I am so happy and honored to be here at the Crossings participating in the third annual Common Ground gathering, Common Ground on Higher Ground focusing on the amazing faith of Texas.
I also feel privileged to be able to share something of our late friend and brother, Brother Wayne Teasdales' vision of the "interspiritual age," a vision of hope in these "the best of times, the worst of times." I was really delighted to receive a copy of that remarkable book, The Amazing Faith of Texas, from Joyce and Ken. I was deeply moved by it, particularly by the personal stories of faith, of Spirit, from so many traditions, and also by the photographs which reveal so clearly the Light of God within the faces and bodies of its narrators.
This inspired me to flesh my comments this morning in the form of stories also, both of Wayne and myself, and to discover in what ways these stories could be seen as signs, images holding deeper worlds of integrated meaning and feeling, like the eyes of those Texas seekers within the book communicating truths far beyond the conscious mind.
In Troilus and Cressida, Shakespeare uses the phrase, "There you touched the life of the design." I hope my stories and images will point to essentials, evoke universal and archetypal patterns and truths, even as do the shining eyes of Texas' amazing faith.
I found as I let my thoughts and feelings pour out in this way, I spontaneously created a for me new prose-form, something like "spoken word," music without strict meter, poetry with freer perimeters. And because the wording is precise and consecutive, I'm going to indulge myself in reading them, Although I am doing so from deep inside my inmost Heart.
I'd like to begin with a story of being welcomed by the Southwest. Some weeks ago, I attended a conference on Sound and Healing in Santa Fe. I flew from Chicago to Denver and took a connecting flight from Denver to Santa Fe. I hadn't realized this would involve a tiny two-seater, quite exposed and vunerable in its non-jet/old propeller status. To distract myself during the short flight, I took out Amazing Faith and zoomed in hard. I soon lost myself in the stories and in the images. At one point, glancing up and out the window, I was greeted by the most splendiferous of sunsets- deep golds and roses and purple violets- it was radiant with glory and I was truly transfixed. I couldn't take my eyes away and it continued to bestow blessings until we landed in Santa Fe. In some deep way, I knew I was being welcomed to and by the Southwest.
Later I realized this welcome involved your native peoples, their deep sacred legacy of Spirit and Heart; it involved the vastness, openness of the land and sky themselves; it involved the stark truth of things simply being what they are. It radiated Spirit, that which is most alive, most inspired, what cuts closest to the core in people, land, history, and time. And I knew again why Wayne always said that Spirit goes far beyond men, women, children, involving all sentient beings, all elements of nature, the earth, the stars, the planets, other universes, galaxies, departed beings, angels, deities, infinite realities beyond the beyond.
I know Wayne would have loved The Amazing Faith of Texas, and he would have wanted sequels; The Amazing Faith of Illinois, of New York, Europe, China, of Earth, the Milky Way, the infinite All-Pervasive. And he would have wanted to include photographs of artists and politicians and educators and scientists, of animals and plants and rock formations, and he would have tried to get illustrations of aliens and extra-terrestrials whom he was convinced were doing their part in the evolution of our destiny.
Thus, inspired by Roy Spence's wonderful book, I grasped at a whole other level what Wayne might have intended by the Interspiritual Age, what he might have included as vital and intimate, akin and aligned, one with the Totality, one with each of us, in Spirit and in Adoration.
I'd like to organize my comments this morning around three aspects of Wayne's vision, Wayne as mystic, as contemplative and as prophet, almost Biblical in their implications.
First, Wayne as mystic. A mystic is one who sees "into the Heart of things," who seeks the unity of all life, who lives as the One holding the many. Wayne himself described a mystic as "any individual with a direct experience and awareness of the absolute, the divine, or boundless consciousness." For Wayne, the common ground of it all is Consciousness, the great Light of Awareness. There is always subject and always object, yet without subject, who or what would perceive object? When it's dark at night and our eyes are closed, what's the source of the Light that illumines our dreams? And when we sleep like a log or a rock throughout the night, who or what recognizes that we didn't move one little iota? What's the difference between our thoughts, our brains and our Consciousness? Who or what is the Knower, who remaining ever still and unmoving yet grounds, differentiate and connects our ever changing emotions, cognitions, perceptions? What is taking in these words, these ideas, these images right now inside our many different heads, our varied histories, and somehow weaving a collective consensus of understanding?
