Great Mystery Law # 36

How much do we really know?  All our scientific and economic achievements cannot equal the wisdom contained in the DNA of a single cell.  The wise ones are full of awe and appreciation for good reason.

Cynthia Davidson, excerpt from Great Mystery card

 (cards, stones, posters & more available via www.thewisdomwheel.com)

How much can you or anyone else know? 
What do you feel and think when facing your ignorance? 
Are you inhibited or inspired by your experiences with the Unknown? 
During the next ten days, as you explore Mystery, Great and small, you'll also be discovering more about yourself. 
This Universal Law represents everything unknowable, and the Great Unknown can fill you with fear and apprehension, or awe and enthusiasm depending on how you tolerate ambiguity. Take stock of your conditioning; the ideas, emotions and defenses you have formed, about every Unknown person, place and thing. 
And when you bring up the subject of Great Mystery with others in the coming days, note which attitudes and instincts are most common, and uncommon.   

While in our human form, much of the Universe remains unfathomable because its function is to inspire and humble us. As ‘spiritual beings having a human experience’ we should not accept an unfulfilling relationship with Great Mystery. 
Our participation is required in the Grand Scheme of things. We are meant to go beyond our known worlds and comfort zones to become involved with the Universe at large. The results of wur individual quests, for knowledge and wisdom, will add to the collective consciousness. In some mysterious way this helps all of us evolve in our understanding of the Divine Mind. 
The Great Mystery will remain unsolved. At best, we live with it, in a way that better prepares us to accept the amazing intricacy of Ultimate Reality. The multi-dimensional Nature of the Universe is symbolized by the Wisdom Wheel, which does not reduce the Great Mystery, but can help you orient your Self to it with Love, Balance, Awareness and Right Relationship. 
Here are some words of wisdom from others about this Law.

The acknowledged legislators of the world take the world as given. They dislike mysteries, for mysteries cannot be coded, or legislated, and wonder cannot be made into law. And so these legislators police the accepted frontiers of things.

Ben Okri

I realized it for the first time in my life: there is nothing but mystery in the world, how it hides behind the fabric of our poor, browbeat days, shining brightly, and we don't even know it.

Sue Monk Kidd, The Secret Life of Bees

The sacred itself is plainly a mystery of conscious, using the word mystery to signify not a problem that can be intellectually solved, but a process of awakening and transformation that must be acted out in order to be experienced, if one is to make it one’s own.

Francis Huxley, in The Sacred

Full understanding can come to you only through an inexpressible mystery. The approach to it is called the Gateway of the Stillness beyond all Activity. If you wish to understand, know that a sudden comprehension comes when the mind has been purged of all the clutter of conceptual and discriminatory thought-activity. Those who seek the truth by means of intellect and learning only get further and further away from it. Not till your thoughts cease all their branching here and there, not till you abandon all thoughts of seeking for something, not till your mind is motionless as wood or stone, will you be on the right road to the Gate.

Huang Po, 9^th century Zen

Knowledge is a finite island in a sea of inexhaustible mystery… on the shoreline is where we encounter the mystery.   

Chet Raymo, from Skeptics & True Believers

I would rather live in a world where my life is surrounded by mystery than live in a world so small that my mind could comprehend it.

Harry Emerson Fosdick

The workings of the human heart are the profoundest mystery of the universe. One moment they make us despair of our kind, and the next we see in them the reflection of the divine image.

Charles W. Chesnutt

The face of a lover is an unknown, precisely because it is invested with so much of oneself. It is a mystery, containing, like all mysteries, the possibility of torment.

James A. Baldwin

Sell your cleverness and buy bewilderment. 

Jalauddin Rumi

Mystery creates wonder and wonder is the basis of man's desire to understand.

 Neil Armstrong, astronaut

  

Why not let people differ about their answers to the great mysteries of the Universe? Let each seek one's own way to the highest, to one's own sense of supreme loyalty in life, one's ideal of life. Let each philosophy, each world-view bring forth its truth and beauty to a larger perspective, so that people may grow in vision, stature and dedication.

