Facing the Wound - Jeff Foster

You have been afraid to break down...

You've been carrying so much...

Do not fear the grieving and terrible
ache of existence.  For sure, there will be
times when the pain is so intense you will find
it difficult to breathe and your mind may project
death and oblivion for you...

But, you will keep on breathing, and you will be
breathed through the abyss and carried lovingly
by nameless forces through the voided voids and
out again into the awe and vastness of living.  Your
breath will not fail you, but your mind may make
you doubt it.  There is a terrified child in you who
just wants to be reassured and held.  She lives inside

us all.

Be kind to your trauma, be gentle and soft, but don't
forget to be fiery and fierce when the moment calls
for it.  There is time for sweet talk and soothing
words and there is time for the sword too.  Let your
trauma know, it will not dictate the passage of your
life any longer.

[.....]

Weep and rage if you need to, let your trauma witness
the primordial power that boils in your heart...
Weep and rage if your need to, let your precious
raw heart be seen!

Your trauma will not take you down,
it will enrage and enliven you and push you
to the raw edge of sanity, yes, but it will 
 not take you down.

Remember the fire and forgiveness,
and the unbearable love that moves all things.

Breathe into the void now.
It's never as bad as it looks through the
filter of the mind.

Do not fear the oblivion,
it is the only place where you will find
your true freedom...

Jeff Foster

Excerpt from:
"Trauma: Do Not Fear The Oblivion"

You tube video: https://youtu.be/KMj9cP_gnf4?si=YEbBi76f3sIOk2NB

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

 

Notes to myself...

.....everything you've ever known is nothing but an
infinitely small blip in the middle of a yawning
expanse of infinity...

You are a loosely associated cloud of cells swirling around
for a short time in inseparable interplay with the ecosystem
which birthed it on a tiny planet in the outer periphery of a
galaxy...  You're a little eddie twirling in the  middle of the
ocean for a single instant...

Each big bang in every universe unleashes a new dance of
swirling energy which turns into increasingly complex
iterations of matter as it expands...into peaks of dazzling
beauty, then it grows old and collapses in on itself again.
Infinite universes birth into existence, they bloom and die
with me like flowers in the illusory appearance of time.

Love doesn't seek to dominate or control.  Real love loves
everything just as it is, however it shows up.  They are all
parts of the swirling ongoing explosions of this universe.
They're all little curlicues in the movement of energy.
No part of the cosmic dance is rejected.
Every part is embraced.

Caitlin Johnstone

~

...you have been afraid to break down, I know.  You have
been carrying so much.  But do not fear the terrible ache of
existence.  You will be breathed through the abyss and carried
lovingly by nameless forces through the voided voids and out
again into the awe and shock and vastness of living.

Breathe,my love, breathe.  Do not fear the oblivion, it is the
only place where you will find your true freedom...

Jeff Foster

~

Photo from the Internet 

 

Choice - Jeff Foster

Friend, please, do not try to decide now.  Do not shut
any possibility out of your heart.  Honour this place
of not-knowing.  Bow before this bubbly  mess of
creativity.  Slow down. Breathe. Sink into wonderment.
Befriend the very place where you stand.  Any decision
will make itself, in time.  Any choice will happen when 
your defences are down.  Answers will appear only
when they are ready.  When the questions have been
fully honoured and loved.  Do not label this place
indecision.  It is more alive than that.  It is a place
where possibilities grow.  It is a place where uncertainty
is sacred.  There is courage in staying close.  There is
strength in not knowing.

Friend, please know there is simply no choice now.
Except to breathe, and breathe again, and
trust this Intelligence beyond mind.

Jeff Foster

with thanks to No Mind's Land

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

 

Deepening Wonder - Jeff Foster

I do not believe in anything.
I have no religion.
I have no god, including the gods of money, science, and atheism.
I have no fixed theories about reality, including that one.
I see heaven and hell, karma, reincarnation and the search for
enlightenment as beautiful fairy tales.
I have no guru, no lineage, no teacher, and so everything
 teaches me.
I see doubt and profound mystery as my most trusted companions.
I walk no path except the one appearing directly in front of me.
I have no home except this sacred moment.
I trust nothing at all, except whatever happens.
I find no meaning in life except the fearless living of it.
I know that today could be my final day.
I feel grateful for all that was given and all that was taken away.
I see the inherent limitation of language and yet love to play
with it.
I see the joke in using the words "I", "me" and "mine" and yet
delight in using them.
I realise that I am not my story, and realise even that ins't true.
I find it impossible to say anything about myself, for experience
is constantly changing.
I find it effortless to talk about myself, for who I Am never changes.
I know that on the deepest level I am profoundly equal to you.
I know that these sentences are pale imitations of truth.
I do not believe in anything.
I have no religion.
Except the in-and-out breaths.
And endlessly deepening wonder.

