We feature a piece from Joy Stockwell who describes how a particular teaching transformed her mind and in turn affects activities in the world.
I’ve been pretty occupied with my work lately. I seem to only have time for work and spiritual life. I’m happy to report the work life resides a bit more in the spiritual life now. I find I am able to bring more loving detachment to my work with the consequence that challenges in work do not upset as they used to, nor do I identify my own worth based on the work progress. I happen to have two challenging jobs at the moment. It has been a blessing to be able to take responsibility for the project but not the blame for problems which were not of my creating. Normally everything is my fault in my eyes. What is great about this is that the problems seem to solve more easily when I am not so attached to them.
I finally got back to my Gospel. For some reason I was not in a mood to read it. I’ve been reading some other things which all contribute to my devotion and understanding. The Gospel is wonderful. It is great to have been to Dakshineswar and to imagine Ramakrishna where he actually lived. I also, since India, have come to understand that Ramakrishna was an exception. Many messangers are not perfect as they are not incarnations of the Divine like Ramakrishna, therefore their life may not be blemish free. In most cases it is the message and not the messenger that is important. Humans have judgements, perspectives, experiences that colour their opinion about people and circumstance, but if the message is eternal, that is what to focus on. In meditation the other morning, for a moment of clarity, I understood that God is the only Truth. And only God, or the Divine, or the Mother, or Consciousness — what ever it is called — and not the maya-created religion, or culture, or values, can be Truth because every thing else will be viewed objectively or subjectively. Certainly gave me pause for thought – being a person of self-righteous nature.