Nothing at All

Meredith: In Emptiness Dancing, Adya speaks about the question "Who am I" or "What am I" without any script or role, without the story about who you are and what you are, releasing the script of what you think your life is about. He says something I often tell myself, that the roles and scripts we tell about ourselves are not who we truly are. Awakening is a radical change in identity, says Adya. He talks about disarming ourselves from our experience, our narrative, and ask instead, "What am I without my story?" He goes on to say that if you find someone else, underneath the story, this is likely just another script, such as "I am an enlightened one." The answer at the bottom of the pile is "I don't know" and to be without a script is to be totally disarmed. So anything we think about what awake is, or what enlightenment is, is yet another script.

This is the feeling of sky, of groundlessness, of evaporation into nothingness. This is the mystery of our own Being. Look at the layers we shed to find this, and then, find that this is nothing at all.

Akilesh: And...and...and... when you let go and let go and shed and let go of all of these stories and fall into open sky of groundlessness, and realize the mystery of your own Being, finding this ... this emptiness that is nonetheless so full and luminous... sharing naturally and spontaneously happens! It happens naturally from this groundlessness which is very much luminous and warm, light and unconditionally loving.

Play Me

One single breath from you
and the balloon that was my heart
expanded to bursting.
Then all the songs
of my deepest hearts yearning
spilled forth……
flowed into rivers and streams
populating the landscape
with flowers……..
with birds and beasts of rare beauty.

Upon the banks
sat Lovers feasting
and dancing on dreams
and shared visions……
of their hearts most ideal imaginings.

And the water of your Love
washed me so clean and clear
washed my eyes free
so they could see truly
then all was only a sea within me
sparkling with the light
of diamonds upon the water.

As you call my name
I am left to fall on my knees
and weep with thanksgiving…..
to receive the gift of your Omnipotent Love.

I now surrender to you
all that I am…..
Every label I ever thought of
and assigned to me……
it has all been washed away
in the flood of your magnificent Love……

I am left to Open and breathe and receive
Only that I may share this Love with all………

Beloved this body is yours now
use this mind, these hands, these ears, these feet
Steer my life anywhere it pleases you…….
use this sea….. where my heart used to be
to write these words
as you will…..

I am now, only your flute
play me.


Poem by Katherine estelle eveningstar
Art by Mostly Glass

The Mind of Absolute Trust

In the world of things as they are,
there is no self, no non-self.
If you want to describe its essence,
the best you can say is “Not-two.”

In this “Not-two” nothing is separate,
and nothing in the world is excluded.
The enlightened of all times and places
have entered into this truth.

In it there is no gain or loss;
one instant is ten thousand years.
There is no here, no there;
infinity is right before your eyes.

The tiny is as large as the vast
when objective boundaries have vanished;
the vast is as small as the tiny
when you don't have external limits.

Being is an aspect of non-being;
non-being is no different from being.
Until you understand this truth,
you won't see anything clearly.

One is all; all are one.
When you realize this,
what reason for holiness or wisdom?
The mind of absolute trust

is beyond all thought, all striving,
is perfectly at peace, for in it
there is no yesterday, no today,
no tomorrow.

~Seng-ts'an

***

Seng-ts'an lived in the late sixth century, was the third patriarch of Zen in China. There are many legends about him. According to one, Seng-ts'an was suffering from leprosy when he met the second patriarch Hui-k'o, who encountered him with the words, “You're suffering from leprosy; what could you want from me?” Seng-ts'an is supposed to have replied, “Even if my body is sick, the heart-mind of a sick person is no different from your heart-mind.” This convinced Hui-k'o of the spiritual capacity of Seng-ts'an; he accepted him as a student and later confirmed him as his dharma successor.

Awake Silence

All that is necessary to awaken to yourself
as the radiant emptiness of spirit
is to stop seeking something
more or better or different,
and turn your attention inward
to the awake silence that you are.

~ Adyashanti

Co-Creation with Intention

Meredith: What do you think about engaging in a co-creative process with divine order? Do you think we might be able, with intention, to transmute the love-energy of awakening to others?

Isaiah:

We are always collaborating with Intention; co- creating with the Divine. Perhaps awareness prevents some from seeing this fully, but we are all locked into a beautifully mystical, sacred pact: Who will find whom first- we are both hider and seeker.

Yes, we can share our bliss and it is transferable. Each of us is an artist co- creating our work of Intention; everything is beautiful when our eyes are open in this way.

Surrender

Softy a voice whispers in the midst of the quiet Heart...

Do not come with the intention to create...

Surrender.... and watch

as creation plays it's symphony

through you...

