It’s been months since I’ve written. Life is full to overflowing, and every day is a new challenge just to keep up. I’m sure that sounds familiar – I don’t know anyone who doesn’t feel busy and pressed for time. I have found blessings in busyness though.

More than any other time in my life, I feel the horizons of my experience keep stretching me beyond the tightly held limitations I define myself by.

Teaching at the Living Wisdom School has brought 9 children into my life and this week we round up to 10, with a visiting 4th grader. All of those students have parents and many have siblings in the school. There are also 11 other staff members and helpers I work with. Once a month I take part in an Education For Life teacher training and join more than a dozen other educators and parents in classes. Just the act of taking on this job has enlarged my circle of contacts and responsibility enormously.

My imaginary circle had to grow as I experienced health issues with my mother and my husband. My world had to take in doctors, nurses, other caregivers and all the concerned loved ones I was in touch with.

My children are growing and I have to expand my circle to include all their friends and activities. I take the light rail transit to work and I expand my circle to include hundreds of people I cross paths with each day. I don’t even speak to most of them, but I reach out and feel my circle wrapping around each person as they get on or off the train.

It slowly occurred to me that I don’t feel “stretched thin” or “stretched to the breaking point”, like a piece of bread dough, although it seemed as if I should. It felt as if God were just asking me to get bigger. Every time that imaginary circle settles into one size, there is a need to expand. Then there is a feeling of opening and including, without tension or stress. God just makes me bigger.

I thought about the connection I feel with all of my Ananda spiritual family. I know people in this family all over the world. I am in contact with many hundreds, through email, letters, and through the Ananda Portland center. There are thousands of others I include by association – all of you reading this, as well. There is no stress to include them all in my circle, only joy and gratitude.

Then I remembered Yogananda’s description of God as being “center everywhere, circumference nowhere”. My imaginary circle evaporated and I realized it was my center connecting with all those other centers. God was showing me that circumference is nowhere – it’s an illusion that we end somewhere and others begin. That’s why I feel bigger – because spirit is endless.

This must be a little taste of what Swami Kriyananda and other saints feel – no limitations, no circumference, only center everywhere and in everyone. Read what Swami Kriyananda says about relating to life at the center in the post from April 1, 2008.

Today has been the first day I have had a couple hours at the computer, for weeks. My little desk is at the end of the kitchen, not far from activities of four other people in the house. I have three guinea pigs at my feet, and the interruptions have been continuous, as the rest of the family comes into the kitchen for one reason or another. Tomorrow is Monday and another busy week begins. I’m sure God will show me that I’m not yet big enough.

From the center,
Lorna

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