Enlightenment Law # 24

...It is our most sacred task, to be Light and to bring Light. Could this be so hard? What allows it and what prevents it?  

Cynthia F. Davidson, excerpt from the Wisdom Wheel Enlightenment card 

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

What makes us believe we are enlightened, or not? 

How do you evaluate someone else's degree of Enlightenment? 

Who radiates light among the people in your life?

As you experiment with this Law for the next ten days, be playful. Solemness is no substitute for genuine Enlightenment. Being able to laugh at yourself, and the human condition, seems to be a prerequisite for those on the Enlightenment quest. 

Have you heard the Zen saying?

Before Enlightenment, chop wood, carry water. 

After Enlightenment, chop wood, carry water. 

What is meant by this?

When you broach the subject of Enlightenment with family and friends in the coming days, co-create a list of enlightened qualities. Then list who has them, especially the capability to enlighten others. 

Review your beliefs, assumptions and expectations about Enlightenment. 

Is it possible to become enlightened without meditation and isolation? 

Does the Process require a guru or teacher? Many teachers? 

How long does it take to become an enlightened being? 

Is any single practice guaranteed to produce Enlightenment?   

Decide how important Enlightenment is to you, during these next ten days and what, if anything, you plan to do about it, in the time you have left. Here's some enlightening advice from the wise ones.

Is there a fear of enlightenment in some societies? For example in societies which focus their energies on materialism, possession, consumerism, and time-based activities? I think there is, and it might be called phobosophy, the fear of wisdom. In short, what is the opposite of enlightenment and where did it come from?

Thomas Clough Daffern (1956 - ) Welsh educator, author and peace advocate

Enlightenment is…one part physical study of Awareness, one part mental application of truth, one part Cosmic Kiss.

Meredith Young-Sowers, in her Spirit Heals book

In general, all the steps toward enlightenment are mind reforms. This mind of ours must be cultivated and transformed. There are methods of doing so…. our real enemy is our own inner habit of self-preoccupation... A blade wheel is a very fierce image for mind reform… exposing the self-preoccupation and self-addiction habits, underlying all my other bad habits… It causes damage—serious, blessed damage to narcissism, vanity, the self-habit.

Robert Thurman in Circling the Sacred Mountain: A Spiritual Adventure Through the Himalayas

One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious... This is disagreeable and therefore unpopular.

C. G. Jung

I had hoped to get instructions in Yoga…but what the teacher did was mainly to force me to face the darkness within myself; and it almost killed me.

Irina Tweedie

To be awake, to be enlightened, is to be fully and completely embodied. To be fully embodied means to be at one with who we are, in every respect, including our physical being, our emotions, and the totality of our karmic situation.

Reginald A. Ray in Touching Enlightenment: Finding Realization in the Body

The supreme task of the physicist is to arrive at those universal elementary laws from which the cosmos can be built up by pure deduction. There is no logical path to these laws; only intuition, resting on sympathetic understanding of experience, can reach them.

Albert Einstein

Gaining enlightenment is like the moon reflected on the water. The moon doesn't get wet; the water isn't broken... The whole moon and the sky are reflected in one dewdrop on the grass.

Dogen

Since ‘there is really no duality, separation is unreal.  Until duality is transcended and at-one-ment can be realized, enlightenment will not be attained.

Padmasambhava (8^th century)

Not two.  In this ‘not two’ nothing is separate, nothing is excluded. No matter when or where. Enlightenment means entering this truth… in a single thought is ten thousand years.

Sengstan 3^rd Zen Patriarch

(Non-duality comes from transcending duality)

I spent years trying to be a holy, solemn monk. It was so artificial, unnecessary, and, in retrospect, goofy. I was trying to glow in the dark while in truth everything was naturally radiant.

