Meet The Challenge

MON., OCT. 20, 1986, 4:07 PM
LAKESIDE, S.I.U. CAMPUS

The time has been long since you have settled yourself for this time of enlightened meditation. The reasons are known to Me, of course, and I am as much interested in how you think about these sessions as in your actual performance. Though you did not take the time to write, you did miss this relationship. That is pleasing. Welcome back, o son. Soon you may be back to a more settled life.

The title has to do with challenges that lie ahead… challenges to the reality and authenticity of the spiritual as a dimension of health… and of life itself. I shall not tell you to get involved in this dialogue, nor shall I tell you to run from it. This you can decide. The challenge is present either way, being just more obvious if you do choose to be a part of this “group.”

The essence of the truth you must express is that spirit is evident in experiences… those that go beyond the rational mind. Now the rational mind is a marvelous creation/development (for it is both), but one of its functions, you must realize, is to deny value, even recognition, to experiences for which it has no explanation. If you limit yourself, consciously and willingly or out of ignorance, to your rational mind, then it becomes you, and this perception of yourself and the world, living and inanimate, becomes dominant. If fed and nurtured it becomes the only way you can measure and judge experience. It therefore prevents you from observing and evaluating experiences that do not fit its “specifications.”

This is a limited way to live, but there is some excitement in fighting off challenges to this one way. As an academician and as one with considerable higher education you must continually associate with some who honor and hold to this perspective. Know that you become a challenge to them, just as they are a challenge to you. Relationship with such folk is always a potential test. The test is not that you “convert” them to your perceptions of life and reality, but that you can express what you know, even as it clashes with other views.

Remember that you are not to hold that spirit should be as obviously dominant as the rational mind. When it is dominant it does not seek its own way, but pushes for a dynamic balance of all the facets of your being. The spirit respects and honors the rational mind, even though this latter may disdain or ignore spirit. Then there is the everchanging balance between rational conclusions and mystery… between trying to know and not trying to know.

Science and technology are the apparent products of the high rational mind. I say again that there is much to admire in these approaches to life. Much suffering has been alleviated by these modes of knowing and doing, but there also is suffering because of these. They are mixed blessings, with the power to destroy always in some balance with the power to create and sustain.

In your reading portion of the wedding past, you extolled love as that which is of greatest value. Challenge the rational mind to prove the existence of love and measure its extent and intensity. Any attempt of this sort would be an exercise in silliness. Most humans experience love, both in the giving and the receiving, but it is of little account to the rational mind. Oh, it can tell you what you should love, but if these “proper” focuses don’t match the actions of your spirit, the commandments from the mind go unheeded.