The Three S's

For the past two years, I have been on a treadmill. No, not the one that customarily comes to mind, especially to those of you who are exercise buffs. Anyone who have seen me in the last few months would know that exercise is the activity with the least priority on my list – sad as that may be.

Before those emails start coming, questioning me about my arguments for self care – let me just say, “I know.” My daughter has been stressing me enough about the gym fees that I continue to pay without blessing my foot in Spa Lady, so I do not need any one else to give me grief.

For some reason though, my weight has remained constant – fat in the middle and all right every where else. Go figure! A man that I was dating years and years ago called it the middle age spread and he warned me that I was in danger of losing him if that happened to me. Well you all know the score on that.

Although I have not been to the gym, this past week however has been glorious, with me taking care of myself in other ways. I have spent the past two years ‘beating the books’, being “Super Student” completing a four-year Master degree programme in two, having little time for sleep and simply taking life easy.

Since this week started, I have made up for that, sleeping for more hours than I have in two years in five days – almost. Along with sleep, I have stuffed myself with home cooking and doing some of the self-care practices that are so essential.

As I prepare to leave for that conference in Vancouver, I thought to do another “S” activity - take a Shortcut and re-publish an article I wrote four years ago about “The Three S’s,” as this week’s Words of Comfort.

I share this article, along with Words from Scripture and the Words from the Heart as a reminder to check whether you are searching for the “S’s” that will give your life meaning.

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Think of me in ‘sunny’, for our standards here in Canada, British Columbia, as you read this article and enjoy all the features available here. I will return next week with a mid-week voice post – if I can tear myself away from the sun, sand and . . . (fill in the blanks, keep it clean though).

Words from Scripture

From Christian Scripture:
1Corinthian 6:19
“Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, which you have from God, and that you are not your own?”

From Jainism:
Talmud, Sanhedrin 108a
“The body is the sheath of the soul.”

From A Course In Miracles:
W.pII. 222.1-2
“God is with me. He is my Source of life, the life within, the air I breathe, the food by which I am sustained, the water which renews and cleanse me.”

Excerpts from Jainism is taken from World Scripture: A Comparative Anthology of Sacred Texts, 230

Words of Comfort

Every human being searches to find what I call "The Three S’s.

For many, the search takes a lifetime and with any ‘luck’ one or two of the S’s are found – never all. There are some who, believing that they have all three, become relaxed and complacent and end up losing all chances of finding all their S’s.

What are these S’s?

They are Security, Spouse and Sex (good Sex). For each person, the form, shape, size or frequency of these S’s are relative to their perception of good. However, there are certain things common to most.

For example, security is usually based on having a ‘fat’ bank account and a sizeable income. Having a spouse, for most, is based on a concept of partnership that is equivalent to personal happiness.

Sex is in a league of its own though. Often “no money, means no sex.” No money can also mean no security and, more significantly, for many it means no spouse (at least not the penniless one.)

Can we now begin to understand why some of us never feel satisfied, as one of the S’s is usually missing – or so it seems?

Sometimes you believe you have a spouse, the sex is relatively good but the creditors are at your windows, peeping and waiting to interrupt the afterglow.

How then can we find stability (another S)? Should we be looking to some other letter in the alphabet for better clues?

I propose that we stick with the letter S, but let us choose instead some other words, let us re-phrase our search. Let change
 Security to Source
 Spouse to Spirit
 Sex to Soul

Can you see the co-relation? Do you see where I am going with this?

To have real security, we need to recognize the Source of all things – money, house, car, etc. To have or be a loving Spouse, we need to recognize and honour the Spirit within each person but in ourselves first. To have a life-enhancing, intimate and loving relationship, we must first be willing to recognize and embrace the Soul – our own and that of our lovers.

Struggling, worrying and fighting will not provide real security. Changing ‘spouses’ monthly and constantly looking outside will not establish a long-term or life-supporting relationship.

Sex and good sex for that matter does not reside in proficiency or frequency but rather in understanding yourself to the core and in being willing and open to receiving your partner for all who they are.

What I am suggesting is that we need to find only one S.

Our search will take on a new and deeper dimension, when we consciously recognize that security, spouse and (good) sex will be long-lasting only when we truly enter relationship with the Father/Mother of all S’s.

Then and only then will we begin to appreciate and experience joy, peace and prosperity.

Words from the Heart
The Interior Castle (Excerpt)
St. Teresa of Avila (1515 – 1582)

Allow me to share with you a passage from Teresa of Avila’s masterpiece, The Interior Castle – the Seventh Dwelling Places, Chapter 2. I invite you to read this with your mind and heart wide open. Go beyond the words to the essence. Once you are able to do this, you will, I hope, see the beauty of loving from the depth of the Soul.

“The Lord appears in this center of the soul, which must be where God Himself is…”

What God communicates here to the soul in an instant is a secret so great and a favor so sublime - and the delight the soul experiences so extreme - that I don't know what to compare it to.

I can say only that the Lord wishes to reveal for that moment, in a more sublime manner than through any spiritual vision or taste, the glory of heaven. One can say no more - insofar as can be understood - than that the soul, I mean the spirit, is made one with God.

For since his Majesty is also spirit, he has wished to show his love for us by giving some persons the understanding of the point to which this love reaches so that we might praise his grandeur. For he has desired to be joined with the creature that, just as those who are married cannot be separated, he doesn't want to be separated from the soul.

The spiritual betrothal is different, for the two often separate. And the union is also different because, even though it is the joining of two things into one, in the end the two can be separated and each remains by itself.

We observe this ordinarily, for the favor of union with the Lord passes quickly, and afterward the soul remains without that company; I mean, without awareness of it. In this other favor from the Lord, no. The soul always remains with its God in that center.

Let us say that the union is like the joining of two wax candles to such an extent that the flame coming from them is but one, or that the wick, the flame, and the wax are all one. But afterward one candle can be easily separated from the other and there are two candles; the same hold for the wick.

In the spiritual marriage the union is like what we have when rain falls from the sky into a river or fount; all is water, for the rain that fell from heaven cannot be divided or separated from the water of the river.

Or it is like what we have when a little stream enters the sea, there is no means of separating the two. Or, like the bright light entering a room through two different windows; although the streams of light are separate when entering the room, they become one."

Blessings, until my mid-week voice post.