Prayer for the World - Mirabai Starr

Beloved One,
Living Light
Spirit of all that is...

Be with us now
As we lean in to hear your call...

Divine Mother,
Embodiment of Mercy and Compassion,
Enfold us in your protective cloak
As we dare to take in the pain of the world.
Comprised of every hue on the spectrum
Of the human community.
Give us the courage and strength
To drop our preconceptions
[and our prejudices]
And step onto the field of global strife
Armed with the flaming arrow of love.

Sacred Friend,
Hidden behind the eyes of the broken,
Reveal yourself,
Let us behold the beauty of your face
In all beings, everywhere, always.
Where once we perceived only the impossible,
Blinded by our desire for circumstances, people,
And our own sweet selves to be different,
Let us rest now in what is
Alert to your power to astonish us
With the global awakening.

Holy One,
We carry legacy of our ancestors
In the marrow of our own souls.
We are all reluctant prophets.
We must be called and called again,
And yet again.
We turn and turn away,
We yield and bow and rise,
Until at last,
Clasped by the ferocious wings of your angels,
We declare, Hineyni.
Here I am.
Make me a vessel of divine will...

Great Spirit,
Fill the hearts of our leaders
With humility and holey awe.
Embolden them not to turn away from the Other
But to lay down their weapons
And take the adversary in their arms.
Infuse them with the fire
That melts swords into ploughshares
And spears into pruning hooks.
Show them the secret passageway from hopeless conflict
Home to love. [to tolerance and acceptance].

Father-Mother God,
May the Children of Abraham and Sara
At last fall silent in the face of your radiance.
May our hearts soar in remembrance.
May our knees bend and bodies bow down,
And our spirits rejoice,
Overflowing with unceasing prayer,
Resounding and cleansing and blessing all the land...

AMEN

Mirabai Starr

Excerpts from a prayer written in 2015
during the Iran and US peace agreements

~

Photo from the Internet
digitally altered

 

Epiphany - 2013

It seems that my "spiritual path" has been laced with small
"epiphanies" and "divine flashes" of awareness, and "mini
awakenings" over the years.  I had one of those moments
back in 2013 when standing in my backyard.  I had stepped
outside to be in nature for a while, connecting with the stillness
and silence - taking it all in - noticing and feeling the connection.
I was in the process of taking some pictures of the shadows 
that the late afternoon sun in November was making on the fence,
when suddenly the words: "There is nothing but 'God'" ran
unbidden and unexpectedly through the silence of my being.
Say what!  There was an immediate sense of profound peace,
contentment, and joy in my heart.  I even started to giggle to
myself.  But I was also completely shocked by the word - 
"God" - and my very tangible felt experience of it.

I had not used the "God" language in years, after leaving the
religion of my childhood some 26 years before this, as it holds
imagery of my Christian upbringing of a person in the clouds
with white beard, meting out judgment.  It has so many old
paradigms, somewhat fundamentalist "religious" connotations
from my past, which made it all the more surprising that this
was the word that floated through.  If the inner "voice" had said:
 "All there is, is "Awareness," or "Consciousness, " or "Pure Being,"
 I would have gone, of course! - as those are the words that I often

use, abstract as they are. I also have used words like Buddha Nature,
The Divine,The Self, Brahman, The Ineffable, The Eternal, or
The Infinite. But I was jolted awake by the clear use of the word
"God." As this phrase ran through me I had the image of a deep
golden light, like a sunset, that ran across the screen of my mind,
as if to show me the depth and vastness of the word.  As it wasn't
 the persona "God" image of my childhood.  No, it was an
 incomprehensible sense of vast, expansive, all-inclusive, infinite,
 ubiquitous, Alive Presence, with which I felt an immediate sense of
  inherent communion - not one which needed to be sought after,
 but that was already actively happening...  And with that
realization came profound sense of Grace...

It was also realized that it doesn't matter if there is a sense of
a "me" or "no-me"; if one "concentrates" or not, or meditates,
or not.  It is inconsequential.  It was just realized that all there is,
is Infinite Existence that just IS - no matter what name or
qualities we give It...  or how we discover it for ourselves.

_/\_

Mystic Meandering
2013

~

Art: Mystic Meandering
Ethereal Vortex
Done with fingers and Craypas oils
2010

 

Hey God - John Roedel

John: Hey God.