Josh Baran in The Tao of Now

Liberation is… another name for enlightenment… Enlightenment is not morally neural; the will to enlightenment is the most profound commitment a spiritual seeker can make. The experience of enlightenment is the end game, so to speak, if there is one, of the spiritual journey… We need to begin talking about Enlightenments, rather than spending futile energy disputing whether Eastern or Western enlightenment is better, whether Sufism, or Christianity or Buddhist, or Mahayana or Theravada or Zen – is the quickest way to enlightenment. … We need a methodology that enables us to remain true to all our separate and diverse enlightenments… It may be that all of us are tapping into a substratum of collective transpersonal consciousness, which is one, yet appears as many. …this perception of unity is one of the tell tale signs of genuine enlightenment.

Thomas Clough Daffern (1956 - ) Welsh educator, author and peace advocate

As more and more enlightened people take over powerful positions in all areas and fields of governments, businesses, economics, education and communities the nearer we will be to the coming Golden Age. The Golden Age will come about only when many people are enlightened and live in harmony with universal laws.

Margo Kirtikar, Ph.D, Flowing with Universal Laws

In ten days, we'll take up the 25th Law of Creativity, which is more enjoyable when we've done our Enlightenment work.  

Surrender Law # 23

Not to give up, but to give over, is the essence of this Law. Who here is wise enough to understand Surrender?  To live humbly for a cause, rather than to die nobly for one. This begins to tell us what Power real Surrender holds. 

Cynthia F. Davidson, excerpt from the Wisdom Wheel Surrender card 

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

Some might call this the Law of Radical Acceptance because Surrender implies being undefended, being vulnerable, and able to accept what happens. The difference is in whether you can accept 'being' in this state, or whether it is 'forced' upon you/your ego personality self. It means being able to tolerate not being in control...

For the next ten days try experimenting with Surrender. 
You can start with the mental defenses, like being judgmental and critical of others, and yourself. What if you surrendered your need to be 'right'?
Emotional Surrender could involve allowing yourself to feel Love instead of some habitual condemnation of a particular person or group of people.
Physical Surrender could be as simple as going to bed when your body is tired.  
Spiritual Surrender might be something like saying a different prayer before drifting off to sleep. For instance, 'Send me, use me and protect me.' These words express the spiritual Surrender I have yet to achieve during my waking hours. 
What sort of Surrender do you aspire to? 
All of us ought to have some practice to help us prepare for the ultimate Surrender when our bodies die.

Talk to family and friends about Surrender. Reconsider examples of masters and sages who surrendered their needs for worldly wealth, human acclaim, and were able to live humbly and quietly as monks, nuns, hermits.  

What happens to us, and to others, when we cannot let go? 

Which attachments do you cling to, too tightly? 

Have you noticed that the word 'end' is inside Surrender? 

Each ending is another beginning. You may be preventing a new start by not having enough Trust to be able to Surrender what needs to go. 

What have others said about the Law of Surrender?

Surrender means accepting this moment, this body, and this life with open arms.  Surrender involves getting out of our own way and living in accord with a higher will, expressed as the wisdom of the heart.  Far more than passive acceptance, surrender uses every challenge as a means of spiritual growth and extended awareness.

Although The Law of Surrender means accepting whatever happens in your life, it does not mean passive toleration for what you don’t like, or ignoring injustice, or allowing yourself to be victimized or controlled. True surrender is active, positive, assertive — a creative commitment to make use of your situation, in a spirit of appreciation.

Dan Millman, author of the Laws of Spirit

The last laps of all paths are the same – surrender of the ego.

Ramana Maharshi

I don't know Who—or what—put the question, I don't know when it was put. I don't even remember answering. But at some moment I did answer Yes to Someone—or Something—and from that hour I was certain that existence is meaningful and that, therefore, my life, in self-surrender, had a goal.

Dag Hammarskjöld (1905-1961), Swedish statesman, Secretary-General of U.N.. Markings (1964)

No matter how busy you may think you are, you must find time for reading, or else surrender to self-chosen ignorance.