This is the original Mystic, joining us together in awareness of Awareness. This is what the quantum physicists mean by the Ultimate Observer. And for Wayne, this is the ground of all Being, the ever present Source of the One in the many, fully Sensate-Awareness ever pulsating as vibrating, cognizing Substance, multi-leveled frequencies of information, Consciousness and, above all, Compassion.
For Wayne, it particularly mattered that we apprehend this apparent many as the essential One in religious and spiritual institutions and practices, the storehouse of the world's sacred treasures, the perennial wisdom, the lifeline of Spirit. Like blind men in narcissistic isolation mistaking the trunk, the tail, the legs and the tusks of an elephant for different and separate animals, we need to stop indulging our solipsistic proclivities and instead apprehend the underlying gestalt, the one inclusive integral Body bonding all faith traditions, all individual spiritual seekers, into one quantum field of all-pervasive, ever-changing, Super-Elephantine Consciousness.
And now for a personal story. For Wayne, who lived much of his life as a mystic, there was still some resistance to the complete embrace of non-dual Reality when it came to his own physical demise. He had so many books still to write, so much work yet to do. He wasn't quite ready to leave it all and merge into common ground. He held on to the hopes of western medicine, submitted to intense chemo therapy for his cancer. After one particularly excruciating session, we meditated together in his hospital room. Sometimes the meditations (and the medications) worked, sometimes they didn't.
This time he went deep and awoke with a puzzled look on his face. "Bill, I think I've had a vision. I saw myself in a mountain monastery in Tibet. I was wearing the robes of a Buddhist monk. Somehow I got too close to the edge, and suddenly, found myself catapulting downwards. At first I was afraid and fought the fall, but then I grew quiet and just let go. When I hit the bottom everything was fine. What do you think it means, Bill?"
I paused and listened deep inside.
"Well, Wayne, I think it means that you've done so much great work for the Lord, that when it's time for you to go, He‘ll catch and hold you in His embrace."
When I left, Wayne was inward and still. Somehow in this meditation and vision, our brother had gone beyond the dualistic and resistant mind and grasped again the fundamental unity of all things. He knew himself as both a Buddhist monk and a Catholic priest. He felt the interconnectedness of life and death. He lived the co-simultaneity of past, present and future. And some days later when they found him, his Spirit departed, with a smile on his face and Light pouring into the room, We all knew he had returned to that unity. His Lord had gently come, caught and carried him back to where he belonged.
For Wayne, we embrace our mystical core. Through following the path of the Heart. For the mind, everything is binary, this or that, true or false. The Heart, however, can contain opposites, welcomes paradox. We can be ready to kill those whom we most love.
During one of our last visits together, I asked Wayne whether he had any yet unrecorded teachings he wanted to share with others. He paused, reflected and wrote down two. The first was this: "The Divine is infinite sensitivity." "The Divine is infinite sensitivity." Sensitivity is a quality of the Heart not the head. It feels, intuits, apprehends; it does not analyze, dissect, figure out. It takes in, receives with wonder, gratitude, appreciation and wants to co-create. It does not broadcast, control, judge, and need to dominate.
Wayne says, "It is a quality refined only in the mystic heart, in the steady cultivation of compassion and love that risks all for the sake of others." It is both a feeling and a discerning. It is a never-ending wellspring of responsiveness, support, and blessings. To develop sensitivity would be to bring awareness into the cave of the Heart and to empathize, resonate, feel at One with all life, all vibratory frequencies, all unique and wonderful expressions of Spirit. It would share in the unfathomable generosity of Christ: "Father, forgive them, they know not what they do," And the supreme offering of Self: "Take, eat, this is my body broken for you." It would mean to be infinitely responsive to the fall of a single rose petal and to the footfalls of each and every ant. It is through the cultivation of such a Heart that one becomes a Mystic, that one can, indeed, own the Mystic Heart. Only then will we be able to look into the mystery of all things and discover there a holy mirror reflecting back to us our own face beaming out in infinite beauty, wisdom and blessedness.
There was so many times when I would see and hear this sensitivity in Wayne. Whenever he would call our home and leave a message on the answering machine, he would always say, "And many blessings to all the Hayashi's including Precious (our poodle-terrier mix), the other sentient member of that wonderful household." I knew he was reminding me to never forget the delicate sensitivity of Precious' loyal, sometimes disobedient, especially when hungry, often times needy soul.
I would also see this sensitivity in Wayne's kind and respectful treatment of street people. He would always know them by name, always pause, conversate, authentically engage, and then move on with a smile. He would never ever condescend, never patronize. I remember being in his apartment one day deep into a conversation on Spinoza and transcendent substance. The buzzer rang and it was James, one of the street folk Wayne often invited into his home. He said, "James, I'm with a friend now and we're having a heavy conversation. Come back in an hour and we can talk then, brother." Limit-respecting love, but always with such grace, such discerning sensitivity.
And lest we be deterred from our own embrace of such clarity and refinement, feeling ourselves too small, too worldly, too unprepared to put on the mystic's robes, let us hear Wayne's gentle words of counsel and assurance:
"We don't need to enter monasteries to become mystics or to cultivate our spirituality: We are all mystics! The mystic heart is the deepest part of who or what we really are. We need only to realize and activate that essential part of our being." (p.12, M.H.)
For Wayne then, we just need to relax, let go into our natural state, simply rest in what is most common and most fundamental in us all. And then, behold, we become living Grace in its infinite variety!
The second dimension of Wayne's vision of the mystic path is the way of the contemplative. Often, as Wayne indicates, we don't need to leave the world and retire behind cloistered walls to engage in contemplation. We simply need to shift the center of our focus from outside to inside, from the world without to our hearts within.
We need to begin addressing such questions as, "Who am I really? Why was I born? Where am I going? What is my life purpose? How truly am I honoring it?" Wayne very much loved the writings of Saint Teresa of Avila. He was particularly fond of her "Interior Castle" and the image she uses to describe the human condition. Teresa metaphors the human body as a castle. She says within this castle there are many corridors, many rooms. At the very center of this castle, there is a chamber filled with silence. Most people, however, have not ventured very far into the interiors. Most of us live on the parapets of the castle, walking round and round always looking outwards: diversions, opportunities, dangers, entertainments Occasionally we have a life crisis, start a little therapy, begin to explore some of the outermost passages and rooms.
But very soon we become distracted, an argument, a problem, a desire, and quickly we rush outside again to see and engage. And Teresa says this is very sad, for if we but ventured into that innermost chamber, if we would but enter and pause, we would find in its stillness and sweetness all that we seeking so desperately on the outside.
And for Wayne, this is why we contemplate, why we meditate, why we take some time each day to come back to ourselves, re-connect with our inwardness. For Wayne, to do this we must engage in daily spiritual practices, whatever those may be. As an intellectual, he understood full well the dangers of mental diversions and substitutes, why he encouraged hard core practice.
As the Zen proverb asserts: "A point of practice is a worth a ton of theory."
Or as my teachers say, "Meditation. Do it. Contemplation. Do it."
Of necessity, these practices must involve the body, must incorporate and awaken the Heart as well as the mind. We need to feel, know and enjoy through all our bodies, physical, mental, emotional and spiritual. For Wayne, it was particularly effective to share practices with others, either in one's own tradition and thus create a collectively enhanced energy field, or across traditions, interspiritually, to learn from and co-create a more diverse, rich and novel container of Bliss. For Wayne, champion of the Heart, practices shared in community, particularly diverse community, were simply "the best thing since sliced bread." He ever emphasized the importance of friendship, of encountering the full being of another with your own inner and outer totality.
We need to stand before one another in our wholeness and realness, offering to and greeting each other through out naked authenticity. He felt that institutions could preserve order and traditions but that friendship and intimacy created and bonded families of Spirit. He knew that shared practice was the fastest and most direct way to that collective feast.
This is why he so often encouraged interspiritual projects and pilgrimages. When people travel and work together, they share hearts, minds, bodies and souls; they come to know each other in their fullness and complexity, discovering unexpected beauties and greatness even in the midst of hidden shadows and fears. We gratify the longing to be known and accepted not as stranger, not as associate, but as sister, brother, friend and Beloved.
My wife and I teach a course together at Columbia College Chicago called Spirituality and Empowerment. We share practices and rituals together with our Gen Y students. We begin each class with a round-robin discussion of a time during the week when we each experienced Spirit in our own way. The responses are often surprising and usually filled with power.
Taking an hour long shower, relishing each minute of it, noticing the snow falling in the park across the street, really, truly listening to a friend in need, discovering miraculously that Spirit can come alive though taking in the Eucharist through new eyes.