God: Hey John

John: Grief keeps sneaking up on me.

God: That's because grief is like a ninja.

John: When will it leave me alone?

God: Hopefully never.

John: Um. What?!

God: To grieve means that you have loved.
Grieving is one of the truest human experiences
that you will ever participate in.  It often arrives
without warning - like a late day summer storm -
obscuring the sun and drenching you in a downpour.
It is a gift, isn't it?

John: Uh, no.

God: Grab a pen and write the following four things down.

1) Grief can come and go as it pleases.
You gave it a key to your house at the exact moment you
gave your heart to somebody else.

2) Bereavement is the debt you must pay for having loved.
There is no getting over the loss of a beloved who is now
resting in the arms of endless love.  Grief has no expectation
date.  Despite the passing time, the phantom pain of mourning
is always one memory away from returning.

3) Of all the emotions you face, grief is the by-far stickiest.
It gets all over everything.  Like peanut butter, grief sticks
to the roof of your soul.

4) Grief is like an
afternoon thunderstorm
in late July.

It's the storm
that's always waiting
on the edges
of your most sunny
days to roll
across the horizon
and right over you.

The ghosts of your loved
ones who have died
are the clouds.

The webbed lighting

illuminating the
dark canvas sky is
their reminder to you
that life is just a
brilliant temporary flash
of time.

It's a reminder
to live now.
to be bold.
to be electric.

The pounding rain isn't your tears.
It's the hope of eternal life that
falls on you.

It's that downpour of hope that will
help you grow deep roots in love...

The gale winds
of these storms are
the messages from
those you have
lost to death that
are whispering
to you through the pines
the following psalm:

"It's okay, my love.  Eternity is holding  me.
Death isn't an end.  Death is a threshold.
I'm still here.  I never left.  Love doesn't die.
I remain.  There is no afterlife.  There is only life.
I'm here with you.  Love doesn't die."

It's all such an adventure!

John Roedel
from: Hey God, Hey John
a book about John's simple conversations with God...

with thanks to Death Deconstructed

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

 

What's Real? - a meandering...

Tired of the weariness of existence 
and the "games" that people play...

Lost all longing for, or any sense of devotion to 
any "spiritual" entity. All "spiritualities" seem to be just
explanations and theories about existence; all the many
theologies, dogmas, doctrines, disciplines, traditions,
religions & practices; Karma, reincarnation, and
anything else humans have come up with to try to "explain"
how it all is - "The Truth of Existence..."

Are we just another species replicating itself...
Are we a dream...
Or - Are we Source morphing ItSelf into human form...

Is it really true that our True Nature is
 kindness & compassion & love...
There seems to be an inherent ignorance of that Nature...

What makes humans believe that a "God" - any one
"God" - is "right", or "in control..." It's all the same
 "God-energy" anyway - in essence - prior to manifestations

 of a personal "God" that we choose to name...

Is it true that there is only Pure Consciousness
manifesting ItSelf in all expressions so that "IT"
can experience humanity and all the experiences 
here in this realm -
over and over and over again...

My meanderings lead me to ask: Why - why after
billions of experiences in billions of manifestations
would "IT" (Consciousness) want more of the same
experience...Why does "IT want to keep manifesting
ItSelf just to experience limited human life in its
vulnerability...  Hasn't "IT" learned enough already...

It is a belief to help explain this existence, but you have
to believe it is true...

And am tired of all beliefs and theories and explanations
that leave me empty, disconnected - spiritually disoriented...

What is there that actually reveals the "Truth of Existence..."
"Direct Experience" you say...

But we all have different experiences of that too...

And who came up with all these concepts, theories and
conjectures, that we are supposed to just believe in...
Some ancient "sage" meditating in a cave?

I do miss not having an "explanation story" to believe in,
or a "God" to believe in, but - still want to know what
the Truth really is...

Is there something in us called Essence, Pure Being, Pure
Consciousness?  And if so, why don't we know this
Beingness, this Essence that we are...

Some say we have supposedly "forgotten" - concealing
the "Truth" of who we are from ourselves...
Why would we do that...

