Priesthood
I wish to extend what I've learned with my Anam Cara (see Mentorship page) to others. An invitation to enter into Unknowing and explore spiritual sight, the Longing Look, on a path neither Buddhist nor Christian.
The inspiration for this originally came to me while still a monk in the form of a night-time dream so vivid that it could be called a vision. The name the Longing Look comes from this vision.
There are two simple elements involved: looking and longing.
• Longing is the quickening of Love in the heart, igniting an inner fire. It is kindled in as many different ways as there are people. Without a measure of surrender, we will remain outsiders to the experience of it, because we always look upon what we feel within.
• Looking is the look within to find this fire but also Spiritual Sight, a form of "overlooking" the world, while still working with it. Futher explanation below on this page.
• The Order of the Longing Look extends this Love and Looking in lineage.
Priesthood means the determination to cherish this fire within and to gently live out of this new perspective, to demonstrate the joy of it. No other duties are involved. This is a non-religious, non-ministerial priesthood, perhaps an expression of the Universal Priesthood
It is the attempt to embody the archetype of priest that carries qualities such as wisdom, spirituality, and the ability to connect individuals with higher powers or truths - like a bridge. Longing itself is a bridge.
Spiritual Sight
When people begin to wake up to the unreality of existence, they often begin to focus on the fact that life is an illusion, which is not the thing we want to be focusing on.
That's because if it's true that "as you see them, so you will see yourself", and it is true, then to go through life seeing people and the world as an illusion, we will eventually think of ourselves in our own unconscious mind as an illusion. We'll feel empty and meaningless, which will leave us depressed.
Our unconscious mind will translate whatever we think about others to be a message about us. That's because even though we're not aware of it, our unconscious mind knows everything, including the fact that there's just one of us that thinks it's here. Everything we think about others is really a message from me, to me, about me. That's how our unconscious mind thinks of it.
Instead of limiting others to that tiny speck of time and space, we overlook the body and think of them as being unlimited. If we do that, it will take us away from the focus of being an illusion and result in a highly positive outcome. It works, and it saves lifetimes of effort.
Looking
If we look on others as being all of it, nothing less than the One, then that's how we'll eventually come to experience ourselves. The key is thinking of each one as being all of it.
If we do that we'll be doing something that very few people in history have ever done, and it will hasten our enlightenment. Our unconscious will understand that if they are perfect oneness, then I must also be perfect oneness. That brings us to what spiritual sight really is.
The chalice: symbol of oneness
The ego loves differences. How can you have judgment without differences? How can you have war and murder and violence without differences? So the ego wants us to think that all this separation we're seeing is true. Our belief in it is indeed what makes it real That's what gives it its power. That's what gives it power over us.
The ego craves contrasts and cons you into believing in others in the world, but the Spirit sees same-ness. Spirit will contrast its thought system with the thought system of the ego. That is the proper use of contrast, because one is true and the other is not.
Longing
In our natural state we're no different from the One, and it's not arrogance to think that. It's arrogance to think that somehow we could be separate from It. The truth is we can't be separate from the One, except in dreams, which is why we can say that the universe of time and space is a dream we will awaken from, and that awakening is the fruit of our longing.
Longing appears suddenly like a dragon
The Spirit doesn't think in terms of separation. It sees wholeness everywhere. 'Sees' means the way the Spirit thinks. It's the way we think that constitutes spiritual sight. It doesn't have anything to do with the body's eyes, even though we can see symbols of Spirit in the world. They're still just symbols.
Order of the Longing Look
Reality cannot be seen with the body's eyes, but it can be experienced by the mind. If we want to return to Spirit, to the 'mind of a child', we will have to learn to think like Spirit. It overlooks the body, which is a false image, and thinks of the truth that is beyond the veil of illusion. This truth is perfect oneness and innocence, exactly the same as the One.
Thinking of other people that way is spiritual sight, the right view practiced by priests of the Order of the Longing Look
For more info contact: peers.esq@gmail.com