Prayer Vigil with Mother Ilowan and Father Mukanda Dawe

Sunday, August 28, 2011

THE THREE BOWLS

Today our focus is on the three prayer bowls of focus in this time of our ceremonial efforts on behalf of the Earth, the Lost Children, and the Hayamoni. We are working with songs, energy, and knowing. We are remembering that what we are creating is an awakening in our hearts that we hold each of these bowls in a space of love. We hold that the Earth is our mother, that all children are sacred, and that the Hayamoni are a people with gifts, a sacred Chikatah, and a purpose.

Life in the Big City

A dominant consciousness primarily among urban dwellers is that there is a separation among people as no one is equally necessary for the continuance of life whereas some people see themselves as more necessary and important - while others are less-valued for their contributions. Those who are most vulnerable and perceived to have less value are (and have long been) children and elders who are seen as not-essential for continuance of life.

In the beginning of the rearrangement of urban environments, people were valued for what they could contribute to the city and its rulers and those with elite stations of social control. Children and elders were not so much valued and in a short time various facilities emerged where the unwanted and dispossessed young folks and old folks could be placed so that they did not have to be dealt with and the job became the work of others. This is a system that is a great evil that needs to change. Of course the argument is that there are (and were) limited resources, and money, for survival and there is not the time or the energy to take care of them. This whole construct is destructive to the human heart. We are going to create a push in the consciousness starting with the great evil being done to children.

Everyone wants to help a baby and such is the popular and public profiling of the sweetest, most vulnerable, innocent and helpless of little beings. Consider the Asharaji babies who are precious and cute beyond words. Activists feature these profiles in their efforts as this is an effective appeal to a largely indifferent public because something happens in your heart when you see the little ones. Your heart begins to open. One must have a very closed heart to not be touched by such expressions.

The Human Family is NOT the Machine

All children are our children and if this is so (and it is) then it is only logical that all people are our people (and it is so). Eventually there will be a change for that which is essential for the world to work. Corporations do not have to decide everything. You do not have to be a cog in the machine. All children are worthy to be loved, sheltered, fed, clothed and educated. We are helping the Lost Children. They all need your time and your focus.

The Child Within

Today, we are asking you to consider a lost child – one who has been with you for a very long time: YOU. Inside of you is a child with stories and belief systems. Inside of you is a child who has been hurt, perhaps abandoned and rejected. Inside of you is a child who did not have their needs met. This is not about who hurt them or demonizing the parents; let us forgive them. The parent’s themselves did what they did with what they had inherited themselves. We forgive them. We turn, instead, to the lost child within you. When children are hurt, they respond for the most part, with tears, anger, or running away. These are the kinds of responses inside of yourself.

Life provides no guarantees. You could awake in the morning and say "This is going to be the best day ever! And you could decide to react a certain way. It is more likely that if someone does not smile back at you or responds in a certain tone, you have feelings about this.

One of the first things about a small child is that they are totally dependent upon others. Think of the lost child inside of you. This child needs to be re-parented – and comforted. Consider your own parents (or caregiver). Whatever was their wounding, they passed it onto you. From generation to generation the wounding is passed on.

Perhaps your inner-child is over-indulged for the lack of time and attention otherwise not provided. Your job is not to be the wish-fulfilling pal. You must say "No, this is not good for you," and "You are not doing things in a good way." It is for you to get this little child grown-up that they may be kind, caring, compassionate, cooperative, and be able to live in community.

The Family

Over the past couple of years we have been talking to you about family: brothers and sisters. Within the family there are three social stations and each has a space of psychological belief systems:

1. the oldest sibling

2. the middle sibling

3. the youngest sibling

The oldest of the three says: "Why do I always have to be the one who… you use me as an experiment… everyone is always harder on me than them… everyone expects more from me…"

The one in the middle says: "I will never be as good as… everybody else gets all of the attention… why can’t I be heard or recognized…"

And the youngest says: "Why is everyone always picking on me? I get blamed for everything… I wish Mom and Dad were not so indulgent because it makes everybody treat me differently…"

And if you are an only-child then you have to content with all three stations.

If within the family your psychological makeup is to respond to the structure within your own position within your family, it all comes from the wounded inner child. We need for that child to come up in years – to come up from being 2-years old, 9-years old, or 14 years old (a real hard age). Where is your lost child? Pre-school? The beginning of adolescence? Find that child and bring them up.

While the Amaraji Maha Marai family is the place to get that healed, the family is really the Amaraji Maha Marai Temple and here there is work, structure, discipline, and a hierarchy. You are always acting out within the hierarchy of your own family. Always there is a leader and everyone needs to do their part.

But… But…. How Come…?

For 30 years the greatest challenge I have had to deal with is how you measure your inner value. Whatever another is doing you tend to value more – rather than what you are doing.

Not everyone has the same level of willing contribution and commitment as others. We have found that there are three ways for people to make a contribution:

Circle #1 is for folks who want to/can/and will make the greatest contribution

Circle #2 is for folks who have lots of ambition but are not quite in the place to express a higher level of effort.

Circle #3 is for folks who have many more obligations and other commitments and they do what is possible.

There is lots of work to do and we are very happy to have whatever it is that you can do. Ours is a small group of everyone from the well-intentioned to seriously dedicated individuals. There are about 80 of us on a good day – or rather twice a year- when most everyone will show up. And there are more than six million people in the world. ~ Mother Ilowan

FATHER MUKANDA DAWE

For children to grow it is for the mother and father to provide teachings, hold expectations, and deliver consequences. Beliefs and expectations are held in a wonderful gift in how to live – a gift in love by the parents.

We are coming close to the time of Gona Synquay Aum. Are you relaxing? (A resounding "NOOOOO!" arises in the room.) No? Then this is good news.

There are a few ways to fill our bowls and prepare ourselves for our September event. I ask you if you can double your efforts. Could you speak the Metta Prayer unceasingly? Could you think it regularly and often? Each time you say the Metta Prayer is one more complete prayer in our prayer bowls. It might be that your one prayer is the single prayer sufficient to change the life of one who most needs your prayer.

This father expresses the expectation for his children. I am expecting you to be successful and that we will see a change in that people will care for the earth, for the children of the world, and for the Hayamoni to come to understand that they are a people and awaken to this truth.

I expect you to do what you can. I expect you to put aside your small difficulties and put your heart and prayers into filling these bowls that when we spill them out into the world mind, there will be no doubt about it at all. No doubt about it.

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The Earth World

Most of you here today have been here in the earth world for a long time. Maybe you have forgotten what it is you came here to create.

Everything in the earth world just is what it is. As human beings you have the opportunity to decide. If you hurt your foot you could decide that the world is a hard and hurtful place. If a butterfly lands on your nose you could think that the world is beautiful and full of delightful unexpected encounters. If you were to get caught in the rain you could think that the world is challenging, uncomfortable and everything is all wet. Maybe you have many friends so that when you walk into a room people are vibrant and excited to see you and from here you could think that the world is full of joyful relationships. It starts with you as a child as you will have many experiences and what you decide is whether you are loved as you are or you will decide that there is something wrong with you and then you will create multiple expressions of this belief system to the extent that others will come to think this, also.

Looking Down from the Angel Temple of Light

Born in the earth world you chose your parents. You had the longing and inspiration to provide assistance, help, healing, and the creative initiative to be a source of opportunity for change.
Everyone loves a small baby whether they are human or animal. Fresh from the Tarai realm you remember your angel self – and then you forget. The earth world is not like the Tarai world and for a newcomer it causes distress which is expressed by crying. All children come to the earth world with the wish to be loved and to give love. Not all children find this in their new life.

Manifesting the Dream

As we prepare ourselves and continue this road to Gona Synquay Aum, you have made many sacrifices. We hold the dream for the children of the world. We hold the dream that we all belong to the earth and that we do not need to hoard and be selfish but rather share what we have.  We hold the dream that all the animals of the earth are our little brothers and sisters and it is for us to share in this space on the Earth Mother with them.

We learn to share and to be a family. We learn to be one with each other. The word “family” has lots of expectations tied to it. You have ideas about what “should have been” – but was not. And then when you grew up and as you planned for your own family you were quite sure that your family would be different from your birth family and in fact you say this: “My own family will be different.” But then, as a parent, you found out that your children did not want what you wanted for them. Children tend to always be dissatisfied as a family. In a family you will not always get what you want. Mother and Father are better at knowing what is best for you and one way or another you will learn what it is for you to know.

This family is about doing the work and sowing the seeds of eternity through the demonstration. You are the proof of what we have been talking about for 30 years. You yourself are the energy, the change, and the family we have turned loose into the world to make the demonstration. Some of you will not like the demonstration and resort to saying “I hope they don’t think I’m related to that one!” It does not make any difference what anyone else’s demonstration is if they are not from a place of love, joy and grace which is only because they have forgotten.

Remember When

Sometimes you are absolutely convinced there is something wrong with you. It happens in the mind but you can go back to your heart and remember your angel-self. You could remember the peace and beauty of clear water, basking in liquid sunshine, the space of pure hope and inspiration. You could say that you remember flying on the magic of angel wings to the earth world and you knew you could make a difference in this world. Remember who you are.

Remember that as a part of this family we open our hearts in beauty to give. We pray, we make sacrifices, and only through prayer do we hold Great Spirit’s consciousness. We will accomplish our goal because we have come into love.  ~ Mother Ilowan

Father Mukanda Dawe

Do you remember this light, this sunshine that your Mother was describing?
We hear this light maturing in your singing. Do you understand what a blessing you are?
Claim the beauty of the love within you and rebuke the ignorance of the world.

You are a people of light.
You are a people of hope.
You are a people who know how to work hard. Soon we will go and we will work very hard to bring this feeling of love, joy and true hope to the world.

Your lives have been formed. Be proud of yourself for the sacred truth you have awakened and the promise you carried inside of you. Each person that you touch you give of this promise and you leave in your footsteps beauty, hope and healing for beings around you.

For each prayer that you offer, each prayer tie that you make, you are creating a time to remember and hold the light, speaking words of light and inspiration. Each time you walk your staff you fill the Mission bowls.

For the 3 days of work we will give more than a million prayers away – in sacrifices – and love.

You are the people, the children of our dream and it has become manifest. Do not question yourself. You have become the people of the promise; the people of the United States.

We will do much work, yet. Focus on what you have accomplished and let go of those useless creation stories that do not serve you.  We are creating a new spiritual pathway.

You are the People of the Promise. Your mother and I are very pleased, and proud of you.

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Prayer Vigil with Mother Ilowan and Father Mukanda Dawe
Sunday, July 24, 2011

THE POWER OF PRAYER

True prayer is the consciousness of holding the truth. Prayer is the creation of love, joy, peace, and light and is directed thought; determined, hopeful, holding so that the mind of the world is infiltrated with Spirit Truth rather than overwhelmed with world mind.

Your focused work for the Mission each day matters and building your consciousness matters otherwise when it comes to time to pray you will not hold the power internally. You are a determined people. Drop by drop we will dispel the evil in the world so that only the truth will remain. We sing for the World Mission Masters so they may be strong to hear the voice of Spirit Truth and know all of the other voices to be silent so that they may hear their angel voice.

Hope

What is the meaning of the word ‘hope’? When you come in to the place of love within your heart, then you have love and feel love, then you have hope. You see what is possible rather than what is actual. So for a human being to travel the road of spirit, they must cultivate the quality of hope which is different from wishful thinking which is to desire what is improbable.

Hope is the willingness to work very hard and make sure it will be. In your life, when you share love with another, friend, partner… you desire to see another in beauty. This is what it means to fall in love.  You have come to be limited in your description of  falling in love. You find it possible to fall in love with all kinds of things. Your culture thinks (idea system) this is a relationship of sharing your body, your material possessions and your dwelling space.

Ama Marai, on the path of spirit, is falling in love.  It means opening your heart to share and to see others as good, beautiful, and sacred. Ama Marai means you can fall in love with anyone. It calls for you to restructure the wall to love. For many people it is predicated upon a fantasy of how it will turn out. Amareeshi is a sacred (Chiendai) community and is only possible when you are able to belong with a people/community. It does not happen all by yourself but rather in relationship. If you are on the earth, you are not alone.

You want to fall in love with everyone. When you come into contact with others, you see the other entity and decide to love them. When you fall out of love you have lost hope. Hopelessness is forgetting love. Plant seeds and keep increasing the love – your love. More often than not your sense of love is predicated on the mythological stories – the social constructs of what love should be. Amareesha is opening your heart.

World Mission Masters

With these great beings you can practice focusing love though you may never see them. You have a heart relationship with them – joining with them in a great creation of love.

You do not even know your Self. You have a whole story based on an interpretation of experiences and the perspective varies. What you will remember regarding one event or another is most likely different from what anyone else would recall. Realize that your very own life is imaginary. If you have hope you can own your story and set out to make it possible.

We pray for the World Mission Masters. We pray for the children. We are intimately woven together in the place of your heart. This is the power of love. A great power. There are no barriers in the place of love. You need community. You need relationship. When you are too much alone you will be crazy.

Hope, laughter, sharing beauty, shared nurturing of others is what is most valued. Children share love. We open our heart to share love for each other. We share with work, songs, food, our homes, and ceremonies, and we are open to hope in sharing the possibilities of love.

Intimacy is not holding barriers. You may say, “But can that one be trusted? We open our hearts and be open to listen to what others have to say so that we can grow as a people.
We open to share the energy of love, creating hope. It is the energy of Amaraji Maha Marai – the people of great love – the people of the promise; the promise of love, opening your heart to everyone. With Ama Marai your heart gets bigger.

To have love and belong together is a vast container big enough to welcome the whole world.  ~ Mother Ilowan

Father Mukanda Dawe

I wish for you to take a moment and think of all the different people in the world; their fears, their actions – how they behave – and how they feel about you.

We have been teaching you about world mind – consumerism and how you are certain that evil is your enemy. What about these evil things and all these people that are evil because they are a part of it? Where is the hope? How are you creating belonging?

We are set about to change the entire world which is impossible of course, but we will do it anyway. If you could - let all of those evil people belong to you, let their pain and difficulties come inside of you. Sacrifice your fear, your anger, and your judgment of them so you are fostering and creating love.

It will be a blessing of hope to them. Are you not hopeful when you come together as a family?
What if each of you were able to bless 100 people you do not like? Erase the barrier and give them love regardless of where they live, what they do, or do not do.

Our blessings of love must be for more than our family – including the World Mission Masters.
It must be for everyone. Could you find in your heart the love and hope for these people you are angry with? Could you overcome your difficulties with them? It might bring them hope.

Amareesha Blessing of Love and Hope

This week, choose 10 people that you have hated/despised whether you know them or not. Tear down those barriers. You all belong to the earth. You all belong to each other though you rarely believe this. But it is a Great Spirit Truth. This was so in the beginning is so now. It is an incorruptible truth. This Father encourages you to overcome your own barriers.

Mother Ilowan said: Metta is a form of love and love changes everything. Even those entrenched in anger and cruelty can be changed by love. We stuff them with love. We open our hearts to share. This does not mean you do not have boundaries. A life without boundaries is not a very good life. Try it and see what happens. Love them anyways. You can choose to be full of love.
 

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Dharma Talk with Mother Ilowan and Father Mukanda Dawe
Sunday, July 17, 2011

CREATING A NEW CONSCIOUSNESS

Today we think about what it means to come into life – a life incarnation. It means you have come to life to create a new consciousness of expression. 

One comes into incarnation with a personal soul neesha pattern and whether your parents were biological or adopted, you integrated with a family that has the same Neesha pattern that agrees with you and what you know.

Because of all the past energy of soul, if you think that there is something wrong with you, you will be born to a family that thinks that. If you are born to a family with an understanding of the inner needs of spirit, the same Neesha pattern is brought in to this world once again. But why? Probably for the same reasons as you know now – things could be improved.

In the Angel Temple of Light as you are contemplating an incarnation, you don’t really know what would be possible. However, the patterns and habituated patterns are still there. You are born with a Tarai-knowing plan. And you incarnate with Siddha Aum (which is not a career) way of being in life, this is the most powerful experience of consciousness. Maybe you express as a healer, or a musician, or any one of many different expressions situated in the objective to make a difference in the world. It is really what most people want; to bring joy to the world, to share love in the world, and to experience all the goodness life has to offer. Still, however, all of life is impermanent.

