Good day/evening, and welcome to this the final Live Service for the year 2013 and in observance of the Day of Reflection - to honour our own past and future (normally 31 December).
It would be well to take a few moments to settle into ourselves : to meditate, to contemplate, to intro- and/or outro-spect, or to pray – to actualise our connexion to the Force and to come together in the spirit of our unity …
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May the Force be with you …
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As we are reminded, the ‘now’ is all that exists – hence the past, ‘memory’ as it were, flows from the present ;
the present is not necessarily the ‘result’ of the past. It follows that our ‘knowledge’ of the past is but the way we remember now, yet we need to be very careful concerning our memories, and thus what we feel so assuredly that we know …
The best of any Knowledge is at best only a temporary, a period in ever changing processes within and among ever changing processes.
The worst is only fiction – potentials that were not in the course of 'as such' or desires unmet.
Our senses deceive us frequently when filtered through memory and/or desire. One resists inevitable change.
All of these lead to doubt, frustration and worry. These in turn lead to physical, mental and spiritual illness – or at least ‘uneasiness’.
By 'knowing that one does not know' : that causality is not evidently clear, that the future may not resemble the past and that everything is a process – nothing is static – one may free oneself from the illusions which infect the mind, the body and the soul.
By remaining centred, by keeping a genuine trust or faith in the Force, by going with the current toward the low place, one heals the wounds that those illusions inflict.
Where there is no knowledge to betray the mind, there is no error to disappoint ; when one has un-learnt that which may not hold true, truth may enter.
One can only be whole when one is like the space inside any superficial form, thus 'uninformed'.
When knowing - the attachment to what one has learnt - occupies the mind, the result is ignorance.
And the more tightly one clings to that 'knowing', it may even become stupidity – a very grave disease.
Thus :
'There is no ignorance ; there is knowledge'-- 'Ignorance', to ignore, happens when we reject outright what isn't in conformity with what we are convinced we 'know' (our learnt, conditioned convictions, opinions and thoughts) ; 'knowledge' can only come by not ignoring, not rejecting ....
So, we see that although what we ‘know’ is a handicap, we also see that just the awareness of this is the first and best step toward healing.
And as with all healing, if we have faith in it, it is more effective than if we do not. Having ‘faith’ means “letting go”.
Ergo, on this Day of Reflection, let us observe our memories of the past and our plans and hopes for the future as precisely that, ‘reflexions’ – letting go of any solidity our ‘knowing’ lends them – as much as the reflexion of the moon in a still pond is itself the moon.
Just as the moon does not wait to cast its light onto the pool, neither does the water wait to receive its image.
Our reflexions on the World are likewise “just so” – and this is the expression of the Force.
Let us now enjoy a moment of contemplation in the atmosphere of a deep musical piece :
Thus, with our reflexions authenticated as such, let us close with the mantra of our Creed :
I am a Jedi, an instrument of peace;
Where there is hatred I shall bring love ;
Where there is injury, pardon ;
Where there is doubt, faith ;
Where there is despair, hope ;
Where there is darkness, light ;
And where there is sadness, joy.
I am a Jedi.
I shall never seek so much to be consoled as to console ;
To be understood as to understand ;
To be loved as to love ;
For it is in giving that we receive ;
It is in pardoning that we are pardoned ;
And it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.
The Force is with me always, for I am a Jedi.
