Uradiance

Let us be perfectly Clear. Bliss has no color. Or perhaps it is the color of silence. You and I are one pure light dancing in the wild stillness of the rainbow. Our edges are furrows, our tears are fertile places where the sun plants its fragile seed of boundless friendship. 'Sabbath Queen' by Elena Kotliarker

The most transformative event in a human life is to open the eye of the heart. Any small anxiety can instantly shrink a brilliant intellect to the size of a splinter. But the space of the heart is so vast and deep, it swallows even the fear of death, and dispels a storm of anger with one gentle breath. Opening Hridaya, the heart's eye, is not only an inner experience: it is the Springtime of the world, touching countless seeds with rays of divine Beauty. Do not ask "what shall I do?" You vocation is the work of seeing through the eye of the heart.

A real master doesn't give you rules to follow, or a path. A real master frees you from the rules, and wounds your heart with love. Then you enter your wound and follow your waylessness deeper and deeper, until you reach the kingdom that was always your true nature. This is why I bow to the master - not because I am bound, but because I am free. Bowing is the sign of the miracle of gratitude. Jai Guru Dev. Above is a painting by Dr. Varna of Sri Brahmananda Sarasvati Guru Dev, Shankaracharya of North India, who died in 1947. He was my Master's Master's Master. Why a picture of him? Because the surrender never stops. The bow is groundless. Your forehead never touches bottom. Each flame bows to the flame that lit it, though there is only one fire. Here's the secret: a real master is not just one individual, but an ancient river of light, one unending breath. And somehow that sourceless stream of thanksgiving pours into you, out of you. This is the myster...

Between darkness and light, a tear. Between silence and song, a breath. From earth to sky my spine is hollow, waiting to be filled like a butterfly's tongue yearning for the honeysuckle. Yet my body would be glutted from the blackest soil to the glittering star of emptiness, not with the food of flowers, but with your lightning O Shiva Shambo, Lord of sweet annihilation.

The language of the heart is silence. Creation is the echo. You can hear that. But can you listen to This? Why not let a thrush at twilight bring you here? The light of the soul is darkness. The moon, the mountain, the face of snow, the eye of your beloved - all a mirage, a shadow. You can see that. But can you gaze at This? Why not become the radiance that turns us all into mirrors?

Why pout and be offended when you could be drowning each cell of your flesh in the scandalous wine of the Goddess, every atom licked up in a flame of sweetness as her infinitesimal lightning threads up your spine? In our human core is a secret fuse whose instant spark will singe your outraged brain to a breath of ashes, the grace of Mother Shakti so ruthlessly tender. Fling your story into the night and be done with it. The wind will scatter all your dreams into glittering emptiness. You are so much more than this argument snarling in its little loop from one life to another, and you’ve never really been angry at anyone but yourself, ...

There is nowhere that is not your body. There is no one who is not your friend. The only wall is this mind. Love clambers over it, burrows under it, melts it with the tears of a child. Yes, we have a national emergency. we have forgotten how to return to the heart. Follow this breath Om.

" Let Jesus be your breath." ~Nichodemus of the Holy Mountain, 13th C. "At sunrise and sunset, in your quiet and dimly lit cell, collect your mind from its customary circling and wandering outside, and gently lead it into the heart by way of breathing, keeping the prayer, 'Lord Jesus, have mercy on us,' connected with your breath." ~Callistus the Monk, 14th C. The real presence of Christ on earth is the breath of divine love in your heart. When the love that Jesus embodied springs up like a fountain inside you, this is his "Second Coming." "Second Coming" is a term that does not occur in the Bible. It was coined by Justin Martyr, born in 100 a. d., to explain the long delay before the re-appearance of Christ on earth, which early Christians had expected would be immanent. In the New Testament, the Greek term used for this imminent reappearance of Christ is "parousia." Though the word is usually translated a...

