A Carrot, An Egg, and a Cup of Tea

A CARROT, AN EGG, AND A CUP OF TEA
Received this in an email. Not sure who the author is...

A young woman went to her mother to tell her how hard life felt. It seemed as one problem was solved, a new one arose. She was tired of fighting and struggling and wanted to give up on her dreams.

Her mother took her to the kitchen. She filled three pots with water and placed each on a high flame. Soon the pots came to boil. In the first she placed a carrot, in the second she placed an egg, and in the last she placed a tea bag. She let them sit and boil; without saying a word.

Twenty minutes later she turned off the burners. She took the carrot out and placed it in a bowl. She pulled the egg out and placed it in another bowl. Then she poured the tea into a third bowl. Turning to her daughter, she asked, "Tell me what you see?"

"A Carrot, an egg, and tea," the daughter replied.

Her mother brought her closer and asked her to feel the carrot. She did and noted that they were soft. The mother then asked the daughter to take the egg and break it. After pulling off the shell, she observed the hard boiled egg. Finally, the mother asked the daughter to sip the tea. The daughter smiled as she tasted its rich aroma.

The daughter then asked, "What does all this mean?"

Her mother explained that each of them had faced the same adversity: boiling hot water. Yet each reacted differently. The carrot went in strong, hard, and unrelenting. But, after being subjected to heat, it softened and became weak. The egg had once been fragile. Its thin outer shell had protected its liquid interior, but after sitting in the boiling water, its insides became hardened. The tea was unique, however. After being immersed in boiling water, it had changed the water's color and taste.

"Which are you?" she asked her daughter. "When adversity knocks on your door, how do you respond? Are you like the carrot, the egg or the tea? Do you seem strong like the carrot, but with pain and adversity do you wilt and lose your character and strength?

Are you the egg that starts with a soft, fluid center, but hardens with the heat? Does your shell look the same on the outside, but on the inside you become stiff and rigid?

Or are you like the tea, which actually changes the environment around it? When the water gets to be its hottest, tea releases its best...infusing the water with its most aromatic fragrance and flavor. If you are like the tea, when things are at their most intense, it is an opportunity for the strength of your character to come forward and change what's around you (not vice versa).

Today, may you have enough richness in life to keep you sweet and enough heat to bring out your boldest and best flavor!

Sacred Space in the Heart (Living in the Heart)

Written by Drunvalo Melchizadek.

So much has been lost, but being eternal, it is never lost forever, only veiled!

The Secret of Secrets — the hidden space within the human heart that all of creation emerges from — was in ancient times almost completely an oral tradition kept secret by the priests and shamans of the tribe or culture. Seldom was anything written down, primarily because it cannot be learned or experienced from the written word. Only through direct experience can it truly be known.

Nevertheless, this month (August 2003) I am publishing a new book about this very subject. It's called Living in the Heart.

What I have found is that although the direct experience is paramount to knowing the Secret of Secrets, talking or reading about the Sacred Space of the Heart can prepare the mind for this change.

In order to help accomplish this change, I have created a CD that will be included in the book. It will lead you into the heart space in a similar manner that was used in ancient times, thousands of years ago. At least, this is my hope and prayer.

What Is this Secret of Secrets?

First of all, on a mundane level, it is a physical space within the body that is found, depending on the tradition, either inside the heart or very close to it. Some traditions say it is behind the heart, some say it is off to one side, and others say it is in front of the heart. But most believe it is located inside the physical heart, and that's what I believe.

One aspect is clear. It is not the heart chakra.

The Secret of Secrets has been referred in the Jewish tradition as the Secret Chamber of the Heart. The Upanishads, the Hindu sacred texts, refer to it as the Tiny Place Within the Heart. It also is sometimes referred to as the Sacred Space of the Heart, which is the designation I use in my new book.

In truth, there is very little found that has ever been written about this most important part of human experience.

It is apparent that in ancient times, this place within the heart was known and entered into in their ceremonies, for this is still being done today in a few "lost" tribes in remote areas of the world.

In modern times, the HeartMath Institute is the forerunner of research into this ancient knowledge, and at the same time they are finding new information that probably even the Ancient Ones didn't know.

