Branches

 

When we share, when we let our love light shine, existence melts into us. Our original nature is light. To the extent we remove the impediments to this light, it passes freely between us. While we are individuals, individual waves, individual leaves, fundamentally we are not separate. We are a totality. Not separate waves, rather we are oceanic. We are under an illusion that we are separate leaves, thousands, millions, totally separate. But the actuality is those leaves are attached to branches, branches of one tree. Look beyond the leaves and branches and see the wholeness, the unity of the one. This totality is the clear light of consciousness. Realizing this, is realizing the source of light itself. When we realize this source within, and come from this space, this one light resonates in the other. Through the feeling of separateness we register this vibration. When we are aware of our non-separateness, all activity is God activity. We are sharing the warmth of God with God. Even the notion of God disappears in this celebration. It is unnecessary. There is self existing love light present, within and without. When empty being meets itself in the other, a dance and song emerges, a celebration of blissfulness.

Post by Akilesh

Today

I
Do not
Want to step so quickly
Over a beautiful line on God’s palm
As I move through the earth’s
Marketplace
Today.

I do not want to touch any object in this world
Without my eyes testifying to the truth
That everything is
My Beloved.

Something has happened
To my understanding of existence
That now makes my heart always full of wonder
And kindness.

I do not
Want to step so quickly
Over this sacred place on God’s body
That is right beneath your
Own foot

As I
Dance with
Precious life
Today.


HAFIZ

Love Light

Falling in love, being in the presence of divine love, is perhaps what the moon suggests in Hafiz’s poem. Love is like turning into light – the light that pours into us and into others. Love comes from light, yet further light comes from love.

I have been reflecting on the notion of Light; the amazing quality of light that allows illumination for seeing, feeling, and experiencing. What is this magic? For example, when you notice that you have your heart hidden away, what causes it to come out of hiding? What exposes it? Surely the effect of love is melting. The awareness of light allows the warmth and melting of frozen hearts.

There is not a time or season that light does not pour gently upon us. However, we are in an intimate and constant relationship between lightness and dark. Light illuminates dark, yet retains relationship with dark. Natures cycles, from night to day, from womb to birth, sorrow to joy, winter to spring – light is always in relation in a dual nature with dark. In this, the sad/joyful heart, and again, love.

How does Light pass, from one to the other? Well, I think it is the Spark! The spark from a glowing ember ignites something next to it. From one log of glowing embers, we burst into flame when we are two. This is the way. We can draw upon the holy spark that dwells within us. There is potent energy here. It becomes radiant and bright, full of glory when shared this way.

I read…John of the Cross wrote a poem called “The Living Flame of Love.” This is about the total transformation of the soul in the Beloved. In this, he speaks of the sparks that matures into flame. The soul not only unites to the fire that God is but also produces a living flame. Thus, true love is creative and fruitful. Those with this fire within become openly radiant.

“The flame of love is the Holy Spirit…And that flame, every time it flares up, bathes the soul in glory and refreshes it with the quality of divine life. Such is the activity of the Holy Spirit in the soul transformed in love: the interior acts he produces shoot up flames, for they are the acts of inflamed love, in which the will of the soul united with that flame, made one with it, loves most sublimely.”

John believed that because the Holy Spirit is so fully at work,

“all the acts of the soul are divine…Hence it seems to a person that every time this flame shoots up, making him love with delight and divine quality, it is giving him eternal life, since it raises him up to the activity of God in God.”

Love takes on the characteristics of fire:

“Since love is never idle, but in continual motion, it is always emitting flames everywhere like a blazing fire…The soul is affected in the deepest center, for God does his work in the soul’s depths. And the soul’s center is God.”

I feel so much love. This love is kindled like the light of a flame. We glow with a radiance of love – from being this love and sharing this love, rising “…up to the activity of God in God…”

Water Light

 

***
I have enjoyed meditating on the essence of this
image. Unfortunately, I don't have a source for this
photo, but I am deeply and delightfully appreciative!

Turning into Light

from Hafiz...