Confucius (551-479 BC) China's most famous teacher and philosopher

In detachment lies the wisdom of uncertainty... in the wisdom of uncertainty lies the freedom from our past, from the known, which is the prison of past conditioning. And in our willingness to step into the unknown, the field of all possibilities, we surrender ourselves to the creative mind that orchestrates the dance of the universe.

Deepak Chopra (1946- ), Indian medical doctor, books include Power, Freedom, and Grace: Living from the Source of Lasting Happiness

To be one's self, and unafraid whether right or wrong, is more admirable than the easy cowardice of surrender to conformity.

Irving Wallace

The sacrifice or surrender of the heart of man and his emotions is the first of the rules; it involves the attaining of an equilibrium which cannot be shaken by personal emotion.

Bhagavad-Gita: The Song of God, translated by Swami Prabhavananda and Christopher Isherwood

Justice that love gives is a surrender, justice that law gives is a punishment.

Mahatma Gandhi

One act of surrender, one change of heart, one leap of faith, can change your life forever.

Robert Holden from Shift Happens

Sometimes what seems like surrender isn't surrender at all. It's about what's going on in our hearts. About seeing clearly the way life is and accepting it and being true to it, whatever the pain, because the pain of not being true to it is far, far greater.

Nicholas Evans, The Horse Whisperer

Growth demands a temporary surrender of security.

Gail Sheehy

Surrender in spite of Freedom is the way of wise men.

Chinmaya

To live in this world you must be able to do three things:

To love what is mortal;

To hold it against your bones knowing your own life depends upon it;

And, when the time comes to let it go,

To let it go.

Mary Oliver (1935– ), American poet, books include Why I Wake Early (quote from poem 'In Blackwater Woods')

Surrender has never been my favorite word. I always thought it had only one meaning, which was to lose and be defeated. There is also a spiritual meaning... To surrender is to accept that there is a waxing and a waning rhythm to events... Trust that good things can happen without our needing to control them.

Peter Block, American management consultant and author, books include Stewardship: Choosing Service over Self-Interest

A wise unselfishness is not a surrender of yourself to the wishes of anyone, but only to the best discoverable course of action.

David Seabury

We need a set of rough principles to guide us, lest we surrender to something too small, to false gods, gurus and groups... The followers of Jim Jones took the full dose of poison. Over belief can be deadly.

Sam Keen, from his book Hymns to an Unknown God

I belong to no nation, no civilization, no society, no race, but to the Divine. I obey no master, no rules, no law, no social convention, but the Divine. To Him I have surrendered all, will, life and self; for Him I am ready to give all my blood, drop by drop, if such is His will, with complete joy, and nothing in his service can be sacrifice, for all is perfect delight.

Mirra Alfassa, ‘the Mother’ (1878- 1973)

Because people so cherish the Self, surrendering is a very frightening experience. A person may experience surrender as a leap into an abyss or as death. This may be perceived by one who has not yet attained a complete Trust and Faith in God or a Higher Power…Once Self is abandoned, the ‘being’ automatically merges with a higher stage of existence which is ready and waiting to accept it.

Margo Kirtikar Ph.D. in Cosmic and Universal Laws

In ten days, we will take up the Law of Enlightenment. Till then do your Surrender practice.

Purification Law # 22

There is no denying that adults adulterate us, despite their best intentions. We can decide to undo this. Who here has not been blessed by the steaming grace of a good shower or the wonder of a hot bath?  What is the equivalent for our hearts and minds? 

Cynthia F. Davidson, excerpt from the Wisdom Wheel Purification card 

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

Unadulterated and pure, that is the Purification state of mind, heart, body and spirit. Spend these next ten days doing whatever you can to dissolve any accumulated layers of disappointment, indifference or expectation so you can reconnect with the genuine purity at your core.

Give priority to the Process of Purification for ten days and see what happens. 

Do a thorough review your Purification practices since childhood.  

What has worked before to clear your feelings, thoughts & energy? 

Do some research and try some new methods; sauna, sweat lodge, meditation, a fruit juice cleanse, for example. 

Decide how best to purify thoughts, feelings, your physical self and your surroundings. 

