the gap between right and wrong/black and white

Is the connection we feel with other beings just a recognition of the oneness we all are a part of(?)...

I'm aware that when I help others it is in order to work on myself. Not as an egotistical act but, I work on myself in order to help others. We cannot ever escape the wholeness. We are it, it is us--Drops in a vast ocean of consciousness yearning to know itself.

Do I have clarity?... A part of me roils in pain while another me sees forever. My soul sees way further than the event horizon, while my heart is lost in the storms of emotion. So the short of it is, I do and I don't.

When we start out on a spiritual path we set ideals we think we're supposed to live up to. We feel we're supposed to be better than we are in many ways. But in fact, ironically, experiences along my journey have helped me realize that life is about taking yourself completely as you are. Then, taking in pain - breathing it in for yourself and all others in the same boat as you are - to heighten our awareness of exactly where we're stuck.

Humans habitually erect a barrier, called blame, that keeps us from communicating genuinely with others, and we fortify it with our concepts of who's right and who's wrong. We invariably do that with the people who are closest to us, as well as with political systems, with all kinds of things that we don't like about our associates or our society. It is a very common, ancient, well-perfected device for trying to feel better - Blame others. Blaming is a way to protect the heart, trying to protect what is soft and open and tender in ourselves. Rather than own that pain, we scramble to find some comfortable ground - In the Gap Between Right and Wrong.

Compassionate action starts with seeing yourself when you start to make yourself right and when you start to make yourself wrong. At that point, you could just contemplate the fact that there is a larger alternative to either of those, a more tender, shaky kind of place where you could live - In the Gap Between Right and Wrong.

I'm striving to prevent myself from become undone by fear and trembling, while I take it as a message that it's time to stop struggling and look directly at what's threatening me. And all I see is illusion, while still clinging to the familiar, perceived truth. But only just.

I know that when we learn to open our hearts, anyone, including the people who drive us crazy, can be our teacher.

The clarity of black and white we can only hope to know for briefest of moments, as the pendulum stops to take a breath on its dive down through the endless shades of gray... till it reaches the other side, for another brief breath.

That is the clarity I see. For all of us.

[edited personal mail]

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