Dennis Rodriguez is in:
The Next Top Spiritual Author Competition
Click link to Vote: http://www.nexttopauthor.com/profile.cfm?aid=1005
Before Vincent Van Gogh had any thoughts of becoming an artist-having believed that his life’s path would be that of a clergyman, and while writing a letter to his brother in Holland, he looked out the window and noticed a beautiful scene before him. He saw twilight in London, a single shining star and a lamppost. He was compelled to draw what he was observing and send the drawing to his brother with the letter. This was the drawing that gave birth to an artist.
At five years of age, Albert Einsten passed the time while recuperating from a fever, tinkering with a compass that his father had bought him. He noticed that no matter how much he rattled it, the needle continued to point north. He wondered what was making the needle always point in the same direction. This curiosity activated a passion to explain life’s invisible forces. Later in life, Einsten would say “I can still remember, or at least I believe I can remember- that this experience made a deep and abiding impression on me.”
We are all on a journey where moments of awakening to our life’s work are certain to arrive. The activation of the moment lies dormant in us waiting for the right time, circumstances and readiness to reveal itself and have the greatest impact on our lives.
Lately, it seems like everything around me speaks to this Kairos or appointed moment outside of ordinary time. Now it is true that what you focus on, you attract. If you focus on the color green, you will suddenly notice green all around you; however, this awareness of what I call the Superman Effect feels different. There is a confluence of thought regarding transformation in all disciplines. Interest in transformation is no longer reserved for the spiritually-inclined. Books like Blink and Mindsight are illustrating that many from the world of popular psychology have taken a keen interest in the gap between cognitive thoughts where intuition flourishes and our perceptions of life are forever altered for our highest good. Science is also gaining consensus around the concept of-all indeed being one- separated only by the rational mind. We are reminded in Ervin Lazslo’s book Science and the Akashic Field that this sense of separation lays at the heart of the fall of man.
“While in the primordial condition humans possessed an instinctive knowledge of the sacred unity and profound interconnectedness of the world, a deep schism arose between humankind and the rest of reality with the ascendance of the rational mind.”
Even Hollywood is cashing in like never before with movies like Avatar which depict this sacred network of energy in 3D.
This convergence of chatter about the moment when everything changes in our culture is not driven by a collective desire to find enlightenment or ascension. We are not making this happen. Like so many autonomic processes, it is happening to us. The difference is this time, we are paying attention. We are recognizing the futility of looking for happiness by thinking our way to bliss. We don’t want to be drugged into a life of complacency and are feeling activated to shed what has not been working- Fearing our way through life is not working. Ignoring the good that is all around us is not working. Like Mork from Ork said to Ritchie Cunningham in Happy Days: living a “hum drum” life is not working for any of us. We know this. We came into this world knowing that life is full of opportunities and our work was to see-ize them. Our karmic playground is 10.5% unemployment, higher violence and despair than two years ago, and retirement accounts that have lost much of their value. Yet no matter how hopeless our world seems right now, when the moment arrives that activates a passion for life; we do not have a choice but to follow it wherever it leads us.
My book will be the tipping point. I have left my job at the most inauspicious time to follow my true life’s path. I have revealed the real me to all who want to see. I have dared to dream not just of a better tomorrow, but of a better now and in the process have found freedom through forgiveness. Nelson Mandela understood the power of forgiveness to lift a nation. Forgiveness was his key out of prison and he used the same key to free his homeland. The forgiveness that will lift our great country from its present malaise is one of self-forgiveness. We can choose to learn from the lessons of our past however violent, racially unjust and full of greed. I heard from a Jewish man who lauds the late Pope John Paul II for having the courage to ask forgiveness for 2000 years of mistreatment by the Church and call the Jewish people his spiritual brothers. Pope John Paul II understood the healing power of forgiveness and that the Church needed this healing perhaps even more than the Jewish people. We can forgive ourselves for getting too fat and over-consuming. We can also forgive ourselves for the sins of our fathers.
The spirits have taught me the weakening power of guilt to hide our higher selves. Guilt blinds us to our true purpose. I believe in taking personal responsibility for our actions, what I think we can do without is self-condemnation. I do not believe we have a God that is interested in condemning or judging us. I know this is hard to accept for some after thousands of years living with stories of God as Judge. That is because the opposite of “if you focus on what is green you will see more of what’s green” is also true: You can choose to filter out anything that does not agree with your world view- no matter how apparent it is to others.
"Do not judge, and you will not be judged. Do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven.- Luke 6:37
“Woman [to are adulteress], where are they, has no one condemned you? No one, Lord. And Jesus said, neither do I condemn you.”- John 8:11
"As for the person who hears my words but does not keep them, I do not judge him. For I did not come to judge the world, but to save it.” John 12:47
For my part, I have been shown centuries of self-condemnation in my Puerto Rican lineage. Some of what I have seen is horrific and condemnation is understandable. The responsibility that I feel is to break the cycle of guilt, shame and destructive behavior thus freeing my ancestors from their prison. All logical indications were that I would follow in their footsteps. Drunkenness and wife-beating were found in the homes of many of my relatives. Depression and tragic deaths have also been all too common. But something was activated in me to be the one to say yes to the goodness in humanity and turn the tide of violence precipitated by self-hatred. That something is in all of us.
I spoke on the phone with my 11 year old little brother from Big Brothers Big Sisters today. He told me his dad who is out of prison has not been yelling at him when they see each other lately.
“You know you are not going to be that way with your family.”
“I know Dennis. I know.”
No comments:
Post a Comment