The heart behind the hand that places flowers at the Cross is often the same that drove nails into tender human flesh...(Hazel

EXTRACTS FROM A CONVERSATION: EDITED FOR COHERENCE

" To have your pain humiliated through denial or ridicule : you will often find yourself hated or laughed at and your innocence ridiculed and denied by the very people whose teeth are red with your blood. This is your first look at the world that you find so charming, so fascinating, so child-like when you are in love. Whether you join this world and be one of them or you resolve your pain and purify it depends solely on whether you steer your mind and soul unscathed out of this or you get drenched in hatred that surround you. ...."
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"And the proof of that will be in the choices you make: either return this violence of hatred with violence of hatred or be stubborn in your love and care for this world.

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"Those who have truly loved life have often chosen death. Those who truly desire to lessen suffering and hatred in this world are often made the target of both. Those who want to kiss the wounds on every hand and heart often have nails driven through their own hands and hearts. A Cross awaits everyone who prepares a bed of roses for the children of this earth.

"But no Cross has ever frightened a Jesus.

"Do not be hurt if you find that the world is not shamed by the presence of Cross in its midst , and in fact is least embarrassed in placing flowers at its root. Generally, the heart behind the hands that place the flowers is nearly the same that ordered nails driven through tender flesh.

"Yet stick by the Cross.And be prepared to receive more than the first man on the Cross was given. Do not be surprised at the spectacles you see.Those who crucified Jesus will be the first to grab his legacy and call you an impostor. They will turn even Cross into a throne and will pronounce you a pretender to it.A pretender to the Cross! Indeed. Those who crucify a Jesus are also the ones who milk his legacy. It always happens. Everywhere. It will happen to you too. It must.

"Yet do not despair. This is your true test. And this is the only test you need to pass. If the test scares you, just tell yourself that this life is simply earning money, breeding and rearing children and leaving enough in your will for them. Your will then be different from the Will that you sometimes wish to pursue. Forget that. There is no sin in not doing what you do not have the will to do. It is a weakness but no sin.There is no such thing as sin in this world. There are just weaknesses. Sin is an invention by those who want to rule over you by frightening your heart. They want virtue to be based on fear turned into faith.Weakness is something that you can understand and therefore conquer; it is within your power. Sin is nothing but a weakness mystified and taken beyond your control. It suits manipulators....
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"Accept your weaknesses, or try to control or minimize these. And live peacefully and usefully. You can still be happy. Do not aspire for love if utility is all you find interesting. There is nothing wrong in opting out of love: there is something wrong in remaining in it and not being worthy of it. The choices life gives you are not complicated. Make a simple choice and live like a respectable citizen of Israel."Those

Hazel: Pain: that red hot knife slicing through my heart

Today nApril 25, 2010 at 3:33am


I sing of happiness and love. But what of pain - that sharp, intense reminder of the human situation on this planet.Is it what followed the Eden curse "Thou shalt bring forth thy progeny in pain?" If the very act of bringing forth progeny is soaked in pain and if the natural response of a progeny at the time of brith must of necessity be crying, then can we really escape pain as a part of our definition.? Said the great Romantic: "Our sincerest laughter with some pain is fraught/ Our sweetest songs are those that tell us of our saddest thought." And Said Bacon:"It is as natural to man to die as to be born; and to a little infant, perhaps, one is as painful as the other." We know pain in its sublimest form purifies. And some of the greatest souls of this universe have actually courted pain -- not as a masochistic indulgence but as a gateway to understanding. But will someone please define pain for me? I know I have always been uplifted by pain to suprme heights, something very close to what love makes happen. In fact, love makes it happen becasue it walks so perilously close to pain's territory, making it possible for us to experience the othe extreme -- eternal happiness. Love -- that soul connecting force between agony and ecstasy, and both live deep in the heart of God. I invite a landscape of pain but I still want to understand its colours and the brush that paints it. Saints know pain is a treasure, but not all pain; just extreme pain born of love alone ---which is what I am going through since yesterday. It feels like a red hot knife is slicing down my heart.I pray I may be spared from pain born of desire or ego or possessiveness. I seek pain born of love, but having sought it, I find it unbearable. Did Jesus say on the Cross: "O God, do not put me through examinations?" Was it his pain breaking through poetry and love? Surely, the pain of Jesus can not be bron of desire for happiness. Surely, his drinking of pain on our behalf was not the same as our pain. Surely, the pangs of Meera, of Mansoor, of Guru Arjun, of Sacatese were not the pangs I feel when a pleasure or ego-boost is denied to me. Surely, its an experience I need to understand yet. Pain cleanses, yes, but not all pain. But what is pain really?