i bear witness

THE HOPE OF LOVING

What keeps us alive, what allows us to endure?
I think it is the hope of loving,
or being loved.

I heard a fable once about the sun going on a journey
to find its source, and how the moon wept
without her lover’s
warm gaze.

We weep when light does not reach our hearts.  We wither
like fields if someone close
does not rain their
kindness
upon
us.

~Meister Eckhart

“Autumn” by Rainer Maria Rilke

The leaves are falling, falling as from afar,
as though above were withering farthest gardens;
they fall with denying gestures.

And night by night, down into solitude,
the heavy earth falls far from every star.

We are all falling. This hand’s falling too— 
all have this falling-sickness none withstands.

And yet there is One whose gently-holding hands
this universal falling can’t fall through.

~Rainer Maria Rilke

*Note on pronunciation: Rilke = “RILL-kuh” not “RILL-kee”

“The Rules for Being Human” - A Revamped Version

A friend of mine sent me “If Life is a Game, These are the Rules” by Cherie Carter-Scott, a life coach by profession.  Like so many of the “life coaches” out there, the recipes and short-cuts to enjoying and getting the most out of your life are focused on building a person’s self-confidence.  While there’s nothing wrong with wanting to inspire and encourage others to feel a sense of purpose and self-actualization, the approach and appeal of the advice given by most do this by merely boosting the ego.  Not only is the  “I” at the center of the kind of reality that is described to us, but the reality often described is itself merely material.  If there is any recognition of a spiritual reality at all, the material far outweighs any consideration of a spiritual dimension to life and one’s journey through it.   So as a little thought experiment I tried to come up with an alternative set of “Rules for being Human” that might resonate with the truest part of ourselves (we are first and foremost spiritual beings) and our place in the world.  Below are Dr. Carter-Scott’s rules (in bold) and some thoughts follow each rule.  These thoughts are inspired from what I have learned from the Baha’i Writings, and these are quoted in some places.

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The Rules for being Human by Dr. Carter-Scott

When you were born, you didn’t come with an owner’s manual; these guidelines make life work better.

1. You will receive a body. You may like it or hate it, but it’s the only thing you are sure to keep for the rest of your life.

The human spirit is more powerful than the human body.  The human body is a temporary vehicle with a beginning and end that will allow you to interact with this physical world.  The body is the vehicle for the human soul, which has a beginning and no end. Depending on the quality of interactions and experiences of this body, the capacities and powers (creative, intellectual etc.) latent within the human soul allow the human being to manifest his/her highest potential – often beyond what we might even imagine for ourselves.  The potentialities of your human soul are more valuable than your physical body because it is limitless, powerful and you are sure to keep it for the rest of all eternity. So this material existence and this physical body have their place in the eternal story of our lives —  we can think of this physical life as my friend Nava describes in her essay – the “prelude”.  And just like any prelude, the choices we make in this life will set the stage for the first chapter of many that are to follow in the life hereafter.

2. You will learn lessons. You are enrolled in a full-time informal school called “Life on Planet Earth”. Every person or incident is the Universal Teacher.

Sure, the earth is our playground. It is also our trust.  So is every person on the planet.  We therefore have a duty to protect it and care for every member of our human family, to honor, celebrate and protect our diversity (of personality, culture, experience, capacity/talents etc.), which enriches our playground for learning from each other and with each other in this process of life on earth.

3. There are no mistakes, only lessons. Growth is a process of experimentation. “Failures” are as much a part of the process as “success.”

Hmm…I’d invite readers to consider the opposite: What if we took the perspective that there ARE mistakes; there is No Failure.  If we are to honor the process of learning, shouldn’t we accept that we will make mistakes and not be afraid to make them? This requires the courage to try new and different things, to take risks and get a little uncomfortable.  Being “ok” with mistakes allows us to embrace a growth-oriented perspective, and not to measure things up in terms of success versus failure, or perfect versus imperfect.  It allows us to be ok with ambiguities – life is full of them, after all.

4. A lesson is repeated until learned. It is presented to you in various forms until you learn it — then you can go on to the next lesson.

Roger that.

5. If you don’t learn easy lessons, they get harder. External problems are a precise reflection of your internal state. When you clear inner obstructions, your outside world changes. Pain is how the universe gets your attention.

