Meredith: I continue to be hopeful that Presence can be felt by others simply in the presence of a person. If we are abundantly full, full to the brim and out over the top, empty of self and full of the Beloved One, even our silence can exude this presence. We want others to taste this, too. We want to make this flavor available to all who hunger. Like Osho said, so 'sweetly', "He pours forth the sweet honey in which he himself is drowning." We want that sweetness, and that fire in our hearts to spark other's hearts on fire, too.
I really want to expose my heart further. I want to open, open, and open some more. I want to meet other warm hearts who are in love with the Divine. People on the path of the heart are beautiful and they are poetry, they are pure and sweet in their loving. This is recognizing diamonds, yes?
Akilesh: Yes. Your intention to expose and open is strong. Now you may simply acknowledge that you are wide open already, and it is a matter of discerning the ways that the divine wants to express itself through you. And this happens moment to moment forever. This is what fidelity is about. You are faithful to yourself as Self. You see, you are no longer keeping your fidelity with self, with mind-identification, with ego-fixation, with personality focus; you are no longer subscribing to the notion that who you are is a self. Instead you are expressing your fidelity and devotion to yourself as Self, because that is where you find Self, right here, right now, on the spot where you are sitting. You don't find it elsewhere or at some other time when perhaps you are more evolved or pure or prepared. This never happens. Only Now, only Here.
Meredith: Right Now, right Here. My door to you and others is open. My light is on. I want to invite you in. I want to invite any who are thirsty, and to be able to offer that presence that is so refreshing and so fulfilling. I offer Presence. This is not a doing, it is a Being.
Akilesh: That's the spirit. That is what the spirit of love says through an awakened one: "My door is open, my light is on, I am awake. I invite you in. The river flows here. If you are thirsty, drink! I have found something so refreshing and so fulfilling. I am overflowing with Being. If you are thirsty, drink to your hearts content. I rejoice in your gladness, and in the quenching of your thirst. Namasté."
February 28, 2006
February 26, 2006
Open Window
I just opened the window…I want to feel freshness pour in this morning. It is chilly, and yet this crispness reminds me of the edge, the gap, the in-between space where we do not exist separately, and the mystery suggests itself. The breeze, because we cannot see it but know it is present, is always a reminder to me of the Beloved. The breeze is sometimes delicate and sometimes a more energetic force and flow, which is always fresh and alive. We breathe in this aliveness; we literally swim in it. The mystery, the unknowing, I sit with this, I feel it. I love this aspect of our Existence.
Photo by Cindi Schick
February 22, 2006
Poisoning of Innocence
Meditation X (final) on Thomas Traherne's
"Your enjoyment of the world..." Quoted in Huxley's Perennial Philosophy
And so perfectly hate the abominable corruption of man in despising it that you had rather suffer the flames of hell (than) willingly be guilty of their error.
The depth of conditioning of a soul is deep. The development of toxic conscience, of guilt and fear as a means to control the defenseless child, is an abomination. We are conditioned to accept a delusionary structure of self and to fixate upon it to such a degree that it eclipses our divinity and becomes the biopsychosocial nexus of our universe. It becomes conventional reality, a fundamental distortion. This constitutes corruption of the human spirit, and remains a self-perpetuating abomination fostered by every social institution -- state, church, family, educational system, media... This conditioning takes a divine being and locks her in a delusion of separateness, engendering immense suffering for self and others. Healthy ego structure is functional and utilitarian but it occupies the position of master in our lifescape. In this capacity it eclipses the experience of our original face, the awareness of our original nature. Ego fixation veils seeing. The heart, the totality of your being is the true master but has been relegated to the background. There it remains as ego pretends to the throne -- a pretense, fake, false, phony. And the ego knows it is artificial deep down, hence the deep existential fear, anxiety and resistance. In silence, in meditation, ego dissolves, withers, moves into the back seat, and heart moves into its rightful place as master. Only with clearing, with absence, with dissolving, with openness and receptivity and trust will the heart move into the foreground. Ego has to move out to make space for the heart to move in. Ego takes up all the space.
Social convention goes rolling on supporting ego fixation because it profits from keeping the individual a slave, a sheep, a minion, in fear and guilt, compliant, anxious, wanting, consuming, performing, feeling unworthy and trying to get worth outside of itself, and thus drives the individual to be outer focused, and most important to the vested interests, makes the individual controllable, the individual is able to be controlled with want, guilt and fear. But you cannot control a joyful spirit, you cannot dominate an ecstatic. How can you control her? She is fed by the great mother, she dances in the beyond to a music you cannot hear; she sings songs of love, peace and contentment. She is filled with an abundance so vast that you cannot tempt her. The beyond showers on her from everywhere. She is fed from a secret table. She breathes the atmosphere of innocence, drinks from the spring of trust. Your so-called treasures cannot compare with the treasure house of this queen. How can that which you covet compare with her bounty? She feasts on light and bliss in the herenow. She is not seduced by some promise of a fantasy kingdom in the future, some heaven realized after death. She has her cake of freedom and enjoys it in the now.
What do you have to offer that can turn her attention from the treasure she has found within? Diamonds and emeralds, financial solvency, cars, boats, houses, careers, university educations, knowledge, skill and expertise, the promise of heaven, wealth, power and influence, fame, collecting exotic experiences, relationships, entertainments of all kinds -- she knows all these are temporary and provisional. She is human, but more than just human, she is a divine being, she has realized her divinity. She moves in the company of universal monarchs, the kings and queens of divinity. She is in possession of a largess you can not imagine even in your furthest flights of ego fantasy. She is free, freedom itself. There are no boundaries to her being. She experiences herself and others as divine. She shares the consciousness of all those who have sought and found the wellspring of divine bliss. She walks in an eternal springtime, among blossoming trees; hearing prayerful songs echoing in soundless space. You cannot lure her or bind her with anything of the material world. She is beyond. You cannot catch her or hold her. She is moving in the stream, as the stream; she is in the song of the skylark, as that song; she is in the fragrance of flowers, in the silver of starlight, and in the wetness of a rainstorm. She is stillness, yet she moves from pole to pole, from light to dark. Duality is reconciled within her.
She is water moving easily from sky to earth, from drop to ocean and back again. She is the moving, the flowing river, the incessant surging of salty tide, the running child, the hum of a bee, the deep vibration of desert sand, the musical dripping of water in a storm drain. You can't corrupt her. She has passed through the fire of corruption, and risen from the ashes. She has done her work. She has embraced her death. She now abides in the realm of the unborn and undying. You can not possess her but you can love her, join with her, merge with her. She will allow. She will not refuse you. Her realization can be found at the foundation of your being. She is the truth you seek; she is the loving hand turning you back again and again to your own treasure. In her light, in those loving eyes, just a small look within and you can feel your own treasure reflected. You can fall in love with her, trust her, dissolve into her. But you cannot get your mind around her and possess her. Get close to her warmth and you may ignite. In that blessed fire you may burn to the ground. Or you can bring your thirst to her, drink in her deep well, and discover a bubbling spring within your own heart; discover water, the source of rejoicing, in your own being. Above all you can rejoice in her presence because she is pure joy, pure awakened bliss. Her words, whispered or shouted, in verse or song, carry the threads of prayerful rejoicing. A common weed or insect embodies the sacred in her pure eyes. Illuminated in the light of those eyes, the world is drenched in the sacred; the ground of being is saturated with her luminosity. Here is the realm of miracles. In her blessed vision that which is bent is made straight, that which is broken, is healed. The hungry are fed in her light.