Jeff Foster

with thanks to No Mind's Land
and photo too.

 

Cracked Open by Illness - Jeff Foster

Just because someone manages a  smile today, or seems to hold
a positive outlook, or cracks a little joke, or convinces you that
they're okay, doesn't mean they're okay.

The experience of being on the inside of chronic illness has
completely cracked me open to a deeper compassion for
all my brothers and sisters.

I have no idea what anyone is going through, under their facade,
their mask, their personality, their brilliant defences, the 
"positive" or "spiritual" outfit they wear to survive.

They are trying to survive in the only way they know how.

Spiritual teachers and their students, therapist and their clients,
priests, philosophers, life coaches, world authorities, saints
and sinners - they are all in pain.

We are ALL trying to survive the only way we know how.

Let's be a little kinder to each other.  Forgive each other for
our masks, our awkwardness, our closed hearts, our weirdness.
Go beyond surfaces.

Sometimes we are not okay,
and that's okay.

As Ram Dass said, "we are all walking each other home..."

Jeff Foster

As some of you know know Jeff Foster has been very ill
since last July with debilitating Neurological Lyme Disease
that impacted him, not only physically but emotionally.

~

You may also be interested in reading a poem by Danna Faulds
on illness, called What Remains.

Or read John O'Donohue's piece on The Challenge of Illness

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

 

Acceptance - Jeff Foster

 Freedom is found not through escaping the present experience,
but by diving fearlessly into its hidden depths.  You must be
open to exploring suffering - how and why it manifests in you,
where it originates.  You must be willing to look at your pain,
fears, sadness, longings.  They are part of the wholeness of
life.  You must be willing to face them head on and find deep
acceptance for the seemingly unacceptable aspects of yourself...
Beyond the personal story of my own suffering, I discover the
pains is not really my pain.  It's the world's pain.  It's humanity's
pain...

It's one thing to know who you really are [your Beingness]
when life is easy and things are going well for you.  It's
another thing to remember this in the heat of the moment, 
when things fall apart, when life gets messy.  We find another
way of looking at suffering, a radical new way of relating to
it.  We can see the messiness and the beauty of day-to-day
human existence as something to be avoided, or transcended,
or we can see it for what it really is: a secret and constant
invitation to wake up... It's about finding out who you
really are, beyond who you think you are, beyond who you've
been taught you are, beyond the story about who you are,
beyond all your concepts and images of who you are.

...we must face reality with open eyes.  We must move away
from denial, wishful thinking, and hoping and tell the truth
about life as it is.  Great freedom lies in admitting the truth
of this moment, however much it clashes with our dreams and
plans - and self image...  Acceptance is about seeing reality,

seeing things as they actually are, not as we wish them to be.
And from that place of alignment with what is, all creative,
loving and intelligent actions flow naturally.

Freedom is about embracing all that appears in the Ocean
of our present experience.  Maybe the true calling in life is to
accept present experience deeply - to let go of how this
moment should be - letting go of our false self-image.

Great freedom lies in fearlessly facing the darkness and finally
coming to see that the darkness is inseparable from light...
Life cannot be good or bad.  Life is simply life.  It's about
seeing the Mystery of Life that is already here.

Jeff Foster
Excerpts from - The Deepest Acceptance
published in 2012
Facebook

As many of you know Jeff has been dealing with a
severe debilitating illness for the past few years, 
having to come face to face with Acceptance...
He writes about his experience on his Facebook page...

~

Photo - taken by my brother
at Plum Cove, Gloucester, MA

"Spiritual Teachers" - Jeff Foster

'Spiritual teachers' [of certain traditions] often talk of pure
Awareness that doesn't suffer, a formless consciousness
untouched by form...

They speak of a state in which anger, fear, confusion and doubt
do not arise.  Or if they do it's a 'sign' that we are 'not there yet.'

How ironic, a non-dual teaching that is deeply dualistic at its core,
and deeply shaming of our vulnerable humanity,
and deeply, deeply unconscious of this.

What kind of 'Oneness' does not radically include all of her forms?
What kind of ocean does not embrace, and infuse, every single one
of its precious waves?

'Spiritual teachers' tell us that there is no goal, nothing to attain,
and they are not special in any way.