Revisit your spiritual life and consider the role Purification has in it.

 

Ask friends and family members what they do concerning this Law. 

Bring up the subject of Purification at work and in a social setting. 

During the past ten days, you did some Renewal work. This made room for Purification. Surrender is the next Law. You can see how these operate in tandem. These three come before Enlightenment, the 24th Law.

 

Here are some wise words about the practice of Purification from others.

 

Be in your own aura…Whatever it is we must do, to reach the knower of truth in ourselves, is our particular purification. Intention and preparation, the removal of barriers and contaminants, until we can respond authentically to what we encounter…as we did when we were children, before we were shamed or punished for doing so.

Jean Shinoda Bolen, M.D.

Purification is the gate of knowledge… minds cleared of prejudice and convention break our habit of taking the visible world for granted, our lazy assumptions that somehow science is real and metaphysics is not.

Evelyn Underhill, Mysticism

 Omniscience is achieved only through the process of purifying the disturbing emotions within your mind. It cannot be achieved merely through wishes and prayers. We have to train in eliminating all the specific disturbing emotions by relying on specific antidotes. All the activities of a Bodhisattva can be included in two major categories: the practice of skillful means and the practice of wisdom. If the practices of giving, ethics, and so forth are to be perfected, they should be supported and influenced by the practice of wisdom. Without the practice of wisdom, the first five of the six perfections cannot actually become practices of perfection.

The Dali Lama

All emotions are pure which gather you and lift you up; that emotion is impure which seizes only one side of your being and so distorts you.

Rainer Maria Rilke, German poet

 Purity of the heart is the will to one thing.

Soren Kierkegaard (1813 – 1855) Danish philosopher and religious writer

There are no perfect human beings! Persons can be found who are good, very good indeed, in fact, great. There do in fact exist creators, seers, sages, saints, shakers, and movers...even if they are uncommon and do not come by the dozen. And yet these very same people can at times be boring, irritating, petulant, selfish, angry, or depressed. To avoid disillusionment with human nature, we must first give up our illusions about it.

Abraham Maslow, 20th century humanistic psychologist, books include Motivation & Personality

Purification is included in the three Pure Precepts of Buddha's teachings: Do no evil; do good; purify the mind. In its most important sense "purify" means to rid ourselves of delusion, a synonym for ignorance, sometimes translated as non-knowledge or non-Clarity. Ignorance is the root of human suffering. By ridding ourselves of ignorance (delusion), we "cleanse within" and return to our original state, enlightenment.

www.prairiewindzen.org

Peace demands the most heroic labor and the most difficult sacrifice. It demands greater heroism than war. It demands greater fidelity to the truth and a much more perfect purity of conscience.

 Thomas Merton (1915-1968)

American and Trappist Monk at Our Lady of Gethsemane Abbey

Violent fundamentalism is motivated by the need to eliminate badness through fighting the bad outside (of oneself). What is required now is to eliminate the heretical, impure, inimical elements, that is, killing the infidels who do not believe in (my/our) God. A destructive counterpart is created by the killing of "God’s enemies": it is the killing of oneself. Obviously the killing of oneself in the effort to kill the impure part of oneself, amounts to the total failure – or total grim success – of the process of purification.

Dr. Ruth Stein, Fundamentalism, Father and Son, and Vertical Desire http://ideologiesofwar.com/papers/fundamentalism_stein.htm

On any vision quest the seeker must first achieve a purification, an altered state… (T)he Oglala fast for many days, as did the Jew Jesus during forty days in the wilderness; in other cultures sacrifices must be prepared, pilgrimages made. Only after such ritual purification is the seeker prepared to see what ordinary people cannot normally see… Purification can be achieved by loneliness, despair, deprivation and waiting… they are all forms of sacrifice.

Sy Montgomery, author, naturalist, from her essay in Face to Face

Why not face heroically the furnace of inner purification so that it does not become necessary to pass once more through one of those terrible, gigantic destructions which plunge entire civilizations into darkness?

