Emanations from the Still Point - John MacEnulty

[Chandra]

I am thrilled that John has agreed to allow me to post some of his offerings "Thoughts for the Day". He has been providing them as inspiration to the community through email and currently reaches around 6,000 readers a day. He says:

"I write Eman8tions because it helps me to focus on higher levels of consciousness. I do it for me. Sending them to you helps keep me honest."

I think you will find that sharing them also focuses others on higher levels of consciousness! I have benefitted greatly from reading his words, and hearing the voice of love, compassion and honesty which reside in this very human being. My faith in others is strengthened through his befriending me in this way - though we have never met.
Thank you for letting me share some of your work with our group!

Please check out his web site at: http://Emanations.net/
You can email him and receive (free!) a subscription to emanations at:
Eman8tions@aol.com

[Chandra]

One of the beautiful lessons of my life has been learning that my conscience has been contaminated.

It can be so overactive, so deeply and conscientiously concerned that I do the right thing that it dramatically misjudges the severity and importance of things that really make no difference at all.

My conscience has been manipulated. I have tried much too hard to be a good boy.

So hard, in fact, that the absurdity of my efforts has not been lost on other parts of me and they have rebelled big time, encouraging me to outrageous big things in order to defy the goody-two-shoes conscience that would have me afraid to ask for what I want or need.

So it's getting harder and harder for me to feel guilty about little things
or even big, obvious things.

Apologizing and correcting my behavior should be sufficient. No need for
humiliation or guilt trips. Just fix it.

Simple.

But the overly trained and conditioned conscience can make us timid,
paralyzed by a compulsive desire to do the right thing. And what conscience thinks is the right thing may be very shy and afraid, indeed.

I am enjoying being bolder, freer now.

I am more and more deeply convinced that I am a good person. So, the picky little voice inside is growing fainter and fainter.

Meditation reveals the deeper issues of conscience, keeps me on the right track, filling myself and the world with loving behavior.

When we become spiritually aware, the anxiety dissipates. The true conscience generates kindness, not fear.


Eman8tions
Copyright © 2002 by John MacEnulty
11/17/2002, St. Louis, MO

Donations are very much appreciated
and may be sent to
John MacEnulty
PO Box 1925
St. Louis MO 63118
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Eman8tions@aol.com

New web site address:
http://Emanations.net/

Please feel free to forward Eman8tions
to anyone you think will enjoy it or benefit from it.
If you are receiving Eman8tions as a forward
please feel free to subscribe for yourself.

[Chandra]

The deep reality within is easily accessible. It is instantaneous and
constant communication with the infinite.

It is happening all the time. Our consciousness interprets, focuses, limits the flow of the energy into our lives.

The deepest prayers and meditations can happen in an almost unnoticeable split second. It is so fast that it is literally unbelievable.

We may not trust those flashes, but the infinite is constantly breaking
through to us.

We don't really need trance states or meditation techniques, fasting, or any of the tricks that mystics have discovered and developed. We are
instantaneous consciousness at all times.

If we can let go of the conscious filter that distorts the deeper reality we
can experience the infinite in every blink of our eyes.

What the meditations and fasting and all the systems are for is to help us to become aware of the utter simplicity and instantaneous nature of our being.

We negate the spiritual insights that are flowing into us, the intuitions,
psychic knowledge, healing energies. Meditation helps us to learn to allow the infinite into our consciousness.

Then we can stop countering the constant revealing that is amazing and
universal. It is happening all the time, this infinite flow.

Love is swirling. Energy patterns flow through this ocean of consciousness.

Take off the diving suit. You can breathe here.


Eman8tions
Copyright © 2002 by John MacEnulty
10/15/2002, St. Louis, MO

Donations are very much appreciated
and may be sent to
John MacEnulty
PO Box 1925
St. Louis MO 63118

Subscription is free. Email your request to
Eman8tions@aol.com

New web site address:
http://Emanations.net/

Please feel free to forward Eman8tions
to anyone you think will enjoy it or benefit from it.
If you are receiving Eman8tions as a forward
please feel free to subscribe for yourself.

[Chandra]

What is the essence of soul?

That is a question that is at once impossible and easy to answer.

Impossible, because it depends on the understanding of the listener.

Easy, because it depends on the understanding of the listener.

