you say, these ideas, thoughts, different understandings, abrasions, warring accusations, pass through you, as a wind upon the sail; your mast head is the still point, the sail is the practice of the stillness, now, and now, and now.
Notice every distress with a loving eye. Blow love upon it (that distress). Breathe the love within you. Return to that distress anew, newly, refreshed. When it disappears, it may return, this distress, in a new form. Generally, in the heart room, its new form is as if there had been no, what you call problem at all. You see the way. You know the truth. You understand the direction. You feel compassion and love. As well as, for the discipline of love is the discipline of joy, you experience radiant joy.
The distress may return as soon as you step out of the pool of love and forgiveness, shut down your shop of stillness practice, and walk away and proceed to engage with life, and bump up against the fear and doubt that created the distress in the first place. Now the distress may look exactly the same, or it may look worse, or have a facet to it you had never thought of before! Aha! There is learning and discovery in everything. The human mind is so in love with curiosity and figuring things out, and all of that. This can be useful, but if it leads to lack of joy, you might stop to consider, “Perhaps I am walking in the wrong direction. I had better run right back into me, into my stillness practice, into the still point, the heart room of balance.”
Closing
God’s love within you, filling you, embracing you, wrapping around you. Rest there again, my beloveds. Again, and again, and again. You are always welcome, as I welcome you now, now, now. Allow love. Allow love. Allow love to heal you, to guide you, to teach you, to speak to you.
You might say, beloved, this has been a song by Alana, by which, in a poetic way, I wish to acknowledge Song’s presence today, here with me in the heart room, bathing in the pool of love and forgiveness with you. Thank you. Au revoir. Shalom. Peace.
David: Thank you. (Song is D’s name for his personal teacher.)