Mirra Alfassa, aka The Mother in The Sunlit Path

The Night Way ceremony (of the Navajo) has a lot to do with purification of the patient. The chanters say, If you haven’t been purified – cleanliness inside and out – they (the Holy People) won’t come near you.

Navajo Night Way Chanter in The Circle of the Spirit by Peter Gold

Step by step, piece by piece, hour by hour, the wise man should purify his soul of all impurity as a silver-worker purifies silver.

Sri Aurobindo, from Purification chapter in The Eternal Wisdom book

In ten days I'll post the Law of Surrender, until then focus on your Purification efforts.

Renewal Law # 21

...Think of Spring and the great lessons of each new season.  Renewal is at hand in every moment…there are those who can catalyze newness and growth for us all.

Cynthia F. Davidson, excerpt from the Wisdom Wheel Renewal card 

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

Let's give ourselves the next ten days for some Renewal. 

Will that be long enough? 

How do you renew yourself? 

When has Renewal happened before?

What catalyzes your new feelings and new thinking? 

Some times we must seek Renewal out deliberately, when life gets dull and stale and we know we're in a rut. Taking a 'mental health day' or a vacation can restart your engines when you just need a rest, but genuine Renewal might require big changes. 

When we take too much for granted, tragedy strikes, death or disaster arrives and Renewal is forced upon us. The Law of Choices comes before Renewal on the Wisdom Wheel for a reason. Be wise enough to seize the initiative and make the Choices you are sensing the need for, before Renewal is thrust upon you. 

New projects, places and possibilities can always be explored, as can new ideas, people and different kinds of relationships. Seek out newness in all its forms during these ten days. Renewal can come from simplifying your life. Make time for what truly matters to you this week. Say no to whatever needs releasing. Renew your promises to yourself and your vows to others. 

For these ten days, bring up the subject of Renewal in your conversations with family members and friends. Consider what physical Renewal might entail. A make over? More exercise? Better eating? A haircut? Up dating your wardrobe? What would emotional Renewal feel like? And intellectual and spiritual Renewal? Start something today in at least two of these categories.

Here are some words of wisdom about Renewal from others. 

                                                           

Renewal is the key to survival and passion in all realms of life.

Shmuley Boteach, author of Renewal: A Guide to the Values-Filled Life

So as long as a person is capable of self-renewal, they are a living being.

Henri Frederic Amiel (1821-1881) Swiss writer known for his Journals

If you've lost focus, just sit down and be still. Take the idea and rock it to and fro. Keep some of it and throw some away, and it will renew itself. You need do no more.

Clarissa Pinkola Estes

I don’t know what you learned from books, but the most important thing I learned from my grandfathers was that there is a part of the mind which we really don’t know about, and that’s the part that is most important in whether we become sick or remain well.  

Thomas Largewhiskers, Navaho medicine man

Personal transformation can and does have global effects. As we go, so goes the world, for the world is us. The revolution that will save the world is ultimately a personal one.

Marianne Williamson, American author and spiritual leader

The only real hope of people today is probably a renewal of our certainty that we are rooted in the earth and at the same time we are part of the cosmos. This awareness endows us with the capacity for self-transcendence… (this) is the truly reliable path to co-existence in today’s multi-cultural world…(we) must start from what’s at the root of all cultures and what lies infinitely deeper in human hearts and mind than political opinions.

Vaclav Havel, past President of Czech Republic, remarks taken from 1995 speech

Becoming honest is an act of self-renewal.

Angeles Arrien

The way to be new is to be yourself.

Steve Tourre

Deep, unspeakable suffering may well be called a baptism, a regeneration, the initiation into a new state.  Suffering can be likened to a baptism - the passing over the threshold of pain and grief and anguish to claim a new state of being.

George Elliot (aka Mary Anne Evans) (1819-1880), English author, works include Middlemarch

Retreat: a place and time for you to get reacquainted with you; the ebb in ebb and flow; a solitary sanctuary for renewal; a safe haven; a snug den, a refuge.