We re-visit an important understanding:

Five Things that are Inevitable

1. Change
2. Loss
3. Sickness
4. Old age
5. Death

Changing the Story

In consciousness, it is not about changing these five things, but changing the story so that you can live with these things. Consciousness begins with whatever it is that is your story then you are on the journey to change your attitude, and understandings, not to reinforce them by thinking them over and over again. Energies like anger, fear, disappointment… this is what you are here to change.

Human beings interpret the world around them. Animals, not so much. Human beings can understand the phrase “Path of Spirit” differently than their biological family and others such as teachers, various leaders, and authorities in their past.

You are here in this room now because you are able to redefine what it means to walk the path of spirit. This is how consciousness is changed. Wherever you are now you have consciousness, unlike people who are sustained on machines. You are here today in a state of consciousness which could be joy, laughter, anticipation, tiredness, frustration, persecution, suspicion… the list is endless as far as where you are in a state of consciousness. It would be good to understand where you are.

The List Matters

Remember your list? The “I Like These Things About Me – and – I Don’t Like These Things About Me” list? This is the whole summary of the energy of your consciousness. Understanding where you are within these definitions is important depending upon what you do - and how you act upon these energies.

To be truly conscious you have to act on it whereas not acting upon on it and no one knows but you is not so not so much consciousness but rather an idea.

Where are you in consciousness? To change you have to know where you want to go. Unhappy? Create a path to be happy.

Imitate Greatness

It is not enough to think what you wish to be but to have a plan and then you need a methodology. Find those who represent role models for your highest aspiration. Find those who are making the demonstration. How do they act? Do they act accordingly? You are hardwired to learn by imitation which is why you have turned out to be just like your parents. Human imitate.

Children imitate and act out the stories of faces, places and spaces that spur their imagination and aspirations such as becoming a firefighter, a teacher, and many other roles/identities. This forms their consciousness.

As a child who has learned to read - one’s consciousness was formed by books, and then there are the movies, television - up until you are about twenty-something.

Honest Assessment

It is important to consider the consciousness which calls for honest assessment versus imaginative assessment - and devise a plan to get there. Part of it is through imitation and practice. What are the conversations in which you partake? Movies you watch? Books you read? How does this affect your current state of consciousness? Every time you reinforce the consciousness its roots go deeper in the ground. To change your consciousness will require great effort.

Healing is Changing

You come into the space of consciousness that liberates you from suffering and then once something has changed, the tendency is to go back to where you always go.
For healing to happen, change has to happen.  Change your consciousness to where you want to be. Whenever there is a disturbance in your life (the five things) the likelihood of your reverting back to old consciousness is great. You must hold to a practice. Know who you desire to become. If you must have a story let it be how to get back there. Visualize how it will be and what is going to happen and then be diligently enthusiastic. You will need passion and focused determination. Feel really excited about it.

Enlightenment

How will it be when you are enlightened?  Probably you mostly plan to be enraptured.
So, what does it mean to be enlightened?

Siddha Aum

What does it mean to have Siddha Aum? Most people would say it is what makes them want to get up in the morning and be fulfilled in their endeavors. It is like to hold the energy of love, and joy. How to be happy. How are they happy?

Belonging

The secret of happiness is being with others and not needing to be alone.
You want love and you have to be with a people. Yes there are special relationships, sharing with others. To have love is to be loving with everyone and keep loving enthusiasm flowing.

Healing

Most people think they need a healing every day. It does not work because you don’t want change. To change consciousness the big word is CHANGE. Even to expand your consciousness you still need change. What are you willing to change?

Life Review

The big picture; files, costumes. What changed? Career? Clothes? Change your consciousness and expand your beingness because you know the Bodhikatah is inside of you.

Enlightened beings still died. They still experienced the five things. Oftentimes they had far less. Even more often there were others not happy with them as they always talked about change.
Enlightenment does not mean immortality.

Change Your Mind, Change Your Life

Nothing will happen unless you change. Stories, fixations, aversions… change your mind and keep it changed. Be tough, determined, change your mind over and over.
You are good at changing your mind. How badly do you want to be an enlightened being on the Path of Spirit?

If you want to you can change your mind. If you change your mind you will change your life.
We give you the formula but you must do the work.

Father Mukanda Dawe

Sometime ago the Metta prayer was created. You have been speaking it for yourself and others. In this Year of Sacrifice you are working intensely with this prayer. Has your consciousness changed because you are repeating this promise? How has your consciousness changed?  How is your mind and thinking different?

Awareness is good, but whether you think or act differently is a necessary response to awareness. Just being aware does not mean you understand how to make it work. You are moving more into a self-less place.

Most of you believe in something you call Utopia. You have been taught that it exists in heaven and if you behave appropriately you will get there. You as a people desire happiness. A while ago we changed the name of this group as a family to come into a true family so you could begin to change your consciousness and actually belong and live together - that you would consider each other in your day.

To be a part of this family there are things that you personally sacrifice. Some of you did not want the family thing. You thought that it would be like your family of birth. But you are coming to enjoy belonging to a family and trusting, opening your heart.

Change your consciousness. How do you change your world? By coming together.
Sacrifice your little self and change your consciousness.

When this one came here, he said, “Flower, it is time for the children to grow up.” And you have.

Mother Ilowan added: “You can change your consciousness so that in 100 years from now you can look back at your past life and be proud that someone was courageous enough to change their consciousness.”

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Dharma Talk with Mother Ilowan and Father Mukanda Dawe
Sunday, July 10, 2011

EVERY WORD, THOUGHT and ACTION MAKES A DIFFERENCE IN THE WORLD

Today we want to talk about the importance of what you say, what you think, and what you do in the world. It all matters. Your life is created on a day to day basis with what you spend your time thinking about.

Are you living your life full of fear? Anger? You are increasing the breadth of these expressions in the collective consciousness by adding your life force beingness to the pain of the world.

Some of you are on a media ban while there are others who observe that the world is full of fear and anger and in so exposing yourself to these reports you tend to feel persecuted and/or respond with the persecution of others. It is more important to understand that the greatest value of human mind is to create good in the world. We are creating kindness, generosity, and healing.

We want to recognize this truth: thoughts become things. A fact to help you to have Ashamenta is to understand that the one thing you do have control over is your thoughts. Most people are not controlling their thoughts. Just because you think something does not make it true. You must understand the responsibility of having a Parai Mind.

Parai Mind

The privilege of being human is to have a Parai Mind which was not designed to create torture for yourself and/or for you to torture everyone around you. Parai Mind was designed to remember, learn, understand, create, and define things.

Consider that when you were very young you learned to name things like colors, shapes, and food. Even a little child can discern the difference between a cookie and a carrot. And then there is the Why? Why? Why? Parai Mind asks the questions to understand.

Parai Mind functions in the ability to discern reality. It also has the function of being able to tell stories and situate relationships between things. It has the ability to remember - which is either a gift or a detriment - depending upon the recollection. So, what are you remembering?

The Inner-Voice-Committee

All of you have an inner voice committee which, in fact, has nothing new to say but rather repeats the same message over and again. The inner voice committee says that you are this or that. And if you do something new, it remembers. All committee voices are a recording of those moments and memories of teachers, parents, neighbors, friends who said that you are not smart, not capable, incompetent, unwanted, unlovable . . . Someone said those words to you and your inner voice committee repeats it over and over. 

Power of Repetition

What do we know about repetition? We know that it gets believed even if it is not fact but because it gets repeated over and over and over again people forget the facts. What is repeated becomes factual.

The power of repetition is in the power of thought as it gets believed. The inner voice committee is a memory voice and it tells you that “you are too slow… you are stupid… no one likes you… that job is not for you…” It is all recorded and it repeats continuously.

Everything you think, everything you say, everything you do becomes a fact. If one is in a constant state of fear, anger, judgment then that is the life experience you are creating and you are adding your own little version of demonic thought processes in the world.

We are establishing a new process in the world. I am repeating things over and over so that you may establish spirit truth as foundation for your lives. I request repetitive prayer practice so you will remember it.

The only reason to follow a Path of Spirit is to redefine the world around you; to learn how to think, speak, and act. You act out what you believe and then others give you feedback which reaffirms your expressions.

The thing you have control over is your thoughts. Your thoughts will not prevent anything from happening but your thoughts are yours. You think things are your fault. Your thinking does not affect anything.

Ashamenta is to have peace and giving up the attachment to making things permanent. Your body is going to wear out. You may live to be 100 years old but you will be very old and challenged. All things are what they are. Sooner or later you will be sick. What did you do or think to make it happen? Nothing.

What can you use your thoughts for? Ash-E-Tah and Ashamenta which is about not attaching importance to that which just is. Think of a piece of paper as an object of which you might have a particular attachment to. It can be burned, ripped, soiled and eventually destroyed. It is like anything else: impermanent. You could say that you are fine and your life still works.

What are you going to do with your thoughts? You create your own reality. Others think about you what you think of yourself. Are you someone who repeatedly says “I am sorry for this… I am a procrastinator…I am always late…” and any one of a number of diminishing descriptions that you are responsible for - creating a pain loop.

Nature of the Object

What you have control of is your thoughts. How are you going to think about the situations in the world around you as you consider the news of current events?  Will you resign yourself to saying that the problem is too big or are you going to hold to the hope that we are powerful? You can prove that your thoughts are powerful by what you have created in your own life.

Life will happen. There will always be those events of tragedy and disaster such as the house burning down, the car is wrecked, the job is gone, or perhaps someone dies and it is never convenient to be ill. You cannot decide what to do with these things. For most people who have hell-story incidents, their lives stop there in those moments because they cannot get past it. If you are stopping in that place, then your thoughts are thinking you rather than you are thinking your thoughts. Your thoughts matter; repeating and knowing.

Five Things that are Inevitable

1. Whatever you have now will change.
2. Life changes. If it is good it will be bad sometimes and if it is bad it will get better. Life does this.
3. You will get sick.
4. You will have loss.
5. You will die. If you are lucky, you will get old.

You are still totally free to have love, joy, peace, passion and adventure in your life. The Path of Spirit is to teach you to accept the Five Things and be a person of compassion, service, love and help to make a difference in the world.

You can be happy anyway, but only if you think those thoughts that allow you to have happiness. It’s a good thought to begin with because all of the recorded voices in your head say that “There is something wrong with you” or “How could Great Spirit love someone like you?

When the voices start, you could say, “I am the beloved child of Great Spirit.” And then the voices get mad. They lie. The recorded voices in your head lie to you. You are powerless only as long as you listen to these voices. The voices in your head that lie the most are the ones that repeat themselves the most frequently. Listen to inspiration instead.

To become an enlightened being you must know how to wait – and how to fast. It is to detach from the needy voices that say “I want it… I need it… and now.” This is the road to hell.

The Path of Spirit is showing you how to turn off the recording and turn on the Great Tarai Being so that everything you say makes a difference in the world; so that everything you think makes a difference in the world; and everything you do makes a difference in the world – because you are Spirit – in the world.     ~ Mother Ilowan

Father Mukanda Dawe

Let us play a game. You listen and I will say a word and then you are to pay attention to where your mind goes. There is no right or wrong response to the impressions, images, or ideas that arise for you when you hear the word. The point is to recognize your own stories, belief systems, and how you deal with the impression – or not.

1. Family
2. Prayer
3. Evil

In our sharing of responses notice that we do not have a consensus of one particular description. What did you learn from this? What is revealed is that everyone thinks something different with these words.

If you are all in disagreement, different beliefs and experiences when the word arises, then how can you believe you actually all understand one another? You have another experience of what others are talking about. How will you have understanding? The way to have understanding is to question your own beliefs and have a doubt about your own assumptions. The way to have understanding is to have a conversation with another. You all have voices but not the same stories.

You are all in agreement about suffering. Maybe you will begin to question yourself – and listen to others. If you are aware of your assumptions, then you can ask for clarification.

Flower has been here for a long time helping you learn to think and decide about your own life – discovering that it is possible to change the assumptions of your own life. She has given you a new way to think in many new experiences and teachings.  Has your life not changed, and improved with these experiences and teachings?”

If you have so many voices in your own head, why do you assume they are real? Maybe you should question your own authority. If you put it to the test, then you will know whether they are real – or not.

Have we not encouraged you to take ownership of your life – and the world? You are the ones creating it, so do something different. Speak differently. Act differently.

Think of all the great Masters such as Gandhi, King, and many others who spoke about becoming the change they wish to see in the world. They lived their life in accordance. You have the same ability, potential and power. You are no different. They became special because you value what they did, what they said, and what they thought.  This family is doing that, also. Do you believe in your Self? Do you believe in our prayers?

Think beautiful, loving, kind thoughts – and question your own authority. It will be worth it.
~ Father Mukanda Dawe

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Dharma Talk with Mother Ilowan and Father Mukanda Dawe
Sunday, July 3, 2011

CELEBRATING FREEDOM

On this day before a national holiday we think about freedom. As a nation, a people, we celebrate freedom, and the celebration of freedom from unreasonable demands.

Today we are wishing to bring forth the energy of liberation in a gift of healing. May grace come touch you and fill you up with your Divine Right.

It is the belief that your freedom declaration included things that were Divine right:

[The sources and interpretation of the Declaration has been the subject of much scholarly inquiry. The Declaration justified the independence of the United States by listing colonial grievances against King George III, and by asserting certain natural and legal rights (including a right of revolution). Having served its original purpose in announcing independence, the text of the Declaration was initially ignored after the American Revolution. Its stature grew over the years, particularly the second sentence, a sweeping statement of human rights]

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

[This sentence has been called one of the best-known sentences in the English language and the most potent and consequential words in American history. The passage has often been used to promote the rights of marginalized groups, and came to represent - for many people - a moral standard for which the United States should strive.]

What these words are really saying is that no one person is any more important than another, but we know that not all opportunities are equal, right? Is this still a land of opportunity for everyone? Are there not those who do not have the same opportunities as others? Some people are forgotten while others may claim to be more than others. Not all opportunities are equal so is this still a land of opportunity for everyone?

Remember that you have a Divine Inheritance of acceptance and an energy of holding to the space that is light. Everyone can come to a place of happiness and be content with what is and create more of what it is you would like to have.

Creation Story of a Nation

Origins are in the beginnings. Who it is you decide yourselves to be as people means understanding the responsibility of these energies. You are all here, created in wholeness and oneness, together. In this regard, if being happy as a nation is founded in this declaration, why are you always so unhappy? This is a question.

A: “It is about the pursuit of happiness. It is what people are always chasing.”
A: “It is about money and having enough to buy things like clothes, cars, and a house and then we will be happy.”
A: “In our culture, the pursuit of happiness is equated to materialism.”

If you pursue the happiness that is of the soul which is Divine Happiness, then contentment is possible. In order to be happy, you could decide to not want what you do not have. To be in a place of OK-ness is to be in a place with what is, rather than constantly seeking.

Suffering comes from being truly attached to wanting more. Peace comes from being okay. Peace comes from being free to be happy. What would prevent you from being happy now?

Day of Healing

On a day of healing, more people show up because you wish to be free from suffering. Today we will break this cycle of neediness and we will provide a healing for another.

Rather than focus on the self, we will be creating easement in the lives of another as a product of service, light and love – then you can be happy.

Children delight in presents. Adults delight in giving presents more than receiving presents because, really, you already have everything that you need. People give you gifts like a shirt, a pair of pants, shoes, candles or something decorative. Like you need one more candle in your large stock of candles or one more gift on the shelf of dust-collectors. There is not much delight past your childhood in receiving presents.

A Gift That Lasts

In a family, you give what is needed. A way of doing this is when and where you spend time creating something energetically beautiful for another where you have put your time and energy into making something special. It is here that you are happy when you create it and you are happy to give this gift delivered in the energy of love.

When you want to find happiness, it is found in the give-away to a person or a situation that needs healing – the person or place that has the most need. Even in this space you might not be well with your aches and pains of this or that.  Even if your life still is in turmoil, you must liberate yourself from this energy of suffering through kindness, softness, and gentleness. Your gift might be offering food for someone, or engaging in a conversation by calling another to share. You might offer someone a gift of song.

