Journey to Enlightenment Part 01

Author(s): Chitrabhanu, Chetana Catherine Florida, Nirmala Hanke, Raksha Penni Helsene
Publisher: Create Space

Page 59

Summer/Fall 2002: Be a Good Friend to Yourself
Dear Lighthouse members, families and friends, Many Blessings for your continued growth into Bliss.
There have been many quotes and statements about friends. One statement I have given much thought to over the years is, “Would You like to be your own best friend?” Some people whom I have worked with have looked for a "perfect” friend, and have been sadly disappointed. For even when they found a friend, they also found out that the friend was not perfect like they had first thought. Sometimes they didn't want the person as a friend anymore.
Unfortunately, may keep looking for Bliss and perfection from others. I feel that often people are looking for what they want to be and do from others, instead of from themselves. In our search and as we grow, we find that our perceptions change, our ideas change, our experiences change. What once seemed perfect to us no longer does. Our views of perfection, the perfect friend", the perfect me" change, and our frameworks for perfection change too.
We are always working with two realities, whether we are aware of them or not. One reality never changes, through all o time, it always was, always is, always will be. This reality is a part o each and every person, every living being. The other reality is always changing; as we change, it changes. This is the reality we are born into, and live and die in as human beings. Our human personality is constantly perceiving, experiencing and changing with the changing reality of our earthly world.
When we spend time thinking good thoughts, speaking with thoughtfulness and compassion and doing good service for others, the human personality becomes closer to being liberated, Bliss-filled, Divine self of the never changing reality, where Bliss is. As we begin to live more, and love ourselves more, we stop looking for the perfect friend. We stop looking for love, bliss, perfection in someone outside ourselves, and come to embrace it within our own self. The more we can love our self exactly where we are on our personal journey, the more we can truly love others exactly where they are on their journeys. We learn to love our selves and others without judgment, without expectation, without attachment. A beautiful affirmation that can help us in this learning is “I accept myself exactly as I am as I work toward perfection in the Light”.
Said every day after meditation, this affirmation helps bring our human personality closer to our Divine Self.
As we learn to look within ourselves more, the more we can consciously change through our choices. To see beyond what we know in our changing, earthly reality, we must be open to embrace the unchanging eternal reality through daily meditation. With meditation we go beyond the conscious mind, the subconscious mind, the unconscious mind to the changing, human personality to the ultimate, unchanging reality of the Divine.
60 - Journey to Enlightenment