The Inner Cosmos...

Give no regard to the voice of Fear that
divides and conflicts you;
whether from within or without...

Walk as if the Divine were in your shoes,
walking you -

The Inner Cosmic Divine;
undivided by earthly "tribes"
of culture and religion, and politics;
earthly boundaries;
or the divided mentations of
mediocre minds...

Fall into the Inner Rhythm of 
the Universal Eternal Energy,
the ubiquitous Pulse
inherently everywhere at all times,
fluidly in and through life.

Do not listen to the 10,000 teachings
in your head that you have
accumulated over the years,
all trying to tell you what is true,
which way to go,
and how to be.

Just sit, be still, breathe, and listen...

for the Inner Cosmic Rhythm,
until you feel the
Inner Cosmos
move
you

Fall into the Deep Internal Silence of the
Inner Cosmos,
beyond artificial boundaries and lines,
beyond the bluster of buffoons and bullies
with mouthfuls of meaningless words....

Just Breathe....

Wait....

for the movement of the
Inner Cosmos to lead you...

Then you will know what is true,
which way to go,
and
how to Be...

Mystic Meandering
2017

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

looking into a blue glass partially
filled with water...
looks like a window
with city lights,
or the night sky...

It's magic  :)

 

The Mind of Fear - Mooji

The mind fears...

What is the message in the fear?
Find the message in the fear...

Fear empties itself as soon as there is revelation...

YOU [the Eternal Self] *are* before the movement of fear
that arises.  Realize your Beingness that is before time...

Wake up to the recognition of your Eternal Self.

[That is] the Awareness in which fear occurs.

Just keep quiet...

Don't identify yourself with the reactions,
just *feel* your Existence

and

let the fear burn off...

Identify the Presence that sees,
and stay with this Presence,
and you'll come to a place of
complete [internal] Stillness...

There is Stillness in that space of fear...

When fear is met
what expands is a sense of spaciousness...

There is an intuitive sense that you and the spaciousness
of Stillness are one...

In this place your mind of fear will not have much power

because you're in your
Natural State...

Mooji

excerpts taken from a talk

~

Art - Mystic Meandering
The Cave
CrayPas Oils
done with fingers
2010

 

A Philosophy of Suffering - Etty Hillesum

Most of us in the West don't understand the art of suffering
and experience a thousand fears instead.  Man suffers most
through the idea of suffering, through his fear of suffering.
We cease to be alive, being full of fear, bitterness, hatred and
despair.  Don't we live an entire life each one of our days,
and does it really matter if we live  few days more or less?
There is room for everything in a single life.

When I say I have come to terms with life, I don't mean I
have lost hope.  It is a question of living life from minute to
minute and taking suffering into the bargain.  But does it
matter if it is the Inquisition that causes people to suffer in
one century, and war and pogroms in another?

Suffering has always been with us, does it really matter in
what form it comes?  All that matters is how we bear it
and how we fit it into our lives.

I can sit for hours and know everything and bear everything
and grow stronger in the bearing of it.  And at the same time
feel sure that life is [still] beautiful and meaningful.  Despite
everything.  But that does not mean that I am always filled with
joy and exaltation [about life and its circumstances].  I am
often dog-tired after standing in queues, but I know that this too
is part of life, and I know something inside me will never
desert me...

We carry everything within us.  God and Heaven and Hell and
Earth and Life and Death and all of history.  The externals are
simply so many props; everything we need is within us.  And
we have to take everything that comes; the bad with the good,
which does not mean we cannot devote our life to curing the
bad. [or helping those who suffer].  But we must know what
motives inspire our struggle [against] and we must begin
with ourselves.

Living and dying, sorrow and joy, the blisters on my feet and
the jasmine behind the house, the persecution, the unspeakable
horrors - it is all as one to me, and I accept it all as one mighty
whole and begin to grasp it better, if only for myself, without
being able to explain to anyone else how it all hangs together.