When you are willing to set yourself free from whatever is mentally, physically or emotionally challenging, then you are feeling happy to serve another. And you might wonder how this happened.

Turn Up the Light

When you are focused on yourself; your fear, pain, anger, lack, limitation, or resentment about being disrespected, then you are suffering. Maybe you are unhappy about the people that are around you and you feel that they are not the people you deserve to have in your life. Well, they must be there for a reason, yes?

Liberate yourself into light, compassion, kindness even if those around you are not in the space of these energies. When you turn yourself into the light, these people will go away. Be very, very good and they will disappear. Liberate yourself from difficult situation by turning up the light.

Gratitude is the Way Out

To liberate yourself is to be free from attachment of all desire. Lack and limitation is wanting what you have not got. The way out of this suffering is gratitude. Focus on what you do have rather than what you do not have.

Be grateful for the beauty all around you. Be grateful for your friends. Be grateful that you have the eyes to see as there are many who do not. Be grateful for your ears to hear as there are those who cannot. Be grateful that you may walk. Be grateful that you can breathe (remember having a bad cold when you could not?). Be grateful for your health and that you are alive. You can say that you are grateful for what you do have.

And for all of the things that you have that you do not want, the answer is in the give-away. The secret is not think of yourself. Your body is a gift from Great Spirit that freely gives to you to the best of your ability. Many people try to take total control of the space of their body. They obsess with the body. They obsess with how they adorn it, what they feed it, what they ask of it.

[Remember the story of the two brothers? There was one brother who lived his life by the moment enjoying leisure, art, songs and ice cream and the other brother who obsessed with his health consciousness by means of deprivation, enhancement procedures and rigorous exercise. In a chance encounter one afternoon the brothers meet at a busy downtown intersection where the one brother is enjoying a cheese pretzel from a vendor cart and the other brother is jogging in the high heat of the day shaking his finger in scorn and judgment at such an indulgence - when poof he was hit by a car and killed.]

The Great To-Do-List

Difficulties in life? Then think of others and you can surely find one who is worse off than you are and then you can help them AND free yourself from the old story that your life stinks. Live your life in liberation. To be permanently liberated is to be awake every day and see that the recipe for liberation is in service to others.

An enlightened being is not about sporting a halo and walking around enshrouded with emanations of light as a perfected being.

Consider that one of the things of great value is that there is a lot of work to do.
Our sister Judith recently shared a story about South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu who has been instrumental in liberating his people from oppression. The Archbishop spoke about God’s To-Do-List as a detail of all of the things that are wrong in the world. Yes, bad things are happening so this, then, is what needs to be accomplished. This is the culture in which an enlightened being would return. There is a great deal of loving kindness to be dispensed.

Every day it is for you to free yourself from suffering and liberate all others around you to the best of your ability. All of you can do it. You just have to make up your mind to do so.

From Father Mukanda Dawe

Love moves in one direction: from Source to the other. However, when you are focused on self-difficulties by wishing for things to be right and orderly, then love cannot flow – like a river.

When love flows from you to another, then it returns like the rain and the snow.
Make your problems and difficulties unimportant and make others needs more important – then love can flow and then two beings can have love. To simply focus on the self means that no love is flowing from you to another.

Today our love will flow to you and then on to another. Love is very powerful. It is the greatest force that there is.

At the end of a most magical and love-filled space of healing, we sang:
America the Beautiful
Words by Katharine Lee Bates (1895)
Melody by Samuel Ward (1910)

O beautiful for spacious skies,
For amber waves of grain,
For purple mountain majesties
Above the fruited plain!
America! America!
God shed his grace on thee
And crown thy good with brotherhood
From sea to shining sea!

O beautiful for pilgrim feet
Whose stern impassioned stress
A thoroughfare of freedom beat
Across the wilderness!
America! America!
God mend thine every flaw,
Confirm thy soul in self-control,
Thy liberty in law!

O beautiful for heroes proved
In liberating strife.
Who more than self their country loved
And mercy more than life!
America! America!
May God thy gold refine
Till all success be nobleness
And every gain divine!

O beautiful for patriot dream
That sees beyond the years
Thine alabaster cities gleam
Undimmed by human tears!
America! America!
God shed his grace on thee
And crown thy good with brotherhood
From sea to shining sea!

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Prayer Vigil with Mother Ilowan and Father Mukanda Dawe
Sunday, June 26, 2011

THE SACRED

This day we shall speak of the energy of the Sacred – the preciousness of all life because of the energy of Bodhikatah, the Tarai energy that resides in each person, each entity in the earth world. The natural world is Bodhikatah and it is an expression of the Tarai.

Remember the creation story I told you of what happens from the energy of Marai (the space of infinite possibility) comes the Tarai and from here other possible beings arise. Everything in the earth world arises from Tarai and therefore has Bodhikatah.

We spoke recently of your unity, your en-soulment which is Bodhikatah.  Prana has Bodhikatah, the Asharaji has Bodhikatah – all of the Seven Nations have the Bodhikatah energy and all are an expression of Tarai.

Conscious channel beings are expressions of the Tarai indwelling spirit.
The Tarai IS The Sacred.

Living the Life of Tarai

Chiendai is “the sacred” - meaning as one lives the life from the place of Tarai it, informs conscious-channel-beingness.

Conscious channel beings (humans and even a few highly evolved mammals) are in possession of nine certain energies that are a part of the make-up of this beingness:
1. Love
2. Joy
3. Peace
4. Life
5. Anger
6. Fear
7. Pain
8. Grief
9. Light

If we say that everything in the Asha world (a fact, indeed) is arising from Tarai, then we know that the entities of the natural world (the Seven Nations) are of the Chiendai Asha (Sacred Earth) that has to do with each one’s ability to experience the nine energies.

Consider that any Asharaji with whom you are acquainted can have the experiences of these nine energies. Your science has demonstrated this in theory (which provides for your greater inclination to believe this).

Some Asharaji have even acquired conscious-channel-beingness and can now honor their ancestors. Even the trees and the Asharaji can communicate with each other. Science has proven this, also.

To have Chiendai Asha (Sacred Earth) arises from the Tarai.

If you are aspiring to be an enlightened being, that ninth energy (Light) belongs to conscious channel beings.  Having a Parai Mind is to help you to ask questions, understand things, know things, tell a story, and problem-solve. Parai Mind informs enlightenment. You need your Parai Mind to become enlightened.

Pohwas trains the Parai Mind to do its job rather than run your life. Parai Mind always wants a job. It is always busy talking to you in a constant dialogue. There is a constant need for Parai Mind to explain to itself the energy of its existence.

Consider the “I” statements that are so frequent in your thoughts and conversation: “I need… I think…I want.”

In pohwas we have Parai Mind cooperation with Tarai Mind and this is what it takes to unfold the Great Being within. It is to understand the use and importance of the nine energies as they are not going to go away if you become a Great Tarai Being.  Perhaps the difference between a Great Tarai Being and yourself is a little bit of organizing.

One has the choice of seeing and using the value of these energies by “deciding” rather than “reacting”. If you have pain, for example, you decide about that by what it is you are planning to do about it and consider what/how can this be of use?

Tonglen is the willing acceptance of pain in one’s life. It is to take another’s pain, or heartache. A Great Being will do this. How could they do this if they never had pain? A Great Being is able to feel the energy of grief. Grief is a natural occurrence in the space of life. To be a Tarai Being is understanding this as a gift of love.

Life and Death: Beginnings and Endings in Tarai

In Ashamenta there are two things that always happen: birth and death, and always one is present with the other. In the Prana Nation this is certain as the grasses grow, then die, releasing its seed and always more grasses grow next time. Trees shed their leaves and go into the space of the earth dying in the wintertime and restoring life and their expression in the Spring. This is a Tarai expression.

Peace, Please?

There is a popular thought or hope, rather, in your culture that someday you will come to Tarai and not ever again have to experience loss, pain or fear and this freedom imagery arises out of lots of stories. You are hoping this because you are tired from the challenges within world mind and you wish to know only love. The only way this is possible is to return to Marai – where there is no remembering.

In Marai, “being” is just like the wind. There is no memory. This is the only way and the only place there is eternal peace (Shanti). It is all that there is. Nothing else.

Mostly Tarai is the experience of remembering who you love, what you love, and what you care about in the energy of those things. When you are in Tarai as a conscious channel being, you will experience the nine energies to various degrees. The frustration in your life arises from suffering: You wish you did not have what you do, and you wish you had that which you do not. Desire. I want it. I do not want it.

Walking the Sacred Way

On the road of Chiendai Tao it is to walk the sacred way and celebrate the sacred.

Ash-E-Tah is accepting what is. What you are knowing, in Asha form, is that everything is impermanent. It takes great focus to hold an energy and repeat a hell-story over and over again.

Ashamenta is all about balance, as in birth and death. In Ashamenta, the decision is that since you are still alive, you need to keep walking in Chiendai which is the focus on a loving, abundant, and joyful life.

From anger, fear, pain, and grief, arises wisdom which does not happen without them. Think of the wisdom you acquired from your parents. Mostly I believe that when you have been angry, and then you calm down, you say “uh-oh” and from there you are learning from what occurred.

Ash-E-Tah: the sacred hoop holds the ability to choose from the nine treasures of the heart and then you have Ashamenta.

The Love Question

“What does this have to do with love?” is a good question, an important question, and sometimes a very relevant question, but it may not always be the best quality in a given situation.

If you are going to be an enlightened being, it is to choose which energy is most useful to the current situation and then walk in Chiendai Tao – the sacred way.

If you know how to give love, but not receive love, then the sacred hoop is not closed. The same with joy. In Ashamenta, sacred wholeness, we walk in the sacred way. We are creating the energy of sacred life.

You are not born a sacred being, although life is precious. Children die every day and sometimes they die very young. We are creating Ashamenta and in doing so we are creating Chi-En-Dai-Dah and closing the sacred hoop.

Gona Synquay Aum = Chiendai Energy

Our fall ceremonial time is all about creating Chiendai energy and everyone has a part and everyone needs to do their part.  If the Ashamenta Guardians do not learn their part, we will fail.

Chiendai Aum and Chiendai Ashamenta are needed for success. To know the sacred is to come to a space of Tarai. It is to say “we are” and “you are” a Tarai being, but you are a conscious channel being rather than, say, a dog. Now a dog has “Tarai-ness” but it is still a dog.

To be a great Tarai Being is to walk in Chiendai Tao.

Made to Order

By your very existence you are made in the image of Mama and Papa Light. In greatness for this time, your efforts are called forth. How is a Great Tarai Being created?  A Great Being is created through prayers, pohwas, ceremony, and Amareesha (sacred community).

Sacred Community

If a community is sacred then the focus is not upon personal pleasure. For a spiritual community that is focused, then anything is possible if everyone is focused upon helping each other to be a Great Tara Being rather than the ME, MY, and I - which nearly every statement begins with one of these references to the self. In this process of the WE, one becomes . . .

Chiendawa (Sacred Woman)
Chiendaka (Sacred Man)

In this space there is no room for possession of anything, or thinking of the self.
In the Sacred there is WE.
In the ordinary there is only ME.

Amareesha Sangha

In a spiritual community, there is no such language-police, or behavioral-police or self-appointed watch dogs who monitor behavior and inform others on how to do it right. There are teachers and the Arraji who provide guidance and leadership as such that one must be willing to say “Ash-E-Tah” when being corrected and then come to “help me please to come back to love, joy, and peace.”

No one asks for anger, fear, pain, or grief. In the 30 years I have been with this group, people will ask for more money or to be a rid of an illness, but no one asks for grief.

To be a Great Tarai Being is to be compassionate, cooperative, kind, peaceful, and full of laughter. What if everyone was competing for these energies?

Chiendai Aum

To be a Great Being, a Sacred Being, is to imagine and act from that core of your being. You will not forget the pain or the fear, and yet the anger, however, does tend to be more like frustration.

Great Beings

If all the Masters, the Saints, and the Bodhisattvas did not feel anger, fear, pain or grief, then why would they help all of humanity? They seek to assuage the suffering in the world because they are compassionate. They understand how to share love and compassion.

They desire to help you.
They hear the cries of the world.  ~ Mother Ilowan

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Dharma Talk with Mother Ilowan and Father Mukanda Dawe
Sunday, June 19, 2011
Father’s Day

CALLING ALL ASHAMENTA GUARDIANS

“For everyone in the family, there is work to do for our September ceremony, and for the Ashamenta Guardians the time has come, and the time is now.

In the past, perhaps, people have felt like they did not have an important job because they did not get to meet every week. Well, the Ashamenta Guardians role is as important and critical as any other and now the call is the meet every week. It is very, very important for our work.

The Ashamenta Guardians are the protectors of wholeness and the prayer warriors for Gona Synquay Aum. You must understand the importance of the gift you will bring for it is you who will create the prayer energy.  The Ashamenta Guardians will be critical to filling the prayer bowl.”

Singing on Sundays

And dancing, too! Every Sunday after the Dharma talk, the Ashamenta Guardians will meet to practice the songs and create ceremony for the three days of prayer energy in September. It is very important to gather and send out this energy to Universal Spirit Mind.

It All Starts With an Idea

We are not attempting to change World Mind, but rather we are creating the possibility and planting in Universal Spirit Mind. Everything started as an idea. Everything. And then lots of people around the world will get the idea – and then some will act on it. All around the world there is evidence of the implementation and manifestation of various ideas that arise simultaneously in books, inventions, structures and many other things. These inspirations emerge from Universal Spirit Mind.

We are creating a new way of being, doing, and thinking – rooted in the Metta Prayer. When these truths are discovered in the dreams, inspirations and knowingness of folks, then World Mind changes.

The Earth is Our Mother

We are creating a new idea. We are changing consciousness – and then it will take root. Humans are accustomed to thinking of the earth as something they own and that it is a mechanistic structure that serves for the exploitation of machine-mind resources. The Earth is our Mother. How can you own and mistreat your mother? When you honor her and are obedient to her laws, then everything changes.

The Children

It is the same for the lost children. We are not trying to get rid of all the things that harm children, but rather we are planting a new idea that says:

1. All children are our children
2. All children are sacred
3. All children have a gift to offer, a purpose, Siddha Aum
4. We need the children and their Siddha Aum as they are the future – and it is not about them being here to take care of us.

When these concepts/understandings are embraced in the collective consciousness, then children will not be enslaved, abandoned, and harmed.

What we are doing is creating this new construct in World Mind. People will live by this uncompromised truth, and they will practice this.

“We are not trying to cure all the evils in the world. The real solution is to know the truth, become the truth, and manifest the truth.”

The Hayamoni
 
We understand the Hayamoni as the third gender. Yes, they are born in either a male or a female body. Twin spirits, they are.  We are sending the energy of truth into Universal Spirit Mind to honor, value, celebrate, and embrace the Hayamoni as the sacred weavers of inspiration, creativity, mediation, healing and brilliance among many other unsung gifts in our time. We are raising the energy to change this.

It is in the Songs

EVERYONE needs to know all of the songs. We have two and a half months to learn the songs. This is important because of the power of these songs. When the Mashetah have put a crack in World Mind, we must have the energy to fill it up. This is very important because if the Ashamenta Guardians do not do it, then it will not work.

Year Seven of Seven Years of Ceremonies

“This is our last year of seven long years of working to create the changes we wish to see in the world. This is the final event.”

DRUMMERS

The drummers are asked to be present on Sundays to support the Ashamenta Guardians in practice time. There is not much time left to give into spirit Mind all we have to give to make it come to pass.

MOTHER ILOWAN said…

“I need all of you working hard for the world, the children, the Hayamoni, and the Earth. Do you have a heart to help? It is not necessary for you to be Amaraji Maha Marai. All people are welcome.
HAPPY FATHER’S DAY, FATHER, and FATHERS Everywhere

“Today we celebrate the energy of the Divine Masculine and being a father. A father is someone who holds his children in a heart of love; to help the children grown strong and be able to offer the gift they came here to give. A father is one who can be gentle, kind, strict, fierce, and encouraging. A while back, last month in fact, Mother’s Day, we took a journey to come to know the First Mother. Today we shall take a journey to find the First Father.”

“A daughter needs to find in her father someone who loves her; someone from whom she can learn that she is beautiful, desirable, and know that he will take care of her. There are lots of stories about evil father (and stories about the evil step-mothers and step-fathers) but in the beginning it was not so. Women and men understood all of their children, and the Hayamoni knew, too, how to live their lives in love and they could focus on the actual real suffering of survival.”

“Life provides lots of opportunity for suffering. The only thing that is eternal is love shared between people. All of the rest is lost. We learn to be a people of sharing and support in all of the suffering that life can bring us.”

~ Mother Ilowan

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Dharma Talk with Mother Ilowan and Father Mukanda Dawe
Sunday, June 12, 2011

THINGS THAT ARE IMPOSSIBLE

A while ago we spoke to you about how what we are doing is impossible; what we are asking is unreasonable; but it is necessary, so we will do what we can.

What we are doing IS impossible – using world-mind methods, that is.

Most people say that they want to change the world (from suffering to peace). And everyone wants to change something be it their job, their house, their car, their decorations . . . But still there is a wish to change the world and what you wish to change the world has to do with loving kindness, more compassion, that all beings shall have fresh clean water, enough food, know their true purpose, be well and happy and be free from suffering. All of these things are looked upon according to the world scale as impossible.

Well and Happy? Really?

For yourselves, you may think that these things are not even possible for yourself. You always want to be well and happy – and free from suffering. Sometimes you want Ashamenta, Siddha Aum, and Hosetantha, but you do not find it. You desire Amareesha but you do not always have someone to share love with. If it is impossible for you, here and now, living in the richest country in the world to come to wholeness for yourself, then you question what is possible. You think it is just impossible – EXCEPT, these things ARE possible. How is it that these conditions and energies appear sometimes and then disappear in another?

The Bodhikatah Connection

It is really something inside of you that allows your life to make sense. It is your Great Spirit connection – your Bodhikatah (light, wholeness…) connection to Source. Come to Tarai. Once you have been willing to actually accomplish letting go of suffering and distraction and come in to Tarai, you remember love, joy, peace and come to a place where there is no suffering and what was impossible becomes possible because you were willing to align with the Great Spirit energy within you.

All Roads Lead To . . .

The wholeness of the Path of Spirit and the whole purpose of being on the Path of Spirit is to find, know, and remember your connectivity with the Great Spirit energy. It is the strongest knowing in your whole life. It devolves, however, into various social, political, and organizational services, all but for one thing: to learn the way and unite with the Great Spirit energy.

All Masters have said that IT IS IN YOU and not on a mountaintop, not in the sky or in one particular ceremony or another but it is in you, and not even separate from the body.

The 21 Gram Theory

When people die (and everyone does) there is a measurable variation of body weight after death. Depending upon the consciousness you’ve nurtured the weight/energy of one's Neesha pattern is significant in circumventing the Desire Planes and reaching Tarai at the end of this life.

Editor’s Note
There is actually a medical theory about this. It is called the 21 Gram Theory and begins with the turn of the century research by a Massachusetts physician named Duncan MacDougall. His findings have been tested rigorously over the last 100 years with the same results. Concurrent research has been reported in dozens of journals, periodicals and the New York Times.
I once read somewhere about MacDougall's research (and subsequent investigations) that the life history accounts of those whose post-mortem indexes were slightly below the 21 grams (which is about 3/4 of an ounce) were individuals who named their lives to be full, happy, complete, and faced their death as a transition into spirit.
http://historicmysteries.com/the-21-gram-soul-theory

Practice Now, Practice Often, For Yourself, For Others, and For Later

The Path of Spirit is to know how to connect with the Great Spirit energy that you ARE.
Pohwas, prayer, ritual, ceremony – the only way you can become and awaken the Great Spirit energy that IS you and in doing so you spark other people into awareness as well. Therein is the necessity to practice, and to do so often.

A sure recipe to stay in hell is to practice repeating your woes over and over and over again.

Why would you not take practice to increase your Great Spirit connection which is eternal joy, peace, light?

People say they do not have time, but you are all practicing things that are impermanent and so you are practicing, practicing that which will be gone away. Your Great Spirit Self is the only thing that can make a difference. The only way to make a change is your connection to Great Spirit.

There is a saying I have taught you: “I am a child of Great Spirit. Whatever is possible for Spirit is possible for me.”  This will not work if you are not focused on Great Spirit; eternal energy, the Tarai. It is not so that you can lots of money, the perfect body, or even live a really long life.

The world will be just fine whether you are in 100% absolute perfect health, or not. It will not matter to the violence, cruelty, and destruction in the world whether you have lots of money or not. And if you have lots of money you are probably supporting some evil somewhere in the world unless you are absolutely conscientious within your consumerism. [Privilege is ALWAYS as the expense of others who provide the materials, the labor, and a myriad of energies that are structurally situated within systems of power and discrimination.]

People get caught up in the concept of “what is possible for Spirit is possible for me” in and all about ONE word: ‘ME’. Turn the first letter upside down and you have ‘WE’. Nothing is impossible for Great Spirit in the energy of ‘WE’.

Ritual, Ceremony, and Prayer

What we are attempting to do in praying, singing songs, making sacrifices is all situated within ritual. Ritual is something you repeat in the same way every time. You have many big and small rituals within your life such as how you brush your teeth, don your clothing, make the coffee… things you do the same way all the time.

In the Path of spirit, it is those things you do repeatedly all the time. Think of our songs that we sing the same way rather than a haphazard random expression. Improvisation is wonderful, but not helpful in joining and raising energy. It is because the ritual begins to have power when it is consistent – and often. Consider how sometimes you have a song that runs through your head over and over and is likely only interrupted when it is replaced with another, or some other thoughts. You want to think in terms of the same thing as you are doing ritual: walking the staff, doing the prayer ties, singing the Metta Prayer.

Ceremony is a happening and it sometimes involves making it up on the hoof – or as you go along. Not everyone is good at this.

Plan and Practice

It is all about finding, creating, and maintaining a path to Great Spirit every day.
Where are the 21 grams of your beingness focused? On your Neesha pattern? These 21 grams are what goes straight to the Desire Planes upon your death.

If you are practicing so that you can come to Tarai, then when you die, you will be able to focus on coming into Tarai. So, in order to accomplish what you are doing, we are asking for you to come into Tarai often.

The Spark Inside

One person can feel the spark inside and everyone around them will say it is impossible. That is the problem with being an adult: critical, cynical, doubtful. (Children are different. They can imagine the unimaginable.)

Does anyone doubt that it is necessary? By doing the unreasonable, we make the impossible, possible.  ~ Mother Ilowan

“When one comes to a place of having a relationship with the Great Spirit Truth, then one is compelled to service, and to bring joy and happiness to themselves and to others. And in the space of great suffering, one is able to bring themselves back to peace and wholeness. It is well worth your time, your energy, and much practice.”  ~ Father Mukanda Dawe

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Dharma Talk with Mother Ilowan
Sunday, June 5, 2011

CELEBRATE LIFE

“Ash-E-Tah is truly the energy that is the strength to live.”  ~ Mother Ilowan

In order to live in the world, it requires courage. You need courage to live. In the physical plane world, especially as a human being with the ability to remember – backward and forward – and in this ability you need great courage to decide to continue to live your life. Sometimes you think that Ash-E-Tah is surrendering, but it is a call within yourself and it says “I am strong.”

Life is About Sharing and Giving

Your city is a home for refugees, many who came from very bad situations where sometimes their children, husbands, wives, have been killed. Sometimes everyone that they knew has been killed, but they are determined to survive. They have a heart to return to joy, to return to love, and a heart of giving, yet it is many of them who need help to overcome what they remember. If you have had very many bad experiences happen to you, then you must find a reason to live and a reason to give.

In the past, people have come to us as they were told that they were going to die, and always the question is “Why do you want to live?” The response is typically: “I want to see my children grow up… I have many things I want to do…I have unspent investments sitting in a lucrative retirement account…” Always it is about them.

When people have a fatal illness (and eventually you all will) and then people come to that place where they consider what they want to live for. Ash-E-Tah is the strength to live so that you may make a contribution. Always there are rescuers while there are some people who do not want to live. They have lost the reason for living.  Being full of life is feeling the goodness, the sweetness to share.

Woman = The Bowl of Life

As it is mostly my daughters here today, I want you to think about how a woman is a bowl of life. In order to create life a woman has to give up part of herself as life grows within her, the little being takes from her and needs for her to take care of them – for a certain amount of time. In the beginning they are needing from us the space of our love which is the power of nurturing. Even if you have not given birth, there is still a life in parenting to bring life abundant to all the people around you and to care for children. One of the things that is lost in your time is the understanding that children are a precious resource. Our mission is to help children. We are strong enough to give. Look around the world over and see that there are people in Ash-E-Tah and they have the will to live.

Hanging in There

There is a part inside of you that wants to not give up – and wants to keep trying. Body-mind wants to stay and it says, “I want to be a part of the energy of the world.” For probably most of you, at some point in your life, there was a time when you were not sure you wanted to live and perhaps you even considered doing something about it yourself. How many have attempted to do something? It is you who were brave enough to live. You were able to find something stronger inside of you when you thought it might be easier to die than to continue to live. Somehow you chose to live.

Most of you probably don’t imagine yourself as brave and courageous. For many of you, ‘brave’ probably does not make the list of THESE ARE THE THINGS I LIKE ABOUT MYSELF.
So how did you manage to survive? What happened? You found a reason to live. Sometimes it is something simple like maybe finding a nest of orphaned baby squirrels you had to care for, or perhaps you found someone who needed your help and you decided to help them. Maybe you thought about all the people who cared for you and you did not want them to be upset.

Every day you have to be brave enough to find something to live for. For some of you it might be your work, but for others it must be something else, like the people you are interacting with. You found a reason to give and this gives meaning to you. You have found a reason to live. If you are strong enough to live, then you are strong enough to die. At the end of your days you can say, “I have lived a good life.”  If you have lots of things you are complaining about now then you will complain when you are dead.

“What is it that you celebrate about the energy of your life?”  ~ Mother Ilowan

Ash-E-Tah. I accept this opportunity. Sometimes you are not wishing for such opportunity and see such as perhaps a problem that needs to be removed. You can see it as an opportunity to polish a treasure in your life. It just is what it is. Life in the physical plane world is that will be happy sometimes and unhappy at other times. The world provides the opportunity for you to suffer lots of times.  Know that you have the strength and the courage to do what is necessary. Think of little children who think that not getting to have a cookie is the worst thing that could possibly happen and then worse things will happen. It is not the end of the world. They find the energy and the passion within the space of their heart. The Fire. 

The Fire of Life Force Energy

Dying people are always cold. What is the fire in the fire of your life. What fuel do you have? What if that fuel disappeared? We live in impermanence. What strength do you have to find another fuel? What you must find is that fuel to continue and this is the FIRE OF GREAT SPIRIT in your HEART. That is the eternal fire of life that remains when all things disappear.

Creation Story of the Self

Lately we have been talking about creation stories. You have a creation story. What happened during your beginning story? Everyone has lots of beginnings. Think of your first birthday (although you probably don’t remember) and the pictures you saved. Maybe you were smiling with cake on your face. Think about the first day of school. Maybe you remember your first pet? Remember the creation story of your Self. It becomes very important to you. Gradually, bit by bit, you added to the space of your creation story. Think about the time past in this past week – all those hours – most of which were totally forgotten yet bit by bit you have grown yourself into the story of your life.

What is Your Story?

Is your story a celebration of your life or is your story about the suffering and all the reasons it has not been a good life? Yes, it is all a part of the adventure. Whatever it is that you have imagined is the difficult part of your story is what makes your life so interesting.

There is a saying: “You are not going to know if your story is a happy story until it is all over.”

Are you going to decide whether it is a good life – or not? Can you come to Ash-E-Tah and say, “I accept this in this now. This is what it is now.”

What is it that you have? The one thing? COURAGE. You have the courage to survive. Every day, every year is to have the courage accepting what is and going through to the other side.

1. This is what I have learned from this.
2. This is how I have grown from this.

A Little Homework

I recommend in this next period of time that you consider how you can minimize the negative events in your life and maximize the good moments.

For seven days: In the next seven days, something good will happen, so your task is to find the good things, albeit even the small things and notice them – and embellish them – exaggerate them in a really good story.

Write it down, exaggerating the good that happened for you, kind of like daydreaming. Say, “something good has happened” and then expand upon it.

The Parai Mind Drill

Remember how Parai mind works: it repeats things – mostly that which you have been repeating over and over again:
1. The to-do –list
2. What is undone
3. How to be creative
4. Moving the body (in pohwas) rather than thinking about the breath

Tell a Happy Story

What might happen if you insist on repeating a happy story – even if you made it up?
What you believe is what is true for you. Your life is a story that contains one or two facts and a great deal of imaginings.

Your assignment is to create a happy story and make up what is necessary, then repeating the story over and over.

Remember This

You have the strength to live.
You have the will to live.
When you are happy, cheerful and joyous you want to share. It is only when you are sad, mad and feeling bad that you want to hide somewhere.

Ask Yourself . . .

What do you have to celebrate today?
How are you courageous?
What makes you brave?
Why do you keep hanging on?
How much of it is for others and how much of it is for you?

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Dharma Talk with Mother Ilowan and Father Mukanda Dawe
Sunday, May 29, 2011

THE STORIES WE TELL (and the stories we were told)

“Stories that you understood and heard as a child have greatly influenced you in lots of interesting ways. Creation stories are not always describing the way things are now but are a beginning for religions – because everyone knows that it is the way that it really is – even though, later, people began to question certain ideas.

There is a story that you probably are all familiar with.  It goes something like this . . .

Once Upon a Time . . .

there were three bears; a great big Papa Bear, a medium-sized Mama Bear, and a little baby bear who all lived happily together in a house in the forest. Father Bear had a great big sturdy father chair, Mother Bear had a medium-sized, soft, comfy chair and Baby Bear had a small chair that was just right. Father Bear had a great big firm bed, Mother Bear had a soft comfortable medium-sized bed, and Baby Bear had a small bed that was just right.

One day, early in the morning, the three bears decided they would have oatmeal for breakfast, prepared by Mother Bear. Father Bear had a big bowl, Mother Bear had a medium-sized bowl, and there was a small, just-right-sized bowl for Baby Bear. Mother Bear dished up the porridge but it was too hot to eat in that moment so Father Bear suggested that they step outside for a short little walk while their food cooled.

While they were gone, a girl child name Goldilocks came along skipping through the forest and she smelled the delicious oatmeal. Goldilocks knocked on the door and when no one answered, she was sure that the occupants would not mind if she entered and stayed for a while. There in the kitchen, Goldilocks discovered the porridge and helped herself to a taste. Father Bear’s big bowl of porridge was too hot. Mother Bear’s bowl of porridge was too cold, but Baby Bear’s small bowl of porridge was just right, and so she ate all of it.

Goldilocks began to snoop around the Bear family’s house and wandered on into the living area where she crawled up upon Father Bear’s chair which she found to be too hard. She then sat in Mother Bear’s chair and found it to be too soft so she switched to Baby Bear’s chair and when she sat in the small chair it broke into pieces.

Being tired from all of this mischief, Goldilocks wandered upstairs looking for someplace to lie down and take a nap. She tested out Father Bear’s bed and found it to be too high and too hard. Goldilocks scooted on over to Mother Bear’s bed and bounced around a bit but she thought it to be too soft and the stuffing was coming out, so she rested herself in Baby Bear’s bed because it was just right, and there Goldilocks fell fast asleep.

The Bear family returned from their walk and upon entering their home it was apparent that someone had broken into their dwelling and violated their space. Father Bear observed that someone had tasted his porridge. Mother Bear saw that someone had tasted her porridge, and Baby Bear cried out that someone had eaten all of his porridge! At this point they looked around. Father Bear noticed that someone had sat in his chair as Mother remarked the same. Baby Bear cried out that someone had sat in his chair and broken it!

The Bear family began to investigate further and ventured upstairs to which Father Bear noticed that someone had been messing around with his bed. Mother Bear noticed that her bed, also, had been disrupted, and Baby Bear cried out “There she is! She is sleeping in my bed!”

Goldilocks let out a startled scream to see the three bears standing there in firm disapproval so she jumped up and ran out the door disappearing into the forest.

The Real Story Behind The Story

What did you learn from this story? One of the messages contained within this story is that if things are not as you would have them be, then you want to keep looking for that which you want even though it does not belong to you. Another message is that you think you have a right to have everything in your life to be ‘just right’.

You are oftentimes suffering needlessly because you have a belief system that says that life needs to be ‘just right’ and you need to keep working on making things just right. The Bear family was all fine and very happy with what they had. Each of them had a bowl, a chair, and a bed. Goldilocks wanted what others had and thought she would take for herself what others had regardless of how others might feel about it and then her life would be just right.

Sometimes the stories you are telling children are stories that are not useful – even though they don’t know that - and you do not either. How many times have you thought of the implications of this story?

Underlying this story is a whole energy (of a story) that says unless your life is not just right then you should be able take what you want from others and it is alright as long as you do not get caught.

Goldilocks just ran away escaping the consequences of her choices. She did not stay to face those whom she had mindlessly intruded upon. She did not say, “I am very sorry. Please forgive me. I was hungry. How may I make amends? How may I make this up to you?”

Everyone Has a Personal Story

What are the stories that you tell yourself?

The story of your life is a creation myth because YOU made it up – because of a series of events that occurred and that you explain them to yourself because you are a human being and you can.

If you were a dog, you would not be explaining things and you would either be happy or unhappy depending upon the energies that were happening with you and around you. A human being is blessed (and cursed) with the ability to explain and interpret everything that goes on around you. Everything. Whenever something happens you the first thing that happens is you ask “WHY?” And if you cannot answer the question then you come see us. And you come see us because you have the question: WHY? Why this? Why that? And if you already know they answer then you don’t feel like you need any help. If you don’t know the answer then you ask someone else, and if they are a good storyteller then they can make up something and tell you and if they are really good then you say, “Oh okay.”

The Big WHY?

Every energy in your life is a part of a story. Why is anything happening? But LIFE JUST IS. If it is raining outside, then it is just raining. You could offer a scientific explanation (story) but at a minimum the fact is it is just raining and you are getting wet. The only way to not get wet is to move to a place where it is not raining.

Dwellings were built for humans to get out of the weather and simply to keep people and their possessions out of the weather.

As you create the story of your life which is a long explanation as to why things are the way they are. When you have finished the explanation, are you still getting wet? If you are, it is not useful to explain to yourself why you are still getting wet.

We ask: Why not financial abundance? Why not the relationships we seek? Mother asked: “Why are you wet? You can explain it and pay lots of money to people to explain these things to you, but you are still wet, still getting wet, not being dried off - but what is different?”

Parai mind is very useful and can offer an explanation on how not to get wet (problem-solving). Not all people are good at problem-solving but all people are good at explaining why they are wet – carefully, logically - and also do a fine job of eliciting sympathy from others.

In order to come to an energy change - you have to change the story. You must change WHY to WHAT. The real question is: WHAT do you need? What are you going to do? What should happen next?

When you think of mythology, either you can think of why you are always guilty, ashamed, and why things are not working out – or you can say, ‘what am I going to do about that?’ You could re-write the story of the Three Bears and it would change things, but you really only need to understand is what it teaches you.

Happily Ever After?

If you believe all of life should have a happily ever after result – which is a deep belief (which is the ending of all the fairytales) so that you understand and expect everything to turn out okay and always have a positive ending, you will be disappointed. Life does not work out this way. There is no happily ever after; not now, not ever has there been or will there be.

There is Love, Joy, Peace, and Light, however: now, later, and always. If you have love, joy, peace and light - then you have a responsibility and not a happily ever after.

Give What You’ve Got

When you have Tarai, you know something, you can come to a place of love, joy, and peace and then your responsibility is to share it and give it away rather than just sitting on some cloud in the sky singing and playing a musical instrument (you get wet that way).

Give it away, share it, offer it to other people, help others to join you in sharing that energy. Where do you suppose you will need to go in order to take all of this Tarai grace and share it? You must go to a place where others are suffering. If you are full of Tarai love and youngive away all that you have, you will find that most people want to be justified rather than healed. They do not want to stop suffering. They will tell you all of the reasons why it is raining on them. They don’t want to be told that they need to come in out of the rain. They will tell you all the reasons that they are having this problem including the old Adam and Eve story about shame and guilt, and even perhaps that their Gx5 grandparents were rained on and now because of this it is raining on them.

You could say any number of your favorite phrases when faced with something that is ridiculous that you no longer plan to accept. You could say, “I don’t think so. I am going to come in out of the rain. I don’t want to feel guilt and shame anymore.” You could say, “I want to feel peace, excitement, and passion. I want to experience love. And so what do you plan to do about it?” 

“What Are You Waiting For?”

Are you waiting for someone to come and offer this to you? Are you waiting for the flying saucers? Are you waiting for the rapture? Are you waiting for the World Mission Masters to grow up and pull your bacon out of the fire? 

What you can do is begin to go inside yourself where all of the Tarai is already inside of you – and in everyone else.  Now you could go to someone else and say, “Give me some Tarai!”

How are you going to think in order to create the memory of, the ability of, the reality of love, joy, and peace on a daily basis. What actions are you going to take, what words will you say in order to have a direct experience of Tarai and get out of the rain?

Or are you going to stand in the rain hoping and waiting for someone to give you an umbrella? Sometimes this will happen where someone will come along (a spiritual teacher or a kind person) but then the next wind storm (usually of your own thoughts) will come along and then your umbrella turns inside out and you are all wet again.

You will say “Where’s the nice lady with the umbrella?” or “I got a defective umbrella.” “I don’t believe in this person at all or they would not have given me such a stupid tool.”

To change this relationship you first have to know what it is that you want. How will I do that?
Ask: What thoughts must I think? What story must I tell? What actions must I take?

If someone has given me an umbrella I shall use it to seek shelter – or become an umbrella maker – or an umbrella passer-outer in the world energy, so that whenever I see someone wet, because I know I can make another.

When we come to the place and become full of the energy of Tarai, we must give it away.
Prayer works. Prayer is not about getting your umbrella. It is what you do when you have a surplus of umbrellas to hand out to others.

If you need an umbrella, prayer is not what you need. You need a better story. You need to re-evaluate where you are standing and what are you doing. What are you thinking? And then change this to experience love, joy, and peace. You will not live happily ever after but you will know how to turn unhappy events into times and moments of love, joy, and peace. Just don’t try to hold onto them. If you’ve got them, then give them away. In giving them away, you will multiply them. In holding onto them, in expecting them to stay there in the place of permanence, you are guaranteeing that one day you will suffer greatly because everything is impermanent.

I know that one day you would like to go to the realm of spirit and stay there, permanently, but it is only because you are tired. When you really are in the realm of spirit for a while, and you are full of love, joy and peace, you will want to return to the world to help people. And when you are born in the world in a place where there isn’t very much happily – let alone a happily ever after – then, you have to develop once again the ability to keep finding your love, joy, and peace so that you can give this happily to others and you will know how to come in out of the rain.”

Ash-E-Tah with Father Mukanda Dawe

“We have been explaining some things about Ash-E-Tah which is about acceptance. I believe you are confused about what this is and some people think this is surrender and that you are giving up. Ash-E-Tah is the first step to returning to wholeness. The FIRST STEP. If you cannot accept what is, then you cannot change it.

Let us think of some of the examples from your creation stories. Ash-E-Tah: I am recognizing that my mind and life is controlled by this story. Recognize that you say you are ashamed, guilty of the past as the first people were cast out of heaven.

You may say “My mind is affected by this story in our culture.”  Now, if you were to go to another culture, for example, in Persia, my land, you would have a very different story.

Ash-E-Tah: Say, “My mind is affected and controlled by these stories and the heart recognizes this.” Now, what will you do with this? Will you stand in the rain or will you pick up the creative power that is inside of you and decide to do something that is in alignment with love, joy, and peace and step out of the rain?

If you are burdened with the permanent aspect of sin, then you are the victim of your original mother and father and this is also just a story – merely an idea, a thought that has lingered on for many generations.  How long will you wait until someone makes the change and fixes it for you? How long will you wait for someone to come along and make the changes? But that is not possible - for as long as this is your story it will not change. It is your life and it will continue.

Ash-E-Tah, the first step. You must begin to decide what you are going to do with this rain falling on your head. This is something that is difficult for you culture.

Ash-E-Tah: I am living in this culture and I am seeing that we ignore the beings living on the street, and we are ignoring the children who do not have a home.

Ash-E-Tah: I am willing to slave my life away for a job that is giving me lots of money but I want what I want so I will do this.

Ash-E-Tah: I am interested in being a person of prayer and I am willing to give up some of my time every day to assist and give love and hope to other beings.

The first step is to recognize what is. Acceptance.
The next step is to make a decision about what you wish to continue in this energy. If you decide you wish to change something, Ash-E-Tah, for this to change then I must do this. My life must become this. I must act this way. This means I cannot act this way anymore.”

We must recognize and say that “I am a patterned being, I like to be comfortable.”

Patterned Beings We Are

If you want something to be different, then do something differently. Act differently. Live differently. Remember how hard it was to learn how to tie your shoes when you were little? It was not easy, but you learned how to do it with ease.

Ash-E-Tah: The act of coming to acceptance by saying “this is what it is.”
For this next period of time, please to say Ash-E-Tah about everything that is happening in your life. This is what it is. I am feeling this way about this. No need to tell yourself a story.

Ash-E-Tah: It does not need to be something else. You do not need to live happily ever after. This is just a story. You can be in love, joy, and peace regardless of what you are coming to Ash-E-Tah with. Try it out. Do it with everything that you can: your choices, burdens, problems, challenges.

Are you like Goldilocks running out the door, or are you a person who is conscientious, accepting, and then if you don’t like it, then you can change it. If you can do this with yourself, then you can do this with any other person in your world. But you must be able to do it for yourself first.

"You cannot give away what you do not own.”

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Prayer Vigil with Mother Ilowan and Father Mukanda Dawe
Sunday, May 22, 2011

MORE ABOUT CREATION STORIES

In the beginning time, after the first-born children, the Angelic Beings (those beings created from Love, Joy, Peace, Light brought forth into manifestation), the greatest part of the energy of life is the continuance of life.

All of your lives are the result of your ancestors. They knew pain, and struggle, and they cried, too. And here you are; the holders of life, the totality of expression, an energy of spirit always brings more from itself.

Green growing things, seeds come forth to fruition and then go away but always they will leave the seeds of new growth to arise from therein.

Everything in the earth world is about procreation – the great give-away of life. Understand this as a spirit truth as it means to give away life.

The Great Give-Away

Nurturing, respecting, and honoring life is participating in the great give-away.
You come here as spirit to occupy a life form and not because it is a punishment, but a great longing. Not-honoring life is to be discouraged, disillusioned, and apathetic.

The Will of Survival

There is a deep longing to continue inside of all life. This is a spirit truth. Whatever you take from life you should return equally. All life gives its life for you to live.  You eat what others have given to you. Your very existence depends on the sacrifices of many, many others. Think about how your food gets to you. There are many people who provide the land, the technology, and the labor in food production. There are the harvesters, the manufacturers, the transportation facilitators, the shelf-stockers.

Life is the great give-away and it is important in the balance of systems to give back to life more than you take from life. When this law is broken, there are always dire consequences not just for the self, but for everyone and everything.

The Energy of Spirit is to Give Away

The angels were not just playing a game by creating the physical universe. They were bringing forth from inside their essence the Sun, the Earth, the Stars and they set in place an evolutionary growth and left it to unfold as it would – kind of like raising children.  As a parent you nurture your young ones with guidance, protection, and tender nurturing and then you must let them be as their life is not your life. You must allow them to do what they will do and it is their choice as to whether they will make a mess of their life, or not.  The Angelic Kingdom knew the importance of freedom (let it go) and live it out.
Once Upon a Time . . .

there was an angel named Elohim whose name means ‘Light is with us.’ He came into being and felt the great longing so he called together his seven brothers and sisters and together they joined and began to sing.

All of the universe has a vibration – a sound – a song from inside the being (an expression of your heartfire, longing, passion). The song began to come together in colors of blue, green, gold, and light all swirling together. With the angels, at the center of the circle there was a beautiful woman holding the Chikatah of the Divine Feminine (acceptance, patience, possibility) as she grew into her wholeness of expression and became aware of herself.  Elohim said, “Mother Gaia, we give to you the partner of the Sun and we give to you the gift of beauty, the all that is.”

The angels brought the Sun (Katah) into union with Gaia, and the two began to dance. 

Mother Gaia’s circle dance of light around the sun was a dance of passionate light and creation – sometimes close and sometimes further away. Arising in this union came forth the plants of trees, flowers, grasses and the AshaRaji emerged in all amazing and possible forms.

In this manifestation of creation these divine energies brought forth a sister – a child – a beautiful glowing energy – TWINS – two MOONS of great light and they all danced together in this creation. There was happiness and joy and a joining of love. This is an ancient story that has been repeated over time and thousands of generations.

The Earth is Our Mother

We come now, this day, in our time, to help people remember that the earth is our mother – the Great Mother Gaia – and that we as her children must learn to love and honor the mother.

The Law of Spirit

Love, Respect, and Obedience are the Law of Spirit to which we owe to our mother.
Obedience is hard for humans which is why the Earth Mother is having an especially hard time now. Too many people take more than they give.
The earth remains to support all life and not just some life. Extinction is permanent. When something is gone, we cannot bring it back. Gone is gone for good.

People of the Promise

“In honor we hold ourselves for we are the earth.” We are the Earth Mother’s children. Every time there is an extinction, part of the Earth Mother is dead and her light goes out.
For us as a people, the People of the Promise, the missions are not about a savior for the self, but about saving the earth.

Hold the energies of the rule of obedience to Mother Gaia and practice gratitude. All mother’s want their children to say ‘please’ and ‘thank you’, yes?

The Human Family

Gifted with free-will on the earth, we are. For a million years the children of Gaia honored and loved the mother. They understood what it meant to give back to the mother, the earth, in gratitude. They treated life ceremoniously in wholeness and friendship energy. Of course everything was not perfect and there was often a restlessness. Always there was some kind of discontent, competition, desire for more things, and even the resentment about who always seemed to covet the best seating place in the cave.

Over time people began to think that they could do better, have more material possessions, build cities, structures, securing territories, and erect walls. Quarrelsome people, indeed. More developments and places were created where people could live, work, and trade amongst each other. Gradually the gratitude began to diminish.

It is essential that we return to the ancient wisdom. The changes that emerged about 10,000 years ago in the time of the Neolithic with shifts in agriculture, urban development and the rise of deity consciousness are but a mere brief time relative to a million years of human history.

We are the children of Mother Gaia and we owe her our love, respect for all life and all creatures, and we owe her our obedience to the Law of Spirit.

Father Mukanda Dawe asked us:

Why is this GIVING MORE the Law?

It is the law because this IS Gaia. It is HER essence – not us who has free-will and choosing to ignore the law and not see it as a blessing.

Gaia’s beingness is the same as the Sun; to shine, to give away to all beings and to all life.

How are you using your free will? Are you using it to love your mother? To respect her? Or to get what you wish?

When we are aligned with Gaia’s law, the birthing of manifestation and continuance of all life is flowing. We cannot create the life force that was given to us. We can make things happen, but we cannot create the life force energy. That is a gift.

Learn to exercise your free will in alignment with Divine Law. As a family we are making prayers and sacrifices so that others may live. We are abiding by the laws. Allowing ourselves to experience this truth, depth, essence of life, we will come to know ourselves as descendants, carriers of a lineage among the ancient peoples who were strong within the laws of life and right action.

The choice is ours, said Father. In this place of love, honor, respect and obedience to the great give away, Father said we will find ourselves healthier and happier – one day at a time.

