Guiding Thought

Following the guidance of my heart, I experience life anew! As I express love, I  experience love everywhere. I find new ways to love. I recognize new depths and nuances of love. I am patient. I am kind. I am wise. I respond to life with love, as love.

-Play the Guiding Thought here (loops automatically).
Journey of the Heart audio created by Brad Vanlandingham for Susanwithpearls-

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You may be asking yourself “what the >bleep<?”, as you look at this picture. I understand. It appears very chaotic, doesn’t it? Very different than the Guiding Thought would indicate. So let me tell you about it.

This is a picture of a tree.

It comes from a saying a Buddhist friend of mine has used “The tree is still the tree”. I don’t know if the saying has actual roots in Buddha Dharma, but the idea is this:

Every day as we go through life, we see things through our mundane existence, which provides us with a mundane interpretation of all our experiences and interactions. But we don’t really notice that it’s mundane, because we don’t have anything to compare it to; it’s just life as we know it.

Then, when we gain a moment or an extended moment of enlightenment, a moment of pure peace or joy or understanding or complete harmony and we look at something “mundane”, we see it completely differently—through the eyes of peace, joy, understanding, or harmony.  It’s still the same thing that we have always seen, but it’s different, because we are different. The tree is still the tree, but there is so much more to the tree than ever before seen. Do you see how that fits with the Guiding Thought? Experiencing life anew?

There are 11 colors in the picture. The inner colors, the deeper shades of blue, green, purple, and orange represent how people “see” the tree when they are in an unenlightened moment. They still see the tree, but it’s seen through the dark glass or the smoke-screen the world throws up. Then, from out of those colors appear lighter shades of blue, green, purple, and orange. This represents how it’s possible to see the tree: lighter, brighter! The three remaining colors are different shades of green filling out the tree, showing that…it’s just a tree; it can be so much more, and you can experience the tree however you want to experience the tree; it’s still just a tree.

For myself, another way to think about this is “to be in the world but not of it”. We exist in this reality, interacting with people, money, food, jobs, etc., and this is life—we are in it, whether we like it or not. I love being in the world. I love life. I love experiencing all there is in my small, mundane existence. And I also love those moments when I am in this life, seeing it through the clear eyes of peace and harmony; ahhhhh…it’s so much better. So that’s why I do this. I want more of those moments, seeing what is possible through love, peace, and harmony.