Week 18: Perfection is Self -Transcendence
Our Affirmation For April
Stanza 4:
“Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after
righteousness: for they shall be filled.”
Matthew 5:5
Blessed are they who seek attunement with Truth.
They alone, of all human beings, shall find lasting fulfillment.
Swami Kriyananda
From the book
The Beatitudes: Their Inner Meaning by Swami Kriyananda
Rays of One Light: Weekly Commentaries on the
Bible and The Bhagavad Gita
by Swami Kriyananda
We begin this week with a passage from the Gospel of St. Matthew, Chapter 5:
Love your enemies; bless them that curse you; do good to them that hate you;
and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you; . . .
If ye love them which love you, what reward have ye?
Do not even the tax collectors the same?
And if ye salute your brethren only, what do ye more than others?
Do not even pagans so?
Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.
The Bhagavad Gita tells us in the seventh Chapter:
Out of thousands, one strives for spiritual attainment; and out of many
blessed true seekers, who strive assiduously to reach
Me, one, perhaps, perceives Me as I am.
O truth seeker, be one, among all those thousands,
who seeks the supreme goal!
Excerpted from Week 18 How High Should we Aspire?
Make me see that I am but an actor in Thy Cosmic Motion Picture
By Paramhansa Yogananda
From the Book Whispers From Eternity
Beholding the ever-changing sound-and-motion-pictures of life, I am aware that this turbulent dancing show is only a vast illusion.
The tragedies, comedies, and paradoxes of life; the dreams of birth and death; the changing scenes and places that surge round us: all these are nothing but movies, designed to engage us in the Cosmic Illusion. O Divine Operator, with Thy cosmic vibratory light Thou dost show us ever-new thrills: a motion picture true to all our five senses, keeping us amused and entertained through sight, sound, smell, taste, and touch. O Magic Operator, Thy true-seeming spectacle beams daily onto the screens of our consciousness.
I take it as Thy grace that I’ve been chosen to play both tragic and comic parts in Thy drama. I am happy to have acted all those parts, both of sorrow and of joy. Still, Father, give me now and then a few days of respite from my task! Let me retire to my closet of introspection, stand before my own thought-audiences, and behold with laughing heart all the tragedies and comedies I have enacted. Teach me to look upon all that happens in my life with a pleased, interested attitude, that at the end of each episode, no matter how sad or difficult, I may exclaim:
“Ah, that was a good show, full of thrills, suspense, and excitement! I am happy to have seen it, and I have learned much from it for my own benefit.”
What inspired me from this week’s reading from the Rays of One Light was…
Be grateful for the pains you experience, for they are healing strokes of His love. Sometimes, healing is effected only by strong measures, but His love for you is manifested in the very attempt to heal.
Strive always to be impersonal, as though whatever happens to you were happening to someone else.
The Rays of the Same Light: The reappearance of Christ : the Scriptures as Messengers of Inner Communion Volume 1
“Be Ye Therefore Perfect”
Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy. But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you; That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust.
For if ye love them which love you, what reward have ye? do not even the publicans the same? And if ye salute your brethren only, what do ye more than others? do not even the publicans so? Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.
“Don’t Accept Human Bondage as Your Reality!”
Jesus words are: a commandment. They are more than advice, and far more than a promise. Jesus was trying to to stir his listeners to reverent action. He was not merely counselling them to wait in relative pasitivity for God to fulfil His perfection in them.
Those believers who imagine that God’s grace is given to us human beings without any effort of will on our own part are answered here forcefully. Jesus is telling us to strive mightily for perfection, that we might become worthy of God’s grace.
His words are a commandment also not to define ourselves in terms of our human limitations, of our human weakness and sinfulness. “Don’t accept human bondage as your reality!” He seems to be urging us.
The Bhagavad Gita the Seventh Chapter
Bhagavad Gita: Chapter 7, Verse 3
3manuṣhyāṇāṁ sahasreṣhu kaśhchid yatati siddhaye
yatatām api siddhānāṁ kaśhchin māṁ vetti tattvataḥ
Amongst thousands of persons, hardly one strives for perfection; and amongst those who have achieved perfection, hardly one knows Me in truth.
