"Our greatest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our greatest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure." -Marianne Willimason
At Be As You Wear, we are here to experience enlightenment, rather than read about it or preach about it (though I do like to talk, so call me, okay?). Our clothes, what they are made of, and where, and by whom matters a whole lot to us, more than anything, in fact. In our experience, what touches the skin, grows the skin we are in--this is not a idea, but a sacred way to dress ourselves in the unconditional LOVE that reflects the Earth's undying championship, whose sacred contract is to give us a place to call Home. The talisman is ATHENA's HeART; the Truth is LOVE.
There are sacraments one must take in order to live in the full potential of her or his own greatness, and whether or not a person is conscious of it, greatness is within the power of every person to capture it. But it is not a hunt, or a show, or a chase that we must make after. What is sacred within is not something we are tasked with uncovering--what is sacred within us is the most evident aspect of our outward form. Just take a look in the mirror. Look into your own eyes and see there is no limit to your being--the only limit is the thought that your influence on this planet is marked by a single lifetime.
Yoga teaches us this, to look so closely, that we can't fear death because we know that it is nothing scary, but another sacred form of being. Yoga teaches that the breath is the source vehicle for the integration of our fear of living with our fear of dying. What is to fear? "We live, we die, but death not ends it" (Jim Morrison).
There is a prevailing notion, shared among many "spiritual teachers", that "we" are "in charge" of our personal potential, and that enlightenment is a matter of "choice" rather than experience-- here's an example. A lot of people these days like to riff on "Native" or "Animistic" myth structures, one of the most popular being about the two wolves inside us (good and bad) who grow based on what we "feed" them, mind, body and spirit. Now, this is a good story, just like a lot of stories that help us to "see" that we have tremendous power to free ourselves from the fear that we are, somehow, less than totally capable of being conscious of our divine nature. Alive or dead--we vibrate, if only through the way people remember us long after we are gone. Think about it--likely, you have lost someone you love. Stick around to miss them long enough and let life go on--and sure as the sun rises, they come back to us in some form--as a puppy, or a cardinal, or a lover of whom you only thought you'd dreamed.
You see, the Western world and its new age Eastern "spirituality" has conflated itself to manufacture what we call Modern Psychology, and as long as we stay tinkering in the Mind, we "think" we are in "control" of our reality. The root of mental illness begins with believing the thoughts that are generated by the mind and by acting on these thoughts, which are based not on objective reality, but on the evidence we have been given to suggest that we are somehow mistakes that must be corrected.
The first book ever published was the Bible and most of it was scrapped long before it hit the press--but much like the false read on the wolves, "religious" people like to claim that the Bible says we are all fallen people living in a fallen world, and that only a belief in God's one begotten son can "save" us. But here's the thing--it doesn't say that. It says that we are the ones begotten of the "son", who shines on us no matter how dark our imaginings of death may get. The teachings of Bible in totality are a collection of stories to guide us when we get tempted by the belief that we are somehow sinners and not blessings. We are cast out of the Garden of Eden by our own MINDS fallen from HeART into intellect, and we are forced to endure many trials until we find the Revenant Truth, which is that LOVE, not fear, is the state which leads to understanding, not the other way around. To understand a person is not to love him. To love a person is to understand him, even when we disagree with his point of view.
Just like there are not two wolves inside us. In fact, there are no wolves in there at all and no sins--wolves and sins are ideas we have created to "keep it together" when the natural world and its cycles are--Tada! beyond our comprehension! When we choose to love something without needing it to respond; when we are moved to do something for no reason except the joy it brings or makes, the hope we generate leads us not to receiving the miracles of which the good books speak, but to making these miracles.
I'll die, and so will you, but after putting myself through a lot of real hell on this earth, thanks to thinking my mind was a problem solver rather than a problem maker, I don't need to rush it. My only shot at loving what I'm made of without believing the hype that we are original sins, is to stick around--just to watch, not to judge.
The natural, the mysterious, the changing, the change, and the changed--we are it. There is no separate goodness from who WE are--what we are made of--stardust, water, wind, and fire. What we mistakenly allow to live inside is a tyrannical voice telling us that there is something "better or worse" about who we are, where we are, who we are with, than who we just are--purely seen through the infinite witness, who is also you and me and the great one WE.
Now, go on. Go wear those eyes out, everywhere! We got you.