Gandhi on Christ's Message

~Christ came into this world to preach and spread the gospel of love and peace, but his followers have brought about is tyranny and misery. Christians who were taught the maxim of "Love thy neighbor as thyself," are divided among themselves.

~Jesus expressed, as no other could, the spirit and will of God. It is in this sense that I see him and recognize him as the Son of God. And because the life of Jesus has the significance and the transcendency to which I have alluded, I believe he belongs not solely to Christianity, but to the entire world, to all races and people.

~I consider Western Christianity in its practical working a negation of Christ's Christianity. I cannot conceive Jesus, if he was living in the flesh in our midst, approving of modern Christian organizations, public worship, or modern ministry. If Christians will simply cling to the Sermon on the Mount, they would not go wrong, and they would find that no religion is false, they would not need to worry about organizations, forms of worship, and ministry. The Pharisees had all that, but Jesus would have none of it, for they were using their office as a cloak for hypocrisy and worse.

Reference~Mohandas Gandhi Essential Writings by John Dear

A Friendly Game of Baseball

It is hard to distinguish between the Master and the slave when the Beloved and Lover take turns to bat. A friendly game of baseball can turn into violence.

Cruelty and gentleness both captivate the Lover.

My Story- The House That Built Me

My father's dream was to build a underground house. At the age of five we anxiously moved in. Inside there was a fireman's pole that my brother and I used instead of the stairs, a rec room where I'd spend hours rollerskating or dancing, a hallway that connected the bedrooms to the living room that my brother and I would spend our energy chasing each other in circles.

Outside we had trees to climb, woods to explore, two acres to ride our moped, a barn with a secret loft, and a hen house full of cats. We'd spend hours discovering which flowers were edible, catching fireflies in the summertime, sledding in the winter, and staring up at the night sky. It was magical and mystical- God revealing himself in every bird, flower, insect, or creature I'd come across.

The darkness crept in gradually. The night terrors, my mother holding a knife to her throat, and my brother throwing a knife at my head are just a few of the images that would haunt me for years to come.

We grow up in a environment and what we are subjected to becomes an extension of our personality. We develop attachments and responses to what we are exposed to as a child. We never think to analyze these experiences that have given shape to our perception of the world and our present personality. That's why inner work is so important. You must ask questions in order to discover the ego and then you can eliminate it.

A Poet of the Invisible World

~Who are you? Are you this creature that eats and sleeps and shits? This vessel of desires? This sack of contradictions? Or are you a particle of God, waiting to reunite with your source.

~You may bypass the intellect. The mind always obscures the truth. But the heart is a mirror. If you polish away the rust, you can reflect the truth back to itself.

~There are a thousand veils that cover the Self. You must dissolve them. Anything that separates you from God is a veil.

~You must suffer a great deal to know the truth. You must be crushed into powder. People always say they want the truth. But they really want lies. The truth requires sacrifice. The truth requires work.

Reference~ A Poet of the Invisible World

God's Uncreated Being

I have seen frightful demons with my eyes. I have cast my eyes on the evil ways of man and felt deep despair. And I have dreaded the eyes of a wild dog, but my face did not change it's color in all of these encounters.

Only when my eyes were set on your face did I lose my wits and color too! In all of my limbs I did tremble. Never have I known such awe and fear.

Whoever fears God, knows the Beloved's face is a mirror of God's uncreated being. There is an instant moment of wakefulness as all the blood drains from your head and your knees become weak.

Asleep was I, and the Beloved knocked, I sprang up from my deep sleep! 

Sapphire's Letter To Arion: Sapphire's Declaration

Dear Beloved,

Did not Rumi say, "When you take His signs to heart, you will devote your life to fulfilling that indication (of His will)?"
You've removed my burdens revealing your mysteries inside of me. You are a mere man, and I am a mere woman, but whom am I not to show my gratitude towards God?
He's given me eyes to see and free will to cleave to Him. Asleep was I, and the Beloved knocked, I opened the door and my heart I did entrust to Him.
Faith in God is all I have- it is my gold. Faith has turned my hell into heaven, my desert into a budding garden.
I am only a woman, whom woke up on this sleeping road. Only to find myself in the presence of the Beloved. Now I do declare, I am awake! 

Your Darling,
Sapphire