Deep Looking - Thich Nhat Hanh

Art: Barbara Stone

In spite of the lessons of the collective wisdom of
the world, we rarely satisfy our yearning to know
the Truth of our Existence.

The Mystical approach to the essential questions
about the meaning of life is quite different from
the normal way of learning things through written
teachings, rather, the mystical transmission of the
purpose of life comes through living life with
ever expanding awareness...

author unknown

~

When we practice deep looking, we receive help,
we receive understanding, we receive the
wisdom that makes us free.

Thich Nhat Hanh
Buddhist Teacher

 

Questioning Existence - a meandering...

Arising from a deep slumber
I began to wonder:

...maybe there is no
"mysterious meaning" to life.

Is there meaning to trees, to grass,
to rocks, to sky? - do they even care...

They just are...  They just exist...

Everything seems to struggle to exist:
a struggle for survival - or maybe even
a struggle for death,
but with no "spiritual" overlay -
just life living itself...

Maybe there are no "spiritual" standards to live up to;
like being on the "right path";
no "spiritual cookies" to achieve;
like "enlightenment."
If there is no "right way" -no "right path"
then doing anything "right" doesn't matter...

I think I'm discovering the futility of striving
after some "spiritual" meaning to life;
some "mystical mystery" to explain existence...

Existence is an enigma...

All our beliefs are just trying to explain it really;
how we try to understand the ineffable.
But we exist in a bubble of unknowing,
where the blind lead the blind,
professing to know
the "Truth of Existence."

Mystic Meandering
July 1, 2023

~

Photo from the Internet

 

Trust...

Religion is a vehicle;
Spirituality is a vehicle;
Metaphysics is a vehicle;
A Guru/Teacher is a vehicle;
Quantum Physics is a vehicle;
Creativity and Art is a vehicle;
Yoga and Meditation is a vehicle;
and maybe Psychology is a vehicle;
tending to our traumas and wounds;
Maybe telling our stories of challenge
and difficulty is also a vehicle for us to
discover what is true for ourselves...

We don't have to follow a prescribed path,
or one teacher, or one way, or one story, but
use all "ways" to access the truth of existence;
the truth of your Being...

Life itself is the vehicle...

Trust your own way...
Trust your own experience...

Sometimes that means we have to go to the
darker places within for the truth to be revealed...

Mystic Meandering
Jan. 21, 2023

~

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"

 

Which Door? - Aurelius Symmachus

 We all look up to the same stars;
The same heaven is above us all;
The same universe surrounds us all.
What does it matter by what
system of knowledge
we seek to know
the truth?

Not by one path alone
may we attain to
so great a secret.

Quintus Aurelius Symmachus

A Roman Statesman

~

Photo from the Internet

"Out of Our Minds"...

 Oh how we try to maintain our mental constructs and
beliefs about the "truth"; about "The Mystery"...

Clinging to intellectual exegesis,
interpretations from"the Guru";
linear thinking...

Mental gymnastics about "IT",
trying to understand how "IT" "works",
rather than just experiencing how "IT" Is -
the felt sense of "The Mystery" that is Alive
within us...

Avoiding fluctuations of ever-unfolding Realizations.

Wanting static truth in a
nice neat unflappable package,
maintaining our stance of what
we want to believe to be true;
not allowing "The Mystery" to
work in us, to reveal ItSelf
without didactics;
only the direct experience of "The Ineffable."

Leaving us splayed open and raw,
vulnerable to the effulgent Luminosity
of "The Mystery" revealing ItSelf
in us - again and again.

Once you've experienced "IT" - "The Mystery" -
why would you want to maintain any stance?

If we could only allow ourselves to
be "out of our minds" and truly feel "IT"

LIVING us...

Mystic Meandering
Dec. 15, 2020

~

Photo via No Mind's Land

Imagine a New Experience - Mark Vernon

 Imagination.....reveals the truth of existence and life.  It converts
everyday incidents into rich perceptions that might amount to
a revolution in experience - seeing not with the physical eyes

but through them; seeing beyond the physical realm into the
Infinite realms, if only with our inner seeing, trusting imagination
as the living power of creativity with which we can cooperate...