If you destroy the ideas behind [suffering] which life lies
imprisoned within, you liberate your true life - and then you
will have strength to bear real suffering... [the reality of suffering].

Etty Hillesum
Jewish Mystic of the Holocaust

from: An Interrupted Life
She died in Auschwitz at age 28 or 29

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

 

 

The River - Khalil Gibran

 It is said that before entering the sea
a river trembles with fear.

She looks back at the path she has traveled,
from the peaks of the mountains,
the long winding road crossing the forests and villages.

And in front of her,
she sees an ocean so vast,
that to enter
there  seems nothing more than to disappear, forever.

But there is no way back.
To go back is impossible in existence.

The river needs to take the risk
of entering the ocean
because only then will fear disappear,
because that's where the river will know
it's not about disappearing into the ocean,
but of becoming the ocean.

Khalil Gibran

with thanks to No Mind's Land
for post and photo

Recognize Your Eternal Self - Mooji

The mind fears...
What is the message in fear?
Find the message in fear...

Fear empties itself as soon as there is revelation...

YOU (theTrue Self) are before the movement
of fear that arises...

Realize your Self that is before time,
before phenomenon...

Wake up to the recognition of your Eternal Self.
[That is] the Awareness in which fear occurs.

Just keep quiet...

Don't identify with the reactions and interactions,
just feel your Existence and let the fear burn off...

Identify with the Presence that sees,
and stay with this Presence,
and you'll come to a place of
complete [internal] Stillness...

There is Stillness in that space of fear...

When fear is met
what expands is a sense of spaciousness...

There is an intuitive sense that you and the
spaciousness of Stillness are one.

There is no separation...

In this place your mind of fear will not have
much power because you're in your Natural State
of Awareness.

Mooji

~

"On acquiring strength of vision she recognizes
the Universe as Her very own Self"

verse 15, The Pratyabhijnahrdayam

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

Dissolving Conflict - Mark Nepo & Fred La Motte

When you dare to hear my fear in the recesses of your heart,

you recognize it as your secret that you thought no one else knew.

And that unexpected wholeness - that moment of unity
is.....the mysterious oneness of spirit.

Everything - you and I and the people we mistrust
and even the things we fear -
everything at heart follows the same beat of life
pulsing beneath all the distractions and preferences
we can create.

We must put down the burdens that we carry...
What we hold onto keeps us from being
fully aware of our Sacred Beingness...

Enter through the door of your worries, anxieties, and fears...

We each have an unencumbered spot free of fear,
an umbilical spot of grace.
To know this spot of Inwardness
is to know who you are - not by
surface markers of identity -
but by feeling the Infinite...

This is the only thing worth teaching:
how to uncover that original spot
and how to live there...

Allowing the current of another's Inwardness to connect
with your own is the beginning
of intimacy...

...we become each other,
...we all feel the same agony,
...we all see the same wonder,
though we all speak in
a different voice

Mark Nepo
Excerpts from: The Book of Awakening

I merely put them together into this format

~*~

You are space itself,
the ever-expanding infinity of
pure awareness,
where all points of view dance and dissolve
into silence...
When we realize we are that space
a deep Listening will pervade every atom,
and conflict will evaporate into compassion...

Fred La Motte
Uradiance

~*~

Your most secret wound is the doorway...

Ivan Granger
Poetry Chaikhana

"No More!"...

I heard a voice of a young child as I was waking from sleep yesterday morning.  It yelled “No More!”  The voice came from *inside* - How strange I thought.  I wondered if this was a message for me, or, if it was me screaming from the inside – “No More!” – enduring a particularly stressful time at this moment in life. Or was it my inner psyche calling out to a world gone mad; witnessing a species apparently turning against itself, apparently trying to destroy itself in so many different ways – or so it seems.  And the rest of us – onlookers – enduring the dance of darkness that plays itself out – forced to face the darkness within and without.  I pondered this all day, turning my awareness inward to the fear inside – repeating the phrase internally – “No More!”  At the end of the day’s reflection was the sense that sometimes all we can do is endure the way life is – day to day.  And I wondered why - why that is true, why is it that we must “endure” such pain, such suffering, both within and without…  But there was no answer….