Each week different students present a personal altar, choosing 4 cherished objects to represent 4 different passions which inspire and uplift them. They also select an object from nature, a light source, and a sacred cloth to hold and honor their sacred symbols and passions. We've had Puerto Rican flags, thread-worn baby blankets, much handled stuffies, candles, strobes and camping lanterns as light source, shells, sand, leaves, grass and countless flowers from nature , engagement rings, photos of family and friends, favorite books, films, dvds and video games, along with the occasional White Sox cap that grandpa, now deceased, would always wear to the season opener. And everyone writes a note of gratitude honoring one thing they particularly liked from the altar to be hand-delivered to the presenter like a personal valentine. My wife then guides the students in a half hour of hatha yoga.
They moan, groan, bitch, sweat, and do it.
And after sun salutation, warrior I & II, mountain, cobra, downward facing dog, they lie down for 5 minutes in shavasana or corpse posture, their minds and bodies really still for the first time in decades, allowing themselves to simply rest in Being and Silence, they usually don't want to get up but instead stay forever in that peace that passeth all understanding. And they realize, sometimes for the first time ever, that there is whole other way besides constant doing, technological efficiency and digital fragmentation to be and to live, and that something deep inside themselves already knows this, indeed, hungers for it. And then we usually don't have to work all that hard to introduce meditation,get them to consider the "awakened life."
In the first half of the semester we explore teachings and practices from different world faith traditions: Hinduism, Lao Tsu, Buddhism, Christianity, Islam, Sufism and Krishnamurti. Kiyomi and I choose these texts and guide the discussions and experiences. The second half, however, the students choose their "sacred texts" and share them with all of us. These have to be short, xeroxable and have touched their hearts in some deep way. We get some scenes from films, an occasional poem, a piece of philosophy but generally and most often, lyrics from songs that have changed their lives. They type out the lyrics for all of us to follow, play the songs and offer up personal commentary. And this is where we have recognized the deep wisdom in Wayne's suggestion to exchange practices.
It is in their music that Spirit most comes alive for these young people. Their songs are truly their scriptures. Their music is the heartbeat of their souls. It was the words and beat of a Dream Theater Heavy Metal song that kept one Girl, Stacy, alive during really hard times. She says she played it over and over again for three months straight.
Another boy, infinitely sensitive, plays us a folk melody about when kids are young and innocent and see the wonder and light in it all, and how they find a bird dead from flying too hard into a window and how they bury it together with a popsicle stick cross and made-up prayers, and then they go to school and learn to play the kid games of rejection, bruises and picked last, and growing up, they find it's the same old kid games only tougher and harder, and to stay intact and true, they have to find ways to believe in something, even if its just writing your names with a friend in hardening concrete, to hold onto something permanent and lasting and good. And then Frank, dear, dear Frank, tells us his own story of how he gathered his friends together in his basement and played this song for them and made them listen to it over and over again, and how they all got inspired and jammed together and co-created some music that he wanted to share with us all, and then he told how in the midst of it, one of the guys got inspired to hold the mike outside the basement window and that's why we would hear birds singing in the background, and that maybe, just maybe it was still "all good."
In retrospect, we realized this young man had created his own community ritual in that basement and was sharing it with us in our classroom right here, right now, and that we had all entered into, become part of his "sacred space," the classroom transformed into "virtual temple."
Another girl, Mindy, reads a poem she wrote about what her music is for her and for her friends. She named it "There's a song:"
"There's a song
That you hear, and what I like to say is that it hits you like a ton of bricks.
That you're hearing for the first time or the thousandth time but either way it's the first time.
You're really listening. And the lyrics are the words you never could get out.
And the music is the sound your synapses make when they release endorphins. Or adrenaline. And the vocals are like angel's wings. The chorus feels like home.
And the sounds reach in and take your heart in their hands and everything is slow motion and you can't breathe. It's all a little too real right now and you weren't prepared for this.
And you cry.
And you hit repeat. And it's the only song you listen to for days and days because you cannot imagine what life was like before you knew someone else knew.
And you're not alone for once. This is the theme song to your moment. This moment.
It's yours.
And you get a little scared that maybe, just maybe, this is what God is like."
Then there was the Christian rock song that Lauren played when her grandpa died, the only person who had ever given her unconditional love, and how she too had pushed the replay button and did so over and over again. It started out soft and gentle, a little bitter-sweet, but then got louder and stronger and started to shriek and wail like heavy metal and I couldn't hear and understand the words any more but only feel, just feel, and I let myself do that, fall into it, get off on it; and when it was done and everything was quiet, I felt totally spent, released and alive.
