The Green Rain of Compassion
Many, many, many seekers come to the spiritual path seeking freedom and relief from carrying their load of suffering for too many years. Their efforts in the world have neither brought them the peace and healing their heart, body, and soul long for, nor the light, joy, and aliveness they know is possible.
Our spiritual journey is ultimately a private intimate affair between our heart/soul and the Divine/Beloved.
Being touched by a teaching or called to a path is part of our unfoldment, a way our true nature calls us to a process of unwinding and purification to release our burden. Grace and compassion help us to “empty the cup” for the emergence of the essence of the soul.
The Diamond Approach has a unique and specific understanding of compassion as an essential quality of the soul, and the role and function compassion has in the unfoldment and awakening of the soul.,
The issue of hurt enters when there is work on the truth. The compassion connected to truth is not just the compassion of wanting to help someone alleviate hurt. Compassion, in this case, means having the green center open and trusting the capacity and willingness to experience hurt in order to see the truth. The objective is the truth. Hurt is one of the things you allow yourself to experience because it is needed to be able to see the truth. So when I am compassionate toward you, it is not because I don’t want you to feel hurt. The function of my compassion is to allow you to trust. The trust then allows you to experience your hurt so you can see the truth. Compassion is needed to generate the trust to allow yourself to tolerate the hurt that will help you be and see the truth. The final point is the truth. Only at the most superficial level is compassion for hurt. It is true that compassion relates to hurt, but it is in the service of truth, not in the service of eliminating hurt.
-A. H. Almaas, Diamond Heart Book One, ch. 8
Truth
Truth is a central aspect of most spiritual paths. People are seeking truth. The journey and the unfoldment are intimately tied to the truth, but truth is not a goal, nor something to arrive at. It is infinitely more important to us than that.
The truth is you. And without you, facts are irrelevant, useless. When you free truth, you free yourself. Truth is not just something that you use to free yourself; it is the essence of you. So we see a progression. First, we looked at truth as a moralistic thing. Then we saw it was utilitarian, that it is useful to find truth because it will lead us to freedom. Now we see it in a deeper sense. It’s not that it’s useful to find truth; the truth is you. It’s not like truth is going to lead you to yourself; the truth is you. Truth is your very nature.
– A. H. Almaas, Diamond Heart Book One, ch. 11
Compassionate Unfoldment of Truth
Our awakening to the truth of our nature is often experienced as an unfoldment, as a blooming of the real us. Compassion is an agent of grace supporting our unfoldment, our blooming, through the good times and the hard times.
Compassion is not only a healing agent for the soul, it is an infinite ground that supports us with the capacity to see the truth of what we are not. Yes, bad things, hurtful things, traumatic things happened to us. Our history does not change, but each of us can awaken to the truth of our nature – what you are – is beyond the wounding, beyond beliefs, beyond the chains of this world.
Compassion enfolds the soul in the most intimate, personal process that heals our heart and soul by releasing us from what we believe we are, into what is true.
Our work in the Diamond Approach is to understand with appreciation, insight, and deep feeling exactly where we are in the moment as it unfolds. In fact, we need to be completely aware and understanding of where we are at this moment for the unfoldment to occur. You cannot go about this in a theoretical way. To allow your consciousness to unfold—and, by unfolding, to shed all the layers of unclarity—you have to understand where your consciousness is at this very moment.
-A. H. Almaas, Brilliancy, ch. 3
Green Rain
Beneath the giant conifers
Deep in the old growth
Where the harsh wind stills
The earth lives and breathes you
as the green rain falls
Pine scent, pitch and resin
Blend and mingle with the richness
Of black dirt and decay
Alpha & Omega
as the green rain falls
Accepting; allowing; nourishing
Gentle drizzle; caressing mist
The air cleansed and freshened
Amazing awesome space
as the green rain falls
A face; a heart; a soul
Lifted; turned; bared
Compassionate ablution
No need to seek salvation
as the green rain falls
(JH)