Nothing impedes or hinders the work in this sacred world. How can she go back now? To what? The trance of self-identity, the corruption of living unconsciously? A life of want and fear and ignorance? A dull, safe life of comfort and security? A life based on survival? Such a choice would be worse than the flames of hell.
What is the error this ecstatic speaks of? Discern that and live. Discover, uncover that and awaken. You're already in heaven. Uncover your eyes and see the celestial light; open your ears and hear the subtle, timeless refrains of blissful music; unclench your fist of control and feel the soft, curved spaces of divinity which are all around you at this moment. Find the error and all at once you are the truth.
The world is a mirror of Infinite Beauty, yet no man sees it. It is a Temple of Majesty, yet no man regards it.
What prevents man from seeing this infinite beauty? What keeps him from seeing through the clear mirror of his being? This mirror is before you right at this moment, luminous inside and out, yet you are entranced, preoccupied with a self and cannot see it. A mirror reflects the red rose perfectly. It does not distort it. It does not add anything to it. We think about the rose, through the filter of mind identified self. With this conceptual thinking we corrupt an experience of divinity and turn it into a plastic, conceptual rose. We seem to prefer eating the menu, hardly tasting real food.
The secret bliss is hidden in the wide-open. Burn your self-identification and when the ashes grow cold -- see. Dissolve your self like sugar in water and become the clarity. Drop the seer and be the seeing. Drop the viewer and be the viewing. The secret view lies exposed in the herenow, naked on the bare ground. The Temple of Majesty rises before you, yet you ignore it, placing your attention on the temporal and material; valuing the false, ignoring the true, chasing the unreal, dismissing the real as worthless or not even seeing it; preferring a prison of concepts to the freedom of the open sky.
It is a region of Light and Peace, did not man disquiet it. It is the Paradise of God.
But for the dominion-by-default of the mind identified self and the sociocultural support and fostering of this construct, "the region of Light and Peace" would be revealed to us this instant. Entering this region is a matter of losing something that you are clinging to, dropping something that you are attached to. It is a matter of letting go of something, releasing, letting go of everything. Men in their "disquiet" cloud the pristine clarity of the cosmic mirror. This disquiet is mind chatter, the stream of thinking, incessant mind, emotion and body activity that eclipses the Light. Where is your attention now? Your bare attention, your naked innocence, your receptive love and your open trust -- these are the gifts you bring to the gate. These are the offerings you can bring to existence. But the ego is geared for protection and defense. Self-deception is one of its powerful tools to distract. Quiet, silence, stillness, meditative awareness is interpreted as death by the ego. It will go to extreme lengths to keep the mind in "disquiet," in preoccupation, distraction and entertainment. Positive or negative does not matter. Either distraction will do to keep the ego from what it senses as complete annihilation. That's why it's been said that you have to expose yourself to the forces of annihilation, to fear and death, to doom and despair, to the dark night, in order to pass through the flames, to pass through death to resurrection; to enter the region of Light and Peace, the Paradise of God.
It is more to man since he is fallen then it was before.
Having passed from birth to the unborn, from death to the undying, your individuality emerges, your being, your freedom and your bliss. Your life has been earned. Your meaning has been created out of ashes. Falling through the flames of fear and annihilation, all that which is inessential is burned and that which was indestructible arises. Out of ego's falling, crashing and burning, out of falling into nothing, into the abyss, you surrender and realize your original face shining before and within you. The journey had to be made, from will to surrender. Will brings you to the gate. Surrender melts the ice chains of ego, and you are pulled into the waiting arms of the beloved.
It is the place of Angels and the Gate of Heaven...
Enjoy. Celebrate. Rejoice and every moment you awaken at the Gate of Heaven. There is no inside or outside to this gate. It is a Zen gate, no fences at all anywhere. Just a gate swinging both ways -- in and out, just like the breath. Rejoice, you are the beloved, and you are here now.
Post by Akilesh
"Your enjoyment of the world..." Quoted in Huxley's Perennial Philosophy
And so perfectly hate the abominable corruption of man in despising it that you had rather suffer the flames of hell (than) willingly be guilty of their error.
The depth of conditioning of a soul is deep. The development of toxic conscience, of guilt and fear as a means to control the defenseless child, is an abomination. We are conditioned to accept a delusionary structure of self and to fixate upon it to such a degree that it eclipses our divinity and becomes the biopsychosocial nexus of our universe. It becomes conventional reality, a fundamental distortion. This constitutes corruption of the human spirit, and remains a self-perpetuating abomination fostered by every social institution -- state, church, family, educational system, media... This conditioning takes a divine being and locks her in a delusion of separateness, engendering immense suffering for self and others. Healthy ego structure is functional and utilitarian but it occupies the position of master in our lifescape. In this capacity it eclipses the experience of our original face, the awareness of our original nature. Ego fixation veils seeing. The heart, the totality of your being is the true master but has been relegated to the background. There it remains as ego pretends to the throne -- a pretense, fake, false, phony. And the ego knows it is artificial deep down, hence the deep existential fear, anxiety and resistance. In silence, in meditation, ego dissolves, withers, moves into the back seat, and heart moves into its rightful place as master. Only with clearing, with absence, with dissolving, with openness and receptivity and trust will the heart move into the foreground. Ego has to move out to make space for the heart to move in. Ego takes up all the space.
Social convention goes rolling on supporting ego fixation because it profits from keeping the individual a slave, a sheep, a minion, in fear and guilt, compliant, anxious, wanting, consuming, performing, feeling unworthy and trying to get worth outside of itself, and thus drives the individual to be outer focused, and most important to the vested interests, makes the individual controllable, the individual is able to be controlled with want, guilt and fear. But you cannot control a joyful spirit, you cannot dominate an ecstatic. How can you control her? She is fed by the great mother, she dances in the beyond to a music you cannot hear; she sings songs of love, peace and contentment. She is filled with an abundance so vast that you cannot tempt her. The beyond showers on her from everywhere. She is fed from a secret table. She breathes the atmosphere of innocence, drinks from the spring of trust. Your so-called treasures cannot compare with the treasure house of this queen. How can that which you covet compare with her bounty? She feasts on light and bliss in the herenow. She is not seduced by some promise of a fantasy kingdom in the future, some heaven realized after death. She has her cake of freedom and enjoys it in the now.
What do you have to offer that can turn her attention from the treasure she has found within? Diamonds and emeralds, financial solvency, cars, boats, houses, careers, university educations, knowledge, skill and expertise, the promise of heaven, wealth, power and influence, fame, collecting exotic experiences, relationships, entertainments of all kinds -- she knows all these are temporary and provisional. She is human, but more than just human, she is a divine being, she has realized her divinity. She moves in the company of universal monarchs, the kings and queens of divinity. She is in possession of a largess you can not imagine even in your furthest flights of ego fantasy. She is free, freedom itself. There are no boundaries to her being. She experiences herself and others as divine. She shares the consciousness of all those who have sought and found the wellspring of divine bliss. She walks in an eternal springtime, among blossoming trees; hearing prayerful songs echoing in soundless space. You cannot lure her or bind her with anything of the material world. She is beyond. You cannot catch her or hold her. She is moving in the stream, as the stream; she is in the song of the skylark, as that song; she is in the fragrance of flowers, in the silver of starlight, and in the wetness of a rainstorm. She is stillness, yet she moves from pole to pole, from light to dark. Duality is reconciled within her.