Algernon Black

It began in mystery, and it will end in mystery, but what a savage and beautiful country lies in between…

If a mind is just a few pounds of blood, urea, and electricity, how does it manage to contemplate itself, worry about its soul, do time-and-motion studies, admire the shy hooves of a goat, know that it will die, enjoy all the grand and lesser mayhems of the heart?

Diane Ackerman (1948- ) American writer, poet and social worker, known for stretching the limits of poetry subjects

Man is a mystery: if you spend your entire life trying to puzzle it out, then do not say that you have wasted your time. I occupy myself with this mystery, because I want to be a man.

Fyodor Dostoevsky

The great mystery is not that we should have been thrown down here at random between the profusion of matter and that of the stars; it is that from our very prison we should draw, from our own selves, images powerful enough to deny our nothingness.

 Andre Malraux (1901-1976) French historian, novelist and statesman

There is something about poetry beyond prose logic, there is mystery in it, not to be explained but admired.

Edward Young

Time is still the great mystery to us. It is no more than a concept; we don't know if it even exists.

Clifford D. Simak

Wisdom and deep intelligence require an honest appreciation of mystery.

Thomas Moore

Ancient people followed their instinctive yearning by giving over to the mysterious energy that attracted them. They call this energy "The Great Mystery". They responded to this attraction intuitively, emotionally, mentally and physically… The Higher Consciousness, or the Great Mystery, the ultimate authority, governs our group conscience. To connect with God, we need to open our conscious and subconscious mind to a Higher Consciousness, one that is available to each of us. This, in turn, produces consensus to work hand in hand with you, as a separate spiritual entity.

Lawrence Twain

Great Mystery is the final one in the sequence of 36 Universal Laws. You can go back to the first post to see them all. Please visit our website www.thewisdomwheel.com and our Facebook pages to learn more. Email your questions to wisdomwheelwoman@gmail.com. And thank you for joining us.

Sacred Oneness Law # 35

It takes a lot of energy to hold ourselves aloof. It is not our real nature.  Our unity is obvious, but many fear it nonetheless. The very air we breathe has passed through 1,000 sets of lungs before it comes our way.

Cynthia Davidson, excerpt from Sacred Oneness card

 (cards, stones, posters & more available via www.thewisdomwheel.com)

This is my favorite Law. There are more quotations about it in my collection than any other one on the Wheel. As you spend the next ten days studying it and experiencing its wisdom, remember that Scared Oneness appears in many guises, especially in our era of globalization. 

Scared Oneness reminds us there is no separation, except in our mental and cultural conditioning. Despite all human attempts to separate ourselves physically, emotionally, intellectually and spiritually, we are all parts of one Great Whole, on this beautiful blue and green planet within the Universe at large.  

Sacred Oneness starts with the Integrity of Self, and the acceptance of each others sacredness, according to the Law of Right Relationship. Sacred Oneness encourages our personal efforts to integrate, and make congruent our thoughts, feelings, bodies and spirits with the Law of Ultimate Reality. The additional integration work, in our communities and the world at large, is only possible with the energies of this Law.

As you bring up this Law, in conversation with friends and family members during the next ten days, find out what they believe about this ideal of Sacred Oneness. What prevents us from truly living by this Law? Why are we so distracted by our differences? How do we build common ground with each other instead of making war?

Here follow some words of wisdom others have gathered about this Law.  

I pledge allegiance to the Earth

and to the planet for which it stands

one world, under law, indivisible, with liberty

and justice for all.  

Attributed to Martin Hayes

The hero is the man or woman who has been able to battle past his personal and local historical limitations…the hero as eternal man – universal man – has been reborn. 

Joseph Campbell 

The first step in the evolution of ethics is a sense of solidarity with other human beings.

Albert Schweitzer

There is not much difference between identifying oneself with the Universe and identifying the Universe with oneself.

T.S. Eliot  British poet

I am a citizen, not of Athens or Greece, but of the world.  

Socrates 

I am part of all that I have met. 

