Impulse of Dismissal

To one who sees with pure eyes,
from you comes silence -
not the hot air of the pundit and scholar;
not the yadda-yadda of professors
and students endlessly debating
points of long-dead scripture.

Out of your mouth -
the mouth of Jesus
comes the freshness and purity
from which scripture may be written.

You may embrace your regal heritage
or dismiss this with smile or frown,
shuffling some papers or ...,
but let us look lovingly and deeply
into the impulse of dismissal,
from where it comes, and where it leads;
from inherent abundance
to obsessive rehabilitation and substantiation of the self
with its impoverishment and pauperistic pseudo-humility.
Let us draw useful distinctions
between arrogance and unconditioned confidence,
between conceit and the vast, natural
wisdom of the cosmic mirror -
wisdom and warmth that is not acquired,
never acquired, but which we are.

Unless you take the Via Reggia,
claim your royal inheritance, your inherent abundance -
whole, with nothing left out, whole -
how can you give the clear mirror
in which the beautiful ones fall in love with themselves?
If you do not hold up the mirror of groundlessness
as it has been held for you, how will they polish their souls
and kindle remembering in others?

***
Tommy said,

"To serve as a light for others to see requires that we hold up a mirror to the awakened self…"

Shine on you crazy diamond
~Aki

Meredith: Amazing you should mention this today, as I have been reflecting on a branch of this same tree. The impulse of dismissal, as I am thinking about it, is an impulse of evasion of the experience of God. This is the topic of resistance – a retreat or hesitancy to open oneself to the light that is shining for us.

There is a link here to intention – that when we articulate our longing, and when our longing appears to come into view, sometimes we react with fear, or resistance, a feeling of being swallowed whole or something like that.

"God gently lures us into intimacy and unexpectedly explodes us into mystery." ~Janet Ruffing

This may cause our opening to close up again - perhaps only briefly, perhaps for a longer time. We affectively distance ourselves from the open door. This mystery is felt to be simply too much until our capacity expands and our tolerance increases. I don't see this as arrogance or obsessive substantiation of self – but rather simply a retreat born of our natural inclinations.

A dear author, Gerald May, wrote,

"The human mind is an endless source of inventiveness when it comes to avoiding the implications of the spiritual experience."

Resistance is quite likely an unconscious response that is part of all normal growth in which a person avoids some issue, some experience, or some insight by a form of avoiding behavior. We willingly stop intimate connections; we turn our heads and eyes and hearts away from communion when it feels like just too much. This response to intimacy is mirrored in our early relationships with 'other'. This is a dynamic of fear of and flight from intimacy. Likely this is an unconscious fear. When it emerges, we see ourselves or see in another a retreating from closeness that was right at hand. This is an important, perhaps pivotal point of process in awakening.

To be with a friend at this time, to open our hearts, to listen, be with, and gently inquire, to nudge another to further open rather than retreat is the gift of spiritual friendship. This is midwifery, yes? This is holding the mirror.