Kathleen, Ineffible Bliss

***

Meredith: I love this inspiration that rises from a quiet heart. Recently, though, I have been wondering about tapping into the energy of creation, wondering, can we be co-creators? For example, can we transmute loving energy to inspire wakefulness in others? Actually, you are doing this here, with your beautiful blog. What is the potential of this energy moving through our fingertips? Can we direct it?

Kathleen: Meredith.... thank you for you loving support... and well as far as I can tell "we" are already creators... with the best of intentions of course..., but I find that all of that comes from mind... and surrender, well surrender is just Heart... more and more and more... and getting out of the way so to speak, seems to make a lot more room for Love to come through... and it already knows what to do with itself... LOVE! :)

Compassionate Listening

The Compassionate Listening Project, a non-profit organization based outside of Seattle, Washington, promotes and teaches powerful listening skills of peacemaking, helpful for families, communities, job sites, and for social change work locally and globally. These skills employ speaking and listening from the heart, even in the heat of conflict. The Compassionate Listening Project is dedicated to empowering individuals to heal polarization and build bridges between people, communities and nations in conflict.

Gene Knudson-Hoffmn and others from Quaker, Buddhist, and Jewish backgrounds founded the Compassionate Listening Project based upon a belief that compassionate listening is a key to transforming the world. Committed to world peace, this project has sent teams to try to understand the most isolated and conflicted figures worldwide. They visited Mu’ammar Qaddafi in Libya, listened to all sides of the warring parties in Central American revolutions, given their ear to the most challenging factions in Asia and the Middle East. In Alaska, compassionate listening brought two sides of the whaling controversy together for deep listening. Their belief is that through compassionate listening to the sorrows and predicaments of others, these conflicts will change.

"Compassionate Listening is a process rather than a product. It is healing precisely because it does not pretend to 'have the answers.' Rather, it engages the participants in processes that have each side seeing the humanity of the other, even when they disagree." Rabbi David Zaslow, Ashland Oregon

The Tao calls this “listening with the heart so that we can find the Way.” Compassionate listening embraces our own struggles as well as our neighbor's. It is possible that deep listening is a vehicle to awaken our heart’s amazing capacity to hold all that is human, even what we previously may have considered incomprehensible. A sobering appreciation for others emerges with the realization that we are all That.

Meditation

And all shall be well,
and all manner of thing
shall be well.

~Juian of Norwich

A Mind Like Water

Develop a mind that is vast like the water,
where experiences both pleasant and
unpleasant can appear and disappear
without conflict, struggle, or harm.
Rest in a mind like water.

~Buddha

For Isaiah and Friends

This is a picture of Manzanita beach, taken from the banks of Neakahnie Mountain on the northern Oregon coastline. This is where I spent summers as a child. It is so beautiful here, where sand and water and sky meet, where birds and children play. There is a soul of place here, on this beach, where four generations of my family have walked, collected, surfed, picnicked, and enjoyed bonfires at night. We love to share this with friends. Come, be our guest!

Sands

This morning, on the beach, I noticed the morning sun on the waters, the salty air, the song of the waves, and the sands, which have shifted, since my last walk there. Each morning these sands are changed, never the same, one morning to the next. But the sands, the song of the waves, the ebb and flow of the tide, and salt of the air, are dynamic and ever- present here in this is the landscape of the water's edge. I love to walk that line, of the water's edge, where wet sand meets dry, and watch the blurring of one into the other. Each morning I note the shifts; my eyes are keen to observe what the sea has offered. There are beautiful patterns in the sand, sprinkled with small treasures from the sea. There is a refreshment happening with each tide, a coming in and a going out, like an in breath, and an outbreath. Overhead, in a constantly changing sky, gulls soar, with sounds that are greeting this day, too.

There is love here: can you feel it, hear it, smell it? Love is moving over and within this landscape, reverberating, penetrating, so available, freely offered, and unstoppable.

Wet, sandy, and salty this morning,
Meredith

Fraudulent?

Do you sense wholeness in Being, just feeling Presence, like a lover, near and within? I do. This fullness is so lovely. I have a stong desire to share this sensation, to offer it up it again and again. Yet often my imagination is spotty, and all I can seem to do is pull fragments from nowhere. These small bits are mottled, like sunlight through the trees, of no substance, fleeting. Still, these fragments are what I have, momentarily floating through my fingertips, and I love to share them.

A few days ago on this blog, an anonymous responder wrote that holding presence is fraudulent, just like the water drop in the graphic I posted on the Simple Meditation - recreated and false. I scrapped the comment, but it has been lingering in my psyche. I asked Aki what he thought about it, and he responded:

“Spiritual imagination is lovely and delightful and sorely needed in this world, which is often degraded by the relentless striving and suffering of ego-fixation. With love we bring beauty to life - in poetry, photographs, painting, or prose. We are love and the expressions of love are many and varied. No one can stand in judgment of authentic expression, but the mind will try. It will comment and critique, praise and blame. This is what mind does.

