At the heart of all religions there is only one religion –
the religion of
Love,
Peace, Mercy,
Justice, Beauty,
Equality
and
Freedom.
– Shaykh Muhammad al-Jamal
The Heart of Religion
Forgiveness…
Forgiveness is where compassion comes to rest.
See the trying times not as a punishment,
but as a path to a greater knowing of true Compassion,
which opens and returns the heart to its home –
connected as One with Love.
The Earth is Raining Mercy
Life is hard. It’s full of challenges. It’s meant to be that way. It’s part of the journey.
For myself, I grew up the daughter of a baker. I was a major sugarholic. Sweets and alcohol were staples in my diet – often in heavy doses. I had a few minor health challenges, but nothing I couldn’t live with. I was content. I was unconscious to the ways that I used sugar and alcohol in my life – and content.
Then one day I was held at gunpoint in a bank robbery – this was a challenge. But had it not been for this challenging event, I would not likely have experienced the acute onset of ulcerative colitis – which was also a challenge – which led me on my healing journey. These challenges sparked a new chapter in my life which cleaned up a huge number of unhealthy life patterns I had developed long before the bank robbery and brought me to living the exquisite life I now live.
The challenges woke me up and led me to seek deeper truths. They were a mercy for me, as were the realizations and changes I made to my life following those experiences.
If we look around, there is mercy everywhere – in the challenges we face and in the relief we seek. The earth is full of mercy.
When we fall ill, the earth provides medicine. When we are hungry, the earth provides food and water. Even the things that have been created by humans that seem like a far cry from the natural provision – like television and internet, nightclubs and even processed foods – these also provide mercy for us as we move through life’s journeys.
What is mercy?
Mercy can be a touchy subject. It is thought of as compassion for someone who has done something wrong, and in the sense of our life journeys and challenges, no one likes to be called wrong.
We are not wrong. We are here to walk a challenging path. The objects of mercy are those that give relief to us during what could otherwise send us over the edge. They are the signs of beauty – the flowers and sunsets – that bring us joy and comfort. They are the television shows that make us laugh, help us to identify with others or help us to escape some part of our own lives. They are the comfort foods that help us feel nurtured and safe – even the Twinkies can be a mercy.
Emotional eating – reaching for food as a comfort when you are not hungry – yes, this also can bring mercy. When we feel lost and we don’t know where to turn, emotional eating provides a reprieve. It helps us to feel better in the moment. It brings some relief.
Emotional eating usually begins as an unconscious act. We’re not even aware that we’re unconsciously reaching for foods when we are feeling uneasy. Most times, we don’t even realize we’re feeling uneasy, like in my case I described above.
For example, do you eat when you are bored and there’s nothing else to do? You might not even realize boredom as an experience of uneasiness. However, if you eat when you are bored, you are eating to fill a void. Eating helps – it brings mercy to your discomfort.
Mercy is always there, and when it’s time for you to make a change, the form of mercy changes. For instance, one day you realize the Twinkies aren’t working for you anymore. Maybe your body develops an intolerance for wheat or dairy or caffeine – or an illness. Maybe you feel a spark inside that inspires you to want to live a healthier life. These are signs for you to look deeper within yourself, and to expect a new form of mercy to help you make the changes you are inspired toward.
When you realize the old ways aren’t working any more, or you feel the spark inside and you want to change, look for what shows up in front of you. This is how the Universe directs you to the next step on your journey. A spark from within inspires you toward a new form of mercy which is on its way to you.
The water of mercy rains everywhere. Look within for the inspiration. Turn to your Source and trust. Ask for help directly from Source (or the highest form you believe in – your highest self, your angels, Great Spirit, God – whatever concept and language works for you). Be still and listen. Watch for what shows up. Trust that the help is being sent to you. Know that you are heard and be in gratitude for the response that is on its way.
Mastura Debra Graugnard of Joyfully Living Wellness.
Wishing you all the gifts of gratitude…
Today in the US, many of us celebrate Thanksgiving – a day of gratitude.
Gratitude itself is a gift to be celebrated. Have you ever tried to hold on to an emotion of anger or sadness and be in gratitude at the same time? You just can’t do it.
So when you feel yourself in a state you’d rather not be in, think of something you are truly grateful for, and let your heart feel the gratitude. Receive the gift.
I want to share with you a few of my favorite quotes, teachings and prayers of Gratitude:
From German Theologian Meister Eckhart:
“If the only prayer you said was thank you, it would be enough.”
From the book “Love Without Conditions” by Paul Ferrini:
“Gratitude stems from worthiness and supports the experience of abundance. On the other hand, ungratefulness and resentment stem from unworthiness and reinforce the perception of scarcity.