She is water moving easily from sky to earth, from drop to ocean and back again. She is the moving, the flowing river, the incessant surging of salty tide, the running child, the hum of a bee, the deep vibration of desert sand, the musical dripping of water in a storm drain. You can't corrupt her. She has passed through the fire of corruption, and risen from the ashes. She has done her work. She has embraced her death. She now abides in the realm of the unborn and undying. You can not possess her but you can love her, join with her, merge with her. She will allow. She will not refuse you. Her realization can be found at the foundation of your being. She is the truth you seek; she is the loving hand turning you back again and again to your own treasure. In her light, in those loving eyes, just a small look within and you can feel your own treasure reflected. You can fall in love with her, trust her, dissolve into her. But you cannot get your mind around her and possess her. Get close to her warmth and you may ignite. In that blessed fire you may burn to the ground. Or you can bring your thirst to her, drink in her deep well, and discover a bubbling spring within your own heart; discover water, the source of rejoicing, in your own being. Above all you can rejoice in her presence because she is pure joy, pure awakened bliss. Her words, whispered or shouted, in verse or song, carry the threads of prayerful rejoicing. A common weed or insect embodies the sacred in her pure eyes. Illuminated in the light of those eyes, the world is drenched in the sacred; the ground of being is saturated with her luminosity. Here is the realm of miracles. In her blessed vision that which is bent is made straight, that which is broken, is healed. The hungry are fed in her light.
Nothing impedes or hinders the work in this sacred world. How can she go back now? To what? The trance of self-identity, the corruption of living unconsciously? A life of want and fear and ignorance? A dull, safe life of comfort and security? A life based on survival? Such a choice would be worse than the flames of hell.
What is the error this ecstatic speaks of? Discern that and live. Discover, uncover that and awaken. You're already in heaven. Uncover your eyes and see the celestial light; open your ears and hear the subtle, timeless refrains of blissful music; unclench your fist of control and feel the soft, curved spaces of divinity which are all around you at this moment. Find the error and all at once you are the truth.
The world is a mirror of Infinite Beauty, yet no man sees it. It is a Temple of Majesty, yet no man regards it.
What prevents man from seeing this infinite beauty? What keeps him from seeing through the clear mirror of his being? This mirror is before you right at this moment, luminous inside and out, yet you are entranced, preoccupied with a self and cannot see it. A mirror reflects the red rose perfectly. It does not distort it. It does not add anything to it. We think about the rose, through the filter of mind identified self. With this conceptual thinking we corrupt an experience of divinity and turn it into a plastic, conceptual rose. We seem to prefer eating the menu, hardly tasting real food.
The secret bliss is hidden in the wide-open. Burn your self-identification and when the ashes grow cold -- see. Dissolve your self like sugar in water and become the clarity. Drop the seer and be the seeing. Drop the viewer and be the viewing. The secret view lies exposed in the herenow, naked on the bare ground. The Temple of Majesty rises before you, yet you ignore it, placing your attention on the temporal and material; valuing the false, ignoring the true, chasing the unreal, dismissing the real as worthless or not even seeing it; preferring a prison of concepts to the freedom of the open sky.
It is a region of Light and Peace, did not man disquiet it. It is the Paradise of God.
But for the dominion-by-default of the mind identified self and the sociocultural support and fostering of this construct, "the region of Light and Peace" would be revealed to us this instant. Entering this region is a matter of losing something that you are clinging to, dropping something that you are attached to. It is a matter of letting go of something, releasing, letting go of everything. Men in their "disquiet" cloud the pristine clarity of the cosmic mirror. This disquiet is mind chatter, the stream of thinking, incessant mind, emotion and body activity that eclipses the Light. Where is your attention now? Your bare attention, your naked innocence, your receptive love and your open trust -- these are the gifts you bring to the gate. These are the offerings you can bring to existence. But the ego is geared for protection and defense. Self-deception is one of its powerful tools to distract. Quiet, silence, stillness, meditative awareness is interpreted as death by the ego. It will go to extreme lengths to keep the mind in "disquiet," in preoccupation, distraction and entertainment. Positive or negative does not matter. Either distraction will do to keep the ego from what it senses as complete annihilation. That's why it's been said that you have to expose yourself to the forces of annihilation, to fear and death, to doom and despair, to the dark night, in order to pass through the flames, to pass through death to resurrection; to enter the region of Light and Peace, the Paradise of God.
It is more to man since he is fallen then it was before.
Having passed from birth to the unborn, from death to the undying, your individuality emerges, your being, your freedom and your bliss. Your life has been earned. Your meaning has been created out of ashes. Falling through the flames of fear and annihilation, all that which is inessential is burned and that which was indestructible arises. Out of ego's falling, crashing and burning, out of falling into nothing, into the abyss, you surrender and realize your original face shining before and within you. The journey had to be made, from will to surrender. Will brings you to the gate. Surrender melts the ice chains of ego, and you are pulled into the waiting arms of the beloved.
It is the place of Angels and the Gate of Heaven...
Enjoy. Celebrate. Rejoice and every moment you awaken at the Gate of Heaven. There is no inside or outside to this gate. It is a Zen gate, no fences at all anywhere. Just a gate swinging both ways -- in and out, just like the breath. Rejoice, you are the beloved, and you are here now.
Post by Akilesh
February 17, 2006
Pure Space
When you have emptied all the content — thoughts, desires, memories, projections, hopes — when all is gone, for the first time you find yourself, because you are nothing but that pure space, that virgin space within you. Unburdened by anything, that contentless consciousness, that's what you are! Seeing it, realizing it, one is free. One is freedom, one is joy, one is bliss.
~Osho
~Osho
February 15, 2006
Enjoying the World
Akilesh's meditation IX on Thomas Traherne's quote,
"Your enjoyment of the world..." printed in Huxley's Perennial Philosophy
Yet further, you never enjoyed the world aright, till you so loved the beauty of enjoying it, that you are covetous and earnest to persuade others to enjoy it.
The beauty of enjoying it, the world, of awakening in heaven. There is the world, then with vision soaring like a cloud, there is enjoying the world. Then there is an additional blessing showering -- beauty. There is a second layer of icing on the celebration cake of life, on the world. Enjoying is present, then the beauty of enjoying. But wait, there is yet another layer of delicious icing -- love. "... till you so love the beauty of enjoying it..." This is the ecstatic, this is the song of the adept who has gone beyond, the fragrance of the mystic who has immersed herself in the warm pool of fathomless bliss. This is one who has found the wellspring within her own heart and who is now nourished by the beyond. She moves in the stream of the Tao. Open, receptive, with vast trust, basic trust, unconditioned, not based on any external condition or circumstance, she is living in the radiance of divine love. This warmth radiates from within her own inner lamp, a heart of centerless space. She embodies the space of the whole. Inside and outside have merged in sacred union, in ecstatic bliss. She is nourished by this bliss food. She rides on the wind, the energy wind of her awakening. In authentic presence she dances with the patterns of energy that come out of pure consciousness. She dances with being. Her heart guide is awake. Now all that was formerly dominant in her life, her thinking mind, rationality, emoting, the bodily senses, all are expressions of awakened heart. Mind identification, thinking, ego fixation have been seen through, and the light of primordial consciousness is able to shine through her being with unimpeded clarity. This light shining is her blissful food, it is what sustains her unlike any ordinary food. Now the light shines in ordinary food and drink as well, and imbues it with an energy of subtle and indescribable delight. The light shines now in the most common of behaviors and thoughts. Every thought and act and feeling is now infused with this background light of wakefulness. This is the embodiment of transformation. The ordinary becomes extraordinary in the transforming light of consciousness. This is where the ecstatic lives, within an open secret; within a secret bliss where the ordinary is transmuted automatically in the light of awakening.
