The Mystery of Blood--A Spiritual Exercise, Part 2

So now, Blood…

What is blood? Isn’t blood merely a carrier? Our blood circulates throughout our bodies, bringing nourishment to every living cell, and transporting wastes away from these same cells. Blood transports all manner of vital nourishment, yet the most basic is what?

Our blood carries, most importantly, our breath.

We, as an organism can actually survive weeks without food. We can last a number of days without water. Yet, without oxygen, in a matter of minutes there is necrosis in all tissues—death.

Here and now, marvel at this. Our blood carries—circulates—our very breath! Blood is truly the river of Life.

Do you see how eternity is not linear, but, rather, circular?

What of the great, cosmic body—the one body of which we are all but a member?

Let’s return to those 126—plus lifetimes. Not one was missing that you and I might have life. No lifetime was missing. No Life was missing! (How fragile, like a delicate capillary. Examine your fingertip right now, or the most delicate of tissues—your eyelid. Yet, do you feel any less here?)

No life was missing, for there is only one life—Life. The same life from the beginning—no different—identical in its singular quality of isness. This life is poured out so freely—yet we are not able to possess it. Just try—hold your breath. What should happen?

To hold, hoard, and strive to retain brings only death. We accept breath/life, then in order to live we must pass it on. (Like all else, I might add.) Breath and life must flow.

The very one breath transcends time and space, flows down through the generations to you and me. We partake, pass it on, among ourselves, and it flows onward and around.

As you here read, know and experience this. (If you are reading, you are breathing. Of this, I’m quite certain.) So, as long as you’re breathing, rise up to eternal life, and anchor yourself in the “now here”,--the presence of life, as evidenced by the breath. This is to be truly Awake and Alive.

Christ is awareness and consciousness of Life.

What then are words?

They are merely our thoughts upon our breath. For, we need breath to speak. So, our thoughts flow out upon the current of Life. Speak no evil, then hear no evil and see no evil. Cleanse the blood and experience the unpolluted river, pure blood which flows back around to the self. (By blood—the flow of blood—we can cleanse and perfect the world. And, by blood, have our garments been cleaned.)

Bloodshed?

Bloodshed stops the flow of blood. For the river of life to continue, blood must flow. Bloodshed ends circulation. For healthy circulation, blood must flow from the world/Earth to Heaven, and back. Bloodshed ends this flow. (The only bloodshed we ever needed has already been spilt—and by our own hand, I might add. Let's end bloodshed, and truly Live!)

As you know and experience this truth, witness how you are set free! How does your very self change? For, as you are awake to life in your self, you will begin to recognize it in another. The same life! As you recognize Life in another, you will see it in yourself. Neither of these come first and second—but simultaneously. This is to Love, for what else but Love could we have for what is identical to—like—ourself? (The only differences are in the various “garments” we’re wearing. “If thy brother should sue thee at the law for thy coat, offer him your coat as well...” How could anyone harbor hate, envy, ill will against us if we stand naked before them, concealing nothing? They would only recognize themselves, and any suit, I.e. grievance, justified or not, would be dropped.)

In love, see how your lifetime changes.

Truly, all I need is the air that I breathe, and to love You.

Shall we gather at the River,
The beautiful, the beautiful River,
Gather with the saints at the River,
That flows by the throne of God.
Robert Lowry, 1826—1899

The Mystery of Blood--A Spiritual Exercise

Part 1 of 2

Try this out:

How many lives do you think it took to make you?

The answer is one.

Someone could say, “no, its two--mom and dad fell in love and created me!”

While that's very nice, and warm, and fuzzy, consider this...

All of us have 2 parents. 4 grandparents. 8 great-grandparents. 16 great-great-grandparents. 32 great, great, great-grandparents. 64 great, great, great, great-grandparents. I’ll stop there. That is a total of 126 people. 126 lifetimes. (And that is only going back 6 generations—really not all that far in time, years and history. Less than a cosmic flash-in-the-pan.)

126 lifetimes. Eliminate but one of them, and you’d not be here. Just one. Any one.

Please notice I use the term lifetime in order to differentiate from life.
Not one of us has had more than 4 grandparents, nor only 3. These numbers are identical for any of us. No exceptions whatever. Remember, if but one of any of these were missing? No you and me.

So, where’s the one life?

All of these 126 forebears had one thing in common. Life. They all had the very same life. (You may also wish to ponder other relatives and loved ones, friends and family, both here and gone, or more distant ancestors—add an enemy, as well.) Their “garments” may have been different—personalities, the variant shape of their bodies, race, ethnicity, character traits, values, creeds, faiths and beliefs, etc. (Their situations, relationships, status, property, wealth or poverty, etc., was what they carried in their pockets,) but the life in all of them was the same. No exceptions. They all existed. They all breathed. That is what life, in its essence, is. Existence. Great-Grandma Pearl Mae Johnson wasn’t a phantom, nor a statue of stone. She was—she had life! All of these people breathed—the most basic essence of Life. The same life that is in you. Lifetimes have various qualities (garments.) Life has but one. Isness.
One life. Life.

And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.
Gen 2:7

At the end of this paragraph, pause and experience this. Close your eyes and become aware of your breath. In the fullness of each breath, which is the primary, ever-renewing, indisputable evidence of the presence of life, experience your life. Experience your spirit. Know (experience,) The Spirit. Experience unity. Know eternal life.

***

We are really not our own, are we?

Contrary to what we might think, the Soul needs no healing. It needs no feeding. It requires nothing. How can it? It is perfect just as it is, because it just is. It is not a matter of fixing the soul, but getting to the soul that heals. (Or, more aptly put, to come from the soul. “Thy Kingdom come.”)

Often, we refer to someone as having a beautiful soul, or kind spirit, yet, what we are really describing is a type of demeanor, a positive outlook, or attitude, or a pleasing aspect of personality, or a character trait of some kind. These are still the garments.
The Soul just is. And requires nothing. It is our garments that need the work—sometimes to be cleaned or laundered, sometimes changed or updated, often altered and at other times discarded. Sometimes we wear inappropriate clothes, other times way too many. In many of us, they are often just right and stylish-perfect for the occasion, at other times all wrong, or we need the makeover.

But, the soul just is.

Part 2 tomorrow.