Yet - in the same breath, they speak of the 'falling away' of the
'separate self'', the sudden or gradual 'death of the ego', the
silencing of their mind, and how they achieved states of
permanent bliss, peace and equanimity.

They speak of non-judgmental love, yet judge and guilt-trip
and correct their students for having fears, doubts, annoying
questions and... resistance!  They make their students doubt
their own experience.  They claim to be 'enlightened', yet
judge others as not being 'enlightened.'

They identify themselves as having lost their separate self,

yet speak of having no identity at all....

The mind is an addict.  It is desperate for somewhere to land.
Some certainty. Some dogma. Some 'true teaching'.  The mind
will addict itself to even the most beautiful, refined,
spiritual concepts:
'I am pure Awareness.'
'I am not the body.'
'There is no separate self.'
'It's all an illusion.'

Avoiding the tender, moment-by-moment embrace of our
fragile, fleshy, muddy, messy humanness.

Our confusion is clearly lovable.Our doubts are certainly sacred.
Our longings, aches and wounds are not signs that we haven't
 reached the correct state, or that we are far from the Promised Land.
They are holy sites in us themselves, expressions of the
One Life that cannot be uttered.

There are no experts, no 'enlightened' ones,
no authorities...

Just willingness to not know.
To begin again.  And again.
To soften into the grieving heart...

The broken heart is holy.

I reject any spirituality that cannot see the grace in that.

I reject any spirituality that doesn't allow us to be fully human.

If "spiritual teacher" means someone who sees the 'fierce grace'
in the pits of suffering, and the unspeakable beauty in our
wounded and tender places, and the non-duality shining brightly
in the damn chaos, and the ever-present existence of a Love so
vast, it cannot be understood by mind - a Love that loves our
imperfections and mistakes, and embraces them in loving
awareness in each and every moment of our lives -
then sign me up!

Jeff Foster
Former Non-Dual "Spiritual Teacher"
Excerpt from - "Why I Resigned As A "Spiritual Teacher"

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

"Be There" - Jeff Foster

You cannot truly "be there" for another
until you learn to "be there" for yourself.

Be there.  Be a loving witness
to the extraordinary power that moves through you.
Be there for all your feelings, not just the pleasant ones.
Be there for the grief and anger, too.

The ease and frustration.

Be there for the sorrow, the emptiness and the fullness,
the wildness and the calm, the life and the dying.
Be there for all your thoughts.
The ones you love and the ones you hate.
The ones that scare you and the ones you seek.
Be there as they arise and dissolve.
Stay there as they stay and go.
Be there for the broken heart
and be there for the healed one too.
Be there for the answers,
but don't abandon the questions either.
Be there for the clarity,
but don't neglect the confusion.

Be there for all of yourself.
Like a mother, there for her children.
And you will be able
to be there for all of me...

Jeff Foster

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

Radical Honesty - Jeff Foster

You don't have to be okay with anything.  It's not about the
me-person being okay.  It's that everything is already embraced
by Life ItSelf.  It is a cosmic okayness that goes beyond "I'm okay"
and "I'm not okay."  We are totally free to respond to life experiences
in authentic, honest, human ways.  We are free not to like our
experiences, and on a deeper level to experience a total, all-
encompassing okayness with the entire situation.  Underneath
everything is a cosmic okayness.  It's not about telling yourself
that you're okay when you are not.  It's not about pretending to be
okay, trying to be spiritual, trying to be peaceful.
You don't have to be anything other than you are in the moment.
It's about radical honesty. It's about seeing reality as it is,
acknowledging it, and discovering that the situation is fully
admitted into life - already.  There is simply life, in all its
mystery, wonder, and timeless simplicity.  And in this
recognition the illusion of separation between us and life
falls away, and we are no longer at odds with life
as it is...

Jeff Foster

From - The Deepest Acceptance

~

This moment in time and space is an eggshell,
personal identity is a sheath.
The breath of God is breathing through it...

Remember the deep root of your being.
Give yourself to the one who already owns
your breath and your moments.

Rumi

~

Photo from the Internet

Sacred Restlessness - Jeff Foster

Keep questioning everything you believe.
Question your concepts.  Question your religions.
Question everything your parents taught you.

Your gurus.  Your leaders.  Everything your learned
in books and on TV.  Everything is sacred and holy and
unquestionable.  Question it all.  Do not be afraid to lose
all your beliefs, all your prior reference points, all your
unshakable certainties.

With enough questioning, you may begin to question
yourself, the one who questions.