Corrie Woods

If you watch how nature deals with adversity, continually renewing itself, you cannot help but learn.

Bernie S. Siegel, American psychologist and bestselling author

Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have the potential to turn a life around.

Leo Buscaglia

When tears come, I breathe deeply and rest.  I know I am swimming in a hallowed stream where many have gone before.  I am not alone, crazy, or having a nervous breakdown…. My heart is at work, my soul is awake.

Mary Margaret Funk, author of Thoughts Matter: the Practice of a Spiritual Life

The phoenix was the mythical bird that was consumed by fire, so a new being could be resurrected from the ashes. In true spiritual growth, transformation at core level is necessary to gain access to truth and wisdom. The phoenix represents that capacity.

Delyne Marie

Teach this triple truth to all: A generous heart, kind speech, and a life of service and compassion are the things which renew humanity.

Buddha (563-483 B.C.) Hindu Prince Gautama Siddharta, the founder of Buddhism

In ten days we'll take up the 22nd Law of Purification, until then focus on your Renewal.

Choices Law # 20

Most of us make Choices from a range that’s far too small, that diminishes us.  We let fear, confusion and other people’s opinions limit us.  How do we discover and consider our Choices before we make them?

                 Cynthia F. Davidson, excerpt from the Wisdom Wheel Choices card

Time for Choices, the 20th Law. During the next ten days, take the time to seriously review all your options. Brain storm and generate some new Choices to consider. Make some lists of alternatives in many areas of your life. Think up new job possibilities, creative projects, different places you could live in the future and what you could do with your 'retirement' years. Review how you source your ideas, energy and expectations. Do you feel the freedom of 'free will' or do you feel trapped and limited in terms of your Choices?

Next consider how you make your Choices from among these conscious options. Then make room for your unconscious motivations. 
Are you aware of what's involved when you try to make up your mind? 
To what degree is your spirit consulted when considering your options? 
Do you pray for guidance before making your Choices? 
If you were consciously 'spirit led' rather than 'self propelled' (from your fear/mind/ego level), what changes could be possible? 
When it's time for change, do you tend to act in a pro-active or reactive way? 
How has this attitude affected your range of Choices?
For these ten days, ask others about their Choices. What were their best and worst ones? Why? 
Emotional Choices, intellectual Choices, physical Choices, and spiritual Choices are all worth considering, so remember include these categories. You can choose to feel well, have healthy thoughts, make Choices that honor Nature and your body,  your loved ones. If all we ever choose to do is what someone will pay us to do, then our Choices are severely constrained. 
In the end, we will be defined by the Choices we made and failed to make. So write down all past Choices you can recall, and the ones you know need to be made in the near and long term.   

During these next ten days allow different Choices to present themselves without rejecting them at first glance. Reconsider the Choices others have made, and how things have turned out for them. There are always consequences, even when you try to avoid choosing. 

On the Wisdom Wheel the Choices Law is balanced by the Eternal Present. This means we need to stay in the 'now' and not bring forward the baggage of bad Choices when considering current options.

Here are some wise words from others on the subject of Choices. 

The Law of Free Will aka the Law of Choices

We...have the right...to bring our creative and expressive energies out into the world in positive or negative ways... No matter what our circumstances, we have the power to choose our direction. We also choose to be under the influence of others or choose to be an example for others. We do it with a hundred actions which lead to the circumstances we find ourselves in today. Thoughts are things and the mind is the builder.

Margo Kirtikar Ph.D, Flowing with Universal Laws

Everything you do is a choice based on your dominant values at the moment. Even taking no action is a choice. You are where you are and what you are because of your choices and decisions in life to this moment.

Brian Tracy

If you limit your choices only to what seems possible or reasonable, you disconnect yourself from what you truly want, and all that is left is compromise.

