Introduction to Round 2: If you are following along with the Guiding Thoughts I provide, this introduction is for you (if you are providing your own thoughts, skip down to continue the exercise). We have completed the first 10 days! In the next “round”–the next 10 days– the format will change slightly. In the last round, you were the subject of the meditation: All of the meditations were from the first-person singular, “I”. In this round, we will shift to the second-person singular. Instead of saying, for example, “I have forgotten my Self”, you will now say, “you have forgotten your Self”.

Corresponding to this language shift, your thoughts will also shift from “I” to “you”. Instead of claiming the Truth of You for you, by yourself, someone will claim it for you and give it to you, or you will claim it for someone, and give it to them. There are four options to accomplish this. Use your imagination and creative thinking to “see” the “you” in one of these ways (use what feels right to you, or come up with your own.):

Option 1. Picture yourself in a classroom, at the feet of a guru, talking with a trusted friend, being instructed by a wise teacher, or other such situation in which someone you trust is giving you wise information. In this scenario, that person is speaking the Guiding Thought to you. You are the you of the statement; that person is telling you a truth about yourself, reminding you of something you already know; helping you remember your Self.

Option 2. You are the instructor at the head of a classroom, the guru, the trusted friend, or the wise teacher who is the one speaking to a student, friend, person who needs a reminder. Imagine a friend, a relative, a colleague as that person (or people) you are speaking to. This person seeks your counsel; he needs your wisdom; she needs you to remind her of who she is, what she has forgotten about herself. You are giving him the gift by remembering for him.

Option 2, variations: (a) Instead of giving the meditation phrases to a friend, imagine instead giving it to someone with whom you have conflict or stress. (b) Instead of giving to one person, see a medley of people pass through your screen; “talk” with as many people as you can imagine. (c) Feel your thoughts going out to all people everywhere—people you know, people you don’t know, your town, a village on the other side of the world, anyone, everyone.

Option 3: On the screen of your mind, where you are seeing these images, split the screen, so there are two “sides”. On the first side of your screen imagine Option 1. Take each phrase of the meditation as the listener, the student. Feel it deeply, then shift to the second side of the screen and use Option 2. With each phrase, receive a thought, then immediately give it to someone.

Sharing, sharing, sharing….Let’s do this!

Guiding Thought

You have forgotten your Self. You have forgotten who you are. You have forgotten that you are established in Love and by Love, which is infinite and eternal; therefore, your worth is infinite and eternal.

Seek to remember your Self; choose to remember your Self. Choose to remember who you are, and your infinite worth in Love. Choose to be aware, to understand, and to Know yourself (your Self) as the Love that you are. Choose to share who you are with the world, giving your infinite worth, measured in infinite Love.

Sharing

This has been a harder journey overall than the Journey of Purpose (the first Journey). There is so much that I don’t know, and know that I don’t know. Wasn’t it Socrates who claimed that wisdom lies in knowing that you don’t know? Wasn’t it Jesus who pleaded, “forgive them, Father, for they don’t know what they are doing”? Isn’t ignorance the root of suffering in Buddhist philosophy? Didn’t Nicolas Cusanus, that early Christian mystic, write a book about the Learned Ignorance (De Docta Ignorantia)? I don’t mind being within such a rich tradition of seeking wisdom while acknowledging my own ignorance. It’s only in allowing ignorance to be acknowledged that it has the opportunity to be transformed into wisdom.

Of course, even knowing that doesn’t always help emotionally or mentally when it feels like there is a black hole or void where I think I should know something.

During the first Journey, I felt (and wrote about) the flow. I could feel it, literally, a current, a wave, a movement, a shift through my body, mind, or emotions that reached and grasped, and found something new and light.

Not so with this journey, I feel like I am wrenching wisdom from deep within through layers and layers of ignorance. Everything feels hard, unknown, unfamiliar. There is so much in the way–all the dross that I have written about. I have not been certain at all; I have been feeling much more sensitive in general–feelings of annoyed, wounded, frustrated, overlooked, uncared-for.

When I am on a Journey, everything is part of the Journey. Everything matters, everything is contributing to the evolution of myself to my Self.

But ignorance is such a tough thing to get through. If I don’t know, that means I have doubt, and sometimes I am just spinning (feeling like I am getting nowhere). And if I have doubt, then what gets me through is faith. And, I know through experience that faith does not let me down, that there is a reason and a purpose (ultimately, enlightenment, but for now, I will take just another layer of learning wisdom). I just have to keep going and remember that all of this is healing, and I need to hold that intention and purpose in my mind. That breaks up the doubt and uncertainty; somehow doubt and uncertainty are part of what needs to be released, burned off, let go, on this Journey of Worth.

Why am I telling you this? Why do I share the doubt, share my ignorance? …because there is a long tradition in learning to get through ignorance and doubt to certainty, Knowledge, and wisdom. But first you have to feel the doubt–and that can be scary. In a world that is full of information, where there is an answer on every webpage, when you appear silly or stupid because you just don’t know, or don’t have an answer… it can be hard to embrace ignorance. It can be hard to allow yourself to feel it in order to let it go. So, here I am: admitting my ignorance, admitting my uncertainty, working through it for myself for you to witness and perhaps feel encouraged to work through your own.