Pulling fragments from nowhere is inspired - without the commentary of the mind; it is fresh and beautiful, like mottled sunlight. The best we have in this human life is "of no substance, fleeting."

Expressions of love are flowing, always flowing. We try to share this flowing presence as best we can, and it always falls short. The finger pointing at the moon is not the moon. But what are we to do? We have to point! We want to share this flowing presence, and however inadequate our sharing, however misunderstood, we still share our love and our joy. There will always be those who see only the static, the frozen drop and miss what it is pointing at - the flowing river. Words and pictures are after all only snapshots, and language falls short of describing the dynamic quality of presence. You see a photo and you see what it is pointing at. Another looks at the photo and they see only a frozen image, fraudulent, the same fraudulence and frustration they experience about themselves, living as a self-identity. They miss it again and again. They are telling you about them, about where they are living from.

Your life is an expression of genuineness and generosity. Holding, not holding - these words mean nothing to authentic presence. I realize who you are. I am not confused by your fingers pointing, always pointing at the moon, at presence, at love. You are living presence, living presence, so alive..."

***
Thank you, my dear Friend.

Simple Meditation

There is a silence
within the silence
penetrating
gently pulling
a slight magnetism,
formless pulling form
realizing form
waking through form
waking,
to raindrops,
fluttering down the end of a leaf
touching tip of tongue
to leaf tip
drinking in the drop,
down the throat
pulled in deeply
where silence rests
within silence.

Mystic Flames

~painting by Meredith 

Optical Delusion

A human being is part of the whole world, called by us “universe,” a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separate from the rest – a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. The striving to free one's self from this delusion is the one issue of true religion. Not to nourish the delusion but to try to overcome it is the way to reach the attainable measure of peace of mind.
~Albert Einstein

Roll in Ecstasy

Just become quiet, still, and solitary, and the world will offer itself to you to be unmasked; it has no choice. It will roll in ecstasy at your feet.

Franz Kafka

Aware of the Sacred

"Here life goes on, even and monotonous on the surface, full of lightning, of summits and of despair, in its depths. We have now arrived at a stage in life so rich in new perceptions that cannot be transmitted to those at another stage - one feels at the same time full of so much gentleness and so much despair - the enigma of this life grows, grows, drowns one and crushes one, then all of a sudden in a supreme moment of light one becomes aware of the sacred."

- May Sarton Journal of a Solitude
Portrait by Polly Thayer

I was touched by this quote, and considered it most of the afternoon.

It would seem that in May Sarton's experience, she was pushed through the doors “without the use of her hands,” as you like to say. However, this truth that May Sarton found, this supreme moment of light, was undoubtedly always present. This realization could be more like a turning, an inward turning to bring the sacred into sharper focus. Nothing new or different, just a crystal clear view of what is right in front of us all the time. All the experiences of our lives, the monotony, the lightening, the summits and despair are lively and rich in their textures, but they are what is coming and going, coming and going, not what is unchanging and eternally present. This element that Sarton notes as sacred, this is always present. She opens her eyes, and for the first time, she sees what has been there all along. Sarton peers through her own persona. And there, in that light, is pure freshness, an awareness that is beyond her individual ideas or experience.


After sharing this with my teacher, my teacher replied, "You were present to the May Sarton quote. You went beyond the experience described by May, beyond her own particular path and passage; you did not get hung up on the form or process that is unique to her, or to any individual for that matter. May Sarton "peers through her own persona." Every individual tends to describe their realization through their own persona, personality, emotional registration. The expression of their realization will be unique as it shines though this persona, body, mind and emotion. There is a "grass is greener on the other side of the fence" trap there, comparing your own experience of realization to someone else's. This is the mind seeking validation for some conceptual understanding of the experience of awakening. You do not fall into this trap. Instead you recognize that this Presence, the sacred source, "what is unchanging and eternally present" is realized from an infinite number of approaches. The ultimate peak is one, the paths to it are many and varied. You get that standing on the peak the view is the same, oneness, whole, the "sacred, this is always present." Yet it is described differently from culture to culture, poet-to-poet, and person-to-person. Even with this tremendous diversity, it is easy, looking freshly, to see the common thread.

Existence, God is very generous and open, and allows access to realization from any door. When the eyes are purified, when the eyes of conditioning are purified, one looks with the eyes of the Unconditioned, realizes that one is looking with the very eyes of God as Meister Eckhart said:

The eye through which I see God is the same eye through which God sees me; my eye and God's eye are one eye, one seeing, one knowing, one love.