If you have experienced it you will know it when I merely say the words. The words will trigger the awareness that is already there.

Having said that, there is still much to talk about because the human mind can become such a crazy thing, canceling out, altering, replacing knowledge, so that what we know we may be afraid or unable to manifest fully in our consciousness.

So we have philosophy, poetry, music, the arts to clarify for the damaged mind some of these concepts. Usually these subjects remind us of what we already know. Sometimes though, they help to clarify.

So here goes: The soul is the observer self. Sometimes the observer self is dominated by a particular viewpoint and carried there consistently by a personality quirk, attitude, expectation, or idea. Then the soul is fooled into thinking it is powerless over certain things, that it is incapable of action, love, understanding, feelings, whatever.

Beauty draws the soul out, connects to us at the soul level.

If we cannot effectively define soul essence, we can at least talk about the symptoms of consciousness at the level of the soul.

Those would be love, caring, deep feelings, a sense of understanding of what others are experiencing, good or bad. There would be a sense of beauty and connection to everything, and understanding that brings peace within.

Last, the soul feels a humility that allows it to fully experience reality
without superimposing its own reality on the world.

The soul is the still point of the turning world.

Or perhaps the wind that touches the branches.


Eman8tions
Copyright © 2002 by John MacEnulty
6/28/2002, St. Louis, MO

Subscription is free. Email your request to
Eman8tions@aol.com

Donations are very much appreciated
and may be sent to
John MacEnulty
PO Box 1925
St. Louis MO 63118

"Finding the Love, Volume 1, Emanations from the Still Point"
is now available. It is a collection of the daily writings and is available
for 17.95 and I'll pay the shipping. Or you can get my Native American flute
CD, "Chrysalis Dreams" and the book together for only 29.95. Make your check
payable to Emanations, PO Box 1925, St. Louis MO 63118.

Web site:
http://www.geocities.com/eman8tions

Please feel free to forward Eman8tions
to anyone you think will enjoy it or benefit from it.
If you are receiving Eman8tions as a forward
please feel free to subscribe for yourself.

[Chandra]

Sometimes we make the mistake of thinking that spirituality will change
things around us, make the world a better place.

There is some truth in that. But the real benefit of meditation is that it
changes our reaction to the world, not that it changes the world.

There are miracles. Things do change. But not necessarily the way we want
them to. And it is usually our desires and illusions that are the problem.

There is a seeming paradox here too, not a genuine paradox, but it may feel
like one. It is: How am I supposed to change things in the world when I'm not
supposed to change anything?

The answer is actually simple but hard to grasp when reality is biting
sensitive anatomical parts.

It is that we change the things we can and let go of what we can't.

I can fight city hall. I can even win. The question is do I really want to,
or do I just want to complain about it?

The serenity prayer says it all, asking of the divine that I learn to accept
the things I cannot change, have the courage to change the things I can, and
the wisdom to know the difference

Spirituality helps me. Then I am better able to change the universe, or at
least myself and the conditions I create for those I love.

To seriously try to change everything, to worry about what I cannot do
anything about is one of the great invitations to madness and frustration.

If the world needed me to be a perfect human being it would be in serious
trouble. By the same token, if I needed the world to solve all its problems in
order for me to be happy, my life would be pure hell.

I can love when I have the serenity to accept the things I cannot change.

What a freedom! What a release!


Eman8tions
Copyright © 2003 by John MacEnulty
8/26/2003, St. Louis, MO

[Chandra]

I hear the truth in your voice, the love and pain in your eyes. A part of me
that is you becomes one with you. I surrender to that energy and we become one
in the circle of this moment.

You tell the tale and I listen.

It is in our stories, the painful and beautiful honesty, that we are
revealed, that the truth is opened.

We say, in our context, in our story, that God is love and it is felt in the
deepest, most loving way.

I hear the story of love again and again, how it rips and tears, heals,
brings peace, always revealing more and more of who we are until the moment we are
revealed as the emptiness of absolute potential.

Each moment we cling to, the illusion of love we are afraid to speak simply
and honestly holds us captive to its truth. We tell our truth, our story and it
fills, floods, empties, revealing the emptiness the divine adores, flows into
endlessly.

