Thursday, December 25, 2008

December 26 - The Second Holy Night - The Need for Divinity


Your soul needs to be certain of divinity.

Take a few still and soft moments to let the words “certain” and “divinity” bring their meaning to your consciousness. Don’t read any further until you have done this exercise.

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Let me share some of the random thoughts that appeared in my soul while I was still and soft...

I find I cannot rely on my intellect to define either meaning. Both “certain” and “divinity” evoke feelings, not words, in my soul.

My feeling of “certain” is what my body feels when I am standing on firm earth on a beautiful day. The earth meets my arched foot with strength, supports the balanced uprightness of my entire skeleton and keeps my head floating atop my spine reaching up to the sky. All is unquestionably the way it is designed to be. My soul is certain when all feels radiantly right.

My feeling of “divinity” is a feeling of total illumination, of dwelling in pure light, a light that hallows all it shines on.

My soul seeks the hallowed design present in the object of its attention. I may be paying attention to what I experience as myself or what is not me. I may be paying attention to something small and immediate or something incomprehensibly huge and distant. With the divinity in my soul, I am able to feel the divine presence in what I observe. The divinity in my soul is the source of my attention.

My soul needs divinity in order to seek and to see, to suffer and to surrender, to know and to love. My soul needs Divinity in order to heal, to be free, to evolve and to resist. divinity inspires and empowers my “yes!” and my “no!”

My soul needs divinity in order to forget myself and know you.

It is the presence of divinity in my soul that lets me compassionately illuminate my life, my life’s surroundings and circumstances, and my life’s deeds and intentions.

Without divinity, my life would be a morally gray wasteland. I would not be able to see any design and my life would feel aimless.

My soul needs the light of divinity, the way my eyes need light to see.
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On this second of the Twelve Holy Nights write down your feelings about certainty and divinity.

Try not to put a name on divinity. Stay with your feelings of and for divinity within your soul. Named divinities feel external to your soul.

If you find you must name divinity - Jesus Christ, Buddha, Allah, Yahweh, God, Brahma, or Gaia - here is a helpful exercise. Imagine the named divinity asking you what He or She feels like in your soul. What is your answer? Why does your soul need this divinity?

On the other hand, if you are someone who finds the naming of divinity too limiting, you might try this exercise. Right down all the names you know for divinity. There are many names. Now go through the list and describe what each name signifies, distinguishes and contains for you. I wrote down seven names in the previous paragraph. Each of the seven represents a different gesture of the divine to me.

If you have the time, do both exercises. You will find your soul’s light growing with this work. Even if you are very articulate about all matters divine, you’ve read all the sacred texts and all the works of great masters, these two exercises will take you in to your own soul and it’s own need for divinity. Do this with the innocence of Nativity. See what lives in your newborn heart.

Make a list of twelve aspects of divinity, such as love, truth, beauty, compassion, power, judgment, etc. For the coming year of twelve months, focus your inner work on one feeling each month.

Tonight open yourself up to the divinity in your soul.