Into the Open Sky

There is a poem somewhere
lost
I no longer search for it
only one word remains
- a leaf, all filigree
hardly recognizable
that it came from this maple
this tree of love
but we recognize it
this word
it stirs and moves
in us, turning round and round
we turn in the same way
reminiscent of that leaf
turning on its last flight to the ground
it does not resist
the gravity that guides it
down and down and down
it does not regret the letting go
into open sky
grateful to its friend gravity pulling
and pulling, "come fly"
then
turning in blue
an artifact pointing at something
that one word
suspended outside of time
in the warm air:
darling

Realization

When I look inside and see
that I am nothing,
that is wisdom.

When I look outside and see
that I am everything,
that is love.

And between those two,
my life turns.

Sri Nisagardatta Maharaj

Turning Toward the Whisper

The morning sunlight on the water glimmers, bouncing rays onto the trees. What energy reflects this glimmer and moves it? Pale pink blossoms of the dogwood are so delicate, fresh, fleeting… From where do these arise? What will they dissolve into? In the morning air there is a fragrance…hinting of grass and fresh air and cedar bark. Fragrance carries a mystery; the ethereal nature of fragrance can never meet the eye or be fully understood with mind. Little everyday miracles greet us each morning, delighting our senses, dancing with us, circling us, whispering our name. Turning toward the whisper, our very lives begin to wake, soften, reflect, glimmer, and our fragrance is carried, beyond, without control. We cannot understand this with our minds. The questions have dissolved. Concepts renounced, judgments soften – good and bad, distinctions blur. Wakefulness is openness to just what is, in this moment now, with deep acceptance, profound appreciation, and letting go.

Ever turning toward the whisper the un-tethered kite sails with the wind; this spirit is free.

The Great Wall

A much-awaited highlight of my China journey was climbing and walking along the Great Wall. This wall dates its beginnings back to 214 BC, though the portion of the Great Wall near Beijing where I climbed are remains from the Ming Dynasty (1368 - 1644). I overheard one visitor on the Wall ask his guide, "How long did it take to build the Great Wall?" The guide replied, "We are still building it," referring to the constant process of repair. The Great Wall is not a continuous wall but rather a collection of short walls that often follow the crest of hills on the southern edge of the Mongolian plain. Overall, the wall extends about 1500 miles (2400 kilometers).

The Great Wall is very rich with history and lore, especially if you enjoy stories of ancient Chinese dynasties. This military history is lost on me, but realizing the age and sheer size of the wall is awe-inspiring. There is an air of excitement walking along The Great Wall with people from so many different nations who also recognize this landmark as a man-made wonder of our world.

***

Since returning, I have been contemplating the significance of the Great Wall and the metaphorical Great Wall in my own life. I see that we build our own Great Wall to separate ourselves, possibly for protection from threat, real or imagined, just as the warring Chinese dynasties did centuries ago. Walls separate us from others, and even from the truth about ourselves. Sometimes, on the journey of opening, we hit our own 'wall'. We can't see through it, and we can't seem to get around it. We may feel stopped, stuck, or trapped. The wall may seem as solid as one built of bricks and mortar, or invisible, only to be bumped into in the dark. I see that even on the "safe side" of the wall, we are not free. This wall is not removed with our hands, nor with our minds. This wall is shattered with the opening of our hearts.

Smiles from Tibet

Potala Palace

For the past two weeks I traveled throughout China, Tibet, and Taiwan. The trip was wonderful - so many sights, fragrances, sounds, landscapes and faces, so many experiences that deeply touched me. In Tibet, the old temples, aging and yet so adored by the people were amazing. I will never forget entering these temples and monasteries, and inhaling the penetrating fragrance of incense and yak butter candles. Unfortunately, these traditions have cast a dusky film on the colorful murals and adornments inside. The interiors appeared dingy and worn, disintegrating before your eyes.


Tibetan Child

This child greeted us as the Potala Palace with a spontaneous warm smile and "Hello!” one of a few English words she knew. Faces like hers, with such freshness and innocence, are tremendously uplifting. Yet, beyond the smile, the faces of the Tibetan people tell a story of a fascinating culture and simple way of life spiritually inspired, and of a recent history with so much political pain and strife. Tibet tradition is fading rapidly, as the aging monasteries and influx of another culture into this region attest. This is a living lesson in impermanence.