Another student, Elisha, gave feedback. She said she liked the way the song communicated the feelings of the loss, sad, sweet, deep, but then confused and angry and hurt and frustrated, and that it was good Lauren could feel all her feelings and get them all out; and I understood for the first time ever why this music is so hard, so loud, so in your face; it's the only way this generation can express their pain, their outrage, their frustration, their hope.
And again I thanked Wayne for his wisdom in suggesting we exchange practices across traditions, indeed, across generations. It's the most immediate and direct way to share Spirit, to open to one another and forge community. It breaks down barriers and lets in understanding, empathy, love. We discover we are one Heart singing one Song, one Light Body embracing the whole rich music of humankind. So it is through this path of shared contemplation, through contemplating, meditating, studying texts, offering service, moving our bodies, chanting and singing together that we recognize, honor and celebrate our diverse Oneness.
And it is from this space of compassion, unity and courage that we enter the third and final dimension of Brother Wayne's vision of the Interspiritual age, the role of prophet and visionary.
Wayne Teasdale was, indeed, a prophet, a visionary, a radical. He fearlessly challenged and confronted the Catholic church, indeed, the papacy, for its treatment of Tibet, for its silent condoning of Chinese imperialism. He stood at the forefront of those criticizing the church for its provincialism and exclusivity, boldly demonstrating his solidarity with His Holiness, the Dalai Lama, indeed with all faith traditions in championing Interspiritual dialogue and action. He left behind the cloistered walls and identified himself as a "monk in the city." He welcomed as brothers and sisters all sentient beings, all forms of life, including the impoverished and marginal, all birds and animals, especially endangered species, all angels, saints, and departed beings of Light, and, most definitely and passionately, all extra-terrestrials.
Again, for Wayne, the Heart was of the essence.
Only through the Heart can we both know and feel what we must say and do.
Only through the Heart can we apprehend the deepest truths, truths grounded in One Life, One Spirit. The Heart alone can provide the courage and the motivation to follow through with what we must do and say. Only the Heart can name the Truth and persevere until it is realized. And the Heart alone can say and do it in the right way, in the way of love and not anger, cooperation and not competitiveness, as blessing and not curse.
As my teacher, Swami Chidvilsananda, puts it, "Leaders must learn the art of diplomacy. Diplomacy is learning to speak the Truth without using words as a knife and a sword."
Earlier, I mentioned the first of Wayne's summary teachings: "The Divine is infinite sensitivity." The second is equally profound: "In God there are infinite possibilities, and the greatest of these is to will love."
I reflected on these words for a long time, indeed, continue to do so.
It is one thing to understand the meaning of words; it is another to "grok" their significance and put them into practice.
What does it mean "to will love," why is that so important and so very, very difficult?
I began to think of the different times I have been angry, hurt, wanting to strike back or simply withdraw, contemplating just why it is so hard to "will love" in these moments: the driver who cuts YOU off and gives YOU the finger, the teen-age son who will not stop text-messaging when you want to speak from the heart with him; the students who never ever have time to prepare fully and appreciate the texts you want and know can change their lives- I let each of you fill in the blanks for yourselves.
What does it mean, require, demand for each of us in such moments to pause, consider, weigh, and choose the path of Love and not of fear?
Definitely it asks that we cultivate patience and empathy, deepen our faith in God and man, choose understanding over blame, have the humility to recognize our Truth and the courage to execute it.
The final story I would like to share with you this morning is how this final teaching of Brother Wayne made the ultimate difference in my continuing existence on this planet at this time, in effect, how it helped me to choose and manifest life.
In a strange set of karmic circumstances, visiting Wayne daily in his hospital room during his clearly transitional days, I myself had an intense dizzy spell in my school office. I informed Wayne that I would not be able to come see him as planned the following day since I needed to go and see the doctor myself. I had an EKG at the doctor's office, was sent to see a cardiologist, was informed I needed open heart right away and was scheduled for major surgery the following day. Ironically I had called Father Thomas Keating, Wayne' spiritual advisor and mentor, to come to Chicago and offer a mass for him.
I had planned on picking Thomas up at the airport and taking him to see Wayne on the very day my surgery was scheduled. I began to somewhat morbidly joke with myself about which one of us, Wayne or I, would exit our physical bodies first? As I began to reflect and try to pray about all of this, I realized that it was, indeed, no joke. My mother had died on the operating table of unsuccessful heart surgery when I was 14 years old.