Why do we spend a lifetime seeking for what we already are...
Like looking for your cat, thinking it might me under the chair,
when all along it's been sitting in your chair watching you
search for "it"...

You have to be invested in what you believe in;
that it's true.  Even if it isn't...

And we all believe something different...

Having hope for a "better" reality, or a "better" you -
"enlightenment"- is the universal manipulation...

On the other hand, I don't believe that there is only
this reality - "just this..."
What of mystical experiences...

And believing in God/Guru only gives us a feeling of
worthiness, rightness - or unworthiness and "wrongness";
of being loved, special - or even condemned...

It's still all about "you" -
not what's Real...

So - what is "Real..."

The proverbial existential question...

Mystic Meandering
Meditative Meanderings
June 27, 2021

P.S. - All that is required to "know" the "Truth"
is to enter the deep "inner space" and discover
the Heart of our own Being for ourselves...

Or is that just a belief too :)

~

Photo from the Internet
"Time Tunnel"

 

Wordless Whispers...

Who is here for you,
in your vulnerability,

your fragility?

Maybe you talk to "God"...
The Buddha, maybe Allah,
or the Divine Mother...?

It doesn't matter what "God" you believe in..
"The Mystery" holds them all...

What comforts you?
What calms your agitated mind?
Can you feel the invisible arms
around your shoulders?

Who is your Friend?

The one who stands with you
in times like these;
that consoles and comforts,
that reminds you of who you really are -
on the inside - beyond personality,
beyond hardship...

beyond the chaos and confusion
of the troubled world?

Be still...  Breathe...

Listen for the Wordless Whispers...
that others cannot hear...

Listen deeply...
For it's your own compassionate Heart
whispering:

You can overcome anything...

You are loved...

Mystic Meandering
May 1, 2020

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering
Orchids that look like a face in the way they hung;
comforting eyes that heal and soothe
the restless mind and troubled spirit...

Infinite Unfolding - Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee

The Mystical Path
takes one into the depths of the Heart.
It leads you from the known to the unknown,
and then further into
the unknowable,
into a darkness brighter than
any light.

Nothing can prepare you for the Heart's journey,
for the places it can take you,
the depths and the heights
that are within you.
So many times  you think you are crazy,
bewildered and lost.
There are few signposts,
often little sense of direction.
It is our own unique journey.

It takes us to places where there are no
books or stories, no words to comfort us,
except the story of our own Heart,
our own confusion, longing and love.

We awaken to the simple and fundamental truth
that there is nothing other than 'God.'
Even the idea of a path is an illusion...

~

So what is this love story that unfolds within
the Heart of a Mystic?

How much of "our story" is [really] "God's story"?

...all one story,
One Light
split into many fragments,
yet always remaining
One Light...

This one story
is lived in millions of ways,
each story a unique fragrance of Love.
Every cell in creation lives its own love story -
its longing for the Source.
Human beings have the capacity
to make this story conscious,
to know the nature of their
hidden longing.

There can only ever be
one story,
because
there is only one Beloved,
and yet
we are part of this story;
our little "i"
must also be
a part of
The Beloved...

Infinitely Unfolding

Excerpts from:
Fragments of a Love Story
Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee

Sufi Mystic

~

Please  note: I have taken excerpts from  the book
and arranged them in the form of a prose poem.

~

Photo: Mystic Meandering
Lotus Heart Stained Glass piece digitally zoom blurred

Infinite Hunger - Alan Watts

Man is characterized by a hunger for the infinite.....
 which, whether he knows it or  not,
 can be nothing other than God.  Assuming God exists,
it will follow that God is man's true end...

...man is often mistaken as to the goal of his life, desiring
wealth, power or physical pleasure instead of God.  But
his real appetite continues to be God, for which lesser
goals are always unsatisfactory substitutes.

Alan Watts

via - The Beauty We Love

~

God isn't *a* being, but a state of Being,
and we are that state of Being.  It is our
Essence...

Author Unknown

~

"Our *real* appetite is for God" - as one understands
"God" - has been my experience since childhood.
The deepest longing of the Heart has always been for "God",
called by many names over the years; Love, Pure Awareness,
 Consciousness, The Divine, Pure Being, The Self, The Mystery,
The Silence, etc. The longing  turns out to be "God" calling ItSelf
back to ItSelf.  I am forever grateful that the longing continues
to be there - drawing me ever inward to the "God Space" -
to ItSelf...

