Miracles and Grace  reveals–through story–the abundance of ordinary/everyday miracles presenting themselves to our consciousness every single day.

Raising  consciousness expands the mind to perceive more of a truth  that we are not an insignificant dot on the globe, but  are constantly reflecting and affecting each other.

Long before modern physics came up with the hologram as an essential model of the Universe, an ancient Indian teaching story, the Avatamsaka sutra, spoke to the unity, interconnectedness and interdependence of all creation.

“Indra’s Net” ~ In the heavenly realm, the god Indra cast a net that extends infinitely throughout space. A multifaceted crystal is attached at each of its nodes. Every single crystal reflects, and is being reflected in, all of the other crystals, endlessly. The slightest change in one crystal is reflected as change in each of the others.

This alignment of modern science with ancient philosophy allows us to imagine each of ourselves as a single crystal on that net, affected by and affecting each other in infinite ways. Simply considering the impact our every thought, feeling, word, or deed has on everyone and everything brings a profound awakening. . .and a sense of responsibility for not only ourselves, but the whole organism we call our world, of which we are an integral part.

There have been civilizations who understood our  interconnectedness, and lived in ways that supported it. The ancient/tribal way was to band together in Community. All was organized around the principle of WE (not me vs.you).

Every thought, word and deed accompanied by heart-feeling  strengthens our conversation with the entire Universe.  Together WE have the power–with just one action–to manifest a change for the whole of  our planet Earth.  WE are essentially that crystal.

Today, I am projecting a visualization and an intention for a world where we live in peaceful balance and harmony, sharing our best with our neighbor and demonstrating caring for the quality of life of future generations.

What we intend, we create.   WE  are All One;  WE are the WHOLE.

Painting on canvas:: “WE“  (18″ x18″ x 1 1/4″)  created by Sherry Remez

]]> http://www.miraclesandgrace.com/we-the-whole/feed/ 0 http://www.miraclesandgrace.com/second-sight-or-first/ http://www.miraclesandgrace.com/second-sight-or-first/#comments Wed, 29 Apr 2009 18:31:50 +0000 admin http://www.miraclesandgrace.com/?p=545 This is an experience that happened to me late 1975 or 76.  I was a practicing vision specialist at the time and I’d been wearing glasses for 9 years. I didn’t see well without glasses.  I could barely see the big E on the eye chart, and needed them to drive.  I started doing some vision exercises, and gradually reduced the strength of my eyeglasses prescription, and my vision started to improve.  Then, at a certain point, it stopped.

One day I was meditating (I had meditated since 1971) and I had a profound experience that I never had before.In the midst of my meditation, and with eyes closed, all of a sudden I found myself observing myself and everything else in the room.   Today we would say “out of body experience”, but I had never heard of such a thing.

My eyes were closed, but through some way—I can’t say ‘the mind’s eye’, because I don’t know how it was observed–everything in the room was crystal clear.  Beyond optically clear–everything was clear. There were no questions–about anything.  Everything was just. . .I don’t even know how to describe it.

In the midst of this experience, I also realized I also couldn’t tell from where I was seeing.  It felt–the experience was–like simultaneous perception from an infinite number of points around the room, because I was observing myself from the front and back and top simultaneously.  I don’t know how to speak about that either.

When I opened my eyes, my eyesight was crystal clear.  I left my home, got in my car, put my glasses on the seat next to me, and drove to my office to examine myself.  On the way to my office, I could see everything: street signs billboards, everything.  I got to my office, I sat in my chair and started looking at eye charts I’d never seen before, and I could see every letter on every chart.    I put myself behind the horopter and went through same process, asking the same questions I ask my patients, “which is better #1 or #2?”

I went through the process and when I was finished, came up with the optical prescription, I was sure that the device would say “zero”, I didn’t need a prescription.   But the prescription in the machine was exactly the same prescription as I was wearing in my glasses.  The report was calling for the same prescription that my eyesight had always called for.

I had to ask myself the question,  “How is this possible??  I just had a 300% improvement in eyesight that seemed to occur instantaneously.  I could see everything on the eye chart without any stress or strain, and yet the optics of my eyes hadn’t changed at all!  Then all of a sudden it came to me:  Oh, we don’t see from the eyes alone.

It is now 32 years since that day, I’ve never had a pair of glasses on my face since that day, for distance or for reading.  6 months ago had a professional vision exam, and even though I don’t register as being nearsighted any longer, (which I was back then) I actually show more astigmatism now than before.  The amount of astigmatism that was objectively measured would make it impossible for me to see 20/20.  Yet I do.

What I’ve come to realize is that we don’t know what it is that is seeing.  From my experience, the seeing isn’t happening in the eye; unless you identify the eye as the seeing mechanism. For me, it’s not happening in the mind‘s eye; unless you identify yourself and the source of your essence as being in what you call that continual flow of thoughts that we think of as mind.  For me, is a situated–perhaps call it an awareness—is situated in the place that is aware of, not only the sensations of the body, but is continually aware of this activity of this thing going on in we call the mind.

All of us experience thoughts, most of think we are thinking them.  From my experience, what’s actually happening is that we are observing them.  In fact the only reason we are aware of the fact that thinking is occurring is because something is watching it, something is seeing it.