Robert Fritz

I do not know why it is we remember so much about some of the small decisions of our lives and so little about most of the great ones, but for me at least that has always tended to be the case. Maybe it is because the great decisions are not made at some particular moment in time but deep within us have been so long in the making that we find ourselves acting on them before we are altogether conscious of having decided to.

Frederick Buechner’s memoir, The Sacred Journey

It took me a long time and most of the world to learn what I know about love and fate and the choices we make, but the heart of it came to me in an instant, while I was chained to a wall and being tortured. I realized, somehow, through the screaming in my mind, that even in that shackled, bloody helplessness, I was still free: free to hate the men who were torturing me, or to forgive them. It doesn’t sound like much, I know. But in the flinch and bite of the chain, when it’s all you’ve got, that freedom is a universe of possibility. And the choice you make, between hating and forgiving, can become the story of your life.

Gregory David Roberts

Although every man believes that his decisions and resolutions involve the most multifarious factors, in reality they are mere oscillation between flight and longing.

Herman Broch

The choice to experience life as a genuinely powerful person librates a huge amount of creative energy, and most people are unwilling to enjoy that amount of energy.

Gay & Katie Hendricks

Freedom is a terrible gift, and the theory behind all dictatorships is that ‘the people’ do not want freedom. They want bread and circuses. They want workman’s compensation and fringe benefits and TV. Give up your free will, give up your freedom to make choices, listen to the expert and you will have three cars in your garage, steak on the table and you will no longer have to suffer the agony of choice.

Maldeleine L’Engle, Walking on Water

Spirituality is neither the privilege of the poor nor the luxury of the rich. It is the choice of the wise man.

Chinmaya

Ethical existence [is] the highest manifestation of spirituality… A man is ethical only when life, as such, is sacred to him, that of plants and animals as that of his fellow men, and when he devotes himself to all life ...which he is able to assist, and shrinks from injuring anything that lives.

Albert Schweitzer

Transformation is happening, the only choice you have is what it will look like: war, pestilence, frogs, blood. It can be plagues but it can be pleasure. Love each other into newness…

Pat B. Allen, art therapist, books include Art Is a Way of Knowing

At every instant, one is really making a choice between heaven or hell. The cumulative effect of all these choices determines the calibrated level of consciousness and one’s karmic and spiritual fate.

Dr. David Hawkins in I

We are both burdened and blessed by the great responsibility of free will- the power of choice. Our future is determined, in large part, by the choices we make now. We cannot always control our circumstances, but we can and do choose our response to whatever arises. Reclaiming the power of choice, we find the courage to live fully in the world.

Dan Millman, in The Laws of Spirit

In ten days, we'll take up the 21st Law of Renewal, so do your Choices work in the meantime.

Clarity Law # 19

...We recognize Clarity the instant we see it. The great seers and sages could see clearly because they had insight. Their secret was their focus, inward, not outward...

                     Cynthia F. Davidson, excerpt from the Wisdom Wheel Clarity card
Time to take up the 19th Law, Clarity. 
Have you noticed how this follows the 18th Law of Forgiveness? Clarity comes after we've done our Forgiveness work. Until then resentments, hurts and attachments will tend to distort our lenses. 
During the next ten days, play with this idea of Clarity. 
Emotional Clarity, of an open heart. 
Intellectual Clarity, of an open mind. 
Physical Clarity, of the body, not tormented by need for sleep, health or loving. 
Spiritual Clarity, when we see ourselves as the spirits we actually are, beyond personality, ego and fears. 
Ask for Clarity; during your morning walk or meditation, on your ride to work, during your shower or bath, during love-making, cooking, laundry or as you lay down to fall asleep. Astounding Clarity can often be gifted to you in your dreams...  

Mention Clarity when speaking with friends and family this week. See what it means to them. Offer any thing you can, by way of clarification which has to do with what you know, did or believe. 

What sort of Clarity do you still seek? Write it down in your journal, blog or in a letter to God or whomever you seek answers from, and see what happens.  

During these next ten days allow Clarity to come from all kinds of people, places, images and thoughts. On the Wisdom Wheel Beauty balances the Clarity Law.

