August 1, 2011

Dear One,

I have spent over a month travelling to new places, physically, geographically, emotionally and intellectually. It has been an exceedingly mind and heart opening journey. My experience teaching the Pathwork in Serbia invited me into a new cosmology, a different understanding of pedagogy.

In fact, I was challenged to rethink this entire arena of education. In my Masters Class in Love, we keep asking: "What is the truth?" (as does Byron Katie, The Guide, Emmanuel). This question is now my challenge, to my self and to you.

What is the truth? How do you know the truth? Can I teach you the truth? Is there one truth? Is the truth teachable?

Over fifty years ago, when I was teaching second grade, I had a run in with a seven year old who had not "mastered" what I was teaching that morning.

I was an inexperienced teacher filled with demands and requirements that what I taught be "learned." In my impatience, I shouted at him: "I have spent all morning teaching you this...." In the wisdom and clarity that most children possess he said:
"If you had taught it to me, I would have learned it."

I have been teaching the Pathwork for over thirty years. In Serbia, I fully received the meaning of this teaching. The truth can not be taught. Nobody is able to teach you the truth. The truth has to be witnessed, and experienced.

You have to live the truth . You must be willing to accept and embrace all of who you are, in the moment, without judgment. You begin by questioning what you have been told is the truth. You continue to deepen the inquiry by being open to everything and everyone around you. You try new thoughts on, and then begin to directly question your own judgments and opinions. Then through this process you question: "Is what I think the truth? Am I willing to still my mind, and feel the truth of who I am?"

PLEASE Google The Danger Of a Single Story
By Chimamanda Adriche

No one outside of you can give you an experience of the truth, because it will be their experience....not yours.

There is no way that the truth can be taught. You can learn it by being willing, by being committed, and by allowing yourself to be vulnerable to others. You can experience it by being silent and listening.

You can experience truth by letting go of fear's hand, by opening your heart, first to yourself and then to other. You can know it when you remember that we are all created "in God."

Learning comes from the mind. "The truth comes through the heart." You must be willing to feel the truth by accepting your feelings, and all of who you are.

In this past month.....I have been living my "truth", and allowing all of me to be present with whatever is, including what I now consider my rough edges, what I have judged as my imperfections. This is my mantra. I offer it to you.

Breathing in.......I calm my mind and relax my body.
Breathing out....I let go of any belief that I, or you, or the moment be different than it is.

The knowing that I am safe and God is with me has become my experience and my truth. I accept that sometimes I forget.
When I forget, I say my mantra.....this is my daily spiritual practice.

A thought from Emmanuel:
"There is an image that each soul holds within its own human consciousness...
It is the memory of the light that it follows, of the Being it yearns to become and of the TRUTH it already is."

Are you willing to be the Truth of who you already are?

With enthusiasm, support and gratitude for who you are in this moment,

Barbara

p.s. If anyone wants to have a conversation, please call or write me.
barbaraazzara@gmail.com