Hello my lovelies.

Here are my witterings on Verse 4.

Verse 4 – The Great Integrity
The Great Integrity is an endless abyss,
yet, it is the inexhaustibly fertile
source of the universe.

It blunts all sharpness,
unties the entangled,
and merges with the dust!

Hidden but ever present –
this parent of the gods –
whose child may it be? (Translation Ralph Alan Dale)

This is an image that winds its way throughout time and religion. Almost all original spiritual thought comes from this angle and it is only when mankind craves earthly power that the Gods are personified and given earthly cravings and judgements. Meister Eckhart, the 14th Century German Mystic was condemned by the Church as his sermons preached that you could not say that God was wise, as that implied that he could be wiser and you could not say that God was good as that implied that he could be better. What he was trying to explain to his congregation was that ‘God’ or ‘The Universe’ or ‘The Great Integrity’ – please use whichever term you are most comfortable with, or use your own – is infinitely more than words can ever describe. It is everything and nothing; within us and without. It is not a person who judges us, it is not something that we have no contact with, it is in fact the very opposite. We are all part of that power and we need no one else to mediate for us. We contain everything within ourselves. There are so many ways that this has been conveyed to us down the years. Buddhism states that we have all the life states within us from Hell to Buddhahood. The Christ Consciousness of the Course of Miracles states that we are all sons and daughters of God. No one is more special or important than any other. We all have the ability to be at one with the universe and thus at one with each other. We are everything and nothing.

This verse also highlights the chicken and the egg problem. God (which is the easiest shortcut term for this immensity from my background, but please feel free to insert anything you prefer) is the parent and the child, the beginning and the end. It is not a definable entity, it is all of us, everywhere and everything. When we start to define it, we reduce it down to something that our sometimes puny minds can deal with and then we are back to exploitative religions. By understanding that we are all one - that there is nothing within me that is not also within my neighbour and within my enemy, and that all boundaries and borders have been placed there to limit us, not to protect us, it becomes impossible to even contemplate intolerance, racism or war. Even though we are different outwardly, we all contain infinite wisdom and infinite possibilities. We are all connected to a higher mass consciousness, we all dream and hope and love, we all want to return to the source – we are all one!

One of my favourite quotes is from Marianne Williamson – “Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others”. This is often misattributed to Nelson Mandela – but whoever said it I think it illustrates this verse well. The Great Integrity is within all of us, we are all a part of it and therefore we are all able to shine.

So on this New Years Eve 2009 I wish each and everyone one of you to shine in 2010, because I know you are all capable of anything you wish to achieve.

Happy New Year and vast amounts of love to all of you.

Catherine x