This is the new paradigm: the simpler the better

This is the new paradigm: the simpler the better.  Simple exists, it thrives, it promotes itself.  Simple life, simple love, simple joy and happiness.  Oh you could serve that at a feast! 

Can you exercise your right to leave your life of pain and sorrow, of suffering and loneliness far behind?  I know you can.  You are not a personality, you are not a habit.  You are not the sum of weaknesses your small mind would hoist upon you.  

But, beloveds, most fear giving up something they hold so dear and sacred, and if it has dollar signs upon it then you know it comes not from my heart but from the heart of darkness.  If you worship it and it gives you not life back, who are you worshipping?  Isn't giving your power a form of worship? If not to yourself, then to whom do you give your empowerment? 

Divine Mother

The art of surrender is forever overlooked

The art of surrender is forever overlooked.  It takes a soul gifted with far-sightedness to understand the strength and purpose of surrender.  There is no loss in letting go, much will be new.  How you qualify such newness is up to you, but unless the space is made there is no room and it, once again, becomes cluttered, claustrophobic, and you become prone to bumping into your shame, denial and weaknesses. 

Release those things!  If they are so dear, take a picture, visit a taxidermist, bronze them, but do not let them live in your present day as they so affect your world that you will never climb up and out of the chasm.  There is greatness on the other side of that mountain.  It is gold and white, it shimmers like light atop a wave; it is called God and it is your reward for exercising the strength, mindfulness, willfulness and commitment that it takes to release the past.
Rumi

My little one, come to the fire and free yourself

My little one, come to the fire and free yourself from the burden that weighs you and holds you in times that matter not.  A moment, perhaps two, is all it takes and you are born again.  And what you do with such a gift is entirely up to you and no one else.

Lahiri Mahasaya

You must not force your way into heaven

You must not force your way into heaven.  It is absurd to believe that by pushing you will gain deeper entrance, greater insight and freedom.  It is every moment, every thought, every choice to practice peace that opens wide the gates of heaven.

Do not struggle so.  Remember there is a river, and it is called life.  Some drown, some swim, very few walk upon, and fewer still become.  It is necessary to peel away the bark that one might achieve the heartwood.  In a very real sense we die from this process.  But we are born again and anew.  Few tasks at their inception are of ease.  But once one learns the parameters, the ins and outs, such a task becomes rote. 

Beloved, you are learning to let go of the glue that connects and imprisons you to the past.  Oh, we know it isn't easy.  If you cannot conquer what came before, how can you embrace that which will be?  It is all so intense, but it needs to be.  You would not relinquish your ties unless you were reminded that each must be cut and set free, and in so doing so are you. 

I delight in your commitment and I have a poem for you:

When I touch your face
A thousand stars, sands of heaven,
Befriend me.
And your breathing becomes the water of my tears.
Am I separate?

Between wanting is the God that is giving.
And I peer into your prayer,
My face the celestial sun,
And what remains longs for your embrace.
So small yet so needy.
And all I can do
Is taste the smile
On your lips,
So sweet.

Jelaluddin