Life becomes a life of dance and song -- you so love the beauty of enjoying. And this celebration simply stands alone in open space. You abide in a space of love, beauty and enjoyment, not based on anything. You so love the beauty of enjoying the world, that you dissolve and the world disappears into you. Words fail here, but what is left is vastness, the beyond, pure consciousness. And in the light of this consciousness is love radiating, is beauty manifesting in a most mysterious and miraculous way.
When this rejoicing beauty and love fill the world, merging into your body, dissolving into your soul, the ocean pouring into the drop, you want to share it. You no longer know who or what you are. You feel vast, a luminous presence. Centerless, the center of the whole has become your center. Light is pouring, like a dam has broken and light is radiating out from an endless stream. You are immersed in the Tao. The existential light is showering and you're dancing, rejoicing in secret movement; you're listening to an infinite silence, in reverence, in secret ambient ecstasy. The words are just bits of prayer-laughter, just the notes of a bird's song, ephemeral vehicles of bliss, sound bits of ecstasy, indecipherable by the mind, food to the tender heart. Words become no more than body parts moving in a dance incomprehensible to the rational mind.
What could these movements mean? The questions begin rotting and dissolve into the earth where they are transformed in silence, in darkness, into that which brings forth brilliant flowers, beautiful primordial dances of wordless love and joy. The ecstatic loses herself in this dance, immerses herself in the light showering, in the calm, warm and clear pools of light coalescing in empty space; immerses herself in the stream of this light coursing through empty space. And she so loves the beauty of enjoying it, she is so full of love, of the beauty of living in joy, that she must share it.
The ecstatic shares like a mother bird with her chicks in the nest. The young birds are famished from birth, from the experience of first light. But they have no context for this experience of wakefulness. So the mother bird, who is so full, disgorges her burden, the predigested nourishment deep into their eager throats, into their famished bellies. This food that descends from blue sky in feathered warmth, is received in innocence and utter trust, with a primordial trust not based on anything at all. And the mother bird is blissfully grateful to the young birds for relieving her of her burden. She had feasted on the bounty of the earth, sky, water and sun, the bounty of the beyond, of freedom, and now she is about to burst. Descending from empty sky to the nest, the sacred circle of birth, the waiting mouths, the perfect fit, the mutual needs, triggers a living ritual, the ancient process laid down in heart memory -- the passage of nourishment. This nourishing process, to the mother bird, is a joyful unburdening. At the same time, with the unburdening of the mother bird, something transpires in the young birds. A warmth flickers in their bellies, they remember their awakening, the first glimpse of luminous blue overhead. With nourishment, a faraway longing for something stirs in the core of their feathered hearts: the freedom of flight, the realization of their full potential and purpose, their original nature. The nourishment and nurturing that comes from the mother bird unburdening herself assists the growth and ripening of the young birds so that eventually they are able to stand on their own two feet, on nests edge, and let go. That let go will be their moment of truth and glory, and the fulfillment of mother bird's work. The first time the young bird will fall toward earth in terror, but just before he hits the ground, his wings open and the whole sky becomes his. His joy will be immeasurable, and will reflect the same joy living in the heart of his mother.
There will be many more let go's, a whole life of letting go, and each time the vastness of the sky will open up to meet the open, trusting heart. The sky never fails. You can fall into it and it will catch you. It will never say no to your leaping trust, never forbid you the space to let go into. It is trustworthy. The ecstatic, like the mother bird overflowing with joy, overflowing with nourishment, radiating love, points out the trustworthiness of the sky to others and encourages them to move through their fear and let go into it. The spiritual friend is not doing anything. She is simply radiating the energy of her wakefulness and the love that is bursting from her heart. She can do no other. It is showering there, like an overfull rain cloud. She is in a showering let go. You can look up, open your mouth and be refreshed, and something might transpire in you. Transformation may happen in the blissful radiance of the spiritual friend. But it is not the friend doing something. Rather it is your trust, your openness and receptivity that creates the clearing for the benediction to occur. It is the space you open up inside that allows existence to pour into you. It is up to you. You have to open your own eyes. The friend can't open them for you. Opening your eyes, you see the light shining. But most are living with eyes closed, cradle-to-grave, insisting on living a small life of sleepwalking within the trance of self.
With trust, love and a little courage you can open, open your heart and soul. The spiritual friend is there shining in the light of her being, and that may encourage you to let go into the open sky, into the beyond that exists in your own heart. Letting go into this sky you merge with the friend, and you're no longer separate but one vast ocean. You have dissolved into the ocean. Now you share the oceanic experience of the friend; you're nourished by the same great mother; you have entered the stream. How can you not share what you have experienced -- the way of transformation -- with others who need it? It streams from every pore. It rises like the eastern sun in your being.
Post by Akilesh
"Your enjoyment of the world..." printed in Huxley's Perennial Philosophy
Yet further, you never enjoyed the world aright, till you so loved the beauty of enjoying it, that you are covetous and earnest to persuade others to enjoy it.
The beauty of enjoying it, the world, of awakening in heaven. There is the world, then with vision soaring like a cloud, there is enjoying the world. Then there is an additional blessing showering -- beauty. There is a second layer of icing on the celebration cake of life, on the world. Enjoying is present, then the beauty of enjoying. But wait, there is yet another layer of delicious icing -- love. "... till you so love the beauty of enjoying it..." This is the ecstatic, this is the song of the adept who has gone beyond, the fragrance of the mystic who has immersed herself in the warm pool of fathomless bliss. This is one who has found the wellspring within her own heart and who is now nourished by the beyond. She moves in the stream of the Tao. Open, receptive, with vast trust, basic trust, unconditioned, not based on any external condition or circumstance, she is living in the radiance of divine love. This warmth radiates from within her own inner lamp, a heart of centerless space. She embodies the space of the whole. Inside and outside have merged in sacred union, in ecstatic bliss. She is nourished by this bliss food. She rides on the wind, the energy wind of her awakening. In authentic presence she dances with the patterns of energy that come out of pure consciousness. She dances with being. Her heart guide is awake. Now all that was formerly dominant in her life, her thinking mind, rationality, emoting, the bodily senses, all are expressions of awakened heart. Mind identification, thinking, ego fixation have been seen through, and the light of primordial consciousness is able to shine through her being with unimpeded clarity. This light shining is her blissful food, it is what sustains her unlike any ordinary food. Now the light shines in ordinary food and drink as well, and imbues it with an energy of subtle and indescribable delight. The light shines now in the most common of behaviors and thoughts. Every thought and act and feeling is now infused with this background light of wakefulness. This is the embodiment of transformation. The ordinary becomes extraordinary in the transforming light of consciousness. This is where the ecstatic lives, within an open secret; within a secret bliss where the ordinary is transmuted automatically in the light of awakening.
Life becomes a life of dance and song -- you so love the beauty of enjoying. And this celebration simply stands alone in open space. You abide in a space of love, beauty and enjoyment, not based on anything. You so love the beauty of enjoying the world, that you dissolve and the world disappears into you. Words fail here, but what is left is vastness, the beyond, pure consciousness. And in the light of this consciousness is love radiating, is beauty manifesting in a most mysterious and miraculous way.
When this rejoicing beauty and love fill the world, merging into your body, dissolving into your soul, the ocean pouring into the drop, you want to share it. You no longer know who or what you are. You feel vast, a luminous presence. Centerless, the center of the whole has become your center. Light is pouring, like a dam has broken and light is radiating out from an endless stream. You are immersed in the Tao. The existential light is showering and you're dancing, rejoicing in secret movement; you're listening to an infinite silence, in reverence, in secret ambient ecstasy. The words are just bits of prayer-laughter, just the notes of a bird's song, ephemeral vehicles of bliss, sound bits of ecstasy, indecipherable by the mind, food to the tender heart. Words become no more than body parts moving in a dance incomprehensible to the rational mind.
