I was feeling pleased with myself  the other day over my initial blog & quotes entries when, with seamless grace, I followed a link to a site called Just Perception and found myself called out:

     The world is full of half-enlightened masters.  Overly clever, too "sensitive" to live in the real world, they surround themselves with selfish pleasures and bestow their grandiose teachings upon the unwary.  Prematurely publiciizing themselves, intent upon reaching some spiritual climax, they constantly sacrifice the truth and deviate from the Tao.  What they really offer the world is their own confusion.  The true master understands that enlightenment is not the end, but the means.
                                                                        Lao-Tzu

I immediately recognized myself in that characterization and for the first time felt the frightening implications of no-self on my ego. My cleverness shrunk alarmingly.
                                                                 

Communion with the Guru invokes a paradoxical dynamic that eludes understanding.  It is beyond quantum and cannot be delineated meaningfully, only experienced and its transforming effects allowed to occur.  Trust is the basis of a process in which surrender is victory.

    All the great teachings, written and spoken, of all the spiritual Masters who have ever lived were not 'the thing'.  They were just a hook.  There is no 'thing' !

"Treat others as you would have them treat you" is a clue to a process that is unceasing and perfect, a cover for a hidden dynamic that reveals, "You always treat others as yourself."  Any discrepancy between how you treat others and how you treat yourself exposes an inner division intended to be brought to light and reconciled.  Your attention to any seeming disparity and acceptance of it -- without judgement -- provides the light that holds up the unconscious projection for the purpose of allowing a conscious determination.  The power is always yours for there really isn't anyOne else.  The perfection is in the process.

The greatest obstacle to the spiritual evolution of humanity is religion.  In the way it elevates the egoic perspective to an absolute, enshrining duality and its perpetual conflicts, it is developmentally arrested and joins a host of other influences that determine the popular paradigm and misdirect this civilization and its prayers.  Real faith is not intimidated by despair but embraces it for rebirth is the secret lover of despair, lying on the other side of the door marked, 'Unknown', waiting....breathing.

Death is the Rule here (and enforcer)
Transcendence is the Law (being enforced) 
Love is the Rule by which we fulfill the Law

While breaking on the wheel
And spiraling out of control;
Perfectly fulfilling the destiny of the imperfect.