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Dharma Talk with Mother Ilowan and Father Mukanda Dawe
Sunday, May 15, 2011

CREATION STORIES
“For today we shall explore mythology: creation stories.”  ~ Mother Ilowan

“You are very familiar with the creation stories upon which your people and many people of the world have founded within their consciousness.  Always these stories are about animals and people. Mythology is what forms the basis describing the ways things got to be.”
“You are familiar with the creation story of which there is a God that takes 7 days to create the universe. Then according to the stories, there was first a man and then a woman, and they lived in a beautiful garden where all of their needs were met, and there was no need for them to work for anything.”
“This couple was told that they cannot do one thing - which was to eat the fruit of a particular tree. It is always that people want to do what they are told they cannot do.”
“One day, Eve was studying this particular tree and its fruit. And then, as the story goes, along comes a serpent and Eve was not afraid – why would she be? The serpent begins to talk about the tree and its fruit by saying ‘This is a tree of knowledge and if you eat from this tree you would be like a God yourself.’
“So, Eve thinks about things and considers that maybe she will try some of this fruit and she plucks a piece and takes a big bite. Instantly she becomes aware of a welling-up of emotions and an awareness/awakening she had never experienced before. She takes the fruit to Adam and says “A creature told me that we could become like a God and I tasted it and I like this feeling very much.” Adam replied, “I want to try it!” After one bite, Adam feels a rush of energy and emotion followed quickly by some unprecedented sense of regret. ‘Uh-oh,’ they said. ‘We might be in trouble.’ Both Adam and Eve began to experience fear, and shame about having done what they were not supposed to do.”
“Along comes God strolling down the path and Adam and Eve were hiding in the bushes. ‘Why are you hiding?’ asked God. ‘You ate the fruit from the forbidden tree, didn’t you?’ to which Adam promptly defended himself with ‘SHE MADE ME DO IT!’ followed by which Eve instantly countered with ‘It was not my fault! It was one of your creatures who told me to and besides, you shouldn’t have had that creature around here in the first place.’
“This made God angry. He said, ‘You have been disobedient.’ And so God called forth his angel helpers and cast Adam and Eve out into the world with the consequence of their deviance being the punishments of pain, hard work, and where nothing shall come easy.”

“This is the creation story of your three Abrahamic traditions. It is an interesting story. First of all, it sets you up to believe you are constantly being tested and you are to fear God who is reportedly a punishing God, or even a punishing Great Spirit energy.”
“Secondly, over time, it was decided on the basis of this story that women cannot be trusted and women need to be controlled since they cannot control themselves. Thirdly, you try to blame another person and mitigate the circumstances so that you do not have to take responsibility. Within this conscious point number three, it is all about escaping individual ownership of one’s choice.”

“Within conscious point number four, you also believe that because you are guilty of mistakes, you think you need to be punished and that you will be punished unless you can figure out how to blame others.”  Blame, excuses and the expectation to be punished is deeply rooted in the moral of this story. And justice “which [we] believe to mean punishment rather than righting a wrong.”

“These thoughts are unconscious. These are the stories you have all heard. They are the basis upon which decisions are made.”
 

“Lots of the stories of the world are about blaming women for the problems of the world - with an emphasis on controlling women’s emotions which must be controlled by themselves or another.”

“Creation stories are also mythological ways to describe the way things are now.”

A Different Story
“Our creation story: what is possible is needed to break out of the cultural constructs of religious consciousness. People need to integrate a new way of understanding the Self and how to be a human being. You could be aware of a tendency to return to the old creation story and it is your inclination to return to old behaviors which are just based on habit. What must happen is to consciously decide - I am not doing that but instead, I am going to do this.”
“Remember, our Mission is to be Preparers of the Way. We are creating a new path – a new story where we want to choose that story over all the other stories. Part of your work is to look at how you are creating a new story. Our family is strong, capable, and whole. This is the promise of the New Covenant Prayer.”
Storytime
“In the beginning, there was the All Is One; the energy that is the Marai and in this space all possibilities existed and were present but nothing was manifest.  In The Great Spirit Consciousness, The Marai, The All Is One, there arose First Cause and simultaneously there arose the Great Spirit Mother and the Great Spirit Father who joined in the space of Oneness [wink, wink]. They arose together in the space of Marai – the Divine Feminine and the Divine Masculine which created the Tarai which was first manifest from here and therein arose Spirit Truth which existed in un-manifest form. It understood what love is even if you are not experiencing it. It understood what sadness is even if you are not experiencing it. It understood what, joy and peace is even if you are not experiencing it. Universal Spirit Truth: awakened Love, Joy, Peace, and Light.
From the opening of these energies the Angels, the first beings were brought through to manifestation from Mama and Papa Light. The Angels were named Love, Joy, Peace, and Light. These were the first-born children of Mama and Papa Light and they enjoyed and delighted in the space of Tarai and with one another. From this joyous family of angelic beings who inherited the focus of manifestation, they began to play with the energy of Marai and Light and they brought into manifestation the being-ness of the universes. The Angelic Children from Marai brought forth from themselves the Truth of Light.
In your time, this was a very long time ago, millions and millions of years. In Tarai time, it is not the same, and not so much.
Remember the song AMAZING GRACE by John Newton (1725-1807):
“When we’ve been here ten thousand years 
Bright shining as the sun
We’ve no less days to sing God’s praise
Then when we’ve first begun.”

Over millions of years the angel children played and they said to Mama and Papa Light ‘LOOK WHAT I MADE!’ and Mama and Papa Light said, ‘Yes, that’s very nice.’

And then Mama and Papa Light said, ‘Let’s have some more children’ [okay, Mama Light said this and Papa Light probably paused for a moment and characteristically nodded his head to the left which meant, oh, okay…]

Mama and Papa Light said, ‘Let’s give them the gift to be what they wish to be after all our angel children are like us, let us give our children the gift of the divine spectrum of creative imagination. All of those worlds will need Gods and Goddesses’ and after a while, Papa Light agreed to this, too.

Mama and Papa Light brought forth a girl and a boy; a man and a woman, in pairs. They were joyful, loving, and delighting in the space of Tarai. They were responsible for the caretaking for all of the earth worlds working with the brothers and sisters of the Angelic Kingdom.

From here arose a Great Spirit being of Divine Feminine and Divine Masculine where they could be in-souled in a temporary form [body] in a physical plane world to which they would embody and experience the possibilities within a manifestation.

Life in the physical plane world is different than Tarai with the main limitation being TIME but there is also the matter of having a body and interacting with other life forms.

After a while, all of these children who had Mama and Papa Lights gift of free-will and creation did not do so well with getting along with all of the creatures of the earth – or each other for that matter. There was much separation among the individual preferences, differences, tribes, quarrels, challenges.

Mama and Papa Light sought to send their older brothers and sisters of the Angelic Kingdom to help these earth-based children (gifted with free-will) – to learn how to get along and to help them to live in Tarai. There were many Angelic Kingdom volunteers willing to help and willing to go.

The Angelic Kingdom children said to their little brothers and sisters, ‘Now, just perceive this beauty, we created it!” and the human children said, ’You can’t tell us what to do. You are not the boss of me.’

Some human children listened. Some did not.

The angels went back to Mama and Papa Light and suggested that it would be better if they had a physical form, so Mama and Papa Light decided to allow some angels to cross over into manifest form. Some got lost because they became just as quarrelsome and opinionated. Yes, the Flower Path; they always know the right way which is their way.

Mama and Papa Light knew something had to be done as there grew to be such a divergence between women and men, and it was getting worse. There were disparate bands together in towns as people became more into living in cities and grew more apart from the natural world which left them in fear of animals, the wilderness, and anything NOT civilized - like wild people and wild animals.

Once again, drawing on the vast Marai energy, Mama and Papa Light created the Weaver as the bridge between female and male and the wild energy. The WEAVERS, the Heyamoni, were manifest in the space of the wild, wholeness, playful, imaginative. Since the Weavers were not situated within the expression of the Divine Masculine or the Divine Feminine, they had a long meeting and they had to decide what kind of form to come in.

The Weavers constitute the bringers of peace and the holders of earth energy, and so while the angels came to help the human children all the while holding themselves apart from the people of the earth, and it did not work, the Weavers decided to just be like everyone else. It was understood that they would recognize each other by their energy. It takes two Weavers to do the work together that they came here to do.

For a long time the Weavers were celebrated in cultures around the world and they were revered for being a voice for the earth as well as successful in mediation, helping to solve problems. For thousands of years, in fact, the Weavers were special, often shamanic in their gifts and expressions, and they were a voice of the people.  Gradually things began to go amiss with the first Creation Story which rejected the Weavers and labeled them as odd, evil, and deviant.”
Seeking the Sacred

“All of you, here now, a sacred people, are trying to find your way back to the beauty, wholeness, greatness so that once again we shall bring the world to new-ness and wholeness. If you listen you will hear people who are seeking the sacred. Women are seeking the Divine Feminine and men are seeking the Divine Masculine.”
“Mama and Papa Light are within you. The Divine Feminine, the Divine Masculine, and the Weaver are joined in Tarai with the angels. This is our consciousness that recognizes that there are sometimes difficulties, upset, but there is always someone trying to help you find the truth.”
“Always Mama and Papa Light are with you. We don’t have to punish you – you do that to yourself. True justice, you think, means when the guilty are punished.”
“Let us change the story of the world; one people, one planet, and for peace.”
~ Mother Ilowan

From Father Mukanda Dawe
“These gifts from Mama and Papa Light are already residing within you. Will you use your abilities to decide and to create to be with these innate truths within you? I think you can see how in your world you are choosing for many other things like creating buildings and systems of all kinds that support the Self and are not designed by Mama and Papa Light to support all life – and within their basic mission.”
“You were given these abilities, these creative energies to make something happen. What do you make of these skills, so far?”
“Maybe a new perspective is valuable regarding your tools. We are teaching you a new truth about awakened potentials – enticing you, rather than the limitation by what you are able to make of yourself.”
“We are hoping you will use your imagination to understand what we are saying and the experiences we are taking you into which is touching these innate truths.”
“You are growing quite well into these truths. We are seeing that this is making you happy to create peace in your lives and the lives of others. Be joyful in life and be joyful to be alive. You are still making a mess of the world, but we are here to help you.”
And then we sang. The Brothers sang. The Weavers sang. The Sisters sang.
WE ARE A PEOPLE. WE ARE A FAMILY.
And we are on a Mission.

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Dharma Talk with Mother Ilowan and Father Mukanda Dawe
Sunday, May 8, 2011
MOTHER’S DAY

THE HUMAN FAMILY
“I think it is important for us to consider the energy of your spirit being-ness and to know the roots of the ancestors. Your Path of Spirit began with the road your ancestors have traveled. They had grown ways to be successful and to have a home and a family so that it was possible for you to be here.”

Common Ancestry and Being a Family
“You are a family. We are asking you to be a true and real family. One of the things that has happened in science over the past twenty years is new revelations in genetic science that has found that among a group of people within 7-12 generations they would all have a common ancestor even if they had never met each other before.”
Mother Ilowan added that we are stronger because of the family and researching the DNA lineage it is now possible and articulated in science that all people do in fact have a common grandmother – and human’s everywhere are ultimately descended from a single common ancestor. “All Amaraji Maha Marai have a common ancestral grandmother” said Mother.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/neanderthals/mtdna.html
Family arose for the purpose of living together in a tribe, a clan, big and small communities and most were related and would incorporate other travelers into their units as it was known long ago and early on that to breed with too close of a relative was a dangerous thing for the future.

The Children are the Future
Children are in essence the most important beings on the earth as they represent the future. “We are focusing on the Lost Children so that they will not be lost any more. We are working on introducing this truth into the world. The children are the essence of spirit being-ness for the future.”
The energies that distinguish humans from the other beings of the earth are that humans have the ability to imagine; to future think; and to manifest from the spaces of knowing. It is these things which make us human in this world.
“The children are the greatest resource of the earth. They are the future of all life.”

The Sangha
“As a family it becomes easier to walk the Path of Spirit rather than doing it alone. There are obligations within the family. I expected you to be friends and get along, helping and growing amongst each other. You called yourselves ‘students’ on the path. People would say often ‘ I do not like this person – or that person’ – and they said they would stay and be a part of our community if this one or that one was not around. Sometimes they would stay and sometimes they would leave. Others would say that they just wanted to learn from me but they did not want to have to interact with others in the group efforts.”
“In the early days it was understood that our efforts and events together were like Spirit School and the popular idea was that you would graduate and become a Great Being of which would ascend and not have to return to this world. I think that for a long time this is what mostly you thought of yourselves. And you called yourselves the Healing Teaching Temple because it was a school. This was not my idea. The only idea that I liked is that you are my children. Always you are and always will you be my children no matter how old you are.”
“We are today the Amaraji Maha Marai family. Your Father and I changed the name. The Arraji did not create this, we did, because what we are doing is needing a family so we can work together and love each other – which does not mean you will always like everyone. In all families not everyone likes everyone else. And all families talk about each other in the family. Always.”
See You on Sundays
“Within the family there are expectations which is not so much of a rule, but more of an expectation that you are going to show up for things and be a part of family events. This expectation will continue so that you may be fed within the energy of Spirit. This means you are expected to show up on Sundays for the family meal.”
Purpose
“Our family has a purpose which is the New Covenant Prayer and it is our purpose to bring this into the world.”
“The Amaraji Maha Marai family and the Amaraji Maha Marai Temple (which is not just a house) means that we are a Spirit family with work to do which is to found a new Path of Spirit in this world; a Path of Spirit which actually works meaning that it makes your life work and it makes the lives of others work.”
“We are a great family of love in the world. We come together to be one people.”

A Great Tree
Father said, “In your culture you are not so much feeling the thousands of generations before you – a being-ness written in your body - like a great tree that has been growing this entire time with all the little leaves and the great tree holding the memory of gifts, discoveries, weaknesses - all of it.”
“One of your ancestors discovered how to make the fire which changed their tribe forever. One of your ancestors discovered how to work with the Prana for healing and magic.  All of your ancestors made some gift to the great tree of ancient wisdom.”
“Then we came to you, the Amaraji family. Now you are working within our lineage, also, and we will add to the great tree and we will work for what is possible for those who come after you.”
“You shall have your minds and lives filled with many things and we are trying to help you within your place in the great tree. What gift will you leave? The gift of having many things? Maybe it is the understanding that the family [within human civilization] is coming undone and we shall give the gift of family back to the people.”
“We are holding this gift of sacred family and we shall share our experiences and understandings for those who are wishing – like the Lost Children.”
“What blessings will you leave in the great tree? Let us at least leave the knowing of family, setting the roots for good things to grow tall. Standing on the shoulders of those who came before us.”
“May you all be blessed this day with the love of the Great Grandmother” – the Ancestral Mother of all humanity.

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Dharma Talk with Mother Ilowan and Father Mukanda Dawe
Sunday, May 1, 2011

HEALING FOR THE BODY AND SOUL

“Today it is helpful for us to focus upon the healing energy inside that can bring you back into the place of your roots because where you originated is actually very important.”

“Biologically considering your origins can be useful as you can trace the ancestry of your mothers, fathers, grandmothers and grandfathers all the way back into antiquity and know that you belong. You are a people, and you have always been a people so you are just the latest edition working in this time to express what peoples have always wanted which is abundant life, love, joy, peace and sometimes finding abundant light in your lives all the while what you have mostly found is that the light is found at the end of a dark tunnel.”

“Life presents you with many opportunities to travel into the places of darkness which might be a place of pain, sorrow, anger, disappointment… there are all kinds of those things.”

Mother said that it is through these dark tunnels we travel in this world and most often, though not always, we might remember that although we travel these tunnels, we eventually come back to the truth of light.

Rooted in Tarai

“The only way you can come out of a tunnel of darkness whether it is that you volunteered to go through the tunnel of darkness or you just woke up and found yourself there and you are not sure how you got there. In order to come out, you must remember your origins. You must remember your rootedness in Tarai – your rootedness in Great Spirit.”

Mother said that while we are related to our biological family, we are also a child of Spirit; the Great Mother and the Great Father. In our inner essence we are truly arising from the divine nature of Tarai.  When we are able to remember that this is where we came from - we can get back there – it is intrinsic in our heart and mind. It is who we truly are.