From my perspective and the view of many indigenous tribes, this Sacred Space within the Heart holds the only possibility of there ever being peace on Earth. All political actions on the Earth are being taken from Duality Consciousness — the result of the Fall — and this form of consciousness is based on ego.

As long as ego runs the course of events in the world, we will never know peace. Ego judges all events as either good or bad from its own viewpoint, and ego always thinks of itself first. As long as ego is safe and comfortable, ego doesn't usually care what happens to that which seems external to itself.

The Reality Within the Heart

The heart is so different! It perceives the world as an image, not something "real," and it see everything at once. The heart knows only unity and Oneness, and creates from that way of seeing. It will never do anything that will be harmful to anyone or anything, for it knows that there is not "two."

All that exists is within the heart. In fact, even if it does not exist, it is still within the heart.

People, in the past myself included, often believe that love is the word for what is connected to the heart space. We celebrate Valentine's Day with images of a heart representing our connection with with love and our lover.

But from the Sacred Space of the Heart, there are various kinds of love, and the love that we experience between two people is seldom coming from the heart. This kind of love is actually coming from the emotional body and is controlled by the right brain.

These emotional feelings are polarized, just as the brain is, and have an opposite expression — for example, love can become hate.

How often have you kissed someone you love dearly and then ten minutes later, in a moment of heat (heart without an "r"), said, "I hate you!" This is a conditional love. It changes with the moment.

But in the Sacred Space of the Heart there is a different kind of emotional body, so to speak, that does not have a polarized counterpart. This is a LOVE that knows no bounds, has no conditions, and will exist eternally no matter what.

This LOVE knows only Oneness and creates only to bring joy to all life everywhere.

Ever since we fell from our heart to our mind, we have been in hell.

And so I pray that someday soon we all find this place within our hearts, for in this most holy place we all join together as One.

Does this sound like New Age hype, or do you really realize the possibility and power of what many people are saying today about this hidden world of the heart?

All the world's religions and spiritual disciplines allude to this possibility, but most of them have forgotten how to actually enter this sacred space. These ways, like most of the old ways, have been lost.

But as I said in the beginning, this experience can never be truly lost, for it is the source of humanity and the cosmos itself. It can only be veiled.

As with all natural events in nature, all things have their timing. The return to the heart by humankind is only a matter of time.

And remember, the great achievements of this human world have always began with a single man or woman. If only one person — perhaps you? — were to enter the heart in LOVE and begin the holy dreaming process of creating a new world, can you not see that all the rest of us would someday follow?

A veil is only a veil! The truth is always eternal. Through a single person, the Secret of Secrets could be revealed in the ordinary world of everyday life.

______________________________________________________________

You will realize that I have purposely left out of this article any actual instructions on how to enter the heart consciousness. This is for the same reason that the ancients never, or seldom, wrote down their knowledge. The step-by-step instructions won't get you there. It's not something that can be conveyed in the space of an article, and as you will see in reading this magazine, the best anyone can do is help prepare you.

I do pray that what I have done with the new book and CD will be of service. But the truth is that without an experienced teacher and the oral tradition, it is very difficult to truly find this Sacred Space.

So if you still need more help, please go to the schedule of workshops on my personal website at Drunvalo.net.

Even in a living workshop, we take two days of preparation before we try to enter the Sacred Space. But in this context, most problems can be overcome, and the direct experience can usually be achieved.
—Drunvalo

Time and 2012.

Time and 2012.

My notes, taken from Ian Lungold’s Mayan Lecture Video

The center of any civilization is its calendar. It is the one thing that a society agrees upon, even more than any one religion. What day is it? We all agree on the date. Everything is measured in relation to one’s calendar, including our viewpoint. Today our calendar is unquestioned, serving as the greatest mass dogma there is.

Most ancient civilizations followed a much different calendar. Theirs was not based on revolutions around the sun, or physical movement, like ours. Our calendar, the Gregorian began being used in the late 1500’s – approximately 500 years ago.  Calendars such as the Mayan, Tibetan, Hebrew, Egyptian and Maori followed a 360-day calendar that they called a Divine calendar.

This divine calendar was based on the flow of creation, breaking up time into cycles of 7 days and 6 nights. Each of these days and nights had an intention. The days were the dawning of an age while the night was the application of it. Their calendars tracked time as far back as 16 billion years ago.