The moon came to me last night
with a sweet question.
She said:
“The sun has been my faithful lover
for millions of years.
Whenever I offer my body to him
brilliant light pours from his heart.
Thousands then notice my happiness
and delight in pointing
toward my beauty.
Hafiz, is it true that our destiny
is to turn into Light Itself?”

***
This poem by Hafiz is so beautiful. It is the very light it speaks of. Such sweet music drifting from these lines. His lover, the moon comes to him in the night, in darkness, and she has a question. And the sweetness of the question itself -- just that his lover is asking a question of him, takes him over the top; he is already overflowing with bliss, just with the exchange, the communion with his lover. They are sharing -- the celebration of being meeting itself. This is the key to the whole poem: the blissful celebration inherent in sharing, and the natural sharing that emerges when one is filled with blissfulness.

The moon, filled with loving gratitude, speaks of her communion with the sun. "Whenever I offer my body to him..." And this is what we do -- offer our "body" up. Our body is none other than our externalized soul, and our soul none other than our internalized body. They are not separate. They are unified whole. Only our thinking divides them. So when she offers up her body, she is offering up her totality, her being, her heart. In the offering, in the deep openness and receptivity, "brilliant light pours from his heart." The moon, as an identity disappears, and what remains is light, the light of the source. There is no moon there, no sun, only the one light. Not sunlight, not moonlight, but the one light shining from sun, from moon, from Hafiz, Hafiz to you. This light emerges when we share it. Sun sharing with moon, moon sharing with Hafiz, Hafiz sharing with you, you sharing with... Light grows in this way, expands with the sharing.

Our body is light itself, the clear light of consciousness. When we uncover this consciousness empty of self at the foundation of our being, we are filled with a subtle and exquisite bliss. This flowering produces the fragrance of love that floats to others; the sweet music of the beyond; a luminosity, a love light others can notice in the darkness.

The moon is so overflowing, she shares the beauty of her love light with Hafiz. He in turn shares the light kindled within his own heart with us. Hafiz, you old rascal, hiding your sweet question, your beauty, and your love light in the moon. Did you think we wouldn't notice?


Post by Akilesh

Mystery Unveiled

I found something lovely in a book I am reading. It is from a new translation from Jesus’ Aramaic on his teaching on meditation. Feel the beauty floating through and between these lines:

When you want to lay yourself open for the divine,
like a snare that is hollowed out to its depth,
like a canopy that projects a shadow
from the divine heat and light
into your soul,
then go into your inner place physically,
or to that story or symbol that reminds you of the sacred.
Close the door of your awareness to
the public person you think yourself to be.
Pray to the parent of creation, with your inner sense,
the outer senses turned within.
Veiling yourself, the mystery may be unveiled through you.
By opening yourself to the flow of the sacred,
somewhere, resounding in some inner form,
the swell of the divine ocean can move through you.
The breathing life of all reveals itself
in the way you live your life.

Openness

Meredith: Sometimes in the quiet a single word or phrase will circle itself amongst the energy as I sit. It won’t go away; and each time I acknowledge it, it has a slightly different shape. Today, the word is Open.

I have thought of the word ‘open’ in the relational sense as being willing to disclose, or to share more personally. I recognize there are many deeper meanings for this word/concept. Today, like natural ripening, new understandings blossomed for me.

I sense this: Openness is accepting and responding to God, or Ultimate Reality, or any one of those 100 names of the thing with no name... Openness has to precede any relationship, any relating. In the spiritual sense, opening has meant becoming a bit vulnerable, like rolling over and exposing my underbelly, becoming soft, quiet, and ready. Openness is being willing to expand my mind to embrace a new thought, or accept a new insight, or as Quakers say, a leading. It is as though it is by opening up to and integrating these leadings that I have awakened to who we actually are. Openness is also about responding; responding with a basic attitude of reliance in the ultimate ambiguity behind existence. In this, I stand with a gesture of openness. Openness in this sense is also relinquishing control, expanding my simple trust in the mystery.