Humans and Critters Need Love

“Throughout history humans have always sought abundance so you and your families can be safe, with shelter and food, and continue your life because in order to continue your life whether you are a bird, bear, dog or bee – you need shelter, and food, water to drink, and even love and affection, and continuance of those things and then you are safe. Then you have life. This is what humans wish for – this wholeness that is the energy of life.”

“In the Spring, all things are busy being alive.  If you wake up early in the morning, one of the things you will notice right away is how much alive the birds want to be. They wake up very early. As soon as it starts to be light they are wanting to sing about it and they are wanting to share their excitement about the abundance of life. Immediately they set out to enhance their nest, getting ready for their babies or feeding their children all day. This is a part of the nature of all living things.  All of nature wants to express its abundance.”

Mother spoke about how the one thing that separates humans apart from all of the other creatures of the world is that we always want more than just being able to have a nest, feed our children, feed ourselves, have water to drink and to have affection. All creatures want affection, life companions, and playing together.

Eternal Life

“What you have inside of you is more than a longing for life, but a longing for an eternal life. Sometimes this is mistaken for the desire to live as long as possible,” as being able to live as long as we can, to live in a physical body and not letting go. There is a longing for eternal life because we recognize Spirit energy, said Mother Ilowan.

“Long ago, people of the world were knowing themselves as Spirit.  They understood the continuance of the energy of life. They understood that when someone died their spirit would continue on. They understood they could still talk to their ancestors whom they held in honor, respect – and not just once a year - for the continuity of life.” Always they were expressing within their Tarai being which is eternal life.  “You have the Tarai within you. You remember it and you find it and you begin to live as though this is so. Then you can have eternal springtime, you can be joyous in the opportunities that come to you. You can come into a time of darkness and know that it is only a time of darkness. You may not be aware of the light you cannot see at the end of the tunnel.”

Higby Cave

A few years ago, on a Sunday, we went to a cave in the desert. No lights. Very, very dark. “I told you to let go, no touching. You all felt alone and lost, buried under the space of the earth.” Most wanted to touch another so we would not feel so alone. “There were no lights to show you the way to find your way out. So remembering how this felt, we then lit one candle, and then another, and another until once again the light was present within the space of the cave and we could see each other, and we could celebrate and sing and see each other and find our way out. And then when exiting we had to crawl over boulders to leave the cave, and we could have tripped and hurt ourselves. “So you want to realize that what a human seeks is that light of Tarai that guides you back out of the darkest of times. In the darkest of night there is always the light. It is the light of your soul that can make you whole. You want to recognize that when there is darkness and pain – physical pain even is a time of darkness.”

Darkness and its Many Forms

No one wants the body to hurt – not usually. “When in a place of pain, you want to be free from that pain. You want to come out of that darkness into a space of the light.”

“What if? is usually a fear statement…
What if this happens? What if this person does not like me? What if he never calls me? What if I lose my home? What if I cannot pay my bills? This or that leads to a tunnel of darkness and then you are alone.”

“When you are in physical pain, you are alone, even though others may be around you, they themselves do not know the pain that you are experiencing. They may be sympathetic, but when you are in pain, you are alone.”

“If you come into a space where you are terrorized, you might be talking to everyone else so you could all be terrorized together but in essence you are still alone.” That is what the media does so that lots of people can all be terrorized together about what if this happens...” Talk radio is all about this with people calling in and saying yes indeed we need to be afraid. But all folks are still alone in the space of their fear and feeling very justified - which is only looking for an enemy and not a solution. Putting the fear into another still leaves you alone.”

“If you are in a space of sorrow, you are alone.” Other people might be sorry for the exact same reason but everyone in the place of their sorrow is still alone. “Others may feel sorry for you - but you are still alone, just like in the cave when people were all around you, but you were all alone - until you turned on the light. When you turn on the light, you are no longer alone.”

Turn on the Light!

“You must turn on the light and come back into sunshine growth, possibility, understanding, love, joy and abundance.”

“When you feel joy, you are not alone. When you feel love, you are not alone. When you feel happy, you are not alone.”

“Find your way out of the darkness back into the light – and what is the space of that light? It is to know yourself as an eternal Tarai being. Fortunately your neesha pattern is not eternal. The eternal divine part of you – the whole Ama Marai, unconditional love that holds the space of true peace and celebrating life – it is those energies that is the Tarai.” 

Holding and Celebrating the Light

What matters is that the light, joy, and beauty continues, not this body/person/story/history. “What matters is that the beauty continues – and you are full of love, light, and joy, then you will have eternal life.”

“There is the energy of the Tarai within you. What we are wanting to show you today is the light at the end of the tunnel. You could choose to use it and to climb out of the dark tunnel and there could be boulders in the way, you might have to climb over some things like when we were in the cave.” 

“Remember that your light might go out so you should then stick close to someone whose light is still going and that way you may find your way out of the darkness and back into the brightness of Tarai – your Divine Inheritance.”

“I think that what happens is that when you are lost in the dark tunnel, you think you will not find your way out. But if you found your way out all those other times, then there is hope that this time will be no different than all the rest. And if you cannot turn on the light, then feel around, and if this does not work because you cannot find any companions then you should stop and you should come into the space of your heart and call to myself, or call to your father and let our light rekindle yours and we shall show you the way out.”

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Prayer Vigil with Mother Ilowan and Father Mukanda Dawe
Sunday, April 24, 2011
Randy’s Farm, Marsing, ID

CELEBRATING SPRINGTIME

In the Brothers of the Sun Circle of Power we gathered with the Masters.

“Spring is the time of awakening as green things are growing.”  ~ Mother Ilowan

“The earth, our Mother teaches us to come to joyful renewal. Everything in life can come to stagnation or there may be pain, suffering, and endings through unexpected events. For humans, unexpectedness is a cause of distress unless you can cease to become a part of all energies itself.  The earth is our mother, the Great Goddess.  New possibilities abound with sharing, celebrating with happier times.  It is beginning to be very important to learn what the earth mother teaches. The voice of the earth mother can be heard in the birds singing.”

“Hear the birds, smell the sounds, feel the air on your skin.”

Storytime Along the River

There once was a mother duck. She had a nest and she sat on the nest every day. With the warmer weather the eggs began to hatch, one after the other. The little ducklings emerged with the joyful exuberance of new life. But there was still one egg that had not hatched. It was a large egg – bigger than the other eggs and the mama duck was concerned. As the mother duck had to leave the nest periodically to attend to her new babies she would cover the large egg with protective sand when her attention was called elsewhere.

One day the mama duck returned to the nest and the big egg had hatched. What was it? She wondered. This new baby was almost two times as large as the others. Mother duck was puzzled with this overly-large child who was very hungry so she fed the new baby, over and over. And then she taught it her ways of how to feed and how to swim. The most important of lessons was to come when she called them in alerts of quacking “danger, danger, danger!” as there were all kinds of creatures in and around the pond like weasels and snakes, and foxes and coyotes on the land - who liked to eat baby ducks. It was necessary for the babies to listen to the mama.

The little ducklings began to grow bigger by day and so did the larger “something” which did not act like a duck and did not grow the right kind of feathers – nor did it make the same kind of noises as the others.  The baby ducks teased him. The big guy tried to fit in but he was too big, he was often clumsy and never learned to quack properly although he spent a lot of time alone, practicing by himself.

One day all of the little ducks grew up and swam away leaving the big guy behind. Mama duck said to him that he needed to go away also – adding that he was interfering in her ability to get a good date.

Sadly, the big guy went away and because he was large and could swim well he managed to avoid the predators, but he was sad. So sad. Life hardly seemed worth living as he was so lonely.  One day as he rested upon a pond he observed a grouping of other large birds and he said to himself, “I will go to them and ask them to at least help me to just come to the end of this miserable life.”  So, gathering up his courage he swam to the group of beautiful birds and to his astonishment they were delighted to meet him.  “Welcome, welcome, brother! We are so happy to see you! Why, you are so beautiful!”  The big guy was surprised and responded with “ME?!”

Together they were a flock of swans; graceful, beautiful, long-necked swans. The ugly duckling had found a home. He was home!

“Is not this what happened to you when you found a home within the Amaraji Maha Marai family? Yes you, an odd misfit, not belonging, and then you wandered into the doorway and all said WELCOME, WELCOME, we are so glad to see you! We are happy to have you swim with us in the pond of life. Here is another being who wants to join us.”  ~ Mother Ilowan

“Now in the time of the spring, we remember that this is what you were born to do; to help remind others of the true beauty that rests in the heart of Spirit.”

“What we are attempting to do is to change the consciousness of the people of the world. They may say that they do not want to be an ugly duckling but rather a swan who brings the song of life and beauty into the world.”

“Imagine the world full of people like yourselves – the people of Amaraji Maha Marai who find Hosetantha in a loving place, a caring place, finding acceptance and attending to that which is really important.”  ~ Mother Ilowan

Father Mukanda Dawe said that some years ago he invited the brothers to come to this place along the Snake River - to create a circle of power:

“We worked long into the night one weekend of camping, gathering stones, offering blessings, and making prayers.”

“We created four rings of stones to surround the circle.”

“The first ring represents their true purpose including who and what they love.
The second ring represents the compassion in their hearts and the power they own to change things.  Prayer after prayer they wove stronger in their purpose together.
The third ring of stones represents the energy of healing as one is often wounded by life. They spoke again and again about what needed healing in their life and their relationships. They spoke of healing for their people and for the people of the world.
The fourth ring that the brothers wove for the final stone circle represents the energy of forgiveness for the harm they had caused for their sisters and the harm that had been delivered upon them by their sisters,” said Father.

“This circle was created by myself and by my Master,” said Father Mukanda Dawe.
“ It is a point of power to assist in calling to the brothers of the world, the Divine Masculine. At the center is a sun which expresses the responsibility to awaken these truths when we are here and to remember these truths when we are not.”

“This is but one demonstration, one small circle representing the power of the Amaraji Maha Marai people; touching the hearts of all men.  We are calling to them. We hope they will listen. We are calling to them to awaken.  There are many places you have created like this to share.  All of these treasures – sacred wheels – are the demonstration of the truth that you are.”

“Within the consciousness of men, there is now a new wave of awakening among early adolescent boys who are feeling the gift of prayer.”

“You are a seed by what you are choosing and doing – and adding energy to this seed. Your unity, your bonding is causing a change as they are longing for the Divine Masculine. They are waking up. We are doing something that is impossible, but it is happening. Changes are occurring. Once again the Amaraji Maha Marai people are being successful. And it matters.

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Dharma Talk with Mother Ilowan and Father Mukanda Dawe
Sunday, April 10, 2011

Once Upon a Time . . .

“ . . . there was a happy family with a mother, a father, and two children; a little boy and a little girl.  They all lived well and they loved each other very much. They made their home in the woods amidst a good and gentle life of trees, flowers, abundant crops and happy times. And then the winter came and life became challenging. There was a great illness that spread from village to village, home to home, and the mother became sick and died.  The father was very sad and the children were heartbroken with the loss of their mother.

Over time, the father - because he was sad - found a single-woman from his village and he married her. When he brought her to their home she promised to care for the children as if they were her own. As the weeks turned to months and then later a year, the step-mother noticed that the father paid more attention to the children than herself, and she became increasingly jealous about his expressions of love for the children which she came to resent as they took up his time away from her. Conflicts in the home began to escalate and the step-mother complained frequently that these two bratty kids were the problem and that they had to go – or else. The step-mother spoke long and often to the father - always pointing out the faults of the children - and more and more she insisted that the children had to leave. The father began to agree with his wife and he himself grew resentful about their needs as he considered why it was that he had to work so hard to feed them and provide for them and he was even more worried that his new wife would leave him if the situation continued.

One day, under the guise of a family picnic, the step-mother and father left the two children out in the woods. In the place of a sunny outing meadow the children adventured in joyful discoveries of the gentle creek and meadow flowers. Several hours had passed and the children eventually made their way back to the place of their picnic location only to find that their parents were gone. The children were alone and they did not know which way to turn. It became dark and cold in the evening. They were scared among the strange sounds in the night. Creeping shadows. Endless uncertainty.

When the morning came, a little bird appeared to the frightened, huddled children. ‘Follow me! Follow me! Follow me!’ and so crossing the meadow and down through the valley the children followed the little bird and made their way home. Upon their arrival the step-mother was very angry and she spoke again to the father demanding that they get rid of these children.

To appease his wife, the father said that he knew of an old widow who lived on the other side of the forest. The old widow, he reasoned, had an interest in boarding children as she could benefit from their labor. ‘We will take the children and leave them there,’ he said to his wife.

Once again the parent’s took the children deep into the forest. The old widow woman was very happy to receive them. Immediately she put the boy in a cage to be fattened up for a later slaughter and the little girl she put to work. The old woman threatened the reluctant girl saying that she would kill the brother if she did not do more and better work.

After a couple of weeks, the little girl had a talk with her brother and created a plan to escape from the wicked witch that they may be safe once again. So the next time the girl was placing the bread in the oven, she said that she was challenged with the oven door and she could not do it by herself. Over and again the girl called for help in managing the oven door. The old woman in her bitter tirade of intolerance struck the girl down and opened the oven door which in that precise moment the little girl shoved the wicked witch into the oven, securing its door with a final latch. There she grabbed the cage key and freed her brother from his prison and they escaped into the night.

The two small children had nowhere to go. They wished for someone to take care of them. They were very hungry, tired, and scared. Huddled again in the dark forest, they cried themselves to sleep.  In the morning, they heard a sound – a flute!  They listened, and listened, and decided to try to find the flute-player. When they located the musician, they saw a tall, thin man who was himself crying at the sight of two children, alone.

The children spent the next few nights with the wandering flutist and he fed them food and made them feel safe. Eventually the children told the flutist what had happened to them to which he exclaimed, ‘I know people who are looking for children just like you!’  There was, after all, a couple in the near village whose children had died not long ago in the winter illness that had taken the lives of so many.

In their new home, the children found comfort and nurturing from a mother who cared for them and loved them deeply. The children grew to be happy and beautiful people who never did return to the former village of their early youth. And when their true mother grew old, they cared for her in tender, self-less loving devotion to the mother who had loved them with all of her heart.”

The Moral of the Story

“What happens within people’s hearts when they begin to focus upon blaming others for their troubles? They fight with this energy or that energy, or this sickness, or that challenge, and they seek to get rid of the most troublesome energy?”

The Energy of a Gift

“To be a wholesome people is to come in to cooperation and understanding about offering the gifts of our possession – when and where there is a need.”

“What makes a people is not just about coming together to get things done (corporations do this) but rather a family is a group of people’s not simply accidentally drawn together.”

“To truly be a people is for each person to bring a gift to the experience, and the expression, and to offer the gift when, where, and why is important.”

Hunter or Healer?

“Imagine an aboriginal group. Among the clan/tribe/community there are those folks who are hunters, some are singers, some make tools, some are shaman, many are healers, others are warriors, and there are those who do baking, beadwork, and agriculture among other tasks of their specialty.  And how about if there was to be a buffalo hunt? Who would go? The cooks? There is nothing to cook, yet. The beaders? No, as the hide is still on the buffalo! The singers? No, as the noise would deflect the buffalo. The shaman? Well, maybe they could help with calling the buffalo, or perhaps seeing the vision of the buffalo’s location, but they are shaman and not hunters. Would the Hayamoni go on the hunt? Not so much as there is not the need for their gifts of holding the celebration and teaching ceremonies. But who is needed in this buffalo hunt is the hunters – the hunters who hold the skill for hunting the buffalo. There are lots of other folks - who could and would perform their skills/gifts later.”

“Not everyone has to offer their gifts in that one event. What if everyone went out on the buffalo hunt?  All would be hungry, indeed.”

There is a Time and a Place for Certain Gifts

“Each person offers their gift at the appropriate time. When there is not a need then individuals cooperate and apply what is needed. A true gift is what is needed.  In your culture, which is a strange culture anyway, your world is full of gift stores that are filled with useless items that no one has any real need for.  Useless items are what you consider ‘dust collectors’ and they arrive in the form of a gift all wrapped up in paper which is a waste of resources anyway. These items tend to rest in the closet or a drawer and are only pulled out for display when the giver-of-the-gift makes a visit to your house which is intended to serve the giver’s ego.”

