Spiritual Empowerment Series 2008
Love: Amma and Touch

February 3 ~ “The Power of Love”

Jean Houston in Godseed “Love is evolutionary energy par excellence. It is the force that allows us to go beyond all our conditions, our expectations, our impediments. It carries us to the thresholds of our lives and allows us to be seized by possibility . . . The more deeply you encounter the Divine Lover, the more sensitively you feel the agony of the world; the more you care called to care more, feel more, and think more deeply. . . In high empathy there is always high empowerment ~ a quickening . . . The Christos.”
CAN YOU FEEL THE POWER OF LOVE BEING QUICKENED WITHIN YOU?

Teilhard De Chardin on Love “Someday when we have mastered the winds and the waves, the tides and gravity, we will harness for God the energies of love, and the, for the second time in the history of the world we will have discovered fire.”
HOW WOULD IT FEEL TO HARNESS THE POWER OF LOVE FOR GOD AND YOUR HIGHER SELF, NOT JUST YOUR MUNDANE SELF?

Anna & The King of Siam, the film with Jodie Foster & Chow YunFat
Prince Chulalongkorn reflects on remembering Anna and his father, the King:
“It is always surprising how small a part of life is taken up by meaningful moments ~ Most of them, they are over before they start . . . although they cast a light on the future and make the person who originated them unforgettable. Anna shined such a light on Siam.”
WHO HAS BEEN THAT LIGHT FOR YOU? WHO HAVE YOU BEEN THAT LIGHT FOR?

February 10 ~ “Circle of Love”

I Corinthians 13: The Famous Love Scripture
Usually heard without really listening, but there is Deep Truth within these words.

The Importance of Love’s Energy ~ Not only what you do, but how and why you do it:
Angel tongues, but no love . . . become noisy gong/clanging cymbal
All prophecies, knowledge, faith but no love . . . then am nothing
Hand over everything but no love . . . then gain nothing

Universal How To Live in Love Handbook:
Be patient . . . Be kind . . . Don’t be envious or boastful or arrogant or rude . . . Don’t insist on your own way . . . Don’t be irritable or resentful . . . Don’t rejoice in wrongdoing but rejoice in truth.

Profound Truth of how love changes our perceptions and allows us to see at soul levels:
Love never ends . . . eternal viewpoint ~ we are eternal spiritual beings
Now we see in a mirror darkly then we will see clearly face to face . . . we can see past outer
appearances and see the soul and Christ Light within everyone
Now we are known in part, then we will know fully and be known fully . . . realizing the Truth
of our Being and into the truth that we are eternal spiritual beings having earthly experiences for Divine reasons and with perfectly chosen others.

There are faith, hope, and love ~ the greatest is love because the others are love expressed:
Faith as love believed in and Hope as love lived into.

February 17 ~ “The Hugging Saint”

Marianne Williamson in Return to Love “When we were born, we were programmed perfectly. We had a natural tendency to focus on love. . . Love is what we were born with. Fear is what we learned here. The spiritual journey is the relinquishment or unlearning of fear & the acceptance of love back into our hearts. . . Love is the intuitive knowledge of our hearts. It is a ‘world beyond’ that we secretly long for. An ancient memory of this love haunts all of us all of the time, and it beckons us to return.” We even carry a mark of this . . .

The Crease above your Upper Lip A mark of how loved we are. An old legend says that before we are born, God kisses soul as we prepare to incarnate. We are then carried and sung earthward by a guardian angel who escorts us to our new body ~ with the mark of the lip crease as a reminder of a Divine Kiss. Instead of “great aunt Lucy’s bright red lipstick kiss” that wipes off, this one reminds us that we are all beloved of God always.

Quotes from Amma, The Hugging Saint and Divine Mother
“An unbroken stream of Love flows from me towards all beings in the cosmos. That is my inborn nature.” AS IT IS YOURS!

“Complete freedom from the bondage of mind & ego will create a flow of love within. People are bound by the past & the future; that is why it is so difficult to find true love in the world. To really be able to love, both the past & the future must dissolve & disappear.”

Sister Rose Mercurio on meeting Amma in Chicago
“Amma affirms in me what I believe ~ that there is a God in each of us, longing to touch the God in everyone else. She has responded to the Divinity, which is in each of us, and she challenges me to aspire to that potential. My background as a Roman Catholic laid the foundation for this belief. Amma simply urges me forward.”

February 24 ~ “Seasons of Love”

Summaries of Gift from the Sea by Anne Morrow Lindbergh (1955)

The Beach
Image: Sea and sand . . . Retreat/cast off things to do
Concepts: Body rests/flow of tides . . . beach-wise mind = patience/faith/open
Quote: “The beach is not the place to work, to read, to write or think. . . One should
lie empty, open, choiceless as a beach ~ waiting for a gift from the sea.”
Mantra: Worship in spirit and truth

Channeled Whelk
Image: Deserted home of hermit crab . . . simple, bare, spiral
Concepts: open door/his exit . . . being in grace/life busy . . . small, portable soul home simplification & inner balance between solitude & communion
Quote: “The final answer, I know, is always inside. . . One is free, like the hermit
crab, to change one’s shell.”
Mantra: Be in the world, but not of the world

Moon Shell
Image: Round, full, pinkish, spiral to center
Concepts: moon solitary & powerful . . . island self-contained & serene . . . deliberate practice of
solitude feeds the soul & taps inner springs then can do purposeful giving
Quote: “Solitude, says the moon shell. Center-down, say the Quaker saints. . . . You will remind me
that unless I keep the island-quality intact somewhere within me, I will have little to give.”
Mantra: Love your neighbor as yourself (remember to love yourself first)

Double Sunrise
Image: Perfectly matched bi-valve, two sides facing each other
Concepts: Pure, new, exclusive, making one world between them . . . changes as perfect unity invaded
by life . . . is exclusive of others . . . conscious acts of communion but then expand
Quote: “The pure relationship, how beautiful it is! . . . Two people, listening to each other, two
shells meeting each other, making one world between them.”
Mantra: Love with all of yourself ~ body, mind, heart, and soul

Oyster Bed
Image: Sprawling, uneven, encrusted shells
Concepts: Working outward . . . weaving web of connections, interdependence, communication,
memories, adaptable ~ later time comes to shed shells
Quote: St. Exupery: “Love does not consist in gazing at each other but in looking outward together
in the same direction.”
Mantra: With God, all things work together for good

Argonauta
Image: Rare Paper Nautilus, feathery transparent
Concepts: unconditional love, persons as persons . . . like dancing, responding to same rhythm, living
in the moment . . . continuity of change & growth with freedom
Quote: Rilke: “The love that consists in this, that two solitudes protect & touch & greet each other .
. . which makes it possible for each to see the other whole & against a wide sky.”
Mantra: Then we will see clearly face to face

The Beach at My Back Each shell/phase beautiful in its own way . . . remember gifts of each
“When we start at the center of ourselves, we discover something worthwhile extending toward the
periphery of the circle. We find again some of the joy in the now, some of the peace in the here,
some of the love in me and thee which go to make up the kingdom of heaven on earth. . . .
There are other beaches to explore. There are more shells to find. This is only a beginning.”