What could these movements mean? The questions begin rotting and dissolve into the earth where they are transformed in silence, in darkness, into that which brings forth brilliant flowers, beautiful primordial dances of wordless love and joy. The ecstatic loses herself in this dance, immerses herself in the light showering, in the calm, warm and clear pools of light coalescing in empty space; immerses herself in the stream of this light coursing through empty space. And she so loves the beauty of enjoying it, she is so full of love, of the beauty of living in joy, that she must share it.
The ecstatic shares like a mother bird with her chicks in the nest. The young birds are famished from birth, from the experience of first light. But they have no context for this experience of wakefulness. So the mother bird, who is so full, disgorges her burden, the predigested nourishment deep into their eager throats, into their famished bellies. This food that descends from blue sky in feathered warmth, is received in innocence and utter trust, with a primordial trust not based on anything at all. And the mother bird is blissfully grateful to the young birds for relieving her of her burden. She had feasted on the bounty of the earth, sky, water and sun, the bounty of the beyond, of freedom, and now she is about to burst. Descending from empty sky to the nest, the sacred circle of birth, the waiting mouths, the perfect fit, the mutual needs, triggers a living ritual, the ancient process laid down in heart memory -- the passage of nourishment. This nourishing process, to the mother bird, is a joyful unburdening. At the same time, with the unburdening of the mother bird, something transpires in the young birds. A warmth flickers in their bellies, they remember their awakening, the first glimpse of luminous blue overhead. With nourishment, a faraway longing for something stirs in the core of their feathered hearts: the freedom of flight, the realization of their full potential and purpose, their original nature. The nourishment and nurturing that comes from the mother bird unburdening herself assists the growth and ripening of the young birds so that eventually they are able to stand on their own two feet, on nests edge, and let go. That let go will be their moment of truth and glory, and the fulfillment of mother bird's work. The first time the young bird will fall toward earth in terror, but just before he hits the ground, his wings open and the whole sky becomes his. His joy will be immeasurable, and will reflect the same joy living in the heart of his mother.
There will be many more let go's, a whole life of letting go, and each time the vastness of the sky will open up to meet the open, trusting heart. The sky never fails. You can fall into it and it will catch you. It will never say no to your leaping trust, never forbid you the space to let go into. It is trustworthy. The ecstatic, like the mother bird overflowing with joy, overflowing with nourishment, radiating love, points out the trustworthiness of the sky to others and encourages them to move through their fear and let go into it. The spiritual friend is not doing anything. She is simply radiating the energy of her wakefulness and the love that is bursting from her heart. She can do no other. It is showering there, like an overfull rain cloud. She is in a showering let go. You can look up, open your mouth and be refreshed, and something might transpire in you. Transformation may happen in the blissful radiance of the spiritual friend. But it is not the friend doing something. Rather it is your trust, your openness and receptivity that creates the clearing for the benediction to occur. It is the space you open up inside that allows existence to pour into you. It is up to you. You have to open your own eyes. The friend can't open them for you. Opening your eyes, you see the light shining. But most are living with eyes closed, cradle-to-grave, insisting on living a small life of sleepwalking within the trance of self.
With trust, love and a little courage you can open, open your heart and soul. The spiritual friend is there shining in the light of her being, and that may encourage you to let go into the open sky, into the beyond that exists in your own heart. Letting go into this sky you merge with the friend, and you're no longer separate but one vast ocean. You have dissolved into the ocean. Now you share the oceanic experience of the friend; you're nourished by the same great mother; you have entered the stream. How can you not share what you have experienced -- the way of transformation -- with others who need it? It streams from every pore. It rises like the eastern sun in your being.
Post by Akilesh
February 14, 2006
Freshness
Akilesh: It is so fresh this morning; reminding me how every moment is fresh. There are not even things you can call moments, there is just freshness, freshness you can feel. It is true, you have no control with this freshness, and there is no past or no future in it. That can feel odd and disconcerting to those soundly asleep. But to be asleep with unconsciousness is to reside far from freshness. It is true, living with freshness is risky. One does not get to predict or control so tightly, to avoid pain and pull pleasure to us. But the pain is only put off, but not avoided, and the pleasure quickly fades and another seduction is there. We reach out with eager hands, time and again. Until, that is, we let go; smile and let go of control, of self, of the stale dominion of rationality; until we let go into the here and now, into free floating freshness, into freedom.
I send freshness your way this morning.
Meredith: This is so lovely, Akilesh. Thank you for this fresh greeting. I am aware of this enlivened fragrance of freshness this morning, too. And it is just in this moment now, and now, and again now. We enjoy our wakefulness to this delightful quality of freedom. I am not so aware of the riskiness you mention, only just this moment of loving vibration. Thank you for sending freshness - its quality resounds so clearly in your essence.
With a happiness in my heart, I receive your freshness.
I send freshness your way this morning.
Meredith: This is so lovely, Akilesh. Thank you for this fresh greeting. I am aware of this enlivened fragrance of freshness this morning, too. And it is just in this moment now, and now, and again now. We enjoy our wakefulness to this delightful quality of freedom. I am not so aware of the riskiness you mention, only just this moment of loving vibration. Thank you for sending freshness - its quality resounds so clearly in your essence.
With a happiness in my heart, I receive your freshness.
February 12, 2006
How to Speak
How to speak
of ordinary miracles?
The kind that seem
impossible, yet...
yet happen everyday
to lovers?
How to speak,
to say the unsayable,
the point
just as the bud
is unfolding?
That exact point
does not exist.
When you see this,
bliss explodes
in your eyes
from rosebuds.
The flowers are talking,
can you hear them?
They are saying one word -
"Yes."
Over and over,
singing that word
"Yes."
They sing in fragrances,
in the language of silence,
and the blossoming of lovers
- inside you.
Incomprehensible,
but they, the lovers,
understand it
do they not?
Oh they understand
the unsayable
and incomprehensible!
Perhaps for only a moment,
but they catch the fragrance.
Not even for a moment..
but they hear
the fragrance
of those flowers;
or taste it.
Yes,
they taste it
in one another's mouths;
they taste eternal Spring.
On the lovers threshold
we exist in two worlds,
the seen and the unseeable.
But they can see it,
and speak it
can they not -
those unfathomable miracles?
Where are these eyes
of the lovers
that lie behind
our physical ones?
These are the eyes I want
to fall into,
to drown in.
The garden is drowning.
The whole countryside
is flooded
with your fragrance:
the perfume of green,
crimson and gold.
The whole world
is overrun;
the stars have fallen
and now cover
the desert with jewels.
Can you hear the music
in the sand,
in the faint tracks
that trail off
into silence?
~Akilesh
of ordinary miracles?
The kind that seem
impossible, yet...
yet happen everyday
to lovers?
How to speak,
to say the unsayable,
the point
just as the bud
is unfolding?
That exact point
does not exist.
When you see this,
bliss explodes
in your eyes
from rosebuds.
The flowers are talking,
can you hear them?
They are saying one word -
"Yes."
Over and over,
singing that word
"Yes."
They sing in fragrances,
in the language of silence,
and the blossoming of lovers
- inside you.
Incomprehensible,
but they, the lovers,
understand it
do they not?
Oh they understand
the unsayable
and incomprehensible!
Perhaps for only a moment,
but they catch the fragrance.
Not even for a moment..
but they hear
the fragrance
of those flowers;
or taste it.