MM

~

Photo from the Internet

The Guest - Kabir

The Guest is inside you, and also inside me;
you know the sprout is hidden inside the seed.
We are all struggling; none of us has gone far.
Let your arrogance go, and look around inside.

The blue sky opens out farther and farther,
the daily sense of failure [despair] goes away,
the damage I have done to myself fades,
a million suns come forward with light,
when I sit firmly in that world.

I hear bells ringing that no-one has shaken,

inside "love" there is more joy than we know of,
rain pours down, although the sky is clear of clouds,
there are whole rivers of light.
The universe is shot through with in all parts by a
single sort of love.

How hard it is to feel that joy in all our bodies!

Those who hope to be reasonable about it fail.
The arrogance of reason has separated us from that love.
With the word "reason" you already feel miles away.

How lucky Kabir is, that surrounded by all this joy
he sings inside his own boat.
His poems amount to one soul meeting another.
These songs [poems] are about forgetting dying and loss.
They rise above both coming in and going out. [birth and death].

Kabir

from: Ecstatic Poems

Thanks to The Beauty We Love

~

The following is part of a commentary on the above poem
that I found this morning on line.  Author Unknown...

~

God is already in you; the True God, not the man made
image of God, not god of the temples, and the churches,
and the synagogues and the mosques and the gurudwaras...

The god that man has imagined in his own image, the god
that man made according to his own wishes, the god that is
nothing but the projection of man's mind and desires...
  That god never really existed.[because "God" is much
vaster than our personal limited images of who/what
 "God"is.]
The untrue [image] MUST cease for the truth to be.

Those who know the True God, know God as the fragrance
of life, the perfume of existence, the very ground of being.
For them God is not a concept, not a theory, not a hypothesis.
For them God is an existential experience.  For them God
is not separate from man, for them God is man's innermost
core...  God is nothing but your own depth [your Core Being]
trying to manifest itself.  God is not an ideal.
God exists as you - as life.

Life is eternal.
Life is immortal.
It changes forms, just like the waves in the ocean go on changing
but the ocean remains.  Bodies come and go, but your innermost
[Being] remains always there.  And that is God.

God is not to be worshiped, but realized.  There is no need to make
temples for God.  You have to learn to look within.
The temple is already there; It cannot be destroyed.

God is always your interiority...

The Guest is within you, but you have to turn in...
You have to become more conscious of your Consciousness.
You have to become more aware of your Awareness.
A point of stillness comes where you are simply aware of
your [inner] Awareness...

When Awareness [the Core Being] is the only content of your
awareness, that is the moment when The Guest is found...

author unknown

I AM - Jeff Foster

[.....]

I take all forms, yet I cling to no particular form.

I do not say "I am form", I do not say, "I am not form."
I do not say "I exist." I do not say "I do not exist."
I do not call myself God, consciousness, awareness,
presence, spirit... or even Life.

I have no name for myself. I am anonymous.
Yet all names are my own.

Humans fight and kill and die over the names they gave me.

They form religions, dogmas, systems of thought.
They claim I am on their "side"
(I take no sides).
They say I belong to them
(I belong to nobody and everybody).

They try to figure me out.  They even claim to be me,
know me, channel me.
Some of them claim to have found The One Path that leads
to me.  They always have, they always will.

They do not know.  Their minds are too limited.

Yes 'mind' is one of my many ingenious appearances.

I appear as everything, yet when you stop and look for me,
you cannot find me.  I play in the cosmic hide and seek.  I
sometimes appear when you stop looking.

I am these words, and all the spaces in between them.  I am the
silence at the end of the sentences... and the expectation at their
beginning.  I am the black and white of it, and every shade of
grey, and every colour.  I am the understanding and the lack of
understanding. I am the similarity and the contrast.  I am the
separation and the unspeakable unity.

[.....]

I am male and I am female.  I am East and West.  I am inside and
outside.  I speak every language fluently.  I am all that is, all that
has been, and all that will ever be.  I am now, and never now.  I
cannot be reduced to anything.  Eternities pass in the space of a
breath.  Aeons are my lifeblood.