Lord Alfred Tennyson 

Man had to free himself from earth to perceive both its diminutive place in a solar system and its inestimable value as a life -fostering planet. As earthmen, we may have taken another step into adulthood. We can see our planet earth with detachment, with tenderness, with some shame and pity, but at last also with love.

 Anne Morrow Lindbergh, 'Earth Shine,' 1969

The heart in pursuit of oneness will find the most inexplicable beauty....

Unknown

Human evolution – even human existence – depends upon this expanded vision of humanity as One. Just as our different organs cooperate for the good of the entire body, our world is on the cusp of a shift from competitive self-interest to open-hearted cooperation in the interest of the Whole Body of Humanity.  

From Dan Millman in his book Laws of the Spirit

To discover joy is to return to a state of oneness with the universe.

Peggy Jenkins

Self-actualizing people have a deep feeling of identification, sympathy, and affection for human beings in general. They feel kinship and connection, as if all people were members of a single family.

Abraham Maslow

What is needed is to learn afresh, to observe, and to discover for ourselves, the meaning of wholeness.

David Bohm in his book Wholeness and the Implicate Order 

When one sits in the Hoop Of The People,

one must be responsible because

All of Creation is related.

And the hurt of one is the hurt of all.

And the honor of one is the honor of all.

And whatever we do effects everything in the universe.

 If you do it that way - that is,

if you truly join your heart and mind

as One - whatever you ask for,

that's the Way It's Going To Be.

 passed down from White Buffalo Calf Woman

Value life in whatever house it dwells. For when it comes time that we are all stripped to bare bones before the divine and facing eternity, we will understand that the only law we were meant to follow, was to love ourselves and each other. Nothing more...nothing less.

Carla Jo Masterson

In ten days, we'll take up the Law of Great Mystery, the final one on the Wisdom Wheel. Till then, enjoy the thoughts, feelings & dreams of Sacred Oneness.

Cycles Law # 34

Not one person can make the sun rise or set any sooner. Wise ones work with natural rhythms, and that begins with a heightened Awareness of them.

Cynthia Davidson, excerpt from Cycles card

 (cards, stones, posters & more available via www.thewisdomwheel.com)

Like wheels within Wheels, we are embedded within countless Cycles,  simultaneously interacting every moment of our lives. Not just our personal mental, emotional, physical and spiritual Cycles but the earthly Cycles of the seasons, the tides, and the cosmic Cycles, in the Universe at large too. 

Thinking about Cycles is not the same as living through them, and feeling them working their changes, inside your body, heart and mind so as you devote the next ten days to studying this Law, pay attention to everything from your bio-rhythms to sleep Cycles, solar and lunar Cycles and share what you discover, with others, in discussions about this Law.

Where we are in our personal Cycles will affect how we experience this Law. When passing through your adolescence, for example, you saw life's challenges differently than you do in your 40’s. By the time you are in your 70’s, your appreciation of Cycles will be much deeper and wider. 

While the Earth revolves each day, we are evolving, going through the highs and lows over a life time. Everything around us rises and falls, grows, peaks and declines too. 

Make a list of all the Cycles you are aware of. Which ones are your favorites? From the Cycles of war and peace, to economic and seasonal ones, try seeing yourself as one more cog within all these meshing cyclical spheres of energy and activity and resolve to enjoy the ride. 

Here's some more wisdom about this Law from others.  

Different forms of energy vibrate at different rates like a river, energy flows from higher to lower levels, moving through repeating cycles, expanding then contracting, like our breathing.

Since everything in the universe is a form of energy, everything falls within the domain of the Law of Cycles: Sunrise and sunset, the waxing and waning moon, the ebb and flow of tides, and the seasons of the year all reflect this law. It reminds us there is a time for everything under the sun. All things rise and fall.

A thought or action initiated while this pulsing energy is rising gaining momentum travels along easily toward its success, but a thought or action initiated in a descending cycle has reduced impact. When a cycle is not favorable we wait until it is rising again…

Appreciating the energy cycles of our lives helps us apply good timing..

