The Spiritual Life Fosters Perpetual Astonishment.

"Rumi says that because the universe is reinvented in every second, . . . real divine life is a perpetual series of astonishments which goes on right until the 'last moment' and beyond."

Andrew Harvey

I feel very grateful for the 28 inches of snow we've received here in northern Colorado over the past ten days.  We went from being in an extreme drought just last week to having nearly 100% of our average snowpack!  Who would have ever guessed this would happen in April!

Photo: Horsetooth Falls and snow-clothed Ponderosa Pines; Horsetooth Mountain Park, CO; April 23, 2013

Our adoration expands God's own joy.

"Through adoration . . . , how could this not expand God's own joy?  All mystics have felt in their deepest being the rapture of the Divine's response to their outfolding into love . . . How amazing it is that each of us has in his or her power the ability to move God with such joy?"

Andrew Harvey

Photo: Pink Mountain Heather and Mount Rainier, Paradise, Mt. Rainier National Park, WA; July 25, 2012

When Ego Burns Like Incense, the Whole House Becomes Fragrant

 

"Rumi says: 'Light the incense!  You have to burn to be fragrant.  To scent the whole house, you have to burn to the ground.'  Incense is made out of all sorts of dark things, just like the ego.  If you want the incense to scent the house, you have to light it, light the ego.  In disappearing, it releases the Divine perfume everywhere.  If you want to scent  the whole universe as Rumi did, you have to burn away.  That is the Law."

Andrew Harvey

Photo: Geysers on Yellowstone Lake, WY; September 4, 2011.

Enlightenment is a Perpetual Series of Astonishments

"Rumi says: 'I do not know who I am.  I am in astounding lucid confusion. I am not a Christian, I am not a Jew, I am not a Zoroastrian, and I am not even a Muslim' . . . That radiant bewilderment is the highest state that you can be in on earth.  It is very important to know what the enlightened mind is like.  The enlightened mind doesn't have the answers.  It isn't omniscient in any sense that the ego understands by 'omniscient.'  It isn't a hyper-sophisticated computer.  It is an infinitely responsive and loving instrument capable of infinite lucid expansion . . . Enlightenment isn't a fixed state.  In fact, enlightenment is the knowledge that there is no such thing as a fixed state, that all places are placeless, that the possibilities of transformation in God are endless. That is why Rumi is saying, 'I am in astounding lucid confusion' . . . Rumi says that because the universe is reinvented in every second, . . . real divine life is a perpetual series of astonishments which goes on right until the 'last moment' and beyond."

Andrew Harvey

Photo: Grand Prismatic Spring, Yellowstone National Park, WY, September 3, 2011