Yes,
they taste it
in one another's mouths;
they taste eternal Spring.
On the lovers threshold
we exist in two worlds,
the seen and the unseeable.
But they can see it,
and speak it
can they not -
those unfathomable miracles?
Where are these eyes
of the lovers
that lie behind
our physical ones?
These are the eyes I want
to fall into,
to drown in.
The garden is drowning.
The whole countryside
is flooded
with your fragrance:
the perfume of green,
crimson and gold.
The whole world
is overrun;
the stars have fallen
and now cover
the desert with jewels.
Can you hear the music
in the sand,
in the faint tracks
that trail off
into silence?
~Akilesh
February 10, 2006
Rejoice
Akilesh's meditation VIII on Thomas Traherne's quote,
"Your enjoyment of the world..." printed in Huxley's Perennial Philosophy
...and more rejoice in the palace of your glory than if it had been made today morning.
Realization is freedom. It is wonderful, so very full of wonder and celebration. Your being is a glorious palace, a celestial palace of rejoicing. And this rejoicing is always fresh and new. It is the naked purposeless rejoicing of a child. Jesus said something like "except that you become like little children you shall not enter the kingdom of heaven." Fresh, like little kids, unburdened with heavy dominion of rationality, of conditioning and ego fixation. Return, reenter the palace of your glory through the gate of childhood innocence. It is risky, you move toward being a nobody, like a child is a nobody, not having had the time to develop a character jacket; not having pulled the thick veil of ego fixation over the purity of her vision, her innocence; not yet climbing into the protective fortress of a cocoon, not yet harboring a firm identity, or strengthening, solidifying that identity. Socialization, identification, individuation, ego strengthening, are all necessary processes for healthy social and psychological development. But they are limited. They are relatively complete in a healthy human around the age of 14 to 16. There is another journey to be undertaken, an odyssey rediscovering the "palace of your glory," your original nature beyond or beneath the psychological self. It is this original nature that is rediscovered, "made today morning," lived newly, freshly moment to moment.
Living our realization as if it were made freshly each morning, each moment is living a life of responsibility. Living this way is responding freshly to whatever presents itself. Not living out of morals, principles, rules, codes, scriptures, values or ethics. These are the crutches of a stale and dead life, concepts we hide behind to prop us up and give us a sense of security. Life is a process and is best lived as a process, not knowing moment to moment and responding out of your being, trusting the spontaneous intelligence of your being. This is big trust, basic trust, trust that is alive. Not trust based on rules of conduct, social convention or moral character. The latter is secondhand living, the life of a sheep, the giving over of one's freedom and individuality to another, whether parent, pastor, politician, teacher, guru or God. It is the way of the coward, the way of lost souls.
It takes guts to look deeply within and trust the light you find there. It may be a feeble lamp but it is more trustworthy than any scripture or priest, civic leader or university professor. "Be a lamp unto yourself," sounds pretty nifty but is put into practice by very, very few. Most people opt for being a sheep and leaving things to the shepherd. It's a matter of life and death, eternal life of consciousness and bliss or death. All the more reason not to hand your individuality and responsibility over to someone else. It is difficult finding your own way, and you'll find many teachers and guru's willing to guide you, exploit you, exploit your neediness, and shore up their own sense of self. But carving your own way, creating your path in the walking of it, is what living an authentic life is all about. There is a lot of moving in the dark, groping in the dark. But no one can walk it for you, and it unfolds only in the walking, only in the process. There's no hovering or shortcuts. If your life is moving toward greater rejoicing, increasing celebration, bliss, inexplicable joy, feelings of contentment and gratitude, then you are moving in the right direction, this is your path. If your life is moving toward increasing angst, anxiety, fear, depression and despair, misery, pettiness and boredom, then you are moving in the wrong direction, this is not your path. You are either moving toward a stale, stagnant, safe, secure, comfortable and dead life, are you are moving on the razors edge moment to moment, living in the gap every moment. Alive, at large, alert, aware. Awake.
Fresh baked bread, "made today morning," tastes heavenly. Don't settle for day-old bread, or worse, stale bread. Plant your own seeds, nurture the crop, harvest the grain, mill it, mix the dough, let it rise, bake it and eat it warm. Enlightenment is organic, a growing, living thing, not something processed. You find the seeds within, grind them, make a loaf, let it rise, bake it, and eat it. It is never given to you. It doesn't come from outside. You make your own by clearing a space for it to emerge. It's your birthright, your inherent nature, it is who you are, only you're so stuffed with thinking, emoting, sensating and identifying with those things as a self that you can't grok it. Sitting under a tree on a spring day, a mourning dove is cooing, but you can't hear the benediction of that song because your head is stuffed with constant thinking - a datastream of immense bandwidth flowing across the screen of your mind. It obliterates the sweet breeze, and the sunlight filtering through the green leaves, the warmth and basic goodness of the day, of your life. On the other hand ordinary things seen in the light of pure consciousness brings you into "the palace of your glory," and fills your life with an infinite source of rejoicing.
Post by Akilesh
"Your enjoyment of the world..." printed in Huxley's Perennial Philosophy
...and more rejoice in the palace of your glory than if it had been made today morning.
Realization is freedom. It is wonderful, so very full of wonder and celebration. Your being is a glorious palace, a celestial palace of rejoicing. And this rejoicing is always fresh and new. It is the naked purposeless rejoicing of a child. Jesus said something like "except that you become like little children you shall not enter the kingdom of heaven." Fresh, like little kids, unburdened with heavy dominion of rationality, of conditioning and ego fixation. Return, reenter the palace of your glory through the gate of childhood innocence. It is risky, you move toward being a nobody, like a child is a nobody, not having had the time to develop a character jacket; not having pulled the thick veil of ego fixation over the purity of her vision, her innocence; not yet climbing into the protective fortress of a cocoon, not yet harboring a firm identity, or strengthening, solidifying that identity. Socialization, identification, individuation, ego strengthening, are all necessary processes for healthy social and psychological development. But they are limited. They are relatively complete in a healthy human around the age of 14 to 16. There is another journey to be undertaken, an odyssey rediscovering the "palace of your glory," your original nature beyond or beneath the psychological self. It is this original nature that is rediscovered, "made today morning," lived newly, freshly moment to moment.
Living our realization as if it were made freshly each morning, each moment is living a life of responsibility. Living this way is responding freshly to whatever presents itself. Not living out of morals, principles, rules, codes, scriptures, values or ethics. These are the crutches of a stale and dead life, concepts we hide behind to prop us up and give us a sense of security. Life is a process and is best lived as a process, not knowing moment to moment and responding out of your being, trusting the spontaneous intelligence of your being. This is big trust, basic trust, trust that is alive. Not trust based on rules of conduct, social convention or moral character. The latter is secondhand living, the life of a sheep, the giving over of one's freedom and individuality to another, whether parent, pastor, politician, teacher, guru or God. It is the way of the coward, the way of lost souls.
It takes guts to look deeply within and trust the light you find there. It may be a feeble lamp but it is more trustworthy than any scripture or priest, civic leader or university professor. "Be a lamp unto yourself," sounds pretty nifty but is put into practice by very, very few. Most people opt for being a sheep and leaving things to the shepherd. It's a matter of life and death, eternal life of consciousness and bliss or death. All the more reason not to hand your individuality and responsibility over to someone else. It is difficult finding your own way, and you'll find many teachers and guru's willing to guide you, exploit you, exploit your neediness, and shore up their own sense of self. But carving your own way, creating your path in the walking of it, is what living an authentic life is all about. There is a lot of moving in the dark, groping in the dark. But no one can walk it for you, and it unfolds only in the walking, only in the process. There's no hovering or shortcuts. If your life is moving toward greater rejoicing, increasing celebration, bliss, inexplicable joy, feelings of contentment and gratitude, then you are moving in the right direction, this is your path. If your life is moving toward increasing angst, anxiety, fear, depression and despair, misery, pettiness and boredom, then you are moving in the wrong direction, this is not your path. You are either moving toward a stale, stagnant, safe, secure, comfortable and dead life, are you are moving on the razors edge moment to moment, living in the gap every moment. Alive, at large, alert, aware. Awake.
