Entering the Forest of Roses

I can either be perturbed by thorns or I can fully appreciate the beauty of the roses. Welcome to the Forest of Roses.

My teacher once told me a story about a meditator reporting to him about the failure of his sitting – how he endured every minute of discomfort throughout the sitting without seeing any light out of it. He recognizes that there is no way he could avoid the discomfort except to be pulled to it again and again. Yet he managed to sit through the session.

To the meditator he sees failure and to my teacher he sees success. To the meditator his target is on the discomfort and to the teacher is grateful is on the awareness. You can only be with the discomfort when you are aware of it but because the target is on the discomfort, expecting a result other than what is already here, the meditator looses the sight of the roses, so to speak. If he were to stay with his awareness in the midst of the discomfort, he will find his entire journey fulfilling. He would have understood that the discomfort is not him.

Life is the same too. Life is a Forest of Roses. Every moment I am been presented the opportunity to be with the Ego or the Holy Spirit – it is all entirely my choice. But even then it is not true, as my choice is determined by moment of unawareness or awareness. Do I have a choice on these? Yes, only and only when I remember to be present. Do I have a choice in remembering? Yes, when I give priority to it. What is my prerequisite to priority? When I have interest in it. And what is my prerequisite to interest. When I have faith to what I felt is right for me to do. And how does faith arise? When I fully understand that this is it!

Every moment is a call to come home, irrelevant whether the experience is painful or joyful, pleasant or unpleasant. Experiences does not bring you home. Neither is the experiencing. The rose or the thorn is not your target – the journey out of the forest is where you are moving to. But while in the midst of the forest, you choose either to be at peace or to be upset by what is. It is not about what is right and what is wrong. Neither is it about what is good and what is bad. Rather it is about what is essential and what is inessential.

If you bring forth what is within you, what you have will save you. If you do not have that within you, what you do not have within you will kill you.
– Yeshua