The notion of ego-fixation "superimposed" upon Wholeness fits as a useful way to look at liberation or realization. We are fixated on the world of ego perspective, the horizontal dimension, the world of separation. Yet there is the possibility of realizing this "other world" here, a presence or being veiled by our exclusive fixation on the world of appearances.
Our egocentric perspective is superimposed on the One. When two people fall in love, Wholeness is exposed; the formerly distinct boundary markers for self and other dissolve somewhat; the demarcation between ego perspective and Unity blurs, in Meredith's words, becomes soft, indistinct or evaporates altogether. This occurs to greater or lesser degrees as a couple experiences the vertical dimension of non-separation. Realizing this is experienced as blissful. It fosters the possibility of further enlargement and expansion.
With the experience of love the individual is given a glimpse of that "other world" upon which the familiar world of ego perspective is superimposed. Formerly, ego-perspective was not recognized as a perspective. It was like water to a fish - unseen and unquestioned. With love there is the possibility of "seeing through" ego perspective, seeing its outline so to speak, and simultaneously the openness of the vertical dimension. If we accept the invitation of love, we may surrender or relinquish the exclusivity of ego perspective, our conditioned understanding of self, of who or what one is.
We do not lose our individuality in love, yet we open to the vast non-dual perspective of the cosmic mirror, or God, or Wholeness.
Through love we are invited into this openness, and we step into it, unafraid, moment-to-moment. Through love we enjoy the intimacy and bliss that is inherent with this communion.
May 28, 2007
May 23, 2007
I Live
I live
enfolded in your curves,
and the flow of your spirit.
enfolded in your curves,
and the flow of your spirit.
Arch Bend of the John Day River
Photo by David Jensen
May 15, 2007
Begin and End
Yeshua said:
This sky will pass away;
and the one above it will also pass away.
The dead have no life,
and the living have no death.
On days when you ate what was dead,
you made it alive.
When you are in the light, what will you do?
When you were One, you created two.
But now that you are two, what will you do?
(The Gospel of Thomas, Logion 11, Leloup-Rowe translation)
Meredith: I’m curious about this question, “What will you do?” It suggests a question about volition, about free will. This has always puzzled me. Where/when does free will begin and end?
But there is also something else in this passage that I find interesting. It is that distinction between One and Two. Where is the distinction? What defines the edge - that invisible line that marks the separation between this material world and that other one, the One that we swim and breathe in but seem to only glimpse or recognize once in a while? One may think of this boundary or distinction as a precipice, or a place where we come to the rim and ‘let go’, or even fall into this other thing. Others may speak of this as a height, such as on the top of a peak where we can now see it All clearly, where before we only could see partially. Where does this distinction begin and end, start or stop for you?
For me, I sense the spiritual world exists at all times and in all places in this herenow, and yet somehow I/we get caught into thinking it is somehow different, apart from us, and that we may only see it when “Awakened”, or when something miraculous happens to us. I’m inclined to see this division, this edge as no edge at all. I see this edge as one not unlike the point of dissipation between steam and air, or the line on the beach between wet and dry sand. This is a ‘soft edge’, blurry, impossible to distinguish where one begins and the other ends. Spiritual is superimposed in/on material, not separate from it. From this, we can realize the “One” or the wholeness, in the apparent “two”, or separateness.
Aki: Here is another way to look at free will, choice and volition. We're moving along in space and time on the horizontal dimension, choosing, exercising free will, growing, gradually cultivating, approaching... And then "suddenly" we realize the vertical dimension, "superimposed" to use your word, upon the horizontal dimension, and what a realization this is! On the vertical dimension, there is Wholeness, no space and time, no choosing. In my experience there is rising on the vertical dimension; rising in grace, a deepening or rising in the field of grace. The experience is one of freedom, warmth, light and bliss; a feeling or presence of Wholeness, connectedness, non-separation.
This sky will pass away;
and the one above it will also pass away.
The dead have no life,
and the living have no death.
On days when you ate what was dead,
you made it alive.
When you are in the light, what will you do?
When you were One, you created two.
But now that you are two, what will you do?
(The Gospel of Thomas, Logion 11, Leloup-Rowe translation)
Meredith: I’m curious about this question, “What will you do?” It suggests a question about volition, about free will. This has always puzzled me. Where/when does free will begin and end?
But there is also something else in this passage that I find interesting. It is that distinction between One and Two. Where is the distinction? What defines the edge - that invisible line that marks the separation between this material world and that other one, the One that we swim and breathe in but seem to only glimpse or recognize once in a while? One may think of this boundary or distinction as a precipice, or a place where we come to the rim and ‘let go’, or even fall into this other thing. Others may speak of this as a height, such as on the top of a peak where we can now see it All clearly, where before we only could see partially. Where does this distinction begin and end, start or stop for you?
For me, I sense the spiritual world exists at all times and in all places in this herenow, and yet somehow I/we get caught into thinking it is somehow different, apart from us, and that we may only see it when “Awakened”, or when something miraculous happens to us. I’m inclined to see this division, this edge as no edge at all. I see this edge as one not unlike the point of dissipation between steam and air, or the line on the beach between wet and dry sand. This is a ‘soft edge’, blurry, impossible to distinguish where one begins and the other ends. Spiritual is superimposed in/on material, not separate from it. From this, we can realize the “One” or the wholeness, in the apparent “two”, or separateness.
