Listen to Rumi...#2

I avoid those who would hand me a set of rules which God gave them, and by which I am supposed to live. It's not that I don't believe that the Divine Ultimate speaks to us; it does. It's not that I don't believe that the Alpha/Omega has wisdom for us which enriches our lives; it does. It's not that I don't believe in rules, or self-discipline; I do. But I do not believe That Which Made It All bothers with behavioral minutiae; Spirit is not a quibbler.

(Don't start with me #1: "Well don't you believe in the Ten Commandments? Thou shalt not kill? Honor thy father and mother?" C'mon. If you need the Divine Ultimate to tell you not to commit murder, then we have a whole 'nother set of issues to discuss. Don't start with me #2: "What do you have against religion?" Nothing at all. What I'm against is somebody else trying to slather me down with *their* religion, and judgments thereof. )

Spirit is not a quibbler. Spirit doesn't care what we wear when we pray, or where we are when we do. And I believe that when we're in true communion with the Alpha/Omega, what we feel and learn isn't the stuff of Aphorism-a-Day desk calendars. Listen to Rumi:



(from "Moses and the Shepherd", translated by Coleman Barks)

...
God began speaking deeper mysteries to Moses.
Vision and words, which cannot be recorded here, poured into and through him.
He left himself and came back.
He went to eternity and came back here.
Many times this happened.
It's foolish of me to try and say this.
If I did say it, it would uproot our human intelligences.
It would shatter all writing pens.
...



Be conscious. Treat the people you meet with respect. Help them if they need it, if you can, and if they can accept your help. Fall in the love with the world and everything in it. Love and respect yourself. Fall in love with Spirit. Remember you're not the first person who's been here, and that you're not the last, either. Learn and teach. Share. Laugh hard, and often. And die knowing you're going back to the place you came from.

Listen to Rumi...#1

Don't confuse Religiosity with a true relationship to God, or Spirit. Don't confuse the menu for the meal, or the map for the road itself. Think less of commandments and more of confabulation. A spiritual way of living shouldn't limit you, it should unlock your life.


(from "Moses and the Shepherd", translated by Coleman Barks)
...
(God's voice)
You have separated me from one of my own.
Did you come as a Prophet to unite, or to sever?
I have given each being a separate and unique way of seeing and knowing and saying that knowledge.

What seems wrong to you is right for him.
What is poison to one is honey to someone else.

Purity and impurity, sloth and diligence in worship,
these mean nothing to me.
I am apart from all that.
Ways of worshipping are not to be ranked as better or worse than one another.
Hindus do Hindu things.
The Dravidian Muslims in India do what they do.
It's all praise, and it's all right.

It's not me that's glorified in acts of worship.
It's the worshipers! I don't hear the words they say.
I look inside at the humility.

That broken-open lowliness is the reality,
not the language! Forget phraseology.
I want burning, burning.

Be friends with your burning. Burn up your thinking and your forms of expression!
Moses, those who pay attention to ways of behaving and speaking are one sort.
Lovers who burn are another.
...