Yamdrok Yumtso Lake

Juxtaposed with this reality is the surrounding panorama of mountains – high and strong and beautiful, with gloriously clean blue-blue lakes and skies. There is an enduring and rugged timelessness in this stunning landscape that is contrasted in the fleeting moment of this little girl’s tender smile.

There is a subtle bliss just underneath or beyond the poignancy and sadness of impermanence. As I continually experience, impermanence is all around, everywhere, inherent in form, all forms. Realizing this I instantly realize ... the unborn, undying, uncreated, unconditioned, permanent and naked consciousness - the awareness-that-is-awake that you are. And that smile of subtle bliss fills the sky. Yes, it entirely fills that vast, impossibly blue sky over the Tibetan plateau.

Prayer Wheels

These are a few of hundreds of prayer wheels found in the Jokhang Temple, in Lhasa, Tibet where I visited last week. Each day, hundreds of Tibetens circumambulate the temple several times, carrying malas and hand held prayer wheels. There is a feeling of deep spirituality in Tibet, an everyday way of living.

Transitions

Radiance

Aki's post on the Joy of Shining really touched my heart. Sometimes I hear a word or have a thought that keeps circling, bouncing back repeatedly in a synchronistic fashion that says, "Notice me!" From Aki's post, the words radiance and radiate keep circling, and rise like warm steam, sending waves out into the ether - words demonstrating themselves.

I experience many people, as well aspects of our amazing natural world that exude this quality of radiance. Actually, when seen through pure eyes, "Everyone and everything shines and everyone registers this radiance at every moment."

"From within or from behind," Emerson wrote, "a light shines through us upon things and makes us aware that we are nothing, but the light is all." This is radiance. This is the flow of Presence, of benevolent warmth, moving through all things.

Radiate:

• send out rays or waves; "The sun radiates heat"


• send out real or metaphoric rays; "She radiates happiness"


• extend or spread outward from a center or focus or inward towards a center; "spokes radiate from the hub of the wheel"; "This plants radiates spines in all directions"


• glow: have a complexion with a strong bright color, such as red or pink; "Her face glowed when she came out of the sauna"


• cause to be seen by emitting light as if in rays; "The sun is radiating"


• glow: experience a feeling of well-being or happiness, as from good health or an intense emotion; "She was beaming with joy"; "Her face radiated with happiness"


• issue or emerge in rays or waves; "Heat radiated from the metal box"


• diversify: spread into new habitats and produce variety or variegate; "The plants on this island diversified"


• diverging or spreading outwards from a central point.


• to give off heat or light.


• To spread or move like rays or radii from a center.

True Revolution

St. Francis and the Sow

The bud
stands for all things,
even for those things that don't flower,
for everything flowers, from within, of self-blessing;
though sometimes it is necessary
to reteach a thing its loveliness
to put a hand on its brow
of the flower
and retell it in words and in touch
it is lovely
until it flowers again from within, of self-blessing;
as Saint Francis
put his hand on the creased forehead
of the sow, and told her in words and in touch
blessings of earth on the sow, and the sow
began remembering all down her thick length,
from the earthen snout all the way
through the fodder and slops to the spiritual curl of the tail,
from the hard spininess spiked out from the spine
down through the great broken heart
to the sheer blue milken dreaminess spurting and shuddering
from the fourteen teats into the fourteen mouths sucking and blowing beneath them;
the long, perfect loveliness of sow.

~ Galway Kinnell

***
(Recovered comment from this post)

A spiritual revolution is possible, but it requires your willingness. Are you willing to reteach a thing its loveliness, to put a hand on its brow... and retell it in words and in touch it is lovely, until it flowers again from within, of self-blessing? Are you willing? The question is not rhetorical. Even in a godless society, are you willing? Even if it is only to a sow or a donkey, like St. Francis? The Italian society of his day was no less corrupt or godless or contemptuous of revolutionaries than ours. Are you willing to love unconditionally? Like St. Francis, are you willing to lower your self to the sow and whisper in her ear, telling her in words and in touch, the blessings of earth? For this is where true revolution begins: in the lowering of our selves to the blessings of earth. How otherwise would you be able to feel the great broken heart of sadness in the sow? How would you realize that brokenhearted sadness in your own chest? How otherwise would the hardened heart be crushed blessedly into awakening? Where else do we go to find the wellspring of compassion, if not into the dark earth of our own broken hearts?

Oneness

Perception shifts, discovering
liberation is all there is.
Oneness is apparent,
not from something gained,
but from something lost.
Suddenly seeing,
falling away from seeking,
Oneness is being this...
only just this.

No effort, no doing,
all is simply aliveness, oneness, being.
Neither taught nor achieved,
resisting oneness is oneness resisting,
seeking oneness is oneness seeking itself.