Quakers have another saying, which is, “As way opens.” I have thought this to mean as things become clear. Today, I recognize that the ‘way’ opens all the time. “The way” has opened for me into some profound experience with love, something I cannot even logically describe. But I was open, and ‘it’ opened for me. This experience is blissful.

I looked outside my window at dawn today, and saw a watercolor painting. Each day, each landscape appears for me to be exquisite art. I see, I breathe it in, I exult in it. This is the pulse of existence, and I am open to experience this joy.

Meanwhile, inside, sorrow is present. My dad’s breathing is labored, his eyes seem vacant. He reaches for unseen objects. I care for him in a tender way - in a way I am certain he once cared for me, recognizing the full circle quality of this caring. My mother cries often. Her sorrow, palpable like heavy mist, is unrelenting. Yet, through it all, love swirls. Loving energy mixed in with more and more openness. We are all open to this energy, though we do not define it. This love keeps us all afloat. It too, is the pulse of existence.


Akilesh: Open, so open. You write, "Openness is accepting and responding to God." Yes, stepping out-of-the-way and allowing graceful presence to emerge. Your openness has provided a space for existence to pour into you. Without that openness existence has no place to bless you; there is no space for the benediction to occur. It occurs in the space you are. Your nature is space, but it is filled up with the structure of ego fixation and all of its pursuits, its preoccupation with want and fear. This is what covers the space available for benediction. Everyone has the potential for this bliss, this blessing to descend on them, the potential for their illumination to blossom from within. But they are distracted, preoccupied with identifications of all kinds. And here you are, "... relinquishing control, expanding my simple trust in the mystery." And of course we struggle with logically describing it. Truly as you speak, the Way opens all the time. The very nature of the Way is open, openness, freedom, bliss. It is a happening, a happening we can nurture. We can also turn away from ego fixation. With this turning away it withers. With our openness, existence opens. And this is blissful to me as well. Of course you would feel gratitude. With your discovery of authentic presence, gratitude is the natural result. Your life becomes an exquisite living work of art and beauty. In this beauty, which is a vast beauty, even death is included.

The Precipice

Meredith: This passage is from “Nature,” found in Ralph Waldo Emerson’s journal. Emerson identifies his awareness when his ego is suspended:

“Standing on bare ground, my head bathed by the blithe air, and uplifted into infinite space – all mean egotism vanishes. I become a transparent eyeball. I am nothing. I see all. The currents of the Universal Being circulate through me. I am part or (a) particle of God.”

Maybe this is a formless experience, where Emerson is taken out of himself in a consciousness illuminated beyond the foreground. His ‘eye’ of wisdom and intuition is very open. I ‘see’ this in you sometimes. Does it resonate with you?

Akilesh: Emerson, in his beautiful quote, was on the precipice. In his quote he stops short of letting himself fall over the edge into the abyss. The nothingness he saw, that he could have dissolved into, is universal being itself. Actually, there is no "me" for any currents of being to circulate through. Emerson is neither a part or a particle of God. He is God. He is the Universal Being itself. When Emerson is not, God is. Dissolving into the nothingness he glimpsed, his mind identified self, his fixation on ego, falls away, recedes into the background, and graceful presence emerges, universal being manifests. It was there all the while, only covered over with Emerson. It abides here and now, always and everywhere, lovingly, graciously waiting for us to open our hearts. Empty of our Emerson, our identity, there is bare ground, we are bathed in blithe air, uplifted into infinite space, unbounded by any ego, any body, feeling or sensation. We become a transparent seeing without a seer. We find we are a nothingness, empty space, warm, loving, intelligent and luminous. Without boundaries, our insight is vast. We are turned into the sky itself. Actually, as Kabir noted later in life: the ocean has merged with the drop, the ocean itself, vast and unbounded, pours into the drop. No Emerson can contain that. No Akilesh, no Meredith. Only just this... Call it love, call it beauty, silence, presence, being, call it God. Who we are is this, and we immerse, or merge ourselves in it. We find one another in it.

