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Nondual Highlights Issue #1483 Saturday, July 5, 2003 Editors: Mark and Joyce

Jesus Washing Peter's Feet by Ford Madox Brown

Humility is very, very important. Everybody wants to win a point, win an argument, win a fight, and yet if you have humility, it never comes into your mind to win or get even. Humility is karmic. Karma is like stepping on a rake and it hits you in the head; cause and effect. The cause is you stepped on the rake, the effect is the handle hits you on the head. This is our karma. Everything that goes around comes around. You step on the rake, but the handle doesn't hit you immediately, it may hit you years later or another incarnation, but you will get hit in the head. So there is immediate karma, and there's future karma. The only way to get rid of it is to have tremendous humility. Say somebody slaps you. The first thing our ego will tell us is to beat them up, slap them back, shoot them, kill them, get even with them. But if we're wise, we'll understand the reason we were slapped on the face. And of course, somewhere, somehow, this is the karma returning to us, and if we retaliate, we are setting new karma in motion, which will return to us later.

Therefore, anything that has ever happened to you in any area of your life, no matter how it looks, you are in your right place. No one is picking on you, no one is trying to do anything to you. No one is trying to hurt you. If you cooperate and do not react and do not retaliate, and send out a message of love and peace, then you will transcend that karma and it will never come back again. But if you retaliate and you try to win the battle, you may appear to be winning the battle this instant, you may appear to be getting somewhere, but the fruits of your actions must return sooner or later. Therefore, you are playing games with yourself and you'll never get anywhere; you'll keep repeating the situation again and again and again, with different people, you may move to a different state, be involved in different situations, but you will find the same problems.

Therefore, whatever seems wrong in your life, whatever seems terrible, do not look at the problem in itself as a problem. Rise above it, realize no one is to blame for it, you have no enemies, no one is trying to hurt you. This is humility. You're not a coward, you're not a wimp. You have risen above that kind of thinking. That kind of thinking does not exist. That's why the story of Ramana Maharshi, when he went for a walk in the jungle one day, and he inadvertantly stepped into a wasps' nest, and the wasps started stinging him, he didn't even pull his leg out, but he spoke to the wasps and said "I deserve this, I invaded the house where you live and I deserve what you are doing to my leg, and if you want, you can attack the other leg." When he got back to the ashram from his walk, he was bitten all through the leg and had to put ointment on it. But he wasn't fazed one bit. He had a perpetual smile on his face, with the realization "All is well."

Now look at your lives. Think of the things that bother you every day, that annoy you every day, the things that make you angry, that make you upset, that make you want to retaliate. Get rid of this.

- from Silence of the Heart: Dialogues With Robert Adams, published by Acropolis Books.  

Your nature is happiness. You say that is not apparent. See what obstructs you from your true being. It is pointed out to you that the obstruction is the wrong identity. So eliminate the error. The patient must take the medicine prescribed by the doctor in order that he may be cured. - Ramana Maharshi

Problems, spiritual distractions come in many shapes and forms.

The other day I was insulted, hurt by a friend whom I confronted about the insult. Then I just kind of forgot about it, thinking that it didn't really matter, was perhaps beneath my need for attention.

And so, several days later, having been in a subtle way consumed, I realized that this needed actual spiritual attention, to go into the silence with the intention of dealing with the issue.

What could possibly be more obvious?

Meditation is a healing tool.

My ego likes to pretend that everything is fine, that I don't need healing, that it's others who need to shape up, that of course I'm upset, wouldn't you be if you were hurt like that?

And so I can buy into the illusion that I am just fine, thank you.

I can forget the spiritual axiom that if I am upset there is something wrong in me.

No matter how right I think I am.

In fact, the more right I think I am, the more likely it is that I am wrong, especially when it involves a conflict with someone else.

I don't go into the stillness to escape.

I go to join.

Humility again, humility.

John MacEnulty Quoted by Eric Ashford ~ TrueVisions:

More John here.