The night before she died, she grabbed hold of me and hysterically asked me to pray to my Jesus to save her. Since I felt very close to Jesus, I asked Him to do me this favor and was quite sure He would comply. When He let Mommy die on the operating table instead, I felt horribly betrayed and alone. In that one moment, I lost both my mother and my faith in God. For many days afterwards, I tried to understand just why this had happened, what could possibly have gone wrong? Then one day some years later, I read a book called "A Man Called Peter." In it, Catherine Marshall, wife of Presbyterian minister, Peter Marshall, shares the story of how when her husband was having a heart attack, she went inside and found the strength to offer it all up to God. She prayed, "Thy will be done, Father," and really believed that it was through her willingness and complete faith in leaving it totally all up to God, that Peter made it through his crisis. Immediately I knew why my mother had died. I had been selfish, unsurrendered, lacking in faith. If I had simply been able to turn it over to God and gotten my personal fears, needs and desires out of the way, my mother would more than likely be alive at that moment. So here I was, once again, in a real quandary, in a real pickle. Here I was again in a life and death situation, wanting life, this time for myself and especially my wife and 10 year old son, but afraid to ask for it for fear of jinxing it, being punished for being selfish and lacking in humility, surrender and faith. I really didn't know what to do.
As my thoughts fixated on this issue, I remembered Wayne writing out his second teaching and handing it to me: "In God there are infinite possibilities, and the greatest of these is to will love." The greatest of these is to "will love." And I began to ask myself, what would Love will in this situation. I thought of my wife, so sweet, so pure, and so unprepared to make a living for our son and herself. I thought of my 10 year old boy, so much in need of a father and a guide, so sensitive and so vulnerable at his age. I thought of not being there for his high school graduation, his violin performances, for his eventual marriage, and my heart exploded in longing and in love. And I knew, absolutely knew,that it was ok to ask for life, to choose and to will Love. And then I began prayingdeeply and from the Heart, began asking with clear resolve and absolute faith for the gift of Life. I stated it as a personal "preference" rather than as a demand or "fait accompli," "Beloved, I would prefer to be around for a while particularly for Kiyoshi and Kiyomi." And I somehow knew that God was listening and responding, somehow I sensed He understood and cared.
One of the things that had haunted me for days after my mother's death was the image of her going to sleep on the operating table terrified that she might never wake up, and, indeed, never doing so. One thing that I clearly intuited was that when I went under the ether, I could not question my return or be afraid I would be forever lost in the shadow realm. I knew enough of the "Tibetan Book of the Dead," to realize that this would not be good. And because of the clarity of my intention, faith in a benevolent Higher Power, and taking the support of Wayne's teachings solidly to heart, I never even thought about not coming back or needing to negotiate or even pray in that moment of losing Consciousness. Like Wayne, I simply let go into Love. And it all worked out perfectly. I recovered immediately and was back in the classroom within 2 weeks time having just received 5 by-passes. My colleagues thought it was a "medical miracle;" I knew it was a much deeper one.
So I learned from my own experience of illness and recovery that to be a prophet, to see and manifest a desire, a vision, at this time on the planet, we need to enter deeply into our hearts, contemplate honestly and bravely what it is we really want, what will make us truly happy, all of us, all others concerned in that decision. If we then ground our clear conviction and intention in pure Love and absolute Faith and send it out into the universe without expectations, worries or questions, completely letting it go, like a butterfly into the sky, it will manifest in some form, sometimes different, always greater than any we might have imagined.
This is the secret of being a prophet and manifestor in this the Interspiritual age.
In closing, let us hear the words of our friend and mentor, Brother Wayne Teasdale, words he uses to conclude his seminal text, The Mystic Heart:
"Spirituality, finally, is awareness and sensitivity, and sensitivity is itself awareness-in action. It is this quality that we most require in our time and in the ages to come, but it is a quality refined only in the mystic heart, in the steady cultivation of compassion and love that risks all for the sake of others. It is these resources that we desperately need as we build the civilization with a heart, a universal society capable of embracing all that is, putting it to service in the transformation of the world. May the mystics lead the way to this rebirth of the human community that will harmonize itself with the cosmos and finally make peace with all things." (M.H., p 249-50)
And so it is. World without end.
The Common Ground Conference was held at The Crossings on December 7 through 9, 2007. View The Crossings' full calendar of programs and events.