“Each is a closed circle.
“To enter the circle of grace, you need to bring love to yourself or another. To enter the circle of fear, you need to withhold love from yourself or another.
“When you stand inside of one circle, the reality of the other circle comes into question. This is why you often have the sense that there are two mutually exclusive worlds in your experience.
“The grateful cannot imagine being unjustly treated. The resentful cannot imagine being loved by God. Which world would you inhabit? It is your choice.”
From the book “The Science of Getting Rich” by Wallace D. Wattles:
“There is a thinking stuff from which all things are made, and which, in its original state, permeates, penetrates and fills the interspaces of the universe. A thought in this substance produces the thing that is imaged by the thought.
“Gratitude unifies the mind of man with the intelligence of substance, so that man’s thoughts are received by the formless. A person can remain upon the creative plane only by uniting himself with the formless intelligence through a deep and continuous feeling of gratitude.”
A prayer of Gratitude for your table:
“We give thanks for this food that we have received from this holy earth.
Please bless this food and make it holy
to nourish our bodies, minds, hearts, souls and spirits.”
I am grateful for you! THANK YOU!
For whatever you choose to celebrate and for every day,
Many blessings,
Live and Love Joyfully!!
Debra Graugnard, M.Div.
The Difference Between Fact and Opinion…
One more from the workshop, “Power of the Written and Visual Word.”
“The difference between a fact and an opinion is the number of people who agree on it”. (Source Unknown)
I was taking a training course for work. We had gotten through the Myers Briggs and the instructor made the above comment. It seemed really profound and has stuck with me over the years. Even the greatest scientific truths, like the medieval truth that the earth is the center of the universe, are only fleeting. These truths will soon be replaced by other truths. Our conception of the world will change and change again. Some conceptions will change in our lifetime and others in future generations. The debate about evolution versus creationism seems unimportant in this context.
Our whole society seems to be constructed on truths which are not constant. In addition to changing truths, we have rites of passage which are so embedded that they are treated almost as facts; when to graduate from high school, from college, what years to be working, when to retire, what to do at various stages of life. We have other truths which for the most part have gone by the wayside, the role of women and our views on racial relations are examples. If we were willing to see things as changeable we could change the world and would be able to more easily accommodate to a rapidly changing world.
Things don’t need to always be “that” way merely because we’ve always thought or done it that way. In my own lifetime ‘facts’ have changed many times. In many cases my life seemed to be pointed one way then took a very different direction. Even now I think that things which are seemingly sure are only transient. What I know for certain today can change tomorrow. I need to remember this as the world continues to change.
One time while visiting St. Louis, a city in which the weather can be volatile, a friend made the remark “If you don’t like the weather today stick around, it will be different tomorrow”. Everything I do and experience provides a new learning and changes my perspective on the world. I now think there are very few real facts in the world. Looking underneath them, facts are built on concepts which can crumble. It is important to remember this as the world evolves.
– Anonymous
The Love
In the Name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate.
When you find the love, you find yourself. The secret is in the love. You are the love, not another. Everything is in the love, and everyone needs the love. If you find this, what more could you want? When you know, what could you want? When you have the knowledge of the love, you feel peace in your heart. The jewels are inside you. This is the holy meaning. When you understand, then you are the meaning, the holy meaning. But look and reach so that you find every meaning, and do not hesitate because inside every meaning is the quality of the love. The love has seven qualities and this love knows no differences. If the Muslims, Jews, Christians and the people of any other religion knew their religion well, there would only be one religion, the religion of love and peace and mercy.
Leave everything outside that is not useful and give everything to God to live inside His garden of love. Remember the Name of God at every waking moment, and you will find Him beside you, to help you to walk in the way. Be courteous with everyone you meet. Give them mercy to help them to know the meaning of this love. Give and listen to everyone who speaks to you. Listen with the ear of your heart because this is the voice of God speaking to you, trying to help you to know Him. If you hear another voice, it is wrong. Open your heart to God and He will give you everything. Then your heart will feel quiet and you will only see the love, only the love.
You are the reflection of God. This is nothing, only He. Where is another? Give everything to God and you will begin to know yourself. When God made you, He made beauty. Live with the people on the outside, but hear only your God. Those who live in the outside world are like jewels that need cleaning. They need the fire to burn away all their imperfections so that the jewel may reflect its inner beauty. If you are not clean, how can you find the love. The Sufi way is the straight way – walking a straight path to God, letting nothing on either side block the vision of the straight way. I will ask God to send mercy and peace to everyone because He is the Peace.
