spiritual awakening and enlightenment in today’s world

Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away. —Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

What is wanted is not the will to believe, but the will to find out, which is the exact opposite. —Bertrand Russell

Free Association—Psalm 23:1

June 15th, 2005 Posted in Spirituality

“The Lord is my Shepherd; I shall not want.” Undoubtedly, all the modern translations are correct in translating that verse as “I shall lack nothing.” Want in King James’ time meant to be in need.

Yet there’s something so very appropo of that old translation today, when desire and need are so easily mistaken for the same thing. I shall not want, in modern English, implies “I will desire nothing.”

a rich person
is not one who has the most,
but one who needs the least.
Interview with God Reata Strickland

Knowing the difference between need and desire might be a way to begin stopping the “wanting engine,” the restless craving of the mind for what’s not present.

Ever desireless, one beholds the mystery;
Ever desiring, one beholds the manifestation.
Tao Te Ching, 1

When desireless for things, Yahweh (Being, God, Isness) truly does become the Shepherd, the Guide. What’s real is no longer obscured by what’s illusory.

Desiring nothing means desiring No-thing.
Finding No-thing is dying to the ego-self.
Having no ego to live for, we meet No-thing in our own no-thing-ness.

The emptiness unbounded.
Only Isness is.

Freedom. Freedom. Freedom.

Sorry, comments for this entry are closed at this time.