Just Stop!

The truth of who you are is utterly simple. It is closer than your thoughts, closer than your heartbeat, closer than your breath.

If you believe your thoughts to be real, if you follow your thoughts as the basis of reality, you will continually overlook what is closer, what has been calling you throughout time, saying,

"You are here! You are home!"

...

This is a time of the ordinary awakening. This means you.

--From The Diamond in Your Pocket, Gangaji




Thought is not reality, yet it is through Thought that our realities are created.

--From The Missing Link, Sydney Banks




Can there be simple awareness of what's going on, without making something of it? ... All seeing matters. Not just seeing feelings, but seeing their total interconnectedness with thought.

... It happens, when there is pure seeing, there is wisdom.

--From The Light of Discovery, Toni Packer

Mirror in the Sky, What is Love?

We drove to Yosemite, strained, bickering--husband and I--and over the dry, surreal 152, a thousand thoughts, like all these dry, twisted, lonely Oaks, dotting the hillside, running, running, running alongside the car.

In Yosemite, we found silent majesty, amazing grace, happy children, cool waters ... it was Almost Independence Day (thank you, Van Morrison.)

Silence.

The mystery of endless stars.

During the ride home, once again, strain and tension. Now husband is in a hurry, I am not--who is deciding directions? Who trusts who to get us home? Who is overly worried? Who is being most obnoxious?

Then, Explosion! ... (from husband)

Explosion! ... (from wife, that's me)

Mind whirls into how to fix this, what we should talk about, what is the underlying issue here, guilt & remorse, whose fault and why?

Then, there was the invitation to Stop! ... Husband not talking to me anyway. Guilt, remorse, second thoughts, disastrous future-thinking ...

Who cares???

Just stop!

And we are back over the 152, and the gnarled, money-green oaks look so much more beautiful than before. It is hot. It is Independence Day. We have been to Heaven and back. We have been to Hell and back.

And it is all O.K.

And the radio played: I took my love and I took it down. I climbed a mountain and turned around ...