Meredith: Do you recognize the precipice that Emerson stood upon? I sometimes recognize that I stand there, too. Not quite able to see into the depths of the abyss, not yet ready to leap. It is my conscious mind that is standing there – some other part of me has already taken the leap. I’m not certain I would be aware of this if it were not for the mirror you hold for me – a reflection empty of me. That feeling of wanting or about to burst – I feel it too at times. This must be the whole of the ocean within us – so big we can hardly contain it. We are no longer – because we cannot hold it alone. We become the energy. This is so beautiful.

Akilesh: So many of us, as egos, in the historical dimension, deeply identified, stand on the precipice. We've all had glimpses, and these glimpses are what you can speak to in others when you relate to them. The glimpse may be described in any number of ways but you can tell it is a glimpse of the beyond because it will have that fragrance. It will show itself with the vibration, aroma or aura of bliss. It will be described in ordinary terms -- just seeing pigeons flying against the backdrop of a gray sky in winter, and yet a poignancy and ecstasy will be present, unexplainable. But you will recognize it.

The mind always wants to analyze and explore the depths of the abyss before it takes the leap. This is impossible. It takes great trust to take such a leap, to not hold on to ego identification, and let oneself dissolve into nothingness, the abyss. You have got it right. "It is my conscious mind that is standing there -- some other part of me has already taken the leap." Exactly. It is in the realization. Once the realization is there, the leap has already occurred. The whole universe is wide awake. Some realize this, most don't. When you release your hold on ego fixation, you find awakening is already there, already present. It's not like you get something from outside that wasn't there in the first place. Initially, fear arises whenever anyone gets close to being -- the space "empty of me." But this fear passes.

Lion’s Roar

Today, I felt afraid. It was a distressing experience; I felt angry, upset and dazed. At the time, I noticed the feeling, like an observer. Observing was like giving space to the emotion so that I was able to see its development – the going up and the sucking in and feeling the tears come and my stomach responding with a twisted sensation. It was a very full awareness; I felt it in my head and in my heart and in my stomach and my hands - each shaking, just a little. It was all like a brief storm. When it passed, calmness and a sense of quiet returned. Watching the storm helped me to transcend this trembling feeling, and respect the storm for what it was - energy. The whole while, I noticed a calm place in my center, like the eye of the storm, that was not touched by this fear.

I feel a sense of peace which is about me always, not punctured by events that happen day to day. This peace gently holds me, like a certain knowing that is always there, only to come forward again and again through fearful or distressing circumstances. I have learned that this is the “Lion’s Roar” identified by the Buddha. In the Indian Ashokan artwork, the proclamation of lion’s roar was depicted by a sculpture of four lions looking in the four directions, which symbolizes that you don’t have a back. Every direction is a front; there is all-pervading awareness. Fearlessness comes from facing all directions. We don’t have to take one direction; once we begin to radiate our fearlessness, it is all pervading, radiating in all directions. This panoramic awareness leaves us with nothing to defend.

The notion of the lion’s roar captures for me that steady foundation I feel existing within, unconditional, no matter what happens externally. Chogyam Trungpa says: “Whatever comes up in our state of mind, including powerful emotions, is workable.” This is a combination of tremendous confidence and deep peace in the present moment.

Gratitude

A Friend, Marjorie (Unclimber and Yearning for Stillness blogs) commenting on my last post wrote, “…I'm washed with gratitude…The gratitude comes in the stillness, its ecstasy.” This is so beautiful, Marjorie. Thank you!

This feeling of gratitude has been a natural and fundamental part of my spiritual journey. I have had the almost overwhelming feeling at times of gratefulness – for everything. At times this has felt like joyfulness, at other times, like my heart overflowing. The feeling of gratefulness itself has become an almost constant companion.

John Milton said, “Gratitude bestows reverence, allowing us to encounter everyday epiphanies, those transcendent moments of awe that change forever how we experience life and the world.”

Gratitude is a reverent and peaceful way. Finding the extraordinary in the ordinary becomes a transcendent moment of awe and gratitude. Gratitude makes us feel good right here and now for all that we are and all that we have. Anger and fear disappear with genuine gratitude. This thankfulness brings peace and overflows to those around us. With this genuine feeling of gratefulness, we return to a natural state of joy, love and peace, knowing we are whole and complete just as we are.

