{"id":5024,"date":"2026-03-03T15:41:05","date_gmt":"2026-03-03T15:41:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/zatma.org\/?p=5024"},"modified":"2026-03-03T15:41:05","modified_gmt":"2026-03-03T15:41:05","slug":"at-the-beginning","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/zatma.org\/?p=5024","title":{"rendered":"At the Beginning."},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\n

At the beginning, we are in the dark. We start out in the dark.
\nWe don’t want to be in the dark, so we look forward towards
\nthe next thing. Sadly, we realize it is not there. It’s a longing for
\nsomething to come and appear. We perpetually seek.
\nWe forget to look for what we seek in the dark. We can’t see it,
\nso we give up. We settle for novelties. The newness of a thing is
\nshiny, so we settle for shiny, new things.<\/p>\n

\nA spiritual seeker on his deathbed said to his teacher, “Come,
\nand let\u2019s make something happen!\u201d We can’t make it happen. We
\ncan be ready.<\/p>\n

\nWe want to prepare for whatever it is. We look around us and
\nget ready for that something to show up. We sense a yearning to
\nbe ready.<\/p>\n

\nThere’s a sense of wanting to express our yearning. We are born
\nwith it, this sense of yearning. We’d like an appearance even one
\nin a disguise as long as we know it to be the something we seek.
\nThe yearning presses in on us from all directions; but we can miss
\nit. We can mistake it for something other than what it is.<\/p>\n

\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

At the beginning, we are in the dark. We start out in the dark. We don’t want to be in the dark, so we look forward towards the next thing. Sadly, we realize it is not there. It’s a longing for something to come and appear. We perpetually seek. We forget to look for what… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"neve_meta_sidebar":"","neve_meta_container":"","neve_meta_enable_content_width":"off","neve_meta_content_width":70,"neve_meta_title_alignment":"","neve_meta_author_avatar":"","neve_post_elements_order":"","neve_meta_disable_header":"","neve_meta_disable_footer":"","neve_meta_disable_title":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5024","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/zatma.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5024","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/zatma.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/zatma.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zatma.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zatma.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5024"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/zatma.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5024\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5026,"href":"https:\/\/zatma.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5024\/revisions\/5026"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/zatma.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5024"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zatma.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5024"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zatma.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5024"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}