[Question] Everything you take yourself to be.

And then you will question the act of questioning itself.

Until there are no more questions. No more answers.

Just silence.  Stillness.  A wide open space...full of potential.

You will be left naked, open, raw, trembling, utterly vulnerable
to the sunset, penetrated by every sensation, shaken by the way
the light moves over the rooftops, the way sound enters you,
the color of a friend's eyes, the space and the contraction of
things,you will be one with it all, it will be your home and your
salvation, it will all break you and make you whole in every
instant.

You will have questioned yourself back into wonder, found your
true home in this fleeting world, followed your sacred restlessness
back into the deepest kind of peace imaginable.

Jeff Foster

~

Photo - Mandala Art Digitally Altered
This is exactly how I felt today, restless and unfocused...

Who Are You Without Your Spiritual Story? - Jeff Foster

Please don't talk to me of "Pure Awareness" or
"Dwelling in the Absolute."  I want to see how you treat
your partner, your kids, your parents, your body.
Please don't lecture me about "the illusion of the separate
self" or how you achieved permanent bliss in just 7 days.
I want to feel a genuine warmth radiating from your heart.
I want to hear how well you listen, take information that
doesn't fit your personal philosophy [belief].  I want to see
how you deal with people who disagree with you.  Don't tell
me how awakened you are, how free you are from ego.  I want
to know you beneath the words.  I want to know what you're like
when troubles befall you. If you can fully allow your pain and
not pretend to be invulnerable.  If you can feel your anger yet not
step into violence.  If you can grant safe passage to your sorrow
yet not be its slave.  If you can feel your shame and not shame others.
If you can f**k up, and admit it. If you can say "sorry", and really
mean it.  If you can be fully human in your glorious divinity.
Don't talk to me about your spirituality, friend.  I only want to meet
you.  Know your precious heart.  Know your beautiful human
struggling for the light.  Before all clever words...

Jeff Foster

An Infinite Number of New Beginnings - Jeff Foster

In your attempt to be an 'adult',
you lose touch with your inner child.
In your rush to b the 'expert',
you disconnect from the amateur you,
the inner lover, innocent and wild.

In your quest for security,
your run from insecurity,
bury your anxiety, crush your doubts,
until one day they explode all over the place,
and make a mess of your nice, 'ordered' life.

Don't confuse the role you play
with who you truly are.
Don't confuse the adaptation with the actor,
the changing weather with the vastness of sky.

Your true identity lies in Presence...
And wonder.
And creativity.
And an infinite number of new beginnings.

Each moment.
Each canvas.
Each Now.

Jeff Foster

~

Jupiter, Venus, Moon - June 2015

Profound Not-Knowing - Jeff Foster

One of my favorite things to do is to sit with my elderly father 

who has Alzheimers.  It's a beautiful thing to just sit in a place
of profound not-knowing with him, a place where I do not
know what to say or do.  I sit, without expectation, without
trying to 'fix' him, or manipulate his experience in any way.
I just listen, without trying to make things better in the moment,
without playing the role of  'the one who knows'.
I am simply available to him.
I don't need to 'know' anything in this place...

And here, I notice a deep and profound acceptance of any wave
of frustration or sadness that appears in the ocean of experience.

And this seems to be what true relationship is at its very core -
meeting, really meeting in the moment, without hope, without
a future, without expectation, without a story.  Coming face
to face with - yourself. 

Nisargadatta Maharaj says:

"What remains is the great sadness of compassion"

It is not cold detachment and neo-Advaita
world-rejection, but the intimacy of the most unspeakable kind.

Jeff Foster

Excerpt from The Beauty We Love

Arguing With Life - Jeff Foster

What is the point of arguing with life as it is?

The ego replies, "Yeah, but if I stop resisting the way things are,
change will never happen, things will stay the same, 

or get worse..."

You see, the ego does not  understand the ancient mysteries of
change and healing. It truly believes - in relationships, in career,
in life decisions, in global matters - that peace can only come
through war, that real change can only happen through hating
where we are and desperately wanting to be somewhere else.

Here is the paradox of change.  When we tire of the internal
violence, when we are no longer at war with the way things are,
when we no longer argue with the present scene in the movie
of our lives, we come to rest.  And then, from a place of rest,
new vistas open up, hitherto unexplored possibilities reveal
themselves.  New connections are made, new solutions emerge.
From a place of equanimity and acceptance, things that
seemed certain are now not so certain, blocks are no longer
blocks, old futures begin to collapse and new futures become
possible.  Energies that seemed intolerable a moment ago are
now allowed in, allowed to move, to express and release their
creativity and healing power.  Because our eyes are open, new
details are apparent in the present scene, details that we had
become blind to, in our rush to "a better future."