Here are some wise words about Clarity from those with experiences to share. 

Clarity moves much more efficiently than violence or stress… The world is as you perceive it to be. For me, clarity is a word for beauty. It’s what I am. And when I’m clear, I see only beauty. Nothing else is possible.

Byron Katie

 More important than the quest for certainty is the quest for clarity.

Francois Gautier

Perfect clarity would profit the intellect but damage the will. …Clarity of mind means clarity of passion, too; this is why a great and clear mind loves ardently and sees distinctly what he loves.

Blaise Pascal (1623-1662) French writer, mathematician and philosopher

Traveling through the world produces a marvelous clarity… We are all confined and enclosed within ourselves, and see no farther than the end of our noses. This great world is a mirror where we must see ourselves in order to know ourselves. There are so many different tempers, so many different points of view, judgments, opinions, laws and customs to teach us to judge wisely on our own, and to teach our judgment to recognize its imperfection and natural weakness.

Michel de Montaigne (1533-1592) French writer and philosopher

Ultimately, you must decide in your own hearts and these alone. Base your decisions on your perception. To inhabit the new awareness, you are required to be yourself, for when you are, you are a beautiful being, in touch with your eternal dimension, conscious of the generations that came before, immersed in the love that lights and unities the leaves of all generations upon life’s singular tree.

Ken Carey in The Third Millennium

Discernment, or the process by which we evaluate situations and make decisions, is a critical aspect of our growth, our spiritual development and our ability to create communities that contribute to our collective well-being. Discernment is also the art of asking sensitive questions of ourselves and others in order to see deeper meaning and implications…this involves four interrelated processes; perception, intuition, decision-making and action.

Dr. Norma Milanovich and Dr. Shirley McCune in The Light Shall Set You Free

When you plant lettuce, if it does not grow well, you don't blame the lettuce. You look for reasons it is not doing well. It may need fertilizer, or more water, or less sun. You never blame the lettuce. Yet if we have problems with our friends or family, we blame the other person. But if we know how to take care of them, they will grow well, like the lettuce. Blaming has no positive effect at all, nor does trying to persuade using reason and arguments. That is my experience. No blame, no reasoning, no argument, just understanding.

Thich Nhat Hahn

Different sets of facts are real at different vibration levels. The truth is
the same for everyone: the facts are always a little different for everyone.
Thaddeus Golas

To get to the simplicity of a thing, you have to go through the complexity
and only then, after you've gone into and through the complexity can you
state the simplicity. What never rings true is the person who states the
simplicity without understanding the complexity.
Susan Slater Blythe

It is because we don’t know who we are, because we are unaware that the Kingdom of Heaven is within us, that we behave in the generally silly, the often insane, the sometimes criminal ways that are so characteristically human. We are saved, we are liberated and enlightened, by perceiving the hitherto unperceived good that is already within us, by returning to our eternal ground and remaining where, without knowing it, we have always been.

Aldous Huxley in The Perennial Philosophy

I experience a period of frightening clarity in those moments when nature is so beautiful. I am no longer sure of myself, and the paintings appear as in a dream.

Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890) Dutch painter, post-Impressionist

Simplicity, clarity, singleness: These are the attributes that give our lives power and vividness and joy as they are also the marks of great art. They seem to be the purpose of God for his whole creation.

Richard Holloway

We need to be perfectly clear what we want, and not give out mixed messages. When we are clear, our messages are picked up accurately and everyone, including the universe responds to clear messages. Activating the law of clarity is done by… making a decision and acting on it. This is one of the quickest ways to move along your spiritual path. When you have the qualities of clarity (truthfulness, honesty, genuineness, integrity) people respond to you and want to trust you. Clear thoughts and intentions help you to draw from the universe that which you request in your life.

Diana Cooper in A Little Light on the Spiritual Laws

In ten days we will take up the 20th Law of Choices, until then, enjoy the gifts of Clarity.