I am breathing you now.
I am the in-breath and the out-breath of you.  I am every sacred,
intimate breath.  I am every one of your thoughts arising and
dissolving in the vastness.  I am every feeling surging like a comet
through the universal body. 
I am sorrow, I am anger, I am fire, I am water.
I am always here, whether I am recognized or not.

I am nothing and everything, nobody and everybody.

[.....]

The story of "I" is always different, yes.  That's my creativity.
But "AM" is always the same.  AM. OM. 
That is my unchanging nature.

Do not seek me.  Do not look for me in time.  Do not be proud
that you have found me.  I am not your trophy.  I am not food
for your hungry ego.  Simply admit that I am already here.
Admit that I have always been here.
And live your life as a constant remembrance of me.  Devote
yourself to the joy of being...  Let your life be your love song.
Let your actions and words express me, bring me into form.

I am your deepest wisdom.  I was there at your birth.
Do you remember?

With love,

The Beloved

Jeff Foster
Excerpt from "I AM"

website

Facebook

Uncover the Original Center - Mark Nepo

Each person is born with an unencumbered spot -
an umbilical spot of Grace where we were each first
touched by God.  Psychologists call this spot
Psyche, Theologians call it the Soul, Jung calls it the
Seat of the Unconscious, Hindu Masters call it Atman,
Buddhists call it Dharma, Rilke calls it Inwardness,
Sufis call it Qalb, and Jesus calls it the center of Love.

To know this spot of Inwardness is to know who we are,
not by surface markers of identity.....but by feeling our
place in relation to the Infinite, and by inhabiting it.  This
is a life-long task, for the nature of becoming is a constant
"filming over" [covering over] of where we begin [began],
while the nature of being is a constant erosion of what is
not essential; to be worn back to that incorruptible spot
of Grace at our core.

When the film [covering] is worn through, we have
moments of enlightenment, moments of wholeness,
moments of Satori, as the Zen Sages term it, moments
of clear living, moments of full integrity of being,
moments of complete Oneness.

And whether the film is a veil of culture, or religious
training, the removal of that film and the restoration
of that timeless spot is the goal.  This is the only thing
worth teaching:  how to uncover that original center and
how to live there once it is restored.  The process of
return, whether brought about by suffering or love, is
how we unlearn our way back go God [to the core of Grace].

Mark Nepo
Excerpt from: The Book of Awakening

~

Photo of Tomato

I sliced a tomato a few weeks back and
found the white Christian cross in the center, and
in the middle of that cross, a little red heart.

Can you see it?!

Although I am no longer a Christian, or any other
religion for that matter, I still seek the Truth of
Existence and direct experience of "The Divine",
however one defines that for themselves.
I couldn't help but see the message in the tomato;
not a "Christian" message, but a universal message,
that no matter what one's religious identification,
regardless of "tradition",
The Heart, Love, is really the "original center" of
everything!

Namaste!

_/\_

You have not danced so badly - Hafiz

art by Rassouli

You have not danced so badly my dear,
Trying to hold hands with the Beautiful One.

You have waltzed with great style,
My sweet...

[.....]

So what if the music has stopped for a while.

So what if the price of admission to the Divine

Is out of reach tonight.

So what, my dear
If you do not have the ante to gamble for Real Love.

The mind and body are famous
For holding the heart ransom,
But Hafiz knows the Beloved's eternal habits.

Have patience,
For He will not be able to resist your longing
For long.

You have not danced so badly, my dear,
Trying to kiss the Beautiful One.

You have actually waltzed with tremendous style,
O my sweet...

Hafiz
Persian Poet
1320-1389

~

Art: "The Dance"

Rassouli

a wonderful artist!

The Liberated Soul - Marguerite Porete

I am God, says Love, for Love is God and God is Love...
...and the Soul is God by condition of Love,
thus I am God by divine nature...

(The liberated soul) loses her name in the one in whom she
is melted and dissolved.  Thus she would be like a body of
water which flows from the sea.  And when this water returns
to the sea, it loses its course and its name, and is now in the
sea where it rests...

This Soul is always in full sufficiency, in which she swims
 and bobs and floats, is surrounded by divine peace, without
any movement in her interior, and without any exterior work
[effort] on her part.