 Maybe the voice was from a dream I didn’t realize I was having.  And maybe that really is what life is – a dream we don’t realize we’re having – that we must endure for as long as the dream lasts, until we are awakened from the dream by a voice saying “No More!”…  I don’t know…  I cannot presume to know anything anymore…

~

Below is a “poem” I wrote from my meditative writings
sometime between 2004 and 2006 that gives a
different perspective.

Entropy

The shadows have come to roost

and

 *everything*

 is

 collapsing

~

~

~

~

The tides and ripples of entropy will continue

until all is returned to Source again ~

the Primordial State:

Pure Life Energy…

Entropy is not necessarily a bad thing.

It is the way of Existence.

It is a

T

E

L

E

S

C

O

P

I

N

G

 of everything that is,

back to its original Source/State;

a re-homing of all that was created in form,

the conceptual structures,

so that only

the Eternal

Essence

 remains

Do not be alarmed by the seeming destruction

of what you have *believed* to be real.

The false must be released, shed – like dross.

In this there is a sense of chaos, destruction, loss, and death;

the crucible affect;

a state of alchemy,

the refinement of all things in existence

to its Original Nature.

Nothing is lost in the process.

All is coming Home.

The

Divine

 Outbreath

Has

 Been

 Re-called.

Bring your awareness to the place of Stillness within.

Don’t try to create order in the chaos.

But be still and let the chaos pass.

”Order” is found in the Stillness,

in returning to deep Stillness

The healing of mankind

is

 in

 the

 *recognition*

 Of

 The

 Truth

 of its Eternal Essence -

Infinite Beingness…

Entropy is the crucible of that healing…

Allow it…

~

The invitation

 is to expand our view of reality

and return to the *awareness* of

our Eternal Being…

Mystic Meandering

taken from my

Meditative Writings

written between

 2004 and 2006

Go Lightly - Aldous Huxley

It’s dark because you are trying too hard.
Lightly child, lightly. Learn to do everything lightly.
Yes, feel lightly even though you’re feeling deeply.

Just lightly let things happen and lightly cope with them.

[…..]

…throw away your baggage and go forward.
There are quicksands all about you,
sucking at your feet,
trying to suck you down into fear
and self-pity
and despair.
That’s why
you must walk
lightly.

Lightly my darling, on tiptoes
and no luggage,
…completely unencumbered.

Aldous Huxley

from: Island

The "Art" of Remembrance...

It’s been an interesting journey through the art e-course at Bloom True I just finished.  No art to show you yet, except this little corner of a piece. (The rest of it doesn’t look anything like this.)  It just amazes me sometimes what emerges.  This little piece was not intended to look like a flowing river, with river bank and trees.  Can you see it?  It just emerged that way.  It is just marks on canvas, and in this piece is covered by a translucent layer of green.  That’s the mystery of intuitive painting.  Some of my subsequent layers have sometimes come out looking more contrived with images painted in…  But essentially there’s no intent.

Although the course is over, I’m still not finished yet… I have 5 unfinisehd canvases…   When I first signed up for the art e-course in July I anticipated that “art” would open me up to realms of inner Beingness that would flow out onto the canvas.  Instead, I felt only anxiety staring at the canvas.  Each time I step up to the canvas, whether there’s already paint, or the emergence of images on it or not, I contract (except maybe a couple of times) – fearful to make a mistake, of where it’s going to go, of how it’s going to look.  There’s that “not knowing” again that is so anxiety provoking.  Which means - I’m still trapped in the construct of the mind, under the veil of the fabricated self that needs to *know.*  I’ve probably mentioned all this before, but I am reflecting on my experience now, as I continue to try to paint with a sense of inner ease that isn’t apparently happening – much like life… J  