The precious state of God-realization is very difficult to attain, because in the average man the searchlights of his five senses are turned toward the perception of material objects and not inward toward God. (...) Many sincere devotees of the Lord do not force themselves to seek Him with ever-increasing intensity in meditation, nor are they persistent in their search for Him. That is why they have only meager or fleeting inspirations and do not realize Him continuously. But a persevering devotee, in spite of much bad karma and the temptations of cosmic delusion, will certainly reach God in the end. (...) A present-day devotee, they say (great saints), who will continuously pray for God-communion for three days and nights, or even for twenty-four hours, will realize his Goal.
(Chapter VII, God Talks With Arjuna by Paramahansa Yogananda)
They Have Heard Thy Name
They have heard Thy name, the blind halt and lame. (2)
They have come to Thy door, Lord, they have come to Thy door;
Give them an audience, Lord.
They have heard Thy name, the blind halt and lame. (2)
Those who are in despair, wipe Thou their tears! (2)
They have come to Thy door, Lord, they have come to Thy door;
Give them an audience, Lord.
They have heard Thy name, the blind halt and lame. (2)
Those who are drowned in sin, to whom will they go? (2)
They have no one, Lord, they have no one;
Do not turn them away.
Let’s Meditate in Silence Together…
I am Grateful to all who I know, who Have Helped me to
Achieve Perfection in this Lifetime…
Recently I have been asking myself the question “Who am I”
And I remembered there have been times in my life when I used to ask myself this question... I would cry and wonder why I was having these profound spiritual experiences, that no one else seemed to understand.
I phoned my friend who is a Zen Monk and shared with him how I was feeling. And he told me that asking "Who am I?" is a sign that the universe is calling me and that I'm on the right path. His words brought me peace and stillness and truth in a way, that was unexplainable…
My thoughts would dissolve, we would be on the phone in silence for a while and then randomly we would start laughing together and he would say… I only have conversations of this nature with you Dinah… I appreciate you so much, I love you, and thank you for being in my life…
I often wondered how I could help a Zen Monk by being myself but I guess that is the mystery of life…
I share this story… As I see it as another way to achieve perfection. Through the pain, through the duality of life's ups and downs, and the misunderstandings. My friend was a selfless channel of unconditional love and acceptance and I was able to free myself, and because I was able to free myself, he was also able to free himself too. We both became "Be ye perfect" together through the stillness of God's Love ...
Paramhansa Yogananda said in his prayer from whispers from eternity that I shared earlier
Take it as Thy grace that I’ve been chosen to play both tragic and comic parts in Thy drama. I am happy to have acted all those parts, both of sorrow and of joy. Still, Father, give me now and then a few days of respite from my task! Let me retire to my closet of introspection, stand before my own thought-audiences, and behold with laughing heart all the tragedies and comedies I have enacted. Teach me to look upon all that happens in my life with a pleased, interested attitude, that at the end of each episode, no matter how sad or difficult, I may exclaim: “Ah, that was a good show, full of thrills, suspense, and excitement! I am happy to have seen it, and I have learned much from it for my own benefit.”
And that to me is true perfection…
Completion
As I continue to learn and grow with God I am discovering that we are the reflections of the 8 qualities of God:
Light, Sound, Peace, Calmness, Love, Joy, Wisdom, and Power.
If we enter into anything less than these qualities of God...
We are likely to experience pain and suffering. I believe that when Jesus said "Be ye therefore perfect," he meant anything that pulls us away from these qualities and our peace we are no longer in the presence of God or God's qualities. Seeking perfection in this way is our birthright, and we should not let biblical language hinder us from understanding this truth…
Paramhansa Yogananda said that know matter what we are experiencing in life
Good or bad
Even if temptations are put in our way
We must never give up
We must never stop searching
We must never stop loving God
Why
Because Paramhansa Yogananda promises us that
God will reach us in the End…
Let this be a powerful reminder in our lives today and always
Aum Peace Amen
Blessings and Love
Rev Dinah Pemberton