With gratitude,

Resonance

Sometimes, something will resonate with us for reasons we do not understand. One Friend, James (Genius of Insanity blog), found the music of Ravi Shankar struck a deep chord within him. For another friend, David, (Friendly Kwakersaur blog), a passage in the Bible, “Here is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!” resonated and gave him cause for deep reflection, yet he could not readily discern the ‘reason’ for the resonance. He is an intellectual, a thinker, yet he recognized that something within the passage was touching him at a non-cognitive level.

A metaphor I heard recently, that struck a chord with me, is that our brains are like the part of an iceberg that is above the water. Much of our consciousness is underneath, submerged, being affected by waves and currents our brains are not even aware of. When I am touched in ways I do not understand, I like to rest with it, smile about it, savor it. I don't try too hard to 'work it' – to figure it out or comprehend the reasons for it. Rational comprehension isn't always necessary. In fact, too much thinking seems to take a bit of the poetry away. All that is needed is to feel the peace that permeates from that which touches us, and reflect and share this with others. Sometimes, in time, deeper understandings come forth, to be understood cognitively... but sometimes not.

This is all a little mystery of Grace.

Listening and Grace

Listening intently to another person, sympathetically reflecting on and reflecting back to that person what has been deeply heard beneath the mere surfaces of communication, is a charismatic experience for which there is no adequate word. But the concept of "grace" comes close, suggesting an intensely felt dispensation from the commonplace. In such rare moments of mutual deep hearing between people, a mind routinely overshadowed by a sense of its lonely isolation is suddenly suffused with a radiant delight. Such delight, like grace, gifts the mind with an experience of the ordinary pierced by the extraordinary.

William J. Scheick

Krishna

Krishna - Spring in Kulu

(Technical success!)

Krishna

Nicholas Roerich

Nicholas Roerich painted a series of landscapes of the Himalayas in various times of the year, and at different times in his life. These beautiful mountains are associated with the ascent to the ultimate mystery. On the ascent, the solitary quest of the sage is depicted in quiet meditation. The extrordinary beauty of these peaks naturally pull the viewer into intense and prolonged contemplation of the mountains immensity, mystery, structure, light and colors.

Perhaps the viewer becomes the view.

Treasure of Being

A river of diamonds and emeralds is nothing compared with the treasure of being within you. All the material treasures of this earth cannot compare with the eternal bounty found in simple authentic presence. Creating this love-food, creating space for divine love to emerge is worth risking everything. When you get hold of a tiny candle of divine love, risk all to nurture it. Let it grow into a great conflagration.

This body-mind-emotion complex you call your self will evaporate in a few short years -- utterly dissolve. So why not dissolve the desperate clinging to it now; and dissolve down into open space, into emptiness that allows for presence, for being? I notice with this dissolution, with this dis-identification, peace descends, calmness and clarity, love, compassion and warmth, intelligence and perspective -- all self existing without the need for a mind identified self. With this realization comes bliss, non-dualistic basic goodness, contentment, lightness and ease, a looseness and naturalness in which I can breathe deeply, freedom. And then an overwhelming need to share. Like in one of my favorite childhood stories "The Five Chinese Brothers," where one of the brothers found he could swallow the entire ocean, but could only hold it for so long before having to release it back into the seabed. I feel like that Chinese brother, having discovered an ocean of love within me, and needing to unburden and release it.

If you find overflowing love, if you find a wellspring of overflowing treasure in your heart, if you discover an impulse to encourage, please find some way to share it. The world of ego fixation can be uplifted with this sharing. While the world seems focused and preoccupied with ego fixation, with want and fear, we can look within ourselves, touch our treasure within, and love and encourage from this place. When you love and encourage from this treasure within, you release a blessed food that can satisfy the deepest hunger. You have an inexhaustible treasure within that can be used to love and encourage yourself and others. Do your best to realize this treasure, and when you find it, share the abundance as generously as possible.

Post by Akilesh