And yet, ironically, the anxiety I experience is now bringing me to what is really needed – the deeper need – the deeper awareness of the mental barriers, as well as of The Mystery, and the awareness of the need to let go – in life as well as in art.  I am more aware that I’m nearly always caught up in an undercurrent of anxiety about life.  It is my auto-pilot approach.  Interesting…  Maybe this was the real need – to become aware through art…

The art course is a very intuitive process of painting.  There is no preconceived *idea* of what to paint.  That’s why I was drawn to this course.  You just start putting paint to canvas, in layers of color and markings, *allowing* the painting to emerge… Interestingly images emerge *through* the many layers… You might like to see Flora Bowley’s (art instructor’s) paintings here.  It’s a free flow of movement, color, and intuitive expression.  It’s not like intentionally painting a landscape, or a portrait, or a scene, or an object – although those things may show up.  And you can add imagery in.  It is totally whatever intuitively wants to be painted.   You can always paint over what you’ve done, or transform it.  Even knowing this the mental block is still there.

So why is this totally free way of painting so challenging?  I think it is partly the fear of the unknown, not feeling in control, the fear of letting go of knowing, my mind wanting something concrete to paint.   In the process of contracting into fear – over what “should” be a joyful creative experience – I forget to stay open and trust the process, to trust The Mystery, to trust what wants to express here – that inner Beingness - some call the Soul, some call Awareness, some call Pure Consciousness.  This veil of fear hides The Mystery from my awareness.

However, paradoxically, the angst over art-making has become a *way* of remembrance.  To open to that anxiety, to fully feel it, to face it has become a vehicle to come back to the Heart of Awareness, if I allow what emerges within me to be felt and seen – and - remember the Silence of Inner Being that is always right there – waiting.  If I open to The Mystery and let go, not being afraid of the fear, but to stand before the canvas of Life and remember who’s really painting this reality; remembering the underlying Rhythm of Life Itself that creates everything we see – then it becomes the “art” of Remembrance - realizing that fear is just an overlay of the mind.

“Every part of you has a secret language.
Your hands and feet say what you’ve done.
And every need brings what is needed…”

Rumi

From Fear To Stillness...

Yesterday I was perusing the internet with its plethora of “spiritual teachers” looking for YouTube videos that might give me insight on this deep-seated anxiety that I’ve been experiencing…  I don’t know what made me look up Mooji, as I sometimes do– a big gentle Jamaican (www.mooji.org).  There were several videos with the word “fear” in the title.  I picked two.  I found Truth in his words, bringing me back to the Truth in myself.  Sometimes that’s all it takes, someone to point you back to the Truth of your Self – your True Nature.

The following words are excerpts from the two videos.  I have put Mooji's words in poetic form, but they are not meant to be a poem.

“The mind fears…

What is the message in the fear?

Find the message in the fear…

Fear empties itself as soon as there is revelation…

YOU (the True Self) *are* before the movement of fear that arises…
Realize your Self that is before time, before phenomenon…

Wake up to the recognition of your Eternal Self.

[That is] the Awareness in which fear occurs.

Just keep quiet.

Don’t identify the reactions and interactions,

just *feel* your Existence

and

let the fear burn off…

Identify the Presence that sees,
and stay with this Presence,
and you’ll come to a place of
complete [internal] Stillness…

There is Stillness in that space of fear…

When fear is met
what expands is a sense of spaciousness…

There is an intuitive sense that you and the spaciousness
of Stillness are one.
There *is* no separation…

In this place your mind of fear will not have much power
because you’re in your

Natural State of Awareness…”
Mooji

I have a long way to go on this adventure of meeting this life-long anxiety and its message, but I am committed to the journey.  As Mooji has also said – “Stay in the Heart.  Only keep your eyes on ‘The Beloved’” – meaning the inner spaciousness of Stillness, Awareness, Self, or Buddha Nature, or Christ Consciousness – however you know that to be.  Home…

These are the links for Mooji’s videos.