The drama we call life,
is the drama of oneness looking for itself,
all desire is the longing for oneness.

Atman met Allah

From the Life of Pi, by Yann Martel

Page 62, Pi describes his teacher, Mr. Kumar:

(Mr. Kumar) was a hafiz, one who knows the Qur’an by heart, and he sang it in a slow simple chant. My Arabic was never very good, but I loved the sound. The guttural eruptions and long flowing vowels rolled just beneath my comprehension like a beautiful brook. I gazed into this brook for long spells of time. It was not wide, just one man’s voice, but it was as deep as the universe.

I described Mr. Kumar’s place as a hovel. Yet no mosque, church or temple ever felt so sacred to me. I sometimes came out of that bakery feeling heavy with glory. I would climb onto my bicycle and pedal that glory through the air.

One such time I left town and on my way back, at a point where the land was high and I could see the sea to my left and down the road a long ways, I suddenly felt I was in heaven. The spot was in fact no different from when I had passed it not long before, but my way of seeing it had changed. The feeling, a paradoxical mix of pulsing energy and profound peace, was intense and blissful. Whereas before the road, the sea, the trees, the air, the sun all spoke differently to me, now they spoke one language of unity. Tree took account of road, which was aware of air, which was mindful of sea, which shared things with sun. Every element lived in harmonious relation with its neighbor, and all was kith and kin. I knelt a mortal; I rose immortal. I felt like the center of a small circle coinciding with the center of a much larger one. Atman met Allah.

Round Luminosity

When the inward and the outward

are illuminated, and all is clear,

you are one with the light of sun and moon.

When developed to its ultimate state,

this is a round luminosity

which nothing can deceive.

Lui I-Ming
Taoist poet

Self

What happens when the unconditioned meets the conditioned, when Oneness, the Self meets the conditioned self? In that meeting, what way will self express Self? Or in what way is the vertical dimension expressed in the historical dimension? Or how will your self embody Self?

Allow self to give way to Self; give way to openness, freedom, unknowing, pure consciousness. You do not know if you will descend into depravity or debased behavior. It is utterly out of your control. Basic trust seems to be needed to make the transition. One does not know if Self will express through substance abuse or other abuse, greed, manipulation, exploitation, decadence, or indulgence of some kind. Self expresses in these ways as well. Self embodies these manifestations as well , does it not? Self leaves it up to the individual. When choiceless awareness emerges, when it is realized, the conditioned self can give way to it and keep giving way moment to moment forever, or the conditioned self can at any moment regain its illusory sovereignty through identification, thinking it is permanent and separate, and believing in these thoughts and feelings of separateness.

At any point awareness in the individual can degrade into separation and delusion, and Self will allow it. Place your human fidelity on your thoughts of existing as a self-identity and focus on its survival and aggrandizement - the persistence and continuity of that self-image - and you will be back in the trance of separate self so fast it will make your head spin. Pure consciousness, authentic presence, the Self will quickly and quietly recede into the background.

Always and everywhere, Self will give way to self assertion. In my experience, at any point after Self-realization, Self will give way and concede to self-identification. This can be extremely confusing and disillusioning to one who has had an experience or many experiences of Self-realization. It can be a shock and induce a spiritual crisis in those whose beloved and Self-realized teachers have fallen back into the trance of separation, and behave out of conditioned personality. An example is when the teacher succumbs to the downward spiral of addiction.

~Akilesh

Holy Longing

Now you are going to ask me how to destroy this stark awareness of your self. You might be thinking that if you destroy this sense of your self you will destroy everything else too and you will be right. But I will answer this fear by telling you that without a very special grace from God and without a particular aptitude on your part, you will never be able to get rid of this naked sense of self. For your part, this aptitude consists of a robust and profound sorrow of spirit... ..Everybody has a special reason for grief, but the person who has a deep experience of himself existing apart from God feels the most acute sorrow. Once we have aquired this sorrow it not only purifies our souls, but it takes away all the pain merited by sin and thus makes the soul capable of receiving that joy which takes from a man all sense of his own being. If this sorrow is genuine, it is full of holy longing. Otherwise nobody could bear it.

from The Cloud of Unknowing

***

...full of holy longing, otherwise nobody could bear it. In sorrow we are purified, and, with loss of a sense of our own (small) being, we are capable of receiving great joy.

You are a Lion!

There was lion cub whose mother was killed. The little lion cub fell into the company of a herd of sheep. They took pity on him raised him among them. The young lion acquired the sheep's habits and behaviors. By and by for all the young lion knew he was a sheep, one of the crowd. In the mirror of the sheep herd the lion saw his reflection as a sheep, his identity was given to him in this mirror of social convention. In other words he was programmed and conditioned to be a sheep, to take on the identity of a sheep.