Fresh baked bread, "made today morning," tastes heavenly. Don't settle for day-old bread, or worse, stale bread. Plant your own seeds, nurture the crop, harvest the grain, mill it, mix the dough, let it rise, bake it and eat it warm. Enlightenment is organic, a growing, living thing, not something processed. You find the seeds within, grind them, make a loaf, let it rise, bake it, and eat it. It is never given to you. It doesn't come from outside. You make your own by clearing a space for it to emerge. It's your birthright, your inherent nature, it is who you are, only you're so stuffed with thinking, emoting, sensating and identifying with those things as a self that you can't grok it. Sitting under a tree on a spring day, a mourning dove is cooing, but you can't hear the benediction of that song because your head is stuffed with constant thinking - a datastream of immense bandwidth flowing across the screen of your mind. It obliterates the sweet breeze, and the sunlight filtering through the green leaves, the warmth and basic goodness of the day, of your life. On the other hand ordinary things seen in the light of pure consciousness brings you into "the palace of your glory," and fills your life with an infinite source of rejoicing.
Post by Akilesh
February 6, 2006
Path of Devotion
Recently, while reading Stephen Mitchell’s introduction to the Bhagavad Gita I came across a description of paths to realization, including bhakti yoga, the path of devotion. Devotion is not a word I have never even thought about before, and then it appeared in this context of the bhakti yoga as a spiritual path of love, and it just took hold of me, its resonance was so clear. The very word burned into me a little. Aki shared with me an article quoting Osho on devotion. Osho describes devotion as an invisible quality:
“Whatever is visible to you, a shadow of the invisible has also begun to appear within it. If you stop at what is visible, devotion will never be born in you.”
I have had this feeling for soooooo long that there is always so much more than what meets our eyes…the world is full of wonderful mystery, intricate depth and meaningful merging of pattern, warmth, creativity, self existing wisdom and ‘blessed incidence.’ And when this invisible quality begins to appear within the visible, the universe unfolds with untold delight and loving vibration. To paraphrase Osho,
“We listen for the sound of the invisible approaching; we hear the footsteps of that which cannot be heard. Our senses have become ecstatic, we are thrilled with the joy of that which is beyond all our senses.”
This enlivens our being like nothing else can.
Osho says the beginnings of devotion, the first glimpse of devotion, comes through one’s lover; love is the first lesson in devotion. In my experience the roots of love and devotion are in the same seed. In love there is that unmistakable moment of recognition of something amazing and wonderful in another, something you cannot see, but that you feel with all your being. Like the moon reflecting on the water, we see the light but don’t truly grasp the source. Perhaps this is only fleeting, but nonetheless it existed and you felt it. Love may be like a light shower of rain, and then, allowing ones heart to open fully with devotion is like letting the floodgates part, devotion is a flood – allowing an ocean of love to pour forth. Devotion is not superficial love, it has nothing to do with anything about the ego, of the visible self we see, but rather that which we cannot see, a love that is deep and vast of a primordial force within us known to be true. I smile when Osho says that with devotion, there is no way to get out of it. I have often felt myself rolling with this tide and although I might want (for some egoic reason) to stop myself, to hang onto the shore or swim the other way, I cannot do it. There is no going back.
Osho guides:
“Wheresoever there is love, use it to search further.”
We can, as Osho says, use this feeling of love to uncover something much greater. In the prison of love, devotion lies there in waiting, waiting to be exposed, and waiting for the refinement and purification, like a diamond in the rough. Herein the discovery of the divine is possible. Osho says,
“Godliness is hidden in love – release it. Make your love more like a prayer… Gradually the impurities in your love will melt away. And as these impurities melt, a pure flame of light begins to manifest. This flame is called devotion.”
“I cannot forget your remembrance,
It is as if someone is forever pinching at my heart.”
I know this feeling Osho describes… Something has been perpetually tickling me, drawing my attention ever after this somewhat elusive perception, a longing in my heart for purity in love…Moving toward the Beloved with devotion is like moving toward the warmth of the flame, toward something remembered, toward big love. My prayer becomes a love song.
“A picture of the divine is hidden in everyone’s heart. The divine is hidden in all faces.”
I see the promise of the divine in everybody's face. At the core of our being we know what Osho says is true. And this truth leads us to this searching, searching all of our lives for this pure, pristine, sparkling kind of love.
“I searched for you outside of myself and didn’t find you. Now I will search within. I searched for you in the body, in matter, in form, in beauty, and you were not there. Now I will search for you beyond beauty, in the formless.“
We glimpse the divine in the ephemeral. We are drawn to the formless. Osho uses the metaphor of “burning in the heart.” He calls the burning of devotion a cool kind of burning that awakens us. In this fire we do not remain in our body, “your body is lost and only the awakened consciousness remains.” This is where we see the divine reflected in everything…a thousand-fold reflection in an instant.
Through longing, we uncover an aspect of devotion Osho describes so beautifully. Osho says,
“The divine is searching for you.”
God is longing for us just as we are longing for God. There is a sad/joyful quality to this sweet longing. My heart has ached for God. Why were we apart for so long?
God is my Beloved; we have found each other. By opening, allowing, and loving, an open secret is revealed, merging in me, as close as my own breath. With this realization, a shimmering glow is cast like light on the water, everywhere, as a wonder to behold.
I love you, Beloved, with certain and abiding devotion.
“Whatever is visible to you, a shadow of the invisible has also begun to appear within it. If you stop at what is visible, devotion will never be born in you.”
I have had this feeling for soooooo long that there is always so much more than what meets our eyes…the world is full of wonderful mystery, intricate depth and meaningful merging of pattern, warmth, creativity, self existing wisdom and ‘blessed incidence.’ And when this invisible quality begins to appear within the visible, the universe unfolds with untold delight and loving vibration. To paraphrase Osho,
“We listen for the sound of the invisible approaching; we hear the footsteps of that which cannot be heard. Our senses have become ecstatic, we are thrilled with the joy of that which is beyond all our senses.”
This enlivens our being like nothing else can.
Osho says the beginnings of devotion, the first glimpse of devotion, comes through one’s lover; love is the first lesson in devotion. In my experience the roots of love and devotion are in the same seed. In love there is that unmistakable moment of recognition of something amazing and wonderful in another, something you cannot see, but that you feel with all your being. Like the moon reflecting on the water, we see the light but don’t truly grasp the source. Perhaps this is only fleeting, but nonetheless it existed and you felt it. Love may be like a light shower of rain, and then, allowing ones heart to open fully with devotion is like letting the floodgates part, devotion is a flood – allowing an ocean of love to pour forth. Devotion is not superficial love, it has nothing to do with anything about the ego, of the visible self we see, but rather that which we cannot see, a love that is deep and vast of a primordial force within us known to be true. I smile when Osho says that with devotion, there is no way to get out of it. I have often felt myself rolling with this tide and although I might want (for some egoic reason) to stop myself, to hang onto the shore or swim the other way, I cannot do it. There is no going back.
