The Feast of Life!

Many years ago, in those days when we were young and carefree, ha ha! my friend Lisa Dombek shared a book with me that was to become one of those books that resurfaces every now and then, and when it comes to my consciousness, I pick it up, close my eyes and select a page. That page always speaks to me deeply. I have perused pages throughout the book just to check and make sure that it is not every page that wants to speak to me in that moment and what I find is that the page that turns up is always the perfect page for the moment.

Does that happen to you with books? Does it work for you too, with the right message or information for the moment?

Yesterday I glimpsed the book and thought it was time for a pick up and peek. This is what came up, you may like it too.

I'll share it with you:

In your joy
you are celebrating God.
You are celebrating the feast of life.


This is not something to be denigrated
on the grounds that there is more to life
than pleasure.
Certainly there is more.
There is an infinity of more.
One is never finished
with the process of growth,
of seeking, serving, loving.
The delights of the physical world
are the delights of the spirit world.
It is all one.
Your human joy will not take you away 
from your love for God.
Love is love.
If you cannot tolerate human bliss
how will you withstand the bliss
of eternal Oneness.


If you were to check into the consciousness
of a rock
you would find a great deal of pleasure there.
You would find
a sense of Oneness that is comforting,
a delight in being a rock.
In the flow of its being
a rock in the state of ecstasy.


Ecstasy cannot be scaled
on a rating from one to ten.
It is ecstasy.
Why are you all so suspicious of joy and softness?
Is this not also God's world?
Joy is a natural ingredient of life.


You human beings tend to be hurried and pressured
and thereby deny yourselves the exquisite pleasure
of savoring your lives.
In this way, a great amount of joy
and sweetness goes unnoticed.
If life is lived with care and attention
it will give you the sustenance
and richness you long for.
Allow yourselves to renew your commitment
to your lives and to yourselves
many times a day.


You feel that because you yearn for the warmth
and the softness of life
that this will somehow lull you into inactivity?
Must there always be a harsh outer reality
to remind you of God?

If you cannot trust beauty where you find it
how can you open your heart
to Oneness with God
which is eternal beauty? 


Excerpt from: Emmanuel's Book: A manual for living comfortably in the cosmos, Introduction by Ram Dass, Compiled by Pat Rodegast and Judith Stanton, 1987, Bantam Books, New York


Thanks Lis!