Lecture - Sunday 17th November 2024
Given by Wayne Parkin
Good afternoon everyone and welcome,
It never ceases to amaze me how Spirit world works. What I mean by that was Val’s talk, because Val touched on where I wanted to go today. And that song also dovetails very nicely too.
And for those that do not know me I do like to start off with a poem by Hazif called ‘Spill the Oil Lamp.’
Spill the oil lamp!
Set this dry, boring place on fire!
If you have ever made wanton love with God,
Then you have ignited that brilliant Light inside
That every person needs.
So –Spill the oil!
So, there is a little bit of a story behind this poem for me. A long time ago I went to the Istanbul to one of the oldest markets in the world, the Grand Souk, and I bought myself a bronze oil lamp. I just pulled it out last night because it had some Arabic writing on it, and I wondered what that meant. So, I got out the Google translator and took a photo of it and it was an ordinary word, “tribe.” I thought that it may be symbolic. that poem I read is in a book that I have read maybe 50 times, and I never noticed that poem till today.
So, where I was going with this was, I noticed that people do not seem to want to share anymore. People are being antsy with each other like, if I give you this then I am going to miss out. And what I finally came to realise with the lamps is that we can light each other’s lamps and still not lose our own flame.
And then I thought about that how great would that be to recognise our own connectedness with everyone and to light each other’s flame knowing that everybody gets to have their passion, their connection to the Divine.
Then when we start coming down into the practical world, to be human, and it makes for an interesting journey, right? Cause how that plays out it is, that it kind of goes against our logical mind and that is one of the things that Spirit world is about isn’t it? Quite often it is anti-logic, and I think that managing that thought is quite a struggle. Like your whole life is falling apart and you are thinking it is happening for a reason, and it is going to be a good thing, but is it? And, as we go down the track, we find that when you have finally put things into place and worked through, that it was a good thing. You cannot see it at the time, and it was a hard thing to go through, but you ended up in a far different place than you thought you might. In some cases, a far better place.
And that is because you let go of your own pride, ego, and determination to do things your way. I guess that it is a way of reminding ourselves that we do not have the big picture.
I think that is what the whole thing about gratitude is; looking at experiences and realising that to formulate and create that trust that we need to have with our team, our guides in the Spirit world because, without that, we just flail about. I am sure that those of you who have been through depression know that having faith and trust and surrendering what the outcome looks like to the Divine, is sometimes one of the hardest things we can do. But it is in that surrender, that moment of releasing our own way of doing things, that the Divine can work.
As it says in the poem, we need to light our lantern as we go into those spaces where we are struggling. To have that faith and trust, we need the Divine and our Angels for us to see the way forward and, as we do that, we need to light each other’s lanterns so that we can create this world that we are hoping for; a world of peace, of harmony, of collaboration, of unity.
There is one thing about sitting in a Circle over the years or singing in groups, everyone is there of the same accord, and it is such a lovely place to be, right? No one person has more focus or attention than any other. Where everybody identifies with the intention, and all are in tune. When someone comes in and they have had a bad day, you notice it immediately. It stands out. Can you imagine it with 5 or 6 billion people. That is what we are talking about. They are all in their own little bubble and they have their own discord going on and yet, our hopes and dreams are for a world of peace.
So, we need to start spilling our oil like there is no tomorrow. We need to start a bush fire, a Spiritual bush fire. I like the image of that. I like that image of lighting each other’s lamps and the fact that it does not take away from anybody else. And the reason I believe it does not take away from anybody else is because I get the sense that the source is already there and, if we can just focus on the similarities rather than the differences, then the whole idea of what we are desperately seeking may come into being.
I feel that I am staying that it is going to be an easy task. I mean, all we must do is ‘spill the oil.’ However, I know it is not like that. I know there are challenges that come up and, for the light to be shared, something must be burned, and that would be the dross and the negativity. All that must all come to the surface so that it can be burned. So, as much as the peace and harmony we are all looking for has the connection to the Divine, we know that it takes a courageous person, someone who does not shy away from the darkness, light the lantern. I kind of think of it like this; if I were to light a candle now, what good would it do? But, if I took the candle out in the night then the light would shine brightly, and the flame would illuminate the area, and I could see even though it was dark.
When we hear of the challenges that are going on and we feel that we cannot do anything, we are wrong. There is something we can do. We can ‘spill the oil’ and light the candle of hope. We can say a prayer and send light to those places. We might not see any response, but we know that we can have some impact, and we know how powerful that can be. So, that little oil lamp I got in Istanbul inspires us to ‘spill our oil’ to light the world, to make those dreams we care about happen. And to be grateful for all those experiences that we get to learn from.
Thank you.