From a place of peace, we can more easily take the next step.
And sometimes the nest step means taking no step at all,
but falling deeply in love with where we are.  This is NOT

the same as giving up.  This is not passivity or toleration of the
'negative.'  This is not the same as abandoning all hope of a
better future.  There is no abandonment here.  This is not
stagnation.  This is not weakness.  This is true courage.  The
willingness to slow down, be present, drink in all the richness -
the joy and the sorrow, the doubt and the creativity - of the
present scene.

The movie has not been written yet; it writes itself as we go
along.  And in resisting the present scene, you are actually
resisting the entire movie.  Resistance can only breed
resistance.

Sometimes the point of arguing with life, is to get you to
a point where you are tired of arguing with life.  And then
you sink deeply into the present moment, resting in its
embrace, trusting the way of things, accepting your own
imperfections.  And then everything seems possible, and
everything feels alive as you feel alive, and fearless, and
real change can come.

Perhaps slowly, perhaps in a great tidal wave.  But you no
longer push for it.  You are letting it happen. You are
aligned at last, no longer part of the problem, but already
an expression of the solution.

Sometimes you need to stop trying to change the moment,
for the moment to change...  all by itself.

Everything you think is wrong with you, is actually right.
Spiritual enlightenment is already here, shining through
the simplicity of this moment, exactly as it is.

The divine perfection you've been seeking is actually contained
in the midst of your tender vulnerability and imperfections.
There is precious alchemical medicine hidden inside your pain,
and your deepest longings, aches, doubts, grief and heartache
are portals to joy and healing.

Jeff Foster

Breathe in Life - Jeff Foster & Mark Nepo

from tinybuddha.com

...in truth, nothing is lacking where you are,
nothing is missing from the present scene
of the movie of your life,
and you are forever full, and complete...

The day is just waiting to be lived.
So breathe in life, friend,
breathe in life...

Jeff Foster

~

We waste so much energy trying to cover up who we are
when beneath every attitude is the want to be loved,
and beneath every anger is a wound to be healed
and beneath every sadness is the fear that there
will not be enough time...

When we hesitate in being direct (authentic), we unknowingly
slip something on, some added layer of protection
that keeps us from feeling the world/life...

Our challenge every day is not to get dressed to
face the world, but to unglove ourselves so that
the doorknob feels cold, and the car handle
feels wet, and the kiss goodbye feels
the lips of another being...

Mark Nepo

From: The Book of Awakening

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

Awakening From Awakening - Jeff Foster

This is a true story from Jeff Foster

Once, at a conference, I watched a spiritual teacher addressing
a grieving woman whose precious young son had just died.  Her
world had just collapsed.  An old reality had shattered.  She said,
"My heart is broken and raw."  He told her, "Your heartbreak is the
activity of the separate self, and therefore illusory, based in ignorance.
When the separate self dissolves, there will be no more suffering.
In Awareness, there is no death.  Awareness has no son."  He told
her she needed to 'wake up.'  She needed to recognize herself as
'Pure Awareness' - that she was pretending to be a victim, that
she didn't know 'who she truly was.'

And in that moment, I saw a deep sickness and inhumanity at
 the heart of much our contemporary spirituality.
The invalidation and shaming of trauma, the false promises,
the power games, and most of all, the suppression
of the divine feminine.  Making our grief, anger, fear and joy a
'mistake' or some 'sign' that we are not awakened enough, not
spiritual enough, not 'divine' enough in our embodied humanity.
The pathologising of our wildness.  The shaming of our fragility,
our sensitivity.

Friends, if this is 'spiritual awakening', I simply have no interest.
Let us [embrace] our fragile, vulnerable humanity!  Not run from it!
Let us bless our precious broken hearts!  Not pathologise them!
Let us infuse our deepest human experience with empathy.
  Send a curious, warm awareness deep into
the wounds.  Not to mend, not to fix, but to feel!  Not to 'awaken',
but to penetrate and be penetrated by Love.
The awakening of the heart. 
The remembering of the magic we knew when we were very
young.  Let us embrace our painful feelings.  Not see them as a 'sign'
of our spiritual failure, or our inability to manifest, or our ignorance,
or lack of strength.

Let us wake up from the old *concept* of  'awakening'.
Return to the sacredness in our humanity!

and

Meet each other in the fire of living.  Be present with each other,

instead of trying to fix [correct/dismiss] each other.