Pain or the tests and trials of life are (paradoxically) gifts to us.  Abdu’l-Baha makes a wonderful observation: If we look back at history, we will find that the greatest men have suffered the most. He goes on to say “The more the ground is ploughed the better the seed will grow, the better the harvest will be…” Without any kind of suffering, we will not attain perfection. Tests are a means by which we can measure the fitness of our “internal state”, and it is proven out by our own acts.   It is when we do not pass these tests that they come again in greater degree, until our former weakness becomes a strength; until we develop a certain quality or capacity which allows us to overcome the obstacle before us.  Were it not for these tests and difficulties, our greatest capacities would not be developed.  ”The more you rub and polish a diamond, the shinier it will become.  The longer you immerse the gold in the fire, the purer it becomes.  The more you sharpen steel by grinding it, the better it cuts. The more you clean a dusty mirror, the more perfectly it can reflect the light of the sun.” (~Abdu’l-Baha) Through tests, we attain the greatest perfection. I find this to be one of the most mysterious paradoxes of life.

6. You will know you’ve learned a lesson when your actions change. Wisdom is practice. A little of something is better than a lot of nothing.

Our actions will certainly be a testament to the lessons we have learned/tests we have passed.  And we will know that we’ve “learned a lesson” when we witness the fruit those actions bear. The fruit should taste sweet, not bitter.

7. “There” is no better than “here”. When your “there” becomes a “here” you will simply obtain another “there” that again looks better than “here.”

The “here” is precious indeed—rather than take this to mean that we gorge ourselves with pleasures of living in “the moment”, it is the recognition that the “here” is an investment in the “there”, it is a choice with an immediate and potentially long-term effect on us (and on others).

8. Others are only mirrors of you. You cannot love or hate something about another unless it reflects something you love or hate in yourself.

I think we are all attracted to beauty, to love, to what brings joy—these things uplift us. Feelings of hate, jealousy, anger etc. are like a poison —they weigh us down and impede our progress.  So… “When a thought of war comes, oppose it by a stronger thought of peace.  A thought of hate can be replaced by a more powerful thought of love.” ~ Baha’u’llah

9. Your life is up to you. Life provides the canvas; you do the painting. Take charge of your life — or someone else will.

Take charge of your life because you will only pass through this world once—the most important question may not necessarily be “did you take charge of your life/did you pick up the paintbrush?” rather “what did you paint, and how—what is the quality of your painting?”

For Baha’is, our life should be lived in the spirit of service to the well-being of the entire human race.  While this idea may sound almost unreachable, in practice it begins with serving our neighbors, friends and family.  

Consider this quote:

“And the honor and distinction of the individual consist in this, that he among all the world’s multitudes should become a source of social good. Is any larger bounty conceivable than this, that an individual, looking within himself, should find that by the confirming grace of God he has become the cause of peace and well-being, of happiness and advantage to his fellow men? No, by the one true God, there is no greater bliss, no more complete delight.” ~ Abdu’l-Baha

10. You always get what you want. Your subconscious rightfully determines what energies, experiences, and people you attract — therefore, the only foolproof way to know what you want is to see what you have. There are no victims, only students.

It is another paradox however, because we should be happy and content with what we have and recognize that not everything in life is under our control.  We share this “playground” – we affect each other’s lives, sometimes in good ways, sometimes in bad. The important thing is to recognize that we are all learning.

11. There is no right or wrong, but there are consequences. Moralizing doesn’t help. Judgments only hold the patterns in place. Just do your best.

I’d invite readers to consider that we do have the power to do what is “right” and the power to do what is “wrong”.  This is what makes us human.

Dwight Allan said to me once that if we did not have the power to choose between the two, our actions would have no merit—we’d be mechanical robots, or we’d be like animals.   By having the freedom to choose to act unjustly, when we act justly our action has merit.

A relativist may argue that what is “right” and what is “wrong” varies.  On one plane this is true—and we find this in the differences that exist between cultures and customs. On a deeper plane of existence, however, because we are all made of the same “stuff of life”, it is hard to deny that there is a common thread that runs through all of us.  On this plane, what is “right” and “wrong” is universal and absolute (although we may not necessarily have the universal language for it), and its consequences are felt no matter who you are, or where you reside on the planet.

12. Your answers lie inside you. Children need guidance from others; as we mature, we trust our hearts, where the Laws of Spirit are written. You know more than you have heard or read or been told. All you need to do is to look, listen, and trust.

Hmm… I believe we are always in need of guidance at all stages of our lives.  We do not stop learning after we are children (isn’t that great?)  Learning is life-long. In each stage our learning experience will necessarily focus on different things because our requirements and needs are different at each stage.  Yet, there is no harm in taking the perspective that we have in us the capacity to find the answers.  However, just as children need to be guided to help find those answers, as adults we will be in need of guidance too.  Inherent in each human being is the capacity to unravel the mysteries of life – yet we have only a limited amount of time to figure things out. Guidance is out there, in different forms.  It is the light that shines through different lamps, which shed light on our path.

