You are a child of the Universe...and everything is Universe, and everything is You

http://ookaboo.com/o/pictures/noindex/picture.original/12672653/Messier_56_by_Hubble_Space_Telescope_36p

Have a long, slow look at this, it's too large to post - and scroll up and down with it, left and right:  THAT is YOUR Source.

An excerpt from one of my poems, "Cornerstone of Your Faith" (see blog, Colfax Avenue, May 2011) challenges you with:
                                 

Remembering God for His own sake
           relieves you of poverty-mind:  always let
   the majesty and dignity of your Noble Lord and Cherisher
 overwhelm you, and join it - acknowledging, after all,

                                         that He dwells within you as you.

Go now, and make yourself a fragrant gift to the world,

a reflection of Paradise Here and Now, and in Reality.

See the image on this link?  This is not God, this is a fabulous Reflection of God, because the universe, being a mental construct, is, even considering this image here, only as infinite as the mind, and God is above and beyond mind, so it is just a Reflection but a damned great one, in fact looking at this defies any words you can give it, so we won't even try.  Let's just say, to hold the impression and let it deepen in you, "this is God."  When Jesus said "I come from the Father and He and I are one," he was speaking in the language of the day, he could have said Mother, it wouldn't have mattered.  He wasn't talking about some gray bearded old bastard with a bent for sick jokes and wrathful consequences, he wasn't talking about any Sistine Chapel Deity.  He was talking about Source, YOUR Source, our Source of Origin.  A parent is a metaphor to express that, nothing more.  And Jesus also reminded us, that "not a sparrow falleth to the ground, but the Father knoweth."  Now take another look at that link and take a long, deep breath.  Got it?

Still think it's all indifferent, this vastness?  Yes, in a way, like nature is indifferent, but actually that's only a perception relative to our emotions.  It is an insult to God to say He would not have the expansion and timeless capacity, the patience, to allow for a mere several billion earth years and a big bang or two to let dinosaurs come and go, mammals develop, and primates evolve into Humans - who anyway are still not evolved.  And God is love.  Can you trust That?  Can you look at this image here and, seeing how insignificant you and your petty little dramas are, can you look without ego and trust That, can you grasp the ungraspable, that it is love which created all of this and out of love it was made?  As Paul tells us in Acts and I think in the Epistles as well, "in THAT we live and move and have our Being"... The light of all those lights, is a light which no eye can percieve, a light you cannot conceive of, and that light IS YOUR OWN SOURCE, and the only Source of your joy.  Is it getting in, am I making a dent?  So when Jesus speaks of the Father, this is a Reflection of what was meant.  The Secret Gospel of John delivers something along this line very clearly.  But I'm not here to quote all the passages, they're in there.

So here's what to do:
If you're a Jew you ought to breathe in "ha-shem echad" and breathe out "baruch ha-shem" while drawing into you the power of this link's image and radiating out love, joy, peace - in that order.  So cut the bullshit of mystifying everything so you can go on controlling others - and just get it.
If you're a Christian, period, you ought to breathe in "Christ-in-me" and breathe out "United with All" contemplating loving, serving and remembering.  I've already mentioned before, that you can only remember where you've been or what you are, so what is obviously implied is, you've already been there.  So cut the bullshit of oversimplifying everything so you can go on controlling others - and just get it.
If you're a Muslim, you ought to mind your own business instead of everyone else's, and breathe in "Allah" and out, letting God's love for all of Humankind, for once rattle your cage - and you can start by reading "Cornerstone of Your Faith" in it's entirety, as it was written to you - so just get it.
If you're a Hindu, just look at that image and scream "RAM!" You know what I'm talking about, you got it.
If you're a Sikh, say "ek ong kar sat nam siri wahe guru!"  That pretty damned well delivers what this Hubble-bubble photo is trying to tell us, you definitely got it.
If you're Buddhist, you don't have to say anything, just get it.

So once more, the link, go there:

http://ookaboo.com/o/pictures/noindex/picture.original/12672653/Messier_56_by_Hubble_Space_Telescope_36p

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Hazrat Inayat Khan, 27 Aug: “THE SOUL OF CHRIST IS THE LIGHT OF THE UNIVERSE.“

Murshid Sam Lewis, commenting: “The single expression “Nuri Muhammad“ characterizes both these terms. This light permeates the cosmos, and it is through this that man finds all love, all wisdom, all joy.“

Sam Inayat-Chisti: “Word.“

Rumi: “Atoms reel in praise of Thee.“

Kabir (Robt. Bly's): “...There is a Secret One inside us; the planets in all the galaxies pass through his hands like beads. That is a string of beads one should look at with luminous eyes. … Everything is swinging: heaven, earth, water, fire, and the Secret One slowly growing a body. Kabir caught one glimpse of that – it made him a servant for life.“

Pir Vilayat Khan: “Here our practices with breath begin: Slow down your breath. Slow down your heart beat, the vibrations of the blood, slow down the tonus of your emotions, clear your breath, clear the mind of thoughts, refine your breath, surround yourself with a zone of silence, simply be intensely aware of breathing.