~

As things run out of control, life is felt to be complexifying at
exponential rates and panic sets in.  It's not really.  It always was
complex.  Rather, people have lost their bearings for lack of
imagination.  The crisis becomes an opportunity to see more.

People cite rules instead of offering forgiveness, resort to courts
rather than reconciliation and, when culture wars break out, ethics
is weaponized in shaming and scapegoating - dividing and 
ostracizing people.

Tweets of hope are drowned out by threads of hate.
It's a dangerous time.

~

[However] It is no longer about the identification and defense
of principles, but the effort to mutually transcend old patterns of
behavior [old patterns of thinking] - laying open the hidden heart;
to understand, not condemn; to liberate, not subjugate.  It welcomes
mistakes as opportunities for the kind of learning that transforms
the soul as well as the mind.
Life has interiority and soul.

It isn't about dissolving the ego but routing out the desire to
possess life and control others.

~

There is a changed meaning to freedom...

There is a shift in consciousness...

In perceiving Eternity one actually 
gives up any struggle...
[We become} transparent to reality...
Time becomes fluid...

We realize we never possessed life to start with.
[We] live because life pours itself into us...
The everyday deaths through which we pass,
as well as the seemingly final death of passing over,
reveal there's a source of life.  It is timeless love,
which include and transcends death.

We are creatures of Infinity...

Excerpts from an essay on William Blake called
The Four-fold Imagination
by Mark Vernon

see the full, in depth essay here

With thanks to Virginia Lonsdale
at Footnote from a  moment

~

"If the doors of perception were cleansed
everything would appear to man as it is,
Infinite..."

William Blake

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering
Reflection of sky, clouds and trees in a puddle :)

Where Do You Come From? - Katarina Jonsson

Art by Johannes Plenio on unsplash.com

Where do you come from
he asked.
I never arrived,
she answered,
but I come from a thousand different places
sometimes from sorrow and hurt
sometimes from the greatest joy
other times from shame and guilt
from projections and competition
she said.

But where do you come from
he asked.
I come from a thousand different places
she answered.
I never arrived.
Sometimes I come from ignorance and blame
sometimes from darkness and despair.
I have come from happiness and communion
from disappointment and loneliness
she said.

But where do you come from
he asked.
I come from a thousand places.
I never arrived
she answered.
I came from inferiority and superiority
sometimes from equality.
I have come from thoughts and emotions
and I have called them love.
They both fell silent.

Where do you come from
he asked.
I come from silence
from love
from God
she said.
I have arrived.

Who has arrived
he asked.
I don't know
she said...

Katarina Johnsson

via - The Dawn Within

"The Hymn of Creation" - The Rig Veda

Then even nothingness was not, nor existence.
There was no air then, nor the heavens beyond it.
What covered it?  Where was it? In whose keeping?
Was there then cosmic water, in depths unfathomed?

There was neither death nor immortality,
nor was there then the torch of night and day.
The One breathed windlessly and self-sustaining.
There was that One then, and there was no other.

At first there was only darkness wrapped in darkness.
All this was only unillumined water.
That One which came to be, enclosed in nothing,
arose at last, born of the power of heat...

But after all, who knows, and who can say
whence it all came, and how creation happened?

The gods themselves are later than creation,
so who knows truly whence it has arisen?

Whence all creation had its origin,
he, whether he fashioned it or whether he did not,
he, who surveys it all from highest heaven,
he knows - or maybe he does not know.

~

The Rig Veda is one of the oldest texts [creation stories]
dating from somewhere between 4000 and 2000 BC

~

This version is from a wonderful book for the serious
explorer of the Truth of Existence called,
The Recognition of Our Own Heart:
Pratyabhijnahrdayam

by the late Joan Ruvinsky.

It is a modern day interpretive translation of
the Pratyabhijnahrdayam -
loosely meaning "Primordial Recognition" -
from the 11th century Kashmir Shaivism tradition.

The basic concept of Kashmir Shaivism is that an
individual's existence is the unlimited manifestation of
Universal Consciousness (the Luminous Unmanifest)
that embodies everything.
It is also available on Amazon here.