Osho guides:
“Wheresoever there is love, use it to search further.”
We can, as Osho says, use this feeling of love to uncover something much greater. In the prison of love, devotion lies there in waiting, waiting to be exposed, and waiting for the refinement and purification, like a diamond in the rough. Herein the discovery of the divine is possible. Osho says,
“Godliness is hidden in love – release it. Make your love more like a prayer… Gradually the impurities in your love will melt away. And as these impurities melt, a pure flame of light begins to manifest. This flame is called devotion.”
“I cannot forget your remembrance,
It is as if someone is forever pinching at my heart.”
I know this feeling Osho describes… Something has been perpetually tickling me, drawing my attention ever after this somewhat elusive perception, a longing in my heart for purity in love…Moving toward the Beloved with devotion is like moving toward the warmth of the flame, toward something remembered, toward big love. My prayer becomes a love song.
“A picture of the divine is hidden in everyone’s heart. The divine is hidden in all faces.”
I see the promise of the divine in everybody's face. At the core of our being we know what Osho says is true. And this truth leads us to this searching, searching all of our lives for this pure, pristine, sparkling kind of love.
“I searched for you outside of myself and didn’t find you. Now I will search within. I searched for you in the body, in matter, in form, in beauty, and you were not there. Now I will search for you beyond beauty, in the formless.“
We glimpse the divine in the ephemeral. We are drawn to the formless. Osho uses the metaphor of “burning in the heart.” He calls the burning of devotion a cool kind of burning that awakens us. In this fire we do not remain in our body, “your body is lost and only the awakened consciousness remains.” This is where we see the divine reflected in everything…a thousand-fold reflection in an instant.
Through longing, we uncover an aspect of devotion Osho describes so beautifully. Osho says,
“The divine is searching for you.”
God is longing for us just as we are longing for God. There is a sad/joyful quality to this sweet longing. My heart has ached for God. Why were we apart for so long?
God is my Beloved; we have found each other. By opening, allowing, and loving, an open secret is revealed, merging in me, as close as my own breath. With this realization, a shimmering glow is cast like light on the water, everywhere, as a wonder to behold.
I love you, Beloved, with certain and abiding devotion.
February 5, 2006
The Holy Longing
Tell a wise person, or else keep silent,
because the massman will mock it right away.
I praise what is truly alive,
what longs to be burned to death.
In the calm water of the love-nights,
where you were begotten, where you have begotten,
a strange feeling comes over you
when you see the silent candle burning.
Now you are no longer caught
in the obsession with darkness,
and a desire for higher love-making
sweeps you upward.
Distance does not make you falter,
now, arriving in magic, flying,
and finally, insane for the light,
you are the butterfly and you are gone.
And so long as you haven’t experienced
this: to die and so to grow,
you are only a troubled guest
on the dark earth.
~ Goethe
because the massman will mock it right away.
I praise what is truly alive,
what longs to be burned to death.
In the calm water of the love-nights,
where you were begotten, where you have begotten,
a strange feeling comes over you
when you see the silent candle burning.
Now you are no longer caught
in the obsession with darkness,
and a desire for higher love-making
sweeps you upward.
Distance does not make you falter,
now, arriving in magic, flying,
and finally, insane for the light,
you are the butterfly and you are gone.
And so long as you haven’t experienced
this: to die and so to grow,
you are only a troubled guest
on the dark earth.
~ Goethe
February 2, 2006
Quiet
Quiet time. There are many times when I just fall silent – I have no urge to speak. Aki reminds me that there is depth and beauty in silence. I am often pensive, and in these moments I enjoy quieting my thoughts, becoming settled, just noticing the richness of a single present moment… with awareness I readily notice that silence is filled with a tender presence of the Beloved.
Milton Erickson was known to have shared many teaching stories with his clients. His colleagues published a book of his stories entitled, My Voice Shall Go with You. I have thought of this title often, as I hear my spiritual friend’s voice, I hear his wisdom whispering within me. In my silence he is there. In times of utter quietude, a small internal rustle occurs and again my friend is present. He is here with me now. I readily intuit his presence. In this, there is Oneness. It is a soft and subtle merging, one soul into another. This is such a blissful union. Not only is my dear friend merged in me, but also the enlarged presence of the Beloved. This is all merged in me, he and I and Beloved are actually just One. Now, especially in the silence, I see that all things are merged in me; non-separation is feeling as though my Self has enlarged to all of space.
One of my favorite poets, Rilke, wrote,
One space spreads through all creatures equally,
inner-world space. Birds quietly flying go
flying right through us. O, I that want to grow!
The tree I look at is growing in me!
In another poem, Rilke wrote,
Silent friend of many distances, feel
how your breath enlarges all of space
let your presence ring out like a bell
into the night.
Rilke knew. He knew.
And these are perhaps my most favorite Rilke lines of all:
Center of all centers, core of cores,
almond self-enclosed and growing sweet –
all the universe, to the furthest stars
and beyond them, is your flesh, your fruit.
Now you feel how nothing clings to you;
your vast shell reaches into endless space,
and there the rich, thick fluids rise and flow.
I lluminated in your infinite peace,
a billion stars go spinning through the night,
blazing high above your head.
But in you is the presence that
will be, when all the stars are dead.
Rilke speaks to the eternal Presence within us, the Presence that will be, when all the stars are dead. Rilke writes of the rise and flow, of the here and now, of pure consciousness, of spilling and spinning through the night, of this simple awareness-that-is-awake. I sense the Great Silent One in this. The vast silence of Presence. So pure, so infinite, so warm.
We need to fall quiet from time to time to relish this infinite peace.
Peace exists in each silent moment.
Let this silence penetrate you.
Milton Erickson was known to have shared many teaching stories with his clients. His colleagues published a book of his stories entitled, My Voice Shall Go with You. I have thought of this title often, as I hear my spiritual friend’s voice, I hear his wisdom whispering within me. In my silence he is there. In times of utter quietude, a small internal rustle occurs and again my friend is present. He is here with me now. I readily intuit his presence. In this, there is Oneness. It is a soft and subtle merging, one soul into another. This is such a blissful union. Not only is my dear friend merged in me, but also the enlarged presence of the Beloved. This is all merged in me, he and I and Beloved are actually just One. Now, especially in the silence, I see that all things are merged in me; non-separation is feeling as though my Self has enlarged to all of space.
One of my favorite poets, Rilke, wrote,
One space spreads through all creatures equally,
inner-world space. Birds quietly flying go
flying right through us. O, I that want to grow!
The tree I look at is growing in me!
In another poem, Rilke wrote,
Silent friend of many distances, feel
how your breath enlarges all of space
let your presence ring out like a bell
into the night.
Rilke knew. He knew.
And these are perhaps my most favorite Rilke lines of all:
Center of all centers, core of cores,
almond self-enclosed and growing sweet –
all the universe, to the furthest stars
and beyond them, is your flesh, your fruit.
Now you feel how nothing clings to you;
your vast shell reaches into endless space,
and there the rich, thick fluids rise and flow.
I lluminated in your infinite peace,
a billion stars go spinning through the night,
blazing high above your head.
But in you is the presence that
will be, when all the stars are dead.
Rilke speaks to the eternal Presence within us, the Presence that will be, when all the stars are dead. Rilke writes of the rise and flow, of the here and now, of pure consciousness, of spilling and spinning through the night, of this simple awareness-that-is-awake. I sense the Great Silent One in this. The vast silence of Presence. So pure, so infinite, so warm.
We need to fall quiet from time to time to relish this infinite peace.
Peace exists in each silent moment.
Let this silence penetrate you.
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