Each of us has our rhythms. As we find our own rhythm, we take advantage of whatever point of the cycle we find ourselves; we learn to flow in harmony and rhythm with the Law of Cycles.

Dan Millman

Worry is a cycle of inefficient thoughts whirling around a center of fear. 

Corrie ten Boom

Life is a cycle, always in motion, if good times have moved on so will times of trouble!

Indian Proverb

The cycle of violence needs extreme love to break it. 
Sarah Macdonald, Holy Cow: An Indian Adventure

... Our ideas, in short, on duration and time are all derived from our sensations according to the laws of Association. Inextricably bound up with the relativity of human knowledge, they nevertheless can have no existence except in the experience of the individual ego, and perish when its evolutionary march dispels the Maya of phenomenal existence. What is Time, for instance, but the panoramic succession of our states of consciousness? 

In the words of a Master, "I feel irritated at having to use these three clumsy words -- Past, Present, and Future -- miserable concepts of the objective phases of the subjective whole, they are about as ill-adapted for the purpose as an ax for fine carving.

Our earth as a planet of this solar system has three movements -- it rotates on its own axis, completing it in 24 hours; it revolves around the sun, completing it in 365 days; it participates in the movement of the whole solar system as it goes through the sidereal cycle of a little over 25,800 years.

Madame Blavatsky

Nowadays, we tend to lose sight of this basic law of nature. In this century we have grown to rely on our national government and our technology. We have begun to believe that our standard of living, our income, our health and our well-being should always improve. And many of us are surprised and angry when the government cannot reverse economic downturns, or improve the health of the people or prevent the average person's income from falling from what it was 10 years ago. Our technology has been able to reduce or delay the effects of the law of cycles, but the law is still operating.

Michael McGinnis

The Law of Rhythm:

This Universal Law states that everything vibrates and moves to certain rhythms. These rhythms establish seasons, cycles, stages of development, and patterns. Each cycle reflects the regularity of God’s universe. Masters know how to rise above negative parts of a cycle by never getting too excited or allowing negative things to penetrate their consciousness.

Drs. Milanovich and McCune in their book, The Light Shall Set You Free

I think the life cycle is all backwards. You should die first, get it out of the way. Then you live in an old age home. You get kicked out when you’re too young, you get a gold watch, you go to work. You work forty years until you’re young enough to enjoy your retirement. You do drugs, alcohol, you party, you get ready for high school. You go to grade school, you become a kid, you play, you have no responsibilities, you become a little baby, you go back into the womb, you spend your last nine months floating …and you finish off as an orgasm.

George Carlin 

The ebb and flow of the tides of the Earth, Sun, Moon and Stars are but repetitions of the Great Cycle, the very nature of the energetic workings of the Universe. Coming to understand this Cycle, and learning to harness its energy by working within its parameters is one of the greatest gifts we can give ourselves... one of the greatest tools in our quest for inner growth and understanding. We are a part of the Universe, not apart from it, and becoming conscious of the mechanics of the Universe gives us great insight into our inner Universe as well. As above, so below. As within, so without. 

Jhenah Telyndru in her book Avalon Within: Inner Sovereignty and Personal Transformation Through the Avalonian Mysteries (2005) 

There is no death. How can there be death if everything is part of the Godhead? The soul never dies and the body is never really alive.

Isaac Bashevis Singer, Nobel Laureate

He saw all these forms and faces in a thousand relationships… become newly born. Each one was mortal, a passionate, painful example of all that is transitory. Yet none of them died, they only changed, were always reborn, continually had a new face: only time stood between one face and another.

Herman Hesse, Nobel Laureate

As we live through thousands of dreams in out present life, so is our present life only one of many thousands of such lives which we enter from the other more real life… and then return after death. Our life is but one of the dreams of that more real life, and so it is endlessly, until the very last one, the very real life of God.

Count Leo Tolstoy 

In ten days, we'll take up the Law of Sacred Oneness, until then, enjoy your Cycles.