One day a mature lion shows up on the scene, and of course the sheep flee and the young lion goes running and screaming along with the rest of the sheep. The old lion looks and he can't believe his eyes, "What the hell?" He sees the young lion running and squealing like a sheep, jumping and leaping in fear, you get the picture. So the old lion captures the young lion. Can you imagine the young lion's fear? The old lion drags the young lion, kicking and screaming for his life, to a pond where he shows the young lion his reflection in the still water. The young lion sees an accurate reflection, not one given to him by the crowd, by society, by conditioning. The young lion sees his original face and realizes his true nature.

Love Poem

Sonnet 17

I do not love you as if you were the salt-rose, or topaz,
or the arrow of carnations the fire shoots off.
I love you as certain dark things are to be loved,
in secret, between the shadow and the soul.

I love you as the plant that never blooms
but carries in itself the light of hidden flowers;
thanks to your love a certain solid fragrance,
risen from the earth, lives darkly in my body.

I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where.
I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride;
so I love you because I know no other way

than this: where I does not exist, nor you,
so close that your hand on my chest is my hand,
so close that your eyes close as I fall asleep.

~Pablo Neruda

In the Stillness

Our beautiful language,
spoken and written
points to the ineffable
which is You.

There is a stillness
within our communion
vibrant with life, but still -
exceedingly awake, but still.

Underneath thoughts
in between thoughts
in between words
is the canvas
upon which the whole of existence
is painted.

Blessings fall
on everything
perceived through
stillness.

The Grace in This

What is the Grace in this?

In this?

Even in this?

Even this.

And that, too.

Everything belongs.

Snow Day

Last week we had a snow day... I stayed home and just watched the snow falling - sometimes small flakes, and sometimes huge ones. It was so beautiful. Occasionally a tree bough burst from the weight, and suddenly dropped a load of snow onto the ground. Through the day I enjoyed watching the flakes fluttering down outside my windows, and observing for animal tracks through the snow and the birds at the feeder. Most of all, however, I enjoyed the great silence that accompanies a snowy day.

There is not only a great silence in the snow, but also a spaciousness... spaciousness surrounds each snowflake, and outlines the horizon as well as each small heap of snow. With the snow falling, and the jumping of the tree boughs, it is as though there is a symphony playing, with movement and dance, yet it can barely be heard. This silent spaciousness is inside of us, too. Between each thought and each movement, a great spaciousness exists. And in this spaciousness, we are silent. I sense the awakening of an alert presence in this silence, both outside my window and inside of me, too. There is a silent field underneath the words, underneath the snow, between the snowflakes. There are gaps here in which a great stillness is present. Stillness is here. So deep and so vast and so rich.

Freedom

When it touches you,
send that unnameable sound.
Let it carry to us in sunlight
and shade.

Let it float in the sky,
a white cloud
so we can feel it,
being that whiteness
forming and dissolving
in silence.

Send it to us
in the music of rain,
the softness of snow;
in cold, crisp winds
and blue sky songs
of silence.

Deliver its aloneness
in spreading clouds,
soundless chiming,
always slipping away;

in dropping temperatures
and rising steam -
that warm, moist,
silent face;

in footsteps
where we lose ourselves,
finding nothing
again and again.

Show your hidden longings,
love with vastness.

***
Golden stream,
red tail cry,
silent friend
under a blanket of snow.
You brought a gift:
warm tears,
softening heart,
in this vast field
of pure white
and final rest.

Peacemaker

In memory, and in gratitude, to peacemaker, Tom Fox.

Silent Victory

Here is a tender portrayal of a journey to live a conscious life ---even when faced with a difficult challenge such as raising a child with autism.

Belovedness

Once, a kindly teacher pointed out my arrogance. Arrogance. It is a word I had never considered as an attribute of who I saw myself to be. The word stung with a piercing quality and remains within me as a little ache, a memory of a lesson learned, a challenge to survey my own ego and to grow in compassion. It surely has been one of the most difficult hills to climb to see the other side of arrogance. Even still, arrogance often looms large. Letting go of arrogance is an ongoing task. Meditation and spiritual friendship has been the most helpful in highlighting and moving away from arrogance, allowing light to radiate from my truest nature. Indeed, if the purest quality within us is illuminated, we, with honest humility, move from a place of love and kindness, of genuine compassion for others, eclipsing the otherwise incessant rise of ego or arrogance.

“No sooner had Jesus come up out of the water than he saw the heavens torn apart and the spirit, like a dove, descending on him. And a voice came from heaven: ‘You are my Son, the Beloved; my favor rests on you’”
(Matt. 3:16-17, Mark 1:10-11, Luke 3:21-22).