Subtle Truth - Lao Tzu

Why scurry about looking for the truth?
It vibrates in every thing and every not-thing,
right off the tip of your nose.  Can you be still and see it
in the mountain? the pine tree? yourself? 
Don't imagine that you'll discover it by accumulating
more knowledge.  Knowledge creates doubt, and doubt
makes you ravenous for more knowledge.
You can't get full eating this way.
The wise person dines on something more subtle:
He eats the understanding that the named was born from the unnamed,
that all being flows from non-being, that the describable world
emanates from an indescribable source.  He finds this subtle truth
inside his own self...
So who can be still and watch the chess game of the world?
The foolish are always making impulsive moves,
but the wise know that victory and defeat are decided by something
more subtle.  They see that something perfect exists before any
move is made.  This subtle perfection deteriorates when
artificial actions are taken,
so be content not to disturb the peace.
Remain quiet.
Discover the harmony in your own being.
Embrace it.
If you can do this, you will gain everything,
and the world will become healthy again.

Lao Tzu

via - The Beauty We Love

Losing the Maps - Mark Nepo & Kastrup

Just when we're softened by the years,.
when we have enough experience to see
for ourselves, our maps are torn from us.
This can be frightening, but there's divine
timing in the dissolution of a stubborn mind,
the way an inlet waits on the last rock to crumble
so it can find its destiny to the sea.  Losing the
way set out by others is necessary so we can discover
for ourselves what it means to be alive.  Now we can
burn the clothes others have laid out for us, [other's
maps of reality, other's agendas], not in anger, but
to light our way.  Now we can let the soul spill its
honey on the unleavened life we've been carrying.
Now we can rise.

Mark Nepo

Poem from: Inside the Miracle

[brackets mine]

~

All explanations are myths whose truth-value we
assign subjectively.  They are true only in so far
as we say they are true.  They are stories we
conjure up and tell ourselves in order to make sense
of the disconnected, context-free phantasmagoria of
present perception.  It makes no sense to proclaim
any explanation for the present to be objectively true...

Bernard Kastrup
More Than Allegory
via - Markings

Ordinary Enlightenment - "G", Shinzen Young & Jeff Foster

There are many different definitions of mysticism, but a narrow
description of mysticism is known as the "perennial philosophy",
or "perennial wisdom."  [That Truth is Universal & Eternal].
In this sense, mysticism indicates the dying of the illusion
of selfhood into the greater reality of God, Nirvana, Dao, or a
number of other concepts representing the deathless and
indefinable part of us that is often called the Void. [or Emptiness].

It is the "death" [dissolution] of the individual ego into the
indescribable that characterizes the perennial wisdom. [Or rather]
it is the giving up of identifying with being the individual ego/self.

God, as the mystic understands the term, does not correspond at all
to the commonly held beliefs involving an anthropomorphic deity
gazing down on humanity from on high.  For the mystic, God is
much more subtle and immediate.  In mysticism, God is not a
separate being to us, rather the very "being-ness" that lies
 at the heart of everyone. 

The mystical process, whatever traditions or methods it uses, is
ultimately aimed at breaking through the prison of mortality into

freedom of what both the Buddha and Japanese Zen Master Bankei
called the Unborn.  Living as the Unborn we are no longer tied to
[attached to] a false sense of ego/self... but are liberated as the very
Awareness that is the heart of every being in the universe.

Excerpt from: "Buddha and Religion: Mysticism"
Buddha Space
Read the full article here

This blog also has other interesting topics!

~

Even for a deeply "enlightened" person, the experience of contact
with Flow and Emptiness does not necessarily go uninterrupted.  It
may happen frequently during the day, but not necessarily continuously.
Even a very liberated person still spends a lot of time experiencing
the world in the ordinary way.

What then is the difference between an ordinary person and a liberated
person?  The difference is a matter of freedom.  An "enlightened"
person has the ability to experience self and world as a Source wave.
And when they are not experiencing things that way, they understand
why that is the case. It is just because they are not paying close
attention...

Shinzen Young - The Science of Enlightenment: How Meditation Works

via Markings

Pay attention! :)

~

There is no fixed path to enlightenment.  Enlightenment is not a
destination, a goal, a final resting place at the end of a long journey -

that's the mind's version of enlightenment.  Nobody is the authority
on your path - no teacher, no guru, no religious leader.  Nobody can
tell you the right 'way' for you...