Aki: Here is another way to look at free will, choice and volition. We're moving along in space and time on the horizontal dimension, choosing, exercising free will, growing, gradually cultivating, approaching... And then "suddenly" we realize the vertical dimension, "superimposed" to use your word, upon the horizontal dimension, and what a realization this is! On the vertical dimension, there is Wholeness, no space and time, no choosing. In my experience there is rising on the vertical dimension; rising in grace, a deepening or rising in the field of grace. The experience is one of freedom, warmth, light and bliss; a feeling or presence of Wholeness, connectedness, non-separation.
May 10, 2007
Floating
A blog friend, Fiz, posted this on another site, and I fell in love with it. I don't know the photo's source.
May 4, 2007
Moving in Wholeness
To stir you up,
to turn you in,
and open you out,
and then
to eat you!
Yum, yum,
~M
~~~
A new challenge awaits us at the beginning of the twenty-first century: to go beyond fragmentation, to go beyond the incompatible sets of values held even by serious-minded people, to mature beyond the self-righteousness of one's accepted approaches and be open to total living and total revolution. In this era, to become a spiritual inquirer without social consciousness is a luxury that we can ill afford, and to be a social activist without a scientific understanding of the inner workings of the mind is the worst folly. Neither approach in isolation has had any significant success. There is no question now that an inquirer will have to make an effort to be socially conscious or that an activist will have to be persuaded of the moral crisis in the human psyche, the significance of being attentive to the inner life. The challenge awaiting us is to go much deeper as human beings, to abandon superficial prejudices and preferences, to expand understanding to a global scale, integrating the totality of living, and to become aware of the wholeness of which we are a manifestation.
As we deepen in understanding, the arbitrary divisions between inner and outer disappear. The essence of life, the beauty and grandeur of life, is its wholeness. Life in reality cannot be divided into the inner and the outer, the individual and social. We may make arbitrary divisions for the convenience of collective life, for analysis, but essentially any division between inner and outer has no reality, no meaning.
We have accepted the watertight compartments of society, the fragmentation of living as factual and necessary. We live in relationship to these fragments and accept the internalized divisions—the various roles we play, the contradictory value systems, the opposing motives and priorities—as reality. We are at odds with ourselves internally; we believe that the inner is fundamentally different from the outer, that what is me is quite separate from the not-me, that divisions among people and nations are necessary, and yet we wonder why there are tensions, conflicts, wars in the world. The conflicts begin with minds that believe in fragmentation and are ignorant of wholeness.
A holistic approach is a recognition of the homogeneity and wholeness of life. Life is not fragmented; it is not divided. It cannot be divided into spiritual and material, individual and collective. We cannot create compartments in life—political, economic, social, environmental. Whatever we do or don't do affects and touches the wholeness, the homogeneity. We are forever organically related to wholeness. We are wholeness, and we move in wholeness.
--Vimala Thakar
Article on Vimala
to turn you in,
and open you out,
and then
to eat you!
Yum, yum,
~M
~~~
A new challenge awaits us at the beginning of the twenty-first century: to go beyond fragmentation, to go beyond the incompatible sets of values held even by serious-minded people, to mature beyond the self-righteousness of one's accepted approaches and be open to total living and total revolution. In this era, to become a spiritual inquirer without social consciousness is a luxury that we can ill afford, and to be a social activist without a scientific understanding of the inner workings of the mind is the worst folly. Neither approach in isolation has had any significant success. There is no question now that an inquirer will have to make an effort to be socially conscious or that an activist will have to be persuaded of the moral crisis in the human psyche, the significance of being attentive to the inner life. The challenge awaiting us is to go much deeper as human beings, to abandon superficial prejudices and preferences, to expand understanding to a global scale, integrating the totality of living, and to become aware of the wholeness of which we are a manifestation.
As we deepen in understanding, the arbitrary divisions between inner and outer disappear. The essence of life, the beauty and grandeur of life, is its wholeness. Life in reality cannot be divided into the inner and the outer, the individual and social. We may make arbitrary divisions for the convenience of collective life, for analysis, but essentially any division between inner and outer has no reality, no meaning.
We have accepted the watertight compartments of society, the fragmentation of living as factual and necessary. We live in relationship to these fragments and accept the internalized divisions—the various roles we play, the contradictory value systems, the opposing motives and priorities—as reality. We are at odds with ourselves internally; we believe that the inner is fundamentally different from the outer, that what is me is quite separate from the not-me, that divisions among people and nations are necessary, and yet we wonder why there are tensions, conflicts, wars in the world. The conflicts begin with minds that believe in fragmentation and are ignorant of wholeness.
A holistic approach is a recognition of the homogeneity and wholeness of life. Life is not fragmented; it is not divided. It cannot be divided into spiritual and material, individual and collective. We cannot create compartments in life—political, economic, social, environmental. Whatever we do or don't do affects and touches the wholeness, the homogeneity. We are forever organically related to wholeness. We are wholeness, and we move in wholeness.
--Vimala Thakar
Article on Vimala
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