(The liberated soul) is at rest without obstructing the outpouring
of divine Love.  She no longer seeks God through penitence, nor
through any sacrament; not through thoughts, nor through words,
nor through works, nor through divine understanding, nor through
divine love, nor through divine praise.

Her will is planted in the One...  She is dissolved into that prior
existence where Love has received her.

She has fallen into certainty of knowing nothing and into
certainty of willing nothing.  And this nothingness...gives her
the All...

Marguerite Porete
14th Century French Mystic
Her writings, of which the above is only a
small excerpt, were considered heretical.
She was burned at the stake in Paris in 1310.

Porete's vision of the Soul is one of ecstatic union with God...
Once united with God the Soul's will becomes that of God's.

Interestingly 200 years later St. John of the Cross
expressed an almost identical view of the nature of the
Soul's union with God in his Ascent of Mount Carmel, i.e.
that once united with God the Soul's will becomes that of God's,
but he was not denounced as a heretic.

Source - Western Mystics
via No Mind's Land

~*~ 

The naked, open, loving, Self-aware, luminous Being
within, our Essential Nature, is God...
God is The Silence within us...
God is the Self...

Rupert Spira
Contemporary Non-Dual teacher

~

Photo - rainbow light on wall

The Fire of Separation - Mirabai Starr

There is a longing that burns at the root of spiritual practice.
This is the fire that fuels your journey.  The romantic suffering
you pretend to have grown out of, that remains coiled like a
serpent beneath the veneer of maturity.  You have studied the
sacred texts.  You know that separation from your divine source
is an illusion.  You subscribe to the philosophy that there is
nowhere to go and nothing to attain, because you are already
there and you already possess it.

But what about this yearning?  What about the way a poem by
by Rilke or Rumi breaks open your heart and triggers a sorrow
that could consume you if you gave in to it?  You're pretty sure
this is not a matter of mere psychology.  It has little to do with
unresolved issues of childhood abandonment, or codependent
tendencies to falsely place the source of your wholeness outside
yourself.  The longing is your recognition of the deepest
 truth that God is love and that this is all you want.  Every
 lesser desire melts when it comes near the flame.

You realized that not every one experiences this.  For some
people, the spiritual journey is not so dramatic.  It's less about
the overwhelming desire for union with some invisible Beloved
than it is about quietly waking up.  It's about developing
compassion, rather than suffering passion.  There are people who
never doubt that God is with them, and so there is nothing to long
for.

But there are those, like you, who have felt the Divine move like
an ocean inside them, and, incapable of sustaining an unbroken
relationship with that vastness, feel they have been banished to
the desert when the wave recedes.  There is a tribe of holy lovers,
who have tasted the glorious sweetness that lies on the other side
of yearning, when the boundaries of the separate self momentarily
melt into the One, before the cold wind of ordinary consciousness
blows through again, and restores your individuality.  You would
risk everything to rekindle that annihilating fire.  You would leave
your shoes at the door and run after the cosmic flute player, if only
you could hear that music one more time.

You would give up everything for one glimpse of the Beloved's
face.  You sneak into his chamber in the middle of the night and
say "Here I am. Ravish me."  But when you awake the next morning,
swooning, and alone, you realize you missed the entire encounter.
You throw your clay cup on the cobblestones and it shatters.  You
thought you would marry, bear babies, make a career in broadcasting.
You wander city streets during siesta hour and wonder where He is
sleeping.  Your longing and your satisfaction are reciprocal.
The moan of separation is the cry of union...

Mirabai Starr

Excerpt from: Longing for the Beloved
posted in Parabola
via - No Mind's Land

Seeing God's Eyes...

There is a wonderful Black woman at the Super Market where I shop.  We have chemistry.  I am drawn to her for some inexplicable reason.  Her black pool-like eyes shine and dance with aliveness and love from behind her personality.  She can be a bit of a pistol and cracks me up with her dry sense of humor.  I just love going through her line, and don’t mind waiting, so I can see those big beautiful loving eyes. I know she is a religious woman as she often mentions God. I expect an “Alleluia” out of her mouth at any time.  I do not share her religion or beliefs, but there is something in those eyes that I see whether one calls it God, The Divine, The Universe, Emptiness, Consciousness, Presence, Beingness, Allah, Brahman - or maybe just - Love…  She is not a guru, spiritual teacher, or anyone on a special “spiritual path” – just an ordinary woman who is a cashier at the market.

