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