The whole purpose of their calendar was to orient their consciousness to the flow of divine creation. Using this calendar, they were able to create their version of heaven on Earth. Heaven was reached when they flowed with creation. Rather than time passing by, they were flowing with it. This was made possible when they aligned the following: time, place, personal intent, and the divine calendar. They rode the flow of creation, were participating in divine creation, and felt centered.

We have all felt that time seems to be speeding up. What is actually happening is that creation is speeding up. Rather than taking a buggy across state, we fly in a jetliner across the country in a few hours. Just a couple hundred years ago, having a few horses made you wealthy. Now we all have over a hundred horsepower in our cars. There are even some scientific labs performing teleportation. People used to dress in similar type outfits, whatever was available. Now we have closets full of different styles to suit our mood. There is more data, more substance and more knowledge. We can learn anything in minutes by researching on the internet. We can choose our experience more and more. With so many options we now actually decide how we want to create our experience.

Many of these ancient cultures had an end to their calendar. This has been translated into various dates in our Gregorian system, ranging from October 28th, 2011 – December 21st, 2012. Overall, I have seen that 2012 has been the main “agreed upon” calculation. This calendar ending was not the end of life. It symbolized the end of time and space, making a calendar no longer necessary. At this point, they believed that there would be so much creation, in fact ALL of creation will be available in every moment. It is a quantum leap in choices – a whole new game.

As we progress into this speeding of creation, it is stressful on our minds. Our mind is a TOOL (not us completely, but a tool of ours). This tool can process up to 33 thoughts, images, or decisions per second. Computers process billions per second. Subliminal advertising works by putting an extra frame that is so fast our mind can’t identify it. Anything more than our limit is overwhelming. Our mind will signal to us when it is overwhelmed, by making us feel stress. Stress has been proven by the AMA to be the starting cause of over 80% of all body dis-ease and sickness. The second signal (if stress is not working or if it is too overwhelmed), is the Flight or Fight response. The mind sends a quick shot of adrenaline and then checks out. The third signal, if necessary, is unconsciousness. This is a last ditch effort in which the mind simply turns off. It is the mother of all addictions, ranging from drugs and alcohol to shopping and TV. As creation continues to speed up, our minds may become increasingly stressed. I have seen stress dramatically increase in just the past decade. Now it is unusual not to feel stress at least a few times each day. It is best if we know how to recognize it and work with it. We may have no choice but to be “out of our minds”….

Intuition exists just outside our mind. It is a personal knowing and source of personal power rooting from the wisdom in our hearts and feeling. In history, intuition became “unpopular” in times such as the massive killing of those considered witches during the Spanish inquisition. Today we pay sports stars multimillions to use their intuition. Many admire those that know how to “just do it” - to stop thinking, get into the zone, and feel their way to make the best play under great levels of stress. Intuitive moments feel timeless – time seems to slow down. This is the where the ancients lived. It is what they considered the flow in which they moved with creation.

In the mean time, the best way stay centered in the flow is to recognize the patterns. This is all a predictable process that has repeated over and over for billions of years. The process is now much faster (or occurring in shorter periods of time), but still works in the same way. As we stay aligned with the patterns, we can feel peace of mind during this wild ride. There are various tools one can use to see the patterns of life. My favorite is astrology, a cosmic display of these same patterns.


For more specific information on the Mayan Calendar you can visit www.mayanmajix.com. I post this more as an overall introduction or overview on time and to give some perspective to those who may have not been exposed to this yet. Personally I have found an integration of ancient and current views of time is best in our world today, and have created the Seed Planner as a tool to integrate them. For more info on the Seed Planner, visit: www.ahamprema.com. Available now (through 2012?)

~Danielle Marie Crume

Daily Prayer

Passed onto me from a friend, edited to my liking.

My Divine Creator - Thanks for your magnificent presence sanctified in me. Thanks for your powers given onto me - in my soul and my body. Thanks for all of the energies I have today to sustain my services to my loved ones and to humanity, that I may recognize my opportunities for growth and improvement. Thanks for the power of the one life I feel that fills my soul with life enabling me to live the life of God. Thanks for the love that animates the universe, radiating through my being, enabling me to spread the word of God. I give thanks for the knowledge that is my divine heritage illuminating my mind, enabling me to lead others into the lighted path.

~Danielle Marie Crume