Become conscious of the convergence of the whole universe into the center of your Being, your solar plexus, as you inhale. Consciousness is just a focal center in the totality, an eddy in the sea of cosmic consciousness, an egg in the totality. Concentrate the totality in the center, as you inhale.

The solar plexus is a receptive center, it is the depth of your Being, almost like a pit, a deep sea, a sea of fire. Inhale deep within the solar plexus, imagine that you are rolled within and that you are walled in, so that there is no exit to the outside, and then you discover this vast empty space, an infinity of space within.

The heart center is a center of expression, of radiation, in fact it is very much like the sun, it is the center of the etheric body. As you breathe out you go out from the center, radiating into the totality, broadcasting magnetism, warmth, love, understanding, energy, like the sun.

You begin to be conscious of an emanation, which you feel precisely around the shoulders, a mantle of light -- but to start with simply a magnetic field that seems to be carrying light at its edge. A magnetic field can give out light, light is an electromagnetic phenomenon, and in fact: the aura is born. It emanates from the magnetic body. Experience expansion, to the point of merging with the totality, disidentify with the denseness of the physical body. Experience yourself as empty and light, indeed etheric, like steam. The physical body seems to be the condensaion and crystalization of that steam, static and fossilized, as compared with the pulsation of the magnetic field, which is breathing all the time. As it breathes in it contracts, as it breathes out it expands. And the same thing with the light which issues forth: it is like a pulsating star.“

Moreover, I was sitting next to Sheikh Muzaffer Effendi of the Halveti-Jerrahi Order that evening in Manhatten when he said, “If you're out walking and come upon a pile of dog shit in the road you say to yourself, logically, 'Oh, a dog was here.' Why then, when we look at the vast nature all around us, don't we observe likewise, 'Ah, God was here.'?“

One last note:

"Entre les étoiles, le Seigneur a écrit ton nom, entre les étoiles, tous la-haut dans sa maison; entre les étoiles, le Seigneur a posé ta vie, entre les étoiles, près de lui en paradis..." Now that's the refrain to a lovely song by the Singing Nun from the '60s, it's telling us, as I often sang it to my children at bedtime: "Among the stars the Lord has written your name, high up in His abode; among the stars the Lord has placed your life, near to Himself in paradise."

The first of the three verses, which I'll just translate for space, is so precious, such a stroke of genius, it runs: "The night when the Lord desired you into existence, the night; the night when He created your life from two lumps of flesh, the night; the night when his primordial love smiled on you: ah, blesséd, the night!"

NOW THAT WAS A NUN WE COULD ALL STAND TO HAVE A LOT MORE OF!

http://samuelinayatchisti.blogspot.de/2012/08/for-my-children-and-grandchildren-trust.html 

Faith is like . . .

Faith is like this: if you can explain it, that's not it. And if you cannot explain it, you're just complicating the matter. Religion is a house which had seven sides, each with a door. Someone stood before each door, claiming that through this door alone one would enter into direct knowledge of God. And comers were prevented from checking the other doors. The weird thing was, those guarding each door had personally never gone through it themselves, but blocked others from doing so. What nobody got to discover for themselves was that inside this house with seven sides and seven doors was one single huge room, and had they gone through their respective doors they would have met in there. So how shall this parable end?

For My Children and Grandchildren: Trust Me On This

You might wonder what religion is, is there a use for it, which do you choose, where's the point, does "God" exist.  I am giving you, once and for all, the five essential things you will ever need to guide you on this, as it will affect your life and direction whether you accept this or reject it, take it to heart or let it go.  Call it: Religion without ego.  Trust me on this.

1. God is the source of all existence, and the source of yours, entirely.  By whatever name you relate to "him," for starters relate - as everything exists in God and God alone is existent.  So relate to it and celebrate and be grateful that you're here.

 2. Belief isn't faith but can get you there, and faith isn't experience but can mature and prepare you for it.  You could say - belief is a desire, faith is a trust, experience is a knowing.

3. Place two fingers on your carotid artery, left or right at your neck, feel the clear pulse coursing:  God is closer to you than that.  Take a long, deep breath through the nostrils into the lungs, and down into the belly, hold it, let it out slowly and consciously:  God is closer to you than that as well.  Trust me on this.

4. God is love, and loves you more than a mother loves her own child, and that's pushing the envelope.

 5. Your most profound expression of God or faith is, and will ever be:  love.  So keep in the heart and trust that.  Don't let big talkers mow you down.

Beloved Swami tells us:  See God in everyone.  And that the best form to worship God is every form.  This will make you strong and resistent to all poisonous influences.  Let the God-in-you love everyone, serve everyone and remember God.  And Beloved Swami assures us:  "Understand your Self, seek your Self and find your Self; all the sacred names or forms from East or West, all dwell within you; kneel to your own Self, honor and worship your own Being. Chant the mantra always going on within you, meditate on your own Self: God dwells within you as you."  Trust him on this, take it and go with it!