Jeff Foster

via The Dawn Within

~

Photo from the Internet

Inquire Into Truth - Adyashanti

By inquiring into truth, we are led ever deeper into the
unknown, beyond beliefs and ideas, to the very core of
who and what we are...  This inquiry challenges us by
taking us out of our heads and into the heart of our deepest
experience of being, which is beyond limitations of body,
mind and conditioning.  Telling the truth is the secret of
all true spirituality, and in order to tell the truth you must
find out what truth is.

We are in need of a practical mysticism that reveals not only
the deepest core of being, but also addresses how to relate
from that core in the event called "life."  We do not need
another set of how-to instructions, which are so popular
within our modern consumer culture of quick fixes.  What
we need is an ever-deepening inquiry into how spirit
dances *as* this very life, for what we call life is but an
expression of spirit and therefore fully spirit itself...
manifesting as *all* of life and beyond.

Adyashanti

Space Is Not Empty - Author Unknown and Hafiz

Empty space is not empty.  Space vibrates with energy,
and even the most barren of vacuums is seething with activity.
Space is warped, compressed and stretched.  Matter creates
"dimples" in space, much as a bowling ball placed on a
trampoline will create a deformation in its fabric, so too does
matter create distortions in the fabric of space.
A rotating body - like a planet, or star - will not only "dent"
the space around it, but space itself will be dragged along
in its wake, in much the same way that a rotating spoon
will cause a vortex om a cup of tea...
As an object moves through space, space itself becomes
compressed in the direction of the object's travel.
Stars and atoms and the vacuum are all of a single, seamless
whole...

We are trapped in the assumptions that the way we experience
things is how things are...

Author Unknown...

Note: I wrote these words down from a blog on a piece of paper,
 but failed to write down the author, or the blog - my bad.
If someone knows whose words these are
please let me know...  Thanks :)

~*~

Poetry reveals that there is no empty space.

When your truth forsakes its shyness,
when your fears surrender to your strengths,
you will begin to experience
that all existence
is a teeming sea of infinite life.

In a handful of ocean water
you could not count all the finely tuned
musicians who are acting stoned
for very intelligent and sane reasons
and of course are becoming extremely sweet

and wild!

In a handful of the sky and earth,
in a handful of God,
we cannot count
all the ecstatic lovers who are dancing there
behind the mysterious veil...

True art reveals there is no void
or darkness.
There is no loneliness to the clear-eyed mystic
in this luminous, brimming, playful world.

Hafiz

Devotion - Nirmala

...When devotion has claimed you for its own
no longer any chance to stray
a brief fling with illusion no longer satisfies.
The truth demands utter fidelity...

All pain must be faced
and embraced as the true countenance of
your beloved.

All fear must be met
and recognized as the thrill of tasting
the unknowable.

All joy must be surrendered
and acknowledged as a gift with
no giver.

This union only requires telling the truth
even when the truth shatters your dreams
even when the truth leaves you emptied out
even when the truth reveals your counterfeit
existence...

[.....]

Nirmala
Gift With No Giver

via: Being Silently Drawn

Rediscovering True Silence - Jean Klein

Silence is our real nature.
What we are fundamentally,
is only Silence...
Silence is free from beginning and end.
It was before the beginning of all things.
It is causeless.
Its greatness lies in the fact that it simply is.

Silence has no opposite in noise.
It is beyond positive and negative.
Silence dissolves all objects.
It is not related to any counterpart which belongs to the mind.
Silence has nothing to do with mind.
It cannot be defined but it can be felt directly because
it is our nearness.

Silence is freedom without restriction or center.
It is our wholeness,
neither inside or outside the body.
Silence is joyful, not pleasurable.
It is not psychological...

Silence is holy.
Silence needs no intermediary.
It is healing.
There is no fear in Silence.
Silence is autonomous like love and beauty.
It is untouched by time.
Silence is meditation, free from any intention...
Silence is the absence of one's self...

Sound, which comes from Silence, is music.
All activity is creative when it comes from Silence.
It is constantly a new beginning.
Silence precedes speech and poetry
and music and all art.
Silence is the home ground of all creative activity.
What is truly creative is the word, is Truth.
Silence is the word.
Silence is Truth.

Jean Klein

via: Being Silently Drawn

(Jean Klein's words, my format)

Prosetry on "Reality"...