Is it selfish to gaze at the beauty of your own face? Countless raindrops contain the sun. This is how we all fall in love with one reflection. Your eyes show ally and foe alike how each heart sparkles with the splendor of No Other. Can you give a kiss that you have not received from your own breath? Can you offer the flower of imperishable Friendship if its seed is not rooted in the furrow of your missing rib? Let the grace of who you are teach you what to look for in every stranger. Now be honest, friend. There really are no strangers, only You and I. Painting by Vigée Le Brun, 1786

This breath contains all scriptures before they fall into words. This world is a ball of cotton in a lightning bolt, instantly consumed, ravished by a ray from the blissful eye of one who with unspeakable kindness, wearing the stars for a veil, enters you now as this inhalation. Friend, you only have one moment to dance.

 Chinese character for 'one.' "First realize your world is only a reflection of yourself and then stop finding fault with the reflection." ~Nisargadatta Mahraj I have been found innocent and sentenced to the bliss of eternal solitude. No matter how far I travel, no matter how deeply I fall in love or how violently I fall into conflict, I can never meet anyone outside the seamless continuity of my awareness. Ignorance is believing that there is another. Ignorance insists that the world is divided and conflicted, when in fact the world is one indivisible whole, at rest in the shimmering simplicity of its Self. My problem is not conflict, for there is no conflict. My problem is embracing boundless solitude. I can never transcend the unity of the Self, no matter how multifarious and diverse my experience, for all that I perceive arises in the continuum of my own awareness, and any "other" whom I encounter, I must necessarily encou...

This is a guided meditation on SoundCloud: LINK _______ Listen. Listen to the sounds around you, outside, beyond the walls, beyond the garden... Listen to the faintest most distant sound you can hear... Aware of how listening becomes spacious, unbounded. Now listen to listening. As you listen outside, listen inside. Without or within, All space is awake... Listen for the next thought to arise, the next word in your mind... See? Your very listening is perfect silence, the radiant absence of mental noise.... When there is listening, there are no words. Only a thrush at the edge of the woods... Now feel your whole brain listening, scintillating with energy yet free from thought, each cell vibrantly full of ever-awakening emptiness... Let the pure space of listening be in front of your forehead... In front of your chest... In front of your whole body. Let the pure space of listening be behind you, behind your spine... behind your head.....

When I taste the uncreated sweetness of divine love, gaze into the uncreated jewel of divine beauty, and hear the uncreated music of divine silence, everything in creation seems a little noisy. Even a flower is noisy, even a sunbeam is noisy, compared to the depth of divine silence. But I don't need to renounce these outward names and forms in order to shut out the noise; I don't need to renounce anything. I can just stop clinging to them, for I am ever fulfilled, nourished, and delighted by the quiet song of the ocean w ithin, whose mighty waves of grace break upon my heart incessantly, breath after breath. Then the truth begins to dawn: every name and form in creation is just a lovely echo, a reflection of that inner music. This is when I bow to Maharishi in gratitude. I bow not because he demands my devotion, or because my Self must worship an Other; but because, in the mirror of time and space, he is the embodied reflection who touched my chest so gently,...

  I have renounced perfection, yet it returns unbidden in the plum bud, crystals of Spring snow, moss softness under bare toes, my own face melting in the mirror of your gaze. Purity is the inevitable consequence of not seeking it. Dear one, you are absolutely flawless.

We might well spend a little while studying Jesus's teachings on the toxicity of judgment, especially in this season of our anger. His verses were given not only for the sake of those whom we judge, but for our own healing. "Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us." (Mat 6:12) The Greek partitive article "as" (ó), is essential to so many wisdom sayings. This tiny one-letter word is the hinge of the moral universe. "AS above, so below." "AS You and I are one, Father, may they all be one." "Love one another, AS I have loved you." This little "ó" is a stillness at the center of the vortex where nothing is broken, nothing is wrong, no "sin" ever arose. Touching this golden core of the heart frees me from judgment. AS I touch my silent core, so my judgment of others falls away. The AS is not causal, but simultaneous. All the cells in my body are calling to my mind, ...