“Most people do not give what is really needed and if you do not know what is needed then you don’t really have a relationship with that person.  Maybe what a recipient needs is food, or a hug, or help with their housework, or maybe they need a vacation.” 

“Think about what it is that - a people – needs and see each and every one as valuable.”

Appreciation for What Is

“What happened within the story with the step-mother who wanted the house, the van, the appliances, but not the children who were not serving the need?”

“It is for you to learn to appreciate what is rather than what you think should be.  All the whispering in the night about who and what you want to get rid of is poison into the ears of others who themselves can come to believe that something is wrong.”

“Who are you – in that story? Maybe you are like the father who is too busy with your own agenda to sort through the consideration of whether you are perhaps being poisoned. Twice this father abandoned his children not knowing what would happen to them. Are you the step-mother? The helper? The woman who nurtures the children? Are you the wicked witch which symbolically represents the machine-mind energy which used the children and then threw them away.”

It is All About the WE

“A People require the energy of coming out of the ME and into the WE.  At Gona Synquay Aum you are all needed to bring the gift you are asked to offer. If you are not able to express the gift you have and resort to the idea that ‘this is not me and I would rather do this instead’ then this is EGO.  For everyone who is asked to do something it is because it is needed. There are lots of jobs and The People can function as all are asked to truly offer their gifts.”

“Some folks want to shine, to be the star. They say ‘look at me!’  When that person is not around others laugh at Look-At-Me.”

There is a huge difference between ME and WE. When you turn the first letter upside down, then a true People can emerge.”

Remember the Brothers of the Sun Naming Experience?

“Some time ago the Brothers of the Sun had the opportunity to be named and then consider that if they didn’t like the name that arose as a perceived expression of their identity, then they could change their given name by means of changing their expression from which the name arose.”

“In an older time, the tribal peoples called each other different names based on the expression of an individuals characteristics. One might be called Frog, then Singing Bird, or perhaps later, Hairless One. At about two-years-old, a person would be given a true name that fit their Neesha pattern.  At some point, one could become discontent with their name and seek to change it. Consider that someone could claim a name like, say, War Eagle but everyone would know that they were really more of a Magpie. The idea is that people are called by the demonstration of their making.  One could contest this, but a tribal people would say that it is the Self who must do something about this.”

The Truths of A PEOPLE

“To be A People, a have true people, everyone knows who you really are. Everyone knows your Neesha pattern, and yes, it is such that people will gossip about you. In a tribal people, no one holds confidentiality and it is not even just because of talking as it is that who you are and what is going on is written all over you.  When there is A People, there are no secrets.”

“To be in A People is to be seen for WHO you really are rather than WHAT you are pretending to be. You think that whatever mask you present is what people will see is just not true.  If you are behaving ridiculously then people will laugh at you. I assume that no one here wants to be the village idiot, and since there is currently a vacancy, let us keep it that way.”

Come Back to Purpose

“Knowing it is our purpose to serve the Mission, it is for us to be strong, to fill the needs, to be accepting, and to forgive. It is our purpose to turn the little Me into the ‘I’ of a Great Being.”

Father Mukanda Dawe:
“What is wrong with letting your people know who you are? What is wrong with letting them see you through your eyes? Are you trying to be something else other than what you are? Is that what you do?”

“How do you feel about being this pretend person?”

If Not Now, Then When?

“You have spent lifetimes creating a Neesha pattern so why pretend to be other than that which you are? You may seek to re-create yourself and that is possible. Will you wait ten years? Or maybe seek to do so on the day of your death and up until then you will have always been pretending to be that which you are not. This is not acceptable in this family as we are on the path of truth.”

Unconditional Love

“There are some things that you will not like. There are some things that the family will not like, but we will love you anyway.”

How Bold Will You Go?

“Are you pretending?
What do you really know about YOU?
How about you asking the family about your true spirit beingness?  We have encouraged you to be bold, fearless, and courageous.”

“So what about you trying to be the pretend person and wishing for everyone to believe this. You might even laugh about this.  Will you continue to be afraid of your own darkness? You might try to bring the light to that which just is and be with it which is much easier than pretending.”

“You might even be able to smile on the day of your death and you could say ‘I am proud of myself and what I have accomplished’ or you could continue on with the ways of your culture, harming the earth – and one another. Will you continue to just get what you need or will you be a person who takes on a challenge and does something beautiful in the opportunity?”

The Way to Happiness

“Let yourself become a WE.  You will be stronger, happier. This is your true self that belongs to the people around you. When you are giving, then amazingly, all are happy.”

“Discover where you are pretending. Be brave and ask your brothers and sisters. See what they say, and listen with an open heart. What are the gifts they might define? Let it touch you as they are treasures to be taken into yourself and guarded – a gift from your people.”

Powerful Prayers

“I wish to recognize all of you – your strength and your power and what you have become as a people. Your prayers are becoming very strong. Your singing is touching far-reaching realms.”

“Parai Shay Aum, children.
Parai Shay Aum.”  ~ Father Mukanda Dawe

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Dharma Talk with Mother Ilowan and Father Mukanda Dawe
Sunday, April 3, 2011

Amaraji Maha Marai
People of the Great Promise

“The promise is the New Covenant Prayer. What it means to be Amaraji Maha Marai and the keepers of this promise is to live this way in prayer, sacrifice, and circle-energy so that it will become a truth in the world. We are working for the Mission and what is most important is the energy of changing consciousness in the world.”   ~ Mother Ilowan

Six Billion People

“Even if you spent every minute of your whole incarnation in prayer efforts, you would not reach everyone. Our means for sending these truths out - our strategy - is through the creation of ceremonial energies and shifting old ideas through the energy of prayer. We are holding the three goals of helping the Earth, the Children, and creating Peace.”

Seeding World Mind Consciousness
Beyond the Media

“We are raising enough energy to shift consciousness. We are not engaged in changing consciousness through the media because people do not listen with an open mind. We are not utilizing social digital media like FaceBook, Twitter, Email, or television because people do little more than dismiss the message as an intrusion on their already deeply-ingrained perceptions about what is important.”

“World gate methodologies are ineffective.  We are utilizing the method of prayer and sacrifice where we will create a wave of energy which goes out to the world thereby people can find it for themselves in a dream, inspiration, and other sudden insights. Whole groups, countries, and millions of people will find these inspirations.”

Machine Mind Consciousness

“Human beings are born to give. It is your purpose for life. All plants and animals know this is so, remember this is so, and systemically make a contribution to life force energy – that all life shall exist. Only human’s do not remember this.  All six billion people of the world have mostly come to think they need great material possessions including multiple television sets (big screens?), refrigerators, cell phones, and everything else.”  The great breadth of consumerism is using up all of the earth’s resources resulting in pollution and environmental degradation.

“So why are there lost children?”  Mother asked us, today. “It is because there is no time for the children.  Why is the earth in trouble?”  Because everyone thinks they need all this stuff and the manufacturing, transportation, and eventual disposal of this stuff is stripping the resources from the earth.  This is machine mind consciousness. The machine mind is eating up life.”

Spirit World Methodology

“We are a small but might group that understands that things must change and we undertake a hearty effort through prayer, ceremony, and celebrating the wholeness of life so change can happen.”

The Impossible Dream

“What we are doing is impossible as we are trying to change the world to a space of respect, sharing, honor, and joy.  I have always asked for things that are unreasonable.”

“Singing, prayers, mantras, staves, prayer cranes, prayer ties . . . all of it is totally unreasonable but it is necessary for things to come to a place of change. It matters bit by bit. Sometimes only a few people at a time will make giant leaps or perhaps even small expressions of change at a time.  It is necessary as the world is in a great deal of pain and suffering.”

The Revised New Covenant Prayer

In honor we hold ourselves for we are the earth
All decisions we make bring wisdom
We shall not begin what we cannot finish in love, joy and peace
We accept all people as our own and open our hearts to share with them
We sow the seeds of eternity and reap the harvest of love and joy over and over and over again
Our actions shall take place in rightness so that our passion can lead to devotion
Our changes shall bring healing so our light may bring comfort
Protection shall be guidance even as strength is supportive
Laughter will set us free and love will lift up the world
What we are doing is impossible
What we are asking is unreasonable
But it is necessary so we will do what we can.

We Will Do What We Can

“Small groups of people can make a difference so we will try to do what we can. There are those who are willing to give up their ordinary life for the off-chance that something could happen.”

“I have never promised you health, wealth, relationships, lucrative employment, or the perfect healings. I did promise to remain unreasonable and demand much of you - if you will be brave and courageous enough to offer your services to the world. And probably you will not be thanked or appreciated.”

“I will never be satisfied because what you do is not enough and bad things are still happening in the world. As long as others are suffering we must forge on.  We will work to free this world.” 

Mother suggested that probably many folks think that by having a relationship with her this time around, it guarantees an opportunity to have another incarnation with her the next time around, and to this she added . . . 

“I am just as unreasonable every time. I never give you more than the opportunity to do the impossible.”

“Happily ever after is not it.”  Mother added that if the kingdom comes and life is the perfect, peaceful glowing flowing shining example of all beings who are free from suffering then we will all retire.  “Until then we must remain hungry to bring about love, joy, and peace and to do this the Amaraji Maha Marai family shall support the energy of this work.”
 
Supporting the Family

The Master’s are calling for us to support the family and the physical structure of the family. Yes we do prayers daily but we cannot eat it or wear it. There is a world gate reality of the need to support the needs of the family and this means that the Temple needs money to maintain our space and a place for the Master’s to be here.  Mother added that while she would not mind for us to meet outside – in the out of doors – probably the family would not like this so much. There are rents to pay, bills to meet, well-deserved salaries to provide and this comes from us, the family. Mother asked us to please, “Do what you can to make this so.”

The Articles of the World Mission

“Your science has already said that the machine is eating your mother – the earth.”   The first part of the World Mission is that all life on earth must be respected, followed by the mandate that women must become re-empowered in their identity and their divinity – and we reach for the truth that there must be peace in the world if the beings of the earth are going to have a future.

Mother said that “When women take back their power then the earth will be protected and then there will be peace on earth.”

The Master’s Missions

“Every time I have come here to be with your father to do a world mission we always did what we could. Have we always been successful? No. We have not. But we try. And we must be a family.”

From Father Mukanda Dawe

“Within each of your hearts is a desire to belong; a desire to belong to others in families, groups, and with the earth.  It all takes a willingness to belong which is ‘to do’ and to give of yourself towards that which you are hoping to have.”

“Your culture has a different kind of thinking for you think that to belong is to get to be taken care of.  People seek to get their needs met and this means to align with people who will comfort you, feed you, and then you can get what you want.”

“Belonging is to give so that everyone’s needs can be met and to know, believe, and understand that you are a part of that which is greater than just yourself.”

“We give our love. To belong is to love. Love and sharing is giving.  I will tell you that if you are giving then you have what you need. When you are giving then you are not hungry and the truth of abundance has become manifest.”

“If you are giving, you have enough and you are not relying on another to provide for you as you are already full.”

“When you are feeling in lack and limitation then what is the first thing that happens to you? If there is something you seek that you did not get, then you decide life is challenging. You ask why is it that I cannot have what I want?”

“When you are cheerful you are wanting to give that energy away. When you give it away does it not make you happy? And life is good because you have something to share.

“Belonging is to give. When you practice giving away as a way of life then those around you are very abundant and you have thoughts of love and joy because you are giving from the heart’s desire to help others and life is improved because you belong.” 
~ Father Mukanda Dawe

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Dharma Talk with Mother Ilowan and Father Mukanda Dawe
Sunday, March 27, 2011

MASTER APPRECIATION DAY
And the ORDINATION of EDWARD and ANAIA MARI

“As we make this beginning now in the time of the Spring we want to talk about furthering our work of Gona Synquay Aum thereby bringing about our promises to world-mind and changing the consciousness of the current regard for the lost children, the Hayamoni, and the earth.”  
~ Mother Ilowan

A N N O U N C E M E N T S

Ribbons for the Masters

1. We received two colored ribbons (about 12” long)
a. A red ribbon for Father
b. A green ribbon for Mother
Instructions are to write a prayer for the Masters on the ribbon and either tie this ribbon to your staff, or place the ribbon in your prayer bundle that you attach to your staff.

The Prayer Bundle

2. This is the little cloth bundle of (tiny papers, ribbons, a single page of paper with multiple entries or writing upon other ‘burn-able’ media) prayers for people you love and with whom you wish to share your good energies of merit and metta as you walk the staff. Each step/tap of the staff shall send the energy of the Metta Prayer out to the people – and the world.

The Staff

3. Mother Ilowan provided us with three options for walking our staff
a. Walk the staff 100 miles
b. Walk the staff 50 miles
c. Walk the staff 25 miles
 (Since there are twenty-weeks until Gona Synquay Aum, you could walk your staff 5  miles a week which would amount to 100 miles.)
d. If you cannot walk the staff, then you may hold your staff daily and say the Metta Prayer for 15 minutes in each of the four cardinal directions.
e. Choose how this is do-able and work-able for you.

The Crystals

We have all obtained four quartz crystals and provided them with the energy blessings of the canyon. Currently we are working with our designated crystal of the East.
4. For a total of 7 days (not necessarily consecutively – but for a total of 7 days) between now and the next three months, we are asked to bless the crystal in the following ritual:
a. At sunrise, hold up the crystal and say the Metta Prayer 7x
b. At mid-day, hold up the crystal to the sun and say the Metta Prayer 7x
c. At sunset, hold up the crystal to the setting sun and say the Metta Prayer 7x
d. At moonrise, hold up the crystal to the moon and say the Metta Prayer 7x

THE ENERGY OF METTA – AND MERIT

“Metta is not just about energy but it is also a form of atonement and a blessing of your good merits. It is about the goodness you share for the benefit of others.  Merit means that your soul likes it very much, that your angel is happy with you, and that you are doing something with Tarai – expressing yourself as a Tarai Spirit Being in the world.”  ~ Mother Ilowan

 Mother said that merit is a Tarai action that comes from a space of spirit-being (being spirit). She said it is “an angel-approved activity.”  Mother Ilowan clarified that this does not so much apply to the most mundane of everyday tasks like doing the dishes or moving the laundry which are efforts that we don’t really do from a space of Tarai.

“Merit”, Mother said, “Polishes your soul. It cleans up your Neesha.  It is also important to remember that your Neesha is not just about those things you would describe as negative, but the good, also.  Merit refers to an action of loving kindness – or making something beautiful.”

Creating Goodness

“Merit is that which happens so you are doing a give-away. Merit is also atonement which has nothing to do with punishment but rather it is about creating an equal amount of goodness for which it eases the negativity previously expressed.  When you are creating merit, it could also be atonement for others.”

Creating Good Karma

“When walking your staff and you have a name(s) in your medicine bundle, it is while that action is taking place that you are creating good karma and merit as those whose names you are carrying will receive this merit.”

The Power of Sacrifice

“When making a sacrifice you can consider that walking your staff is a sacrifice just as holding your crystal is a sacrifice as is sitting on your cushion in thoughtful dedication to all beings is also a sacrifice. Your dedicated efforts matter. Practice giving away merit for the benefit of others.  Maybe you could even dedicate your efforts in doing the dishes, if you choose so, as this is a form of energy.”

Prayer, Good Work, Intention

Mother said that for many folks their ideas about how they shall spend this incarnation have more to do with how they might get a ticket out of here.  Mother Ilowan added:  “It is the good people of the world who are trying to make the impossible – possible.  To do SOMETHING is to do better than just giving up and choosing to do nothing.  Do something and things WILL change. It will not be perfect, of course, but everyone’s efforts do matter. They have always mattered. What are you doing with sacrifices – and with disciplines?”

Father Mukanda Dawe . . .

“In your language the world ‘Sacrifice’ is perceived to mean pain and suffering but what it really means is to actively create the good. This year we are creating the good by creating time and blessings for others.” 

“If your heart is inspired then do these tasks we have provided for you
with joy and happiness in your heart because
YOU CAN CREATE blessings for others
and in doing so you may discover something good in yourself
as your Tarai Being expresses itself.”