Practice Timelessly

Heaven doesn't reward what we have done in the past, nor does it reward what we intend to do tomorrow. What do I mean by this? Do all our charity work, and hours of prayer/meditation count for nothing? Yes, in short, that is what I mean.

Years of spiritual practice or conduct will of course increase our chances to endure and welcome the wind of transformation when it comes, but if we're in that mind-set of gathering grace, for our future blessing, we are severely mistaken. They do not accept hand luggage on the Flight to Heaven. To enter that plane of communion we must be stripped naked.

With thoughts like “If I only pray regularly, and meditate every day”, I must surely reach enlightenment/salvation in this life”, or “I have been far to sloppy with my abstinence or fasting lately to expect any kind of progress” we bring Time into the equation. This is bad practice. It is weakness of faith, and it is aiming falsely. The actions of the Lord require no time.

When you look to the future for freedom, or take refuge in the past, you leave the one and only place where Life IS, and where awakening is possible – Here and Now. What you did last week, or the minute before this one, is of no consequence in this context. God, I dare say, will forgive the most hideous error or crime in a second. It is not “He” but We, that hinder His Light. We must find the courage to believe this, and to forgive ourselves, and that's the one and only tricky part.

 

Spiritual discipline, and a religious way of life, are not there to merit our future salvation. We practice and live this way to improve our relation to the NOW (Life). Whatever our self-judgment, whatever our doubts, we should let go of them and re-enter Being (here) at once. Here is where the Lord awaits us, here is where He invites us, and here is where we may chose to strip naked (sacrifice our egos) before Him. Nothing we did in the past have the power to stop this from happening, but for the mental bonds of faithlessness that cause us to hide in Time.

In essence, there is no distance to The Lord. Walking there takes no time. He is not even a step away. With a single leap of faith right now, we can skip decades of arduous practice. Trust the fullness of this moment. Give yourself to this place. We have always stood, and are still standing, by the Altar of the Lord. Do we have the faith and courage to "expose our necks" and let it happen – to let that happen which The Lord brings, whatever it may be?

Okay then, so we struggle some more and we suffer some more, but we are lost when we look to the future for our salvation, and we are of little faith until we can shed our savings on the doorstep of every day and moment, because “...surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” (Matthew 28:19)

or as Paul writes: “...I tell you, now is the time of God's favor, now is the day of salvation.” (2 Corinthians 6:2)

It is better that we return to this now (the presence of the Lord), if only for a second, than make up plans for a future in perfect virtue. Fall into the deepest pit of Sin, it doesn't matter. If we re-enter this now in faith and fully undressed (of us), the Lord will welcome us with all of His Love, and embrace us as if we were (in our capacity of) His One and only Son. I will even claim that; if we come with empty hands, He is unable to deny us.