So, for me, the reason I believe that my eyesight changed so radically, and seems to give me optical clarity when the optics of my eyes would indicate that it would be impossible to have that clarity, is because the identification with the source of seeing, for me, is no longer in the eye or in the mind.  What I trust is that thing that sees without looking.

Jacob–Hawaii

The need for the “feeling” fuels my addiction
Yet the fire in my vein
Reeks havoc on my body –
Gray skin, sunken cheeks, darting eyes
Weight loss of thirty pounds –
Little more than a shell – “existing”
Empty – searching – lonely Isolation, shame.
The fire in my vein – creating the illusion
Of power and confidence – yet
All the while creating a dependence
On a “feeling” – artificially induced
By the fire in my vein.
The shadows ever so subtly obscuring the Light
Creeping closer to the edge – the precipice – I teeter
Life and death – the fire in my vein demands more!
I gaze into the mirror and see only remnants
Of what I used to be – a shell
A tear lands on my cheek – HOPE!
The fire in my vein demands more –
Another tear falls – LIGHT!
I drop the syringe –
I see like I have never seen before
Beyond “physical” – my spiritual essence –
LIGHT – flickering – waiting only to be fanned,
Igniting purpose and passion, creating LIFE,
Immersed in LOVE.
I have never again picked up a syringe
I have no need of the fire in my vein
For a fire has ignited in my soul
Fueled by the desire to live purposefully…
And love passionately!

David –Grand Rapids, Michigan is a former addict and IV drug user.

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I was sitting at the kitchen table in a house in British Columbia that I had once called my home.   Since the moment I decided to ‘do the right thing’ and stay on to help my ex-partner, Donna, and her daughter make ends meet, it has felt more like a prison, or a trap.  I had been feeling great responsibility toward them due to the fact that they were there for me during many hardships in my life.  But, it has been two years of what has felt like atonement.  I was now at my wits end.

I was doodling on a piece of paper.  I had drawn a wide crack from one corner to the other. I blackened in the crack with the pencil and in that I drew the Ying and Yang symbol and on each side of that I wrote “Life/Death”.

When Donna showed up I borrowed her car and ran downtown to do some errands and to visit a friend.  At about eleven thirty, I was coming back up the hill to where I lived.  It was a dark night without a moon to light the way.  I was driving the usual fifty-five kilometers per hour and was complacent in my knowledge of the road.

All of a sudden in my head lights I saw a large male deer in the on-coming lane about thirty feet in front of me.  Time seemed to slow down at this point.   I remember thinking that where there’s a male there should be a female.   As I thought that, out of the corner of my eye, to my right, a deer leaped in front of my vehicle.  (I should tell you that I’ve had a lot of experience as a driver, having driven taxi in the city. You learn to respond quickly to potential accidents.) This moment was different.  That split second where I would usually swerve out of danger was gone.  The deer looked right into my eyes.  For a second I felt compelled to continue my course.  It was as if she was saying “No, it is my time and yours.”

Bang, I hit her!  She bounced off the car and spun her hind quarters under the rear tire.  I traveled another fifty feet before I realized that there was severe damage to the vehicle.   I pulled over and investigated the damage.   The front end of the car was smashed up and I had blown the rear tire.  I couldn’t see the deer behind me, and so proceeded to try to change the tire.   I didn’t think to walk back to the deer.   I was sure that she was dead.

There was no way to get the car back to the house, so I took a ride from a passing motorist who informed me that the deer was still alive and on the side of the road, injured. When I got home, I told Donna what had happened to her car and the deer.    She took the news better than I thought and suggested that we call the police to come and help with the deer and report the accident.

We then drove my van to her vehicle.   She stayed with the car as I walked down to where the deer was and found her leaning her head against the cement barrier.   Her body was a mess, her whole back end was crushed.   Her intestines were hanging out a large hole in her stomach.

I was in shock.  I felt like I couldn’t breathe.   It was as if I felt her suffering.  I slowly walked up to her, trying not to scare her more.   I spoke to her softly, saying over and over, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry I’ve killed you.”   I began to cry.   I climbed over the barrier and leaned down to put my hands on her.  All of a sudden she turned her broken body to face me.   It amazed me that she could move, the damage was so severe.

She put her face close to mine and looked right into my eyes, as she had done when I hit her. I cupped her face in my hands and began to soothe her as I cried.    Many times I apologized to her.  Many times I told her that I didn’t mean to kill her, for I knew that she would soon die.

Her tongue was hanging out and her eyes were wide open, by all rights she should already be dead.  She should have been scared of me, but I felt that she was trying to tell me something.  The look in her eyes was not of fear, it was not even of pain. It was as if Divine guidance was at work through her.  “We were done.”   Those words kept going through my head.  She was done in life and I was done in the sentence that I had given myself.

A police officer showed up and put the deer out of her misery and I drove home saddened by the pain that I had caused–but exhilarated at the same time.   Something inside of me had changed.   I knew would make a change and soon after I moved out and began a new life.

I met a beautiful lady on Maui and am now enjoying a miracle life with her.

That deer will forever be in my memory as my guide to changes that have saved my life and given new meaning to it.   I thank her always for that and still shed a tear from time to time, but do feel so blessed by our encounter.

God Bless you, my Deer

Colin–Hope, British Columbia

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