From Fear To Stillness
Attacks of Fear

There are of course many other “teachers” with videos and books who address such issues.
It just happened that I found these…

Up In Smoke ~ ~ ~

I awoke Thursday with the usual feeling of “fear and dread” that constricts the body before rising.   I recognize it each morning and wonder where it comes from.  I am not conscious of what the mind must be thinking to create such a state before awakening that would leave such a residue.  It indicates to me that there must be something *before* the first thought, some automatic conditioning in the body-mind that kicks in as I awake.  There is and always has been this ever-present “Fear Gate.” 

Settling into the meditation chair, after lighting the candles, and striking the bowl – I journaled a few notes before meditation, as is my practice - noting that the “Fear Gate” had closed tight around me; also noting how it keeps me on the edge, on the surface, unable to go deeply into the core of Beingness.

As I was sitting, feeling the struggle of resistance trying to meet the fear, something caught my eye.  I had lit a stick of incense, as I always do, just outside the room I sit in, out of view, so as not to overwhelm the small room (and myself) with smoke.  But my attention was suddenly captured by swirls of smoke passing by the door, dancing in the sunlight streaming in from the skylight.  I got up to experience the phenomena more fully, and managed to “capture” a few shots of the swirling smoke.

I love how Life presents us with metaphors for the things we tend to struggle with.  And of course we can read any meaning into it that we want.  But if we listen Life speaks to us in ways that we can hear and understand.

I continued to watch in wonderment as the smoke from the incense danced in the light, leaving intricate fluid designs that changed and dissipated into haze – there and gone.  The dance of form and formlessness, taking shape and dissipating fluidly, dancing with the air currents effortlessly…  And it became clear what the “spiritual teachers” say - how solidly we *perceive* things to be – our thoughts, feelings, emotions, beliefs, opinions, our selves, life, etc.  Yet they are just smoke, forming and dissipating with the movement of life – unless – we try to hold onto them, grasping at smoke with our mind – believing them and making them solid.

After the dance of light and smoke I was pleasantly surprised to find that the sense of fear and dread was gone.  It had dissipated – like the smoke.    Curiosity and playfulness *allowed* the solidification of the fear to dissipate from the mind, from focus - even if momentarily.  Through curiosity and playfulness the “Fear Gate” released and I evidently entered a state of open Awareness.  

 

Fear is of the “me-mind” - and the “me” contracts into fear – the form of fear.  Our formless Beingness (True Nature) holds no grip on fear and is not constrained by fear’s form.  It is totally free of fear and only experiences fear through the “me-function” – the particular arrangement of thoughts, feelings, beliefs and identifications that we call “me.”   But in wide open Awareness there is no fear – only the dance of smoke and light.   I know these things to be true, hearing them all before, and yet I continue to fear – amazing.  What was understood in this phenomena of smoke was that when we occupy the space of inherent Awareness fear loses its grip – opens its gate and dissipates – if only in that moment.  But it was enough to allow me to see what I needed to see, which was that *everything* is smoke, *everything* dissipates back into the open space of fluid, formless Aware Consciousness.  We only need to bring our attention to that Space – the space of inherent Conscious Awareness that is curious and unafraid; instinctive – not reactive; intuitive – not based in mental concepts.  It is aware of *everything* but does not *identify* itself *as* or with anything, including feelings, emotions, and thoughts – or the “me” - but remains unaffected and effortlessly fluid.

Having this re-cognition does not mean that the feeling of “fear and dread” has burned away completely.  I still woke up today in the smoke swirls of fear and dread – totally disappointed that my insight wasn’t a “cure.”  It’s a deeply engrained automatic pattern.  And it feels like an ongoing process of re-orientation - of turning again and again to the awareness of  the wide open space of Aware Consciousness, remembering that what I believe to be me, my thoughts, my feelings, and “my life” are just ~ smoke ~~~~