Jeff Foster
[A Non-dualist with a Heart:)]

Facebook

[brackets mine]

Choice/No Choice - Jeff Foster

It's not that you have no choice.
Rather, the 'chooser' is the fiction.

It's not 'you' who chooses or doesn't choose.
It's life itself.  You are inseparable from life itself.
Undivided from the totality.

A star explodes.  The grass grows.  A mother gives birth.
A war begins, ends, begins.  A relationship breaks down.
People come together, fall apart.  An old wound heals.
Hearts open, close, open.
Like breathing.  Like the ocean tides.

We believe that we have a choice,
or we believe that we don't.

The planets spin.  The rain falls and stops falling.
Did we choose, or were we chosen?

Could it have been any different?
Can the rain fall backwards?
Can we un-say what we have said?
Can we un-read this poem?

Choice, no choice.  Those thoughts fall away too.
Into silence.  Into stillness.
Into the vastness of Being.
Into...

Beyond choice or lack of it, you are.

And you take the next step, or you do not.

Or you take the next step
of not knowing which next step
you will take.

And out of the not knowing,
the path becomes clear
if only
for a moment.

And then the Universe
begins again.

Jeff Foster

~

photo via No Mind's Land

A Love With No Name - Jeff Foster

Life produces life out of itself, the same life that was present
at the Big Bang is somehow also here - in form.  There are
moments when we can touch the wholeness of life, the
wordless mystery that permeates all creation - we can fall in
love with existence as it reveals an unconditional love with
no name.

We can become absorbed by life and realize we are not living
life, but life is living us. And we realize everything is deeply
okay - cosmically okay.  Even though our life situation hasn't
changed, our relationship to it has transformed.  We realize we
no longer need to struggle to find wholeness.  There is only
wholeness... 

Existence is rich with mystery and wonder, and sometimes,
without warning, light can shine through the cracks.
Life is somehow infinitely more than what it appears to be.
The extraordinary is hidden in the ordinary, just waiting to be
discovered.  Perhaps all the things we have taken for granted
are actually divine, sacred, infinitely precious expressions of

wholeness that cannot be expressed in thought or language.

We have invented many words over the years to try to point
to this cosmic wholeness, words like spirit, nature, Oneness,
Advaita, nonduality, consciousness, awareness, aliveness,
Being, Source, Existence, Isness, Tao, Buddha Mind,
and presence.

Thoughts and words fragment wholeness; they break up a
unified reality into separate things.  The world of thought is
the world of duality...  But the most important thing to
remember is that:
it's not about the words. 
It's about the wholeness of life itself;

inner stillness, a love letter from stillness to itself.

Life, then, is about finding out who you really are, beyond who
you think you are, beyond who you've been taught you are,
beyond your story about who you are, beyond all your concepts
and images of who you are;
the wholeness that you are...

Jeff Foster
Excerpt From: The Deepest Acceptance

~

Photo - Mandala Art
digitally altered

Full Spectrum Experience - Jeff Foster

Don't judge your sorrow too quickly or too harshly, friend.  Honouring
the darkness within is not the same as 'wallowing'.  And cultivating
deep trust in all of life's movements does not equate to self-indulgence
or a 'pity-party'.  Please don't misunderstand this.  Find a space in your
heart for the unwanted, the unloved, the rejected aspects of experience.

If we refuse to plumb the depths we are left only half alive, however
'enlightened' we claim to be.  Artists, musicians, poets of all cultures
throughout the ages have understood this.  See your life as an art
gallery.  Embrace the full spectrum of experience, from the light to
the dark. Hold it all in your prayers, illuminate it all with the light
of loving awareness.  Be that awareness!

Perhaps your frustration just wants to frustrate itself fully and be
felt, fully.  Perhaps this moment contains no mistake!  Perhaps the
relief you will feel in time will be infinitely sweeter for having
suffered so deeply.  Perhaps your suffering is teaching you humility,
gratitude, quietude, and compassion - and trust - unbreakable trust
in life's strange processes.

Don't judge your sadness, your depression, your feelings [your illness].
And don't judge the process of another, for you really don't know
what's best for anyone, and you really don't know more than life itself.
  That which you reject (in another or yourself) may actually be
much-needed medicine, a misunderstood teacher, inviting you to an
 awakening deeper than you ever thought possible.  It may be a
threshold guardian, a gatekeeper of a forgotten kingdom. 
The glory of a life fully felt!

And to your demons say -

Namaste!

Jeff Foster