13. You will forget all this.

14. You can remember any time you wish.

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Mama Tita

 

It’s a funny thing not growing up near grandparents, uncles and aunts, cousins and the like. My family moved to the United States before my two sisters and I started school.  Part of the deal with this move, probably as much for our parents’ sake as our own, was that we frequently spent our summers back in Mexico, each time discovering that we had more cousins and aunts and uncles and second cousins and great aunts and uncles than we could count, much less care to keep straight in our little heads.  But what we did know as little girls was that we were drenched in love from all directions and with such intensity that all the hugs our small frames sustained, the kisses our cheeks and foreheads collected, and the sweets and presents that showered us, if for no other reason than because we had simply made an appearance… in some way all this made up for the dry, drawn-out months of isolation in between, in which the only connection to the extended family came through the occasional long distance phone call.  My sisters and I didn’t particularly like chatting it up with relatives on the phone anyway, and to our mother’s great frustration and disappointment we tended to flee the scene anytime aunt so-and-so called.

Sadly, as much as we loved our grandparents, we had not yet developed the wisdom to care about having meaningful conversations with them…and as the years passed, we grew into disinterested teenagers.  The time between visits also grew longer and longer as my family progressed further up north, finally settling in the northeast.  When we did see our grandparents and relatives, the commotion of a family reunion was too much, and the emotions so high, there wasn’t time to sit one on one with my mama Tita and ask her about her life.  Like clues strewn throughout, pieces of her chronology remain displayed in pictures decorating the walls of various residences, documenting her youth, her life in the 50’s pageant scene, her love of nature, her sense of style.  The rest I saw in photo albums and took in snippets of her life from my father’s own memories – her marriage to my grandfather, her four children and raising them alone, the late and unexpected loss of a child…

And when we beheld her in those summers, she was the epitome of feminine beauty.  Silky smooth skin, a dazzling smile, a graceful and elegant bearing no matter what the occasion.  She taught me how not to blow my nose so hard when, at eleven, I had an unshakable allergy that gave my nose the runs.  She said I needed to be gentle because I’d break a capillary, and on top of that I was louder than a trumpet (but this she didn’t say). She took me out to her hair appointments as I stared in wonder – wondering mainly if this was her secret to perfect hair as I received a coat of clear nail polish on each finger.  I remember one summer when I visited her exclusively without my sisters and got to sit next to her at every dinner party – that was the closest I’d been to having her all to myself, without the competition.  It was heavenly.

Its hard for me to recollect all the memories now, but my mama Tita – her essence was this – she was a living legend in my eyes.  I only wish I could have known more about her in her own voice.  How she stole the spotlight as decidedly the most stunning young woman of her home state, how she met my grandfather and what life was like being the young wife of a Vietnam war veteran who had suffered psychological trauma as a result of his years in the trenches.  What did she have to overcome?  What were her dreams and her hopes?  Was she happy? I don’t know if these are questions I could have asked her, but if I had the opportunity, I know that I would try.  

Mama Tita, te quiero. 

Baha’i Prayer for the Departed 

O Lord, O Thou Whose mercy hath encompassed all, Whose forgiveness is transcendent, Whose bounty is sublime, Whose pardon and generosity are all-embracing, and the lights of Whose forgiveness are diffused throughout the world!  O Lord of Glory!  I entreat Thee, fervently and tearfully, to cast upon Thy handmaiden who hath ascended unto Thee the glances of the eye of Thy mercy.  Robe her in the mantle of Thy grace, bright with the ornaments of the celestial Paradise, and, sheltering her beneath the tree of Thy oneness, illumine her face with the lights of Thy mercy and compassion.

Bestow upon Thy heavenly handmaiden, O God, the holy fragrances born of the spirit of Thy forgiveness.  Cause her to dwell in a blissful abode, heal her griefs with the balm of Thy reunion, and, in accordance with Thy will, grant her admission to Thy holy Paradise.  Let the angels of Thy loving-kindness descend successively upon her, and shelter her beneath Thy blessed Tree.  Thou art, verily, the Ever-Forgiving, the Most Generous, the All-Bountiful.

~‘Abdu’l-Bahá

Another fine book: “A Love Which Does Not Wait”

By Janet Ruhe Schoen

These are the stories of the early American pioneers who traveled across the globe with such fervor and devotion, I teared up at every chapter.