Flower and Thunder
Jeff and Shaleia shared a quote from Yogananda: “Softer than the flower, where kindness is concerned; stronger than the thunder, where principles are at stake.”
― Paramahansa Yogananda, Autobiography of a Yogi
I've received so much from this message and began to unpack it right away. What does it mean?
I've been brought up in a world that says that we should schmooze with ego, and allow ego a place at the table. This world scorns truth and calls truth abusive, even if truth would be shared clearly with the intention to love. It says that ego is right, and we should protect it. If ego felt threatened, it would attempt to threaten you if you shined a light on it The world at large permits your patterns, patterns keeping you in separation from your Good, and your Twin Flame. Not pointing out the truth is what continues these patterns.
Many times, I notice kindness goes very far. But sometimes, I would be too kind where it was not due, kind to a pattern, or to ego. I assure you, ego does not need kindness. You need kindness. You are not ego.
Sometimes it appears that something is 'harsh' but what is in reality happening is the ego, which had once benefitted from running rampant, has now been seen. Ego does not like this. Ego will fight this. Ego will get offended and point the finger. It is this pointing away that ego does that prevents you from surrendering. But this keeps you trapped.
There have been so many times when I had it backwards: when I believed love was abuse, and abuse was love. Jeff and Shaleia taught me that ego crosses the wires like this. But the heart knows the truth, and here, you will be healed.
Other times, I learned when to be compassionate and when to be gentle, like a butterfly. I am still going deeper here, as in the past I was 'too' kind and over-giving and allowed ego to walk over me. I'm very much not that way now.
Here's something I wrote a couple years ago about the Twin Flames Universe community after a class with Jeff and Shaleia, and the community's purpose. I feel it fits with the passage from Yogananda perfectly.
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"This is a Divine Society, organized by God. With the closeness and resources comes a high price: your purification."
When you get close to this community, you are around others who are doing the work of purification, and all that is out of alignment with love gets rooted out the closer you get. It's safe, because it is loving.
"The community is a mechanism, a system, a machine, a collective consciousness." The community is like a machine that takes your ego away so that you can actually have what you desire: your Twin Flame in Harmonious Union. The system responds to your input. Whatever you input, you're going to get a response. This is a system we are all loving, perfecting, finding our place in. In an earlier post a couple years ago, Jeff wrote, "This is a place where ego comes to die."
This is why you get exactly what you came for when you choose to go deeper in connecting with this community: Love. Sometimes that love is in the form of discipline, of pointing out a pattern that hampers your success. This discipline is exactly what you need to succeed, because holding on to the pattern is what is preventing more good from flowing to you. To another student, Jeff mentioned that he was fathering her, guiding her in places she didn't want to be guided, but that would help her. Regardless of her resistance, he would continue to love her and give her exactly what she needed as God called him, and Jeff and Shaleia's community works exactly like they do: it continues to love us, every one of us who comes close.
I realized how perfectly Jeff and Shaleia and their community loved me and never stopped loving me, and for that gift, I'm eternally in debt and eternally grateful. Jeff mentioned as well the story of the Prodigal Son. The moment the son who strayed made a new choice, the Father welcomed him with a party and song, and celebrated his return, for how awful it had felt to be apart.
And so, here I am. And so, you, too, do not be afraid to get close to this community. "It's brutal, it take guts. But you get so much respect just for being here." In truth, nothing can harm you here by letting go of patterns. You will not be kicked off the ship unless you choose that, but even then God always guides you back, always pulls you back into His Love because you are His.