The other day she spotted me in her line, we gave one another a wide-eyed grin and a wave.  She finished with the person ahead of me, then pushed my carriage aside and gave me the biggest hug.  Imagine that, right there in the grocery store – as if we had been best friends forever!  A big Heart Hug.  After we embraced, while still holding onto each other, I looked into her big beautiful eyes and said “You have God’s Eyes. I can see it.”  We both almost started to cry.  Me - because I recognized something in her looking back at me.  I was looking into her True Being, seeing the reflection of True Beingness (“God”?) in her deep Being, beyond personality… Isn’t that really what we all want in an other, to see the reflection of our deepest Being, our Truest Self…

Afterwards there were few words, only silence between us; not her usual chatter and bantering humor…  She hardly said a word as she checked me out.  I worried that I had made her uncomfortable; that it was too awkward for her for me to tell her that I saw God in her eyes.  I could have said, I see love in your eyes, or you have loving eyes, but what rolled out of my mouth was “You have God’s eyes.” (like I know what that is!?)  At one point she just looked up at me and said: “I am so Loved.”  And I responded – “Yes you are.”  And we both smiled…  Isn’t that what we want the most – to know that we are truly Loved…

It doesn’t matter what one’s “religion” is.  It’s all about opening to Love.  Love shines through it all, whatever “God” one believes in, or does not believe in, or however we call that “God” - as it’s all the same “God” - the same Love shining through the Inner Being...  Who can claim “God” as their own?  Who can take a stance that “God” is only on their side?  For who is “God” anyway?  A persona that we have created?  A cosmic energy?  The Great Mystery…?  Clearly I don’t know with certainty, as my beliefs *about* “God” have changed over the years.  I only know what my experience is – and I saw “God’s” loving eyes looking back at me through the eyes of an ordinary woman at the check-out counter…

As Lydia said - “I am so loved.” 

Alleluia, Lydia, Alleluia… 

And thank you for your loving eyes…

Photo: Eye of God Mandala
Mystic Meandering
2013

The Call to Silence...

Stepping over the threshold of another year (in time only J) I am feeling a call to Inner Silence even more strongly than usual - for the past few days especially, but even before that…  It is a call to Meditative Silence, a deep Cosmic kind of Silence that is the ground of our Being that permeates us all – and connects us all.  Spending time in deep Silence opens all the “channels” within to a deeper awareness of the Eternal Beingness that we all are…

I have not been honoring this call to Meditative Silence in the past year as much as I need to, living mostly on the surface of life much of the time, driven by life’s demands.  So I am re-committing myself to the deeper Rhythm of the Great Ocean of Silence within.  An illness this last month has given me the opportunity.  I start the morning before rising with a breath meditation, breathing into the Hara/Lower Dantian, following the movement of the silent Chi that flows through my body. I feel its expansiveness and its strength as I lay there.   Then I rise, and schlep downstairs to my chair at the window, if I don’t get distracted by blogging, emails, hubby or house. J

I quietly sit, following the breath again, bringing awareness to a deeper space of Silence within, until I am aware of what is Aware in me – the pure Awareness that just IS.  Deep Silence opens this field of Awareness beyond form. It is from this deep space of Silence that all life, all creativity, all expressions of Being - including “longing” and this sense of “me”, arise – and is where the Truth of Existence lies…

I know that many who are committed to the Truth of Being are feeling it too – this call to Meditative Silence – this need to commit to something deeper in our selves and in our lives – to dedicate ourselves to the ground of Being, whether we call it Silence, God, Emptiness, Consciousness, Love, or Truth. 

A call to Silence is a call hOMe…

May we all have a year of transformative Silence in our Inner Sanctuaries…

Giving birth to an open Heart…

“Listen with your Chi

Be open
Open Awareness takes over
letting everything come and go,
letting Reality flow in…

Give up your attachment to your self -
the constructed self.
Surrender to the inevitable
movement of The Way…”

Edward Slingerland
Professor of Asian Studies
University of British Columbia
Canada

Top Photo:  This wintry scene was created from frost formed on
 the window pane that was covered on the inside with a piece o
vellum.  The vellum has stars embossed on it. 