You are my Beloved. You are the Beloved. Spiritual friendship helps us to realize our own Beloved nature incarnate. There is a voice between words spoken in loving friendship that speaks from the mystery, whispering tenderly and clearly, “You are my beloved, on you my favor rests.” This voice rises above old voices that trap us by derogatory messages: “You are no good, bad, worthless. You must prove yourself.” Realizing the gift of honoring our own belovedness helps us to transcend these negative internal messages and, paradoxically, helps us to become more than we ever thought possible. In all our ordinariness, our simplicity, our truest nature of childlike wonder, we are so loved. We are able presence this for one another in friendship with a heightened capacity for intimacy. There is a freedom here, yes? We can offer to one another freedom from the call to social perfection, from striving, from even a pretense of ‘knowing’. In this, there is no longer a need for arrogance. We can simply let it fall away as we humbly lift our hearts to this gentle presence of love instead.

A Maitreya Ishwara teaching parallels this notion. “To grow and to enjoy life you need only to be consciously with what is so. There is nothing to do or achieve.” Maitreya Ishwara writes that “God is all there is, we are not separate from the Whole.” This understanding seeps in gradually, and slowly allows us to trust and accept ourselves as we are right now, helping us to realize that we do not need to live up to the ideals of any ego-based teaching. We can wordlessly rest in this awareness. Sitting silently with the empty fullness of a living Buddha, of Christ’s belovedness, we recognize that this amazing transformation of love and acceptance occurs within us too. A friend’s loving communion tenderly lifts us up into the warm and radiant light of consciousness beyond self-importance to true Self, where we are not separate.

The Blue Sky

"It is easy to suppose that few people realize on that occasion, which comes to all of us, when we look at the blue sky for the first time, that is to say: not merely see it, but look at it and experience it and for the first time have a sense that we live in the center of a physical poetry, a geography that would be intolerable except for the non-geography that exists there — few people realize that they are looking at the world of their own thoughts and the world of their own feelings."

— Wallace Stevens, The Necessary Angel

What remains?

Akilesh: Touching, tender, vulnerable, yes, kindness, warmth, letting go, love, fresh citrus, glittering sunlight on warm water, purple mountains, living outside of time yet smiling and hugging inside it, friendship in eternity - Is this possible? The question turns to wisp and spirals off into the ether. Big Sky treasure, which feels undeserved, is laid at our feet at every moment. We live in the gap. We love and let go.

Meredith: This beautiful brisk stream of consciousness paints itself upon our inner landscape today, however fleeting, only to be washed away with the in-coming tide.

What remains?

Perhaps this question, too, turns into wisps and spirals off into the ether.

Kiss of the Wind

This morning the trees in the field out my window are wildly moving with a magical energy. It matched something within me that is moving just as wildly. There is a gap here, too, in this moment now; the wind floats in through the window casing to remind me. We move in this rhythm, feel this breeze, and know. We know in the deepest sense that the magic in this moment is here for us always, always new in the next moment, fresh again and again and again. What sweet bliss to feel the kiss of the wind.

What an even sweeter bliss to feel the presence of the Beloved Friend. You are here in this moment, and this one. And again. I hold you within as steady rhythm and a flow within me. You are a wild flow of warmth, energizing my every cell.

I sit in front of the window,
watching the tree's wind dance,
feeling the breeze blow through me, too.

I witness my Being in silence.
In this moving silence
is the fullness of Presence.

There isn't any other moment.
There isn't any other thing.
This silence is.

Sparkling Cascade

“…my heart is now a busted glass bead jar
spilling wildly across the floor....”


How delightful to hear this music:
a sparkling cascade of colorful glass beads
spilling wildly across the floor.

Spilling – allowing "self" to
spill out and disperse.
In the spilling, transformation.
Self appears from the background
into the foreground.
Little self disperses,
and the Self emerges -
its form simply energy, light, love,
and the glittering dance of glass beads
spilling wildly across the floor.

Where can this self be found now?
It is strewn across the universe.
And what are we?
The flow. The Flowing.
We are the flowing.
There is no permanent self here;
we have only thought there was.
Who we are is only the naked nameless
in the form steam rising from a cup of tea,
or of glass beads
dancing wildly across the floor.

Embracing this emptiness,
this no-thing, this vibrancy
is Self-realization,
the consciousness of no-thing,
is living in the gap.

So we rejoice, delighted,
smiling at the sound,
the spilling music of little glass beads
dancing wildly across the floor.


***
Dancing of Chris, Meredith and Aki

Invitation

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."

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.