Fish on Friday: LIVING IN LOVE

In a book that I am reading, it says that mysticism is not just for saints and sages. I of course have to agree wholeheartedly.

Opening the heart to love is the central mystic teaching. This is something we can experience in every moment of our lives. Most people have experienced the unifying power of love. Lovers lose themselves in their love for one another. In physical love, two bodies become one. The boundaries of the separate self are dissolved and we enter the bliss of union. Socrates, relating the teachings of his mentor the prophetess Diotima, says that such love of another person is a pathway into Love itself, which can lead from the particular to the universal - from love for one person to Love for all.

I'm reminded of a saying I used to hear in the Roman Catholic church in the Philippines; `Hate the sin, but love the sinner. How about my one,` Don't hate the cook and love the dinner!

There I go, after writing down serious stuff. I think up a witty ditty. I can be a twit at times.

Was it C S Lewis who referred to himself as the chief of sinners? That was not a rhetorical question.

Fish on Friday; the joke.

The vicar was sitting at the table next to the young son of a couple in his congregation.

The couple were in the kitchen making last minute preparations and the vicar inquired of the lad what would me on the menu. The lad replied that he had overheard his mother tell his father that there were having the old trout for dinner on friday.

LIVING IN THE ONENESS OF THE ALL

Sai Baba says: `All are One, and if someone believes otherwise, they are circumscribing their part in the whole and are imprisoning themselves in the part.` By circumscribing our part in the whole we alienate ourselves from the rest of existence and become a prisoner inside our own sense of self. The mystics urge us no longer to experience the world as a confusing mass of distinct and isolated people and things, but to see the Oneness which underlies everything.

The mystical vision of Oneness is revealed when we experience the totality within which the parts are so inter-related they coulk not be said to exist independently. Just as the liver in a human body could not exist without the brain, and the lungs could not function without the heart, so all of creation can be seen to be like one great body of the creator: each part performs its role according to its nature, yet functions as a whole.

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All those who walk with

God reach their

destination.

SAI BABA

Modern Hindu mystic

This is all for now folks, from your Brother Peter. Blessings and peace to all living things.