The mystic comes into the presence of all things, empty, open, adoring,
listening, seeing, feeling, experiencing, knowing that everything flows through his
consciousness as the truth of the moment.

I let go of my story and hear yours.

How beautiful you are, the divine in you flowing like a river of tears,
filled with flowers.


Eman8tions
Copyright © 2003 by John MacEnulty
8/24/2003, St. Louis, MO

Donations may be sent to
John MacEnulty
PO Box 1925
St. Louis MO 63118

[Chandra]

Life has a way of stripping us down to the essential core of our being.

The spiritual center may be all that is left and even that may be obscured by
the pain of the things that have been lost.

These lessons, painful as they are, are necessary when we have become totally
consumed by a life style or way of thinking.

We may think we have been very spiritual, very good, responsible, correct,
whatever. But life has yet another lesson for us and takes away the things we
have so purposefully and laboriously achieved.

Then we are finally free for the simplicity of the spiritual life, the love
that has no price, the acceptance that is unconditional.

It is worth more than anyone could pay, beyond value, and so in a sense it
could be said to be valueless since no value could achieve it.

What we have tried to buy cannot be bought. The illusion of its
purchasability is shattered. We paid everything and are still empty.

Now the real and beautiful work begins.

We experience the real pain for the first time.

We move into the real love for the first time.


Eman8tions
Copyright © 2003 by John MacEnulty
8/22/2003, St. Louis, MO

Donations may be sent to
John MacEnulty
PO Box 1925
St. Louis MO 63118

[Chandra]

A spiritual high is a doorway to another way of viewing, another, more
beautiful reality.

But it may be just a glimpse, a beautiful glimpse, but just a glimpse if we
don't know how we got here and how to get back. A guide can take you there but
if the path is not learned the glimpse fades into the past, becomes the
remembered thing we still seek.

How did it happen? What got us there?

We are carried on the coattails of the insights of others, transported to new
heights. But it is only another way of getting high if we don't learn the
steps ourselves.

So what is the path? What are the steps?

For me the path is prayer and meditation accompanied by total acceptance of
where I am in the moment. It's okay to be joyful. Okay to be sad, mad, glad,
bad, had. Anything is okay. Just contemplate it, allow it to roam your soul
freely.

You are under the protection of the divine energy. All you have to do is
allow the evolution to occur within, allow the growth, allow the energies that are
blocking to play themselves out, unravel in your consciousness.

The spiritual high tells you that the bliss does exist.

Your own practice shows you where it is. Not the teachings of anyone else,
but your own experience. Remember that Krishnamurti dissolved a following of
fifty thousand because they seemed to expect him to lead them rather than finding
it themselves.

The beauty is within you, as close as the silence within, as endless, as
infinitely powerful.

Be still. Don't even answer the illusion. Let it all dissolve.

It will. And it will just be you and God left.

Or just God.


Eman8tions
Copyright © 2003 by John MacEnulty
9/28/2003, St. Louis, MO

[Chandra]

Everything is about situations.

The meanings of words vary according to what's going on. Love in the context
of ice cream is one thing. Sexual is another. Love of God is another.

Then there are the philosophical ideas, the principles we live by, the ideas
that guide us. They vary with context too. The situation can make a huge
difference in the value.

We say it's not what you say, it's how you say it, the context, the tone, the
timing.

Yet we can lock blindly into ideals phrased certain ways and try to take them
literally and absolutely, inflexibly trying to bend the world to fit the
words that are yammering in our heads.

Go to the center of being. Let the words flow from there.

I find that the words vary almost infinitely. Sometimes they sound the
opposite, yet come from the same stillness, the same love.

I try to say things several ways, two or three adjectives, several nuances to
try to surround the meaning because the center is emerging from the words,
being birthed into the communication in a mystical way that precise words cannot
capture. It floats within the words, gently, elusively.

To think that words are authoritive is mistaking the promise for the deed.

When we speak from love, deep conviction, honesty, it will not be exactly
what we say that will matter, although the right words will help a lot. It will
be what we feel like when we speak, how we seem, how our being connects with
what we are saying.

The most beautiful is to go beyond the words.

When we go to the center, the stillness, the silence speaks volumes.


Eman8tions
Copyright © 2003 by John MacEnulty
9/23/2003, St. Louis, MO