For many of us it takes something major, perhaps
catastrophic, for us to stop from the hustle and bustle of daily life
to look deep within. We stop, we think, we re-think, we examine.
Quite often, in this reflection, we find that there are quite a few
parts of our lives that are found to be lacking. This is when we begin
to question. For some we find that we have spent our entire lives
living and being something that we are not. We hear voices in our
minds telling us that this is what we ought to think, to feel....this
is how we ought to be. Voices from our past....our parents, our
teachers, our pastors, our politicians....voices. All clamoring for
attention, all yelling at the same time. We spend our entire lives
perfecting the art of thinking, feeling, being these things that these
voices tell us....only to find at some point, some great moment, that
all along we have neglected that still small voice within us....that
voice that tells us who we really are, what we really think, what we
really feel and how we are meant to be in this life. And so,
sometimes at a grand old age, we begin to learn to listen. We learn
to listen to the only voice that we are supposed to listen to....the
voice of our inner being.
Sometimes, at the beginning of our searching for answers to these age
old questions, we begin to fear that we may die without ever knowing
what it is that we came here to do...or who we really are. Sometimes
we begin to fear death itself. What if what the voices from our past
told us is true? What if there is some type of punishment or
emptiness after death? What if there is nothing after death? And so,
for some, it seems as if we are surrounded by death even as we live.
Questions, fears, musings....and always, no answers. Just mystery.
Death is the ultimate mystery.....
This feeling of being surrounded by death, of being separated from
life, of not knowing, not being able to know, of unending questions
and fear is all the result of our being disconnected from our Source.
What is our Source? Mystics and sages down through the ages have
recognized one truth that seems to permeate every religion, every
philosophy, and now even modern science. This truth is something that
the ancients knew very well and took as a matter of course. It is
something however, that modern man, for all of his wisdom and knowing
has dismissed and forgotten. This truth is a spiritual truth, one
that was once known by all. As man became more 'civilized', and
religion became a doctrine, as opposed to a spontaneous connection and
reverence for the Divine, this truth became known by fewer and fewer.
It was taken away from the masses and kept by a few. At first it was
taught in the mystery schools to a few initiates, those who could make
the harrowing journey through to the end to discover the secrets. But
finally, even that was stopped and it began to be hoarded by those who
would like to be the all-knowing fathers of civilization. These
'knower's of the mysteries' didn't want the masses to know this truth,
because then they would realize that they did not need a liaison
between themselves and the Divine.
What is this truth that has been hidden and kept from us? What is
this truth that mystics and seers from all over the world, from many
different cultures and backgrounds and religions, have all come to
understand? It is that we all come from one Source. All of us.
Everything. Man and beast. The stars and the sand. The plants and
the seas and the clouds and the suns and you and I. This Source, this
center of being, has been called by many names. Brahman by the
ancient Hindus, Great Mystery by the Native Americans, Goddess by the
neolithic peoples, God by modern man. Siva, Yahweh, Jesus,
Grandmother Spider, Isis, Nut, Nu Kwa....endless are the names, but
the principle remains the same. There is some Source, some Mystery,
somewhere, that has given birth to all that we see around us.
I for one, like the Hindu analogy of the Source being comparable to an
ocean. You and I, and the animals, the trees, the planets, the
galaxies, are waves in this ocean. We rise out from the midst of it.
We are each unique in our form. Have you ever seen two waves that
are exactly alike? We take our form, we express ourselves, and then
we return to our Source. We are inseparable from the ocean. The
ocean is inseparable from us. It is impossible to separate a wave
from the ocean, just as it is impossible to separate ourselves from
our Source. The Divine, the Goddess/God/Great Mystery is within us
and is so much a part of us that we cannot separate from it. The
Divine is in our beloved heroes and heroines like Mother Theresa or
Martin Luther King. But just as it is in them, the Divine is also in
me. It is in you. It is in that fellow down the street that gets on
my last nerve. It is in the steak that sits on my dinner plate. It is
in the kittens that were just born under my home. It is in the birds
that fly around me and the spider who weaves it's web on my window.
It is in the trees growing outside in my woods and in the rock that is
holding down the papers on my desk. EVERYTHING AROUND US IS THE
DIVINE EXPRESSING A DIFFERENT POINT OF VIEW. Therefore, since the
Divine is in me, and is in you, and is in everything, and since we are
inseparable from the Divine, and it is inseparable from us, we can now
begin to say "I AM THAT." Yes, I am that lovely little old lady down
the street who has such unending patience. I too have unending
patience. The same source that gives this quality to her, that abides
within her, abides also within me. I am that. I am that tree outside
my window. The same source that gives the tree that ability to grow
without striving, to grow by just being, that source also abides
within me. I am that.
However, I am also that person down the street that I don't like so
much. You know, the one who doesn't want to work, who likes to live
off of other people....or perhaps the one who does all the gossiping
and rumor-mongering. Yes, that person too is a part of the Source.
That person is inseparable from the Source. And the same Source that
is within that person also lives with in me. Just because we don't
agree with that person, does not make them any less a part of the
Divine than we are. They are simply the Source expressing itself in a
different way. Yes, I am that.....too. Kind of makes one look at
things a little differently....
This is the mystery. This is why the ancients were able to see
everything in the world as sacred and to live in a sacred manner. This
is why they were able to live for thousands of year without weapons.
This is why the stories of an ancient Golden Age abound. The Golden
Age was simply the time when people knew about the Source. When they
knew about their connection to the Divine and to each other. This
knowledge brings life, and freedom. It brings patience, and kindness
and love. Perhaps the original sin was in the forgetting......
When we forget who we are, when we forget that we are part of
something bigger than ourselves and that all around us is a part of
something bigger, we begin to fear. The forgetting brings death. In
our forgetting, since we then see ourselves as so small and finite, we
cannot possibly believe that still small voice within us. We must be
told what to do by someone who knows more than us. In the forgetting
we give away our power. We die.
But with death comes rebirth. It is in our dying that we begin to
question. And we learn to listen....learning what the ancients knew
so long ago. That still small voice is the only voice that we can
trust. It holds the clues to our origin, and it knows where we are
going.  
As you go through your day
and you meet lovely people and not so lovely people, remind yourself
that they too are Divine, just like you. Remind yourself "I am That",
and see how this changes how you relate to others. As you practice
these simple things, you will find yourself remembering.....and
learning to listen. Blessed be.

The Reverand Candice Jennings