It's snowing stars!
The shadow of the frosty image was projected onto the back
of the vellum against the window by the afternoon sun.

The “woods” in the background are actually streaks on the window! :)

You can also see what looks like a pond in the middle.
It’s magic!

The Morning Kiss...

Sometimes I think I feel what the Buddha must have felt when he sat under the Bodhi Tree waiting for “enlightenment” – waiting for the revelation of the Truth of Existence…  I am not a Buddhist (nor a Christian) and do not claim to know the full Truth, nor what the Buddha felt, or interpret the meaning of his “experience” under the tree.  But what I have read is that he was determined to wait for the Truth to be revealed, to wait as long as he needed, to know the Truth.  He did not evidently question whether he could know the Truth or not, he waited for it.

Recently I have experienced a deep longing again for the Truth, the whole Truth, and nothing but the Truth.  Sometimes that translates into a longing for “God” – not a religious image of “God” – more a felt sense of a much vaster, enveloping spacious Cosmic Awareness – which for me is the same as Truth/God.  Sometimes I call it a longing for “God.”, or “waiting on God.”  Ultimately I am longing and waiting for Truth to be revealed, no matter what the vehicle or label.   It is what I have wanted since childhood – a direct revelation of “God”/Truth, which often seems veiled to me – although there have been many “awakenings.”

Every morning I go to my chair by the window and sit in meditative Silence – Listening inwardly… Waiting… Nothing else matters to me.  Everything else is distraction.  It’s as if I am waiting for the “Truth/God” to come Home IN me…  Non-dualists would argue that there is no “me” to wait – which may ultimately be true.   But there is a “mechanism” here that functions as “me.”   And I am tired of those arguments.  I don’t care about playing word games.  I just want the pure Truth.  And it doesn’t seem to matter how many “awakenings” I’ve already had, or how many times IT has revealed ItSelf – there is still longing.

The truth of the matter is J – I do miss “God”! – not a theistic or deistic separate “God”, but more a personal sense of “God” - as Friend, like Rumi and Shams, sitting with each other in intimate Silence. This probably doesn't make any sense to the reader, and I cannot truly explain this “missing” – this “longing.”  In the midst of the longing there is a sense of “The Sacred.”  No matter how I try to mentalize it with contemporary “non-duality” teachings, telling myself that there is no “me” to miss “God” – there is a longing for the Divine.  So where does this come from?  I can “spiritualize” it and say it is the Divine in me longing for ItSelf.  I have said this many times.  But is that true, or just another non-dualism – something to asuage the angst of longing.

It is interesting to me as well that this occurs at what feels like a very “sacred” time of year.  Not because it’s Christmas, or because of Jesus, but there is something palpable in me that starts at Halloween, continues into November, gets particularly stronger near the Winter Solstice – and wanes at Christmas.  It’s as if a “cosmic birthing” – an “awakening” of Consciousness - is taking place within myself – through the longing.  After all isn’t that the theme of season – a rebirth of the Light in form; the awakening of Consciousness within?  I become more acutely aware of what I can only call a “Divine Flow” pulsing within.   There are moments of a felt sense of internal “communion” - of peace and contentment.   And with that comes a deep sense of awe and Gratitude…   Is this the illusive “enlightenment” I’ve been waiting for?  I don’t know…  (And yes, I mean "illusive." :)

So, what to do with this longing…except allow the longing – surrender into it – be true to the longing of the Heart,  let it lead, and feel it all the way through to the Truth.

The Morning Kiss

I am kissed every morning;
a gentle kiss from behind a cloudy veil…

I long for the veil to lift;
to fully awaken to
”the Beloved”

in ITs Brilliance…

I am tired of *trying* to “know”

*trying* to “see”;
chasing misty shadows
of
the Real.

Yet “IT”
calls to me from
behind a veil of mystery.

When my trying and chasing stops,
the veil opens.

Silence comes
– and I wait…

”The Beloved” reveals ItSelf
in
Divine Intimacy
in
Total Awareness

A love affair with
Grace and Love

A Mysterious Embrace

The Morning Kiss…

Mystic Meandering
Dec. 17, 2014