If you want God, remember that He gives you what you want. Don’t be afraid. God will not give to you anything that is not good. We must see God in the face of every human being. When you walk and when you sleep, remember the name of God because He knows no time. When you pray to God, pray only to love Him. Do not pray for Him to put you in the garden. God throws out a net, and when He catches you in this net, then you are in the garden. Every student needs God.
When He helps you to find Him, then pray, and when you look into another’s eyes, see the reflection of God looking at you. Understand that inside every word is a message or a sign from God. See the picture of God in every person that you meet.
All the troubles in the world are necessary. If there was no darkness, how could there be light? If you did not see sadness, how could you see happiness? Be courteous to everyone and see the face of God in every person, but know that the people on the outside carry two faces. On the inside they carry the face of God, but on the outside, the face of the shaytan (evil one). Be polite with both faces, and when you see someone angry or shouting, know Who speaks with you. Everyone has put himself in his place and this is the station for that person. Be polite with him and give him mercy. Be with God all the time and do not speak with anyone from the outside unless it is necessary. Give your time for God and He will change you from station to station, cleaning your heart of everything that is not good. This is the message of the prophets. It is a difficult way and at the same time a very easy way. When anyone wants to know God, He will help anyone to walk the straight way.
Follow one guide to take you by the hand, to guide you from the darkness to the light. He will make the walking easy for you and then you can rest. If you go from here to there, you lose time, The student of the family of God rests because he lives in the garden. When anyone knows why he lives and walks in this created world, then he begins to know himself. We are here only to know Him. Live all the time in the garden of love. When your heart feels love, then everything around you is quiet and at peace. This is from the message, but not all the message. Live to love and to know God.
An excerpt from Music of the Soul, written by Shaykh Muhammad Sa’id al-Jamal ar-Rafai, ash-Shadhuli in 1994, revised third addition, 2002. From the chapter entitled, “The Love”.
If talking doesn’t work…
Here’s another from the “favorite quote” exercise from this past weekend’s workshop with Jamila Davies and Latifah Shay, “The Power of the Written (and Visual!) Word”.
If talking doesn’t work do something else to capture your emotions – create art.
When I create, when I make art, it goes past my ability to express myself verbally. Art goes to a deeper place within me – one born of energy and love, another place of existence, another dimension of reality.I feel that this place is disputed by many as not being real. I am fiercely protective of this place, of this reality I call mine!
This place is real – my reality – and no one can take it from me. No one’s values and opinions and judgments and things they say are true can make this place not real, and transport me to other worlds within myself, worlds that are my truth.
I am fiercely protective of this place because of how I was raised like they were throwing dirt down a hole that was me. “There is nothing in there”, they would say. “You’re full of nothing.” “Nothing important is inside you.” “Nothing lives within.” What is this soul?” “You must be crazy crazy crazy.”
Pfiffle, poppycock, bullshit. Meanwhile I’m dying inside. Hogwash.
– Latifah Shay
Art from the Heart
The following are pictures drawn from inspiration led by Latifah Shay in the workshop “The Power of the Written and Visual Word” held this past weekend in Silver Spring, MD.
The Singing from My Heart
“This crayon drawing depicts the song that wants to burst from my heart through my being from the earth through the oceans, all wrapped in the arms of the One.”
Love in the Ocean
“From the Nothingness the heart swims in the Ocean of Light bubbling with Joy and delighted by angels.”
Like a deer that longs for running streams….
Here’s another from the “favorite quote” exercise from this past weekend’s workshop with Jamila Davies and Latifah Shay, “The Power of the Written (and Visual!) Word”.
Like a deer that longs for running streams, my soul longs for You, my God. My soul is thirsting for the living God.
– Psalm 42Oh my Lord, since childhood I have longed to know you, to become acquainted. As a child in the massive cathedral of our neighborhood church, Your Love and Beauty poured out to me. Praying the rosary, a beading practice of the Catholic religion, I have sought You.
Then as i grew into the agelessness of my life, I began to lose sight of You, only to find myself adrift and helpless without You, not knowing or understanding the very thing I’m missing is You, not knowing or understanding the why of difficulty.
But then I began to hear Your faint reply. “Be quite. Hear Me. Listen.” I began a torturous climb back into the mountain of Your being leaving behind all the disparities and pain and helplessness of life without You, finding You at last in the cathedral of my own heart, alive and well and always near. Allahu akbar.
My longing is fulfilled in my aching for You. The aching reveals the very doorway to Your magnificent garden of peace, perfection and beauty. Now it is time.
– Jamila Davies
