You Put Everything Into It

You Put Everything Into It

Weekly Message, November 25, 2006
Written and transcribed by Terry Grant

This is the continuation of a message I have edited and transcribed from a talk Ishvara gave on August 6, 2006. - TG.

Ishvara:

Many seek the glamour of the path of enlightenment. They look for "the group," the rapport with others, the comradeship. They seek friends, maybe lovers. There is an agenda behind the seeking.

Then there are those who, for whatever reason, have got a taste, have been sparked, and that spark reveals something very valuable, infinitely more valuable than anything in the world. That spark is fragile. The intellect can override it, deny it, but once the spark is there, it creates a hunger, a feeling that is not easily denied.

You may wander from it or turn your back on it at times, but it keeps beckoning. Eventually that spark will become a flame, and the flame will consume the whole of your life. You will come to the place where you realize that nothing in the world really matters, nothing is worth the expectation, the projections, the advertisements, nothing is of value; all perceived value is arbitrary. The flame becomes all important.

In that process, the body is in a state of transformation. It is not consumed by the flame, but lives in the flame. The cells become truly alive, the organs, the tissue, the muscles, the bone--all alive, vibrant and energetic, outstandingly so. All because of the willingness to do the work, the willingness to lay aside the expectations, and begin to exercise a great patience and compassion for the body, the corporeal existence, and for all of Life around you. It is great patience that allows you to take the steps as they appear, without rushing, without fear, just taking the steps as they arise. When you are doing the work, each moment is a revelation of something more.

The work essentially starts with that spark, and continues for the rest of your life. There is no "retirement plan," no place to quit. You keep pursuing the flame, that awareness, those possibilities you become aware of. You keep looking for more connections, more possibilities. You keep knowing there is more. You pursue. This is the place of division. There are those who are willing to put in the effort, to exercise the patience and compassion, to do the work, and there are those who want it handed to them without any sacrifice, without any striving toward a greater awareness, remaining complacent and stuck in habits of the past and in beliefs and concepts "about."

So there are those who are willing to work to make the necessary sacrifices to fan the flame, and those who are not willing to make the sacrifice, who want the spark to turn into the flame by some magical incantation. They see it, they want it, but are not willing to work for it, not willing to lay aside the desires of the intellect, the temporary satisfactions of the human realm. The intellect says, "Oh, you will have to give up too much; you can't have any more fun, can't have any more friends; you will probably be a pauper." That is the mind trap, the consensus-reality trap. It is an effective trap that snares many people.

On the other hand, if you are willing to do the work, the spark ignites and becomes a flame that begins to consume the sacrifice you have made. The sacrifice that is consumed by the flame includes the offering-up to the universe of the temporal, the expectations, the doubts, the fears, the disease, the dysfunctions, and the disharmony. This is not well known or believed. If it was, I suppose many more would pursue the work. But from the surface you can't see it. On the surface, it just looks like, "Well, this will make my life better. It is a magic potion that I can take. It is the pill that makes everything all right."

To truly achieve a state of awareness through connection, through enlightenment, you develop an intense love, an unconditional acceptance, intensifying that love with every action, every thought. It is all-consuming. It is very similar to falling in love. In that moment when you fall in love, you are willing to make almost any kind of sacrifice, you are willing to drop almost everything to have that love. You are ready to give up everything, until the illusion breaks and disappointment sets in. Yet that is a conditional love. The love of this awareness is a transcendent love; it is unconditional. It is true love. You love the possibility, the awareness, the intensity that Life begins in that flame. It is intense, burning. It is consuming, and you love totally, unafraid, constantly willing to let go of an obstacle, a belief or a concept that gets in the way. You put everything into it.

The intellect says, "If you do that, you will have nothing left. You won't be happy, you won't have fun." Yet there is some magic to this love. It begins to pull the most conscious, the best, the most vibrant aspects into your life. It pulls them in like a magnet. You may have few of these things, but the quality is outstanding. The quality goes beyond any kind of human expectation or desire. The quality comes from the appreciation, the respect, the honoring, the connection, the awareness that is constantly building upon itself. You are so consumed by that love, that flame, that nothing else matters. You do not count the sacrifices you have made. You no longer pay tribute to the problems, the separations, the indifferences, or the judgments. For in that love, there is infinite compassion, a desire to cooperate with Life itself, a burning desire to be all you can be, not as the old self, the "me-first" self, but your True Nature which you have tasted.

(To be concluded next week).

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