There is a “Deep Reality”
that pulls us beyond our beliefs,
 religions & philosophies;
the maps of reality
 that we have created for ourselves…
A “Supreme Reality” that does not depend on
one’s beliefs, one’s maps,
but on a deep Heart-longing for
the Truth of Existence
and
Love for
what’s truly Real…

It’s not a “higher” reality,
but more
an energetic purity,
a clarity,
a refined reality…

It’s an Ineffable Reality
that transcends all our
ideas and concepts,
as well as materiality.

One could call it
The Ultimate Reality,
The Infinite Reality,
The Absolute Reality -
if there is such a thing…

These are only names
used to try to describe
what is felt experientially.

Some Mystics and Poets who experience
this “Deep Reality” within
 feel a visceral vibrational resonance with it,
and words just bubble up spontaneously
from “The Deep,” on their own.

Today I use
The “”Supreme Reality”
The “Ineffable Reality”
and “Deep Reality”
because that’s what
”bubbled up.”
But the words will change.
They are merely metaphors
for a Reality that cannot be named -
only experienced…

In “The Deep Reality”

we wait -
for the Ineffable Mystery to reveal ItSelf -
a rendezvous in the Sacred Silence -
without preconception of what “Reality”
will look like -
or how it will feel;
without concern for words…

In the waiting without words
Gratitude
wells up…

A deep Gratitude for
The Ineffable Mystery of Existence;
a sense of awe
at the magnitude, depth, and expanse of “The Mystery”

When we willinging succumb to
this Deep Ineffable Reality;
not just surrender -
but allow ourselves
to be dissolved into the
Cosmic Depths of the
Unknown…

We Rest

~*~

Mystic Meandering
March 13, 2016

~*~

All you need is a sincere longing for Reality -
the love of the Supreme…

Nisargardatta

~*~

Photo:  Light Waves

Reflection of Light on a wall
from a door knob!

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

Divinely Human...

My mind wants to tell me that ‘just sitting’
- sitting meditation in Silence – is not enough.
But my Heart/Spirit knows that
’just sitting”-
in Silent Awareness

is exquisitely enough…

It is
communion
with the
Infinite
Beingness
of all
life

It is the “medicine”
for every ailment…

It is the Light that brings awareness
to all hidden places…

It is the Spaciousness
from which all knowing
and all needed action
arises
with
clarity

Heart says:
Spend as much time as possible
’just sitting’

in the depths
 of Silence
communing

with the
 inner movement
of
    Eternal Being…

experiencing intimately
 the embrace
and intelligence
of what lives us;
not resigned to
”just being human…”

not settling…

But being aware
of our Humanness and Infiniteness
as One Rhythm,
playing together…
The Infinite manifest as finite,
the formless in form:
The Truth of Existence…

Humanness infused with
such Suchness
that we are enlivened with
a Life
much vaster
than
”just”
our humanness…

Can we truly embrace
that

enlivened
Life
as
who
we
are

The
Pure
Conscious
Awareness

that
breathes
us
into
e
x
i
s
t
e
n
c
e

Can we allow ourselves to remember
what we *really* are,
beyond
disturbances of the mind,
our insecurities,
our thoughts,
our feelings,
our beliefs,
our
self-image,
our self-identities
our roles and labels…

Can we allow ourselves
to see/sense/know
The Infinite Presence
that
we
are
behind these eyes,
behind this persona,
animating this body:

The Heart of Being

that
we have longed
to know
all our lives

Don’t settle…

Can we quit pretending
that “we’re only human”
that we can’t know…

Can we
take off the shadowy masks
that blind us,
and
SEE

the
Infinite Conscious Awareness
that we are…

That we are Divinely Human…

You don’t have to wait lifetimes…
It’s right here, right now -
everywhere…

Just be still
’just sit’
in
Silence

and
listen

Open the eyes of the Heart
and
SEE

Our “Divine Essence”
 has always been here

Feel IT

Experience IT

Don’t settle…

Meditative Writings
original -August 2012
reworked May 2014

~

“Divine Essence” is also:
Buddha Mind
True Nature
Infinite Consciousness
Pure Awareness

Eternal Being
Presence

~~~~

Photo: Yin-Yang Lotus Mandala
May 4, 2014