Friday, April 1, 2016

Rumi's Guest House - Awakening to the holy NOW

This being is a guest house;
every day a new arrival.
A joy, a depression, a meanness;
some momentary awareness 
comes as an unexpected visitor.
Welcome and entertain them all!
(The Guest House by Rumi)

When you hear the expression that we live in the "Best of all Worlds", you might cringe because you remember stretches of your life when the world didn't seem perfect at all. Yet, what about the perspective that everything that ever happened to you prepares you for the moment at hand?


P. D. Ouspensky once said, when one realizes that one is asleep, at that moment one is already half awake. Life puts us in a position to awaken to the moment we are in, and everything in the past was perfectly designed to get us to the holy NOW. All we have to do is to open up to everything, good or bad, ugly as well as beautiful, both within and without ourselves. Rumi described the Guest House centuries ago, and it is as accessible to us as today it was to him then. Remove the locks to the doors that were locked way too long, and open the blinds to let the sun in. Awaken to a new world in the holy NOW.

No comments: